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Life on the Edge of Catastrophe
by Katja Hoyer
From the author of the international bestseller Beyond the Wall, a history of interwar Germany told through the town of Weimar, the cultural capital that was both the birthplace of the country's first full democracy and a launchpad for the Nazis.
The Central German town of Weimar is perhaps most familiar to non-Germans for giving its name to the Weimar Republic. After Germany's inglorious defeat in World War I, the signing of a new constitution in Weimar marked the nation's first experiment with full-fledged democracy. And yet this storied town, long known as a center of German culture and tradition, was also the place where Nazis were first welcomed into a local government, a milestone in Adolf Hitler's fateful rise to power.
In Weimar, historian Katja Hoyer examines Weimar as a microcosm for the entire German nation between the world wars. The Weimar Republic saw a flourishing in culture and the arts, including the establishment in Weimar of the Bauhaus school of architecture. But after Hitler seized the chancellorship in 1933, the town underwent rapid Nazification, with many ordinary Weimarers basking in the attention they and their town received from the regime and from Hitler personally.
Combining gripping narrative with deep historical analysis, Weimar explores both the political upheavals and the rhythms of daily life in one town, revealing how fascism took hold first there, and then across the nation.
"A charged, eminently accessible history that speaks to a troubled present as well as to the past." —Kirkus Reviews
"A fascinating microcosm of Germany's gradual descent into the abyss." —Publishers Weekly
"In this eye-opening book, historian Hoyer vividly depicts everyday life in Weimar Germany from 1919 to 1939...For all readers seeking a deeper understanding of how the Nazis came into power in Germany." —Library Journal
"We talk a lot about the Weimar Republic, but not so much about the town that gave the Republic its name. Weimar demonstrates through moving, often heart-breaking, personal stories how much the town's experience embodied the turbulence of German history in the era of the world wars, Nazism, and the Holocaust. Katja Hoyer is a humane and compassionate writer, and her gripping book is poignant reading in our present circumstances." ―Benjamin Carter Hett, author of The Death of Democracy
"A fresh and gripping account of the interwar years seen through the lens of Germany's most legendary town. By skilfully weaving into the political narrative the stories of ordinary people, Katja Hoyer gives readers a vivid sense of what it was like to be alive then and there. Brilliantly researched, this is history at its very best." ―Julia Boyd, author of Travelers in the Third Reich
This information about Weimar was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katja Hoyer is a German British historian, journalist, and the author of the widely acclaimed Beyond the Wall and Blood and Iron. A visiting research fellow at King's College London and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Berliner Zeitung, and her writing on German current affairs has appeared in Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Spectator, and elsewhere. She was born in Germany and is now based in the UK.
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