A Woman In Berlin: Eight Weeks In The Conquered City: A Diary (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
WHEN THE ANGEL SING WITH TEARS OF BLOODFocusing in particular on the German-Soviet war in the East, this book explores variations in patterns of sexual violence associated with armed forces in Europe during and immediately after World War II subjectively. Besides soldier violence perpetrated against civilian populations, a significant role was also played by irregular forces: most notably, by partisan guerrillas and civilian vigilantes. Ethnic nationalist partisan forces perpetrated especially brutal sexual violence against women and girls of “enemy” nationalities. Likewise, after liberation civilian reprisals were fairly common throughout Europe against so-called “sexual collaborators”—that is, against women excoriated for providing “sexual comfort” to the enemy during the German occupation.A Woman in Berlin presents itself as the contemporaneous diary of a German woman struggling to survive the fall of Berlin to the Soviets in 1945. Chronological entries starting at 4 pm on Friday 20 April 1945 relate events in the present tense; as we read, we are privy to the diarist’s written stream of consciousness about what she is experiencing.The form that the book takes has been crucial to the two waves of controversy that it has provoked in Germany; one when it was first published in German in 1959 and another on its republication in 2003. At stake both times has been the link between the book’s truthfulness and its moral import: if true, it is a moral indictment of the Soviets (for raping), of the Nazis (for the national calamity of Germany), of the Woman (for being raped), of German men (for letting her be raped). If untrue, it is anti-Soviet, pro-Nazi propaganda, an assault on the honor of German women and the masculinity of German men (1959) — or anti-Soviet, pro-West propaganda or an assertion of German suffering during the War in which German aggression provoked so much suffering (2003). The provenance of the book — the anonymity and identity of the author and the way in which her diary came to be a book in the first place — have been central to these controversies from the start. The debate has repeated the following logic with relentless fidelity: if the diaries are a naïve transcript of the Woman’s experiences, they are true; if they have been shaped by any conscious intentions, they are false. The literariness of the text has been firmly associated in these debates with its falsity. And if literary, and false, the Diary is motivated by occult ideological investments which it is the task of interpretation to root out; if naïve, and true, it teaches us undiluted lessons, more or less in the form of a direct apercu.First, a brief restatement of the publication history of the Diary in its English and German language versions. It was first published in the US in English (1954); and subsequently in Britain (1955); and then in German by a Swiss publishing house (1959). The second version was published in German in Germany (2003) and re-translated into English and published in the US (2005) and in Britain (2005). I will call these, collectively, the first version and the second version. The first version was edited and introduced by Kurt M Marek; the second by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.Both editors have posited that the published Diary constitutes the very transcription of their anonymous author’s contemporaneous diary. In his introduction to the first published version of the book, Marek describes the manuscript — ‘the short pencilled notes … ; the combination of shorthand, longhand and secret code … , the significant abbreviations’ — and assures us of its objective existence: ‘These pages lie before me while I write’. He claims to know the building described as the Woman’s residence almost throughout the diary and vouches for the accuracy of her descriptions of it. And he concludes:we are faced, then, not with a literary creation whose author has an eye on the public but with a document. … What I have written here should make it amply clear that this book contains the truth and nothing, but the truth.In his introduction to the second published version of the book, published in English in 2005, Enzensberger tells us that the author transcribed the notes described by Marek into ‘121 pages of gray war-issue paper’ and that ‘these pages — authenticated along with the original notebooks by a foremost expert on twentieth century diaries — stand as a shattering indictment and complete our record of the time’. The German language cover of this second version links these claims for veracity to the author’s refusal to disclose her name: it includes a banner announcing that ‘it was the desire of the author that her name remain anonymous. Because of this, speculations about her identity are forbidden’.Some IDIOTs called this book only just: "Revisionist propaganda", an Apologist for Communists ...... how come...??? This journal was no doubt therapeutic for the author. And maybe more than that, perhaps it was a survival tool, helping to take her temporarily out of her terrible situation, even out of herself perhaps, allowing for a life-saving perspective (i.e. as bad as it is, this too will pass) and even retrospective humour (which was not possible at the moment of action). If you can remember (and a journal makes you thoroughly do so), it means that you have survived, and usually it also means that you expect to continue to do so. The author is incredibly resilient (she was starving and was raped multiple times). Is she able to write because she is resilient? Is she resilient because she has the discipline to write? Or is she writing because she is a journalist and that is what journalists do? Perhaps all three are true. And yet A Woman In Berlin is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and of woman-kind in particular.
