In des Teufels Küche

Precise, detailed, and characteristic of the era: Records of the Hanoverian archivist Georg Schnath from internment and imprisonment from Dachau to Paris 1945-47. "In the Devil's Kitchen" finds the Hanoverian archivist Georg Schnath (1898-1989) after the end of World War II. The former head of the Archive Protection Group at the German military administration in Paris is arrested by the British, interned by the Americans, and ultimately held as a French prisoner of war in Paris until the turn of the year 1947/48. During this time, Schnath's records are created, which Thomas Vogtherr now publishes for the first time and places in their historical context: About Germany, about life in camps - and about himself, an intellectual who has lost his footing. Schnath describes his new environment, attempts to justify himself, and wants to account for his actions. He does not deny his own involvement in the machinery of the Nazi state. However, he portrays himself as a dutiful German official, not as a collaborator or perpetrator, but as a victim of an unmerited change in political circumstances after 1945. His detailed records, kept over more than two and a half years, are therefore an informative yet unsettling document of their time.