After Hitler Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1995

In the spring of 1945, as the German army fell in defeat and the world first learned of the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust, few would have expected that, only half a century later, the Germans would emerge as a prosperous people at the forefront of peaceful European integration. How did
the Germans manage to recover from the shattering experience of defeat in World War II and rehabilitate themselves from the shame and horror of the Holocaust? In After Hitler, Konrad H. Jarausch seeks to answer this question by analyzing how civility and civil society, destroyed by the Nazi regime,
were restored during the post-war period.l It took a joint effort by the victors and the vanquished to bring about such a fundamental reorientation. In the aftermath of World War II, the Allies forced the defeated and divided Germans to demilitarize, denationalize, and decartelize, thereby setting
them on a path towards physical recovery. During the 1960s and early 1970s, however, internal rethinking began to overshadow outside intervention as the Germans themselves began westernizing their political culture and democratizing their outlook. A younger generation also vocally protested the
status quo. As a united Germany rose from the ruins of the Berlin Wall after 1989, the Germans attempted to complete their material and moral metamorphosis by repudiating communism, adopting a commitment to human rights, and dealing with contentious issues of immigration and citizenship. Viewed
from the vantage point of the physical and moral devastation of 1945, this rebirth is a truly astounding success story, providing a unique look at a nation's recovery from dictatorship and its atonement for massivecrimes.
Unlike other intellectual inquiries into German efforts to deal with the Nazi past, After Hitler primarily focuses on the practical lessons a disoriented people drew from their past misdeeds, and their struggle to create a new society with a sincere and deep comm

How did the Germans manage to recover from the shattering experience of defeat in World War II and rehabilitate themselves from the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust? This book seeks to answer this most important question of German history during the second half of the 20th century by analyzing the restoration of civility and civil society which were destroyed by the Nazis and then rebuilt during the post-war period. It argues that the transformation of German political culture was the result of a joint effort of the allied victors and a minority of concerned democrats, with external influences predominating initially and internal rethinking ultimately bringing the process to fruition. In the competition between the Western democratic and the Eastern communist models, the former won out eventually, because it proved more appealing to ordinary Germans for material and political reasons. The recivilizing proceeded primarily in three stages: During the immediate postwar period the occupation powers sought to demilitarize, denazify, and decartelize the defeated enemy so as to prevent the outbreak of World War Three by eliminating those negative traditions that had produced the first two conflicts. During the second half of the 1960s and the early 1970s, the Germans themselves tried to catch up to the modernization taking place among their neighbors by Westernizing their culture, democratizing their outlook and expanding participation through generational protest. During the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s they attempted to complete their metamorphosis by repudiating Communism in the East, recovering a more normal sense of identity and dealing with the difficult immigration issue. This long-range transformation process has fostered the emergence of a new Berlin Republic that not only changed the location of the capital, but also infused German politics with a new, more self-confident spirit. Viewed from the vantage point of the physical and mental devastation of 1945, this rebirth is a truly astounding success story.

1 - Renouncing War
2 - Questioning the Nation
3 - Rejecting the Plan
4 - Embracing the West
5 - Arriving at Democracy
6 - Protesting Authority
7 - Abandoning Socialism
8 - Searching for Normalcy
9 - Fearing Foreignness