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Weimar
  • Published: 7 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802065022
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

Weimar

Life on the Edge of Catastrophe

Formats & editions
Hardback
11 Aug 2026
EBook
7 May 2026
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From bestselling historian Katja Hoyer comes a gripping story of life during the rise and reign of Hitler through the eyes of the people of Weimar

Weimar looms large in German history: a crucible of democracy and dictatorship. This ancient town nestled in the heart of the country was home to some of Europe's greatest thinkers, Goethe and Schiller, Liszt and Nietzsche among them. It gave its name to the ambitious Weimar Republic crafted in the aftermath of the First World War. But it was also where fascism took hold. Where Bauhaus architects first experimented with new ways of living, Buchenwald was dug out of a beech forest.

Weimar shows us a town and its people on the edge of catastrophe. Drawing on a wealth of new archival research, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer takes us from 1919 to 1939 as she tells the stories of the men and women who lived through the new republic and Hitler's regime. We encounter a vividly drawn cast of characters, from bookbinder Carl Weirich and hotel owners Rosa and Arthur Schmidt, to Friedrich Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. Here are fascists and socialists, artists and workers, politicians and citizens, who, as the events of history swept them up, became witnesses, perpetrators, victims and bystanders.

An unforgettable picture of lives and choices in extraordinary circumstances, Weimar takes us deep into the heart of the storm – to the town that dreamt of a better world, and woke up to tyranny.
  • Published: 7 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802065022
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

About the author

Katja Hoyer

Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and the author of the international bestseller Beyond the Wall as well as Blood and Iron. A visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she writes for Bloomberg and Berliner Zeitung and is a commentator on German current affairs for many British newspapers. She was born in Germany and is now based in the UK.
KH

Also by Katja Hoyer

Beyond the Wall
See all

Praise for Weimar

Britain's favourite German historian... Hoyer has been beavering away in the archives to tell the story of the crack-up of democracy in interwar Germany, through a vivid cast of characters

Sunday Times, Books to Look Out for in 2026

The autopsy of a liberal democracy, told in the words of its own citizens. Katja Hoyer tracks the everyday acts of omission and concession in the face of ruthless wrong, showing how the compliant and the complacent ultimately undermine the brave. A book about a hundred years ago— without question a book for now

Neil MacGregor

Weimar is populated not by abstractions but by people... Hoyer writes with verve and a keen eye for telling detail... She shows with quiet acuity how ordinary, self-respecting Weimarers succumbed to the siren call of Nazism

The Times

A bright, young historian... Strap in to watch the slow collapse of a society, amid a throng of fascists, socialists, artists and politicians

Telegraph, Books to Look Forward to in 2026

A fresh and gripping account of the interwar years seen through the lens of Germany’s most legendary town. By skilfully weaving into the political narrative the stories of ordinary people, Katja Hoyer gives readers a vivid sense of what it was like to be alive then and there. Brilliantly researched, this is history at its very best

Julia Boyd

Its writing is gripping, Hoyer’s command of existent histories is clear, and her primary research is thorough and inventive... Reading Hoyer’s book, I recalled Svetlana Alexievich’s stated aim in Voices from Chernobyl: to tell the stories of ‘little, great people’ who voice their ‘own, little histories’ while ‘big history is told along the way’. This is where Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe excels

History Today

Superb... Katja Hoyer finds the town of Weimar a perfect microcosm for a country teetering into darkness... intelligent, original and well-researched... an exemplary insight into a grim chapter in German history

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

The city of Weimar — home to many of the giants of European culture — gave its name to Germany's ill-fated republic; it was also where the Nazis gained an early foothold. Historian Hoyer charts that journey of cultural experimentation and political upheaval through the stories of those who witnessed it and whose choices and fates reveal the human experience of a descent into tyranny

Financial Times, What to Read in 2026