Shulamit Volkov
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a figure of great intellectual power who ran the German state, however briefly, during one of its most tumultuous periods, and whose life was "the essence of German Jewish history.",This deeply informed biography of Walther Rathenau (1867â€“1922) tells of a man whoâ€”both thoroughly German and unabashedly Jewishâ€”rose to leadership in the German War-Ministry Department during the First World War, and later to the exalted position of foreign minister in the early days of the Weimar Republic. His achievement was unprecedentedâ€”no Jew in Germany had ever attained such high political rank. But Rathenauâ€™s success was marked by tragedy: within months he was assassinated by right-wing extremists seeking to destroy the newly formed Republic.,Drawing on Rathenauâ€™s papers and on a depth of knowledge of both modern German and German-Jewish history, Shulamit Volkov creates a finely drawn portrait of this complex man who struggled with his Jewish identity yet treasured his â€œotherness.â€ Volkov also places Rathenau in the dual context of Imperial and Weimar Germany and of Berlinâ€™s financial and intellectual elite. Above all, she illuminates the complex social and psychological milieu of German Jewry in the period before Hitlerâ€™s rise to power.
Biography,History,History,European History
Walther Rathenau: Weimar's Fallen Statesman