This riveting account of German resistance is based on years of research by the distinguished journalist Anne Nelson. This is a beautiful and moving portrait of ordinary but heroic figures---an untold story of a circle of Germans and German-Americans in Berlin who took a principled stand against Hitler and the Holocaust. They expressed their opposition by infiltrating the Nazi ministries, distributing samizdat literature to break through the information blockade, and trying to help the Allied forces achieve a military victory.
The narrative is constructed around the life of Greta Kuckhoff, an "ordinary woman" educated at the University of Wisconsin, who returned to Germany only to see it sink into a fascist nightmare. The book relates the history of her resistance circle against an explanation of how Germany's civil society was systematically eroded.
Greta and her friends grapple with questions of ongoing concern today. How can a citizen balance the tensions between patriotism and ethics? How can civic duty be defined in a period when peaceful protest fails? How do government restrictions and the concentration of media ownership compromise democratic expression?
Listeners can expect a large collection of true anecdotes told by Germans and foreigners living through the scourge of National Socialism under Adolf Hitler. So great was the revulsion to Hitler's government that an underground resistance--called the Red Orchestra by the Gestapo--developed. Author and narrator Anne Nelson tells the stories of the famous and not-so-famous in the movement. Her German has an accent identifiable as American; it blends seamlessly with her English. Nelson's taciturn voice, a purring monotone, only strays once from her natural one as she shouts an angry quote. Both this work and Nelson's performance reassure listeners that many Germans so hated their Austrian fŸhrer that they were willing to risk their lives and families to subvert his dictatorship. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
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