David H Childs
Encyclopedia
David Childs is an Emeritus Professor of Politics whose considerable contribution to the advancement of German studies has equipped academics, business leaders, government ministers and students develop a greater knowledge of Germany
(former East - GDR, & West - FRG) and the politics behind the country.
and Political Science before taking up a British Council
scholarship to Hamburg University, in 1956. He had already made several vacation trips to Germany the first being to the Communist-organised Festival of Youth And Students in East Berlin in 1951 where he made private contacts which much later stood him in good stead for his researches. He was in East Berlin again just after the rising of June 1953 when the Soviet Army was used to crush the workers’ revolt. This event, and books such as Orwell’s 1984 and Koestler’s Darkness At Noon turned him into a strong anti-Communist.
Having gained his Ph. D by part-time study at London University, he turned to academic work and was appointed Lecturer at Nottingham University in 1966. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and then Reader in 1976. By this time, he was well known for his books on Germany
and for his book Marx Marx and the Marxists - An Outline of Practice And Theory.
Elected chairman of the Association for the Study of German Politics http://www.asgp.ac.uk/home.htm in 1983, he conceived the idea for an Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs at Nottingham University. This was to be orientated to politics and society rather than language and literature. He engaged the interest of the City entrepreneur, John H. Gunn, a graduate in German of Nottingham University, and INGASA was established with financial help from Gunn in 1985. The centre was opened by the Baroness Thatcher Margaret Thatcher
, then Prime Minister. The German, Austrian and Swiss ambassadors became patrons and the Institute became internationally respected for its many highly successful conferences on themes such as the Austrian resistance
to National Socialism, the ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union, German Liberalism, and training in German companies. In 1990, it held what was the biggest university conference to date on Germany with over 450 participants. Great controversy arose as speakers from all of the new East German political parties and the Communist SED Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) argued in the University’s great hall about the future of East Germany.
German reunification, in October 1990, coincided with the start of the fall of INGASA. John Gunn had presided over the collapse of British & Commonwealth, one of the largest City businesses, and could no longer fund the Institute. The slump made it difficult to find alternative backers. Childs, promoted to professor in 1989, came under great pressure from those who had long disapproved of his line on Germany and Communism, and from professional rivals. He was removed from the directorship of the Institute in 1992, and took early retirement from the University two years later. He continued to serve as a member of the committee of the British-German Association http://www.britishgermanassociation.org/index.php until 1997.
and of the GDR or DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) (November 1989). Few shared his standpoint on this.
After several visits in the late 1970s and early 1980s Professor Childs concluded that, the East German state, the DDR (GDR), was not sustainable. He made such a prediction at a conference at the University of Dundee
in 1981. As Professor Marianne Howarth later found in the East German archives, a secret report on this was duly sent back to East Berlin.
The Stasi
attempted to monitor his activities not only on visits to East Germany but also in Britain. His appearance at a conference in Bradford
in 1983 was again duly recorded in the Stasi
archives. He was put on a Stasi Fahndung [investigation] list and denounced in DDR publications as a 'British imperialist East researcher'. Prof Childs later discovered the file that the Stasi had on him which covered a seven year period. The file revealed that he had, in fact, been spied upon by two British spies - two British academics. http://archive.thisislancashire.co.uk/1999/9/28/756260.html It also revealed that he was regarded by the East German secret police as their most serious opponent in Britain.
Professor Childs delivered the same 'Dundee' analysis at the German Historical Institute
in London http://www.ghil.ac.uk/about.html, 24 November 1987, and elsewhere. He predicted early German reunification and outlined a plan similar to the actual one adopted in an interview with Peter Johnson on the [West German radio] Deutschlandfunk
in April 1988. He was ridiculed! When he later spoke at the 'Pacific Workshop On German Affairs: The Two Germanies at Forty', - Long Beach, California, in April 1989, about the likely collapse of the DDR, he again met with strong opposition and ridicule. However, the organiser, Professor Christian Soe, invited him back, after German reunification
, in 1991, writing, 'We are happy that David Childs, who in April 1989 took a minority position in clearly diagnosing the moribund condition of the East German system, returns to give us a post mortem…' In an article written the day before the opening of the Berlin Wall
, and published in the Yorkshire Evening Post
, 9 November 1989, Professor Childs predicted full German reunification and welcomed it. The following day The Guardian
wrote, 'It would mean that a dangerous situation in the heart of Europe has been liquidated…'
, Sky News
, The Independent
, The Times
, MoD
, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Royal Institute of International Affairs (now Chatham House
) and an array of City firms.
