It’s the political novel of the day, a warning signal, a reck­oning with all forms of totalitarianism, a riveting literary dystopia. As a matter of fact, Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler’s international classic, is undergoing its third finest hour in Germany, that is, in German.

Born in Budapest, raised in Vienna and an artisan of German prose, Koestler toiled on his book while exiled in Paris between summer 1938 and …

On Nov. 10, 1918, the prominent editor-in-chief of the liberal daily Berliner Tageblatt, Theodor Wolff, published a remarkable commentary on the events that had unfolded in Germany over the previous days: “Like a sudden windstorm, the greatest of all revolutions has toppled the imperial regime together with all it comprised, from top to bottom. One can call it the greatest of all revolutions since never before was such a …

A number of architects had already started issuing prophecies of doom. Indeed, back when planning was underway to reshape the center of Frankfurt, word on the street was that it was destined to become a “gebaute Lüge,” that is, the architectural embodiment of a blatant lie. Some even used the word “Disneyland,” in Europe a synonym for a flashy, superficial world of make-believe. Critics of the plans went so far …