Kitty S Salon

There is no book in English about the wartime Berlin 'salon' run by Kitty Schmidt under the secret control of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution Salon Kitty was the most notorious brothel in the decadent Berlin of the Weimar Republic - the city of Cabaret. But after the Nazis took power, it became something more dangerous: a spying centre with every room wired for sound, staffed by women agents specially selected by the SS to coax secrets from their VIP clients. Masterminded by Reinhard Heydrich, the spymaster whom Hitler himself called 'the man with the iron heart', the exclusive establishment turned listening post was patronised by the Nazi leaders themselves, not knowing that hidden ears were listening. One of the last untold stories of the Second World War, Salon Kitty's sensational true history is now revealed by historians Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel. After years of painstaking research and investigation, the story they tell sheds new light on Nazi methods of control and coercion, and the way that they used and abused sex for their own perverse purposes.

In Italy, an elderly mother awaits a reunion with the son stolen from her by the Nazis—“A darkly hypnotic kaleidoscope of a book” (The Jewish Daily Forward). Haya Tedeschi sits alone in Gorizia, in northeastern Italy, surrounded by a basket of photographs and newspaper clippings. Now an old woman, she waits to be reunited after sixty-two years with her son, fathered by an SS officer and stolen from her by the German authorities as part of Himmler’s clandestine Lebensborn project. Tedeschi reflects on her Catholicized Jewish family’s experiences, in a narrative that deals unsparingly with the massacre of Italian Jews in the concentration camps of Trieste. Her obsessive search for her son leads her to photographs, maps, and fragments of verse, to testimonies from the Nuremberg trials and interviews with second-generation Jews, and to eyewitness accounts of atrocities that took place on her doorstep. From this broad collage of material and memory arises the staggering chronicle of Nazi occupation in northern Italy that “explores the 20th century’s darkest chapter in an original way . . . an exceptional reading experience” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

This extraordinary story of a high-class Berlin brothel—taken over by the Nazi secret service—is one of the last untold tales of World War II. There is no book in English about the wartime Berlin ‘salon’ run by Kitty Schmidt under the secret control of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution. "Salon Kitty" was the most notorious brothel in the decadent Berlin of the Weimar Republic - the city of "Cabaret." But after the Nazis took power, it became something more dangerous: a spying center with every room wired for sound, staffed by female agents specially selected by the SS to coax secrets from their VIP clients. Masterminded by Reinhard Heydrich, the spymaster whom Hitler himself called "the man with the iron heart," the exclusive establishment turned listening post was patronized by the Nazi leaders themselves, not knowing that hidden ears were listening. The Madam and the Spymaster reveals the sensational true story of this forgotten part of espionage history. The deep research undertaken by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel sheds new light on Nazi methods of control and coercion, and the way sex was abused for their own perverse purposes.

From the late 1930s to the early twenty-first century, European and American filmmakers have displayed an enduring fascination with Nazi leaders, rituals, and symbols, making scores of films from Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Watch on the Rhine (1943) through Des Teufels General (The Devil’s General, 1955) and Pasqualino settebellezze (Seven Beauties, 1975), up to Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and beyond. Probing the emotional sources and effects of this fascination, Sabine Hake looks at the historical relationship between film and fascism and its far-reaching implications for mass culture, media society, and political life. In confronting the specter and spectacle of fascist power, these films not only depict historical figures and events but also demand emotional responses from their audiences, infusing the abstract ideals of democracy, liberalism, and pluralism with new meaning and relevance. Hake underscores her argument with a comprehensive discussion of films, including perspectives on production history, film authorship, reception history, and questions of performance, spectatorship, and intertextuality. Chapters focus on the Hollywood anti-Nazi films of the 1940s, the West German anti-Nazi films of the 1950s, the East German anti-fascist films of the 1960s, the Italian “Naziploitation” films of the 1970s, and issues related to fascist aesthetics, the ethics of resistance, and questions of historicization in films of the 1980s–2000s from the United States and numerous European countries.

“An intriguing, but also shocking insight into the thoughts of those young German women and how they saw their part in Hitler’s thousand-year Reich.” —Armorama The women of the Third Reich were a vital part in a complex and vilified system. What was their role within its administration, the concentration camps, and the Luftwaffe and militia units and how did it evolve in the way it did? We hear from women who issued typewritten dictates from above through to those who operated telephones, radar systems, fought fires as the cities burned around them, drove concentration camp inmates to their deaths like cattle, fired Anti-Aircraft guns at Allied aircraft and entered the militias when faced with the impending destruction of what should have been a one thousand-year Reich. Every testimony is unique, each person a victim of circumstance entwined within the thorns of an ideological obligation. In an interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler’s private secretary, she remembers: ‘There was so much hatred within it’s hard to understand how the state functioned . . . I am convinced all this infighting and competition from the males in Hitler’s circle was highly detrimental to its downfall’. Women of the Third Reich provides an intriguing, humorous, brutal, shocking and unrelenting narrative journey into the half lights of the hell of human consciousness—sometimes at its worst. “Tim Heath investigated the experiences of women in Nazi Germany before and during World War II . . . What is special is that women speak candidly about their experiences, which were sometimes violent.” —Traces of War “A fascinating book, chilling at times.” —Books Monthly

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cult Epics – the controversial arthouse, horror and erotica video label – this commemorative hardcover book covers essential releases from filmmakers such as Tinto Brass, Fernando Arrabal, Radley Metzger, Walerian Borowcyzk, Jean Genet, Abel Ferrara, George Barry, Rene Daalder, Agusti Villaronga, Jorg Buttgereit, Gerald Kargl, Nico B, Irving Klaw, and pinup legend Bettie Page. Includes in-depth reviews of films, interviews, and essays on directors by film critics Nathaniel Thompson, Mark R. Hasan, Michael den Boer, Ian Jane, Stephen Thrower, Marcus Stiglegger, Heather Drain and others – fully illustrated in color with rare photos, poster art, and memorabilia.

This book reveals itself bit by bit as you read further into each chapter. The story gracefully weaves humor, hope and inspiration into the pages as it gives a new and deeper level of a coming of age story. A story of a young girl wanting desperately to be loved.

His glory in Germany turns solemn with the onset of World War I and the death in combat of his close friend, a German officer named Karl von Freyburg - a loss vividly depicted in Hartley's renowned war motif paintings.".