New York Society Library

NYSL TRAVELS
Are You Going to Berlin?

NYSL TRAVELS: Kurfürstendamm, West Berlin; Photo by Marylin Bender

Berlin has a very special aura. On my first visit I was convinced that it had a special smell as well. My Berlin friends told me that it was the blooming lindens, those same trees that once lined (and do again, just recently) its most famous street. On subsequent visits I have noticed the smell of lindens less, the pungent atmosphere of the city itself more. Visually Berlin is idiosyncratic. Not lovely and seductive like Paris, grandly ancient like Rome, or proud in the monumental way of London, Berlin sits stolidly (but not quietly) on the great northern European plain that stretches from the Urals to the Netherlands. Flat, quite green, laced with rivers and canals, and dotted with lakes around its edges, it is not "pretty". Even before it was so badly bombed it was not that. Stylish and sharp-edged, like Mack's knife, its impact is intensely subjective. Berlin is above all alive -- and kicking -- and always has been, as if in spite of itself and those who have tried to destroy it.

New Yorkers should not be surprised to find that they feel at home in Berlin. There is something in the pace, the clatter, the quick retort of the place that is related to the volatile, multi-faceted, sometimes difficult but never boring city that they live in and, presumably, love. Where else but on Bleecker Street or Times Square might you find a scrawny man with a stubbly chin, cigarette on lower lip, stuffed into a too small and no longer purely pink rabbit suit -- complete with floppy ears -- busily handing out leaflets for Easter bargain sales? On the Kurfürstendamm, the "Fifth Avenue" of what was until recently the romantically edgy city of West Berlin.

I have chosen the following books for the traveler to Berlin because I feel that by reading some of them, some part of them, even a little of any of them, once comes away with a sense of the history and spirit of Berlin and also, occasionally, of the territory called Brandenburg which encloses it. The Land, or state, of Brandenburg is not one of the largest in Germany but, as in the heartland of the former Kingdom of Prussia, it has a long and complex history. Berlin, nearly dead center in Brandenburg, is a Land unto itself in both senses of the word, a state and a state of mind. Its history, if measured by when it first became the capital of a united Germany in 1871, has been short but incredibly dramatic. It has been led by posturing Emperors and gesticulating demagogues, filled with millions of marching men, home to revolutionaries and visionaries, a city of the avant-guard and of bourgeois rectitude, bombed to bits and saved by airplanes a few years later, and, finally, divided and reunited with maximum theatricality.

While my main focus has been on Berlin and the life and times of Berliners from all strata of society, I have also followed them, if and when they went, into the countryside. Potsdam is perhaps the most famous part of Berlin which is technically not part of Berlin. It is, in fact, the capital of Brandenburg. At the same time it is a vital part of the 'essence' of Berlin. Lying directly on the edge of the city, its historica connections with the city were royal, governmental and military. For visitors to Berlin today it provides, besides some very famous palaces, a way of seeing something of the -- almost -- countryside, not to mention fast-disappearing signs of what it was like to live on the wrong side of the Wall. Some of what I have included in the following list travels a bit even further than Potsdam -- to Mecklenburg, to East Prussia, even to other parts of Germany, but usually there is a connection to the former, and soon to be again, capital of Germany.

My time frame is essentially nineteenth and twentieth century. Berlin existed, of course, long before that, but there is nothing much to be found of pre-Frederick the Great (1740-1786) Berlin, unless one wants to make a special task of it. The real challenge is to avoid trying to find the Nazis at every turn and give the city a chance to show you its other -- and also very interesting -- faces.

In the following list the date in brackets, when given, is the date of publication. Because of Berlin's extraordinarily changeable history, with Emperors going out, dictators coming in and walls going up at a moment's notice, it is sometimes good to know when, exactly, the book in question was being written -- by the time it was published conditions might have been different. The dates of the journals and diaries, of course, speak for themselves.

