With advancing age, the cohort’s health problems multiplied, some a direct result of the war and others due to excess work. After returning from his Russian POW camp Horst Grothus had to have several operations to stabilize his leg stumps. Experiencing “excruciating pain around her hips,” Erika Taubhorn was diagnosed with a severe kidney disease that required the removal of one damaged organ and months of difficult convalescence. Similarly, Hellmut Raschdorff contracted a serious case of jaundice that changed his skin to “a brown color like an overripe banana.” It almost ended his life until he used the home remedy of swallowing sixty live sheep-lice, which stopped the liver infection. While her tonsils were taken out, Anneliese Huber suffered a collapse of her vegetative nervous system that took months to cure; her husband Paul had a stroke due to a clogged artery that left him permanently impaired.47 While many postwar illnesses stemmed from lack of nutrition, the prosperity diseases often resulted from excessive indulgence in sweets, alcohol, or cigarettes.
Declining physical and mental powers inspired the older members of the cohort born in the early 1920s to retire from their jobs beginning in the mid-1980s. Suffering from hip ailments due to his many hours of standing on the bridge of a tugboat, Hermann Debus “went into early retirement at 57 due to disability.” Tired of her conflicts with unresponsive colleagues and in deteriorating health, Ursula Baehrenburg accepted an early pension from her special education school. Hellmut Raschdorff was happy to turn over the direction of his firm to his son when he was sixty-three, for he was confident of the competence of his successor and thereby gained time for hobbies such as singing in a church choir. Following social custom, Robert Neumaier “ceased his activity as sales director when reaching the age of 65,” but he kept writing and lecturing about his pumps for another fourteen years. Horst Grothus continued to work into his eighties as a freelancer, finishing his last consulting job in 2008.48
In eastern Germany “reaching retirement age” had a special significance: it opened the door to travel or resettlement in the West. Regime critics such as Paul Frenzel, who had dared to publish a negative treatise in the FRG on the deficits of the GDR’s planned economy, were not only fired from their jobs, but stripped of their academic degrees. In 1982 the state encouraged him to apply for a passport by drastically cutting his pension, forcing him to move to West Germany, where he was still hounded by the Stasi. Regular citizens such as Günter Krause were so “astonished by the variety of the western economy” on their first visit to West Berlin that they “wanted to stay immediately in the West.” When his wife asked, “Do you still want to resettle?,” he spontaneously agreed. The GDR “wanted to get rid of retirees cheaply,” so the couple was allowed to leave in February 1988. When they set foot in West Berlin, “they were greatly relieved, finally [to be] free.”49
On both sides of the German border the loss of a spouse was a “devastating blow,” especially when the partners depended upon each other in practical and psychological ways. In 1983 Hellmut Raschdorff’s wife Anne was diagnosed with cancer, but the treatment seemed promising. During an emergency stop at a local hospital, she said: “Hellmut, I really did not know how much you loved me.” When he was told that his wife had passed away due to a ruptured aorta, he only gradually “realized the full implications and merely recalled that [he] cried like one possessed.” But he was consoled by his Catholic faith that her life was fulfilled in Christ. Similarly, Hermann Debus watched the irreversible deterioration of his spouse’s health, and when she died, he was stunned and wept uncontrollably. Ruth Weigelt was also shattered by the early death of her husband due to a stroke. Gerhard Baucke experienced the loss of his wife as if the sun had ceased shining: his “heart was caught in darkness.” A psychologist counseled him, “What you cannot let go you have to conquer by remembering,” inspiring the writing of his memoirs.50
Life after bereavement “was not easy”; it required a drastic adjustment to take over daily chores and deal with loneliness. Gerhard Baucke’s wife had “trained him to be a widower,” so he was able to cope. The irrepressible Hermann Debus even found a new partner in Margrit, a seamstress from Berlin who had lost her husband to cancer. Not wanting to live alone, Ruth Weigelt similarly moved together with the widowed half-brother of her deceased husband. Forced to develop into a “houseman,” Hellmut Raschdorff had to learn everyday chores such as cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. Seeking a “new start” for the last third of his life, he moved into the Collegium Augustinum close to Freiburg, an academic retirement home at the edge of the Black Forest. Through singing and hiking he met Margot, a widow who became his partner. Courageous enough to enter a new relationship, they merely married in church without registering so as not to lose their individual pension benefits. “Our togetherness has developed interestingly and well, we are grateful to experience much with one another.”51
Even in advancing age, the retirees could enjoy their children and grandchildren and participate in their lives vicariously. The autobiographies are full of pictures of happy mothers and laughing infants, showing satisfaction in their schooling and careers. Anneliese Huber was proud “that we had healthy children” and “that they have become honest, industrious and considerate human beings.” The Raschdorffs and Bulwins were gratified when their sons took over the firm, while Horst Andrée was pleased that his daughter followed his calling. But when children like the Bauckes’ had problems with their jobs or relationships, they could also create constant worries. Watching grandchildren grow up was more of a pleasure because grandparents did not have to discipline them; when they were small, they could be played with and encouraged in their development and when they were older they could be taken along on holiday travels. Ruth Weigelt was delighted to have become a five-time great-grandmother. An increasing sense of mortality could therefore be balanced by the reassurance of family continuity.52
