Prelude to Kristallnacht: desire and duty collide in a dangerous love story
What really happened that afternoon in November 1938, when the young Polish Jew walked into the German embassy in Paris and shots rang out? The immediate consequence was concrete: Nazis in Germany retaliated with the "Night of Broken Glass," recognized as the beginning of the Holocaust. Lost and overlooked in the aftermath is the arresting story of Herschel Grynszpan, the confused teenager whose murder of Ernst vom Rath was used to justify Kristallnacht.
In this historical novel, award-winning writer Harlan Greene may be the first author to take the Polish Jew at his word. Historians have tried to explain away Herschel Grynszpan's claim that he was involved in a love affair with vom Rath; Greene, instead, traces the lives of the underprivileged and persecuted Herschel Grynszpan and the wealthy German diplomat Ernst vom Rath as they move inevitably towards their ill-fated affair. In spare, vivid, and compelling prose, Greene imagines their world, their relationship, and their last horrific encounter, as they tried to wrest love and meaning from a world that would itself soon disappear in a whirlwind of disaster and madness.
"In the room he heard a shout. Of joy? Recognition? . . . He flung the paper down and ran, pushing the door open, ready to shout, but stopped when he saw the blood on the carpet and the pale blond man thrashing on the floor.
And then there was the boy. Never before had Nagorka seen such an expression. The young man looked up, distraught and horrified from beneath his tousled hair and dark brows, his eyes circles of fear. The gun fell from his hand." excerpt from The German Officer's Boy
Greene, Harlan. “The German Officer’s Boy”. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.
Love Not War
Amos Lassen
If you are a regular reader then the name Harlan Greene should mean something to you. He made his mark with two classic novels, “Why We Never Danced the Charleston” and “What the Dead Remember”. He is a southern writer from Charleston who has also authored several works of non fiction but this new book, “The German Officer’s Boy” is quite a change of pace. Greene himself is the son of Holocaust survivors so he has some insight as to what went on during the most infamous part of the history of the world.
November of 1938 is likely to remain a mystery in the history of what happened under the Nazi regime. Almost immediately after whatever happened that day actually occurred a night that went down in the annals of history took place. “Kristallnacht” or “The Night of Broken Glass” changed the course of what was the Third Reich and altered the lives of many. What happened after that night is what Greene has written about. It seems that Herschel Grynszpan a teenager who probably was not thinking lucidly murdered Ernst Vom Rath was the justification of the horrors that ensued. Greene has undertaken a unique job in this book in that he has chosen to both research and write about the Young Polish boy, Herschel and buck the historians who refused to accept to idea that the young man had been involved in a love relationship with the Nazi. As Greene looks at their lives and the situations in which they lived and tries to piece together not only the backgrounds of the men themselves but the entire backdrop that allowed something like this to happen. Greene attempts to bring logic to a period of history that seems to be totally senseless.
The book is a novelization based upon fact. Greene goes back to when the German officer first met the boy and how that attraction so consumes him that he s hardly able to function. The enigmatic Grynszpan led a tragic life and Greene returns his life to us in an erotic and haunting manner. What it leads us to think about is the question as to whether a failed homosexual love affair was the catalyst of that dreadful night. It is somewhat frightening to read but the seeds are there to propose that such a thing actually did happen. Compassionate and original, this novel poses many questions and Harlan Greene has recreated a period in history by using one singular incident—one that has been pushed aside by historians. Is it indeed possible that World War II was caused by something like this? As one other reviewer stated “Tender and terrifying” best describes this book.
Greene deserves kudos for even attempting it and praise for having made it such a wonderfully readable book.
