Out of the Darkness

A startling new history of the people at the centre of Europe, from the Second World War to todayIn 1945, Germany lay ruined, responsible for the Holocaust and the most brutal war in history. In 2015, the same country appeared to many seemed to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming nearly one million refugees. Yet its rigid fiscal discipline and energy deals with a dictator have cast a shadow over the present.Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey has been marked by extraordinary moral struggles: guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe.