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10. Erich Mielke’s Breakfast Order
By Caroline West (@Caroline_N_West) The archives of the East German Ministry for State Security (known as the Stasi) are vast. The holdings contain 111 kilometers of documents on the ministry’s operations – and perhaps most significant, its comprehensive and detailed recordings of the private lives of East German citizens. In 1989, aware that public support…
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“Steel their Bodies and Minds” – How the Wandervogel reconciled nature with modernity
By Charlotte Alt Life in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century was an overwhelming experience. Modernity by then had arrived in full force: cities exploded with masses of people, and modern innovations like the telegraph and railway drastically changed the pace of everyday life. As urban spaces appeared increasingly overstimulating, people began to…
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9. Nazi Broadcasts to Colonial Africa
By Alex White (@alex_j_white) In August 1935, an officer of the Nigerian civil service sent an unusual pamphlet to the British Colonial Office. Printed in English and German, it provided listings and technical information for a new radio service aimed at listeners in Africa.[1] Like many ‘empire’ broadcasters of the 1930s, the service promised to…
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18. A Treasure Trove of Plundered Art
By Callie Belback During the Second World War, as European cities fell to the Nazis, art conservators in the United States began to advocate for a field-based conservation corps whose duty would be to identify and protect cultural treasures. This soon became the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section of the Allies (MFA). The MFA…
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Scandal, 1926 – When the Germany Navy Broke Prohibition Laws
By Giles Ockenden From a 21st Century viewpoint, American Prohibition seems a fascinating yet alien episode. That the United States banned the production, sale, importation and transportation of alcoholic beverages between 1920 and 1933 might be difficult to imagine today. Prohibition’s success in fighting the consumption and demand for alcohol can be debated, yet the case…
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