After The Holocaust - History and Memory in Postwar Germany

Module code: HS7037

After the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945, Germany was in complete disarray. It was an international pariah due to the discovery of the horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust. Vast numbers of its men were prisoners of war overseas or dead. The German population was starving, the Reichsmark was worthless, and its industry, infrastructure and economy were all in ruins. Its territory was 25% smaller than pre-war and the victorious Allies had effectively divided both the nation and its capital into 2 – a Soviet vassal state in the East and the Western-occupied West. And on top of this, over 10 million ethnic German refugees expelled from neighbouring nations were flooding in. How could any country ever recover from this?

In this module, you'll learn about the history of Germany since 1945, and how the two postwar German states dealt with the legacy of the Holocaust and the Third Reich.