1933

I had this book on my shelf for years before I got around to reading it, and I was amazed! Journalists have been under attack so much in recent years, but after reading this book you will see them in a new light. The foreign correspondents reporting from Berlin in 1933 during the rise of Hitler and facism put themselves in so much personal danger to get the story out. It's an interesting and frightening story.

Recently I read this non-fiction book for the second time. "1933" by Metcalfe gives a vivid picture of the Berlin in 1933 by describing the lifes of various persons playing their role in the changing society of the German capital in one of the decisive years in German history. Metcalfe's information comes from memoirs, published and unpublished official documents and archives. The main players are the new American ambassador, Dodd and his daughter Martha who arrive in Berlin right before Adolf Hitler and his national-socialists take over. Also the arrogant Harvard-educated German Putzi Hanfstaengel, who plays an ever dimishing role in the Nazi regime, the policeman Rudolf Diels and the Jewish society columnist Bella Fromm have their chapters. Metcalfe is able to evoke this year of turmoil in interesting detail. It is not only the picture of the horror to come but also the comical aspect of the intense events in the German capital. "1933" is a book for people intrigued by the question how it was possible that a whole country chose to go the way it did. It is of course very much the American point of view which is described but that makes it maybe even a more interesting one...