Customer Reviews

Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s

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I borrowed this book from a friend. Now I am buying it. This is one of the few history books which can grab your emotion and takes it on a roller coaster ride. Even though I know how it is going to turn out, somehow I hoped for a different ending throughout the book. You are taken on a journey to pre-WWII Germany and find out the social context which gave birth to the Nazi movement. The trauma of WWI gave rise to undirected violence. That trauma also gave birth to the Dada movement. That same trauma is also expressed in the younger generation who grew up to be SS storm troopers and caretakers of the death camps. The same thing might happen anywhere, anywhen in the world. That is the sobering part.

Before the Deluge is a wonderful, compelling social history of Berlin between the wars. It explores the fascinating social, cultural, and scientific developments in Berlin as the political drama of Nazism plays out in the background. In these pages you will meet some of the 20th century's greatest politicians, artists, filmmakers, scientists, etc. who meet in the crossroads of Central Europe. Where else can you get Karajan, Einstein, Isherwood, Hitler, Weil, Garbo, and Lang in the same book........And, if you like this book, also try Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet or City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's - both by Friedrich: both of them are equally good.

I've read many books this about Germany and Berlin during the Weimar Republic period and this is one of the best one and a great introduction to the subject and time period. Even with the study I've done on Weimar, I learnt many things from with great book. It starts in 1918, at the very end of the First World War and the fall of the German Empire and ends as Hitler and his gang of thugs and bullies took over Germany. Along the way, Friedrich episodically talks about many interesting characters who lived during the period as well as science, crime, art, literature, music, film, drama social movements and lots of things that made up the period. Many people slam the book for being fragmented and episodic- I think it fits the time period and the fragmented nature of what happened. The only complaint I have is the rather sparse pictures in the book, that are reused for the cover art on both the paperback and hardback- with the very rich subject, better pictures could have been used. Get the hardback too since in the front and end papers there is a map of Berlin and its suburbs which helps to situate the landscape of the book. Highly recommended.

The reader below who bemoans (understandably) the lack of maps in this edition can blame the publisher; there were excellent maps on the inner cover, front and back, of the hardcover edition. The book is an excellent introduction to the Weimar years.

Operating in a chronological format from 1918 to 1933, this work looks at Weimer Germany and the forces that made it thrive and falter. Chapters focus on German music, politics and entertainment. We are even told of the notorious serial killers! By the early thirties, the reader knows the end is near for the Republic, and can feel it coming. I agree with the author that Germany's real destruction was caused by Hitler, not the war. Other books on this period likely contain more information and detail, but few capture its spirit so well.

A wonderful analysis of Germany and Europe in the years leading up to Hitler. Germany experienced a period of ferment that was evident in the arts, theatre, philosophy, design, architecture that was destroted by the evil Nazis and has never again appeared. It was as though the intelligence of an entire generation blossomed only to be ground down under the Nazi jackboots. There is a message here for us today to avoid all fanaticism of any kind from right wing ultra conservatism to the mindless faith-based religious false prophets. Protect your intelligence and better nature from the new Nazis who have nothing to offer but catch phrases and empty promises. It all happened before and if you don't recognize the threat we'll end up with the same Gotterdamerung.

Behold the perennial twentieth century historical conundrum: how the Germany of Beethoven, Brahms, Goethe and Thomas Mann became the nation of Hitler?
Otto Friedrich does not necessarily solve the mystery but the reader is left in a commanding position to more fully appreciate the social, cultural and political milieu of post war Germany which led to von Hindenburg's tragic appointment of Hitler as German Chancellor in January, 1933. Friedrich, an agile prolific writer, is an energetic and creative researcher as well who drew from many contemporary resources; even seeking out and interviewing notable exiles from pre Hitler Germany; Marlene Dietrich, W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, to the son of Bertolt Brecht, to the less notable. These quotes give the history a contemporary " I was there" feel. His last four chapters are particularly vivid detailing and dissecting the political machinations of the various players at the end of the doomed Weimar Republic. He regrettably spends too much time analyzing the irony and complexities of Brechtian plays and other German theater and movies than the artists like Dix, Kirchner and Beckmann. Some well known names (Josephine Baker, Harry Kessler, Fritz Lang) are briefly mentioned in passing as if to flesh out the story line and add a dash of entertainment spice. Otherwise, it is fine, wholly readable history of Berlin in the 20s to complement Joseph Roth's masterful "What I Saw" and Richard Evans' superb and more recent first volume of his trilogy of the Third Reich.

Otto Friedrich doesn't offer a sustained argument. Rather, as in his book "City of Nets," on Hollywood in the 1940s, the author collects a series of essays on Berlin, hitting the juicy years before the advent of Hitler and all the ghoulish events that follow. It is a decadent period that seems on the surface rather attractive. Rather like the film/story/musical "Cabaret", we get a taste here of the sexual revolution that anticipates what came to American 50 years later. You could call it "Woodstock with brains", since the Germans had an army of intellectuals and mad artists with real talent to make these years all the more colorful and tragic. Those who escaped enriched America immensely; those who didn't got eaten up in Hitler's meat grinder. I liked this book, and recommend it along with Peter Gay's "Weimar," another look into the glory years before the disasters to come.

I had to read this book for my Europe 1914-1945 class. I appreciated the interviews that are scattered throughout the book from those that were there and also the "dirty history" I was imparted with along with the normal historical narative. Before the Deluge would be a wonderful book for those interested in Nazi Germany because Friedrich gives you all the information that sets up Berlin and Germany for the Third Reich.

To many, calling a book "anecdotal" is to condemn it as lacking in historical rigor. I disagree. To me, being anecdotal is synonomous with being readable---after all, who wants to be bored when reading for pleasure?

Ralph Waldo Emermson said that "there is no history, only biography." This book paints a portrait of Berlin by assembling a collage of personalities who lived there during the 1920's and 30's and who were prominent in film (Marlene Deitrich and Peter Lorre), art, music, literature (Isherwood from "Cabaret" is one, Brecht is another), science (Einstein for one), crime (serial killers-a sign of cultural decline) and ultimately politics (Goering air hero and drug addict, Goebbels the novelist and manipulator, and Hitler the artist and underestimated Southern corporal)---for politics is what ulimately dominated Germany after 1933.

Some will find the portrait uncomfortable--after all, Hitler was a moderate leftist and his Berlin cronies (Gregor Strasser and Goebbels) were far left. His supporters were the unemployed, college students, women, and teachers--- traditional stalwarts of the Democratic Party in the United States. This book will tell you how they came to support the National Socialist German Workers' Party---The N.S. otherwise known as the NA---(N)--ZI's (S's).

Overall, this book is just a good read. It covers a broad range of topics, is filled with interesting anecdotes, and will have something which should interest just about every reader.

Enjoy it.