Why read Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans?

Book cover of Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans: The British Occupation of Germany, 1945-49

Book description

Germany, spring 1945. Hitler is dead and his armies crushed. Across the conquered Reich, cities lie devastated by Allied saturation bombing; their traumatised populations, exhausted and embittered by defeat, face a future of acute privation and hardship. Such was the broken state of the nation in which a British civilian…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew Pettegree

Author

I read fewer newly published books than I would want, partly because I am so busy reading potential texts for publication. But I was delighted to pick up a copy of this excellent first book by the historian Daniel Cowling. The author works at the National Army Museum, and this experience of a public-facing institution stands him in good stead, with an excellent writing style and an eye for the significant vignette.

In 1945, the Allied forces inherited a broken country, starving people, devastated cities, and a recognition that all the institutions that might provide leadership in Germany had been…

From Andrew's 3 favorite reads in 2023.