Analytical Essay: World War II

706 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Nazi propaganda during World War 2

Analytical Essay - World War II
World War II, the war for survival, shaped the history and landscape of the twentieth century permanently. As such, many wrote about the troubles and trials they had faced due to this war and in particular the actions of Germany. Excerpts taken from Sebastian Haffner, Christabel Bielenberg, and Leni Riefenstahl all help us understand the effect Germany had on it’s citizens, as well as foreign powers. While Haffner and Bielenberg denounce the Nazis, Riefenstahl writes in favor of them, thus demonstrating the discord in the nation at the time.
Sebastian Haffner, born Raimund Pretzel, was a German journalist who wrote about events as they were happening, as such, demonstrates the reality of living under the Third Reich. He describes how the Nazis took over, “The result of this million-fold nervous breakdown is the unified nation, ready for anything, that is today the nightmare of the rest of the world” (Haffner 110). …show more content…

Bielenberg was a British writer who was living in Germany during the Second World War due to her spouse being German. She writes about her personal experiences and impact that the Nazis had on her and her husband. Bielenberg describes the tense atmosphere imposed by the Nazis, “Peter and I did not feel like going straight home after our dinner party with our neighbours. The roads were dark and deserted and we could walk alone and talk alone - or could we?” (Bielenberg 88). The author describes the intense paranoia and fear that invaded all aspects of German society. She wishes to explain how invasive and destructive the German Reich had become. As an upper class writer, her views are based off experience, however, her occupation gives her credibility as means to the truth. The author wishes to inform how the Nazis were not believed in by all and that many resisted. While this confirms the ideas of Haffner, not everyone holds the same views of the

Show More
Related

  • The Capricious Camera

    2721 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the years between 1933 and 1945, Germany was engulfed by the rise of a powerful new regime and the eventual spoils of war. During this period, Hitler's quest for racial purification turned Germany not only at odds with itself, but with the rest of the world. Photography as an art and as a business became a regulated and potent force in the fight for Aryan domination, Nazi influence, and anti-Semitism. Whether such images were used to promote Nazi ideology, document the Holocaust, or scare Germany's citizens into accepting their own changing country, the effect of this photography provides enormous insight into the true stories and lives of the people most affected by Hitler's racism. In fact, this photography has become so widespread in our understanding and teaching of the Holocaust that often other factors involved in the Nazi's racial policy have been undervalued in our history textbooks-especially the attempt by Nazi Germany to establish the Nordic Aryans as a master race through the Lebensborn experiment, a breeding and adoption program designed to eliminate racial imperfections.

    Read More

  • Firsthand Accounts of World War I

    2167 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Claudia Koonz's Mothers In The Fatherland

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    The next text analyzed for this study is the first monograph read for the study, therefore, there is a lot of information that had not been previously discussed by the latter authors: Claudia Koonz 's 1987 text Mothers in the Fatherland. The author begins her text with a Preface where she discusses her interview with Gertrude Scholtz-Klink, the leader of the Women 's Labor Service. While this is not the first time in the study that Scholtz-Klink 's name appears, but Koonz 's discussion of the interview personifies Scholtz-Klink, rather than just make her a two-dimensional character in historical research. For the first time in this study, the reader can understand the reasoning some people (right or wrong) sided with the Nazi Party. The interview

    Read More

  • Criticism In A Child Of Hitler By Alfons Heck

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    A Child of Hitler by Alfons Heck is an autobiographical account of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 from his perspective as a member of the Hitler Youth. Heck’s autobiography is abundant with emotional treatise and recollections from his childhood. Published in 1985, the book is targeted toward an adult audience. The overarching theme focuses on repentance and the overwhelming power of propaganda and the resulting passion produced by NSDAP indoctrination. Using this theme as guidance, Heck argues that Nazi propaganda was highly efficient and produced an indoctrinated generation that was consumed with Aryan and Third Reich superiority until the defeat of Germany in 1945.

