Kristin Semmens

Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer explores the city – and citizens – at the heart of Germany’s ill-fated republic, and the Reich that replaced it.

Hitler’s Deserters: Breaking Ranks with the Wehrmacht by Douglas Carl Peifer surfaces the stories of those who sought to sit out the Second World War.

‘One historical mystery I’d like to solve? Was there a written Führer Order for the “Final Solution”? Unlikely, but I’d like to know.’

In the aftermath of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler was in prison and the Nazi Party banned. But its failure taught him valuable lessons.