Much earlier than the Ken Burns documentary, Andrew Nagorski explored the lives and views of Americans who were in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, how they witnessed the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler. His book Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power (Simon and Schuster, 2012) tapped a rich vein of personal testimonies to offer a fresh perspective on this heavily dissected era.

Nagorski was based in Germany, Poland, and Russia as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek, and he has written several acclaimed books about this nightmarish era. He will discuss the perspectives and experiences of American diplomats, journalists, entertainers, and an assortment of visitors, raising the larger question of what people saw and understood in the midst of those turbulent events. He will explain that the Americans were hardly alone in often misjudging events. Even Sigmund Freud, the subject of his new book, Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom, was slow to recognize the magnitude of the disaster in the making.

Both Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power and Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom are available to purchase at time of registration and will be available for pickup and signing by Nagorski at the event.