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On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46
"On The Other Side" are letters written (but never posted) by a 60 year-old woman, to her children living abroad, about the experience of living in Hamburg during the war. Discovered in a drawer in the 1970s, they were translated by her daughter, the late Ruth Evans, and first published in England and Germany in 1979. They were serialised on "Woman's Hour" and in the "Observer" and a television documentary about the book, with Margaret Tyzack acting 'Tilli' and many original newsreel shots of a devastated Hamburg, was shown in the autumn of 1979.
Tilli Wolff-Monckeberg was the daughter of a lawyer who later became Lord Mayor. She was intelligent and well-educated but married very young and had five children. Unusually for the time, she and her husband separated during the First World War and Tilli returned to Hamburg, did some translating and took in lodgers. In 1925 she married a Professor of English who later became Rector of Hamburg University. By the time the letters begin, therefore, in October 1940, her personal life is slightly complicated, with her children living in farflung places her youngest daughter Ruth is living in Wales and her Hamburg relations are slightly disapproving of her unconventional personal life.
They would have been even more disapproving if they had known that Tilli was keeping what was in effect a diary: the discovery of the letters would certainly have resulted in her and her husband's arrest. In the first one she writes, about the events leading up to the war, that the German people were led to believe that they had been wantonly attacked but 'in truth this whole campaign had been planned long ago, the Fuhrer's blind lust for conquest, his megalomania being the driving force.' She adds, 'for me nothing was more devastating than the fact that nobody...stood up against this, but remained passive and weak.'But "On The Other Side" is not a political book. Instead it is an evocation of daily life in Hamburg during the war years and immediately afterwards (the months after May 1945 make up a third of the book, partly because it was easier to write without the constant threat of bombing and partly because there was no danger in writing).
'If you want to know what it was like to be a civilian in wartime Germany you must read this marvellous book' wrote Timothy Garton Ash in the Spectator in 1979, going on to add: 'The letters document the terrible suffering caused to the German civil population by Allied bombing. It is difficult to read these pages without feeling that this kind of bombing was worse than a mistake' (the issues covered in the Afterword). However, this is not a harrowing book, it is gentle and domestic, human and humane - and Tilli did survive.
Tilli Wolff-Monckeberg was the daughter of a lawyer who later became Lord Mayor. She was intelligent and well-educated but married very young and had five children. Unusually for the time, she and her husband separated during the First World War and Tilli returned to Hamburg, did some translating and took in lodgers. In 1925 she married a Professor of English who later became Rector of Hamburg University. By the time the letters begin, therefore, in October 1940, her personal life is slightly complicated, with her children living in farflung places her youngest daughter Ruth is living in Wales and her Hamburg relations are slightly disapproving of her unconventional personal life.
They would have been even more disapproving if they had known that Tilli was keeping what was in effect a diary: the discovery of the letters would certainly have resulted in her and her husband's arrest. In the first one she writes, about the events leading up to the war, that the German people were led to believe that they had been wantonly attacked but 'in truth this whole campaign had been planned long ago, the Fuhrer's blind lust for conquest, his megalomania being the driving force.' She adds, 'for me nothing was more devastating than the fact that nobody...stood up against this, but remained passive and weak.'But "On The Other Side" is not a political book. Instead it is an evocation of daily life in Hamburg during the war years and immediately afterwards (the months after May 1945 make up a third of the book, partly because it was easier to write without the constant threat of bombing and partly because there was no danger in writing).
'If you want to know what it was like to be a civilian in wartime Germany you must read this marvellous book' wrote Timothy Garton Ash in the Spectator in 1979, going on to add: 'The letters document the terrible suffering caused to the German civil population by Allied bombing. It is difficult to read these pages without feeling that this kind of bombing was worse than a mistake' (the issues covered in the Afterword). However, this is not a harrowing book, it is gentle and domestic, human and humane - and Tilli did survive.
205 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
6 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
About the author
Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg
3 booksTilli Wolff-Mönckeberg was the daughter of a lawyer who later became Lord Mayor. (Oddly enough, Edith Henrietta Fowler’s father was Mayor of Wolverhampton and a cabinet minister.) Tilli was intelligent and well-educated but married very young and had five children. Unusually for the time, she and her husband separated during the First World War and Tilli returned to Hamburg, did some translating and took in lodgers. In 1925 she married a Professor of English who later became Rector of Hamburg University. Most of her children left Germany in the 1930s and during the Second World War, when she wrote the diary in the form of unposted letters that were later published as 'On The Other Side', she had only one married daughter left in Hamburg. She was cut off from the other two daughters and two sons who were in Sweden, England, South America and the USA.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 27, 2016
I was overwhelmed. This account was written by an anti-Nazi woman in Hamburg, in the form of letters to her children living overseas. For the six years that she kept this narrative, it was always hidden so that she could not be reported to the authorities.
This was so stark, and so difficult to read in places. Most valuable, I thought, was the indignation this anti-Nazi family felt (in a fairly anti-Nazi city) during the postwar occupation by the British at being painted with the same brush with the rest of Germany as Nazi criminals.
The conditions they suffered were SO much harsher than were detailed in "Few Eggs and no Oranges", the wartime diary by Vere Hodgson of London. I strongly recommend both. My favorite comparison: Vere Hodgson talks about attending the thanksgiving service in St. Paul's Cathedral celebrating the end of the war, and Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg talks about listening to the same service on the radio.
This was so stark, and so difficult to read in places. Most valuable, I thought, was the indignation this anti-Nazi family felt (in a fairly anti-Nazi city) during the postwar occupation by the British at being painted with the same brush with the rest of Germany as Nazi criminals.
The conditions they suffered were SO much harsher than were detailed in "Few Eggs and no Oranges", the wartime diary by Vere Hodgson of London. I strongly recommend both. My favorite comparison: Vere Hodgson talks about attending the thanksgiving service in St. Paul's Cathedral celebrating the end of the war, and Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg talks about listening to the same service on the radio.
January 10, 2021
My husband gave this to me for Christmas - well done!!! This diary was a very clear account of the 6 years of war endured by the civilians in Germany from the perspective of an upper middle class educated women in Hamburg. She writes, even early on, that she does not approve of Hitler and his regime so I suspect that helps me sympathize with her, relate to her etc. If she were writing about her experiences but also spouting Nazi propaganda I might have felt very differently about this book. I actually didn't realize how much of Germany was relentlessly bombed and destroyed - very similar to books I've read about the London Blitz. The German civilians also had very little food rations, electricity and fuel for heat were often nonexistent for long periods of time and they often had to share their home with family and friends and sometimes strangers who had no where else to go. I often read WW2 home front stories from the Allied perspective so it was interesting to read the German point of view.
