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The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War Kindle Edition

by Phyllis Edgerly Ring (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 1,495 ratings

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Anna Dahlberg grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun.
Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends.

The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s.

Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions.

Eva’s story reveals that she never joined the Nazi party, had Jewish friends, and was credited at the Nuremberg Trials with saving 35,000 Allied lives. As Anna's journey leads back through the treacherous years in wartime Germany, it uncovers long-buried secrets and unknown reaches of her heart to reveal the enduring power of love in the legacies that always outlast war.

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The plot flows like a river with the author sliding in and out of tributaries that continually add context,illumination, and depth. Anna's tale is the current. It sweeps readersalong as she discovers things about her husband she doesn't really wantto know, then uncovers information from her mother's past she finds hard to believe and accept, and finally shines a light on a dark figure from history that few have ever understood.... Peggy and Eva's war years in some ofthe Third Reich's most iconic settings unspool like flickering black and white images of life in those ruinous days. ~ US Review of Books
I was drawn in by Phyllis Ring's economical and expressive language.Then the story took over! Protagonist Anna Dahlberg must face the emotional fallout from a traumatic plane crash, while simultaneously uncovering the first clues in a shocking generational mystery involving key players in the Third Reich. Everything's complicated by a new romance that may help her overcome the past and find her true inner strength. But is it real? Love can manifest itself in enigmatic--and unexpected--ways. ~ Elizabeth Sims, author and contributing editor at Writer's Digest magazine

... fresh perspective of German women at opposing ends of the warring spectrum ... a beautiful story of enduring friendship and the lengths people will go to for love.
~ The Stellar Review

So persuasive is this novel that, before I could believe it was in fact a piece of fiction, I contacted the author and asked where she did her research and where she came up with the idea.
~ Leslie Handler, The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Author

I've twice donned a pair of white cotton gloves and pored over Eva Braun's nearly three dozen photograph albums at the National Archives.

Each visit had its own rhythm and pace. The first, in the spring of 2010, was a kind of mad-rush count-down to get through them all before the Archives' five o'clock closing time. This involved leaving at least 15-20 extra minutes on each end for passing through security, checking in or out,and depositing or retrieving my belongings from a locker.

I couldn't take so much as my own pencil into the resource room where her albums are housed in several piles of volumes hard-bound in dark blue. Overwhelmed as I encountered them for the first time, I was attempting to encompass 33 years of one life in the equivalent of two afternoons.

Years of reading and research later, including interviews with some of those who met the subject of my search, my approach on the second visit was more like forensics. I was watching, among those several dozen books of her photos, most arranged quite haphazardly with little attention to chronological order, for patterns and connections that form a larger picture.

There are many photos whose settings and significance I could spot more readily, based on who was present, clues in the background of interiors and landscapes, even the clothes people were wearing.

But it was that most-elusive quarry that I was watching for -- the evidence of the emotional side of things. By the time I made the second visit, the years that I've spent following the trail of this life, as my novel's protagonist does, have led somewhere deeper. In much the way I can with photos of those whom I know, I can tell when a day was a joy, or a strain; when a smile was a spontaneous response, or a tight, forced mask.

Seven years onto this trail, I trolled those hundreds of images, watching for the signs of where the shifts came. Watching for those large and little junctures at which a life was repeatedly bartered away in the shadow of another, to the detriment of its self.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01AC4FHI8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Whole Sky Books; 1st edition (January 7, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 7, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2908 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 358 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #148,671 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #654 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #1,541 in Saga Fiction
- #2,417 in Family Saga Fiction

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Phyllis Edgerly Ring

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As she writes fiction and nonfiction, Phyllis Edgerly Ring watches for the noblest possibilities in the human heart. She's always curious to discover how history, culture, relationships, spirituality, and the natural world influence us and point the way for the human family on our shared journey.

Her newest novel, The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies That Outlast War, traces a pathway of love and secrets in WWII Germany when protagonist Anna Dahlberg discovers that her mother shared a secret friendship with Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. Her journey to discover the truth about this, and her own life, will challenge most every belief she has about right and wrong.

The author has worked as writer, editor, nurse, tour guide, program director at a Baha'i conference center, taught English to kindergartners in China, and served as instructor for the Long Ridge Writer's Group. She has written for such publications as Christian Science Monitor, Ms., Writer's Digest, and Yankee, and also published several nonfiction books about creating balance between the spiritual and material aspects of life. More information can be found at her blog, Leaf of the Tree: https://phyllisedgerlyring.wordpress.com/

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Lawrence Moffitt

Great read for people who love good historical fiction

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2015

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Anna, daughter of Peggy who was a close friend of Eva Braun in Germany, comes across the pages of her mother’s loose-leaf diary that begins pre-war with Peggy’s first meeting with Eva the shopgirl who has a passion for photography.

The best historical fiction, of which this book is one, is a compelling story informed by thorough research. To render the innermost thoughts of people who actually lived, with the right pitch and timbre to convincingly pull the reader into their world, is literary artistry. Phyllis Edgerly Ring accomplishes this, masterfully inserting us into the reality of the time, locations, events of Eva, Hitler, wartime Germany. We are there.

This is the story of Eva Braun, Hitler’s invisible woman, and the story of Eva’s friendship with Peggy. It’s also the story of Anna fifty years later, peeling back layers of mystery surrounding Peggy and the painting of Eva that had always hung in their living room when Anna was growing up. There are a couple of riveting encounters with Hitler, but the book is not principally about him.

At its heart, The Munich Girl is two intriguing love stories in different times. In addition to the story of Eva and Hitler, as seen through the eyes of Peggy, there is Anna fifty years later. Peggy’s daughter is a betrayed and put-aside wife who develops a closeness with her editor, Hannes. Her and Hanne’s growing relationship is interwoven in Anna’s search for her family’s connection to Eva, as well as Hanne’s own family history in wartime Germany. Going back and forth between the two eras begins to reveal startling connections between Anna, Hannes and the people at the very center of the tragedy that was Nazi Germany.

The 1940s in Germany is like a train wreck from which you can’t avert your eyes, and we’ve seen the newsreels of mesmerized masses seig-heiling Hitler’s motorcade. Ring gives us the hearts and minds of “the other Germany,” the traumatized, exhausted, terrorized, starving Germany and the people whose existence was one of scurrying back and forth between bomb shelters and food lines. “In order to know whether your bread was buttered,” Peggy records in her diary, “you had to hold it up to the light, where its shine would show you it was.”

Testimony at Nuremberg revealed that Eva Braun had diverted Hitler’s final order to execute the Amereican and European POWs, and thus saved thousands of lives. She had access and did not suffer rationing, but neither was she oblivious. She was a lonely and perhaps needy woman who lived the two-edged blessing/curse of being the Führer's favorite.

Phyllis Edgerly Ring creates her characters in three dimensions. She lets them breathe and get on with their lives. And then she does a spot-on job of being a fly on the wall, observing everything with great clarity. Ring’s prose style is rich, layered and captivating, and I found myself going back to re-read or highlight a sentence or paragraph I thought really nailed it. I don’t usually read a novel twice, but I am already a third of the way through my second round of The Munich Girl.

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VL Towler

A beautifully written story, full of surprises about one of the most mysterious women in contemporary history.

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2015

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I am stingy with my stars because I believe people don't pay attention when they see five stars. They think, "Yeah, right," and they chalk up the exuberance of the rating to the relationship of the reviewer to the author.

I had already been interested in Phyllis Ring's writing after reading her book, "Snow Fence Road." Her writing conjures up a different era, of a 1940s sensibility, where the less said, the more is explained. She has a simplicity to her writing, which I have learned, as a burgeoning novelist, myself, is extremely hard to achieve without someone of Phyllis's abilities (and, in full disclosure, I did hire her to be my editor).

Now, let me tell you the many reasons why I so love this novel and believe it should be considered an American classic.

