Berlin Book

This is a bit of an unusual travel book. It is an analysis on how hard it is to write a common travel book about Germany due to it's history of Nazism. I appreciated the different approach, analysis and reading his view.

The author has an amazing writing style that is a pleasure to read and makes one think.

Now, to the negative. I disagree with the author when he says that while there was cruelty in history of every culture the Holocaust is particularly German which makes it hard to disassociate the two. This is not true, genocides happened and happen through the world. Besides, there are forms of cruelty to people that can be associated with particular cultures but don't stop us from seeing beyond it. When I was in Rome and visited Colosseum, I stopped to think about horrible things that happened there when people were thrown into arena to kill each other or be killed by wild animals for the amusement of the rich. But it didn't stop me from enjoying Italy of today, their rich culture and beauty. And it doesn't stop people from writing decent travel books about it. Or how about America where the author is from? Slavery was a horrible part of American history, but while people remember it and see the negative effects of it in the today's life it never stops them from appreciating America of today or other parts of it's history. I think the reasons for the "German Problem" are the time, the author mentions it himself in the book, not enough time has passed, it can irk some that this crime against humanity happened less than a century ago and many of us still have memories of relatives that were part of it. But another issue would be the way the country is presented to the common citizen.

When we learn about other countries we don't avoid the ugly parts of their history but other things are presented as well. When it comes to Germany a common person usually doesn't go beyond learning about Nazism and is oblivious to the centuries that formed the beautiful place with an amazing culture that Germany is, instead all the focus is on these approximately two decades. This is why the stamp of "evil" is on Germany. I noticed that in writer's discussion about people. He is an intellectual, but he seems to link every cultural difference even such a small one as how you pay in a bar to Nazism. And to me it is a flaw.

I enjoyed reading the book, liked the chapter on Berlin, some of his thoughts and analyses as well as the discussion on East/West differences. But as someone who loves Germany I felt disappointed that there wasn't enough credit given to the rest of German history and a bit faulty portrayal of German population (in my opinion) as well as finding the actual roots of the "German Problem".