Meines Vaters Land: Geschichte einer deutschen Familie

by Wibke Bruhns

Auch so lange Zeit nach Kriegsende ist der Nationalsozialismus immer noch ein Thema, das beschäftigt. Manchmal hat es auch ganz konkrete Gründe, warum die Auseinandersetzung nicht früher beginnen konnte. Die Journalistin Wibke Bruhns kam erst nach dem Tod ihrer Mutter in den Besitz der Briefe ihres Vaters. Als dann auf einem Dachboden auch noch das umfangreiche Familienarchiv ihres Großvaters gefunden wurde, konnte sie daran gehen, die Geschichte ihres Vaters zu ergründen: Überzeugter Nazi und zugleich Widerstandskämpfer? Jedenfalls wurde Hans Georg Klamroth 1944 nach dem missglückten Attentat auf Hitler als Mitwisser hingerichtet. Obwohl sie bei seinem Tod fünf Jahre alt war, hatte Wibke Bruhns keine bewusste Erinnerung an ihn und wollte nun endlich wissen, wie dieser Mann wirklich war.

Eine sehr persönliche Spurensuche also, und man ist sofort an Uwe Timms Am Beispiel meines Bruders erinnert. Aber Bruhns ist Journalistin und so interessiert sie sich, im Gegensatz zu Timm, viel stärker für die Zeitgeschichte, möchte auch die gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen ergründen und geht in ihrer Familienchronik bis in die Zeit vor dem ersten Weltkrieg zurück. Und diese gelungene Mischung aus großer Politik und persönlicher Geschichte ist es auch, die das Buch so beeindruckend macht. Das gilt umso mehr für das Hörbuch, bei dem die Stimme der Autorin den persönlichen Charakter dieser Recherche verstärkt, zugleich ihr sachlicher Ton aber dafür sorgt, die emotionale Seite der Geschichte nicht dominieren zu lassen. Und dass Wibke Bruhns ihren Text ausgezeichnet liest, ist auch nicht verwunderlich. War sie doch in den 70er Jahren die erste Frau, die die Heute-Nachrichten im ZDF präsentierte.

Gekürzte Lesung, 5 CDs, Spieldauer ca. 350 Minuten. --Christian Stahl

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, World War II, Germany, German Literature

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Bruhns wurde als Tochter des Kaufmanns und Abwehr-Offiziers Hans Georg Klamroth und dessen Gattin Else als eins von fünf Geschwistern geboren. Da ihr Vater der Gruppe der Attentäter vom 20. Juli 1944 angehörte, wurde er am 15. August 1944 als Mitwisser zum Tode verurteilt und am 26. August 1944 hingerichtet. Ihre Mutter Else Klamroth, geborene Podeus, war die Tochter eines Fabrikanten aus Wismar.[1] Sie trat 1949 in den diplomatischen Dienst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ein, so dass Wibke Bruhns in Stockholm, Berlin und London aufwuchs.[2] Bruhns studierte Geschichte und Politikwissenschaft. Sie volontierte bei der Bild-Zeitung, was sie „aus politischen Gründen“ jedoch vorzeitig abbrach. 1962 wurde sie Redakteurin beim ZDF. Als politische Fernsehjournalistin war sie die erste Frau im deutschen Fernsehen, die im ZDF ab 1971 die Heute-Nachrichten sprach. Dies erregte zur damaligen Zeit großes öffentliches Aufsehen.

Sie war als politische Korrespondentin in Bonn während der Ära von Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt tätig, den sie 1972 auch in einer Wählerinitiative unterstützt hatte.[2] Von 1984 bis 1988 arbeitete Bruhns für den Stern als Korrespondentin in Israel und in Washington. 1993 moderierte sie die Nachrichten auf VOX, 1995 wurde sie Kulturchefin beim ORB. 2000 war Bruhns Sprecherin der Weltausstellung Expo 2000 in Hannover.

