The Broken House
Growing up Under Hitler – The Lost Masterpiece
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The Broken House
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Narrated by:
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John Hopkins
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
In 1965, the German journalist Horst Krüger attended the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, where 22 former camp guards were put on trial for the systematic murder of more than one million men, women and children. Twenty years after the end of the war, this was the first time that the German people were confronted with the horrific details of the Holocaust executed by 'ordinary men' still living in their midst.
The trial sent Krüger back to his childhood in the 1930s, in an attempt to understand 'how it really was, that incomprehensible time'. He had grown up in a Berlin suburb, among a community of decent, lower-middle-class homeowners. This was not the world of torch-lit processions and endless ranks of marching SA men. Here, people lived ordinary, non-political lives, believed in God and obeyed the law but were gradually seduced and intoxicated by the promises of Nazism. He had been, Krüger realised, 'the typical child of innocuous Germans who were never Nazis, and without whom the Nazis would never have been able to do their work'.
This world of respectability, order and duty began to crumble when tragedy struck. Krüger's older sister decided to take her own life, leaving the parents struggling to come to terms with the inexplicable. The author's teenage rebellion, his desire to escape the stifling conformity of family life, made him join an anti-Nazi resistance group. He narrowly escaped imprisonment only to be sent to war as Hitler embarked on the conquest of Europe. Step by step, a family that had fallen under the spell of Nazism was being destroyed by it.
Written in accomplished prose of lingering beauty, The Broken House is a moving coming-of-age story that provides an unforgettable portrait of life under the Nazis. Yet the book's themes also chime with our own times - how the promise of an 'era of greatness' by a populist leader intoxicates an entire nation, how thin the veneer of civilisation is and what makes one person a collaborator and another a resister.
©2021 Horst Krüger and Shaun Whiteside (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"A masterpiece. An astonishing piece of literature. Complex, heartfelt, vibrant, intense, urgent. A must read. I read it straight through to the last page and then wanted to read it all over again." (Thomas Harding, best-selling author of Hanns and Rudolf)
"Exquisitely written...haunting.... Few books, I think, capture so well the sense of a life broken for ever by trauma and guilt." (Dominic Sandbrook)
What listeners say about The Broken House
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Caroline
- 22-11-21
Fascinating book
Really interesting book of the author's experience growing up in an ordinary family in Nazi Germany and reflections after the war. Very honest account.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- RONAN O'CALLAGHAN
- 10-11-21
A treasure unearthed
When I got to the end I really wanted more and all I could do was start again. Currently half way through a second listen and I'm still riveted.
It astonishes me that this was out of print in Germany for a long time and also that this is the first English translation. What a book!
I am reader who gets easily bored with history, even when it is full of fascinating facts and even when I feel I ought to pay attention to the really important stuff which has lessons for our own time. No such problem for me here as this is a compelling and intense work of literature in which the insights into German society of the period and human nature in general come through a completely personal and individual set of recollections and impressions.
In the Afterword, written ten years after publication, Krüger confesses his older self sees with a little embarrassment the somewhat over simplistic and self dramatising quality of his youthful expression. But those qualities are actually part of what makes it all so much more vivid and authentic than the cool reflections of an older man would be.
Rather than work along a dreary timeline, he moves back forth in time very deftly while delivering several dramatic set pieces which I found enthralling and very moving. A powerful evocation of the place and time as it was for one individual I could often identify with.
Thank you Shaun Whiteside for this fantastic gift to us who do not read German.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Robert
- 30-09-22
Great listening
excellent listening to some historical happenings from a German view of life in historical detail 👌
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- Dan Thurley
- 01-07-21
superb account of subtle indoctrination
although written in the sixties, this account of growing up under Hitler shows how subtle values and views become inculcated into the mainstream. very relevant for today.
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- Kenny Hamilton
- 19-01-22
Great read
A great read / listen of a man who experienced it at the time. Although we'll never fully understand the thoughts of the German folk at the time, this should go a long way.
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- John Warner
- 22-09-21
This is true history
A frank and wonderful (this word used for the honest insight this book gives) account of a middle class boy growing up as Hitler comes to power. Going on to become a corporal in the war and the aftermath of post war.
This doesn't claim to be a history book, but it is one of the finest and apparently most honest accounts of history that I have read
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