He is widely in demand as a guest speaker and has lectured on contemporary German themes at Harvard University
, Johns Hopkins University
, University of California
(Long Beach), University of Texas (San Antonio), and, among many others, in the 1990s and 2000s at Humboldt (Berlin), Hamburg (Bundeswehr
), Jena, Leipzig, Potsdam, Sydney, Iceland, Poland and in Italy. He has also made himself available to voluntary groups in various parts of England.
Although a long-standing member of the European Movement
, and a strong supporter of the European Union, Childs is known by many readers as the author of works on Britain
rather than Germany. His Britain Since 1945: A Political History, first published in 1979, has never been out of print, and has been revised and extended over the years. In 1997, Routledge published the fourth largely re-written edition, a 5th edition followed in 2001 and the 6th in 2006.http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0415248043http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t754739891
Childs' most recent publication differs from his more usual academic publications as it is a novel, entitled, We Were No Heroes.http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/ It is about Martin Thomas, an Englishman who fought for the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front
, survived a Soviet concentration camp, worked as a Stasi agent during the Cold War
and witnessed the Fall of the Berlin Wall
. Childs based the semi-fictional account on a man he had met in Leipzig
in 1989. The author and novel were recently mentioned in the Bolton Newshttp://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/districtnews/districtatog/4732317.Secret_life_behind_the_Iron_Curtain_exposed/ where he explains the events leading to the writing of this novel. Writing in The Guernsey Press http://www.thisisguernsey.com/guernsey-press/(11 January 2010) local historian, Herbert Winterflood, commented, "David has stuck to the main points of the Guernsey Occupation with a high degree authenticity...David has given a very true account of the period…The book…is a good read."
Tam Dalyell
, former Labour MP wrote in The Oldie
, Summer 2010, 'Childs develops an entirely credible story of this young Channel Islander, inspired by Amery, volunteering to serve in the Waffen SS on the Russian Front - there was never any question of those in Martin Thomas's position being expected to fight against this country. The narrative follows him into a Soviet concentration camp, and describes his life as a Stasi agent in the Cold War up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I found We Were No Heroes compulsive reading and extremely informative.' Available from Amazon - We were no heroes
Having worked as a journalist, mainly for ATV, 1961–1964, Childs http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/ continues to write for newspapers, magazines and journals. He has also contributed to radio and television programmes over the years. Over 160 of his obituaries http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/david_childs-articles.htm have been published in The Independent
from 1988-2010. Childs continues to write and guest lecture at home and abroad.
Co-Author/Editor:
The Independent
, The Times
, The Times Higher Education Supplement
, The Times Literary Supplement
, The Guardian
, Daily Telegraph, International Affairs http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/, Albion (USA) http://www.albion.appstate.edu/index.html, Current History (USA) http://www.currenthistory.com/, Political Geography, Political Studies http://www.politicalstudies.org/, English Historical Review, German Politics (ASGP) http://www.asgp.ac.uk/German%20Politics.htm.
Most Recent Conference Publications:
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(former East - GDR, & West - FRG) and the politics behind the country.
Education
- Thornleigh Salesian CollegeThornleigh Salesian CollegeThornleigh Salesian College is a Salesian and Catholic secondary school in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England.- History :Thornleigh College was founded in 1925 by The Salesian Order of Don Bosco at the request of the Clergy of Bolton....
, BoltonBoltonBolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, Lancashire, UK - Wigan & District Mining & Technical College, Lancashire, UK
- London School of EconomicsLondon School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
(LSE), (BScBSCBSC is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:Science and technology* Bachelor of Science , an undergraduate degree* Base Station Controller, part of a mobile phone network; see: Base Station subsystem...
), London, UK (1953–56) - British CouncilBritish CouncilThe British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
Scholarship to the University of HamburgUniversity of HamburgThe University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(1956–57) - University of LondonUniversity of London-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, (PhDPHDPHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
), London, UK (1962)
Membership
- Founder member of the Association for the Study of German Politics http://www.asgp.ac.uk/home.htm (the leading academic body in the field) since 1974; member of the executive, 1981–91; Chair, 1981-86 http://www.asgp.ac.uk/contact.htm; Secretary, 1986–88; founder/editor of journal,1988-92.
