by finn ballard | Dec 24, 2020 | Blog
This month, our book is the final work by Philip Kerr: ‘Metropolis,’ set in 1928 Berlin. Published posthumously, this is the last of Kerr’s series of ‘Bernie Gunther’ novels, on which he worked since the 1980s. Bernie, a World War One veteran, has recently joined the...
by finn ballard | Dec 17, 2020 | Blog
Since the theme of our upcoming seminar this Sunday is Christianity in the Third Reich, let’s think this month about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. Born into an academic family, Bonhoeffer studied theology in Germany and the USA....
by finn ballard | Dec 10, 2020 | Blog
This month, our book is Peter Gay’s ‘Weimar Culture’. It is available online in PDF format, or should be easily attainable in print. German-born historian Peter Gay lived through the early years of the Weimar Republic, emigrating to America at the...
by finn ballard | Dec 3, 2020 | Blog
This month, let’s remember Heinz Meixner and his equally-brave girlfriend (not to mention her mother)! Meixner, an Austrian engineer living in West Berlin, missed his partner terribly after the building of the Wall in 1961. After two years of the border...
by finn ballard | Nov 26, 2020 | Blog
This month, I’d like to recommend Peter Schneider’s ‘The Wall Jumper,’ a short novella which will be our Book Club choice for July 19th. Published in 1982, the story revolves around Berliners who move back and forth over the Wall at will, to...
by finn ballard | Nov 19, 2020 | Blog
This month, I’d love to let you know more about a figure we discussed during the last History Club meeting: Martin Dibobe, Germany’s first Black activist. Dibobe was born in Cameroon and educated by German missionaries. He was brought to Berlin in 1896 as...
