Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall

by Nina Willner

In this illuminating and deeply moving memoir, a former American military intelligence officer goes beyond traditional Cold War espionage tales to tell the true story of her family—of five women separated by the Iron Curtain for more than forty years, and their miraculous reunion after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Forty Autumns makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two. At twenty, Hanna escaped from East to West Germany. But the price of freedom—leaving behind her parents, eight siblings, and family home—was heartbreaking. Uprooted, Hanna eventually moved to America, where she settled down with her husband and had children of her own.

Growing up near Washington, D.C., Hanna’s daughter, Nina Willner became the first female Army Intelligence Officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Though only a few miles separated American Nina and her German relatives—grandmother Oma, Aunt Heidi, and cousin, Cordula, a member of the East German Olympic training team—a bitter political war kept them apart.

In Forty Autumns, Nina recounts her family’s story—five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer, running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk.

A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation, and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love—of five women whose spirits could not be broken, and who fought to preserve what matters family.

Forty Autumns is illustrated with dozens of black-and-white and color photographs.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Book Club, Biography, Audiobook, Germany

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2016

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost didn't read this one, almost. It was due back at the library and quite lengthy, didn't know if I could fit it in, but three of my trusted friends on here rated it highly, so I thought I would just start it and see if I connected with the story. Obviously I did, finished in a few days, and was so glad I opened the cover.

I was so young, during the Cold War, remember the fear of my parents, vaguely remember duck and cover, do vividly remember the air raids sirens and having to leave my desk to line up in the hallway, quietly, for some reason, the good sisters thought if we were quiet and in a perfect line, we would be saved. I remember watching the the Berlin Wall coming down and the people rushing through. But those were pictures on television, this book is an actual telling of what it was like to live in East Germany, to have to watch everything one said and did. Centered on a large family, one whose daughter at the age of 17, escapes to, West Germany. From then on they would be a family divided, with little contact, always wondering and hoping when they would get word, meet again.

I learned more from this book, not just about country but other things that were going on in the world, communism and how it eventually ended, than I ever did in school. It is however, the personal perspective, this book written by a granddaughter in the family, a woman who was in Army intelligence that made this a five star read for me. For the Oma and Opa in the story, the famiy's matriarch and patriarch, I have the utmost respect. Making a family a port in the storm, family first, in a country that stressed loyalty to the state first, was an amazing and enviable accomplishment.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I finished reading this 'wonderful' epic family memoir .....I wanted to know a little more about the author: *Nina Willner*. I wasn't expecting her to be absolutely gorgeous ... physically stunning!
Gifted author --and beautiful -- I'm trying to imagine what it 'feels' like for Nina Willner to have written this book --for the world to read -- about HER MOTHER.... a very personal story. What a gift she is passing to 'her' children.
Oh... and speaking of children: there are several photos of Nina's family, adorable children... .... soooo beautiful: and of her mother Hanna, her grandparents, Oma and Opa, and Hanna's eight siblings, extended family ... historical buildings- 'lots' of great photos included.
note: The 'women' in this family are powerhouses!!!

Nina's mother, Hanna grew up in East Germany in the village of Schwaneberg. We learn early that Hanna - at age 17, is adventurous, has boundless energy, is playful, a 'rabble-rouser'.....and is a girl who likes to make her own rules in life. Her brother Roland, just a year apart in age, is a parents dream: Smart, obedient, and a natural born leader.
The younger siblings -- Helga, Tutti, Tiele, Manni, Klemens, and Kai....each had special qualities of their own. Hanna knew she would miss them all -- but especially her brother Roland, her closest sibling. Hanna was planning to leave her family without saying goodbye-- knowing it would be easier.
She believed Roland would find his way under the communists. She didn't fully think it through as to how her parents would be as time went on with her gone.

Hanna was making her get-a-way [Hanna's earlier failed attempts - and conflicts with her parents early in the book are 'nail biting'].... but......
"The next morning, just before sunrise, with cool easterly winds biding farewell to what had been a long and painful year, Hanna picked up her suitcase and left the house before she thought anyone had awakened. Oma, ( HER MOTHER), however, had risen and stood in the upstairs window, watching her daughter walk away with a determined gait, her long dark braids falling down his back, looking more like a schoolgirl than a woman. She wondered if she would ever see her again."

My heart sank. How does a mother watch her daughter walk away? .... Oma wasn't stupid .... she knew her daughter was planning to cross the border -- escape to West Germany. Soldiers were 'at' those borders - with rifles. More people 'didnt' make it out - than did. They were either killed or thrown in prison if caught. Hanna had no idea how lucky she was. However, it wasn't smooth sailing into freedom either.

Hanna was not 21 yet. She couldn't become 'legal' until she was: a dangerous risk to be underage. If caught - not only would she go to prison, but her family would be severely punished as well.
While we are reading about how Hanna is 'getting on' in the west.... her parents have no idea if she made it out alive. No phone calls - no letters.
More nail biting - edge of the seat frightening situations, ( so many close calls could have gotten Hanna killed).
I was dying - on both sides of Germany: in the east worried sick with Hanna's parents - and in the West... petrified for Hanna -- especially that first year.

Later........Hanna moves to Heidelberg. She meets Eddie, a Auschwitz survivor,
and U. S. Army Officer. She marries him and moves to the United States. Nina Willner was born in the United States. They soon have a second child....then another .... another..... Hanna and Eddie raised 6 children.
FOR FORTY AUTUMNS Hanna was separated from her family. We see what Hanna went through during those years .... and what her parents and siblings each did. Hanna's separation from the family left a permanent mark on EVERYONE. The individual stories of each sibling - and the difference in the way Oma and Opa are thought provoking. SUCH DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES AND DISPOSITIONS!!!

After the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, ..... a reunion took place. PREPARE TO CRY! The SIZE OF THE FAMILY PHOTO REUNION WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.... ( husbands - wives- children - cousins - aunts - uncles- friends--- mostly JUST BIG FAMILIES FROM A BIG FAMILY! There was deaths too... not everyone was alive at the end...

NOTE: I found this book BY ACCIDENT. I didn't know anyone who had read it. I bought it on Amazon for $1.99. ( me with my $1.99 specials)... haha!
SOON to DISCOVER.... several of my good friends here on Goodreads, have already read it. I'm so happy to share this with them!!!!

This is a very powerful -memorable story. It's another non-fiction book that reads like fiction!!! Besides the family story we get a history lesson about the different leaders of the day....Erich Honecker--The Stasi Officers --The East German Police - The Body Guards- East German Army - and the Communist Control of the spots world from East Germany... and the athletes.

