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Heligoland - Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea (Paperback)
Loot Price: R409
Discovery Miles 4 090
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Heligoland - Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea (Paperback)
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List price R501
Loot Price R409
Discovery Miles 4 090
You Save R92 (18%)
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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On 18 April 1947, British forces set off the largest non-nuclear
explosion in history. The target was a small island in the North
Sea, fifty miles off the German coast, which for generations had
stood as a symbol of Anglo-German conflict: Heligoland. A long
tradition of rivalry was to come to an end here, in the ruins of
Hitler's island fortress. Pressed as to why it was not prepared to
give Heligoland back, the British government declared that the
island represented everything that was wrong with the Germans: 'If
any tradition was worth breaking, and if any sentiment was worth
changing, then the German sentiment about Heligoland was such a
one'. Drawing on a wide range of archival material, Jan Ruger
explores how Britain and Germany have collided and collaborated in
this North Sea enclave. For much of the nineteenth century, this
was Britain's smallest colony, an inconvenient and notoriously
discontented outpost at the edge of Europe. Situated at the fault
line between imperial and national histories, the island became a
metaphor for Anglo-German rivalry once Germany had acquired it in
1890. Turned into a naval stronghold under the Kaiser and again
under Hitler, it was fought over in both world wars. Heavy
bombardment by the Allies reduced it to ruins, until the Royal Navy
re-took it in May 1945. Returned to West Germany in 1952, it became
a showpiece of reconciliation, but one that continues to wear the
scars of the twentieth century. Tracing this rich history of
contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War,
Heligoland brings to life a fascinating microcosm of the
Anglo-German relationship. For generations this cliff-bound island
expressed a German will to bully and battle Britain; and it
mirrored a British determination to prevent Germany from
establishing hegemony on the Continent. Caught in between were the
Heligolanders and those involved with them: spies and smugglers,
poets and painters, sailors and soldiers. Far more than just the
history of a small island in the North Sea, this is the compelling
story of a relationship which has defined modern Europe.
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