- Member of British-German Association http://www.britishgermanassociation.org/ (the official lay body for the promotion of Anglo-German relations), member of executive 1987- 97.
- Member of the European MovementEuropean MovementThe European Movement International is a lobbying association that coordinates the efforts of associations and national councils with the goal of promoting European integration, and disseminating information about it.-History:...
http://www.euromove.org.uk/; Gesellschaft für Deutschland Forschung http://www.gfd-berlin.de/ (Berlin); Association of University TeachersAssociation of University TeachersThe Association of University Teachers was the trade union and professional association that represented academic and academic-related staff at pre-1992 universities in the United Kingdom...
http://www.ucu.org.uk/ [Member of Nottingham University Committee, 1994-8]. - Elected Fellow of Royal Society of ArtsRoyal Society of ArtsThe Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
http://www.thersa.org/ 1990. - In 1985 created the Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Politics/About-the-School/History.aspx at Nottingham University. Director 1985-92.
Profile
Childs studied at the London School of EconomicsLondon School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and Political Science before taking up a British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
scholarship to Hamburg University, in 1956. He had already made several vacation trips to Germany the first being to the Communist-organised Festival of Youth And Students in East Berlin in 1951 where he made private contacts which much later stood him in good stead for his researches. He was in East Berlin again just after the rising of June 1953 when the Soviet Army was used to crush the workers’ revolt. This event, and books such as Orwell’s 1984 and Koestler’s Darkness At Noon turned him into a strong anti-Communist.
Having gained his Ph. D by part-time study at London University, he turned to academic work and was appointed Lecturer at Nottingham University in 1966. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and then Reader in 1976. By this time, he was well known for his books on Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and for his book Marx Marx and the Marxists - An Outline of Practice And Theory.
Elected chairman of the Association for the Study of German Politics http://www.asgp.ac.uk/home.htm in 1983, he conceived the idea for an Institute of German, Austrian and Swiss Affairs at Nottingham University. This was to be orientated to politics and society rather than language and literature. He engaged the interest of the City entrepreneur, John H. Gunn, a graduate in German of Nottingham University, and INGASA was established with financial help from Gunn in 1985. The centre was opened by the Baroness Thatcher Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, then Prime Minister. The German, Austrian and Swiss ambassadors became patrons and the Institute became internationally respected for its many highly successful conferences on themes such as the Austrian resistance
Austrian resistance
The Austrian resistance to the Nazi rule that started with the Anschluss in 1938 had a prehistory of socialist and communist activism against the era of Austrofascism from 1934. These activists, limited primarily to adherents of the political far left, operated in isolation from the Austrian...
to National Socialism, the ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union, German Liberalism, and training in German companies. In 1990, it held what was the biggest university conference to date on Germany with over 450 participants. Great controversy arose as speakers from all of the new East German political parties and the Communist SED Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) argued in the University’s great hall about the future of East Germany.
German reunification, in October 1990, coincided with the start of the fall of INGASA. John Gunn had presided over the collapse of British & Commonwealth, one of the largest City businesses, and could no longer fund the Institute. The slump made it difficult to find alternative backers. Childs, promoted to professor in 1989, came under great pressure from those who had long disapproved of his line on Germany and Communism, and from professional rivals. He was removed from the directorship of the Institute in 1992, and took early retirement from the University two years later. He continued to serve as a member of the committee of the British-German Association http://www.britishgermanassociation.org/index.php until 1997.
The Fall of the German Democratic Republic
Childs was one of the few who actually predicted the collapse of the Berlin WallBerlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
and of the GDR or DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) (November 1989). Few shared his standpoint on this.
After several visits in the late 1970s and early 1980s Professor Childs concluded that, the East German state, the DDR (GDR), was not sustainable. He made such a prediction at a conference at the University of Dundee
University of Dundee
The University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
in 1981. As Professor Marianne Howarth later found in the East German archives, a secret report on this was duly sent back to East Berlin.
The Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
attempted to monitor his activities not only on visits to East Germany but also in Britain. His appearance at a conference in Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
in 1983 was again duly recorded in the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
archives. He was put on a Stasi Fahndung [investigation] list and denounced in DDR publications as a 'British imperialist East researcher'. Prof Childs later discovered the file that the Stasi had on him which covered a seven year period. The file revealed that he had, in fact, been spied upon by two British spies - two British academics. http://archive.thisislancashire.co.uk/1999/9/28/756260.html It also revealed that he was regarded by the East German secret police as their most serious opponent in Britain.
