Soapbox

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 …

Global conquest had always been the goal of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. But his public pronouncements were the opposite. He was proclaiming his desire for peace right up to Britain and France’s declaration of war on Germany in September 1939.  Hitler told a meeting of …

The first steps to establish a progressive liberal democracy in Germany after the Great War were taken on 28 October 1918. The constitution was changed to transfer power to the Reichstag (legislature). The major parties supported it. They felt it would encourage a period of calm needed to …

Nazi oppression of minorities is well known. Gays were among those deemed to be unworthy of living in the Third Reich. On 26 October 1936 the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, created the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality within the secret police. The Nazis didn’t …

The lines between left and right have become blurred. But the ideological divide in the thirties was distinctive. Stalin in the Soviet Union and Hitler in Germany were at each end of the ideological continuum. Diana Mosley and Unity Mitford’s friendship with Adolf Hitler made …

Germany’s fragile political situation in the 1920s and early 1930s was staple reading when I was researching for my novel, Flight to Freedom. The Republican candidate in the United States election for President has a lot in common with the National Socialist Workers Party candidates for President …

Self-esteem is the panacea of our age. If we believe in ourselves, our beauty and uniqueness, we will lead the kind of life we want. Nothing will stop us. That’s been the dominant theory in psychology for the past three decades and it hasn’t worked. …