General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev -- a hero in Germany today--won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Cold War..... he was also awarded the first time ever "Freedom Award" by Ronald Reagan

WHAT A STORY!!!!!

5 STRONG STARS FROM ME!!! I enjoyed it FULLY!!!

** Nina Willner:....... THIS BOOK IS OUTSTANDING!

[Dem · Rating 5 out of 5]

" Our story started when one war ended and another began"

Every now and then a book comes along that ticks all the boxes for me and Forty Autumns was everything I love in a book. A beautifully written memoir that is historically informative and a moving story of courage and estrangement.

Nina Willner seamlessly weaves a narrative history of her family torn apart by a divided Germany and Berlin, separated by the Iron Curtain for forty years we learn of their struggles, trials and reunions.

The author is a former U.S Army Intelligence officer who served in Berlin during the cold War. She became the first female U.S Army intelligence officer to lead sensitive intelligence.
She shares her family story in Forty Autumns and manages to convey a vivid and real account or what life was life for more than 40 years as a result of living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall.

This for me was an excellent read as the author starts her story with the handover of East Germany by the Americans to the Soviets and she recounts the overwhelming courage of three strong women and a family torn apart. She takes us on a journey through her family history and if you are not familiar or need a little refreshing on the history of East Germany then this book may interest you.
The Red Army descended on the eastern territory with a plan to reshape the face of the East. The first challenge the soviets faced was to change the mind-set of the almost 19 million German citizens who, long before World War II, had been led to believe that communism was the greatest threat to the Western World. Stalin demanded the transition be swift and the approach uncompromising (excerpt from Forty Autums)

This is an extremely well written memoir and an excellent historical account for readers who like their non fiction to read like fiction and readers who enjoy memoirs and history.
I was able to obtain this book in whispersync and while the narration is excellent by Cassandra Cambell, the book does have extra and important material like, maps, photos, family historical chronology, Glossary and Biblioghraphy, all which I felt added greatly to the reading experience.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the joys of a book club is reading a book you would have otherwise have missed. I had certainly never heard of Forty Autumns, a family memoir about life on both sides of the East/West divide in Germany.
Hanna was the eldest of 9 children. Her father and brother were both lucky enough to survive fighting in the German army during WWII. But the family wasn’t lucky when it came to where they lived. Their village was in the Soviet occupied part of Germany. While her father and brother were able to adapt to living under Soviet control, Hanna just couldn’t accept it and managed to escape to the west.
The book is written by Hanna’s daughter, Nina, who had the added benefit of being an Army Intelligence Officer in Germany during the Cold War. She does a fabulous job of providing the details of life in East Germany. She combines facts about the times with their personal stories. I had no idea that leaving the east was a crime because it deprived the Soviets of an able bodied worker.
While I was an adult when the reunification of Germany took place, I had forgotten many of the details. Some things I learned here for the first time.
The book is a perfect blend of fact and personal memories. By hearing from the family members, it was much easier to understand how the East German government policies truly impacted people. I highly recommend it.

[JanB · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cold War is a time many of us remember learning about in history class, and some of us remember the TV images in the news when the Berlin Wall came down. But most of us can’t put a human face to these events. This book does just that. It’s a powerful story of a family split apart by a divided Germany.

The author, born in the U.S., discovered at a young age that her Oma and Opa, along with her entire extended family, lived in East Germany behind the Iron Curtain. Her mother, Hanna, escaped at age 20, leaving behind 8 siblings and her parents. She immigrated to the United States when she met and married a U.S. serviceman. But her escape came at a heartbreaking price, and she was separated from her family for decades.

The author eventually met her extended family after the Wall came down. She pieced together her family’s story, the result being this book. And what a story it is, giving us a peek into life behind the Iron Curtain. It’s riveting reading, as well as being heartbreakingly poignant, to the point of bringing me to tears more than once. But it is ultimately a story of the strength of the human spirit, of bravery, hope and optimism.

This summer my husband and I visited Prague in the Czech Republic, along with several other countries that lived under Communist rule. We had an opportunity to visit the Communist Museum, and attend a talk by a man who grew up under Communist rule. The statue of Ronald Reagan in Budapest honors him for his role in ending communist rule in their country. I learned so much during our travels. Reading this book was a fitting bookend to my travels.

Highly recommended!

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 high stars. I listened to Forty Autumns as an audiobook. I loved listening to this mix of memoir and history about East Germany. Author Nina Willner's mother Hannah defected from East Germany when she was 20 years old, leaving behind her parents and seven siblings. Willner recounts the story of her family on both sides of the wall, adding in a heavy dose of historical information. I loved the mix of personal and political history. Willner really conveys the emotional and personal impact that the repressive communist East German regime had on her family. Willner also writes about her family with so much love and respect, that it's hard not to feel a connection to them. I happily listened to Forty Autumns, getting caught up in Willner's love for her family and thoughtful perspective on the history of East Germany. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this time period.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What will become of a country when a mother cannot even trust her own children, and they, in turn cannot trust their own families?"–Oma



Apart from a documentary I saw a few years ago about East Germany doping innocent athletes in the 80s, I knew relatively nothing about East Germany or about how the infamous wall came into existence. This book was so enlightening! On quite a few occasions I was moved to tears at the utter waste associated with the 40 year regime. Overnight freedom didn't necessarily quell the feelings of disappointment and loss.

"East Germans emerged to face and adjust to a new life. While some embraced freedom, others remained melancholy, feeling a sense of loss, and some were fearful of the uncertainty that lay ahead. Most would agree, however, that they were bewildered at the extent to which their government had betrayed them."

In her book, Willner pieces together her mother, Hanna's, story of escape from East Germany two years after Soviet occupation initially began. Separated from her family, she eventually finds her way to America. Because of the oppressive regime, Willner grows up without her family, the eight uncles and aunts, and her rosy cheeked grandparents that she only knows by pictures, live in a dismal world behind a daunting wall. There, Opa and Oma (Hanna' parents) create a family wall, that not even the craftiest of Stasi can penetrate, where love and trust keep the family tightly knit.

Not long before her death, Oma predicts the following to her youngest daughter, Heidi:
"No one can say what will happen or if things will change, but all I know is, justice will win. Truth will prevail and justice will win...There will come a day when you will see her again. I may not live to see the day, but you will be reunited with Hanna."

