Download Dead Man in the Bunker: Discovering My Father fb2, epub

by Martin Pollack

ISBN: 0571228003
Author: Martin Pollack
Language: English
Publisher: Faber & Faber; First Edition edition (March 2, 2006)
Pages: 288
Category: Europe
Subcategory: History
Rating: 4.3
Votes: 312
Size Fb2: 1309 kb
Size ePub: 1199 kb
Size Djvu: 1823 kb
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Martin Pollack Europe English

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The Dead Man in the Bunker is his third book, and the first to be published in English.

The Dead Man in the Bunker is his third book, and the first to be published in English. Hardcover: 288 pages.

discovering my father. Published 2006 by Faber in London. First published as: Der Tote im bunker in 2004 by Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Wien. Biography, Fathers and sons, History, Nazis.

Bast's son, Martin Pollack, the result of an affair with a married woman, was three at the time and grew up knowing nothing .

Bast's son, Martin Pollack, the result of an affair with a married woman, was three at the time and grew up knowing nothing of the circumstances of his father's death or his involvement in Nazi atrocities. Here, he retraces Bast's childhood in southern Austria and reconstructs his subsequent career in the SS. As Pollack contemplates his father's photographs, personal effects and official documents, he attempts to understand his savage commitment to Nazi ideology. The ethics of his approach – honest, assiduous, and open – make this a valuable and compelling book.

Educational Materials. The Dead Man in the Bunker - Martin Pollack. This book focuses on the author’s personal journey to uncover the history of his biological father’s family, the Basts. The word "bast" comes from a Germanic origin, referring to "fibrous material obtained from the phloem of jute, hemp, and or flax to make rope. Ironically, Gerhard Bast, Martin Pollack’s father, may have been hanged by a rope made out of bast for his war crimes as a Gestapo officer – had he been incarcerated after the war. Pollack, an Austrian journalist and writer, never knew his father.

Items related to The Dead Man in the Bunker Martin Pollack, his son, was then three and has no memories of his father.

Items related to The Dead Man in the Bunker. Martin Pollack The Dead Man in the Bunker. ISBN 13: 9780571228003. The Dead Man in the Bunker. Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy close to the Austrian frontier in April, 1947.

Автор: Pollack Martin Название: The Dead Man in the Bunker . This book covers various aspects of this diverse animal family. Then, the summer before her father s second wedding, Jane falls hard for her future stepbrother, Willie.

This book covers various aspects of this diverse animal family.

Martin Pollack, translated by William Hobson. Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy in April 1947

Martin Pollack, translated by William Hobson. From the publisher: Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy in April 1947. A middle-ranking SS officer and an early member of the Nazi Party, Bast had been on the run since the end of the war after being involved in atrocities in Slovakia. In attempting to piece together his father’s life, Martin Pollack assembles the memories of family and friends, carefully reconstructing their lives. Pollack digs deeply into the archives and travels to the places important in the history of the Bast family and in his father’s.

Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy in April 1947. In attempting to piece together his father's life, Martin Pollack assembles the memories of family and friends, carefully reconstructing their lives. Pollack digs deeply into the archives and travels to the places important in the history of the Bast family and in his father's Nazi career.

The dead man in the bunker: discovering my father by Martin Pollack (Paperback. Great Prices & Quality from musicMagpie.

Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy close to the Austrian frontier in April, 1947. Martin Pollack, his son, was then three and has no memories of his father. A middle-ranking SS officer, Bast had been on the run since the end of the war. He was an early member of both SS and Nazi Party and during the war commanded small Einsatzkommandos in the Caucasus and in Poland. He ends the war involved in murderous rear guard actions and atrocities in Slovakia. In attempting to piece together his father's life, Pollack assembles the memories of family and friends - who all remain extreme German nationalists until they die - and confronts the past by carefully reconstructing their lives with an extraordinary historical investigation. Pollack digs deeply into the archives and travels to the places important in the history of the Bast family and in his father's Nazi career. It is a painful personal journey which Pollack describes, one he had put off for a long time, until he was well into his 50's. The result is remarkable both as history and as a family memoir.

Comments:

Flamekiller

Interesting book although the translation is not very good.

Gardataur

Pollack has written a methodical, almost pedantic account of a search for a person that was his father who was a big time Nazi among the documentation of the past. I have to admit the story of that search must be the product of laborious research. He has very impressively combed through a lot of information. What struck me is the book's dispassionate tone: Pollack's voice is as dry as a bureaucrat's rubric and he refrains from any emotional interaction with the sensitive material, for good reason.

As well as this is a book that had to be written: how do you deal with the fact your dad was a Nazi and not just any Nazi, an awarded SS operative. That's gotta be hard. And that explains the guarded tone. The reader is left to draw out inferences for herself, just as Pollack did, based on the paper trail left behind.

In terms of personal voice, Martin Davidson's The Perfect Nazi is more animated and engaging. But I can't help but think that the very tone of Pollack's book reflects the tenor of the heinous apparatus that carried out the genocidal dictates Nazi Germany: history as just business as usual and evil as truly bureaucratically banal. I do wish the author had spelled out his reactions to the discoveries a little more vividly but that would have been a different book.

Kriau

The basic premise behind this book -- journalist summons up the courage to investigate exactly what his father did as a member of the SS during the war -- is rather undermined by the fact that he comes up with very few answers. This book starts with a detailed look at the German-speaking area (now part of Slovenia) where the author's father and grandfather grew up and how tensions increased in the 1930s as Germans became more nationalistic and started clashing with the locals. But the author draws a big blank when it comes to the centre of this work. It turns out he has very little idea what his father did during the war. He might have been involved in horrific massacres and war crimes, and then again, he might not. We see various photos of the SS man and then hear that his son has no idea when the photo was taken or what it really shows. There is far too much speculation and guesswork here to make this work anything more than of marginal interest.