In 1945, after defeat in the Second World War, many Germans claimed to have known nothing about what had happened to their fellow Jewish citizens – and with that, the idea of the ‘innocent bystander’ was born. But just how true was this claim? Delving into a rich archive of personal accounts of life in the Nazi era, Mary Fulbrook has unearthed a far more complex story, as she tells Rebecca Franks.

(Ad) Mary Fulbrook is the author of Bystander Society: Conformity and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2023). Buy it now from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bystander-Society-Conformity-Complicity-Holocaust/dp/0197691714/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.
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