The Novelist from Berlin by V.S. Alexander EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:V.S. Alexander
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical World War II Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Remembering the Weimar Republic
October 1929
The Nazis were scum, der Abschaum as my friends and I used to call them.
Those outside the National Socialist political sphere knew that, but few
stood up to them, and by 1929 Germany was in deep trouble with much
worse yet to come. The National Socialist movement didn’t burst forth like
a spring tulip. The Nazis took their time: bending the truth, propagating
their lies, using their strong-arm tactics. The warnings were in front of us,
but we didn’t pay attention. Who, after all, was this power-hungry, former
kriminell named Adolf Hitler? In the beginning, many laughed at him and
dismissed his threats as the ravings of a madman.
At eighteen years of age, I was a “New German Woman.” I stayed away
from the Sturmabteilung, the SA Brownshirts, as much as possible because
the concepts of freedom and liberty had deserted their boggled minds, even
though they espoused such ideals in their fascist propaganda. The world
was very 1984 in those days. A few years later, you couldn’t walk down the
street without passing a parade of them, haughty and smug in their
invincibility. They were the living evidence that our freedoms and our lives
would never be the same and, in many cases, would be taken away.
During the Weimar years, I smoked Manoli cigarettes and drank cherry
brandy, especially when a good-looking man was buying at the Leopard
Club. It was a grand establishment, close to the Alexanderplatz, housed in
the first floor and basement of a large stone apartment building. God knows
what the tenants thought of the ruckus below them until all hours of the
morning, but my fellow club devotees and I didn’t care. We were having a
good time living, loving, and, most of all, surviving.
Sometimes a piece of schweinefleisch appeared on a white china plate in
front of me as I chatted up a man at the bar, or vice versa. The plate would
turn blue, red, green, or yellow in the club’s lights depending on the mood
of the delicious bartender, Rudi.
He was a man who liked tight pants and even tighter shirts, who had the
kind of muscled body that drove women mad—visible but not excessive.
He spent many hours in the gymnasium. Rudi, with his wavy black hair,
sparkling eyes, and smoky voice, flattered me, but that was the way he
operated. I thought he was sexy. We never acted upon our tenuous mutual
attraction except for a few arresting kisses in a corner booth of the basement
cabaret. I found out later that he had a thing not only for girls but boys as
well. Gender didn’t matter to Rudi as long as the sex was good.
My girlfriend Lotti often accompanied me in the evening after she
escaped her office job as a typist. She was lucky to have it, always aware
that work like hers, although common, had little turnover and much
competition. A million other girls were always there to take your place if
you stepped out of line, or asked for too much time off, or worst of all,
demanded a raise.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB