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The Seduction of Eva Volk

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The Seduction of Eva Volk

Years ago I remember my fascination with journalist William Shirer's book The Nightmare Years 1930-1940. His aptly titled story is a personal memoir of his life as an American foreign correspondent in Europe during the rise of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. Shirer's record of events reads like an adventure novel beginning with an ambush in troubled Afghanistan's Kyber Pass. Throughout the book Shirer grapples with the ideal of truth, its pursuit, knowability, application and relevance, especially to oneself. Alas, with the same earnest seriousness of Shirer author C.D. Baker offers a novel of like gravity with all the credibility of an historical narrative for those "nightmare years." A gripping yarn told from the perspective of a bucolic German village on the banks of the Mosel River in the Reisling grape growing county, Baker's The Seduction of Eva Volk grapples with the same questions about truth, especially its grip on the darkest regions of the human heart's capacity for self-deception. How is it that Germany and its good people (at the time a largely Christian nation and culture) could have embraced Hitler's Nazi regime of evil? How is it that the good German people could have tolerated and even participated in a government that was directly or indirectly responsible for the slaughter of 28.5 million souls, including the systematic and technologically efficient genocide of 5.8 million European Jews? These questions have haunted historians, moral philosophers, ethicists, and everyone willing to grapple with the nightmare years of Germany's Third Reich. Baker has the courage to tackle these questions through the multi-dimensional characters of everyday people in everyday places, the likes of whom could be our own neighbors. In doing so he offers a credible answer to the hard questions as well as a disturbing portait of the bad politics, even deathly politics for which normal, everyday people are capable not only of tolerating, but of serving with a morally ambiguous complicity. The Seduction of Eva Volk is a masterpiece as a moral essay about human nature in its depths of depravity, and it is simultaneously a compelling commentary on the capacity of human moral immagination to know the truth in the depths of one's conscience and to overcome deceit and self-deception. Although the truth may ultimately set one free, it is all too often not without paying a very high price for being decieved and for psychologically sustaining self-deception by denial.

First I need to thank Alan Crippen and the John Jay Institute for sending this book to me to read. What a fascinating read - highly recommended to anyone interested in not merely a great story, but also a very profound look into the heart and soul of the people of Germany at the time of Hitler's rise to power and influence. I've always been tremendously interested in this time period of history - and to simply think that all Germans were evil and to blame the atrocities of the death camps on the entire nation always seemed inadequate to me. But the nagging question about what did most of the German people really think and know is at the core of this wonderful historical novel. C.D. Baker does a masterful job painting a picture of a young woman and her family and community struggling with their faith and the real and difficult situations that faced this nation following the debacle of WWI. Threats from the Bolsheviks from the west coupled with extreme nationalistic pride of law-abiding Germans fueled by Hitler's initial moral stance against abortion skyrocketed Hitler's fame and power almost overnight. And, of course, the Jewish factor was a huge element - the ability to make Jews the scapegoats and to silence dissidents were both essential elements to the rise of the National Socialist Party. Baker does a great job developing essential characters and weaving in their story lines to create an informative and interesting read and I would highly recommend this book to every student of history as well as those just looking for a good book with a compelling story to read.

The Seduction of Eva Volk will grip readers with the pace and tension of its plot and captivate them with fully human characters, struggling with the complexities of life as they are caught up in one of the great tragic dramas of history. The thoughtful will find here a work of fine literature that is unafraid to delve into the flawed nature of humanity, so that we might better understand ourselves, and the heights and depths to which we as individuals, and collectively as a society, are capable. Baker's brave work allows the reader to draw his or her own parallels with contemporary situations, by revealing that the full scope of history must be coaxed into consciousness if individuals - and human societies - are to escape subtle yet deadly descents into evil, and instead draw forth for emulation the inspirational and heroic.

The Seduction of Eva Volk offers a startling insight into the tinderbox of suspicion, desperation, frustration and hatred that was endemic in pre WWII Germany. It is a story of blind faith and the resulting horrors in a society willing to write a political blank check. The reader will be surprised, even dismayed, by certain uncomfortable truths behind the rise of Nazi power. In an elegant narrative Baker forces us to accept that things may not always be quite as black and white as we have been taught. As the first American born in Germany after WWII I think this story is long overdue.

C. D. Baker's book affords a rare look into the domestic side of wartime Germany, as societal pressures, religion, local grudges, national politics, and the gathering winds of war affect all-too-human people in a small German village. Very well written and imagined!

The Seduction Of Eva Volk is the best historical fiction I have read in over a year. I have often wondered about how Hitler could have led a whole nation into dark times so criminal that the world still shakes at his name. Our history books tell little about how Germans felt after WWI. C.D. Baker's book is easy to follow and truly does show how people yesterday and today can be seduced by fanatical leaders who tell us what we want to hear.