If you're interested in getting to the belly of the beast, in this case, the finger-nail crud of unification, look to Katie's absolutely bottom-line insights into the east German perspective. The house is still there, hard by the two-taxi stand as you come across the bridge, ironically just down the wooded lane from where they signed the Potsdam Agreement, and, in its crumbling, grafitti-stained magnificence, it can be seen, if you wish, as some sort of symbol, of what's gone wrong, and what's gone right. with the "new" Germany. The book tells a wonderful tale of brick and mortar and the dreams and ambition it contained. Rarely does the door to a complex turning open so joyously and so widely. Read it and learn how it is.

Having lived in Germany before, during and after the wall went down,
The House At The Bridge encapsulizes succinctly the emotions of change
that I, and others, saw and felt during Germany's paradigm shift of
politics and society. This story isn't just about a house, but of
families and a country in transition. Ms. Hafner cleverly uses the
house as a common thread to tell the history behind the house's
inhabitants and the political changes that effected them. The
comparisons between (former) East and West Germany are poignant and
real. Any history lover, travel buff or architect(professional or
amateur) will be pleasantly surprised by the story this house tells.

I'm a sucker for plays, and this play is no exception. I was fascinated by the title and read it without having any idea as to what the content was. It is wonderfully written and stark for the time it was written. It tells the story of Christopher Isherwood and the time he spends in Germany during the Second World War. You confront frank subjects and controversial topics in this book, and you realize that during World War II, people worried about some of the same things today, such as unwanted pregnancy and racism, to name a couple. Everything you once viewed in an idealized way during this time period unravels, and you don't really mind.

In all its forms (plays, movies, and books) the legacy of the radical Sally Bowles will live on forever. It is the lidicracy of the times that makes this spectackle a spectacle. A starving artist in Berlin that on New Years Eve met a wild and (quote-on-quote) "Perfectly Marvelous Girl" in a drab nightclub in the mist of the third reich. The spirit of the girl in this grim country is one of the reasons that her story will live forever. And also, seeing a performance in Davis, California starring Matt Dunn as the Emcee, and Rebecca Tosca Grey as the ever so taslented Sally Bowles releived me of all my stress, as well as "mind matter."

An exceptional book full of important historical detail. Weiss makes clear that Hitler's anti- semitism was not unique. That, in fact, German and Austrian society was permiatted for decades by hatred for Jews, Slavs, and Gypsys. He traces the roots of anti-Semitism. The writing is excellent and the presentation is logical and easy to follow. The only falt I found with this book is that Weiss mainly used secondary insead of primary sources.

There are thousands of books on this subject, many filled with fact, conjecture and feeling. This work has all of that and more: it convinces you that the Holocast was not the result of one man's demented ideology but that is was rather the result of a long history of racism and hate in Germany. While being scholarly, the book is not heavy-handed or dull. It lays out the scenario for murder with chilling detail, starting off with the Crusades and then running through the Reformation and Enlightenment before tackling Nazism, the end product of such ongoing thought. This book should be read by any and all desiring a full understanding of how the Holocaust came into being.

Walter Meyerhof has written something really special. When I read his book - which I did in one 'go', as it was quite impossible to put it down - I felt really privileged to have entered his world and seen something of the joy he has obviously found in his life. INSPIRATIONAL was a title which came immediately to me as the title for this review. INSPIRATIONAL is what this little book is. Thank you, Professor Meyerhof, for showing us the way!

During the Hitler period, a number of extraordinary immigrants came to the USA, fleeing certain death because of their Jewish ancestry or religion. The USA did not make it easy for them to get in. Our society was extremely anti-semitic itself at that time. As a result, only the most promising people managed make the jump.

Walter Meyerhof, who was the son of a Nobel prize winning scientist and who later went on to become a physics professor at Stanford, was one who made it out and made it here. Like many refugees, he was not actually Jewish, but had Jewish ancestry.

