Nature of the Miracle Years Conservation in West Germany, 1945-1975 [Paperback]

After 1945, those responsible for conservation in Germany resumed their work with a relatively high degree of continuity as far as laws and personnel were concerned. Yet conservationists soon found they had little choice but to modernize their views and practices in the challenging postwar context. Forced to change by necessity, those involved in state-sponsored conservation institutionalized and professionalized their efforts, while several private groups became more confrontational in their message and tactics. Through their steady and often conservative presence within the mainstream of West German society, conservationists ensured that by 1970 the map of the country was dotted with hundreds of reserves, dozens of nature parks, and one national park. In doing so, they assured themselves a strong position to participate in, rather than be excluded from, the left-leaning environmental movement of the 1970s.

CHOICEOUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE 2009

&the first book-length study in English of the ideas, aims, and actions of conservationists in West Germany between 1945 and 1975, placing conservation in the mainstream of German political and cultural history&This fully researched and readable narrative, interspersed with three illustrative case studies, provides an excellent account of conservation in West Germany. Choice

Chaney provides a valuable bridge between previous studies of conservation policy in the first half of the twentieth century, including the Third Reich,&and provides an important account of the rebirth of the postwar conservation movement that led to the greening of German politics. German Politics & Society

Chaneys study is one of the best recent works on German conservation. In great detail it traces the? gradual development of the movement, attending closely to subtle but fundamental changes in rhetoric& Her book is el“¦