How right her words turn out to be. I highly recommend this book. It was an eye opening but lovely reading experience.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1966, five year old Nina Willner was given the assignment to write a letter to her grandparents. Unlike most of her classmates who had two sets of living grandparents to write to, Nina found out that one set of grandparents were deceased and the other set was trapped behind the Iron Curtain. At age five, Nina the concept of a curtain triggered a lifelong curiosity to find out more about the distant members of her family that she did not know that she had. After a career that brought her back to her mother’s homeland of East Germany and witnessing the falling of the Berlin Wall and communism, Willner became inspired later in life to record her family history. The result is Forty Autumns, which records her mother’s family history on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Hanna, Nina’s mother, was the second oldest of Opa and Oma’s family of nine children. Living in the village of Schwaneberg, Opa was the head master of the town school and Oma gardened and provided food for her ever expanding brood of children. Opa loved to read classics and poetry and over the years resisted Nazism and later communism. He raised his children to be free thinkers within reason and taught them about the magic of the Heidelberg Castle and other far off places. Following the end of World War II, Schwaneberg fell under Soviet jurisdiction in the newly created East Germany. Opa urged his children to toe the party line and not make waves, but seventeen year old Hanna, always the dreamer, did not want to be trapped in a police state. With the help of her mother’s relatives, she fled to West Germany and forged a life for herself there, cutting off contact with her family for the next forty years. Before the communist government restricted communication between East and West, Hanna got to see her parents and youngest sister Heidi one time in ten years. Following her marriage to Eddie Willner and move to the United States in 1958, Hanna would sever all contact with her family.

For years Opa and Oma and their children wondered about their sister Hanna living in the West. In their heart of hearts Opa and Oma knew that she made the correct decision yet loved and missed her dearly. As he got older, Opa questioned the party line more and more openly even though he had a top teaching job and was beloved by generations of students. His opinion of communist rule could jeopardize the future of his children, most of the whom became school teachers and loyal members of the communist party. Heidi, however, thought of her oldest sister and remembered their one magical meeting at the Heidelberg Castle. If Hanna was in the west, Heidi reasoned, perhaps it was not so bad, so as an idealist, she did not join the party and questioned the the regime. Along with her husband Reinhard, Heidi found her own way within a totalitarian state. She would have to wait years to get a decent apartment or car and would be passed over for promotions at her job, but Heidi and Reinhard chose to forge their own way within a country ruled by an iron fist. This individualized thinking was encouraged by Oma who told her children to maintain a Family Wall and that one day, even if she did not live to see it, they would be reunited with Hanna.

Meanwhile, Hanna and Eddie had six children in ten years. The oldest two Albert and Nina followed in their father’s footsteps and joined the United States Army. Nina would be stationed in Berlin much to her surprise because of her family history, theorizing that she could help her aunts, uncles, and cousins to defect. No family member even knew of Nina’s existence in Berlin, yet Heidi’s daughter Cordula was handpicked to join the East German Olympic team and trained at a center mere miles from where her cousin was stationed. Cordula thought of her aunt Hanna who once sent her a western bathing suit for her swim training but never heard of her cousin Nina or knew that she was a member of the United States Army. Disheartening to readers, the cousins despite their proximity would never meet during Nina’s service in Berlin.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, communication with the West became possible. Hanna’s siblings, all loyal communists, had to take premature retirement. Heidi and Reinhard, long passed over for promotions, rose in rank at their respective companies. An engineer, Reinhard had created a Paradise Bungalow for the family in the countryside outside of their Karl Marx City dwelling. It became a symbol of hope during the Cold War years and the family’s slice of eden during trying years. Once the regime fell, the bungalow remained and became a gathering place for the entire family, which after 1991 would eventually include Hanna and her children. After forty trying years the family, was reunited.

Forty Autumns is one family’s history of being split apart by a divided country that was unfortunately replicated all over Germany, Korea, Vietnam, and other nations divided by the worldwide spread of communism. East Germans risked their lives to flee to the West, many times to be shot by Stasi guards in the process. The Berlin Wall held in the citizens of the East, whereas the Brandenburg Gate remained as a symbol of freedom. Once the Wall fell, the Gate retained its original meaning. Although an Army intelligence officer writing her first book, Nina Willner writes Forty Autumns like a novel. This memoir is her family’s story of hope and perseverance within a divided country and world.

4 stars

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although Nina Willner's Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall has been enlightening and informative (for even with my German background and knowing the basics of what transpired in East Germany, in the the GDR post WWII until its collapse in 1989, I certainly did not know all that many specific details about the day to day lives of the East Germans as individuals, of them as actual living people with families, friends, with hopes, desires, triumphs, tragedies and which yes, Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall has definitely and appreciatively very thoroughly remedied), personally I have to admit that I have also been more than a bit conflicted at times with at least some of author Nina Willner's text, with some if not even a goodly amount of her presented and perceived musings and attitudes.

For yes while I have indeed enjoyed (and cheered) that Nina Willner does not seem to ever consider in Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall the East Germans collectively and as a people simply as a bunch of horrible and to be despised Communists, she does on the other hand and conversely then often seem to insinuate in her narrative that not only her mother's East German family but seemingly most if not all East Germans as an entity always supposedly were somehow against Communism, that they did the best they could to avoid the STASI etc. and to live their lives but that they generally were from square one so to speak so very much against their government and the Soviet Union that basically as soon as Mikhail Gorbachev indicated that he wanted more freedom for the Iron Curtain countries of Europe, the Berlin Wall was immediately destined to come crashing down and the GDR to collapse.

But sadly and yes of course in my opinion, that type of an assessment is from where I stand at best a trifle naive, blinkered and probably also just rather majorly wishful thinking. As while there were of course many many East Germans who absolutely did not ever agree with the Soviet style Communism imposed on them, I am sorry to say but it is simply not true (in my opinion) that every single East German was likely deep down in his or her innermost soul staunchly anti-Communism, since for one, Communism had actually been a popular movement in much of the especially the more eastern parts of Germany prior to WWII, prior to the Third Reich and that for two, well, if EVERY East German (or even MOST East Germans) had supposedly been against Communism and against Ulbricht and later Honecker and right from the start, I personally do not think that the GDR could have survived and even flourished in many ways for as long as it did (as there were certainly always more than enough East Germans who willingly flocked to border guard duty, who joined the STASI and who often joyfully denounced even members of their own families to the authorities). And thus, when I am reading Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall, Nina Willner's words when she describes both her own family and East Germans in general, they kind of do sadly remind me of my own wishful thinking regarding National Socialism as a teenager (where I really wanted to believe that MOST Germans and most definitely every single member of my family were one hundred percent against the Nazis, but heck, I also soon had to realise and understand that if MOST Germans indeed had been against the Nazi regime, realistically speaking, said regime would likely not have been able to last for as long as it did and to have created such organised horror and mayhem, and of course, also including the Holocaust).