Phyllis writes so beautifully, for one. Her love of language, whether English or German, jumps off of the page and into your mind with such ease, you don't even feel as though you're reading. She speaks to you. Her characters become your friend, even the subject of the novel, Eva Braun, which is absolutely frightening. That I should feel any sympathy with a woman who was romantically involved with one of the most heinous human beings ever to be brought into this world is disturbing to me. Which is one of the reasons why this book is so important.

As someone who had loved film most of her life, I had wondered about Eva Braun's importance to both German cinema and filmography, as I was aware that her films extolled Hitler's iconography, as it were. But I never took the time to research Braun, in particular. Conjuring up her name usually accompanied an imaginary bile, in me, a distaste in what she represented, so she was not someone whom I really ever wanted to know, per se. So, when I learned about Phyllis' work, I was truly fascinated with what she might glean about her for us.

Although the book is labeled fiction, truthfully, it's hard to believe it, as the details jump off the page. Phyllis appears to have traced the comings and goings of this enigmatic woman, who, was encamped in her various places of refuge, waiting for her man, Die Fuhrer, to return to her. And it is in this capacity that we understand her: a woman of her time period, who turned the other way while her man went off to war, doing these "manly," but hopelessly imbecilic and crazy things. He would return to her periodically, every couple of weeks or months, while she waited for him, dutifully. Did she remain willfully blind, ignoring the atrocities that were being committed in the name of the Fatherland? Or was she too close to him to even know what he was doing, because when he returned to her, he was her lover, not her military commander?

Was the man who could butcher so many people the same man who could come home to her, and luxuriate in the arms of his beloved, exposing his vulnerabilities to her only? I'm not sure we'll ever know, but there's an inkling of what Eva probably felt during the years that she was with him (17 years, I seem to count). Was there any redeeming quality in her that makes her seem more human, and less a monster of historic proportions, in our hatred of all things "Third Reich?" You'll have to read to find that out for yourself.

Above all, this novel is about women. About friendship. About the way we protect each others' vulnerabilities. Of the secrets we keep. And about our loyalty to each other, though we carry out our daily lives supporting our men, as that's what women did, especially back in the day.

The novel is also about love. The kind we women always dream about and find in the character Hannes, a new hero for all women. I defy any woman not to believe him to be the man we've all been waiting for, or, if married, for whom we'd divorce our husbands if we had a chance to be with him.

The story is also a mystery, of the history behind a portrait that hangs in the home of an American woman of English and German descent. It is a story about longing to reconnect with our beloved deceased, of learning the things that our parents could not tell us for fear of destroying our own lives yet to be realized.

Phyllis has done a very brave thing, sharing a history with us that might be part of her own past, on some level. But the care that she took in making it plausible is also a gift to the reader. She dares look at the soul of the German during WWII, and the aftermath, in a reconciliation of sorts, that still hasn't been accomplished beyond the Nuremberg Trials, except through the bravery of women like Phyllis who are willing to open the door a crack to give us an opportunity to ask questions, ponder, and reconcile our humanity with our inhumanity.

I'm sure I'll read this book a second time. There are so many layers to it. I found it an irresistible and important read.

46 people found this helpful

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Dry Gulch

An interesting life.

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2024

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A fascinating novel that examines the life of a young Munich girl at the center of Hitler's life. I have been to most the places mentioned in this novel and I can visualize the context. A recommended read.

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Marci

Nice story, but too "preachy"

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2019

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Anna is the daughter of a German/British mother who was in Germany during WWII. After she dies, Anna and her husband, Lowell, move into her mother, Peggy's, house. It is there that Anna starts to learn Peggy's story. All the while she is dealing with a very angry, unloving husband who forces her to do a job for his fledgling magazine about all things WWII. At the first meeting, she meets Hannes, a very kind German man, who is quite encouraging to Anna to delve into her mother's past, which, we find, includes a very personal relationship with Eva Braun - Hitler's mistress.

