BOOKS | HISTORY
Love in a Time of Hate by Florian Illies review — forget the Nazis, let’s do it
The exotic sex lives of writers, artists and politicians distracted them from the drumbeats of war in 1930s Europe
Misty eyed: Marlene Dietrich
SHUTTERSTOCK
The Sunday Times
This unusual book is a record of the love lives of 46 European artists, writers and public figures in the ten years leading up to the Second World War. The principals, their one-night stands, exes and divorcees make quite a network. It must have been tempting to include a diagram, something like the Tube map, although perhaps the King’s Cross interchange that is Marlene Dietrich or Pablo Picasso would have defeated the finest draughtsman’s nib.
In his bibliography Florian Illies lists 87 books of general background and 148 specifically on the 46 subjects, which seems a lot of homework to recount that X had a fling with Y in Düsseldorf in February, 1932. Perhaps there’s an app that went through the 235 volumes with the