February 12, 2020
It is notoriously difficult to rate/critique anything vaguely autobiographical; it’s someone’s life after all. But is any work impervious to criticism? One must admire Tilli’s perseverance and faith, but her writing lacks heart and authority.
As a historical document, even, I don’t feel as though On the Other Side holds much by way of value. It is certainly a comparatively privileged perspective of wartime Germany despite the undiscriminating nature of war. Some of the attitudes expressed I found frustrating, particularly Tilli’s concerns over what we might now dub as ‘First World Problems’, bugbears that were incredibly incongruous with the greater trials the Hamburg citizens had to face.
In terms of depicting wartime Germany etc., it is not a particularly insightful account. There are brief illusions to frontiers, Hitler and lack of fuel in the face of punishing winters whilst the rationing is treated more of an inconvenience than a pressing issue of potential starvation. Tilli is rightfully cautious about expressing both political dissent and details of hardships so as not to upset her children, but from a modern perspective, it’s gutting that there’s not more of a commentary to be found here. Towards the very end, there are brief vocalisations of national guilt, raising questions of the morality of Harris’s military strategy that feels more akin to a biblical punishment, an area still contentious to this day. For me, it was too little a bit too late.
The writing is unengaging in places and the tract becomes turgid and, at times, unfeeling. Even on an emotional level, much of Tilli’s anguish is lost on the reader, predominantly due to the deluge of names and her complicated family tree. Ultimately, I just feel this collection was lacking in something integral; emotion, detail, insight. A Woman in Berlin is a far more interesting, informative and powerful read.
As a historical document, even, I don’t feel as though On the Other Side holds much by way of value. It is certainly a comparatively privileged perspective of wartime Germany despite the undiscriminating nature of war. Some of the attitudes expressed I found frustrating, particularly Tilli’s concerns over what we might now dub as ‘First World Problems’, bugbears that were incredibly incongruous with the greater trials the Hamburg citizens had to face.
In terms of depicting wartime Germany etc., it is not a particularly insightful account. There are brief illusions to frontiers, Hitler and lack of fuel in the face of punishing winters whilst the rationing is treated more of an inconvenience than a pressing issue of potential starvation. Tilli is rightfully cautious about expressing both political dissent and details of hardships so as not to upset her children, but from a modern perspective, it’s gutting that there’s not more of a commentary to be found here. Towards the very end, there are brief vocalisations of national guilt, raising questions of the morality of Harris’s military strategy that feels more akin to a biblical punishment, an area still contentious to this day. For me, it was too little a bit too late.
The writing is unengaging in places and the tract becomes turgid and, at times, unfeeling. Even on an emotional level, much of Tilli’s anguish is lost on the reader, predominantly due to the deluge of names and her complicated family tree. Ultimately, I just feel this collection was lacking in something integral; emotion, detail, insight. A Woman in Berlin is a far more interesting, informative and powerful read.
March 5, 2025
What a dark, terrible story. I found it hard to read in places, but it felt right to finish. Thought-provoking.
June 22, 2024
Due to some coincidence I read this book along side Maman, What Are We Called Now? and that was an interesting experience, on which I already have related in my review of that book, because of the similarities and at the same time because of the differences between the two books.
On itself On the Other Side was, of course, also an interesting read. Being a Dutch national and knowing a bit about the (similar) Belgian war experience formed my perspective on WW II and it was in a way weird to read "our army" as being the German army. The German army wasn't "them", the Germans not "them", but "us". Then I realised that I had rarely read war books from a occupier perspective, instead of the occupied one. At first "we" were winning and later on "we" were losing, instead of the other way around. It struck me how naïve my own perspective was, in somehow subconsciously presuming that was the only perspective, THE perspective. When it was actually just that, a perspective, and nothing more.
At the same time, with quarantaine going on, there were some unexpected moments in the Wolff-Mönckeberg's live at the time, which resonated with our lives these days. Not being able to just go out and enter a shop; mostly being at home instead of going out and about; having to be careful when you go out and take precautions for your own safety (this is a stretch, I know germs don't compare to bombings) and not being able to see friends and family as much as in a normal life. It is not at all the same, the experience is nothing like living in Hamburg at a time of frequent bombings, I am aware that I am stretching the similarities here. I know that within less than a year I will be able to visit all the people I want to visit, including the ones living abroad from where I am. But it was compelling to read about someone who had an experience, alike, but worse, to what we are going through today.
Do buy books at Persephone Books. They will have a hard time when Brexit strikes.
On itself On the Other Side was, of course, also an interesting read. Being a Dutch national and knowing a bit about the (similar) Belgian war experience formed my perspective on WW II and it was in a way weird to read "our army" as being the German army. The German army wasn't "them", the Germans not "them", but "us". Then I realised that I had rarely read war books from a occupier perspective, instead of the occupied one. At first "we" were winning and later on "we" were losing, instead of the other way around. It struck me how naïve my own perspective was, in somehow subconsciously presuming that was the only perspective, THE perspective. When it was actually just that, a perspective, and nothing more.
At the same time, with quarantaine going on, there were some unexpected moments in the Wolff-Mönckeberg's live at the time, which resonated with our lives these days. Not being able to just go out and enter a shop; mostly being at home instead of going out and about; having to be careful when you go out and take precautions for your own safety (this is a stretch, I know germs don't compare to bombings) and not being able to see friends and family as much as in a normal life. It is not at all the same, the experience is nothing like living in Hamburg at a time of frequent bombings, I am aware that I am stretching the similarities here. I know that within less than a year I will be able to visit all the people I want to visit, including the ones living abroad from where I am. But it was compelling to read about someone who had an experience, alike, but worse, to what we are going through today.
Do buy books at Persephone Books. They will have a hard time when Brexit strikes.
February 16, 2010
This is the collection of unsent letters that Hamburg native, 'Tilli' Wolff-Monckeberg, wrote to her adult children during WWII. The letters bring home the incredible bombing destruction that civilian Germans endured, along with the severe food and fuel shortages. From the outset, it is clear that Tilli and her husband, Wolff, are not Nazi supporters. They reminded me of Anton and his family from Summer Of My German Soldier. A line in the afterword: "a number of Germans had also had to face the dilemma of an almost schizophrenic split between love for their homeland and disgust with its rulers...."
That said, I would have liked to have learned more about the sentiments of, say, Tilli's neighbors and her maid. Tilli barely touched that subject, but she was rightfully concerned about the discovery of these letters and had to censor most political comments from her writings.
Wolff was an intellectual powerhouse and kind & generous man. I would have liked to have met him - or at least had the chance to listen to him reading aloud a Dorothy Sayers mystery.
What made Tilli shine was her fierce, deep love for her children and grandchildren (some of whom she had not yet met). It was her love, worry, and yearning for her children that endeared her to me.
One tip: I often save prefaces until the end of the book, but this is one that you'll want to read beforehand, in order to get a brief bio of Tilli and her family.
That said, I would have liked to have learned more about the sentiments of, say, Tilli's neighbors and her maid. Tilli barely touched that subject, but she was rightfully concerned about the discovery of these letters and had to censor most political comments from her writings.
Wolff was an intellectual powerhouse and kind & generous man. I would have liked to have met him - or at least had the chance to listen to him reading aloud a Dorothy Sayers mystery.
What made Tilli shine was her fierce, deep love for her children and grandchildren (some of whom she had not yet met). It was her love, worry, and yearning for her children that endeared her to me.
One tip: I often save prefaces until the end of the book, but this is one that you'll want to read beforehand, in order to get a brief bio of Tilli and her family.
March 11, 2009
really a series of letters written by a German woman living in Hamburg during WWII to her children, who were scattered all over the world. The letters were never sent, and were discovered after her death in her basement. It fascinating for a number of reasons. It’s not surprising that life was very difficult in a city regularly bombed over the course of years. That’s compelling. But she’s also sort of an interesting person anyway — I’m always interested in the way people set their lives up, and the relationships of people with their husbands and their children. She lived a sort of unusual life to begin with — the daughter of the mayor of Hamburg, she studied in Italy where she met and married a Dutch graduate student, had five kids, and then separated from him, moved back to Hamburg and lived on her own with her children. It’s interesting to try to figure out what sort of person she was based on just these few letters.
Also, the thing with Persephone books is that they have the most lovely endpapers with a matching bookmark. I wasn’t sure I liked this one to start with (it’s a reproduction of an orange and black wall hanging by Anni Albers) but I’m really liking it now. I especially like how the bookmark looks sticking out of the grey book. This seems ridiculous, but subtly pleasing, and makes me enjoy carrying the book around.
Also, the thing with Persephone books is that they have the most lovely endpapers with a matching bookmark. I wasn’t sure I liked this one to start with (it’s a reproduction of an orange and black wall hanging by Anni Albers) but I’m really liking it now. I especially like how the bookmark looks sticking out of the grey book. This seems ridiculous, but subtly pleasing, and makes me enjoy carrying the book around.
April 23, 2016
Incredible account of life in Hamburg during WWII.
February 2, 2017
Fascinating and sobering to find out about WW2 from a German perspective.
September 4, 2025
I’ve never heard what it was like to live in Germany for a non-Jew in WW11 and it was super interesting. Lots I didn’t know. At first I didn’t particularly love the narrative voice and found the constant referencing of obscure family members tough, but eventually I got into it and it was brilliant. The fundamental truth of it was that Hitler was a lunatic and everybody lost, this writer understood that and had to take hardship after hardship on the chin whilst those around her suffered much worse fates. Well worth a read.
March 9, 2021
An interesting and worthwhile read. I really liked that the book includes a short biography of Mathilde at the start and a "what happened next" at the end written by her daughter who also translated the letters. The inclusion of these really made the book work, it was a seamless transition to the letters and out at the end. If it had been just the letters it wouldn't have been half as good.
As to the letters themselves they were a bit distant, probably because of the danger of having them found but as the war came closer to the end and afterwards they became more vivid and outspoken.
The views she expressed within them are hard to 'judge' after all this is someone's feelings someone's lived experience they can hardly be 'wrong' we also have the benefit of hindsight. I was feeling a bit frustrated towards the middle of the letters as she seemed to only talk about trivial things repeatedly with no reference to the bigger picture. But this could have been of fear of having this written record found. In the second half of the letters I was glad I persevered, it was at the very end of the war and the following year, she became introspective and it wasn't clean cut. She never supported the Nazi Party or liked them... but she did have pride and love for her country. She couldn't seem to grasp just what her country had done and wondered why others got preferential treatment. That others, including the victors (British in her area) had also suffered with bombs and rationing etc. This is why I like reading memoirs, biographies, non-fiction. The truth is hard to grasp and is not black and white, good and bad, it's a bit of everything and very hard to understand.
As to the letters themselves they were a bit distant, probably because of the danger of having them found but as the war came closer to the end and afterwards they became more vivid and outspoken.
The views she expressed within them are hard to 'judge' after all this is someone's feelings someone's lived experience they can hardly be 'wrong' we also have the benefit of hindsight. I was feeling a bit frustrated towards the middle of the letters as she seemed to only talk about trivial things repeatedly with no reference to the bigger picture. But this could have been of fear of having this written record found. In the second half of the letters I was glad I persevered, it was at the very end of the war and the following year, she became introspective and it wasn't clean cut. She never supported the Nazi Party or liked them... but she did have pride and love for her country. She couldn't seem to grasp just what her country had done and wondered why others got preferential treatment. That others, including the victors (British in her area) had also suffered with bombs and rationing etc. This is why I like reading memoirs, biographies, non-fiction. The truth is hard to grasp and is not black and white, good and bad, it's a bit of everything and very hard to understand.
April 13, 2012
Most accounts of World War II seem to focus on the battles and combatants. In this letter diary, a German mother, separated from her children in England, Sweden, South America and the U.S. by the war, writes of her and her husband's life in Hamburg -- bombings, rationing, losses of family and friends, the everyday struggles of day to day life. I read this book as a pairing with a book I read last year, Few Eggs and No Oranges, extracts from a British diary of daily life in London during the same period. Together they make a universal noncombatants' indirect, powerful argument against war. I kept thinking of noncombatants in Iraq, Somalia, and other contemporary war zones as I read this hook.
