Alexander Kluge: 30 April 1945: The Day Hitler Shot Himself and Germany’s Integration with the West Began

translated by Wieland Hoban

It was on 30 April 1945 that the Red Army occupied Berlin, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker and the United Nations was being founded in San Francisco.
 
Alexander Kluge covers this single historic day and unravels its passing hours across the different theatres of Second World War, including the life of a small German town occupied by American forces and the story of two SS officers stranded on the forsaken Kerguelen Islands. The collective experiences Kluge paints here are jarring, poignant and imbued with meaning. Seventy years later, we can still see our own reflections in the upheaval of a single day in 1945.
 
With additional texts by Reinhard Jirgl, this is a riveting collection of lives turned upside down by the deadliest war in history.
 
German original published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, under the title 30. April 1945: Der Tag, an dem Hitler sich erschoss und die Westbindung der Deutschen begann in 2014.