Review of 'Germania' by Simon Winder

Well, I liked this almost as much as Danubia, but not quite. It's beautifully written, and good on some parts of the history, but as it gets closer to the close - which he takes as 1933 - I think it becomes less good. In particular I think he's bad on the shortcomings of Weimar and the defeat of the German revolution at the end of WW1 - having read Sebastian Haffner's "Failure of a revolution: Germany 1918-1919", I can't see the treachery of the Social Democrat leaders the way Winder does. There was a chance, in 1918-19, that the other Germany could run things now, in a way that was utterly diffeent from what the conservatives and the military had done before. And Ebert et al blew it, even with the popular support that they had. 

And once I'd noticed that, I started to notice other things that I didn't like quite so much...it's good the way he emphasises how much of the familiar had just collapsed for so many Germans in the Weimar period, but I think he downplays the continuity with pre-war Germany of the politics of the right (were the Nazis such a break with traditional German politics and culture?) and over-emphasises how much the Nazis stole from the left, so that it's almost as if they were a rogue variant of socialism rather than a traditionalist, business-backed variant of extreme conservatism.

So still lots in there to like, particular about art and architecture, and music and literature, but some things to not like so much.