Customer Reviews

Stettin Station

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

David Downing's third installment of the "Station" series with protagonist John Russell is a winner. The chronology has jumped to late 1941. Hitler has invaded the Soviet Union with great initial success, but the war is about to widen with the entry of Japan and the United States. Anglo-American journalist/spy John Russell barely manages to hang on in Berlin, staying a step ahead of the Gestapo by working for several competing or opposing intelligence agencies. To leave Germany means giving up his film star fiance, Effi Koenen and son Paul. As the formal entry of the U.S. into the war approaches and with it his inevitable expulsion from Germany, Russell is pulled deeper into the political maneuvering of virtually all of his erstwhile employers or masters--the Abwehr, SD, U.S. Embassy and the Gestapo. Ultimately, the cross purposes served by the journalist spy will catch up with him and drive him to flee the country, and flight will require the help of still another old employer, the Soviets. Downing has laid down a very entertaining story line, and even when it occasionally reaches a bit far to be completely credible on reflection, it certainly holds the reader's attention throughout.

Overall, one of the great strengths of this book--and the series--is author Downing's wonderfully detailed and evocative narrative that provides a totally plausible day-to-day portrayal of how Berliners lived during the still relatively early days of WWII. There is a running commentary on what food and toiletries were available and how that affected the environment on public transportation. Through Russell's fiance, Effi, there is a detailed look at the German film industry of the time, which aimed to produce 100 morale-boosting flicks a year.

To its great credit, "Stettin Station" gives a strong focus to the story's characters. This goes well beyond the protagonist John Russell and his fiance Effi to include many secondary players who are all struggling to survive in a country in its second year of war, coping with the loss of military-age children, loss of home through bombing and loss of confidence in the regime that has constructed a police state to live in and led them into an increasingly costly conflict. Downing includes a particular focus on Berlin's Jewish population, which by 1941 was barely surviving at the margins of German society and was subject to daily persecution and deportation. Their plight figures importantly in the conclusion of "Stettin Station."

This is an excellent historic thriller with unusually detailed information about the period. Wonderful narrative writing. Terrific character development. A first-rate read.

The chronicle of journalist John Russell begins in Nazi Berlin a week before Pearl Harbor in this, the third novel in the series [with a fourth, "Potsdam Station," to come]. The descriptions of Gestapo tactics and the beginnings of the "final solution" are eerily chilling.

Russell is ostensibly a correspondent for a San Francisco newspaper, allowing the author to describe the machinations of the Nazi censors and propaganda machine with vivid detail, while his protagonist acts as a go-between between German and American intelligence agents, carrying messages back and forth. He even obtains proof that the Gestapo is removing Jews from Berlin and planning to gas them, even though he can hardly publish the story.

As conditions worsen, Russell has to find a way to get out of Germany, hoping to bring his long-time girlfriend with him. It is a tale of terror with a thrill-a-page pace. Descriptions of wartime Berlin and the police state remind us of a period many may have forgotten, but of which we, and they, should perhaps be reminded.

Recommended.

In November 1941 in Berlin, Anglo-American journalist John Russell knows Roosevelt needs an excuse to enter the war as the German armies blitzkrieg towards Moscow. To avoid censorship or worse, Russell is very careful with what he files as he knows it will take little for the Nazis to detain, kill or export him. This would leave his famous girlfriend actress Effi Koenen behind still filming propaganda movies for the Nazis' whom she and John loath and he also would be unable to help his teenage son Paul, who lives with his former wife while belonging to the Hitler Youth group.

Meanwhile as most Berliners blindly remain loyal to the Nazis, John's Communist friends report the transporting by trains of Jews to the east. Admiral Canaris, head of Abwehr, assigns John on a mission in Prague with a promise of a passage to Switzerland. However, the mission fails, but John tries to send to his contacts that American companies in Europe are profiteering from the war by selling Zyklon B gas to the Nazis.

The third Russell WWII espionage thriller (see Zoo Station and Silesian Station) is a great entry that in many ways is more a superb historical as David Downing captures the essence of Berlin just prior to the American entry into the war. The atmosphere is terrific as the Nazis deploy the Final Solution and attack the Russians while Russell struggles with getting himself and his renowned girlfriend to safety yet not wanting to abandon his son to the Hitler Group nor ignore the sales of poison gas. Readers will feel they are in Berlin in late 1941 as Stettin Station is a timely tale.

Harriet Klausner

Never read a book on Nazi Germany that I didn't like. This one is particularly good, however, because it covers so many facets of life in Berlin during the time when Germany was still winning (November, December, 1941). The story is interesting and believable. John Russell is an English journalist in Berlin - still there because he travels on a U.S. passport. He has a number of harrowing experiences with the Nazi bureaucracy, but emerges relatively unscathed. His girl friend, a well-known actress, also adds interest to the plot. John also has a 14 YO son, by his former wife, but he plays a relatively minor part in this book - the third of four in the "station" series.

