Frank Biess tells the story of the Federal Republic as a narrative of collective fears. The fear of retribution in the immediate post-war period, the anxiety about nuclear war and communist infiltration in the 1950s, and then the fear of unemployment due to automation and authoritarian political trends, culminating in the apocalyptic fears of the 1980s: Political debates and German politics have always been shaped by fear, not least by the fear of the supposed omnipresence of fascism. Biess is not concerned with evaluating the legitimacy of these fears in hindsight. Rather, he describes their formative role in the development of the country. His thesis is that the experience of war and violence accompanied the democratization and liberalization of the Federal Republic; fear shaped the social and political order.