Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict

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Transaction Publishers, 1990 - Business & Economics - 377 pages
Despite changes in the international constellation since Russia and Germany initially appeared in 1965, the relationship between these two nations remains the most important single issue in European politics and East-West affairs. This study of what Russians and Germans have thought of each other and the fateful consequences of their interacting ideas is of lasting significance.The fact that Russia and Germany have embodied extreme manifestations of the totalitarian plague in the twentieth century. After briefly exploring the historical origins of Russophobia in Germany and of anti-Germanism in Russia, Laqueur reviews in detail the confrontation of Nazism and Bolshevism that culminated in World War II. He deals with the Russian origins of National Socialism and the ideology of the Russian far right from the days of the "Black Hundred" to its recent revival.This edition includes a major new introduction by the author, reviewing developments in the relationship between Russia and Germany in the last 25 years, and speculating about its future. Long out of print, Russia and Germany will be again welcomed by political scientists, students of international relations, and all those with an interest in recent history and current events.

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About the author (1990)

Walter Louis Laqueur was born in Breslau, Germany on May 26, 1921. At the age of 17, he fled just a few days before Kristallnacht and found his way to Palestine, where he was known as Ze'ev. He worked briefly on a kibbutz before moving to Jerusalem, where he spent a year enrolled in the Hebrew University and covered the Middle East as a journalist. In 1955, he moved to London, where he was a founder and editor of The Journal of Contemporary History and a founder of Survey, a foreign affairs journal. From 1965 to 1994 he was director of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, a leading archive in London. He became a scholar of the Holocaust, the collapse of the Soviet Union, European decline, the Middle East conflict, and global terrorism. He wrote numerous books including A History of Zionism, A History of Terrorism, The Terrible Secret, Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West, and The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Alt-Right written with Christopher Wall. His memoirs included Thursday's Child Has Far to Go; Worlds Ago; Best of Times, Worst of Times; and Reflections of a Veteran Pessimist. He was also the editor of The Holocaust Encyclopedia. He died on September 30, 2018 at the age of 97.

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