Walter Kempowski spent 30 years combing the autobiographies, letters, and diaries of ordinary Germans, snippets of which are now assembled in this volume. Kempowski’s purpose: not to exonerate but to explore the misery the Third Reich brought to ordinary Germans. He chooses various dates in 1945 (Hitler’s birthday, for instance) to show what a wide variety of Germans and Austrians were thinking, feeling, and experiencing on that day. The result is a disturbing but compulsively readable slice of history. You can read the Monitor's full review of "Swan Song 1945" here.
