Knowing Gretchen is a Nazi party insider, he suggests an exchange of information. The letter contains an enigmatic message "Your father did not die a martyr to the Nazi cause, and your family's precarious position within Hitler's party is predicated on a lie." She meets him outside her home and learns he is a reporter. The day after the incident with the Jewish man, Gretchen receives a letter from the mysterious boy who briefly spoke with her in the alleyway.
Gretchen is supposed to despise Erika but instead she admires Erika's ability to do Latin, and her funny jokes. Erika Goldberg is a funny, happy classmate who also happens to be Jewish. Although Gretchen has been brought up with National Socialist ideas, she finds it difficult to follow the Party teachings on Jews. She lives in fear of him, sleeping at night with a chair wedged under the door handle and is always on the alert for one of his cruel tricks. At home, Gretchen struggles to deal with her cruel brother, Reinhard, whom she is certain will attempt revenge for her stopping the beating of the Jewish man. She is haunted by the terrible death of her father during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Gretchen's life is a mixture of confusing opposites. Eva wants to get away from her strict father who does not approve of her friendship with Hitler and become an actress, while Gretchen wants to become a doctor. Although having grown up in the Party, Eva and Gretchen are very different. Left alone, the Jewish man thanks Gretchen, who doesn't know what to think since Uncle Dolf has told her "Gratitude from a Jew was a poisoned gift." After the man leaves, Gretchen is confronted by a mysterious boy calls her by name and then vanishes.Įva and Gretchen, now disinvited by Reinhard, walk to Eva's home. Fortunately, the commotion draws a policeman who tells Reinhard and Kurt to get moving. Knowing that Reinhard and Kurt are about to beat the man, Gretchen yells at them to stop, fearing a brawl will contribute to the further bad image of the Party. Gretchen is shocked as Kurt tries to run down a Jewish man crossing the road and then stops the car to confront him. The novel opens with Gretchen and her friend Eva Braun and Reinhard and his friend Kurt, on their way to meet Adolf Hitler at a cafe. With the help of Hitler and the NSDAP her mother was put in charge of running a boarding house, where Gretchen now lives.She's always been a favourite of Adolf Hitler whom she affectionately calls Uncle Dolf. Her father had been in the front, when the city's police officers opened fire and he had jumped in front of Hitler, saving him from the bullets.Īfter her father's death her family was left impoverished.
After the failing to take over the city, the National Socialists had marched through Munich with Hitler in the lead. Her father was a member of the party but was killed in the Munich Putsch of 1923. Gretchen and Reinhard have grown up in the National Socialist Party (NSDAP) believing all its ideology. Seventeen year old Gretchen Muller lives in Munich with her mother and her older brother Reinhard.
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