Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich

Aftermath

Exemplary [and] important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the clarity of vision to write

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

Jähner is masterly in telling the tragic, despicable, comedic and uplifting stories of those who were there as he takes his readers on a fascinating tour through rubble-strewn postwar Germany

Thought-provoking... Jähner's unflinching account is a reminder that historical truths are rarely simple and always nuanced

Magisterial, fascinating, humane - a brilliant book of the greatest importance and achievement

Philippe Sands, bestselling author of East West Street and The Ratline

I thought I knew the essential story of Germany's immediate post-war years. This book brilliantly adds to, indeed changes, my understanding. One of the best historians and authors of contemporary Germany, Jähner paints an absorbing, human and surprising picture

John Kampfner, bestselling author of Why the Germans Do it Better

This panoramic journey through Germany in the ruins of the Third Reich is unforgettably thought-provoking [and] intensely moving

A reminder that the German experience will always stand apart

An extraordinary book of breathtaking scholarship. Jähner shines a light on a dark and almost forgotten period of German history to find it pulsating with life

Jack Fairweather, bestselling author of The Volunteer

Extraordinary... One of the most evocative pieces of carefully researched history that I have ever read. It's a remarkable piece of work

Misha Glenny, bestselling author of McMafia and The Balkans

What does total defeat mean? Germany 1945-55. Ten years of poverty, ruins, fear, violence, black markets, manic hard work, inventive sex - and always, always, silence about the murdered millions of the Third Reich. A fascinating read.

Neil MacGregor, author of Germany: Memories of a Nation

Absolutely extraordinary. Every page stops you dead with insight and revelation.

James Hawes, bestselling author of The Shortest History of Germany

Aftermath is that rare thing, a history book that turns what you knew completely on its head. It is testament to Harald Jähner's achievement that Aftermath is a book that I will never forget

For those who want to understand the Germans, Aftermath is essential reading. An engrossing study on all counts, Jähner's analysis of people's response to the Nazis' monstrous crimes and how perpetrators and victims merged into a new nation is especially compelling. Anyone with even the slightest interest in history and the human condition should read this book.

Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich

A fascinating account of a forgotten moment in Europe's history, of utter desperation leading to tentative hope.

Simon Jenkins, bestselling author of A Short History of England

A fiercely compelling book that brings vivid illumination to an era of twilight and brutal ruins. Harald Jähner beautifully explores the hinterland of human nature in all its shades

Sinclair McKay, bestselling author of Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness

[Jähner] does double duty in this fascinating book, elegantly marshaling a plethora of facts while also using his critical skills to wry effect. Even though Aftermath covers historical ground, its narrative is intimate, filled with first-person accounts

Aftermath is a transfixing account and subtle analysis. A scrupulous investigation of the past, it reads, constantly, like a prelude to what is still unfolding.

Geoff Dyer, New Statesman (Books of the Year 2021)

Aftermath captures brilliantly the atmosphere of everyday life in the destroyed cities of divided postwar Germany

Subtle, perceptive and beautifully written

Many consider the years before 1945 to be the most crucial in understanding Germany and the Germans. Wait until you have read this book.

Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich

Harald Jähner's deeply researched, panoramic account of how Germany rebuilt and discovered itself from 1945-1955 is an eye-opening, thrilling read

Bernhard Schlink, bestselling author of The Reader

A magnificent overview of the astonishing decade in Germany that followed the defeat of Nazism

Eye-opening and often moving... a sobering look at how societies rebuild

Highly readable... Counter-intuitive but thoughtful

[A] thoughtful narrative... filling the yawning gap on bookshop shelves between a growing number of modern German history texts and the oversupply of Nazi studies that end in Hitler's bunker

Aftermath takes in the immediate postwar years where Germany was administered by the Allies... Jähner excels

Fascinating... Books about Word War II continue to spill out by the ton, but there has been less attention paid to how Germans coped with the country's shameful Nazi past after the conflict was over

Rarely has a non-fiction book so skilfully combined vividness, drama and eloquence.

