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Publish: 衛城

European Ghost Places: How does the craze for supernatural healing in postwar Germany reveal the trauma that scientific rationality cannot respond to?

European Ghost Places: How does the craze for supernatural healing in postwar Germany reveal the trauma that scientific rationality cannot respond to?

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After World War II, Germany was in dire straits and became a veritable ghost place.
In order to heal the wounds of history, the Germans, who pride themselves on their rationality, can only turn to folk remedies with strange powers and chaos.

Rich fields × Never-before-exposed documents and historical materials × Continuous mysterious cases = German version of the supernatural healing incident book

Double winner of the China-European Historical Society Book Award and the Frankel Prize
Delve into the most unspeakable historical pain in modern German history and subvert your and my imagination of Germany.

★Xia Keqin, Assistant Professor of History at Indiana University: This book is the postwar German history experienced by ordinary West German people!
★Professor of religious history at Northwestern University, Rob. Olshey: A shocking work of social and cultural history that profoundly echoes our times.
★The Boston Review: This book asks us to see irrationality as part of modernity.

In 1949, a mysterious man visited the small town of Herford to visit a boy who was unable to stand. Although no one is sure what happened between them, it was after the man's visit that the boy got out of bed and walked around under his own power for the first time. The incident soon spread throughout Germany. After that, an endless stream of people poured into the town regardless of rain or shine to visit the mysterious man known as "Herford's Miracle." The man's name is Bruno. Bruno Gröning - People call him a "miracle doctor", a "miraculous healer", and even a "Messiah".

Such a bizarre thing must be just the superstition of ignorant people, right? In fact, however, even the University of Heidelberg conducted research on Groening, and even Congress discussed his whirlwind. In order to prevent more people from misunderstanding rumors and folk remedies, some local governments even resorted to the "Folklore Treatment Ban" from the Nazi era to ban such medical practices. Groening's existence not only challenged the boundaries of medicine, but also countless people approached him with different thoughts, or even further deified him: there were former Nazi officials who had fallen out of power and wanted to use him to turn around, there were local chiefs, church pastors, etc. characters, as well as the behind-the-scenes "god-making" team such as photographers, lawyers, directors, and publishers. Some people seem to have been truly cured, while others have carefully planned to use Groening to regain something from the fate of losing everything in the war.

Is all this true or false? The appearance of this man and the similar fanaticism of his time revealed a history of panic, witchcraft, miraculous doctors and other deeds in postwar Germany. Various signs show the huge psychological trauma that the Germans experienced after the war. However, many Germans buried their ulterior past deeply or avoided facing their culpability. This, combined with the trauma of the country's defeat, eventually led to a period of people turning to the search for miracles. period of treatment.

The war is over, time has passed, but the wounded soul is still where it is. One person can seek psychotherapy, but who can treat an entire country's unspoken taboo?

Although many historical evaluations emphasize Germany's rapid transformation after World War II and can be described as a model for contemporary politics, this book explores Germany's transformation after the war from a different perspective. And this journey is not as easy as we thought. After all, after experiencing the catastrophe of defeat, in the silence that people deliberately avoided talking about, a collective suppressed guilt with nowhere to vent enveloped Germany. As the author said: "In the face of unspeakable evil, perhaps we should listen to the voice of ghosts." The "ghosts" that haunt this land are the best witnesses, telling us about Germany's collective trauma and pain. How deep. The author of this book is Monica. Through ethnographic writing and never-before-exposed newspaper clippings and historical archives, Blake tells bizarre stories, thereby recreating the suspicion and fear in postwar Germany and leading us to a place haunted by ghosts. .

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