Audiobook17 hours
Berlin at War
Written by Roger Moorhouse
Narrated by Derek Perkins
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
In Berlin at War, acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse provides a magnificent and detailed portrait of everyday life at the epicenter of the Third Reich.
Berlin was the stage upon which the rise and fall of the Third Reich was most visibly played out. It was the backdrop for the most lavish Nazi ceremonies, the site of Albert Speer's grandiose plans for a new "world metropolis," and the scene of the final climactic battle to defeat Nazism. Berlin was the place where Hitler's empire ultimately met its end, but it suffered mightily through the war as well; not only was the city subjected to the full wrath of the Soviet ground offensive and siege in 1945, but it also found itself a prime target for the air war, attracting more raids, more aircraft, and more tonnage than any other German city. Combining groundbreaking research with a gripping narrative, Moorhouse brings all of the complexity and chaos of wartime Berlin to life. Berlin at War is the incredible story of the city-and people-that saw the whole of this epic conflict, from start to finish.
Berlin was the stage upon which the rise and fall of the Third Reich was most visibly played out. It was the backdrop for the most lavish Nazi ceremonies, the site of Albert Speer's grandiose plans for a new "world metropolis," and the scene of the final climactic battle to defeat Nazism. Berlin was the place where Hitler's empire ultimately met its end, but it suffered mightily through the war as well; not only was the city subjected to the full wrath of the Soviet ground offensive and siege in 1945, but it also found itself a prime target for the air war, attracting more raids, more aircraft, and more tonnage than any other German city. Combining groundbreaking research with a gripping narrative, Moorhouse brings all of the complexity and chaos of wartime Berlin to life. Berlin at War is the incredible story of the city-and people-that saw the whole of this epic conflict, from start to finish.
Author
Roger Moorhouse
ROGER MOORHOUSE is a historian of the Third Reich. He has been published in over 20 languages. He is a tour guide, a book reviewer and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw.
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Reviews for Berlin at War
Rating: 4.387930905172413 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
58 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm so glad that I discovered this! Author accomplished his stated goal describing the reactions of the German "man on the street." During my military years there , Germans were commonly STILL very complimentary of Hitler, privately. THIS author deftly succeeded in convincing me of the haplessness of the human race, in choosing utterly defective leaders, then FOLLOWING those same leads. History IS REPEATING ITSELF in the Western world at present. Time will only tell how many MILLIONS of people will suffer due to our present situation. At least 100 MILLION people suffered irreparable, needless harm due to German citizen's complicity and apathy. (Yes, I am wwarebthere were a few 10snof 1000s, whose efforts were effectively thwarted bynyje mania of the masses.) How regrettable that our species has survived in spite of our SELF DESTRUCTIVE actions throughout the millenia!.
Resd the book. Skip 3 chapters about details of torture. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very good. Berlin during WWII was as complicated and multifaceted as any city in the world. Roger Moorehouse paints the complete picture if a people trapped, suffering, and waning under a faltering regime. People who are just like you and me. Derek Perkins is his most brilliant self narrating.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A good read. We read so much about the battles and troops involved, but it’s interesting to hear about what the people endure. For so long, the citizens of Germany didn’t feel the pain or experience the horror its war machine inflicted upon the world. The terror of daily/nightly bombing of their homes & cities, the destruction and death of firestorms made them realize they had a price to pay. German civilians fleeing in terror from the Russian juggernaut & the raping & pillaging left in their wake. I enjoyed this book very much. I recommend it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gripping. Incredible in its scope and detail. A must read for history buffs of Ww 2.