In Dietrich & Riefenstahl, Karin Wieland compares the lives of two famous German movie personalities. On the surface, Marlin Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl seem very similar. Born a year apart, both harbored big dreams. Both defied their parents, studied dance and worked as actors. Both took lovers and refused to live their lives the way others demanded. But when Hitler ascended to power, the two women reacted very differently. Dietrich became an American citizen and entertained Allied troops during the war, and Riefenstahl supported Hitler, […]
Horror Story on the Eve of Hitler’s Takeover
Grossman returns with a prequel to his horrifying The Sleepwalkers, which I’ve reviewed earlier. In Children of Wrath, the respected Berlin homicide detective and decorated WWI veteran Willi Kraus is just starting to feel the effects of the rising tide of anti-Semitism. It is 1929, and Hitler is still largely viewed as a vulgar upstart by the self-absorbed political aristocracy, but his power is nonetheless growing as the Great Depression begins to ravage the war-weary German economy. The Kripo, the bureau of criminal investigation where […]
Medical horrors on the eve of Hitler’s takeover
A murder mystery and quasi-historical novel in one, Grossman gives us Berlin on the verge of the Nazi takeover in 1932. A surgically altered corpse, missing sleepwalkers, a famous hypnotist and a Nazi doctor all enter the picture during the murder investigation undertaken by decorated German WWI veteran and celebrated homicide detective Willi Kraus. A widower with two sons, Kraus is also a Jew who is at first as blind to the ramifications of his investigation as he is to the rising tide of fascism. […]