Best of
Germany

2000

German Boy: A Child in War


Wolfgang W.E. Samuel - 2000
    Among them was a little boy named Wolfgang Samuel, who left his home with his mother and sister and ended up in war-torn Strasbourg before being forced farther west into a disease-ridden refugee camp. German Boy is the vivid, true story of their fight for survival as the tables of power turned and, for reasons Wolfgang was too young to understand, his broken family suffered arbitrary arrest, rape, hunger, and constant fear. Because his father was off fighting the war as a Luftwaffe officer, young Wolfgang was forced to become the head of his household, scavenging for provisions and scraps with which to feed his family. Despite his best efforts, his mother still found herself forced to do the unthinkable to survive, and her sacrifices became Wolfgang's worst nightmares. Somehow, with the resilience only children can muster, he maintained his youth and innocence in little ways–making friends with other young refugees, playing games with shrapnel, delighting in the planes flown by the Americans and the candies the GIs brought. In the end, the Samuels begin life anew in America, and Wolfgang eventually goes on to a thirty-year career in the U.S. Air Force.Bringing fresh insight to the dark history of Nazi Germany and the horror left in its wake, German Boy records the valuable recollections of an innocent's incredible journey."I think German Boy has all the qualities of greatness. I love the book." -- from the Foreword by Stephen Ambrose

Defying Hitler


Sebastian Haffner - 2000
    Covering 1907 to 1933, his eyewitness account provides a portrait of a country in constant flux: from the rise of the First Corps, the right-wing voluntary military force set up in 1918 to suppress Communism and precursor to the Nazi storm troopers, to the Hitler Youth movement; from the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation crippled the country to Hitler's rise to power. This fascinating personal history elucidates how the average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.

The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany


Martin Goldsmith - 2000
    Later that year, the Jdische Kulturbund, or Jewish Cultural Association, was created to allow Jewish artists to perform for Jewish audiences. Here is the riveting and emotional story of Gunther Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert, two courageous Jewish musicians who struggled to perform under unimaginable circumstances and found themselves falling in love in a country bent on destroying them.

The Third Reich: A New History


Michael Burleigh - 2000
    The Third Reich restores a broad perspective and intellectual unity to issues that have become academic subspecialties and offers a brilliant new interpretation of Hitler's evil rule.Filled with human and moral considerations that are missing from theoretical accounts, Michael Burleigh's book gives full weight to the experience of ordinary people who were swept up in, or repelled by, Hitler's movement and emphasizes international themes-for Nazi Germany appealed to many European nations, and its wartime conduct included efforts to dominate the Continental economy and involved gigantic population transfers and exterminations, recruitment of foreign labor, and multinational armies.

War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-42


Robert Kershaw - 2000
    Using German sources, the author has investigated an important aspect of the pre-attack deception, the degree to which the German public and armed forces were themselves caught unawares.

One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation "Wrath of God"


Simon Reeve - 2000
    on September 5, 1972, a band of Palestinian terrorists took eleven Israeli athletes and coaches hostage at the Summer Olympics in Munich. More than 900 million viewers followed the chilling, twenty-hour event on television, as German authorities desperately negotiated with the terrorists. Finally, late in the evening, two helicopters bore the terrorists and their surviving hostages to Munichs little-used Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where events went tragically awry. Within minutes all of the Israeli athletes, five of the terrorists, and one German policeman were dead. Why did the rescue mission fail so miserably? And why were the reports compiled by the German authorities concealed from the public for more than two decades? Reeves takes on a catastrophe that permanently shifted the political spectrum with a fast-paced narrative that covers the events detail by detail. Based on years of exhaustive research, One Day in September is the definitive account of one of the most devastating and politically explosive tragedies of the late twentieth century, one that set the tone for nearly thirty years of renewed conflict in the Middle East.

