Bibliograph

Out of the darkness, the Germans, 1942-2022, Frank Trentmann

Type

Label

Out of the darkness, the Germans, 1942-2022, Frank Trentmann

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Illustrations

illustrationsmaps

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Out of the darkness

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Frank Trentmann

Sub title

the Germans, 1942-2022

Summary

"A gripping and nuanced history of the German people from the Second World War to the present day, including hugely revealing new primary source material on every aspect of its transformation. In 1945, Germany lay ruined. Its citizens stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and war of extermination. But by the end of Angela Merkel's tenure in 2021, Germany looked like the moral voice of Europe, welcoming over one million refugees, holding together the tenuous threads of the European Union, and making military restraint the center of its foreign policy. At the same time, its rigid fiscal discipline and energy deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin have cast a shadow over the present. Innumerable scholars have asked how Germany could have degenerated from a nation of scientists, poets, and philosophers into one responsible for genocide. And yet, until now, a similarly vital question has been ignored. That is, how did a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvent themselves? Trentmann tells this dramatic story from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division of East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany's struggle to find its place in the world today. This journey includes a series of internal, moral conflicts: admissions of guilt and shame vying with immediate economic concerns, restitution for some but not others, tolerance versus racism, compassion versus complicity. Through a range of voices-German soldiers and German Jews; displaced persons in limbo; East German women and shopkeepers angry about energy shortages; opponents and supporters of nuclear power; volunteers helping migrants and refugees, and right-wing populists attacking them-Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait of the German people over eighty years, showing how they became who they are today."--, Provided by publisher

resource.variantTitle

Germans, 1942-2022

Classification