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The Good Germans

Resisting the Nazis, 1933-1945

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The Good Germans

By: Catrine Clay
Narrated by: Karen Cass
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About this listen

 After 1933, as the brutal terror regime took hold, most of the two-thirds of Germans who had never voted for the Nazis - some 20 million people - tried to keep their heads down and protect their families.

They moved to the country, or pretended to support the regime to avoid being denounced by neighbours, and tried to work out what was really happening in the Reich, surrounded as they were by Nazi propaganda and fake news. They lived in constant fear. Yet many ordinary Germans found the courage to resist. Catrine Clay argues that it was a much greater number than was ever formally recorded. Her ground-breaking book focuses on six very different characters. They are not seen in isolation but as part of their families. Each experiences the momentous events of Nazi history as they unfold in their own small lives - Good Germans all.©2020 Catrine Clay 20th Century Europe Germany Military Modern War

Critic Reviews

Historians have long grappled with the question of how popular the Nazis really were ... The Good Germans suggests that there was much more resistance than was ever formally recorded ... The Good Germans shines the spotlight on people who didn't opt for the path of conformity, but instead made often small but nonetheless defiant choices in their everyday lives that put them at risk ... [Clay] is a great story-teller who proves adept at conjuring her characters straight off the page (Hester Vaizey)
A brilliant and deeply disturbing account of six individuals, ranging from Prussian aristocrat to law student to factory hand, who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives to oppose Hitler (Hilary Spurling)
Timely, intriguing and extremely well informed
All stars
Most relevant
I really liked this book, however I found the utterly appalling pronunciation of the many many German words and expressions disturbed my experience of the book greatly.
It was a real struggle to finish it because of the narrator!

Great details, very moving account of history

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I was excited to listen to ‘The Good Germans’ and made my journey to and from work my time to enjoy the novel without interruption. I quickly found the narrators voice jarring and irritating and I found it hard to move past this, and concentrate on the story. When I managed to do this, the story was verbose and tedious. A very disappointing experience.

Verbose and Tedious

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