. This review contains spoilers This is the story – told over a couple of months – about the Russian invasion of Berlin at the end of the Second World War. It is the story seen through the eyes of one woman, a well-travelled journalist, who now finds herself, like millions of other Germans, struggling to survive at the end of the war. She writes without self-pity, suggesting a steely robustness that carried her through the innumerable challenges she had to face. The book was written anonymously, though speculation suggests the author was called Marta Hiller.I have always had a fearsome picture of what the Germans had to face at the end of the war and to an extent the book substantiated my fears, but in other instances I was surprised. Most of all I was surprised by the fantastic ingenuity of the German people in coping in these terribly difficult times. I was also surprised by the levels of organisation the Russians brought with them. They did not just leave chaos and mayhem in their wake as they took over Berlin. They turned the water back on, they brought back electricity, they organised food rations, they even got part of the tramway system running again.The main points of this book for me*HungerMost people were almost starving. A lot of women had stopped menstruating as a result. The author often talks about augmenting her paltry meals with things like nettles.”My sole concern as I write these lines is my stomach. All thinking and feeling, all wishes and hopes begin with food”The Russians introduce rations, and these are given out to people grouped into five different categories, with widely differing levels of calories. At the top are the heavy labourers, but the author is in the lowest category, and for the most part eats less than half the amount that the heavy labourers are allocated.Highest category versus lowest category - the weekly ration. 600 grams of bread v 300 grams of bread 400 grams of potatoes/400 grams of potato 100 grams of meat v 20 grams of meat 30 grams of fat v 7 grams of fat60 grams of semolina, barley oats etc vt7 grams of semolina etc.”Eating just made me hungrier than ever. I’m sure there’s some scientific explanation. Something about food stimulating the digestive juices and making them crave more. No sooner do they get going than the limited supply is already digested, and they start to rumble.”"Strangers have broken off whole branches of the cherry tree, picking the cherries just barely turned gold. Nothing will ripen here; hungry people will harvest everything before its time.”*RapeThis happened to nearly all the women, over and over again. One woman described being raped by twenty soldiers, one after the other. As a result she was badly wounded. Another woman was raped by three soldiers. They then went into her kitchen, found some jam and smeared it in her hair, then they poured coffee substitute over her head. Some women who were raped committed suicide, but most of them coped. It became a common topic of conversation, something that women could talk about and support one another with. It also happened in a fairly short period – as the soldiers invaded Berlin. As they moved on to fight in other areas far fewer soldiers were seen, and the deluge of raping stopped. The author felt the rapes were very much fired by the alcohol that the soldiers found and looted. She didn’t feel that these men were naturally aggressive. She also mentions another phenomenon – “sleeping up”, or sleeping with a Russian to get access to food.* The filth, the rubble, the lack of sanitary arrangements.The author mentions first the squalor to be found all over Berlin. The rubble and the stench. Then later she mentions the joy when the water started being pumped to the buildings again, and brown and then clear water starts coming out of the taps, and proper cleaning can commence.*Jewish atrocities made publicTwice the author mentioned concentration camps, and what had gone on there, being discussed on the radio. Her response is understated, and we don’t hear about people are talking about it amongst themselves. I was quite surprised that to book didn’t discuss this more.The Berlin station is broadcasting on the radio, generally news reports and disclosures that reek of blood, corpses and atrocities. They say that millions of people – mostly Jews – were cremated in huge camps in the east and that their ashes were used as fertilizer. On top of that everything was supposedly carefully recorded in thick ledgers – a scrupulous accounting of death. We really are an orderly nation. Late in the evening they played Beethoven, and that brought tears. I turned it off. Who can bear that at the moment?*The dismantling of East German factories for relocation in RussiaI had read about this elsewhere – the way that Russia took back to its homeland much of the industrial wealth of East Germany. This book conveys this with alarming intensity. Factories being dismantled. Germans employed by the Russians to work ferociously hard, from eight in the morning until eight at night, to strip their factories of machinery and any metals that might be valuable to the Russians. Everything being packed up, and freighted off to the USSR.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This was a fascinating and evocative book. I had often wondered about the situation in East Germany at the end of the war, and it was hugely interesting to read this account. Highly recommended.
What do You think about A Woman In Berlin: Eight Weeks In The Conquered City: A Diary (2006)?
Two days after finishing, I still can't stop thinking about the haunting beauty of this rare journal, deeply saddened at the events described and equally saddened she didn't write more. This is the kind of book that sucks all the oxygen out of the air, that needs space once it is finished. The idea of starting something new is out of the question, almost sacrilege. One wants a moment of silence, to reach through time and hug the writer, which cannot be done.The prose is understated and often brilliant ("Our fate is rolling in from the east . . ."). Her skills of observation superb. I've never seen/read a victim of war describe so much personal pain with so little animosity or bitterness toward the events and perpetrators. If I could only read five books on WWII, this would be one of those five. It is, perhaps, the best example of what happens in a conquered city: rape, murder, pillage. The account is first person. No axe to grind. This version, by the author's wish, was not republished until after her death, just a few years ago. You can find her name if you google the story, but it is apparent she wanted neither fame nor money from her account. If I could give a book a rating higher than five stars, I would honor A Woman in Berlin such.
