Marie VassiltchikovRezensionen

Maria Vassiltchkova aka Missie was a White Russian princess who spent the majority of WW2 in Berlin. Her family was in exile as Stalin's regime had little tolerance for the former aristocracy, but this didn't prevent her family to enjoy their status in the West.

This offers a unique perspective on the events that she witnessed with little semblance to what war was like for ordinary people. So, we learn that travelling around Europe was still rather easy with people with the right papers, oysters were not rationed and were available as far as 1944, so were the rivers of confiscated French champagne. Bars and nightclubs were open as long as they weren't destroyed in the bouts of Allied carpet bombing and spending weekends in the countryside residences of her aristocrat friends was still a thing.

The most interesting part of the diaries is the author's connection to the officers involved in Operation Valkyrie. Even though she was well informed about the assassination plot she got out of the whole thing without even being questioned by the Gestapo, which seems very unlikely.
But, when you have friends in high places, everything's possible.

The tone of youthful naivete and aristocratic arrogance prominent in the first part of the book can be annoying. Missie drops a lot of names as her social calendar always seems to be fully booked and seems to be the only thing of interest to her.

Interestingly, for a diary of a young woman full of flippant details she occasionally jots down some astute observations about politics. However, we always remain on the surface since there is very little of her inner world exposed. So, don't expect much literary value here because this is above all a war log.

Personally, I found the last part of the diary the most interesting, because it contains some specific details about post-war life, refugee migrations etc. It is also the part where Missie experienced the most hardship, so it was easier to feel for her. By the end of this diary, I realized I actually enjoyed her voice and persevered through all the petty details she lists cause I was genuinely interested in what is going to happen to her.

What one must give to her is her unconquered spirit, for even in the worst of times when she could've stayed away from the capital she would "want to remain where the action is and that, of course, is Berlin".

This is difficult. I love this topic and was quite prepared to love this book. The author was a White Russian whose aristocratic family escaped Stalin's terror and fled to Germany just before World War II. She was part of a crowd that was linked to the ill-fated July 20th attempt to assassinate Hitler. So, everything was is place for the perfect book. Not so. Until the actual attempt on Hitler's life, the diary entries are slogs through a catalog of the aristocracy of Eastern Europe and Germany, Austrian and Italy. There is lots of champagne and plenty of oysters between horrific bouts of Allied carpet bombing. There are sad storied of having to leave behind one's furs or crystal or.... What is missing is a real connection to all these people or any real feelings at all. It is a list- of aristocratic play pals, of castles for weekend visits, of dining and dancing, of bombed out houses and streets. That said, the book does get more interesting, perhaps because the author herself seems more invested emotionally in the horrors of the Nazi response to the attempted murder of Hitler. There are some few side notes that were quite resonant- the lack of foresight in the demands for "unconditional surrender" which may have prolonged the war, the refusal of the Allies to deal in any significant way with the rather large group inside Germany determined to stop Hitler, the apparent Allied attitude that all Germans were the same and all were complicit in the Nazi terror, and the devastation the Allied bombing had on the civilian population of Germany- ironically missing all the munitions factories for which they were supposedly aiming. Having read about the V bombs and the Blitz directed at London, I am not sure the author (or rather her brother who writes the comments between the diary entries) can really claim much moral high ground. I am not sure there is any such thing in war. Thus, the second half of the book is more interesting and would make an intriguing discussion for a history class. In fact, the last third is very interesting, but still plagued a bit by all the names of people we don't know or care about.

I Loved this book. It taught me a different perspective on Germany during WWII and it allowed me to see into the lives of European aristocrats during the mid 20th century. Just read the review by Chris_El. He said everything I want to say but I give the book 5 stars.

Après des années de lecture sur l'époque, j'ignorais totalement ce témoignage et surtout son importance. Une jeune femme atypique au cœur du cœur du drame.½

The diary of a girl from a white Russian family (the white Russians were anti-communists) that fled Russia after the Reds took over. They initially went to Lithuania but then fled to Germany to get further away from the Russian sphere of power. But they could not out-run the war. The author ended up working for the diplomatic corps as a translator since she was fluent in several languages. She knew and worked with several people involved (and executed because of) the plot to kill Hitler. She provides glimpses not only of some of the mid level power people in Germany but also of what it was like for ordinary people who tried to make do with the bombing and the somber mistrust of a society where free speech is prosecuted if it does not agree with the party line. She survived many bombing raids and talks about how it impacted the ordinary folks and the people around her that died and the cites that were devastated around her. Towards the end of the war she ended up working as a nurse.

