First off, this is my favorite trope of book to read, the dual timeline. Then to discover Annaliese and her story it was a match made in reader heaven. The story is incredibly written and heart wrenching. Pace of the book from start to finish was great. I’ll probably be looking for this one on audible also.

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley.

I usually don't go for historical fiction books but this one was was very intriguing and interesting to read!

Usually these books from WW2 are very heartbreaking and eye-opening. This one was just that and the characters take you through a journey of horrible truths that come out during the war. Exposing her husband and seeing him for what he was/is. This one does seem to be different then most historical fiction books done around this time.

Based on the synopsis of this book, I knew this story would be right up my alley. The German Wife tells the story of Annaliese, who is the wife of a doctor living in Germany in the late 1930s. Annaliese's husband happens to be assigned to work at the concentration camp Dachau during World War II, and he becomes very secretive because of this. This book has multiple timelines, which means that not only do we follow Annaliese's story in 1939 but also in 1942 and many years later in 1989. Despite the various timelines, this story was very easy to follow. I loved the author's take on the different perspectives featured in the story, and I found myself wanting to read more and more of the novel once I started it. Although there is a plethora of World War II historical fiction novels out there, I think this book is unique in many ways. I like that this novel was written from a German perspective because it marked a nice change from previous World War II books I have read. I think a lot of people will really like this story!

Thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to this title.

What a great read. Nice to read a war book from another perception. Though not all Characters were likeable they were interesting . Would definitely recommend

The German Wife, set against the background of WWII, is the story of Annaliese, Hans and Alexander. She has beauty and elegance in abundance, Hans, is a doctor who wants to help his patients and Alexander is the Russian slave that they both use.
When Hans joins the SS to further his career he is ordered to Dachau to carry out “research.” It goes against everything that he believes in but he finds himself trapped because to not do as he is ordered would risk death, not just for him but also for Annaliese. Fearing that she will hate him as much as he hates himself, Hans is unable to share his feelings with Annaliese. Not realising the truth behind his actions, Annaliese takes him to be cold and uncaring and they drift apart. However, the one thing that joins them is the need to have a baby. It is what is expected of every good German wife. The only problem is that Hans knows he is infertile.
In a bid to salve his conscience, just a little, Hans brings a Russian prisoner (Alexander) into their home to be a slave who will work in their garden for no reward other than a few hours out of the camp every day. However, when Hans realises that there is a bond forming between his wife and Alexander he realises that the Russian might be the answer to all of their problems. He could be the perfect father for Annaliese’s child. All she has to do is seduce him and that is something that she is more than willing to do.
As Germany falls Annaliese, Hans and Alexander are torn in different directions but all have the same goal. To stay alive.
This book starts in America in 1989 and flashes back to the war before returning to modern times and while the two eras are linked, I found the wartime story more compelling. That’s not to say that the modern one didn’t have merit just that I was more drawn to the earlier one.
It is by no means an easy read because the author’s descriptions of what happened at Dachau are horrible but no doubt accurate and I found myself crying more than once.
I was tempted to mark this down a little because of what I’ve said about the modern part of the story but I won’t because it is part of the package and The German Wife is a book I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of the genre.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Have been unable to review due to illness. Review coming soon! This novel looks fantastic and I highly recommend this author to everyone! This one looks right up my alley, and since it is based on a true story, I can't wait to read it!

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for an early ARC of this book.

I thought Annaliese's character was interesting and sympathetic, but had a hard time loving this story. I wish Annaliese's husband had shown more backbone. I thought this was a good book, but not a great one. I prefer to read stories from the viewpoint of survivors/victims, not from the Nazi/sympathizer side.

My favourite book of 2022 so far. It’s an incredible story of love, forbidden love, with cruel twists, snd set in a period of history that is hard to conceive. The characters are so interesting that the reader wants to follow their experiences right through to the conclusion of the story. I wasn’t disappointed or disinterested at any point.
I thoroughly recommend Rix’s The German Wife.
My thanks to NetGalley, Bookoutre and author fir granting me a digital copy in exchange for my review.

A book based on true events on the second world war. It had everything.a good intriguing storyline and interesting characters. There was plenty to learn about the horrible events that took place in the War. I do recommend that you read this exciting book .

