1946 - A GI's Year in Occupied Germany

During World War II, Allied bombers dropped over one million tons of explosives on Hitler's Germany. A single air raid on Würtzburg killed more than 5000 residents, and destroyed over 21,000 buildings 89 percent of the city in seventeen minutes . In 1946, war's immediate after effects - ruins of cities and towns that were bombed back into the stone age, and over five million men gone, created chaos. How did survivors cope? Where did they obtain necessities in a post war economy where skyrocketing inflation rendered a pack of cigarettes, a bar of soap, or a roll of toilet paper more valuable than thousands of Reichsmarks? And what was the relationship between German civilians and the occupiers of their Fatherland? These questions and more are answered by the author, one of the young recruits rushed into Germany to replace war weary veterans on occupation duty. His graphic, first hand account, with over 150 never before seen photographs, takes the reader back to 1946, to experience the aftermath of the most destructive war in world history.