After it is all over – getting up and running again

Aftermath by Harald Jahner (translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside) deals with something I had never considered before – how did Germany sort itself out practically after their defeat in WW2 ?

The author starts by laying out the situation in 1945. Germany was occupied by armies of the Allies and the Russians especially had behaved brutally to the local people. The infrastructure had been destroyed by bombing and there was a lot of homelessness. Soldiers and civilians were missing and many were displaced a long way from their homes. The local government and other public administrations were not functioning and most of those who had run them were complicit in the Nazi’s crimes. The country was filled with prisoners of war and people who had been detained in concentration camps who needed to return home but had no means. The civilian population was traumatised by years of war. The Allies needed to know who they could trust. And, most devastatingly of all, half of the country was on its way to becoming a separate state.

This book tells the story of how these issues were addressed and how the devastated economy and people became the economic powerhouse which Germany was in the later years of the twentieth century. It talks about groups of people who cleared rubble in the streets and the documents which most people had to get to show how much they had followed the rule of the Nazis. The logistics of moving displaced people, including a vast number of German troops, back to their homes must have been very difficult indeed but it was achieved.

This is a book about amazing times and amazing solutions which were found for logistical issues. It’s not a long book and it’s very readable with some excellent illustrations.