Best of
Germany

2014

Germany: Memories of a Nation


Neil MacGregor - 2014
    Written and presented by Neil MacGregor, it is produced by BBC Radio 4, in partnership with the British Museum.Whilst Germany s past is too often seen through the prism of the two World Wars, this series investigates a wider six hundred-year-old history of the nation through its objects. It examines the key moments that have defined Germany s past its great, world-changing achievements and its devastating tragedies and it explores the profound influence that Germany s history, culture, and inventiveness have had across Europe.The objects featured in the radio series range from large sculptures to small individual artifacts and items that are prosaic, iconic, and symbolic. Each has a story to tell and a memory to invoke."

Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I


Alexander Watson - 2014
    Convinced that right was on their side and fearful of the enemies that encircled them, they threw themselves resolutely into battle. Yet, despite the initial halting of a brutal Russian invasion, the Central Powers' war plans soon unravelled. Germany's attack on France failed. Austria-Hungary's armies suffered catastrophic losses at Russian and Serbian hands. Hopes of a quick victory lay in ruins.For the Central Powers the war now became a siege on a monstrous scale. Britain's ruthless intervention cut sea routes to central Europe and mobilised the world against them. Germany and Austria-Hungary were to be strangled of war supplies and food, their soldiers overwhelmed by better armed enemies, and their civilians brought to the brink of starvation. Conquest and plunder, land offensives, and submarine warfare all proved powerless to counter or break the blockade. The Central Powers were trapped in the Allies' ever-tightening ring of steel. Alexander Watson's compelling new history retells the war from the perspectives of its instigators and losers, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. This is the story not just of their leaders in Berlin and Vienna, but above all of the people. Only through their unprecedented mobilisation could the conflict last so long and be so bitterly fought, and only with the waning of their commitment did it end. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states and bequeathed to east-central Europe a poisonous legacy of unredeemed sacrifice, suffering, race hatred and violence. A major re-evaluation of the First World War, Ring of Steel is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.

The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall


Mary Elise Sarotte - 2014
    The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.It was an accident.In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist's eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin.We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC's Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control.Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.

Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Charles Marsh - 2014
    Now, drawing on extensive new research, Strange Glory offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern icon. The scion of a grand family that rarely went to church, Dietrich decided as a thirteen-year-old to become a theologian. By twenty-one, the rather snobbish and awkward young man had already written a dissertation hailed by Karl Barth as a “theological miracle.” But it was only the first step in a lifelong effort to recover an authentic and orthodox Christianity from the dilutions of liberal Protestantism and the modern idolatries of blood and nation—which forces had left the German church completely helpless against the onslaught of Nazism. From the start, Bonhoeffer insisted that the essence of Christianity was not its abstract precepts but the concrete reality of the shared life in Christ. In 1930, his search for that true fellowship led Bonhoeffer to America for ten fateful months in the company of social reformers, Harlem churchmen, and public intellectuals. Energized by the lived faith he had seen, he would now begin to make what he later saw as his definitive “turn from the phraseological to the real.” He went home with renewed vocation and took up ministry among Berlin’s downtrodden while trying to find his place in the hoary academic establishment increasingly captive to nationalist fervor. With the rise of Hitler, however, Bonhoeffer’s journey took yet another turn. The German church was Nazified, along with every other state-sponsored institution. But it was the Nuremberg laws that set Bonhoeffer’s earthly life on an ineluctable path toward destruction. His denunciation of the race statutes as heresy and his insistence on the church’s moral obligation to defend all victims of state violence, regardless of race or religion, alienated him from what would become the Reich church and even some fellow resistors. Soon the twenty-seven-year-old pastor was one of the most conspicuous dissidents in Germany. He would carry on subverting the regime and bearing Christian witness, whether in the pastorate he assumed in London, the Pomeranian monastery he established to train dissenting ministers, or in the worldwide ecumenical movement. Increasingly, though, Bonhoeffer would find himself a voice crying in the wilderness, until, finally, he understood that true moral responsibility obliged him to commit treason, for which he would pay with his life.  Charles Marsh brings Bonhoeffer to life in his full complexity for the first time. With a keen understanding of the multifaceted writings, often misunderstood, as well as the imperfect man behind the saintly image, here is a nuanced, exhilarating, and often heartrending portrait that lays bare Bonhoeffer’s flaws and inner torment, as well as the friendships and the faith that sustained and finally redeemed him. Strange Glory is a momentous achievement.

Partners To A Degree: Growing Up Under The Third Reich Book 4


Horst Christian - 2014
    Their knowledge of the city’s subway system plays a key role in their survival during the battle of Berlin and will do so again in the days that follow as the Soviets control the city.After being arrested by a Russian Political Kommissar, Karl and Harold are given the option of being shipped off to Russian labor camps or completing missions for the Kommissar and earning their freedom. The promise of freedom and the possibility of receiving information about the fate of their families is more than enough to ensure their cooperation.The Kommissar is continually surprised by Karl and Harold’s ingenuity and resourcefulness as they complete each mission. He develops a fondness for the boys and offers to adopt them and take them back to Russia with him when he returns. Holding out hope they will eventually be reunited with their families, they refuse the Kommissar’s offer. Unfortunately, only one boy’s dream of seeing his family again will come true.The ravages of war dramatically changed their lives and while Karl and Harold have each suffered the loss of loved ones – one has lost more than the other. One boy will struggle to put his life back on track and the other will embark on a path of revenge – fueled by grief and anger at the lies that caused his loss and the destruction of his homeland.One boy’s story comes to an end, while the other’s is just beginning.Books In The Series:Children To A DegreeLoyal To A DegreeTrust To A DegreePartners To A Degree

My Brother's Secret


Dan Smith - 2014
    12-year-old Karl Engel is looking forward to joining the Hitler Youth, like all boys his age.But when his father is killed, his rebellious older brother Stefan shows him things that leave his faith in the Führer shaken. Who is the real enemy? What is the meaning of the flower sewn inside his brother’s jacket? Karl soon finds out, as he becomes involved in a dangerous rebellion.

The Roses Underneath


C.F. Yetmen - 2014
    With the country in ruins, Anna Klein, displaced and separated from her beloved husband, struggles to support herself and her six-year old daughter Amalia. Her job typing forms at the Collecting Point for the US Army’s Monuments Men is the only thing keeping her afloat. Charged with securing Nazi-looted art and rebuilding Germany’s monuments, the Americans are on the hunt for stolen treasures. But after the horrors of the war, Anna wants only to hide from the truth and rebuild a life with her family. When the easy-going American Captain Henry Cooper recruits her as his reluctant translator, the two of them stumble on a mysterious stash of art in a villa outside of town. Cooper’s penchant for breaking the rules capsizes Anna’s tenuous security and propels her into a search for elusive truth and justice in a world where everyone is hiding something.

