ABSTRACT
The unconditional capitulation of 8 May 1945 seemed to plunge the whole of Germany into a political and cultural vacuum. The demise of the Nazi regime after twelve years of rule led to the collapse of a gigantic, intricate structure of ideology and propaganda-the dream of a Third, thousand-year Reich, blind faith in the omnipotence of the Führer, and the sense the latter had inculcated of the superiority of the German nation over other nations and races. Where institutions had once been politically forced into line and uniformity by Gleichschaltung policy, the chaos of disorientation now reigned. The previous unreserved fervour for ‘total war’, drummed up by militarising public life, now gave way to the sobering reality brought on by the trauma of collapse in the wake of the utter defeat of Nazi strategies for subjugation. Long-upheld fascist demagogical notions of salvation and calamity were now suddenly toppled and lay buried under the rubble of entire cities, or in the millions of war graves, soon to evaporate into a nightmare of public consciousness out of which the hope for a new beginning would spring. In a letter dating from around this time, Wolfgang Borchert writes: ‘If I now write that the arrival (Ankunft) belongs to us, I mean not us Germans, but this disappointed, betrayed generation-be they Americans, Frenchmen or Germans. This statement arose out of internal opposition to the generation of our fathers, our schoolmasters, pastors, lecturers and professors. While it must be said that they led us, blind, into this war, we, who have learned to see, now know that only arrival on new shores can save us, or to put it more boldly, this hope is ours alone!’
