In the Shadow of Hitler

An interesting read that had me up reading long into the night. It shows the bleakness of postwar Germany and how people had to live with decisions that had been made during the war. I particularly engaged with the doctor's story pre WW1 and really empathized with him over the guilt that he felt.

4 stars

This novel is written in the first person. It goes back and forth between 1944, 1946 and the present.

It was Normandy in 1944 and Adam’s twenty-fourth birthday. Instead of celebrating his graduation from Oxford completing his degree in law, he was a Lieutenant in charge of men landing on the beach at Normandy. He has many adventures throughout the war and is badly wounded. He becomes a military attorney after the war in Germany processing war criminals. He is tentative and nervous around his interviewees. He doesn’t seem to be able to assert any authority over them at all. They take verbal advantage of him countless times. Defend these people? You must be kidding!

The book then goes to 1946 and his friendship with a doctor. Ernst Mann. The doctor tells Adam that he met the young Adolph Hitler when he was but a boy. He strongly suspects him of a heinous crime, but never reported him. He feels very bad for not having done so when it would have saved millions of lives. Adam tells him that he cannot blame himself. Who knows what turns life will bring as we walk through it? Dr. Mann reveals more about Hitler’s youth of a violent and abusive family.

The city has been heavily bombed and the citizens don’t like the British soldiers, and the Americans even less. Adam befriends some women in a brothel, especially Rosa. She is an aristocratic sole survivor of her family who has turned to the “oldest profession” to merely survive. He learns much more about the firebombing of the city from the Madame.

Adam now in his eighties recalls his wartime experiences while retired in the Costwolds district of England. He is plagued by real pain and emotional pain and remembrances of his time in Germany. He is also comforted by his relationship with Rosa.

This book is well written and plotted, but it does tend to wander in places. I enjoyed the portrayal of Adam and his trials during the war. The descriptions of the destroyed city were well written and devastating. It is a good book and I enjoyed it. I will look forward to the next Richard Vaughan-Davies novel to be published.

I want to thank NetGalley and Troubador Publishing Ltdr/Matador for forwarding this interesting book to me to read and enjoy.

Firstly I would like to say thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this book in return for an unbiased review.

I love reading any literature based in and around WWII, as anyone who follows me will know! So when I saw this on NetGalley it was an instant request (and is why I don't look on the "Find" page on NetGalley anymore! There are so many good books waiting and I have limited time!). 

This book for me had an interesting start and middle, but a disappointing end. We follow an English lawyer named Adam who is speaking to Nazis who have committed atrocious crimes during the war. While he is doing this draining job he meets Rose, a high-born German girl who has resorted to prostitution in order to survive in the wreckage and rubble left of her town, and he proceeds to fall in love with her.

This book shows us a few different time frames around the war, showing us briefly Adam's time at Normandy as a Lieutenant and his part in the war, Adam's 'present day' after the war has ended and trying to find justice for the crimes committed, and also we look back through Dr Ernst Mann's life and the times which he met Hitler and felt that it was his fault the man came to power. The times that he failed to stop him, despite not knowing what he would become.
I really enjoyed the various different plot lines running through this book and enjoyed seeing different perspectives around this war, especially seeing what happened within Germany after the war was over. Sadly the end of the book seemed to wander and not know where it was going, the conclusion felt short and not fully thought out. If this had been done better I would've given the book 4* instead of 3. However, I still recommend this book and will be looking out for more from Richard Vaughan-Davies in the future.

There are plenty of books written about the period of the world wars. And Hitler is one of the most iconic personalities that have featured in and changed the history of the world. Of course, there are those who view him as a visionary and those who view him as a monster beyond imagination.

In The Shadow of Hitler is a book that deals with life during and after the world war. It is the story of Adam and his life in Germany. Adam was involved in the action at Normandy and was later a military attorney after the war in Germany. Here he finds unlikely friends.

One of his friends, an ageing doctor who knew Hitler from his formative years, reveals a secret that gives an insight into his character. The guilt that the man could have stopped the boy from becoming the monster eats him alive, inside out. To live with such guilt for a lifetime is punishment indeed. Then there is Rosa, a lady born to a well-to-do family. But when all else is destroyed she turns to the oldest profession. Through her, Adam is introduced to a brothel and other prostitutes and their gang. People who have had everything in their lives destroyed and are working hard at staying alive. Adam and Rosa were quite a pair, and romance in the aftermath of such devastation was portrayed with flair. There were no roses or poems, just life and the urge to survive.

I am not sure if this is a book that most readers would enjoy, for this not the average kind of book. It took me a long while to finish this book. But, I really enjoyed this book. The to and fro in the timeline may be a little too much to handle at times. I had to take a break every now and then to keep up with the book. It was overwhelming at times with its depiction of life in those times. The author has made the book rather evocative but in a very subtle manner. As for pace, there were a few instances when I felt that the book was a bit too slow, but nonetheless, I hardly skipped pages. There are plenty of instances when the author gets one thing right - what humans are capable of doing should they are able to let the evil inside them out.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

I'm not entirely sure what I think about this book set in post-war Germany. This is partly due to Adam, the main character, not being particularly likable. He's not a bad person, just kind of bland, self-centered and self-indulgent, and sometimes absurdly naive. I felt sorry for him, but not sympathy for him. Many of the unfortunate situations in which he found himself were of his own making. I also grew to dislike the main female character, Rose. She finds a way to survive in what is left of her fire-bombed city. However, the more I knew her, the less I sympathy I had. She, too, seemed self-centered and self-indulgent. More understandable in her simply because of her youth.

The most compelling character was Ernst--the old doctor and Adam's fellow boarding house resident.. The doctor shares with Adam stories of meeting a young Hitler in Austria. I wanted to know more of Ernst and his friends from Austria, their time in WWI and through WWII. It almost seemed as if the stories of Adam and Rose were built up to provide a vehicle for telling the doctor's story.

3.5 could it be true stars

There have been quite a number of books written about Hitler and the Holocaust. This one approached the topic a bit differently by telling the story of an American Lawyer, Adam, in the military that was involved in tracking down lesser war criminals for prosecution.

While in Germany, Adam meets and falls in love with a German girl. She has had to resort to prostitution in order to survive. In the house in which Adam resides lives a doctor with extraordinary tales of Hitler. Adam meets many people claiming that they had no knowledge of Hitler and what he did. They wish death and destruction on Hilter's remaining minions, yet while denying their association with any part of Nazism, many hide a deep secret. Did the shadow of Hitler cover and extend into the core of the German people and later into the core of the very people who came after?

This was an interesting look at the other side of this destructive time. Such things as whether Hitler fathered a child with a French lover and whether he murdered his abusive father are briefly mentioned.

Thank you to Richard Vaughan-Davies, Troubador Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.