Germany

Chris Wickham revisits an article by J.B.Morrall, first published in History Today in 1959, on the strange, shortlived emperor who in the tenth century sought to rule the lands we now call Germany and Italy.

During the disturbed tenth century in Western Europe, royal power held its ground and extended its authority only in Germany-whence the Emperor Otto III sallied into Italy with the purpose of reviving Roman classical tradition and combining it with the dream of a Christian Commonwealth under imperial aegis. By J.B. Morrall.

Graham Darby points to common errors and omissions that should be avoided.

At the beginning of the ninth century, Charlemagne—already the master of Western Europe—was crowned by a calculating Pope as the supreme sovereign of the Christian world. Peter Munz asks what the real significance of his new title really was?

As the daily life of Berlin's Jews became even more difficult under the Nazi regime, rumour and hearsay grew about the fate of those 'evacuated' to the east. How much did ordinary Berliners know about the fate of their neighbours?

Giles MacDonogh visits the History Today archive to examine Nancy Mitford’s 1968 article on one of the ‘oddest’ biographies ever written, Thomas Carlyle’s massive study of Frederick the Great.

Nancy Mitford finds that Carlyle’s biography of the King was one of the oddest ever written, but it is ‘so carefully drawn that it finally presents a perfect likeness’.

When the England football team visited Germany in May 1938, diplomatic protocol resulted in the team giving a Nazi salute.

Richard Cavendish remembers January 13th 1935.

Russell Tarr sees similarities but also important contrasts in the foreign policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy