Customer Reviews

1933

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I had this book on my shelf for years before I got around to reading it, and I was amazed! Journalists have been under attack so much in recent years, but after reading this book you will see them in a new light. The foreign correspondents reporting from Berlin in 1933 during the rise of Hitler and facism put themselves in so much personal danger to get the story out. It's an interesting and frightening story.

Recently I read this non-fiction book for the second time. "1933" by Metcalfe gives a vivid picture of the Berlin in 1933 by describing the lifes of various persons playing their role in the changing society of the German capital in one of the decisive years in German history. Metcalfe's information comes from memoirs, published and unpublished official documents and archives. The main players are the new American ambassador, Dodd and his daughter Martha who arrive in Berlin right before Adolf Hitler and his national-socialists take over. Also the arrogant Harvard-educated German Putzi Hanfstaengel, who plays an ever dimishing role in the Nazi regime, the policeman Rudolf Diels and the Jewish society columnist Bella Fromm have their chapters. Metcalfe is able to evoke this year of turmoil in interesting detail. It is not only the picture of the horror to come but also the comical aspect of the intense events in the German capital. "1933" is a book for people intrigued by the question how it was possible that a whole country chose to go the way it did. It is of course very much the American point of view which is described but that makes it maybe even a more interesting one...

The lesson of Nazi Germany is that people like us and societies like ours can do terrible things. Metcalfe's 1933 follows five individuals through Hitler's first year in power. I had not heard of any of them before reading the book. Of the five, Harvard graduate, Putzie Hanfstaengl, seems most familiar and unattractive to me. He was rich, shallow, incurious, and to the end of his days refused to take responsibility for his actions. Rudolf Diels, the first Gestapo head with his dueling scar, initially seemed an obvious villain. However, his insistence on protocol and legality was ultimately heroic and he left Germany fearing for his own safety.

The individuals did not know the future and the book does not refer to the events of 1934-1945. Without those following events the book would not be so important, but Metcalfe does not refer to them explicitly. He tells the story in its time and finishes the book noting William L. Shirer's arrival without comment. It effectively invokes the subsequent history that I learned by reading Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"

I have checked out this book a number of times from the libray. This is a fascinating book of the beginning of the Nazi Regime. Jews are discriminated against and deprived of their job. One of the friends of those who are writing about this regime kill herself, rather than face the loss of her job. A Gestapo agent puts roadblocks in the way of the SA and SS killing machines and is himself threatened. One can see how this regime threatened and killed its way to total power.

This is a nice read of the beginning of Hitler's regime. People opposed him, and paid the price. This is how power was transferred to a small group of people.