Germany 1945-1990
This lively description and convincing interpretation focuses on the most significant events, cruces and ongoing themes in German history from the end of the Second World War up to the present.
The chronologies that accompany each chapter record the most important dates, facts and names occurring in the narrative. Jürgen Weber`s text supplies the reader with a combination of vivid descriptive history, easily absorbed chronology, and a reliable reference work for the parallel lives of the two Germanies, a product of the Cold War.
Weber describes in a clear and reader-friendly manner the history of Germany since 1945. The narrative begins with the period of the allied occupation and progresses through the diverse developments in East and West Germany up to the Federal Republic of today. The most important events, cruces and ongoing themes of the last fifty years are not only succinctly and vividly presented and interpreted, they are also placed in the context of international political developments. Each chapter is accompanied by a chronology featuring the most significant dates and facts relating to the period it covers. The last chapter gives a summary of what happened after 1990 and on present and future political problems of German reunification.
Contents
1. Into the Abyss: Germany under Allied Occupation, 1945-46
2. Germany is Set on a New Course: The Founding of Two States, 1947-1949
3. The Federal Republic Orientates to the West: Western Integration and the “Economic Miracle” in the Adenauer Era, 1949-1963
4. Hegemony against the Will of the People: The German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1949 to 1961
5. From Stagnation to Take-Off, and from Ludwig Erhard to the Grand Coalition, 1963-1969
6. After the Building of the Wall: Stabilisation of the SED State by Means of Force under Walter Ulbricht, 1961-1971
7. The Republic in Transition: The New Policy towards the East and Commitment to Reform in the Brandt Era, 1969-1974
8. The Crisis Years: Political Strains and their Solutions during the Period of the Schmidt/Genscher Government, 1974 to 1982
9. Dictatorship`s Deceptive Facade of Normality: The GDR under Honecker from the 1970`s onwards
10. A Change of Government in Bonn: The Christian Democrat-Liberal Coalition under Helmut Kohl from 1982
11. The Collapse of the SED Dictatorship and the Fall of the Wall in 1989
12. The Unanticipated Reunification: The New Course for Germany and International Reaction to it, 1989-90
13. In Retrospect
Bibliography