Combined with the fact that there is in my humble opinion also rather a bit too much of an uncritical acceptance and feting of Ronald Reagan happening in Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall and not nearly enough of a necessary acknowledgment that it was really NOT so much (if ever) the Americans who truly caused the Berlin Wall to fall and the Iron Curtain to shatter, but for the most part a combination of Michail Gorbachev's glasnost, perestroika and the will of the peoples of Eastern, Iron Curtain Europe (East Germans, Hungarians, Poles etc.), I have definitely not been one hundred percent pleased with Nina Willner's Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall, finding it readable, enlightening, often emotionally gripping but also at times just a bit too one-sidedly pro American and with a rather naive and even perhaps dangerous attitude that ALL of East Germany had always wanted to be non Communist for me to consider more than a three star rating tops (a very high and appreciated three star rating for all that, but yes, I definitely would prefer Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall to be a trifle more nuanced and not as so "my one way of presenting the history and culture of the former East Germany is everything" as I do find this uncomfortably chilling).

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those interested in how it was to live in East Germany during the Cold War will enjoy this book. It is both biography and history lesson.

The author writes of her family, with the greatest emphasis upon her maternal grandparents, great-grandparents, mother along with her mother's eight siblings and the author's cousin named Cordula. It is a large family. By observing the whole family we come to understand the earnings and sorrows and triumphs of not just one but people of different personalities. The author was the first female Army Intelligence Officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin. This was during the 80s. Her mother, Hanna, had finally escaped from East Germany in 1948, after several previous attempts. These sections keep you at the edge of your seat. Hanna later married an American officer in Germany and moved to the US. We come to understand Hanna's parents' behavior and that of her siblings. Her mother and father do not react similarly, and the siblings too all have different temperaments. We watch how each reacts to the takeover by the Russians and the totalitarian regime under Erich Honecker. World and German events that stand out from the Cold War era are clearly and concisely presented. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the arms race, even the exalted importance of sports in East Germany during the 70s and 80s is covered. Cordula was a member of the East German Olympic bicycle team. Cordula's mother, Heidi, had at the age of five been allowed to travel with her mother to Heidelberg. For two days the three met, the youngest and the oldest sisters and their mother, six years after Hanna had fled. The book reviews historical events through the lives of people living these events.

The story moves forward chronologically. Each chapter has both a title and a clear specification of the years the events take place in. The title “Forty Autumns” refers to the forty years of the East German state, from its conception after the war in 1948 to 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. The book doesn’t stop there, but continues to 2013 detailing the lives of the family members and the progression from a communist state to a western democracy. An author’s note specifies where and how she carried out her thorough research.

The audiobook narration by Cassandra Campbell is very good. It is clear, easy to follow and read with feeling, but never over-dramatized. Her voice intones both the personal and the historical events well.

*********************

If this book interests you, these will probably too:
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall 4 stars
Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire 4 stars
The House by the Lake: A Story of Germany 3 stars

[Negin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love non-fiction that reads like fiction. This is a true story about a German family separated during the Cold War years. It captures the horrors of living under a totalitarian regime perfectly. I often tell my parents how thankful I am to them for taking us out of Iran when we did. I also feel grateful for not having had to ever live in a Communist country.

The author, writing about her mother’s family, does an incredible job of engaging the reader right from the get-go. I felt a strong connection to them all, and this is not always easy with non-fiction. Another fabulous book that comes to mind is Nothing to Envy, which is about life in North Korea. Both books are remarkable.

While reading this, I realized that although I have read so many books about the Holocaust, I haven’t read that many about life under communism. Both systems were absolute nightmares, but communist regimes have killed and tortured far more people. It often surprises me that communism isn’t hated nearly as much as Nazism. These days, especially, most people’s focus is on Hitler. It has become almost normal to label anyone that one disagrees with as Hitler or a Nazi. Most people are unaware that communist governments have killed an estimated 120 million people in the 20th century. That’s far more than the evil that Hitler did. Don’t get me wrong. Hitler was a monster, but it puzzles me that most of the focus and hatred is towards him. Why not the communist governments and their leaders also?

May Day celebrations take place at Karl Marx Allee in East Berlin, 1974



Since I spoke about this book to my husband constantly, he’s now pushing me to watch a show that he’s been telling me to watch for years, “Deutschland 83”.



Some of my favorite quotes and other parts to share:

“Children were encouraged to report rule breaking at home, such as whether their parents listened to forbidden West German radio or made disparaging remarks about the system. Vigilance in reporting others for their failings came with rewards: public accolades, special treatment, promotions in their youth group, the authorities all the while carefully noting who was and was not fully investing.
What will become of a country, Oma wondered, when a mother cannot even trust her own children, and they, in turn, cannot trust their own families?”

“’The world is infinitely vast and full of wonder,’ he had said. Then, paraphrasing Mark Twain, his favorite American author, he told them to ‘träumen, entdecken, erforschen’—explore, dream, and discover it. That day Hanna came to view the Heidelberg Castle as a symbol of the extraordinary world that lay beyond the lovely but ordinary provincial village of Schwaneberg’.”

Heidelberg Castle


“At the height of their power, the Stasi had employed one informant for every sixty-six residents; factoring in part-time informants, the number more accurately approximates one in six East German citizens.”

“… in 1979, a spectacular incident occurred when two families took their escape to the skies. Having fashioned a hot-air balloon from canvas, bedsheets, old scraps of fabric, and a homemade gas burner, Günter Wetzel, a mason, and Peter Strelzyk, a mechanic, and their families ascended into the dark night sky and sailed quietly over the Wall to safety in the West. The escape made headlines around the world, with Strelzyk saying, ‘Freedom is the most valuable thing a human being can possess. The only people who know that are people who have had to live without it. If you’ve grown up free, you don’t know what it means.’ After that escape, the sale of fabric and cloth was closely controlled in East Germany.”

“Gorbachev would tell Honecker, simply, ‘Life punishes those who delay.’”



“'What is right will always triumph’. —President Ronald Reagan”

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second non-fiction book I read this month that looked at the history of an ex-communist country, in this case, East Germany.
I appreciated having the opportunity to revise my basic knowledge of East Germany history.

Nina Willner covers a long period of time in her family's history and that of East Germany, from after WWII to when the Berlin Wall Fell.
Until reading this, I never fully realised how important Mikhail Gorbachev was to the fall of communism.

Willner tells the story of her mother's family after WWII, when Germany was divided in two by the big powers, here's half to you, US, and here's half to you, Russia. Those Russians really had a bad reputation due to their behaviour mind you as crude, alcoholic, rapists. (I remember my grandmother telling us that when part of her family house was requisitioned during the War, she preferred when the Germans stayed as they were clean, and didn't impose themselves too much, whereas the Russians were pissing everywhere and had no manners - it's interesting how certain things stay with people). #notallRussians

Willner's mother, Hanna, had escaped to the West and eventually ended up in the US. The rest of the family, consisting of her father, mother, and many siblings (eight or nine) stayed behind and suffered through forty years of communism.

Different countries but similar authoritarian regimes = lots of common themes:
- secret police spying on its citizens ✔;
- food and other essentials scarcity and poor quality ✔;
- propaganda galore ✔;
but also
- people made the most of what they had ✔
- many listened to the other non-communist countries' radio and to Voice of America ✔ (I remember my own teen years in Romania listening to Voice of America - I can't say that teen me cared that much about politics or understood, my priority was Top 100 or whatever it was called, it was beyond exciting for the music-obsessed teen me to listen to American music that we never got to listen on the state authorised radio).

In my head, I thought that East Germany wasn't as strict and authoritarian as Romania, but I concede I was wrong.

This was an interesting account on East Germany. I need to read more about other countries such as Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. I need to read about my own native country, I have so many gaps, and so many unanswered questions.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the waning days of World War II, Germany was invaded by the British, French, and American armies on the west and by the Russian army in the east. It quickly became clear that the Russians did not intend to leave. Author Nina Willner’s mother, Hanna, and her family were trapped in the East. Fear, suspicion, and hardship that existed under the Nazi regime were not eliminated but continued under the Russians and their authoritarian East German Communist counterpart leaders once the Allies withdrew.

Hanna’s parents and eight siblings did their best to survive and tried to keep a low profile. Hanna felt stifled and, after numerous attempts, finally succeeded in fleeing to West Germany along with thousands of others. She married a U.S.army officer whose German Jewish family had been killed in the Holocaust. They eventually moved to the United States where they raised their own family. For forty years Hanna attempted to keep communicating with her family and worried about their fate.

Nina Willner details her family’s story of perseverance and hope for freedom while the Cold War began and continued until 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and the two Germanys were reunited.

Forty Autumns was named one of the 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2016 by The Christian Science Monitor.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The forty-year existence of East Germany was a difficult time for most East Germans. The “German Democratic Republic,” as a number of historians have pointed out, was neither democratic, nor a republic, nor even particularly German – as it was an authoritarian Communist dictatorship, with the real power emanating from the U.S.S.R. The big policy decisions that were made in government buildings in Moscow and East Berlin had devastating consequences for ordinary Germans on both sides of the Inner German Border and later the Berlin Wall, as Nina Willner makes clear in her 2016 memoir Forty Autumns.

Willner, who served as an intelligence officer in Germany during the Cold War, keeps her focus squarely on her own family’s experience in setting forth A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall (the book's subtitle). The book begins near the conclusion of the Second World War, as the Nazi regime is collapsing, while forces of the four victorious Allied Powers – the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union – are moving in to occupy different parts of defeated Germany. Fatefully, for Willner’s family, their part of Germany, around the town of Schwaneberg, was in the part of central Germany that would, in post-World War II times, fall just within the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, and later within the German Democratic Republic.

Willner’s grandmother and grandfather – her Oma and Opa – had managed to survive the cruelty and malice of the Nazi regime, and the horrors of war; but as the Soviets moved in and began to impose a communist regime upon their sector of occupied Germany, Oma and Opa and their family faced a new set of challenges. Unquestioning obedience to the new order was expected, and those expectations posed serious challenges for Opa in his work as an educator. And the children of Oma and Opa responded in different ways to the strictures imposed by the East German government; one of them, Hanna (author Nina Willner’s mother), eventually made a risky escape to the West, at a time when the innerdeutsche Grenze, the Inner German Border, was not as completely sealed and fortified as it later became.

To say that the D.D.R. regime was unhappy with Hanna’s decision to leave would be an understatement. Many East Germans were escaping the country for the freedom of the new Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) that had been established in what were once the British, French, and U.S. sectors of occupied Germany, and West Germany was gaining many of the D.D.R.’s most accomplished and creative citizens. Therefore, the East German government did everything it could to reclaim, or establish some control of, defectors.

In 1954, Oma and Hanna’s sister Heidi were allowed to travel to West Germany to visit Hanna, who was then working for the U.S. Government in Heidelberg. But East German police officials in Schwaneberg told Oma that a condition of her visiting her daughter Hanna in the West was that she must try “to bring Hanna back or, barring that, convince her to ‘do a few special things for her country’ in her work with the Americans” (p. 98). The visit to Heidelberg was joyful, but when Oma and Heidi boarded the train for their return to the D.D.R., “Like birds that had been set free for a short, beautiful time, it was as if they were being put back into the confinement of their cold metal cage” (p. 103).

After Oma and Heidi returned to the D.D.R., “The Schwaneberg police did not even call Oma in. Perhaps they already knew that she had not been successful in her task of convincing Hanna to come back or become a spy. Perhaps they figured she hadn’t even tried. But one thing was certain: they chalked it up as one more failure of the family to comply. Because Oma did not hold up her end of the bargain with the authorities, they made it clear that subsequent applications to travel to the West would be rejected” (p. 105).

Forty Autumns provides a vivid sense of how dreary and joyless life was under the hardline Communist regime of the German Democratic Republic. Absolute obedience was expected by a system that often failed to provide even the most basic measure of life’s comforts for its citizens. The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit or Ministry for State Security – more simply, the Stasi – used both its official agents and a large network of unofficial collaborators to monitor every aspect of the lives of ordinary East Germans. “The Stasi devoted an untold number of man-hours to keeping track of dissidents like Ulrike Poppe and Bärbel Bohley. Agents were posted around the clock to spy on them” (p. 205), with telephone tapping, video monitoring, and surveillance from cars and on foot.