MEMOIRS & JOURNALS:
NYSL TRAVELS: Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, West Berlin; Photo by Marylin Bender

  • Andreas-Friedrich, Ruth.
    Battleground Berlin : diaries, 1945-1948
    Diaries, 1945-1948

  • Baum, Vicki, 1888-1960.
    It was all quite different : the memoirs of Vicki Baum.
    Born in Vienna, Baum was a musician, an editor, and a very popular author, best known for Grand Hotel. Her account of her intermittent life in Berlin from just before World War I until the 1930's, begins on page 213.

  • Bielenberg, Christabel.
    Ride out the dark.
    English, a niece of the British press czar, Lord Northcliffe, and married to an aristocratic German, she spent the war years in Berlin where she and her husband enjoyed the close attentions of the Gestapo because of their intimate connections with the would-be killers of Hitler.

  • Brecht, Bertolt, 1898-1956.
    Bertolt Brecht journals
    The portion on Berlin covers the dates from 22 October 1948 - 18 July 1955. What Brecht says about Berlin, among other things, is that it is "an etching by Churchill after an idea by Hitler".

  • Canetti, Elias, 1905-
    The torch in my ear
    Part Four: 'The Throng of Names', Berlin in 1928.

  • Clare, George, 1920-
    Before the Wall : Berlin days, 1946-1948
    Born in Vienna, Clare served as an intelligence officer with the American army. Shortly after the war he returned, this time as a journalist intent on witnessing the 'after shock' of Nazi defeat in the capital.

  • Darnton, Robert.
    Berlin journal : 1989-1990
    An account of recent memorable events in Berlin by an historian who has written more often of France.

  • Dönhoff, Marion, Gräfin.
    Before the storm : memories of my youth in Old Prussia
    A memoir by the formidable publisher of Die Zeit, mainly about life in East Prussia (the area is now Poland), but from the point of view of a family intimately connected with Berlin's highest social and governmental circles in the early years of this century.

  • Grosz, George, 1893-1959.
    George Grosz, an autobiography
    Pre and Post World War I in Pomerania and Saxony (Dresden) as well as Berlin.

  • Keen, Edith.
    Seven Years At The Prussian Court
    The memoirs of an Englishwoman who from 1907 to 1914 served as companion to the daughter of Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia, a cousin of the Kaiser. A look at the Hohenzollern Court from behind the scenes, below the stairs, and an English perspective in the years leading up to the first World War.

  • Kessler, Harry, Graf, 1868-1937.
    In the twenties; the diaries of Harry Kessler.
    ca. 1918-1937 He knew everybody, and while this is not entirely about life in Berlin, he is interesting wherever he is.

  • Knef, Hildegard, 1925-
    The gift horse; report on a life [by] Hildegard Knef
    Chapters 1-12 cover the actress's childhood in Berlin during the second World War.

  • Neiman, Susan.
    Slow fire : Jewish notes from Berlin
    An American graduate student living in Berlin and getting to know Berliners a generation after the War.

  • Russell, Mary Annette Beauchamp
    Elizabeth Of The German Garden
    A charming account of the aristocratic life in Berlin and Prussia before the first World War as seen through the eyes of a young English wife to Graf Henning von Arnim-Schlagenthin (F R). If you are charmed by 'Elizabeth', there is in the Library an interesting account of her life by Leslie DeCharms, called Elizabeth of German Garden.

  • Russell, William Richard, 1915-
    Berlin Embassy
    Berlin was at war but not yet with the USA. Needless to say people are trying desperately to get out.

  • Shirer, William L. (William Lawrence), 1904-
    Berlin Diary; The Journal Of A Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941

  • Shirer, William L. (William Lawrence), 1904-
    End Of A Berlin Diary
    A continuation of the first volume and equally readable

  • Vassiltchikov, Marie, 1917-1978.
    The Berlin diaries 1940-1945 of Marie "Missie" Vassiltchikov
    A White Russian émigré who lived in Berlin through most of the second World War and was close to many of the primary plotters against Hitler. Times are terrible, she is charming and her account is fascinating.

