A comprehensive and enthralling read this is a title I would recommend to any modern history readers.

Fascinating and well-researched insight into what was happening in Germany immediately after the Second World War: clearing rubble, living on your wits in order to find food for your family, respectable citizens looting and operating on the black market, returning soldiers/POWs having difficulty reintegrating into their families, formation of new structures, art and design, denazification and coming to terms with the horrors of the holocaust. I learnt so much from this book, illustrated with contemporary photographs and writings. Highly recommended and an excellent translation from the original German.

What an interesting novel! Documenting the years from 1945-1955 in Germany, Aftermath looks at how politics, pop culture, economics and other elements of society developed post-war. Written in an incredibly accessible way, I found myself enjoying what I was reading. Historial non-fictions can sometimes feel like a bore, but Jähner makes the history easy to understand, whilst also explaining everything in a logical way. I particularly enjoyed the way he focused on singular stories or people to further explain his point or that moment in history. Some chapters were stronger than others, but overall it read well and I feel more informed having finished it, than I did before.

Aftermath is a fascinating and well researched book capturing the overlooked years at the very end of WWII. Slightly tricky to read in places as it is so factual and covers so many different aspects of life. I found the chapters covering the everyday life and survival of the German people most interesting.

A recommended read for anyone with an interst in WWII or Germany.

I was given a copy of Aftermath by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

I absolutely adored this book! I could not put it down, probably the fastest I have read a book… If you enjoy historical fiction, you will love this.

really good read - the style and story telling took me a little by surprise as there was a mix of quotes, historians and those that have lived through the post war years in Germany. A real interesting romp through a time in history that many never knew and helps understand a lot about post war German politics and decisions made.

This is a comprehensive, panoramic and intriguing view of Germany in 1945 at the end of the war. Germany as a country was reduced to rubble, the German people dispossessed and reeling from the fallout of the fall of the Third Reich.

Jahner provides us with a well researched book that covers many subjects...the removal of rubble, the role of women, art, sex, prisoners of war returning home, the black market and the mechanisms people resorted to in order to survive and rebuild their lives. The account includes personal testimonies, as well as posters and photographs to illustrate each issue, helping to make it accessible and aid an ability to empathise with and appreciate the enormity of the issues having to be faced.

Each chapter covers a different subject. It is interesting and informative, and relatively easy to read. The book also helps us understand how, out of adversity, Germany and the Germans were able to come together and rebuild themselves and their nation. It also tries to explain the attitude to the Holocaust, which is the most interesting aspect of the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Second World War, and with an interest in Germany in particular.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

I grew up in Germany in the 80s and 90s.my dad is ex British Forces and we were based there. Due to a twist of fate my mother and I remained in Germany and I went to a German school. I found this book incredibly detailed and a fluent read. The topic of war/ post war is never a nice or easy one. The pictures chosen for this fit in effortlessly.
I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in what happened after the fighting ended. Only it didn't end instantly. Rebuilding a country destroyed by war is never an Easy task.

Very detailed indeed. I’ve never really read anything after which details how Germany rebuilt after the war. A very interesting and thorough read

A little dry at times, but a very important book. Everyone knows how hard things were here in the UK after the war, and all about the allies trying to rebuild, but the fate of the German people has taken something of a back-seat. I had no idea just how bad things were over there and I think it's important to see the other side. War is a horrible thing and its aftermath is almost as devastating.

A strange book was my initial reaction as I started to read this book. I was interested to read what it was like for Germans surviving the war and having to rebuild a country that was under foreign administration. .The book describes clearly the task of rebuilding a country with out a history. I was shocked by some of the statistics shared and whilst I found the book hard going, I am glad to have read it.

I have never read anything that gave such a detailed view of this time- following the second world war, how Life in Germany was in the aftermath. Incredibly detailed, pulling information from diaries, newspapers and photographs, this is the story of how society built itself back up, brick by brick. Very well told without any sensationalism.

Something of a difficult book to review as the content covers so many different areas of the Aftermath and all are, in their own way, fascinating.

Whilst many will be aware that the war ended and the population of the UK did its best to keep a stiff upper lip and that life turned very slowly back to normality, it was nothing like that on the other side of the Channel. One thing in particular has stuck in my mind above all the others and that is that, whilst the UK with a population of 40+million people was quite stable, on the other side of the Channel there were 40+ million Displaced men, women and children who had no clue what would happen to them, where they would live or even where their next mouthful of food was coming from. Many of those Displaced were from areas of Europe that ceased to exist when they changed hands at the end of the war and the victors redrew the map of Europe. For example, German civilians who came from East Prussia found they had nowhere German to return to as East Prussia was split between Poland and Russia. Others, from all the nations affected by the war, ended up displaced by being bombed or shelled out of house/home/village/city. Just two of the reasons for that enormous number of 40+ million Displaced people.

