Berlin Diaries, 1940-45 - Couverture souple

Vassiltchikov, Marie

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0413143708 ISBN 13 : 9780413143709

Editeur : Methuen Publishing Ltd, 1987

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Marie `Missie' Vassiltchikov as a White Russian émigrée caught with her family in Hitler`s Germany at the outbreak of the war. She was a Bright Young Thing, part of the cosmopolitan set who managed to maintain a trance-like normality until as late as 1941 - picnics, house-parties, dinners at the Eden...

Before long, however, Missie became sickened by the brutal and repressive nature of Nazi rule which overshadowed every aspect of her life. Through Adam Von Trott, for whom she worked in the Information Department of the Foreign Ministry, she became involved in the Resistance and the diaries vividly describe her part in the drama of July 1944 and its appalling aftermath.

Living among the ruins of Berlin during Allied bombing raids, she grows us to be strong-minded, committed and courageous woman as she daily displays uncommon bravery in the face of the Gestapo and the detestable Dr Six of the SS. Having survived the Nazis, Missie ends the diaries as she flees from Vienna, where she has been working as a nurse, before the advancing Red Army.

Revue de presse

"A skillful weaving of history, memoir, and autobiography...full of colorful characters...When she began writing in 1940, Missie, as she was called, was...concerned mainly with beaux and parties....By 1945 she has no more illusions. She has foraged for food....She has smelled the decaying flesh of corpses buried in the bombed ruins of Berlin and Vienna and lost some of her best friends." -- Washington Post Book World

"Neither a set of reflections flor a philippic, but a record ...The best eyewitness account we possess of the bombing of Berlin."

-- Gordon A. Craig, The New York Times Book Review

"A rare opportunity to see the Second World War from an unusual perspective: the view from Berlin and Vienna, not Washington or London. [The author] has a sharp eye and a witty tongue." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A vivid insider's view of Nazi Germany." -- Vanity Fair

"One of the most remarkable documents to come out of the war, and nothing will ever quite match its calm and grace in utterly hideous circumstances."

-- John Kenneth Galbraith

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Methuen Publishing Ltd
• Date d'édition: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0413143708
• ISBN 13: 9780413143709
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 366