Frank Biess. German Angst: Fear and Democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Abstract

German Angst: Fear and Democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany is a revised and updated English version of Republik der Angst, which attracted a lot of interest in Germany following its publication in 2019. The book provides a sweeping history of the Federal Republic of Germany from the perspective of a history of fear. Discussing topics that run the gamut from fears about nuclear war to changing theories of the self, Frank Biess brings together a remarkable array of insights. More than colleting disparate vistas, however, he offers a reconsideration of some of the dominant narratives about West Germany’s past between 1945 and 1989. In the introduction, Biess lays out the theoretical foundations of his approach to emotions and German history. Biess argues that a focus on fear can counter overly teleological success stories of the Federal Republic of Germany. Rather than pathologizing the fear that contemporaries voiced in moments of crisis as “hysterical” or “neurotic,” he proposes to look at fear as historical force in its own right. In doing so, the author uses approaches from the history of emotions. Biess draws, for instance, on William Reddy’s concept of “emotional regimes” to explain how historians can conceptualize emotions as social and individual. The analysis of shifting “emotional regimes” shows how societies fostered or discouraged certain emotions in a specific period.