Diary of a Man in Despair: A Masterpiece about the Comprehension of Evil | 
#12BooksOf2025 May just wow, Friedrich would be considered a conservative and an aristocrat but his diary is spot on about the evil, stupidity, and cruelty of the rise of the Third Reich. His diary starts in 1936. It was called “One of the most important documents of the Hitler period “ by Hannah Arendt , the New York Review of Books has this lovely edition. One of my top of the year!
pickThere definitely has been a theme to my reading lately as I grapple with current events and view them through the lens of the past. Friedrich Reck was a conservative in Germany who was vehemently anti-Nazi and Hitler from the very beginning. His observations of Germany as they slid towards tyranny and horror are astute, cutting and incisive.
Hard to pick just one quote from this book, appallingly timely in its observations applied to current events, 90 years later.
“With his oily hair falling into his face as he ranted, he had the look of a man trying to seduce the cook. I got the impression of basic stupidity, the same kind of his crony Papen - the kind of stupidity which equates statemanshio with cheating at a horse trade.”
pickMy highest praise. It is written as diary entries, what is happening to him & society as Hitler rises to power. He sees the stupidity,the cruelty,the arrogance.How such a regime destroys everything in its wake .The past ,the present,the future.Unfortunately, It is too relevant in this particular moment. Very moving, so glad I read it. I had heard of it years ago, then Tim Miller mentioned it in The Bulwark podcast.Beautiful writing,sharp insights
Someone recommended this book to Tim Miller of The Bulwark, he added to footnotes, I borrowed it. Originally published in 1947, Reck details the rise of Hitler and Nazism with appropriate horror. I‘m only a bit into it , this paragraph !
pickRecommended. Like all autobiography or memoir, you have to retain some skepticism for what the author says about himself. But the feeling you get for the times in which he lived is evocative. His scathing descriptions of the "mass-men" who led to the rise of the Nazi Part and who supported it are so very well-written and observed. Reck is a great, witty, and articulate storyteller.
This came in today's mail! Friedrich Reck was a Prussian aristocrat. To him, democracy was a farce and the citizenry. But he left a journal of the years the Nazis were in power. A period when a demagogue manipulated the people's need for economic security, when he appealed to racism and enlisted the the worst impulses of patriotic fervor to support his regime. A time when... Excuse me, I need to go purchase a journal and start writing.
