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The Kindly Ones
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
"Oh my human brothers, let me tell you how it happened." So begins the chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France.
Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
During the period from June 1941 through April 1945, Max is posted to Poland, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus; he is present at the Battle of Stalingrad and at Auschwitz; and he lives through the chaos of the final days of the Nazi regime in Berlin.
Although Max is a totally imagined character, his world is peopled by real historical figures, such as Eichmann, Himmler, Göring, Speer, Heydrich, Höss, and Hitler himself.
A supreme historical epic and a haunting work of fiction, Jonathan Littell's masterpiece is intense, hallucinatory, and utterly original. Published to impressive critical acclaim in France in 2006, it went on to win the Prix Goncourt, that country's most prestigious literary award, and sparked a broad range of responses and questions from readers: How does fiction deal with the nature of human evil? How should a novel encompass the Holocaust? At what point do history and fiction come together and where do they separate?
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Swansong 1945 chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8.
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Important, Tragic, Poignant...
- By Amazon Customer on 07-31-15
By: Walter Kempowski, and others
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Sapphire Skies
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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2000: The wreckage of a downed WWII fighter plane is discovered in the forests near Russia's Ukrainian border.The aircraft belonged to Natalya Azarova, ace pilot and pin-up girl for Soviet propaganda, but the question of her fate remains unanswered. Was she a German spy who faked her own death, as the Kremlin claims? Her lover, Valentin Orlov, now a highly-decorated general, refuses to believe it. Lily, a young Australian woman, has moved to Moscow to escape from tragedy.
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A Disturbing Disappointment
- By Sara on 08-07-14
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The Auschwitz Escape
- By: Joel C. Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A terrible darkness has fallen upon Jacob Weisz’s beloved Germany. The Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, has surged to power and now hold Germany by the throat. All non-Aryans - especially Jews like Jacob and his family - are treated like dogs. When tragedy strikes during one terrible night of violence, Jacob flees and joins rebel forces working to undermine the regime. But after a raid goes horribly wrong, Jacob finds himself in a living nightmare - trapped in a crowded, stinking car on the train to the Auschwitz death camp.
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Amazing, horrifying, and heartwarming!
- By DebaDeb on 04-01-14
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Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
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Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
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We Will Not Go to Tuapse
- From the Donets to the Oder with the Legion Wallonie and 5th SS Volunteer Assault Brigade ‘Wallonien’ 1942-45
- By: Fernand Kaisergruber
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber's book, the listener discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries.
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Why did it end at Cherkassy?
- By DAVIS J BEAM III on 03-28-18
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Presumed Innocent: Booktrack Edition
- By: Scott Turow
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
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Presumed Innocent brings to life our worst nightmare: that of an ordinary citizen facing conviction for the most terrible of all crimes. It's the stunning portrayal of one man's all-too-human, all-consuming fatal attraction for a passionate woman who is not his wife, and the story of how his obsession puts everything he loves and values on trial - including his own life. It's an audiobook that lays bare a shocking world of betrayal and murder, as well as the hidden depths of the human heart. It will hold you and haunt you...long after you have reached its shattering conclusion.
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PIANO BACKGROUND MUSIC!!!
- By HDB III on 01-26-19
By: Scott Turow
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The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
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The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
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A Woman in Berlin
- Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary
- By: Anonymous, Philip Boehm - translator
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex World War II relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject—the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.
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Interesting
- By northwoods woman on 06-25-20
By: Anonymous, and others
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Troubles
- By: J. G. Farrell
- Narrated by: Kevin Hely
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon's leave three years ago. Despite her many letters, the lady herself proves elusive, and the Major's engagement is short-lived. But he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Ensconced in the dim and shabby splendour of the Palm Court, surrounded by gently decaying old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer.
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Absolutely delightful read
- By E. Kim on 02-25-20
By: J. G. Farrell
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Escape from Sobibor
- By: Richard Rashke
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On October 14, 1943, 600 Jews imprisoned in Sobibor, a secret Nazi death camp in eastern Poland, revolted. They killed a dozen SS officers and guards, trampled the barbed wire fences, and raced across an open field filled with anti-tank mines. Against all odds, more than three hundred made it safely into the woods. Fifty of those men and women managed to survive the rest of the war. In this edition of Escape from Sobibor, fully updated in 2012, Richard Rashke tells their stories
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Rashke put a face to the good and the bad!
- By As happy as a monkey with two bananas in his hands on 06-23-14
By: Richard Rashke
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What listeners say about The Kindly Ones
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darwin8u
- 05-08-14
A Dance of Evil & Fugue of Plagues
"I live, I do what can be done, it's the same for everyone, I am a man like other men, I am a man like you. I tell you I am just like you!"
This is a hard book to review. It is like walking out of a David Lynch movie and feeling brain raped by the artist. How exactly to you attempt to explore the depths of Nazi Germany without feeling dark, abused, and sick afterwards? From conversations I've had with those who've hated this novel (and British critics I've read) there is far too much shit, incest, anal sex and death. Certainly. But how exactly do you descend into the depths of Nazi hell without pushing through gouts of madness, clumps of wickedness and wads of depravity? You don't.
Littell uses Obersturmbannführer Maximilien Aue (a "cultured", SS Zelig) to explore how an unrepentant rationalist, a bureaucrat, an intellectual could participate in, defend, and justify the extermination of a race. Aue doesn't wrestle any Jewish angels. No, he wrestles himself, his country, his ideology, his sanity. The slow decent of mad Max is a way for Littell to explore the absurd and tortured NAZI self-justifications for their actions.
