A fascinating and well-written book about Germany following its defeat in 1945. The author captures the very essence of what it was like to live and survive in a country totally devastated by war.
It is difficult to understand how such a once-powerful nation could have been so subdued and submissive after their defeat. Also mystifying how seemingly unconcerned the civilians were about the genocide of the Jews and the other well-publicised Nazi atrocities.
I found it fascinating to read that there were many millions of displaced people trying to return to their former homes which were no longer there, or where they were no longer welcome. The displaced population were not just Germans but include Allied prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates and a very large number of slave labourers from various parts of Europe. The repatriation situation was exacerbated by the transport infrastructure of Germany being almost totally destroyed in the last 6 months of the war.
The book delves into the social activities of the inhabitants, the courage of the women in building new lives, the fraternisation between the German women and the Allied troops, and the ignominious return of the German PoW menfolk to their families.
In summary, an excellent read, well researched, and covers a seldom discussed chapter of the end of WW2.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but this period is certainly of interest to me. What is it like to be living in a defeated country? We only ever want to know how sweet victory is. This is the opposite - years of poverty, ruins, violence, and silence about the murdered millions of the Third Reich. It was extraordinary and fascinating - highly recommended to anyone interested in that part of history.

An indepth study of Germany, the country and its citizens, in the years following the end of the Second World War. This book covers all aspects of German life during this time including the camps, the displaced people, the economy or lack of it, rationing, bomb damage and rubble clearance, denazification and much more. An incredible read for anyone interested in this period of history. Highly recommended.

Thanks so much to Ebury for letting me read Aftermath by Harald Jähner in advance. This is a history book about Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, a topic that is very much up my street (I never get bored reading about the Second World War - it sounds a bit morbid but there is just an incredible amount of stories and experiences over this short period, and I want to know about them all). I really enjoyed Aftermath - it is a clever, interesting, and very detailed look at how Germany went from ruined fascist state to healthy democracy and Eastern bloc country, covering topics like the black market, rebuilding and the removal of rubble, criminality, art, sex and the influence of the Allied troops, especially the Americans. I realised reading this that I'm most interested in the last days of the war and the immediate aftermath of capitulation - I find it so fascinating - but my other favourite parts were (of course) reading about women, how attitudes towards gender changed thanks to the war, and the process of denazification and repression that allowed Germany to so thoroughly reinvent itself. Although it seems obvious, I'd never really thought before about how many Nazi party members would have stayed prominent citizens. I wouldn't give this any higher than four stars as I found parts of it a little dry, but I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in the period! Also A Woman in Berlin was referenced a lot, which is an incredible diary by a Berlin journalist in the spring of 1945, which I would also thoroughly recommend ✨

A comprehensive account of what happened after WWII in Germany.

This was an interesting account of a subject I knew very little of, some of which never even occurred to me.

The many displaced people to be repatriated interested me the most. The extracts of real accounts gave an authenticity to the chapters.

The journey that Germany took from the end of the war through to rebuilding their lives and economy was not an easy one and this book details how they achieved this.

I found some of the writing repetitive but mostly of good quality.

It opened my eyes to many things I wasn’t aware of and found this book of great use.

Many thanks to the author and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This was an excellent, engaging and well written work on the period of time after the Second World War for Germany to try to rebuild its economy and its people to rebuild their lives.
I found it very interesting to suggest that the Germans facing the removal of rubble from the street to start rebuilding was an epic task and with million homeless and starving it was not going to be easy. From 1945 to 1949 the ability to build a national history was made difficult as zones were controlled by GB, USA, Russia and France and the difficulties they faced were enormous. Also their experience of the war for many ordinary Germans meant that instinct kicked in after and therefore many denied the Holocaust. I enjoyed the thoughts around their
“Survival instinct shuts out feelings of guilt”.
I can understand why the Germans saw themselves as victims themselves, it explains so much more about why so many in their society have chosen to deny the Holocaust.
Who knew that even in the city of Berlin - different parts of it experienced different days the war ended. When I visited it a few years ago, I loved what the city could offer but I felt there was something missing and maybe this book goes someway to explain my feelings when I was there.
This book has given me a different perspective on German history after the war, it an interesting period of time I would enjoy exploring further. Their painful journey out of the war is well explained in this book and easily accessible to read.
As a history teacher and graduate I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it has widened my knowledge and understanding of Germany at the end of the war.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This is a thought-provoking chilling account of the aftermath of WW2, the extra information that you are not told about at school, the hardships for the citizens, the struggle back to normality, the sacrifices made, and the difficulties in rebuilding their lives.

There are no winners in war, only death, heartbreak, and destitution, and this book opens your eyes to it all.

Very well written and well worth a read.

