Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
Author: Harald Jahner
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 381
Price: Rs 1,657
War clouds darken Europe after eight decades of peace in what historian Timothy Snyder termed the “bloodlands” — Ukraine and Eastern Europe that bore the brunt of Hitler and Stalin’s murderous regimes. The World War II generation is passing and with it memories of Europe’s devastation. Weakening public memory is also the result of the remarkable post-war resurrection of Western Europe, which hindsight views as the start of the West’s victory in the Cold War.
In this crude assessment, post-war Germany enjoys a fairy-tale