Wibke Bruhns heiratete 1961 den Werbekaufmann Peter Teichgräber. Die Ehe wurde schon 1962 wieder geschieden. Von 1965 bis 1977 war sie mit dem Schauspieler Werner Bruhns verheiratet, mit dem sie zwei Töchter (* 1966 und * 1968) hatte. Heute lebt sie als freie Autorin in Berlin. Ihre Schwester ist die Juristin und Autorin Sabine Klamroth. (wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Wibke Bruhns' Father, HG Klamroth, was executed for his involvement in the 20th of July plot against Hitler, at the time she was only a little girl (she was born in 1938). It was not something that she discussed with her mother while young and it was only thanks to seeing her father on film briefly in a documentary that she began to research the back-story and her family history.

The mystery of the book, at least while reading yes this will be an actual spoiler and not an asideonce you get to the end it seems quite likely that HG was simply rounded up because he was connected to the conspirators, his son-in-law had procured the explosive used in Staffenburg's bomb, he doesn't seem to have been active in the plot, the Nazis (of whom he was one) claimed that he did know but equally in the aftermath of the 20th of July they were looking to demonstrate that they were on top of the situation and to execute people pour encourager les autres , is that HG Klamroth does not seem an unusual person, there's no obvious marker in his background that would suggest that he would be involved in such a plot. His family had a large business in the small Prussian town of Halberstadt the author draws a comparison to Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, with the slight, but significant, difference that IG Klamroth was long lasting than the Buddenbrooks firm . He had served in the first world war on the Eastern front, in the 1920s he was already according to his own diary describing himself as an Anti-Semite in conversation. The family politics were conventionally conservative, joining the Nazi Party and the SS after Hitler took power in January 1933 looks like a conventionally opportunistic move prior to January 1933 rather as Christabel Bielenberg is in The past is myself he and his circle were snobbish about Hitler, but smart enough to jump on the bandwagon , his diaries and letters show that he was not particularly active, neither though was he critical.

The Gestapo took his diaries from 1938 onwards along with his stamp collection, which his widow recalled with a particular vehemence while he had his letters from occupied Denmark were he was posted until February 1942 destroyed. Equally the records of the original interrogation don't survive so there are all kinds of holes in the information that Bruhns had available to her.

In the end this is not and can not be a heroic account of the 20th of July plot in good part for the reasons given in the first spoiler. Quite a few reviews don't like that this is not a straight biography and particularly don't like the author's commentary on and criticism of her parents, I can appreciate that as a point of view, but it seems to me that the author's critical distance between herself and her, literally, Nazi parents is to my mind the point of the book, and why perhaps she goes back to beginning of the nineteenth century like in a good Victorian novel, you have to go back generations to get under the skin of your characters . It is a document of a profound intergenerational shift, hence I think the title which for me alludes to the idea of the past as a foreign country, from people who are Monarchists in a Republic, happy to accept Dictatorship, dedicated Anti-Semites - even if they did make the occasional exception in their personal contacts. Bruhns is appalled at her parents, at all that they accepted without question (at least in their written remains) and amazed at what her father in particular does not refer to - he was working in counter espionage and late in the war was also responsible for the V2 programme which involved him visiting the production site at Nordhausen -he could not have been unaware of the use of forced labour by concentration camp inmates nor of their death rate -iirc more people died making the V2 rockets than through their use which for the Nazis was presumably a win-win situation. When her mother writes with disapproval about Kristalnacht, Bruhns notices her mother has no sympathy for the Jewish victims, she just does not like the riotous behaviour. Anti-Semitism was fine for them in theory, but they were the kind of people who found it distasteful to see it front of them, instead of decently in camps where they couldn't see it perhaps this book belongs in the subgenre of books by people angry at their Nazi parents, such as those by Niklas Frank, though she is not so furious as he is, more critically distanced, yet engaged.

As such it is fascinating glimpse of a milieu the metaamphetamine Pertivin plus sedatives kept Bruhns's mother going through the war years , there are overlaps with Bielenfeld's The past is myself in the social class and the attitudes that (typically) went with it, and an absolute contrast with Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen 1914 – 1933.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has an unusual style, as Wibke takes us through the roots of her family via the extensive records kept by the various generations. The start is slow, but persistence pays off as you get an insight into the German side of the war, and really want to see what happens to her family through it. For me I learnt much more about both the world wars, which I imagine you can learn elsewhere, but the personal details that accompany it do make the history far more real. Fascinating, depressing and intriguing. I've uhhmmmed and ahhhed between 3/4 stars ... the subject matter and overall story make it 4 stars, but it can be clunky, and it definitely took a bit of work to engage with. I'm plumping for 4 stars, but with the caveat that I suspect it would fully deserve that in its original form ...