—Trée
In late April 1945 Russian troops arrived in Berlin determined to get revenge for years of war. ‘A Woman in Berlin’ is a document of the brutal attacks on the women of Berlin and an account of a catastrophic time in the history of the capital. Its author (sadly still accorded the title ‘anonymous’) worked in publishing as a journalist before and after the war. The account was written on scraps of paper and in a diary evidently as a form of writing therapy. The diary starts on April 20th with our author a Berlin woman in her early 30’s huddled in the basement of an air raid shelter with the other occupants of her building. The diary covers a two month period. It is an open minded, balanced view of the victors and the aftermath of the horrors of the Nazi regime. The book doesn't just describe the degradation of rape, but life in the occupied city, the way society changed, how the Russians started to re-structure Berlin, the enforced labour and removal of the debris to rubble piles, the bizarre behaviour of the victors, the new hierarchy. A comprehensive picture of a ruined city is presented. It is soon clear that the Nazi’s had no contingency plans in place for siege, failure was not an option. Things like water supply, rations, medical care were not provided for. The diary is graphic in parts. The red army soldiers were under order not to sexually assault the women but in this lawless space ’ukaz stalina’ meant nothing. When one soldier is told not to take a woman he says ‘‘What do you mean? What did the Germans do to our women? He is screaming. ‘They took my sister and…’. She reports the words of the occupiers without putting any spin on their speech. The diarist repeats a joke circulating among the women ‘Better a Russki on top than a Yank overhead’. In other words better to be raped by a Russian than bombed by an American. The author is at an advantage as she can speak a little Russian. She decided to try and find ‘a lone wolf’ an officer. This is a tactical decision to prevent the nightly marauding gangs of Russians from breaking into her living quarters. Other women were left with no choice but to adopt this course of action as well. What angered me the most was the betrayal of the German men in her life. She describes the experience of other women in her block. Their behaviour is sometimes reprehensible sometimes kind. There is a marked lack of self pity in the diary, she is more concerned with reportage than exposure of her feelings. ‘To the rest of the world we’re nothing but rubble women and trash’.‘A woman in Berlin’ was published in 1954 but the book didn't appear in Germany until 1959. It seems the German people weren't able to receive what they saw as an indictment and the book was denounced. It went out of print but a small number of copies were circulated notably in feminist circles in Germany. ‘Anonymous’ died in 2001 (so we can surmise that she lived well into her 80’s) and the book was subsequently republished. There was some controversy about whether the diary was a forgery. Anthony Beevor the eminent World War II historian addressed this in 2005 and confirmed that he is convinced the diary is genuine. During his research he found accounts and reports from the period that support the diaries account and he also refers to the examination of the diary by Walter Kempowski a diary expert for that period who declared its authenticity.‘A Woman in Berlin’ is written in wonderful detail, and betrays the author’s sharp intellect. It is an important document, it is up there with Anne Frank and Primo Levi's accounts.
—J.
When we speak of war fatalities, of those who have fallen, of those who have offered themselves up as sacrifices for the purpose of... but to what purpose? We think of fallen soldiers on the battlefield, yet far behind those front lines that so often are saluted in honor with parades and holidays -- are the women. Throughout the history of humankind, women of all ages have been treated as the prize of the conquerer. To the winner go the spoils, and the spoils are women. "A Woman in Berlin" is a journal kept over a two-month period of time in 1945, when Berlin was overtaken by the Russian (Soviet) Army. The author, dubbed simply "Anonymous," is rumored to be a German woman named Marta, well educated, perhaps a journalist who has seen much of the world... but not in this way. For eight weeks she chronicles the battle of the woman in war. Over 100,000 women are raped over this 8-week period in Berlin. Not once, but over and over again. The diarist writes of this time in a way that perhaps only a journalist could, keeping emotions in check, remaining clear-eyed, intelligence evident, apparently using her writing as a tool of survival. If the horrors of war are indescribable, the horrors of what women have had to endure as the human spoils of wars over time has had little examination, little if any punishment (arguably this behavior has even been encouraged), and even less understanding. This book is important reading to anyone wishing to understand war. Any war. Who will pin purple hearts on these women for their suffering and degradation? Who can measure the wounds that never heal and their lifelong consequences to invidividuals and to societies? These are the unsung heroes who are forced to submit, yet so often rise up first to rebuild what war has torn apart -- homes, families, lives. The first time this diary was published, it was not received as the heroic work of a survivor. The diarist was ostracized, because so often people turn away from and deny what hurts most, what reminds us of the depravity in mankind. She gave instruction to not publish these pages again until after her death, which arrived in 2001. But this is a timeless book, because women are being used and abused as the spoils of wars today. Witness Bosnia and Kosovo, Darfur, Iraq, and the list goes on to include every battle in which man has raised a weapon, himself becoming a weapon of destruction. Essential reading.
—Zinta
