The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History

by Thomas Harding

Overview

Longlisted for the Orwell Prize

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Times (London), New Statesman (London), Daily Express (London), and Commonweal Magazine

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding traveled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small house by a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been a holiday home for her and her family, but in the 1930s, she had been forced to flee to England as the Nazis swept to power. Nearly twenty years later, the house was government property and soon to be demolished. It was Harding’s legacy, one that had been loved, abandoned, fought over—a house his grandmother had desired until her death. Could it be saved? And should it?

When Harding began to make inquiries, he unearthed secrets that had lain hidden for decades about the lives of the five families who had lived there: a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widow and her children, and a Stasi informant. The house had been the site of domestic bliss and of contentment, but also of terrible grief and tragedy. As its story began to take shape, Harding realized that there was a chance to save it, but in doing so, he would have to resolve his own family’s feelings towards their former homeland—and a hatred handed down through the generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250132192
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	213,021
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

THOMAS HARDING is an author and journalist who has written for the Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, among other publications. He is the author of the #1 international bestselling book Hanns and Rudolf, which won the 2015 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize, was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Award, and has been translated into many languages. He lives in Hampshire, England.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Family Trees
Maps
Author’s Note
Prologue

Part I: Glienicke
1. Wollank, 1890
2. Wollank, 1913
3. Alexander, 1927
4. Alexander, 1928
5. Wollank, 1929
6. Alexander, 1930
7. Schultz, 1934
8. Alexander, 1934

Part II: The Lake House
Interlude, August 2013
9. Meisel, 1937
10. Meisel, 1937
11. Meisel, 1942
12. Hartmann, 1944
13. Hartmann, 1945
14. Hartmann, 1945
15. Meisel, 1946
16. Meisel, 1948
17. Meisel, 1949

Part III: Home
Interlude, December 2013
18. Fuhrmann, 1952
19. Fuhrmann and Kühne, 1958 216
20. Fuhrmann and Kühne, 1959
21. Fuhrmann and Kühne, 1961
22. Fuhrmann and Kühne, 1962

Part IV: Villa Wolfgang
Interlude, January 2014
23. Kühne, 1965
24. Kühne, 1970
25. Kühne, 1975
26. Kühne, 1986
27. Kühne, 1989
28. Kühne, 1990
29. Kühne, 1993
30. Kühne, 1999

Part V: Parcel Number 101/7 and 101/8
Interlude, February 2014
31. City of Potsdam, 2003
32. City of Potsdam, 2004
33. City of Potsdam, 2014

Epilogue
Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The lake house, July 2013 (Thomas Harding)
2. Otto Wollank (Wollank Family Archive)
3. Dorothea von Wollank (Ullstein/ Topfoto)
4. Groß Glienicke Lake, photograph by Lotte Jacobi, 1928 (Alexander Family Archive)
5. The lake house, photograph by Lotte Jacobi, 1928 (Alexander Family Archive)
6. Henny Alexander on the lake house veranda (Alexander Family Archive)
7. Alfred Alexander in the garden at Glienicke (Alexander Family Archive)
8. Alfred (front centre), Elsie and Bella (back row left) and friends at the lake, 1928 (Alexander Family Archive)
9. Otto and Dorothea von Wollank’s funeral procession, 1929 (Groß Glienicke Chronik)
10. Robert von Schultz (Landesarchiv Berlin)
11. Joseph Goebbels calls for Jewish boycott, Berlin, 1 April 1933 (USHMM/ National Archives, College Park)
12. Fritz Munk with Alfred and Henny Alexander, Groß Glienicke (Munk Family Archive)
13. ‘Jews are barred from entering’ sign, Wannsee, 1935 (SZ Photo/Scherl/Bridgeman Images)
14. Will Meisel (Edition Meisel GmbH)
15. Eliza Illiard in Paganini (Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen)
16. Will Meisel at the lake house (Edition Meisel GmbH)
17. Hanns Hartmann (WDR/Liselotte Strelow)
18. Gatowairfield, with Groß Glienicke Lake visible (top left) (National Archive London)
19. Wolfgang Kühne (Bernd Kühne)
20. Lake house 1960s (Bernd Kühne)
21. Berlin border fence, Groß Glienicke Lake, 1961 (Groß Glienicke Chronik)
22. Berlin Wall layout (Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik)
23. View of Berlin Wall from Groß Glienicke Lake (Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik)
24. Thälmann Pioneers meet soldiers, Groß Glienicke (Groß Glienicke Chronik)
25. Berlin Wall with view of Groß Glienicke Lake and islands (AKG)
26. Intershop, East Berlin, 1979 (AKG)
Delft tiles in lake house living room (Thomas Harding)
27. Scene of Ulrich Steinhauer murder with Steinhauer’s body visible, far left (Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik)
28. Border crossing opens at Groß Glienicke, 1989 (Andreas Kalesse)
29. Bernd Kühne’s child on border path, 1989 (Bernd Kühne)
30. View of the house from the lake shore, 1990s (Alexander Family Archive)
31. Inge Kühne, Elsie Harding and Wolfgang Kühne (left to right) at the lake house, 1993 (Alexander Family Archive)
32. Lake house, 1990s (Alexander Family Archive)
33. Marcel, Matthias and Roland (left to right) (Marcel Adam)
34. Boys’ room (Thomas Harding)
35. Tree growing through brick terrace (Thomas Harding)
36. Clean-up Day, April 2014 (Sam Cackler Harding)
37. Denkmal ceremony, August 2014 (Sam Cackler Harding)
38. Groß Glienicke Lake (Thomas Harding)

