In today’s episode we delve into the remarkable rise of supernatural phenomena in post-World War II Germany, a period marked by the extraordinary popularity of faith healers like Bruno Gröning and a wave of witchcraft accusations. Joining us is Monica Black, the acclaimed historian and author of ‘A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany’. Monica offers a compelling exploration of how a nation, grappling with the aftermath of war and the Holocaust, turned to supernatural beliefs and practices to cope with its collective trauma.
In the wake of the war, Germany saw a resurgence of messianic figures and mystical healers drawing enormous crowds, prayer groups conducting exorcisms, and widespread sightings of the Virgin Mary. This period also witnessed a startling number of witchcraft accusations as neighbours turned against each other in a climate of pervasive fear and suspicion. Monica Black unpacks these phenomena, arguing that they were deeply intertwined with the nation's unaddressed guilt and the haunting silence over its recent atrocities.
Our discussion highlights how these supernatural obsessions reveal a darker, more troubled side of Germany's postwar recovery, often overshadowed by narratives of economic resurgence and democratic rebirth. Monica’s insights, drawn from previously unpublished archival sources, paint a vivid picture of a society struggling with profound moral and spiritual disquiet. This episode is a deep dive into the shadow history of postwar Germany, offering a fresh perspective on the emotional and psychological toll of trying to bury a painful and horrific legacy.
My Special Guest Is Monica Black
Monica Black is a historian of modern Europe. Her research focuses on the cultural and social history of Germany, with an emphasis on the era of the World Wars and the decades immediately after 1945. Much of her work has concerned how National Socialism functioned in daily life, and what happened to it after 1945.
She is a Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), where she has been a faculty member in the history department since 2010. From 2021 to 2023, she served as associate director of the UT Humanities Center. Earlier in her career, she taught at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina and at the University of Virginia. Since 2019, she has been the editor of the journal Central European History (Twitter: @CentralEuropean). She also serve as an associate review editor for the American Historical Review and served from 2016 - 2021 as a member of the editorial board of German Studies Review. In 2022, she joined the German Studies Association’s executive board. In 2023, she was named to the advisory board of the George L. Mosse Series in the History of Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas (University of Wisconsin Press). In 2014, she was awarded the Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin. She has been a fellow of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University and the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities have supported her research.
In this episode, you will be able to: 1. Uncovers the lesser-known spiritual and psychological undercurrents of a nation in turmoil, and how these forces shaped the postwar German experience.
2. Discover more about the extraordinary popularity of faith healers like Bruno Gröning.
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Guest Links
Website: https://www.monicablack.net/