The Daughter of the Reich, Louise Fein, author; Marisa Calin, narrator
There is something compelling about this book that sets it apart from other Holocaust books. This novel is presented from the point of view of Hetty Heinrich, a young German girl whose father is a rising star in the Nazi Party. We watch her metamorphose from a devoted servant of Hitler into one who begins to question and reject his barbaric ideas. This book paints a heart wrenching portrait of Hitler’s Third Reich, as she comes of age, falls in love and looks into the face of evil, forcing her to question not only Hitler’s policies, but her own father’s service to him as he blindly carries out the effort to create the Thousand Year Reich. She begins not only to question Franz Heinrich’s devotion to Hitler, but she also begins to question her father’s devotion to her mother, Helene, when she makes a startling discovery about his secret life. Soon she realizes that her reality is not the same as the fantasy world painted by Hitler and his army of thugs.
When the story begins, Hetty is six years old, and she is literally drowning. Luckily, Walter, the best friend of her older brother Karl, an excellent swimmer, gets to her in time and rescues her from what would otherwise have been certain death. The year is 1929. Now fast forward to witness the moving day for the Heinrich’s. It is 1933, and they are settling into a much larger flat that has been recently vacated. All the possessions are still in the apartment, which is odd. When Hetty discovers why, she is shocked, but her mother denies what she has been told about their new home and her father’s sudden business success.
Soon, she is slowly indoctrinated by her teachers and her parents to love and obey Adolf Hitler, but she also fears disregarding his rules as she learns of the terrible consequences she would then face. Her behavior must also be exemplary so her father can advance in the National Socialist Party. So enamored does she become of Hitler, that she speaks to his portrait, which hangs in her room. She hears him speak back to her, advising her on how to proceed when she faces a dilemma. In 1939, Hetty and Walter are reunited. The friendship between Karl and Walter, though, soon ends as Hitler’s racial laws demonize the Jews and make it a crime to fraternize with them. Walter is Jewish. Hetty, having carried a torch for him for years, continues to befriend him. He, in turn, has also been smitten by her.
As the racial laws of Hitler’s 1000 Year Reich grow stricter, their relationship is fraught with danger. This is not strictly a love story, though, since the author paints the war in blazing color, with nothing held back. The insight into the characters as they are either indoctrinated into the Nazi way of life or are isolated and ostracized, is very authentic and will touch the heart and mind of every reader as they witness the effort of these teenagers to cope with the injustices all around them. Those Germans that succumb ignore the evil, those that don’t are targets, and they are in constant danger of being punished and/or attacked in the same brutal way as the Jews. As Hitler grows in stature and people are more and more brainwashed by his propaganda and promises, or are in fear of retribution if they do not obey his commands, the relationship between Walter and Hetty grows stronger. Their love is forbidden, and the consequences of their relationship are grave.
When the book ends in 1994, the reader has had a broad, if not in-depth, glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust from the German point of view on both the Aryan and non-Aryan side. What makes this book so forceful is that it is presented by the daughter of someone rising up in the ranks of the military, in the Waffen SS, a brutal arm of Hitler’s army of haters. As she slowly awakens and matures, her eyes are open to the unjust treatment of the Jews, and the reader is enlightened as to just how difficult it was to resist and fight the Nazis. Those who disagreed were helpless to fight back. Hetty, like other young people, was unable to resist her parent’s efforts to restrain her from questioning Hitler. She could not fight off the admiration of a wild-eyed, unstable Nazi teenager, Tomas, who professes his unwanted, undying love for her even as he attempts to blackmail her.
As the book moves forward to the beginning of the war, Hetty faces tough decisions as the result of some rather thoughtless, immature behavior becomes dire. Although Walter and Hetty seemed more adult than their years at times, at others they seemed immature as they blissfully disregarded the danger of their flouting of the rules. When the book ends 55 years later, the reader learns the results of the coupling of Hetty and Walter. The reader learns about the kinder transports, the horrors of the concentration camps, the lack of any safe havens for Jews, and the inhumanity of Hitler’s plans for his Final Solution. Although the history offered is not deep, because it would require volumes, it is an excellent overview of life during the reign of Hitler, as it was seen through the eyes of Germans, some who were Jewish and some who were Aryan. One cannot but help notice the contradiction in the author’s descriptions of both Hetty and Walter. While Hetty, the Aryan is dark haired, the Jew is portrayed with features that are more Aryan. Walter is blond and blue-eyed. Perhaps the author wanted to point out the stupidity of such stereotypes.
In spite of the book’s shortcomings, it succeeded in illustrating the type of person that blindly followed Hitler, the reasons why many of them did not even notice they were being manipulated by their limited education and the controlled information provided by the media until it was too late to stop the progress of Hitler’s evil. Greed, jealousy, and poverty were partly responsible for their blind obedience and for their acceptance of using certain groups as scapegoats. They viewed them as less than human, as less pure and less valuable than they were, which allowed them to revel in the pain and mistreatment of those they targeted. I fear in America today, in the year 2021, we may be experiencing the same kind of blindness, as one group tries to silence all others and demands punishment which is sometimes undeserved.