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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Journal editors, If you're interested in a review that offers a historian's perspective on Gabriele Tergit's "Effingers", please let me know. A literary magazine asked me to write a review and then changed their mind when they realized that they didn't want a historian's perspective after all.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Eine Bemerkung: Michail Paweletz trägt zu seinem Anzug New Balance 990-Turnschuhe (so sieht es zumindest aus), während er die Tagesschau moderiert. NB 990s? I feel seen. (Normalerweise können die Zuschauer seine Schuhe nicht sehen, aber zu Beginn der Sendung waren sie 2 Sekunden lang zu sehen.)

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

And that the fact that the political party of Konrad Adenauer -- or that of Otto Nuschke, if you want to keep the discussion limited to eastern Germany -- went along with this resolution is a disgrace.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The most notable example is the plot line concerning the Reichstag fire. There's another plot line that feels like the July 20 plot transposed to 1933. And the season's main plot concerning Hitler's medical records from World War I feels like a big whatever.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Like many of you, I've been a fan of the TV series "Babylon Berlin" for years. But, to be honest, I found season 5 to be disappointing. The show presents conspiracy theories and conjecture as actual historical events. Yes, the show is fiction, but it's historical fiction and requires verisimilitude.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Re: all those people who are claiming that it is solely or mainly economic concerns, such as unemployment, that drove the AfD vote in Saxony-Anhalt, I have a question: Then how do we explain the difference between the outcome of today's election in Sax.-Anh. and elections in Hamburg and Bremen? 1/2

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

@nytimes.com, I know that it's easy to blame Nazism on "Prussian militarism," but Hitler was an Austrian; his movement was based in Bavaria, which was a hotbed of political radicalism during Weimar; and post-WW1 Prussia was bulwark of democracy until 1932. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/o...

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

I read this document with ease. Another museum-goer, a Millennial, struggled to read it, but got most of it. My Gen Z progeny can only make out a few words. 🙁 #cursive #handwriting #paleography

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

The real birthday of the United States is July 2, 1776. The Smithsonian Institution should know better. (And the second explanation does finesse the difference by writing “adopted the Declaration of Independence” rather than writing “voted for independence” or “declared independence”).

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

I just learned that Arthur Scholem jr., the last of the prewar Germany-born Scholems, died only a few months ago at the age of 97. (His sister also lived into her late 90s.) I had never seen a photo of him. He looked remarkably similar to his famous uncle, Gershom Scholem.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

I’m reading The Radetzsky March by Joseph Roth for the 4th time—but for the first time in 10 years. I had forgotten how complex & multilayered the story is. But Joachim Neugroschel’s translation is a problem. It’s not just clunky. It’s also full of outright mistakes as if it weren’t double-checked.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

I love it when journalists and other non-academics casually cite Robert Darnton. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/o...

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

UK edition: "Dame und Herr im Restaurant" by Lesser Ury Spanish edition: a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt Italian edition: "Kaffeehausszene Paris" by Lesser Ury French edition: "Strassenszene Mit Frau, Berlin" by Lesser Ury 5/5

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

I'm also fascinated by the choice of cover art, which is about representing the book's content and having appealing marketing. German edition: "Berliner Straße im Regen" by German-Jewish artist Lesser Ury (1925) US edition: "Hochbahnhof Bülowstraße bei Nacht" by Lesser Ury (1922) 4/5

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

In the British English, Italian, Spanish, and French translations, the title is provided as "Effingers: A Berlin Saga." Perhaps the original title wasn't descriptive enough for readers in London, Rome, Madrid, and Paris. Perhaps including "A Berlin Saga" was good marketing. 3/5

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

One thing I find interesting, however, is the representation of the title. In the original German and in the American English translation, the title is simply "Effingers." 2/5

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Question for the historians of European-US relations or historians of social movements in Europe: At the height of the Vietnam War (c. 1968-1973), there were lots of demonstrations in Europe against America’s war. Was there a mass movement for a blanket boycott of the United States and its citizens?

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

Yes, it’s an excellent book.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

I should warn you that while it’s a paperback, it’s not short. It’s more than 800 pages, densely printed, with small-sized font. However, each chapter is only 5–10 pages long. So it can be read in small segments without feeling overwhelmed or lost.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

It’s rare that I can say this, but right now, I’m reading an advance copy of a novel, and I cannot put it down. I’m completely immersed in it. I highly recommend @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social’s English translation of Gabriele Tergit’s “Effingers,” available for purchase on November 11.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

The Japanese writer Masashi Matsuie called the 19th century "the age of iron and glass."

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

The Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri, writing of Berlin, called department stores “the [20th] century’s cathedrals.”

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

“'Etz chayim hi,' Dude, as the ex used to say.” Can anyone recommend (scholarly?) readings on Jewish identity in modern America through the lens of Coen Brothers films? (I already know the special issue of _AJS Review_ on "A Serious Man.")

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

It is extraordinary that same man who coined the expression "the International Style" (for modern architecture in the style of the Neues Bauen) also coined the phrase "cathedrals of the nineteenth century."

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

When later scholars use the expression with quotation marks and expressly cite _The Building News_, they are almost certainly relying on Henry-Russell and assuming that his use of the expression is a quotation from _The Building News_, without bothering to check for themselves.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

I think I have an answer. The CONCEPT was first proposed in 1875 in the journal _The Building News_. However, the EXACT EXPRESSION was first used in 1951 by Hitchcock Henry-Russell in the journal _The Architectural Review_.

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Interesting. I also found that the the French writer Théophile Gautier called train stations "the cathedrals of the new humanity."

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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

If you're looking for a book to assign in a course on the Holocaust, I strongly recommend Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past. Done as a graphic history, it tells the story of the Holocaust/NS years, Holocaust memory, and Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung in one West German village.

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