"AFTERMATH" BY HARALD JAHNER BOOK REVIEW https://www.academia.edu/70008972/_AFTERMATH_BY_HARALD_JAHNER_BOOK_REVIEW via @academia

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“AFTERMATH” BY
HARALD JAHNER
BOOK REVIEW BY
MAJOR A.H AMIN
(RETIRED)

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"AFTERMATH" BY HARALD JAHNER BOOK REVIEW BY MAJOR A.H AMIN
(RETIRED)
• January 2022
• DOI:
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.21101.87529
• Project:
• BOOK REVIEWS
• Agha H Amin
The first thing that struck me in this book
was that the much “projected” and much
“acclaimed” author plays to the gallery ,
in pleasing western , non German
audiences , who, as he must have
foreseen when writing the German
original version would “voraciously” read

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the translated English edition of his so
called “MAGNUM BONUM” !
Passages like as below :--- (page-22)
“The fact that even well-intentioned people refused
to think about what would happen to their deported
neighbours has left trust in the human species
severely shaken even into the present day. And the
majority of Germans at the time were guilty of this.
The hushing-up of the extermination camps
continued after the end of the war, even though the
Allies tried to forcibly confront the defeated German
people with evidence of Nazi crimes. “
Jahner’s remarks as below (page-22)
are a snide insult to Germans who
suffered massive hardships and offered
Herculean sacrifices in WW 2 , in terms of
family members , lost , capture, missing ,
maimed and traumatized !

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“They saw themselves as the victims, and thus had
the dubious good fortune of not having to think
about the real ones.”
Now who gave Mr. Jahner the right to
decide who was a “fake victim” and who
was a “real victim” ? Certainly this book
is “bad history” and “cheap non fiction “
Jahner miserably fails to understand and
accept that “MINUS GAS CHAMBERS”
there was little difference between “NAZI
GERMANY” and western allies in being
“ANTI COMMUNIST” and “SLAV/RUSSIAN
HATERS” !
So Jahner’s rant about Nazis being
reemployed in West Germany is
“baseless” and “weak history”.
Certainly he is much less a historian , and
much more a jester journalist , adding
spice to his narrative , in this case cheap
spice , in order to sell, an exercise in

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which he massively succeeded , winning
the Leipzig prize and being published by
Penguin Press.
Jahner is non committal , which is the
worst kind of intellectual dishonesty like
on page-30 he states, without any
further explanation as below:---
“In the corporate head offices, courts and offices of
the Federal Republic most of the Nazi elite
cheerfully carried on.”
Jahner does not explain that the quarrel
of the allies with Nazi Germany was about
principles, but about political and
economic supremacy , and ethics had
nothing to do with allies fighting against
Nazi Germany !
I have not read an author more
shamelessly intellectually dishonest than
Jahner.

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Our supremely intellectually dishonest
joker of an author crosses all limits of
distortion and twisting of facts when he
has nothing to say about number of
Russians who died in second world war
but, plays much homage to Jews and
Poles ! Cannot imagine that Germany
gave birth to such a grossly intellectually
dishonest man ! (page-35)
“The war cost 6 per cent of all Europeans their lives.
The scale of the catastrophe that befell Hamburg
applied twice as much to Europe as a whole. In
Poland a sixth of the population was killed, some 6
million people. Jews suffered the worst; in their
families they counted not the dead but the
survivors.”
Jahner leaves no stone unturned to
project Jews , but has almost nothing to
say about Russians who were killed ,
which is bad history !
Jahner’s understanding and grasp of
history is shallow to the extreme !

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Statements like placing complete
responsibility of war on Germany are
naïve to the extreme (page-36 )
“How could anything come out of this calamity,
particularly in Germany, which was to blame for it
all?”
Announcing judgements without historical
perspective is the most odious part of this
appeasing par excellence German who
forgets Versailles and the humiliation
inflicted on Germany after WW 1 , and
pronounces , abrupt verdicts like a self
styled “SOLOMON”.
Jahner’s constantly blaming Germany for
starting second world war is highly
irritating , as if someone has paid him
something to contantly hammer war guilt
into his readers heads. (page-46)
“What better solution than to enlist the very people
who had instigated the disaster in the first place?”

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The book contains some interesting
information like how Frankfurt dealt with
rubble :-- (page-58 )
“Together with the Philipp Holzmann construction
company the city founded the TVG, the
Trümmerverwertungsgesellschaft or Rubble
Recycling Corporation, which undertook the
clearance of the city – after some delay, but all the
more effectively for it. With the construction of a
large rubble reprocessing plant even the fine rubble
which had been piled up in mountains in other cities
could be made usable for reconstruction. By setting
up what today we would call a public–private
partnership, Frankfurt managed to keep rebuilding
costs lower than in all other cities, and at the same
time to make a handsome profit: the TVG was in the
black from 1952. The city’s prosperity, clearly
visible today in its skyline, sprang from the ruins of
old Frankfurt.”
The weakest and the most dubious part
of Jahner’s shallow book is his total

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avoidance of the players who created the
rubble in German cities.
The so called strategic bombing of
German cities and its pointlessness has
been analysed in great detail by western
authors including J.F.C Fuller and Liddell
Hart , but this so called , much acclaimed
by “Economist” journal , has nothing to
say about the real cause of misery of
German civilians. Such callous
“intellectual dishonesty” is the hallmark
of Jahner’s book !
A major problem with Jahner is that he
sensationalizes all events of that time
without analysing , why Nazism won in
Germany in the first place . Thus he sees
only German villains , but not dumb ,
biased and myopic allied statesmen who
drove Germany into the hands of Nazism
!
This is a serious failing of this work! The
real saviour of the Nazi state were British

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and French statesmen of 1930s who went
to the lowest depths of servility to
appease Hitler. But Jahner is too mouse
brained and shallow to discuss these
matters! But how else could his book
have been a best seller! Because truth
never sells!
Discussion of West German peoples bias
and hatred against their East German
displaced compatriots is one of the few
interesting parts of this book.
The book is best suited to read in a
bathroom for people suffering with
chronic and incurable constipation!
Jahner’s discussion about transformation
of woman’s roles and impact on family
life are nothing new , and were much

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discussed in countless , British and
French post ww 1 and post ww 2 novels.
At best Jahner’s book is a neat ,
summarised collection of massive
published material , printed in post 1945
German books and journals . But Jahner
miserably fails in his analysis where he is
lost in the trees and fails to see the forest
from a high analytical vantage point !
Weaknesses of this book are summarised
as below:--
1. Nothing original , but a good brief
compilation of much published
material between 1945 and todate.
2. Fails to see the larger strategic
picture.
3. Is obsessed with rubble but
myopically fails to analyse that much
of this rubble was caused by allied
apology of strategic bombing which
had little impact on outcome of the

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war but only made life miserable for
the civilians.
4. Fails to see the fact that Nazism
was natural result of peace of
Versailles and policy of appeasement.
5. Lacks moral courage to analyse the
fact that the major reason for second
world war was not any high moral
ideal but simple power rivalry.
6. Fails to see the fact that victorious
allies converted to German geopolitical
mindset of anti communism and
hatred of Slav Russia.
7. Fails to see that the much
denazified German state is
strategically clueless western vassal
and incapable of fighting a war . An
example is German fear of war in
Afghanistan war recently.
8. Fails to see that destroyed industry
became a blessing in disguise as post
1945 newly made German blast
furnaces were much bigger in capacity

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that British or American industry
which was never destroyed.
9. Although a small point, misses
many marriages of German women
after war with Asians, including
Pakistanis particularly EME officers.