Customer Reviews

The Past is Myself

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am so sorry this book is not available. It is a fasinating story of a woman's ability to survive and keep her family in tact in WW II Germany. I met Mrs. Bielenberg a few years ago and she is still as interesting as she was in her book.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I am surprised that nobody has reviewed it and I am also dissapointed to find out that it is not available to buy at the moment. I read it a few years ago and when I get the time, I will definitely read it again. Once you start you can not stop and it is a book you will remember for the rest of your life. Read it!

A most poignant account of both the history of the epoch of which the author writes and the ramifications of cross socio-political cultures. Many who have had the privilege of reading this book were initially stimulated to do so as a result of the marvelous teleplay scripted for PBS entitled "Cristabel" and possibly came to the same conclusion as did I: there were literally millions of Germans who did not subscribe to the nazification of Germany; who fought private wars to undermine the nazi regime; and who, like so many of us when faced with a haplessness seeded by the lack of logic as to how their lives had been altered despite their efforts to preserve a measure of human dignity and honor, find themselves desperately close to falling into the abyss of submission.
In 2009 mankind faces a similar dilemma: authoritarion government; mandated socio-cultural lifestyle; loss of self-directed control; and a feeling of haplessness to provide answers to the absence of logic while enduring a constant barrage of mediaspeak/marketing spin idealism.
I have been asked on occasion why didn't the thousands of jews who disembarked the trains at the various death camps not just swarm their captors who were outnumberd at least 100-1; seize the weapons; and defend themselves from certain death?
I always answer: " Fear of the unknown compromises hope, courage, and action; have you ever stood at the barrel end of an automatic weapon?"
A great read...a must read for all of us who cherish not only life, but the pursuit of happiness in our lifetime and in our style.

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! This book has been already (in fact, in 1998, by the University of Nebraska) published in the US under the title "When I was a German". So be aware of the dishonest trap publishers and (silent) Amazon itself lay out for the reader. Greed gnaws at the heart of the system indeed!

This fragment of autobio is a good choice for a seconf or third read about (mostly) wartime life in Germany under the Nazis. I say second or third because the English writer's German husband came from the upper-upper Hamburg class and belonged to some kind of resistance or anti-Nazi organization more or less connected to the 1944 plot organizers, and she therefore didn't move in the same circle as ordinary Germans, so from that point of view she is unrepresentative.

This doesn't matter so much when speaking of crowded trains or the bombings, but it affects her political stance and therefore how she regarded the war. I guess an "intelligent" and "honest" Nazi (although there weren't such according to an ingenious and popular [?] joke she tells) might have experienced things differently.

But all in all the book seems to be sincere, is well-written and reads very easily: it is (now) politically correct and fits nicely into our "Western, Christian tradition". Some passages I found outstanding; and the episode with the Balt SS officer is IMO a one-page masterpiece. It reminded me of a chapter of Dostoievski's "The Brothers Karamazov".

So if you already know something about the history of the period, have read some other wartime bio written by a lower-class German civilian, and don't own the American version, buy the book. Overall, it's not memorable despite the passages mentioned above, but you won't regret it.

I read this book a few years ago, when living in the United Kingdom, and wanted to recommend this book to my Book Club in the USA for our next discussion. What a disappointment to find it is out of print, as this is one of the most readable and insightful autobiographies I have read! Dear Amazon team, please campaign for it to be reissued!