The Work I Did: A Memoir of the Secretary to Goebbels - Softcover

Pomsel, Brunhilde; Hansen, Thore D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408894459 ISBN 13: 9781408894453

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019

Synopsis

I know no one ever believes us nowadays - everyone thinks we knew everything. We knew nothing. It was all a well-kept secret. We believed it. We swallowed it. It seemed entirely plausible.

'Whatever Pomsel's degree of guilt, her choice of words and actions raise important questions about coercion and complicity ... Reading this book we must hope that we can learn from history in a way that she could not' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Brunhilde Pomsel described herself as an 'apolitical girl' and a 'figure on the margins'. How are we to reconcile this description with her chosen profession? Employed as a typist during the Second World War, she worked closely with one of the worst criminals in world history: Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. She was one of the oldest surviving eyewitnesses to the internal workings of the Nazi power apparatus until her death in 2017. Her life, mirroring all the major breaks and continuities of the twentieth century, illustrates how far-right politics, authoritarian regimes and dictatorships can rise, and how political apathy can erode democracy.

Compelling and unnerving, The Work I Did gives us intimate insight into political complexity at society's highest levels - at one of history's darkest moments.

About this title

Review:

The last surviving eyewitness to the Nazi power apparatus . Her memories are remarkable given her age. Yet this book is also notable for what is not recalled . These gaps result not from memory's decay, but from willful denial . An effective warning (Gerard DeGroot The Times)

A valuable and chilling addition to the histories of Nazi Germany ... Whatever Pomsel's degree of guilt, her choice of words and actions raise important questions about coercion and complicity . Sometimes, as with Pomsel's testimony, it is the absences from the record or the contradictions within it that are the most telling. Reading this book we must hope that we can learn from history in a way that she could not (Claire Mulley Daily Telegraph)

Not only one of the most important contributions to analyses of the Holocaust, but in light of today's political situation, it is a long overdue, timeless warning to today's generation and those yet to come (Daniel Chanoch, Holocaust Survivor)

It shows, both by what it says and by what it omits, what it was like to be an ordinary young German woman in Berlin during the War (Catholic Herald)

Book Description:

The biography of Brunhilde Pomsel, stenographer of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Timeless and gripping, this is a powerful morality tale and a chilling study of the banality of evil

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1408894459
• ISBN 13: 9781408894453
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240