It’s embarrassing but unavoidable, since the world of modern publishing has now assigned to authors the job of being their own publicists. Anyway, here I go:
In just over two weeks, on September 8, a book that I’ve been working on for about four years will be coming out from HarperCollins. It’s called Berlin Before and After: A Cautionary Mirror for Our Times. The “before” is the Berlin of 1929, a year I examine in some detail as I move through the seasons to bring to life that city on the verge of disaster—a society “dancing on a volcano,” as one of that era’s more astute statesmen put it. And the “after” is Berlin now: a metropolis of monuments, memorials, street signs, performances, books, TV shows, and other manifestations of that dark past, all combining to create a culturally vital city that I’ve grown to love over the past two or three decades. The point of the book, or one of the points, is that however horrifying a city’s history has been, its present-day citizens’ willingness to remember and acknowledge the past can bring about a certain degree of atonement.
And the “cautionary mirror” part…well, if you’ve been paying attention to our current national situation, you’ll be aware of how much we, right now in America, are teetering on the verge of our own Third Reich, our own Stasi-run East Berlin. We’re in a very scary time, and I thought it might be heartening for my readers, if also chastening, to see how another place went into this dark tunnel and then eventually managed to come out of it.
There’s been a nice little review in Kirkus so far, with other reviews soon to come, I hope. If you like, you can order the book through the HarperCollins website or through Amazon—or, even better, buy it at your local bookstore, if such a thing still exists in your neighborhood. And for those of you who live in the New York area, there will be a panel discussion about Berlin Before and After at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge on the evening of Wednesday, September 30, featuring me, Noah Isenberg, and Rosanna Warren, all talking about the book and its implications. That NYU even is free and open to the public, but you need to register here for it beforehand. Please come if you can, and do introduce yourself to me if we haven’t already met.
I am on page 168 on Berlin Before and After. A very interesting and informative read. I enjoyed making the acquaintance of Count Kessler. I need to go find English language versions of his diaries. I have been to Berlin twice (the second time for my 30th wedding anniversary January 2020 at the American Church in Berlin). I loved being in Berlin, partly because of the ratio between street width and building is town-like and not city-like, and it seems like a place one could live and wander around being a flâneur. And then there’s the history. I am a (non-Republican) conservative and a late-life Pentecostal Christian, so you and I are a bit different, yet my response to this glorious city is equally strong. And if I had lived in Weimar Berlin, I am pretty sure I would be a member of the SPD. And if young enough, in the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold. Somethings are worth fighting for.
Thank you so much, Michael! You are exactly the kind of reader I’m wishing and hoping for. Count Kessler’s diaries are indeed available in English — the book is listed in the Bibliography, along with every other text I consulted.
I finished the book last night. The BERLIN NOW section was quite interesting.
I stumbled across a pair of stumble stones on my way to Comicladen Grober Unfug in Kreuzberg in 2019. Google Lens told me what they were for, though I recognized the name Theresienstadt, this being the name of the Potemkin village ghetto that the Nazis used for propaganda and misleading the International Red Cross.
• Martin Jaffé: Born on April 12, 1874, in Koźmin Wielkopolski (Koschmin). He worked as a tailor and a postal assistant in Berlin. He was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in March 1943 and died there shortly after on March 24, 1943.
• Jeanette Jaffé (née Mendelsohn): Born on March 27, 1870, in Briesen (West Prussia). She lived in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Zossener Straße) with her husband Martin. She was also deported to Theresienstadt in 1943 and died there on April 14, 1944.
I think about the Jaffés from time to time.
https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/en/finding-stolpersteine
I am glad you made mention of Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus. The English language section compares well to any randomly picked Barnes & Noble in the USA, and the rest of the bookstore is kind of like Powell’s City of Books in Portland OR, except that I can get a beer at the cafe at Dussmann. I discovered Max Hertzberg’s fascinating Stasi series and post 1990 continued existence of a utopian GDR series there. https://www.maxhertzberg.co.uk/. I spent everyday but Sunday there for at least an hour.
I am not much for the performing arts, but greatly liked the artwork at the Alte Nationalgalerie, and the building itself as art. I reacted the same way as I did to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien building, which I originally went to that I could see The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder with my own eyes. After reading your thoughts on architecture to be seen in Berlin, I have resolved to acquire a guide book for that.
Lastly, I wish your book had an index.
Thank you for writing the book.
Thanks, Michael. I didn’t include an index because I wanted people to read the book straight through