If a deep and lasting crisis shook our democracies, as happened to German society from 1929 to 1933, would we be able to resist the fascist temptation? On January 31, 1933, thirty-two million Germans, who had not voted Nazi woke up caught in the trap of dictatorship. How did they behave under the new power? How did they react to the suppression of freedoms, to the recruitment, to the anti-Semitic persecutions, to the march towards war? What compromises were necessary to survive? Was it possible not to collaborate with the Third Reich? Was it possible to resist it, and how?

By comparing more than two hundred testimonies with the works of the greatest historians of this period, Francois Roux carries out a panoramic study of the history of Nazism and the Germans, from 1918 to 1946. He also forces us to challenge our preconceived notions-yes, thousands of Germans died resisting Hitler's Reich, and, no, the majority of them did not want this regime. By making us face the choices they had to make, this book gives us an intimate, almost physical understanding of the relationship between dictatorship and its subjects, and tells us a story that could one day be our own.