“A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.” – Hans Frank
Hans Frank was sentenced to be hung in October 1946. He was a Nazi of the oldest order, having been with Hitler from the 1920s on. Many, including his own son, have questioned the sincerity of the remorse in this statement, made during his trial at Nuremburg.
Most WWII fiction focuses on the heroic Allies, the tortured victims, and the courageous ones who resisted, but if you are familiar with my work, you know that I write from the German perspective. I have spent two years now almost entirely immersed in their side of the war in Europe.
Why focus so heavily on those considered perpetrators? The simple answer is that many people, even soldiers, did not fit neatly into one category (hero, victim, or perpetrator). And since this is a Christian blog, I’m going to cut to the chase:
Hans Frank’s statement is mercifully false. Writing in this genre is a beautiful opportunity to put the love and mercy of God on display.
When I was writing Sani: The German Medic, one of the key thoughts in my mind was God’s interest in every person as an individual. I thought about all those good boys who became caught up in the whole thing. I thought about the ones who bowed under the weight of peer pressure, propaganda and the culture of the regime. I thought about how hard it would’ve been for anyone who wasn’t exceptionally strong to say “no” under the weight of such oppression.
I wondered what I really would have done under such unimaginable circumstances. I wondered about the boys who were forced to do things they never wanted to do. And, I thought about the ones who, through years of indoctrination coupled with the stroking of the ego were duped into believing in and acting upon deadly lies.
In a way, this generation of Germans has become like my own family. I’ve come to know them for who they were, not just what their uniform said about them. My characters reflect that.
One of the most dynamic examples is SS Sergeant Major Helmuth Schmidt, the brutal, cold-blooded killer who appears towards the end of Sani. In The Prodigal Sons (TPS), he is Jakob Schmidt, a seven-year-old piano prodigy who loves God and writes countless hymns for his little church. He is a loner who wants to marry his childhood sweetheart. He grows into a young man who tries to stay true to his faith but ends up in the Hitler Youth with a pair of bullies that beat the snot out of him. Ultimately, he decides he no longer wants to be their whipping boy and allows himself to be seduced by an emotionally charged revolution and the passionate speeches of a master orator. He discovers that when he puts on a uniform, he becomes somebody. Not just somebody, but one of the elite.
Why does TPS go back into the past instead of carrying on the story laid out in Sani? For many reasons, but God definitely tugged at my heart to revisit this brutal character. It is not in order to excuse the path his life took, but to say, “After all that, God still offered him mercy.”
Do I believe anyone is beyond God’s forgiveness? Is there something I’ve done for which I am tempted to believe that God won’t really forgive me? Is there a place where His offer for forgiveness ends? If so, what kind of God is He? And how can we be sure of anything, if he is as temperamental as we fear Him to be?
A reader might take home any number of other lessons from these books, but one of the biggest compliments I have received is that the story helped readers understand what the average person was going through back then. I am also thankful when they tell me it has application for today.
On Tuesday, I am going to continue sharing on this topic, meditating on applications for a nation, not just an individual.
Sani: The German Medic is the first book in the Gott Mit Uns Series:
German-American Frederick Smith returns to his ancestral homeland just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Tired of a life without adventure, he follows the lead of his new friend Fritz by volunteering for the army, but will he live to serve Germany without serving Hitler?
Sani is now available in audio format from both Apple Books and Audible, as well as on Amazon Kindle and in print:
After creating stories prolifically as a child, Aubrey experienced a renewed interest in writing as she entered her 40s. She lives in Upstate New York with her husband and three children, and enjoys reading, playing music, crafting, sketching, exploring the outdoors, and traveling whenever possible. She is a lover of Jesus, the Bible, history, German culture, tea, and cats, and has a special heart for those who struggle with severe anxiety and depression.
Are you familiar with the story of the group of Canadian soldiers captured by the SS and murdered one by one in the final year of the war? I wrote a short story about that, but I turned it around where the SS soldiers had a change of heart after their sadistic commander was killed by one of the Canukes. Would you like to read it? It’s coming from a similar angle of Jakob Schmidit.
David