Description

The shocking true story of the German monarchy's collaboration with the Nazis -- already a bestseller in Germany, now available in English for the first time.

Winner of the German Non-Fiction Prize 2022

"Malinowski's work is a near-masterpiece, relating a story not synthesized in this way before--and about which any number of self-serving myths exist." -- Simon Heffer, The Telegraph

"Stephan Malinowski's brilliant book strikes a balance between the forensic analysis of individual behavior and a new understanding of how the toxic political culture of a defeated monarchy helped to disrupt democracy in Germany." -- Christopher Clark

When Kaiser Wilhelm II fled into Dutch exile in November 1918, the disappearance of the Hohenzollern dynasty seemed one of the most sudden and complete downfalls in modern history. But that is not the full story.

Stephan Malinowski's The Hohenzollerns and the Nazis is a groundbreaking work of historical recovery. It reveals how both the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich found it useful to publicly dismiss the former royal family, even as the Hohenzollerns themselves actively despised the republic and embraced the Nazi regime. Their lingering prestige among conservative Germans helped shape public attitudes and contributed to the nation's tragic political descent.

With forensic precision and often shocking insight, Malinowski demonstrates that far from being irrelevant or absurd relics, the Hohenzollerns stood at the center of Germany's unraveling. Though stripped of power, they remained influential--encouraging conservative Germans to reject democracy and, ultimately, to abandon their own moral and political traditions.

The Hohenzollerns and the Nazis is both a devastating portrait of a deluded royal family and a vital reexamination of how their actions helped pave the way for Hitler's rise.