WINTER by Len Deighton

 Finished Sa 3/6/21

This is a paperback that I bought at the library book sale on Fr 6/13/97 and had never read.

It is a sweeping historical novel that focuses on Germany from 1900 to the Spring of 1945. It gives the reader an idea of what was going through the minds of average Germans during the vast social and political changes that swept through the nation. 

Peter- the older brother by four years. He is the smarter brother, does better in school and seems more prone to the Nazi philosophy, yet he becomes anti-Nazi and serves on the Nuremburg trials. He marries a Jewish woman. He spends WWII in California and Lottie is taken by the Nazis.

Paul- 'The charming Nazi'. The National Socialists were a political party and the ability to 'use' people was instrumental to a successful member of the party. I don't think I've ever seen such an elegant hustler portrayed as a Nazi. He makes the horror of what the Nazis were doing seem reasonable. 

From The New York Times review:

"IT is common knowledge that the leadership of the German National Socialist Workers Party, or Nazis, was little more than a gang of crooks, murderers, political opportunists and racists. But Len Deighton sees it a little differently.

Pauli, as the younger brother is affectionately called, goes to military school, fights in the trenches during World War I, joins the Freikorps, discovers his knack for the law and rises to become the Nazis' foremost legal adviser. It is Dr. Pauli Winter who figures out how Hitler can consolidate his leadership in 1934. (''Leave the presidency vacant - what a great idea.'') It is Pauli who justifies the practice of ''preventive arrest'' in 1937. And: ''It was Pauli's long analysis of the concentration-camp accounts that had ended with a suggestion that all the camps eventually become self-financing.''

Yet Pauli is not a thug or a brute. He is not even mean-spirited or anti-Semitic. He is merely a disappointed second son who can't seem to please his demanding father, and therefore never takes himself very seriously."

***Have Hitler leave the presidency vacant and then he doesn't need to swear allegiance to the constitution. Maybe Paul's best Nazi idea as a legal eagle for Hitler. 

From Publishers Weekly:

"tells the story of Germany from 1900 to the end of World War II. Peter Winter, who flies zeppelins in World War I, becomes a staunch anti-Nazi and then a colonel in the American Army; Paul, charming, ambitious and psychologically flawed, becomes a top legal adviser to the Nazi regime. They finally confront each other at Nuremberg. Though Paul is not entirely convincing as a basically ""nice'' Nazi, who has conscience enough to save his brother's Jewish wife yet gives spurious legal sanction to Hitler's atrocities without a qualm, both he and his brother are handy pegs on which Deighton hangs accurate, exciting and cleverly selected dollops of social, political and front-line military history, while highlighting the tensions between Prussian and Bavarian, Wehrmacht and SS that hastened the nation's rush toward suicide."

A link to a reviewer at Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1251826227

I really enjoyed the book and although the subject was very deep, the writing always kept it interesting. I will definitely read more by Len Deighton and I will try to see some of the movies that were made from his novels. 

A link to another review:

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/winter-len-deighton/