Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Frank Trentmann, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, to discuss his latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022. They chat about how a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvented themselves, and by how much. 

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554959/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann/

Show Notes:

Literary Review: David Blackbourn – “A Mercedes in Every Garage”

https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-mercedes-in-every-garage

New York Review of Books: Timothy Garton Ash – “Big Germany, What Now?”

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/05/23/big-germany-what-now-timothy-garton-ash/

The New Statesman: Brendan Simms – “What it means to be German”

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2023/12/meaning-modern-germany-brenadan-simms

The Times: Oliver Moody – “Out of the Darkness by Frank Trentmann review — how Germans became good (and rather complacent)”

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann-review-9rc5n8kbd?region=global

Times Literary Supplement: Ben Hutchinson – “New moral order”

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/history/twentieth-century-onwards-history/after-the-nazis-michael-h-kater-out-of-the-darkness-frank-trentmann-book-review-ben-hutchinson

The Wall Street Journal: Ian Brunskill – “‘Out of the Darkness’ Review: War Crimes and Remembrance”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/out-of-the-darkness-review-war-crimes-and-remembrance-0b830556

The Washington Post: Bryn Stole – “An ambitious history of Germany interrogates the country’s moral makeover”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/18/out-darkness-germans-nazis-legacy-frank-trentmann-review/