Karina Urbach

What happened to the books the Nazis could not afford to burn? The story of a Jewish chef whose bestselling cookbook was stolen by the Nazis and who had to fight for her survival in England and America: In 1939 the unknown author Rudolf Rösch published a cookbook about Viennese cuisine. SO KOCHT MAN IN WIEN! (This is how you cook in Vienna!) was a cookbook bestseller and is still available today. But Rudolf Rösch had never written this book. Indeed, he may never have existed; a conveniently fictitious product of the Nazi era. The real author was a Viennese Jewess named Alice Urbach. Before the Nazis took over Austria the book had been published under her own name. Now 80 years later, Alice's granddaughter, the historian Karina Urbach, sets out to uncover the true story behind the stolen cookbook. See also: German version: https://albert.ias.edu/20.500.12111/7920; French/German documentary Alice’s Book on arte/ZDF: https://www.karinaurbach.org.uk/video/Alice-film-teaser.m4v

While non-German biographers of Bismarck have usually kept a healthy distance from their subject, German biographers have often allowed their political and religious views to influence their portraits. Most German historians of the `long nineteenth century' were fascinated by, as Hegel would have called it, the genius of such a `world historical individual'. Their work greatly influenced the images of Bismarck during the time of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s, however focused critically on the `impersonal' movements of the Bismarckian empire. These, Marxist influenced, analyses did not include any biographies. It was only in the 1980s that three biographers achieved a politically detached evaluation of the chancellor's personality. With the centenary of Bismarck's death in 1998, a return to the pre-1980s views can be noticed in biographies of the chancellor. They threaten to oversimplify Bismarck's personality and government technique again.

The story of a Jewish chef whose bestselling cookbook was stolen by the Nazis and who had to fight for her survival in England and America: In 1939 the unknown author Rudolf Rösch published a cook book about Viennese cuisine. SO KOCHT MAN IN WIEN! (This is how you cook in Vienna!) was a cook book bestseller and is still available today. But Rudolf Rösch had never written this book. Indeed, he may never have existed; a conveniently fictitious product of the Nazi era. The real author was a Viennese Jewess named Alice Urbach. Before the Nazis took over Austria the book had been published under her own name. Now 80 years later, Alice's granddaughter, the historian Karina Urbach, sets out to uncover the true story behind the stolen cook book.

History is about perspective as well as information. To understand Germany’s actions during the Czechoslovakian crisis, we have a great deal of information and perspective from the top but much less from the bottom. The reason for this unevenness is obvious. In a dictatorship, people censor themselves continuously – in every letter they write and in every conversation they have. As a consequence, we are left with anecdotal evidence. However, with the help of new sources this article shows that it is possible to combine political and social history to understand this crisis in its multiple dimensions.