Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

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.

“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

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.