... your source for all things book related. Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and an Online Book Community.
Come join us by registering below!
You won't believe some of the authors we have lined up here! 
Join us and set up your own Blog! How cool! | An Obsolete Honor |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Our Reviewer, Stuart Nachbar | |
| Saturday, 17 January 2009 00:00 | |
|
A Story Of The German Resistance To Hitler by Helena P. Schrader
 An Obsolete Honor An Obsolete Honor is a family saga of two brothers and a sister who are placed into the real life living history of Germany and its relations with allies and enemies. The main character, Philip Baron von Feldberg is a commissioned army officer, a lieutenant colonel who rises to a position on the General Staff in Berlin, and aligns himself with peers and superiors who are distressed with Hitler’s military strategies and policies. He also owns an apartment building that has rented to Jews, a dissident and a Gestapo (secret police) investigator. These tenants become prominent in the story. Philip’s brother Christian is one of the Luftwaffe’s best pilots while his sister Theresa is married to a self-made businessman who attempts to enhance his fortune in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland. The most interesting aspects of Obsolete Honor were the funnels of communications between the Nazi leadership, the ranks within the military branches, and the German civilian population. Through this story, for example, I learned how Der Fuhrer’s propaganda ministry misled the German people about the progress, or lack thereof, in the war effort, as well as the treatment of “non-Aryan” peoples, including Eastern European Jews. (Full disclosure: My mother immigrated from German-occupied Austria in 1940 before the United States entered World War II. After reading this story I could not begin to appreciate how her family, a Jewish family was able to leave the country) In this story, you see several examples of the denials and lies that were spread about the concentration camps; civilians only knew of them as “resettlement areas” for the Jews. I also learned that the local Nazi “civic leaders” were no less ruthless than the opportunists in Hitler’s cabinet, and no less creative with language. For example, the use of the word “socialist” in the name of the party—Nazi stood for National Socialist German Worker’s Party—was meant to attract support from the working class, but not to symbolize a desire for economic equality. Through this story, I came to appreciate how difficult civilian resistance could be under a charismatic but maniacal leader such as Hitler. For that alone the reading was worthwhile. ontact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com .
|
|
| Last Updated on Saturday, 17 January 2009 14:37 |
