Life during the Second World War
The German Home Front in the Early War Years
Germany went to war in September 1939 with an economy that had not fully converted to a wartime footing. In the early years of the war, as German forces won rapid victories across Europe, the regime tried to shield the German civilian population from significant sacrifice. Consumer goods remained available longer than in other belligerent nations, and rationing — though introduced — was less severe than in Britain during the same period. The regime feared that excessive hardship would undermine popular support, having studied how the Home Front had collapsed in 1918.
Joseph Goebbels managed information carefully, ensuring early German victories were celebrated while setbacks were minimised or explained away. Radio broadcasts, cinema newsreels and newspapers all presented a filtered picture of the war.
After the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943, Goebbels declared 'total war' in a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast on 18 February 1943. This meant the full mobilisation of the German economy and society for the war effort — longer working hours, more women in factories, and severe reductions in consumer goods.
Total War: Changing Conditions from 1943
The turning point came with the German surrender at Stalingrad in February 1943. Approximately 300,000 German and Axis soldiers had been encircled; roughly 91,000 surrendered, including Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. The defeat shattered the myth of German invincibility and marked the beginning of a strategic retreat on the Eastern Front. Goebbels responded by mobilising public sentiment, calling for sacrifice in his 'total war' speech.
From 1943, conditions on the German Home Front deteriorated sharply. Albert Speer, as Armaments Minister, reorganised industrial production to maximise military output. Women were increasingly drafted into factory work despite the earlier ideology that women belonged in the home. Food and goods rationing tightened. By 1944–1945, Allied bombing campaigns — both British night bombing and American daylight precision raids — were causing massive civilian casualties and destroying industrial capacity in German cities.
Allied bombing caused enormous destruction in German cities. The firebombing of Hamburg in July–August 1943 (Operation Gomorrah) killed an estimated 37,000 people and left approximately one million homeless. Dresden was firebombed in February 1945 with heavy civilian casualties, though exact figures remain disputed by historians. The bombing disrupted industrial production, forced the dispersal of factories and consumed massive German anti-aircraft resources — diverting weapons and personnel from the front.
Opposition to the Nazis During the War
Organised opposition to the Nazi regime was extremely dangerous, but it existed. The White Rose was a small student resistance group at Munich University. Hans and Sophie Scholl and their associates distributed leaflets calling for passive resistance against Hitler's regime. They were arrested in February 1943, tried before the People's Court, and executed by guillotine. Their moral courage became a symbol of principled opposition to Nazism.
The most significant act of resistance came from within the military. On 20 July 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg placed a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters at Rastenburg — the July Plot. Hitler survived because the briefcase containing the bomb was moved behind a heavy table leg. Approximately 7,000 people were arrested in the subsequent purge; around 4,980 were executed, including Stauffenberg. The plot's failure strengthened Hitler's belief in his destiny and led to even more brutal repression.
The White Rose distributed anti-Nazi leaflets in 1942–43; its leaders, Hans and Sophie Scholl, were executed in February 1943. The July Plot (1944) was a military attempt to assassinate Hitler; it failed and approximately 7,000 were arrested and around 4,980 were executed in reprisals.
The Final Solution
The persecution of Jews escalated dramatically once the war began. In territories conquered by Germany — Poland, the Soviet Union and beyond — mobile killing units called Einsatzgruppen shot hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, Soviet officials and others in mass killings. The scale of murder by shooting was enormous — at Babi Yar near Kyiv in September 1941, approximately 33,771 Jews were killed over two days.
At the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942, senior Nazi officials coordinated the bureaucratic machinery for the systematic murder of all European Jews, a programme they termed the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. Death camps were established at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno and Majdanek in occupied Poland. These were industrialised killing centres equipped with gas chambers. The majority of victims were murdered in gas chambers using Zyklon B at Auschwitz or carbon monoxide at the other camps. Historians estimate that approximately six million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust between 1941 and 1945.
By early 1945 the Soviet Red Army was advancing rapidly from the east and Allied forces from the west. Germany's cities lay in ruins from bombing; millions were displaced. Hitler retreated to a bunker beneath the Berlin Reich Chancellery. On 30 April 1945 he died by suicide as Soviet forces entered the city. Germany surrendered unconditionally on 8 May 1945 — known as VE Day (Victory in Europe Day). The war had killed an estimated 5–7 million German civilians and soldiers. Germany lay physically destroyed and morally discredited, its infrastructure shattered, its government abolished and its territory about to be divided among the victorious powers.