Berlin: Reaping the Whirlwind

Schultz Family #2

by Paul Grant

Reaping the Whirlwind is the eagerly awaited second novel in the Schultz family series, a prequel to the first in the series.

Stalingrad 1943: Klaus Schultz’s unit find themselves surrounded in the besieged city. Without ammunition and food for days, Klaus is finally taken prisoner by the Russians.
Berlin 1943: Maria Schultz refuses to believe the Nazi propaganda. She makes contact within resistance circles to establish the truth. Maria, determined to assist people wronged by the regime, comes to the aid of orphaned Jewish girl, Hannah Hirsch.
Can Maria keep Hannah out of the grasp of the Gestapo?
As the Russians close in on Berlin, the situation becomes increasingly desperate. The Nazis are determined to sacrifice anything for what has become a lost cause. Amidst the incessant bombing, Maria fights off the attentions of Gestapo agent, Reitsch, whilst struggling to keep her son, Ulrich out of the battle.

Meanwhile, Klaus fights to survive the horrific conditions of the Arctic Gulag.
Will he ever make it back to Maria?

Genres: Fiction

253 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2017

About the author

Paul Grant lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire and was born in Leeds, UK. He studied History at Newcastle University, England, specialising in Nazi Germany, the Weimar Republic and The Cold War. Berlin: Caught in the Mousetrap is the first book in a trilogy about the Schultz family and their life, originally in Cold War Berlin.

The second book in the series BERLIN: Reaping the Whirlwind is a prequel to Caught in the Mousetrap and is set in World War 2 and the immediate aftermath.

The final book in the trilogy BERLIN: Uprising will be published on 11th January 2019.

Reviews

[David Lowther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlin: Reaping the Whirlwind is an absolutely terrific book. Set, as the title suggests, in Berlin it tells the story of the Schultz family's experience during the city from 1943 to the end of the war as well as life on the Eastern Front with Klaus Schultz and his unit.

I've read dozens of books about Berlin during the war and the tale of the city as it heads towards destruction has never been better told. The narrative focuses on the appalling pain suffered by the ordinary population. There is a bit of a thriller element when Maria helps the organisation which hides Jews but that is not the main thread of the story. Bombs, shelters, the Gestapo , rapes by Russian soldiers, food shortages are familiar images of Berlin at war but I've never seen them better illustrated than in Berlin: Reaping the Whirlwind.

Similarly Klaus' experiences both in battle and as a POW are superbly chronicled and very harrowing. The whole epic story is brilliantly told. A tale of good and evil, it is beyond my comprehension that a book as good as this hasn't found a mainstream publisher.

David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen, Two Families at War and The Summer of '39, all published by Sacristy Press.

[Cerisaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is certainly apt to describe what happened to ordinary Germans once the tide of war turned against Hitler's Reich after Stalingrad in January 1943. I've read extensively on this period, from the German and Russian perspectives in recent years to balance growing up from the 1960s in Britain where the war seems to be invoked more and more the farther we get from it. Paul Grant knows the history and has turned the bare facts into an engaging story with sympathetic characters whose experiences reflect real life experience: Wehrmacht soldiers at the front, wives and children left behind to cope with food shortages, Nazi propaganda, Gestapo informants and a climate of fear, nightly bombing raids destroying Berlin and the morale of its inhabitants whether or not they support the Nazi regime. Many of them didn't, and stories of active German resistance have begun to be told to give a more nuanced picture of that period of history. Not all Germans were Nazis and many did brave acts that saved lives, by helping Jews for e.g. to hide and to escape. The declaration of Total War when everything was lost meant young boys and old men went up against the invading Russians, to refuse meant death by hanging as an example to others. Atrocities were committed by German armed forces on the Eastern Front, in particular by the SS, but Russian vengeance wasn't just targeted at perpetrators. Mass rape of women wasn't talked about for a long time after the war but is now widely known. Treatment of surrendered German forces by their Russian captors was brutal, and many soldiers didn't return home from penal camps for several years after the war ended, but the Germans treated the millions of captured Russians earlier in the war as badly if not worse. All of this is covered in the novel. Multiple character pov alternates from Klaus Schultz serving as a sergeant with the Sixth Army in Russia, Maria his wife who becomes involved in the resistance against the Nazis despite the very real danger this puts her (and the family) in, and their 13year-old son Ulrich, who misses his father and must deal with bullies and the threat of being forced into the Hitler Youth to join the final fight for Berlin. This is the second book of a trilogy and I will definitely read the other two.

[Fred Fanning · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting and enjoyable book. The story is strong and the characters are well developed. The details about the end of the war in both Germany and Russia made the book all the more interesting.

[Ms S J Paynter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping

Really enjoying this series. Highly recommend. Charaters well drawn and the plot covers the fall of Berlin and its aftermath in a way that will keep you up until you finish it.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent read from this author. Very much looking forward to the third book.