The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich - Softcover

Feigel, Lara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140884513X ISBN 13: 9781408845134

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2017

Synopsis

When Germany surrendered in May 1945 it was a nation reduced to rubble. Immediately, America, Britain, Soviet Russia, and France set about rebuilding in their zones of occupation. Most urgent were physical needs--food, water, and sanitation--but from the start the Allies were also anxious to indoctrinate the German people in the ideas of peace and civilization.

Denazification and reeducation would be key to future peace, and the arts were crucial guides to alternative, less militaristic ways of life. In an extraordinary extension of diplomacy, over the next four years, many writers, artists, actors, and filmmakers were dispatched by Britain and America to help rebuild the country their governments had spent years bombing. Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell, Lee Miller, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder, and others undertook the challenge of reconfiguring German society. In the end, many of them became disillusioned by the contrast between the destruction they were witnessing and the cool politics of reconstruction.

While they may have had less effect on Germany than Germany had on them, the experiences of these celebrated figures, never before told, offer an entirely fresh view of post-war Europe. The Bitter Taste of Victory is a brilliant and important addition to the literature of World War II.

About this title

About the Author:

Dr. Lara Feigel is a Senior Lecturer in English at King's College London, where her research centers on the 1930s and World War II. In addition to the critically acclaimed The Love-charm of Bombs, she has authored Literature, Cinema and Politics, 1930–1945 and co-edited Modernism on Sea: Art and Culture at the British Seaside and the New Selected Journals of Stephen Spender. She has written for the Guardian, Prospect and History Today. Lara lives in West Hampstead, London.

Review:

"Essential for those interested in postwar Germany; the impact World War II had on the arts; and the role that individuals such as filmmaker Billy Wilder, writer Martha Gellhorn, and actress Marlene Dietrich had in rebuilding Germany." - starred review, Library Journal

"[Feigel’s] narrative is a fine balance of political insights, cultural observations and tabloid fodder . . . Feigel powerfully describes the destruction and suffering that these Americans and Brits confronted . . . The many private letters that Ms. Feigel cites proves to be particularly effective in capturing the artists’ feeling and the mentality of the time. She also skilfully represents the predicament faced by these figures--and indeed by the civilized world" - Wall Street Journal

"Was Nazism a particularly German affliction? Were there any ‘good’ Germans? What could be reclaimed and renewed out of the rubble? In her superb new book, The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich, Lara Feigel explores these questions through the eyes of some 20 American, German and British figures as they journeyed across the apocalyptic wasteland." - Newsday

"Intelligent and moving . . . Feigel is excellent at defining the moral and intellectual distinctions between this group and other writers and filmmakers who were both more forgiving and more hopeful of German redemption . . . . She is an exceptional storyteller, braiding the chronicles of exiled writers with life back in Germany. And the move is an intelligent way of showing that postwar cultural history has to be considered in a transcontinental light. . . . Feigel’s book is one of the most original recreations of postwar Germany we have." - The Los Angeles Review of Books

"[Feigel] deals here in inimitable fashion with immediate post-WWII Germany . . . In part, it is a story of personal reconstruction, particularly of the Mann family members, but in another sense it is a story of failure, of missed opportunity . . . Many individuals had to come to terms with the evil they saw and with themselves, and Feigel does a masterful job in sorting it out. This is uniquely nuanced history." - Booklist

"A well-constructed, fascinating, and anecdote-rich work about the early Cold War and the influence of postwar Germany on Western culture." - Publishers Weekly

"Artists and writers would help rehabilitate the country and its people--to cleanse its poisoned soul . . . Lara Feigel’s absorbing book relives the era in all its uncertainty, and delves into the irreconcilable differences and contradictions that would come to thwart the project . . . She makes a sympathetic narrator, and has certainly unearthed some fascinating material." - The Guardian

"In her justly praised debut, The Love-charm of Bombs, Feigel braided five authors’ lives in wartime London into a densely atmospheric tapestry of love, work, imagination and anguish under the shadow of the Blitz. Her second book repeats the method but expands the canvas . . . As in her first book, Feigel entwines politics and passion, the wide screen of history and the close-up of desire among the ruins . . . Always illuminating and richly textured." - The Independent

"[Lara Feigel] has had the clever idea of exploring the country’s plight through the eyes of writers, artists and intellectuals, mostly British and American, as well as German exiles such as Marlene Dietrich and the novelist Thomas Mann . . . Well researched and beautifully written." - Sunday Times

"[Feigel] is excellent on the constant attempts to domesticate the evil that welled up on all sides . . . The long-term cultural consequences of 1939-1945 are still being worked out, but this is a fascinating account of the early field work that kicked them into gear." - The Times

"The Bitter Taste of Victory is an ambitious book, ranging across a sea of events and characters and filled with enjoyable details." - Literary Review

"The most striking aspect of this story, recounted by Lara Feigel in her fine book, lies in the contrast between the stillness and slow time of Mann’s exile and the hectic pace of life for the Allies in occupied Germany . . . The Bitter Taste of Victory is more than a group biography. Threaded throughout is the role of culture in a nation’s psyche . . . Urgent, absorbing, and quietly devastating, The Bitter Taste of Victory is a superb achievement. Few books catch so well the strange energy of the war’s immediate aftermath, the half-crazed adrenalin and slow-burning despair. *****" - Daily Telegraph

"In this panoramic book, which manages to blend a grand historical sweep with fascinating personal detail, Lara Feigel succeeds brilliantly in capturing life in post-war Germany, as filtered through the eyes of British and American intellectuals . . . Feigel does a brilliant job of shining a spotlight on this complicated moral universe. Without pause or stumble she takes us from champagne receptions to bombed-out factories. Along the way we meet a fascinating cast of characters, all attempting to make sense of a unique historical moment, one where the distinction between good and evil is no longer clear for all to see. *****" - Mail on Sunday

"Innovative, entertaining and worthwhile." - Daily Express

"A considerable achievement." - The Spectator

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 140884513X
• ISBN 13: 9781408845134
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464