Nathaniel Flakin (Translation of Bread and Roses)

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Sep 20, 2025 03:04PM · like
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book liked it Lebenserinnerungen eines leidenschaftlichen Tiergärtners. by Heinrich Dathe	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Tierpark, the East Berlin zoo, is my favorite place in the city. It was founded in 1955 by Heinrich Dathe, a zoological auteur who controlled every aspect of the park until his death in 1990. He was one of the GDR's most popular public figures. I'd b ...more
Sep 14, 2025 01:26PM · 3 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing Pogrom im Scheunenviertel: Antisemitismus in der Weimarer Republik und die Berliner Ausschreitungen 1923 by Karsten Krampitz	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book investigates the worst antisemitic pogrom in Germany before 1933 — an event that has been almost completely forgotten, overshadowed by the genocide that followed. On November 5–6, 1923, thousands rioted in Berlin's Scheunenviertel (the impov ...more
Sep 06, 2025 04:21AM · 5 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals by Maurice J. Casey (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Hotel Lux uncovers the forgotten lives of Irish women and others who worked for the Communist International in Moscow in the 1920s, bunking with revolutionaries from around the world at an overcrowded hotel. A couple of years ago, Brigitte Studer's Tr ...more
Sep 05, 2025 02:30AM · 5 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing War and an Irish Town (Pluto Classics) by Eamonn McCann	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Eamonn McCann wasn't just an eyewitness of the civil rights movement in the North of Ireland — he was a young protagonist of the Battle of the Bogside (1969) and of Bloody Sunday (1972). But McCann was also a sharp interpreter of the conflict. War an ...more
Sep 04, 2025 02:53PM · 3 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book really liked it All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This collection of essays, All Things Are Too Small, is more or less a giant polemic against minimalism. What first hooked me was the critique of mindfulness meditation, i.e. minimalism for the mind. I once tried it in behavioral therapy — in a time ...more
Sep 03, 2025 02:28AM · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing The World After Gaza: A Short History by Pankaj Mishra	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Pankaj Mishra puts words to the moral apocalypse we are living through right now. How is it possible that Western democracies, forever invoking universal human rights and international law, are openly supporting a genocide while violently repressing ...more
Sep 01, 2025 03:21AM · 6 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book really liked it Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany: State,Economy, Administration, Army, Justice, Science by National Council of the National Front of Democratic German	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book is simply called the Brown Book. It was published by the German Democratic Republic in 1965 — by the National Council of the National Front — under the direction of Albert Norden, a Politburo member and son of a rabbi. The title is a callba ...more
Aug 31, 2025 02:23AM · 2 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing Berlin – Stadt der Revolte (Politik & Zeitgeschichte) (German Edition) by Michael Sontheimer	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Berlin has long been a city of revolt, and this book covers protests from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s — starting with a riot at a Rolling Stones concert in 1965, and ending with the eviction of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in 1990. Written by two ...more
Aug 30, 2025 01:04AM · 2 likes · like · see review
Nathaniel Flakin made a comment on their review of Staatsfeind: Erinnerungen " You can find my story about the Lorenz kidnapping on the website of The Berliner. "
Aug 29, 2025 09:54AM · see review

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Lebenserinnerungen eines leidenschaftlichen Tiergärtners.
by Heinrich Dathe

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Tierpark, the East Berlin zoo, is my favorite place in the city. It was founded in 1955 by Heinrich Dathe, a zoological auteur who controlled every aspect of the park until his death in 1990. He was one of the GDR's most popular public figures. I'd b Tierpark, the East Berlin zoo, is my favorite place in the city. It was founded in 1955 by Heinrich Dathe, a zoological auteur who controlled every aspect of the park until his death in 1990. He was one of the GDR's most popular public figures. I'd been meaning to read his memoir for ages — and it was a huge disappointment.

Like many memoirists with busy lives, Dathe started too late, and the manuscript barely gets beyond the zoo's opening. Since no one knows how much time they have left, I can only advise: Start with the interesting parts! You can circle back to your childhood later.