The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941


Roger Moorhouse - 2014
    Yet Hitler and Stalin signed a treaty of nonaggression that lasted for nearly a third of the war, and that is key to understanding why the war evolved—and ended—the way it did.In The Devils’ Alliance, Roger Moorhouse explains how the two powers—though ideologically opposed—forged a brutally efficient partnership, exchanging raw materials and machinery and orchestrating the division of Poland and the Baltic States. Hundreds of thousands caught between Hitler and Stalin were killed or deported. But ironically, by sharing materiel and technological expertise during the Pact, the Nazis and Soviets made possible a far more bloody and protracted war than would have been otherwise conceivable.Combining comprehensive research with a gripping narrative, The Devils’ Alliance is the authoritative history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact—and a portrait of the people whose lives were irrevocably altered by the alliance.

Heidegger: An Essential Guide For Complete Beginners


Michael Watts - 2014
    He is a master at this!” (Roy Martinez, Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Spelman College, Atlanta, USA).“To write clearly and accessibly, and yet present a philosopher’s ideas without trivialising or distorting them requires considerable intellectual discipline. This challenge is, arguably, all the more severe in the case of philosophers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein…Michael Watts has understood his responsibilities to the ‘newcomer’ very well.” (Extract from The Philosophers’ Magazine [Summer 2002] review by Jonathan Derbyshire, Culture Editor of New Statesman and Managing Editor of Prospect).“Michael Watts gives an exceptionally clear and readable account of Being and Time, while also performing the difficult feat of weaving this into an account of Heidegger’s later writings. He provides valuable guidance for the beginner through the complexities of Heidegger’s thought and much of interest for those who are already ‘on the way’.” (Michael Inwood, Trinity College, Oxford).Ideal for complete beginners, this is an exceptionally readable and reliable overview of Heidegger's thought, refreshingly free from the complex jargon typical of most academic philosophy. Full of concrete examples, Watts provides easy access to key Heideggerian notions of authenticity, falling, throwness, angst, guilt, conscience, technology and death, while also navigating the difficult relationship between earlier and later texts, to provide readers with a strong sense of the overall continuity of the Heidegger's thought. About the Author Philosophy Publications:1.The Philosophy of Heidegger, Acumen Publishing, Durham (2011)2.Kierkegaard, Oneworld Publications, Oxford (2003) E book version: Kierkegaard: An Essential Introduction3.Heidegger: A Beginner’s Guide, Hodder and Stoughton Educational, London, (2001) 4.Heidegger: A Beginner’s Guide, Spanish Language Edition: Heidegger Guia para Jovenes, Logues Ediciones, Madrid (2003)5.Heidegger: A Beginner’s Guide, Korean Language Edition: Korean Translation Joong-Ang Inc. Seoul, (2006)Psychology Publications:6.Doodle Interpretation: A Beginner's Guide, Hodder and Stoughton Educational, London (2000)7.Lovescript: What Handwriting Reveals About Love & Romance, St Martins Griffin, New York, (1996)8.The Naked Hand: Sexuality Revealed Through Handwriting, Headline Book Publishing, London (1995)9.Graphology: What Your Handwriting Reveals About You, Your Friends and Your Enemies, Simon & Schuster, New York (1991)Michael Watts graduated with honors in 1980 in Experimental Psychology, (Sussex University, UK). Continuing with post-graduate research in Graphology, he became a personnel consultant for companies worldwide, and in 1983 assisted the Security Commission in Whitehall.Writing for numerous magazines and national newspapers in the UK and USA, he has also been a frequent guest on radio and television (ITV, BBC and Sky News channels).An independent scholar and writer, his specialist interests are in philosophy, in particular in the practical application of East Asian thinking and Western Existentialism.

I Love My Mom


Shelley Admont - 2014
    I Love My Mom is a delightful tale and the perfect story for Level 1 (first grade) readers. This children’s book is part of a collection of short bedtime stories. Scroll up, buy this book now and get ready to have a lot of fun with your children. Your kids will love going back to it again and again.

Echo (Free Preview Edition)


Pam Muñoz Ryan - 2014
    Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo. Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, ECHO pushes the boundaries of genre and form, and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories. The result is an impassioned, uplifting, and virtuosic tour de force that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck."

Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity


Robert Beachy - 2014
    From Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German activist described by some as the first openly gay man, to the world of Berlin’s vast homosexual subcultures, to a major sex scandal that enraptured the daily newspapers and shook the court of Emperor William II—and on through some of the very first sex reassignment surgeries—Robert Beachy uncovers the long-forgotten events and characters that continue to shape and influence the way we think of sexuality today. Chapter by chapter Beachy’s scholarship illuminates forgotten firsts, including the life and work of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, first to claim (in 1896) that same-sex desire is an immutable, biologically determined characteristic, and founder of the Institute for Sexual Science. Though raided and closed down by the Nazis in 1933, the institute served as, among other things, “a veritable incubator for the science of tran-sexuality,” scene of one of the world’s first sex reassignment surgeries. Fascinating, surprising, and informative—Gay Berlin is certain to be counted as a foundational cultural examination of human sexuality.

Erbstein: The triumph and tragedy of football's forgotten pioneer


Dominic Bliss - 2014
    Ernő Egri Erbstein was one of the greatest coaches there has ever been, a pioneering tactician and supreme man-manager who created Il Grande Torino, the team that dominated Italian football in the years immediately after the Second World War.His was an extraordinary life that was characterised by courage and resourcefulness in the face of adversity.Erbstein was part of the great Jewish coaching tradition developed in the coffee houses of Budapest and, playing in Hungary, Italy and the USA, he moved to Bari to embark on a coaching career that soon became noted for its innovativeness.That he and his family survived the Holocaust was a matter of astonishing good fortune, but just four years after the end of the war, Erbstein was killed with his team in the Superga air crash.Dominic Bliss, through a combination of interviews, painstaking archival research and careful detective work, pieces together the lost history of one of football's most influential early heroes.What people have said about Erbstein: football's forgotten pioneer"Erbstein's story, largely untold before today, is one of those tales that makes us realise just how – for better and worse – European history is mirrored in football." – Gabriele Marcotti“A powerful and moving account of one of football's forgotten heroes." - Anthony Clavane

Islam and Nazi Germany's War


David Motadel - 2014
    Nazi officials saw Islam as a powerful force with the same enemies as Germany: the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Jews. Islam and Nazi Germany's War is the first comprehensive account of Berlin's remarkably ambitious attempts to build an alliance with the Islamic world.Drawing on archival research in three continents, David Motadel explains how German officials tried to promote the Third Reich as a patron of Islam. He explores Berlin's policies and propaganda in the Muslim war zones, and the extensive work that authorities undertook for the recruitment, spiritual care, and ideological indoctrination of tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers who fought in the Wehrmacht and the SS.Islam and Nazi Germany's War reveals how German troops on the ground in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Eastern front engaged with diverse Muslim populations, including Muslim Roma and Jewish converts to Islam. Combining measured argument with a masterly handling of detail, it illuminates the profound impact of the Second World War on Muslims around the world and provides a new understanding of the politics of religion in the bloodiest conflict of the twentieth century.