Stasi surveillance soon got personal for Willner’s family. Opa, tired of keeping his mouth shut, had begun publicly criticizing the East German government, stating that he was 77 years old and asking what the D.D.R. could possibly do to him. The answer came all too quickly:

The authorities came to Klein Apenburg. At his door, they handed Opa a document. It was an official order committing him to a ‘special program’ at Uchtspringe, a hospital located fifty miles away. Everyone knew of the place, recognized more commonly as the insane asylum. The hospital in fact was a state psychiatric facility, and the special program was intensive re-education training. Opa was directed to go, as the order read, “to get your thoughts straight.” (p. 208)

Opa was eventually released and permitted to return home, but he never told his family a word about what had happened to him at Uchtspringe.

With the fullness of historical context available to us, we now know that by 1987, the German Democratic Republic was near the end of its existence. Mikhail Gorbachev sought to bring glasnost (openness) and perestroika to the Soviet Union, and reform efforts were underway in other Eastern European nations like Hungary and Poland. But East German leader Erich Honecker adopted a hard-line approach to maintaining his Communist dictatorship. Even elite citizens like East Germany’s participants in international-sports competition were always under suspicion as potential defectors. When Heidi’s daughter Cordula, a talented athlete, was being considered for a spot on an East German bicycling team, she was first interrogated about her loyalty to the D.D.R.

The security official called her in.

“How often is your family in contact with your mother’s sister or any relatives in the West?” the official asked, no doubt already knowing the answer.

“My mother doesn’t communicate with her sister anymore.”

“How would you like to live in another country?”

“I can’t imagine living in another country,” Cordula answered truthfully. “I have everything here. My family is here. My life is here. Why should I want to go to the West when I have everything here?”

“That’s right,” he said. “You family is here and they are very important to you, aren’t they?” (p. 309)

One senses immediately the threat implicit in the official's final words.

The German Democratic Republic fell not too long after that, and the Willner family on both sides of the Inner German Border and the Berlin Wall – or, at least, those who were still alive – were reunited as shared citizens of a united Germany that actually was a republic and actually was democratic. Yet one finishes Forty Autumns with a sense of sadness at knowing how an entire generation of people lived under a cold grey tyranny.

My great-grandfather, Wilhelm Max Felix Albert Haspel, left Berlin and came to the U.S.A. in 1903, in search of freedom and opportunity. I was born in 1961, in the year in which the Berlin Wall was constructed, and I grew up in the Cold War years. For most of that time, East Germany was a mystery, a place of undefined but unmistakable menace. Since the fall of the Wall, works like Wolfgang Becker's film Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) have provided a sense of what life was actually like for people living in East Germany, and Nina Willner's Forty Autumns is particularly informative and helpful in that regard.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through this book you live with Nina Willner's family through the beginning, height and end of the dictatorship that imprisoned her family as well as 17 million other East Germans. There are family photos throughout. Willner adds context by describing the family situation along with contemporaneous events. She concludes with a topical list of what became of perpetrators (not much) and something of those who suffered. The sobering recognition is that this was not that long ago.

The book begins as East Germany has a brief experience of post-WWII peace. When the Russian's were in left in charge, the author's grandmother, envisioning a grim future, put her young daughter on a jeep to leave with the Americans. The little girl came running back. Later, as a young woman she escaped to West Germany where she married, had a career and raised a daughter who wrote this book.

The unarmed and war weary East German population was forced to give all their food to the occupying Russians. Maybe they would get a share back… and such began the dehumanizing cruelty of the occupiers. When control went to the East Germans, they pressed even harder.

To keep his job as a school administrator the author’s grandfather had to accept a new policies, curriculum and attitudes. It seems that the mayor of this small town made even greater compromises. The author’s mother made sure the family bonded and was not one where one member informed on the other.

In 1948 before her uncle’s prophesy that the country was soon to be a prison was fully realized, the author’s mother escaped. You learn of her strategy, how she dodged bullets, had help from kindly people and how she made her way. You see the strain this put on the remaining family that is pressured to bring her back (both successfully and unsuccessfully). For a mother to visit her daughter requires permission and a promise to spy on her military fiancé. You see the anxiety of not knowing and the joy a colorful post card can bring…. even though it had to be hidden from reporting neighbors.

You learn how the regime intrudes on daily life. One family member keeps his head down to escape (for a while) expropriation of his farm. Another waits 13 years for a car. The author’s grandfather cannot hold his tongue and is sent to a rural area where his youngest daughter is 4 miles from the nearest school. The author’s brother miraculously slips in to East Germany and finds his family, connecting for a few precious hours. To tamp down unrest garden plots are distributed and one family member builds a cabin amidst their vegetables.

One family member was on the East German Olympic cycling team. This is told with the backdrop of the political importance of winning medals for this pariah nation. In traveling, the team is not allowed to speak with non-eastern athletes, but it is hard not to notice the smiles and styles of the free world. The defection of one cyclist shows how this is hypocritically presented and how it is received with blank faces.

The author is one of the early females in the US military. She is assigned to intelligence services and describes the risky surveillance forays into East Germany. She thinks of the relatives trapped in the drab and forbidding fortress.

Upon hearing Egon Krentz telling the nation (prematurely? Mistakenly?) that travel restrictions were lifted, desperate East Germans swarmed the borders, others thought it was a trap, others were frozen in disbelief.

This is an outstanding book. It comes at a time when the children and grandchildren of WWII participants, survivors and those trapped in the occupations that followed are researching their family histories. While this one clearly stands out, others I’ve recently read and appreciated are:

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and HomeBelonging: A German Reckons with History and Home - Nora Krug researches her family's during the war.

Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe The author explores how walls and barbed wire once meant to keep people in are now used to keep people (refugees from Iraq, Syria...) out.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... - Susan Faludi examines identity through the life of her father - a survivor who cleverly escaped the holocaust in Hungary..

Me, Myself & Prague: An Unreliable Guide to Bohemia This is part travelog through which the author tries to learn about her family who fled to Australia.

Yokohama Yankee: My Family's Five Generations as Outsiders in Japan - the war experience of a Japanese family with western roots.

Hitler's Forgotten Children: My Life Inside The Lebensborn - captured as a toddler and prized for her blonde hair the author writes of her childhood how she finds her birth family and the situation of herself and others who began life in the lebebshorn program.

The Girl They Left Behind A fictional treatment of the author's grandparents and how her mother was able to leave Romania.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking back, one of the best books I read in 2018.

An extraordinary family history, superimposed upon one of the most profound historical anomalies (a divided Germany), well researched and beautifully told, all seamlessly combining and contrasting the warmth of one sister's hand in another's with the icy, relentless sweep of strident communism and the mind-numbing repression exerted throughout East Germany throughout the Cold War. So much ground covered, so many lives lived and intertwined and severed and ended ... and remembered. I'm so glad I read the book ... I just wish I'd found it sooner.

Despite have lived in Germany and read a fair amount of history, general nonfiction, and fiction on related topics, I was intrigued by how unique and fresh the book felt describing the story arc of a Germany defeated, divided, and ultimately reunited over the better part of a half-century. (That's no small achievement.) There's a tremendous amount of history sprinkled throughout, but it's not a dry, impersonal historical tome.... The history is juxtaposed with the slow, careful, intimate retelling of family's evolution, disaggregation, and, ultimately, reunification, all of which permits this to rumble along like a made-for-movies memoir. I could easily see myself recommending this as a sequel to, I dunno, Corneilus Ryan's The Last Battle: The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin, after reading Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Obviously, each is different, but all paint on a broad canvas with loving detail devoted to the individual players in an all-too-real drama, just as each is well worth reading, and memorable, and inexplicable ... and, well... you get the idea.

Full disclosure: Growing up in the Army makes the world a much smaller place, and I met the author when we were kids, and our paths have (briefly, ever so tangentially) crossed over the decades since. The book only reinforced how little I knew about the author's family way back when, but, at the same time, that surely heightened my interest. Having said that, a quick surf through other reviews (and ratings) will confirm I'm not an outlier on this one, nor that a personal connection is necessary to make the book worthwhile.

It's a unique, informative book that makes a semester's worth of history easily digestible alongside a touching, fascinating, and ultimately satisfying family memoir.

[Staci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those riveting nonfiction books that reads like fiction. The author has a unique perspective because her mother defected from East Germany and she had family who stayed in East Germany. The information on the political climate of post World War 2 Eastern Europe was concise and comprehensive, and was made even more interesting by the personal aspect that the author was able to provide. Highly recommend this one. I wish I had read it sooner.

[Gina *loves sunshine* · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gosh...I just wanted so much more life and vibrancy from this book. Maybe I went in with a really high expectation given all the good ratings. Having been to Berlin a year and a half ago I was really looking forward to reading this interpretation of a family literally separated by a brick wall!! I've read a lot of holocaust, but nothing really along this storyline.

The setting and the details are all good, you get a small feel for the emotions involved within this family that was separated. You have great characters and so much to work with. It just comes up dry and factual. It lacked the depth and connection I like from my characters..but I have a feeling I'm in the minority. Historical fiction readers will probably love this!

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of East Germany through one family.

Nina Willner tells the moving and powerful story of her mother and her family from the end of World War 2 to the unification of Germany.

Using the story of her mother’s immediate family Willner creates a compelling story of life in East Germany. Her extended family have all the ingredients, the loyal party member, the strong headed daughter, and those that kept their heads down. She paints a tale of oppression and ordinary life that ultimately leads to the implosion of the first 'workers and peasants' state on German soil'.

Peppered with photos of the family she makes you care for her family and it really brings home how unbearable life was for some in the GDR. It’s a really good read and a must for anyone interested in the former East Germany.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[Iris P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall

A compelling account of how a family found itself divided by the ruthless geopolitics of the Cold War. Full review to follow.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exceptional family story about particulars of this long and heart breaking separation. But others have said it better in review. I find it difficult to express reaction to this book. I was there and I saw and also cannot explain how dire East Germany, and especially East Berlin- was. Even with the cars, there was absolutely no color. Tin, gray shapes, rusted boxes. Everything from building to auto to light post to machine or bicycle. Dinge gray everything. With 5 broken attachments either next to it or hanging off. It was one of the most appalling feelings in my life to know how those people felt (1983).

So I can't imagine how Hanna's Mom lived through having all her food taken by the Russian Socialists who took over her town and then had absolutely nothing to feed her 7 kids. Without even knowing how or when or if a husband/father, and a son would ever come home. Eventually or ever.

It's a good book. But other than the photographs- it was too hard for me to read. I could only do so in spurts. Too close to home and memory. I remember relatives standing in the West and waving handkerchiefs at us (literally for over an hour each leg) when they saw our plane. And then again before we could get out of the transit bus and be checked again. And again. Standing in aisles and then being followed where ever we went by what I called "baby" soldiers who looked about 20 years old. And these older and "my age" relatives never leaving for hours and hours in the stations in between- just to see us. A few of them, like one cousin who was a teacher of doctors, who could not talk to her own grandparents or uncles- and asked me to give them a letter.

How anyone can believe that socialism and government ownership and dictate of goods and services "works"? I don't know how they can believe that with the examples of even the recent past. I do remember, although fewer and fewer of us are around to remember the reality. Or how it felt going through Checkpoint Charlie. And nearly everyone within 100 yards of you holding long weapons. Or how it felt to "enter the world of color" again. Did I cry! Because I knew the colorless hardly "knew it" any longer.

The photographs in this book were 6 star. For most people it will be a 4.5 star read.

[Christina DeVane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read again in 2024. So crazy how the author’s cousin ended up being a top athlete for East Germany. Over 600 athletes defected during the Cold War. 140 countries have pieces of the Berlin Wall in their possession to remind them of the dangers of a totalitarian regime.
“Freedom is the greatest treasure you can have. People who grow up in freedom don’t realize the gift they have.” -the person who flew to West Germany in a hot air balloon

Hundreds died trying to escape East Germany.💔
An American officer, Arthur Nicholson, was shot and killed in 1985 because he was “too close to the wall or off limits area” (which was later proven untrue). He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery not far from the tomb of the unknown soldier. I would love to visit his grave!

Original thoughts:

Fascinating true story starting in Germany after WW II. I never thought about the poor German people who didn’t support the war and went from Nazi rule to Russian oppression. 😌
I learned so much leading up to the building of the Berlin Wall. It’s really unbelievable how Hanna escapes East Germany, marries an Auschwitz survivor and eventually moves to the United States. And her daughter (the author) ends up working back in Germany with military intelligence!🤯
Highly recommend for all readers. Would be excellent for high school reading! 🤓

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly compelling look at a German family's efforts to survive in the communist days of East Germany. I could not put this one down. Nina tells her family members' stories so well that it reads like fiction...what blows your mind is knowing that it's all true. If you ever thought communism might be a good idea, just read this book. This story is both heartbreaking and hope-making. It was an unforgettable journey.

