Excellent and fascinating social history of Germany in the aftermath of the Nazi downfall.

Quite interesting, especially the history reference the Russians in East Germany, considering the current invasion of Ukraine. This book fed right into my outrage after post war Germany (West) and how they treated themselves as victims and how they just forgave *and completely looked the other way while Nazis went right on with their lives. "Can't throw the dirty water out when you don't have clean!" mentality. This says a lot when 10 years ago, our elderly neighbours, when discussing our broken fence, looked us in the eye, without missing a beat and said "it was probably the drunk Jews." !!!!! That!! Like the book pointed out, the amazing thing is that the fact Germany is so Non-Nazi and "western" today after letting Nazis back in places of power after the war is a miracle.

The German title, Wolfzeit, perhaps more adequately conveys the overall feeling that this book covers which is that of an unimaginable pall set over a country and a people reckoning with not only one of the greatest crimes of modern times, but also the virtual annihilation of their social and economic fabric. The book so neatly covers a lot of the aspects of personal life - the passage on the feeling expressed by those that cleared the rubble and their sense of solidarity was but one counter-intuitive but revealing episodes. It was a bit disappointing not to get a full sense of the political reconstruction of the country, but that is covered well in other works. Was luckily able to re-read the last few chapters in the original and was definitely shocked to find out that the remains of the main Nuremburg defendants’ ashes were scattered a short walk away from here – just showing how many echoes of the past are still felt by those learning about these events today.