After Hegel: German Philosophy, 1840-1900


Frederick C. Beiser - 2014
    By contrast, the remainder of the century, after Hegel's death, has been relatively neglected because it has been seen as a period of stagnation and decline. But Frederick Beiser argues that the second half of the century was in fact one of the most revolutionary periods in modern philosophy because the nature of philosophy itself was up for grabs and the very absence of certainty led to creativity and the start of a new era. In this innovative concise history of German philosophy from 1840 to 1900, Beiser focuses not on themes or individual thinkers but rather on the period's five great debates: the identity crisis of philosophy, the materialism controversy, the methods and limits of history, the pessimism controversy, and the Ignorabimusstreit. Schopenhauer and Wilhelm Dilthey play important roles in these controversies but so do many neglected figures, including Ludwig Buchner, Eugen Duhring, Eduard von Hartmann, Julius Fraunstaedt, Hermann Lotze, Adolf Trendelenburg, and two women, Agnes Taubert and Olga Pluemacher, who have been completely forgotten in histories of philosophy. The result is a wide-ranging, original, and surprising new account of German philosophy in the critical period between Hegel and the twentieth century.

Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Biography and Autobiography)


Stephen Parker - 2014
    Drawing on letters, diaries and unpublished material, including Brecht's medical records, Parker offers a rich and enthralling account of Brecht's life and work, viewed through the prism of the artist. Tracing his extraordinary life, from his formative years in Augsburg, through the First World War, his politicisation during the Weimar Republic and his years of exile, up to the Berliner Ensemble's dazzling productions in Paris and London, Parker shows how Brecht achieved his transformative effect upon world theatre and poetry. Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a powerful portrait of a great, compulsively contradictory personality, whose artistry left its lasting imprint on modern culture.

Learning German through Storytelling: Heidis Frühstück - a detective story for German language learners (for intermediate and advanced students) (Baumgartner & Momsen mystery 5)


André Klein - 2014
    This is the fifth episode of the popular Baumgartner & Momsen mystery series for German learners.When a loyal family dog comes upon a human ear in its feeding dish one morning, the police is notified immediately, but due to a sudden change in staff, the investigation proceeds only haltingly.Help Kommissar Baumgartner and Kommissarin Momsen to solve this case and improve your German effortlessly along the way!Why brood over grammar sheets and lifeless workbooks when you can be entertained and learn natural German at the same time!This book contains:- a page-turning story crammed with humor and suspense- special emphasis on idioms and natural German- vocabulary sections with difficult and important words translated to English- ready for on-demand translation- exercises for comprehension training- hand-drawn illustrations by the author

The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi


Johann Chapoutot - 2014
    What could drive people to fight, kill, and destroy with such ruthless ambition? Observers and historians have offered countless explanations since the 1930s. According to Johann Chapoutot, we need to understand better how the Nazis explained it themselves. We need a clearer view, in particular, of how they were steeped in and spread the idea that history gave them no choice: it was either kill or die.Chapoutot, one of France's leading historians, spent years immersing himself in the texts and images that reflected and shaped the mental world of Nazi ideologues, and that the Nazis disseminated to the German public. The party had no official ur-text of ideology, values, and history. But a clear narrative emerges from the myriad works of intellectuals, apparatchiks, journalists, and movie-makers that Chapoutot explores.The story went like this: In the ancient world, the Nordic-German race lived in harmony with the laws of nature. But since Late Antiquity, corrupt foreign norms and values--Jewish values in particular--had alienated Germany from itself and from all that was natural. The time had come, under the Nazis, to return to the fundamental law of blood. Germany must fight, conquer, and procreate, or perish. History did not concern itself with right and wrong, only brute necessity. A remarkable work of scholarship and insight, The Law of Blood recreates the chilling ideas and outlook that would cost millions their lives.

Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II


István Deák - 2014
    These three themes are examined through the experiences of people and countries under German occupation, as well as Soviet, Italian, and other military rule. Those under foreign rule faced innumerable moral and ethical dilemmas, including the question of whether to cooperate with their occupiers, try to survive the war without any political involvement, or risk their lives by becoming resisters. Many chose all three, depending on wartime conditions. Following the brutal war, the author discusses the purges of real or alleged war criminals and collaborators, through various acts of violence, deportations, and judicial proceedings at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal as well as in thousands of local courts. Europe on Trial helps us to understand the many moral consequences both during and immediately following World War II.Foreword by Norman M. Naimark

The Family Tree German Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Germanic Ancestry in Europe


James Beidler - 2014
    This in-depth genealogy guide will walk you step by step through the exciting journey of researching your German heritage, whether your ancestors came from lands now in modern-day Germany or other German-speaking areas of Europe, including Austria, Switzerland, and enclaves across Eastern Europe. In this book, you'll learn how to: Retrace your German immigrant ancestors' voyage from Europe to America. Pinpoint the precise place in Europe your ancestors came from. Uncover birth, marriage, death, church, census, court, military, and other records documenting your ancestors' lives. Access German records of your family from your own hometown. Decipher German-language records, including unfamiliar German script. Understand German names and naming patterns that offer research clues. You'll also find maps, timelines, sample records and resource lists throughout the book for quick and easy reference. Whether you're just beginning your family tree or a longtime genealogy researcher, the Family Tree German Genealogy Guide will help you conquer the unique challenges of German research and uncover your ancestors' stories.

Drone State


Tom Hillenbrand - 2014
    At first, detective Aart van der Westerhuizen is confident he can solve the case quickly using Europol's near-omniscient police computer TEREISIAS. But then he realizes the digital evidence may have been tampered with. Soon Aart becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens to shake Europe to its core.Praise for "Drone State" A sweeping thriller about our future in the surveillance state . . . since Orwell has aged a little, it was high time for a novel like this. - Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungThe scariest thing about this gripping detective story is how plausible the future presented in it seems. - Technology ReviewBrillant and fast-paced, "Drone State" is a treasure trove of imagination, chock-full of futuristic high-tech ideas. - Les Inrockuptibles

Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany


David Stubbs - 2014
    But this orphaned landscape proved fertile ground for a generation of musicians who, from the 1960s onwards, would develop the experimental and various sounds that became known as Krautrock.Eschewing the Anglo-American jazz/blues tradition, they took their inspiration from elsewhere: the mysticism of the East; the fractured classicism of Stockhausen; the pneumatic repetition of industry, and the dense forests of the Rhineland; the endless winding of Autobahns.Faust, Neu!, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Dl II, Can, Kraftwerk - the influence of these groups' ruminative, expansive compositions upon Western popular music is incalculable. They were key to the development of movements ranging from postpunk to electronica and ambient, and have directly inspired artists as diverse as David Bowie, Talking Heads and Primal Scream.Future Days is an in-depth study of this meditative, sometimes abstract, often very beautiful music and the groups that made it, throwing light too on the social and political context that informed them. It's an indispensable book for those wanting to understand how much of today's music came about, and to discover a wealth of highly influential and pioneering artists.

The Last Confession of The Vampire Judas Iscariot


David B. Vermont - 2014
    Or maybe not. After watching the crucifixion of Jesus, Judas despairs over what he has done and fumes that the Messiah he put his trust in has turned out to be just another pretender like all the rest. The toxic mix of emotions is too much for him to bear and Judas commits suicide by hanging himself. He is restored to life by the Devil and made into a vampire apostle. The Devil teaches Judas to manipulate men and history. He becomes a king, a general, a teacher and a blacksmith, whatever is needed to effect the outcome of history and move it towards the goal of his new master. Each time he is ready to move on to his next incarnation he must drink the blood of an innocent victim to be restored to his youthful vigor. But despite his many powers and abilities Judas knows there is one thing he desires and cannot have. Finally Judas meets a laicized priest, Raymond Breviary, and tries to steal from him what he was denied two thousand years before.

