Ebury snaps up German bestseller Aftermath

W H Allen has bought award-winning German bestseller Aftermath, an account of the German psyche in the fallout of the Second World War by journalist Harald Jähner.

The Ebury imprint will publish in 2021. Editor Suzanne Connelly bought world English language rights from Gertje Maass, foreign right manager at German publisher Rowohlt.

The book was published in Germany as Wolfszeit in February 2019 and spent 26 weeks on the Spiegel [Hamburg-based news magazine] bestseller list and won the Leipzig Book Fair non-fiction prize.

"Aftermath is the first history of Germany’s national mentality in the immediate post-war years, exploring the fallout and recovery from fascism," Ebury said. "Using major global political developments as a backdrop, Harald Jähner weaves a series of life stories into a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild decade poised between two eras, portrayed here as a period that proved decisive for Germany’s future – and one starkly different to how most of us imagine it today."

Jähner is a cultural journalist and former editor of the Berliner Zeitung. He is also an honorary professor of cultural journalism at Berlin’s University of Arts.

Connelly said: "In May 1945, Germany found itself politically, economically and morally broken. Nine million Germans had lost their homes or been evacuated, 14 million refugees, 10 million newly released forced labourers and several million prisoners of war returned to an uncertain existence. In Aftermath, Harald Jähner explores this critical point in Germany’s history through the eyes of those who lived it, and asks the question: how does a nation recover from fascism? I’m delighted to be publishing this lively and fascinating history."