What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-33 Book

Few modern cities have quite so much history ingrained in their streets and buildings as Berlin. What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-33, an edition of the newspaper journalism of the novelist, Joseph Roth (best-known for his historical epic, The Radetzky March) captures perfectly both the exciting cosmopolitanism and the sinister cruelty of the city in the early years of the Weimar republic. No other European city quite so encapsulated the dislocation wrought by the first world war: refugees from eastern Europe, the homeless poor and the unclaimed dead, together with the usual flotsam and jetsam of the metropolis: late-night drinkers, carriers and messengers. Nor did any other post-war capital experiment with and advance modern culture quite as boldly as the German one: film, architecture, literary reviews, electric street transport, shopping, velodromes and amusement parks. In short, punchy pieces Roth describes this strange world of frenetic urban life with humour and compassion. He is very much of the "I Am a Camera" school of reporting, which English writers such as Isherwood and Cockburn were later to perfect. The bulk of the journalism comes from the first half of the 1920s and readers expecting an account of the rise of the Nazis should look elsewhere. Although Roth is aware of the new strident anti-Semitic tone to German nationalism, he does not dwell on it until he goes into exile in 1933. This book celebrates a world that was lost, rather than foretells the nightmare to come. --Miles TaylorRead More