Professor Childs delivered the same 'Dundee' analysis at the German Historical Institute
German Historical Institute
German Historical Institute are five independent academic research institutes situated in Rome, London, Washington, D.C., Warsaw and Moscow, dedicated to the study of historical relations between Germany and the host countries in which they are based, along with four other institutions, in Paris,...
in London http://www.ghil.ac.uk/about.html, 24 November 1987, and elsewhere. He predicted early German reunification and outlined a plan similar to the actual one adopted in an interview with Peter Johnson on the [West German radio] Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk is a German public broadcasting radio station, broadcasting national news and current affairs.-History:Broadcasting in the Federal Republic of Germany is reserved under the Basic Law to the states. This means that all public broadcasting is regionalised...
in April 1988. He was ridiculed! When he later spoke at the 'Pacific Workshop On German Affairs: The Two Germanies at Forty', - Long Beach, California, in April 1989, about the likely collapse of the DDR, he again met with strong opposition and ridicule. However, the organiser, Professor Christian Soe, invited him back, after German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, in 1991, writing, 'We are happy that David Childs, who in April 1989 took a minority position in clearly diagnosing the moribund condition of the East German system, returns to give us a post mortem…' In an article written the day before the opening of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, and published in the Yorkshire Evening Post
Yorkshire Evening Post
The Yorkshire Evening Post is a daily evening publication published by Yorkshire Post Newspapers Ltd in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
, 9 November 1989, Professor Childs predicted full German reunification and welcomed it. The following day The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote, 'It would mean that a dangerous situation in the heart of Europe has been liquidated…'
British Political History
Professor Childs' wide knowledge of both domestic and international affairs has been utilised by both government and commercial organisations such as: The BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, MoD
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Royal Institute of International Affairs (now Chatham House
Chatham House
Chatham House, formally known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in London whose mission is to analyse and promote the understanding of major international issues and current affairs. It is regarded as one of the world's leading...
) and an array of City firms.
He is widely in demand as a guest speaker and has lectured on contemporary German themes at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
(Long Beach), University of Texas (San Antonio), and, among many others, in the 1990s and 2000s at Humboldt (Berlin), Hamburg (Bundeswehr
Bundeswehr
The Bundeswehr consists of the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities...
), Jena, Leipzig, Potsdam, Sydney, Iceland, Poland and in Italy. He has also made himself available to voluntary groups in various parts of England.
Although a long-standing member of the European Movement
European Movement
The European Movement International is a lobbying association that coordinates the efforts of associations and national councils with the goal of promoting European integration, and disseminating information about it.-History:...
, and a strong supporter of the European Union, Childs is known by many readers as the author of works on Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
rather than Germany. His Britain Since 1945: A Political History, first published in 1979, has never been out of print, and has been revised and extended over the years. In 1997, Routledge published the fourth largely re-written edition, a 5th edition followed in 2001 and the 6th in 2006.http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0415248043http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t754739891
Childs' most recent publication differs from his more usual academic publications as it is a novel, entitled, We Were No Heroes.http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/ It is about Martin Thomas, an Englishman who fought for the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, survived a Soviet concentration camp, worked as a Stasi agent during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and witnessed the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
. Childs based the semi-fictional account on a man he had met in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in 1989. The author and novel were recently mentioned in the Bolton Newshttp://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/districtnews/districtatog/4732317.Secret_life_behind_the_Iron_Curtain_exposed/ where he explains the events leading to the writing of this novel. Writing in The Guernsey Press http://www.thisisguernsey.com/guernsey-press/(11 January 2010) local historian, Herbert Winterflood, commented, "David has stuck to the main points of the Guernsey Occupation with a high degree authenticity...David has given a very true account of the period…The book…is a good read."
Tam Dalyell
Tam Dalyell
Sir Thomas Dalyell Loch, 11th Baronet , known as Tam Dalyell, is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005, first for West Lothian and then for Linlithgow.-Early life:...
, former Labour MP wrote in The Oldie
The Oldie
The Oldie is a monthly magazine launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who for 23 years was the editor of Private Eye. It carries general interest articles, humour and cartoons, and has an eclectic list of contributors, including James Le Fanu, John Sweeney, Thomas Stuttaford, Virginia Ironside,...
