Aftermath (WWII)

Learn about post-WW II Europe with these old magazine articles. Find information on occupied Germany in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Dr. Jung on Germany’s Hangover (PM Tabloid, 1945)

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 – 1961) had much to say as to how the German people could come to terms with all the dreadful acts that were committed in their name during the previous 12 years.


“[The German] will try frantically to rehabilitate himself in the face of the world’s accusations and hate – but that is not the right way. The only right way is his unconditional acknowledgement of guilt… German penitence must come from within.”


Click here to read Jung’s thoughts on Hitler.

”German Labor as Reparation” (PM Tabloid, 1945)

“War and the Working Class, Moscow publication, asserts that German labor must be used to restore the destruction wrought by the German Army in Europe…In an article entitled Labor Reparations, it contends that Using German labor for this purpose will achieve effective military and economic disarmament of Germany.”

Do the Germans Know They’re Licked? (PM Tabloid, 1945)

“The German Army has been defeated, but the German murderers are still murderers, the Junkers are still Junkers and they are still Nazis – and all of them are looking ahead to the next war….Here is what the Germans, whose commanders begged for mercy at the signing of the surrender, did in the 24 hours just before and after the formal deadline for capitulation…”

The American Leviathan (Liberty Magazine, 1945)

Between the years 1941 and 1945 the United States achieved a level of power that the tyrants of yore only dreamed about:


“Clearly here was a phenomenon to make anyone sit up and take notice – a new kind of military machine, a new kind of global power that apparently could be delivered anywhere in the world, at any time… By building 75,000 to 100,000 planes yearly and by improving planes and motors, we have emerged suddenly as an air power…No other nation has made a comparable investment in carrier aviation. No other nation would dare to put an expeditionary force to sea against a nation strong in carriers and land -based aircraft…With the object of defending ourselves, we have solved one problem after another until we have stumbled on a formula for conquering most of the world.”


A similar article appeared twenty years earlier…

Has Germany Forgotten Anne Frank? (Coronet Magazine, 1960)

In this article the proud father of Anne Frank, Otto Frank (1889 – 1980), explains that by the late Fifties it seemed more and more teenagers were contacting him to say that very few parents or teachers seemed willing to discuss the Nazi years in Germany. These inquiries were too often dismissed as bothersome or simply brushed away with hasty answers like, The Nazis built the Autobahns.


Otto Frank points out that this was not always the case, and goes on to recall that there existed a more sympathetic and regretful Germany for at least a decade after the war. Yet, in 1960 he sensed that there existed a subtle movement to whitewash Hitler; a battle was being waged for the mind of this teenage generation.


From Amazon: A German Generationstyle=border:none


Click here to read about the inmate rebellions that took place at Auschwitz, Sobibor and Triblinka.

News from Nuremberg (Maptalk, 1946)

A collection of assorted thoughts that were pulled from various letters written by the German people to the offices of the War Crimes Tribunal. A few letters are from weirdos but most are from sincere anti-Nazis wishing that the court would deliver some measure of justice to this German or that German who they feared might be overlooked.

The Trials at Nuremberg (Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

As for the defendant’s guilt: the British Attorney general named seven individually as ‘murderers, robbers, black-mailers and gangsters’ who led Germany into war…


Click here if you would like to read what the German people thought about the trials…

Fear in Post-War Berlin (Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

Barely existing on brief rations of food and other necessities, the three million-odd Germans in 1948 Berlin are cold and afraid. In their battle for survival they spy on one another, steal coffins from the dead for firewood and raid garbage cans to eat.


Just how accurate was the Allied bombing campaign of Germany? Click here and find out.

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