Samuel Beckett's Diary from Nazi Germany Published for the First Time

The diary that Samuel Beckett kept during his 1936–37 journey through Nazi Germany has finally been published. In it, the future Nobel laureate records his impressions of the country, including the blunt observation that German food is truly terrible. The publication makes available a firsthand account of daily life in the Third Reich by one of the 20th century's most important writers. The diary also contains Beckett's reflections on art, as he visited numerous museums and galleries during his travels. Separately, the article recounts the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the chief planner of the Holocaust, in May 1942. That attack was a spectacular act of resistance and the only successful assassination of a key figure of the Third Reich. The two subjects are linked by their focus on Nazi Germany, but the diary offers a personal, cultural perspective while the Heydrich operation represents a dramatic act of wartime resistance. The diary's release provides scholars and general readers with new insight into Beckett's formative years and his observations of a society on the brink of catastrophe.