Clouds over Paris: The Wartime Notebooks of Felix Hartlaub

The writer Felix Hartlaub died in obscurity at just 31, vanishing from Berlin in 1945. He left behind a small oeuvre of private writings from the Second World War: fragments and observations of life from the midst of catastrophe that, with their evocative power and precision, would make a permanent place for him in German letters. Posted to Paris in 1940 to conduct archival research, Hartlaub recorded his impressions of the unfamiliar city in notebooks that document with unparalleled immediacy the daily realities of occupation. With a painter's eye for detail, Hartlaub writes of the bustle of civilians and soldiers in cafes, of half-seen trysts during blackout hours and the sublime light of Paris in spring. Clouds Over Paris is a unique testament to the persistence of ordinary life through disaster.

'[Hartlaub's] descriptions are delicately drawn, inventive and unmistakably Parisian - albeit a Paris steeped in interminable cloud and temporarily decked in swastikas... a portrait that intrigues all the more for its half-finished format and its curious provenance... an intriguing anomaly, an unsolvable enigma, and, ultimately, a story cut short.' - Financial Times

'Representing a valuable addition to the German canon of Parisian war journals, Felix Hartlaub's fragmentary impressions give us a glimpse of a literary career that could have been' - TLS

'The greatest literary talent of his generation' - Die Welt

'Clouds Over Paris is the most fascinating account of how normal war can seem, how the most everyday issues seem more important than the biggest historical issues of the day' - Jewish Chronicle

'With gentle irony, Hartlaub depicts the institutionalised mendacity of the German occupiers, so wary of the wiles of the French, yet so easily seduced by the lies of their own bellicose propaganda' - The Critic

Felix Hartlaub grew up in Mannheim, the son of an art historian and museum director who was ejected from his post by the Nazis in 1933 for his support of 'degenerate' art. Hartlaub studied history and was called up immediately upon graduating in 1939. Initially serving in a barrage balloon unit, he was sent to Paris in late 1940 to do archival research for the German foreign office, using his spare time to document the city in the notebooks that comprise Clouds Over Paris. He would continue writing diaries throughout the war up until he went missing in Berlin in May 1945.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.