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The Bonfire of Berlin, Helga Schneider

William Heinemann
Reviewed by James O'Sullivan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

It was no fun living in Berlin during World War II. Helga Schneider gives a personal account of what it was like.

As Hitler's dream of a thousand-year empire was vanishing, the Allies were bombing Berlin every day. The city was burning and in ruins. For Helga, a young girl at the time, charred and mutilated bodies lying in the streets after an air raid were not an uncommon sight. The ubiquitous stench of rotting flesh was overpowering. Starvation hit the bedraggled city. People were forced to huddle in basements as the bombs rained down from above. Only those brave enough would venture outside to collect what little food and water there was. Sanitation was minimal and fear was ever-present.

But as war drew to a close there was a new menace. Hordes of Russian troops overtook the city, plundering and raping, taking revenge for the destruction of their own country.

Schneider's account is honest but not over-sentimental; her own mother deserted her to become a guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau. But like all good eyewitnesses, Schneider lets the subject matter speak for itself.

This book graphically displays what it is like to be on the wrong end of an extensive bombing campaign specifically targeting a civilian population. It's a reminder that it wasn't only civilians in Allied countries who paid the ultimate price of war.