A German Generation; An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century

by Thomas A. Kohut

• ISBN13: 9780300170030
• ISBN10: 0300170033
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2012-01-25
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Germans of the generation born just before the outbreak of World War I lived through a tumultuous and dramatic century. This book tells the story of their lives and, in so doing, offers a new history of twentieth-century Germany, as experienced and made by ordinary human beings. On the basis of sixty-two oral-history interviews, this book shows how this generation was shaped psychologically by a series of historically engendered losses over the course of the century. In response, this generation turned to the collective to repair the losses it had suffered, most fatefully to the community of the "Volk" during the Third Reich, a racial collective to which this generation was passionately committed and which was at the heart of National Socialism and its popular appeal.

Author Biography

Thomas A. Kohut is the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Professor of History at Williams College and author of Wilhelm II and the Germans: A Study in Leadership. He lives in Williamstown, MA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: "We Have All, Always, Sought the Collective"	p. 1
Germany during World War I and the Weimar Republic
Interviews: Youth	p. 21
Analysis: Finding the Collective in the Youth Movement "Group"	p. 59
Essays	p. 72
The Experience of War, Revolution, Disorder, and Inflation	p. 72
Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, and the Collective	p. 76
Sexuality, Identity, and Equality in the Youth Movement	p. 77
The Youth Movement and National Socialism	p. 80
Germany during the Third Reich and World War II
Interviews: Young Adulthood	p. 85
Analysis: Extending the Collective in the Community of the Volk	p. 124
Essays	p. 150
The Popularity of National Socialism and the Volksgemeinschaft with Younger Germans	p. 150
National Socialism and Women	p. 152
National Socialism and Modernization	p. 156
The Experiential and Racial Reality of the Volksgemeinschaft	p. 158
"Looking Away" from Jews in Nazi Germany	p. 161
German Knowledge of the "Final Solution" before 1945	p. 162
German Anti-Semitism during the Third Reich	p. 167
National Socialist Terror and the Germans	p. 172
Men and "Women during the War and in Its Aftermath	p. 174
Postwar Germany
Interviews: Maturity	p. 181
Analysis: Resurrecting the Collective in the Generational "Circle"	p. 211
Essays	p. 224
Men, Women, and the Reassertion of the Family in Postwar Germany	p. 224
The Mitscherlichs' "The Inability to Mourn"	p. 230
The National Socialist Past in West German Families	p. 234
Conclusion: The Authority of Historical Experience	p. 237
Notes	p. 243
Bibliography	p. 309
Index	p. 323
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