Spoils of War, The - The Rise of Western Germany Since 1945

In the Autumn of 1945, Germany was a shattered country. Dismembered among four vengeful occupying powers; seven million displaced persons roaming its countryside; its cities in ruins; its roads, railways and canals destroyed; its leaders jailed, dead or missing—it seemed inconceivable that even the part of the country that remained free of the Russians could ever rise again. But in 1972 West Germany, one of the richest and most powerful countries of the world, was host to humanity in the grandiose rituals of the Munich Olympics. The story of how Germany struggled from the ashes of defeat to its present prosperity—one of the epics of the twentieth century—is told here with all the sweep and drama the subject commands.