A vivid chronicle of 1930s Germany conveyed through the life of a lesser-known historical figure.
The story of Raymond Geist (1885-1955), United States consul in Berlin from 1929 to 1939.
Breitman (Emeritus, History/American Univ.; co-author: FDR and the Jews, 2013, etc.) maintains convincingly that Geist was the most competent American diplomatic figure in Germany, especially after the Nazis took power in 1933. A professional actor and scholar (Harvard doctorate), he was overqualified in 1921 when he joined the Consular Service, at the time separate and inferior to the Diplomatic Service, concerned mostly with visa matters and problems of American citizens. During Geist’s assignment in Berlin, these duties became a matter of life and death. Few colleagues knew how to deal with the Nazis, and the ambassadors were callow political appointees. Far more educated, fluent in German, and a natural schmoozer, Geist became so valuable that superiors kept him in Berlin for a decade even though consuls usually rotated after a few years. Most scholars agree on the value of Geist’s reports to U.S. officials, in which he emphasized the Nazi regime’s brutality, predicted Hitler’s intention to go to war, and described the vicious persecution of Jews, warning that it would end in mass murder. He worked hard and often creatively to process the avalanche of requests for U.S. visas, but, a loyal civil servant, he obeyed America’s restrictive immigration laws. The sad truth is that most Americans, including members of Congress, overwhelmingly opposed admitting refugees, and many high officials in the State Department were anti-Semitic. Although sympathetic, Franklin Roosevelt refused to twist arms. “In the fiscal year from July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934, 891 people got US immigration visas in Berlin,” writes Breitman. “This means that somewhere around twelve thousand people were either formally rejected or, more commonly, placed on the informal and inactive waiting list.” The author deplores this heartless policy, but he mostly praises Geist’s efforts, which were admirable but never heroic.
A vivid chronicle of 1930s Germany conveyed through the life of a lesser-known historical figure.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5417-4216-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
