More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, scholars, journalists, and diplomats have increasingly used comparative and transnational approaches to assess the post-1945 east-west divide in central Europe: its characteristics, its end, and its aftermath. In addition to Tony Judt's important pan-European synthesis in Postwar (2005), Timothy Garton Ash, Mary Fulbrook, Jeffrey Herf, and W. R. Smyser, among others, have measured the bipolar division's effect on post-Nazi Germany's politics, cultural history, and attempts to come to terms with the past. Noted historian Michael Gehler (Hildesheim) enters into this rapidly expanding field, asserting that his Austrian background affords him a uniquely nonpartisan view of “three Germanies”: West Germany (FRG) and East Germany (GDR), and the post-1990 Berlin Republic. Rather than lauding the FRG's “success story” or berating the GDR's “failure,” he promises to assess the two Cold-War-era states alongside each another with “equal weight” in order “to treat them with necessary detachment and critical distance” (pp. 7–8).

Because the first chapter dives immediately into thick historical narrative, the best “beginning” in Gehler's book is its final chapter, where the author outlines his main argument that, “if the old Federal Republic stood for happiness, development and self-fulfillment, then the GDR stood for fate, restriction and coercion” (p. 301). After growing apart in the 1950s, the two populations had become alienated from each other by the 1960s. Gehler argues, however, that the persisting strength of the nation-state meant that reunification was the only way to “European normality” (pp. 305-306)—a depressing affirmation of nationalist identity over the alternatives (regional, supranational, etc.), but hard to contest. Thus, while Gehler's attempt at “equal weight” is appreciated, it is hard to deny in the end that the GDR was a failure, while the FRG was, at least comparatively, a success—an overall narrative very much in keeping with general scholarly assessments of the two regimes.

The body of the work is roughly chronological. After an opening analysis of the wartime European Advisory Commission, the first chapter reviews the establishment of the Soviet and western occupation authorities, as well as the role of leading German politicians in immediate postwar state politics. After an intervening aside on commemorative practices at former concentration camps in the FRG and GDR, discussion focuses on politics, highlighting the steady division of Germany, the Berlin Blockade, and the West German Basic Law (followed by a brief review of congresses that led to the formation of the GDR). The second and third chapters assess partial domestic integration in the two German states through the 1950s and early 1960s, featuring each state's contrasting response toward reparations to Israel, rearmament, foreign policy, and rules of governance. Chapters four and five explore bipolar stabilization after the erection of the Berlin Wall, with emphasis on Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik in the early 1970s. Normalization in each state was accompanied by rising material conditions, as each became a leading economic and industrial power within its bloc. Here Gehler's emphasis on politics gives way to a focus on West German cultural developments: a close assessment of 1960s West Berlin border passes and cross-border interchange, the arrival and later hostility toward the so-called guest workers, the rise of rightwing and Neo-Nazi movements, and the new leftism that thrived from the 1968 student protest movement. After chapter six details events on the eve of 1989 (notably the extent to which both Germanies were opposed to arms buildup), chapter seven recounts the decisive role East Germans played in ending communism through peaceful protest. Challenges after reunification arise in chapters eight, nine, and ten, notably economic disparity, ecological damages, enormous western investment, and the rise of “Ostalgie” in the former GDR. Political shifts take center stage, such that each chapter features leading personalities in each post-1989 administration—and perhaps the comparative dullness of these chapters reveals the challenges that will await any scholar who seeks to write of central European history after the “epic” events of the short twentieth century.

It is an enormous undertaking to attempt a broad synthetic historical treatment of a region so culturally and politically complex as postwar East and West Germany. Thus, any critiques should first be couched in the understanding that no synthesis can suffice on its own; arguable oversights and debatable structural decisions are inevitable. This being said, it is striking amid such thick detail that the author seldom offers significant interpretive analysis or confronts other historical viewpoints (only rarely even giving parenthetical reference to an author from his short bibliography). Without any footnotes or significant historiography, the work appears to be a textbook. Yet the handful of small black and white pictures, small print, and often tortuous translation of the German original (none of which may be the fault of the author) will make this a challenging read for undergraduates. Furthermore, the author often presumes prior knowledge of a topic or event—understandable if the audience is German, but an obstacle for beginners from other parts of the world.

Finally, one wonders why the “third” Germany had to constitute the Berlin Republic, which Gehler himself admits “was essentially built up on the basic pillars of the West German state” (p. 307). This yields little productive comparison (in contrast to the contemporaneous FRG and GDR). Rather than setting himself up as the impartial Austrian, Gehler might have brought his Austrian research to bear on a more distinctive comparative analysis of “three Germanies”: the FRG, GDR, and Austria during the Cold War. Tantalizing but brief asides give glimpses of this possibility: contrasting Austrian politics with those in the FRG during the early Cold War, Gehler observes that “the four Allies were largely seen as one whole in Austria, whereas in the Federal Republic the principle of ‘Three Allies against the fourth’ was the order of the day” (p. 43); and in comparing the 1990 treaty officially uniting Germany and the 1955 treaty that united Austria, Gehler claims that Kohl “walked into the Austrian pattern” (p. 226). Nonetheless, Gehler's Three Germanies ultimately succeeds in offering a detailed narrative of a highly complex place and time.