The popular image of Nazi Germany in the popular mindset is perhaps best embodied by the Gestapo – secretive, all powerful and incredibly violent. How could anyone have opposed Hitler, we wonder, knowing full well the terror used to keep the population in line. Yet as this episode will show, Hitler’s dictatorship was actually quite popular. Hitler ruled not so much by fear, but also through ordinary Germans’ dreams of Volkswagens and leisure travel.

Image: NSDAP poster c.1934. Public Domain