A thought provoking and sobering read about Berlin in 1942. Frederich (Fritz) travelled to Berlin from his native Switzerland to learn to paint as well as to escape from his alcoholic mother and absent father.
Arriving in Berlin, he gets chatting to the nude life model, Kristin, and is inadvertently dragged into the politics of the war of which he hoped to remain removed. Being Swiss he wasn't really expected to take 'sides', but the Nazi propaganda did not sit well with him and he found it difficult to know who to trust.
The author carefully combines facts with fiction to create a story of betrayal, love and naivety. The text is interspersed with trial transcripts as well as a 'report' of everything that happened across the world month by month.
It was a very quick read but I think the story will stay with me, as it ends with a number of unanswered questions but then life is like that in general which is what makes it such a good book.
Arriving in Berlin, he gets chatting to the nude life model, Kristin, and is inadvertently dragged into the politics of the war of which he hoped to remain removed. Being Swiss he wasn't really expected to take 'sides', but the Nazi propaganda did not sit well with him and he found it difficult to know who to trust.
The author carefully combines facts with fiction to create a story of betrayal, love and naivety. The text is interspersed with trial transcripts as well as a 'report' of everything that happened across the world month by month.
It was a very quick read but I think the story will stay with me, as it ends with a number of unanswered questions but then life is like that in general which is what makes it such a good book.