The Swiftness of Living: Letters Home from Berlin, 1938–June 1939; Going to Extremes: Berlin to the Arctic in 1939; A Cold Descending Fog: Letters Home and a Memoir from Wartime Berlin, 1939–1940; Fragments of Shell Pattering: Letters Home from Germany, August 1940–February 1942 by Stewart W. Herman Jr. (review)

Reviewed by: The Swiftness of Living: Letters Home from Berlin, 1938–June 1939; Going to Extremes: Berlin to the Arctic in 1939; A Cold Descending Fog: Letters Home and a Memoir from Wartime Berlin, 1939–1940; Fragments of Shell Pattering: Letters Home from Germany, August 1940–February 1942 by Stewart W. Herman Jr. Mark Granquist The Swiftness of Living: Letters Home from Berlin, 1938–June 1939; Going to Extremes: Berlin to the Arctic in 1939; A Cold Descending Fog: Letters Home and a Memoir from Wartime Berlin, 1939–1940; Fragments of Shell Pattering: Letters Home from Germany, August 1940–February 1942. 4 volumes. By Stewart W. Herman, Jr. Edited by Stewart Herman III. Gettysburg: Musselman Library, Gettysburg College, 2022. 393 pp. + 217 pp. + 394 pp. + 419 pp. One of the guilty little pleasures of being a historian is the chance to read other people's mail. Sometimes this involves slogging through one archival box after another, but in this case the letters End Page 118 of Stewart Herman, Jr., have been printed in four volumes (and more to come?) for all the world to read. These letters are important because Herman was the pastor of the American Church in Berlin 1936–1941, and a witness to the dark years in Germany before and during the beginning of the Second World War. His long and informative letters home describe the mundane and dramatic events he witnessed before being expelled from Germany in 1942. During the war Herman worked for the Office of Strategic Services in London, and after the war returned to Germany to assist with the reconstruction of that country. The materials that Americans and other resident outsiders wrote about Germany in the late 1930s have long been an important source for historians trying to document Nazi Germany and the descent of Europe into the Second World War in 1939. American sources are particularly valuable because Americans were allowed to remain in Germany as neutrals during the first two years of the war, until the United States entered the war in December 1941. The letters written by Herman are a valuable resource, as they describe in detail daily life in the German capital city. One of the most important questions about such materials is the degree to which the writers had a full sense of the evils of the Nazi regime and the traumas to come. Knowing what we do now about the horrors of this regime, and its brutality, one wonders how much of this was evident to resident foreigners in Germany. Herman seemed to be very aware of much of the evil of the Nazi regime, but of course not the full extent of the horror. After December 1940, he was advised to be very careful in including details about the political and military situation in Germany, and one senses an increased self-censorship in his letters. Herman was in Germany first as a student in Göttingen and Berlin, and then as the pastor of the American Church in Berlin. Much of the time his letters home deal with the mundane and routine elements of his pastorate—the worship services, the religious and social life of the expatriate community, and the struggle to keep congregational life going. However, Herman also had daily interactions with ordinary German citizens and with the life of the German capital city. His letters describe what seems like a nervous attempt by many End Page 119 to maintain a façade of ordinary life as the country moved gradually into total war. Herman also had frequent contacts with German Lutheran church pastors and authorities; here he is less critical, and perhaps does not see the full and imminent danger of the Nazi influence through the German Church structure. But again, while we can see the issues in hindsight, it was probably not so easy to see the larger picture and its implications. These volumes also document his travels through Europe, including a long and fascinating trip to the Scandinavian Arctic in 1939, and travels to Central Europe. He is also very aware of developments within American Lutheranism and has frequent comments on events within this community. After the United States declared war on...