The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich Hardcover – May 17, 2016

Even before WW2 ended in Europe in May, 1945, much thought was given to post-war Germany by the Americans, British, and Soviets. Meetings at Tehren and Yalta, attended by all three powers, considered how Germany should be handled after 12 years of Nazi rule and seven years of war. Should the Morganthau Plan, which basically advocated taking away all industry from the country - after having it divided - to prevent the possibility of any future wars, be implemented? Or should a softer, less vindictive approach be made? Government officials, politicians, and military leaders remembered how the disastrous reparations payments to the Allies after WW1 helped drive the German Weimar Republic to ruin. In 1945, the country was divided into four zones - Soviet, British, American, and French (carved from parts of the British and American sections). The city of Berlin was also divided into four sectors. But along with looking at the post-war Germany with economic, political, and military considerations, there was also a look at societal problems. How did the Germans look at their wartime activities, i.e., who knew what and when did they know it? And what would happen in the post-war years?Lara Feigel, in her excellent book, "The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love, and Art in the Ruins of the Reich", examines the years 1945-1949, as artists, writers, movie-makers were sent to Germany to try to influence post-war reconstruction. Some of these people were Germans who had fled the country during the Nazi years, either because they were Jewish or because they didn't agree with the Nazi line. They had gone to the United States, Switzerland, or England, sending themselves into an artistic exile.(As opposed to those artists who had gone into "internal exile") Now they were returning to see if they could help by making movies, writing music, producing plays, or writing novels as they tried to make sense of what had happened for 12 long years.Lara Feigel uses the Thomas Mann family as an example of artists who had left Germany before the war, settled mostly in the United States, and had mixed feelings as they, individually, considered returning to Germany after the war. Thomas, his daughter Erika, and three sons, Klaus, Golo, and Michael, had all produced works while living in exile. Feigel is quite detailed as she examines what motivated them to return and their thoughts about having done so. Other artists she looks at are Marlene Dietrich, Martha Gellhorn - who were in a romantic menage-a-trois with a US General - as well as photographer Lee Miller and producer Billy Wilder. Not all these people were exiled Germans; Gellhorn and Lee Miller were Americans. looking for a story and an adventure, both of which they found in post-war Germany. Feigel also looks at the Nuremberg War trials and the impact of them on average Germans. And these topics are only a few she writes about.Feigel, who is a Senior Lecturer at Kings College, London, bounces around a bit in her book. She's a smooth writer, though, and her book is quite interesting. For those who are interested in more on the subject of post-war Germany and the Nuremberg Trials, take a look at "East West Street: On The Origins of 'Genocide' and 'Crimes Against Humanity'", by international rights lawyer Phillipe Sands.

Most baby boomers growing up in the 50’s often heard “eat your dinner, they’re starving in Europe”. Well, this book covers this common (and perhaps antiquated) topic, but from a different angle: from the view of the artists and expatriates who returned to Germany after the war. That in itself (their lives, loves, impressions) makes for some interesting reading if you’re from an era where you know who (e.g.) Marlene Dietrich and Billy Wilder were, without having to Google them.It was toward the end of the book, after it had covered the historical groundwork, that it started becoming more profound. The book pointed out that the original generation felt very little genuine guilt over their actions during war, and had much more regret for having lost the war so badly. Yet – one or two generations later - there was a heck of an aftershock.That same aftershock contributed to the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s America. And its secondary aftershock is going on right now as reactions to affirmative action and political correctness policies that have perhaps grown antiquated and grotesque, or perhaps not. We are still trying to sort out the detritus between the generation this book covers – and our own.

A view back to immediate post-war Germany through the lens of an assortment of visiting writers, artists,and other cultural lights. Most of these people lived in the United States or Great Britain during World War II, but had preexisting strong ties to Germany.Much of the book focuses on Berlin, not the whole of Germany; and, within Berlin, West Berlin. The soul destroying effects of the Soviet rule of East Germany are given scant notice in this book.The book succeeds best when recounting such specific incidents as the Nuremberg Trials and with general descriptions of the cultural and physical wreckage that existed at war's end. It is less helpful when going into depth about the romances of U.S. General James Gavin or the interior dysfunctions of Thomas Mann's family.

The research here is quite amazingly in depth and detailed with a strong focus on writers and artists. At times the author detours into too much literary detail that slow down the narrative or brings it to a dead stop.

