The German Trauma

Gitta Sereny is one of the world's most respected journalists and historians. This book gathers together the best of her writing on Germany from over sixty years. It amounts to an extraordinary portrait of the country and its people, how they have come to terms with their Nazi past, both collectively and in specific instances - and how the burden of their guilt has altered the national identity. She writes about key individuals - Stangl, Speer - and the questions which their lives raise. Thepenetration and conviction of her writing throughout is startling and she constantly reminds us why it is important to consider the questions she addresses - war guilt, holocaust denial and the temptations of obedience.

Beginnings; my friend, a heroine of France; stolen children; generation without a past; colloquy with a conscience; men who whitewash Hitler; the Hitler wave; fakes and hoaxes - the Hitler diaries; the great Globocnik hunt; private lives; the three sins of Syberberg; "the truth is, I loved Hitler"; Leni; Kurt Waldheim's mental block; the man who said "no"; Albert Speer; children of the Reich; the case of John Demjanjuk; a last witness to Hitler; final reflections.