    Read More

  • Leni Riefenstahl

    2428 Words  | 5 Pages

    Leni Riefenstahl, a dazzling individual that has lived through and experienced many things that no other person may have. She has lived through the World War One, Great Depression, Nazi Germany, World War Two, the Cold war and September 11. However, what fascinates historians and people all over was her involvement and relationship with Hitler and the Nazis party. This report will look over Leni’s early to role as director of her Infamous films Triumph of the Will and Olympia and her involvement and view of Nazism and Hitler.

    Read More

  • Themes In Night By Elie Wiesel

    1599 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the 1940s, under the rule of Adolf Hitler, German soldiers caused great destruction throughout Europe. Elie Wiesel, a young boy at the time, was caught in the traumatic crossfire of the devastation occurring in that time period. The memoir, Night, tells the horrific stories that Elie Wiesel experienced. Elie was forced into concentration camps with his dad where he soon had to grow up fast to face the reality of his new life filled with violence, inhumanity and starvation, many of which he had never endured before. In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, he validates his theme of violence and inhumane treatment toward Jews through the use of excessive force such as the brutal beating to show Eliezer that he should not have been roaming the camp and see Idek sleeping with the girl; killing in the camps for no reason to show the hatred toward the Jews; and the limited food portions to starve them and the constant psychological torture.

    Read More

  • Germany and the Soviet Union's Non-Aggression Treaty

    2409 Words  | 5 Pages

    Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: a History of Nazi Germany. New York:

    Read More

  • Concentration Camps: The Killing Machine

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mckale,Donald M.. Hitler’s Shadow War, the Holocaust and World War 2. New York: Cooper Square.2002.Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Meaning of Hitler by Sebastian Haffner

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    ]Haffner, is a book which is hard to define. Only 165 pages long, Haffner has crammed more relevant information into this book than many twice its length. He observes Hitler's roller coaster ride through life and the country that he eventually took along. From Hitler's private life to the complete betrayal of Germany, Haffner evaluates the conditions and impetus for Hitler's accomplishments and failures. These include not only Hitler's psyche, but also the political arena of post World War I Europe.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel's Night

    438 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Dehumanization In Night

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.

    Read More

  • Nazi Germany

    2481 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fischer, klaus P. Nazi Germany: A New History, New York, New York, The Continaum Publishing

    Read More

  • Imagery Used In Night By Elie Wiesel

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    “What do you expect? That’s war…” Elie Wiesel, young teenage boy sent to work in a concentration camp with his family near the end of WW2. Author of his own autobiography, Night recounting his struggles during that time. This book is about a boy named Elie Wiesel who was captured by the Nazi’s and was put into a concentration camp, and got disconnected from God, and was very close to his mom, dad, and family. Throughout Night Elie Wiesel addresses the topic of genocide through the use of imagery, simile, and personification.

    Read More

  • Brutality In Elie Wiesel's Night

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    The brutality the Germans displayed in the 1930s through the 1940s was utterly horrifying. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author’s harrowing experience is shared. The Holocaust is worldly known as being one of the largest genocides in history, but not many truly understand what it was like to live through and witness. A lot of people had their life taken away whether figuratively or literally and many discovered so much loss that they became unphased by it after a while. Many who encountered the cruelty and merciless of the Germans have passed but a few remain that live to tell their story to the world and try to explain the feelings that coursed through them during the genocide and even now. Wiesel, who lived in Auschwitz for

    Read More

  • Essay: How World War II Changed America

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    World War II changed the world as a whole, but in this essay I am going to talk about how it changed America. After the war, many groups and organizations were created. The United Nations was born on October 24, 1945. This was a group meant to keep peace between nations. Tensions were still high between the United States and the Soviet Union after the war. Nevertheless, things were booming like never before here in our home country. With equal rights for women and African Americans, economic growth, and anti- war organizations became pro- war after Pearl Harbor. These are the ways I am going to discuss to you how World War Two changed our great country.

    Read More

More about Analytical Essay: World War II

Open Document