Germany 1945 From War To Peace Author:Richard Bessel (Back cover is reviews of the books, which I am typing — verbatim): — Reviews of this book: — Praise For Germany 1945 — A masterly account by a first-rate historian of the scarcely credible levels of death and destruction in Germany during the final, apocalyptic phase of the Second — World War, and the ways in which the experience of these terrible m... more »onths helped to forge the first tentative stages of the extraordinary recovery from Nazism that led to the building of a peaceful and prosperous society-truly as Richard Bessel states, "life after death.'"
-IAN KERSHAW, AUTHOR OF HITLER
"Bessel has written a fine book....How did the Germans emerge from the chaos in 1945? In this readable book, Richard Bessel tells how the transition began....He provides a mass of personal testimony that helps to bring the story to life."
-RICHARD J. EVANS, THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
"If we think we know of the horrors faced by Germans in 1945, Bessel continually reminds us how wrong we are. He has delved extensively into the German archives and seemingly read every academic article there is, to produce horrors stories that even now, sixty years on, turn the stomach....It was scarcely surprising that Germans emerged
from the ruins firmly believing themselves victims rather than perpetrators. Bessel is refreshingly dismissive about this selective and self-serving view that is now disturbingly current again in Germany, but he also makes the important point that it was part of a mental package that helps explain how the Germany that developed after the war, in many respects, differ significantly from the old."