The book consists of a number of short vignettes about Meyerhof's life. The vignettes are not really connected into a single narrative as one would expect from a biography, still one does get a picture of the flow of his life.

The book's account of Meyerhof's flight from Hitler is understated, but the sense of the closing of the horrifying vice of death still comes through.

Meyerhof's tales of his encounters with romance are also fascinating in giving us a window into how such things happened even before the "free love" generation.

The book does leave us with many questions about the parts of the author's life that are missing. Still, the parts that are there are well worth reading.

It seems almost humorous now to think back to the Cold War days of a divided Germany, but not to the few who made it over the Wall alive.

This was a great story of a young man who escaped East Germany over the Berlin Wall. The book is easy to read and gives great insight into the life of a young person growing up with freedom a stone's throw away. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a vision of East German life.

I stumbled across this book in Memphis, Tennessee where the author now lives and ordered a few copies of it for my friends thru Amazon. It is about a young man who, along with three friends, jumped the Berlin Wall in 1987, just two years before it came down.

The book is cultural anthropology at its best and a wonderfully thrilling story about a brave young man.

If you can get past the horrors perpetrated by elements of Nazi Germany, and want a behind-the-scenes look at some very brave, individual soldiers this, first published by Arms & Armour Press of London in 1991, is the perfect book.

Just 154 pages, counting the index and glossary, the author provides some fascinating details of 32 infantrymen - both Wermacht and SS - with a candid phototgraph of each individual covered, plus three pages of photos of some of their highest awards as well as detailed descriptions of each.

Among the more prominent of the 32 men covered are SS-Standartenjunker Willi Fey, Oberleutnant Erich Lepkowski, SS-Unterscharfuhrer Remi Schrynen, a Belgian, and Major Rudolf Witzig, a paratrooper decorated for his actions at Fort Eben Emael in Belgium in the opening hours of the May 1940 attack in the West.

There is no doubting the individual bravery of each, though, as you will see if you can get your hands on a copy.

Highly recommended.

My biggest surprise is that this book has not been reviewed yet, as it has been out of print for 9 years now.
This small but interesting book starts with a review of combat awards given by the Germans, and what it took to earn them. This is one of the most straight forward simplest explanations I have seen, and would be good reading just for that.

The book then starts each year of the war as a chapter with a breif explanation on the war from the German stand point at that time. Then it contains within each chapter several short stories about men who won the Knights cross in that year. The book by no means covers all the winners, only a few, and the stories are short. On the other hand, the author picked some great stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat. You will not be able to put the book down. One story has a German officer driving into a French collum by mistake, and ordering THEM to surrender, the rest is in the book, I won't ruin it.

The stories are short, and keep your attention very well, you can read the book in a day if you let yourself.

I think there are two other books in the series, one about paratroopers, and one about SS, but I have only seen them once along time ago.

If you are interested in WW II from the German side, and want to see what bravery and leadership really are, this is the book for you. Just wish the book was thicker and had more stories, but I'm not complaining a bit, the ones in the book are probably the best you will see.

This book has amazing insight into the realms of Irish and German espionage history. I found the reading to be thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. Dr. Mark Hull brings a bit of humor into a subject that is difficult to entertain. I have never been an advent reader of any type of historical writings and found that once I started reading, I honestly felt capitivated by the reconstruction of history in this book. Unlike most history books, Dr. Hull has brought to life a writing that is serious in depth of subject, yet could be viewed world wide on a theatre screen as thoroughly enjoyable (James'Bond anyone?).

I would recommend this book for a history class or just for the enjoyment of sitting down on the sofa with a good book and a cup of wine for a relaxing evening at home.

