The Third Reich of Dreams
The Nightmares of a Nation
In 1933, shortly after Hitler took power, Charlotte Beradt started having nightmares. Quietly, she asked friends and neighbors if they were experiencing the same, and soon began to build a collection of dreams. She was eventually able to smuggle her writing out of the country, and fled to New York, where she formed a community with other Jewish refugees. The Third Reich of Dreams was published nearly thirty years later, and records not only the dreams she collected, but her astute synthesis of the various tropes and images that recurred. Among her conclusions: totalitarianism must be named as such as soon as it appears, as soon as our dreams know of it. If we wait for it to reveal itself on its own terms, it will be too late.