Perseus Academic: What We Knew by Eric A. Johnson

What We Knew offers the most startling oral history ever done of life in the Third Reich. Combining the expertise of a German sociologist and an American historian, it draws on both gripping oral histories and a unique survey of 4,000 people-both German Jews and non-Jewish Germans-who lived under the Third Reich. It directly addresses some of the most fundamental questions we have about the Nazi regime, particularly regarding anti-Semitism, issues of guilt and ignorance, popular support for the government, and the nature of the dictatorship itself. Johnson and Reuband’s original research confirms that both Germans and Jews were aware of the mass murder of European Jews as it was occurring. From the responses of Jewish survivors, German anti-Semitism wasn’t universal among their neighbors and colleagues, even as they experienced official mistreatment. Additionally, the authors’ research suggests that Hitler and National Socialism were genuinely popular among ordinary Germans, and that intimidation and terror played no great part in enforcing loyalty. Refuting long-held assumptions, the discoveries revealed in What We Knew are key to our understanding of life in the Third Reich, and make this book a central work for scholars of the Holocaust, World War II, and totalitarianism.

Eric A. Johnson is the author of Urbanization and Crime: Germany 1871–1914 and The Civilization of Crime: Violence in Town and Country Since the Middle Ages. A professor of history at Central Michigan University and a fellow of The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, he lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Karl-Heinz Reuband is professor of Sociology at the University of Dusseldorf. He lives in Dusseldorf, Germany.