Death of a Diva: From Berlin to Broadway


Brigitte Goldstein - 2014
    But Misia Safran, a young Jewish refugee from Germany and part-time employee at the theater who becomes inadvertently involved in the investigation, is haunted by the possibility of his innocence and a suspicion that there's more to the case than meets the eye.Determined to uncover the truth, Misia delves into Stella's background. She patches together the life of the revered actress from testimony by those who had been closest to her throughout her rise to stardom. From accounts of her humble origins in a Viennese ghetto to her rise to the pinnacle in the acting world of 1920's Berlin, to her battle with Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels, emerges the portrait of a woman of great strength of character and resolve, albeit one that conceals a vulnerable side which ultimately may have been the cause of her undoing. As Misia cuts through a bewildering thicket of lies, hidden agendas, and deceptions, she is met with intimations of a deep secret in Stella's past, evidence of which may be stored in the vault of a Swiss bank. If made public, this secret could provide the clue to the mystery, but could also destroy the star's carefully guarded public persona. (less)

Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937


Olaf Peters - 2014
    During the Nazi regime in Germany, -degenerate art- was the official term for much of the most important modern art of the day. -Degenerate art- was defined by the Nazi regime as artwork that was not in line with the National Socialists' ideas of beauty. Their condemnation extended to works in nearly every major art movement: Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, Surrealism, Cubism, and Fauvism. Banned artists included Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, and Oskar Kokoschka. Richly illustrated, Degenerate Art elucidates the historical and intellectual context of the notorious exhibition in Munich in 1937, which spurred the attack on modern art. The book contains reflections on the genesis and evolution of the term -degenerate art- and details of the National Socialist policy on art. Art works from the exhibition Degenerate Art are compared to works of art from The Great German Art Exhibition, which was held at the same time and displayed the works of officially approved artists. The book also presents the after-effects of the attack on modernism that are felt even today.

The Paradox of German Power


Hans Kundnani - 2014
    During the last three years, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been compared with Bismarck and even Hitler in the European media. And yet few can deny that Germany today is very different from the stereotype ofnineteenth- and twentieth-century history. After nearly seventy years of struggling with the Nazi past, Germans think that they more than anyone have learned its lessons. Above all, what the new Germany thinks it stands for is peace. Germany is unique in this combination of economic assertivenessand military abstinence. So what does it mean to have a German Europe in the twenty-first century?In The Paradox of German Power, Hans Kundnani explains how Germany got to where it is now and where it might go in future. He explores German national identity and foreign policy through a series of tensions in German thinking and action: between continuity and change, between normality andabnormality, between economics and politics, and between Europe and the world.

Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Führer


Mark Felton - 2014
    Well worth a look. Well worth a read.” —War History Online   Based on intelligence documents, personal testimonies, memoirs, and official histories, including material only declassified in 2010, Guarding Hitler provides the reader with a fascinating inside look at the secret world of Hitler’s security and domestic arrangements. The book focuses in particular on both the official and private life of Hitler during the latter part of the war, at the Wolf’s Lair at Rastenburg, and Hitler’s private residence at Berchtesgaden, the Berghof.  Guarding Hitler manages to offer fresh insights into the life and routine of the Führer, and most importantly, the often indiscreet opinions, observations, and activities of the “little people” who surrounded Hitler but whose stories have been overshadowed by the great affairs of state.   It covers not only the plots against Hitler’s life but the way security developed as a result. His use of “doubles” is examined as is security while traveling by land or air.   As little has been written about the security and domestic life of Adolf Hitler, Guarding Hitler allows the reader to delve deeper into this previously overlooked aspect of the world’s most infamous man.   “A fascinating view into the close world Hitler inhabited and which shaped his life and decisions.” —Fire Reviews

Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader


Josiah McElheny - 2014
    Considered by some a mad eccentric and by others a visionary political thinker in his own time, he is now experiencing a revival thanks to a new generation of scholars who are rightfully situating him in the modernist pantheon.Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is the first collection of Scheerbart’s multifarious writings to be published in English. In addition to a selection of his fantastical short stories, it includes the influential architectural manifesto Glass Architecture and his literary tour-de-force Perpetual Motion: The Story of an Invention. The latter, written in the guise of a scientific work (complete with technical diagrams), was taken as such when first published but in reality is a fiction—albeit one with an important message. Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is richly illustrated with period material, much of it never before reproduced, including a selection of artwork by Paul Scheerbart himself. Accompanying this original material is a selection of essays by scholars, novelists, and filmmakers commissioned for this publication to illuminate Scheerbart’s importance, then and now, in the worlds of art, architecture, and culture.   Coedited by artist Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin, with new artwork created for this publication by McElheny, Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! is a long-overdue monument to a modern master.

The Ashes of Heaven's Pillar


Kim Rendfeld - 2014
    Her beloved husband died in combat. Her faith lies shattered in the ashes of the Irminsul, the Pillar of Heaven. The relatives obligated to defend her and her family instead sell them into slavery. In Francia, Leova is resolved to protect her son and daughter, even if it means sacrificing her own honor. Her determination only grows stronger as Sunwynn blossoms into a beautiful young woman attracting the lust of a cruel master and Deorlaf becomes a headstrong man willing to brave starvation and demons to free his family. Yet Leova’s most difficult dilemma comes in the form of a Frankish friend, Hugh. He saves Deorlaf from a fanatical Saxon and is Sunwynn’s champion - but he is the warrior who slew Leova’s husband.Set against a backdrop of historic events, including the destruction of the Irminsul, "The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar" explores faith, friendship, and justice—a tale described by reviewers as “transportive and triumphant,” “captivating,” and “compelling.”

Yesterday's Sandhills: Wolf Children in Germany at the End of World War II


Rita Baltutt Kyle - 2014
    When the Soviets conquered East Prussia in 1945, like many other German children these four little girls were effectively orphaned when their parents were taken for forced labor into the Soviet Union. This is the story of their struggle for survival. Left to fend for themselves in a burned-out town, they faced starvation, dehydration, drunken Russian soldiers, and roving gangs of lawless boys.

Economic Interdependence and War


Dale C. Copeland - 2014
    Realists contend that trade compels states to struggle for vital raw materials and markets. Moving beyond the stale liberal-realist debate, "Economic Interdependence and War "lays out a dynamic theory of expectations that shows under what specific conditions interstate commerce will reduce or heighten the risk of conflict between nations.Taking a broad look at cases spanning two centuries, from the Napoleonic and Crimean wars to the more recent Cold War crises, Dale Copeland demonstrates that when leaders have positive expectations of the future trade environment, they want to remain at peace in order to secure the economic benefits that enhance long-term power. When, however, these expectations turn negative, leaders are likely to fear a loss of access to raw materials and markets, giving them more incentive to initiate crises to protect their commercial interests. The theory of trade expectations holds important implications for the understanding of Sino-American relations since 1985 and for the direction these relations will likely take over the next two decades."Economic Interdependence and War" offers sweeping new insights into historical and contemporary global politics and the actual nature of democratic versus economic peace.