From the Jury's reasoning for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Non-Fiction 2019

Jähner's gripping 500-page X-ray-vision tale of an often overlooked and misperceived phase of German history reveals, like all great history books, as much about the first decade after the war as about today.

Clearly written, full of empathy for everyday life, which is far too seldom taken into consideration... You devour it like a novel.

A popular work of non-fiction in the best sense.

Harald Jähner (Author) 
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 (Translator) 
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.

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE*** 
 
A 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.

Harald Jähner

Shaun Whiteside

The Weimar Republic is a byword for hedonism and excess. A new history captures the mood with gusto … For obvious reasons most histories of the Weimar years are dominated by politics, with Hitler and his cronies lurking ominously on the margins. But Jähner’s account is more unconventional, more surprising and, frankly, more enjoyable … I enjoyed it enormously.

Harald Jähner’s vivid history depicts Germany’s dizzying era of change — and its catastrophic finale … Vertigo presents not a chronicle of events but a tapestry of mass emotions … Jähner’s approach not only carries a heavy cultural spin but puts the politics of collective feeling — from exhilaration to despair — centre stage … Vertigo draws well on the brilliant reporters and commentators of a time when journalism — as practised by giants such as Kurt Tucholsky or Joseph Roth — enjoyed a 'stylistic and perceptive heyday'Jähner benefits hugely from Shaun Whiteside’s swift and agile translation, always alert to the edgy, crackling modernity of Weimar prose.

Polarised, gullible, narcissistic, wild: does this picture of society sound familiar? Jähner surveys the brief life of the Weimar Republic, in all its Charleston-dancing, free-loving, money-burning madness, and hints at eerie parallels with the West today.

From women in the workplace to traffic lights, from yo-yos to dance culture, Jähner tracks the 15 chaotic years of the Weimar Republic with his characteristic verve and attention to detail. This is one of the most gripping accounts of an era spanning war defeat, humiliation and failed revolution in 1918 to the violence, intimidation and propaganda of the Nazis' rise to power in 1933. It contains many lessons for the world now.

Vertigo is outstanding. Harald Jähner’s gift for illuminating the big picture with telling detail gives the reader an uncanny sense of what it was actually like to be present in Germany during the Weimar Republic. This is history at its very best.

Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich and A Village in the Third Reich

Wonderfully written and compulsively, electrifyingly readable. The Weimar Republic and its chilling fall is – like Shakespearean tragedy – an enduringly fascinating, profoundly human story. And with consummate skill and a rich breadth of research, Harald Jähner makes us look again at what we thought we knew and gives this history new, extraordinary depth. Taking us through the neurotic violence of the 1918 German revolution, and the neon flowering of Weimar art and culture, thence to the dark rise of Hitler, Jähner deftly overturns many old assumptions about economics and politics along the way. And against this backdrop, he also invites us to explore everything from nude gymnastics to modernist architecture, fast cars to dance halls and, fundamentally, love and loss and the cold horror of hate.

Sinclair McKay, bestselling author of Berlin and Dresden

Any decent centrist will shiver at this wonderfully illustrated account of how Weimar’s heady metropolitan progressiveness failed to cope with loss of national pride, technological modernism, social change, early globalisation and financial crash. The confidence of the middle classes was lost, readying them to accept wild conspiracy theories: a new fusion of hard left and hard right, National Socialism, was swept to power by Germany’s flyover country, with disastrous results which the traditional elites only saw too late. A priceless lesson for anybody interested in Germany then - or the world today.

