Tag: Germany

The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim

the god childTitle: The God Child

Author: Nana Oforiatta Ayim

Genre: Literary Fiction

Publisher: Bloomsbury Circus

Published: 4th February 2020

Format: Paperback

Pages: 256

Price: $26.99

Synopsis: Maya grows up in Germany knowing that her parents are different: from one another, and from the rest of the world. Her reserved, studious father is distant; and her beautiful, volatile mother is a whirlwind, with a penchant for lavish shopping sprees and a mesmerising power for spinning stories of the family’s former glory – of what was had, and what was lost.

And then Kojo arrives one Christmas, like an annunciation: Maya’s cousin, and her mother’s godson. Kojo has a way with words – a way of talking about Ghana, and empire, and what happens when a country’s treasures are spirited away by colonialists. For the first time, Maya has someone who can help her understand why exile has made her parents the way they are. But then Maya and Kojo are separated, shuttled off to school in England, where they come face to face with the maddening rituals of Empire.

Returning to Ghana as a young woman, Maya is reunited with her powerful but increasingly troubled cousin. Her homecoming will set off an exorcism of their family and country’s strangest, darkest demons. It is in this destruction’s wake that Maya realises her own purpose: to tell the story of her mother, her cousin, their land and their loss, on her own terms, in her own voice.

~*~

Moving between Ghana, England and Germany across five parts, and told through Maya’s eyes, The God Child is a debut novel from Ghanaian author, Nana Oforiatta Ayim. Maya has grown up in Germany. She knows her parents are different, on many levels. They make her aware of it, in their own ways, and society does. Her mother is a spinner of stories of former glory that those around them do not believe yet Maya lives with these stories and it would seem, doesn’t always actively question them, though she may want to, as I felt she was quite a practical character in some ways, but like her mother in other ways. She is still a child when her cousin, Kojo comes to live with them one Christmas. Soon, the family is split – it seems Maya’s parents separate, though like many things, this is not spelled out so readers have to infer and guess what happened, and Kojo and Maya are sent to school in England.

In England, Maya and Kojo attend school – until a turning point send the family back to Ghana, and years later, Maya returns – and this is the turning point – where everything changes and comes full circle to the opening chapter.

From the first few pages, we know that something big happens in Maya’s family – something that tears them apart and changes Maya forever. From there, she flicks back to her childhood, moving through it in what feels like a chronological way, and the story feels as though it is set in the eighties or nineties at least – based on the presence of cars but the lack of technology we are familiar with are not present, giving it a sense of class as well as race – and perhaps hints at ideas of what matters on a human level that we can recognise in many people – for a variety of reasons. Maya’s journey is interesting as she grapples with her three identities – Ghanaian, German and English – and how she navigates this between the expectations of her mother and her mother’s stories and traditions, as well as those of her Ghanaian family that come through in later parts, and who she is within the context of how she has grown up and what she has been exposed to. It shows that identity is complicated in a myriad of ways, and for some people, caught between two very different cultures and nations, can be fraught or confusing.

Categorising this for my tags and blog was difficult – it didn’t have a feel of any genre – other than what is called Literary Fiction – which is often seen as better than genre fiction, but can also be a lot more conceptual or character driven – so it’s not something I read a lot of. However, this one definitely had a clear plot, even though at times I felt like it jumped a bit or didn’t state things clearly – the inferring between the lines seems to be a characteristic of literary fiction.

What I did find interesting about this book was the way it dealt with diversity and navigating life across three different countries whilst discovering your identity. Maya was an intriguing character to follow, and I wanted to know more – about the gaps that weren’t always filled in but at the same time, I can see why some bits were left out and it will work for those who want to read this and enjoy literary fiction. It had some really good and insightful points, and I hope there are many out there who will enjoy it.

