One of my favourite books ever. The first time I read it I must have been around 10 years old and didn´t quite understand everything. Still fascinated by Marion Dönhoff´s life I read other books from her in that early age. She always was and still is one of my favourite writers.
Marion Countess Donhoff is a member of an aristocratic East Prussian family, an accomplished writer and, for many years, a member of the editorial staff of DIE ZEIT. She rode several hundred miles west from her ancestral home at Friedrichstein through freezing weather and deep snow to escape the Red Army as it moved west across her homeland.
Where is her homeland? Try looking for East Prussia on a map sometime. You won't find it. You won't even find Friedrichstein. All the place names were changed and all the territory taken from German hands. No German signs or placenames survive in what was once a prosperous kingdom almost seven centuries old at the time of its desctruction in 1945. Grave markers were pulled up and used for paving stones as the Poles and Russians eradicated the last vestiges of German language, culture and property.
Grafin von Donhoff's account of those times doesn't dwell on her own losses, or sufferings, which were considerable. All the men in her family either fell on the Eastern Front serving a Fuhrer they'd come to despise, or were executed for joining the July 20, 1944, plot which nearly assassinated Hitler at Rastenburg, Hitler's East Prussian Headquarters.
Instead, she draws a portrait of her childhood Kingdom before it was crushed. The book includes some great maps and photographs. Considering the important role East Prussia played in Europe's history, it is surprising how little is available today on its history. Countess Donhoff's classic book remedies that.
If you are interested in European history, you'll enjoy this book. In my opinion, it's a classic.
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