"1 June 1945 Soon it will be the longest day. But one cannot really make the most of these long evenings, the general mood being one of depression. Mistakenly it was assumed that everything would be better and easier once the war was over, and now it is almost as if the very opposite had happened. Daily life is fraught with small and very small difficulties, and the really major ones are almost overlooked. The main reason is tiredness; it is more obvious now what havoc the past years have played with people, how they have just given up. Standing in queues from morning to night for a tiny cabbage or lettuce; the uncertainty of cooking facilities, of finding fuel, since there is no gas, and electricity is rationed; the huge question 'What shall we eat'; the other, equally important question 'How shall we wash our dirty linen'"
"1 June 1945 Soon it will be the longest day. But one cannot really make the most of these long evenings, the general mood being one of depression. Mistakenly it was assumed that everything would be better and easier once the war was over, and now it is almost as if the very opposite had happened. Daily life is fraught with small and very small difficulties, and the really major ones are almost overlooked. The main reason is tiredness; it is more obvious now what havoc the past years have played with people, how they have just given up. Standing in queues from morning to night for a tiny cabbage or lettuce; the uncertainty of cooking facilities, of finding fuel, since there is no gas, and electricity is rationed; the huge question 'What shall we eat'; the other, equally important question 'How shall we wash our dirty linen'"
January 21, 2022
Since I had a copy of “On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46” by Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg, I decided now was the time to read it. Her children were in the Netherlands, Wales, South America and Chicago. Thus she was unable to send or receive mail for most of this period. She wrote to tell them what was happening to family, friends, the city of Hamburg etc. At various points, especially in her later letters, she recognizes how lucky she is that her apt. building was damaged but their place has been habitable all through the war, despite lack of water/heat/electricity at different times. Many of their valuables, home goods etc are stored in the basement and are still there at the end of the war. They often seem to have more food than others etc. Hamburg was a liberal, anti-Hitler city but this couple did not do any active resistance that might have gotten them killed. Her daughter from Wales comes home in 1946 for a visit and writes the afterward about what she saw and experience. There is an especially valuable publisher’s afterward that mentions a number of books that look at German people’s acceptance of Nazism and how Germany coped/changed/responded after the war. All of them sound worth reading. The beautiful endpapers and bookmark (a Persephone trademark) are by Anni Albers. This book is an excellent companion piece to “Few Eggs and No Oranges,” another Persephone book I read, that covers the same period and similar events in London.
July 13, 2009
Persephone Book No. 75, On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg, are letters written (but never posted) by a 60 year-old woman, to her children living abroad, about the experience of living in Hamburg during the war. Discovered in a drawer in the 1970s, they were translated by her daughter, the late Ruth Evans, and first published in England and Germany in 1979.
The first thing that came to mind while I was reading these letters, was how easily "Tilli" could have been writing about Britain. The shortages, the cold, the bombings and shelters were as dreadful for ordinary people in Germany as they were for the people suffering in Britain. It was intersting to hear all of this from a Germam perspective. "Tilli" was no supporter of Hitler - quite the reverse, and I think it is easy to forget that there must have been many thousands of people who detested everything he, and the Nazi party stood for. What comes out strongly in these letters however is "Tilli's" love for her family, her children, her sisters, her husband, and numerous other people we hear about in her wonderfully lively letters.
The first thing that came to mind while I was reading these letters, was how easily "Tilli" could have been writing about Britain. The shortages, the cold, the bombings and shelters were as dreadful for ordinary people in Germany as they were for the people suffering in Britain. It was intersting to hear all of this from a Germam perspective. "Tilli" was no supporter of Hitler - quite the reverse, and I think it is easy to forget that there must have been many thousands of people who detested everything he, and the Nazi party stood for. What comes out strongly in these letters however is "Tilli's" love for her family, her children, her sisters, her husband, and numerous other people we hear about in her wonderfully lively letters.
November 2, 2023
As a piece of social history, this is a remarkable collection of letters that details life in Hamburg from 1939 to 1946.
The letters were discovered by the authors daughter in the 1970s after the death of 'Tilli' .She wrote them at the point that communication with her children , many of whom had managed to leave the country before the war.
The letters describe how, from the vainglorious early years of the Nazi regime, the gradual change of fortune of war impacts the civilians of the city. Hunger and fear as the blanket bombing of the city destroys home and hope is vividly described. The story also touches on the rarely described negative feelings of some Germans to Hitler and the Nazis, which seems prevalent in Hamburg.
The book was a difficult read particularly as the news is dominated by images of war and the destruction of cities and homes. It is depressing to see that nearly 80 years on little has changed.
The afterword gives a fascinating consideration of the morality of the blanket bombing strategy.
Another excellent publication from persephone.
The letters were discovered by the authors daughter in the 1970s after the death of 'Tilli' .She wrote them at the point that communication with her children , many of whom had managed to leave the country before the war.
The letters describe how, from the vainglorious early years of the Nazi regime, the gradual change of fortune of war impacts the civilians of the city. Hunger and fear as the blanket bombing of the city destroys home and hope is vividly described. The story also touches on the rarely described negative feelings of some Germans to Hitler and the Nazis, which seems prevalent in Hamburg.
The book was a difficult read particularly as the news is dominated by images of war and the destruction of cities and homes. It is depressing to see that nearly 80 years on little has changed.
The afterword gives a fascinating consideration of the morality of the blanket bombing strategy.
Another excellent publication from persephone.
May 28, 2012
A fascinating book consisting of letters, never sent, written by a woman living in Hamburg during World War II, to her children living abroad (Wales, Chicago, Switzerland, and I think Australia). She herself was anti-Nazi and her husband, a professor, was an Anglophile and liberal. The letters speak of the various hardships of wartime, the terrible bombing of Hamburg, the suicide of two elderly Jewish friends. It is abundantly clear that Wolff-Monckeberg, in her 60s, misses her children greatly--only one of her children remains in Germany--and longs for word of them, but this is nearly impossible during the war. She writes to them, and stashes the letters away, letters which were not discovered until the 1970s.
There are many remarkable passages in the book, and of particular interest to me were her discourses on collective guilt.
There are many remarkable passages in the book, and of particular interest to me were her discourses on collective guilt.
November 3, 2013
I think this should be required reading for anyone who (like me) enjoys cosy, self-congratulatory British World War II stories.
Tilli Wolff-Monckeberg and her second husband, plus one married daughter, lived in Hamburg during the Second World War while her other four children lived overseas in Allied or neutral countries (South America, USA, Wales, Sweden). She was sometimes able to send and receive letters through the daughter in neutral Sweden but they were strictly censored, so in spite of the danger she kept a kind of diary where she wrote the letters that she would have sent them if she could. Meanwhile she lived through the near-starvation of German citizens towards the end of the war and the devastating fire-bombing of Hamburg by the British.
While not supporting Hitler by any means, this shakes you out of the "anything the Allies did was right" frame of mind.
