No more than eight years had passed since the surrender of the Nazi government when Josef Heinrich Darchinger embarked on his photographic journey through the West of a divided Germany. The bombs of World War II had reduced the country's great cities to rubble. Yet, his photographs show almost no sign of the collapse of a civilization. The photographer simply recorded what he saw. At that time, a New York travel agency advertised the last chance to visit the remaining bomb sites. Darchinger's photographs, in color and black-and-white versions, capture a country in a fever of reconstruction. The economic boom was so astonishing that the whole world was talking about an "economic miracle." The people who achieved it appear, by contrast, grounded, humble, conscientious, and diligent. And increasingly, they seem foreign to the world they have created.

The photographs depict a country trapped between the opposing poles of technological modernism and cultural restoration, between wealth and poverty, between German Gemütlichkeit and the constant threat of the Cold War. They show the winners and losers of the "economic miracle," people from all social classes, at home, at work, in their limited free time, and as consumers. But they also show a country that seems, in retrospect, like a film from the middle of the last century.

For this revised edition, all photographs have been digitally reconstructed to a new, comprehensive dimension, capturing with their intense colors and subtle print varnish.

Pages: 292, Year of Publication: 2024, Dimensions: 29.3x29.3cm