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. […]
Dude, what if Hitler like came back to life of sth
Imagine what would happen, if Hitler woke up in 2011 in field in Germany, alive and well, thinking it was still 1945. Timur Vermes explores this idea in Look Who’s Back. In it, Hitler still has his old ideas about Jews, the French etc. and is soon discovered by TV producers, who find his ideas and delivery amusing and quickly find a spot for him on a popular TV show. The German nation loves his shtick and finds him to be a great Hitler impersonator […]