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Diary of a Man in Despair (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – February 12, 2013

by Friedrich Reck (Author),‎ Paul Rubens (Translator),‎ Richard J. Evans (Afterword)

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Friedrich Reck might seem an unlikely rebel against Nazism. Not just a conservative but a rock-ribbed reactionary, he played the part of a landed gentleman, deplored democracy, and rejected the modern world outright. To Reck the Nazis were ruthless revolutionaries in Gothic drag, and helpless as he was to counter the spell they had cast on the German people, he felt compelled to record the corruptions of their rule. The result is less a diary than a sequence of stark and astonishing snapshots of life in Germany between 1936 and 1944. We see the Nazis at the peak of power, and the murderous panic with which they respond to approaching defeat; their travesty of traditional folkways in the name of the Volk; and the author’s own missed opportunity to shoot Hitler. This riveting book is not only, as Hannah Arendt proclaimed it, “one of the most important documents of the Hitler period” but a moving testament of a decent man struggling to do the right thing in a depraved world.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Very, very rarely one comes across a book so remarkable and so unexpectedly convincing that it deserves more to be quoted than to be reviewed…. I beg you to read this bitterly courageous book by as good a German as one could well imagine.” —Frederic Raphael, The Sunday Times

“It is stunning to read, for it is not often that invective achieves the level of art, and rarer still that hatred assumes a tragic grandeur.” —The New York Times

“Observations set down with passion, outrage, and almost unbearable sadness. . . astonishing, compelling, and unnerving.” —The New Yorker

“In his visceral loathing of the Nazis, Reck was not, of course, unique. From our perspective, however, he had one great advantage over most of his like-minded friends: he possessed the makings of a great diarist. True, he was not at the centre of things, but he knew the world and had contacts in it. He was something of a connoisseur of rumours, collecting and savouring stories about the latest Nazi scandal or atrocity and adding to them his own trenchant reflections. And if he was a slightly gullible listener, he was a very acute observer.’ —The Financial Times

“Unlike many memoirs of the Nazi period, this one is not a totally gloomy account of persecution, brutality and horrors. The dominating quality is its tough exuberance and (often black) satirical humor. From a great height of aristocratic disrelish Fritz Reck-Malleczewen looks down on the Nazis as lower middle class scum, vengefully greedy for power, with Hitler as their avatar, at once sinister and ridiculous’ —The Wall Street Journal

About the Author

Friedrich Reck (1884–1945) was born Friedrich Percyval Reck in Masuria, East Prussia, the son of a prosperous conservative politician and landowner. Having initially complied with his father’s wishes to pursue a military career, he left the army to begin medical studies. By the beginning of the First World War, for which he was ruled unfit to serve, he had begun work as a full-time theater critic and travel writer. In the following decades he became a well-known figure in Munich society, the author of both literary historical novels and popular entertainments including Bomben auf Monte Carlo (Bombs on Monte Carlo), a best-selling comic novella and the basis of a hit musical film starring Peter Lorre. In October 1944 he was arrested for the first time; in December of the same year the Gestapo returned to detain him again; in January 1945 he arrived at the Dachau concentration camp, where he was to die shortly after.

Paul Rubens (1927–2003), a self-educated native New Yorker, mastered the German language as a member of the U.S. occupation forces after World War II .

Richard J. Evans is Regius Professor of History and president of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is the author of The Third Reich at War.

Product details

Series: New York Review Books Classics
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: NYRB Classics; Reprint edition (February 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590175867
ISBN-13: 978-1590175866
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 26 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Military > World War I
- #133 in Books > History > Military > World War I
- #609 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Political

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An Unique Insight into Third Reich

ByRonald H. Clarkon February 25, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is one of the most interesting, and valuable, books I have read in many years on the Third Reich. The author, Friedrich Reck (1884-1945), was a proud Bavarian author, physician, critic, and commentator. The book consists of monthly diary entries, usually 2-3 pages, covering the period of May 1936 through October 1944. What makes the book so interesting is that Reck is entirely hostile to the Nazi leadership and absolutely biting in his extensive criticisms, which he levies with much relish in a document he supposedly buried each night on his estate to avoid detection.

His most pointed criticisms are reserved for Prussia, which has taken control of Germany, including his beloved Bavaria; useless Berlin bureaucrats who accomplish nothing but mass confusion; the irrational "mass man" who is manipulated easily by the Nazis; undue control exercised by "industry-minded dolts" and businessmen; the nation of greedy and blood-thirsty "cavemen" the German populace has become; and the endless mind-numbing propaganda effectively aimed at the German public in order to maintain control through "mass psychosis."

Another interesting aspect of the book are Reck's observations of contemporary events. He is outraged by the absorption of Austria; Stalingrad strikes a massive blow against German morale; the reports of mass killings of Jews in his October, 1942 entry repulses Reck and confirms that the German population had knowledge of what was occurring; and particularly his comments about the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler are insightful. While he feels the war will end terribly for Germany, it will liberate the country from the cloud of Nazi control and degradation.

