Resources required

• Resource B: Pre-war Nazism
• Resource G: Casualties of bombing
• Resource H: Account of an air-raid
• Resource I: 'The road to Berlin'
• Resource K: The battle for Berlin
• Resource L: Joining the Luftwaffe
• Resource M: The Hitler Youth

Rationale and learning intentions

This enquiry will explore the remarkable persistence and passivity of Berliners in the face of extreme hardship caused by air raids and ground assault on their city. Why did the people of a city once far from committed to Nazism continue to work and fight for the Nazi regime in the face of appalling suffering between 1943 and 1945? Students will be asked to balance the influence of fear of the regime with factors such as national loyalty and the sheer survival instinct and form an hypothesis of their own. A study in causation.

What suffering did Berliners endure between 1943 and 1945?

Pupils should study the photograph and statistics in Resource G. The class should be told that they are a committee working in the office of Dr Goebbels Nazi Gauleiter (District leader for Berlin and Nazi propaganda Minister). These materials have just become available and the class’s task is to decide whether they should be shown to ordinary Berliners or not. Pupils should work in groups considering any positive or negative effects of showing the materials. Each group should write a brief report to Dr Goebbels explaining its recommendations.

Read Resource H aloud to pupils. Explain that Berliners were experiencing raids like this almost every night and day from early 1944 and that 100,000 Berliners were killed in such air raids.  Pupils should write a short film script imagining a mother and her three young children’s experiences during a raid. They should start from the moment the siren sounds until the all clear. Scenes might include: Running to the cellar; noises in the dark; near miss; coming out in the daylight to discover.....

Explain that by April 1945 the Russian armies had begun to enter Berlin itself. Air raids now gave way to savage fighting on the ground as German forces and members of the German home-guard, the Volkssturm, refused to surrender the city. Many civilians had not been evacuated and were caught up in the bitter fighting.

Pupils should use Resource I to picture the scene.

Pupils then compile a list of possible emotions experienced by the people sheltering in the flak tower.

AV suggestions: Extracts from the film ‘Memphis Belle’ could be used to help make pupils aware of the nature of the air war over Germany from 1945, such as the allied attempts to destroy German industry and civilian morale by aerial bombing.

Extracts from the German film ‘Downfall’ could be used to demonstrate and reinforce the atmosphere of desperation in Berlin at the very end of the war.

A discussion could follow:  Why would Berlin be a target of particular importance for allied bombers?

How effective was the Gestapo terror in preventing opposition to Hitler?

Pupils should read Resource J. What can they find in the source to explain why relatively few Germans decided to follow the example of the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl† in openly resisting Hitler’s rule?

If the Gestapo were so frightening, what reasons can we suggest to explain the willingness of Hans and Sophie Scholl to resist so openly?

† The Scholls were students in Munich and part of the White Rose group, which adopted a strategy of passive resistance. They wrote and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets at the university, but were arrested by the Gestapo, submitted to a show-trial and executed in February 1943.

Why did Berliners continue to work and fight despite the great suffering they endured during the years 1943-1945?

Pupils should read Resource K and extract from it the possible reasons Von Stemann and his friends suggested to explain why Berliners fought on for Hitler’s regime despite enduring such great suffering.

Pupils should then look at Resource L. Do the parents seem keen for their son to join Hitler’s armed forces? What in the source leads to your conclusion?

Pupils should now consider why Von Stemann didn’t mention enthusiasm for Hitler as a reason for Berliners’ decision to fight on. They should then re-read Frau Haessler’s extract, Resource B and also look at Resource M. Do they think it is likely that enthusiasm for Hitler played any part in Berliners’ continued resistance? They should justify their opinion from any of the sources.