If you are like me, all her talk of food and starving will make you hungry while reading this one.

I diari segreti redatti da Marie Vassiltchikov durante la guerra offrono un documento storico di primaria importanza, e insieme il resoconto di un'esperienza individuale che ha attraversato come un lampo di luce un'epoca oscura oscura.

Emotional wartime account of living in Berlin, and surviving!

Marie «Missie» Vassiltchikov abandonó Rusia con su familia en la primavera de 1919. Sorprendida por el inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial cuando pasaba el verano con su hermana Tatiana en el castillo de la condesa Olga Pückler, se vio obligada a buscar empleo en Berlín. En enero de 1940 comenzó a trabajar en el Servicio de Radiodifusión y más tarde en el departamento de Información del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores del Tercer Reich, en el que colaboró con un núcleo de adversarios del nazismo que más tarde se hallarían implicados en el fallido atentado del conde Von Stauffenberg contra Hitler. De esto tratan estas páginas, diario personal-publicado por vez primera en 1985-que nos acerca al Berlín del final de la guerra y sus círculos antinazis. John le Carré definió este libro como «uno de los diarios de guerra más extraordinarios que jamás se hayan escrito. Testimonio inocente y de primera mano, retrata la muerte de la Vieja Europa a través de los ojos de una hermosa joven aristócrata cuyo mundo muere en los acontecimientos que describe».

In my research for my novel, An Honorable German, this was an indipensible book. The reason: the rich detail Missie recorded about her daily life in Berlin including what it was like to live in the city during the years it was constantly being bombed. This is one of the few contemporaneous diaries from that time. She was a beautiful White Russian Royal Princess, as she reminds us several times, and kept up her active social life amisdst the slow collapse of Berlin. In doing so, she recorded details which can seem girlish and flippant now since she mainly writes about how the war is making her life social life difficult. But the information one gleans is invaluble: hats weren’t rationed, she played ping-pong, a staple of life was macaroni. For all the fascination I have with this diary there is one very unsettling fact: she worked for some months as a secretary to one of the key conspirators in the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler yet is never interrogated by the Gestapo at least she doesn’t write about it. Did she rat someone out? Perhaps we will never know but don’t believe everything she says about herself.

J'ai adoré ce livre de mémoires d'une jeune fille qui s'est trouvé par hasard au coeur d'un moment essentiel de l'histoire du 20e siècle

OMG! This is a must read. It really tells us what it is like to live in a totalitarian state, that becomes one in your midst. While also, the public services get bombed to smithereens every day of your life. All Americans can stand to learn something about what happens when Civil Society breaks down beyond all recognition. We only speculate with all our ideologies. This lady was a Princess who quietly married an American GI and retired from public life. But boy, what a public life she lived as a steno in Goebbels evil ministry of information, all the while documenting the evil goings on right under their noses and the efforts of the Von Bismarck circle (of which she was central) to plot to kill the Fuhrer. Heart wrenching and like I said, something we should all have to read in grade school.

3415. Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945, by Marie Vassiltchikov (read Mar 7, 2001) The author is Russian born (in 1917) and was of the Russian nobility. She spent the years mentioned in Germany, and was a brave and gutsy woman, friendly to people involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and this is her diary (published in 1985, after her death) of those momentous years. The account of the events leading up to July 20, 1944, is dramatic and exciting, as is all the account of events thereafter and even after the war ended. Her life was very different from Victor Klemperer's, whose great volumes I Will Bear Witness I read on June 11, 1999, and on Apr 7, 2000, since she moved in a different world. I found this a great book to read.½

Outstanding account of war-time Germany written by a 23 year old aristocratic White Russian emigre. Close friends of those involved in the July, 1944 plot against Hitler, she describes her intimate knowledge of the affair. She also describes the bombings of Berlin and later Vienna and the total breakdown in society at the close of the war. A lady of unusual character and inner resources.

This is a wonderful book. The author was a young Russian princess from an exile family who were living in one of the Baltic countries in the 1930s and wound up in Germany during the war. They're seemingly either related to or friendly with half the European aristocracy, most of whom despise the Nazis. Marie Vassiltchikov worked closely with a number of those who organized the unsuccessful July, 1944, assassination plot against Hitler. Her account of life in the Third Reich from her special vantage point is fascinating. I highly recommend it.