POLITICS, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY
NYSL TRAVELS: Surviving remnants of the Berlin Wall which was erected in 1961 and torn down 28 years later; Photo by Marylin Bender

  • Davison, W. Phillips (Walter Phillips), 1918-
    The Berlin Blockade: A Study In Cold War Politics

  • De Jonge, Alex, 1938-
    The Weimar Chronicle: Prelude To Hitler

  • Donner, Jörn.
    Report From Berlin
    A Finnish journalist in Berlin just before the Wall went up with a forward by Stephen Spender who was in Berlin in the 30s.

  • Elon, Amos.
    Journey Through A Haunted Land; The New Germany
    Chapter 6, "Captain's Ball on a Stranded Ship" is about West Berlin, Chapter 7, "In the Penal Colony" about East Berlin.

  • Faviell, Frances, 1913-
    The Dancing Bear: Berlin De Profundis
    Berlin from 1946-1954

  • Fay, Sidney Bradshaw, 1876-
    The Rise Of Brandenburg-Prussia To 1786
    A very brief but useful background survey which ends with the end of Frederick the Great's reign.

  • Friedrich, Otto, 1929-
    Before The Deluge; A Portrait Of Berlin In The 1920's
    'Life is a Cabaret' time.

  • Galante, Pierre.
    The Berlin Wall

  • Gross, Leonard.
    The Last Jews In Berlin

  • Hafner, Katie.
    The House At The Bridge: A Story Of Modern Germany
    The house in question is a villa near the Gleineke Bridge, the famous, and lovely, bridge between Berlin and Potsdam, scene of later 'spy exchanges' of our own day. For Hafner the story of the house mirrors the history of the whole Berlin 'area' between 1900 and the present.

  • Masur, Gerhard, 1901-1975.
    Imperial Berlin
    Berlin from the provincial capital of Prussian kings to world metropolis under the Imperial Hohenzollerns, very thorough and with an emphasis on the arts.

  • Mee, Charles L.
    Meeting At Potsdam
    An account of the conference at the end of the war where Truman, Stalin, and Churchill had their famous sessions. The room where they met at Schloss Cecilienhof, a neo-Tudor palace built for the Imperial family, named for the Kaiser's youngest daughter, and finished just in time for the Hohenzollerns to leave Germany, is open to the public and interesting to see.

  • Mitford, Nancy, 1904-1973
    Frederick The Great
    Frederick was born in 1712 and died in 1786, leaving his mark on Europe but even more so on Prussia, and most impressively, architecturally, on Potsdam and Berlin.

  • Read, Anthony.
    Berlin Rising: Biography Of A City

  • Read, Anthony
    The Fall Of Berlin
    The final days of World War II.

  • Riess, Curt, 1902-
    The Berlin Story
    An account by a noted journalist of Berlin in the blockade time. "Berlin was a prison you could not escape. Berlin was a city that could not live and could not die. But besides all the aspects that made Berlin unique and fantastic, it was also a metropolis where all the normal events of a great city took place." p. 358

  • Ryan, Cornelius.
    The Last Battle
    Another, earlier, well regarded account of the end of the second World War.

  • Wyden, Peter
    Stella
    The story of a Jewish "catcher" for the Gestapo in wartime Berlin.

 
NYSL TRAVELS: The Reichstag (Parliament) rebuilt by British architect Sir Norman Stone. The national symbol, the eagle, presiding over the chamger is a far tamer bird than in German imperial times; Photo by Marylin Bender

NOVELS, PLAYS, STORIES
AND A SAMPLING FROM THE MANY 'THRILLERS'

 
NYSL TRAVELS: The Pergamon Museum, Berlin Scenes; Photo by Marylin Bender

ART, ARCHITECTURE, MUSIC

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