The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler

by Thomas Hager

To survive they needed a strong king. To survive they needed to obey. Unfortunately, the man they obeyed, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was a madman. Or Europe’s most brilliant leader. Or delusional. Or the most glorious emperor in the history of Germany. It depended on whom you talked to, and when. In any case, it was clear to everyone who knew him that the absolute monarch of Europe’s most technologically advanced nation was, as England’s Lord Salisbury put it, “not quite normal.”