A woman in Berlin

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A Woman in Berlin is the autobiographical work of Marta Hillers (1911–2001), who as Anonyma describes her fate from April 20 to June 22, 1945 in Berlin and her role as a rape victim of pillaging Red Army soldiers . The first edition was published in English in 1954 and in Dutch in 1955. Numerous translations into other languages ​​followed. By the late 1950s, the work had sold more than half a million times in the United States and Great Britain, and received mostly positive reviews. In 1959 the book was published in German by a small Geneva publisher.

content

The book by Marta Hillers, then 34 years old, describes in a laconic style with shocking openness, irony and without self-pity the everyday life of the last days of the war from April 20 to June 22, 1945. This includes experiences from the air raid shelter. It provides characterizations of the completely normal Germans when there is a lack of food and air raids. The mood and fears of the last days before the entry of the Red Army and the subsequent rapes of German women and girls, including herself, are presented. The permanent availability of the female body as everyday life becomes visible. In this everyday life, the boundaries between rape and forced prostitution are blurred. Hillers describes it as "going to sleep" for food. The soldiers try to find a stable wife and pay for it with food and alcohol for anesthesia. By attaching themselves to a soldier, the women try to save themselves from being fair game for many. Soldiers are portrayed from the polite major to the genuinely in love and the politically educated comrade to the coarse libertine and ruthless drunkard. The women try to come to terms with obvious symptoms of massive trauma. German men play no or only an inglorious role. The German men taboo and ignore the brutal sexual violence and morally rise above the true background of forced prostitution.

Constanze Jaiser wrote in her review: "For never before have the sexual power and impotence conditions that were common at this time been presented in this way and translated into language that is as coarse as it is literarily subtle."

Reception, authenticity

The first edition met with strong rejection in Germany in 1959 and the author was accused of having “tarnished the honor of German women” and that the book was “a disgrace for German women”. Surprised by the outrageous statements and hostile reactions, the author prohibited any further publication until her death and refused to mention her name afterwards. After that, the book was almost completely forgotten by the public for decades. At the end of the 1980s it is said to have circulated in interested circles in West Berlin in the form of photocopies. Even today, the original edition is difficult to obtain. In 2003, two years after the author's death, the book was then reissued in the Other Library published by Hans Magnus Enzensberger in Eichborn-Verlag . The new edition was one of the greatest German book successes of 2003. It was on Der Spiegel's bestseller list for several months . The book received positive reviews in all leading feature pages.

Since other non-fiction books were unmasked as forgeries near the time of publication, the authenticity of this book has also been questioned, especially by Jens Bisky in the Süddeutsche Zeitung . In a two-page report, Walter Kempowski came to the conclusion that the diary entries of Marta Hillers on which the book is based were authentic. According to a review by Spiegel editor and historian Martin Doerry, a comprehensive report by historian Yuliya von Saal from the Munich Institute for Contemporary History came to the conclusion that Hillers had literarized her original diary notes when the diary was published. Kurt Wilhelm Marek, alias CW Ceram , who was a friend of Hiller, did not edit the text himself, as Bisky suspected, but only advised the author. The book only partly consisted of her diary notes, the majority of which was then probably added by the author herself at the beginning of the 1950s. This also includes all statements that point to an urbane author who is distant from the Nazi regime. Yuliya von Saal sums up that the customer was “a mixture of set pieces from a novel, a film script and a diary”. The work can best be understood as “a heavily literary monologue in diary form”.

filming

Under the direction of Max Färberböck , the material was filmed with Nina Hoss in the lead role. The film Anonyma - A Woman in Berlin was released in German cinemas in October 2008.

Expenses (selection)

  • Anonyma: A woman in Berlin. Diary entries from April 20 to June 22, 1945. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-8218-4534-1 . (= The Other Library, No. 221.)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Yuliya von Saal: Anonyma: A woman in Berlin. Story of a bestseller. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 67 (2019), pp. 343–376, p. 353.
  2. ↑ https://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/anonyma/eine-frau-in-berlin.html
  3. ↑ Jens Bisky: When boys play world history, girls have silent roles / Who was Anonyma in Berlin? Women, Facts and Fiction / Notes on a Big Book Hit This Summer. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. September 24, 2003
  4. ↑ “A woman in Berlin”. Walter Kempowski presents expert opinion ” , NZZ from January 19, 2004
  5. ↑ Martin Doerry: Hell on Earth. How authentic are “Anonyma's” diaries about the rapes in Berlin in 1945? A historian has viewed the original documents and found tampering . In: Der Spiegel No. 26 of June 22, 2019, pp. 118f.
  6. ↑ Yuliya von Saal: Anonyma: A woman in Berlin. Story of a bestseller. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 67 (2019), p. 376.