The story is happening a million times a day to everyone. Everyone could be Kirsten, Janett, Mary or you. The fun of those knowing Berlin and New York is guaranteed. So jump in the live of Becky Bernstein and share her efforts of diet and finding her true love. How would you have acted?

No beer lover should leave home without it! Excellent reviews of individual beers from the smallest village braueries to the largest Munich producers. All beer styles included- light, smooth, pils to strong, rich, doppelbocks. Stock up arriving and departing southern Germany at Karl Maruhn's largest beer store in world (south of Darmstadt) for all the highly rated beers from breweries you can't visit. The book's weakness is locations/lack of maps to find the breweries. No problem, buy a German map atlas, ask for directions, but take the author's advice and seek out every beer he highly recommends. You'll have a great time. Prost.

This book contains 57 letters written by a mother to her daughters. The mother is living in Berlin, the daughters join a boarding school in Switzerland. The letters were written in the time from the beginning of 1939 to the end of 1942. In the letters one can read about daily concerns of a normal mother and the typical concerns of teenagers. They do not always harmonize and have to go through to depth and highs of their first love. What makes these letters unique ? The mother, who is divorced, is jewish and lives in a slightly better situation compared with the other Jews because she was married with an "Aryan" German. But even for her, who was working as a teacher, life is getting more and more difficult and depressing. In her work for the jewish community she gets insights into the deportations. With these deportations more and more Jews are brought to the determination camps in the east - mainly to Auschwitz. Reading the letters one can imaging how the ring gets closer month by month - especially after beginning of world war II in 1941. Live is getting a hell on earth for the Jews. Fear of the censor makes Hertha Feiner choice a quite indirect form of expressions in the letters. Astonishing how Feiner bolsters herself and in a different sense her daughters too. It is difficult for her to make it transparent for her daughters how hard her life in Berlin is. In the beginning of 1943 Feiner was deported to Auschwitz... The letters were edited by Karl Heinz Jahnke... The introduction of Jahnke is quite useful especially for readers outsides Germany. Information about the family of Feiner and background information about the politics of the Nazis against the Jews are given in an exact and concise manner. The book was excellently translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo.

"Before The Wall", by George Clare, Sub-titled, "Berlin Days, 1946-1948", Dutton, New York, October 1990.

This is short, well written record of the author's service as a translator and part of the British occupying forces in Berlin, directly after the Second World War. George Clare was born as Georg Klaar in Vienna before the Nazi take-over. As a young man, he saw the "Anschluss" and the end of Austria as an independent country. His father worked to get visas for emigration to the Republic of Ireland (the Irish Free State, as Mr. Clare then termed it), but things were fouled up and the family of father, mother and son were stuck in Nazi Germany's capital, Berlin. Clare uses this stay as a basis for comparison when he returns to bombed-out Berlin, after the war.

In a poignant passage, the author remarks on the lack of noise in cold and windy post-war Berlin, where once he had heard the noise and sounds of a busy city. Much of the front of the book is devoted to his memories of this bombed-out city becoming alive as he works in the British occupying forces. The details of simple breakfast, when the Berliners were going hungry (if not starving) and the details of the deference given a British uniform during a subway rush hour, mundane as it would seem, brings alive the occupation of Berlin. You had to be there to write out such recollections. Clare's writing is excellent.

Towards the end of the book, the author semi-analyzes Nazi Germany and its cousin state, Austria. He quotes Primo Levi in saying that the Germans were lacking the courage to speak out against the concentration camps. Clare speaks of Goethe and Schiller strolling the woods where "... the SS implanted the hell it called Buchenwald". (p. 275). Clare doubts that A. Hitler, in 1928, when he was dictating "Mein Kampf", "..could have had the Final Solution in his conscious mind", (p. 277) but, clearly, from the paragraphs just preceding, Clare shows, by recounting Hitler's acquiescence to the killing of 380 Jews, that Hitler knew what was happening. Read the book just for this section alone.

This is an excellent book, well written and a worthy personal story that documents the history of the few years between the end of the war and the building of wall.

this book runs the gamut from joyous hedonism to the extreme visciousness of humankind. I cannot remember the last time I was so emotionally drawn in and captivated by such intelligent, breathing, living characters. This book is a powerful must read for anyone concerned with what makes humanity tick, and the absolute evil that seems so inherently possible. A love story that trancends all generations. This is proof that the human will is a miraculous thing.

You won't read about Berlin Betty. When your done reading you will know all about Berlin. The only thing is that it's hard to relate to reading the book b/c I've never been there before (I want to). I found myself refering to the maps which are extensive and detailed. Which were a big HELP. The book is well written and intresting.

I would recommend this book to anyone. I've learned a lot about Berlin. One of my friends who use to live in Germany on AF Base. I was talking to him about what I read. Man, I know more about Berlin than he did, and I've never be there either.

In your spare time get a PH.D on Berlin (just joking) ...

very exciting book lots of flovor about the best book i have read in a long time very work reading

This book may seem a bit daunting at first, given the density of text (even though there are a lot of photographs), but if you know anything about either German culture or Berlin, you will find a foothold in the book and learn a great deal as you continue reading it. A particularly cheering feature is the amount of time the author spends on Berlin from its foundation to the 1840s, a period that many other authors either rush over or treat poorly. Moreover, in limiting himself to the most significant and representative works or artists in each period, Taylor leaves a lasting impression at the end of every chapter--there's a lot of information here, but it's organized so as not to be overwhelming, and particularly the repeated pattern of literature, music, art, architecture, is helpful. Also, the illustrations are beautiful and well chosen.

The Berlin Haskalah And German Religious Thought is a seminal work of impressive and original scholarship offering a new and fascinating perspective on the Haskalah that will be of immense interest to scholars and students of Judaic studies, Germany history, and the evolution of western religion in an increasingly science oriented and secular Europe.