Lehren aus dem Krieg

There are many good reasons to doubt the existence of laws of history, but what about experience and lessons learned? Christoph Schmidt attempts to draw such conclusions, primarily from the Second World War. What began with a failed peace continued with Nazi aggression, first internally and then, from 1939, externally. The 33 lessons that Schmidt formulates and explains serve to rethink our own perspective on the phenomenon of war and remind us to learn a lesson from the darkest experiences of previous generations: “Remembering is good, heeding is better”.

Christoph Schmidt studied history and Slavic Studies. From 2000 to 2020 he was Professor and Head of the Department of Eastern European History at the Institute of History at the University of Cologne.