I'm planning a 2 week trip in July to Germany -- Berlin, Erfurt, Mainz, and Munich. First time to visit Germany. Before my last trip (to Paris), I read a travelogue on Fodor's forum that often referred to the book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough and the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris. I enjoyed both before the trip, plus another book recommended by a friend, The Seven Ages of Paris, by Alistair Horne and several mysteries by Cara Black set in Paris. Does anyone have recommendations on what to read or watch before a trip to Germany? I'm fairly familiar with World War II and don't want to dwell so much on it. Novels are my favorite but travelogues, memoirs, short histories are good too. I have read several of the Bernie Gunther mysteries by Phillip Kerr set in Berlin during 1930s and 1940s. Thanks for any suggestions --

My favorite movie recommendation is, Good-bye Lenin.

For books, I found the "How Jews became German" by Deborah Hertz, to be pretty fascinating, as it covers quite a few centuries, but was never boring.

Good-bye Lenin was excellent film -- enjoyable and I felt like I got feel for Berlin from it.
I read The Five Germanys I Have Known by Fritz Stern & really enjoyed and learned from it.

A very, very good German film about East Berlin and the Stasi methods for spying on its people is "The Lives of Others."

"In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larsen is a biography of William Dodd, US ambassador to Germany in the 30s. Interesting read based in large part on his daughter's memoirs, also good detail about the State Department's old boy/old money network and prejudices which Larsen feels led them to discount Dodd's opinions as he was an outsider, University of Chicago professor or president, can't remember.

If it's available where you are, look for the City-Lit collection of writings about Berlin:
http://thecity-litcafe.typepad.com/t...t_cafe/berlin/

Here are some other suggestions:
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...-set-in-berlin

A "light" writer on life in modern Berlin from the point of view of a Russian immigrant:
http://www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/prj/b...am/enindex.htm

Have you read Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories?

Have you read Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories?

And you might enjoy Lola Run!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130827/