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Eric C. Welch

Great series (emphasis on series)

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2015

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I must say I have enjoyed this series (which I recommend reading in order) so far. This is the third and continues an examination of Germany during World War II as seen through the eyes of Russell, an American journalist, who is tied to Germany by his girlfriend, Effie, and his German-born son.

You get a real sense of the claustrophobia people must felt as they became hemmed in by bombing and the repressiveness of the regime, constantly having to watch what you say, who you say it to, and who might overhear you.

Downing is very skillful in showing elements of the Third Reich’s control. For example, Russell stops to purchase a copy of the Beobachter in which he reads that Ernst Udet, WW I ace and big Luftwaffe general had been killed testing a new fighter plane. Thinking that was a bit strange I utilized the wonderful feature of my Kindle and clicking on Udet’s name read the piece on Udet in the Wikipedia only to learn that Udet had committed suicide. So I figured Downing had erred. Just a few pages later, however, at a press briefing, he uses a question from another reporter to point to the suicide (“Does the administration have any comment on the rumor that Udet had committed suicide?”) The truth is outed as well as the ministry’s attempts to hide it.

Russell is a journalist, after all, and in his attempts to discover what’s really happening on the eastern front, he cultivates a locomotive engineer. Some of the important detail that’s revealed I had not learned by reading the standard discussions of the Nazi failure in the Russian winter. For example, Russian tenders carried a larger supply of water, so their water tanks were further apart making it too far for German engines and the steam pipes were built around the boiler rather than on the outside as with German engines, so they didn't freeze. These all provided clues for Russell as to why the war in the east had bogged down.

Some people have complained about the ending. It’s a series. Get over it, people. I can’t wait to start the 4th. As I noted above, read them in order.

Amazon Customer

Even if you don't like war stories, read this one!

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2014

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Two or three times a year I find an author and a story so well done and compelling that they make my "A" list. Downing and this series does it. My usual choice for reading would not be a war story nor particularly one on Nazi Germany, but it's not the subject, it's the characters and the writing. The main characters, John and Effy, became my good friends and I had to follow them from book to book once I had met them in book one. Must say something about the intimacy of the writing with regard to the historical setting, I was able to see, smell, and hear the streets of Berlin and other places John visited. I gained a knowledge of Germany through the eyes of an international journalist with (I felt) less of an American or British viewpoint in spite of John's American mother and British citizenship. Yes, a very unusual war story. Don't start the first one or Stettin Station, the third one, if you are not prepared to read all six books. Like fans of Anne Perry, these are characters and a story you can't leave.

Walking the Nazi tightrope - entertaining episode of the John Russell saga

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2010

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David Downing's third installment of the "Station" series with protagonist John Russell is a winner. The chronology has jumped to late 1941. Hitler has invaded the Soviet Union with great initial success, but the war is about to widen with the entry of Japan and the United States. Anglo-American journalist/spy John Russell barely manages to hang on in Berlin, staying a step ahead of the Gestapo by working for several competing or opposing intelligence agencies. To leave Germany means giving up his film star fiance, Effi Koenen and son Paul. As the formal entry of the U.S. into the war approaches and with it his inevitable expulsion from Germany, Russell is pulled deeper into the political maneuvering of virtually all of his erstwhile employers or masters--the Abwehr, SD, U.S. Embassy and the Gestapo. Ultimately, the cross purposes served by the journalist spy will catch up with him and drive him to flee the country, and flight will require the help of still another old employer, the Soviets. Downing has laid down a very entertaining story line, and even when it occasionally reaches a bit far to be completely credible on reflection, it certainly holds the reader's attention throughout.

Overall, one of the great strengths of this book--and the series--is author Downing's wonderfully detailed and evocative narrative that provides a totally plausible day-to-day portrayal of how Berliners lived during the still relatively early days of WWII. There is a running commentary on what food and toiletries were available and how that affected the environment on public transportation. Through Russell's fiance, Effi, there is a detailed look at the German film industry of the time, which aimed to produce 100 morale-boosting flicks a year.

To its great credit, "Stettin Station" gives a strong focus to the story's characters. This goes well beyond the protagonist John Russell and his fiance Effi to include many secondary players who are all struggling to survive in a country in its second year of war, coping with the loss of military-age children, loss of home through bombing and loss of confidence in the regime that has constructed a police state to live in and led them into an increasingly costly conflict. Downing includes a particular focus on Berlin's Jewish population, which by 1941 was barely surviving at the margins of German society and was subject to daily persecution and deportation. Their plight figures importantly in the conclusion of "Stettin Station."

This is an excellent historic thriller with unusually detailed information about the period. Wonderful narrative writing. Terrific character development. A first-rate read.

Oceanstatebuyer

now I'm hooked

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2014

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Now I'm hooked for the rest of the series! Having gotten so involved with john russell, his son, ex wife, and actress girlfriend through the onset and then into ww2, I can't quit now! This may not be for everybody, but I am really enjoying the series. He's an average guy, a journalist, more intelligent than most, who finds himself being used by U.S., Great Britain, Germany and Russia while trying to protect himself and family at same time exposing the plight of the Jews. Things escalate out of control once war begins and this story ends with John on the run to escape Germany one step ahead of the Gestapo. So, you see why I must continue on in the series. Did he make it? Did Effi return to Berlin safely? What about son Paul, will he be drafted into service as other Hitler youths?
I'll let you know when I finish the next book!

