A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century.

Schade, Rosemarie

A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century, by Thomas A. Kohut. New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2012. xii, 335 pp. $38.00 US (cloth).

Professor Thomas Kohut, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Professor of History at Williams College, has devoted 15 years attempting to document and explain the social and psychological history of the German generations born between 1900 and 1926. The majority of his subjects were members of the "Weimar youth generation", i.e. those born between 1900 and 1915. These are the Germans whose personal lives spanned much of Germany's most dramatic history: the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, WWII," Zero Hour", occupation, reconstruction and division, and the revolt of the generation of 1968. As the parents of this generation, many experienced difficult relationships with their children over their silence during the Nazi era. Finally, this cohort experienced at an advanced age the end of the cold war, re-unification, and the emergence of a multi-ethnic Germany in a multi-polar world. Using psychoanalytical theory and the methods of sociology along with oral history, Prof. Kohut has crafted an original contribution about a particularly homogenous segment of the German population. All of the 62 interviewees were members of the Free German Circle, which was formed in 1947 to keep alive the spirit of the youth movement that had flourished prior to WWI and into the 1920's and early 1930's. They were mainly well educated, middle class and had been members of this earlier youth movement. When they were interviewed between July 1994 and April 1995, their average age was around 82.

This broad historical sweep avoids a too narrow focus on the Third Reich and casts light on what Kohut sees as a generational "moral failure" largely connected to overwhelming and largely unacknowledged losses throughout their life stories along with a sense of community that was largely exclusionary of others. Paradoxically, this strong sense of community and the collective identity helped protect the members of this group against coming to terms with these losses. Membership in the Free German Circle was also a psychological and physical survival mechanism for its members who re-connected with each other and with their youth movement ideals as a community through this organization after WWII. They often helped each other in material ways after the war as well.

At the core of the book is series of interviews with 62 members of the Free German Circle which were turned into six "composite" interviews reflecting the life stories of all interviewees. This worked surprisingly well. The sources are clearly identified, and the generational experiences as well as shared educational and social background made for a seamlessly presented web of experience as described by the interviewees. These composites are arranged under a tripartite chronological frame: WWI and the Weimar Republic; Germany during the Third Reich and WWII, and Postwar Germany. These divisions more or less overlap with the life-stages of youth, young adulthood, and maturity that Kohut associates with each epoch. One could quibble about this labeling of life stages, especially for the Third Reich and the Second World War. If 1912 was an average year of birth, most of this generation would already have been 21 in 1933, and in their mid 30's by 1945. Many had families by then, and to See these as "young adults"--especially given their life experiences--may be a stretch. Within each of the chronological divisions there is also a section of analysis and a series of explicatory essays. These provide context as well as analysis for the interviews. The book's structure adds much to its coherence and clarity.

One of the strengths of this book is that it appeals to both specialists and the general public. There are frequent explicatory comments at the bottom of pages on which terms that are not well known to a non German audience (such as "hamster trips") are explained (p. 195). The essays provide insight into the historical events shaping the chronological divisions and shed light on the life experiences of the interviewees.

Despite the fact that the author did not "particularly like" (p. 16) the interviewees, he has written a book that largely avoids the oversimplification of issues around German complicity in the Holocaust. There is less condemnation and more understanding of the "looking away" and denial often characteristic of the testimony of members of this cohort. His conclusion is that there were significant similarities in outlook, values, and attitude between the "greatest generation" in America and their German generational counterparts. Rather than demonize this generation of Germans, he reminds his readers that "What separates us from those who carried out the worst horror in the history of modern Europe is nothing intrinsic to them or us. What separates us from them is 'the grace' of historical experience." (pp. 240-41).

The book is a sensitive and thorough attempt to deal in an empathetic manner with a difficult subject, and Professor Kohut has succeeded admirably in this venture. It will appeal to students of twentieth-century Germany, Holocaust studies, and the general public with an interest in understanding the lived experience of Germans in this period.

Rosemarie Schade

Concordia University