Thirty Four
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £3.75
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Thirty Four for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £3.75, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Amidst the giddy chaos of Berlin, Hitler toys with death in his bunker. The golden boy of Nazism, Hermann Göring, looks set to succeed as Führer. But his bid for power ends with a cyanide capsule in a gaol cell in Nuremberg. And there history signs off on Hermann. Yet buried in the footnotes sits the extraordinary story of Hermann Göring's little brother, Albert.
A defiant anti-Nazi, Albert Göring spent the war years busting the persecuted out of concentration camps, smuggling them across borders and funnelling aid to refugees throughout Europe. He did everything to undermine his brother's regime. But by 1944 the Gestapo were hunting him down like a dog. Did Hermann step in and save his brother?
Enter William, a twentysomething from Sydney, Australia, who stumbles upon the tattered pieces of Albert's history. Shelving plans for a Ph.D., William sets off on a three year odyssey across eight countries and three continents to piece together the puzzling life of Albert Göring.
Forget staid biography. Think seat of your pants travelogue mixed with a Spielberg eye for storytelling and you start to get a taste for the energy William brings to the page. Delivering the kind of must-read story that turns history on its head, Thirty Four gives us a new hero. Standing alongside Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg is the Göring history forgot.
About the Author
Born in 1983, William Hastings Burke grew up on Sydney Harbour. He has since lived in the U.S., Germany, Norway and the U.K.. After graduating with an honours degree in Economics Soc. Sc. from the University of Sydney, he set up base in the student town of Freiburg, Germany. Living on sachet-mashed potato mix, kebabs and a few shifts at the local pub, he began a three year, self funded journey to uncover the story of Albert Göring.
Fed up with the stuffy academic approach to history, he is part of a new generation bringing history up to speed. This is his first book. William currently lives in London.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is a very good effort to re-establish the role and person of Albert Goering out of the shadow of his more infamous brother. The story is fascinating and Albert Goering deserves this re-instatement as the saviour of many - Jews and Gentiles alike. Like Oskar Schindler he is a multifaceted character.
However, I found the author's style of writing too much of a 'boys own' story, a bit wide-eyed and incredulous, with the author's own prejudices and myths turned into 'facts'. The style of writing lets Hastings Burke down on occasion; and some of the travel details of his research story are really not adding anything to the subject of Albert Goering. In parts the pages read like a high-school student's story telling.
Unfortunately the book is also riddled with many grammatical and spelling errors throughout, including the German used - there are over ten errors in the first 17 pages. I hope these will be corrected in the next edition.
Nevertheless I am looking forward to a follow-up by the author that is a bit more mature in its approach and choice of presentation of the subject matter.
However, I found the author's style of writing too much of a 'boys own' story, a bit wide-eyed and incredulous, with the author's own prejudices and myths turned into 'facts'. The style of writing lets Hastings Burke down on occasion; and some of the travel details of his research story are really not adding anything to the subject of Albert Goering. In parts the pages read like a high-school student's story telling.
Unfortunately the book is also riddled with many grammatical and spelling errors throughout, including the German used - there are over ten errors in the first 17 pages. I hope these will be corrected in the next edition.
Nevertheless I am looking forward to a follow-up by the author that is a bit more mature in its approach and choice of presentation of the subject matter.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Purchased this book having heard about Albert Georing (Herman's beneficent brother) from a documentary on the history channel and wanted to know more. This book explores his life and acts in some detail. However almost as extensively, this book discusses the author's journey to find out about Albert. Personally this is not what I was interested in and found this deviation from the topic irritating, however I'm sure alot of readers would find this aspect of the book equally interesting. Another issue with the book was the writing style of the author - he is very expressive to the point of melodrama in parts. He appears to rarely present the facts without the addition of a personal opinion. However, very interesting story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Imagine you are a wealthy industrialist, but also a humanitarian with a keen sense of justice. Imagine you live in a brutal totalitarian regime which is waging war over half the world and subjecting those under its control to acts or repression and genocide the like of which the world has never seen.
OK? Now imagine that your brother is one of your country's top military and political leaders. He's Hermann Goering, and you are his younger brother Albert.
Thirty Four is the remarkable story of how Albert Goering protected and saved the threatened and dispossessed throughout the duration of the Third Reich. He also led acts of anti-Nazi defiance and even sabotage. His innumerable exploits ranged from moving people round the Skoda empire to places where they would be less vulnerable, through remarkable political interventions such as persuading Goebbels to classify Franz Lehar's Jewish wife as an "honorary Aryan", to acts of almost unbelievable audacity like driving a convoy to a concentration camp, demanding that it be filled with "workers" for Skoda, and then freeing those supplied in a nearby forest. What's even more impressive is that through a combination of the protection afforded by his brother's name, his own charm and political skill, and Hermann's occasional protective or helpful interventions, he survived to tell the tale.
