A Hungarian prime minister makes a Jewish billionaire into public enemy number one for the sake of an anti-European election campaign. In Barcelona, nationalist politicians go to jail for a vague dream of freedom, and Britain's EU opponents orchestrate Brexit as a fight against German supremacy. Europe is undergoing the greatest crisis since WW2. Konrad Kramar has visited the current hot spots of trouble. Beyond the bluster of populist campaigning and anti-European agitation, he shines a light on the rifts in nations and societies and traces them back to their origins in war, violence and displacement. Kramar explains why current politics has no answers to these crises and shows where solutions might be found.

The Allies had won the war, Hitler was dead, but a fanatic Gauleiter was still set on destroying Europe’s greatest art treasure: an enormous collection of art works confiscated by the Nazis. The Gauleiter gave orders to blow up the tunnels of Altaussee’s salt mine where the stolen art, intended for the ‘Führermuseum’, had been hidden since 1943. Masterpieces by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer and Leonardo da Vinci were almost blown to pieces. But luckily, a handful of local men from Salzkammergut (and a few accomplices) managed to save the priceless treasure from destruction. Mission Michelangelo is the story of a few brave men and one of the most mysterious episodes from the last days of World War II.