Editorial Reviews

"Fascinating revelations abound . . . [A] powerful book." —The Economist

"A fascinating window on a tumultuous period." —Financial Times

"The House by the Lake meticulously chronicles two linked feats of reclamation: the author's reconstruction of the house's life and times, and his quest to restore the building itself. . . . This is a tale of multiple dispossessions, but also of adaptation and resiliency." —Julia M. Klein, The Boston Globe

"An epic, fact-filled, multi-voiced saga told with pace, verve, and warmth, and rich in fascinating revelations. . . . Masterful." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

"In his absorbing personal history, The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History, Harding recounts, with a measured pathos, the experiences of a succession of tenants. It is a story of aspiration, fleeting joy, escape and the small-scale dramas of domestic life. . . . For all the political and personal upheaval detailed here, Harding writes with a restraint that's all the more impressive given his personal connection to the material. . . . Harding makes excellent use of eyewitness testimony, interviews with Gross Glienicke villagers, family papers, government archives and other documents, as he moves across a century of time." —Newsday

"Breathtaking in scope and intimate in its detail, Harding's book is a groundbreaking and revelatory history of Germany, told over nearly a century through the story of a small wooden house." —Anne Hammock, Florida Times-Union Book of the Week

"By tracing the lives of the different families who lived there, Harding sheds fresh light on the German 20th century, a tale of war, spies, murder and political, racial and social division. His account of the house is a superb work of social history, told with tremendous narrative verve." —The Sunday Times (London)

"This is a history that is often poignant, sometimes heartening, and never other than intimate. . . . This is a gentle but rewarding book, carefully tuned into the marginal voices recorded in the history of one small house by a lake." —Clare Mulley, The Spectator (UK)

"Diamond-brilliant . . . If a webcam had been left on at number 101 Gross Glienicke for 90 years, the record could not have been more vivid or revelatory. Harding's research, from eyewitness accounts to the files of ministries, is jaw-dropping. This is an extraordinary book. Five Stars." —Sunday Express (UK)

"This emblem of tyranny [the Berlin Wall] was just another fact of life for those living in its shadow. And that is, perhaps, the most important lesson of Harding's book. History, which we learn about as a series of ideological abstractions, is lived concretely. This is why an ordinary house can serve so effectively as a symbol of the German experience." —Adam Kirsch, The New Statesman

"It would be hard to write an original and moving account of the tortured 20th-century history of Germany. But, in The House by the Lake, Thomas Harding succeeds remarkably. . . . A tragic and beautifully told history." —The Jewish Chronicle

"Impressive . . . A deft history of a cabin containing many secrets." —The Independent (UK)

"The house by the lake has survived economic booms, busts, extremist ideology, persecution, barbed wired fences, blame and retribution and this book is a potent reminder that behind all these, are human stories." —Country Life

"In The House by the Lake, the simple villa loved and lost by Thomas Harding's family magically becomes the setting for the great clashes of the twentieth century, and for a Technicolor cast—victims, villains and ordinary compromisers—struggling not to be crushed by them. Personal and panoramic, heart-wrenching yet uplifting, this is history at its most alive." —A. D. Miller, author of Snowdrops and The Faithful Couple

"A passionate memoir about Germany." —Neil MacGregor, author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation

"This revelatory and compelling book is a clear must-read for anyone interested in German history during the past tumultuous century. The House By The Lake is a deeply moving story of endurance—of place as well as people. It is also uplifting as we learn of how the crumbling wreck of the house is restored to a haven of reconciliation and peace for the community and visitors to enjoy, and to heed its history which has been so brilliantly exposed." —Lyn Smith, author of Forgotten Voices

"With the narrative drive of a great novelist and the meticulous research of a great historian, Harding has crafted a moving, instructive and important book." —Herald Scotland

