"The human being is durable!" was the succinct conclusion of one of the interviewees on the topic of World War II. Fortunately, it was not the "Thousand-Year Reich." For decades, journalist Gudrun Gloth interviewed prominent figures from politics, business, and the arts about their personal experiences during the years leading up to the collapse of the "Third Reich." This period was significant and formative for all of them; however, the differing narratives demonstrate that the war had its own face for each of them: as an ugly grimace directly at the front or in the still "intact world" of home, until that too was consumed by the firestorm. Published here for the first time in book form, these individual life stories come together to create a vivid piece of contemporary history. Eyewitness interviews with Berthold Beitz, Claus Biederstaedt, Dieter Borsche, René Deltgen, Josef Ertl, and Helmut Fischer.