The Ruins of the Reich
Leitmotif Editions (Verlag)
978-1-9163893-1-1 (ISBN)
This exploration of German identity unfurls as the author journeys through the former German Reich, through the eighteen territories memorialised in the Hall of Liberation. His travels cover present-day Germany and Austria and those regions of Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania and Russia which were once German or which remain German-speaking. Geoghegan witnesses a parade of "Schutzen" in Bolzano, an Easter Monday demonstration in Frankfurt and the Festival of the Five-Petalled Rose in Cesky Krumlov. He visits monasteries, fantasy castles, Jewish ghettoes and the remains of the Iron Curtain. He is stopped by "unofficial collaborators" in a wood near Weimar, gets hopelessly lost in Swinoujscie and spends a dismal New Year's Eve in Rudesheim. There are flashbacks to an exchange visit to Dusseldorf as a schoolboy, love affairs and broken engagements, arrests at borders and a search for his Stasi file. Underpinning the contemporary travelogue are cultural-historical observations on the theme of German national identity. The author encounters the patriotic monuments of nineteenth-century Germany and the ruins and surviving fabric of the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the Communist bloc. He visits the model villages, seaside resorts, occult sites and concentration camps of National Socialism, and engages with cultural figures whose works reflect differing approaches to the idea of Germanness: the paintings of Lucas Cranach and Anselm Kiefer; the music of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner; the sculptures of Arno Breker and the architecture of Wilhelm Kreis; and the writings of Eduard Moerike, Bertolt Brecht and Gunter Grass.
Michael Geoghegan was born in Heanor, brought up in Reading and educated at Oxford University, where he read Modern Languages. He works as a European Sales Agent in book publishing, currently representing Bonnier, Simon and Schuster and many other publishers. He speaks French and German, lives in London and travels frequently in Europe. The Ruins of the Reich is his first full-length book.
PROLOGUE: The Hall of Liberation
1. SWABIA: Maultaschen and Bone Meal
2. BAVARIA: "Where in God's Heaven is Hitler?"
3. TYROL: Marksmen Without Muskets
4. AUSTRIA: Loden Green, Habsburg Yellow, Danube Blue and Nazi Brown
5. MORAVIA: Sinfonietta in Purple and Green
6. BOHEMIA: Melancholy Squared or Nostalgia Twice Removed?
7. SILESIA; Chavskis and Choolygans
8. PRUSSIA: "Do you take credit cards?"
9. POMERANIA: Nuremberg-on-Sea
10. MECKLENBURG: "Not everything from the Nazi period was bad"
11. BRANDENBURG: "You're Wearing Grey Today, You're from Berlin, I'd Say"
12. SAXONY: White Temple, Black Colossus
13. THURINGIA: Beech Woods and Golden Meadow
14. HANOVER: The Last Swastika in Germany
15. WESTPHALIA: "Himmler's Sacred Realm of Dream Reality"
16. RHINELAND: "I heard those slinky sirens wail - whoo!"
17. HESSE: Trespassing on the Past
18. FRANCONIA: How German Is It
WALHALLA: The House of Skulls
| Erscheinungsdatum | 29.10.2020 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 151 x 232 mm |
| Themenwelt | Reisen ► Reiseberichte ► Deutschland |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Schlagworte | Travel writing |
| ISBN-10 | 1-9163893-1-7 / 1916389317 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-9163893-1-1 / 9781916389311 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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