Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times: The Nazi Revolution in Hildesheim

At first glance, Andrew Bergerson's Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times appears to be another local study about the rise and legitimation of Nazism, one more addition to an already impressive list of similar undertakings. What distinguishes this work is the author's effort, through ethnography and oral history, to link the everyday neighborly practices of ordinary Germans in the Hannoverian town of Hildesheim to Nazi criminality. The result is an insightful and often provocative analysis of informal and unexceptional social behavior that paradoxically masked the more formal commitments of class, religion, and ideology in the name of civility, while simultaneously deepening those very same divisions.