Blood and Iron by Katja Hoyer
Germany was a nation born in warfare, “a mosaic, hastily glued together with the blood of its enemies,” writes Katja Hoyer. Her Blood and Iron is a slender book that neatly summarizes Germany’s birth pangs in 1871 and the developments leading to the new nation’s defeat in World War I—a conflict whose lack of resolution led to Germany’s second defeat in World War II.
Hoyer credits Otto von Bismarck, who molded 25 independent states into the German Empire as “perhaps one of the greatest statesmen of all time.” Certainly, he was a shrewd politician willing to wage wars when the odds favored victory and eager to stave off revolution by instituting social security years ahead of other industrialized nations. His departure opened the door to more reckless leaders. Blood and Iron examines an important chapter of the past with fresh eyes.