Tilli Wolff-Monckeberg and her second husband, plus one married daughter, lived in Hamburg during the Second World War while her other four children lived overseas in Allied or neutral countries (South America, USA, Wales, Sweden). She was sometimes able to send and receive letters through the daughter in neutral Sweden but they were strictly censored, so in spite of the danger she kept a kind of diary where she wrote the letters that she would have sent them if she could. Meanwhile she lived through the near-starvation of German citizens towards the end of the war and the devastating fire-bombing of Hamburg by the British.
While not supporting Hitler by any means, this shakes you out of the "anything the Allies did was right" frame of mind.
May 23, 2022
Life in One of the Worst-bombed German Cities
This is a surprisingly antiseptic account of one civilian diarist’s experience in Hamburg, Germany, during World War II.
Mathilde Wolff-Mockenberg, known as “Tillie,” was from a prominent Hamburg family and was married to a professor at Hamburg University. From 1940 to 1946 she wrote a series of contemporary “letters” about life in one of the worst-bombed German cities.
These were intended eventually to be shared with her children who, when war broke out, were living in Sweden, the U.S., and Wales. But they were never mailed as they couldn’t be sent during wartime. Filed away, this trove was discovered after Tillie’s death in 1974 by her daughter, Ruth Evans, who translated them to English and collected them in this book.
The civilian death toll in Hamburg was horrendous. “Operation Gomorrah,” the aptly named air campaign by the British, generated the first “fire storm” (later duplicated in America’s air war over Japan). A fire storm from bombing the night of July 27, 1943, killed perhaps 43,000 civilians and destroyed housing for 450,000. While that was the city’s worst single bombing raid, Hamburg suffered attacks night after night and, later in the war, during daylight hours as well.
(On the night of this terrible raid, Tillie and her husband were staying with a friend in Westphalia, we learn from a footnote.)
Not knowing Hamburg neighborhoods, it would have been helpful to have a map of the area in which Tillie and her husband lived. Seemingly it was upper middle class and it could not have been in the part of Hamburg that suffered nearly total destruction. Although their house sustained broken windows and other damage, it remained structurally sound and the author and her husband were fortunate to be able to live there throughout the war and thereafter. Other homes in the neighborhood were destroyed, it seems, but we get no overall description from Tillie’s writings.
Most of her accounts about daily life are rather mundane, given the drama all around Tillie, her husband Wolff, and her loyal housekeeper. In the preface, daughter Ruth says that the reason Tillie hid her writings was that she was afraid of what might happen should they fall into the hands of local Nazis. But there is hardly a reference to the government and none to the Nazi party until after Hitler has taken his own life. Only then does Tillie write about her contempt for Hitler’s surviving henchmen.
(Tillie’s husband, as a university professor, refused to join the Nazi party which likely took courage, but both husband and wife kept their heads down, as did so many in Germany at the time.)
Most of the author’s accounts deal with food rationing, which kept getting reduced as the war proceeded, and the incessant air raids which required frequent trips to the bomb shelter. The author describes her fear as the sound of approaching aircraft is followed by the sound of falling bombs. As the winter of 1944-1945 approaches, the lack of fuel for cooking and heat becomes more and more of a concern. Husband Wolff has health problems related to his age. But surprisingly he seems to have no difficulty being admitted to hospital, possibly because of his class and professional standing. One assumes that due to civilian and military casualties the hospitals would have been overwhelmed, and strings may have been pulled to arrange for such care. But there is no reference to this in Tillie’s accounts.
As Canadian troops occupied Hamburg at the end of the war, availability of food and fuel became even worse than before. One assumes that the German civil administration, even in its final days, was able to function to a limited degree. With the purging of Nazis, it took the occupying forces time to set up new administrative services. Distribution of necessities, for a period, became even worse for the people of Hamburg.
Consequently, Tillie shows greater resentment toward the Canadian occupiers than she had expressed about the Nazi administration during the war! This while Canadian soldiers began to drop off food parcels for the family and to act as a conduit for letters to and from her overseas children (officially forbidden). I suppose the reader gets insight into one woman’s thinking at the time, which may have been shared by others in Hamburg. After all, they had been bombed by aircraft for about four years. Tillie and her neighbors in the British sector seem to be treated well, compared to how civilians were treated when the Nazis occupied territory, even in Western countries such as France and Holland. And the suffering of German civilians in the Soviet zone of occupation was horrible by contrast (a fact that Tillie does acknowledge).
The “Epilogue” in the book, written by daughter Ruth, has a writing style that is descriptive and emotional — and stands in sharp contrast to Tillie’s writing. Travel in 1946 was still very restricted, but Ruth, who had spent the war in Wales with her Welsh husband, was able to enter Hamburg as a war correspondent. She met Tillie dressed in British military uniform. Ruth was shocked by the destruction to Hamburg, a city she had known as a child. She writes movingly about the terrible living conditions for the people of Hamburg and the psychological damage suffered by the war’s survivors. And this is some 18 months after the war’s end. One wishes that Ruth had written the entire book, perhaps informed by the notes her mother left behind.
Author Tillie fails to convey the feeling that “you are there” in a German city in which civilians suffered so much during the war. This is unfortunate as it is no longer possible to talk to those who lived through those days. And younger generations should learn about the cruelty of war and the suffering of innocent civilians. Other books likely offer greater insight.
This is a surprisingly antiseptic account of one civilian diarist’s experience in Hamburg, Germany, during World War II.
Mathilde Wolff-Mockenberg, known as “Tillie,” was from a prominent Hamburg family and was married to a professor at Hamburg University. From 1940 to 1946 she wrote a series of contemporary “letters” about life in one of the worst-bombed German cities.
These were intended eventually to be shared with her children who, when war broke out, were living in Sweden, the U.S., and Wales. But they were never mailed as they couldn’t be sent during wartime. Filed away, this trove was discovered after Tillie’s death in 1974 by her daughter, Ruth Evans, who translated them to English and collected them in this book.
The civilian death toll in Hamburg was horrendous. “Operation Gomorrah,” the aptly named air campaign by the British, generated the first “fire storm” (later duplicated in America’s air war over Japan). A fire storm from bombing the night of July 27, 1943, killed perhaps 43,000 civilians and destroyed housing for 450,000. While that was the city’s worst single bombing raid, Hamburg suffered attacks night after night and, later in the war, during daylight hours as well.
(On the night of this terrible raid, Tillie and her husband were staying with a friend in Westphalia, we learn from a footnote.)
Not knowing Hamburg neighborhoods, it would have been helpful to have a map of the area in which Tillie and her husband lived. Seemingly it was upper middle class and it could not have been in the part of Hamburg that suffered nearly total destruction. Although their house sustained broken windows and other damage, it remained structurally sound and the author and her husband were fortunate to be able to live there throughout the war and thereafter. Other homes in the neighborhood were destroyed, it seems, but we get no overall description from Tillie’s writings.
Most of her accounts about daily life are rather mundane, given the drama all around Tillie, her husband Wolff, and her loyal housekeeper. In the preface, daughter Ruth says that the reason Tillie hid her writings was that she was afraid of what might happen should they fall into the hands of local Nazis. But there is hardly a reference to the government and none to the Nazi party until after Hitler has taken his own life. Only then does Tillie write about her contempt for Hitler’s surviving henchmen.
(Tillie’s husband, as a university professor, refused to join the Nazi party which likely took courage, but both husband and wife kept their heads down, as did so many in Germany at the time.)
Most of the author’s accounts deal with food rationing, which kept getting reduced as the war proceeded, and the incessant air raids which required frequent trips to the bomb shelter. The author describes her fear as the sound of approaching aircraft is followed by the sound of falling bombs. As the winter of 1944-1945 approaches, the lack of fuel for cooking and heat becomes more and more of a concern. Husband Wolff has health problems related to his age. But surprisingly he seems to have no difficulty being admitted to hospital, possibly because of his class and professional standing. One assumes that due to civilian and military casualties the hospitals would have been overwhelmed, and strings may have been pulled to arrange for such care. But there is no reference to this in Tillie’s accounts.
As Canadian troops occupied Hamburg at the end of the war, availability of food and fuel became even worse than before. One assumes that the German civil administration, even in its final days, was able to function to a limited degree. With the purging of Nazis, it took the occupying forces time to set up new administrative services. Distribution of necessities, for a period, became even worse for the people of Hamburg.
Consequently, Tillie shows greater resentment toward the Canadian occupiers than she had expressed about the Nazi administration during the war! This while Canadian soldiers began to drop off food parcels for the family and to act as a conduit for letters to and from her overseas children (officially forbidden). I suppose the reader gets insight into one woman’s thinking at the time, which may have been shared by others in Hamburg. After all, they had been bombed by aircraft for about four years. Tillie and her neighbors in the British sector seem to be treated well, compared to how civilians were treated when the Nazis occupied territory, even in Western countries such as France and Holland. And the suffering of German civilians in the Soviet zone of occupation was horrible by contrast (a fact that Tillie does acknowledge).
The “Epilogue” in the book, written by daughter Ruth, has a writing style that is descriptive and emotional — and stands in sharp contrast to Tillie’s writing. Travel in 1946 was still very restricted, but Ruth, who had spent the war in Wales with her Welsh husband, was able to enter Hamburg as a war correspondent. She met Tillie dressed in British military uniform. Ruth was shocked by the destruction to Hamburg, a city she had known as a child. She writes movingly about the terrible living conditions for the people of Hamburg and the psychological damage suffered by the war’s survivors. And this is some 18 months after the war’s end. One wishes that Ruth had written the entire book, perhaps informed by the notes her mother left behind.
Author Tillie fails to convey the feeling that “you are there” in a German city in which civilians suffered so much during the war. This is unfortunate as it is no longer possible to talk to those who lived through those days. And younger generations should learn about the cruelty of war and the suffering of innocent civilians. Other books likely offer greater insight.
May 11, 2022
I must admit that this book sat on my nightstand for several years after my daughter gave it to me. Perhaps I just didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t start it enthusiastically. I”m glad that my hesitancy was misplaced as it was really fascinating and eye-opening to read these letters written from the perspective of a well-off older German woman who dared to put into writing how she disagreed with the Nazis.
February 24, 2023
This was an interesting, and seldom-seen, journal of the years of World War Two in the eyes of a middle-aged German woman in Hamburg--including the privations, death, and horror of the war. It mainly focused on her family members, many of whom had fled abroad, but there was little mention of any understanding of why left Germany, or of the Shoah or institutionalized murder of Roma and Sinti, the disabled, and other minority groups, nor the persecution of those opposed to the regime.
January 31, 2025
One of the best WW2 memoirs I’ve read- this one from the perspective of a ‘normal’ German, living in Hamburg. Her experiences are personal- there is some, not much commentary on the political currents- much focus on the deprivations experienced through the war. She was a good writer, descriptive. I felt this book. Given the current political climate I’m living in, it’s a word of caution in a way for me.
February 2, 2008
Deeply moving account of everyday life in Germany during World War II, most particularly the bombing of Hamburg, in a series of letters written (but never sent) by a mother to her children living abroad. We tend to forget that life for the average German in those times was just as appalling as it was in countries occupied by Germany. A truly illuminating read, one I won't soon forget.
May 26, 2018
What a fascinating account of life in Germany during the Second World War. Beautifully written, heartbreaking and insightful, the letters written by Tilly give a glimpse into the every day struggle of living in Hamburg during the war. I'm so glad I chose this book while visiting Persephone Books in London, would definitely recommend.
April 28, 2016
Very interesting to read about WWII from a different perspective. We don't normally think what about what it must have been like for the German citizens who were anti-Nazi and anti-war. Eye-opening for me to learn that they suffered a lot themselves.
April 14, 2011
just finished this book,its really good,insightful,informative,it should be still in the shops,certainly available to school children learning about the war.
October 1, 2018
This was a really revealing insight into life in Germany during WW2. I hadn't given much thought to this before, so I found it quite eye-opening. A good read.
February 25, 2020
All of my Persephone books are treasures! I deeply appreciate the variety of perspectives that I have been exposed to in reading primary source documents from WWII. Thank you for this one.
March 28, 2025
Another winner from Persephone Books. A re-issue of a collection of letters written during World War II from a mother living in Germany under the rule of Adolph Hitler to her children who lived in different parts of the world...letters that she never sent.
She never sent the letters because letters were intercepted in the war and scrutinized by government officials to ensure nothing inappropriate was said or any secrets leaked that the enemies of the German state could pick up. Mathilde’s letters probably revealed very little in information that could be used by the Allies, but some of her letters were not at all complimentary to Adolph Hitler and his minions. Her first entry was in 1940 and her last entry was in 1946. One of her daughters, after Mathilde had died, was going through her mother’s belongings and found a folder contain a bunch of letters...these letters that formed the book. So it is not clear to me whether Mathilde wanted her children to see these letters after all....and I wonder what she would think if she knew her letters were published in a volume. I am glad...because I found them to be interesting and I learned from them.
