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The End: Hamburg 1943 by Hans Erich Nossack
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The End: Hamburg 1943 (edition 2006)

by Hans Erich Nossack

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1575172,767 (3.84)3
One didn't dare to inhale for fear of breathing it in. It was the sound of eighteen hundred airplanes approaching Hamburg from the south at an unimaginable height. We had already experienced two hundred or even more air raids, among them some very heavy ones, but this was something completely new. And yet there was an immediate recognition: this was what everyone had been waiting for, what had hung for months like a shadow over everything we did, making us weary. It was the end. Novelist Hans Erich Nossack was forty-two when the Allied bombardments of German cities began, and he watched the destruction of Hamburg--the city where he was born and where he would later die--from across its Elbe River. He heard the whistle of the bombs and the singing of shrapnel; he watched his neighbors flee; he wondered if his home--and his manuscripts--would survive the devastation. The End is his terse, remarkable memoir of the annihilation of the city, written only three months after the bombing. A searing firsthand account of one of the most notorious events of World War II, The End is also a meditation on war and hope, history and its devastation. And it is the rare book, as W. G. Sebald noted, that describes the Allied bombing campaign from the German perspective. In the first English-language edition of The End, Nossack's text has been crisply translated by Joel Agee and is accompanied by the photographs of Erich Andres. Poetic, evocative, and yet highly descriptive, The End will prove to be, as Sebald claimed, one of the most important German books on the firebombing of that country. "A small but critical book, something to read in those quiet moments when we wonder what will happen next."--Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times… (more)
Member:CallimachusDWM
Title:The End: Hamburg 1943
Authors:Hans Erich Nossack
Info:University Of Chicago Press (2006), Paperback, 112 pages
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The End: Hamburg 1943 by Hans Erich Nossack (Author)

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English (4)  Italian (1)  All languages (5)
Showing 4 of 4
As a description of the Allied firebombing of Hamburg during WWII, this slim volume doesn't offer much in the way of details. It is not a terribly useful history, and definitely not the "remarkable firsthand account" promised by the publisher. As a Germanic philosophical musing on the aftermath of great disaster, it is perhaps more successful. ( )
  lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |
This book has beautiful word choice and descriptions of one man's experience during and after the Hamburg bombing by the Allied forces in 1943. Originally written in German and kept from a widespread audience for years, this offers a rarely seen apolitical point of view from "the other side" of WWII - the Germans'. It also includes many photos taken around the destroyed Hamburg that only adds to the narrative. I would recommend this for anyone interested in WWII history. ( )
  brittaniethekid | Jul 7, 2022 |
Nossack könyvében az a pláne, hogy 1943-ban íródott, így az élmény (brrrr… hülye szó ez itt) frissességével beszél Hamburg lebombázásáról. Ha valaki évtizedek távlatából visszatekintve igyekezne rekonstruálni egy város porig égését, alighanem a rárakódott utólagos tudás torzítaná az elbeszélést: olyan elemekkel terhelné meg a történetet, ami akkor még nem volt tudható, és esetleg olyanokkal, amik ugyan abban a pillanatban az elbeszélőnek nem voltak fontosak, de fontossá tették őket az azóta eltelt évek. Ezért ebben a könyvben ne is keressük a terrorbombázás horrorisztikus pillanatképeit – ilyenből csak mutatóba akad –, és azt se várjuk el, hogy a szerző teljességre törekedjék. Ez a könyv szükségszerűen csak töredék lehet, mert egyetlen ember benyomásait tükrözi, és töredék azért is, mert írója az idő jó részében távolról figyeli az eseményeket – és pont ez a távolság és töredezettség teszi rá a hitelesség pecsétjét a szövegre. Mert aki elmondhatja, hogy látta Hamburg pusztulását, annak megfelelő távolságból kellett azt néznie. Különben nem mondhatna el semmit.