A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Secret Game that Won the War by Simon Parkin

birds and wolves.jpgTitle: A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Secret Game that Won the War

Author: Simon Parkin

Genre: Non-fiction, Biography

Publisher: Hachette Australia/Sceptre

Published: 12th November 2019

Format: Paperback

Pages: 310

Price: $32.99

Synopsis: Find out what is happening in the Atlantic, find ways of getting the convoys through, and sink the U-boats!’ Prime Minster, Winston Churchill

  1. The Battle of the Atlantic is a disaster. Thousands of supply ships ferrying vital food and fuel from North America to Britain are being torpedoed by German U-boats.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill is lying to the country about the number of British ships sunk. He is lying about the number of British men killed. And worst of all, unless something changes, he knows that Britain is weeks away from being starved into surrender to the Nazis.

This is the story of the game of battleships that won the Second World War. In the first week of 1942 a group of unlikely heroes – a retired naval captain and a clutch of brilliant young women, the youngest only seventeen-years-old – gather to form a secret strategy unit. On the top floor of a bomb-bruised HQ in Liverpool, the Western Approaches Tactical Unit spends days and nights designing and playing wargames in an effort to crack the U-boat tactics.

A GAME OF BIRDS AND WOLVES takes us from the sweltering fug of a U-boat as the German aces coordinate their wolfpack, to the tense atmosphere of the operation room as the British team plot battles at sea on the map.

The story of Operation Raspberry and its unsung heroines has never been told before. Investigative journalist Simon Parkin brings these hidden figures into the light and shows the ingenuity, perseverance and love needed to defeat the Nazis in this gripping tale of war at sea.

~*~

In 1941, the Battle of the Atlantic is raging between Britain and Germany, months before Pearl Harbour is bombed and the Americans finally enter the war. Following the sinking of a ship taking evacuees to America for safety, where only thirty-three of all the children aboard survived, Churchill decides it is time to take more action. With each sunken ship, Britain is receiving fewer supplies to keep the country going. In 1942, a retired naval captain and a group of Wrens begin to plot a strategy to defeat the U-Boats, using maps and small ships to build a game to plan warfare – a game that would come to be known as Battleship. Parkin weaves between this and what was happening with Germany, and peppers it with personal stories of what happened, and in the events leading up to the creation of the game, showing just how close things came to ending up a different way, and how a simple game of secrecy became one of the biggest and most significant strategies in the war that would end in 1945 with the defeat of Germany.

Had Operation Raspberry not gone ahead and had these people whose stories have never been told not risked their lives to plot the naval battles of the Atlantic, World War Two might have had a very different outcome for many people in Europe and indeed, the rest of the world. This is another story from the war that has previously been untold and was shrouded in secrecy until Simon Parkin discovered it. It is an important story, because it adds to the historical record of how the trajectory of World War Two was changed, and ultimately, changed the outcome of the war.

Knowing these stories adds to our understanding of the war – some facts may have been known – the general facts, the basics, but not the intricacies of how the game came about, who was involved and what they spent their days doing, as well as the dangers they faced even just planning and executing the game, which led to safety measures being put in place after a few incidents.

Like other aspects and figures in history who have long been hidden, silenced or ignored for one reason or another, including issues around secrecy like this war game, these stories coming to light expands on what we already know, and gives us a new understanding for what happened and how it happened, and what it took to get there. With carefully researched books like this, these stories are told in engaging and intriguing ways, and should perhaps become recommended reading for students of history, especially when studying this area of history, so they can gain a better understanding beyond what we already know.

An intriguing read for anyone studying or interested in history.

Frieda: A Novel of the Real Lady Chatterley by Annabel Abbs

frieda.jpgTitle: Frieda: A Novel of the Real Lady Chatterley

Author: Annabel Abbs

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Hachette

Published: 11th September 2011

Format: Paperback

Pages: 372

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: The moving story of Frieda von Richthofen, wife of D.H. Lawrence – and the real-life inspiration for Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a novel banned for more than 30 years

Germany, 1907. Frieda, daughter of aristocrat Baron von Richthofen, has rashly married English professor Ernest Weekley. Visiting her family in Munich, a city alive with new ideas of revolution and free love, and goaded by a toxic sibling rivalry with her sisters, Frieda embarks on a passionate affair that is her sensual and intellectual awakening.