Dathe comes across as what Germans call a Spießer: a pathologically apolitical, petty-bourgeois philistine. He had almost 60 years to reflect on why he joined the NSDAP as a zoology student in 1932, but his explanation was that the atmosphere at university was patriotic and everyone was deceived. The only lesson he drew from this was to never join a political party again — as if the problem with Nazism was that it was a party.

He claims that he kept publishing scientific articles by international authors in the Nazi times — which he compares to maintaining contact with zoologists from Israel and South Africa despite boycotts by the GDR. Let me say that boycotting apartheid states is not the same as fascist ideology.

When he describes his experiences as a Wehrmacht soldier, he offers zero reflections on his role in the crimes against humanity — he remembers admiring birds and trees while crossing the border into France. He doesn’t even manage to think politically about zoo animals. He notes the Warsaw Zoo was "quite devastated," without mentioning how the best animals were stolen by the Berlin Zoo and the rest were massacred by the SS.

It was a complete coincidence that Dathe ended up in East Germany — and with his narrow-minded conservatism, he did just fine in the culturally stifling Ulbricht regime. This memoir was written as the GDR was collapsing, so Dathe could sneer that the official newspaper was full of "empty phrases" and the labor code (with lots of rights for workers) "idiotic." I hate to say it, but this is one book would have benefitted from East German censorship. ...more

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Pogrom im Scheunenviertel by Karsten Krampitz

Pogrom im Scheunenviertel: Antisemitismus in der Weimarer Republik und die Berliner Ausschreitungen 1923
by Karsten Krampitz

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This book investigates the worst antisemitic pogrom in Germany before 1933 — an event that has been almost completely forgotten, overshadowed by the genocide that followed.

On November 5–6, 1923, thousands rioted in Berlin's Scheunenviertel (the impov This book investigates the worst antisemitic pogrom in Germany before 1933 — an event that has been almost completely forgotten, overshadowed by the genocide that followed.

On November 5–6, 1923, thousands rioted in Berlin's Scheunenviertel (the impoverished Jewish neighborhood, home to thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe) and other parts of the city. Jewish shops and apartments were looted, and many people were injured.

The causes are still debated: a spike in bread prices combined with anger at currency dealers during hyperinflation (although many dealers were not Jewish). The violence started in front of an unemployment office but spread quickly. It's still not clear what role professional antisemitic agitators played.

As this book explains, the roots were deeper. Since the end of the First World War, social democratic politicians had been campaigning against "Ostjuden," Jews from Eastern Europe who had been brought to Germany to work. They were demonized, arrested in police raids, and locked in concentration camps. Germany's first concentration camps for Jews were established by the SPD in 1921 — more than a decade before the Nazis were put in power.

Only the Communist Party opposed antisemitism. How bizarre that some historians claim that the communists were antisemitic, based on a few dumb remarks by (Jewish) communist leaders like Fischer and Radek, while social democrats were decrying a "Jewish plague" and building camps.

What struck me: antisemitism is a feature of counterrevolution. In their desperation to save capitalism, the social democrats were forced to use Jews as a "lightning rod." Eugen Ernst, an SPD politician who was appointed Berlin's police chief in 1919 to crush the revolution, soon instigated antisemitic campaigns. This pogrom took place just a week after Reich president Friedrich Ebert of the SPD sent the army to depose left-wing governments in Saxony and Thuringia.

Today, the SPD remains completely uncritical of its post-1914 antisemitic legacy. Carl Severing, who as interior minister created the first German concentration camps for Jews, is still honored with multiple street names in Berlin — his Wikipedia article makes no mention of his anti-Jewish policies.

This book is rich in facts but lacks narrative flair — it takes almost 100 pages to reach the pogrom itself, which is recounted mostly with repetitive eyewitness reports. The source material is valuable, but historians also has a responsibility to tell a compelling story. ...more

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Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals
by Maurice J. Casey (Goodreads Author)

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Hotel Lux uncovers the forgotten lives of Irish women and others who worked for the Communist International in Moscow in the 1920s, bunking with revolutionaries from around the world at an overcrowded hotel.