[Feodora · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a really really good book, esp as an audiobook. It was well read. She made you really a part of the story.

The story is about one of the brave men who tried to kill Adolf Hitler on the 20 th July 1944. He was hanged. That is how the story begun and than the (youngest) doughter tells the story of him his wife his family. Using letters, diaries and historical facts. She never tried to bei objective, esp when she talks about his womenising.

It is a warm, loving, hatefull, horror-stricken, happy and TRUE story. I got an inner view ito what happend to the families of one of those men. How they became what they were, and how normal those men were who became HEROS of the german nation. He was not one of the famous one like Graf von Stauffenberg but he was as brave as him. Anyone who wants to learn about the time in germany beween 1920-1944 should read this book or listen to this Audiobook.

Normally I post my reviews in the language where the book was I read, but as I know many english readers will see my review I did this in english. If YOU have the chance to get this book.... take it.

[Mondperle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich konnte das Buch kaum aus der Hand legen. Obwohl ich schon einiges über die Zeit der beiden Weltkriege gelesen habe, waren auch diesmal erschütternd. Welche Deutschtümelei doch selbstverständlich war. Bedrückend auch auf dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Wahlergebnisse der AfD.

[Susann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific Read

There is nothing I didn't like about this book. After reading a number of Holaucaust stories, it was quite interesting to read what a German family's experience during WWII was like. This family was a bit unusual in that they were quite wealthy industrialists with a bit of marital mixing with Danish families. It is difficult to put in words all the things I liked. First off, it was beautifully written from a daughter's point of view much later after the war. She did impeccable research into her family's archives and, as a career reporter, recreated in depth the milieu of her family's experience warts and all. Interspersed with the narrative and quoting from letters, she added her own modern day opinions about the moral issues the Germans had to face at the time. Her father was in the military during both world wars and was quite high ranking, involved with intelligence and troop logistics at times. Nevertheless, he seemed to have been a reluctant Nazi and was hung along with his son in law for knowing about and participating in the bomb attack on Hitler's life towards the end of the war.
Another great thing about the book was the historical and political context that put many of these moral issues in perspective. I think the author was quite fair in her representation of both parents, disapproving and questioning many of their decisions as well as showing the positive things. She was too young at the time to be very aware and it is this journey of discovery after the fact that helps her come to peace with the things many families had to deal with and turn a blind eye to. I highly recommend this book to learn a completely different perspective from a living day to day in Germany point of view.

[Luthien · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ich habe ein Foto von meinem Vater gefunden. Es gibt Hunderte... Dies hier war weggesperrt... Verborgen hinter ihrem Kinderportrait hatte Else ihn, einen todtraurigen Mann um die 30- so verloren guckt er auf keinem Foto außer auf den letzten vor dem Volksgerichtshof."

Seite 7

Meines Vaters Land von Wibke Bruhns ist eine sehr bewegende, aber auch zum Nachdenken anregende Biographie ihres Vaters, Hans Georg Klamroth, der mit den anderen Beteiligten des Hitler-Attentats vom 20.07.1944 verurteilt und hingerichtet wurde.

Meine Meinung:

Das Werk ist in einem sehr angenehmen Schreibstil geschrieben. Man merkt die persönliche Beziehung der Autorin zu ihrer Familie, zugleich finde ich es aber toll, dass nichts geschönt beschrieben wird. Die Autorin ist sehr ehrlich im Umgang mit der Lebensgeschichte ihres Vaters. Sie glorifiziert ihn in keiner Weise, sondern bemüht sich wirklich, eine neutrale Perspektive einzunehmen. Sehr gefallen hat mir auch, wie sie an vielen Stellen einfach auch kommentierend in die Handlung eingreift und ihre Gedanken beim Lesen der Briefe und Tagebucheinträge ihrer Eltern mit uns Lesern teilt.

Die Biographie behält fast durchgängig einen roten Faden bei und fügt sich sehr gut in die allgemeine deutsche Geschichte zu Lebzeiten des Protagonisten ein, sodass man sehr persönlich das allgemeine Weltgeschehen und dessen Bedeutung für diese Familie mitbekommt.