Facinating action, mostly in Berlin, pertaining to Nazi actions, the unease that blankets Berlin even at this early stage of the war (with the British bombing Berlin most nights and the Nazis terrorizing the populace - not only the Jews but also ordinary citizens who constantly fear the Gestapo may come knocking during the night). Also, life in Berlin is not what it was before the war, with food and staple shortages, and manpower shortfalls as the Jews are deported and the young Aryans are sent off to war. The Nazi terror is not totally efficient, but a sense of unease and fear permeates the atmosphere all the same.

From the outsider's point of view, Germany might be seen as at the height of its power and glory in 1940-1941, but "Stettin Station" shows that life was not a bowl of cherries for most Germans even at that time.

I actually gave this book 4-1/2 stars out of 5, but didn't know which rating to specify.

Downing has placed himself among Philip Kerr and Alan Furst, as a writer of mittleuropa during the period before during (and I suspect after) WW 2. Downing's protagonist, is John Russell an American journalist in Nazi Germany just before America's entry into the war. Russell has a fourteen year old son, an ex-wife married to a high party Nazi and an actress girlfriend. What else does a man need? Oh, yes, he used to be a 'Red' worked for the 'Party' and also finds time to help out the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdiets (the SD of the SS) and US intelligence.

When not working for all of the above, he finds time to go to football (soccer) matches with his son and to travel to Prague to drop off secret correspondence for the Abwehr (who are military intelligence and their director Admiral Canaris). Since he is so busy working and spying for everyone at the same time, some one is bound to be made at him at any one time for what he is doing or not doing. (This book is easier to read if you have a decent understanding of how the Nazis ran Germany, but, you can pick it up as you go along.)

What makes these books worth reading (Potsdam Station has already been published in England), is the vivid descriptions of what it was like to live in Hitler's Germany. Downing manages to never overdo the bad guys or good guys, he writes of them as people. Russell's ex-brother-in-law works for the 'procurement' bureau, and though his family eats well, he complaints to Russell about the disagreeable task of trying to feed the Wehrmacht while starving others. Downing does this matter-of-factly, just as he mentions the problems of riding the subway during the summer because of an 'epidemic of flatulence' caused by the amount of cabbage and beans in the available food supply.

In these books, no one makes easy choices, from the ex-communists who work on the docks and railroads, and note the number of trains filled with Jews heading east, to the nurse who tells Russell about soldiers dealing with the wholesale murdering of Russian POWs and Jews. Almost palpable is the fear of the everyday German of the Gestapo and the constant propaganda from Goebbels and company. Good read.

zeb kantrowitz

Reading any of the four books in David Downing's "Station" series will leave you feeling that you must have lived in prewar and wartime Berlin in a previous life. They're immensely engaging, or maybe "enveloping" is a better word: stimulating all your senses with the sights, sounds, smells, and mood of this doomed era. Ultimately, they display the persistence of human decency amid almost unbearable atrocity. Be sure to read the books in order. You'll hope, as I do, that Downing will go on and tell us what life was like after the last shots were fired and the Cold War began.

I am really enjoying this series. I agree with some other reviews that this book was not as upbeat, or riveting as the others. But I still enjoyed it and await the next one!

Stettin Station is the third book in David Downing's very excellent John Russell series. With characters introduced and developed in the prior two books (Zoo Station and Silesian Station), the action of Stettin Station takes place in Nazi Germany during the period from Germany's invasion of Russia (June 1941) to America's entry into WWII (December 1941). With meticulous research and the development of personalities that the reader can care about, Downing captures the mood of the times and provides enough action to keep momentum on a forward path. I now look forward to reading the fourth book in the series, Potsdam Station, inasmuch as I've become totally engrossed in the lives and times of Downing's characters. Although Stettin Station can be successfully read as a stand alone novel, I strongly recommend that a new reader start first with Zoo Station.

An excellent continuing story of the Station series which takes place prior,during,and after WWII,and takes place mainly in Berlin.Many interesting side- lights of events,and personalities during that difficult era.Many good characters.

Downing's superb "Zoo Station" was a tough act to follow. Not surprisingly the second book in this excellent series "Silesian Station" was not quite as satisfying as that first effort. Nevertheless it was good enough to lead me to acquire the third and fourth books in this series. What a pleasant surprise then that "Stettin" Station turns out to be, in my opinion, the best of the three "Station" books I've read to this point. In fact it's a superior read, for me, to Alan Furst's "Spies of the Balkins" which I had just finished prior to beginning this book. Downing works the same turf as Furst but his books give a fuller, more richly elaborated and ultimately more compelling sense of what the culture was like in Germany in in the prewar and wartime years. Downings's protagonist John Russell is just courageous enough to be believable so that the reader can admire and identify with him without idealizing him. While Downing's prose lacks the flair and style unique to Furst's excellent work Downing is an accomplished writer in his own right and the books in this series are a pleasure to read. This is genre writing of a very high order indeed.