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The Silences of Hammerstein book cover
The Silences of Hammerstein
2008
First Published
3.90
Average Rating
378
Number of Pages
The Silences of Hammerstein, the latest work from one of Germany’s most significant contemporary authors, engages readers with a blend of a documentary, collage, narration, and fictional interviews. The gripping plot revolves around the experiences of real-life German General Kurt von Hammerstein and his wife and children. A member of an old military family, a brilliant staff officer, and the last commander of the German army before Hitler seized power, Hammerstein, who died in 1943 before Hitler’s defeat, was nevertheless an idiosyncratic character. Too old to be a resister, he retained an independence of mind that was shared by his three of his daughters joined the Communist Party, and two of his sons risked their lives in the July 1944 Plot against Hitler and were subsequently on the run till the end of the war. Hammerstein never criticized his children for their activities, and he maintained contacts with the Communists himself and foresaw the disastrous end of Hitler’s dictatorship. In The Silences of Hammerstein, Hans Magnus Enzensberger offers a brilliant and unorthodox account of the military milieu whose acquiescence to Nazism consolidated Hitler’s power and of the heroic few who refused to share in the spoils.
Avg Rating
3.90
Number of Ratings
298
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
40%
3 STARS
26%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
2%
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Author

Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Author · 24 books

See also: Cyrillic: Ханс Магнус Енценсбергер Hans Magnus Enzensberger was a German author, poet, translator and editor. He had also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books. He was one of the leading authors in the Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour Le Mérite, among many others. He wrote in a sarcastic, ironic tone in many of his poems. For example, the poem "Middle Class Blues" consists of various typicalities of middle class life, with the phrase "we can't complain" repeated several times, and concludes with "what are we waiting for?". Many of his poems also feature themes of civil unrest over economic- and class-based issues. Though primarily a poet and essayist, he also ventured into theatre, film, opera, radio drama, reportage and translation. He wrote novels and several books for children (including The Number Devil, an exploration of mathematics) and was co-author of a book for German as a foreign language, (Die Suche). He often wrote his poems and letters in lower case. Enzensberger also invented and collaborated in the construction of a machine which automatically composes poems (Landsberger Poesieautomat). This was used during the 2006 Football World Cup to commentate on games. Tumult, written in 2014, is an autobiographical reflection of his 1960s as a left-wing sympathizer in the Soviet Union and Cuba. Enzensberger translated Adam Zagajewski, Lars Gustafsson, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden and César Vallejo. His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages.

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