Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov

It's easy to laugh at them as they swill champagne in bomb shelters, decide whether or not they feel like going in to work that day, and approve of themselves for wangling special treatment through their connections. It's surreal to witness these people's slow descent into chaos even as they cling to markers of privilege in the classic fiddling-as-Rome-burned manner. It did that-I learned that Berlin and its residents were pretty much destroyed long before the Russians got there-but I found it fascinating in its own right because it focuses mainly on a section of society, the European aristocracy, that doesn't often appear in chronicles of World War 2 deprivation.

'I hadn't heard anything about this book before I bought it, and I picked it up mostly because I thought it might provide an interesting preamble to another striking diary I'd read some time ago, A WOMAN IN BERLIN, set in the city in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion. She also describes how she and her friends became involved in a desperate conspiracy to murder Hitler. In these secret diaries, she chronicles the glamorous rise and shattering fall of the Nazi Party, as seen from the vantage point of her desk at the Foreign Ministry. 'One of the most remarkable documents to come out of the war, and nothing will ever quite match its calm and grace in utterly hideous circumstances.A princess of White Russian descent, Marie Vassiltchikov was 23 years old when she was trapped in Berlin by the outbreak of World War II. 'A vivid insider's view of Nazi Germany.' - Vanity Fair has a sharp eye and a witty tongue.' - Cleveland Plain Dealer 'A rare opportunity to see the Second World War from an unusual perspective: the view from Berlin and Vienna, not Washington or London. The best eyewitness account we possess of the bombing of Berlin.' 'Neither a set of reflections flor a philippic, but a record.

She has foraged for food.She has smelled the decaying flesh of corpses buried in the bombed ruins of Berlin and Vienna and lost some of her best friends.' - Washington Post Book World 'A skillful weaving of history, memoir, and autobiography.full of colorful characters.When she began writing in 1940, Missie, as she was called, was.concerned mainly with beaux and parties.By 1945 she has no more illusions.

Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov