Allen Lane secures Hoyer's 'gripping' interwar history

Allen Lane will publish Katja Hoyer’s “gripping” book, Weimar, which explores Germany’s interwar years and reveals how fascism took hold.

Casiana Ionita, publishing director at Penguin Press, bought world language rights from Toby Mundy at Aevitas Creative Management.

Allen Lane in the UK will publish the book in hardback in spring 2026. German rights have already sold to Hoffmann und Campe and Basic Books in the US.

The blurb reads: “In central Germany, in the valley of the Ilm, there is a city called Weimar. Its cobbled streets are home to castles, palaces and deep green treetops. Here, Goethe, Bach, and Nietzsche thought and made.

“Here, with an eye to tradition and culture, a liberal German Republic was born out of the First World War. Here, fascism took hold early, and with zeal. And here, just beyond the city limits, Buchenwald was dug out of a beech forest.”

Penguin Press said: “Spanning the two decades from 1919 to 1939, Weimar traces the course of a place and its people. Drawing on new archival research and unmatched insight into the German nation, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer intertwines the stories of the men and women who lived during these turbulent years, with the high-level politics that defined a century.  

“Delving deep into the human psyche, with an eye for the movements of action and inaction, of resistance and depravity, Hoyer presents in gripping detail the heart of the storm, the city in which evil won.” 

Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and author of Blood and Iron (The History Press). Her most recent book, Beyond the Wall (Penguin) was a Sunday Times bestseller and longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize with rights sold in 11 countries.

A visiting research fellow at King’s College London and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Washington Post and hosts the podcast “The New Germany” together with Oliver Moody. She was born in East Germany and is now based in the UK.

Hoyer said: “Weimar has long been Germany’s beacon of culture. But there was also a time when it was its heart of darkness. It was here that in 1919 a new constitution inaugurated a new Germany, stamping the city’s name onto the country’s first attempt at a fully-fledged democracy: the Weimar Republic.

“But over the course of the next 20 years, Weimar also captured the imagination of those who sought to destroy democracy. I want to comb the archives to uncover how Weimar’s people – the illustrious and the ordinary – responded to these torrents of history. The fate of Weimar between the wars presents a gripping case study in how democracy and civilisation are maintained or destroyed by the choices we make”.

Ionita said: “Katja Hoyer’s acclaimed books have brilliantly shed light on two key moments in European history, the GDR and the German Empire.

“With Weimar she will explore one of the most extraordinary periods in modern history, diving deep into the life and politics of a fascinating city. By telling the story of Weimar and its people during the interwar period, she will once again skilfully reveal a crucial piece of the puzzle of 20th century history.”