Hello Everyone,
Mods if I’m in the wrong form, please move me to the correct one. It’s a factual question so I placed it here.
Does anyone have a book recommendation about the European bombing campaign as seen from a German civilian’s perspective? I’ve read several describing the Dresden bombing, but looking for others. Thanks
Probably more academic than you’re looking for, but Germany and the Second World War: Volume IX/I: German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Politicization, Disintegration, and the Struggle for Survival is the volume from the official German history of the war that covers this, the bombing campaign coverage starting at E. Wartime Daily Life and the Air War on the Home Front. It’s online on pdf drive here.
One that falls within your ambit but possibly not what you are after is W.G. Sebald’s On the natural history of destruction, which is more a rumination of how post-war Germans tried to erase memories of the war. It does include a lot of quotes from eyewitness civilian writers which might not otherwise be available in translation.
Well worth a read regardless.
Thanks!
I don’t want to start a discussion here; I simply and honestly wonder what it is that is supposedly “official” about this book. Was it written by notable German historians? Yes. Does that make it “official”? I doubt it.
If you are looking for interviews with survivors, there are a few, IIRC, from the book “The Good War” by Studs Terkel (sp?). I think there was a chapter “The bombers and the bombed” which included a couple of people I knew from Madison, WI (both associated with the faculty of the UW) and a German woman from (again IIRC) Hamburg, who was later on romantically involved with a former USAAF guy who participated in the bombing of that city. I think the two of them were interviewed at the same time, interesting.
It’s a 12,000 page 13 volume series that was written by the Military History Research Office of the Bundeswehr, i.e. it was written by the historical branch of the armed forces of the government of Germany. That is what makes it the literal official German history, the same way that for example The US Army in World War II Series is the literal official history of the US Army in WWII.
Yep. If a state has an agency that is responsible for capturing and presenting its military history, and they put something into print, then its official.
Encouragingly, the idea of what is ‘official’ has been broadened a bit with the appearance of books like 'The Official Fart Book [Yoe 2010] and The Official Redneck Handbook [Waley 1987].
I disagree. What it is under such circumstances is a history written by a state agency, but that does not make in an “official” history of that country. Anyway, no need to discuss this point, I was merely curious.
Hmm. Your dictionary must have a different definition of “official” than all the ones I’ve seen.