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Weimar
Life on the Edge of Catastrophe
Brief Description
'A fresh and gripping account of the interwar years seen through the lens of Germany’s most legendary town. Brilliantly researched, this is history at its very best' — Julia Boyd 'Britain's favourite German historian' — Sunday Times From bestselling historian Katja Hoyer comes a gripping story...
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Description
'A fresh and gripping account of the interwar years seen through the lens of Germany’s most legendary town. Brilliantly researched, this is history at its very best' — Julia Boyd
'Britain's favourite German historian' — Sunday Times
From bestselling historian Katja Hoyer comes a gripping story of life during the rise and reign of Hitler through the eyes of the people of Weimar.
One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to the Sunday Times, Financial Times and The Telegraph
Weimar looms large in German history: a crucible of democracy and dictatorship. This ancient town nestled in the heart of the country was home to some of Europe's greatest thinkers, Goethe and Schiller, Liszt and Nietzsche among them. It gave its name to the ambitious Weimar Republic crafted in the aftermath of the First World War. But it was also where fascism took hold. Where Bauhaus architects first experimented with new ways of living, Buchenwald was dug out of a beech forest.
Weimar shows us a town and its people on the edge of catastrophe. Drawing on a wealth of new archival research, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer takes us from 1919 to 1939 as she tells the stories of the men and women who lived through the new republic and Hitler's regime. We encounter a vividly drawn cast of characters, from bookbinder Carl Weirich and hotel owners Rosa and Arthur Schmidt, to Friedrich Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. Here are fascists and socialists, artists and workers, politicians and citizens, who, as the events of history swept them up, became witnesses, perpetrators, victims and bystanders.
An unforgettable picture of lives and choices in extraordinary circumstances, Weimar takes us deep into the heart of the storm – to the town that dreamt of a better world, and woke up to tyranny.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241681244
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 07 May 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Allen Lane
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 40.0mm
Width: 156.0mm
Height: 240.0mm
Weight: 750g
Pages: 496
About the Author
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and the author of the international bestseller Beyond the Wall as well as Blood and Iron. A visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she writes for Bloomberg and Berliner Zeitung and is a commentator on German current affairs for many British newspapers. She was born in Germany and is now based in the UK.
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