Banned in Berlin

Banned in Berlin
Author: Gary D. Stark
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857453114

Imperial Germany's governing elite frequently sought to censor literature that threatened established political, social, religious, and moral norms in the name of public peace, order, and security. It claimed and exercised a prerogative to intervene in literary life that was broader than that of its Western neighbors, but still not broad enough to prevent the literary community from challenging and subverting many of the social norms the state was most determined to defend. This study is the first systematic analysis in any language of state censorship of literature and theater in imperial Germany (1871-1918). To assess the role that formal state controls played in German literary and political life during this period, it examines the intent, function, contested legal basis, institutions, and everyday operations of literary censorship as well as its effectiveness and its impact on authors, publishers, and theater directors.

Stamped (For Kids)

Stamped (For Kids)
Author: Jason Reynolds
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 031616738X

The #1 New York Times bestseller! This chapter book edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller by luminaries Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds is an essential introduction to the history of racism and antiracism in America RACE. Uh-oh. The R-word. But actually talking about race is one of the most important things to learn how to do. Adapted from the groundbreaking bestseller Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, this book takes readers on a journey from present to past and back again. Kids will discover where racist ideas came from, identify how they impact America today, and meet those who have fought racism with antiracism. Along the way, they’ll learn how to identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their own lives. Ibram X. Kendi’s research, Jason Reynolds’s and Sonja Cherry-Paul’s writing, and Rachelle Baker’s art come together in this vital read, enhanced with a glossary, timeline, and more.

Gay Berlin

Gay Berlin
Author: Robert Beachy
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0307473139

Winner of Randy Shilts Award In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts—the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries—exploring and educating themselves and the rest of the world about new ways of understanding the human condition. In this fascinating examination of how the uninhibited urban culture of Berlin helped create our categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, Robert Beachy guides readers through the past events and developments that continue to shape and influence our thinking about sex and gender to this day.

Underground in Berlin

Underground in Berlin
Author: Marie Jalowicz Simon
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2015-09-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316382116

A thrilling piece of undiscovered history, this is the true account of a young Jewish woman who survived World War II in Berlin. In 1942, Marie Jalowicz, a twenty-year-old Jewish Berliner, made the extraordinary decision to do everything in her power to avoid the concentration camps. She removed her yellow star, took on an assumed identity, and disappeared into the city. In the years that followed, Marie took shelter wherever it was offered, living with the strangest of bedfellows, from circus performers and committed communists to convinced Nazis. As Marie quickly learned, however, compassion and cruelty are very often two sides of the same coin. Fifty years later, Marie agreed to tell her story for the first time. Told in her own voice with unflinching honesty, Underground in Berlin is a book like no other, of the surreal, sometimes absurd day-to-day life in wartime Berlin. This might be just one woman's story, but it gives an unparalleled glimpse into what it truly means to be human.

Taking Berlin

Taking Berlin
Author: Martin Dugard
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0593187431

From Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Bill O'Reilly's Killing series, comes a nonfiction thriller about the race between the Allies and Soviets to conquer the heart of Nazi Germany. “Gripping, popular history at its page-turning best.”—Alex Kershaw • “With the precision of a smart bomb, Martin Dugard puts the reader directly into the campaign to destroy Hitler.”—Bill O’Reilly • “Spectacular . . . Taking Berlin is certain to be a massive hit with fans of both history and thrillers alike.”—Mark Greaney, bestselling author of the Gray Man series Fall, 1944. Paris has been liberated, saved from destruction, but this diversion on the road to Berlin has given the Germans time to regroup. The American and British armies press on from the west, facing the enemy time and again in the Hurtgen Forest, during the Market Garden invasion, and at the Battle of the Bulge, all while American general George Patton and British field marshal Bernard Montgomery vie for supremacy as the Allies’ top battlefield commander. Meanwhile, the Soviets begin to squeeze Hitler’s crumbling Reich from the east. Led by Generals Zhukov and Konev, the Red Army launches millions of soldiers, backed by tanks, artillery, and warplanes, against the Germans, leaving death and scorched earth in their wake, pushing the Wehrmacht back toward their fatherland. As both the Anglo-American alliance and the Soviets set their sights on claiming the capital city of Nazi Germany, Churchill seeks to ensure Britain’s place in a new world divided by Roosevelt’s America and Stalin’s Soviet Union. With a sweeping cast of historical figures, Taking Berlin is a pulse-pounding race into the final, desperate months of the Second World War and toward the fiery destruction of the Thousand-Year-Reich, chronicling a moment in history when allies become adversaries.

