I was in a quandary rating this book. I can the admire the book and the writing, and for that it deserves 4 stars. But did I enjoy it? No, not so much.

The book is very good. I haven’t read another that captures the period so well and the dilemma the protagonist faces. He’s like a rat caught in a maze forever closing in around him, searching for an escape from it, this way and that, but finding every exit blocked. As his desperation grows, so does the bewilderment that he, a good and patriotic German, could be caught up in this horror.

As a pure entertainment it races along, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that though it is fiction, it was true also. The cruel world described here really happened. Good people were persecuted and shunned by their friends. The ills of the world were ascribed to them and punishment duly executed. It seems scarcely believable. It’s a dark and heinous place, yet we know the worse was still to come. That’s the thought I couldn’t escape from as I read this. Impending doom that overshadowed all.

It was not a happy read, but maybe a necessary read. The author wrote what he knew contemporaneous with the events described. It came as a warning perhaps from him, though too late. Eighty years later, it remains relevant.