The Hohenzollerns and the Nazis

Stephan Malinowski

£40.00

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In this brilliant social study, Stephan Malinowski describes how, from the 1920s onwards, the Hohenzollern family and the Nazis moved closer together, forging symbolic political alliances. Despite their many differences in terms of manners and origins, the old aristocracy and new movement came together in their mutual hatred of democracy and the Weimar Republic. This was the cement that bound these very different people and milieus. Malinowski’s politically and legally explosive book about this collaboration is as cleverly composed as it is insightful – a joy and intellectual delight to read, despite the horrors. And Malinowski’s thorough research and clear arguments, which can also be understood as a response to the constant threat of legal action by the House of Hohenzollern, are also very persuasive.

ISBN: 9780241596180 Category:

Description

**AWARDED THE GERMAN NON-FICTION PRIZE 2022**

‘Stephan Malinowski’s brilliant book strikes a balance between the forensic analysis of individual behaviour and a new understanding of how the toxic political culture of a defeated monarchy helped to disrupt democracy in Germany’ – Christopher Clark
‘With his great book The Hohenzollerns and the Nazis, Stephan Malinowski has achieved a masterpiece of historical enlightenment’ – John Röhl

The shocking true story of the German monarchy’s collaboration with the Nazis – already a bestseller in Germany, now in English for the first time


The disappearance of the Hohenzollern family from the history of Germany in November 1918 as the Kaiser fled into Dutch exile is one of the most startling, rapid instances of a once all-powerful royal family becoming almost overnight irrelevant and marginal. Except this is not exactly what happened.

Stephan Malinowski’s German bestseller is an extraordinary work of recovery. It suited both the Weimar Republic and then the Third Reich to view the Hohenzollerns with contempt, and yet the royal family’s hatred of the former and approval of the latter were for millions of Germans a significant factor in their own view of their country and its government.

With forensic and often shocking detail, Malinowski shows that, far from being ridiculous, marginal figures the Hohenzollerns lay at the heart of Germany’s ongoing nightmare. Despite formally losing power, the members of the royal family remained prominent, catastrophically allowing many other conservative Germans to stay distanced from the new republic and to eventually betray conservative traditions and values. Battered from both left and right, the Republic collapsed in 1933 in part because conservative forces, fearful of both Communism and Fascism, had abandoned their own principles just as much as the leading members of former royal family had, who were themselves beguiled by and fooled by Hitler.

This is an important and shocking book, as well as a devastating picture of an inadequate and trivial royal family painfully underequipped to fulfil its role.

Additional information

Weight 0.75 kg
Dimensions 24 × 15.6 × 4 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

688

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

943.085 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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