finn ballard

Book Recommendation: A Nazi in the Family, by Derek Niemann

finn ballard
17th September 20207th September 2020

This month, I’d like to recommend ‘A Nazi in the Family’ by Derek Niemann. From the first sentences – the author’s memories of wintertime gingerbread… Read More »

Introducing: Hilde Meisel

finn ballard
10th September 20207th September 2020

This month, let’s think about Hilde Meisel. She was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, and her parents moved to Berlin while she… Read More »

Book Recommendation: Red Love, by Maxim Leo

finn ballard
3rd September 202024th August 2020

Today I wholeheartedly recommend the much-lauded family autobiography ‘Red Love’ (2009) by East German journalist Maxim Leo, born in 1970. Leo presents a German family… Read More »

Introducing: August Landmesser

finn ballard
27th August 202024th August 2020

This month, I am thinking of August Landmesser, born on May 24, 1910, of whom rather little is known. He was a shipyard worker in… Read More »

Berlin’s Litfaßsäule

finn ballard
30th May 20198th May 2019

Berlin is in mourning over the decision to remove the city’s iconic cylindrical advertising columns (known as Litfaßsäule after their philanthropic inventor, Ernst Litfaß). Used… Read More »

Introducing: Rose Valland

finn ballard
23rd May 20198th May 2019

This month, I am thinking of Rose Valland (1898-1980), art curator, who became one of the most highly-decorated women in European history. During Valland’s tenure… Read More »

Lizzie Susan Stebbing

finn ballard
16th May 20198th May 2019

What a great project, making women’s history visible on Berlin’s streets!

Book Recommendation: The Tunnels: The Untold Story of the Escapes under the Berlin Wall

finn ballard
9th May 20198th May 2019

I would like to recommend Greg Mitchell’s ‘The Tunnels: The Untold Story of the Escapes under the Berlin Wall.” Mitchell focuses on remarkable individuals living… Read More »

Picture Quiz #5: Rooftop

finn ballard
4th April 20198th May 2019

Picture quiz time and let’s make it a really tricky one: which Berlin building is topped with this gorgeous roof?

Introducing: Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum

finn ballard
28th March 20197th March 2019

Historian and social worker Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum was executed in 1944, and his Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto documented a wealth of Polish-Jewish history as… Read More »