Books about Britain/Germany

Don't Mention the War: The British and the Germans since 1890
by John Ramsden, May 2006
448pp
Guardian reviews: James Hawes (+), Tim Gardam (-)
John Ramsden's book traces an extraordinary relationship that was central to Europe's 20th century. In 1890, "an Anglo-German war seemed utterly fantastic" - but in 2001, beating Germany 5-1 could turn "perfectly sane people all over England" mad with joy.
Amazon.co.uk paperback GBP 7.69 (hardback: 4 reviews, 31/2 stars)
Amazon.de paperback EUR 13.95 (hardback: 2 reviews, 4 stars)

The back cover reads:
"A century of opprobrium, mistrust and football-terrace rivalry - but it wasn't ever thus. A richly detailed and timely study of Europe's most enduring standoff, Don't Mention the War asks: what is England's problem with the Germans?"
If you want to know the answer, I'm afraid this book doesn' t tell you. John Ramsden avoids giving his opinion overtly, making his point only by his selection and juxtaposition of the facts he has collected. In the introduction, he calls his book "unapologetically empirical, and observational". I guess this is the reason there is no deeper discussion of causes or reasons for the behaviour of British people as described here. Ramsden limits his personal thoughts to the odd aside, quietly added scheinheilig at the end of a sentence, in brackets. (Apparently, he is not too keen on the Guardian's editorial style.) After a description of the famous Fawlty Towers scene, for example, he says John Cleese wanted it "to educate his audience by showing bigotry's ugly face", adding at the end of the paragraph: "It is less clear that British viewers over three decades got that same point". I found this kind of comment a touch irritating. First, claim not to be making a point, then when you do, do it quietly in a single sentence, apparently in the hope no-one will notice, and not backed up by any argument or explanation.
The last lines of the book convey a similarly negative impression of British character: "In 1965 Private Eye's cartoonist Hector Breeze drew a British housewife, comfortably knitting as her husband enters the room dressed as Hitler and giving the Nazi salute. So little has changed that the cartoon is as apposite now as it was forty years ago." It's left up to the reader, as usual, to decide what to make of this.

Dominic Sandbrook of the Daily Telegraph is quoted on the back cover as calling the book "A lucid, funny history of our attitudes to the Germans since the Victorian age". I must say I found it more depressing than funny, describing as it does all the horrible things the British have ever said, written or recorded about the Germans. There are not many light-hearted moments, the only real relief being the story of Bert Trautmann's time at Manchester City. Oddly enough, this football section is the one which makes the British seem the most human.
In the introduction, Ramsden also says that "To cover the German side of the story comprehensively is meat for a different historian", although he will describe German reactions to British opinion. This is understandable, considering that the book is already a long one, but also disappointing, as it makes the Germans into victims, doing nothing but react to British taunts. It would have been interesting to have had more comparison, and backed up my impression that the point Ramsden wants to make is how silly the English are.

A final quibble, but it annoyed me all the way through the book: Ramsden chooses not to put any commas around "though", meaning that I constantly misread it as "thought" or "through", and had to read one sentence in particular three times before I got the point.

This is certainly an interesting book: I enjoyed the sections on Bert Trautmann and Hardy Kruger in particular, having heard them mentioned so many times but being too young to have much idea of who they were. The writing is lively and easy to read, despite what is sometimes potentially dry material. Still, I did not find it an entirely enjoyable book to read, partly because of the depressing (unspoken) conclusion, and partly because of what was not in it. Definitely worth reading, though.

Five Germanys I Have Known / Fünf Deutschland und ein Leben (translation)
by Fritz Stern, 2006
amazon.co.uk GBP 7.12 (paperback), 1 review, 4 stars
amazon.de EUR 11.45 (paperback), 1 review, 4 stars
amazon.de (German hardback, translated from English) EUR 29,90, 2 reviews, 4.5 stars
Short Observer review (David Hare's book of the year 2007)
Arte review of the German translation
Tagesspiegel review of German translation

In this fascinating memoir, Stern looks back over the "five Germanys" his generation has seen—the Weimar Republic, Nazi tyranny, the post-1945 Federal Republic, the Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic and, lastly, the reunited Germany of the present.

Fritz Sterns Erinnerungen sind weise, entschieden im Urteil, subtil. Sie sind vor allem das Werk eines leidenschaftlichen Bürgers und Demokraten. Fünf Deutschland und ein Leben legt grandios Zeugnis ab von der Überzeugung, daß die Geschichte uns eine Lehrmeisterin sein kann für ein moralisches Leben als Bürger und als Mensch. Die "deutsche Frage" wirft ihren Schatten auf die moderne Welt: Wie war es möglich, daß eine so zivilisierte Nation für das schrecklichste Verbrechen des 20. Jahrhunderts verantwortlich wurde? In diesem Buch, einer einzigartigen Verbindung aus Erinnerung und Geschichtsschreibung, betrachtet der große Historiker und Friedenspreisträger Fritz Stern die Frage durch das Prisma seines eigenen Lebens. Er verwebt historische Meistererzählung, scharfsinnige Analysen und dramatische Episoden seiner Lebensgeschichte zu einem unvergeßlichen Portrait jener fünf Deutschland, die er selbst miterlebt hat: Weimar, das "Dritte Reich", Bundesrepublik und DDR, das vereinigte Deutschland nach 1989. Seine Freundschaften mit deutschen Intellektuellen und Politikern haben ihm besonders tiefe Einblicke in die Grundlegung der liberalen Demokratie eröffnet. Doch Stern zeigt auch, daß die unruhige deutsche Geschichte politische Lektionen für die Bürger überall bereithält - vor allem für solche, die der Gefahr der Tyrannei entgegentreten wollen.