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Lead book review

Germans see the best of their soul in Weimar. Everyone else, on the other hand..

A review of Weimar, by Michael H. Kater. An absorbing history about the corruption of a once great artistic centre

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

Weimar Michael H. Kater

Yale, pp.463, £25, ISBN: 978030070566

Thuringia, a region of former East Germany, occupies a special place in the thoughts of Germans, who like to regard it as the origin of all their best virtues. It’s an alluring place, full of wonderfully untouched stretches of densely forested hills; the occasional small historic town seems hardly to have changed for decades, and the tourist can spend a happy week pottering from Schmalkalden to Ilmenau to Eisenach in the illusion that none of those unpleasant realities of the last century ever touched this place.

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