After the Nazis

A wide-ranging, insightful history of culture in West Germanyfrom literature, film, and music to theater and the visual arts After World War II a mood of despair and impotence pervaded the arts in West Germany. The culture and institutions of the Third Reich were abruptly dismissed, yet there was no immediate return to the Weimar periods progressive ideals. In this moment of cultural stasis, how could West Germanys artists free themselves from their experiences of Nazism? Moving from 1945 to reunification, Michael H. Kater explores West German culture as it emerged from the darkness of the Third Reich. Examining periods of denial and complacency as well as attempts to reckon with the past, he shows how all postwar culture was touched by the vestiges of National Socialism. From the literature of Gnter Grass to the happenings of Joseph Beuys and Karlheinz Stockhausens innovations in electronic music, Kater shows how it was only through the reinvigoration of the cultural scene that West Germany could contend with its pastand eventually allow democracy to reemerge.