War and Peace, Tolstoy's great novel of Napoleon's campaign in Russia, haunts this book. Peter Fritzsche…wants to rethink war and peace; he wants us to see how even apparently peaceful moments during World War II were inflected by war raging elsewhere. An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler is a work of deep reflection by an experienced historian rather than an attempt to capture the history of World War II from any particular angle. Still, his announced themethe moral challenges of the war for civilians in Europegives way at the beginning to set pieces on other subjects: the ones, the reader suspects, that Fritzsche finds most interesting. It is a pleasure to follow along.
World War II reached into the homes and lives of ordinary people in an unprecedented way. Civilians made up the vast majority of those killed by war. On Europe's home front, the war brought the German blitzkrieg, followed by long occupations and the racial genocide of the Holocaust. In An Iron Wind, historian Peter Fritzsche draws on first-person accounts to show how civilians in occupied Europe struggled to understand this maelstrom. As Germany targeted Europe's Jews for deportation and death, confusion and mistrust reigned. People tried desperately to make sense of the horrors around them, but the stories they told themselves often justified a selfish indifference to their neighbors' fates.
Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims-probing what they saw and what they failed to see-Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.
1123562080
Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims-probing what they saw and what they failed to see-Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.
An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler
World War II reached into the homes and lives of ordinary people in an unprecedented way. Civilians made up the vast majority of those killed by war. On Europe's home front, the war brought the German blitzkrieg, followed by long occupations and the racial genocide of the Holocaust. In An Iron Wind, historian Peter Fritzsche draws on first-person accounts to show how civilians in occupied Europe struggled to understand this maelstrom. As Germany targeted Europe's Jews for deportation and death, confusion and mistrust reigned. People tried desperately to make sense of the horrors around them, but the stories they told themselves often justified a selfish indifference to their neighbors' fates.
Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims-probing what they saw and what they failed to see-Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.
Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims-probing what they saw and what they failed to see-Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.
19.99
In Stock
5
1
19.99
In Stock
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170950812 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
Publication date: | 11/29/2016 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos

From the B&N Reads Blog