"A fascinating and revealing account of a century of German social and political history, told in an effortlessly accessible way." —David Lodge, author of Changing Places

"A superb portrait of twentieth century Germany seen through the prism of a house which was lived in, and lost, by five different families. A remarkable book." —Tom Holland, author of In The Shadow Of The Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World

"Harding recounts not only his family's story, but also those of the others who inhabited the beautiful country house, most notably composer (and one-time member of the Nazi party) Will Meisel and, later, secret police informant Wolfgang Kuhne. In doing so, he also traces the complicated German history of the mid- and late-twentieth century. . . . The overarching notion of using a building to trace a family's and a country's troubled history is affecting and even, at times, inspirational." —Booklist

"An absorbing account." —Library Journal

"Extraordinary . . . A masterpiece of microcosmic history." —The Bookseller

"Original, personal, moving and uplifting . . . [Harding] writes engagingly and sympathetically." —The Literary Review

"Harding writes of love and loss, of victims and villains, of struggle and survival in a heart-wrenching family memoir that many novelists would envy for powerful story, colourful characters and cool style." —Saga Magazine

From the Publisher

10/31/2016
Harding (Hanns and Rudolf), a British-American journalist and nonfiction writer, profiles five diverse families that over the course of nearly a century either owned or rented a single house on the outskirts of Berlin. Harding uses these families—the Wollanks, the Alexanders (Harding's ancestors), the Meisels, the Fuhrmanns, and the Kühns—as a prism through which to look at the history of 20th- and early 21st-century Germany. Given his Jewish family's experience, he pays particular attention to the house and the town in which it was situated, Grosß Glienicke, during WWII—French POWs were housed there, and Soviet forces subjected the town's women to mass rape in 1945—and in the Cold War, when the house and town were located in East Germany. Harding notes how the town prospered after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but the house itself fell into disrepair, housing squatters until Harding and his family, as well as some locals, made an effort to clean and reconstruct it. Harding's well-written, thoroughly researched work brings a long period of German history down to a local, human scale. Maps & illus. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2016
Journalist Harding (Hanns and Rudolf) provides an absorbing account of a century of German history as it relates to a modest home located by a picturesque lake on the outskirts of Berlin. The author, who grew up in England, heard tales throughout his childhood of this beloved dwelling built in the early 20th century by his great-grandparents. In 2013, he visited the cottage and was saddened to find the building derelict and scheduled for demolition by the local government. In an attempt to save the structure, Harding decided to chronicle what happened to the house after his relatives were forced to flee owing to Nazi persecution in the days before World War II. Interviews with local townspeople and tenacious records research disclosed the stories of the house's residents who arrived after his kinfolk left. Remarkably, during the Cold War, a portion of the Berlin Wall was constructed right next to the property—thus placing the house on the communist side of the divided country. Works such as Christopher Hilton's The Wall have told how the division of Germany affected everyday life. VERDICT This personal saga centered on a family home will appeal to enthusiasts of German history, especially post-World War II division and reunification.—Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA

Library Journal

2016-04-20
The inhabitants of a summer house reveal Germany's political, economic, and social history.In 2013, journalist and biographer Harding (Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz, 2013) traveled to the lakeside vacation home outside Berlin where his grandmother had spent a bucolic childhood. He was shocked by its condition: abandoned, in disrepair, its roof cracked, its chimneys crumbling, the once-beloved refuge was in possession of the city of Potsdam, scheduled for demolition. The only way to save it, he learned, was to "prove that it was culturally and historically significant." Harding's efforts to amass that proof have resulted in a well-researched, intermittently interesting overview of 20th-century German history, focused on five families who lived in the house. In the 1890s, Otto Wollank, a wealthy businessman, bought the property, adding to his already large holdings in Berlin. In 1927, his son-in-law, an early Nazi supporter, leased part of the land to Harding's great-grandfather Alfred Alexander, a prominent Jewish physician. After the Nazis took power, the Alexanders—including their daughter, who became Harding's grandmother—reluctantly fled to London. Although the author claims that "virulent nationalism and anti-Semitism…[were] a rarity in the Germany of 1929," he concedes that Jews could not serve in the army, secure a university professorship, or hold other state positions without converting to Christianity. The story he tells of Nazi persecution of Jews is, sadly, familiar. After the war, the house's residents included a working-class family whose access to the lake was cut off by the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly, Hardings' relatives responded with hostility to his pleas to claim and restore the house, eventually giving in and participating in a cleanup day. The house was saved, and Harding asks readers to contribute to its restoration. A personal and imaginative yet overlong perspective on German history.

Kirkus Reviews