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European Past: Memoirs 1905-1945 Hardcover – January 1, 1988


Born and raised in Germany, a firsthand observer of that country until Nazism emerged in the 1930s recounts his childhood, the nation's changing political regimes, and his reactions on returning to Germany years later

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gilbert refutes the notion, still prevalent among certain Germans, that Hitler's regime would have been acceptable were it not for his Jewish policy. In this pungent if impersonal memoir, the noted historian, raised in a family of Jews who converted to Christianity, looks back through a glass darkly. He recalls Berlin of the 1920s; turbulent years of revolution and civil war that hardly touched his bourgeois world. The lengthening shadow cast by Nazism is evoked through a series of letters reprinted here. Bleak, atmospheric chapters cover his exile in London where he arrived in 1933 and remained during the later German bombings. As an American officer in 1945, Gilbert was a member of the mission that determined the boundary lines that still divide Germany today. In measured prose he weighs the past against the present, linking his personal sense of dislocation to the ruptures of history.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A member of an upper-class Wilhelmine family, a Berlin native, and a student of the famous historian Friedrich von Meinecke, historian Gilbert has put together an entertaining and often insightful memoir, most valuable for its descriptions of German society just prior to Hitler's rise to power. As a student in Berlin in the 1920s, Gilbert witnessed firsthand many of the tragic events that befell Germany during the interwar period. Poignant letters, conveying a sense of helplessness and disgust with Hitler and sent to the author in 1933 by close friends, make up the work's most striking section. A useful memoir, recommended to all libraries with large German collections. Joseph W. Contance, Jr., Boston Coll. Lib.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W W Norton & Co Inc; First Edition (January 1, 1988)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 229 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393025527
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393025521
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches

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Felix Gilbert
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