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moorhouse portrays the life of the "average" German in Berlin from just before the war through its conclusion. For example, he notes how accidents went up significantly during the blackout; the murder rate rose; and in one lengthy passage describes the search by the Kriminal Polizei for a serial killer who bludgeoned dozens of women and then raped them, using the darkness as cover. Turns out he was a railroad worker who unrepentantly then blamed a Jewish doctor's wrong treatment for his gonorrhea. He was guillotined. Following declaration of war by Britain after Hitler's invasion of Poland, Berlin remained in an uneasy quiet. Memories of WW I were still fresh, and support for the invasion was muted at best. Especially after the British began night bombing of Berlin, even though it was inconsequential.Moorhouse describes the Kinderlandverschickung in some detail. During the fall of 1940, when it had become apparent that Goering would not be able to prevent the mass bombing of Berlin, the administration decided to evacuate children from Berlin. By the end of the year over 200,000 children had been sent to rural areas of the Reich and Czechoslovakia. Homes were requisitioned and special camps built to house the children. Recipients of the children were paid 3 DM per day, so of course, there was the usual opportunistic greed and some children became cheap labor. Some of the KLV camps --more than 9,000 camps existed by the end of the war -- were built as far away as Bulgaria which meant they needed to be evacuated west as Soviet troops pushed back on the eastern front. By the end of the war, some 900,000 children had been moved around out of the cities; an estimated 53,000 became orphans left to scavage at the end of the war. Experience varied. In some of the camps, run by the SS, political indoctrination and training for the Volksturm units was the norm. Others reported a rather carefree existence although Moorhouse reports rampant homesickness, an understandable sideffect. In the evening Fannenappel (flag call) was the norm. Moorhouse considered that a form of political indictrination, but it seems little different than the Pledge of Allegiance we all routinely say in this country.I know it's become popular to blame all of society's ills on the latest technology: in the sixties it was television ruining our children, then the Internet, now it's cell phones. (Personally, I blame vegetables.) Germany was at the forefront of radio technology and its use for propaganda. Goebbels realized the importance of getting Hitler's message out to everyone and the Nazis heavily subsidized the cost of radios. 7,000,000 of an early low-cost set were sold in less than six years. But he also cleverly realized that propaganda could not be the sole content or people would tune out. So the proportion of music as a percentage of total broadcasting increased. Soon, everyone was sitting around the radio. Goebbels called radio the 8th great power and that the Nazis would never have achieved power without it. That coupled with Hitler's innovative use of the airplane to move around the country quickly gave the Nazis a huge edge.But there was a downside for the Nazis to having all these radios available. It was a crime to listen to foreign broadcasts. Goebbels even insisted that red tags be affixed to every tuning dial warning of the severe penalities (11 people were executed for the crime, although this was rare) for listening to foreign broadcasts. They were constantly labeled as "fake news." But they were important to Germans as the British would broadcast the names of prisoners of war and since virtually everyone had a relation in the army, this information could become a solace. Unable to tell friends or relatives that some soldier was alive because of the broadcast, they would relate that this information came via a dream. Multiple people on the same street would have the same dream.One interesting technology developed by the Nazis was their use of sending radio over telephone wires, a precursor to cable. This enabled people to received emergency broadcasts without any interference through the use of a splitter box attached to their radios.A thoroughly fascinating book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well-organized and stays focused on the main topic. Covers how Berliners reacted to the Allied bombing; what life was like in the bomb shelters; and how each successive bombing raid created nagging doubts about the propaganda of the Nazi regime. It also covers topics such as war rationing, the removal of children from the city to "safety" in the countryside, and how foreign workers and Jews were treated during the trials that Berlin experienced.
Moorehouse draws from a wealth of primary source material and mixes it effectively with his narrative commentary. A good addition to the always vastly expanding World War Two reading collection. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a very interesting book. I kept it by my bedside and read a chapter or part of a chapter most nights. While I would consider it a historical book, it wasn't written like a conventional history, i.e., not in strict chronological order. Each chapter covered a different subject, such as what it was like when the blackout provisions were ordered, what it was like when the children were evacuated to the country, how Berliners got information, when subversives were rounded up and the treatments of the Jews. The latter chapters did describe Berlin towards the end of the war - the air raids that occurred at the end of the war and the Russian invasion. It was very informative with lots of quotes.