Stella

November 15, 2020
Love blooms in World War II-era Berlin in this fact-based historical novel. When dreamy and artistic Friedrich is old enough to leave his cloistered home of Choulex, a small villa near Geneva, to travel the world, his merchant father suggests Tehran: Why not avoid the war in Europe? But Friedrich, compelled by the stories he's heard "about secret nightclubs in Berlin, about hustlers, cocaine, an ivory fountain in a grand hotel," as well as the disappearance of Jews, instead chooses to dive directly into the heart of Nazi Germany in 1942. Determined to find out the truth about the Nazi regime, Friedrich is quickly caught up in a whirlwind romance with nightclub singer Stella Goldschlag, who is hiding her Jewish identity. In order to protect her parents, who have been imprisoned, Stella agrees to inform on other Jews for the Gestapo, leaving Friedrich torn between his own moral code and the intensity of first love. This second novel from W�rger, a journalist at Der Spiegel, blends fact and fiction, incorporating excerpts from witness statements documented at a postwar trial of the real-life Stella Goldschlag, who continued to inform for the Gestapo throughout the war. W�rger's commitment to the historical reality of the Nazi regime is commendable, and he doesn't shy away from depicting the gruesome horrors it inflicted on Jews in Berlin in the early 1940s. But passages giving historical context for the events of the novel grow tedious, and the excerpted documents can feel extraneous. Conversely, his decision to tell the true story of Stella Goldschlag, a fascinating and terrifying woman, through the lovestruck eyes of a bland and entirely fictional male character is frustrating. A well-intentioned and thoroughly researched novel that works better in theory than in practice.

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January 4, 2021
Würger’s spare, affecting novel (after The Club) sets a coming-of-age story amid the deceptions and cruelty of Nazi-dominated Berlin. Friedrich grows up outside Geneva, son of an affluent textile importer and an alcoholic, anti-Semitic painter who hopes to nurture in her son the artistic greatness she never achieved. When Friedrich is eight, he suffers an injury in a snowball fight that robs him of color perception, disappointing his mother and sending him into despair. By the time Friedrich is 20, in 1942, he’s developed a romantic idea of Berlin from literature and newsreels, and travels there despite the raging war, believing “a little bit of strength could pass to me.” There, he falls in love with beautiful artists’ model Kristin, who doesn’t allow him to see her home or meet her family. After Kristin is raped, beaten, and shaved, she admits to Friedrich she is a Jew named Stella Goldschlag (a historical figure subsequently known for collaborating with the Gestapo). Stella tells Friedrich she can save her parents by locating a Jewish document forger, but Friedrich worries she is still not telling him the truth. While the novel’s ending doesn’t feel fully resolved, Würger skillfully intertwines fact and fiction. This subtle, thought-provoking narrative is worth a look.

January 1, 2021
German author W�rger follows the fortunes of a young Swiss man on a year-long sojourn in Germany in 1942. At 22, Friedrich is an aspiring artist who has lost his ability to see color after a brutal attack when he was a child. Despite a general dislike of Nazis, Friedrich travels to Berlin to begin his studies and quickly falls under the spell of an alluring artist's model named Kristin. Kristin invites him to hear her sing at a club, where he meets the worldly and charismatic Tristan. But the rug is pulled out from under Friedrich when he discovers that Tristan is an SS officer, and that Kristin's real name is Stella Goldschlag. The Gestapo has threatened to send her parents to a concentration camp if Stella doesn't help them track down a Jewish forger. Caught between Tristan and Stella, Friedrich is finally forced to confront the horrors of Nazi Germany. Based in part on the real Stella Goldschlag, W�rger's novel is a powerful, visceral portrait of individuals caught up in a pivotal year during Nazi rule.

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