Berlin Finale (Penguin Modern Classics)

I'm glad that I read this novel, despite some reservations. The blurb from Lee Child caught my eye, since Child knows a thing or two about writing absorbing narratives. Rein gives a vivid immediate account of the last days in Berlin in April 1945 before Zhukov's Red Army forced the capitulation of the Hitler regime's capital. Rein draws on his own experience as a political dissident and his compulsory service in the state railway. The novel with its description of suffering in the destruction wreaked on Berlin was part of the immediate post-war literary genre known as Trümmerliteratur ("rubble literature"). Its immediacy brings to life the history recounted in "Berlin: The Downfall 1945" (also known as "The Fall of Berlin 1945") by Antony Beevor. Many of Rein's chapters begin with a long authorial profile of life in Berlin as the capital sinks into hysterical repression and misery, and these profiles, which are on the whole beautifully written, then segue into a continuing account of the activities of an assembled mix of characters of different backgrounds and ages (a bar owner, an Army deserter, a physician, a railway worker, assorted underground dissidents -- all hunted by officious Nazi neighborhood officials and the ever-lurking SS). In a touch of Dos Passos, the narrative is sprinkled (perhaps a bit too much so) with what seem to be authentic propaganda accounts of war developments, which are read by one character to the others from Nazi journalist accounts of the day (it is an exercise in irony, of course, designed to remind the German readership of 1946 of the regime's lies that sought to mask reality just a year or two earlier -- lies that many characters, though not the principals, in the book swallowed, as likely many of the readers of 1947 had also swallowed). There is some quite unintended irony in the protagonists' anxious awaiting of the Red Army's liberation from Nazi tyranny -- ironic, given the history of Berlin from 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991. (Rein himself left the DDR in the 1950s, an action that bespoke disenchantment with the regime the Soviets imposed on East Germany. The early days of the DDR's establishment are the subject of the brief, final, hopeful chapter of "Berlin Finale".) The novel is a product of its time; it was published in 1947. But that gives the book a gripping immediacy in places, and more than makes up for the patches where it becomes a bit, well, leaden. The author was writing for an audience that knew first-hand the harsh experiences he describes; and so he had to describe the city and the experiences of aerial bombing and artillery shelling in a way that squared with readers' recollections. On the negative side, dialogue is not Rein's strong suit, save where short exchanges occur in tense chapters. Rein often seems didactic, wordy, even preachy; but he wrote when Germans needed certain hard truths to be spoken openly. Perhaps the major flaw of the novel is, as I say, that Rein had no gift for dialogue. Often it is so contrived and didactic that the conversations just do not sound like real people speaking. They are like dialogues written by philosophers but purportedly spoken by real people. There are many of these, and they are painful to read through (even though saying such things in the open after nearly 15 years of Nazi repression was a purgative). But even these are worth reading, for the book itself is a document of its times, i.e., a time of fear and devastation followed by a time of arduously sorting out the rubble (Trümmer) and rebuilding. Another point of criticism -- the reliance on coincidence reads a bit like a contrived stage play: for example, the leftist couple whose son turns up and proves to be a nasty, highly placed SS follower personally honored by Der Führer. There is also a story-within-a-story that is clumsily patched into the novel, "The Story of the Tram Conductor Max Eckert": despite the clumsy patching-in, this per se is a striking, if gothic, description of the aerial bombing's effect on and destruction of an average German family (Part 2, ch. xix). By itself, it is quite effective and vivid. Occasionally, in the book's 660 pages, the translation stumbles in a detail or in an awkward turn of phrase, but on the whole it is pretty good and very readable. The book is worthwhile, quite different, and well worth your reading it. So 4 out of 5 stars as literature -- but in parts, certainly a 5-star performance. And as a historical document that makes very present events of 75 years ago, truly a 5-star document worthy of your time and attention.

A gripping contemporaneous account of the fall of Berlin with surprising relevance to today's world. The psychology of true believers who accept disinformation even as the truth is literally killing them has not changed. Some chapters are a bit obviously discursive, but on the whole a remarkable historical artifact and a good story.

This is an excellent view of the fall of Berlin ln 1945. You experience the bombings, the food lines ,the struggle to survive, the SS checking on the inhabitants to see for deserters, the fears and hopes of people who are caught in Hitler's dying city.

