Oliver Hilmes: "An end and a beginning. How the summer of 45 changed the world"

US soldier Klaus Mann tracks down Nazi criminals, and in Berlin Billy Wilder plans a comedy about life in the ruins. Cafés and restaurants open their doors, and the Red Army soldier Vasily Petrovich is begged for bread by German children.


In many stories and scenes that lead from Berlin to Tokyo, from Munich to Paris or from Bayreuth to Moscow, Oliver Hilmes captures the unique atmosphere of this time of extremes: the great happiness and hope of the liberated, the misery and grief, the fears of the defeated and the new freedom.

Oliver Hilmes, born in 1971, holds a doctorate in contemporary history and works as a curator for the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation. His books on two contradictory and fascinating women, Alma Mahler-Werfel and Cosima Wagner, were followed by a biography of Franz Liszt. In 2016, ‘Berlin 1936. Sixteen Days in August’, a book about the Olympics, was published. Most recently, "Schattenzeit. Germany 1943 - Everyday Life and Abysses" (2023).

Udo Samel, born in 1953, actor on stage and television, opera director and audio book narrator, will read from the book.

(IN GERMAN)