"Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself": The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945 by Florian Huber

Hello my lovely readers!

If you can't tell...I'm in my death and dying era. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS

By the end of April 1945 in Germany, the Third Reich had fallen and invasion was inevitable. As the Russian army advanced, horrifying stories spread about the depravity of Red Army soldiers. For many German people, there seemed to be nothing left but shame, guilt, and fear. For tens of thousands of them, the only option was to choose death for themselves, and for their children. Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself recounts this little known mass event.
Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, historian and film-maker Florian Huber traces the euphoria of many ordinary Germans as Hitler restored national pride; their indifference as the Führer's political enemies, Jews, and other minorities began to suffer; and the descent into despair as the war took its terrible toll, especially after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Above all, he investigates how suicide became a contagious epidemic as the country collapsed.
Drawing on eyewitness accounts and other primary sources, Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself presents a riveting portrait of a nation in crisis, and sheds light on a dramatic yet largely unknown episode of postwar Germany.

MY THOUGHTS
I'm gonna be completely honest. My first thought while reading this book was: "It's no fun when the rabbit got the gun, now is it?"

It was hard for me to feel sympathy for these people who were living a great life while their Jewish neighbors were being sent to their deaths. I felt awful for the children who were often murdered by their parents in murder-suicides. 

It wasn't until the second half of the book Huber took a step back and showed how this all came to be (the rise of Hitler, the state of Germany after WWI, the worship of Hitler), that I understood WHY the "ordinary" Germans chose to die by suicide. I think the book could've been rearranged better to put the second half of the book first. Nonetheless, this was a HEAVY read but extremely enlightening because I'd never heard of this out of all the WWII and Holocaust books I've read. 

I might have to purchase a copy to have on my shelf, but I'm not sure. It could get repetitive at times, but it was an excellent read.