This became patently clear in 1945. You might have thought that after twelve years of Nazi brainwashing many Germans would be utterly incapable of making sense of their postwar lives. They had put all their faith in one great story; what to do when that story exploded? Yet most Germans recovered with amazing speed. Somewhere in their minds they maintained other stories about the world, and no sooner had Hitler shot a bullet through his brain than people in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich adopted new identities and found new meaning in their lives.