There are many more examples of the Aftermath that are just as surprising and I recommend that you read this book for yourselves as it is a true eye-opener.

This is a fascinating book that ought to be required reading for anyone seeking to understand how a ruined Germany in 1945 became the economic powerhouse we see today. More than that, it also explores how it was possible for a population deeply implicated in the Holocaust and the mass slaughter of civilians and POWs in the Soviet Union to develop into a modern democracy. The early chapters, in particular, are unflinching when it comes to describing the impact of war on Germany and the German people. Statistics are provided that give an insight into the extent of destruction of German towns and cities and the devastating impact on the population, particularly the loss of men who were of an age to be conscripted into the armed forces and who died in their millions, notably on the Eastern Front. Jahner weaves a moving story about the unimaginable numbers of refugees (DPs or displaced persons in the language of the time), their widely different backgrounds and the challenges they presented alike to the victorious Allies and the ‘ordinary’ Germans who were suddenly confronted with vast numbers of refugees and a requirement to make them welcome.
The middle chapters give insights into different aspects of life in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat. These are sometimes less compelling than the earlier chapters, but nonetheless give a flavour of the influences that helped to shape the Federal Republic. In passing, it’s fair to note that the book focuses mainly on the situation in what became West Germany, although the DDR is not forgotten entirely.
The book closes with the paradox facing German society once the Federal Republic took responsibility for its own development: the need to integrate former Nazis and the need to eliminate Nazism from the national psyche. The author is ambivalent about aspects of the path followed, but recognises how difficult squaring that circle was. Witnessing the recent developments in Germany it’s probably fair to say that, like the French Revolution in the reputed words of Zhou Enlai, it is too early to say if the elimination of Nazism in its current manifestation has been a total success.

Oh wow what a book. As someone of my age having parents (one English one German) who fought through the war and knowing others who were young in Germany during that time this book answered so many actually unasked questions - questions that I would never have raised so as not to bring back memories. I think this book should be required reading in schools but only the most senior pupils but anyone studying history or languages should also read this. Perhaps it might make people stop and think a bit more. I rate this as an important book and if I had more than 5 stars I’d give them.

This is the part of history that is never spoken about in school or in general..
It is brilliantly written and covers so many aspects of afterwar life in Germany..
Jahner looks into music, art, sex, family, black market and so on.. We get little snaps from newspapers, pictures taken at the time. It felt like I was on a time travelling adventure. 
it is unputdownable, educational  and in a weird way exciting!Even if you're not a huge fan of history, I reckon you will still enjoy it!

I found the book a real insight into the state of mind of the people of Germany in the immediate aftermath of WWII and the way their psyche changed gradually up until the acceptance of Germany back into the international community. It was at that point that they were, to a greater degree, absolving themselves of the worst of the horrors perpetrated against the Jews and other minorities I found that the detail of the way of life for the average citizen intriguing as many in todays’ society have almost no appreciation of how Germany recovered and the way the Western Allies realised early on that support for the economic recovery was essential in creating a buffer against the rapid expansion of forced communism to Eastern Europe.
What I found on a personal level that was less relevant in the ‘big picture’ was the authors’ focus on the reestablishment of the Arts, particularly some of the lesser-known music works and classic painters. I felt that more interesting to the reader in the context of the subject matter, would have been a deeper coverage of the changing ways of life especially between East and West Germany as their regimes diverged so significantly.
That said, an enjoyable and educational read that fills a gap in our knowledge of how the loser in the conflagration of WWII recovered in a few short years and eventually reunited after 45 years of division.

This is a really important book. An account of the aftermath of WW2 told from an angle I had not really considered before. The hardships for the citizens and the struggle back to normality is really thought provoking. Really well written and a definite must read.

"What did you do at the end of the war Dad?"
"I went out to Germany to pay (R.A.P.C.) the German Army!"
"Why?"
"Because although we won the war we could not allow their country to collapse, undergo mass starvation, deprivation and continue to suffer. That would have been inhuman not only for them but for us and the rest of the world."
This took place with my father in the 50's and never forgotten. It immediately came to mind when I started to read this very interesting and informative work which filled out the reasons as to the requirements in the post-war era of defeated Germany.
An excellent book which does nothing to dissipate the horror not just of a war itself but the after effects on a nation.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to give an honest and unbiased review.

Aftermath is a fascinating historical account of post-war Germany; told through politics, art, journalism, sociology, and from eye-witness accounts of how Nazification continued to trouble Germany for many years following the war. It's a torrid and at times graphic account, lengthy, of Germany's fraught political history, and one we quite enjoyed. If you don't like history, I would avoid it, as it's definitely not a true-crime book.