Five stars are not enough. This is the third English translation of this 1947 German novel, and I hope that it finally catches on. It all takes place in Berlin in April 1945, the final month of the war. It centers on a group of German resisters, with the main character, apart from the city of Berlin, being a young soldier who deserted the Wehrmacht. Parts of the novel are unbearably suspenseful and moving, particularly a chapter near the end called "The Story of the Tram Conductor Max Eckert." This chapter could be published separately as a short story because, like "The Town Ho's Story" in "Moby-Dick," it is not narrated by the primary narrator and does not involve any of the book's characters or its plot.In New Statesman, 21 August 2019, Lucy Hughes-Hallett writes that "Berlin Finale" is "[o]verlong, overwrought and overloaded with stilted debate," and has "purple-tinged apocalyptic prose." She adds that the "characters are simplistically drawn. Their language is unnatural." Considering these remarks after having finished the novel, I can see some truth in them. As I read the novel, however, I was so engrossed by it that I wasn't bothered by these flaws, except that some of the descriptions of Berlin and its references to particular streets might have been shortened. But you're not going to discover many forgotten novels that are this good. Another, of which it reminded me, was Hans Fallada's "Every Man Dies Alone" (also translated as "Alone in Berlin"), another German novel about resistance to the Nazis, which was also published in 1947 and that caught on in English translation only in the current century.

A very enjoyable read

A superbly written book,a really good insight to an horrific time for ordinary people.

Superb insight into life in the 3rd reich - not just the last days when this is set and well wrapped up in a plot that keeps you hooked - has gone on my shelves next to Fallada.

In my view this is a great novel though not an easy quick read. It requires patience to read but it is worth the effort. Similar to "Alone in Berlin" but involves more detailed descriptions of Nazi ideology, Berlin in 1945 under allied bombing and the Russian invasion of the City. It is about resistance among a small group of German civilians in Berlin to the Nazi ideology and the oppression of the Police state ruled by The SS and the Gestapo. It includes a lot of philosophical thoughts on the Nazi state and how the ordinary Germans have been lied to and how senior Nazi figures used lies and state propaganda to encourage the Germans to fight to the bitter end in the battle for Berlin against hopeless odds. It provides a fascinating view of how many ordinary Germans were convinced and encouraged by a gang of criminals led by Hitler to go to war and support the Nazi ideology and state and how the state used oppression, Police brutality and murder to try and hold the state apparatus together until the end of the war in 1945.It is an excellent period piece and demonstrates the suffering that many ordinary Germans were subjected to in the battle for Berlin in 1945.The descriptions of a ruined Berlin devastated by Allied bombing is very illuminating. I think it is one of the most important novels about resistance to the Nazis in Berlin at the end of the war and also a very important treatise on the psychology of Nazi ideology and how ordinary working and middle class Germans fell for the lies , propaganda and state sponsored bulletins churned out by a gang of criminal psychopaths. Read it, make the effort and you will be enriched. An important historical find.

This is an amazing book. It covers the final few days of the Third Reich as seen by an eyewitness. The first scene is set on April 14, 1945. Part I of the book consisting of 21 chapters takes us as far at April 17. Part II takes us through to May 2. For someone like me, researching this period in depth, it provided a wellspring of detailed information, but as a work of fiction it is far too long.There are countless scenes where members of the resistance discuss among themselves the extant political situation or the role played by the various social classes in the rise of Nazism. In several scenes the progress of the city’s defence is debated with convinced Nazis. We are treated to lots and lots of eyewatering snippets cut from the newspapers – many by Robert Ley – and the author describes in minute detail the everyday lives of the citizens, as bad goes to worse and the fanatical SS stubbornly refuse to give up. Dr Goebbels rants on the radio, exhorting the faithful to remain steadfast until the relief army comes to save the day. “Your Führer is with you.” Until he isn’t.The expository passages are extraordinary in the detail they contain. The dialogue exchanges and action passages read like scenes from a play. The Gestapo and SS-men are all stereotypical sadistic psychopaths. There are some gory scenes, but the violation of the women is mentioned only in passing. The Russians appear throughout as a shadowy threat, advancing ever closer. It’s not until the last few pages that we actually meet one. And the author leaves us with a couple of seriously loose ends.The translator did a superb job. It can’t have been easy. As I said, this is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the liberation of the people of Berlin from the war and from the SS, but I couldn’t recommend it as a work of fiction.