The prevalent sense of satisfaction of the Weimar cohort’s memoirs was a product of both professional advancement and private happiness. In contrast to the “cruel war time” and postwar chaos, the gradual return to a normalcy of peace and the rule of law provided the room in which an “interesting and successful professional life” could unfold. This was complemented by the recovery of a private space that allowed personal development from childhood to maturity without interruption by political demands. No doubt, the first years of the Federal Republic were still difficult due to material shortages and ideological disorientation. But in contrast to the Nazi and Communist dictatorships, West Germany offered considerable freedom for individual growth that allowed a plurality of life plans to unfold into maturity and old age. Moreover, the Economic Miracle created an expectation of continual material improvement. Ironically, it was this apolitical private realm that ultimately helped produce a new appreciation of public liberty.53
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Though most West Germans were leery of politics, they did learn some basic lessons from the disaster that facilitated their reorientation toward democracy. The consequences of the Nazi dictatorship were so drastic that they reinforced the pacifist Weimar slogan “never again war!” Moreover, the military verdict was so definitive as to preclude the emergence of a large-scale movement of revanchism, forcing even most expellees to embrace peaceful means for regaining their homes. The incontrovertible evidence of mass murder through survivors’ testimonies, documentary films, and literary representations also discredited anti-Semitism in public. Finally, the negative experiences with the SED rule in the East made West Germans reject Communist despotism as well, which they recognized as a new form of repression. Martin Sieg summarized his cohort’s view: “As the most important lesson of the cruel past I have taken away that the spiral of hatred and retribution and new hatred pulls all of life into the abyss and can therefore never be the solution to conflicts.”54
The search for new moral moorings on which to build a post-fascist community led many young Germans back to religion. Though the Protestant and Catholic Churches had lo
st much credibility from their collaboration with the Third Reich, the core of the Christian message offered consolation through contrition for guilt and hope for forgiveness. “Indelibly ashamed of belonging to this nation, of speaking the language of the KZ guards and having sung the songs of the Hitler Youth,” Dorothee Sölle was “quite fascinated by a radical Christianity independent of the Church” and eventually became a leader of leftist “liberation theology” in Germany. By contrast, Hellmut Raschdorff sought solace in the silent contemplation of a Catholic monastery as an antidote to the hectic materialism of the Economic Miracle. Yet in retrospect, pastor Erich Helmer concluded that “our Church has missed a unique chance” by not responding sufficiently to “the hunger for spiritual nourishment,” which offered an opportunity for a more lasting regeneration.55
Others who were more politically inclined saw the United States as a model of the future. Ursula Mahlendorf devoured the classics of English literature in the Bremen America House and engaged in heated discussions about democracy. Horst Grothus was also fascinated by the magazines, books, and films offered by a US Information and Education center. To prepare for his profession, he took the boat to New York in 1951, where he visited an uncle and inspected the car factories of Detroit, which impressed him with their “mechanized and partly automatic production processes.” In order to get to know the economy better, he worked at the Schwinn bicycle factory for seventy-five cents an hour—and suggested a new welding technique. Although he felt at ease in this country, he declined an offer to stay and returned home. On a more academic level, Martin Greiffenhagen loved his year in England, which culminated in studying at Oxford, “the El Dorado of academic life.”56 Such positive exchange experiences hastened the Westernization of postwar Germany.
Yet another foundational consensus of the Federal Republic was anti-Communism, partly fed by stereotypes and partly reinforced by negative experiences. In the West, remnants of Goebbels’ wartime propaganda that played on deep-seated anti-Slavic prejudices fueled an aversion to the Soviet system. Such resentment was reinforced by oral reports of Red Army cruelty during flight, expulsion, and occupation. While the surviving German Communists were excited about building a socialist future, many people were upset when “men were deported and women raped.” Though some occupiers were also friendly, Eka Assmus summed up popular hostility to “the Russians” as “a collective characterization that was laced with fear and hatred.” The horror stories told by unfortunate victims such as Günter Krause, whom the Soviet secret service imprisoned in a work camp for half a decade, confirmed such negative impressions.57 Anti-Communism therefore became an ideological bridge that allowed former Nazis to cooperate with budding democrats.
The postwar search for “intellectual orientation” fastened upon anti-Fascist role models of convincing moral integrity or intellectual acuity. It usually took mentors such as Bishop Hanns Lilje or scholar Karl Löwith to point out individuals or ideas not tarnished by the brown plague. Members of the resistance who had survived Nazi imprisonment such as Kurt Schumacher or Bruno Apitz had the highest credibility, since they had put their lives on the line. Moral critics such as philosopher Karl Jaspers offered guidance for addressing the issue of German guilt, while the posthumous writings of theologian Dietrich Bonhöffer suggested ethical grounds for resistance. German-language authors such as Carl Zuckmayer, Wolfgang Borchert, and Heinrich Böll exposed the murderousness of the NS regime, while writers from other countries, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, opened up new worlds of existentialist thinking.58 Though largely prepolitical, these various strands prepared the ground for a new beginning.
