Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil [Paperback]

Freidrich Reck-Malleczewen (Author), Paul Rubens (Translator)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Product Details

Product Description

Review

"Astonishing, compelling, and unnerving." -- The New Yorker

"It is not often that invective reaches the level of art, and rarer still that hatred assumes a tragic grandeur." -- New York Times

"One of the most important documents of the period." -- Hannah Arendt

Book Description

One of the most important documents of the Hitler period--the diary of a martyred anti-Nazi Russian aristocrat who describes the horrors of the era with insight.

This is the true ans compelling diary of an anti-Nazi Prussian aristocrat who lived through mankind's darkest era, only to die in a concentration camp on the eve of the Armistice. The diary is considered one of the most important documents of the period, describing in unforgettable terms how a psychosis enveloped an entire society, enabling Hitler's rise to power, and the Nazi regime. This accurate account of the forebodings of an unsung visionary exposes in chilling fashion the relationship between sentimentality and violence.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Diary of a man among apes, Aug 24 2002
This review is from: Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil (Paperback)
The title is a calumny. As his translator, Paul Rubens, points out, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen was a prophet - not in the vulgar sense of one who predicts future events, but a prophet after the fashion of Jeremiah, William Blake and Dostoyevsky: one who comments on the present from the perspective of the Most High. As such, even when his own death is imminent, Reck most certainly does not despair. Like the three individuals mentioned above, he is angered, disgusted, saddened and horrified by what he sees around him; his journal is filled with images of Calvary, the plague, and the Apocalypse; yet he continually strives to see his own and his country's ordeal as a time of suffering and repentance which must be endured to make way for a new and better world. None of which is to say that his thinking is "mystical" in the sense of being vague or escapist; indeed, the immense value of Reck's diary, both as literature and as a historical document, lies in its brilliant combination of sharp observation and lucid analysis. Although he makes the all-too-common error of lumping in the plotters of 20 July 1944 with the many opportunists who tried to dissociate themselves from the regime as defeat began to loom, Reck's analytical passages offer as clear and concrete a picture of the corruption underlying Hitler's Germany as any historian I have encountered. Telling details of life in the Third Reich - the omnipresent thuggery and tale-bearing, the forced barracks-gymnasium atmosphere, the all-pervasive lies and propaganda - spring out of every page through tartly written anecdotes and vignettes. The peculiar detestability of the Nazi functionaries - frustrated schoolteachers and jumped-up mailmen posing as masters of the world - is described and analysed with perception and admirable loathing. This elderly, conservative, royalist aristocrat - a member of a class who, because they did not support the Weimar Republic, are too often labelled supporters of the Nazis - displays a courage, intelligence, breadth of culture and (I cannot emphasise it enough) a faith which makes his journal as moving a human document as the more famous diary of Anne Frank.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest books ever, Jan 29 2003
By 
Henry W. Kastler (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil (Paperback)
It's hard to believe this isn't a work of fiction. This guy is filled with hate and rage and loathing as he watches the German-speaking people descend into madness. Incredible writing, powerful ideas. Get it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5.0 out of 5 stars Reck does not dismiss them as boorish charlatans, Jun 10 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil (Paperback)
It is true that Reck has a sense of class superiority to the Nazi's but that does not obscure his central point--he knew they were monsters--and he died for that. Counts for something you know. The invective is superb and more over Reck recognizes real resistance like the Scholl's (were they aristocrat?) and damns the generals assisanation plot as a an opportunistic move. Furthermore The Nazis crimes were pandemic--the annhilhation of the Jews, but also gypsies--and if one is making measurements which seems to me silly--the obliteration of 20,0000 soviet citizens. By the other reviewers logic if the destruction of the Jews is the question by which Germans will be judged, then Stalin becomes a heroe for saving the bulk of Soviet Jewry --sending them behind the Ural mountains--I don't think I want to go that route. It also explains why Israel refuses to make Dietrich Bonhoeffer a "rightious gentile" which is a scandal.
No The Nazis were monsters such total monsters that any costly resistance derserves honor. This is the best anti-Nazi book theis Jew has ever read.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject






















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?