Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany

Highlights the surprising ways in which the Nazi regime permitted or even fostered aspirations of privacy.

Elizabeth Harvey (Edited by), Johannes Hürter (Edited by), Maiken Umbach (Edited by), Andreas Wirsching (Edited by)

9781108484985, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 July 2019

410 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.4 cm, 0.8 kg

'… the volume's combination of new empirical research and theoretical sophistication is impressive, representing an important point of departure for anyone interested in the private and privacy in the Third Reich.' Eric Kurlander, European History Quarterly

Was it possible to have a private life under the Nazi dictatorship? It has often been assumed that private life and the notion of privacy had no place under Nazi rule. Meanwhile, in recent years historians of Nazism have been emphasising the degree to which Germans enthusiastically embraced notions of community. This volume sheds fresh light on these issues by focusing on the different ways in which non-Jewish Germans sought to uphold their privacy. It highlights the degree to which the regime permitted or even fostered such aspirations, and it offers some surprising conclusions about how private roles and private self-expression could be served by, and in turn serve, an alignment with the community. Furthermore, contributions on occupied Poland offer insights into the efforts by 'ethnic Germans' to defend their aspirations to privacy and by Jews to salvage the remnants of private life in the ghetto.

Part I. Interpreting the Private under National Socialism: New Approaches: 1. Introduction: reconsidering private life under the Nazi dictatorship Elizabeth Harvey, Johannes Hürter, Maiken Umbach and Andreas Wirsching
2. A particular kind of privacy: accessing 'the private' in national socialism Janosch Steuwer
3. Private lives, public faces: on the social self in Nazi Germany Mary Fulbrook
4. Private and public moral sentiments in Nazi Germany Nicholas Stargardt
5. (Re-)inventing the private under national socialism Maiken Umbach
Part II. The Private in the Volksgemeinschaft: 6. Private life in the people's economy: spending and saving in Nazi Germany Pamela E. Swett
7. 'Hoist the flag!': flags as a sign of political consensus and distance in the Nazi period Karl Christian Führer
8. The vulnerable dwelling: local privacy before the courts Annemone Christians
9. Walther von Hollander as an advice columnist on marriage and the family in the Third Reich Lu Seegers
Part III. The Private at War: 10. Personal relationships between harmony and alienation: aspects of home leave during the Second World War Christian Packheiser
11. Working on the relationship: exchanging letters, goods, and photographs in wartime Andrew Stuart Bergerson, Laura Fahnenbruck and Christine Hartig
12. Love letters from front and home: a private space for intimacy Cornelie Usborne
13. 'A birth is nothing out of the ordinary here …': mothers, midwives and the private sphere in the 'Reichsgau Wartheland' 1939–1945 Wiebke Lisner
14. Transformations of the 'private': proximity and distance in the spatial confinement of the ghettos in occupied Poland 1939–1942 Carlos A. Haas.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]