Lebanon’s Jarrous Press Buys Memoir of Nazi Years

This post is also available in: العربية

Jarrous Press in Lebanon has bought the Arabic rights to A German Life, the memoirs of Brunhilde Pomsel, who was secretary to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propoganda.

Nasser Jarrous, owner of Jarrous Press, said: “This is a distinguished book written by a life witness who tells with accurate detail the horrible crimes committed against humanity by the Nazis – crimes that are unparalleled in history. Jarrous Press will issue the Arabic edition next December.”

The book, which Pomsel has written with German writer and journalist Thore Hansen, was published in Germany by Verlag Europa and has seen a raft of international sales that demonstrate the unending interest in one of the darkest episodes of modern history.

According to Kathrin Scheel at rights agency ‘This Book Travels,’ based in Hamburg, Germany, rights have gone to Estonia (Tänapäev), Latvia (Zvaigzne ABC Publishers), Finland (Gummerus Publishers), Russia (Corpus Books),Turkey (Pegasus Yayinlari), the UK (Bloomsbury Publishing, which has world English rights), Greece (Metaichmio Editions), Italy (Rizzoli Libri SpA), Denmark (ArtPeople/People’s Press), Holland (Xander Uitgevers BV), Romania (Editura Humanitas SA), Spain (Los Libros del Lince, which has world Spanish rights), Portugal (Objetiva/Penguin Random House) and Czech Republic (Euromedia Group).

Pomsel worked for Goebbels from 1942 to 1945, describing herself as an ‘apolitical hanger-on.’  According to Verlag Europa: “Her main priorities were her job, her sense of duty and her desire to belong.  Not until the war was over did she realise the full extent of the atrocities that had been committed.”

Speaking in later life, Pomsel challenged the view that ordinary German people should have done more to prevent the crimes committed by the Nazi regime.

“The people who today say they would have done more for those poor, persecuted Jews… I really believe that they sincerely mean it. But they wouldn’t have done it either,” she said.  “By then the whole country was under some kind of dome. We ourselves were all inside a huge concentration camp.”

Pomsel died in January this year, aged 106.