Beyond Bratwurst: A History of Food in Germany


Ursula Heinzelmann - 2014
    But the inhabitants of modern-day Germany do not live exclusively on bratwurst. Defying popular perception of the meat and potatoes diet, Ursula Heinzelmann’s Beyond Bratwurst delves into the history of German cuisine and reveals the country’s long history of culinary innovation.   Surveying the many traditions that make up German food today, Heinzelmann shows that regional variations of the country’s food have not only been marked by geographic and climatic differences between north and south, but also by Germany’s political, cultural, and socioeconomic history. She explores the nineteenth century’s back-to-the-land movement, which called for people to grow food on their own land for themselves and others, as well as the development of modern mass-market products, rationing and shortages under the Nazis, postwar hunger, and divisions between the East and West. Throughout, she illustrates how Germans have been receptive to influences from the countries around them and frequently reinvented their cuisine, developing a food culture with remarkable flexibility.   Telling the story of beer, stollen, rye bread, lebkuchen, and other German favorites, the recipe-packed Beyond Bratwurst will find a place on the shelves of food historians, chefs, and spätzle lovers alike.

The People's Game: Football, State and Society in East Germany


Alan Mcdougall - 2014
    Football played little part in this controversial story. Yet, as a hugely popular activity that was deeply entwined in the social fabric, it exerted an influence that few institutions or pursuits could match. The People's Game examines the history of football from the interrelated perspectives of star players, fans, and ordinary citizens who played for fun. Using archival sources and interviews, it reveals football's fluid role in preserving and challenging communist hegemony. By repeatedly emphasising that GDR football was part of an international story, for example, through analysis of the 1974 World Cup finals, Alan McDougall shows how sport transcended the Iron Curtain. Through a study of the mass protests against the Stasi team, BFC, during the 1980s, he reveals football's role in foreshadowing the downfall of communism.

Picasso's Animals


Boris Friedewald - 2014
    One of the few under-examined aspects of Picasso's life and work was his love of animals. The son of a pigeon breeder and an aficionado of bullfighting, Picasso had an eye trained for capturing an animal's movement, shape, and personality--often with just a single line. Organized around the different types of animals that played a role in the artist's life and body of work--from his beloved dachshund, Lump, to dogs, cats, and doves, among others--each chapter offers personal accounts, amusing anecdotes, and wondrous works of art. The perfect gift for lovers of animals or Picasso's art, this exquisite treasury of expertly rendered creatures is filled with humor, warmth, and the tremendous bonds between man and animal.

The War Behind the Wire: The Life, Death and Glory of British Prisoners of War 1914-18


John Lewis-Stempel - 2014
    Nothing could be further from the truth. British Prisoners of War merely exchanged one barbed-wire battleground for another.In the camps the war was eternal. There was the war against the German military, fought with everything from taunting humour to outright sabotage, with a literal spanner put in the works of the factories and salt mines prisoners were forced to slave in. British PoWs also fought a valiant war against the conditions in which they were mired. They battled starvation, disease, Prussian cruelties, boredom, and their own inner demons. And, of course, they escaped. Then escaped again. No less than 29 officers at Holzminden camp in 1918 burrowed their way out via a tunnel (dug with a chisel and trowel) in the Great Escape of the Great War. It was war with heart-breaking consequences; more than 12,000 PoWs died, many of them murdered, to buried in shallow unmarked graves.Using contemporary records - from prisoners' diaries to letters home to poetry - John Lewis-Stempel reveals the death, life and, above all, the glory of Britain's warriors behind the wire. For it was in the PoW camps, far from the blasted trenches, that the true spirit of the Tommy was exemplified.

The Bohemian Flats


Mary Relindes Ellis - 2014
    While his recovery eludes him, his memory returns us to Minneapolis, to the Flats, a milling community on the Mississippi River, where Raimund and his brother Albert have sought respite from the oppressive hand of their older brother, now the master of the family farm and brewery. In Minnesota the brothers confront different forms of prejudice, but they also find a chance to remake their lives according to their own principles and wishes—until the war makes their German roots inescapable.Following these lives, The Bohemian Flats conjures both the sweep of irresistible history and the intimate reality of a man, and a family, caught up in it. From a nineteenth-century German farm to the thriving, wildly diverse immigrant village below Minneapolis on the Mississippi to the European front in World War I, and returning to twentieth-century America—this is a story that takes a reader to the far reaches of human experience and the depths of the human heart.

The True Story of the Wooden Horse


Robert J. Laplander - 2014
    Many attempts at escape characterised its history, and the story of its establishment is a fascinating one. Now, historian Robert Laplander attempts to provide a comprehensive history of the camp and compound, framed around the ingenious wooden horse escape.

Between Two Homelands: Letters across the Borders of Nazi Germany


Hedda Kalshoven - 2014
    Yet during this period geography was not all that separated them. Increasing divergence in political opinions and eventual war between their countries meant letters contained not only family news but personal perspectives on the individual, local, and national choices that would result in the most destructive war in history. This important collection, first assembled by Irmgard Gebensleben's daughter Hedda Kalshoven, gives voice to ordinary Germans in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich and in the occupied Netherlands. The correspondence between Irmgard, her friends, and four generations of her family delve into their most intimate and candid thoughts and feelings about the rise of National Socialism. The responses to the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands expose the deeply divided loyalties of the family and reveal their attempts to bridge them. Of particular value to historians, the letters evoke the writers' beliefs and their understanding of the events happening around them.This first English translation of Ik denk zoveel aan jullie:  Een briefwisseling tussen Nederland en Duitsland 1920-1949, has been edited, abridged, and annotated by Peter Fritzsche with the assent and collaboration of Hedda Kalshoven. After the book's original publication the diary of Irmgard's brother and loyal Wehrmacht soldier, Eberhard, was discovered and edited by Hedda Kalshoven. Fritzsche has drawn on this important additional source in his preface.

Surgeon with the Kaiser's Army


Stephen Kurt Westmann - 2014
    

Three German Invasions of France: The Summer Campaigns of 1870, 1914 and 1940


Douglas Fermer - 2014
    Three times that hostility led to war and the invasion of France - in 1870, 1914 and 1940. The outcomes of the battles that followed reset the balance of power across the continent. Yet the German invasions tend to be viewed as separate events, in isolation, rather than as connected episodes in the confrontation between the two nations. Douglas Fermer s fresh account of the military campaigns and the preparations for them treats them as part of a cycle of fear, suspicion, animosity and conflicting ambitions extending across several generations. In a clear, concise account of the decisive opening phase of each campaign, he describes the critical decision-making, the maneuvers and clashes of arms in eastern France as German forces advanced westwards. As the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War approaches, this is a fitting moment to reconsider these momentous events and how they fit into the broad sweep of European history.REVIEWS Three German Invasions of France is excellent book for anyone who knows little about these campaigns, this can also be read with profit by the seasoned of the subject.Strategy Page"

The Weimar Century: German �migr�s and the Ideological Foundations of the Cold War