I'm always captivated by these "edge" stories from history, of those who didn't fit the mould, and this is a fascinating, uplifting and inspiring tale. It's not a hagiography - Albert's personal weaknesses and his difficult post-war years are fully acknowledged, but throughout there's a strong sense of his moral compass and his need to do something.
Although almost forgotten by history, Albert Goering needs to be remembered alongside Schindler and Wallenberg, and this book attempts to make that a possibility.
William Hastings Burke has made a decent job of telling the story, although by his own admission it should probably have been researched and told twenty years earlier, when it might have been possible to talk to those who knew Albert Goering themselves, rather than their descendants. The style of the book is deliberately chatty, mixing historical findings, dialogue from interviews and the author's own wry observations from travelling around Europe with limited support and an even more limited budget.
If I have a complaint, it's that the book is a bit short (maybe reflecting the difficulty of researching very personal stories at this distance), and it would have been great to include a few photographs of the central characters. However, these are minor niggles.
This is a good read, and very inspiring. Recommended.
OK? Now imagine that your brother is one of your country's top military and political leaders. He's Hermann Goering, and you are his younger brother Albert.
Thirty Four is the remarkable story of how Albert Goering protected and saved the threatened and dispossessed throughout the duration of the Third Reich. He also led acts of anti-Nazi defiance and even sabotage. His innumerable exploits ranged from moving people round the Skoda empire to places where they would be less vulnerable, through remarkable political interventions such as persuading Goebbels to classify Franz Lehar's Jewish wife as an "honorary Aryan", to acts of almost unbelievable audacity like driving a convoy to a concentration camp, demanding that it be filled with "workers" for Skoda, and then freeing those supplied in a nearby forest. What's even more impressive is that through a combination of the protection afforded by his brother's name, his own charm and political skill, and Hermann's occasional protective or helpful interventions, he survived to tell the tale.
I'm always captivated by these "edge" stories from history, of those who didn't fit the mould, and this is a fascinating, uplifting and inspiring tale. It's not a hagiography - Albert's personal weaknesses and his difficult post-war years are fully acknowledged, but throughout there's a strong sense of his moral compass and his need to do something.
Although almost forgotten by history, Albert Goering needs to be remembered alongside Schindler and Wallenberg, and this book attempts to make that a possibility.
William Hastings Burke has made a decent job of telling the story, although by his own admission it should probably have been researched and told twenty years earlier, when it might have been possible to talk to those who knew Albert Goering themselves, rather than their descendants. The style of the book is deliberately chatty, mixing historical findings, dialogue from interviews and the author's own wry observations from travelling around Europe with limited support and an even more limited budget.
If I have a complaint, it's that the book is a bit short (maybe reflecting the difficulty of researching very personal stories at this distance), and it would have been great to include a few photographs of the central characters. However, these are minor niggles.
This is a good read, and very inspiring. Recommended.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Good Story Ruined
The story of Albert Goering is surprising, moving and admirable. Unfortunately it is ruined by this author's juvenile approach, frequent irrelevancies, apparent presentation of... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Royal Windsor
amazing story
This is a shory of a very brave man, even more had to undertsand as his brother was oone of the monster of WW2. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Dr. Colin Gibson
amazon services
the book is very interesting and the service provided in getting the book to us was excellent as usual.
Published 16 months ago by Barb.
History still surprises
This is a very easy read about a bloody period of history. It shows that the capacity to do good or evil is a choice, but not always a clear one.
Published on 6 April 2010 by Deborah P. Henkin
Impressive
I really enjoyed it. I think William has an easy style and some great turns of phrase. He should also write poetry. I can also imagine him to be a great feature journalist. Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2010 by Mr. C. Deavin
I couldn't put this down! A must read for 2010!
I came across this book after a friend had recommended it. In the first few chapters I was impressed with the author's style and attention to detail (he has a way of giving you all... Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2010 by R. Chai
Hope for dark times...
Will Burke signs a genuine master stoke with 34!
Not only does he uncover/dust off, one of the most amazing story of the Nazism regime but he finds the talent to put it down... Read more
Not only does he uncover/dust off, one of the most amazing story of the Nazism regime but he finds the talent to put it down... Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2009 by Paul Vergara
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Germany
- Books > History > Europe > Germany
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