Aftermath is at once a book with a wide sweep and one which gets stuck into the detail. It covers the destruction and privations of the months immediately following the war as well as the re-emergence of a free press and the arts. Harald Jähner’s writing, as translated by Shaun Whiteside (who also translated Horst Krüger’s 1960s memoir The Broken House which I recommend), is engaging and fluent; extra details are confined to the notes at the back so that I found the narrative easy to follow as well as fascinating.
While not all of the many Germans who counted themselves among Hitler’s victims were justified in claiming so, some undoubtedly were. Millions of people had lost their homes or were displaced thanks to redrawing of borders; millions more were released prisoners, forced labourers or returning prisoners of war. It’s not surprising that survivors didn’t want to think about the horrors perpetrated under the Reich when they were now living among vast bombsites in makeshift accommodation and there was not enough to eat.
Among the many changes in the post-war years was economic upheaval. In an attempt to pay the debt owed by Germany to German citizens, under the Equalisation of Burdens Law many people had to pay up to half of what they owned so that others could survive. Devaluation and replacement of the currency on top of this must have left people constantly unsure of their position.
My interest in the history of the Second World War has been fuelled in recent months by listening to the excellent podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk; I’ve learnt loads but have also realised how little I still know. And I know even less about post-war Germany. Aftermath goes some way to plugging the gap and has whetted my appetite for more.

The Second World War may be over but how can everyone find a way forward. So much damage to people and countries.
A brilliant read that is full of information about these 10 years and how people rebuilt their lives and the economy.

This intriguing slice of social history aims to look behind a few casual myths about German post-war experience. Written in a sober and humane tone there are chapters explaining how the war damage (bricks and rubble) actually got cleared and about how the vast numbers of people managed to get themselves ‘home’ again, but it gradually shifts to how life was made to be pieced back together, make tolerable, liveable and, perhaps, even enjoyable or profitable (lots of chapters on these last two!). The transition to peacetime was a slow and painful process as feelings of guilt, relief, hope, and desperation all jostled awkwardly together. It all took a lot of effort and obviously it went wrong as often as it went right.

These might sound like mundane issues, but the author is prepared to trust to the inherent interest of the material and patiently gathers contemporary diaries, letters, films, news reports, magazines and photos to investigate and explain what actually happened. In fact, what stood out for me was the absence of self-dramatising claims about revisionism or new research evidence. The book is written with great clarity and enabled lots (and lots) of individual stories to step forward.

There are lots of books about how wars start and even of the national and geopolitical move from WWII to the Cold War, this is very much in line with several works from the last few years that explore, at the level of everyday experience, how society got itself built back up again. Some of the normalisation was a bit too hasty - much was swept under the carpet. I certainly got a much richer sense of what the 60s were such a difficult decade in Germany as the younger generation refused to turn a blind eye.

in many ways it reminded me of Primo Levi’s work - such as The Periodic Table and, in particular,, The Truce, a memoir which covered a lot of the same ground (though doesn’t seem to be mentioned). In an age when difference and division always seem the most apparent, it is good to see books ready to examine the vexed process of mending fences and restoring normality.

Aftermath of WW2 in Germany.

So how from the rubble of war did Germany 🇩🇪re-emerge to become the force it is today. This doesn't just look at the culture and rebuilding of their homes and Towns and Cities but at the people.

The rebuild was slow but steady the rubble of bombed out building had to be moved so the new could be built. So had the people to recreat themselves from the most hated of Europe at the time a title held by our beloved UK I feel at the moment but happily for different reasons. One of their defence mechanisms seemed to be the Nazis lost and they were as much victims as the rest of Europe, they I feel were on their own with that view point.

But away from the politics there were many programmes to deal with the many hardship and issue to resolve and I felt that many have been covered in this account of the time. I feel its fair to say its impossible to cover it all in a book you'd be able to read in a reasonable time frame and would want to. There is a lot to cover. But also there will be many different views I felt this was a neutral as you could get and honest in its approach to all the areas covered.

I hope you learn from this book and I was going to say enjoy the writing but that's not the right word as it does deal with the suffering of others but I enjoyed that they did come out better. Can't spoil the ending if your still alive as it is clear to see a very different and stronger country and people. It does mention their humour but that's surely enough there for a few other books.

This is a fascinating and chilling read about the years that followed World War Two. A period of time that is often ignored, I found it interesting to read about what happened when the was finished, a fantastic read.

This is a thought provoking and disturbing book. How anyone survived in Germany just after the end of World War II is nothing short of a miracle. The author's method of going through each subject in turn, i.e. art, monetary reform etc. gives the reader a sound grounding in that particular area and, unlike other books, does not go backwards and forwards on different themes. I found Harald Jahner's work to be thorough but extremely interesting and opened my eyes to this particular period of history.

This book is possibly one of the most astonishing and heartbreaking titles I’ve read in some 60+ years of extensive reading. It’s taken me a while to fully understand the extent to which my knowledge of history, particularly the world wars, is coloured by false and misinformation. In Britain, as a post war child, I was taught about the Blitz and how badly Coventry was bombed etc. What a pasting the nasty Germans gave us and ‘we won the war’. There are no winners in war. Losses for both sides are inestimable and to examine the economies of Germany and the UK now throws up many surprises given that background. As a child, nobody told me that the Allied forces killed over 50,000 people in a single night of bombing Hamburg. More than the total killed throughout the entire Blitz.

The point is that there are two sides to every story and Aftermath presents the reality of a devastated Germany. Rather than focus on politics or economics, it’s presented from the reality of the impact on day to day life of the people. Cities with no infrastructure, no laws, no homes, no food or water…and interspersed with stark black and white photos. It’s a truly powerful depiction of the real horrors of war for the civilian population and should be compulsory reading on every school syllabus. Remarkable, readable and very moving.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.