The book includes a very helpful afterword written by Richard J. Evans, which places Reck and his diary into a helpful context. The translation is excellent, and the translator has apparently included 8 pages of endnotes explaining events and terms. This edition is from the New York Review of Books "Review Books" of outstanding reprints, many of which have not been available for years, including this title. All told, a most interesting and informative read authored by someone with not only acute perceptive insights, but also the literary skills to drive his messages home.

0Comment 36 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

and this is a somewhat revised and expanded version that has material from late 1944 that was not in the original English langua

ByE. Hyneson July 5, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The author, Friedrich Reck, was the son of a government official and landowner from East Prussia who trained as a doctor but spent most of his life as a writer. He was an anti-Nazi who eventually joined a subversive group and died in the Dachau concentration camp early in 1945. The diary’s entries run from 1936 until the fall of 1944. Reck had kept the diary hidden and his widow published it in Germany shortly after the war. An English translation appeared in 1970, and this is a somewhat revised and expanded version that has material from late 1944 that was not in the original English language edition as well as a useful commentary on Reck’s life by the historian Richard J. Evans.

Reck lived in Bavaria and identifies himself as a monarchist loyal to the last Bavarian king (not to the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II). The diary suggests that he was classic agrarian conservative, very critical of the middle classes, industrialization and the unification of Germany under Prussia in 1871. He is scornful of what he identifies as Prussian values (militarism and a crude utilitarianism) and "the Prussian conquest of Germany". He viewed the Nazis as the tools of the German industrialists and, more broadly, as expressing the triumph of "mass man”. Reck’s post-war vision was for a Germany that had been broken up into smaller, largely agricultural states, similar to what existed before 1871 or perhaps 1789.

One theme that runs through the diary is the disdain Reck expresses towards the middle class and the contrast he draws between their behavior and the "fundamental decency" of both the proletariat and farmers (peasants would probably be the right term to use). He is also highly critical of Germany’s military leaders, whom he charges with disloyalty first to the Kaiser in 1918 and then to the Weimar Republic. While regretting that the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler was unsuccessful, Reck calls it an act of self-interest on the part of the generals who were happy to support Hitler when Germany appeared to be winning the war. He writes: “Really gentlemen, it’s about time.”

Some of Reck's views can be jarring to a modern American reader. His comments on women are often sexist, and his disdain for the bourgeoisie often comes down to disliking people who don't know their place. He is also fearful of the likely “Americanization” of postwar Germany, and seems somewhat more sympathetic to idea of a Soviet occupation; I imagine he would have been highly critical of both the East and West German states. He also expresses unexpected sympathy for people such as Gregor Strasser, a rival of Hitler’s within the Nazi party, and Ernst Rohm, head of the SA (the Brownshirts), generally described as a sadistic thug, both of whom were murdered the 1934 purge of the Nazi Party (the “night of the long knives”). The book is not a history of Nazi Germany and Reck clearly did not always have accurate knowledge of events. However, it is fascinating to read reflections on Germany and the Nazis by a traditional European conservative, and I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in modern German history.

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Most recent customer reviews

Excellent preview of the future of a nation. Sometimes history comes back.

Published 3 months ago by Amazon Customer

Decide For Yourself

The book is a bit slow going at times and at others seems more like a long rant of sarcasm and when you read up on Reck, you find out that this book may be closer to fiction that...Read more

Published 10 months ago by Michael A Podgorski

a very sad and timely story

There should be bright defining line between cultural conservatism and nationalism that is neither conservative or cultural.Read more

Published 1 year ago by thomas walich

Very interesting, but awfull translation to English.

Published on August 13, 2015 by Erik Thoresen

Diary of a Man in Despair is simultaneously one of ...

Diary of a Man in Despair is simultaneously one of the most difficult and most rewarding books I’ve ever read.Read more

Published on July 27, 2015 by Robert M

It has the universal feel for anyone alienated from his increasingly right wing government working against the poor and oppresse

There are many books about the holocaust and some about the horrors leading up to it. This book features a non-Jew looking at horror as the events unfold under Hitler.Read more

Published on June 6, 2015 by Jonathan A. Weiss

Courage exemplied

The best review of Friedrich Reck’s ‘diary’ is the afterword included in this volume, written by Richard Evans.Read more

Published on March 12, 2015 by Geoff Crocker

Update: I was delighted to find this book again and began reading it as soon as it arrived. About a third of the way through I stopped and I'm pretty sure I won't read it...Read more

Published on February 9, 2015 by MJH

It gave me, a non-scholar, a new perspective on Nazi-run Germany.

Published on August 31, 2014 by Patrick T. Narcisi

Complicated, Obscure and Unenlightening

What a disappointment!

The only readable parts of this diary come when the writer expresses his visceral hatred of the former-corporal, Adolf Hitler and his...Read more

Published on August 18, 2014 by vmcla

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