STETTIN STATION: DAVID DOWNING

This is the third in the six novel series set mostly in Nazi Germany, beginning in 1939.  In this book, it's 1941, and the United States will soon enter the war, compromising John Russell because he has an American passport.  Most of the novel revolves around Russell's realization that he must find a way out of Nazi Germany for both him and his girl friend Effi.  Like the other novels, various intelligence agencies use Russell, both the German and Russian but also American, for their end but he also uses them..  And like the other novels, one of the major threads is the Nazi treatment of Jews.  Both Russell and Effi have sympathy for the Jews and do what they can to help them escape the clutches of the Nazis.  John also comes to realize that there's more going on than just putting the Jews in concentration camps, that the SS have ordered large quantities of poison gas, a story he wants to get to the West.

When a errand he's running for the German Intelligence goes wrong, the SS attempt to find him.  He flees, finds friends among the Communist underground, who have promised him help escaping if the need arises.  They smuggle Russell and Effi out of Berlin, eventually hoping to find them a passage as stowaways on a ship to neutral Sweden.  The last third of the book is a nail biter,  as Russell and Effi continually have to outsmart the Nazis.  Eventually, to save Russell's life, Effi refuses to accompany him to Russia, where a ship will take him to Sweden.  She feels she can figure out a way to survive on her own in Berlin where her family lives.

John eventually makes it out of Germany, to Sweden, and Effi we assume makes it safely to Berlin. The novel is best at recreating a realistic picture of the bleakness of life under the Nazis, the complete control they have over the lives of their citizens, mostly a result of the fear of the SS, who seem to have the right to act with impunity.  And we get a pretty good idea of what it was like for the average German, afraid to stand up to the powers that be, unlike John and Effi who have the moral courage to do something by helping the Jews.

 It's hard to believe that people believed in the Nazis, were patriotic, country loving masses.  Not everyone was a believer, however, and many of the characters we meet are like John and Effi, unhappy with what is happening but feeling powerless to do anything about it.  For three novel now I have been living part of my day in this dismal world of Germany, nervous and scared, and it makes me more and more grateful to have lived in the US.

As I write this, it's the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the beginning of a nationwide pogrom when the Nazis destroyed thousands of synagogues and over 7500 Jewish businesses, marking the beginning of their destruction of the Jewish people.