Harmsen, Peter Eyes & Ears of the Reich

The Secret SS Reports on Public Opinion in Hitler’s Germany

What was it like to be a citizen in the Third Reich? What were the worries and hopes of the Germans who lived through the madness of the Hitler years? How much of their time did they spend thinking about the war, and how much on more trivial concerns? How did they perceive the unfathomable violence that constituted one of the regimes primary instruments? What views did they hold regarding propagandaanother key instrument? What hopes did they harbor for the future following a victory, oras became increasingly likelyfollowing a defeat? Answering these questions has proven difficult, if not impossible, since the collapse of the Reich in 1945. While some Germans did write memoirs after the war, and others provided their testimonies through oral history projects, these sources are of rather dubious value; they are inevitably distorted by a high degree of rationalization and self-justificationgiven the stigma associated with having belonged to arguably the most notorious regime in human history. However, there exists a unique and extensive source that offers immediate insights into the mindset of Germans under Hitler: hundreds of top-secret reportstotaling 6,700 pagescompiled by the SS intelligence service between 1939 and 1945, which documented public sentiment on a wide range of topicsfrom assessments of the Nazi leadership to the price of vegetablesin minute detail. The information contained in these reports was derived from dispatches filed by a dense network of informants spanning the entire territory of the Reich. These informants represented every social stratum, every profession, and every walk of life. Since the SS had made it unequivocally clear that it desired no sanitized version of realitybut rather information that came as close as possible to actual conditions, in order to form a precise picture of public sentimentthere emerged in this way a veritable treasure trove of information regarding every aspect of life in the Third Reich. These reports cover a broad spectrum of topics: a single report might range from the relief citizens displayed in the face of a rumor regarding a peace settlement with the Soviet Union; to the complaints of elderly citizens concerning the rudeness of young Germansa stark contrast to the official image of cohorts kept under strict discipline during the Nazi era; to citizens' grievances about having to share doctors' waiting rooms with foreign laborersreflecting a high degree of everyday racism; as well as skepticism toward newspaper accounts regarding alleged British postwar plans for a defeated Germanya circumstance suggesting that the German population knew they were not being told the whole truth in the official media. Drawing in detail upon the original reports, Peter Harmsen offers insights into the thoughts and feelings of ordinary citizens who lived through the Third Reich.