PositiveThe TelegraphIf you’re German, it can be hard to discuss the war ... And that’s why Florian Huber’s book about mass suicides in the last year of the war is so intriguing. Because here is a German dealing directly with German trauma ... It’s horrific, but it’s not a new story ... Nonetheless, Huber tells this terrible history with compassion and care. He writes with an ease that makes the book flow smoothly despite the bleak nature of the subject matter, aided by a fine translation from the German by Imogen Taylor. You would have to be heartless not to be moved as you read this litany of rape and suicide ... In these terrible circumstances, it is perhaps surprising that more people were not driven to suicide. Why this didn’t happen is not an issue that Huber properly addresses. Instead, he believes the suicides were an \'epidemic\'. But is this the correct way to describe the scale of what occurred? One problem is that no one knows exactly how many Germans took their own lives. Huber, rather confusingly, quotes two different estimates for the toll in Demmin ... Ultimately, the book offers us confirmation of truths we already knew. War is hell and ordinary people suffer.
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