# Recommend me memoirs by those on the losing side of WWII **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 19, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338 "2006-04-19T18:33:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/21 "2006-04-20T20:15:21Z")
Until the Final Hour, by Traudl Junge, who was one of Hitler’s secretaries and was present in the bunker during the last days. A movie called Downfall was made based on the book. (I’ve seen the movie, but not read the book.) ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/22 "2006-04-20T22:17:25Z")
“The Devil’s Guard,” is interesting. I can’t remember who wrote it and it’s out of print but I did manage to get the local library to find me a copy. It starts out at the very end of the war. A Colonel and some of his men manage to slip out of Romania or Hungry and make it into Switzerland where, somehow, they manage to get into the French Foreign Legion. They end up in Vietnam from 1950 to 1954. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/23 "2006-04-20T22:51:09Z")
So nothing on the Italian side, then? Recommendations, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/24 "2006-04-20T23:05:43Z")
On the civilian side, _A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City_ is a fantastic diary that’s recently been republished. I just finished it, and it’s really very good. It was first published in the 50’s, and the backlash against the author was really striking - a lot of people called her a shameless hussy for talking about the mass rapes that all the women endured but nobody talked about. Sorry, nothing comes to mind for Italy. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/25 "2006-04-20T23:19:22Z")
It may only be available in German, but I can recommend _Namen die keiner mehr nennt_, by Maria Graefin Doenhoff (or Maria Countess Doenhoff). The author belonged to an aristocratic family that had lived in East Prussia, the part of Germany that was annexed by Poland and Russia after the war, and the title refers to the fact that nobody uses the German names of those places anymore. One essay in the book describes her migration west after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338/26 "2006-04-20T23:21:40Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > It may only be available in German, but I can recommend _Namen die keiner mehr nennt_, by Maria Graefin Doenhoff (or Maria Countess Doenhoff). Oops, that was rather cryptic wasn’t it. The title translates to: _Names that are not named anymore._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-memoirs-by-those-on-the-losing-side-of-wwii/353338.md?page=1)