England, 1912. Trapped in her marriage to Ernest, Frieda meets the penniless but ambitious young writer D.H. Lawrence, a man whose creative energy answers her own needs. Their scandalous affair and tempestuous relationship unleashes a creative outpouring that will change the course of literature – and society – forever. But for Frieda, this fulfilment comes at a terrible personal cost.

A stunning novel of emotional intensity, Frieda tells the story of an extraordinary woman – and a notorious love affair that became synonymous with ideas of sexual freedom.

‘Annabel Abbs’s poignant Frieda: A Novel of the Real Lady Chatterley captures the Lawrence s’ shifting emotions’ The Australian

‘I loved this novel so very much. Abbs’s writing is glorious’ MELISSA ASHLEY, The Birdman’s Wife

~*~

Frieda Weekley, nee von Richthofen, is married to Ernest Weekley, and is living with him and their three children in 1907, in Nottingham. Born into German aristocracy, Frieda has in their eyes, and she has married well, and has three young children: Monty, Elsa and Barby. Yet Frieda yearns for more, and when she is exposed to ideas of free love and great intellect, she begins a series of affairs, starting with a doctor, Otto Gross, and culminating in an affair that saw her forever separated from her family wit author, D.H. Lawrence an affair that inspired the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, banned for more than thirty years after it was published.

Set in pre-World War One London and Germany, between 1907 and 1913, Frieda explores a very different world, where familial and societal expectations based on gender, class and for some people as war grew closer, nationality. Caught between wanting to please herself, please her family and stay with her children, Frieda finds decisions will be made for her, at times without her knowledge, and she is driven to desperate lengths to see her children, enlisting friends to try and maintain a connection to them after she is cut off from them by the Weekley family.

As a work of historical fiction, Frieda uses a woman’s voice – one who fought against oppression in favour of desire – is intriguing and gives a new voice to the world, and one I had not heard of, and a story I had not heard of, despite hearing about the novel that was based on Frieda and Lawrence’s scandalous relationship. It explores the perspectives of Frieda, her husband, Ernest, and their three children – Barby, Monty and Elsa, but particularly the eldest – Monty and the youngest – Barby, as Frieda weaves in and out of their lives and between Nottingham and Metz in Germany, where her family tries to convince her to remain with Ernest and leave Lawrence. These are some of the scenes where she feels the restraint of what her aristocratic family and society expects of her, and the hinted at war to come, where there already feel like there are tensions between some people in England and Germany, even though the war is several years away from beginning.

Filled with a strong female voice, caught between love for a man she truly desires, love for her children and respect for her family, Friedaexplores the changing attitudes towards relationships, and how these changes started to occur during the early decades of the twentieth century, and the consequences that a woman like Frieda faced for having an affair and turning her back on her husband, rather than staying in a socially acceptable position to keep the peace, and maintain the order that society so desperately sought to cling to. But by following her heart, though the initial decision appeared to have been made without Frieda’s knowledge, with Lawrence taking it upon himself to inform Ernest, there was still an element of Frieda not having the freedom to make her own choices, when ironically, this is what she was aiming to do, even though it left her with some regrets about not being able to see her children until they turned twenty-one.

Frieda’s story has a happier ending than Abbs’ previous book – The Joyce Girl – in what would become known as inter-war Europe, where Frieda is reunited with her children, and is able to live her life with D.H. Lawrence and provided him with inspiration for his oft- banned book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This was an intriguing story that dealt with various aspects of society, the individual, the arts, love and family, and concluded with a hopeful ending where everything felt as though it had concluded nicely, and showed that Frieda had found the freedom she longed for, even if it had come with a price.

