Eva's Cousin [Hardcover]

Sibylle Knauss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 27, 2002

Berchtesgaden, Germany, is a beautiful place, set among the gentle meadow-clad hills rising to the sheer heights of bare Alpine peaks. It is here where an elderly woman arrives and recollects her past—and her peripheral role in a chapter of world history. She walks along a beaten path, which has come into being because so many tourists have ventured this way . . . to see something that exists only in her memory.

In the summer of 1944, twenty-year-old Marlene is thrilled when her older, more glamorous cousin, Eva Braun, Adolph Hitler’s mistress, invites her to come to the Fuhrer’s Bavarian mountain retreat. Against her father’s wishes, Marlene accepts, and immediately sets forth to Berghof.

There, while Hitler is away desperately trying to turn the tides of war, Marlene finds herself in a strange paradise, a world of opulence and imminent danger, of freedom and surveillance. The two women sneak off and skinny-dip in a nearby-lake, watch films in the Fuhrer’s private cinema, and flirt with the SS officers at the dinner table—one of whom will become Marlene’s first lover.

Initially delighted by Eva’s attentions, Marlene later tries to understand the elusive connection between her cousin and the man she loves.

In quiet defiance, she begins to commit her own acts of subversion, which include listening to BBC radio broadcasts, forbidden by the Fuhrer. But a clandestine mission of mercy will force her to question her allegiance to both her cousin and her country—and to face the chilling reality that exists outside her sheltered world.

Based on the true experiences of Eva Braun’s cousin, Gertrude Weisker, who has shared her memories with Sibylle Knauss after more than fifty years of silence, Eva’s Cousin is a novel that illuminates the banality of the domestic face of evil. It casts a special light on the profound questions of innocence and complicity that still haunt much of the world today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Eva Braun's cousin, Gertrude Weisker, was 20 years old when she played companion to Braun at the Berghof, Hitler's Bavarian aerie. Weisker kept silent about her time as a Nazi houseguest until she finally told all to German novelist Sibylle Knauss. Now Knauss has transformed Weisker's memories into the novel Eva's Cousin. While the novel's protagonist, Marlene, is a fictionalized version of Weisker, the rest of the infamous cast travel under their real names: Braun, Hitler, Goering, Speer. It's an odd and sometimes confusing project. As Marlene accompanies Eva through the final days of World War II--the days leading up to Braun's and Hitler's double suicide--we're never quite sure if we're witness to Weisker's memories or Knauss's invention. At its best, though, the book makes a compelling investigation into the mundanity of evil. Hitler is pathologized, but never diminished, as Marlene and Eva and all the rest tiptoe around him, careful not to upset him: "Nothing takes more courage than to disappoint a despot. Should he ever discover that free human beings with free will exist, it would surely be the death of him." Knauss cleverly counters Marlene's postadolescent musings with the mythically terrible world she inhabits: "I feel so lonely in Hitler's teahouse," she tells us. And "The only person who did understand me was Albert Speer." These juxtapositions indict Marlene for her very innocence, and make Eva's Cousin a powerful document of witness. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly

In the sweltering summer of 1944, Germany's citizens were trapped between the Allied bombing raids and the fear-driven virulence of Hitler's faltering government. But for 20-year-old Marlene, invited by her cousin, Eva Braun, to stay at Hitler's mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden, the summer was one of sexual and social awakening. Marlene is initially blinded by the unaccustomed luxury, but she turns out to be both sensible and sensitive. While she has an affair with an SS officer, she also hides a young Russian boy who has escaped the work camps. Based on interviews with Braun's real cousin, the novel is a sympathetic portrait of an innocent girl who, while she seems ensconced in the heart of the Nazi empire, is actually a resistance force of one. An older, disenchanted Marlene looks back on these events and says that the entire country was steeped in guilt and shame: "We remember gray-faced people whom we saw passing by, and we remember that we saw them in the knowledge that they were lost." When Knauss implies that Marlene's experience can explain mass support for the Nazi regime, the moral center of the book falters, but her sparely poetic and intense portrait of a young girl caught between her own ethical code and the promise of power is unrelentingly powerful. A bestseller in Germany, the narrative is adeptly translated by prize-winning Anthea Bell, who has also rendered W.G. Sebald's works into English; it may well make Knauss's international reputation. Readers must judge for themselves whether the protagonist's description of her family as outspoken anti-Nazis is revisionist history, but her memories of Hitler and his entourage are bound to excite interest.real-life protagonist of this novel, Gertraud Weisker, waited until after his death to tell her story to veteran German novelist Knauss.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (August 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345449053
• ISBN-13: 978-0345449054
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,908,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eye-Opening Novel About "The Banality Of Evil!", March 23, 2005

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eva's Cousin (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

Eva's Cousin" is a work of fiction. Sibylle Knauss had always been interested in matters of German history and how they could be transformed into literature. Before beginning her novel, the author, had the opportunity to interview Gertrude Weisker, Eva Braun's real cousin and the model for her central character, Marlene. Eva Braun had indeed invited Ms. Weisker, 20 years-old at the time, to stay with her at Berchtesgaden in the spring of 1944, a year before WWII would end with Germany's unconditional surrender to Allied Forces, her cities, country and people laid waste. Hitler was away in east Prussia, waging war, and Eva was lonely - she needed to be amused. Although based on fact, many of the folks who people these pages are fictional, as are their stories. Essentially, however, Ms. Knauss captures the true characters of Eva, her cousin, and those who surrounded them, as well as the very ambiance of the Berghof itself, and the period, which represent, as Hannah Arendt worded it, "the banality of evil."

