Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August - Softcover

Hilmes, Oliver

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847924344 ISBN 13: 9781847924346

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2018

Synopsis

This short book takes us through the sixteen days in August 1936 when the Olympic Games were staged in Berlin. With a chapter dedicated to each day, it describes the events in the German capital through the eyes of a select cast of characters – Nazi leaders and foreign diplomats, athletes and journalists, writers and actors, nightclub owners and socialites.

While the competition inside the Olympic Stadium provides the focus and much of the drama – from the triumph of Jesse Owens to the scandal when an American tourist breaks through security and kisses Hitler – Oliver Hilmes also takes us behind the scenes and into the lives of ordinary Berliners: the woman with a dark secret who steps in front of a train, the transsexual waiting for the Gestapo’s knock on the door, and the Jewish boy hoping that Germany may lose in the sporting arena.

During the Games Nazi oppression was temporarily lifted and the book offers us a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in the German capital in the 1920 and early 1930s which the Nazis set out to destroy: it evokes the novels of Christopher Isherwood and Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz – but we are already entering the dark world of Fallada’s Alone in Berlin.

About this title

About the Author:

Oliver Hilmes is a historian and biographer. He has written lives of Franz Liszt, Cosima Wagner and Alma Mahler-Werfel.

Review:

"Written with great verve, compassion and humour, Hilmes' book brings to life a panoramic cast of characters ... Compelling, suspenseful and beautifully done" -- Anna Funder, author of STASILAND "Entertaining... A vivid collage of vignettes gleaned from diaries, police reports, snippets from newspapers, and so on. It dances from comedy to tragedy, from the ironic to the sinister, to give a picture of a darkening Germany... Hilmes has an eye for incidental detail." -- Robbie Millen * The Times * "Thrilling ... Berlin 1936, with its keyhole glimpses into otherwise private lives, gives us an engaging portrait of those last flashes individuality in the Third Reich." -- Robert Leigh-Pemberton * Daily Telegraph * "This fascinating work captures the simmering complexity of a society as it enters one of the darkest chapters of modern history. With chilling immediacy, Hilmes offers portraits taken from a whole cross section of Berlin, characters as vivid as any from an Otto Dix or George Grosz painting" -- Chloe Aridjis, author of BOOK OF CLOUDS "Hilmes has a gift for storytelling ... entertaining ... a delicately crafted treat" -- Nikolaus Wachsmann * Guardian *

About this edition

• Publisher: Bodley Head
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1847924344
• ISBN 13: 9781847924346
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320