Blackout Berlin: Simon Scarrow (1939)
Simon Scarrow, author of Blackout
In this enthralling episode, the Number One Bestselling novelist Simon Scarrow takes us on a walking tour of Berlin in the winter of 1939. The frozen streets and imposing buildings at the heart of Hitler’s Third Reich are also the background to Scarrow’s hugely-anticipated new novel: Blackout.
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We can instantly recall the events of late 1939. There was the September German invasion of Poland, which was instantly met by prime minster Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war. Thereafter there was the anxious months of the “Phoney War” as Britons awaited Hitler’s next move.
In this episode we look beyond the British perspective. What was the first winter of the Second World War like for Germans? What were the expectations and fears of the Berliners as they shivered through one of the coldest spells of weather in living memory?
The novelist Simon Scarrow confronts questions like this as he takes us on a brisk tour of three Berlin buildings. We visit a bustling train station, the disquieting headquarters of the Gestapo and an upmarket hotel as we look at the geography of power in the Nazi capital.
Along the way Scarrow describes the dread Berliners had in 1939 of yet another conflict with France and Great Britain. Many people hoped, more than anything, that there would be a swift agreement with the western nations that would avoid an all-out conflict.
Meanwhile idividuals faced the challenge of survival in a party state. By 1939 it was becoming increasingly difficult to be politically agnostic. Those in official positions who had not joined the Nazi party risked suspicion and demotion. As the same time there were more practical worries. With food scarce, supplies were rationed. At night, a blackout was in operation to guard against air raids.
Most of the buildings that Scarrow takes us to would be damaged and destroyed over the years of war that followed 1939. As such we look at them here with an air of foreboding. But for all the richness and particularity of this historical setting, Scarrow argues, this is a time continues to resonate with us today. How can an entire people lose their liberty? How can a country commemorate its difficult history?
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Show notes
Scene One: December 1939. Anhalter station – Dusk
Scene Two: December 1939. Reich Main Security Office - Day
Scene Three: December 1939. Hotel Adlon - Evening
Memento: A propaganda poster
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Guest: Simon Scarrow
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About Simon Scarrow
Simon Scarrow is one of the most successful British historical novelists of the 21st Century and a multiple Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author. After a childhood spent travelling the world, he pursued his great love of history first as a schoolteacher, before becoming a full-time writer. His Roman era Eagles of the Empire series has sold over 4 million copies of the books in the UK alone, and his work has been translated into 24 languages.
He is also the author of a quartet of novels about the lives of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte, Young Bloods, The Generals, Fire And Sword and The Fields Of Death; a novel about the 1565 Siege of Malta, Sword & Scimitar; Hearts Of Stone, set in Greece during the Second World War; and Playing With Death, a contemporary thriller written with Lee Francis. He also wrote the novels Arena and Invader with T. J. Andrews.
Berlin: Map of the locations visited in this episode
Scarrow’s additional notes on the scenes
One. Anhalter Station. Dusk.
All that is left of the station today is a small part of the façade. In its time Anhalter was an impressive structure dominating an area to the south of the city centre. I’ve always found train stations atmospheric places and it was fun to try and reconstruct it in my mind from the pictures and descriptions I came across while researching the novel. Especially the steam trains. There is a much darker side to its history. This was the station through which passed many of the city’s Jews on their way to the extermination camps and there will have been many scenes of misery and brutality played out in the bomb damaged station.
Two. Reich Main Security Office. Day
The building on what was Prinz-Albrecht-Straße has been demolished and replaced with a museum dedicated to detailing the growth of the Nazi regime’s instruments of oppression. It’s a sobering experience. At the time the RHSA HQ existed this was the nerve centre of the Gestapo, the SD the SS and every organisation associated with spying on the people and rooting out potential enemies of the regime. It was an opulent enough building but it must have seemed ominous to anyone passing by who had the faintest inkling of what happened within.
Three. Hotel Adlon. Evening
The modern day hotel is largely a new construction, but it the external style is reasonably faithful to the original appearance. Then, as now, it was one of the most exclusive hotels in Berlin, close to the Brandenburg Tor at the top of Unter Den Linden. The cream of German society frequented its bars and restaurant.
Featured images of war-time Berlin
![The Deutsche Reichsbahn in the service of the Olympic Games ". [Anhalter Bahnhof Berlin]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d39be915804eb00017ab307/1616452473428-2D7UM9Y9OOVOMP4G3477/Berlin+Train.jpg)
All images used under Creative Commons license, source: Hans-Michael Tappen
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Click here to order Blackout by Simon Scarrow from our friends at John Sandoe’s Books.
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