The Past Recaptured

For all its short and in the end unhappy life, the Weimar Republic has commanded, and continues to command, an astonishing amount of public attention. Not a month goes by without a monograph on the Nazi voter in the 1920s, another picture album of Berlin in the same decade, or yet another portentous article pointing to the glittering decay of the German Republic as a cautionary tale. The rash of unhelpful, downright irrelevant comparisons between the United States and Weimar Germany has mercifully died down, but Weimar retains its vogue as a foreboding symbol. And now and again, some survivor publishes his memories and reflections for posterity. The ranks of these witnesses are growing thinner every year, as they leave the stage one by o...