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    Blood Brothers
    Blood Brothers
    Blood Brothers
    Audiobook5 hours

    Blood Brothers

    Written by Ernst Haffner and Michael Hofmann

    Narrated by Michael Page

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Blood Brothers is the only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of World War II. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner's story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler's rise to power, describing how these blood brothers move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life, and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 19, 2015
    ISBN9781494583071
    Blood Brothers

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    Reviews for Blood Brothers

    3.5/5

    39 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The gang subculture of homeless youth in Weimar-era Berlin, rendered in lean, muscular prose well-suited to the subject. The main narrative follows the converging paths of Willi and Ludwig, two adolescent escapees from the juvenile detention system who find protection and a sense of belonging within a gang of pickpockets on some seriously mean streets. As the scale of criminal activity ramps up, the stakes get progressively larger; sensing impending disaster and having no desire to become professional criminals, our heroes hit on a scheme to break free and - they hope - establish a basis for survival within society rather than on its underbelly.

      I was surprised by how invested I became in the fate of these characters. The novel does a good job of conveying the bonds of loyalty and subtle personality dynamics that form among this makeshift street family, eking out a tenuous niche among thieves, hustlers, snitches, prostitutes, beggars, rival gangs, and the police. Haffner's journalistic eye evokes the harshness of Berlin's "gray, proletarian streets", the crowded, smoke-filled claustrophobia of its basement dives, the institutional bleakness of the correctional facilities designed to warehouse kids until they reach the age of majority (until then, they are basically non-persons, unable to work legally and always subject to arrest).

      Haffner has an open heart that never shortchanges the dignity of these characters. There are lots of small, well-observed moments in which they get to be simply human, such as when Ludwig, recently fled from detention, hungrily takes in the tumult of a bustling Alexanderplatz after months of sensory-deprived incarceration.

      Moments like this throw into relief the more adrenaline depictions of life lived in extremis: unable to afford a ticket, Willi spends a harrowing night clinging to the underside of a passenger train speeding toward Berlin. Haffner gives us the racket, the wind-chill, the muscle cramps, the sheer terror, the rocks and pebbles thrown up from the tracks hitting him in the face.

      Hang on for dear life and let your guard down only at the risk of being ground up: it's an apt metaphor for how his characters subsist from day to day. Haffner was a social worker in Berlin at the time the novel takes place, and the self-perpetuating, structural brokenness of the various bureaucracies whose wheels his characters are caught in (or trying to avoid) always looms large.

      The Nazis didn't care for Blood Brothers and banned it when they came to power. Haffner himself ultimately disappeared in the chaos of the war years. Blood Brothers is his only known work.
    • 4/5
      The gang subculture of homeless youth in Weimar-era Berlin, rendered in lean, muscular prose well-suited to the subject. The main narrative follows the converging paths of Willi and Ludwig, two adolescent escapees from the juvenile detention system who find protection and a sense of belonging within a gang of pickpockets on some seriously mean streets. As the scale of criminal activity ramps up, the stakes get progressively larger; sensing impending disaster and having no desire to become professional criminals, our heroes hit on a scheme to break free and - they hope - establish a basis for survival within society rather than on its underbelly.

      I was surprised by how invested I became in the fate of these characters. The novel does a good job of conveying the bonds of loyalty and subtle personality dynamics that form among this makeshift street family, eking out a tenuous niche among thieves, hustlers, snitches, prostitutes, beggars, rival gangs, and the police. Haffner's journalistic eye evokes the harshness of Berlin's "gray, proletarian streets", the crowded, smoke-filled claustrophobia of its basement dives, the institutional bleakness of the correctional facilities designed to warehouse kids until they reach the age of majority (until then, they are basically non-persons, unable to work legally and always subject to arrest).

      Haffner has an open heart that never shortchanges the dignity of these characters. There are lots of small, well-observed moments in which they get to be simply human, such as when Ludwig, recently fled from detention, hungrily takes in the tumult of a bustling Alexanderplatz after months of sensory-deprived incarceration.

      Moments like this throw into relief the more adrenaline depictions of life lived in extremis: unable to afford a ticket, Willi spends a harrowing night clinging to the underside of a passenger train speeding toward Berlin. Haffner gives us the racket, the wind-chill, the muscle cramps, the sheer terror, the rocks and pebbles thrown up from the tracks hitting him in the face.

      Hang on for dear life and let your guard down only at the risk of being ground up: it's an apt metaphor for how his characters subsist from day to day. Haffner was a social worker in Berlin at the time the novel takes place, and the self-perpetuating, structural brokenness of the various bureaucracies whose wheels his characters are caught in (or trying to avoid) always looms large.

      The Nazis didn't care for Blood Brothers and banned it when they came to power. Haffner himself ultimately disappeared in the chaos of the war years. Blood Brothers is his only known work.
    • 3/5
      it felt it was a book for teenage boys. lots of repetition.
    • 4/5
      "Berlin-endless, merciless Berlin- is too much for anyone on their own."This basically sums up this book. The Blood Brothers are a gang of boys/young men, running the streets in a Germany that is in-between the two World Wars. They fight, drink, and steal. They starve, prostitute themselves, and dream of a warm place to sleep. Willi and Ludwig are my favorites, but the whole gang, and their struggle to survive, is pretty likable. The book is stark and raw, but really seems to capture that place at that time. Sort of a pre-Beat generation tale.