Germany

Horsfield tortoises at Hagenbeck’s Tierpark, c.1914. Archiv Hagenbeck. Public Domain.

Carl Hagenbeck’s Eight Thousand Tortoises

By the turn of the 20th century Carl Hagenbeck’s Tierpark had revolutionised zoo exhibits – and the exotic animal trade.

Mein Kampf on sale, c.1938. Fotoarchiv für Zeitgeschichte/akg-images.

Did Germany Read Mein Kampf?

A huge bestseller and undisputed guide to the Nazi worldview, did Germans actually read Mein Kampf?

Martin Crusius’ map of Athens, 16th century. Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen.

Martin Crusius’ Armchair Voyage

The greatest early modern authority on Ottoman Greece was Martin Cruisius – a man who had never left Germany.

Fibulae, French, sixth-seventh century. Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images

The Merovingians: ‘Do-Nothing Kings’?

The Merovingians have a reputation for long hair and barbarity. Instead, the dynasty, born out of the chaos of civil war, was one of peace, diplomacy, and bureaucracy.

Otto von Bismarck on a seesaw balancing global powers, by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, 1886. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Bismarck’s Britain

The German chancellor Otto von Bismarck saw himself as a puppet-master, engineering British politics from afar in his feud with Gladstone.

Mavis Tate and Edward Wickham talk with a young Czech survivor in the prisoners’ barracks at Buchenwald, April 1945. Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo.

Britain’s Witnesses to Buchenwald

In April 1945 ten British politicians flew to Germany tasked with investigating the ‘truth’ about Buchenwald concentration camp.

Still from Nazi German propaganda film The Daughter of the Samurai, 1937. GermanFilms.net.

An Uneasy Propaganda Alliance

The doomed film collaboration between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan resulted in two very different features serving the same fascist agenda: The Daughter of the Samurai and The New Earth.