Everyday Life in a German Town

During the first half of the twentieth century the population of Germany experienced a series of crises, which stretched from the outbreak of the First World War to the creation of two German states in 1949. These crises encompassed the trials of war, the aftermath of defeat, the effects of racism, and the consequences of economic collapse. Poverty, homelessness, deportation and murder would more specifically describe Germany in this period, which was also defined by the late Weimar crisis, the Nazi years and the post-war dislocation. The Germany of 1929–49 contains millions of tales of personal hardship. Clearly, minorities suffered most, but ethnic Germans also experienced problems. Even if they did not make up sections of the population regarded as inferior by the Nazis they would have experienced unemployment, homelessness and hunger.

In recent decades a German historiographical tradition has emerged which deals precisely with the experiences of ordinary people. Alltagsgeschichte – the history of everyday life – aims to examine the reality of the past through individual experiences  by focusing upon specific themes and localities. Personal experiences  recounted by interviewees and recorded in archival material help to build up a mosaic of life in Germany between 1929 and 1949. The present article fits into this tradition, and examines the trials and tribulations of these years through a case study of the town of Osnabrück, situated in Lower Saxony, in north-western Germany, fifty miles west of Hannover.