301F Fall 2026 History vs. Fiction: The Dilemma of Ordinary People in Hitler’s Germany

This course will consider the dilemma of ordinary people in 1930s Germany. How much did ordinary people know about what was going on? What could they choose to do about it? What, if anything, did they do? We’ll explore how historical texts and documentaries over the last ninety years have portrayed the response of ordinary Germans to Hitler’s ascendancy. Did they flee the country or stay to resist the Nazi Party? Did they accept the changes with which they were faced and comply with the Party’s policies? Or did they actively support the rise of the Third Reich? We’ll contrast how their reactions have been viewed by historians and how they have been portrayed in historical novels and on the screen.

David K. Wessel, the son of a German immigrant, is a retired U.S. diplomat turned historian and author, who has studied interwar Germany for over fifty years. His first novel, Choosing Sides (2024), is the award-winning story of an ordinary family (his own) torn apart by Hitler’s Germany.