, Summer 2010, 'Childs develops an entirely credible story of this young Channel Islander, inspired by Amery, volunteering to serve in the Waffen SS on the Russian Front - there was never any question of those in Martin Thomas's position being expected to fight against this country. The narrative follows him into a Soviet concentration camp, and describes his life as a Stasi agent in the Cold War up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I found We Were No Heroes compulsive reading and extremely informative.' Available from Amazon - We were no heroes
Having worked as a journalist, mainly for ATV, 1961–1964, Childs http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/ continues to write for newspapers, magazines and journals. He has also contributed to radio and television programmes over the years. Over 160 of his obituaries http://www.davidchilds.co.uk/david_childs-articles.htm have been published in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
from 1988-2010. Childs continues to write and guest lecture at home and abroad.
Books
Sole Author:- The Fall of the GDR: Germany's Road To Unity, Longman http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000004463, 2001. ISBN 9780582315693
- The GDR: Moscow's German Ally, (Second Edition 1988, First Edition 1983, George Allen & Unwin, London) ISBN 9780043540299.
- The Fall of the GDR, Longman, 2001. ISBN 0-582-31569-7 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0582315697
- The Two Red Flags: European Social Democracy & Soviet Communism Since 1945, Routledge, 2000. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t732627883
- Germany in the Twentieth Century, (From pre-1918 to the restoration of German unity), Batsford, Third edition, 1991. ISBN 0 713467959
- East Germany to the 1990s Can It Resist Glasnost?,http://openlibrary.org/b/OL16520921M/East_Germany_to_the_1990s The Economist Intelligence Unit, 1987. ISBN 9780850582451.http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3A%22Childs%2C+David%2C%22&qt=hot_author
- Germany Since 1918,http://www.biblioz.com/lp25763663360_0(second edition 1980, first 1972, Batsford/Harper & Row)
- Marx and the Marxists an Outline of Practice and Theory, Ernest Benn/Barnes & Noble, 1973.
- East Germany, Ernest Benn/Praeger, 1969.
- From Schumacher to Brandt: The Story of German Socialism Since 1945, Pergamon, 1966.
- Britain Since 1945: A Political History - Sixth Edition, Routledge, 2006. ISBN 0415393272 http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Britain+Since+1945+-9780415393270.html
- Britain since 1939: Progress and Decline, Macmillan, 1995, 2nd Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. ISBN 978-0-333-97165-9 http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=264547
Co-Author/Editor:
- West Germany: Politics And Society, David H Childs and Jeffrey Johnson, Croom Helm, 1982. ISBN 0-7099-0702-8
- East Germany in Comparative Perspective, Thomas A. Baylis, David H Childs and Marilyn Rueschemeyer, eds., Routledge, 1989.http://ucl.etailer.dpsl.net/home/html/moreinfo.asp?bookId=536887312&category=EC070000&whichpage=4&pagename=category.asphttp://www.routledge.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=&isbn=0415004969&parent_id=&pc=
- The Stasi: East German Intelligence and Security Service, David H Childs & Richard Popplewell, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996, Revised Paperback Edition 1999. http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=0333772075http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0333772075 1996.
Other publications
Professor Childs has made contributions to 19 other books and over 150 articles with other works pending. Below is a list of where some of the articles have appeared:The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education , formerly Times Higher Education Supplement , is a weekly British magazine based in London reporting specifically on news and other issues related to higher education...
, The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Daily Telegraph, International Affairs http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/ia/, Albion (USA) http://www.albion.appstate.edu/index.html, Current History (USA) http://www.currenthistory.com/, Political Geography, Political Studies http://www.politicalstudies.org/, English Historical Review, German Politics (ASGP) http://www.asgp.ac.uk/German%20Politics.htm.
Most Recent Conference Publications:
- "British Views on the German Economy and the Germans, 1949-1964" in Franz Bosbach, John R.Davis, Andreas Fahrmeir (Hg.),Industrieentwicklung: Ein deutsch-britischer Dialog, Prinz-Albert Studien, Band 27, Munich, 2009. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=9697
- "Schwierigkeiten und Möglichkeiten der britischen DDR-Forschung vor 1990" in Peter Barker, Marc Dietrich Ohse, Dennis Tate (Hg.), 'Views from Abroad Die DDR aus britischer Perspektive', Bielefeld, 2007. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25048