Is being fooled by your surroundings or the popular belief systems that you are stuck with a crime? A Good Nazi? investigates this question through the lens of history, mainly during the World War II Germany and Russia and sometime after that.

In the story, in Germany during the mid-1930s, when a young German boy, Torsten, is pushed around by older hostile kids in the school, Joseph, a Jewish boy, comes to his rescue. The two boys become friends after that and Joseph’s father helps Torsten learn shoe-making. Then, Torsten’s older sister Ingrid becomes involved with Joseph unbeknownst to Torsten. Torsten’s mother, however, has remarried, and the stepfather Gruber is an important Nazi who succeeds to entice Torsten’s older brother Frans into the Hitler-Jugend, or Hitler’s Youth, where Frans becomes also important. Eventually, Torsten, too, is forced to be a part of that same group.

After Hitler seizes power, everything becomes worse, especially during the Kristallnacht. Yet, this is only the beginning of the story. What happens to all these people later becomes the essence of this novel.

As the main character, Torsten is weak of will but greatly resilient. What I didn’t like about his character has to do with why he insists on seeing Frans for the last time and what happens when he sees him. Still, the author has to be applauded for not turning Torsten into a hero but not putting him down all that much, either. I saw Torsten as a human being, good and bad and gullible. The other characters are also drawn well.

The settings, as to the place and time, are described and shown effectively and in detail.

The plot has good moments in the beginning, but after the midway point, those moments become scarce and the pace quickens a bit much. Although the scene transitions are pretty smooth, I had hoped for more of those poignant incidents or moments throughout the novel.

To wrap it up, this is a good novel, and I really appreciate the author's idealism with the premise of his story.

the author's keen insight into the human interactions.

is David Canford, an Indie author with other books to his name.

It shows relationships of all kinds that can be forced into alterations by the historical events.

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Created Jun 21, 2018 at 2:53pm • Submit your own review...