Romanticising the Nazi era?

I attended an academic research seminar this week in which a colleague talked to us about his novel set in Russia. He asked us about our perceptions of Russia and commented that there were many romantic views of it.  Another colleague remarked that it was odd how the Cold War had been romanticised but not the Nazi period. 

Was that period too awful that it shouldn’t / couldn’t be romanticised? 

Well, I certainly have some romance in the current book that I’m writing but it’s that ordinary romance that you might find in any 1940s novel, where young men return from fighting and marry their girlfriends.  They just happen to be German young men.  This is set against a background of the girls finding out some difficult to digest truths about some of the things that had been going on in the background.  And also finding out that their heightened sense of duty and the close bond amongst them that was stronger than family ties may not have been so healthy. 

Certainly my young girls in Girl in a Smart Uniform have romantic notions of what it would be like to become a perfect German woman. The main two women are lesbians but female readers may find the handsome Nazi officer they work with very attractive, though he then does something so terrible that they’ll end up not liking him at all. 

Isn’t there something quite attractive about those smart leather great coats that the SS wore? And weren’t the women who worked with them rather glamorous, something to be aimed for? Of course it was all so nasty many people conclude it’s best forgotten. 

I grew up in fear of the swastika. This was something evil though I didn’t really know why. The name Utrecht (not really sure why for that one but even so ….) and Treblinka had an exotic sound about them. Yes, they were horrific – but certainly also promising something unknown, something exotic. I experienced a kind of sanitised dread.

Terry Nation brought us something similar with the Daleks. Compare their intonation with some of the things you hear form the Nuremberg rallies and just look at what they do with their “arms” when they shout “Exterminate!” Nation used a pattern from the Nazis to bring us ultimate evil.   

I didn’t learn about the Holocaust until I was eighteen. It may seem amazing but for the generation born at the end of and soon after the war what happened was really supressed. More so in Germany than in the UK. Now, though, the grandchildren of victims, perpetuators and bystanders are middle-aged and mature enough to examine this and to pose the question ”What went wrong?”

I’m trying to answer that question in my cycle of novels.  I’m getting it the heads of young women who lived through that time and I’m trying to trace their emotional growth. I’m finding certainly that they were offered hope – often in the form of smart uniforms and a sense of purpose.  How terrible then when they realise that they’d got it wrong. That is the very premise of my current work in progress.

And I have one feisty young woman who becomes an actor and putting herself in great danger, works in the subversive, underground theatre that satirizes the Führer and his cronies. How romantic! 

Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay                   

The House on Schellberg Street as a play script

I'm now about half way through creating the first draft of this. It's my first attempt at a play and I think this is very much a first draft. I worry a little that it may have a few too many scenes and some tricky set changes, though I see it on an abstract and minimalist stage.

There is a fairly large cast but there are many minor parts that can be covered by a chorus.

Might it work better as a radio play?

All to be looked at and all up for debate.

In any case, it is intriguing how the narrative translates into dialogue and a few stage directions. Inner monologue from the novel is replaced by acting in the play.

The voice that speaks to Renate at the end of some scenes I'm giving to an actor who actually comes on as a Nazi officer. The same actor must play the benign border official in one of the final scenes.

Today I wrote the scene where Renate looks for him but in the novel doesn't see him. In the play he comes on stage but does not speak. I've posted that scene below. Let me know what you think.

SCENE 24

ANNE , CHRISTINE, CHORUS  and THE HAIRDRESSER  are in a bathroom. RENATE is sitting in front of a mirror. Her eyes are closed and she has her hands over her eyes.  Her hair has now been cut into a modern bob. She has a towel around her shoulder. There is hair on the floor.

CHRISTINE:  There, you can look now. Open your eyes.

RENATE takes her hands away from her face and looked in the mirror. She gasps.

HAIRDRESSER: You do like it, don’t you?

GIRL 1. It looks really lovely. Don’t you think so, Renate?

ANNE:  Will you cut mine like that?

HAIRDRESSER: Yes, of course. But maybe you’d better come to the salon. She looks down at the hair all over the bathroom floor.

CHRISTINE. Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ll soon clear it all up.

HAIRDRESSER You’re really lucky that you have such a nice natural wave. It will be easy to keep it like that. You’ll just need to set it each time you wash it.

CHRISTINE: You’re not saying much, Renate. Don’t you like it?

RENATE: Of course I do. It’s lovely.

ANNE: It makes you look really pretty.

HAIRDRESSER: Well, I’m glad you’re pleased.

NURSE: enters centre stage. Goodness.  She looks first at the floor and then at Renate. Girls, you need to finish up now. And tidy up this mess. Renate needs to get some rest.

CHRISTINE: Oh, we’ll do this very quickly. Do you have a dustpan and brush?

NURSE: Follow me. She hesitates as she goes to exit centre stage and turns back to Renate. It makes you look so English. It really suits you. THE NURSE and CHRISTINE exit centre stage.

RENATE looks back at her reflection. Then she looks around. The lights dim and the other girls freeze. The NAZI OFFICER appears briefly stage left but he doesn't speak. RENATE stares at him. He blinks then exits again stage left. Lights come up again fully.

CHRISTINE: enters centre stage. Still admiring yourself? Come on girls.  She hands the dustpan to Anne and the brush to GIRL 1. Let’s get this cleared up before matron has fifty fits.

RENATE: Thank you for thinking of this.   

Blackout.

Reaction from beta readers

Most of the comments are in now from my beta-readers. Most of the commentary is around the Nazi voice. This is something I wasn’t all that sure about myself in fact. Should it be there? Was it strong enough? Was it too strong?

I’ve concluded, after hearing what everyone has had to say, that it should be there, but that it isn’t yet quite right.

Interestingly, some people have interpreted it as purely a Nazi voice and some that it is really just Renate thinking. I actually mean it to be both at once. If it should be made into a play, I would imagine these words spoken by an actor dressed in an SS uniform and that this figure would appear on a balcony, in the auditorium or if on stage all lights would be out except for a spot on him and maybe he would be upstage right.

I decided in the end to extend that voice a little. I’ve now reread every single scene where it occurs and in nearly every case I’ve lengthened it.  

It constantly reminds Renate that she is neither German, English nor Jewish, that she belongs nowhere, that she is a disgrace and that she doesn’t deserve any happiness.

I think I may now be about to send it out to agents, followed by small press.

It would be useful to get it out internationally.