I truly liked the story of Anna, and Lowell and Hannes. I also enjoyed that Anna finally deals with her mother's death. Finding her mother's transcript and reading her story is a good insight into the mood of the German people at that time.

I found that as the book progressed, the author moved to a place of revere when it came to Eva Braun. The author glorified her and wanted us to feel sorry for her, and pity her that she had to wait around until Hitler decided to pay attention to her. It would have been better if the author tried to tell us that Eva knew what kind of monster she was in love with and to explain her feelings, rather than having the characters almost fall in love with her.

The story ends on a good note, and, leaving what I have written about above out of the equation, it's an interesting viewpoint of WWII.

7 people found this helpful

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Rosa Demanins

An excellent novel

Reviewed in Spain on November 23, 2018

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I loved this book for its original story, its original outlook on the woman that was Eva Braun, and it is also full of reality-bites as well. There are surprising twists and revelations that leave a reader just thrilled. Kudos to the author, a wonderful read.

Dave

Anna's history isn't like yours.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2018

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This is a wonderful eye opening book that tells the story of the human and caring side of a family and a friend that was never mentioned and a history her daughter Anna never knew. Anna trapped in a loveless marriage is unaware that her life is about to change after her Mum (Peggy) dies. Even more surprising is the history her Mum has that she only found out about after she died and her husband well i let you read that bit. Her Mums friend is the woman in Hitler's life Eva Braun (whom her Mum had some close shaves with) .. This is a story that tells the human side of a relationship in the build up and during the The Second World War based on people rather than guns and hate, with the story off Anna in 1995. It turns out that Anna's Mum met Eva when they were both young teenagers on a train when Peggy helps Eva and befriends her at a railway station and they share a journey from the Austrian border deeper into Germany. What follows is the moving story of that relationship and how Eva is very different to her partner why she chooses the path she does is a mystery but isn't that the case with most out us but obviously not with such evil. It is true that some are blinded by love to such a unbelievable level that just seems beyond understanding, it as in this case stay with someone after they change in such a unbelievable way. I have to remind myself that the vast majority of soldiers that fought for the Germans did so with full commitment to what they felt was a true and justifiable cause, as has been the case throughout history for so many Armies it would be hard to count them all.
It is often hard to see good in the lives that history has blackened I'm not referring to the Nazis but to individuals and so this story is about individuals that have partners with strongly opposing views as in the men in their lives are on different sides of the war one a Austrian the other a German Jew.
This is a deep and challenging book that I think is for both men and women there is the love story but there is a lot more to it than this there is the well I'm not going to spoil it but I think this is a must read book and I'm very glad i have. I hope you do as well.

Liz

Amazing, fascinating and deep

Reviewed in Australia on April 16, 2020

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Complimentary copy received from voracious readers only for an honest review.

Loved this fascinating look at Eva Braun and Germany during WWII.

Lena A Scallion

Interesting and Engaging

Reviewed in Canada on October 4, 2016

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It was a most interesting book and I enjoyed every moment I spent with the characters. I missed them when it was over.

One person found this helpful

Susanne Weigand

An uplifting (and in parts sad) story

Reviewed in Germany on March 13, 2016

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Bear with me when I am talking about myself. I am German and both my parents have lived through WWII and it was something we often talked about in my family. And in my time at school we were taught a lot about the war and Nazism. Later I read a lot of articles and several books about this dark period of German history. But for some reason I always shied away from learning more about Eva Braun, probably because I couldn’t understand why a young woman would willingly devote herself to a man like Hitler. So when I learned that Phyllis Edgerly Ring had written a book about her I became very curious.
I like the picture that the author has drawn of Eva Braun, her pride and her ambition, her insecurities and loneliness, her devotion and heartbreaking friendship and the story of her life.
But, and this is more important: This book is offering so much more. The story of three women (and only one of them is Eva) and how their lives crossed and intertwined. The story of a family and their complicated, but heartwarming connections. And even a love story I enjoyed. (And I seldom enjoy love stories, mostly they are too cheesy and sweet.)

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