Germany

The Private Side of German Reunification

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 two German nations became one for the first time in almost half a century. Paul Betts looks at the further consequences of the collapse of Soviet Communism.

Second World War: The Storm of War

The German army’s training, discipline and Blitzkrieg tactics – directed by the supremely confident Führer – swept away Polish resistance in 1939. It took the shell-shocked Allies another three years to catch up, writes Andrew Roberts.

Signposts: Returning to War

Richard Overy examines recent analyses of how Europe became embroiled in major conflict just two decades after the trauma of the Great War and we look at events and broadcasts commemorating September 1939. 

Joseph Haydn and the German Nation

A subject and servant of Europe’s most cosmopolitan empire, the composer Joseph Haydn played an important role in the emergence of German cultural nationalism during the 18th and 19th centuries, writes Tim Blanning.

France’s Prussian Nemesis

Mark Bryant on how French cartoonists of the 1870s responded to national humiliation at the hands of a beligerent Prussia.