Api's Berlin Diaries

My Quest to Understand My Grandfather's Nazi Past

Gabrielle Robinson

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647420048
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

A haunting personal story of Berlin at the end of the Third Reich—and an unflinching investigation into a family’s Nazi past

When Gabrielle Robinson found her grandfather’s Berlin diaries, hidden behind books in her mother’s Vienna apartment, she made a shocking discovery—her beloved Api had been a Nazi.

The entries record his daily struggle to survive in a Berlin that was 90% destroyed. Near collapse himself Api, a doctor, tried to help the wounded and dying in nightmarish medical cellars without cots, water or light. The dead were stacked in the rubble outside.

Searching to understand why her grandfather had joined the Nazi party, Robinson retraces his steps in the Berlin of the 21st century. She reflects on German guilt, political responsibility, and facing the past. But she also remembers Api, who had given her a loving home in those cold and hungry post-war years.

“This a must read for anyone interested in the German experience during WWII”
—Ariana Neumann, author of When Time Stopped

Scroll up and click “buy now” to read Api’s Berlin Diaries today

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• 1. Oh My God!
• 2. You Made Soap Out of My Aunt
• 3. A Clash of Memories
• 4. Growing Up Prussian
• 5. Seven Kilometers of Documents
• 6. The Shot Heard Around the World
• 7. Track 17
• 8. Better Times
• 9. May Day, May Day, May Day
• 10. Wedding Bells
• 11. Little Noodle
• 12. Christmas Trees
• 13. Unwelcome Guests
• 14. A Death in Prague
• 15. Leave
• 16. Russians at the Gates
• 17. Abyss Between Then and Now
• 18. Blocked on All Sides
• 19. Wrapped Up in the Flag
• 20. Mood Reports
• 21. Humans are Fiercer
• 22. You Not Lie
• 23. Unfulfilled Yearnings
• 24. Pentecost Sunday
• 25. A Little Light
• 26. Lead Us Not into Temptation
• 27. The Silence
• 28. Professional Development
• 29. Nyussi’s Birthday
• 30. Walking through a Nightmare
• 31. Living in Insecurity
• 32. Paradise Lost
• 33. The Little Swallows Play
• 34. Without the Faintest Guilt
• 35. The Allies are Coming
• 36. Another Dismissal
• 37. Homeless
• 38. I am at the End
• 39. We’d be Lucky to Get Ike Cleared
• 40. Aborted Journeys
• 41. Have I a Right?
• 42. Listen to the Grasshoppers
• 43. A Bad Christian
• 44. God’s Coworkers?
• 45. Deus Ex Machina
• 46. Starting Over
• 47. Return to Blue Mountain
• 48. Theodor
• 49. Keep Your Ears Stiff
• 50. Vienna
• 51. Kindertransport
• 52. Denazified
• 53. A Stable Home
• 54. Api and Me
• 55. A Home of Our Own
• 56. A Visit to Bevensen
• 57. Gloves at the Bottom of the Stairs
• 58. Trying to Understand
• 59. And Yet …
• 60. Inner Emigration
• 61. A Wide Field
• 62. The Partiality of Everything
• Sources
• Bibliography
• Selected General Bibilography
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author