Humanities & Social Sciences
Fever
The Universe of Berlin, 1930-1933
by Peter Walther
Berlin in 1930 is the glittering metropolis of the new Europe, faster and freer than the continent’s other capitals. Nowhere else do wastefulness and misery live in such close proximity. While Communists and Nazis fight their bloody brawls and Dorothy Thompson interviews Hitler, the Jewish clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen invites the leadership of the Berlin SA onto his luxury yacht, the »Ursel IV«, for a weekend trip. Maud von Ossietzky, worried about her husband Carl, increasingly turns to alcohol for comfort, and Ernst Thälmann, chair of the Communist party, finds solace in his lovers. Heinrich Brüning, still chancellor of the German Reich, plays a board game with his goddaughter on the evening of his dismissal. In the end, it all comes down to one question: will there be a »Third Reich«? Featuring trenchant, powerful portraits of figures such as Heinrich Brüning, Erik Jan Hanussen, Maud von Ossietzsky, Ernst Thälmann and Dorothy Thompson.
