What did ordinary Germans think about the war with the Soviet Union?
What did ordinary Germans think about the war with the Soviet Union?
Strange as it may sound, the outbreak of war on the Eastern Front came as a complete surprise to ordinary Germans. According to Wolfgang Morrell, who was drafted into the army just in 1941, his schoolmates had been actively studying Russian before the war, because they believed that in the future Germany and the USSR would have close economic relations, and it was necessary to speak Russian. The situation began to change at the beginning of 1941. It was already felt that relations were on the decline. Rumours began to circulate that the USSR was going to refuse to export grain to Germany. And German propaganda was doing its job. With the beginning of the war, some Germans believed that in a week all enemies in the East would be destroyed, as it happened in Poland and in the West. But the older generation viewed the war with scepticism. Wolfgang Morrell's father, who had fought in Russia in World War I, was convinced that there was no way the Germans could bring this war to a happy ending.