Fazit: Eine wirklich gut geschriebene, spannende, ehrliche Biographie, die jeder historisch (insbesondere an der Zeit 1900-1945) Interessierte gelesen haben sollte.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the premise of this book incredibly interesting - the daughter of a man involved in the July 20 assassination attempt tracks through time to try to get to know the father she never knew.

That said, this wasn't the easiest book to slog through. I found the first half slow and tedious. The second half was more engaging.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a German there is one question that you will ask yourself again and again through your entire life. Why did we start two World Wars?

Now, regarding the first war things are not that clear cut. Although I was brought up (in the seventies) with the historic fact that it was indeed Germany who started the war I think now the consensus between historians is that there were many causes and it is somewhat unfair to blame Germany/Austria alone. But still, how could we seriously expect to win a war against the world? How is it possible that people not only accepted the war but were enthusiastic about it?

For one thing, people actually believed that a war would be good for a nation it has a purifying effect and it is often forgotten that wars especially the war against France in 70/71 not only established a German nation but meant an immense economic boom. (And generally up until World War I a war had definite benefits - for the winner, just ask England.)

Treaty of Versailles was of course a huge mistake and people were inclined to believe in the Dagger strike legend but it seems so obvious that Germany had no chance of winning the war once the USA had entered.

So again, how could they start another war against the world only 21 years after the humiliating defeat? Knowing that sooner of later the USA would again participate? And even more pressing the question how was it possible that a huge majority of people followed the Führer Adolf Hitler? And followed is to weak. They adored and loved and trusted him. And were willing to commit horrible crimes in his name.

As the book by Daniel Goldhagen had it they were to become Hitler's Willing Executioners. The crimes including the killing of almost all European Jews were done by ordinary Germans, not by a bunch of mad criminals. Germans who lived a respectable live before and (very many) after the war? How is it possible? Unless you can accept the Goldhagen answer which is more or less: they were just evil, all of them, by the simple fact of being born as Germans, there is no answer.

This amazing book by Wibke Bruhns about her own family does not manage to give an answer. It just states again what is known, how ordinary people became Nazis. But it does it in in a startling way.

Wibke Bruhns was a very well known journalist. In fact she became the first woman on German TV to read the evening news in 1971. It is hard to exaggerate what that meant at the time. Women were able to do a man’s job! And later she became a correspondent in Washington and she was a member of the best political magazine in Germany a woman who was respected by everyone.

And here she talks about her family. Her father and the husband of her sister (also a distant cousin) were executed after the events of the 2oth of July 44. The cousin actually participated. The crime of the father seems to have been that he failed to denounce his son-in-law. There must have been a temptation to paint the picture of the father as a member of the resistance group as one of the decent Germans who tried to stop the maniac Hitler.

Bruhns does no such thing. She describes the live of her father (actually she starts with her grand-father who fought in the first war) in detail (relying on letters and diaries) from the very young man who entered the first way, marrying a woman from a wealthy family, the building of a career. Obviously a gifted man (who managed to learn Danish in four weeks). Not a Nazi not an Anitsemite but still entering the SS as soon as the Nazis came to power. He played a role in the occupation of Denmark but was soon sent to the east (maybe because he was too sympathetic with the Danes?) Anyway in the end he was in a position to report to Goebbels directly on the progress of the V2 project. Which means he had quite an important position.

Did he know about the crimes? Very possibly. Did he participate? Maybe. What is intriguing is that her father Hans Georg, HG, is obviously a caring and loving husband and father. Just reading the poems he had written to his wife and daughter (the one marrying the cousin) is heart-breaking. At the same time he was a serious adulterer. And at one point Else, the mother, after having found yet another love letter by some woman to her husband she could no longer forgive him. A basic family tragedy but in the midst of world tragedy. And Wibke writes it all down as she finds it. She could not, she says, bake his father the way she wanted him to have been.

And she is just as helpless as we are in explaining what was going on. Why was her mother why were her sisters under the spell of Hitler? Why was the fate of the Jews never mentioned in the numerous letters and diaries? Not a little irony is that she herself might owe her life to the rise of Nazism. Because her mother had some abortions in the twenties by a Jewish doctor who emigrated to Palestine when Hitler came to power.

