Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler

by Anne Nelson and Anne Nelson

Book Overview

In this unforgettable book, distinguished author Anne Nelson shares one of the most shocking and inspiringand least chronicledstories of domestic resistance to the Nazi regime. The Rote Kapelle, or... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400060001
• ISBN13: 9781400060009
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.2" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A Story Not Often Told Told Well

I'd never heard of Red Orchestra prior to Anne Nelson's book. The White Rose resistance of Munich, yes, but I was unaware of this Berlin-based group. Maybe resistance to Nazism was more widespread than I'd thought. Red Orchestra spreads this heartening message, while pointing out how ineffective resistance is. You can't help but admire those who have the strength of character to do the right thing. At the same time, this book makes one wonder about the futility of it all. What good results from gestures against totalitarian regimes? The image of a mosquito biting an elephant comes to mind. Maybe those who resist inflict greater pain than their numbers would suggest. Dictators crack down, and crack down hard, against the conscientious few. They do this because they're scared. Hitler was afraid that resisters might discover the weak spot that would cause the whole thing to collapse like a house of cards. If anything caused Hitler to lose sleep at night it was probably resisters, and there's value in that. Personally, I don't think I'd have the courage to do what members of Red Orchestra did, but it is comforting to know that there are people out there who do.

The German Resistance

This book turned out to be far broader in scope and richer in analysis than I had anticipated. The title refers to a large resistance group of ultimately more than a hundred individuals who engaged in opposing the Nazi government before and during World War II. Yes, there was an active and important German resistance movement, although we seldom hear about it, and the author explains why this is so. This resistance group was far different from the well known July 20, 1944 Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler; it was more akin to the White Rose group made up of university students who circulated fliers and pamphlets attacking the government and paid with their lives for their trouble. The Red Orchestra group was older, made up of a wide variety of individuals from intellectuals to artists, bureaucrats and even a few military officers.Some but not all of the members were deeply integrated into the German Communist party and funneled information to the Soviet Union. Their main activities involved distributing fliers, attaching posters, maintaining archives of atrocity photographs, and sending out military information to the Allies' intelligence agencies--ironically, this crucial intelligence was often ignored. The author utilizes a highly effective method of analysis: beginning in 1927-1929, she traces the lives of individual members of the group. This reminds us that history is really made up of individual stories, and allows us to understand not only what was going on in Germany but what sparked the dangerous decision to oppose the government in this way. At the same time, this book is at times a real "page turner" and the suspense builds as to how long the group can continue to function without being detected. Most of the members were apprehended and executed--these folks were true heroes. Why have we heard little if anything about them? As the author explains near the end of the book, at the end of the war the United States was gripped with fear of either open warfare with the Soviets or being subverted. Since many of the Red Orchestra group had Communist ties and provided information to Soviet intelligence, and given the division of Germany into zones including the Soviet zone, it hardly seemed a good time to publicize the brave deeds of the group. So, they remained an obscurity until this fine book brought their achievements back to life. The narrative is supported by 27 pages of notes, 15 pages of exceptionally helpful photographs, and a select bibliography. In addition to published sources, the author also researched achives, family papers, and internet sources, as well as conducting some important interviews. At around 380 pages the book moves quickly as the suspense builds. It is gratifying to see at last a major book focused on these heroic individuals--they have resided in obscurity far too long.

respectful of evidence and of courage

Anne Nelson isn't the first to tell the story of the anti-Nazi resisters whom the Gestapo called the Red Orchestra, but unlike some others, she carefully sorts rumors and slanders from documented evidence, and she honors the resisters' courage and their willingness to co-operate across boundaries of gender, social class, and ideology. Unlike the East German myth-makers she doesn't rewrite the resistance as a Communist moral tale; unlike the West German authorities she sheds light on the resistance rather than trying to hide it, or smear it as disloyal. She examines (but of course can't resolve) the question of whether a united opposition could have blocked Hitler's rise to power; as she shows, something like that unity emerged in clandestinity when it was too late for it to function aboveground. Fully aware of the risks they took, the "Orchestra" members were determined to do anything they could--including giving secret information to both the Soviets and the Western allies--to bring about the downfall of the Nazi regime. US-born Mildred Harnack (the subject of Shareen Brysac's biography "Resisting Hitler") went to the guillotine with the unbearably touching words "And I have loved Germany so much!" All the resisters did; Nelson's book gives them the honor they earned.

Anne Nelson does some heavy lifting in "The Red Orchestra"

The author of "The Red Orchestra," Anne Nelson, does some heavy lifting. In order to give fuller meaning to the stories of individual Berliners who were part of a loosely knit group of Nazi resisters, she adroitly traces the history of the Nazi movement from its inception, through the war and even into the postwar period. Her subjects -- writers, actors, bureaucrats, laborers - are revealed through primary sources. This is decidedly not historical fiction; the author fleshes out the stories of individual resisters using letters, diaries, official records and oral histories. The book is highly readable and compelling. Perhaps the book's most important message, which is not directly expressed by the author, is about the perils of fascism, in any age. Truth-seeking individuals and institutions, in particular journalists, artists, writers and the courts as well, must be protected from government meddling and control.

Anne Nelson's "The Red Orchestra" brings you inside the Nazi resistance --- and it's a real page tur

Anne Nelson's book "The Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler" is one of the most engaging books I have read about this well-documented and painful period in our recent history. The book follows the fates of a group of friends and acquaintances living in Berlin who support each other's efforts, no matter how audacious or diminutive, to resist the Nazi takeover of Germany starting in the pre-war 1930s. Although this is without doubt a historical text, the narration reads more like a novel than a history book. Against a backdrop of suspense, we are drawn into the daily world of these underground resisters as they battle against Hitler and the Third Reich. Ms. Nelson's writing style is both unpretentious and captivating. One develops an intimacy with the real-life characters over the course of the book. The extraordinary collection of photographs which accompany the book (some formal, but many candid) literally bring the reader face-to-face with these courageous people. In the end, one can't help but to cheer on their anti-fascist actions and grieve their personal losses. A page turner, to say the least!