Busy with their survival, most Germans paid little attention to the formulation of the Basic Law that would govern their subsequent lives. This provisional constitution of the Federal Republic sought explicitly to learn from the mistakes of the Weimar Republic in order to prevent their repetition. The limitation of the authority of the president was intended to avoid presidential rule by decree, the inviolability of civil rights was supposed to be a barrier against any return of dictatorship, and the revival of federalism was aimed at keeping power from being too centralized. Moreover, the introduction in 1953 of a 5 percent hurdle for representation in parliament was designed to prevent political fragmentation by splinter parties. The reestablishment of parliamentary government also served as a counterpoint to the creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat in the East. “The bill of rights’ provision of a citizen’s right to free development of the personality,’” Ursula Mahlendorf remembered, “won me over to the [civics] lessons as well as to the Basic Law of the emerging Federal Republic.”59
The political party that most put its stamp on the West German state was the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), founded by Cologne mayor Konrad Adenauer in 1946. This new group appealed to bourgeois moderates looking for a moral grounding of conservative politics. Drawing upon Catholic voters, it also sought a broader base by including traditional Protestants under the comprehensive umbrella of a Volkspartei. As soon as he reemerged from captivity, Catholic high-school teacher Johannes Fest started to go to CDU committee meetings and gave public lectures on the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the “debasement of law” in the Nazi dictatorship: “What had just happened to our country must not happen again. Once was shameful enough.” The Jewish lawyer Erich Alenfeld also pledged “to participate in the rebuilding of a democratic Germany” by joining the CDU. His daughter recalled that in “questions of conscience he was rigorous, but he advocated compromise and mutual understanding” in practical issues and restitution cases.60
The CDU’s chief rival was the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in 1869 and led by the intense World War I veteran and KZ survivor Kurt Schumacher. As a representative of moderate workers, it fought for the rights of the underprivileged and was a resolute opponent of the Nazis. Hailing from an anti-Fascist working-class family, Günter Hagemann became a leader of the Socialist Workers’ Youth when he returned from British captivity in 1948. He joined the SPD and went into politics, declaring that he “wanted to help assure that what had happened before would never occur again.” Elected to the Hamburg city government in 1966, he focused on youth issues in order to build a viable democracy based on human rights and social justice, where “one can speak one’s mind, not be afraid of state power, and freely engage in politics.”61 Ultimately the SPD lost the close competition with the CDU for power, because Schumacher’s nationalist neutralism seemed riskier than Adenauer’s patriarchic support of reconciliation with the West.
The remnants of various brands of liberalism came together in 1948 in the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which remained small but became essential for creating government coalitions. Strong in the Southwest, the liberals were led by aesthete Theodor Heuss, who became the first president of the Federal Republic. When looking back at his life, Horst Grothus had difficulty deciding where his own beliefs fit in: they had changed over time from nationalism to pacifism. He wrote, “For many years my empathy has been inspiring me to become a champion of the weak and underprivileged.” But to him, the expansion of the welfare state also seemed to have negative consequences: “I observe how many people become more dependent and less self-reliant. Therefore they move away from my ideal of an independent human being and are discontented on top of it.” More and more, he believed that “every man is the architect of his own fortune. Hence I am a liberal.”62 Due to its narrow social base and occasional relapses into nationalism, the FDP remained a minor party.
The political spectrum of the Federal Republic was truncated by the prohibition of both neo-Nazi and Communist extremes. The Potsdam Agreement dissolved all NS organizations and the occupation powers also prohibited the rise of any successor groups. But in 1949 former Nazi military and political leaders founded the Socialist Reich Party, an only thinly disguised neo-Nazi group. In 1952 the Constitutional Court declared this party illegal, which pushed its propaganda underground and forced o
ther rightist efforts such as the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) to pretend to be democratic. Though the Communists were initially permitted in the West as part of the anti-Fascist renewal, their opposition to Adenauer’s rearmament and their dictatorial behavior in the GDR rendered them suspect. After years of deliberation, in 1956 the Constitutional Court also declared the KPD illegal; this initiated thousands of prosecutions and dismissals, which gave West Germany a bad name. Only with the SPD-FDP coalition in the 1970s was the party relegalized under a changed name as German Communist Party (DKP).63
Most ordinary folks were content with this “chancellor democracy,” which reconciled political stability with parliamentary government. As a septuagenarian remnant of the Kaiserreich, the Catholic Rhinelander Konrad Adenauer led West Germany for almost fourteen years. His grandfatherly and authoritarian style suggested continuity, and he regained international respect for the nation with his policy of Western integration. He was supported by the popular economics minister Ludwig Erhard, an avuncular Protestant Franconian and father of the Economic Miracle, whose “social market economy” promised continued prosperity in the future. The tenor of these postwar decades was therefore a paradoxical blend of conservative modernization that sought to restore available religious and bourgeois traditions while supporting technological innovation, mass consumption, and popular culture. Like the rest of the apolitical majority of the population, Hermann Debus noted with satisfaction “that except for a few restrictions, life in the Federal Republic had almost become normal again.”64
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