Berlin


David Clay Large - 2000
    At the same time, Berlin has also been a dynamic center of artistic and intellectual innovation. If Paris was the "Capital of the Nineteenth Century," Berlin was to become the signature city for the next hundred years. Once a symbol of modernity, in the Thirties it became associated with injustice and the abuse of power. After 1945, it became the iconic City of the Cold War. Since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has again come to represent humanity's aspirations for a new beginning, tempered by caution deriving from the traumas of the recent past. David Clay Large's definitive history of Berlin is framed by the two German unifications of 1871 and 1990. Between these two events several themes run like a thread through the city's history: a persistent inferiority complex; a distrust among many ordinary Germans, and the national leadership of the "unloved city's" electric atmosphere, fast tempo, and tradition of unruliness; its status as a magnet for immigrants, artists, intellectuals, and the young; the opening up of social, economic, and ethnic divisions as sharp as the one created by the Wall.

The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections 1938-2001


Gitta Sereny - 2000
    This book gathers together the best of her writing on Germany from over sixty years. It amounts to an extraordinary portrait of the country and its people, how they have come to terms with their Nazi past, both collectively and in specific instances - and how the burden of their guilt has altered the national identity. She writes about key individuals - Stangl, Speer - and the questions which their lives raise. The penetration and conviction of her writing throughout is startling and she constantly reminds us why it is important to consider the questions she addresses - war guilt, holocaust denial and the temptations of obedience.

Into the Darkness: An Uncensored Report from Inside the Third Reich at War


T. Lothrop Stoddard - 2000
    During World War II he wrote Into the Darkness, about the effect of war on Nazi Germany. Stoddard was relatively nonpartisan in his coverage of the Nazi regime, but he did express concern for the welfare of the European Jewish community, foreseeing intense violence against the Jews.

Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France


Ernest R. May - 2000
    Why did Hitler turn against France in the Spring of 1940 and not before? And why were his poor judgement and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive earlier, when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan? Skillfully weaving together decisions of the high commands with the confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field, the distinguished diplomatic historian Ernest R. May offers many new insights into the tragic paradoxes of the battle for France.

The Complete Encyclopedia of Soccer


Keir Radnedge - 2000
    The Complete Encyclopedia of Soccer is a celebration of the sport, describing the history, organization, legendary players, clubs, notable coaches and stadium, as well as providing in-depth information on the major competitions and highlighting the laws and tactics as they have evolved over the past 130 years.

Inside Hitler's High Command


Geoffrey P. Megargee - 2000
    Indeed, Megargee argues, the German high command was much more flawed than many have suspected or acknowledged. Inside Hitler's High Command reveals that while Hitler was the central figure in many military decisions, his generals were equal partners in Germany's catastrophic defeat.Megargee exposes the structure, processes, and personalities that governed the Third Reich's military decision making and shows how Germany's presumed battlefield superiority was undermined by poor strategic and operational planning at the highest levels. His study tracks the evolution of German military leadership under the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 and expands our understanding of the balance of power within the high command, the role of personalities in its organizational development, and the influence of German military intellectuals on its structure and function. He also shows how the organization of the high command was plagued by ambition, stubbornness, political intrigue, and overworked staff officers. And his a week in the life chapter puts the high command under a magnifying glass to reveal its inner workings during the fierce fighting on the Russian Front in December 1941.Megargee also offers new insights into the high command crises of 1938 and shows how German general staff made fatal mistakes in their planning for Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Their arrogant dismissal of the Soviet military's ability to defend its homeland and virtual disregard for the extensive intelligence and sound logistics that undergird successful large-scale military campaigns ultimately came back to haunt them.In the final assessment, observes Megargee, the generals' strategic ideas were no better than Hitler's and often worse. Heinz Guderian, Franz Halder, and the rest were as guilty of self-deception as their Fuhrer, believing that innate German superiority and strength of will were enough to overcome nearly any obstacle. Inside Hitler's High Command exposes these surprising flaws and illuminates the process of strategy and decision making in the Third Reich.

Knowledge and Faith


Edith Stein - 2000
    Five contributions on the title themes, including two of Stein's most famous essays: a comparison of Husserl and Aquinas, and an examination of the "Ways to Know God" according to Pseudo-Dionysius.

Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany


Margaret Lavinia Anderson - 2000
    Originally designed to make voters susceptible to manipulation by the authorities, the suffrage's unintended consequence was to enmesh its participants in ever more democratic procedures and practices. The result was the growth of an increasingly democratic culture in the decades before 1914.Explicit comparisons with Britain, France, and America give us a vivid picture of the coercive pressures--from employers, clergy, and communities--that German voters faced, but also of the legalistic culture that shielded them from the fraud, bribery, and violence so characteristic of other early franchise regimes. We emerge with a new sense that Germans were in no way less modern in the practice of democratic politics. Anderson, in fact, argues convincingly against the widely accepted notion that it was pre-war Germany's lack of democratic values and experience that ultimately led to Weimar's failure and the Third Reich. Practicing Democracy is a surprising reinterpretation of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany and will engage historians concerned with the question of Germany's special path to modernity; sociologists interested in obedience, popular mobilization, and civil society; political scientists debating the relative role of institutions versus culture in the transition to democracy. By showing how political activity shaped and was shaped by the experiences of ordinary men and women, it conveys the excitement of democratic politics.

The Reichstag: Sir Norman Foster's Parliament Building


Norman Foster - 2000
    A comprehensive overview of Foster's revolutionary design for the lower house of the German parliament, constructed within the shell of the Reichstag building.

The Time Of Light


Gunnar Kopperud - 2000
    Framed by the 9-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1994, this novel contains a story weaved from historical narration and tales - tales of war and tales of women - as two men talk.

Last Victory in Russia: The SS-Panzerkorps and Manstein's Kharkov Counteroffensive, February-March 1943


George M. Nipe Jr. - 2000
    Panzerarmee, and is supported by over 210 photographs and maps.

Dictatorship: From the Origin of the Modern Concept of Sovereignty to Proletarian Class Struggle


Carl Schmitt - 2000
     Written shortly after the Russian Revolution and the First World War, Schmitt analyses the problem of the state of emergency and the power of the Reichsprasident in declaring it. Dictatorship, Schmitt argues, is a necessary legal institution in constitutional law and has been wrongly portrayed as just the arbitrary rule of a so-called dictator. Dictatorship is an essential book for understanding the work of Carl Schmitt and a major contribution to the modern theory of a democratic, constitutional state. And despite being written in the early part of the twentieth century, it speaks with remarkable prescience to our contemporary political concerns.

United States Cookbook


Joan D'Amico - 2000
    In what state were both the lollipop and the hamburger-on-a-bun invented? 2. Where do the largest watermelons grow and what s the distance record for spitting watermelon seeds? How big is the world s largest potato chip and where is it now? 3. There s more to cuisine in America than just burgers and fries. Here s a mouthwatering journey across the United States where you ll discove and learn how to make fabulous foods from every part of the country. Treat yourself to such simple, kid-tested recipes as: * Banana Berry Pancakes with Real Maple Syrup from Vermont * Key Lime Pie from Florida * Deep Dish Pizza from Illinois The United States Cookbook is a delicious mixture of fun food trivia, fascinating tidbits about each state s history and traditions, and yummy recipes you can cook yourself. What a great way to stuff your face and feed your brain at the same time! ANSWERS: 1. Connecticut. 2. Hope, Arkansas. The record is 30 feet. 3. 25 feet long and 14 feet wide. 3. It s in the Potato Museum, Blackfoot, Idaho

Edge of Empire: Rome's Frontier on the Lower Rhine


Jona Lendering - 2000
    The reality was different. The presence of the Roman army along the River Rhine radically changed the way of life in the small Roman province of Germania Inferior, and the need to maintain and feed this large army became a significant incentive for economic change. The tribes living along the lower reaches of The Rhine and close to the North Sea gradually began to resemble their occupiers.

Germany from Reich to Republic, 1871-1918


Matthew S. Seligmann - 2000
    Focusing on domestic politics as well as diplomacy, personalities, and decision-making, attention is given to the latest historical research, the documentary evidence on which it is based, and the debates and controversies that are thereby evoked.

Max Beckmann


Stephan Lackner - 2000
    Each volume is written by an internationally recognized authority and is generously illustrated with full-color reproductions of the artist's paintings and two-color reproductions of sketches and line drawings.

