Blog
When the German parliament building in Berlin – the Reichstag – caught fire shortly after 9pm on the evening of 27th February 1933, it marked the beginning of a lengthy controversy. Already that same night, in the Reichstag building itself, Nazi authorities picked up a young Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe, who had […]
“Death at the Berlin Wall” by Pertti Ahonen OUP, £60.00, 309pp, index,notes, bibliography. Nostalgia for aspects of life in the GDR, it seems, it still current. Inmodern Berlin one can buy any number of products that one graced East Berlin households; the Trabant has acquired cult status; even the humble Ampelmann –who stood guard at pedestrian crossings in […]
Albert Speer is said to have once opined that generations of future historians would be “disappointed” by Eva Braun. Hitler’s wife, he implied, was a nobody: someone who – for all her proximity to great events – had exerted no influence, for good or ill, upon them. I was reminded of this comment when I finally got […]
On BBC Breakfast News this morning, blues musician ‘Seasick Steve’ was interviewed. A rough and ready elaborately-bearded, and undoubtedly talented American guitarist, Seasick Steve had slept rough and made his own guitars before getting a big break in 2006 on a British music programme. He has since gone on to considerable commercial and critical success. […]
“Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich” by Robert Gerwarth, Yale UP,£20.00, 336pp, It is peculiar that Reinhard Heydrich has not been the subject of a few more serious-minded biographies. After all, as the architect of the SS-state and the master-planner of the Holocaust, he offers a unique perspective on the inner workings of the Third […]
Today is the 70th anniversary of the Rosenstrasse Protest – one of the most fascinating and poignant episodes in the grim history of the Holocaust. On this day in 1943, the Nazis rounded up the remaining 8,000 or so Jews who were living legally in the German capital. In the so-called “Fabrik Aktion“, or ‘Factory […]
Twitter took another scalp a couple of weeks ago, when one of the UK’s newly appointed ‘Deputy Police & Crime Commissioners” – one Dr Rachel Frosch – was obliged to resign after passing on (retweeting) a rather clumsy comment linking Socialism and Nazism. Of course, the political left cried foul and Dr Frosch was hung […]
This curious story caught my eye this morning. Yesterday – 30th January – was the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s so-called “seizure of power”, and the day involved much memorializing and a good deal more soul-searching about the fragility of democracy and the need for vigilance… Of course, the “seizure of power” was really nothing of the […]
Its that time of year again, so I would like to jot down a few of my favourite books of 2012, to give you – should you require it – a few pointers for the perfect history gift for your own resident historian… First up – my absolute favourite book this year – was Anne […]
Hitler’s ‘charisma’ & Laurence Rees’ new book… One of the most interesting developments in our understanding of Nazi Germany in recent years has been the recognition of Adolf Hitler as a charismatic ‘personality’; an apparently magnetic character instead of merely a malevolent, psychopathic void. It is indeed a paradox that such a fundamentally dysfunctional individual – […]
I went along on the trip last weekend to the Western Front, accompanying a group with the tour firm that I am involved with – Historical Trips (www.historicaltrips.com). It was fascinating, of course, and chilling, visiting all those sites of such unimaginable carnage and slaughter – Ypres, Messines, the Somme, Cambrai, the Lochnagar Crater. But […]
There was a furore in Austria last week, after the mayor of the small Austrian town of Braunau-am-Inn declared that he thought that an 18th century house in the town should be converted into flats. Small place Austria, but even that story would not make the news were it not for the toxic association with Austria’smost infamous […]