A couple of years ago, Brigitte Studer's Tr ...more

Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing

War and an Irish Town (Pluto Classics)
by Eamonn McCann

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Eamonn McCann wasn't just an eyewitness of the civil rights movement in the North of Ireland — he was a young protagonist of the Battle of the Bogside (1969) and of Bloody Sunday (1972). But McCann was also a sharp interpreter of the conflict.

War an ...more

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All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess
by Becca Rothfeld

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This collection of essays, All Things Are Too Small, is more or less a giant polemic against minimalism. What first hooked me was the critique of mindfulness meditation, i.e. minimalism for the mind. I once tried it in behavioral therapy — in a time ...more

Nathaniel Flakin rated a book it was amazing

The World After Gaza: A Short History
by Pankaj Mishra

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Pankaj Mishra puts words to the moral apocalypse we are living through right now. How is it possible that Western democracies, forever invoking universal human rights and international law, are openly supporting a genocide while violently repressing ...more

Nathaniel Flakin rated a book really liked it

Brown Book by National Council of the Nat...

Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany: State,Economy, Administration, Army, Justice, Science
by National Council of the National Front of Democratic German

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This book is simply called the Brown Book. It was published by the German Democratic Republic in 1965 — by the National Council of the National Front — under the direction of Albert Norden, a Politburo member and son of a rabbi. The title is a callba This book is simply called the Brown Book. It was published by the German Democratic Republic in 1965 — by the National Council of the National Front — under the direction of Albert Norden, a Politburo member and son of a rabbi. The title is a callback to the Brown Book published by German communist exiles in Paris in 1933 about the crimes of Hitler's regime — Norden had worked on that one as well.

Today, with all the perpetrators long dead, West German institutions are busy commissioning studies about their Nazi origins. Yes, historians now admit, this ministry, agency, corporation, etc. was indeed built by war criminals. It's presented as revelation — but all this information was publicly available in the 1950s.

The Brown Book lays out the evidence systematically, with chapters about West Germany's military, diplomatic corps, courts, universities, industry, etc. Each chapter consists of a long essay followed by a list of names and positions (I'll admit I skimmed the latter). In total, 1,900 Nazis in positions of power in the Federal Republic of Germany are named.
.
Konrad Adenauer famously said that "you don't pour out the dirty water if you lack clean water," as if rehabilitating Nazis was inevitable. Yet the GDR, despite all its problems, got by without employing any Nazi officers, judges, or teachers.

At the time this book was denounced as "propaganda" — yet Germany's Foreign Office has recently admitted that the accusations were all basically accurate. These men were guilty, and instead of punishment, West Germany gave them powerful jobs and large pensions. Even if they are dead now, the institutions they shaped carried their legacies forward.

I don't want to sound too positive about the GDR — it was a repressive Stalinist state that imprisoned critical communists. But in some ways, the West was worse than the East. This book was published in several languages, and I was happy to track down the English version (clunky, but fine). An East German expose in English about West Germany's Nazi past — that's extremely on brand for me, right? ...more

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Berlin – Stadt der Revolte (Politik & Zeitgeschichte) by Michael Sontheimer

Berlin – Stadt der Revolte (Politik & Zeitgeschichte) (German Edition)
by Michael Sontheimer

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Berlin has long been a city of revolt, and this book covers protests from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s — starting with a riot at a Rolling Stones concert in 1965, and ending with the eviction of 13 squats on Mainzer Straße in 1990.

Written by two ...more

Nathaniel Flakin made a comment on their review of Staatsfeind: Erinnerungen

" You can find my story about the Lorenz kidnapping on the website of The Berliner. "

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	Bread and Roses: Gender and Class Under Capitalism by Andrea D'Atri, Nathaniel Flakin (Goodreads Author) (Translation) 4.17 avg rating — 187 ratings — published 2013 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Revolutionary Berlin: A Walking Guide 4.15 avg rating — 88 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Martin Monath: A Jewish Resistance Fighter Amongst Nazi Soldiers (Revolutionary Lives) 4.31 avg rating — 26 ratings — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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