And at the very end, after the war, the six years old gets slapped by her mother (or maybe sister) when she is innocently asking why people do not say „Heil, Hitler“ anymore.

[Thordur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Þýskaland fyrri hluta 20. aldar. Þetta er fjölskyldusaga, en aðallega er höfundurinn Wibke Bruhns að skrifa um föður sinn Hans Georg Klamroth og um allar þær breytingar sem eiga sér stað þýsku samfélagi frá því fyrir fyrri heimsstyrjöld og fram yfir þá seinni.

Þeir sem hafa gaman af sögulegum fróðleik ættu að hafa gaman af þessari. Hér er Þjóðverji að skrifa um Þjóðverja. Heimildirnar tilheyra fjölskyldusögu þar sem örlög manna verða hrikaleg. Hans Georg Klamroth tekur m.a. þátt í samsæri gegn Hitler og verður að horfast í augu við afleiðingarnar. Fjölskylda hans lendir einnig í ýmsum raunum. En um leið er varpað upp mynd af þýsku samfélagi eins og það er orðið. Kannski ekki bara það heldur hvernig fjölskyldan öll verður líka.

Bókin er 500 blaðsíður. Langir kaflar. Eitthvað af myndum, aðallega aftast í bókinni. Þú lest þetta ekki með hraði og ef þú hefur ekki sagnfræðilegan áhuga þá gæti verið að þú missir áhugann nokkuð fljótlega. Atburðarrás er hæg, höfundurinn er jafnframt sögumaður og birtir oft skoðanir sínar og stundum verður hann tilfinningalegur í fasi.

Það tók mig allan janúarmánuð 2017 að lesa þessa bók.

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself scanning over the first few chapters to get to the meat of the story. While I understand that the book is one woman’s exploration of wondering how her family could join in with the group hysteria of the time, I could have done without her inserted (!) within excerpts of her family’s diaries. I scanned over much of her commentary so that I could get to the history and actual memoir words.

The truly interesting part which contained the juxtaposition of her Mom’s pain of her husband’s infidelity and the chaos of the war escalating seemed hurried. An amazing piece of fiction could be written showing the pain and lack of control one German woman was feeling towards her husband amongst all the pain and victimization of concentration camps. I think Wibke feel like it was trite for her Mom to concentrate on her broken heart with all the death around her, but when it comes down to it, aren’t we all the center of our own Universe, and what kinds of atrocities happening all around us do we turning a blind eye toward while tending to our own broken hearts?

[Marie Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every one should read this book for three reasons : 1) to get an idea of how an entire nation could come to believe in nazism, and 2) to get an idea of the unbearable prize the next generation pays after a war, and 3) to understand and recognize the remarkable work the German nation has done and still does to come to terms with their ancestors wrongs. No other nation has cleaned out their closets like that, and the Germans deserve the greatest respect for their admirable work. Wibke Bruhn takes the reader through her own reflections of her parents, her own parents, doings. She doesn't deny how painful this is. Thank you, Wibke Bruhn.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing WW2 Account of a German Military Family

This is the true story of Wibke Bruhns’ family. Most especially, it focused on her father who was a major in the Germany military during World War 2. Eventually he was executed after getting caught up among conspirators in Operation Valkyrie, which resulted in Hitler’s near assassination. Wibke, who had almost no memory of her father (she was a toddler when he was killed) used family records to retrace the family’s history, with a special focus on how her father and mother could march down the path to acceptance of Nazism. She was relieved that it didn’t appear her father was involved in the gruesome aspects of the German atrocities. He wasn’t an active conspirator either, but instead he knew of the plot but didn’t tell anyone to break it up. So he was sort of on the right side of history though he was executed for being in that position. He pursued the German victory right until the end, but seems to have disdained its excesses.

This book was interesting in that it is from a German viewpoint. Wibke Bruhns clearly has zero sympathy or tolerance for Nazis and the heinous acts they perpetrated. That is no surprise considering her father was killed by them. Yet, she often expressed her disappointment in her parents lack of ethical fiber about the treatment of Jews or the war time horrors the Germans perpetrated against Poland or Russia.

