28 April 2013

Ecstasy of Eva Braun

by Leigh Lundin



Paean of Pain



Führerbunker Mentality




Guns and Roses




Adolph and Eva






Read at Your Own Risk



Janice Law said...

You make the novel sound really interesting!

Louis A. Willis said...

Your “whitecaps of profundity in a shallow sea of insipidness” description of Eva Braun made me want to read the novel. I’ve always wonder how those around Hitler could be so enthralled with him. Sounds like the novel would give me some insight into their thinking.

David Edgerley Gates said...

It's interesting that when DOWNFALL, the movie about Hitler's last days in the bunker, was released, it caught a lot of grief for supposedly "humanizing" Hitler and his acolytes, but in fact I found it had the opposite effect: monsters though they were, the picture made them out to be enormously shallow people, which in turn made the evils and cruelty they loosed all the more terrifying, not because they were larger than life, but smaller.

Anonymous said...

I never understood how ordinary Germans rallied 'round the nastiness they elected. I am terrified of those kooks on the radio, so reasonable in their hate.

Anonymous said...

I had always heard Hitler was very straightlaced and easily offended.

Leigh Lundin said...

Janice, if the author knew you are working on your second historical after the success of the first, I'm sure she would be pleased by your interest.

Louis, the amazing part is the believable atmosphere, or at least the atmosphere that makes it possible to see how the Nazis held their nation in thrall.

David, that's wonderfully put. Hitler was a small man in many ways, literally making his specter larger than life.

Anon, as we've learned, wickedness isn't confined to Germany. And yes, I sometimes rant about wing-nut radio!

Leigh Lundin said...

David, following up about your incisive comment, Goebbels said, "Such a sparkling mind can be my leader. I bow to the greater one, the political genius". And, "Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time, what one calls a genius."

Hmm, I hadn't thought about it until now, but I wonder if the author is related to the chancellor in the 1920s, Hermann Müller?

Anon #2, I've read the same thing, although I saw a History Channel documentary that suggested Hitler was gay or at least bisexual, evidenced in his Army associates. After obtaining power, he ordered the assassinations of those same men he'd been friends with.

The real Braun seems to have suggested Hitler had an active but hidden sex life. I seem to recall she commented about a sofa in Hitler's office, saying something like "If the great men who sat upon it only knew what went on after hours…!"

Goebbels and his wife Magda were rumored to engage in extensive affairs. Hitler is supposed to have reined in Joseph, telling him to cut short his more public extramarital shenanigans. Perhaps the surprising thing is that people who'd attained absolute power over others weren't more notorious in their dalliances… except that Goebbels himself was the minister of propaganda and controlled portrayals of the most powerful men in that nation.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic review! You have put the book on my must-read list and, more importantly, stimulated my thoughts. I was fascinated by the way Anne Morrow Lindberg wrote about Hitler and the Nazis as they rose to power, when she and "Lindy" visited and Lindberg was given a state medal. I kept thinking that there had to be a deep and powerful -- if terrifying -- story underneath the rise of Hitler and Nazism that we don't often see. I am sure historians know it, and I have heard a bit of it when the talk about (as one example) the way the Christian church in Germany wound up going along with things. But it seems to me that something Big happened, and that we must understand what that was if we are to guard against it in our common future. You have laid this out well, and pointed to this novel as providing an important piece of the puzzle. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

i echo the others here. the book sounds amazing and i plan to track it down. it seems release is a couple of days off?

Leigh Lundin said...

Thank you. I strove to understand the author, her intent, and to be fair to her and readers. After reading the book, let me know if I succeeded.

Anon 4, I received the review copy some months ago and I timed the article near the article's release, which I believe is Tuesday.

Herschel Cozine said...

The absolute evil of the Nazi regime and the German population's apparent acceptance of it continues to amaze (and appal). How could an apparently civilized country, steeped in science, music, the arts, be so barbarian? Eva Braun, I suspect, was not political or dedicated to any particular cause. Yet she idolized a monster who was. I will never understand it.

the book sounds fascinating. thanks for letting us know about it.

mamie vance said...

The nazis (old and neo) make me shudder with anger and disgust. I hope the author did the subject justice, which it sounds like she did.

Leigh Lundin said...

Herschel, as you say, Eva Braun appeared uninterested in politics, although most of the photographic history comes from her. And that disinterest in the horror around her makes her monstrous, too.

Mamie, the only thing I can think of is that neo-nazis are so steeped in mindless hate, they either can't see the truth or they embrace it.