Irish Secrets provides a stunning insight into a now forgotten aspect of the Second World War - Nazi Germany's secret overtures to neutral Ireland, 1939-1945. Berlin sent a "dirty dozen" agents by parachute and U-boat to Ireland, whose wartime leader, Eamon de Valera, was striving to maintain strict neutrality in the face of strong pressure to join the war (mainly from British Premier, Winston Churchill).
Mark Hull, a professor of modern history at St. Louis University, has produced the most detailed study of the agents sent to Ireland by Germany. They included a German circus weight-lifter, an Indian and two South Africans. Most were en route for missions in England, but all were caught and incarcerated in Athlone army camp in the Irish midlands (luckily for them because they would have faced executiion if discovered in wartime Britain).
The most colourful agent by far was Dr Hermann Goertz, who parachuted into Ireland just north of Dublin in 1940. Goertz was wearing his Luftwaffe uniform and medals in the mistaken belief that he would be shot if caught in civilian attire. Goertz who was in his 50s and a First World War veteran, asked a startled Irish farmer if he had landed in Northern Ireland by mistake. The farmer asked the German agent "You wouldn't happen to know Ballivor?" (the nearest village), at which point the conversation abruptly halted as Goertz went on the run.
As Professor Hull points out, Goertz had the most success among the German agents, remaining at large for 18 months. But it's believed that the Irish Army deliberately kept him on a long leash, checking all those with whom he came in contact, including the German ambasador, Dr Eduard Hempel.
Goertz was unsuited to a spying mission, however, and spent his time in prison writing love stories, practising suicide drills, and dreaming about taking over the leadership of the IRA (Irish Republican Army). After his post-war release, he was so alarmed at the prospect of being repatriated to Allied-controlled Germany (he feared he would be tortured to death by the Russians) that he took a cyanide pill and died instantly, in 1947.
Professor Hull's book - which is destined to become a standard work of historical reference - will prove an invaluable read for anyone intersted in recent Irish history, Ireland's historical links with Germany and, in particular, Nazi Germany's attitude to Europe's neutral states (which included Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey).
It is noteworthy that the foreword for Irish Secrets was written by none other than Enno Stephan (the former head of German Radio's French-language service), whose 1963 book "Spies in Ireland" did much of the spadework on this fascinating topic.

(Dr David O'Donoghue, Dublin, Ireland).

This second volume covers the bloody fights over the plains of russia, including a massive 450 photos/maps, of these 100 never published before, including the german version of the title. this is where we begun to realise the pain, difficulties and death faced by these men as they attempted to stop a overwhelming enemy, never giving up, rather dying than being captured as they struggle to keep the homeland safe and away of the enemys

An excellent report on the JG53 that starts by covering the deadly combats over Italy, where Stab, I and III/JG53, try to reduce the massive allied air superiority, taking us then to the retreat and final hours of one of the most famous fighter units of the Luftwaffe during WW2

Kapr's book is the result of his life's research on Gutenberg and a summary of all that was known on the subject by the late 20th century. Some readers might find the book slightly dry and scholarly, but it gives all the familiar and obscure, bizarre and quirky tales about the inventor of printing, and it patiently distinguishes which parts of the legend are speculative and apocryphal from those that deserve to be considered historical fact. Kapr's narrative paints a vivid picture of fifteenth-century southwestern Germany, its social structure and politics and the conditions that set the stage for Gutenberg's achievment. We see Gutenberg's childhood as the son of a wealthy businessman and wine producer and how this could have given him the ideas he later put into practice in his inventions. One of the more interesting and illustrative stories is Gutenberg's invention of metal stamping to manufacture mirrors for the pilgrims at Aachen, a brilliant piece of imaginative work that was blunted by his miscalculation by a year of the date of the Aachen pilgrimmage. Throughout the book we see repeated instances of Gutenberg's restless inventive powers and his benighted (or astonishingly unlucky) career as a businessperson. In the end, Kapr shows how Gutenberg fell afoul of the Pope and was driven out of his home town by the Pope's allies and left to die in obscurity. In addition, the book shows to a small degree the contribution of Peter Schoeffer to the invention and explains why the world's first printing firm was Fust und Schoeffer rather than Gutenberg und Gesellschaft. As a reader with a personal interest in printing and typography and an amateur historian's thirst for more fine details to round out my knowledge of the early Renaissance, I found this book to be unputdownable.

