Reviews
This novel's potpourri of raw research snippets keeps the pages turning. In the mid-1970s, a Frenchman named Jean-Marie Loret claimed to be the illegitimate son of Adolf Hitler and a French farm girl. Though the claim was never proven, it remains a popular speculation for researchers. From this idea, Rod Merten spins the alternate historical novel, Hitler, My Father . In this imagining, Hitler visits a small, isolated mountain in Austria, is entranced by an eighteen-year-old soloist who performs for him, and has her brought to her room. His decidedly creepy seduction of naïve, adoring Lotte results in pregnancy. Though Hitler is long gone and never to return, Lotte has fallen in love with him in the course of their night together, and will remain so to her dying day, ever claiming to be the proud mother of his son. The novel unfolds as research done in 1991 by Lotte's nephew, Lorenz, who has inherited her diaries and a trove of besotted letters she wrote to Hitler over the years, assuring him of her eternal love and updating him on Little Adolf's growth and progress. Erich, a childhood friend who loved and outlived Lotte, opens the door to other sources and characters who play a part in the story...., This novel's potpourri of raw research snippets keeps the pages turning. In the mid-1970s, a Frenchman named Jean-Marie Loret claimed to be the illegitimate son of Adolf Hitler and a French farm girl. Though the claim was never proven, it remains a popular speculation for researchers. From this idea, Rod Merten spins the alternate historical novel, Hitler, My Father . In this imagining, Hitler visits a small, isolated mountain in Austria, is entranced by an eighteen-year-old soloist who performs for him, and has her brought to her room. His decidedly creepy seduction of nave, adoring Lotte results in pregnancy. Though Hitler is long gone and never to return, Lotte has fallen in love with him in the course of their night together, and will remain so to her dying day, ever claiming to be the proud mother of his son. The novel unfolds as research done in 1991 by Lotte's nephew, Lorenz, who has inherited her diaries and a trove of besotted letters she wrote to Hitler over the years, assuring him of her eternal love and updating him on Little Adolf's growth and progress. Erich, a childhood friend who loved and outlived Lotte, opens the door to other sources and characters who play a part in the story...., Rodney Merten challenges us to join him on an incredible, imaginative journey of World War II. We inhabit the small Austrian village where the lovely young Lotte Schoener is ostracized for carrying and bearing the Fuhrer's child. Heartbreakingly, she never gives up hope. We watch the war's carnage as her faithful friend, Dr. Erich Schwimmer, strives to save wounded German soldiers, then suffers his own imprisonment. After reliving these courageous lives, the reader later follows Lotte's son through his mysterious search for a father he's never met. Through the relentless research of the protagonist, history scholar Lorenz Meyer relays his story and theirs with a sensitivity and urgency for finding the truth about Hitler's only child, and what it might mean for the future of the world., "This dramatic, sometimes creepy, tale of Hitler's private demons, public lies, and the chilling effect they had on ordinary people is portrayed with candor. Compellingly told!", In an eerie new twist on a classic tale, Hitler, My Father flashes back to the darkest days of WWII when any evil was possible. Then adds one more., This dramatic, sometimes creepy, tale of Hitler's private demons, public lies, and the chilling effect they had on ordinary people is portrayed with candor. Compellingly told!, In an eerie new twist on a classic tale, Hitler, My Father flashes back to the darkest days of WWII when any evil was possible. Then adds one more.