This is beautifully written, nuanced fiction, not an action-packed thriller, but I was riveted to the page even so. More dramatic and disturbing than the image of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, is one of the New Year Eve Ball, (1944-45), at the Platerhof Hotel in Obersalzberg, near Adolph Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat. It was not a party for ascetics. Featured on the menu were: goose liver pate, larded saddle of venison, eels in aspic, Parma ham and overflowing bottles of champagne - all one could drink, and more. However, the hungry were not to be fed at this feast. The hungry and starving were in Auschwitz and Dachau. They were slave laborers in German factories. They were women and children throughout Europe. They were soldiers at the front. On this same New Year's Eve, the nearby Bavarian capital of Munich was in ruins. The revelers partied as if there were no tomorrow, and for many of them the tomorrows would be few. They welcomed in the new year, "the year of their downfall, rejoicing." Throughout the novel the luxurious lives of the politically and "genetically privileged" are juxtaposed with the unspoken - with those of the people of Europe, the rest of the world, in fact, the German citizens who were being bombed to smithereens 24/7. Were these human beings? Very much so, our author tells us.

This is the story of two young women who were fortunate enough to spend almost a year together at one of the world's most beautiful places, the Bavarian Alps. Yes, they were seemingly fortunate until one realizes that their host was Adolph Hitler. Evil rubs off, if in no other way than by selective blindness to the horrors which the man and his machine perpetrated on a daily basis. These women listened to the BBC. They were not ignorant. They lived right above a slave labor camp. They saw. Evil is being a sycophant to evil doers. Evil is luxuriating in the spoils of a heinous war. Evil is accepting the dehumanization of human beings, and ignoring the merciless slaughter of same.

Marlene, just twenty, was naive and worshipped her older, more glamorous cousin Eva, Hitler's long time mistress. Eva, a superficial woman, not overly bright, was addicted to shopping, pretty clothes and jewelry. She was, herself, an ornament. One of the few instructions she left before she committed suicide was that her papers, the ones with shopping lists, unpaid bills, and receipts, be burned. She did not want to go down in history as a shopaholic - "the only sin she was aware of committing." Ms. Braun was virtually unknown to Germans outside Hitler's inner circle, and had little personal worth other than that of being linked to the Fuhrer. Mistresses did not command much respect in this male dominated, macho society. Still the two played, girl-like, giggling, at sports, skinny dipping in a gorgeous mountain lake, riding, and hiking. Outside the world had become Hell incarnate - "inside frocks were being made amongst the ruins." There is even a love story here, of sorts. A powerful SS officer, much older than Marlene, fell in love with her. For a moment, one could almost forget the "SS" part, when he whispered tender words of love to her. However, when she asked her romantic knight about the terrible conditions of the starving laborers, he tells her abruptly that the slaves are not human beings like the German people. They do not feel and suffer as Germans do, and they are lazy and must be dealt with harshly. Forget? How can one forget?

Ms. Knauss said in an interview about the four women, both her fictional protagonists and the real-life Eva and Gertrude, "They are examples of people who were very close to the center of Nazism, but somehow they were also very far from it. They didn't think about anything political, about political crimes or war, they just lived their little everyday lives at the Berghof." She also makes the point that when she wrote the novel, Gertrude Weisker's story was not the point. She wanted to write about what it felt like to be a young woman at that time, with such close proximity to the Fuhrer and his private world. What would be the consequences, on one's character, on one's very soul, of this proximity? This is a most powerful novel - in its content, writing style and the excellent translation. "Eva's Cousin" is an eye-opener!
JANA

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guilt through the shadows, March 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Eva's Cousin (Hardcover)

This book was a pleasure to read. The language was masterfully crafted, a real tribute to both the author and the translator. The seduction of power in its many forms is considered by the protagonist who recognizes how those around her come under its sway but who, only in retrospect, sees its impact directly on her. As she progresses through the novel, she causes the reader to consider the essence of guilt and of shame and how they are tied together. In today's political climate, it is interesting to reflect on what the German populace knew during the World War II era and Knauss makes us reflect on that society's and our own society's responsibility for allowing cruel, totalitarian leaders to continue in power.

Three months after completing this book in our bookclub, we still find ourselves returning to this book as a point of departure for discussing our other readings.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creapy -- and fascinating, March 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Eva's Cousin (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

I had to laugh when I read a couple of the reviews for this book, especially the one from the "top reviewer," who announced that the book was written by Eva Braun's cousin. And the other reader who felt cheated, not knowing what was true and what wasn't. It's very clear that this book is a NOVEL that was written by a German novelist -- and a very good one -- who happened to have met a cousin of Braun who had some of the experiences fictionalized in this book. It's a novel, folks -- so why are you searching for what was true and what wasn't? And pardon me to the so-called "top reviewer," but I never got the sense that I was expected to feel sorry for Eva, when clearly her own cousin (in the novel) was so conflicted about her herself. From almost the first page the author expresses her contempt for Eva. Marlene is a fascinating character, and we see the banality of evil through her eyes.

What a wonderful translation by Anthea Bell. Too often I am oblivious to the "greatness" of European literature because the translations are stilted and self-conscious. Not so here -- the flow of the narrative is seamless.

I'm disappointed that none of this author's other novels have been translated into English. But we're lucky to have this one. Don't let the negative reviews from people who clearly can't figure out what they're reading when they're reading it stop you from picking it up.