Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945
by Marie Vassiltchikov
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marie VassiltchikovEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1988-06-12
ISBN: 0394757777
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945
Book Review: A different WWII perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
(4.5 stars)
This book is quite unlike the typical WWII-era memoir which most folks are used to. The most obvious difference is that Missie is an exiled Russian princess, and not some ordinary citizen or refugee in Germany and Austria. She also wrote her diaries in English instead of in German or Russian, so she's really not a full part of the society she's living in. In spite of the differing perspective, the story is very riveting and well-told. Gaps in the narrative are filled in by editorial comments by Missie's brother George, letters she wrote and sent during the missing periods, and reminiscences from Missie, friends, and relatives years later. For someone who isn't well-versed in WWII history, the editorial comments will be very helpful, such as details of the infamous massacre at Katyn, or more information about some battle or event that's only alluded to.
Though she is immune to the suffering and deprivations of the ordinary people around her in the beginning, by 1943 Missie and her circle of friends and relatives start to feel the heat. The Allied bombings raids on Berlin didn't make a distinction between commoners and nobility, and food and fuel shortages affected everyone. Because of her association with a few people involved in the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler, Missie eventually has to get out of Berlin, eventually making her way into Vienna, where she works as a nurse for most of the duration of the war. Deprivations and bombing raids continue in Vienna, though, and as the war nears its final days, she once again is faced with the necessity of escaping to a safer locale. Not only is it imperative that she get out of the way of the fighting, but she also doesn't want to be discovered by the Red Army, as she is a White Russian.
While it's always difficult to make value judgments on someone's journal, since we can't put ourselves in that person's footsteps, and because this person probably never dreamt it would be published, I did get the sense that a few other reviewers did, that there's a seeming indifference to the fate of the ordinary people around her. While Europe is going up in flames, Missie, her friends, and her family are still going to parties, hob-nobbing with royalty and nobility, driving around in cars, drinking champagne, using perfume, having strings pulled for them so they can have nice jobs, saving ridiculous luxury items, and staying in castles and manors. Even when the war finally catches up to even the nobility, she still has all of these powerful connections who can get her exit passes, travel permits, castles and estates to escape to, jobs to be accepted at, and cars and trains to flee in.
Ordinary Europeans often had to escape on foot and drag their necessary possessions in carts, were left homeless, couldn't turn their noses up at horse meat if that were their only food available, didn't have powerful connections to save them from harm and grant them safe passage through dangerous territory, and cared more about escaping with their lives, the clothes on their backs, and a few needed items, instead of rejoicing that some Count friend of theirs managed to save something stupid like fur coats and artwork in his automobile. And while the selling point of the book is that Missie was intimately involved in the July 20 plot, I didn't see more than superficial circumstantial evidence for that. She was friends with some of the plotters and tried to get some of them out of jail, but other than that, there isn't any compelling proof that she knew way more than she was telling. That isn't even the main focus of the book. And since there are so many people moving in Missie's circle, it's sometimes hard to remember who's who.
Overall, though, it is a very interesting book for anyone who's interested in a different perspective of WWII, or who's interested in the White Russian experience abroad. Obviously it's not Missie's fault that she was born into nobility and could have all of these wartime luxuries and safety nets that ordinary people could only dream of.
Summary of Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945
The secret diaries of a twenty-three-year-old White Russian princess who worked in the German Foreign Office from 1940 to 1944 and then as a nurse, these pages give us a unique picture of wartime life in that sector of German society from which the 20th of July Plot -- the conspiracy to kill Hitler -- was born.Historical Books
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