A different take on WW2 stories. It amazed me and broke my heart. I really enjoyed learning about the Nazis and the other sides of WW II. Took me out of my comfort zone but Huber told a story not wrote a text book.

Let me start by saying that I don't gravitate towards historical reads and that I am not a history buff or a true crime thrill reader. I'll admit that I was intrigued by the title and cover of this book and found myself requesting an advanced copy to read in exchange for an honest review. Here's what I discovered when I opened this book and dove in. There was another side of suffering during Hitlers reign that I wasn't aware of. A visit that left me so unsettled to the Holocaust Museum may have filled me in to the horrors that Hitler inflicted upon the REST of the world but it didn't clue me in to the horrors inflicted upon the people of his country, the ordinary families and villagers, the ones who were only guilty of living in Germany under his reign. The author does a great job at getting the reader into the head of these forgotten victims who ultimately choose to end the lives of their children and themselves over fear of the unknown in paying for Hitlers crimes. I remember when the tragedy of the titanic fully sank in for me after reading details about the band still playing as the ship was sinking. That piece of information allowed me to visualize what people might have been feeling, the confusion, fear and chaos events like this bring forward and this book manages to do the same for me providing so many of those ever so important details of the trickle down effects. I often found myself walking away, taking a break from the telling as it was too much for this empath to absorb. This piece of WWII is important and I thank the author for providing a deeper understanding of the many casualties of this war. Many thanks to the publisher and Netgally for the opportunity to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a part of history that mainly goes unspoken about.

For many germans, the guilt of WWII was overwhelming. This is important to remember when we discuss history because not every german was a bad person. This book humanizes germans in the postwar era that are long forgotten.

This was a heartbreaking book to read, as these poor people thought only suicide was the answer to ending their suffering. World War II books typically focus on the Concentration Camps. I hadn't ever heard of this mass suicide and am glad that I came across this book, as it taught me a lot.

Florian Huber has written a fascinating part of history that few know little about. Morose yet interesting. When Hitler committed suicide there were many normal day to day people killing themselves, children, parents. They killed themselves when the Russian army invaded as they didn't want to face uncertainty under their rule. They didn't want to live in a world where Hitler didn't rule. The book is harsh, raw and very descriptive. It's not an easy read but a engrossing read.

I had never heard this part of the WWII story so the first half was shocking, depressing, and sad. The focus of the second half shifts a bit and is more unflinching and harsh. The book as a whole is quite brutal but worth reading.

I received a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

Just as you might describe the adoration of Hitler as an example of mass hysteria, you could say the same for the epidemic of suicides as the Third Reich fell. Florian spends the first half of the book describing suicides in the east, as the Soviet Army rolls in. Certainly there was plenty to be fearful of, because the conquering Red Army did engage in widespread rape and violence. But parents killed their children and then themselves, by poison, shooting, and drowning, in the tens of thousands.

In the second half of the book, Huber explores how the German psyche was shaped by Nazism and its propaganda machine, leading to the acceptance of the regime’s horrors and the fear of (rightful) retribution that would come if the Third Reich fell.

The organization of the book doesn’t help Huber. The stories of all the suicides lose their shocking effect after 100 pages or so. It would have been better to begin with his second half, where he describes the depression caused by Germany’s WW1 defeat and the imposition of the Treaty of Versailles, then the euphoria of Hitler’s restoration of national pride (as long as you were “Aryan”). Of course, once the “man of peace” showed his true colors, the country and its people were on the road to ruin, and Huber includes first-person testimonies of ordinary Germans for the whole 12-years of Nazism.

For those who have read a good deal of WW2 German history, this book doesn’t add a lot. It’s not a bad treatment of its subject, but its organization and flow could be improved.

Florian Huber presents a fascinating, strange, morose, and surprisingly little-known phenomenon that occurred in Germany at the end of World War II: the mass suicides of tens of thousands of Germans—civilian, military, and leadership alike—as the Red Army began to close in on the country and defeat was imminent.

Huber's argues that these suicides came for two reasons in particular, as stated above - Germans were afraid of the very real threat from the Soviet army after domestic propaganda showed the true horrors inflicted by Russians on Germans as they invaded. Shocking newspaper photo spreads of tragedy in Nemmersdorf, a small Prussian village, showed Germans shot in the head, dead children, dead women who had clearly been raped, mass graves, and other nightmarish imagery. Rather than propelling the German public to stand strong and fight back, as was the intent of these images, they caused mass hysteria. Knowing that the Soviet army was closing in on German villages - and knowing the hatred the rest of the world had for Germany at the time - no German dared to think they would be spared.