A Look at Germany


Helen Frost - 2000
    Includes a map.

The Hidden Plot: Notes on the Theatre and the State


Edward Bond - 2000
    It explains the hidden working of drama behind the state, religion, family, crime and war. It is a revolutionary understanding of the human world with drama at its centre. A ruthless critique of the theatre's present state and its trivialisation as entertainment by the media, it reveals and sees a radical new theatre for the future. Edward Bond is internationally recognised as a major playwright and a leading theoretician of drama. He is the most performed British dramatist abroad. This is his latest and most important account of the meaning and practice of theatre as we start a new millennium.

Adolf Hitler


David Nicholls - 2000
    This illustrated A-Z biographical companion provides easily accessible information about the key events in Hitler's life, his most important collaborators and opponents, his domestic and foreign policies, the use of propaganda and the forging of the Hitler cult, racial persecution and the Holocaust, and Hitler as a war leader."Adolf Hitler" also includes an introduction, a chronology, maps, primary source documents, a general bibliography, and index.

Sturmgeschutz


Uwe Feist - 2000
    Cheaper to build than complicated Panthers or Tigers, assault guns far outnumbered tanks in Germany's armored fighting vehicle arsenal. On the battlefield, they were employed to support infantry and eventually to destroy tanks. Featured here are hundreds of rare wartime photos, and of special interest are the modern color photos that show the step-by-step restoration of a SturmgeschUtz III.

Collecting and Historical Consciousness in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness


Susan A. Crane - 2000
    Susan A. Crane argues that the ever-more-elaborate preservation of the historical may actually reduce the likelihood that history can be experienced with the freshness and individuality characteristic of the early collectors and preservationists. Her book is both a study of the emergence in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany of a distinctively modern conception of historical consciousness, and a meditation on what was lost as historical thought became institutionalized and professionalized. Public forms of remembering the past which are familiar today, such as historical museums and historical preservation, have surprisingly recent origins. In Germany, caring about the past took on these distinctively new forms after the Napoleonic wars. The Brothers Grimm gathered fairy tales and documented the origins of the German language. Historical preservationists collected documents and artifacts and organized the conservation of cathedrals and other historic buildings. Collectors formed historical societies and created Germany's historical museums. No single national consciousness emerged; instead, many groups used similar means to make different claims about what it meant to have a German past.Although individuals were responsible for stimulating new interest in the past, they chose to band together in voluntary associations to promote collective awareness of German history. In doing so, however, they clashed with academic and political interests and lost control over the very artifacts, collections, and buildings they had saved from ruin. Examining the letters and publications of the amateur collectors, Crane shows how historical consciousness came to be represented in collective terms--whether regional or national--and in effect robbed everyone of the capacity to experience history individually and spontaneously.

Fodor's Around Washington D.C. with Kids (Around the City with Kids)


Kathryn Mckay - 2000
    Local mom Kathryn McKay has handpicked 68 simply fabulous things to do in and around D.C. with a child in tow. You'll look at old favorites in a new light, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Smithsonian American Art Museum—and blaze new trails all over town, from the International Spy Museum to the Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run. Every page is loaded with fun facts and helpful information.Each entry includes:• Insider tips• Way-cool trivia every kid will love• Kid-friendly snack spots• Age-appropriateness• Admissions, phone numbers and web sites

Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification, and National Identity


Jan-Werner Müller - 2000
    He analyzes the responses of Günter Grass, Jürgen Habermas, and others of the so-called skeptical generation, who broke with the tradition of the illiberal interwar intellectuals and reinvented themselves as a "democratic elite" who sought to transform political culture after the war#151;and tried to do so again after 1989. He discusses the German idea of "constitutional patriotism" as well as the antinationalism of the "generation of 1968," and provides the first full-scale analysis of Germany's "New Right." Written clearly and elegantly, the book assesses the acrimonious debates about the future of the nation-state and public memory in Germany and offers more general reflections on the role intellectuals can play in post-totalitarian societies.brpbAbout the Author:/bBRJan-Werner Müller is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and has recently held a senior visiting fellowship at the Remarque Institute at New York University.