Midnight In Berlin by James MacManus is a fictional story that takes
readers through the harrowing months that ultimately led up
to WWII. It is a historical novel with emphasis on the history.
With a degree in American history it is evident that the author
used his knowledge and research to make a captivating plot.
MacManus noted, “I did not set out to write a book that
would educate or teach moral lessons. Yet, there are lessons
to be drawn from what happened in the 1930s, with this period
of appeasement fascinating. It is relevant today because it
shows how the establishment wanted to remain in power by pushing
their misguided agenda while attempting to silence those who
disagreed. There was also the West turning a blind eye to
the Germans brutalizing the Jews. I hope I got this point
across with a quote from the book, ‘For a Jew in Germany
there was no future worth waiting for. The future has been
cancelled.’ And today in Europe there is renewed Anti-Semitism.”
While the plot does have elements of romance it concentrates
on 1939 Berlin and what was going on behind the scenes with
regard to diplomacy. This book shows within an intense story
how the appeasers caved in to the Nazis. They were weak and
naive, choosing to put their blinders on and to get in bed
with Hitler and his goons. Real life characters, notably British
Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain and the British ambassador
to Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, never had the courage and
boldness later exhibited by Chamberlain’s successor
Winston Churchill to stop Hitler’s war machine. The
one who recognized the realistic situation was the novel’s
main character, Colonel Noel Macrae, based on real life Colonel
Mason-Macfarlane who was the British military attaché
in Berlin during the critical years 1938 and 1939. Several
other historical figures from this period in time are in the
novel: Kitty Schmidt owner of the Nazi bordello Kitty, Gestapo
Reinhard Heydrich, and journalist William Shirer.
The story appears to be built around the ultimate decision
of Macrae, to assassinate Hitler. MacManus commented, “As
with the real-life Colonel, Macrae saw what was happening,
that appeasement was not working which would make war inevitable.
I hope I portrayed him as a tortured man. He tried to convince
his own government that Hitler wanted to expand throughout
Europe. He chose to stand up and do something to save humanity.”
These figures blend well with the fictional characters. The
story showed the sacrifices of those who hoped to stop the
war, by sounding the alarm of an approaching war. Macrae finds
himself trapped between the blind policies of his government
and the dark world of betrayal and deception in Berlin both
professionally and personally. With his own marriage to Primrose
imploding, it becomes apparent their relationship has chilled
to the point both look for love elsewhere. The Gestapo, aware
of Macrae’s hostility, seeks to compromise him in their
infamous brothel. There, Macrae meets and falls in love with
Sara, a Jewish woman blackmailed into becoming a Nazi courtesan.
She has prostituted herself to keep her jailed twin brother
from execution. Through the storyline of Macrae trying to
rescue Sara readers will understand the plight of German Jews
and the different ways they tried to escape before Hitler
closed the border.
Sara was based on a friend of MacManus. “I gave Sara
the same last name of my friend. She had told me of her family’s
experience in Nazi Germany and how they escaped. The Nazis
had the common practice of taking a family member, putting
them in a camp, and then using that as blackmail to make the
other family members behave. I hope readers realize the moral
dilemma: do they save themselves at the expense of their family
or sacrifice themselves for their family. Sara was trapped,
caged, and desperate.”
MacManus blends politics, murder, corruption, courage, and
sacrifice into this storyline. Readers become flies on the
wall, spectators to the events leading the world to the brink
of war.
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