Reisen ins Reich

by Oliver Lubrich

1933 bis 1945 - Ausländische Autoren berichten aus Deutschland

Genres: History, Germany, Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir, War, World War II

427 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Kai Weber]

The editor Oliver Lubrich, a comparative literature scholar who was a lecturer at Berlin's Free University at the time when this anthology was published, has collected newspaper articles, diary entries, memoir book excerpts and one autobiographical, yet fictionalized short-story from foreigner travelling or residing in the Nazis' Third Reich. Many of those people were journalists, some of them famous writers (André Camus, Samuel Beckett, Karen Blixen, to name a few). The writers represented here are comping predominently from England, the USA, France, the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, there's a Chinese voice, too, while Slavic people are rather underrepresented, unfortunately. Lubrich classifies the examples, groups the cases, elaborates on his sources in an informative and interesting preface. We not only get a large variety of nations looking on those criminal years of German history, but also a wide variety of opinions: Some writers were already clear about the atrocities of Nazism from the very beginning, some came with an idea of neutrality, some even with sympathies for the Nazis. Of the latter type, some lost their illusions and turned from sympathiser to opponent, and a very small minority remained supporter of the Nazis (Sven Hedin, Wiking Jerk).
The multitude of voices does not provide such a clear and consistent picture of the "true" attitudes of the "ordinary" German citizen, as Saul K. Padover did in his Experiment in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer, and from hindsight there seems to be a bit too much stress on how much the "ordinary" German citizen was against the war, without actually daring to openly oppose it. But overall this is an interesting kaleidoscope of voices contemporary to the Third Reich and the Second World War.

[Last Chance Saloon]

Really good concept, and it could have been fascinating, but the selection of writings included were not from a complete cross section of society, and therefore not well balanced. The introduction was disjointed, and biased, but perhaps that is because (with the exception of William Shirer's masterpiece on the Third Reich) I much prefer studies from historians to journalism. I think readers who enjoy general biographies might like this.

[Bernard]

One of the most interesting World War II books I’ve ever read. Fascinating to hear the descriptions of all these authors from various countries during Third Reich

[Julia]

Eine spannende Frage: Wie haben Ausländer, die das Dritte Reich bereisten, das System wahrgenommen und analysiert? Haben sie die Gefahr des Nationalsozialismus erkannt oder ließen sie sich zunächst auch von der Propaganda blenden? Und wie wurde das Regime beurteilt, als der Krieg bereits ausgebrochen war?

Oliver Lubrich hat sich dieser Fragen angenommen und unterschiedlichste Berichte von ausländischen Autoren zusammengestellt, die während der Nazizeit in Deutschland waren. Manche waren nur kurz auf Durchreise, manche lebten mehrere Jahre dort (in der Regel als Korrespondenten), einige kannten Deutschland schon zur Weimarer Zeit, andere lernten nur das Dritte Reich kennen.

Es schrieben bekanntere und unbekanntere Autorinnen und Autoren über ihre Zeit in Deutschland. Wir finden hier reine Reiseberichte, in denen der Nationalsozialismus nur kurz gestreift wird (und dennoch oft klar charakterisiert wird) neben tiefergehenden Analysen. Spannend ist, wie unterschiedlich schnell die Schreibenden die Zeichen der Zeit erkannten: Einige packten bereits in den ersten Jahren ihre Koffer, wo andere noch durchaus positiv über Hitler dachten. Auch merkt man in den Berichten deutlich, wie der Krieg näher rückt und immer häufiger über Bombenangriffe und Kriegshandlungen die Rede ist.

Alles in allem ist dieses Buch jedenfalls sehr interessant und spannend zu lesen – solche Blicke von außen sind höchst lehrreich und helfen, einen etwas umfassenderen Blick auf die Dinge zu bekommen. Einzig hätte ich mir gewünscht, etwas weniger über Berlin und etwas mehr über den Rest von Deutschland zu lesen. Aber das ist wohl der Tatsache geschuldet, dass die meisten Korrespondenten und Botschaftsangehörige eben dort in der Hauptstadt tätig waren.

[Steve]

Obviously the subject matter is very disconcerting however I was very impressed with the manner in which each of the foreign authors portrayed their interactions with citizens of Germany.

I gave it 4 stars because a couple of the stories were difficult to read (to me) however there was one real standout and that was the short story that Thomas Wolfe wrote about a train ride west from Germany. It was a very emotional read.

[Stephen Graham]

Again, a mixed bag. Some of the excerpts are very short, a paragraph or two. Those rarely seem worthwhile. The longer passages, where more context is developed, work much better. Some are surreal, such as Meinrad Inglin's account of wandering through Berlin police headquarters in the blackout looking for his passport while running a fever. Or the passages by W.E.B. du Bois and Shi Min, looking at German society from a non-white perspective. Those make this well worth the time.

[Benjamin Thomas Sutpen]

http://sensemania.blogspot.com/2009/0...

[Stephanie]

These stories were really fascinating. This really showed an interesting perspective of Germany.