The War in Their Minds: German Soldiers and Their Violent Pasts in West Germany

Published in Germany in 2009, The War in Their Minds explores the perception of German soldiers after World War II, both as perpetrators and victims of violence during the war, and addresses the history of postwar psychiatry and public memory.

Prize-winning historian Svenja Goltermann treats this demanding material with care. First exploring how former soldiers’ memories of war shaped their daily lives, she analyses contemporary psychiatric interpretations of veterans’ psychic afflictions and notions of post-war disability. In the final section, the author focuses on how psychiatric knowledge informed the public memory of war in the popular media.