In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. Its citizens stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and war of extermination. But by the end of Angela Merkel's tenure in 2021, Germany appeared to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming more than one million refugees, holding together the tenuous threads of the European Union, and making military restraint the center of its foreign policy. Frank Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait spanning eighty years of the conflicted people at the center of Europe, showing how the Germans became who they are today. 'Out of the Darkness' is a gripping and nuanced history of the German people from WWII to the present day, including hugely revealing new primary source material on every aspect of its transformation.