Research Catalog

Title

Ruined by the Reich : memoir of an East Prussian family, 1916-1945 / Christel Weiss Brandenburg with Dan Laing.

Author

Brandenburg, Christel Weiss, 1934-

Publication

Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Laing, Dan, 1948-

Description

vi, 218 p. : ill., map; 23 cm.

Summary

• "This is the story of the Weiss family in East Prussia from World War I to the end of World War II, told from the point of view not of the victors but of the vanquished. Beginning with the good citizenship trap Hitler set for law-abiding families, the book describes how Germany first prospered and then fell to ruin with the Third Reich. The people traded their freedoms for a national security that quickly turned to tyranny, with swift consequences for "disobedience."
• "Like Christel's brothers (soldiers and members of Hitler's Youth), propaganda-fed children all over the Reich believed the highly idealized depiction of their roles and of their nation's victims."--Jacket.

Subject

• Weiss family
• Brandenburg, Christel Weiss, 1934-
• 1918-1945
• National socialism
• World War, 1939-1945 > Personal narratives
• Germany > History > 1918-1933
• Germany > History > 1933-1945

Genre/Form

Personal narratives

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-216) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue: July 1995 -- Weiss Family Members -- The Eastern Front, 1916 -- New Borders and a New Life -- The Nazis Gain Control of Germany -- The Battle for the Children -- Farm Life Circa 1938 -- The Family Celebrates -- War with Poland -- The Western Front Moves to the Sea -- Children for the Fatherland -- Winter War Stalemate, 1940 -- Stalin Is Rudely Awakened -- Alfred's Turn to Serve His Nation -- Fresh Recruits for the Fuhrer -- Leningrad Holds Out -- Bodies to Bury, Crops to Plant -- Planes to Fly -- Slave Laborers and Children Must Work -- No Joy for the World -- Bargaining with the Enemy -- Trouble at School -- In Over Our Heads in Prussia -- Evacuate Any Way Possible -- Driven to the Baltic Sea -- The Red Army Takes Everything -- The War Ends, Nothing Changes -- Train Tracks to Oblivion -- A New Life Among Strangers -- My Brothers Talk -- Our Troubled Hungry Family -- Germany Emerges from Hitler's Shadow -- A New Life in Canada.

ISBN

0786416157 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2003021836

OCLC

• 53145293
• SCSB-12033532

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library