In Discipline and Punish (1975), Michel Foucault wrote that “the establishment of a delinquency … has in fact a number of advantages.” Martin Kalb draws on Foucault's insight to demonstrate that Bavarian authorities saw advantages in emphasizing the impact of juvenile delinquency on the city of Munich in their efforts to maintain order and return to stability in post-1945 Germany. Describing youths as delinquent allowed Bavarian officials to seize control of certain city institutions and simultaneously enabled political leaders to offer counterimages of a troubling “other.” If lawbreaking youths were held up by authority figures as “outsiders,” then authorities would be able to offer the image of hard-working, industrious citizens as a counterexample. Kalb's creativity in examining how youth were designated as lawbreakers, black marketeers, and bohemian rowdies offers a glimpse into larger conversations about postwar society and the return to stability.

Kalb's work is divided into three time periods. Part One examines what he calls “the crisis years” of 1942–1949. This section begins with the bombardment of Munich—a point when the war had turned against Germany and threats to stability were readily apparent. It also addresses the immediate postwar environment in which US military and civilian authorities had to work together with local Bavarian officials to rebuild German society. Kalb focuses here on how the development of images of the “delinquent” boy and the sexually “deviant” girl served to illuminate the destruction and disorder caused by the war. Equating delinquency with the misery resulting from warfare and its aftermath, local officials were able to expand mechanisms of social control. Munich authorities reasoned that the presence of young people on the streets was “abnormal.” Some were orphans, some were living on the streets. Others scavenged for food and other resources: the authorities considered all these young people a threat to public safety. They portrayed delinquent youths as criminals who refused to work or go to school, supposedly because they preferred a life of vagabondage. Young females supposedly chose to offer themselves sexually to US soldiers in exchange for luxury items, instead of working hard to clear rubble, find German husbands, and reproduce—for Germany. These images were then used to justify the need to clamp down on both young males and females, arguing that delinquents were a threat to family and social stability at precisely the time when Germany needed to restore order. The proposed solution was to reestablish schools to teach children their “proper” roles in society, and then to hand students off to after-school programs and the Youth Welfare Office. All these institutions promised to inculcate youths with the values of hard work, responsible behavior, and sexual morality.

Part Two addresses the “miracle years” of 1949–1962. Kalb demonstrates that during this period, new images of troublesome youth were constructed: that of the Halbstarker (semi-strong delinquent male youth) and that of the female teenager. The Halbstarker was portrayed as a working-class young man who was unwilling to listen to adults, thus threatening German social order because of his interest in leisure activities and his aggressive behavior. Young females classified as teenagers threatened society by their unthinking acceptance of American values and materialism, their love of rock n’ roll, and their open sexuality. Both the figure of the Halbstarker and the female teenager threatened the views of Bavarian officials about where Germany should be headed. They worried that German culture was being overtaken by Americanization; moreover, the threat of sexual impropriety by young females, alongside a general concern about a decline in productivity, made many Bavarian officials demand even further expansion of social controls.

They encountered a difficult challenge, however: corporations had discovered by this point that young people had purchasing power, which made it difficult for authorities to restrict what young people did after work or school. One way in which they sought to counter the Halbstarke was to have police disperse young people congregating in public spaces. Members of the general public demanded that police be equipped with batons to fight off potential street gangs, especially after reports stressing a rise in juvenile delinquency began to circulate widely. All of society was called upon to monitor the public behavior of the female teenager: she was not to roam about, dance in public, or hang out at “milk bars” or in mixed company. Parents, teachers, neighbors, and even complete strangers were asked to ensure that young women were not putting their good reputation, or that of their families, in danger. As this suggests, public discussions about controlling youth were intended to reassert traditional beliefs and values. But despite the desire of adult authorities to expand control over young people, the latter had discovered their agency and were beginning to fight back against such restrictions.

Part Three addresses the years 1962–1973, which were marked by political activism and the dominant images of “the student” and the Gammler (bums). The former was generally described as male, middle-class, urban, and politically active. Some contemporary literature considered students particularly suspicious if they wore beards, which were thought to be a sign of communist sympathies. Throughout the 1960s, riots and demonstrations were linked to the image of the student as a radical subversive who sought to overturn West German democracy. The Gammler were young people who defied conventional norms, traveling around Europe and living on the streets, often with long hair, beards, and ragged clothing. Authorities attacked both the “student” and the Gammler for supposedly upsetting the traditional political order and creating chaos on the streets—at a time when riots and demonstrations were indeed taking place.

The media presented a dire picture of both youthful degeneracy and the consequent threat that many young people supposedly posed to the moral order. Youths were now able to counter that narrative, however, by making their voices heard. Their ability to organize, print leaflets and newspapers, and give interviews forced state authorities to restrict police brutality, teach police officers how to respond to riots and other demonstrations, and persuade local officials to introduce urban design as a tool of social control. This struggle between youths and local authorities came to a head in Munich in 1973, when more than twenty thousand students joined protests against the new Minister of Culture and Education, who had just proposed even stricter mechanisms of student control. In the short run, the authorities seemed to have won, for more disciplinary measures silencing students and regulating student participation were adopted at university. In the long run, however, the image of students who were aware of their political rights continued to play a role in German political life.

Kalb's work is a useful exploration of how German authorities used inflated, exaggerated rhetoric of juvenile delinquency as a surrogate of sorts for a multitude of societal fears. The fears of instability, disorder, immorality, and impoverishment led many authorities to criminalize young people, whose behavior they considered a litmus test for society's health and stability. When they actually looked at statistics on delinquency rates, however, they realized, Kalb argues convincingly, that the threat of young people running wild was exaggerated. For historians interested in postwar German reconstruction efforts, this useful case study offers an in-depth look at how authorities in Munich grappled with their fears and anxieties while rebuilding German society, complementing the earlier works of authors like Kaspar Maase (Bravo Amerika: Erkundungen zur Jugendkultur der Bundesrepublik in den funfziger Jahren [1992]) and Uta Poiger (Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany [2000]).