In 1970 the newly established University of Warwick opened its department of German studies, and my friend and colleague Steve Lamb, who has died aged 79, was a founding member.
Warwick quickly established its reputation as the pre-eminent department of contemporary German literature in Britain, but the focus of Steve’s academic work was the interactions of culture and politics in the Weimar republic, and, in particular, the career of the political activist and expressionist playwright Ernst Toller. He was one of the team of German scholars who, in 2014, produced the new and definitive critical edition of Toller’s collected works.
