Death in the Black Forest: how a historical tragedy became a play for today

In 1936, five English schoolboys on a hike died at the whim of a foolhardy teacher - and became fodder for Nazi propaganda. Now the story of populist idiocy is being retold for our times

The day after the Brexit referendum the playwright Pamela Carter wrote to her German publishers, Suhrkamp, to apologise. I felt the need to say sorry to a European for the terrible mistake," she said.

Two weeks later in a Dundee hotel, still steeped in bewilderment, she came across a Guardian Long Read I'd written, recalling the events of April 1936, when a group of London schoolboys had set out from their youth hostel in Freiburg, southern Germany, for a hike in the Black Forest. They were led by their charismatic teacher, who ignored numerous warnings and made a series of fatal decisions that resulted in five of them losing their lives.