It gives printers a sense of pride in there fast paced sometimes unappreciated work. It helps people realize that it was a printer who single handedly raised mankind out of the dark ages.

Cambridge historian Christopher Clark's 2000 study of the Kaiser is, despite its brevity, a concise and balanced account of Wilhelm's life into which he incorporates much recent historiography of Wilhelmine Germany. Clark paints a picture of an emperor whose power and influence gradually weakened over time. By the late 1890s, he argues, Wilhelm had 'emerged as a significant factor in high politics, launching ambitious (if often doomed) legislative schemes, intriguing with individual ministers, and gradually hollowing out the authority of the chancellor.' (117) In the realm of foreign policy, however, Clark argues that Wilhelm became increasingly 'marginal'to the real centers of policy making,' particularly after several notable blunders including the Zabern incident and the Daily Telegraph affair, both of which witnessed his impetuous and 'undiplomatic' style, to the horror of professional diplomats.
With regard to the outbreak of war in 1914, however, Clark argues that while Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German General Staff, 'pressed his sovereign'at crucial moments' in the months leading to war, at no point did the monarch 'surrender the power of decision to the military.' (215) Far from being a warmonger, Clark asserts, Wilhelm was 'reluctant to entangle Germany in a continental war,' (214) and maintained 'his own outlook on policy [that] differed in crucial ways from that of the military leadership.' (216) He never supported the 'preventive war' strategy espoused by top army officials, nor did he regard mobilization as irreversible. Clark points to Wilhelm's attempts to mediate between Serbia and Austria-Hungary as evidence of his 'reluctance to allow Germany to be sucked into a Balkan engagement' in 1914. (218) This initiative was 'overridden by the chancellor,' Clark notes, which provides further proof of the Kaiser's declining stature in affairs of the state'affairs he could 'influence'but did not control.' (218)
What of Wilhelm's involvement in the prosecution of and involvement in the Great War? Clark concludes that the Kaiser's 'capacity to exercise a command function was narrowly circumscribed,' which considerably diluted his influence among Germany's military leaders. Furthermore, he 'lacked an overview of strategic planning' leading up to and including the early stages of the war because, Clark maintains, the general staff regarded him as a security risk and refused to take him in to their confidence. As a result, he was displaced from the center of military affairs, shielded from much bad news from the front, and 'was excluded from the sphere of operational command of the land forces'though he did exercise a more direct'influence on the wartime operations of the German navy.' (227) Clark warns that one should not push the argument that the Kaiser was marginal too far. 'By virtue of his position,' he writes, Wilhelm was a 'figure of crucial importance,' namely for his authority to 'appoint and dismiss 'his' officers and officials.' (228) He concludes that although he was not vital militarily to the day to day running of the war, the emperor was a central figure in the 'processes by which some of the most central policy issues of the war years were resolved.' (244)

This is a great, short study for the student and buff.

I just finished this book, and found it very interesting and useful. It is not intended as a "life" of the Kaiser, but only as an analysis of his rule. I was looking for this kind of focus, so was happy with the book. The author's main thesis is that under the German constitution in effect at the time, the Kaiser had little actual power. While able to influence events, he could not control them. Only in the German shipbuilding plan did the Kaiser play a leading role. The author feels that Wilhelm sincerely wanted to avoid war in 1914. Actually, most of the book is not about the war years, giving the reader a more balanced overview of the reign. It is suggested that Wilhelm was one of the first "media" personalities, partly because of his penchant of making off-the-cuff remarks that continually got him bad publicity. The author discusses these various remarks based on the context in which they were made and the audience they were intended for, in a partially sucessful attempt to show they were not so outrageous as usually presented. While the book is not a whitewash of the Kaiser, the author does try to show he was not the arch-fiend of Allied propaganda. Since this is my personal view, I was in sympathy with the author's approach.