A well researched story about the ten years after the end of WWII in what had been Nazi Germany. This is a part of history that hasn’t been written extensively about, especially beyond the Holocaust and the liberating of the camps right at the end of the way. Much of this book discusses the people of Germany, those who pretty much ignored the evilness going on around them and those who were exiled to foreign lands and their return to their homeland with nothing as a result of the Nazi reign of terror. Much to learn here but pretty dry at the same time. This isn’t so much a book you read for entertainment as it is a book you should read to educate yourself about something you might feel you know a lot about. ( )

Fascinating, but extremely discursive exploration of the way Germany progressed after its devastating defeat in the Second World War. It covers a much wider range of topics than one might imagine upon entering into its reading, including de-Nazification, physical reconstruction of the country, the importance of modern art to the CIA's plans for rebuilding the nation as it wished, and the rebirth of literature. The translation from the original German is elegant. ( )

Absolutely incredible. I loved that it covered so many aspects of life, from theft to theater to love. I suspect that many readers will be extremely curious about denazification, as was I, and the chapter does not disappoint; frankly, it stunned me.

One thing that I particularly loved was that Brigitte Eicke's diary was one of the sources of information for this book. See, she grew up on the street that I now live on, in fact I can see her door from my living room. So her input for this book had particular meaning to me, and gave me a little thrill every time I saw her name. For the curious, Eicke's diary is called Backfisch im Bombenkrieg (Teenager in the War), available only in German as of this writing. ( )

A fascinating read. Many Americans are familiar with the political aftermath of Germany’s defeat, fewer think much about what that defeat meant for ordinary Germans. Mostly they thought themselves victims. Certainly they could point to great suffering--500 million cubic tons of rubble!-- food shortages, and those ghastly fellow Germans expelled from Poland and points east to one’s own doorstep. But victims? Not so much, but in the end the Allies pretty much let the Germans, West and East, claim that mantle. And, asks Harald Jähner, might that have been the necessary price for establishing civil society and democracy in Germany?

Aftermath offers considerable insight on how defeat played out social spaces, from economics (one guess whom Germans blamed for the omnipresent black market) to family structure and gender relations. The visual arts saw a ‘rubble chic’ boom and the rise of abstract art in the West, encouraged by the CIA no less, as a Cold War riposte to the socialist realism imposed in the Sovietized GDR.

A true reckoning only would come decades later, and even then, as Jähner wisely surmises: “the generation of 1968 had little interest in a detailed examination of the Nazi involvements of their parents’ generation. They preferred to develop theories of fascism designed to identify capitalism as a preliminary state of dictatorship….”

Over 40 amazing photos add significantly to the book’s considerable value. Well worth your time. 4 stars…. ( )

This is a long, detailed and quite interesting account of the first years of Germany following the defeat of the Nazi regime in 1945. But it is not comprehensive. There are many topics that Jähner has chosen to cover only briefly or superficially. We learn hardly anything about the emergence of new political parties, including revivals of pre-1933 parties like the Social Democrats. There is no mention at all, not even a sentence, about the re-emergence of free and independent trade unions. But there are other subjects where he goes into great depth, and has some insights. The final chapter, which shows how the modern Germany was born as a stable democracy precisely because it did not grapple honestly with its past is one that will be controversial. As the author puts it, “We may condemn post-war Germany for its unwillingness to face the truth, but we are surely obliged to agree that it accomplished an extraordinary feat of repression, a process from which later generations profited to a substantial degree.” Yes, read that sentence again. I don’t agree, and I believe instead that the unfinished anti-fascist revolution in Germany, though far better than what happened in Italy or Japan, is not something worthy of praise. Jähner forgives a certain degree of historical amnesia that I, for one, cannot stomach. ( )