Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An author whose bestselling memoir "The Past is Myself" about her life in Nazi Germany was adapted for television.
On the island
Eight records
my first record, seeing that it was John who really started me off on what was never a career, but just the same a love of my life … I chose in the end his wife's favourite song that he sang, which was I Hear You Calling Me.
my second record is Der Doppelgänger, which is sung by Lotte Lehmann, who was one of the pupils of the teacher that I was with in Hamburg …
Deep RiverFavourite
I've chosen Paul Robeson's singing Deep River, which I find a wonderful negro spiritual, and it goes back, of course, to the twenties, when he was surely at the time one of the great voices of his day, to my mind.
Well, my fourth record would be … Alad Jones singing O for the Wings of a Dove … And this means something very special to me, because I have two boys who are soloists in their prep schools … and I have to say I've heard one of my own boys sing it, not unlike Alad Jones.
Well, my fifth choice is Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, sung by Elisabeth Schumann. This takes us back again to Hamburg …
Well, the next record I've chosen is very, very Irish. Enya who, to my mind, is a wonderful voice. She lives in Donegal … and the title of this one is How Can I Keep from Singing?, which perhaps has been a theme going through our talk together.
Johann Sebastian Bach / Charles Gounod
Well, for my seventh record I'd love to hear the Ave Maria sung by Kiri Te Kanawa. … it's wonderful singing from my point of view.
Au fond du temple saint (from Les Pêcheurs de Perles)
Luciano Pavarotti and Nicolai Ghiaurov
my last record is the duet from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers sung by Luciano Pavarotti and Nicolai Ghiaurov. And I find them singing so beautifully together that I thought why not end on there.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08Do you actually enjoy writing, or did you almost write out of a sense of duty — that yours was a story that had to be told?
No, if I am to be honest, I wrote out of a sense of duty. I knew there was a missing book … which told that there were other Germans besides those [who were] clapping their arms and Heil Hitlering all over the place. And when I arrived back in England I realized there was very few people who … understood that there was another Germany … I felt it was my duty … I read every German newspaper from nineteen thirty three onwards …
Presenter asks
3:01You went to Germany and fell in love with a [German] purely by chance, really, didn't you?
Pure chance, yes. I was supposed to be a singer, I wasn't supposed to be a writer at all. I intended to be the greatest dramatic soprano of all time …
Presenter asks
6:52Your parents were opposed to your marrying [Peter], weren't they?
Well, when we approached Marylebone Registry Office … my father stopped the car and said, Do you really want to go on with it? … he said, Well, if you don't, I've got two tickets for the Queen Mary. We can leave for the States this afternoon … I think that was the only time that I saw how panic-stricken he was about it.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
My brother was a prisoner of war. and he took one book with him which was which he had, luckily, when he was caught. In his deep And it was war and peace, so that he had four years with nothing else but war and peace. And he always said, Chris, if you ever want to be stuck with a book for years on end, War and Peace.
The luxury
Well, I think I'd take a very comfortable chair. on which I could sit very comfortably.
Presenter asks
9:57Did you believe that [Hitler] would convince so many people? Could you see that that could happen, or did you simply think … it would go away in the end?
I think that they thought they'd had so many governments beforehand which had changed every year … And I don't think anybody realized that Hitler was there to stay. … if you talk to my husband, he said it never entered his mind … he was such a ridiculous figure … I remember him … saying very firmly, you may think we Germans are political fools, but we're never going to fall for that clown. And that was three or four months before he came to power.
Presenter asks
12:10When did it cease to be an intellectual debate and actually impinge on your lives in a real sense?
Well, it impinged on your life … always. You were always in danger. Even my little boy going to school — if you listened to the foreign radio … that was death penalty. … you didn't speak freely with anybody except real friends … I think one got to the stage one knew almost instinctively who was a Nazi and who was not.
Presenter asks
19:23How involved was [your husband]? What part had he played in the July '44 plot?
Well, our very great friend was Adam von Trott – he knew all about the plot that was going to happen. And he had a telegram from Trott … saying hope to see you in Berlin soon. … And when Adam von Trott was one of the first people to be arrested and hanged, the secretary … said I do know that my boss here had a telegram from him two or three days before the date. … it was on the basis of that that he was arrested.
“If I am to be honest, I wrote out of a sense of duty. I knew there was a missing book … which told that there were other Germans besides those [who were] clapping their arms and Heil Hitlering all over the place.”
“I remember when I heard the first news after the end of the war about the British troops visiting concentration camps with just piles of skeletons … I simply didn't believe it. I said Oh dear, the war, I suppose, has altered England too. It's like Goebbels all over again. I should have known … that there was mass extermination … Never, never entered our minds. I think it's too terrible a thought to think about, really.”
“I could not say no. So I suppose I made a compromise … and I said I have decided, yes, and that is that I can do it for a short time at least. So the wife moved in, a nice hairdresser dyed her hair blonde … and he moved into the cellar.”
“I rang the Gestapo and asked to be interviewed. … I was so angry … they had an endless searchlight straight on your face … and a voice said 'Name is Bielenberg, take a seat.' And I said, 'How do you expect me to take a seat when I can't see anything? Turn off those lights.' I was so angry and he turned them off.”
“I think to me … the greatest importance of my life has been my family. I have a wonderful family. I think a united family is something unbelievably … one can long for it and very seldom it very seldom happens.”