An outstanding cultural history . . . A gripping account of a nation's experiment in democracy

The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany

*An Observer Book of the Year, 2024* 
 
'This is one of the most gripping accounts of an era spanning war defeat, humiliation and failed revolution in 1918 to the violence, intimidation and propaganda of the Nazis' rise to power in 1933. It contains many lessons for the world now.' - John Kampfner, bestselling author of Why The Germans Do It Better 
 
'Vertigo is outstanding. Harald Jähner’s gift for illuminating the big picture with telling detail gives the reader an uncanny sense of what it was actually like to be present in Germany during the Weimar Republic. This is history at its very best.' - Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich 
 
Germany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is over, the nation defeated. Revolution is afoot, the monarchy has fallen and the victory of democracy beckons. Everything must change with the times. 
 
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launches an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic is established. The years that follow see political extremism, economic upheaval, revolutionary violence and the transformation of Germany. Tradition is shaken to its core as a triumphant procession of liberated lifestyles emerges. Women conquer the racetracks and tennis courts, go out alone in the evenings, cut their hair short and cast the idea of marriage aside. Unisex style comes into fashion, androgynous and experimental. People revel in the discovery of leisure, filling up boxing halls, dance palaces and the hotspots of the New Age, embracing the department stores’ promise of happiness and accepting the streets as a place of fierce political battles. 
 
In this short burst of life between the wars, amidst a frenzy of change, comes a backlash from those who do not see themselves reflected in the new Republic. Little by little, deep divisions begin to emerge. Divisions that would bring devastating consequences, altering the course of the twentieth century and the lives of millions around the world. Vertigo is a vital, kaleidoscopic portrait of a pivotal moment in German history. 
 
Praise for Aftermath by Harald Jähner: 
 
'Exemplary [and] important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the clarity of vision to write' - Max Hastings, Sunday Times 
 
'A masterpiece' - Spectator 
 
'Magnificent... There are great lessons in the nature of humanity to be learnt here' - Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph 
 
'Jähner is masterly in telling the tragic, despicable, comedic and uplifting stories of those who were there' - Katja Hoyer, The Times 
 
'Thought-provoking... Jähner's unflinching account is a reminder that historical truths are rarely simple and always nuanced' - Daily Mail 
 
'A reminder that the German experience will always stand apart' - Economist

Harald Jähner

Praise for Vertigo

The Weimar Republic is a byword for hedonism and excess. A new history captures the mood with gusto … For obvious reasons most histories of the Weimar years are dominated by politics, with Hitler and his cronies ...

Harald Jähner’s vivid history depicts Germany’s dizzying era of change — and its catastrophic finale … Vertigo presents not a chronicle of events but a tapestry of mass emotions … Jähner’s approach not onl ...

Polarised, gullible, narcissistic, wild: does this picture of society sound familiar? Jähner surveys the brief life of the Weimar Republic, in all its Charleston-dancing, free-loving, money-burning madness, and h ...

The Weimar Republic is a byword for hedonism and excess. A new history captures the mood with gusto … For obvious reasons most histories of the Weimar years are dominated by politics, with Hitler and his cronies ...

Harald Jähner’s vivid history depicts Germany’s dizzying era of change — and its catastrophic finale … Vertigo presents not a chronicle of events but a tapestry of mass emotions … Jähner’s approach not onl ...

Polarised, gullible, narcissistic, wild: does this picture of society sound familiar? Jähner surveys the brief life of the Weimar Republic, in all its Charleston-dancing, free-loving, money-burning madness, and h ...

The Weimar Republic is a byword for hedonism and excess. A new history captures the mood with gusto … For obvious reasons most histories of the Weimar years are dominated by politics, with Hitler and his cronies ...

Harald Jähner’s vivid history depicts Germany’s dizzying era of change — and its catastrophic finale … Vertigo presents not a chronicle of events but a tapestry of mass emotions … Jähner’s approach not onl ...

Polarised, gullible, narcissistic, wild: does this picture of society sound familiar? Jähner surveys the brief life of the Weimar Republic, in all its Charleston-dancing, free-loving, money-burning madness, and h ...

Books by Harald Jähner

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter