Status Updates From Κεντρική Ευρώπη

I recently mentioned in a review that I have cried while reading on the subway twice. Make that three times. I have been reading about Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany to contextualize 2026 America. More than any of the nonfiction this has done that. I have never felt so utterly helpless. Vollmann has done an amazing job of not dwelling on what happened, we all know that, but on how it happened.

"For Petersburg remains above all the city of Raskolnikov, who exists only in Dostoevsky's nightmares but whose crime, murder for the sake of an idea, proves its reality again and again."

"Everyone composes his own score, and then we all compare versions."

"How can we persuade others to be good, without evil we can point to?"

"The winter days dwindled behind the Sixth Army as steadily as the frozen horse-legs stuck in the snow for road markers. Paulus was almost out of cigarettes. Christmas, naturally, was not very happy he wrote Coca. In times like these, it is better to avoid celebrations.

Far more detailed spice than I ever need in a history of pre WW2 Russia and Germany. 🙄

"One of the sacrifices which commanders have to make is to overcome any scruples they may have".

The messaging for Stalin's and Hitler's crews: people must overcome any sense of compassion or humanity to be patriotic, to be worthy. I wish this were not so damn relevant to life in America in 2026.

I also wish Vollmann's women were not either femme fatales or possessed of deeply masochistic levels of forbearance.