While Berlin burns

Eyewitness account of the gradual destruction of Berlin in the last years of the war.

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The last few days have been days of intolerable tension we have done nothing but pack our belongings and store them in bomb-proof sites. Danger threatens from all sides. The Americans are using phosphorous shells, against which all extinguishers are useless In a world in which havoc spreads far more quickly than life can burgeon, to look more than fifteen minutes ahead is pointless. Entry for 4 April 1945.

From 1943 to 1945, from his vantage point in the German Foreign Office Press and Information Section, Hans-Georg von Studnitz recorded the day-to-day events in Berlin. He was in the perfect position to write such an account: he was entrusted with the drafting of Nazi political directives and was in constant touch with the foreign diplomats stationed in Berlin.

This is a fascinating and comprehensive insight into life in Berlin: the bombings and its effects, social life, key personalities and events. Studnitz writes with the trained skill of a journalist and a political commentator. His account has few equals in the literature of memoirs.