A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People

Contemporary Review, July, 2005

A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People. Steven Ozment. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiii 400 pages. ISBN 1-86207-759-2. This title, first published in the U.S. by HarperCollins, is naturally aimed at an American audience. To Prof. Ozment Germany remains 'a complex and conflicted nation ...

still a work in progress'. It is a nation whose history or at least whose historiography has been skewed by the Nazi era. He begins his chronological approach with the Germanic tribes described by Tacitus in the first century B.C. He rightly emphasises the rise of Prussia in the eighteenth century to emerge not as the largest German kingdom outside what became the Austro-Hungarian empire (Bavaria was this) but the most dynamic. Prof. Ozment progresses through his 2100 years with authority and panache, always keeping a eye out for a readership which remains obsessed with Germany after 1933. He only falters in his assessment of Germany's position within the E.U. The deadening effects of monetary union and the Euro, the results of reunion and a stagnating economy are turning Germany into a recipient of E.U. handouts alongside the traditionally poorer countries. Likewise the impact of new members means that Germany's pre-eminence is now seriously under challenge. (A.C.T.)