German History Archives - Aspects of History

The Franco-Prussian War & the Road to the Great War

In a matter of months Prussia had defeated France, and then Bismarck then embarked on his unification project.

Rachel Chrastil

In the summer of 1870, France declared war on Prussia. Within weeks, it faced invasion by a Prussia-led German coalition that included both the North German Confederation that Prussia dominated and the southern German states of Bavarian, Baden, and Württemberg. The...

Michael Smith

Michael Smith served in British military intelligence before becoming an award-winning journalist with the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times, covering the wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Michael Smith

Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon Articles Click on the links below to read the full article [dpdfg_filtergrid custom_query="advanced" use_taxonomy_terms="on" multiple_taxonomies="name_of_author"...

Barney White-Spunner

Barney White-Spunner is a British historian who writes the stories of places and events to which he has been linked or of which he has direct experience.

Barney White-Spunner

Capital of Spies: Bernd von Kostka on Berlin

Bernd von Kostka is an acclaimed historian of the Cold War in Germany. Here he discusses his book on espionage in Berlin.

Bernd von Kostka

Bernd von Kostka, Berlin was the epicentre of the Cold War, with multiple clandestine agencies operating there. Many operations took place in the decades up to the fall of the wall, but which were the most successful? Well, usually the most successful operations are...

Flesh and Blood: The Iron Chancellor

Otto von Bismark was a titan of Europe, but Katja Hoyer gives an intimate account of the man behind the statesman.

Katja Hoyer

‘Please just let me see my Johanna again’ – those were the whispered last words of the once towering figure of Otto von Bismarck, breathed out as he lay on his death bed on 30 July 1898. He had spent a lifetime building up a reputation as a tenacious politician with a...