Search results for ""Author Walter Kempowski""

Swansong 1945 chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler’s birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler’s suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8. Side by side, we encounter vivid, first-person accounts of civilians fleeing Berlin, ordinary German soldiers determined to fight to the bitter end, American POWs dreaming of home, concentration-camp survivors’ first descriptions of their horrific experiences, as well as the intimate thoughts of figures such as Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Joseph Goebbels, and Hitler himself. These firsthand accounts, painstakingly collected and organized by renowned German author Walter Kempowski, provide the raw material of history and present a panoramic view of those tumultuous days. The more than 1,000 extracts include a British soldier writing to his parents to tell them there are no baths but plenty of eggs and chocolate, an American soldier describing “the tremendous burst of lilacs” as he approaches the Elbe, Mussolini wishing Hitler a happy birthday, Eva Braun bragging to a girlfriend about what a “crack shot” she’s become, and much more. An extraordinary account of suffering and survival, Swansong 1945 brings to life the end of Nazi Germany and the war in Europe.

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Growing up in Rostock, in the north of Germany, Walter has a comfortable upbringing: quiet and content, he spends his days scheming with school friends and resisting the torment of his older siblings. But, as the country rolls toward war, the attitudes of his teachers, peers and family begin to slide, and it isn't long before the roar of falling bombs, charged silences and mounting intolerance begin to puncture Walter's carefree youth. Following the Kempowski family from the months before the outbreak of war through to the fall of Berlin, An Ordinary Youth is the fascinating story of an ordinary childhood in extraordinary times. Here, Walter's academic struggle sits alongside his father's conscription; his brother's love of jazz burgeons amid the destruction of the barrages. And all the while, the horrors of Nazism loom in the peripheries - communicated in furtive looks or hushed conversations - running alongside the Kempowski family's daily rituals and occasional scandals. A bests

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A bestseller in Germany, Walter Kempowski's autobiographical novel is a sensorial coming of age story during the years of World War II and a chilling exploration of how one family adjusted to life under the Nazis Growing up in Rostock, in the north of Germany, Walter has a comfortable upbringing: quiet and content, he spends his days scheming with school friends and resisting the torment of his older siblings. But, as the country rolls toward war, the attitudes of his teachers, peers and family begin to slide, and it isn't long before the roar of falling bombs, charged silences and mounting intolerance begin to puncture Walter's carefree youth. Following the Kempowski family from the months before the outbreak of war through to the fall of Berlin, An Ordinary Youth is the fascinating story of an ordinary childhood in extraordinary times. Here, Walter's academic struggle sits alongside his father's conscription; his brother's love of jazz burgeons amid the destruction of the barrages. And all the while, the horrors of Nazism loom in the peripheries - communicated in furtive looks or hushed conversations - running alongside the Kempowski family's daily rituals and occasional scandals. A bestseller in Germany on publication, An Ordinary Youth is all the more unnerving for the warmth, humour and empathy with which Kempowski imbues his hometown. Written with a sensorial immediacy, it is a meticulous chronicle of daily life in 1930s Germany, and a discomfiting exploration of the many forms that complicity can take.

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Swansong 1945 chronicles four significant days in the last three weeks of WWII: 20 April, Hitler's last birthday; 25 April, when American and Soviet troops first met at the Elbe; 30 April, the day Hitler committed suicide; and 8 May, the day of the German surrender. Side by side in these pages, we encounter the voices of civilians fleeing on foot to the west, British and American POWs dreaming of home, concentration camp survivors, loyal soldiers from both sides of the conflict and national leaders including Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini. A monumental account of survival, suffering, hope and despair, Swansong 1945 brings vividly to life a conflict whose repercussions are felt today.

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It is 1988, the year before the Berlin Wall came down. Jonathan Fabrizius, a journalist living in West Germany, is asked to travel to the contested lands of former East Prussia - where the Nazi legacy lives on in buildings and fortifications - to write about the route for a car rally. It's a plum job, but his interest is piqued by a personal connection. Here, among the refugees fleeing the advancing Russians in 1945, he was born. Homeland is a nuanced work from one of the great modern European storytellers, in which an everyday German comes face to face with his painful family history, and devastating questions about ordinary Germans' complicity in the war.

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A brilliantly evocative, atmospheric novel about the delusion and indecision of a wealthy family in the last days of the Third Reich as the Russians advance from the east In January 1945, the German army is retreating from the Russian advance. Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in their thousands, in cars and carts and on foot. But in a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family seals itself off from the world. Protected from the deprivation and chaos around them, they make no preparations to leave until a decision to harbour a stranger for the night begins their undoing. Finally joining the great trek west, the remaining members of the family face at last the catastrophic consequences of the war. Profoundly evocative of the period, sympathetic yet painfully honest about the motivations of its characters, All for Nothing is a devastating portrait of the complicities and denials of the German people as the Third Reich comes to an end.

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