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The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers

the 7th cross.jpgTitle: The Seventh Cross

Author: Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot  Bettauer Dembo

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Published: First published 1942, republished 29th May 2018

Format: Paperback

Pages: 390

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: A rediscovered German classic novel from 1942, The Seventh Cross is both a gripping escape story and a powerful novel of resistance.

‘At once a suspenseful manhunt story and a knowing portrait of the perils of ordinary life in Hitler’s Germany, The Seventh Cross is not only an important novel, but an important historical document. This new, unabridged translation is a genuine publishing event’ JOSEPH KANON, author of The Good German and Leaving Berlin

‘It was [Seghers] who taught my generation and anyone who had an ear to listen after that not-to-be-forgotten war to distinguish right from wrong. The Seventh Crossshaped me; it sharpened my vision’ Gunter Grass ‘A masterpiece. Written in the midst of terror, but with such clarity, such acuity; Seghers is a writer of rare insight’ Rachel Seiffert, author of A Boy in Winter

Seven prisoners escape from Westhofen concentration camp. Seven crosses are erected in the grounds and the commandant vows to capture the fugitives within a week. Six men are caught quickly, but George Heisler slips through his pursuers’ fingers and it becomes a matter of pride to track him down, at whatever cost.

Who can George trust? Who will betray him? The years of fear have changed those he knew best: his brother is now an SS officer; his lover turns him away. Hunted, injured and desperate, time is running out for George, and whoever is caught aiding his escape will pay with their life.

The Seventh Cross powerfully documents the insidious rise of a fascist regime – the seething paranoia, the sudden arrests, the silence and fear.
‘A fascinating insight into life in pre-war Nazi Germany just as the horrors of the Nazi regime were beginning to unfold. This is an important novel, as much for its picture of German society as for its insight into the psyche of ordinary people confronting their personal fears and mixed loyalties’ Simon Mawer, author of The Glass Room

The Seventh Cross was written by one of the most important German writers of the twentieth century. Her aim was to write, ‘A tale that makes it possible to get to know the many layers of fascist Germany through the fortunes of a single man.’ She had four copies of the manuscript: one was destroyed in an air raid; a friend lost the second copy while fleeing the Nazis; another was found by the Gestapo; only the fourth copy survived, which, fortunately, she sent to her publisher in America just before she escaped Nazi-occupied France. Published in 1942, The Seventh Cross was an immediate bestseller and was the basis for an MGM film starring Spencer Tracy in 1944. It has been translated into more than 40 languages

~*~

The Seventh Cross is set in the mid-1930s, following the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler in Germany, in the build-up to war. Early concentration camps, such as Westhofen hold political prisoners. At the start of the novel, seven prisoners have escaped the camp, and the SA and SS officers of the new regime are tasked with hunting them down. Six are caught – one remains on the run, and continuously evades capture – and so, his pursuers decide they will use whatever means necessary to take him captive again. What follows is the prisoner – George’s – attempts to evade capture and reconnect with his former life, but at the same time, wants to keep those he knew before he was taken away safe – his family, his friends.

And after his time in the camp, George doesn’t know who to trust. will his brother, now an SS officer, turn him in? His ex-wife, Elli, is constantly being watched – what will happen to her? Anyone who dares to help George will pay the ultimate price of the Nazi regime – death.

Where many novels surrounding World War Two and the Nazi regime are focussed on the year or two prior to the start of the war, or the war itself, The Seventh Cross is situated within the beginnings

of the Nazi regime, as witnessed by the author, as she fled first to France, and then to Mexico in 1940, after the Nazis occupied France during the war. During her exile, The Seventh Cross was one of the books she wrote – and there were four manuscripts, according to Seghers: one was lost by a friend who was also escaping the Nazis, another destroyed in an air raid. A third was found by the Gestapo, whilst the fourth reached her publisher in America before she fled her home.

