The cultural evolution of post-war Germany with little on politics or policy
Review of Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich by Harald Jähner
If you want solid descriptive journalism on the crucial period of Germany’s transition from fascism to democratic capitalism in the west and to socialism in the east, this is a pretty good treatment. Rather than another straight political history, Jähner covers social questions, how life felt and appeared, and very generally how German institutions functioned in the evolving cultures. Some of it surprised me, such as the avoidance (or “Repression”) of dealing with the Holocaust, and beyond that, popular complicity with an evil regime, until the Auschwitz trails in 1963. The book is divided into subject areas, e.g. “In Ruins”, and skips around rather than organizing the content around some overall argument or chronology. As such, it lacks depth and is just a starting point for anyone who wants to learn about denazification, the growth of democracy or the imposition of Soviet-style communism.
At the end of the war, Germany was in a shambles, both morally and physically. Somehow, as they set one-time Nazis to work clearing the rubble, Jähner states that the Germans found some solace and hope for a new beginning in the ruins of their cities. This led to “rubble chic”, a kind of movement of art and fashion as well as nostalgic, almost wistful sightseeing of burnt-out buildings. Later, Jazz, dance, and even new styles of furniture were, according to Jähner, signs of the new beginning.
But the more fundamental stage-resetting of Germany came in the refugee situation: in the west, about 15% of the population was “displaced” migrants from the east in a kind of reverse ethnic cleansing. The arrivals disrupted traditional social arrangements in long-isolated communities, opening people to the possibility of seeing and doing things differently. With 10% or more of the population dead or homeless, the immigrants severely aggravated the situation of instability and traumatic upheaval. There was also a dearth of young men, whom women outnumbered by about a 6:5 ratio. In addition, the men who did return tended to be wraiths, unable to pick up where they left off, many full of rage at the newly liberated women they found, and wanting to reassert control over their families, an exercise in futility. Many marriages were circumstantial anyway due to quick war-time decisions, leading to promiscuity, sexual experimentation with foreigners, and high divorce rates. That the newly reconstituted population emerged as one people in the west is one of the most amazing outcomes of this time; it was similar in the east.
Another major theme is the economy. It started out with rationing, morphed into ruthless black marketeering, and flowered into the Wirtschaftswunder, the vertiginous explosion of industrial development and prosperity that has carried Germany to the present. Rationing was supposed to level the playing field – everyone went hungry – and many held back from entering the labor force beyond meeting their own immediate needs, hoarding for example food production on farms. As the black market took hold, with cigarettes and barter serving in place of currency, Jähner argues that it too was a sign that things were changing, beginning anew. With the Marshall Plan and the imposition of hard currency, in which liquidity was introduced and the earlier inflation-decimated currencies were decisively replaced by the Deutsch Mark, the economy took off – suddenly, the shops were full, work became widely available and everyone could concentrate on rebuilding their lives, also adding to the consensus to move forward without much reflection; the east remained much more of a command economy and never caught up despite steady, if slow improvement. (As a writer on economics, this clarified a number of issues I had never seen clearly; this is a very solid part of the book.) A good economy certainly eased the Federal Republic into democracy.
The most interesting theme comes in the last chapter, almost as an afterthought: according to Jähner, the post-war generation of Germans never came to terms with their responsibility in propping up the regime – the Holocaust, the death and destruction that war wreaked on its neighbors, Nazi repression – but instead indulged the view that they too were victims, at least for the first 20 post-war years. Indeed, after an initial period where former Nazi Party members were forbidden to work in the public sector, they were quickly allowed to take up their old positions in the name of efficient administration. Only a handful were prosecuted for crimes against humanity, which Jähner portrays as mere show trials, even those at Nuremburg. Nazis were not even ostracized socially, almost no one seemed desirous of retribution for personal tragedies, and there was no rebellion or even resistance regarding the occupying powers.
After more than a decade of Nazi fanaticism and racist isolationism, their passive acceptance of regime change and occupation simply astonishes me. Even more striking, that generation showed no inclination to introspection, state-imposed or otherwise. They simply went about their lives as if they’d moved on and were too busy to worry about the finer details of responsibility, mourning, shame, and guilt. One could even argue that their economic successes led them to arrogance and complacency. Though clearly uneasy, Jähner largely presents this as positive, as a way the country was able to build a political and social consensus and continue to move forward.
Here is a theme that Jähner could have used to turn his descriptive book into a dense, normative essay. Why didn’t they reflect? How did it impact them psychologically? Politically? What could they have done differently? All of the well researched details here could have passed through this optique, but I suppose that would be a very different kind of book, one that was not within Jähner’s reach because of his limitations.
That being said, the next generation in the west did pose the hard questions to their parents, sometimes with great vehemence and accusation, much in keeping with the rebellious spirit of the 1960s. I lived a year in West Germany in the late 70s and was deeply impressed with how the youth addressed these issues; my children, who are French, went on student exchanges in the 2010s and were also impressed with the public education about the war and the Holocaust, which makes the silence and willful ignorance of the immediate post-war generation all the more perplexing. I had assumed the older generation had reflected on all this.
This is a good read. But I wanted and expected more: I still don’t think I understand denazification (unless as Jähner implies, there actually wasn’t any) or the growth of a healthy democracy. Perhaps I would do better with a more academic book. Finally, the East German regime is covered in far less detail.
Overall, the translation is good, though there are certain German expressions that are oddly rendered verbatim in awkward phrases that wouldn’t be said that way in English.