Historical fiction can be tricky. On the one hand, the author needs to aim for historical accuracy, including the less appealing social and cultural aspects of the time. On the other hand, the author might not want to associate himself or herself too deeply with those negative aspects, so they may decide to write in events or characters with a more modern sensibility that will appeal to modern readers.
In Cradles of the Reich, Jennifer Coburn leans a little too much into those modern sensibilities. The novel is about the Nazi breeding program, the ‘Lebensborn program‘, that aimed to create a perfect master race from the embryo up, so to speak. The plan developed over the WWII years, and eventually was three-fold:
- take pregnant unwed women of ‘appropriate’ breeding into the Lebensborn homes, help them through the births, and then pass the babies on to childless Nazi families.
- collect children of appropriate appearance from conquered territories such as Poland, and use the Lebensborn homes as orphanages until the children can be adopted out to Nazi families.
- train young women to be good mothers, get healthy young Nazi males to have sex with them, and when babies are born ‘for the Fuehrer’, pass the babies on to childless Nazi families. Basically, run a brothel + orphanage.
From a little internet reading, the first and second parts of the Lebensborn program are well documented, but there are conflicting stories about the brothel, with some people saying they never existed. However, the author included it in this book.
And therein lies one of the problems with this novel: these are grim stories, but they are told with a layer of sensationalism as if the mere facts of the events are insufficiently horrific. Of the three female protagonists, one is Gundi, unwed and pregnant, who is physically perfect by Nazi standards. When she is examined by a Nazi doctor, he not only makes her strip and measures her every physical attribute, but also rubs her breasts and pushes his erection against her. Likewise, every Nazi portrayed in this book is creepy (as opposed to Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase about the ‘banality of evil’) This feels over the top, as if the reader is being unnecessarily told in forceful terms how the Nazis were not just vicious and cruel on a large scale, but also unpleasant in every possible personal way.
Gundi is an unwed mother, but what the Nazis don’t know is that the father of her baby is Jewish. She is offered a place in the Lebensborn home: she plans to run away instead, but the might of the Nazi state is used to capture her and send her off to the Lebensborn home. (This was rather unbelievable: with wars on two fronts, plus vast swaths of conquered territory and prisoners to manage, so much effort was dedicated to hunting down one harmless German girl?)
The second protagonist is Hilde, who is described as unprepossessing, but has nevertheless caught the eye of a senior Nazi functionary and is pregnant with his baby. She is a true believer and sees the baby as her contribution to the Fuehrer’s marvellous vision.
And last, there is Irma: a love affair that ended in heartbreak drove her to volunteer to be a Lebensborn nurse.
The novel alternates chapters from each woman’s perspective, but unfortunately all of them are rather bland and one-dimensional, leading to a limited arc for each character. Two of the characters change over the course of the novel, but each such change seems forced.
There are three perspectives, but Gundi is clearly the focus of the novel. Apart from her beauty, she is brave and smart and has worked for the Jewish resistance. She is completely accepting of her male friend’s homosexuality. Her opposition to the Nazis is underlined frequently.
Gundi felt the urge to stride across the room in her underwear and kick [the Nazi] Dr Ebner in the groin.
Her appreciation of all things Jewish is also commented on frequently, sometimes with odd phrasing.
The family had a delicious flavor. It went beyond the way they roasted chicken and seasoned cabbage.
She has extremely modern discussions with her Jewish lover, such as
[Gundi, in tears] “You hate me because I’m not doing anything, but when I tell you that I want to, you act like you hate me for that too.”
[Leo, her Jewish beau] “If you want to do something, it can’t be because you want to help the Jews. We don’t need a savior. We need allies. “
In short, Gundi’s opinions and feelings are quite divorced from her upbringing and environment. The author attempts to show her developing these thoughts, but it feels forced.
Gundi did, in fact, hate what was happening to Jewish people. At the same time, she silently confessed that it had been more than a decade since her school teacher humiliated Sammy [a Jewish student] in the classroom, and she had slowly gotten used to anti-Semitism as the new normal.
Note the anachronistic use of ‘gotten’ (I miss the editors who used to catch these oddities!). The offbeat phrasing appears at other points of the book as well.
[…]Irma said, her throat closing with the pain of rejection.
Gundi felt the moist earth seep through her nightgown
At the thought of her script in Herr Goebbel’s hands, Hilde deflated in her seat but quickly shook away the unpleasant thought.
Bottom line: this novel serves as an introduction to an aspect of the Nazi fixation on genetics that you might not be aware of, but is not otherwise notable.
Recent Comments