Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich - Hardcover

Jähner, Harald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 075355786X ISBN 13: 9780753557860

Publisher: WH Allen, 2021

Synopsis

***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2021***

A 2021 Book of the Year
The Times * Sunday Times * Telegraph * New Statesman * Financial Times * Irish Independent * Daily Mail

'A masterpiece' SPECTATOR

'Exemplary [and] important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the clarity of vision to write' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

'Magnificent... There are great lessons in the nature of humanity to be learnt here' TELEGRAPH


Germany, 1945: a country in ruins. Cities have been reduced to rubble and more than half of the population are where they do not belong or do not want to be. How can a functioning society ever emerge from this chaos?

In bombed-out Berlin, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, journalist and member of the Nazi resistance, warms herself by a makeshift stove and records in her diary how a frenzy of expectation and industriousness grips the city. The Americans send Hans Habe, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and US army soldier, to the frontline of psychological warfare - tasked with establishing a newspaper empire capable of remoulding the minds of the Germans. The philosopher Hannah Arendt returns to the country she fled to find a population gripped by a manic loquaciousness, but faces a deafening wall of silence at the mention of the Holocaust.

Aftermath is a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild decade poised between two eras that proved decisive for Germany's future - and one starkly different to how most of us imagine it today. Featuring black and white photographs and posters from post-war Germany - some beautiful, some revelatory, some shocking - Aftermath evokes an immersive portrait of a society corrupted, demoralised and freed - all at the same time.

About this title

About the Authors

Harald Jähner is a cultural journalist and former editor of the Berliner Zeitung. He was also an honorary professor of cultural journalism at the Berlin University of the Arts. His book Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich was shortlisted for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in the UK and won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Non-Fiction in his native Germany.

Shaun Whiteside is an award-winning translator from French, German, Italian and Dutch. His most recent translations from German include Aftermath by Harald Jähner, To Die in Spring by Ralf Rothmann, Swansong 1945 by Walter Kempowski, Berlin Finale by Heinz Rein and The Broken House by Horst Krüger.

Edition details

• Publisher: WH Allen
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 075355786X
• ISBN 13: 9780753557860
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400