Katja Hoyer > Quotes

“The German Empire did not fall to visions of democracy or socialism. Neither was it brought down by the German people or the Allies. The system fell because it was flawed from the outset, built on foundations of war, not fraternity. The maintenance of national unity required a diet of conflict, the constant hunger for which grew until catastrophe loomed in 1914. The German Empire had come full circle. It ended where it had started: in blood and iron.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“Thus Flottenpolitik and Weltpolitik gained Germany a small array of colonies and the second-largest navy in the world in exchange for diplomatic isolation and looming economic catastrophe.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“The economic war was lost for Germany as soon as the first shot was fired in August 1914.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“As Bismarck describes in the Kissingen Dictation, this incident proved once and for all that there was absolutely no diplomatic room for Germany to expand beyond its current reaches. The nightmare of coalitions, and the attendant two-front war, would mean the destruction of the Reich and no expansion of territory was worth that risk. If only Wilhelm II had read and understood the old chancellor’s words.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“Bismarck declared socialists enemies of the state and so could use this too to keep the struggle of all Germans against common enemies alive.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart,” that was officially used to refer to the Berlin Wall.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“Some of the “songs” on offer were served up with screams and inarticulate noises to an audience consisting mostly of teenagers who, whipped up by the music, carried out degenerate motions.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“The trauma of the First World War can be compared to that of the Thirty Years’ War, which had begun exactly 300 years earlier. A collective catastrophe that would fuel a shared sense of national defiance.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“In other fields too, female ambition had become the norm. By 1988, over 90% of East German women fought their own battles in the workplace. The GDR had reached the highest rate of female employment in the world as women entered every last bastion of previously exclusively male domains.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“From 1971, the rates paid were means-tested, allowing working class families with children privileged access. A four-person household in West Germany spent around 21 percent of their net income on rental costs while a similar household in the East only needed 4.4 percent.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“The last diplomatic crisis had been all too recent. A month earlier, a West German man, who had travelled through the GDR, had died of a heart attack when questioned by border guards in a barrack in Drewitz, Saxony-Anhalt. As such, this was nothing out of the ordinary. The psychological pressure that East German border guards deliberately built up during questioning proved too much for an estimated 350 people in total who died of heart failure at inner-German checkpoints.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“1984.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918

“This project was hugely successful, perhaps one of the most effective aid projects ever conducted. Vietnam is now the world’s second largest producer of coffee, producing around 30 million 60-kilogram bags every year, and its industry employs 2.6 million people. Its Robusta beans have a high caffeine content and are ideal for granular and instant coffee, which is drunk in large quantities around the world. Only 6 percent of the produce is used internationally, while the rest is exported at an estimated annual worth of $3 billion.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

“In 1875, civil marriages were introduced as the only legal form. A couple could still get married in a church but only after they had had a state ceremony to make the marriage official in law. This shows very clearly that the Kulturkampf was not a mere measure to restrict Catholic political activity, but it was indeed a battle over spiritual and moral authority in Germany.”
― Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918