Mathilde’s letters told of everyday life during the war where she lived in Germany. Very rough times. Rationing of food (and of course this happened in England too) and electricity and almost everything else imaginable. Plus England and the other Allies bombed the city they were living in, almost obliterating it. During one 6-day period in July 1943, the Allies dropped over ten thousand tons of bombs that, in a firestorm, killed over 40,000 civilians (and some estimates placed it at over 50,000), and I learned in an Afterword by Christopher Beauman in 2007 that there is some evidence that the bombing was purposively directed not at military targets but specifically at the civilian population.
Within the last year, I read a memoir by Nella Smith, an Englishwomen, and she wrote what her day-to-day life consisted of during World War II. There were similarities between the two women’s experiences. What was unique about Mathilde’s letters was that I got a perspective of World War II from the ‘enemy’s side’...from the side of a German civilian whose leader was an evil man who did evil things. I guess the one thing I learned (and should have known) was that many Germans hated Hitler but were scared to speak up, because by the time that they had grown to hate him, he was no longer somebody to laugh at but somebody to fear. If one spoke up against the government during World War II and the evil deeds they were doing in exterminating the Jewish population in every country they took over, woe be unto you and your family.
I wrote down lots of sentences/passages in the book while reading...here are several of them that struck me for one reason or another:
Anyway, here are some things that I jotted down from reading this book that struck me for one reason or another:
• I wonder if your children and your children’s children will one day be interested in reading all this?
• ...and all this (utter destructions) because of one man who had a lunatic vision of being “chosen by God”. May he and his followers be caught in just retribution.
• Mathilde reflecting on why the English do not trust the people they have recently vanquished (the Germans): There is indeed sufficient reason to mistrust all of us (Germans), as the other nations do, since Germany tolerated Hitler, their most bitter and hated Enemy.
• Mathilde in 1945 or 1946 is talking with a British naval officer who is one of the occupiers of her city, Hamburg....I told him that the English people were mistaken in their opinion that all Germans were Nazis, that we were all collectively responsible for our present dilemma and had to do penance for the Nazi Government. I tried to explain our personal opinion. We hated the regime from the very beginning, abhorred it more day by day. But it was totally impossible to form an opposition, spied upon as we were from all sides, telephone conversations listened in to, people standing behind us and alongside us listening and denouncing. It would have cost us our lives, or we should have ended up in concentration camps. ...We could do no more. Personally I have never given the Hitler salute and when I was supposed to be I murmured something else. I think we should have been prepared to commit murder to get rid of that scoundrel. The past six years were a period of unadulterated suffering and torture and increasing slavery. And now our ardently longed-for deliverance means only that we are despised and hated, objects of contempt, and have to face further starvation.
Reviews:
• https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
• https://thecaptivereader.com/2014/06/...
• https://fleurfisher.wordpress.com/200...
She never sent the letters because letters were intercepted in the war and scrutinized by government officials to ensure nothing inappropriate was said or any secrets leaked that the enemies of the German state could pick up. Mathilde’s letters probably revealed very little in information that could be used by the Allies, but some of her letters were not at all complimentary to Adolph Hitler and his minions. Her first entry was in 1940 and her last entry was in 1946. One of her daughters, after Mathilde had died, was going through her mother’s belongings and found a folder contain a bunch of letters...these letters that formed the book. So it is not clear to me whether Mathilde wanted her children to see these letters after all....and I wonder what she would think if she knew her letters were published in a volume. I am glad...because I found them to be interesting and I learned from them.
Mathilde’s letters told of everyday life during the war where she lived in Germany. Very rough times. Rationing of food (and of course this happened in England too) and electricity and almost everything else imaginable. Plus England and the other Allies bombed the city they were living in, almost obliterating it. During one 6-day period in July 1943, the Allies dropped over ten thousand tons of bombs that, in a firestorm, killed over 40,000 civilians (and some estimates placed it at over 50,000), and I learned in an Afterword by Christopher Beauman in 2007 that there is some evidence that the bombing was purposively directed not at military targets but specifically at the civilian population.
Within the last year, I read a memoir by Nella Smith, an Englishwomen, and she wrote what her day-to-day life consisted of during World War II. There were similarities between the two women’s experiences. What was unique about Mathilde’s letters was that I got a perspective of World War II from the ‘enemy’s side’...from the side of a German civilian whose leader was an evil man who did evil things. I guess the one thing I learned (and should have known) was that many Germans hated Hitler but were scared to speak up, because by the time that they had grown to hate him, he was no longer somebody to laugh at but somebody to fear. If one spoke up against the government during World War II and the evil deeds they were doing in exterminating the Jewish population in every country they took over, woe be unto you and your family.
I wrote down lots of sentences/passages in the book while reading...here are several of them that struck me for one reason or another:
Anyway, here are some things that I jotted down from reading this book that struck me for one reason or another:
• I wonder if your children and your children’s children will one day be interested in reading all this?
• ...and all this (utter destructions) because of one man who had a lunatic vision of being “chosen by God”. May he and his followers be caught in just retribution.
• Mathilde reflecting on why the English do not trust the people they have recently vanquished (the Germans): There is indeed sufficient reason to mistrust all of us (Germans), as the other nations do, since Germany tolerated Hitler, their most bitter and hated Enemy.
• Mathilde in 1945 or 1946 is talking with a British naval officer who is one of the occupiers of her city, Hamburg....I told him that the English people were mistaken in their opinion that all Germans were Nazis, that we were all collectively responsible for our present dilemma and had to do penance for the Nazi Government. I tried to explain our personal opinion. We hated the regime from the very beginning, abhorred it more day by day. But it was totally impossible to form an opposition, spied upon as we were from all sides, telephone conversations listened in to, people standing behind us and alongside us listening and denouncing. It would have cost us our lives, or we should have ended up in concentration camps. ...We could do no more. Personally I have never given the Hitler salute and when I was supposed to be I murmured something else. I think we should have been prepared to commit murder to get rid of that scoundrel. The past six years were a period of unadulterated suffering and torture and increasing slavery. And now our ardently longed-for deliverance means only that we are despised and hated, objects of contempt, and have to face further starvation.
Reviews:
• https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
• https://thecaptivereader.com/2014/06/...
• https://fleurfisher.wordpress.com/200...
June 12, 2025
Today I’m reviewing another Persephone title–a book of never-sent-letters written by a German mother to her children in South America, the United States and Wales, during World War II.
Today we know this time period as one of unprecedented evil in Germany. But what was life life for those just trying to live their lives then? This book tells a lot of that–at least for a prosperous, well-educated couple in Hamburg where Nazi support was never as great as it was in other parts of Germany.