Very detailed and a good review of history and those that wrote about it

Don't bother. This book is poorly written and one would think no editor has ever commented on it. Badly organized, hard to read, and apparently full of very questionable and salacious details about Ernest Hemingway and his girlfriends ? Really ? I want my money back!!

I'll take the blame for not researching this book before buying it. It has been my most boring book. The phrase "none the less" is used so many time I felt it should have been the title. Except for the mention of books and plays this book's stories are told better and in more detail in many other books. Buy it if you wish, but remember, I warned you it is boring.

Another great purchase on Amazon and another reason to spend money on books - i can buy used or electronic books for much less money and any reader loves having those options.

Having previously enjoyed, “The Love Charm of Bombs,” by author Lara Feigel, about the lives, and loves, of various writers in Wartime London, I was keen to read her account of Germany between 1944 and 1949, through the eyes of a number of writers, film-makers, artists, actors and musicians. Feigel weaves the accounts of various characters – Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, Thomas Mann and his children, Klaus and Erika, Lee Miller, Mervynn Peake, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, Rebecca West, Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir, Billy Wilder and more.We begin with the Battle of Germany in 1944-45. As Germany is left in rubble, the sympathy for those left struggling in the ruins is lost by the discovery of the concentration camps. Some of those heading for Germany had been personally forced to leave their own country, so the news of the fate they may have escaped may have been doubly shocking. Others, such as Marlene Dietrich, found that her own sister was involved running a cinema for the SS in a concentration camp – she helped save her, and her husband, from arrest, but never spoke to them again. Meanwhile, for others, such as Thomas Mann- who still saw himself as German – felt he shared guilt with his countrymen.Much of the beginning of this book concerns the ‘guilt’ of the Germans and how they were to be made to feel it. Yet, in the winter of 1945, most Germans were more involved with trying to survive than in having any higher feelings. There is a lot in this book about the Nuremberg trials; commented on by Evelyn Waugh (who visited), Orwell and Rebecca West, who was summoned to write a book about events. I found this a fascinating part of the book and want to read West’s book, written at such a heightened time of her own life.We then move into the post war, and finally, the Cold War period. It is fascinating to see how those mentioned in this book reacted to events. Erika Mann was infuriated with the Germans lack of responsibility, George Orwell felt that punishing an enemy brought no satisfaction and it was more important to feed the starving German people than punish defeated Nazi’s in war crimes. Perhaps strangely, Jewish publisher, Victor Gollancz, agreed and started the, “Save Europe Now,” campaign, wanting the former enemy to be treated with compassion.Certainly, despite the end of the war, Germany was still in ruins. Hunger, disease and homelessness were rife. As lines were drawn between the US and the Soviet Union, the Germans were able to move from former enemy to an ally and were given the victim status that many of the people felt necessary, in order to obtain help. This is both an historically interesting read, but also personally interesting, as the stories of all of those involved are weaved together. Overall, a good read, although the greater cast of characters, than those in the, “Love Charm of Bombs,” sometimes makes you feel less invested in the personal stories of those included.

Book arrived in pristine condition from webuy books. Lara Feigel is a superb historical biographer.

The author is too young to have first-hand knowledge of the awful events she describes but, building on the success of her third-hand account of war-time Britain, "The Love Charm of Bombs", she has compiled a similar evocation of Germany in the years 1944-46 as a kind of tribute to her Polish-Jewish and Dutch grand-parents. who knew it all too well. As in the earlier book, she draws not on family records but an eclectic array of published memoirs and letters - by Klaus and Erika Mann, by Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gelhorn, by W.H.Auden and Stephen Spender and - most intriguingly - by Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich. It is an ingenious strategy, boldly executed and sometimes enthralling, but as a retired professional historian, Foscari (who vividly remembers being taken to Germany in 1936 and again in 1951) is not too impressed by this distinctly third-hand essay on a subject which the author really does not know. One must admire her nerve..and concede her right to attempt it. but do not expect to learn much about the realities of Germany in these years.

Well written and intelligent, this book covers a fascinating period of history: the need to "de-nazify" the German people in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. Interestingly, much of the effort was accorded to writers and artists, in an attempt to take art back to the people who gave us Goethe and Beethoven. The book is slightly too long, and for a while concentrates on the less than interesting children of Thomas Mann, but overall it is an excellent and unusual book

Excellent....