Homecomings : returning POWs and the legacies of defeat in postwar Germany / Frank Biess.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Biess, Frank, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ex-prisoners of war.

History.

Germany--History--1945-1955.

Germany.

Ex-prisoners of war--Germany--History--20th century.

World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons.

World War, 1939-1945.

Physical Description:

xiii, 367 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2006]

Summary:

"A thoughtful, well-researched, and important new book that will complement the best scholarship on postwar Germany and Europe."--Eric Weitz, University of Minnesota

"Homecomings expertly intertwines high political history, history of civil society, cultural histories of representations, and the social history of everyday life. A significant contribution to the field. A must-read."--Elizabeth Heineman, University of Iowa

Contents:

Part 1 From War to Postwar 17

Chapter 1 Impending Defeat: Military Losses, the Wehrmacht, and Ordinary Germans 19

Chapter 2 Confronting Defeat: Returning POWs and the Politics of Victimization 43

Chapter 3 Embodied Defeat: Medicine, Psychiatry, and the Trauma of the Returned POW 70

Part 2 Making Citizens 95

Chapter 4 Survivors of Totalitarianism: Returning POWs and the Making of West German Citizens 97

Chapter 5 Antifascist Conversions: Returning POWs and the Making of East German Citizens 126

Chapter 6 Parallel Exclusions: The West German POW Trials and the East German Purges 153

Part 3 Divergent Paths 177

Chapter 7 Absent Presence: Missing POWs and MIAs 179

Chapter 8 Divided Reunion: The Return of the Last POWs 203

Conclusion: Histories of the Aftermath 227.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [307]-357) and index.

ISBN:

0691125023

OCLC:

61362844

Publisher Number:

9780691125022