The Story
“When one recalls Hitler’s flaming victory speeches, his prophecies and inflated promises that all would be well in the end, one can only regard our present situation as the quintessence of irony in the whole history of the world. It serves him right.”
“Berlin’s fate is sealed…. Our emotions are very divided. On the one hand there is satisfaction that retribution has caught up with our hated oppressors, that they will have to face punishment for all the unspeakable damage they have caused, for their diabolic machinations and their false triumphant boasts about their enemies….”
There is no way I will do this book justice. My review is just scribbles compared to this amazing record by one woman.
Mathilde “Tillie” Wolff-Monckerberg, a very well-educated woman living in Hamburg with her second husband, a well-know and very respected academic. Her children, all by her first husband, are grown and scattered. She and “W”–her second husband, endure the war in Hamburg. These letters tell what she could not say during the way due to censorship, not to mention the inability to correspond with some of her children who lived abroad. “W” never joined the Nazi party–we are not told if Tillie did, but it seems doubtful.. One of Tillie’s daughters was married to a Jewish man and they lived initially in Denmark, but fled to Sweden when war broke out and survived. Another daughter was a doctor and lived, initially, nearby. A third daughter lived in Wales with her Welsh husband. Her son was in South America and had married there.
“W” suffered as the occupation began. He admired the British so much, but they blamed ALL Germans for the Concentration Camps and “W” had never even been a party member. TIllie understood there was no way to absolve anyone and that to take charge the British had to do that. Eventually, “W” resumed his good thoughts on the UK and even resumed scholarly relationships there.
My Thoughts
I could not put this book down. It is rare today that I am unable to stop reading a print book. This was so well-written and so interesting. Most memorably I just happened to read about D-Day in the book on June 6. I thought of my grandfather, going ashore with his truck. I loved the snide comments about the worthless media–the Fox News and White House Press Secretary Reports of their day, and of their ridiculous leaders–even El Duce merits a mention as an “inflated buffoon“–sounds like someone we hear from a lot today. The hero woship was long over in Hamburg–even for those who might once have believed. Tillie and W were not party people–no love of Hitler and the destruction of all that was good and moral and fine.
Early in the book, Tillie wrote fully about how the Jewsish people were being treated. Near the end she tells of a ship sunk that was full of people being moved to another camp–their ship was sunk but some still made it to shore and survived. It is hard to imagine people barely alive summoning the will to swim to shore in very cold water, but some made it. Sadly, some died in the hospital from eating the food they were given. Their bodies could not digest it after the years of starvation.
It is easy to get sucked in and see only how hard Tillie and W and their neighbors had it. Yes, it was truly hard–no question. But compared to the slave laborers in the camps who were worked until they died, barely fed, barely clothed, no medicine?
Blogger Stuck in a Book also reviewed this book several years ago. Why not read his review too and surprise him with a nice comment? He very rightly suggests reading Nella Last’s War(the wartime diary of an English housewife) along with this book. I completely agree.
My Verdict
5.0
A Very Rare Rating for me
Today we know this time period as one of unprecedented evil in Germany. But what was life life for those just trying to live their lives then? This book tells a lot of that–at least for a prosperous, well-educated couple in Hamburg where Nazi support was never as great as it was in other parts of Germany.
The Story
“When one recalls Hitler’s flaming victory speeches, his prophecies and inflated promises that all would be well in the end, one can only regard our present situation as the quintessence of irony in the whole history of the world. It serves him right.”
“Berlin’s fate is sealed…. Our emotions are very divided. On the one hand there is satisfaction that retribution has caught up with our hated oppressors, that they will have to face punishment for all the unspeakable damage they have caused, for their diabolic machinations and their false triumphant boasts about their enemies….”
There is no way I will do this book justice. My review is just scribbles compared to this amazing record by one woman.
Mathilde “Tillie” Wolff-Monckerberg, a very well-educated woman living in Hamburg with her second husband, a well-know and very respected academic. Her children, all by her first husband, are grown and scattered. She and “W”–her second husband, endure the war in Hamburg. These letters tell what she could not say during the way due to censorship, not to mention the inability to correspond with some of her children who lived abroad. “W” never joined the Nazi party–we are not told if Tillie did, but it seems doubtful.. One of Tillie’s daughters was married to a Jewish man and they lived initially in Denmark, but fled to Sweden when war broke out and survived. Another daughter was a doctor and lived, initially, nearby. A third daughter lived in Wales with her Welsh husband. Her son was in South America and had married there.
“W” suffered as the occupation began. He admired the British so much, but they blamed ALL Germans for the Concentration Camps and “W” had never even been a party member. TIllie understood there was no way to absolve anyone and that to take charge the British had to do that. Eventually, “W” resumed his good thoughts on the UK and even resumed scholarly relationships there.
My Thoughts
I could not put this book down. It is rare today that I am unable to stop reading a print book. This was so well-written and so interesting. Most memorably I just happened to read about D-Day in the book on June 6. I thought of my grandfather, going ashore with his truck. I loved the snide comments about the worthless media–the Fox News and White House Press Secretary Reports of their day, and of their ridiculous leaders–even El Duce merits a mention as an “inflated buffoon“–sounds like someone we hear from a lot today. The hero woship was long over in Hamburg–even for those who might once have believed. Tillie and W were not party people–no love of Hitler and the destruction of all that was good and moral and fine.
Early in the book, Tillie wrote fully about how the Jewsish people were being treated. Near the end she tells of a ship sunk that was full of people being moved to another camp–their ship was sunk but some still made it to shore and survived. It is hard to imagine people barely alive summoning the will to swim to shore in very cold water, but some made it. Sadly, some died in the hospital from eating the food they were given. Their bodies could not digest it after the years of starvation.
It is easy to get sucked in and see only how hard Tillie and W and their neighbors had it. Yes, it was truly hard–no question. But compared to the slave laborers in the camps who were worked until they died, barely fed, barely clothed, no medicine?
Blogger Stuck in a Book also reviewed this book several years ago. Why not read his review too and surprise him with a nice comment? He very rightly suggests reading Nella Last’s War(the wartime diary of an English housewife) along with this book. I completely agree.
My Verdict
5.0
A Very Rare Rating for me
December 26, 2025
Incredibly affecting memoir of ordinary German civilians living through the war in Hamburg. Tilly and Wolfe’s indomitable spirits were humbling and so interesting to read about their bewilderment, anger and ultimate apathy at what their government was doing.
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