[Samantha | samanthakreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This compelling story follows the aftermath of WWII and what led to the Berlin Wall through the experiences of a family living in East Germany. There was a great balance of historical information and personal experiences. It's truly amazing how Hanna escaped from East Germany and how her daughter Nina ended up working in Germany during her time as an American intelligence worker. I learned so much reading this book, many things I didn't know prior or had thought about.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator was amazing! I highly recommend reading this one✨

[Kristīne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nebiju iedziļinājusies pēckara Vācijas vēsturē, zināju dažus faktus, bet nu varu teikt, ka skats pagātnē ir pilnīgāks.

Autore, viņa arī bijusī ASV Izlūkošanas dienesta aģente, stāsta par savas sadalītās ģimenes pieredzi pēckara abās Vācijas. Kurš, kā mēģina bēgt, kurš turpina dzīvot austrumu pusē ar lielākiem vai mazākiem panākumiem, ciešanām, pieciešanu. Protams, mums diezgan viegli iedomāties, bet ar savu apzinīgā mūža vadīšanu "brīvībā", tāpat visā tā valstu dalīšana un režīma pieņemšana un uzturēšana liekas tik absurda.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where has this book been? What an amazing story about a family full of courage, loyalty and survival!

[Susy C. *MotherLambReads* · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST Book on Berlin Wall and East/ West Germany I have read!
Loved how the author wrote and incorporated so much info and emotion! Her style of writing kept me engaged which sometimes is hard with a NF style.
And of course the author’s note at the end brings it all around!

𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘵:𝘩𝘵𝘵𝘱𝘴://𝘸𝘸𝘸.𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮.𝘤𝘰𝘮/𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴/

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This family’s memoir time period fits pretty well within the span of my life, although I was too young through the 1950s to remember much of the world’s political situation, other than the duck and cover, under the desk, and kiss your ass goodbye lessons at school. I was 10 when Kennedy was elected, in junior high school when assassinated and only became politically aware during major events and awakening to civil rights and the Vietnam War as the 1960s advanced.

The book stays with the family’s stories through to the end of the Cold War, past Reagan telling Gorbachev to “Tear down that Wall.”

This book taught me a lot of the history of East Germany and East Berlin under Communist rule. The West did not really have a lot of information about life in East Germany prior to the tearing down of the walls. The book alternated the family stories with straight forward historical information, so it was both personal stories and facts about East German and world events. It was actually fascinating.

Most of the book focused on the author’s mother and her grandmother’s family. Those who got out and those who did not.

I listened to the audio version. The narrator was great with the German language portions and pronunciations, which I say as someone who doesn’t speak German.

Five stars because of the knowledge gained on a topic of which I had very little understanding.

[Rennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nina Willner’s Forty Autumns is a remarkable achievement. Blending personal memoir, contemporary history, and beautifully readable narrative nonfiction, she has chronicled the lives of several generations of her family as they live in East and West Germany and America. The book begins at the end of the Second World War, with Germany being divided, and she tells the stories of how that affected her family, most of whom remained trapped in the East, but one lucky daughter, her mother, eventually managed an escape to a very different life in the West.

The family serves as a microcosm of what took place in divided Germany as it formed and progressed through the Cold War. Told alongside their personal history is the greater historical story, providing the bigger context for what was happening to determine the course of these lives. They lived through and were very directly affected by some of the most momentous world events of the second half of the 20th century, and the book gives a perfect juxtaposition between the personal and the public. Not that the public events are impersonal or hard to connect with by themselves. But the deeply personal and emotionally recounted stories of the family’s lives and their triumphs, disappointments, and heartbreaks, which they can’t even fully share with their separated loved ones, are driven home so powerfully in this book.

It’s jarring to feel so strongly their pain and heartbreak as they’re separated from each other, often not even able to communicate by letter and almost never by phone, with only a couple of in-person visits allowed by the East German government in exchange for promises of spying or conversion. And then to consider that this is just one family, and the rest of the country was similarly separated and affected.

I loved that there’s such a strong focus on the fortitude and ability of the women in this family. She highlights the struggles and strengths of these very determined women so effectively. Willner herself was a rare female American Army Intelligence Officer, and the first to lead intelligence operations in East Berlin. Her mother, Hanna, the oldest of eight children, is the only sibling able to escape East Germany, eventually marrying and settling near Washington, D.C. and raising Nina and her siblings. Nina is later stationed in Berlin in her army capacity, experiencing firsthand the stark national division and the fear and oppression that her mother ran away from decades before. At the same time, the longing is so palpable, for the unknown and wondered about or painfully remembered family separated by a wall and a misguided ideology.

In addition to having an amazing generational story to tell, Willner is a fantastic writer. She writes in a novelist’s rich, descriptive voice in the segments about her family, but so naturally. I’m not a big fiction reader anymore, but this reads like excellent fiction. On the other hand, she writes a very readable account of the major historical milestones of the Cold War and actions and decisions of the Soviet Union and East German Communist governments. I’ve read a lot on the topic but this was by the far the most accessible without having a talking-down or textbook tone. I learned so much and was impressed by her writing throughout.

I received an advance reader's copy courtesy of the publisher via Edelweiss for review.

[Guy Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What will become of a country...when a mother cannot trust her own children, and they, in turn, cannot trust their own families?”

History and or Biography/Memoir folks will enjoy this title. It reads like a great fiction novel. The only issue is that it is a true account of one family’s history within Germany and then East Germany before and after WWII. This family, overjoyed that American troops had come to their town rather than the Russians and then being unfortunate to have the line in the map drawn so that they would be sealed and left behind, in what would become known as, The Iron Curtain.

One family member makes it out as the hard line is falling more permanently into place. The family is separated for some Forty Autumns. The full history of East Germany’s existence. The writing, by the daughter of that young girl who escaped, is done very well. I found myself captivated by the story of this family and the East German Government, the Stasi, and propaganda as the story turns. We also learn of the inner workings and rise of East Germans dominance in the sports world due to one family member becoming one of East Germany’s World Class Athletes.

The realities of this family from behind the curtain are well told. How things slowly crawled into the authoritarian communist regime, one of the most ruthless and committed to the Communist cause. The father, Opa, and his attempts to toe the line and then finally breaks, Oma, who holds the family together against all odds drawing her own iron curtain around the family to protect them. The family conforms, the best they can, into the routine.

On the other side we learn of the daughter’s story. The fear, the anxiety of her several attempts and ultimate success at leaving. Life in West Germany and ultimately the United States. Her Daughter, the Author, Nina Willner, goes full circle and returns the West Germany as a U.S. Military Intelligence Officer. The story takes us from the war to fall of The Wall and carries forward to the year 2013.

This is to date one of my favorite reads of the year. Educational and entertaining.