ABSTRACT
My interest in the following text is in probing some experiences of Germans in and under National Socialism, as well as in the immediate post-war period. The focus is on the 1940s, a decade in which their personal and political outlook underwent a radical change. How did Germans try to explain this sudden change to themselves; and what conclusions did they draw from this as regards their attitudes toward German post-war society? How was this society shaped by these factors? And what perspective does the war and post-war generation have on the swift changes now taking place in Germany?
