Книга о демократизации Германии Маргарет Мерритт получила бронзовую медаль за вклад в мировое спокойствие

Fairbanks author Margaret Merritt was pleasantly surprised to learn recently that her book, “Finding Democracy Through the Lens of a Young German Woman, 1944-1950,” had won the bronze award for the Living Well Evergreen Book Medal for World Peace. “I wasn’t sure if my book about World War Two would fit for them,” Merritt said, “but I do always try to inspire my readers and try to bring forward lessons from history that are relevant today.” “Finding Democracy” explores how the U.S. military carried out its occupation of West Germany after the fall of the Nazi government in World War II and the efforts by high-ranking officers to establish democratic governance in a country devastated by the scorched-earth warfare between German soldiers and Allied troops who were closing in on Berlin to end Adolph Hitler’s rule. “I focused on the interactions between the military occupiers and the residents in Germany as they navigated building a democratic Germany together,” Merritt said, explaining how her book revolves around what happened in the war-torn nation after it was defeated. Merritt chose to center her story on Tilly Keilitz, a young woman who had grown up under Nazism. She became an internal refugee in Germany in the years immediately following World War II. After fleeing Berlin in the final days of the war, she found shelter in the Bavarian hamlet of Freising. Fluent in English, Tilly was able to obtain employment with the occupying forces and, through direct exposure to the democratic governance under which the American military operated, was drawn to those principles. “I use Tilly to highlight the struggles and the adaptations that people went through,” Merritt said. The Living Well Book Awards were established in 2008 to focus on publications that “spotlight works that foster well-being, spark hope, and inspire positive change,” according to the organization’s website. Awards are offered in more than 30 categories. Six of these are Evergreen Medals, given to recognize books for their “contributions to positive global change.” This is what she sought to accomplish in “Finding Democracy,” Merritt said. “Whatever I said in my book must have resonated with the particular people reviewing it.” She said she explored several themes in the book to show how peace and stability are threatened by societal inequities. In this case, many disparities were faced by Germans whose sources of livelihood had been destroyed when the country was invaded by Soviet forces to the east and American and other Allied troops coming from the west. “One source of disruption was food security,” Merritt said. “Hunger was huge at that time in the postwar period.” Merritt found in her research that there were severe food shortages in those years that left Germans struggling to feed themselves, a history that many people today don’t know about. Food scarcity amplified the marginalization of internal refugees who, like Tilly, staggered into villages and towns seeking sanctuary. In her research, she learned that the U.S. Army was insistent on rebuilding everyday German society in ways that would prevent the rise of another demagogue offering easy but brutal answers for the challenges Germans faced. American officers overseeing the process, she said, recognized that “marginalizing people can undermine democratic efforts.” Merritt suspects that one reason the book earned the award is because the lessons that can be drawn from it reflect the world we live in today. “I wanted the reader to focus on the democratization efforts,” she said. Through her book, she hopes readers will see how this was accomplished so it can offer guidance today, in an era when strongman leadership is once again overrunning democratic governance in many nations. “Frankly, there’s a threat to democracy in various countries, ours included,” she said. Next month, Merritt will be speaking in Friesing, Germany, where Tilly found refuge and discovered democracy. She’ll discuss both the history she wrote about and the modern relevance of her findings. The Living Well Book Awards states on its website that its World Peace category “aims to identify truly world-changing books that encourage a better understanding of people and broader global issues, and to bring them further recognition and exposure.” Merritt said that, in essence, this is what she hoped to accomplish with “Finding Democracy.” “I don’t preach in my books. My job is to present the story. People will get out of the book what they can based on their experiences and philosophy.” To this, she added, “I hope the story is entertaining and informative and inspiring.”