Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942-1945 [Paperback]

Earl R. Beck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 1999

" Under the Bombs tells the story of the civilian population of German cities devastated by Allied bombing in World War II. These people went to work, tried to keep a home (though in many cases it was just a pile of rubble where a house once stood), and attempted to live life as normally as possible amid the chaos of war. Earl Beck also looks at the food and fuel rationing the German people endured and the problems of trying to make a public complaint while living in a totalitarian state.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Beck's latest and considerable volume is an easily accessible "impressionistic description" of life in Germany under Allied aerial bombardment. Beck mines the reports of the Nazi Security Service (SD), local and regional party, police, and school officials, a handful of graph ic memoirs by simple citizens, and the vast secondary literature. In each chap ter, covering a four- or five-month peri od, Beck first provides an overview of the major bombing raids and their mate rial and human damage; he then out lines the efforts of the party and state to repair or ameliorate the devastation and to maintain control of the increas ingly disillusioned populace. Each chapter then describes how Germans reacted to the air war and attempted to survive. Though there is some unneces sary repetition due to the book's organ ization, this evocative study captures the horror of war for a trapped popula tion. Recommended for larger public li braries and World War II collections. James B. Street, Santa Cruz P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Challenges the contention of Allied commanders that airpower was the ultimate key to victory and that it could have defeated the enemy by itself." -- America

"A powerful study." -- American Historical Review

"The most vivid account available of what it was actually like to live under the bombings." -- Historian

"A tribute to human resilience under extreme stress, both in response to the terror from the sky and to the sacrifices the Nazis imposed on their people." -- History

"A testament to the traditional stubbornness and strength of the Germans that allowed them to hold on and rebuild the country after war's end....Offers a respite from the barrage of books on the Nazis, Hitler, and the Holocaust." -- Kirkus Reviews

"An overview of the major bombing raids and their material and human damage....This evocative study captures the horror of war for a trapped population." -- Library Journal

"An enlightening, highly readable account of life in the war-ravaged Third Reich." -- Pineville Sun, Berea Citizen, Jackson Times, Beattyville Enterprize

"Gives some idea of what reaping a whirlwind is like." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A description of what it was like to live, work, suffer, and die in wartime Germany." -- The Historian

"This excellent work provides interesting insights into the concept of total war. The results are sobering and, one hopes, never to be endured again. That the Germans survived as well as they did is a tribute to the will of the human spirit. In explaining that, the author poses a troubing question: 'Could Americans survive this kind of devistation?'" -- Warbirds

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky (August 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813109779
• ISBN-13: 978-0813109770
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Written Description of the German People being Bombed., September 11, 2001

By 

John P. Rooney "John" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942-1945 (Paperback)

Under The Bombs by Earl R. Beck, Sub-titled: The German Home Front 1942-1945, University Press of Kentucky, 1986.

History Professor Earl R. Beck understands the need for an evenhanded presentation of facts and conditions, and his book, Under The Bombs, is very balanced presentation of the conditions that existed in the Nazi Reich in the years from 1942 to 1945. Beck neither defends nor attacks the bombing of German cities and German civilians. The Professor does not sensationalize the bombing raids on German cities, but, in a rather quiet and an almost dispassionate fashion, describes the impact of so many tons of bombs dropped on so many civilians. In so writing, Dr. Beck actually presents a cogent case against aerial bombing.

This book, however, is NOT a collection of statistics about the number of bombers, the tonnage of bombs, and the quantity of casualties and the horror of war on civilians. The book is really about the German people and how they suffered during the bombing raids. Enough details are given to cover the general history of the air war against Nazi Germany, but Professor Beck emphasizes aspects that others have not. For example, he gives more coverage to the firestorm in the German city of Hamburg (see his chapter, Bombing Achieves Holocaust), than the more famous (infamous) firestorm in the eastern German city of Dresden (later in the war). I wonder how many people were offended by the equating of the firestorm to a holocaust? Further, Dr. Beck quietly asserts troubling facts, Unable to attack Germany by land, with the fighting in Italy still far away from the German borders, and the British had only one way to bring the war home to Germany  from the air. P. 64. Dr. Beck states that the British were prisoners of the weapons they possessed. On page 65, Beck relates how Britains Air Marshall Harris initiated the modern concept of the body count, by keeping account of the effects of aerial bombardment in terms of the degree of destruction and the number of persons killed.

On the other hand, this book attempts to relate personal feelings, gleaned from countless records and interpretations of Party correspondence. For example, the Party could not tolerate church services being held for the dead in the bombed cities. Dr. Beck relates how the Nazis worked to develop a more acceptable party procedure for such funerals. The book contains many details on the life of the individuals in the Third Reich and their morale. Stalingrad was the turning point. Dr. Beck then documents how the Nazi Party attempted to control every word spoken, in fact, even the thoughts of the Germans, by swift punishment for defeatist actions, words or sayings. If you ever have wondered why there was not more German resistance to the Nazis, read this book. Becks description of the promulgation of a Nazi Christmas (p. 105) is particularly telling. This book is a worthwhile,well written assessment of the state of mind of the German civilians and the deterioration of that state as the War wore on.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The side of war you don't consider., July 26, 2005

By 

Ed Marth (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942-1945 (Hardcover)

My parents lived through the war, my dad on the Eastern Front, and then a prisoner, and my Mom was a school girl in a large German city.
My mother-in-law was a child in Coventry during the bombing. It is hard to imagine the hell people went through. As these survivors die off with old age, the life they lived will disappear. This book preserves history and memories.
This book was one of the most interesting reads I have had in my life. I first borrowed it from the library, but will now be buying it. A must for any armchair war historian.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Day to day survival in the rubble of Hitler's cities., April 15, 2000

By 

John Barry Kenyon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942-1945 (Paperback)

In his preface, the author says he was moved to write this book by observing first hand during a 1946 train journey the skeletal remains of German cities. It is, of course, difficult not to feel sympathy for the 600,000 plus civilians who died in the Reich under a hail of enemy bombs, mortars and bullets. The author tells a vivid tale of cellar life, cold and misery as the nazi regime crumbled and collapsed in an orgy of destruction. The account is more impersonal than, for example, Cornelius Ryan's "When The Kissing Had To Stop" which described the last days of Hitler's Berlin from the vantage point of the citizens themselves. The author speculates, but does not answer, how the citizens of US cities today would respond to utter devastation of their environment. Given the very different nature of warfare today, and our dependence on cyberspace for communications, it is a question well worth debating.