Udi Greenberg - 2014
    Blending intellectual, political, and international histories, Udi Greenberg shows that the foundations of Germany's reconstruction lay in the country's first democratic experiment, the Weimar Republic (1918-33). He traces the paths of five crucial German �migr�s who participated in Weimar's intense political debates, spent the Nazi era in the United States, and then rebuilt Europe after a devastating war. Examining the unexpected stories of these diverse individuals--Protestant political thinker Carl J. Friedrich, Socialist theorist Ernst Fraenkel, Catholic publicist Waldemar Gurian, liberal lawyer Karl Loewenstein, and international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau--Greenberg uncovers the intellectual and political forces that forged Germany's democracy after dictatorship, war, and occupation.In restructuring German thought and politics, these �migr�s also shaped the currents of the early Cold War. Having borne witness to Weimar's political clashes and violent upheavals, they called on democratic regimes to permanently mobilize their citizens and resources in global struggle against their Communist enemies. In the process, they gained entry to the highest levels of American power, serving as top-level advisors to American occupation authorities in Germany and Korea, consultants for the State Department in Latin America, and leaders in universities and philanthropic foundations across Europe and the United States. Their ideas became integral to American global hegemony.From interwar Germany to the dawn of the American century, The Weimar Century sheds light on the crucial ideas, individuals, and politics that made the trans-Atlantic postwar order.

Nietzsche on Art and Life


Daniel Came - 2014
    For he regarded the significance of art to lie not in l'art pour l'art, but in the role that it might be play in enabling us positively to revalue the world and humanexperience. This volume brings together a number of distinguished figures in contemporary Anglo-American Nietzsche scholarship to examine his views on art and the aesthetic in the context of this wider philosophical project. All of the major themes of Nietzsche's aesthetics are discussed: art andthe affirmation of life, the relationship between art and truth, music, tragedy, the nature of aesthetic experience, the role of art in Nietzsche's positive ethics, his critique of romanticism, and his ambivalent attitude towards Richard Wagner.

In Love with Life: Reflections on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra


Osho - 2014
    This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights — the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance — it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness.” Perhaps only a contemporary mystic like Osho could truly understand what Nietzsche meant by this statement. In Love with Life shares Osho’s understanding of both Nietzsche the man and of his seminal work, with extraordinary clarity and relevance to readers in the 21st century. Here, the reader learns much about the mysterious and revolutionary Persian mystic Zarathustra (Zoroaster), whom Nietzsche chose as a spokesperson. The result is an enchanting journey through a world where life is celebrated, not renounced, and where timeless truths prevail over the lies and distortions that continue to cripple our efforts to become healthy and whole.

Clausewitz: His Life and Work


Donald Stoker - 2014
    Nearly two centuries after the publication of these works, Jomini has been all but forgotten, but Clausewitz's On War remains perhaps the most significant work of military theory ever written. He has become a global brand, one constantly refreshed by a flow of books and articles debating his ideas and arguing what he truly meant in various passages of On War. The masterwork appears in an array of translations sweeping from Arabic to Vietnamese. Military staff colleges the world over use Clausewitz's text, largely to prepare their officers for staff positions and higher command. Military historian Donald Stoker here offers an incisive biography of Carl von Clausewitz, sketching out his life and career and exploring the various causes that led to the formulation of his theories about war. Though On War remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1831, Clausewitz's devoted wife, Marie, organized the papers he had left behind and arranged for their publication. The ten volumes of Clausewitz's collected works appeared from 1832-1837, with On War encompassing the first three volumes. Stoker considers both the merits and detriments of the works, but also pays careful attention to the life and experiences of Clausewitz himself. In doing so, he notes that those discussing Clausewitz's legacy as a theorist today have largely forgotten what was most important to him: being a soldier, and one of renown. Clausewitz is often remembered merely as staff officer, someone pushing papers and not in the midst of battle. Though Stoker notes that Clausewitz certainly spilled his share of ink, he also spilled blood ― his as well as that of the enemy. He experienced the mass warfare of his age at its most intense and visceral. He knew what it was like to be wounded, to be a prisoner, to have friends killed and wounded, to suffer hunger and thirst, and to have the heat and cold try to kill him after the enemy's best efforts had failed. Success on the field of battle-success meaning victory as well as distinguishing one's self above one's comrades, who are also brave and daring men ― this, Stoker shows, is what drove Clausewitz. Stoker also considers the continuing relevance of Clausewitz's work today, particularly focusing on its effect on strategic thinking in American foreign policy. The result is a brilliant reassessment of both the man and his legacy, one that adds to our understanding of Clausewitz and his place in today's military and political landscape.

Women of the 1920s: Style, Glamour, and the Avant-Garde


Thomas Bleitner - 2014
    From the caf�s of Paris to Hollywood's silver screen, women were exploring new modes of expression and new lifestyles. In countless aspects of life, they dared to challenge accepted notions of a "fairer sex," and opened new doors for the generations to come. What's more, they did it with joy, humor, and unapologetic charm.Exploring the lives of seventeen artists, writers, designers, dancers, adventurers, and athletes, this splendidly illustrated book brings together dozens of photographs with an engaging text. In these pages, readers will meet such iconoclastic women as the lively satirist Dorothy Parker, the avant-garde muse and artist Kiki de Montparnasse, and aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, whose stories continue to offer inspiration for our time. Women of the 1920s is a daring and stylish addition to any bookshelf of women's history.

War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatzgruppen in Poland


Jürgen Matthäus - 2014
    In addition to relevant Einsatzgruppen reports, the book includes key documents from other sources, especially eyewitness accounts from victims or onlookers. Such accounts provide an alternative, often much more realistic, perspective on the nature and consequences of the actions previously known only through documentation generated by the perpetrators. With carefully selected primary sources contextualized by the authors' clear narrative, this work fills an important gap in our understanding of a crucial period in the evolution of policies directed against Jews, Poles, and others deemed dangerous or inferior by the Third Reich. Supplemented by maps and photographs, this book will be an essential reference and research tool.

Florine Stettheimer


Karin Althaus - 2014
    With a longstanding interest in beauty contests and celebrity, Wall Street and consumer culture, Stettheimer anticipated in her work many of the same interests that would later characterize Pop Art, and her synthesis of the arts and urban life remains a source of inspiration for many artists working today.             Published to accompany a major retrospective of Stettheimer’s work at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, this well-illustrated book brings together the artist’s paintings and poems, as well as her designs for studio and stage, offering deep insights into Stettheimer’s exceptional life and influence on the artists around her.

The Tomorrows


Katlyn Charlesworth - 2014
    When a young Nazi soldier begins to take an interest in Vivian, her façade begins to crumble, and keeping her dangerous nighttime activities from colliding with the security of her mundane life becomes much more difficult––not to mention precarious—than ever before. Eager fascination becomes a struggle between the fresh and fragile relationship with the friend who has loved her for years, and the blue-eyed stranger she can’t seem to get out of her head. Soon, she starts to realize that there may be a connection between the soldier and the disturbing murder of her friend’s sister, Alice, leaving her to wonder what secrets truly lie hidden beneath those enticing blue eyes… Love can be a deadly thing.

Nationalizing Empires


Stefan Berger - 2014
    The essays in Nationalizing Empires want to overcome the strict dichotomy between empire and nation state that has dominated historiography for decades.

