The Good German

Rating:
Summary: Multi-level Mystery Novel of Berlin, 1945.
Review: "The Good German" by Joseph Kanon, Audio Tape read by Stanley Tucci.
Simon & Schuster, New York, NY 2001.

Although billed as murder mystery/thriller, this book is really an attempt at in-depth analysis of the actions of the United States at the end of the Second World War, when the seeds of Cold War were planted. Were Americans truly so set on reaping the dollars (marks) that they ignored the implications of a Communistic Russia? Set in the hot weather of the Potsdam Conference, July/August 1945, author J. Kanon uses his skills to develop a word picture of a bombed-out, destroyed Berlin. Kanon portrays the scenes as "you are there!" descriptions of the ruined capital city of the Third Reich, as the gun fights and car chases carry the chief character, Jake Geismar, in and out of harm's way.
Jake Geismar is a realistic portrayal of the jaded correspondent, who came to Berlin during Hitler's Olympic Games. Geismar had stayed on to report the historical events, fell in love with Lena Brandt, and all this serves as the foundation for his return to a conquered Germany and the events of 1945.

An over-riding theme is Geismar's continued attempt to understand how an educated and cultured Germany could have tolerated, no, more than tolerated, ...how the Germans could have joined in the crimes of the Nazis. This guilt-seeking theme slows the book, but is necessary for the final resolution when the murderer of Lt. Tully, the American Army officer, is identified.

There are some logistical questions, such as how a person (Geismar) can operate an old-fashioned manual typewriter, when his arm is in a cast, and how the little German boy, Erik, (three years old) is able to understand not only his native German, but also English ... so much so that the boy is taken out of the hospital room to avoid hearing details.

The reader of the audio version, Mr. Stanley Tucci, does a fine job with what we usually consider German accents, and he has fine characterization of both female and male personages, so you think you are really hearing dialogue between actors. I enjoyed this audio book as I drove Interstate 495 around Boston, in my daily commute.

Rating:
Summary: Berlin after the fall
Review: Joseph Kanon first earned my attention with "Los Alamos". This is a second, intriguing read. "The Good German" offers a look at Berlin in late 1945, recovering from the war. As part of the recovery, people try to assemble their lives shattered by the war. There are the two lovers, one American and one German, separated for four years. There is the German scientist, eagerly sought by the Americans. There are the Russians, stereotyped as intent primarily on rape, revenge and pillage. And then there is the dead American, shot after the fighting, found at the time and location of the Potsdam Conference. This death draws the story together, including the black marketeer, the British journalist, the starving local citizens, and the resurrection that follows deadly combat.

An engaging, entertaining, detailed read, painting vivid pictures of lives drab and destroyed by war.

Rating:
Summary: A hard look at the real questions
Review: Like in his other books (Los Alamos in the best, In my opinion), Kanon uses the mystery genre to ask difficult questions and to try to answer them.

An American journalist returns to Berlin immediately after WWII. He reunited with his lost love and, through her and through his work, meets a series of Germans and non Germans, whose lives have been twisted and torn apart by the war.

The main theme of the book, namely, who is a good German, or, more accurately, who is a good person, is presented in a series of subtle onion skins, which get peeled as the book progresses. The real greatness of Kanon is that the answer to the question is ultimately a matter of the reader's personal choice.

I love Kanon's writing and think that this is a truly brilliant book, but I must admit to one area of discomfort. This book is one of a wave of recent publications that seeks to portray the German suffering in the Second World War. Kanon is very fair in this regard, because he presents the German suffering suffering in its context and because his protrayel of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust is both powerful and touching. But the fact still stands that lately there have been quite a few books that have focused on the poor Germans and their trials during the war. As a Jew whose life was hugely influenced by the tragedies of the holocaust, I feel uncomfortable with the new trend. I understand that many Germans suffered horribly, but despite this touching book, I am hard pressed to feel pity for any of them. The voices of my many relations who died in the camps are simply too loud for me to hear these statements.

This not withstanding, The Good German is a brilliant book and an excellent topic for a book club or any reader with a heart.

Rating:
Summary: The Good German
Review: The Good German is a great mystery/thriller. The action takes place in Berlin immediately after the end of WWII, at the time of the Potsdam conference between Russia, the US and Great Britain. The main character is drawn by a mysterious murder that nobody seems interested in solving. Along the way he finds his long lost love, who happens to be married to a German scientist.

The mystery is engrossing. What is more valuable in the book, however, is the moral discussion of how normal people get involved in a monstrocity as the Third Reich and how these normal people deal with the guilt they feel afterwards. This is not an easy task, and the reason I give the book 5 stars is because I think Kannon is amazing at balancing both aspects of the book. He is not preaching to anybody while conveying a pretty complicated message-- everyone has their own share of guilt but the winners of the war, despite feeling morally superior and justified, were sometimes more immoral than the people they were trying to judge.

Rating:
Summary: Has it all, a thriller which is also a serious novel.
Review: Unlike so many other thrillers, this is a subtle and thought-provoking novel, a search for moral truth within a mystery and a love story. Creating fully developed main characters, filled with the good intentions and personal failings that make us all human, Kanon portrays the ethical dilemmas of the occupying forces in a devastated Berlin, just as the Potsdam Conference begins. The Good German, an ironic title, explores the practice of American policymakers of "sanitizing" the Nazi connections of German scientists so that they may be spirited into the U.S. for work on the atomic bomb. By transforming them into "good Germans," as opposed to the "bad Germans" who will face war crimes trials, the American "good guys" reveal themselves to be as morally compromised, perhaps, as the German scientists, willing to stop at nothing, including murder, in order to keep these men from falling into the hands of the Soviets.

Kanon's eye for the telling detail is unerring. To fix the scope of the devastation, he remarks: "Buildings, like soldiers, were expected casualties of war. But the trees were gone too, all of them...The dense forest of the Tiergarten, all the winding paths...burned down to a vast open field littered with dark charcoal stumps." He refers to those Jews who tried to delay their fates in the only way open to them as "U-boats," hungry people who walked anonymously around the city all day, every day, so that they could not be identified by "friends," sometimes captured and deported when they took their worn out shoes to be repaired. Nazi big shots are "golden pheasants." The Russians are said to "pack up the power plants and anything shiny and hope for the best," while the Americans searching for scientists were doing "patriotic looting."

The several subplots--the search for Emil Brandt, the love story of Jake and Lena, the conflict between war crimes investigators and the State Department, in conjunction with U.S. industry, and the difficulties of sharing power with the brutal Russians--are smoothly integrated into a thoroughly engrossing narrative, which, in combination with the unique characters, allow the reader to keep track of what's going on and stay involved till the end. I cannot attest to the accuracy of the history, but I came away from the novel with vivid images of the level of devastation in Berlin and a new appreciation of the difficulties faced by occupying forces.