I really thought I would like this book more than I did. It was right up my historical alley. Yet, it disappointed some, I must say.

This book was originally written in German, but I suspect the translation to English was a slightly awkward. Additionally, I would think a natural aftermath from the post-execution period for her family would be a vital part of the book. After all, her mother was left widowed with three adult children and two young children. We get hints throughout the book of what it was like, but the topic was barely mentioned. I found that very strange considering the impact had to have been crushing to the family. We can see that her father’s military life was unsettling for Wibke, and she had tried to understand it. Yet, as an adult how did it shape her? We don’t really get an idea.

So the book had promise, but missed the mark as well.

[Gina Rheault · Rating 4 out of 5]

How are lives are lived in the swirl of war? This is the true story, told by the youngest daughter, born in 1938, of how one prominent upper class German family's life lived through the 1930's and 1940's as economic devastation from WWI morphed into German National Socialism, and then step by step, to the ultimate dismantling of the German constitution and the ascendancy of Hitler to head of state.

Its worth reading not because it is easy to follow, or especially well-written -- it tends to be a jumble of things with confusing jumps in time -it is worthwhile but because it does give you some sense of how much people try to preserve normalcy while abnormality is taking hold. There are scary flashes of familiarity to today as Hitler invokes religion and make-Germany-great-again Aryan nationalism against 'foreigners'. And the upper-middle classes with the most to lose materially and socially, are seduced-- not because they agree with all the crude populist does, but because they decide to chime in, to agree with what suits them, and to not to disagree very hard with clashes with their sense of decency. Very very sad, tragic story for Germany as a country, and for the millions upon millions slaughtered as a result.

The author was six years old in 1944 when her father was hanged. She has reconstructed this story from diaries and letters 60 years later. I would be curious to know how the many relatives of her decimated family fared after the war. And this book piqued my curiosity about civilian life in Europe from the 1920's to the 1950's in Germany and Europe.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Bruhns was born 1938 into a wealthy German family at the brink of WWII. She explores her family history extensively documented in her father and grandfather’s diaries and documents and letters sent and received by them. She briefly leads us through the country’s origins and the in detail pairing the family history with the business which helped define it . She takes us through the world wars and the social and political events leading up to them and the the seamless almost inevitability of the events, the blindness of the people to the horrors of Hitler in the 30s. She has only fleeting memories of her father as he is away as an army officer until his execution as a conspirator in the failed July 1944 assassination attempt. The book is an more over arching perspective of Germany than Hitler’s Last Currier and Patterns of Childhood which I also found illuminating.

[Mona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es ist mir ein tiefes Bedürfnis die Hintergründe, die Beweggründe, die Verfehlungen, die Motivationen - ja all das was es zu dem gemacht hat was es war, zu erfahren und zu versuchen, zu verstehen.
Wibke Bruhns hat mit diesem Buch einen ganz besonders wertvollen Teil dazu beigetragen.
Der historische wie emotionale Detailreichtum erlauben dem Leser/Zuhörer Einblicke und Blickwinkel die den Horizont was diese schwierigen Jahre betreffen, enorm bereichern und erweitern.
Da ich, ein 68iger Mädchen, nur noch wenige Zeitzeugen persönlich kennen lernen konnte, bin ich Wibke Bruhns sehr dankbar für dieses Buch. Sie erzählt aufrichtig, ungeschönt, unverblümt, objektiv und ehrlich.
Simone Kabst - ebenfalls ein großes Dankeschön! Besser kann man diese Zeilen nicht zu Gehör bringen.

[Magnús · Rating 5 out of 5]

Þessi bók er alveg stórmerkileg og kom mjög þægilega á óvart. Læsileg þýðing og mjög fróðleg. Mér fannst bókin gefa mjög áhugaverða innsýn í það hvernig umbrotatímar tveggja heimsstyrjalda og árin á milli þeirra gátu leikið líf miðstéttarfjölskyldu í Þýskalandi. Við fáum þarna innsýn í horfinn heim og það er fágætt að sjónarhornið á þetta komi frá þýskum höfundi, tala nú ekki um höfundi sem situr greinilega á eins góðum heimildum og búast má við að hægt sé að finna. Dr. Vilborg Auður Ísleifsdóttir hefur unnið mikið, gott og þarft verk með því að íslenska þessa bók og koma henni þar með fyrir augu okkar.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering and illuminating view of the upper crust of German society in decades of two World Wars.