Enlightenment Interrupted: The Lost Moment of German Idealism and the Reactionary Present


Michael Steinberg - 2014
    Enlightenment Interrupted suggests a different genealogy. Instead of carrying on the Enlightenment it grew out of its suppression and forgetting, a founding act of bad faith and willed blindness that has haunted our world from its birth. In this groundbreaking analysis Michael Steinberg restores German Idealism to its rightful place as the culmination of the Enlightenment critique. Its great achievement was to move beyond the self-world dichotomy at the heart of Western thought. In the work of Fichte, especially, the recognition that all human life is the product of collective human activity had revolutionary implications. After 1815, however, in the aftermath of a quarter century of revolution, philosophers and politicians alike swept such challenges under the carpet. Modernity was thus founded in reaction. Lucidly written and accessible to non-specialists, Enlightenment Interrupted places the Idealists in the contexts of Romanticism, the brief contemporary openness to non-Western thought, and the political and social experimentation of the French Revolution. What followed was not a development of those tendencies but a retreat to the opposition of self and world and a drastic reduction in intellectual and social possibilities. This is one source of the collective impotence that sees the twenty-first century in a lockstep march to disaster

Hitler's Warrior: The Life and Wars of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper


Danny S. Parker - 2014
    Handsome, intelligent, and impetuous, he volunteered for the Waffen SS at an early age and dedicated his life to the Nazi cause. Peiper was Heinrich Himmler’s ever-present personal adjutant in the early years of the war-- an SS "everyman" witness to momentous events in Hitler's Third Reich. Once on the fighting front with the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Peiper became known for a flamboyant and brutal style of warfare.After the war, Peiper became the central subject in the bitterly disputed Malmédy war crimes trial, where he was condemned to death but ultimately released due to the efforts of Senator Joseph McCarthy and an Atlanta attorney Willis M. Everett, Jr. After moving to eastern France in 1972, he was harassed by the French Communists and died in a gun battle at his home on July 14, 1976–Bastille Day. His assassins were never identified.In Hitler's Warrior, historian Danny Parker highlights the fascinating personalities of Peiper’s story and raises questions on how an intelligent and capable soldier could decide to embrace the dark side of genocidal conflict. The rich narrative is bolstered by previously unseen archival sources as well as extensive interviews with German veterans, Belgian, Italian and French civilians, and even participants from the Malmédy trial at Dachau .This major new historical work helps us to fathom the world of Hitler’s Third Reich, a morally inverted world in which cruelty was good and kindness belied fatal weakness.

The Assassination of Europe, 1918-1942: A Political History


Howard M. Sachar - 2014
    Sachar relates the tragedy of twentieth-century Europe through an innovative, riveting account of the continent's political assassinations between 1918 and 1939 and beyond. By tracing the violent deaths of key public figures during an exceptionally fraught time period--the aftermath of World War I--Sachar lays bare a much larger history: the gradual moral and political demise of European civilization and its descent into World War II.In his famously arresting prose, Sachar traces the assassinations of Rosa Luxemburg, Kurt Eisner, Matthias Erzberger, and Walther Rathenau in Germany--a lethal chain reaction that contributed to the Weimar Republic's eventual collapse and Hitler's rise to power. Sachar's exploration of political fragility in Italy, Austria, the successor states of Eastern Europe, and France completes a mordant yet intriguing exposure of the Old World's lethal vulnerability. The final chapter, which chronicles the deaths of Stefan and Lotte Zweig, serves as a thought-provoking metaphor for the assassination of the Old World itself.

A German General on the Eastern Front: The Letters and Diaries of Gotthard Heinrici 1941-1942


Johannes Hürter - 2014
    Operation Barbarossa. Hitler's armies advance into the Soviet Union to conquer Lebensraum in the East. Among the corps commanders is General Gotthard Heinrici, a career soldier, a highly decorated First World War veteran, who observed and recorded in his diary and letters the unprecedented harshness of the German conduct of the campaign. With remarkable candour he described his experiences at the front and the everyday lives of the troops under his command - and the appalling conditions in which the war was fought. In his writings he revealed his growing doubts about Hitler's strategy and his mounting concern as the Wehrmacht was implicated in war crimes and the first actions of the Holocaust. This selection from Heinrici's diaries and letters, edited and with a perceptive introduction by Johannes Hurter, gives a fascinating inside view of the fighting on the Eastern Front from a commander's perspective. It is also provides an unusual insight into the feelings, attitudes and acute anxieties of one of the Wehrmacht's most able generals in the midst of a brutal campaign.

German Colonialism in a Global Age


Bradley Naranch - 2014
    Leading scholars show not only how the colonies influenced metropolitan life and the character of German politics during the Bismarckian and Wilhelmine eras (1871–1918), but also how colonial mentalities and practices shaped later histories during the Nazi era. In introductory essays, editors Geoff Eley and Bradley Naranch survey the historiography and broad developments in the imperial imaginary of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors then examine a range of topics, from science and the colonial state to the disciplinary constructions of Africans as colonial subjects for German administrative control. They consider the influence of imperialism on German society and culture via the mass-marketing of imperial imagery; conceptions of racial superiority in German pedagogy; and the influence of colonialism on German anti-Semitism. The collection concludes with several essays that address geopolitics and the broader impact of the German imperial experience.Contributors. Dirk Bönker, Jeff Bowersox, David Ciarlo, Sebastian Conrad, Christian S. Davis, Geoff Eley, Jennifer Jenkins, Birthe Kundus, Klaus Mühlhahn, Bradley Naranch, Deborah Neill, Heike Schmidt, J. P. Short, George Steinmetz, Dennis Sweeney, Brett M. Van Hoesen, Andrew Zimmerman

Taxi - Tuxedo (Book 6)


Sophia DeLuna - 2014
    She'd love to go, but she isn't sure if she can persuade Ulrike to accompany her.Ulrike doesn't fancy operas, and she is quite relieved when she realises that she has an excuse not to go. When Carmen finds a solution for her excuse, Ulrike grudgingly agrees to go, but at the last moment she comes up with a condition that she believes her partner will never accept - that she may wear a tuxedo.Taxi - Tuxedo is the 6th book in the Taxi series.

Taxi - Tactics (Book 7)


Sophia DeLuna - 2014
    Ulrike and Carmen are preparing to leave for a short holiday when their excitement is interrupted by an unexpected problem.Ulrike steps in to solve the issue in her own unique and unconventional way, much to Carmen's disapproval.Has Ulrike gone a bit too far this time for their relationship to survive?Taxi - Tactics is the 7th book in the Taxi series.

Taxi - Talk (Book 5)


Sophia DeLuna - 2014
    And of course, there are always the parents! Will talking things over resolve their issues, or simply open up old wounds?Taxi - Talk is the fifth book in the Taxi series.

The Medieval Peutinger Map: Imperial Roman Revival in a German Empire


Emily Albu - 2014
    It depicts most of the inhabited world as it was known to the ancients, from Britain's southern coastline to the farthest reaches of Alexander's conquests in India, showing rivers, lakes, islands, and mountains while also naming regions and the peoples who once claimed the landscape. Onto this panorama, the mapmaker has plotted the ancient Roman road network, with hundreds of images along the route and distances marked from point to point. This book challenges the artifact's self-presentation as a Roman map by examining its medieval contexts of crusade, imperial ambitions, and competition between the German-Roman Empire and the papacy.

