Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin

Rating:
Summary: Out Of Her League
Review: It is a sad commentary on today's book market that this could be published; surely the most poorly edited major book I have seen in years. Leaving aside content for a moment, we have numerous spelling and grammatical errors. There is inconsistent capitalization of terms throughout. In the author's section on WWII she ascribes the infamous Moscow July 1944 parade of German POW's as containing some 350,000 captured Germans. Two pages later it is 60,000 (it was actually 57,600 and change). She has no concept of the distinction between a Soviet 'front' and an 'army' or 'army group'. She speaks of Rokossovsky's role in the 'race' for and Battle for Berlin in April 1945 when Rokossovsky's Front was in action well to the north of the city. It is well known the 'race' was between Zhukov and Konev--hence Stalin's famous 'pencil mark' between the Fronts. In general, the entire WWII section is replete with errors that any decent editor should have caught. The material in that section was largely out of date thirty years ago.
As for content, the author's anti-German bias shows rather clearly. For example she can not comprehend why Berlin might not want a monument to Red Army war dead in their city! She comes down clearly on the side of those who condemn the new generation of Germans for the sins of their forbears. As for American angles, she repeats the old myth that we should have liberated Berlin as the disposition of the occupation zones was not set. This is very wrong, the zones having been determined in final form (except for the French zone--which did not come out of the Soviet allocation at all) over the fall of 1944. As we did with cities like Leipzig, we would have been obliged to withdraw from the territory surrounding Berlin by summer '45 or face a war. So Ike properly saw little reason to sacrifice American lives for land we would just turn over to the USSR anyway. She repeats the old McCarthy-ite myth that FDR 'gave' Eastern Europe away at Yalta! Any serious student of WWII will choke on almost every page she writes concerning that period, so replete is it with mistakes. Later, she castigates the US for not physically tearing down the Wall upon its 1961 construction--little realizing that such would have meant a war that no American then wished to fight. In general, the author has a tunnel vision grounded in some sort of anti-German and anti-American "pan-Europism". That, coupled with the worst editing I have ever seen in a major book means that this does not even deserve the one star I have given it.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely biased and vague at crucial points
Review: It's not often that a historical book dealing with the historical sweep of a major city retains the reader's interest from first to last page and at the same time makes riveting reading - well all credit to Alexandra Richie who manages both with considerable aplomb. Never the easiest of subjects she makes the city bristle and come alive on every page and in the end you feel as though you know everything that has happened to this fascinating city.

Rating:
Summary: great overview of euro politics
Review: Ms Ritchie tells the story of Berlin in a truly engaging manner,don't let the length scare you,even if you are a casual lover of history.This is no dry academic treatise.And Ms.Ritchie does a tremendously good job at explaining the origins of Socialism,Communism,and Nazism--and their terrible excesses.If you want a quick,readable grasp of European politics,read this and parts of Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence.

Rating:
Summary: Very informative, yet entertaining
Review: Ms. Richie successfully manages to present a huge amount of information within the confines of approximately 900 pages of text, with another 300 or so pages devoted to source notes and indexing.

While the entire book is fascinating, one can tell that Ms. Richie is far more comfortable with modern socio-economic history of Berlin. While she begins her opus in ancient times, she devotes the majority of the book to the modern era. Her treatment of Berlin during WWII could stand alone as a mini-history of Germany during the war years. She is neither overly harsh or overly forgiving in her treatment of this great city and generally presents very balanced arguments.

She is a technically facile writer who avoids bogging down the reader with arcane theories and esoteric terminology. A thoroughly enjoyable read for those interested in modern european history.

