Soapbox

The 84th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s assumption of power is in just a few days. There will be a vote in Turkey in just a few months for a new constitution that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (above) unchecked power. History has a litany …

The first election in Germany after the Great War was just 14 months after the signing of the Armistice.  Voting method was proportional representation for the election of 421 legislators on Sunday, 19 January 1919. Proportional representation is often criticised on the basis it was the system that “elected …

Tony Blair is back. After almost a decade out of politics, the controversial former New Labour UK Prime Minister is taking tentative steps to be involved, albeit not directly. Blair’s intention to contribute more to the political debate is welcome because his is a persuasive …

Pervitin was a shopping staple in Nazi Germany. And it propelled the Blitzkrieg of 1940 when Nazi troops occupied six countries in the first nine months of World War II. Pervitin was a methamphetamine. It fuelled the German army. It fuelled the civilian population’s happiness. This …

If there is one phrase that describes the United States Constitution, it is checks and balances.  So concerned were the founders that the power of government had to be restrained, checks were imposed at every level – even on the people. It is why the …

Eighty years ago this weekend, the uncrowned British King Edward VIII abdicated.  “I have made this, the most serious decision of my life, only upon the single thought of what would, in the end, be best for all,” he said in a radio broadcast on …

The violence against Jewish people in Germany on 8 and 9 November 1938 was an omen of annihilation. What became known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Crystal) wasn’t the first European Jewish pogrom. But it was the first that was not only sanctioned by the …

  The most tumultuous day in German history would have to be 9 November 1918. Some historians refer to it as Schicksalstag (Day of Fate). On that day in: 1989, the Berlin Wall, that had divided Germany since 1961, fell. 1938, there was a state-sponsored …

The Nazi’s coup attempt in Munich in November 1923 failed but it succeeded in creating a national profile for its leader Adolf Hitler. He was a provincial Bavarian politician before the coup attempt; after he was a national right-wing identity.  The ill-thought out coup plans …

The last free election in the whole of Germany for 58 years was on Sunday, 6 November 1932. There were elections in West Germany in August 1949 and the unified Germany in December 1990. The November 1932 election for the legislature (Reichstag) was the fourth …