German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal: Culture and Politics After 1945


Sean Forner - 2014
    Focusing on a loose network of public intellectuals in the immediate postwar years, Sean Forner traces their attempts to reckon with the experience of Nazism and scour Germany's ambivalent political and cultural traditions for materials with which to build a better future. In doing so, he reveals, they formulated an internally variegated but distinctly participatory vision of democratic renewal - a paradoxical counter-elitism of intellectual elites. Although their projects ran aground on internal tensions and on the Cold War, their commitments fueled critique and dissent in the two postwar Germanys during the 1950s and thereafter. The book uncovers a conception of political participation that went beyond the limited possibilities of the Cold War era and influenced the political struggles of later decades in both East and West.

The Berlin Wall (You Choose: Modern History)


Matt Doeden - 2014
    Its capital of Berlin is divided as well, but many people are leaving East Berlin for the freedom of the West. In 1961 East German leaders build a wall through the city to keep its people from escaping. Will you: Consider escaping from East Berlin soon after the wall is built? Serve as an East German guard at the wall? Join in the protests against the wall? Everything in this book happened to real people. And YOU CHOOSE what you do next. The choices you make could lead you to escape, imprisonment, or even death.

Das Cookbook: German Cooking . . . California Style


Hans Rockenwagner - 2014
    In the 1980s, he won international fame for his fine-dining restaurant in Santa Monica, Röckenwagner; today, he owns several LA-area bakery/cafes and a large wholesale bakery. Hans is known for his individuality, innovative dishes, and his craftsmanship in designing and building his restaurants (he is also a master woodworker). This is his second cookbook.Jenn Garbee is a food reporter and editor who has written for the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Cooking Light, Saveur, and more. An expert recipe tester and developer, Jenn has a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu and has worked in professional kitchens across Los Angeles. She is also the author of Secret Suppers and the co-author of the 2015 St. Martin's Press book, Tomatomania!Wolfgang Gussmack has been Hans's chef de cuisine since 2012. A native of Graz, Austria, Wolfgang started his culinary career cooking spätzle for his family's restaurant and gasthaus. This experience earned him a spot in Austria's only two-star Michelin restaurant and subsequently led him to renowned kitchens in Italy and France before he came to Los Angeles.Photographer Staci Valentine is based in Los Angeles; her other cookbooks include The Perfect Peach.

German Folk-Lore and Legends


Anonymous - 2014
    It has been well said that "the legendary history of a nation is the recital of the elements that formed the character of that nation; it contains the first rude attempts to explain natural phenomena, the traditions of its early history, and the moral principles popularly adopted as the rules for reward and punishment; and generally the legends of a people may be regarded as embodying the popular habits of thought and popular motives of action." The following legends of Germany cannot, we think, fail to interest those who read them. Some of the stories are invested with a charming simplicity [Pg vi] of thought which cannot but excite admiration. Others are of a weird, fantastic character fitted to a land of romantic natural features, of broad river, mountain, and deep forest. The humorous, the pathetic, the terrible, all find place in the German folk-tales, and it would be difficult to rise from their perusal without having received both amusement and instruction. The general lesson they convey is the sure punishment of vice and the reward of virtue; some way or another the villain always meets with his desert. In future volumes we shall deal with the legends of other countries, hoping that the public will bear us company in our excursions.”

The Merchants of Light: A Novel of Venice


Marta Maretich - 2014
    Monuments Man John Skilton arrives in the bombed-out city of Würzburg with orders—and a personal mission—to rescue art from the ravages of war. Among the ruins, he discovers a series of magnificent frescoes that have miraculously survived the devastation. But who painted them? More importantly, how will Skilton save them from total destruction?The answers will bring him face to face with the Tiepolos: Giambattista, the Venetian painter whose vibrant, witty style catapulted him to fame in the 18th century and made him the most successful painter if his day. And Cecilia, his beautiful, cunning wife, mother to their tribe of talented children and the model for the lush, leonine beauties that appear everywhere in her husband’s works.Set largely against the background of the Venetian Republic in its final flowering, The Merchants of Light tells the true story of a family that lives, loves and dies by painting. In a narrative underpinned with painstaking research, a cast of historical characters including Casanova, Counsel Joseph Smith and Enlightenment thinker Francesco Algarotti lend their voices to a tale that spans three centuries and reveals the human passion and hard-nosed business dealing that lie just beneath the surface of some of the world’s most heavenly works of art.With enduring resonance for our own times, The Merchants of Light is also the story of Skilton, the modest curator-turned-soldier whose struggle to save Tiepolo’s masterpiece is itself an act of creativity, one that turns him into a new kind of hero for our times.

The Pity of War: England and Germany, Bitter Friends, Beloved Foes


Miranda Seymour - 2014
    This was a love match, but it was also an alliance that aimed to meld Europe's two great Protestant powers. Before Elizabeth and Frederick left London for the court in Heidelberg, they watched a performance of The Winter's Tale. In 1943, a group of British POWs gave a performance of that same play to a group of enthusiastic Nazi guards in Bavaria. Nothing about the story of England and Germany, as this remarkable book demonstrates, is as simple as we might expect. Miranda Seymour tells the forgotten story of England's centuries of profound connection and increasingly rivalrous friendship with Germany, linked by a shared faith, a shared hunger for power, a shared culture (Germany never doubted that Shakespeare belonged to them, as much as to England), and a shared leadership. German monarchs ruled over England for three hundred years--and only ceased to do so through a change of name. This extraordinary and heart-breaking history--told through the lives of princes and painters, soldiers and sailors, bakers and bankers, charlatans and saints--traces two countries so entwined that one German living in England in 1915 refused to choose where his allegiance lay. It was, he said, as if his parents had quarreled. Germany's connection to the island it loved, patronized, influenced, and fought was unique. Indeed, British soldiers went to war in 1914 against a country to which many of them--as one freely confessed the week before his death on the battlefront--felt more closely connected than to their own. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished papers and personal interviews, the author has uncovered stories that remind us--poignantly, wittily, and tragically--of the powerful bonds many have chosen to forget.

Mauerweg: Stories From The Berlin Wall Trail


Paul Scraton - 2014
    

Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II


Dietmar Süß - 2014
    And although the destruction of 1940-1 was never repeated on the same scale, fears that Hitler possessed a secret weapon of mass destruction never entirely died, and were partially realized in the VI and V2 raids of 1944-5. The British and American response to the 'Blitz', especially from 1943 onwards, was massive and incomparably more devastating - with apocalyptic consequences for German cities such as Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin, to name but the most prominent.In this ground-breaking new book, German historian Dietmar Suss investigates the effects of the bombing on both Britain and Nazi Germany, showing how these two very different societies sought to withstand the onslaught and keep up morale amidst the material devastation and psychological trauma that was visited upon them. And, as he reflects in the conclusion, this is not a story that is safely confined to the past: the debate over the rights and the wrongs of the mass bombing of British and German cities during World War II remains a highly emotional subject even today.