(Általában hiányérzetem van, amikor lerakom a RaRe könyvtár köteteit. Gondolom, tudatos koncepció volt a Magvetőtől, hogy a szövegeket mindenfajta mellékelt információ – az író életrajzi adatai, esetleg egy nyúlfarknyi kiadói utószó – nélkül pottyantotta az ölünkbe, merthogy ugye a jó irodalom az mindenféle kontextustól megfosztva is jó irodalom. Én a magam részéről viszont szeretem az utószavakat, sőt: a jól megírt utószavakba konkrétan bele tudok szeretni. A jó utószó nem vakvezető kutya, aki átvonszol a könyv sötétségén egészen a megfejtésig, mintha világtalan lennék – de segíthet rámutatni a lehetséges olvasatok gazdagságára. Pláne nem ártana ez a RaRe sorozat esetében, ami egyébként is gyakran dolgozik olyan szövegekkel, amik mintha picit csonkabonkák lennének. Amilyen például ez a könyv.) ( )
  Kuszma | Jul 2, 2022 |
Nossack's work originally appeared in Interview mit dem Tode (1948) and was titled 'Der Untergang,' a word which in itself presents a translation difficulty. Translator Joel Agee points this out in his well-written introduction and defends his decision to translate this word as 'The End.' Untergang (literally 'down-going') has a sort of apocalyptic connotation to it, a word that has been used as the title for the 2004 film which depicts the Götterdämmerung end-game of the Second World War, and I couldn't help but feel the same crushing sense of fate and death while reading this work as I did while watching that film. There is a certain dreadful resignation in Nossack's description of the devistating Allied bombing of Hamburg, presented in a writing style that brings to mind the likes of Kafka or Camus. Nossack himself says in an interview with O. Marc Tangner, Jr. (published in German Quarterly) that he writes with a 'spoken style,' and indeed, this is by no means an academic treatment of the bombing of Hamburg. If you are looking for a concise history then look elsewhere, as Nossack takes the reader to a place where numbers are no matter ("There was an attempt to banish the dead by mans of numbers.") Nossack exists as an authentic witness to the horrors of war, and he does so from the perspective often ignored by Anglo-Americans, as well as Germans, who often consider the topic of German suffering a taboo of sorts. Here one will find no information on the type or number of bombers, the war-room conversations concerning Operation Gomorrah, or even the name 'Hitler,' but rather one will find a meditation on the bombing itself: a meditation on fate and death.

Overall, a highly recommended, albeit short, work on one of mankind's greatest tragedies by the self-proclaimed "best camouflaged writer in Germany." The University of Chicago Press edition is complete with 12 highly candid and, at the time, unauthorized, photographs of the Allied bombing from renowned Hamburgian photographer Erich Andres (1905-1992). ( )
  WilliamAS | Nov 10, 2012 |
Showing 4 of 4
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» Add other authors (3 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Nossack, Hans ErichAuthorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Agee, JoelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Andres, ErichPhotographersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lenz, SiegfriedAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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One didn't dare to inhale for fear of breathing it in. It was the sound of eighteen hundred airplanes approaching Hamburg from the south at an unimaginable height. We had already experienced two hundred or even more air raids, among them some very heavy ones, but this was something completely new. And yet there was an immediate recognition: this was what everyone had been waiting for, what had hung for months like a shadow over everything we did, making us weary. It was the end. Novelist Hans Erich Nossack was forty-two when the Allied bombardments of German cities began, and he watched the destruction of Hamburg--the city where he was born and where he would later die--from across its Elbe River. He heard the whistle of the bombs and the singing of shrapnel; he watched his neighbors flee; he wondered if his home--and his manuscripts--would survive the devastation. The End is his terse, remarkable memoir of the annihilation of the city, written only three months after the bombing. A searing firsthand account of one of the most notorious events of World War II, The End is also a meditation on war and hope, history and its devastation. And it is the rare book, as W. G. Sebald noted, that describes the Allied bombing campaign from the German perspective. In the first English-language edition of The End, Nossack's text has been crisply translated by Joel Agee and is accompanied by the photographs of Erich Andres. Poetic, evocative, and yet highly descriptive, The End will prove to be, as Sebald claimed, one of the most important German books on the firebombing of that country. "A small but critical book, something to read in those quiet moments when we wonder what will happen next."--Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

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