Volker Ullrich’s Deutschland 1923: Das Jahr am Abgrund is a great read if you want to know what happened in 1923 in Germany, enriched with local color and quotes from newspapers, letters, and diaries from the time.
However, don’t expect a scholarly work. There’s no attempt at analysis beyond the obvious; the book doesn’t engage with any previous interpretation or viewpoint; and sometimes it’s even sloppy in ways I regularly frown upon when grading students’ papers. For example, «Bereits nach dreizehn Monaten musste ‹Der Neue Tag› sein Erscheinen einstellen.» Why? Financial trouble? Political trouble? We never know. (And in case you’re puzzled by the typography: yes, the Munich-based publisher uses Swiss-style instead of German-style guillemets. House style, perhaps.)
All in all, it’s gripping but not substantial—a light read that neither adds a lot of perspective nor ever stops to reflect on its own.
Ullrich, Volker. Deutschland 1923: Das Jahr am Abgrund. C. H. Beck, 2022.