I felt it truly provided a sense of how "honor" and the view of one's important selves led to Hitler's rise.

The author wrote in a fascinating manner. Delving through family records and letters, and then adding a jarring note from her feelings, thoughts, and perspective 80, 50, 20 years later.

Very honest recounting by the author of her own family - grandparents, parents, and larger clan, all of whom paid dearly during this disastrous time.

[Bolli Thor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Þetta er áhugaverð og átakanleg frásögn. Gífurleg heimildarvinna þótt mikilvæg gögn hafi glatast eða þeim verið eytt. Bókin gefur mikla innsýn í líf fjölskyldu höfundar á þessum tímum. Skiljanlegt að höfundur, dóttirin, hneykslun á hegðun föður síns, bæði því sem anýr að hernaði Þjóðverja og framgangi gagnvart gyðingum og eins gagnvart hjónabandi hans þar sem móðirin er reyndar ekki saklaus. Eini gallinn á bókinni finnst mér vera hversu ítarleg frásögnin er þar sem farið er út í minnstu smáatriði, ss. lýsingar á leikföngum ofl. Get engu d síður mælt með bókinni.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Well written. Totally engaging. Shy of 5 stars only because it was occasionally adolescent in tone in the way the author talked about her parents. I think the book was the author's cathartic effort to deal with her past. One can almost get the sense that one is present for a family dispute, which can get rather uncomfortable and even embarrassing. I'm probably being too harsh. Perhaps 4.5 stars would be a worthy rating.

[Kathi Olsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not necessarily an easy read. Some things I've forgotten because it is a book at a daughter's house and has been read in spurts. It really shows the contradictions leading up to and through WWII. Living in Germany had it's blessings and trials. The author's father was one of the men hung for an unsuccessful to bring down the Reicht and Hitler. I am amazed at the amount of information she was able to get considering how many documents were burned to keep the innocent and the guilty alive.

[Þórólfur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mjög athyglisverð bók Wibke Bruhns um forfeður sína sem endar með aftöku föður hennar og líka náfrænda (og mági) ásamt fleirum í kjölfar tilræðisins við Hitler 1944, þá var hún sjálf aðeins sex ára. Sagan er ekki síst áhugaverð fyrir það hvaða ljósi hún bregður á hugsunarhátt og gildismat fólks á þessum tímum. Dagbækur föður hennar ásamt fjölda sendibréfa hans, móður hennar ofl. eru ómetanlegar heimildir - bókin á þó til að verða frekar langdregin á köflum. Mæli með.

[Cindy Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book. Story of a very privileged family in Germany pre and during WWII skimmed the first half of the book. I really rate it a 3.5. She really examines her family's psyche. They were educated yet seemed very naive in so many ways. She lives them and hates them. And makes the reader do too. Yet you admire her and how open she is with the not-so-perfect family she reveals!

[Clair Schaler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing story of a family that professed the trappings of "Aryan" mentality, yet whose patriarch attempted to kill Hitler, believing Hitler's death squads were a stain on Germany, rather than for love of people. It's very interesting and a perspective I have not yet seen, as I typically read from the perspective of those targeted in the Holocaust.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Father's Country is a woman's research, suppositions, and conclusions regarding her family's history throughout Germany's tumultuous period at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Her father was convicted and executed as a conspirator in the plot to murder Hitler in 1944. Extremely detailed, and full of interesting individuals, but a bit of a tedious read.

[Jane Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A German Family

A story of an extended family during World ,War II. This family were selected and had money, but even though they support Hitler in the beginning, two of their members are executed after the July 20th plot.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. I loved reading this from start to finish. Wrestles with some tough moral problems while telling some true history through the lens of a family struggling with those moral problems. Loved this book.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart-rending first person account of a family in Germany during the Hitler regime. Although extraordinarily sad, there is a true sense of what it means to be a patriot when an evil, cut throat dictator takes control. My heart was moved and went out to the tough decisions, not to mention the deprivations the German people suffered through during not only the second World War, but through the course of the Great War as well.

