After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany

by Michael H. Kater

A wide-ranging, insightful history of culture in West Germany—from literature, film, and music to theater and the visual arts
 
After World War II a mood of despair and impotence pervaded the arts in West Germany. The culture and institutions of the Third Reich were abruptly dismissed, yet there was no immediate return to the Weimar period’s progressive ideals. In this moment of cultural stasis, how could West Germany’s artists free themselves from their experiences of Nazism?
 
Moving from 1945 to reunification, Michael H. Kater explores West German culture as it emerged from the darkness of the Third Reich. Examining periods of denial and complacency as well as attempts to reckon with the past, he shows how all postwar culture was touched by the vestiges of National Socialism.
 
From the literature of Günter Grass to the happenings of Joseph Beuys and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s innovations in electronic music, Kater shows how it was only through the reinvigoration of the cultural scene that West Germany could contend with its past—and eventually allow democracy to reemerge.

Genres: History, Germany, Nonfiction

544 pages, Hardcover

Published September 26, 2023

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This extraordinary book, written by an eminent historian, tells the history of the process through which West Germany underwent from the darkest times of Nazism to becoming a democratic state. Divided into five parts, it tells the story of many well-known and not so famous figures in the various cultural fields such as literature,music, the visual arts, film, theater ,etc.
The process of de-Nazification took a long time and Professor Kater describes in great detail hundreds of cultural events, books and their authors, music -ike K. Stockhausen's experimental one, or Joseph Beuys' paintings,Fassbinder's films as well as Gruppe-47 ,whose main purpose was to help a new generation of writers come to the front of the world literary stage, among it being Grass, Walzer and Boll. This group was dissolved after twenty years.
One most captivating chapter, perhaps the best in this engrossing volume, is about the Historians' Quarrel, which took place mainly during the eighties . It involved most of all German historians who wanted to relativize the crimes and the Holocaust. Among those there was the anti-Semitic professor Ernst Nolte whose claim-that Hitler killed those Jews who were responsible for the rise of Bolshevism and other evils-was ridiculed by other left-wing German historians who opposed this absurd views. This group got help from other historians,mainly from Britain.
The process of becoming a democracy was an arduous and long one,but in the end, West Germany returned to the small comunity of democratic nations in the world.
This book is extremely and widely researched-the author himself holding a Ph.D for his dissertation on the Ahnenerbe (whose process of writing and the hardships encoutered when writing it is also described in detail).
I recommend Professor's Kater book to those interested in this period of time .You will enjoy each moment of it. Books like this are rare these days, but the author wrote it in a way that reads like an intellectual thriller.More than highly recommended!

[Burt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this might be an interesting look at how German creative/arts culture was effectively destroyed by the Third Reich and how it slowly recovered after the war. It does cover some interesting aspects of post WW2 Germany, like persistent anti-semitism and a lack of personal responsibility/recognition among German citizens for Nazi atrocities. But overall it does a poor job of presenting or explaining how Germany eventually regained the creative culture it had lost, and when it does, it’s in a very narrow and limited way… for example in the chapter covering 1980-1990, when discussing music, the author doesn’t even touch on German pop/electronic/punk/new wave music of that era but instead only uses German classical composers of those decades as a musical reference.

[Tim Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technical discussion; not for general readers. Does highlight a number of activist thinkers and cultural figures of renown. I enjoyed what little is included about philosopher / authoritarianism specialist who was a significant opponent HANNAH ARENDT. I wish there had been discussion about Karl Rahner, Juergen Moltmann, as well as Wolfhart Pannenberg, Helmut Thielicke among others.

[Allison Meakem]

Review TK in FP :-)