More generally, Germans were incredibly fearful of the uncertain future that lay ahead. Huber does a fantastic job at showing the epidemic of suicides - including how parents would kill their children, then kill themselves - and then taking ten steps back to show exactly how Germany got to their "present" situation. He explains in perfect detail the conditions that were ripe for a populist like Hitler to rise to power: Germany was economically depressed after WWI, all citizens felt that their country was in the dumps and the Treaty of Versailles was to blame. People were looking for a Messiah, someone who would say what all Germans were afraid to say, and someone who would rise to the challenge of "making Germany great again" (so to speak...). Hitler was exactly that person. Germans put all of their eggs in Hitler's basket, and were absolutely convinced that he was going to lift them out of depression and suffering - economic gains and decreases in unemployment from 1933 to 1938 supported this, and many Germans did not think that Hitler was going to start a war, even saying that he was a "man of peace." Even so, during the initial stages of the war, morale was still high in a largely unified Germany - but as the war waged on and England remained strong, as the Red Army began a huge campaign against Germany, and as it seemed less and less certain that Germany would come out the victor, public morale plummeted. Early in 1945, the public lost faith in Hitler, but had no idea what was to come next. Everyone knew that if Germany lost the war, there would be no mercy, no forgiveness, and no peace for its citizens. The Allies would come down hard on Germany, and life as Germans knew it would change forever.

Suicide was seen as a somewhat noble way of dying: even Hitler himself said, "I myself and my wife choose to die, rather than face the ignominy of deposition or capitulation." Knowing the horrors and uncertainty that were sure to come, most Germans chose the same route: death at their own hands, on their own time, while their land was still theirs, was the best way to go. Dying while Germany was theirs is better than living under an uncertain, likely horrible, future.

It's hard to say that I enjoyed reading this book, but it was exceedingly well-executed. The large chunk of historical context, a blow-by-blow account of how everyday Germans slowly glommed onto Hitler's ideology and stayed willfully ignorant of parts of that doctrine that they did not like, was fascinating. Many accounts I've read only focus on the narrative from a macro-level, rather than "history from below," as it stands. However, I felt that the perspectives Huber chose to highlight - and perhaps this being a product of what primary sources were available to him - significantly downplayed the importance of the Final Solution and violence against Jews, Roma, and other groups in Hitler's rhetoric. Most of the stories he tells are of Germans who were completely taken by the nationalist, unified Germany that Hitler painted and his ability to restore Germany to its former power, brushing off any talk of extermination, violence, and imperialism.

Overall, a fascinating and relatively quick read for anyone interested in this little-told appendix to the Third Reich. Thank you to Little Brown Spark for the ARC via Netgalley.

This is a fascinating subject, but I wish the book handled the topic a little better. The book is a bit repetitive in reporting the tragic deaths of the German civilians at the end of the WWII. I was only able to get about halfway through the book before I found everything just going by me in a blur. The topic is one that I wasn't completely familiar with and it's good that attention is finally being given to the tragic suicide epidemic that took place in Germany at the end of the war.

Jesus Christ this book is a doosy. I don't know if a single other recent history book has made me more shocked and horrified than this one. I am not someone that is shaken/disheartened/touched by a book easily. And I'm someone who likes true crime stories and books about the darker side of history. Grizzly details in books usually don't effect me...but this book is another level.

To say this book is raw and gritty is an understatement. And listen, I knew what I was getting myself into. I don't expect a book about the mass suicide of Germans in the waning days of Nazi Germany to be cheery but DAMN this was a lot. Graphic child murder and detailed suicides for 304 pages is just a lot to deal with.

All that said, this is a incredible well researched book and is also well translated (props to the translator who did a fantastic job). The book is a fascinating work on the state of non-Jewish Germans at the end of the war. The author did a great job trying to bring the reader up to speed on how suicide had been psychologically normalized for Germans. A people who had already internalized and justified the extermination of millions of its own people based on their religion. It is an important book that I think adds succinctly to our knowledge of that time period. I have a history degree (B.A.) myself and as someone who has read a good deal of both lay and academic history texts, this is a perfect balance between the two.

The biggest downside of the book was the lag. I think the book was too drawn out. I was wanting it to wrap up with well over 70 pages left of it.

cannot stress this enough. <strong>IF THIS MERE IDEA OF THIS WEIRDS YOU OUT TURN BACK NOW.I liked it...but it's a lot.

As World War II came to an end, thousands of Germans committed suicide. Not just those in the path of revenge-seeking Russians, but also those in West Germany. When their promised future evaporated, they were driven by fear of a void and the loss of purpose of life.
Those who lived denied reality. Most considered themselves to be victims of the Nazis. The violent end of the war made them feel they were the ultimate victims. Totally apathetic and indifferent to their victims. Not until the fall of the Wall and opening of East German archives did they take an interest in Nazi crimes and come to terms with their history and atrocities.
Very interesting.

It is widely known that Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva committed suicide at the end of WWII. What is perhaps less well known is that tens of thousands of other Germans did the same. Yes, you read that right: tens of thousands, including many children who were killed by their parents before they committed suicide.

Why? What would lead ordinary citizens to kill not just themselves but their children as well? German soldiers, SS members, the Gestapo... it is easy to see how they could have killed themselves before being captured by the Allies, before being tried for the atrocities they committed. Ordinary citizens though? What would drive so many of them to take their own lives and those of their children? What could be the cause of the epidemic of suicide throughout Germany?

In ""Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself": The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945", Florian Huber takes us inside Germany during the Third Reich, into the homes and lives of German civilians who killed themselves at the end of the war. It is a fascinating account, one that had me gripped from the beginning.

We first learn of the city of Demmin where between 700 and over 1000 citizens killed themselves in the wake of advancing Allied troops. At first it appeared they were merely afraid. After all, these people had been fed propaganda about the horrors the Russians and Americans would inflict upon them: they would cut out their children's tongues and drink their blood. They would rape and pillage and kill and torture. Why wait around to endure that? Of course, some of this was true -- it's estimated that up to two million women were raped by Russian soldiers in the final days of the war. You can see why many would choose death rather than face being raped, tortured, murdered. Yet fear was not the only motivation.

Anyone who has ever attempted suicide knows the absolute despair and hopelessness, the utter anguish that leads to this most extreme and final (if all goes as planned) act. Others might have a difficult time understanding how anyone could take their own life. The author has done an outstanding job of taking us into the minds of these people, what they were thinking and feeling as the Allied troops advanced and the world they knew was coming to an end.

Whilst it's easy for me to understand those who killed themselves, it was chilling to read the accounts of those who first killed their children. Mr. Huber shows clearly and precisely how this happened. He shares diary and memoir entries and suicide notes, helping us understand what was going through these parents' minds. These parents believed their children would be tortured and then killed or else live a life of abject misery; they thought they were protecting their children by taking their lives.

This is not an easy book to read because of the subject matter, though it is easier to read than accounts of what the Nazis did to millions of Jews and other people during the war. It is bleak subject matter, and yet it is a riveting account. It is an eye-opening look into what ordinary Germans were thinking and feeling.

The author not only writes of the end of the war and the suicides. He also examines the period leading up to Hitler's ascent and during the war. He shows how so many people fell under Hitler's spell, how Hitler gave them hope and pride again after Germany's defeat in the First World War. They centered their entire worldview around Hitler's words and promises and by the time they began witnessing crimes against the Jews, they were so wrapped up in Hitler's spell that they chose to turn a blind eye to the evil going on all around them.

I did not want to feel compassion for these people and yet it is impossible to read this book and not feel sympathy. Florian Huber masterfully takes us into their lives, minds, and hearts. Explores what it was like for their entire worldview to shatter, to lose everything that had given their lives meaning, to realise they had been complicit in evil, to feel guilt and remorse and shame. To despair of ever again having a normal and happy life. The author does not make excuses for the blind eye many German civilians turned to what was going on all around them, but he does help us understand how and why they did.

I am so glad I read this book and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in WWII. It is obvious Mr. Huber thoroughly researched the subject matter, and he does an excellent job of putting it all together to shed light on something I did not know anything about.

I offer my sincere gratitude to the author Florian Huber, Little, Brown Spark, and NetGalley for providing me with a DRC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I had never heard of this event before picking up the book, but learned a lot while reading about the mass suicides that occurred after Hitler lost power with a focus on the German town of Demmin and surrounding area. I could see how some people who aren't familiar with the German language or areas would be put off by the book since it does not include any maps or any pronunciation guides to the names. I very much would have liked even a hand drawn map of Demmin to keep it straight in my head. A list at the front of the book of the main survivors would have also been useful since it was getting a little confusing with all the different names.

It is not surprising that this story was overshadowed by the Allied Victory or not talked about by the German government after the war. However, it is a unique look into the lives and decisions that German civilians felt they had to make after April 30, 1945.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair review, all opinions are my own.

Overall this was a good book on, what can be believed, is a very forgotten tragedy attached to World War Two. It was heartbreaking to read about so many individuals and families that ended their lives close to the end of the war.

The story was overall good, but the book had moments that dived very deep into war strategy, geopolitics and was somewhat hard to follow not having an in-depth knowledge of these. It bounced around a bit, and I found it hard to follow at times:

However, I am glad that I read it as I learned another angle to one of the darkest events in human history.

#netgalley #promisemeyoullshootyourself

Read if you: Want insight into everyday German life during the beginning and end of the Third Reich.

First of all--please note that this contains descriptions of suicides, rape, and other violence. Keep that in mind if you are planning to request this title. Yes, some parts drag a bit, but overall, it's a disturbing and enlightening look at how Germans became enthralled with Hitler, yet many succuumbed to despair and suicide/murder-suicide at the end. It's not for everybody, but if you're really curious about this time period, it's definitely worth a try.

Many thanks to Little, Brown & Co and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

An enthralling and devastating book about the little documented mass German citizen suicides following the end of World War II, "Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself" is an emotional rollercoaster. Starting off a bit slow, the book picks up and truly shines as it examines the tragedy of Demmin and her sister-cities, the feelings of hopelessness that pervaded post-Third Reich Germany, and the actual actions of the Soviet Union army against the citizenry. With excerpts from diaries and official records, as well as interviews with surviving citizens, this book is a must read for those interested in a little known event in circa-WWII history that still asks questions yet to be answered to this day.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I would rate this book 2 stars! I got to page 100 and DNF this book because 1) it got very depressing and 2) the author had names of individuals - of families - of towns and villages, who would rather commit mass suicide than face the oncoming Soviet army. We are talking in the 10’s of thousands! The Soviet army had a reputation for terrorizing the population, capturing/killing German soldiers, plundering homes/villages and raping women....young and old! It became painfully repetitious to read. What was good about this book: the author researched her material extensively. ....names, villages, districts. The author put a face and name to these mass suicides, and how each decided on how they were to die ......something which I personally had a hard time reading! This book might appeal to some, but I would suggest not to the fair hearted!

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest and unbiased review of this book

This is a rare DNF for me, as I just couldn't make myself plod through any more of this book. While it sounded like a fascinating and dreadfully important story -- tens of thousands of ordinary Germans killed themselves at the end of WWII -- I told my 21 year old yesterday that I just gave up reading it because it was a surprising mix of depressing and (as hard to believe as it seems) boring.

I frequently update Toria on whatever books I'm reading at the time that are especially interesting, as we carpool for the 1 1/2 hour trip to and from our UU church on Sundays. We both love books and share a love of non-fiction especially. In this case, I whispered in the pews before church started, "It felt like reading an endless series of rapes and suicides written in an accounting ledger."

The author uses real journal entries and letters to list family after family in plain, unemotional tones as their women (from children to the elderly) were raped again and again by Russian soldiers and the parents killed their children and themselves. Sometimes they failed. Sometimes they killed themselves for other reasons. But it's just "this awful thing happened to this person on this date, then they all killed themselves this way, then this journal entry said this person was despondent, then he killed himself this way, then this happened in the news and the weather was this way, and then this family hid in the cellar and then killed themselves this way."

Important history? Absolutely. I'm not sure anybody needs the minute by minute log of it this way though. Apparently the second half is the author trying to make sense of it and another review called it the "less successful" half of the book. That makes me even more glad I just gave up on it.

I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

This is an exceptionally well-written and informative book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in having a better understanding of Hitler's power over Germans and their collective nihilism by the end of the war. Having written many books set during WWII myself I was aware that many Germans chose to commit suicide at the end of the war but I didn't realize how wide-spread it was.

Huber uses the town of Demmin, where 1000 committed suicide, as an example of what was happening all over the Reich. Using Demmin residents' documents, photographs, diaries, letters and interviews, the author lets the reader step into the shoes of ordinary Germans, first, at the moment of their death, then stepping back to the rise of Hitler and taking us through the war with these people.

This is not an easy read but it's an important one.