Though often overlooked in historical accounts, the immediate aftermath of World War II left Germany in a state of political disintegration, economic ruin, and social dislocation. Elisabeth Haggblade’s award-winning memoir, ‘Trauterose,’ offers a firsthand account of this tumultuous period, drawing on her own childhood experiences in post-war Munich.
Orphaned at birth during the war, Haggblade spent her first eleven years in the household of a former S.S. officer. Her book provides an unusually rare perspective on post-war Germany—one grounded not in retrospective reconstruction but in an experiential record of survival, adaptation, and loss. The memoir has received notable recognition, including the 2024 IndieReader Discovery Award (Memoir category) and First Place Non-Fiction in The Authors Show 2024 Book Cover Awards.
Haggblade writes, ‘One person aiding and delivering faith: The late Pope Benedict XVI, known then as Herr Joseph Ratzinger, teacher of catechism in our fourth-grade class in the 1950s. After he left our school, his hand-written letter spelled out the proper path to follow in growing up: “If one buttons one’s coat the wrong way, one would have to undo all of it and start over again to make it right. So it is with life,” admonishing us “to choose the right beginning.”‘
In a recent talk for the AAUW book club members in Santa Barbara, CA, Haggblade described the daily challenges of post-war life: finding soap, toothbrushes, warm water, food, and ways to cook it; attending school without transportation; dealing with sickness and death amid scarcity. ‘All the while, people still had to suffer the usual annoying indignities of adolescence, middle age crises, old age problems,’ she noted.
Haggblade stated she wrote the book as a reaction to what she saw as glamorous portrayals of the post-war years in German magazines and positive comments from Americans about their understanding of that era. ‘Both impressions were in contrast to my experience growing up and those I came in contact with. They told only one side of the story,’ she said. ‘On a personal level, I wanted to bring the reader into the picture: How life had to go on, war or no war.’
Craig Jones of IndieReader praised the memoir, writing, ‘TRAUTEROSE (Growing Up in Postwar Munich) by Elisabeth Haggblade offers an uncompromising, moving, and elegiac memoir of a deprived childhood in postwar Germany.’ Midwest Book Review noted, ‘Libraries seeking powerful, personal memoirs that hold political and social lessons and insights will find Trauterose a study in adaptation, survival, and growth.’
By looking back, Haggblade argues, we learn how Germany has reckoned with its past and trace the changes the country has undergone politically, sociologically, and economically. The book is available in print, ebook, and audiobook forms at Amazon, with more information at her website.