Littell also uses Max to incriminate us all as a species. How close are we to those in Germany during WWII? We like to think we are better, more moral, kinder, respectable, innocent. Are we? Or are we simply blessed by chance because we don't find ourselves surrounded by madness, wickedness, and final solutions? Does circumstance and chance really make us better? Does the fact that we find ourselves, by fate's mad roll, distant from both victim AND victimizer give us any room to think we exist in a field that really separates us from the horrors of Germany (or Nigeria, or Sudan, or Afghanistan, or Somolia, or Serbia, or Cambodia, or Burma, or North Korea)?
Again, this is not a novel for the faint of heart (or my mother). It doesn't have a happy ending. Hell, it doesn't have a happy beginning, middle, or single clean signature. It is a cold book sewn together with sick corruptions, musical madness, and omnipresent death. It is a dance of evil, a fugue of plagues, a bile-filled nightmare on every page. Yes, I'm glad I read it, but I'm also sure as f#&k glad it is finished.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that J. Littell's dad is one of the greatest (not quite le Carre or Greene) spy novelists of the Cold War. If you haven't read any Robert Littell go and check him out if you think this tea is going to be too strong for you.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Tom Shuster
- 11-06-16
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I have, in the last three years, read almost a hundred books of fiction. I can quite easily list the three bodies of work which were the most enjoyable, instructive, and otherwise influential to me. In order they are: 1) the entire 21 book series of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin historic naval literature (probably the best series of books I have ever read), 2) the three books of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and the System of the World), each book being better than the previous one, and 3)
Gregory David Roberts novel, Shantaram.
Now I add a fourth; The Kindly Ones.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Chelz
- 06-07-15
Intriguing portrayal of National Socialism
I read several reviews of this story and am glad I went with the audio version as it sounds like the written version can be daunting due to the format. The reader was excellent and definitely brought Max Aue to life. The historic detail in this tale is beyond incredible - minute attention to detail creates believable characters and scenes. I enjoyed the inclusion of famous individuals and thought this added to the overall appeal of the book. The only complaint is towards the end in cheaters 52 and 53 (?) where Max is alone at his sisters deserted house. These chapters added nothing to the story and if anything took away from what had transpired earlier . The detailed descriptions of being thought of as an ideal national socialist is a topic few have touched on and the author excels on this throughout the story.
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- Space for one
- 02-26-19
Nazis, Defecation, and Incest - Oh My!
Disclaimer: I am a Holocaust and Genocide Studies PhD student.
I purchased this book because I thought it would be an interesting, fictional take on something that I have long been interested in and am currently studying. While the Holocaust portions of the book are extremely interesting. However, the amount of time spent fantasizing about sex with his sister, anal sex, and the various descriptions used for fecal matter completely leaves the listener questioning what the hell is wrong with Max. I hung in there until the last two and a half hours - the portion titled "Air" - it was the description of Max having anal sex with A FREAKING TREE IN THE WOODS that made me seek a refund.
Avoid this book unless you've got an incest or tree fetish.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Meteor
- 11-06-12
Yuck!
A terrible book, unless you are overwhelmingly titillated by incest and homosexuality. It is a portrait of a marginal psychopath in the midst of WWII. There are important and interesting facts (like the concept of defining race in terms of language) that would be better presented in a non-fiction essay. The author does not prepare the reader for the long expositions that contain these important facts. In addition, there are LONG segements of dreams and/or hallucinations that do nothing except exemplify the twisted mind of the narrator – and not in an interesting way.
I made it to the third Audible part of the book and realized it was making me depressed.
I appreciate the idea of presenting a personal and fictionalized (intimate) account of how the atrocities of WWII could have taken place, but I kept wishing I was listening to a book written by Ken Follet.
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- Dalt
- 01-22-13
In for the Long Run?
Any additional comments?
This book is in serious need of editing. While on topic, it successfully allows us into the mind of this distasteful character, but too much of the time we have to slog through prolonged, tedious pedantic dissertations on such topics as cultural anthropology and linguistics. It’s often like reading multiple esoteric doctoral theses. The author obviously possesses a high I. Q., researches indefatigably, and reveals an admirable erudition. But you better be committed if you purchase this novel--it’s a marathon.
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- Aimee Roberts
- 08-18-15
disapointed
What three words best describe Grover Gardner’s performance?
Grover Gardner is always great, but I don't know how he made it through this book.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Not really. It seemed to be well researched with lots of military detail.
Any additional comments?
I am so disappointed that I wasted a credit on this book. It was broken into five parts and I only made it through the first two before I just gave up. I never do that and I only made it that far because I enjoy Grover Gardner's reading voice. It was seemingly pointless and boring. I usually love WWII, historical fiction, a little horror, etc. and hoped this would give a different perspective as well as historical details that are usually left out to spare people's feelings. I don't know what this was.
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- Jason
- 06-24-11
A boring sewer dump ---
My first review. Unless you like Nazi officer ranks verbalized in German, repeated descriptions of bodily functions and waste, and other revolting details, do not buy this book. I could not listen for more than the first hour.
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- Emma
- 01-30-12
Don't buy. Waste of time.
Would you try another book from Jonathan Littell and/or Grover Gardner?
No i would not.
What could Jonathan Littell have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Not bore me with unessasary details.
How could the performance have been better?
The book could have been better.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
nope
Any additional comments?
This book was too long for no reason. I thought that it was going to be better but the going on and on about nothing was really bad.
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- Denise
- 01-04-23
Good Grief
Excellent book regarding the main character's war, could not finish it due to explicit serial content.
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