This recollection begins with the life of a German family at the beginning of the First World War and continues with their struggles in the aftermath of the Second World War. After the war Berlin was mostly rubble and the Cold War was heating up. The Berlin Blockade and the construction of The Wall placed the city in the center of the Cold War. After the Bombs reflects on the hardships and strict society of the first half of the 20th century in Germany. Heidi Smith responds to these challenges with an adventurous spirit that reminds us all that we are stewards of our own destiny.
A sequel to the memoir After The Bombs-My Berlin, the book begins when the author arrives in New York harbor in 1963. You'll quickly learn that the prearranged nanny position was not what Heidi had agreed to. The new employer handed her a pair of shoes and said, ""Here, this is your job now. i need them polished and ready in 30 minutes."" Heidi Smith quit after a month. She strays from the original plan for her two-year stay in America and takes the first of many forks in the road. Journey with Heidi as she takes unexpected forks in the road, and tirelessly negotiates them during the following six decades of life in America.
New York Times bestselling author Gregory Benford creates an alternate history about the creation of the atomic bomb that explores what could have happened if the bomb was ready to be used by June 6, 1944. Karl Cohen, a chemist and mathematician who is part of The Manhattan Project team, has discovered an alternate solution for creating the uranium isotope needed to cause a chain reaction: U-235. After convincing General Groves of his new method, Cohen and his team of scientists work at Oak Ridge preparing to have a nuclear bomb ready to drop by the summer of 1944 in an effort to stop the war on the western front. What ensues is an altered account of World War II in this taut thriller. Combining fascinating science with intimate and true accounts of several members of The Manhattan Project, The Berlin Project is an astounding novel that reimagines history and what could have happened if the atom bomb was ready in time to stop Hitler from killing millions of people.
A haunting personal story of Berlin at the end of the Third Reich—and an unflinching investigation into a family’s Nazi past When Gabrielle Robinson found her grandfather’s Berlin diaries, hidden behind books in her mother’s Vienna apartment, she made a shocking discovery—her beloved Api had been a Nazi. The entries record his daily struggle to survive in a Berlin that was 90% destroyed. Near collapse himself Api, a doctor, tried to help the wounded and dying in nightmarish medical cellars without cots, water or light. The dead were stacked in the rubble outside. Searching to understand why her grandfather had joined the Nazi party, Robinson retraces his steps in the Berlin of the 21st century. She reflects on German guilt, political responsibility, and facing the past. But she also remembers Api, who had given her a loving home in those cold and hungry post-war years. “This a must read for anyone interested in the German experience during WWII” —Ariana Neumann, author of When Time Stopped Scroll up and click “buy now” to read Api’s Berlin Diaries today
The destruction of monuments during the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 shows how many nations are being forced to grapple with their national histories. It is clear that the things which make up our streets form a core part of our historical, political and cultural identity. Here, Eloise Florence turns to Berlin and the deeply entrenched English-language narratives about World War II to explore the complicated relationship between violence, place and memory in the Anglo-American consciousness. Centered upon Teufelsberg a hill in Berlin born from the rubble caused by Allied bombing and other sites of violence across Germany's capital, this interdisciplinary study unpicks the use and abuse of area bombing and its cultural memory in Anglo-American audiences. Grounded in theories of new materialism and post-humanism, and drawing on extensive empirical and auto-ethnographic data, the issues addressed include: moving through urban landscapes as an embodied means of memorializing war and trauma; remembering destruction as a means to advance or challenge traditional war mythologies; and curation as an entry point for tourists to reconsider the impact of British and American aerial raids, including modern drone warfare. This innovative volume shines an important light on both the dark legacy of the aerial bombing of Berlin and the ways in which we record and read violent histories more generally. As such, Traces of Aerial Bombing in Berlin will be an invaluable resource for all scholars of World War II, memory culture and public history.
Helmut and Charlotte Jacobitz were born in Berlin during the mid-1920s. They experienced depression and inflation, and witnessed violence as fascists and communists vied for control of Germany. When the Nazis prevailed, they survived the 12 years of the Third Reich. Drafted in 1943, Helmut was wounded fighting in Normandy. Charlotte, meanwhile, worked at the Reichsbank and took shelter against frequent bombing raids. After the Russians surrounded Berlin in April 1945, she witnessed firsthand the brutal battle for the city. The two young Germans met each other after the war, Charlotte joining Helmut to smuggle food into Berlin through the Russian blockade. The family finally immigrated to America, barely escaping before the Berlin Wall sliced the city in half. We Were Berliners combines the personal reminiscences of the Jacobitzs with a lively, detailed overview of historical events as they related to the family, to Germany, and to Europe.