Rating:
Summary: Too broadly focused
Review: The part of Richie's book that was truly about Berlin was good. The problem was that she spent too much time and space discussing the history of Prussia/Germany. What I wanted -- and what I assume you are looking for -- is a history of the city of Berlin. That is, when buildings were constructed, details of municipal government, urban planning, major social events pertaining to the city, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Too broadly focused
Review: The part of Richie's book that was truly about Berlin was good. The problem was that she spent too much time and space discussing the history of Prussia/Germany. What I wanted -- and what I assume you are looking for -- is a history of the city of Berlin. That is, when buildings were constructed, details of municipal government, urban planning, major social events pertaining to the city, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Corrections
Review: The underlying thesis of this book (about the nature of Berliners and their relationship to political authority) is interesting, but this book is so replete with small errors so as to make one begin to doubt the whole.

Just for starters, the cover itself has two notable errors. 1) The story of Faust, as recounted by Goethe, does not take place in Berlin, but rather in Leipzig. Therefore, Berlin is not Faust's metropolis, even if the city has had a Faustian existence. 2) The crest on the book's cover is not that of the city (or state) of Berlin. Berlin's arms have a bear. The Prussian arms bore the red eagle.

As many experts have noted, the author treats many periods in Berlin's history with great imprecision or simply incorrectly. Her recounting of World War II's closing months makes me whether she understands exactly what did happen en route to May 2, 1945, both militarily and diplomatically. Her depiction is hardly worthly of an academically researched examination.

Her relating of the 1960s in Berlin is similarly unnuanced. There is a wealth of secondary literature on the 1968ers, yet she incorrectly characterizes much of their movement. Regarding the Cold War, she takes a very hawkish stance (even regarding the decision in 1945 to let the Russians conquer the city, which was essentially a no-brainer). She chastises the US for not tearing down the Berlin Wall in 1961. Doing so might have led to World War III. Besides, many scholars now believe that Americans were partially glad it was built, as it stabilized the Berlin situation.

I had hoped for more of history of Berlin as city, with a focus on architecture and social groups and their relationship to the political and cultural development of the city. For a general history of Germany or even Prussia, one might do better to consult an author like Craig, Orlow, Breuilly, or Dwyer. As for Berlin, perhaps one would best consult David Clay Large or another author.