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for the arc of The German Wife by Debbie Rix

5 stars- This follows Annaliese whom is a doctors wife and suddenly her husband gets sent to the Dachau Labour camp to be the doctor there and this is when her life and world has been tipped right upside down.. she is devesatated as she tries to fight for freedom and love. Since starting as a doctor in Dachau her husband has grown cold, secretive.. A russian prisoner then gets sent into their garden to work she is quite fond of him and he goes on to tell her what camp conditions are like.. she is shocked and then she tells him that she will do everything she can to save him.. This is inspired by a true story!

Such a gripping, hooking read i recommend for all who like world war 2 or holocaust books! 5 stars- beautifully written emotional and pulls you in to make you feel what they may feel.

Can you even imagine, being married to a doctor, kissing and wishing him to have a "good day at work" every morning? To then find out after some time, that he was actually taking lives, not saving them?

This was the predicament Annaliese had found herself in.
A young seventeen year old german girl, who've lost her father, started a whirlwind romance with a doctor a few years older than her. Newly married, her husband Hans, got employed as a researcher and doctor at Dachau concentration camp. He thought his duties was based on finding a cure for malaria, and other medical practices that were for the betterment of mankind. He soon found the grim reality of his employment to be unbearable. However, when Annaliese got the truth of his work from their new gardener, her feelings towards her husband began to dwindle. Things then began to take a crazy turn, when she started falling in love with the gardener.

Debbie Rix has definitely opened my eyes to the daily horrors that thousands of people have lived, under the Hitler regime. I wondered while reading, if I would've been able to endure during that time.
The author's writing style was simply straight-forward, plot was easy to follow and was not dragged. There wasn't a dull moment.

I was both entertained and disturbed at the same time. Based on real events, this story was obviously well researched. Sometimes it's difficult to get a clear picture of a certain time in our history, but Debbie Rix definitely took me there.

I loved the fact that it was told, not just from the wife's perspective, but from her Nazi doctor-husband as well. He hated himself for what he was doing, but he seriously had no choice in the matter. It was either keep going, or face death, for he and Annaliese. In some twisted way, he was doing all he did because of the love he had for her. It was so sad. He was trapped in a regime, she trapped in a marriage, and both of them trapped in an unbearable world where there seem to be no escape.

When things began going south between Annaliese and her husband, I was really hoping that her happy ending would be with the gardener Alexander. He was a disappointment to me on some level, but at the same time, his choice was understandeable, considering all he had gone through.

As a woman, I felt it for Annaliese. Compared to other women in her days, she was one of the lucky ones. To pick herself up and create a new version of herself in a new land. I was grateful for that.
I dived into this book with no expectations, and I came out feeling hurt and almost empty inside, but overall, well pleased.
Great writing Mrs.Debbie Rix!

I'd love to thank the author Debbie, publishers of Bookouture and NetGalley for gifting me this arc, in exchange for an honest review. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

The German Wife by Debbie Rix is a powerful historical novel that consumed me from the start.
As the title suggests, the reader follows the German wife from the 1930’s, through the war years and just beyond before leaping forwards to 1984. It is a powerful read as we witness a character whose goodness of heart never wavered. “It was a tiny act of kindness in a sea of inhumanity.” It was a time of mass cruelty and unspeakable horrors.
Married to a doctor who worked in Dachau meant freedom of speech was curtailed. Inner most thoughts of the horror of it all ate away at what had started as a loving relationship. We witness that many had their secrets.
We see a character torn between what he does and his conscience – to speak out? Or remain safe and keep quiet? Living in Munich under Nazi control was a dangerous place.
There are some very hard to read scenes of terrible medical experiments carried out in the name of research. Ever those surrounded by depravity are shocked by what is seen.
Relationships were conducted in unnatural times, meaning it was easy for some to persuade themselves that they were in love.
There are glimpses of life after the war, both in Munich and America. The invisible scars of war lie deep, making normal life almost impossible to pick up again.
Debbie Rix has written a powerful and horrifying story. Her words paint pictures of terrible scenes which are now implanted in my mind.
The German Wife must be read in memory of the six million who perished, and of those who survived but were scarred. This is a harrowing read but a necessary one.
I received a free copy via Net Galley. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

Actual Rating: 3.8/5 stars

• A heartbreaking read.