Rather than examine the impact of war or the well-known concentration camps and extermination programs of the 1940s, Seghers looks at how ordinary Germans responded to the Nazi regime, from those who followed it didactically and enthusiastically, to those of indifference and again, those who stood up for their beliefs – the good, the indifferent and the bad. It examines what ordinary people had to do to survive and how they did it, and also, what they would do to help George, at great risk or cost to their own lives as they tried to hold onto a semblance of humanity in a period of time that was becoming darker and darker every day.

Seghers wrote what she experienced and witnessed – making it all the more powerful, and though it is fiction, an important historical document, as it shows how everyday people were forced into making choices that they might not ordinarily have made in order to survive, and a confrontation of their fears and mixed loyalties that would eventually lead many into the depths of hatred and genocide that would come to shock the world when the truth was discovered.

Reading about what lead to the war, the ghettoes and the extermination of millions of people is just as important to understand  as the rest – how Germany got there was made up of many factors, and The Seventh Cross shows how this happened through the eyes of someone who witnessed it first hand, ensuring that the story is not easily dismissed and one that should be read and remembered today, so the rise of someone like Hitler can never happen again.

Written in 1942, and translated into English for the first time since, The Seventh Cross has not been in print in the United Kingdom since 1942 – 76 years.

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Wolf Children by Paul Dowsell

wolf childrenTitle: Wolf Children

Author: Paul Dowsell

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Published: 1st November 2017

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288

Price: $14.99

Synopsis: survival in the cellar of an abandoned hospital, Otto and his ragtag gang of kids have banded together in the desperate, bombed-out city.
The war may be over, but danger lurks in the shadows of the wreckage as Otto and his friends find themselves caught between invading armies, ruthless rival gangs and a strange Nazi war criminal who stalks them …

A climactic story of truth, friendship and survival against the odds, Wolf Children will thrill readers of Michael Morpurgo and John Boyne.

~*~

 

Wolf Children begins as World War Two has ended, and Germany has fallen into the clutches of Russian occupation as the rest of the world wages the final few months of war in the Pacific. With Hitler gone, and the Nazi regime obliterated, those who remain in crumbling Berlin must endure the Russian control over their city until an agreement can be made about where the East and West will be divided. Their world has been turned upside down, and Otto, Helene, Erich and Klaus have turned their backs on Nazi ideology, perhaps never quite bought into it in the first place, and have accepted the fate of the regime and seek only to survive the invading armies, rival gangs and a strange Nazi war criminal who has taken an interest in Otto’s younger brother, Ulrich, who has never quite let go of the Hitler Youth.

 

In a world not always seen in World War Two historical fiction, the impact of the end of the war on German citizens who did not support the regime they lived under, but were kept silent out of fear is not always explored. Here, it is shown through the eyes of six children who appear to have nobody left but each other, and in a world of uncertainty and lack of shelter, food and money, they must learn to barter with what they can, and eat when food comes their way. In a world of uncertainty, these children can only rely on each other, and with their lives at stake, will they survive the next few months of post-war Germany?

 

The harrowing stories set during, and after World War Two, from any perspective, are deeply unsettling and raw, and at times, uncomfortable, with characters like Ulrich who cling to the vestiges of a failed regime – where their attitudes are not shied away from, but at the same time, condemned by the characters around them. These stories, whether historical fiction, or biographical, or non-fiction, are not meant to make us comfortable. They are meant to remind us of what dangerous language and divisive ideas and talk can lead to. I have read many books that are set in the turbulent inter-war, war and post war years this year, and none of them have shied away from the discomforts of the historical setting or the ideas and language that floated around then, yet at the same time, have presented them in an accessible way for the audience – in this case, children and young adults. It is a book that is humbling and can serve to remind adults too about what happened and that it must not happen again. The devastation of Germany shows the scars of war – in the buildings, in the crumbling walls and bricks, and in the rubble that surrounds the bartering markets. It shows in the half starved people, and in the children who forage for food and who fear anyone they don’t know.

