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The "German question" haunts the modern world: How could so civilized a nation be responsible for the greatest horror in Western history? In this unusual fusion of personal memoir and history, the celebrated scholar Fritz Stern refracts the question through the prism of his own life. Born in the Weimar Republic, exposed to five years of National Socialism before being forced into exile in 1938 in America, he became a world-renowned historian whose work opened new perspectives on the German past.
Stern brings to life the five Germanys he has experienced: Weimar, the Third Reich, postwar West and East Germanys, and the unified country after 1990. Through his engagement with the nation from which he and his family fled, he shows that the tumultuous history of Germany, alternately the strength and the scourge of Europe, offers political lessons for citizens everywhere-especially those facing or escaping from tyranny. In this wise, tough-minded, and subtle book, Stern, himself a passionately engaged citizen, looks beyond Germany to issues of political responsibility that concern everyone. Five Germanys I Have Known vindicates his belief that, at its best, history is our most dramatic introduction to a moral civic life.
Stern brings to life the five Germanys he has experienced: Weimar, the Third Reich, postwar West and East Germanys, and the unified country after 1990. Through his engagement with the nation from which he and his family fled, he shows that the tumultuous history of Germany, alternately the strength and the scourge of Europe, offers political lessons for citizens everywhere-especially those facing or escaping from tyranny. In this wise, tough-minded, and subtle book, Stern, himself a passionately engaged citizen, looks beyond Germany to issues of political responsibility that concern everyone. Five Germanys I Have Known vindicates his belief that, at its best, history is our most dramatic introduction to a moral civic life.
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Reviews
"Based on the experiences of his family and himself as well as on his long and distinguished career as a historian, Fritz Stern's Five Germanys I have Known is at once a deeply personally and a rigorously scholarly book. No one is better able to explain the complex blend of accomplishment and disaster that has characterized Germany's modern history."
James Sheehan, Stanford University
"It is not an exaggeration to say that, for both Americans and Germans, Stern is a living national treasure--a revered historian whose historical masterworks have illuminated The German Question and helped us to understand that nation's complex and tortured soul. When he accompanied me to Germany as my Senior Advisor (I was then ambassador), he was treated like a rock star; people carried his book
Richard Holbrooke
"Though the 20th Century was the "American Century", Fritz Stern takes us on a journey that give us pause in that historical assessment. Behind most of the signal events of the last century"
World Wars I and II, the Cold War, and even the founding of the state of Israel