Schmidt, Rainer F. Kaiserdämmerung. Berlin, London, Paris, St. Petersburg und der Weg in den Untergang

The Wilhelmine Empire still does not have a good reputation today. Crypto-absolutism, Sonderweg and striving for world power - these are the labels attached to it. An erring emperor, incompetent chancellors, world and fleet policies on the outside and the tenacious defence of the supremacy of the old elites on the inside: all this led to the path that ended in the First World War and sealed its own downfall. Rainer Schmidt's brilliantly written account offers an alternative view to this common picture.

He comprehensively describes the Wilhelmine Empire in its most important structures, but also in its modern elements. In a grandiose panorama, the author does not describe and interpret international relations between 1890 and 1918 monocausally from Berlin, but embeds them in the pan-European context. The result is a complex situation that led to war in 1914: Berlin's own misjudgements that led it into isolation, but also a deliberate strategy of encirclement and blackmail by the other powers, which made the great catastrophe almost inevitable. With "Kaiserdämmerung", Schmidt presents a brilliant overall account and explosive new interpretation of one of the most controversial epochs in German history, which has been the subject of debate since the Historikertag.