Rating:
Summary: A British Tory View of Berlin's History
Review: This book is well-written and contains fascinating information, especially in the early sections dealing with Berlin's pre-Germanic, Slavic history. Later on, the bloody Soviet assault on the city in 1945 against ferocious resistance is depicted magnificiently, while Richie's account of atrocities committed by Soviet troops is truly horrifying. Where Faust's Metropolis runs into trouble is in the author's tendency to slip into factual errors and in her more pronounced tendency to present her reactionary political interpretations as indisputable depictions of reality. Some of the factual errors are relatively minor; an example would be her assertion that during World War I the expensive German battleships were never used. Actually, they were used - against the British at Jutland, one of the most spectacular naval battles ever fought. In addition, she actually believes, or claims to believe, that Britain entered World War I to protect the neutrality rights of Belgium. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the War knows that the British themselves initially planned to invade neutral Holland in order to strike at Germany; the plan was abandoned out of military considerations, not legal or ethical ones. More serious are the errors brought on by the author's hatred of Marxism. One need not be an admirer of Stalin in order to realize that her claim that he spurned Britain and France in order to sign a pact with Hitler is pure nonsense. Stalin signed the pact only after the Western allies refused to sign an alliance with him, hoping that the Germans would attack the U.S.S.R. rather than Poland and France. Another area in which she substitutes fantasy for history is in her treatment of Generals Montgomery and Patton and their conflicts with Eisenhower. Both are presented as heroic in their eagerness to provoke a confrontation with the Soviets; Patton, she tells us, was fired "because the Americans would not allow anyone to sour relations with Stalin." Actually, Eisenhower removed Patton from his command after he disobeyed direct orders to stop associating with Nazis and openly planning for World War III. Montgomery, another head case, is lauded for his plan to dash accross Germany and seize Berlin just as it was in the grasp of the Soviets. Somehow he emerges as the hero of the Battle of the Bulge; Richie contends that Eisenhower "hid in his headquarters" during the battle because he feared that the Germans would try to assassinate him. Richie's treatment of the G.D.R. after the War reads like one of those pamphlets I was given to read in grade school - the ones written by J.Edgar Hoover or Cardinal Spellman. She finds nothing good about East Germany, not even free, guaranteed medical care or daycare for children, which are described as "rigid social benefits." What are non-rigid social benefits? The kind you get in the form of a trust account or monthly checks from an affluent mommy and daddy? Sometimes her denunciations take on a hysterical tone, as when she declares that the Evangelical Church of the G.D.R. (which made a point of attacking racism and human inequality) was "was very much the successor of Hitler's 'National Church.'" Ravings like this pass beyond the borders of muddled thinking and sloppy scholarlship and enter that of ideological fanaticism. Richie sides with every cold war hardliner she comes accross, from Richard Pipes to James Baker. Detente was a big mistake, we are assured, because it gave the Soviets military superiority in Europe; why they didn't use it to evict the West is not explained. Willy Brandt's opening to the East was also a no-no; he should have followed the Christian Democrats in blindly following the U.S. Ronald Reagan is a big hero; his absurd Star Wars plan, Richie thinks, is what led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the G.D.R. One has to wonder about the judgement of an author who believes that Reagan, whose government financed the Guatemalan and Salvadoran death squads, stood for international freedom and justice. In a lengthy and sanctimonious afterward the author's right-wing agenda becomes even more explicit. she lectures West Berliners that "the road away from the United States is the road to disaster" and insults Willy Brandt's widow as "pathetic" for begging to differ. She also lumps the Greens ("dreamy environmentalists") and Berlin's new leftists in with vicious neo-Nazis as opponents of U.S. leadership. At some points in this book Richie seems to reject the concept of collective guilt for the Holocaust, at other points she wants the Communists, who themselves were murdered, jailed or forced into exile by the Nazis, to assume responsibility for it. In the afterward she encourages "all Berliners ... to try to be worthy of forgiveness." This will probably happen around the same time that British Tories accept responsibility for Britain's leading role in the slave trade and for the genocical witholding of food during the Irish Potato Famine. One last point. For someone who throws around so many phrases about freedom and democracy, Richie seems to have a rather odd idea of how this works out in practice. As a sign of "hope and optimism" she notes that "hard-line East German teachers were barred from schools" after reunification. In other words, Marxist teachers were fired, as they were in the U.S. in the McCarthy Era. The old Tory interpretation of individual rights - Of course you have freedom of speech. All we ask is that you don't try to exercise it.

Rating:
Summary: Let the man go, purgatory for Faust
Review: This is a swashbuckling whole shebang account of moden Germany in a Berlin track-mind, long, yet fast, and is a good backdrop to the military history of the World Wars. The good detail piles up and the book gets better towards the second half, and was especially interesting from the inter-war period onward, with short but to the point snapshot accounts of the rise of Hitler after the cultural overdrive of the Twenties. It is good to zoom in for close detail, and then zoom out to keep the pace moving, given such a long range. That the book does. And that detail tells it best, sometimes in chilling fashion. Goethe or Marlowe's Faust. You be the judge.

Rating:
Summary: Readable, useful, challenging history.
Review: When the book arrived in the mail I despaired at the size. When I started reading, I forgot the size.

Ms. Richie has done what very few serious authors try to do: produce something of serious intellectual intent while making it readable and absorbing. Her style is "reader friendly" I find.

She has looked at the social, economic and artistic history of Berlin from its first days as a village in a way that not only adds to our knowledge of the city, but also enlightens about the area in general. Her comments about German mentality and sense of self are often brutal and incisive. She gets away with this by being fair and involved. Her admiration for the land of her ancestors is obvious but not blind.

I could pick few arguments with her in areas where I had some knowledge, although I thought she was a little harsh on Eisenhower.

But, overall, I have no complaints. This book is a real addition to the literature about the area and will eventually find its way into college and other serious curricula about the history of Central Europe.

Congratulations to the author!