Leaving Berlin

 

Leaving Berlin – by Joseph Kanon

One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises for me in a very long time.  A freebie on Kindle Unlimited.  Usually I’ve found that most books that are free on Kindle Unlimited are free for a reason. This wasn’t the case here.  This was a great, captivating spy novel where it was hard to pry my eyes off the pages. This is one of those books that upon completion, I looked up the other works by this author and made a mental note to read much more of his works.

This books takes place around 1949, and although the author gives a bit of a historical “intro”, it does really help the reader if they’re familiar with the history of Berlin, and the state of the entire world really, in the immediate years following World War II.  Alex Meier is a Jew who fortunately left Germany in the mid 1930 before Hitler fired up the ovens.  He’s also a communist, so his new homeland of America doesn’t take kindly to him (he’s an author) during the infamous “red scare” post World War II. So he goes back to Berlin and resides in the Communist sector.

Now, I’d be lying if I told you that I could follow all the details in this labyrinth of a story, but I was at least able to deduce that the Soviet sector in post war Berlin was not a happy place to be. Everyone distrusts everyone else. Yes, there are German communists, but it’s the conquering Russians who rule the roost, and there is no love between the two former enemies.  Meier gets involved in unofficial “spying” by powers that be as this will somehow improve his standing when and if he goes back to America.  At different points in the novel, I think he was spying for other organizations as well, but it was a bit hard to say for sure.

Some of his old friends from his youth in the 1930s have survived, and he has cautious reunions with some.  These aren’t Jews, though, they’re Germans.  And Germans aren’t regarded highly in the Soviet sector.  Many are sentenced to life long brutal labor camps as punishment for fighting in the global conflict.  So there are mysteries, secrets, uncomfortable relationships, hostilities and an awful lot of caution for Alex and those around him.  It’s sad to think that the nightmare of World War II didn’t really end for conquered Germany for many years.  There’s definitely a bleak atmosphere within this story. It almost feels as though the sky is perpetually gray and everyone on the streets is continuously cold and malnourished.

For those who know their history, they know the story of the Berlin Airlift that was instigated by the U.S. and its allies in retaliation for the Soviets cutting off the American sector around this time.  We rarely read about the particulars in this book, though.  Since this story is in the Soviet sector, we read about characters “hearing the planes”, but for much of the story, it serves as a bit of a minor backdrop. So if you’re wanting an “airlift” novel, this probably isn’t going to scratch your itch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s a great spy thriller in that no one really knows anyone else’s true motivations, and trust among everyone is virtually non-existent.  Again, once the climax of this novel is revealed, I didn’t have a perfect revelation of who was who and everyone’s ultimate role in the caper. There were a lot of names and characters to keep track of, but that didn’t hinder my enjoyment at all.  I was able to keep straight the main characters and their main objectives to make life somewhat better in their dismal desperate situations.

I don’t read a lot of “spy” novels, but I was very fortunate to come across this one.