Bonus report, for the 12th day of Christmas. Germany is Europe’s most important country. The level of understanding of it in the UK is disastrously poor. Perhaps German carmakers will come to the rescue soon... In the meantime, an excellent, concise book is needed. This is it./1. https://twitter.com/andrewprlevi/status/1341493010471792640

“OK”, I hear you object, “it’s in German. Not much help”. And you have a point. In fact, it’s a key point. How many people in the UK speak German at all, let alone to a standard appropriate to Heinrich August Winkler’s “Wie wir wurden, was wir sind” (pub. 2020)? /2.

This superb 230 page distillation of German history cries out for an English translation. (The title translates as “How we became what we are”). No doubt that will come. In the meantime, take care. /3.

With the outstanding exception of Neil MacGregor’s 2014 book & BBC radio series “Memories Of A Nation”, popular, accessible histories & political analyses of Germany in English are a pretty ropey, patchy & rare species. /4.

All too often descending into stereotyping, cliche, tendentiousness & downright error, they’re more trouble than they’re worth. It isn’t that Winkler (83 this year) is an unchallengeable sage. He has a point of view, it shows, & it’s open to legitimate debate. /5.

But he has three outstanding characteristics: he’s a towering expert; he has a broad perspective; he’s a superb writer. German history is complex & contradictory. /6.

Its history since 1949, & current European & transatlantic politics, can’t be understood without a profound reckoning with the defining 12 year German catastrophe, 1933-45. That in turn can’t be understood without knowing what went before. /7.

And, crucially, looking at Germany in isolation leads to no real understanding at all. First, because the geographic & strategic context is so fundamental to everything which has happened, probably back to the Romans. /8.

But certainly to the Middle Ages, forward through the Reformation (1517-1648) & 30 Years War (1618-48), the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire (1806), the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), WW1 & Weimar (1914-33), & beyond. /9.

Second, because every other relevant country’s history, not least the UK’s, is also complex & contradictory. To see Germany as uniquely problematic (or, for Germanophiles, notably in relation to the Federal Republic’s history from 1949, uniquely wonderful) is ahistorical. /10.

And destructive. That’s consistent with understanding that German Nazi-era crimes, specifically the Holocaust, are unparalleled, as Winkler spells out in horrifying, concentrated detail, in their combination of scale, total inhumanity & systematic, industrialised murder. /11.

Their legacy, unavoidably & rightfully, continues to echo strongly in Germany’s politics & its international relations. /12.

If you don’t want to take my word for it that Winkler has produced a masterpiece, maybe you’ll believe @fromTGA who, as quoted on the back cover of “Wie wir wurden, was wir sind”, has called it “Ein wirklich hervorragendes Buch”. /13.

And if you want to know what that means, put it into Google Translate, just before you order your German language course. Frohes neues Jahr! /14. End