After the Reich Read Free

reparations to pay. Someone needed to cry halt. But the business surfaced again at Versailles in 1919, and there was the same punitive peace. After the Second World War most wise men understood that a peace treaty would have been a farce. It was left to what Churchill called ‘our consciences to civilisation’ to determine how the enemy was to be treated.
    Post-war Germany is a problem that has taxed me for years and it is hard to know now who has helped me with this particular book. Some, perhaps many of them, are already dead. Some names stand out in my mind, others were often nameless people I met on my travels, and who unburdened themselves over a late-night drink, or a second glass at lunchtime.
    In London my friends Karl-Heinz and Angela Bohrer have been constant in their encouragement over the years. Karl-Heinz was kind enough to give me an extensive interview on his childhood in post-war Germany. Angela long ago gave me a copy of her mother Charlotte von der Schulenburg’s privately printed memoirs. I also learned much from the writings of her aunt, Tisa von der Schulenburg, and from my meetings with her. My neighbour in Kentish Town Nick Jacobs, owner of the German-specialist publisher Libris, was kind enough to lend books and copy interesting articles. In Oxford I thank Sudhir Hazareesingh; Robert Gildea for providing me with some suggestions for reading on the French occupation of Germany; and Blair Worden for explaining the role of Hugh Trevor-Roper.
    Germany provides me with many memories and much assistance, from my friend Ursula Heinzelmann in Berlin; Gertrud Loewe; Eva Raps in Wiesbaden; and in the wine country growers told me of their experiences of the immediate post-war years. The late Prince Franz von Sayn-Wittgenstein in Munich sent me his privately printed memoirs; Daria Fürstin von Thurn und Taxis the unpublished memoirs of her uncle Willy; and Christiane von Maasburg gave me permission to quote from the Magisterarbeit she wrote on Nikolaus von Maasburg. A kind lady in Hildesheim recounted harrowing details of the trek she undertook from Pomerania as a child of six; the retired border guard Captain Schmidt in Coburg told me no less moving stories of his childhood in Silesia; an anonymous man in Malbork, Poland, briefly informed me of how he evaded the Polish authorities after the war; an ethnic German woman in Opolne offered to pray for me, if I gave her ten marks; a former Danzig policeman I met in Titisee-Neustadt told me about his time in an American camp in Passau, surrounded by members of the French Division Charlemagne.
    In Vienna, enormous thanks are due above all to my friends Christopher Wentworth-Stanley and Sebastian Cody. Christopher found me literature on post-war Austria and read a part of the manuscript, as did Ambassador Erwin Matsch. Sebastian was kind enough to read and comment on a number of chapters. Johannes Popper von Podhragy sent me articles from his late father’s archive. Dr Wolfgang Mueller provided me with much help and a useful book list. On Lake Bled, Janez Fajfar showed me the wonderful mural in the hotel he has run for decades in the palace where Tito and Stalin fell out in 1947. In Prague I was counselled by Dr Anna Bryson and in Sofia by my old friend Professor Evgeni Dainov.
    I am also grateful to all those who helped locate or donated pictures: John Aycoth in Washington, Sebastian Cody and Christopher Wentworth-Stanley in Vienna, Lady Antonia Fraser, Livia Gollancz and Dennis Sewell in London, Manfred Pranghofer and Rudi Müller of the Oberhaus Museum in Passau, Bob McCreery, Klaus Mohr of the Sudetendeutsches Archiv in Munich, Bengt von zur Mühlen of Chronos Films in Berlin, Eva Reinhold-Weisz of Böhlau Verlag in Vienna, Elisabeth Ruge of the Berlin Verlag in Berlin, Thomas Urban of the Herder Institut in Marburg, Mrs C. Skinner at Eton College, Manfred Grieger and Ulrike Gutzmann at Volkswagen in Vienna.
    My thanks are due to the staffs of the British Library