The definitive account of how Germany's interwar republic led to the birth of Nazism

'Sebestyen reminds us once again why he is one of the best historians writing today' ANDREW ROBERTS, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

In the years after the First World War, Berlin was - as Vladimir Nabokov described it - a place 'of dangerous glamour and worldliness, of tawdry cynicism, where art and riot flourished side by side.'

The Weimar Republic was Germany's postwar experiment with democracy, and a time of unprecedented cultural, intellectual and artistic freedom. Berlin was at the cutting edge of quantum physics and psychoanalysis; its nightlife showcased grand opera and dissolute cabaret. Bauhaus architecture and modernist painting flourished, and it rivalled Hollywood as a capital of film. But beneath the glamour was a deeply polarised society of extremes plagued by economic disasters, populist leaders fuelling culture wars, and an uneasy political settlement that would soon spawn the horrors of Nazism.

Covering fifteen years from the end of the First World War to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, Weimar Germany tells the definitive story of Germany's interwar republic and descent into fascism. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters including Vladimir Nabokov, Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Adolf Hitler, Billy Wilder, Thomas Mann, Joseph Goebbels, Christopher Isherwood and Rosa Luxemburg, Weimar Germany is a gripping and evocative account of how the fledgling German democracy died.

Details

ISBN13: 9781399618441
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 480
Edition:
Publication Date: 28 Apr 2026
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.2(H)x15.2(L)x4(W)600
Weight (gm): 600

Author Biography

Victor Sebestyen is the internationally acclaimed author of TWELVE DAYS (W&N, 2006), REVOLUTION 1989 (W&N, 2009), LENIN THE DICTATOR (W&N 2017) and BUDAPEST (W&N, 2022). He was born in Budapest. He was a child when his family left Hungary as refugees. As a journalist, he worked for numerous British newspapers, including the Evening Standard, Daily Mail and The Times. He reported widely from Eastern Europe when Communism collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. He covered the wars in former Yugoslavia and the breakup of the Soviet Union. At the Evening Standard he was foreign editor, media editor and chief leader writer. He was an associate editor of Newsweek.

Reviews

Excellent . . . Gripping . . . This book tells of what happens when truth is forcibly expelled from a nation's public life and the good people abandon politics, leaving only rousers of the rabble to rule -- MAX HASTINGS * Sunday Times *
Impressive . . . a fascinating portrait of how frighteningly easy it is for a democracy to crumble -- CAROLINE MOOREHEAD * Spectator *
A pacy, highly readable narrative * Literary Review *
One historian who really does know the politics and culture of Germany from 1918 to 1933 is Victor Sebestyen. In a crowded field, Weimar Germany: Death of a Democracy towers above its competitors. From the shocking violence to the exhilarating culture of Weimar, Sebestyen is a master of his material * The Critic *
Victor Sebestyen has achieved that rare thing to do well: a marriage between impeccable scholarship with pacy readability. Weimar Germany is as gripping as a novel and crammed with dramatic details of human action (and inaction) which brilliantly illustrate his argument that the collapse of Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler was not inevitable. What canny insight this book offers into the insecurity of our own times -- ANNE SEBBA * author of The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz *
Sebestyen has succeeded triumphantly at that hardest of historians' tasks: defeating the tyranny of hindsight. The Weimar Republic is usually seen solely through the prism of the horrors that followed it, but this book rightly treats it as a fascinating historical period in its own right. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Sebestyen reminds us once again why he is one of the best historians writing today -- ANDREW ROBERTS * author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny *
A fast-paced and dramatic account of this tumultuous decade that could not be more timely. Sebestyen has brought a vast cast of characters to life and in doing so reminds us of the fragilities of civil society and democracy -- TIM BOUVERIE * author of Allies at War *
This timely reappraisal of Weimar Germany is not only scholarly, engaging and perceptive, but often worryingly resonant. All our politicians should read it -- CLARE MULLEY * author of Agent Zo *