Top reviews from other countries

Tone the Cone

Great book No.3 in the series, only read in the order written so starting with Zoo Station

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2018

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This is a series of books you really have to read in order, as there are several references to previous episodes in earlier books.
There is quite a jump in years between book 2 and this novel. Things in Berlin having gone seriously downhill, with bombings, further persecutions of Jews and food available but much to be desired, causing the strange smells on the trains!
A great novel with the tension building to the end.

Cheshire Tiger

Another very good one.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2015

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I think there's some confusion here because my Stettin Station review appeared under Potsdam Station. In it I concluded that I looked forward to reading Potsdam Station shortly and I did enjoy it. I'd struggled through Max Hastings masterful Armageddon to help me adjust to Berlin at the end of World War II and what he describes is certainly reflected in this excellent book. The Berliners are caught between the twin barbarities of Nazism and Stalin's USSR. In spite (or because) of the on-going tension, the book is easy to read, exciting and holds your attention throughout. In ways Berlin in the spring of 1945 brought back memories of Neville Shute's "On the Beach", including some "fiddling while Berlin burned". We have some harrowing but historically accurate scenes of the devastation of Berlin by the Russians and are left to consider whether the Germans (or just the Nazis) deserved it.

The book has three strands, featuring people familiar to those who have read the other Stations books. They concern the lead character John Russell, his girl friend Effi and John's son Paul. I won't let you in on the outcome, but it keeps you on edge until the very end, along with an intriguing sub-plot.

Mike Mooney

Potsdam Station!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2013

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Amazon, PLEASE sort out your review organisation. Potsdam and Stettin Station reviews all mixed up. I'm trying to review Potsdam, Amazon says I already have, but the review has been placed (here?) on the Stettin page! Anyway...

Potsdam is excellent, although the WWII nerd will inevitably spot a few things to quibble about. DD repeatedly uses the term "machine pistol", when I'm pretty sure he means "automatic pistol" - characters keep them in their waistbands, so I assume they are handguns. "Machine pistol" is traditionally a synonymous term with "submachine gun".

Also, he makes the common rookie error of describing Waffen SS combat troops as being in black uniforms - they would have worn field grey like their army counterparts, possibly with additional camouflage smocks. The black uniforms were prewar/"full dress" gear, or worn by "politicals".

Of course, I'm nitpicking.

The book clearly draws very heavily on Antony Beevor's superb history "Berlin: The Downfall, 1945" - and a copy of said book would be immensely helpful in following the geographical movements that take place with bewildering speed.

This is an excellent series overall, highly recommended - at least on a par with Alan Furst, and (in my opinion) considerably better than Phillip Kerr, whose books fail to convince me at all.

Winning Form Mr Lips

Superbly Detailed and Engrossing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2009

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The third in David Downing's "Station" series featuring John Russell is as every bit as engrossing as its predecessors. It will help readers to read them in the correct sequence, but each is an excellent book in its own right.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!
It is now late 1941 and America is on the verge of entering the War. John Russell, American passport holder, journalist and sometime spy-of-sorts, clings onto life in Berlin because of his actress girlfriend and his son. It is an increasingly desperate Berlin which Downing evokes. It is dark, it smells, it is subjected to not-very-effective night time bombing raids from the RAF. We know, of course, that things will get much worse for the German capital, and the fate of those Russell leaves behind when he escapes at the end of the book is something we cannot predict. Perhaps there is more to come in the series, although as an American citizen Russell would be an enemy of Germany's from here on in and it will tax even the imagination of this excellent writer to find a way of returning his chief protagonist to Hitler's Germany.

Once again Downing rights with his usual flashes of wry and often bitter humour as he describes life in Nazi Germany, on the verge of its long and awful slide to annihilation. It is splendidly detailed - the description of human waste emanating from a train carrying Russian prisoners is one example - and it leaves with a clear idea of what everyday life was like in the hellhole of 1941 Berlin.

Russell's dawning realization of what the Nazis have in mind for Europe's Jews horrifies us even though it is nothing we don't already know. The absurdity of the Nazi press conferences, the ludicrous content of the era's German movies, the complete hogwash being published as "news" in German newspapers, all these things are wonderful insights into life under this most oppressive and absurd of regimes.

In summary, the Station books are a fantastic read, and come very highly recommended for lovers of good historical novels.

Magic Dougal

Absorbing reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 5, 2011

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The fast moving world of John Russell carries you through the book at breakneck speed.
Russell's never ending balancing acts between his personal and professional existence and his ongoing campaign to ensure his survival in Berlin see him caught up in fights between the Gestapo and the Abwehr with characters like Admiral Canaris adding that feeling of reading a genuine historical document.
One of the attractions of the books is the internal emotional struggles that Russell goes through, coming to terms with the compromises he needs to make with his own beliefs and those of the authorities that he finds deeply objectionable so that he can continue his personal life as a Berliner. 'The growing awareness of the ultimate fate of Berlins Jewish population, who start to disappear on night trains to the East becomes a thread linking together the different aspects of his life and question just how far his life can continue while others are so fragile.
Downing is able to draw small details into the pictures he creates that give you a feeling of historical veracity such as the stench of riding on the U-Bahn.
A good holiday read and a worthy member of "Berlin Noir" fiction that the Berlin Noir ('March Violets', 'The Pale Criminal' and 'A German Requiem') (Penguin Crime/Mystery) novels first introduced me to.

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