No Place for a Lady charts Thea Rosenbaums turbulent life from a little girl escaping the Soviet Army with her mother in Berlin in 1945 to becoming Germanys first woman stock broker at Oppenheimer and Co. to Germanys only woman war correspondent in Vietnam. She then embarked on a career as producer for ARD German television in the US, where she was White House pool producer for foreign correspondents from the late 70s to late 2000s. In this capacity, she traveled with five presidents and was present in Germany for the end of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall fell. Her life, as a civilian, correspondent, and producer, bookends and charts the greatest conflict of the later half of the twentieth century. As she rose in the ranks of a difficult career, she was constantly overcoming her sense of inferiority, ugliness, and even stupidity. While becoming a journalist was always something she aspired to, as a young lady, she believed she was too stupid to achieve it, and yet she was able to succeed in every facet of the work for five decades. At every point in her historic career, she overcame the under-expectations and prejudices of her contemporaries as well as, and most especially, her own inner weakness and self-deprecation. As to the history she witnessed, she gathered chocolate in the streets of Berlin that the Americans dropped during the Berlin Airlift. As a West Berliner, she was there the night the barbed wire first went up, hardening the East/West divide. Later, and as a journalist, she was in Khe-Sanh in 68 when it was the focus of attack by the NVA until the Tet Offensive began, when she reported on the NVA and Vietcong attacks from Nam O, Hue, and Saigon. She was the first woman to report from a nuclear submarine. She covered the Carter administration for the Camp David Accords as well as reporting from Cairo when the deal was finalized. No Place for a Lady also reveals many of Theas funny, and sometimes not, interactions with Americas greatest journalists.
The Berlin Candy Bomber is the story of how two sticks of gum and one man's kindness to the children of a vanquished enemy grew into an epic of goodwill‚-spanning the globe and touching the hearts of millions in both Germany and America. In June 1948, Russia cut off the flow of food and supplies to Berlin. The Americans, joined by the English and French, began a massive airlift to bring sustenance to the city and thwart the Russian siege. Gail Halvorsen was one of hundreds of U.S. pilots involved in the airlift. While in Berlin, he met a group of children standing by the airport watching the planes. He was impressed to share two sticks of gum with them, and he promised to drop candy the next time he flew to the area. The next day he wiggled the wings of his plane to identify himself and then dropped several small bundles of candy, using parachutes crafted from handkerchiefs. Local newspapers picked up the story. Suddenly, letters addressed to ""Uncle Wiggly Wings"" began arriving as the children requested candy drops in other areas of the city. Enthusiasm spread to America, and candy contributions came from all across the country. The blockade and airlift ended in 1949, but the story of the Candy Bomber lives on-a symbol of human charity, and the candy drops have continued into a new century.
Enjoy nearly 200 scrumptious, but simple recipes for family meals as well as entertaining. Many dishes are introduced with recollection from the author's childhood in Germany and international travels. Recipes are client and family taste-tested during the past fifty years. From escargot to meat loaf, all recipes are updated to reflect today's healthy eating standards.
The Battle of Berlin was the longest and most sustained bombing offensive against one target in the Second World War. Bomber Commands Commander-in-Chief, Sir Arthur Harris, hoped to wreak Berlin from end to end and produce a state of devastation in which German surrender is inevitable. He dispatched nineteen major raids between August 1943 and March 1944 more than 10,000 aircraft sorties dropped over 30,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. It was the RAFs supreme effort to end the war by aerial bombing. But Berlin was not destroyed and the RAF lost more than 600 aircraft and their crews. The controversy over whether the Battle of Berlin was a success or failure has continued ever since. Martin Middlebrook brings to this subject considerable experience as a military historian. In preparing his material he collected documents from both sides (many of the German ones never before used); he has also interviewed and corresponded with over 400 of the people involved in the battle and has made trips to Germany to interview the people of Berlin and Luftwaffe aircrews. He has achieved the difficult task of bringing together both sides of the Battle of Berlin the bombing force and the people on the ground to tell a coherent, single story. The author describes the battle, month by month, as the bombers waited for the dark nights, with no moon, to resume their effort to destroy Berlin and end the war. He recounts the ebb and flow of fortunes, identifying the tactical factors that helped first the bombers, then the night fighters, to gain the upper hand. Through the words of the participants, he brings to the reader the hopes, fears and bravery of the young bomber aircrews in the desperate air battles that were waged as the Luftwaffe attempted to protect their capital city. And he includes that element so often omitted from books about the bombing war the experiences of ordinary people in the target city, showing how the bombing destroyed homes, killed families, affected morale and reduced the German war effort. Martin Middlebrooks meticulous attention to detail makes The Bomber Battle of Berlin one of his most accomplished book to date. Martin Middlebrook has written many other books that deal with important turning-points in the two world wars, including The First Day on the Somme, Kaisers Battle, The Peenemünde Raid, The Somme Battlefields (with Mary Middlebrook), The Nuremberg Raid 30-21st March 1944 and Arnhem 1944 (all republished and in print with Pen and Sword). Martin Middlebrook is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives near Stroud, Gloucestershire.
