SM's parents were German Jewish refugees; he was raised a Catholic and forbidden to identify as Jewish or German or British. His maternal aunts concealed their origins too and had very diffe... read more
As a war photographer and his driver travel through Germany in late 1945, it becomes apparent that they have different reasons for wanting to be there.
Blaschka père et fils were from Bohemia but moved to Dresden, where they worked in glass from the mid-1800s to the 1930s, making intricate models of sea anemones, medusas, corals and starfi... read more
1940s rocket-science sci-fi: a Nazi politician is lured into collaborating with the American space programme... what follows is a clever, satirical exploration of morality and technological ... read more
When the author makes an impulsive trip to Koenigsberg, her grandmother - after sixty years' silence on the matter - begins to tell her own wartime story. Deeply moving.
NB Publication ... read more
Incredible though it seems, in the closing years of the GDR the Stasi trained operatives to become poets in order to infiltrate literary circles. Years of sleuthing has yielded this remarkab... read more
Marzahn is a suburb of prefab GDR housing on the outskirts of Berlin. This odd but brilliant book, about a chiropodist who talks to her clients, is both memoir and portrait of modern Germany... read more
Traces the history of Sefton Delmer, the English propagandist who waged a disinformation war in Nazi Germany, and how that history can help us understand the present.
Explores the interaction of mass-market diamonds and German colonialism in Africa. Or how the new American fashion for diamond engagement rings funded Germany in two world wars.
The fascinating story of a language known as 'Rotwelsch', associated with vagabonds - linked to Yiddish and Romani - that the author learned from his father and uncle. His grandfather, a Naz... read more
Escape to the West and life in the East through the eyes of a young woman loyal to the GDR: oppression in conflict with idealism. First published in East Germany in 1963.
A nifty little book on this fascinating artist. Queen of collage, doyenne of Dada, Höch's avant-garde approach to paper and photography cut to the heart of Germany's political and cultural ... read more
A powerful novel set in the closing stages of WW2, in which a 12-year-old girl escapes to the German countryside with her mother and older sister. Translated from the German.
The author of 'East West Street' examines the life of Otto von Wachter, the SS Governor of Galicia, who was indicted for mass murder in 1945 and went to ground in the Austrian Alps.