Dube, Wolf-Dieter, The Expressionists, Thames & Hudson, London, 1972
An account of the times and art of the German and Viennese Expressionists.
Fürch, Nicole, Schule und Unterricht im Nationalsozialismus mit Besonderer Betrachtung des Englischunterrichts, GRIN Verlag, Munich, 2008
The title means, "Schools and Education under Naziism with special attention to teaching English." This is the book I found on Amazon when I searched for Martin's school in Hamburg.
Gay, Peter, My German Question, Growing up in Nazi Berlin, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998.
Gay's family were assimilated Jews and did not emigrate until 1939.
Gerard, James W., "My Four Years in Germany," George H. Doran Company, New York, 1917.
This was a fascinating read. Gerard was the Ambassador to the German Imperial Court just before and in the early months of WWI. He writes as an ambassador of the time–stuffy, stodgy, disapproving of suffragettes and impressed with the panoply of the German Court. His accounts of the yacht races and the protocols during dinner are hilarious (to me, not to him).
However, he transcended his parochial stiffness during the early months of the war, when he made extraordinary efforts to get Americans and those who could pass as Americans out of the country. Because England could no longer keep an ambassador in enemy territory, he also was tasked to take care of British interests, which included trying and finally succeeding in visiting POW camps and making sure that the prisoners were adequately treated. In light of later history, his description of some POW hospitals is poignant, "As a rule our inspectors found the hospitals, where the prisoners of war, were, in as good condition as could be expected. I think this was largely due to the fact that so many doctors in Germany are Jews. The people who are of the Jewish race are people of gentle instincts. In these hospitals a better diet was given to the prisoners." Please note that nowadays, we look at the German insistence during WWII on racial characteristics as creepy, but in fact, it was part of the scientific vocabulary of the time.
So far, this book seems of limited interest to Martin's life, though his father, as the Kaiser's fruiterer, must have at least glimpsed the redoubtable Ambassador Gerard. The court was suffused with militarism, from the ubiquitous uniforms of the noblemen, to the reliance placed on their know-how. This is not something that my mother ever mentioned when she was talking about her grandfather's experiences behind the scenes at court. Was it so much a part of German life that it was invisible? Or did Ambassador Gerard overemphasize it? I'm inclined to think the former.
However, he transcended his parochial stiffness during the early months of the war, when he made extraordinary efforts to get Americans and those who could pass as Americans out of the country. Because England could no longer keep an ambassador in enemy territory, he also was tasked to take care of British interests, which included trying and finally succeeding in visiting POW camps and making sure that the prisoners were adequately treated. In light of later history, his description of some POW hospitals is poignant, "As a rule our inspectors found the hospitals, where the prisoners of war, were, in as good condition as could be expected. I think this was largely due to the fact that so many doctors in Germany are Jews. The people who are of the Jewish race are people of gentle instincts. In these hospitals a better diet was given to the prisoners." Please note that nowadays, we look at the German insistence during WWII on racial characteristics as creepy, but in fact, it was part of the scientific vocabulary of the time.
So far, this book seems of limited interest to Martin's life, though his father, as the Kaiser's fruiterer, must have at least glimpsed the redoubtable Ambassador Gerard. The court was suffused with militarism, from the ubiquitous uniforms of the noblemen, to the reliance placed on their know-how. This is not something that my mother ever mentioned when she was talking about her grandfather's experiences behind the scenes at court. Was it so much a part of German life that it was invisible? Or did Ambassador Gerard overemphasize it? I'm inclined to think the former.
Graves and Strutz, German the Easy Way, Barron's, New York, 1996.
An overview. Not all that easy.
Haase-Duubosc, Arnold, Emmy et Gustav Haase Pour Memoire
The memoir of a close family friend, in French.
Kandel, Eric R, "The Age of Insight, the Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present," Random House, New York, 2012.
This book attempts to demonstrate in its structure what the Viennese/German art movement was about. Kandel does the usual biographies of the great artists of the movement such as Klimt, as well as salonistes such as Zuckerkandl. Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" was published in 1900, and Kandel punctuates the idea of exploring the mind as it relates to art with Anaxagoras' idea, "The phenomena are a visible expression of that which is hidden." He talks about how the new ideas of psychiatry informed art, and follows that thread on into contemporary research into neurology.
I haven't finished it yet (Feb 2013) and am wondering if Martin ever fully explored that side of the intellectual atmosphere of his time. Certainly his book list seems more skewed towards literature, poetry, and orientalia than towards psychiatry. I have yet to translate his letters though...
I haven't finished it yet (Feb 2013) and am wondering if Martin ever fully explored that side of the intellectual atmosphere of his time. Certainly his book list seems more skewed towards literature, poetry, and orientalia than towards psychiatry. I have yet to translate his letters though...
Paret, Peter, "The Berlin Secession, Modernism and its Enemies in Imperial Germany," Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980.
This is a straight-up history of the reasons for the Berlin Secession's founding and its history. I haven't finished it (Feb 2013) but expect to learn a bit more about Insel-Verlag, "Kunst und Künstler," Lovis Corinth, and other features of Martin's intellectual landscape.
Rilke, The Book of Images, Bilinugal Edition, Translated by Edward Snow, North Point Press, New York, 1991
Poems in English and German.
Stürmer, Michael, "The German Century," Endeavour Group UK, London, 1999.
This is a coffee-table book with lots of pictures, summarizing the years 1866-1994. Of course, WWII and the years leading up to it is given special emphasis, which is good because those are the years that I have the most oral history from..