• Materializes the strength and resiliency from people's different situations, occupation and circumstances. For the slaves, wives and from the doctors during Hitler's regime.

• I mostly read from the p.o.v.'s of concentration camp prisoners, but with this book, it comes from a doctor. Which is equally heart wrenching.

• Han's dilemma, actually not just Han's but also Alexander's and Anna, of knowing and deciding what's necessary in order to save their lives in this time of age is difficult. I couldn't imagine how many people went through similar situations and had to question their moral compass in the name of survival.

Wow this book was brilliant.  I knew from the very start that I was going to love this amazing WWII book. There isn't that many historical fiction books out there looking at the war from the German side and even though it was a work of fiction it felt so real. There were so many twists and turns it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The emotions I went through while reading this story was immense. You really got to feel for the characters and were sat hoping that things will work out for the best in the end. But will they?
I just loved the sense of atmosphere and tension held within this books pages. This made the book a real page turner.
I loved the theme of this book adding in elements of medical research and science. It made the book all the most fascinating and was rather shocked by it aswell.i really can't recommend this book enough it was so wonderful to read and such a unique story-line. And the ending was amazing, it finished off the story perfectly and made it feel complete.
So much praise goes out the the author and publishers for creating this stunning read that you will find yourself totally engrossed in from beginning to end.

Despite the story being set towards the end of WWII, military and authoritarian regimes still exist sadly. Slow
annhiliation of people based on ethnic, religious lines still go on apace and the rest of the world does nothing.
We do not seem to have learnt anything from the Nazi experience.

The Nazi regime, WWII and Hitler has brought about a whole world of writers - all the stories excellent reading,
all convoluted and dealing with so many aspects of this horrible era in world history.

This was another such book - told from the part of a SS family living in Germany - half of them faithful followers
of Hitler until they were faced with the brutality of the regime. Dr Vogel was a research scientist. He considered
himself a good German, faithful to Hitler's teachings until his career came head on with the torture and brutality of
the camps. Dr Vogel was too involved in his work, and not made to suffer or allow his family to suffer and he went
along with whatever was doled out till the end. His wife Annaliese far removed from his actual working life, did not
know or rather preferred not to know what was going on in her husband's working life.

The chilling factor in the story was that though Annaliese and Hans were married for eight years there were no
children. This was a failing from the Reich's point of view. It was the duty of SS officers to have children
and this could mean banishment for the Vogels. A Machiavellian plan came up in Hans's mind to use the services of
their gardener Alexander, a Russian prisoner to father a child for them. Annaliese was halfway in love with Alexander
when the plan was discussed but Alexander himself was not aware of the plot till years after.

The story takes over from there - continuing to the fall of the Nazis and the Vogels making their escape to
America (separately) and a time apart.

The twist in the story is different from other books dealing with the era - even from the Nazi angle and made
it quite unique.

Annaliese is a German wife, very comfortable in 1942 Germany. Her husband, Hans, however, works as a doctor n Dachau labour camp, and when Annaliese finds this out, her life is in turmoil. The brutality of the Nazi regime and the horrendous treatment of the Jewish people in the camps is well documented here, a good example of historical fiction at its best.

This well-written novel, inspired by true events, is of Annaliese, a young German woman living in Munich during WW2. She's oblivious to what her Nazi husband, a doctor at the Dachau concentration camp, does at work. The "darling" husband brings home Alexander "a tall, handsome Russian prisoner" to work as the family's gardener. Annaliese locks eyes with Alexander and guess what happens next??

Betrayal - Love - Success - Mother-in-law Angst - New Beginnings - Tragedy - Survival

Quick read, good characters, highly recommend.

