The end of the Second World War is one of the most iconic moments in European history. It has been associated with images of joyful crowds dancing in the streets, drinking, falling in love. These images of triumph and celebration are so intense in collective memory that the civil wars and the anarchy that prevailed have been almost forgotten.
In reality, immediately after the war, Europe experienced another terrible bloodshed, with thirty million dead on battlefields, devastated cities, and destroyed countryside. Organizations and institutions that were taken for granted (from the police and transportation to governments and media) either had resigned or did not exist at all.
In "The Wreckage," Keith Lowe describes a continent that, after the end of the most terrible war of all time, still remains immersed in violence, with groups of people, communities, and even whole nations seeking revenge for mistakes and crimes committed during the war.
Germans and their collaborators were arrested, tortured, and executed through summary procedures. Concentration camps reopened and filled with new victims. Violent anti-Semitism revived with murders and pogroms throughout Europe. Massacres were on the daily agenda, and in some places (mainly in Greece, Yugoslavia, and Poland) led to brutal civil wars.
"The Wreckage" is the story of Europe after the Second World War, with all the horrific details that shaped it until the late 1940s. Based mainly on primary sources from twelve countries, this book is a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating chronicle of a world gone mad, and will be a milestone in the historiography of post-war Europe for decades.