 

Wolf Children is a story that will stay with me, and one that should be read to gain a broader perspective of these post-war years. In uncertain times, this book shows what people will do when they are desperate, and what it will take for them to turn their backs on what they thought they knew, and help those who are truly the only ones there for them. A brave story, that shows the flaws of humanity in dark and dangerous times for all, with a touch of hope ebbing through the novel.

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Paving the New Road by Sulari Gentill

rowly-4Book Title: Paving the New Road (Rowland Sinclair, #4)

Author: Sulari Gentill

Publisher: Pantera Press

Genre: Crime, Historical Fiction

Release Date: August 1st, 2012

Book Synopsis: It’s 1933, and the political landscape of Europe is darkening.

Eric Campbell, the man who would be Australia’s Führer, is on a fascist tour of the Continent, meeting dictators over cocktails and seeking allegiances in a common cause. Yet the Australian way of life is not undefended. Old enemies have united to undermine Campbell’s ambitions. The clandestine armies of the Establishment have once again mobilised to thwart any friendship with the Third Reich.

But when their man in Munich is killed, desperate measures are necessary.

Now Rowland Sinclair must travel to Germany to defend Australian democracy from the relentless march of Fascism. Amidst the goosestepping euphoria of a rising Nazi movement, Rowland encounters those who will change the course of history. In a world of spies, murderers and despotic madmen, he can trust no-one but an artist, a poet and a brazen sculptress.

Plots thicken, loyalties are tested and bedfellows become strange indeed

~*~

My fourth sojourn with Rowland, Milt, Edna and Clyde took me away from Sydney, and into Nazi Germany, in 1933. The flight with Kingsford-Smith and the ensuing journey set up the identities that the friends were entering the Fascist nation under the iron fist of Hitler on quite well, and their encounters with historical figures and authors along their journey to prevent Eric Campbell from bringing Nazism back to the shores of Australia that further entrenches the story within the historical context it sits within. Rowland’s trip to Germany sees him taking his brother, Wilfred’s place, for the same task for the Old Guard to stop Campbell’s attempts to introduce Hitler’s ideology to Australia. In this book, rather than disdain for his brother, Wilfred expresses concern at the task Rowland has been asked to take on to save him, and the nation, but nonetheless, provides the support his brother needs for the dangerous expedition to Munich and the Third Reich, following the death of the Old Guard’s previous man posted there. The events of 1933 in Germany were instantly familiar to me, having studied them before. I was immersed in the world so deeply, that it penetrated my dreams. The Third Reich period of history, though horrific in many ways, is fascinating as a study into the horrors that the human race is truly capable of if we blindly follow and believe a leader and their ideology, or turn the other way.

In Munich, Rowland encounters Nancy Wake, Unity Mitford and Albert Goring, amongst other figures, mixed up in the mess of the Third Reich and their book burnings, and the beginnings of the expulsion of Jews, Communists and anyone else that the Nazi Party deems unfavourable. These three figures are fighting against it , in such a way that people believe they are actually supporting it: perhaps the best sort of espionage there is…as long as you don’t get caught. It is these atrocities that bring Rowland into direct contact with what extreme politics can really do, despite his adventures in the previous three novels and his constant indifference. The character development of Rowland and his friends in this novel was executed brilliantly. Their run-ins with the SA and Rohm lead to a finale that had me reading until I had finished the book, well into the late night-time hours, unable to put the book aside until I knew Rowland’s fate.

Poor Rowland has been through so much in these four books, always finding himself at the wrong end of the people he is investigating or spying on, but like a true hero, he always comes through, injured, but alive. Rowland has been and will continue to be a favourite character of Australian literature, and I look forward to reading his further adventures. Sulari Gentill has the ability to entrench her readers within the world of Rowland and Woodlands Estate, or wherever Rowland happens to be where crimes are being committed. Books five and six await, and I am eager for book seven when it makes its appearance.