Staying Alive in Hitler’s Berlin

by

Lecture

Thu, Oct 29, 2026

4:30 PM – 6 PM EDT (GMT-4)

Louis A Simpson, room A71

Princeton, NJ 08544, United States

Details

Hitler never trusted Berliners, and many Berliners never trusted him. Berlin was the cosmopolitan metropolis which the Nazis liked to hate. Too many free spirits, too many sexual deviants, and too many Jews. When the Third Reich was finally defeated in May 1945, the city was in ruins.

Bleiben Sie übrig, ‘stay alive’, is how Berliners said goodbye to each once British and American bombers attacked the city day and night. By that stage, in 1943, most Jews of Berlin had already been deported to the death camps.

If my book about daily life in Hitler’s capital during the war has a running theme, it is a question that sadly is still with us: how to remain decent in an indecent society. In Nazi Germany common decency came with an increasingly high price.

Speakers

Ian Buruma's profile photo

Ian Buruma

Bard College

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Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society | View More Events