How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more?This internationally acclaimed revelatory history—"filled with first-person accounts from articles and diaries" (The New York Times)—of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust. Featuring over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period. The years 1945 to 1955 were a raw, wild decade that found many Germans politically, economically, and morally bankrupt. Victorious Allied forces occupied the four zones that make up present-day Germany. More than half the population was displaced; 10 million newly released forced laborers and several million prisoners of war returned to an uncertain existence. Cities lay in ruins—no mail, no trains, no traffic—with bodies yet to be found beneath the towering rubble. Aftermath received wide acclaim and spent forty-eight weeks on the best-seller list in Germany when it was published there in 2019.It is the first history of Germany's national mentality in the immediate postwar years. Using major global political developments as a backdrop, Harald Jähner weaves a series of life stories into a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. Poised between two eras, this decade is portrayed by Jähner as a period that proved decisive for Germany's future—and one starkly different from how most of us imagine it today. Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize • A Best Book of the Year: New Statesmen, Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph, the Irish Independent“[Jähner] does double duty in this fascinating book, elegantly marshaling a plethora of facts while also using his critical skills to wry effect, parsing a country’s stubborn inclination toward willful delusion. Even though Aftermath covers historical ground, its narrative is intimate, filled with first-person accounts from articles and diaries.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times“The national psyche is the principal protagonist in Harald Jähner’s subtle, perceptive and beautifully written Aftermath. Mr. Jähner, like Mr. Ullrich a German journalist and author, describes Germany’s first postwar decade, with more of an emphasis on its social and cultural landscape (particularly in its western segment) than the usual early Cold War tussles. Aftermath is a revelatory, remarkably wide-ranging book crammed with material, much of which will, I imagine, be new to an international audience.” —Andrew Stuttaford, The Wall Street Journal “Harald Jähner’s highly readable account of how Germans went about leaving Nazism behind . . . is about the price and the accomplishment of a new beginning when the aggressive war the Germans had waged was reversed to utter defeat in 1945. . . . Jähner is counterintuitive but thoughtful.” —Peter Fritzsche, New York Times Book Review“Erudite. . . . [Jähner] puts German anguish in the essential context of a nation climbing out of an abyss that it created. . . . Aftermath is a reminder that the German experience will always stand apart.” —The Economist “Jähner . . . sets out to complicate our picture of those tumultuous times. . . . [O]ften intriguing social and cultural history.” —Julia Klein, The Forward “This is an important addition to the library of Holocaust literature.” —New York Journal of Books“In a fascinating and critical look at the period book-ended by World War II and the Cold War, German journalist Jähner effectively combines known and unfamiliar information about significant and ordinary events and people of the day with insightful discussions of contemporaneous art, literature, film, architecture, and film. Deeply researched while at the same time eminently readable, this book successfully presents an engrossing social, political, economic, and cultural perspective on an important
- Libro Impreso
- Edición:
- Editorial: Vintage
- Autor: Jähner, Harald
