For me, one of the take-outs from Harris' Fatherland was always the sense that if Hitler had not bothered with the Final Solution, he might have managed to win the war – that so much energy, effort and material was deployed for the Holocaust to make victory impossible. On a smaller scale, a movie called Kolberg was also a hubristic undertaking that helped with nothing to any military end. The last propaganda movie made by the Nazis, it fudged the history of a German Baltic town of the same name, that had faced a siege from Napoleon's troops as they had their failed sojourn in Moscow. Since then it had become a decent, respectable seaside spa town, but when WW2 looked a forlorn project, the story of the place became the basis for a cinematic, colour film cum battle cry, while the last few males either end of their lives were supposed to put off the marauding Poles and Soviets – Poles and Soviets who then managed to subject the town to its second ruinous siege…

This then, behind the clunky and almost daft title, is both the story of the film and the story of the town. And it's really quite fascinating, especially if you prefer like me to read around subjects and come at them from quirky angles. Here is Nazi hubris, and the full forensic look at a place you've probably never heard of. Here is the propaganda of the war and also the demolishing aspect of siege warfares a hundred and thirty-odd years apart. The resort's growth comes with many personal stories, which is where this really succeeds. For I found the style of the writing, where it clearly dipped into and out of personal testimony, autobiographies and memoirs, both very noticeable and very good; a lot of research has gone into these pages and it's all worn very lightly.

Sometimes I find certain books to be less than essential, but that is the point here. It's probably not essential that you read about a film few people remember, and it's surely a low priority to know about the War in this corner of Europe. But that doesn't mean the story is at all uninteresting – it's an academic-level text with great readability, and for me the marriage of the place's history and the cinematic fiction built from it was a very entertaining combination. A strong four stars.

This is a historic novel with lots of info about Hitler’s decision to make a propaganda movie in the waning days of WW2 in the hopes of rallying his troops to victory.It was set in Kohlberg a city that was unconquerable throughout time.Fortunately he did not succeed.This book also has lots of info about various propaganda films Nazis made throughout the Nazi reign and how they played a role in swaying public opinion especially against the Jews.