Theodore Iliff

The Golden Times Theodore Iliff

It is a time in history that millions endured in miserable obscurity. Germany, a once proud and admired crucible of European thought and culture, is by mid-1945 a shattered nation, its cities and national soul scarred forever amid the debris of a savage regime of its own making.

Monica Baumann is part of a German generation reaching adulthood in an occupied land that seems to hold no future for her or anyone else. The Golden Times, based on actual events, chronicles the journey of Monica, her family, and her future husband, American journalist Mike Falwell, through the tragic yet compelling early stages of what will slowly blossom into the German miracle.

First, Monica has to confront her own fears and resentment of the American occupiers. But through chance encounters and eventually a search for work, she learns to admire the benevolent strangers. Her feelings come full circle with Mike, whose love for her grows as his work catalogs individual triumphs and tragedies in the early days of Germany's recovery.

For the Baumann family, the worst crisis confronts Monica's father, Max, a school rector who faces the humiliation and uncertainty of denazification. Only the last-second intervention by four unlikely witnesses rehabilitates Max's reputation and saves his future.

The Golden Times portrays the actions of individual Germans - heroic and venal - in their collective effort under a pragmatic and efficient American occupation to come to terms with the eternal stain left on their nation and chart a path to a peaceful and prosperous future.