How to survive in Nazi Germany:

1. Be a member of the Nazi party. Attend events. Fly your flag on the right days.

2. Make sure your children go to the Hitler Youth meetings.

3. Don't get bombed.

(4. Don't be Jewish, obviously)

(5. Don't help Jews, obviously)

If you follow these simple rules, you have a good chance of surviving. But is it worth it? If you do this, are you complicit in the crimes of your nation? What's the point in fighting Hitler and his ideas if you'll only be overrun?

Were all Nazis bad people?

To answer our last question, think of the man who came to check if the Hubermans' basement was deep enough to be a bomb shelter. He's a pretty normal guy. He probably has a nice family, and he definitely has a nice job working for the party. It could be any political party, really; it's very normal. Hitler came into power as chancellor (who is usually the leader of the majority party in parliament), the same way people come in to power in some nations today (it's similar to the British system). Hitler had a normal platform for a formerly great nation caught in a terrible recession: he had a plan to make the county great again, and he had someone (or more than one someone) to blame and punish for all the problems that the great nation of Germany was suffering from. The only unusual parts were that the plan to make Germany great ultimately involved taking over most of the world, the people to blame were an innocent religious group, and the mode of punishment included isolation (ghettos), labor camps, and finally, mass killings.

But besides all that, it was normal, and Nazism and its propaganda united a nation. And thus, one ends up with the chirpy little party member on page 343 of The Book Thief. He calls Liesel "the maniacal soccer player" and chats with Hans and Rosa about how messy some basements he has seen are. However, he would definitely turn the entire family in for some unspecified, terrible fate if he know that they were harboring Max. He would be just doing his job, and trying to survive in Nazi Germany.

Is he a bad person?

Maybe not. Maybe he's just normal.

This brings us to the others. The teeming mass of German citizens. Not the party leaders; most of were party members, following the conducting, the orchestrating, of their leader. Why didn't they speak out? Because no one else was. (Or do you have a better answer?) Why didn't anyone else speak out? For the same reason. Anyway, Hitler was too powerful.

There were isolated acts of defiance, often hidden: the housing and hiding of Jews and others who were persecuted, the helping of some who were in concentration camps, although not all Germans even knew that they existed. Still, where were the rest of the brave people, the sane people?

90% of the German population showed unflinching support for Hitler. But how many of those were Alex Stieners- following because everyone else did, it was the safe thing to do, trying to listen to the propaganda and not their consciences? Some, but there had to be a majority for them to fall in line behind. And what of the other 10%? Why weren't there more of them? Safety?

Would you risk everything for what you thought was right even if you couldn't make a difference?

Which section of Germany's population would you have been part of, really?

I think Zusak wants us to think about this, a bit, from his mention of the chirpy party member on page 343, to the mentions of the Jew giving the German a gift (Max and Liesel), to the fright the entire family goes through when they can't find their flag, and finally ending with Han's application to the party. The family is going through a sham so that they can protect Max; but one has to wonder how many other families went though the same playacting for different reasons.

And thus we have it- the answer of why it all happened. People wanted to survive.

So optimistic

~Erika