How are we to explain the continent’s remarkable rebirth after the war?
by Jonathan Derbyshire / December 26, 2015 / Leave a comment
Women celebrate celebrating the liberation of Denmark in Copenhagen, 5 May 1945 ©National Museum of Denmark
The historian Ian Kershaw is the author of an acclaimed two-volume biography of Hitler. His latest book, “To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949”, is the first in a two-volume history of modern Europe (and is part of Penguin’s “History of Europe” series, edited by David Cannadine). This volume ends in 1949, just as the reconstruction of Europe after what Kershaw calls the continent’s “self-destruction” is beginning. Its successor will take him up to the present day.
I spoke to Kershaw in London in the autumn and began by asking him why he decided to end this part of the story in 1949, rather than the more obvious punctuation point of 1945, when hostilities formally ended.
IK: 1945 is the obvious place to stop. And I thought of stopping there. 1946-49 is a transitional era. In 1946, just after the war, Europe’s in terrible shape. It seems unthinkable that Europe would recover so rapidly from that catastrophe. I thought I would take the story on to see how the beginnings of a new era were possible. A German friend said to me: “Very nice, you’ve ended with the creation of two Germanys in 1949.”
Anthony St. John