Linde During the Great Economic Boom, 1945–66

Abstract

The end of the Second World War brought the destruction of cities and houses and much of industry. Most of all, it put an end to National Socialist tyranny and the controlled economy. The German populace experienced these events as a central rupture, as a collapse, and at the same time as true liberation. After the initial shock, the dominant emotion among most survivors was the feeling of having narrowly escaped once again. The extent to which survivors felt liberated varied, of course, depending on the losses they had personally suffered: of time (for some, also through post-war incarceration as a POW), family members, homeland, social status, and prosperity. Many people had experienced such horrors that they were unable to feel that they were beginning anew, nor that ‘life was starting again’, nor even that ‘life went on’.