A Woman in Berlin

It took five more years for the German original to find a publisher and, even then, Kossodo was not in Germany but in Switzerland. But German readers were obviously not ready to face some uncomfortable truths, and the book was met with hostility and silence. One of the few critics who reviewed it complained about what he called the author’s “shameless immorality” German women were not supposed to talk about the reality of rape; and German men preferred not to be seen as impotent onlookers when the victorious Russians claimed their spoils of war. The author’s attitude was an aggravating factor: devoid of self-pity, with a clear-eyed view of her compatriots’ behavior before and after the Nazi regime’s collapse, everything she wrote flew in the face of the reigning post-war complacency and amnesia. No wonder then that the book was quickly relegated to obscurity.

By the seventies, the political climate in Germany had become more receptive and photocopies of the text, which had long been out of print, began to circulate in Berlin. They were read by the radical students of 1968 and taken up by the burgeoning women’s movement. By 1985 when I started my own publishing venture, I thought it was high time to reprint A Woman in Berlin, but the project turned out to be fraught with difficulty. The anonymous author could not be traced, the original publisher had disappeared, and it was not clear who held the copyright. Kurt Marek had died in 1971. On a hunch, I contacted his widow, Hannelore, who knew the identity of the author. She also knew that the diarist did not wish to see her book reprinted in Germany while she was alive – an understandable reaction given the dismal way it was originally received.

In 2001, Ms Marek told me that the author had died and her book could now reappear. By then, Germany and Europe had undergone fundamental changes and all manner of repressed memories were re-emerging. It was now possible to raise issues that had long been taboo. Subjects like the widespread collaboration in France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere; anti-Semitism in Poland; the saturation bombing of civilian populations; ethnic cleansing in post-war Europe – which for many years had been dwarfed by the German act of genocide – were now legitimate areas of inquiry. These are, of course, complex and morally ambiguous topics, easily exploited by revisionists of all stripes; nonetheless, they belong on the historical agenda and deserve level-headed discussion. And it is in this context that A Woman in Berlin ought to be read.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Eichborn

Revue

‘Evokes her situation with tense immediacy… [it] is both an important work of social history and a remarkable human document. The diarist’s spirit rises from the ashes of degradation as she reasserts her belief in her own physical strength and, ultimately, her wish to survive’ Mark Bostridge, Independent on Sunday

An extraordinary diary, an astounding piece of writing that we should be incredibly grateful survived… it is raw and as a result completely impossible to put down… It is so rare to be able to read the minutiae of a woman’s life in such extraordinary circumstances. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the page’ Viv Groskop, Sunday Express

‘Reading A Woman in Berlin in one afternoon is an unnerving sensory experience: the walls close in, the air thickens, shrieks from children playing nearby adopt a sinister air. This is an all-enveloping book, a lyrical personal journal… it leaves a deep scar’ Simon Garfield, Observer

‘This is a book that does not go away when you’ve read the final page… a gift of the utmost value to historians and students of the period. Her journalistic training is evident from her economy of language and eye for the telling detail, but her extraordinary lack of self pity is all her own’ Cressida Connolly, Daily Telegraph

Copyright

VIRAGO

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Virago Press

First published in 1954 by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York.

This edition, which was slightly revised by the author, was first

published in Germany as Eine Frau in Berlin by Eichborn Verlag.

Reprinted in 2005 (twice)

This paperback edition published in 2006 by Virago Press

Reprinted 2006 (three times)

Copyright © Hannelore Marek 2002

Copyright © Eichborn Verlag AG, Frankfurt am Main, 2003

Introduction coyright © Antony Beevor 2004

Afterword copyright © Hans Magnus Enzensberger 2004

Translation copyright © Philip Boehm 2004

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved.