Dear reader,
The new issue of SPIEGEL HISTORY has been on newsstands since Tuesday.
And we're pretty sure: you knew little or nothing about the topics we write about in it.
Because when it comes to Germany's role in the system of slavery, even experts were certain until recently: we had nothing to do with it.
However, recent research shows that Germans were deeply involved in the slave economy from the start.
They supplied raw materials that were exchanged for people in Africa, they owned plantations in the Caribbean where enslaved people had to work, and they deported unfree people to German lands.
Were these just exceptional cases?
No, that's not true either: "Germans were involved en masse in the slave trade," says Bremen historian Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, an expert on German involvement in slavery, whom we interviewed for the magazine.
In the Dutch colony of Surinam alone, around a third of the European inhabitants were German – slavery was part of everyday life there.
And her colleague Michael Zeuske reports how he keeps coming across names of German slave owners in Cuban archives that were previously unknown.
And did you know that slavery just kept going after the end of antiquity?
The medieval Franks made good money from human trafficking, as did the Vikings.
There are even historians who believe that this laid the basis for European prosperity.
Our colleague Jasmin Lörchner wrote on Twitter that she herself learned a lot while working on this magazine – she designed the magazine together with Frank Patalong.
The debate about the Germans in the slave economy is just beginning, the current issue of SPIEGEL HISTORY provides the necessary background knowledge for it.
There is also a connection to a second issue that we would like to recommend to you: the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns were also active in the slave trade.
But that is rather a side aspect of the history of this dynasty and the country of Prussia.
In the current issue of SPIEGEL HISTORY EDITION we tell how a local dominion first became a kingdom and then a European world power.
We trace how Prussia's society developed, how the peasants rebelled against the Junkers, how the rulers crushed the democratic revolution of 1848 and how Berlin became a big city and later a nightlife metropolis.
The historian Stephan Malinowski explains in an interview why we overestimate the importance of Prussia for German history - and our colleague Dirk Kurbjuweit wondered whether Prussian virtues should come back into fashion (spoiler: no!).
So we suggest the following plan for the coming weekend: go to your trusted well-stocked kiosk and buy one or preferably both magazines (or quickly order them online), then make hot tea, snuggle up in a blanket and get on the sofa and read.
It's officially autumn now...
We wish you a stimulating read, feedback is welcome directly to us at spiegelgeschichte@spiegel.de, we will get back to you in two weeks!
Your SPIEGEL HISTORY team