Showing results by publisher "Charles River Editors" in Germany

The Weimar Republic has become a byword for a failed, tragic, political experiment. The official period of its existence, 1919-1933, marked the interwar years in Germany and their related uncertainty, chaos, and the state’s ultimate collapse. Historians have found the roots of Nazism embedded in the Weimar years and that in the final analysis, Weimar politicians voluntarily handed over power to the man who wrought destruction on an epic scale, Adolf Hitler.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took absolute control of Germany, and his new regime was known as the Third Reich (Third Empire). The first Germanic empire had been the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806), and the second was the German Empire (1871-1918). Hitler was determined the new Reich be more impressive and longer-lasting than any that had gone before, and the Nazis soon began referring to the Tausendjähriges Reich (“Thousand-Year Reich”).

On the night of November 9, 1938, an organized show of force against Jewish businesses and private homes occurred throughout German cities and recently annexed territories in Austria and the Sudetenland. This night would mark a turning point in the lives of not only Jews but all people of the time, marking a clear new path of violence, destruction, and persecution for Jews throughout Europe in the years to follow.

Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm II, who occupied the throne of the German Empire for more than 30 years from June 1888 to November 1918, remains as much an enigma in death as he was in life. Over 70 years after his death in 1941, the mention of his name still sparks unsettled debates among historians. Was he the duty-bound, hands-on leader and passionate pro-British reformer who ruled in challenging times, seemingly mild in comparison to Hitler?

The history of East Germany was closely intertwined with the development of its security services, specifically the Stasi. In an era of totalitarian countries dominated by repressive state agencies, the Stasi stood out for its size and the sheer breadth and depth of its surveillance. The Stasi: The History and Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police Agency examines the history of one of the most notorious agencies in history. You will learn about the Stasi like never before.

In 1832, 17-year-old Otto von Bismarck had just entered university and was already rejecting the republican indoctrination of his grade school years. Unlike so many of his day who had championed representative government, Bismarck longed for the glory of a nation he believed would only be found under a single, strong leader. Though his early university days showed him he would be isolated by this thinking, he strongly believed not only in the ideal of a national German state, but in its possibility.  

Despite all the accomplishments and widespread victories and conquests throughout the long history of Republican and Imperial Rome, general perception still deems the Romans to have failed in one crucial conquest: the subjugation of Germany. Indeed, historians have singled out this one failure as central to the ultimate downfall of the entire empire, as the constant wars against the Germanic tribes and the need to defend the frontier on the Rhine at great expense against those tribes, helped bring the empire to its knees.

Germany's Nazi Party was remarkably implacable in the hostility it showed to the outside world, staunchly opposing both Communism and liberal democracy from the moment of its inception to that of its violent dissolution.

Prussian leaders, especially Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor and advisor to Prussia’s king, believed Prussia could be a united power, but only without the traditional Austrian dominance. At the time, the Austrian empire was a collection of ethnically diverse peoples and had been dominated by a socio-political conservatism that sought to keep the empire ruled in Hapsburg tradition. After Prussia was victorious in the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck played a waiting game where the unification of Germany was concerned, as the joining of the southern states would have to be overcome.

Societies across the globe are incredibly thankful for all the modern devices and opportunities that have been developed over time, including the cars and planes that have allowed people to travel long distances in short times, but it is often easy to forget that all these advances came with a price.

The Weimar Republic has become a byword for a failed, tragic, political experiment. The official period of its existence, 1919-1933, marked the inter-war years in Germany and their related uncertainty, chaos and the state’s ultimate collapse. Historians have found the roots of Nazism embedded in the Weimar years and that in the final analysis, Weimar politicians voluntarily handed over power to the man who wrought destruction on an epic scale, Adolf Hitler.

To the locals today, the Brandenburg Gate, understandably one of the nation's top tourist attractions, is synonymous with spectacle, felicity, and victorious jubilation, but this monument has seen its fair share of dark days over the years.

Before the mid-19th century, European intervention in much of tropical Africa was extremely difficult because of the disease gradient. The combination of malaria and yellow fever commonly killed off half of European troops stationed in West Africa each year. It was the reverse of the conquest of the Americas, where introduced diseases wiped out 50 million indigenous Americans, opening the land to settlement and greatly reducing the ability to resist. This was much less of a problem in temperate southern Africa, accounting for the Dutch being able to set up a colony there in the 17th century.

Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945.

At the close of World War I, Hitler was an impoverished young artist who scrapped by through selling souvenir paintings, but within a few years, his powerful oratory brought him to the forefront of the Nazi party in Munich and helped make the party much more popular. A smattering of followers in the hundreds quickly became a party of thousands. At the head of it all was a man whose fiery orations denounced Jews, communists, and other "traitors" for bringing upon the German nation the Treaty of Versailles, which had led to hyperinflation and a wrecked economy.

After Prussia was victorious in the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck played a waiting game where the unification of Germany was concerned, as the joining of the southern states - initially resistant to Prussian rule, friendly with Austria, and bent on independence - would have to be overcome. What was needed was “a clear case of French aggression” toward either Prussia or the southern states. Not only would such a move by Emperor Napoleon III trigger the terms of the treaty between the German states, but it would keep the remaining world powers out of the conflict.

Despite all the accomplishments, widespread victories, and conquests that the ancient Romans accrued over the centuries, one of their most critical failures was the inability to subjugate Germany. Indeed, historians have singled out this one failure as central to the ultimate downfall of Rome, as the constant wars against the Germanic tribes and the need to defend the frontier on the Rhine helped bring the Roman Empire to its knees. There are elements of truth in such a conclusion, but the reality was far more fluid than is often realized.

After the successful amphibious invasion on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies began racing east toward Germany and liberating France along the way. The Allies had landed along a 50 mile stretch of French coast, and despite suffering 8,000 casualties on D-Day, over 100,000 still began the march across the western portion of the continent. By the end of August 1944, the German army in France was shattered, with 200,000 killed or wounded and a further 200,000 captured.

At the end of 1941, it seemed to many people, especially in Germany, that the war was virtually over. Some began to consider what a postwar Europe would look like after a Nazi victory. With nothing to stop them, the Nazis became the most rapacious looters of art the world had ever seen, to the extent that it has been estimated that the Nazis may have acquired up to 20 percent of all art in Western Europe. Some works were returned after the war, many disappeared, and still others have become the subject of intense speculation.

As Sicily fell and the Allies prepared to press on, Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, was actually arrested to prevent him from doing further damage. Il Duce still held considerable power in the eyes of many ground-level activists, and if left unchecked, the possibility of violence in the streets was genuine. He was jailed in Campo Imperatore on August 28, 1943, on one of the largest mountains in Central Italy, but when the new Italian government surrendered to the Allies, most of the Italian mainland was still controlled by the Germans.