7 German Society at War
The war was supposed to pave the way toward realizing the utopia of a »fighting Volksgemeinschaft«. The »total war« offered the Nazi Party the opportunity to increase its pressure on society. With the growing experience of a racially homogenous »national community« the dividing lines between the majority of the warring society and the minority of the excluded, the persecuted and the enslaved were further deepened. But the war also changed the social reality for the majority of the Germans. New clefts were opened between the generations and individual regions that were affected in differing degrees by the destruction and expulsion.
