Short Synopsis
Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims—probing what they saw and what they failed to see—Peter Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.

Full Synopsis
World War II reached into the homes and lives of ordinary people in an unprecedented way. Civilians made up the vast majority of those killed by war. On Europe’s home front, the war brought the German blitzkrieg, followed by long occupations and the racial genocide of the Holocaust. In An Iron Wind, historian Peter Fritzsche draws on first-person accounts to show how civilians in occupied Europe struggled to understand this maelstrom. As Germany targeted Europe's Jews for deportation and death, confusion and mistrust reigned. People tried desperately to make sense of the horrors around them, but the stories they told themselves often justified a selfish indifference to their neighbors' fates.

Piecing together the broken words of World War II's witnesses and victims—probing what they saw and what they failed to see—Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.

"Fritzsche is adept at utilizing contemporary literature, memoirs, and correspondence to reconstruct the intellectual impact of Nazi occupation." ---Library Journal

"An Iron Wind illustrates, through an astute, objective and coherent use of eyewitness accounts, how military occupation, the longer it lasts, becomes the Achilles heel of any conquest." ---Ronald C. Rosbottom, author of When Paris Went Dark

"An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler is a work of deep reflection by an experienced historian . . . It is a pleasure to follow along." ---New York Times