[Nate Bonzella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. I didn’t expect this level of detail about the family or about HG. This is not a history book, though the family endures a litany of historical events and the book provides unique family perspective on those events

[Antof9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read, I think. From the poignant subtitle "The Story of a German Family" to the last lines of the book:

One of my first memories of the new era: I got slapped hard in the face. I can't remember who did it, whether it was Else or Barbara, I just remember flying through the kitchen. I had to become an adult before I understood why. Half-pint as I was, I had asked out of the blue, "Where did all the love for the Führer go? Why does nobody say Heil Hitler anymore?" Perhaps I should have asked, "Why did anybody ever say it?"

I didn't want to put it down and I was annoyed when I was interrupted. Beyond that, I realized that the vast majority (heck; basically all) of books I've read on this topic are from a Jewish point of view or about Jews, except for that Doris Kearns Goodwin book on Eleanor Roosevelt, which I read in tandem with The Twilight of Courage. So this was a first for me, and it was a big one.

I think I have too many things in this book marked. Now to choose which ones to write about and what to say ...

There are quotes in this book that seriously made me pause. And think. "Only we, the next generation, were to deal with the catastrophe that our country had wrought on others. My sister told me how Else learned of the extermination camps after the war. White in the face, she stood in the doorway and said, "We Germans will never be forgive that. We Germans. Auschwitz -- a mortgage. Not a word, not a single word in all those years about the victims."

And "Sixty years on I can't sit here ruthlessly 'being right.' My luck was the caesura -- I began when everything had stopped."

And then the reason for this book "I want to understand what it was that did such damage to my generation, to those born later. For this I must return to the history of those who have written my history, to my family's forefathers. I must go to Halberstadt."

Sometimes when I hear something about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I am not sure if it's real or made up. And then I read something that so simply explains it that I know it's real. For the author, it affected her entire cache of memories:

I have my own story about Easter eggs. It happened in 1945, the first time I had blown eggs for the Easter wreath and glued silhouetted figures all over it. The wreath stood on the dining table, and my dangling eggs were the loveliest, of course. When the inferno struck over Halberstadt on April 8, the Sunday after Easter, when that large-scale raid reduced 80 percent of the old town to rubble, the house stood firm, no one died. But the chandelier over the dining table crashed down on the Easter wreath and broke my eggs. The conflagration scorched my memory. Everything that existed before was buried in rubble and horror. Sic years were blown away, I know nothing about myself. My life began with my fury at the destruction of my Easter eggs.

And again, around her sister's wedding: "I try to imagine what my sister, then still so young, must have felt inside. Years later I asked her. She couldn't remember -- "I wasn't there!" The horror of what came later had consigned that time to oblivion.

In speaking of "destruction through labor" and the camps in Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Bergen-Belsen, the author asks for us, Why am I telling this? Because the story can never be told too often ... which incidentally, is why, I suppose, I keep reading books on this topic.

I found sections like this haunting: Whom does HG talk to instead? Nobody, I think. All these men, unless they are sitting in the eye of the hurricane, are condemned to silence. They do their duty, their task is the solution of upcoming problems, not a preoccupation with their own fears. There is a reason almost all of HG's letters from 1944 end with the words "Your lonely husband."

And then there is the discussion of "Sippenhaftung", or "punishment of kin", which makes me think that only people who thought to rid the world of a certain race, or somehow-crippled members of their own race would think to further punish "officially" members of the family of the people who carried out the plot.

And the part that made me cry -- some of the author's comments to her father:

Have I misunderstood you, because you never said anything? now you are dying as an "Untermensch." They deprived you of the cleric you requested. But your Mount of Olives is behind you, and you are a hero in your death. You lived in awful times, and if you wanted things to be better for your children, then you succeeded. You have paid the "blood toll" so that I don't have to. I have learned from you what I must guard against. That's what a father's there for, isn't it? I thank you.

I'm to the end of my review and have no way to close. I'm a girl who doesn't even like non-fiction, and yet, this book captivated me from start to finish. It will stay with me for a while.

[Sharon Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This real life story about a German family living in Germany during WWI and WWII, is the elaboration from journals and letters between the two main characters, and is rich with history of the times.