An Obsolete Honor by Helena P. Schrader

An Obsolete Honor: A Story of the German Resistance to Hitler is a must-read for anyone who mistakenly believes all Germans sided with Hitler and his evil minions during World War II. Helena P. Schrader undertook extensive research and interviews with survivors of the failed plot to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, as well as the spouses of those officers executed for their involvement. (This plot was recently featured in the movie Valkyrie.)

An Obsolete Honor opens in 1938 and ends after the attempted coup (with an epilogue to detail the fates of the many characters, both historical and fictional). There are so many layers to this nearly 560 page story, and I know I can't do it justice here. The book is intense and engrossing, and though there were a lot of characters and military strategy to follow, I was never bored or overwhelmed with details. However, if you're not overly interested in this period in history, the book might be a bit much for you.

The main character of An Obsolete Honor is Philip Baron von Feldburg, a German staff officer who spends a lot of the war on the Russian front, growing increasingly sick of Hitler's ridiculous military strategy and angry about the SS's extermination of innocent Jews by rounding up women, children, and the elderly, shooting them, stacking their bodies up, and leaving them behind. Philip believes a change in command is necessary to end the war and stop the senseless killing. He serves under real-life officers involved in the Valkyrie plot, including General Friedrich Olbricht, Major General Henning von Tresckow, and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Philip's wife, Alexandra von Mollwitz, also plays a large role in the story. She meets Philip in the General Staff Headquarters in Berlin and shares his feelings of hatred for Hitler and the Nazi regime, even working with Olbricht on Valkyrie.

I found many other characters in the book interesting, including Sophia Maria von Feldburg, Philip's mother, who also is against the Nazis and does her best to care for the Polish laborers forced to work at her manor. Theresa von Feldburg, Philip's sister, is another interesting character. She is married to Walther, a self-made man who takes over Jewish factories in Warsaw, uses forced labor from the concentration camps, and creates a home for his family by evicting a Jewish family and moving in. Theresa only cares about herself, never realizing the hardships others endure during the war. I also was captivated by Marianne Moldenauer, a young college student who lives in Philip's Berlin apartment building and forges documents to help the Jews, all the while dating a Gestapo inspector.

There are so many other characters (there's a list of characters at the beginning and even a glossary of German terms and military rank at the end) and subplots that I couldn't possibly mention them all, but Schrader does a brilliant job showing different aspects of the resistance and discontent, as well as the fear that characterized daily life under the Nazis. Imagine being arrested for laughing at a joke about Hitler, being turned in by a relative or an acquaintance for making a statement not in line with Nazi ideology, watching your Jewish neighbors forced out of their homes never to return, or having your children forced into service for the Fuhrer. There were countless German men, women, and youth who opposed Hitler and many who were willing to put their lives on the line to spur change. Those behind the Valkyrie plot knew the odds were against them, yet they made the commitment to show the world that Hitler didn't speak or act for everyone. Schrader does an excellent job blending fiction and history to give us a glimpse of what it was like for Germans under Nazi rule. Given the subject matter, it's hard to say I "enjoyed" the book, but reading it was an eye-opening and emotional experience and well worth the two weeks it took me to finish.

Here are some passages that I wanted to share with you all:

Sophia Maria drew the horse to a halt and turned to face her firstborn. 'Philip, we didn't bring Hitler to power, and we cannot bring him down. All we can try to do is to survive with our personal honor intact--or as untarnished as humanly possible.' Philip looked at her rather strangely, and she felt she had to explain. 'Look, I think what our government has done to the Poles is outrageous, but I can't give them back their land. I can't reverse the injustice done to them. All I can do is treat them with as much consideration, kindness and respect as is possible within my own small realm. God knows, that realm is tiny indeed. Technically, I can't even give my workers an old pair of boots. Common decency has been made illegal by this regime, and I have been turned into a 'criminal.' But I must be a criminal if I am to maintain a much higher law: the law of humanity and Christianity.'
(page 92)

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'It's as if Hitler and his close associates were carriers of a disease--a disease which eats away at the moral fiber of the individual. The nearer or longer one is in contact with them, the weaker one's own ethical structure and sense of humanity becomes. Over time, one's entire system of values is corroded to nothing. In the advanced stages of the disease, not only has one's normal sense of human decency been destroyed, but criminal values have replaced healthy ones.' . . .

'But if our senior military commanders can't resist the criminal orders of Hitler, then the fate of the entire nation is in the hands of an emotionally unstable, morally degenerate madman.' (page 129)

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The Reich was to be made 'Jew-Free' by transporting all the Jews to the mammoth and growing ghettos established throughout the occupied territories in Eastern Europe--Warsaw, Riga, Krakow, and Lublin. 'To the pale,' as Herr Silber described it. 'First the Russians sent us there and now the Germans, always to the pale. Funny--I just said 'the Germans' as if I weren't a German, too. All that propaganda eventually seeps into your brain, even if you don't want it to.' (page 216)

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'Herr General, protectiveness toward women, respect for old people, and love for children are basic human instincts. What does it take to suck the most elemental sympathy out of a young man?'

'Maybe not as much as you think,' Rittenbach countered. 'Murders are committed in every society. If all the moral force of church, law and society is not enough to prevent such things, what can you expect from men given justification and orders to murder? We should not be so surprised when men turn back into the sadistic, bloodthirsty beasts they really are.' (pages 222-223)

Helena P. Schrader, author of An Obsolete Honor, will be a guest blogger at Diary of an Eccentric tomorrow. I hope you'll come back to read what she has to say about writing the book.

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An Obsolete Honor marks the 5th book I've read for the WWII Reading Challenge at War Through the Generations that I'm co-hosting with Serena. Technically, I've completed the challenge, but I plan to read more WWII books over the remainder of the year.

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An Obsolete Honor also was reviewed by:

MariReads

If you've also reviewed it, let me know in the comments, and I'll add your link!

Disclosure:  I received a free copy of An Obsolete Honor from Author Marketing Experts, Inc. for review purposes.