Inside Hitler's Germany in 1943
A look back at what ordinary Germans had to come to terms with ...
A catastrophe of the scale of Stalingrad would have been enough to finish off most governments. But the Nazi regime had a terrible grip on power. For ordinary Germans, 1943 was a year of coming to terms with a new harsh reality.
10th February 1943: After the disaster at Stalingrad, ordinary Germans become more sceptical of Nazi propaganda
‘There is one thing that haunts me. I have heard a rumour that they could have escaped, but that Hitler forbade it!'
Any kind of dissent in Germany was extremely dangerous; open opposition to the Nazis was inevitably fatal.
22nd February 1943: Youngest member of the tiny 'White Rose Resistance Movement' is one of six executed for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets
The RAF, and increasingly the USAAF, were beginning to bomb German cities with a greater intensity than anything ever seen before. Even early in the year this was having an impact on troops on leave.
5th June 1943: A U-boat officer hoping to see his girlfriend must face the grim reality of Berlin - the bomber war is already causing devastation
But worse was to come.
28th July 1943: A series of raids, regarded by some as 'Germany's Hiroshima' create hellish conditions and widespread casualties
At this moment something snapped in a neighbour and, caught up in a panic, he took his bed cover and wanted out. None of us could stop him. We saw him still, but only as a living torch carried by the firestorm, "flying through the air".
