REICH TO REPUBLIC

INTERVIEW WITH FRANK TRENTMANN From defeat and division to democracy, the historian examines Germany's struggle with post-war guilt, memory and reconciliation

- LOUIS HARDIMAN

Over the past 80 years, Germany has gone through an astounding transformation from Nazism to liberal democracy. This transition is the subject of Frank Trentmann’s latest book, Out of the Darkness. It earned Trentmann, a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, a nomination for the Wolfson History Prize 2024, an award recognising excellence in research with readability. The judges described Out of the Darkness as: “A wide-ranging and engaging portrait of Germany since World War II, highlighting the remarkable regeneration of its people in the post-Nazi era and the strength and vitality of its political culture.”

Here, Trentmann speaks to History of War on what he’s learned about Germany’s changing perspectives on Nazism, the persistence of fascist ideology, and guilt and post-war reconciliation. He also shares his thoughts on the shape of contemporary Germany and its military and political position within the current world order.

You identify 1943 as a turning point in German feeling towards the war and Nazism. Why that year?

I deliberately started the book in the winter of 1942-43 rather than at the war’s end in 1945. It became clear to me in researching this period, reading letters, diaries and other documents, that something was happening before the defeat of Nazi Germany. The winter of 1942-43 was a turning point because three developments came together to cause Germans on the homefront and in the military to ask themselves hard questions about the war for the first time. They are the defeat at Stalingrad and the relentless aerial bombing of German cities, which caused Germans to confront the third development: the Holocaust.