Title : " The zoo of prey , diplomacy, love and terror in the capital of the Third Reich ." " . Author : Erik Larson. Translator (English): Yaniv Farkash . Publisher: Babylon, 421 pp , (digital edition, format Evrit ) year of publication: 2015.
Details: Essence of the book : Berlin in the early years of the Nazis' rise to power. . Genre : History recommendation :. Excellent scale Todros (see below) 4.8
Review ( spoiler !):
Trial opens : "You then, at the dawn of a very dark era, they found themselves drifting father and daughter suddenly their comfortable Chicago to the heart of Hitler's Berlin."
The book contains a closer look at the first year of the Nazis' rise to power. A view from the Berlin heart of external observers and therefore objective to a degree. Berlin The heart of Germany undergoes changes, from a world cultural center to a city with violent phenomena. Fear and terror . This is a rare observation, brought from the glasses of the family of the American ambassador to Berlin in the 1930s, and William Dodd . As the author wrote in the preface, he chose to expose "that world (Berlin in the years 1933 - 3) through the experiences and perceptions of two central figures, a father and his daughter who, upon their arrival in Berlin, embarked on a journey of discovery,
This is a good historical work. The author collected many documents, including personal diaries and private and official letters, from which he builds a reliable picture of social life and reality on the streets of Berlin in the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazis to power. And so we look at the magnifying glass closely for the change that has taken place in Germany. This is an almost neutral view of the rise of the Nazis and the transformation of Germany from a cultural country into a visiting country .
The ambassador came skeptical about the credibility of the idyllic image the Berlin street displayed in contrast to his daughter, a beautiful girl, a lifelong young woman who was enthusiastic about what was presented as a new Germany, young and obscure. Slowly, the picture changed. In the beginning, there were few incidents in which American citizens attacked not saluting a parade of brown shirts or other pretexts. Concerns and fears appear, increasing harassment. The trial of the defendants in the Reichstag fire reveals the great show that fails to hide the murky truth from the world. The differences between American democracy and culture and Germany that the Nazis are increasingly controlling. The great change occurred in David's daughter, Martha. A young woman whose politics are not really in her head, is enthusiastic at first about the enthusiastic German delegates to the new revival of the German people and does not accept all the tales of the cruelty of the new Nazi regime until it is present on the Berlin street. Its members were young and prominent Nazis.
The book contains some of the historical events that occurred during the first year of the Nazis' rise, such as the Papen speech and the Night of Long Knives, the occupation of the Rhineland. And many other events that are less familiar than the usual history books.
David's reports to the US State Department are met with skepticism and scorn, and a whole bunch of officials are created who disparage him and believe that he is unsuitable for his job, partly because of his values from the usual foreign ministry staff. David tries to demonstrate the American values of democracy, freedom of speech and human dignity, according to his understanding, if he is guided by the president, and is met with veiled hostility by the German government and officials.
David appears in the book, as the only person who predicted what would happen a few years later. Against this background and in light of the internal hostility within the Foreign Ministry, he was forced to resign. In a lecture he gave on 21.2.38 to a Jewish audience in Rochester, New York, he predicted that, soon after the union with Austria, Hitler would threaten and take control of Poland, Austria, Romania and the democratic countries. In a lecture in Boston in June 1938, he said that Hitler hated the Jews and wanted to kill them all. Four and a half months before Kristallnacht. All things were realized, as we know, a few years later .
Misch who remained in Germany saw him as a hero compared to the home front in the United States, who saw him at least as a strange person. The book emphasizes once again the understanding that it is not easy to understand the real reality at the moment of its occurrence and it is easy to get carried away in the general atmosphere and the tendency to cancel the threat by explaining that all this will pass. Insight that is relevant in every generation and place. It takes courage to stand up for self-values versus a broad tendency to deny the truth out of comfort or another factor.
The last part of the book, from page 287 to page 421, contains about one-third of the book, contains 781 notes, a long bibliography and an appendix in which it describes its historiographical sources and sheds a limited light on its comprehensive work. This is a good example of writing based on facts and data .