The Emotional World of the Germans: A Totally Different History of the Twentieth Century
Emotions make history. They shape and direct not only individuals but entire societies. Politicians use them, but they can also trip over them. Ute Frevert explores powerful emotions and their impact: in the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist state, the GDR (East Germany), and in the former and new German Federal Republic. She describes how meanings and expression of love and hatred, shame and pride, indignation and grief change in the course of history.
Hatred, for instance, powered National Socialism, but has no place in a democracy. At the start of the nineteenth century, people associated different kinds of longing with love than they do today. Frevert also explains why Germans enthused about war in 1914 and were proud of their national football team in 2006, and she delves into envy every bit as much as trust.
Frevert succeeds in giving a very special insight into the history of the German people, who, inhabiting six different states over the past 120 years, have experienced an extremely wide range of emotions.