Harmful and Undesirable

Harmful and Undesirable
Author: Guenter Lewy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190275294

Like every totalitarian regime, Nazi Germany tried to control intellectual freedom by censoring books. Between 1933 and 1945, the Hitler regime orchestrated a massive campaign to take control of all forms of communication. In 1933, there were 90 book burnings in 70 German cities. Indeed, Werner Schlegel, an official in the Ministry of Propaganda, called the book burnings "a symbol of the revolution." In later years, the regime used less violent means of domination. It pillaged bookstores and libraries and prosecuted uncooperative publishers and dissident authors. In Harmful and Undesirable, Guenter Lewy analyzes the various strategies that the Nazis employed to enact censorship and the government officials who led the attack on a free intellectual life, including Martin Bormann, Philipp Bouhler, Joseph Goebbels, and Alfred Rosenberg. The Propaganda Ministry played a leading role in the censorship campaign, supported by an array of organizations at both the state and local levels. Because of the many overlapping jurisdictions and organizations, censorship was disorderly and erratic. Beyond the implementation of censorship, Lewy describes the plight of authors, publishers, and bookstores who clashed with the Nazi regime. Some authors were imprisoned. Others, such as Gottfried Benn, Werner Bergengruen, Gerhart Hauptmann, Ernst Jünger, Jochen Klepper, and Ernst Wiechert, became controversial "inner emigrants" who chose to remain in Germany. Some of them criticized the Nazi regime through allegories and parables. Ultimately, Lewy paints a fascinating portrait of intellectual life under the Nazi dictatorship, detailing the dismal fate of those who were caught in the wheels of censorship.

The Berlin Boxing Club

The Berlin Boxing Club
Author: Robert Sharenow
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2011-05-17
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062076922

Sydney Taylor Award-winning novel Berlin Boxing Club is loosely inspired by the true story of boxer Max Schmeling's experiences following Kristallnacht. Publishers Weekly called it "a masterful historical novel" in a starred review. Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a Jew; after all, he's never even been in a synagogue. But the bullies at his school in Nazi-era Berlin don't care that Karl's family doesn't practice religion. Demoralized by their attacks against a heritage he doesn't accept as his own, Karl longs to prove his worth. Then Max Schmeling, champion boxer and German hero, makes a deal with Karl's father to give Karl boxing lessons. A skilled cartoonist, Karl has never had an interest in boxing, but now it seems like the perfect chance to reinvent himself. But when Nazi violence against Jews escalates, Karl must take on a new role: family protector. And as Max's fame forces him to associate with Nazi elites, Karl begins to wonder where his hero's sympathies truly lie. Can Karl balance his boxing dreams with his obligation to keep his family out of harm's way? Includes an author's note and sources page detailing the factual inspirations behind the novel.

The Collapse

The Collapse
Author: Mary Sarotte
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-10-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465064949

On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.

The Last Jews in Berlin

The Last Jews in Berlin
Author: Leonard Gross
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-01-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1497689384

New York Times Bestseller: The true story of twelve Jews who went underground in Nazi Berlin—and survived: “Consummately suspenseful” (Los Angeles Times). When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately one hundred sixty thousand Jews called Berlin home. By 1943 less than five thousand remained in the nation’s capital, the epicenter of Nazism, and by the end of the war, that number had dwindled to one thousand. All the others had died in air raids, starved to death, committed suicide, or been shipped off to the death camps. In this captivating and harrowing book, Leonard Gross details the real-life stories of a dozen Jewish men and women who spent the final twenty-seven months of World War II underground, hiding in plain sight, defying both the Gestapo and, even worse, Jewish “catchers” ready to report them to the Nazis in order to avoid the gas chambers themselves. A teenage orphan, a black-market jewel trader, a stylish young designer, and a progressive intellectual were among the few who managed to survive. Through their own resourcefulness, bravery, and at times, sheer luck, these Jews managed to evade the tragic fates of so many others. Gross has woven these true stories of perseverance into a heartbreaking, suspenseful, and moving account with the narrative force of a thriller. Compiled from extensive interviews, The Last Jews in Berlin reveals these individuals’ astounding determination, against all odds, to live each day knowing it could be their last.