re: #407 Targetpractice

Much the same happened in the early years of WWII, which was a large part of why Hitler remained popular to the German people and tolerable to the military. Before 1943, there simply wasn’t any real threat to Germany proper: The RAF and USAAF took time to build their numbers and get enough long-range fighters to stage regular raids, while the beginning of the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad was years away. Meanwhile, the wealth of Germany’s conquests was flowing into her coffers and onto the plates of her citizens, such that the average Berliner’s view of the war was the propaganda outlets telling them about their inevitable victory.

There’s stories from German soldiers who survived the war who, when they’d go home from the front lines for leave or due to injuries, they’d be totally shocked by what they found back home. They were freezing in fox holes on the Eastern Front, forced to forage or hunt for food, and counting every bullet as though it might be their last, and then they’d get home and everybody acted as though the good times were never going to end. How could they be losing the war when there was meat on the table, cream and sugar in their coffee, and their wives had all the nylons they could afford?

The effect of a harsh reality check when it goes from that rosy dream state to total war in a matter of … what was it? Weeks? Months?