The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany (Cambridge Illustrated Histories) (2000): by Martin Kitchen

There was a book on history of Germany I read a decade ago, probably between a short and a long visit to the country, and I have been trying to find the book again - it would be a bit of a chore to go all the way across the town to the new location of the library - but with little success since I thought it was Oxford publication and the writer was Mark somebody, so the google searches were as little successful as shelfari ones; meanwhile trawling through a thourough list of similar books I came across this one and the cover, the names, are close to what I remember, so is the size - likely this is the book I read, and was informed of much not known till then to me.

Some of it is not known to most people even now. For instance the fact that Prussia was once quite another nation with a completely different language and race of people whom Germans wiped out on their crusades (Jerusalem was too far away, too much trouble, and this was far more profitable, go east and massacre people and take over their lands and proliferate) before acquiring the whole region about a millennium ago or so. No wonder Germany was surprised very unpleasantly when this whole process of lebensraum met with disapproval when attempted more recently applied to other parts of Europe, even though other nations had applied it to other parts of the world in making empires.

(When in Germany, one is told Germany did not have any empire; usually such a discourse is based on the assumption that the listener is unaware of world history and facts of wwii, and won't question what then was Rommel doing in Africa, or know that some regions of Africa were in fact colonies of Germany.)

Even more recently we met a woman on a train to Paris from Germany, who pointed out at lands of France and said "all this empty land, and Germany needs land, it is too crowded" while officially German government encourages huge families by every possible means - tax breaks, free schooling, free rides on trains, et al. And apart from other breaks even the last is not negligible, German trains are quite another eye opener, what with excellent timings and good schedules and luxury in lowest class and the whole country connected so one need never drive.

Yet another German woman visiting a developing nation for more than third time spoke of her disapproval of uncontrolled breeding and crowds in that country, while she lives in another vast and empty country and travels to the said crowded developing nation for tourism - so we wondered at her veracity in toto. (Why travel for tourism and pleasure to a place you find this irritating due to crowds? Especially when Germany is neat and beautiful, and you live far away in a vast empty land? Is it really tourism or something illegal that drives such a person to the said developing nation while claiming tourism?)

This lebensraum was more than convenience, and far from guilty pleasure it has developed into a creed, is what the book informed me then - there is perhaps more than one German quoted to the effect that if one merely paid money to buy land it really does not belong to one, but spilling blood to take it makes it your own. Obviously he or they meant blood of others, unlike the usual convention that has it that blood of your own spilled makes a place yours, and however mistaken that might be in the first place the German variation is astoundingly the creed of a thief and plunderer outspoken like that of marauding hordes from Mongolia - and yet Germans also speak with horror of other nations and races with memories of Mongol attacks during Attila the Hun times.

All this was very informative of the consciousness of the nation, including the mourning for the lost parts such as the Baltic nations, and holidaying there and loudly proclaiming the ownership of the lost parts.

Some mistakes of obvious and racist nature in the book can be pointed out - such as ascribing plague in Europe to the ships bringing back rodents from Asia. Yet it is Europe that had no sensible waste disposal system whatsoever until a century or two at most ago, what with slop buckets emptied out of the windows - bedroom windows were high up on the third floor onwards - into the roads below with at most a shout to the passers by to beware, while Asia and in particular India had elaborate conventions followed meticulously for hygiene that got a bad name due only to a colonial racist mindset of denouncing all that a ruler sees in a ruled nation. Rodents moreover are more than capable of travelling on foot and were unlikely to be limited to Asia, since the continent is far from unconnected to Europe. Any travel is far more likely to have been in the opposite direction along with concepts of waste disposal in homes and bedrooms.

Apart from such a mistake or blip in attitude resulting in wrong assumptions, on the whole the book was very informative, about Germany and German mindset. I am hoping this was the book, since a search so far has not brought another candidate forth. Or I might actually take the time to drive out, find the new location of the library, possibly even locate the book unless they have changed the system or the collection - and it might be an Oxford publication by a Mark somebody.