Broken Lives: How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century - Hardcover

About the Author

Konrad H. Jarausch is the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His many books include Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century and Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier's Letters from the Eastern Front (both Princeton). He lives in Chapel Hill and Berlin.

From the Back Cover

"How did Germans who witnessed the worst of the Third Reich and the best of postwar Germany try to understand their own pasts? In Broken Lives, distinguished historian Konrad Jarausch answers this question by exploring scores of memoirs of the Weimar generation, Germans born in the 1920s. Along the way, he also insightfully analyzes the complex process of recording memories of past events."--Norman M. Naimark, author of Genocide: A World History

"With great skill, Konrad Jarausch weaves together the recollections of Germans born between the end of the First World War and Hitler's rise to power, in order to create a powerful account of generational memory and experience. This is a history of breaks, ruptures, and self-transformations, told with real historical empathy."--Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War: A Nation under Arms, 1939-1945

"Drawing on the memoirs of 'ordinary Germans, ' Broken Lives offers a comprehensive narrative of twentieth-century German history that emphasizes everyday life and sheds fresh light on big questions. A bold experiment that succeeds fully."--Jürgen Kocka, author of Capitalism: A Short History

"Jarausch illuminates the possibilities of history and consciousness through the testimony of dozens of Germans who struggled to make sense of their lives and the times they lived in. A very moving account of twentieth-century German history."--Peter Fritzsche, author of An Iron Wind: Europe under Hitler

"By focusing on Germans born in the 1920s, Jarausch leads us to think deeply about the ways people experience the intersection of big historical events and their own lives. This book is a tremendous accomplishment--comprehensive and learned, yet down-to-earth and a good read."--Elizabeth Heineman, University of Iowa