I was gifted this advance copy by NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

The German Wife by Debbie Rix opens in 1984 in Connecticut, where Anna Vogel, a German interior decorator in her mid-sixties, waits for her son, Sasha. During his brief visit, he tries to learn more about their lives before coming to America: he asks about his father and Anna, dodginly, answers about her husband, Hans.
The narrative then takes us back to 1932. Annalise’s father dies when she is 18 years old, leaving her to fend for herself in interwars Germany. She sells his store and puts herself through secretarial college. In her job at a bank she meets a young and ambitious doctor, Hans Vogel.
Hans makes a good living treating his clients, but what he really wants is to discover a cure for malaria - both for the benefits it would bring humanity in general and for the fame it would bring him personally. In order to better his chances of getting research funds, he affiliates himself to the nazi party. From this point on, we follow Hans on a downward path: when he first starts to work at Dachau, a prison camp, he is able to ignore the horrors around him by telling himself that the prisoners are criminals and that his research will help all of humanity, but by the end of the war not only the prisoners have changed but his job as well: he has been ordered to help another doctor on his researches on sepsis and hypothermia, both little more than just ways of torturing the test subjects.
But somehow, Annelise’s journey is more disturbing than her husband’s. Disenchanted with her distant husband, she becomes infatuated with Alexander, the Russian war prisoner who works as their gardener. She convinces him to accept extra food and clothes from her, neither of which is allowed, even though he is worried that someone will find out and he will be sent back to the prison camp or executed. Hans notices his wife’s feelings and, since he is infertile and is being pressured by Himmler to have children, gives her permission to “seduce” Alexander, even managing to have everyone out of the house when she is ovulating.
At first Alexander consents - to the point that consent could exist in this situation - to their “relationship”, but soon he is trying to end it: he is determined to survive and having an affair with the wife of a nazi doctor is a great way of getting killed. Anna, a woman in her late twenties who survived on her own in 1930s Germany, acts like a teenager and puts him in risk again and again: she actually thinks that they could run away together and no one would look for them because her husband is a high ranking nazi, she keeps harassing him in his tool shed where they are almost caught by her mother-in-law, and, after he is sent to work somewhere else, she goes from factory to factory, asking about him, putting this poor man who obviously wants her to stay away in even more danger.
While Hans at least knows that he has made monstrous things, Anna never seems aware of her own despicable behaviour. And neither does the narrative for the most part. Alexander does say it during and after the war
I did care for her too, but you must understand that I had no free will in that situation. I was not in a position to truly return her love. I felt controlled, manipulated.
But everyone else seems on Anna's side, from her maid to the American officer that convinces Alexander to take her to America with him. When things unsurprising don’t work between them, Anna, always the heroine of her own story, recognizes that he has been traumatized by his experiences during the war, but never her own role in them.
The German Wife, while competently written and hard to put down, is an exaperanting reading. Considering the abundance of World War II fiction out there, this is hardly a must-read.

What a fabulous interesting read. Such a complicated story. Hans and Annaleise were married and Hans who was a very talented and innovative doctor, joined the Nazi party. They were very proud of him in his smart officer's uniform and he thought when he was sent to Dachau concentration camp, he would be able to help and be appreciated for his skills. Of course he was living in a fantasy world as we know of the horrors which were carried out in those terrible places.

Things took a different turn altogether when Hans took the Russian prisoner Alexander to be their gardener. Annaleise had a beautiful son Sasha and finally was able to leave Munich for the United States where she made a new life for them.

There was yet another twist to the story which led eventually to Anna as she was then known, having to relate her past to Sasha as he had never known Anna and Hans' story.

Debbie is a wonderful storyteller with lots of accurate thorough research into the events which occurred in that period.

Thank you netgalley for this Arc.

I think frequently we read stories about unparalleled bravery - about people who risked their own lives during the war to help others. This is not that story. The main characters of this novel are flawed and conflicted, it is the story about ordinary people and how they navigate a very difficult time. Choices that are made, decisions made for their own survival, and what privileges certain groups are afforded.

The plot: Annaliese is a young woman in Germany living a fairly easy life. She is in love with her husband Hans Vogel, an up and coming doctor, they live in a big house in Munich, and they have staff to run the house. This bliss changes when her husband becomes a member of the SS and begins work as. a medical researcher at Dashau labour camp. Annaliese cannot stay oblivious to what is happening around her, especially not when Alexander, the handsome Russian prisoner of war begins working in the garden. As the relationship develops, you learn more about the pressures in everyone's lives and what makes them get up in the morning. It explores the reality of both being in the war and the aftermath.If you're looking for a sweeping romance or a story of unsung heroes, you may enjoy other books more - but if you like exploring the grey area between right and wring and reading a story about flawed people - then this is a book for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are all my own.