Germania
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Overview
In their youth, Manni and Franzi, together with their brothers, Ziggy and Sebastian, captured Germany's collective imagination as the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers — one of the most popular vaudeville acts of the old Weimar days. The ensuing years have, however, found the Jewish brothers estranged and ensconced in various occupations as the war is drawing near its end and a German surrender is imminent. Manni is traveling through the Ruhr Valley with Albert Speer, who is intent on subverting Hitler's apocalyptic plan to destroy the German industrial heartland before the Allies arrive; Franzi has become inextricably attached to Heinrich Himmler's entourage as astrologer and masseur; and Ziggy and Sebastian have each been employed in pursuits that threaten to compromise irrevocably their own safety and ideologies.
Now, with the Russian noose tightening around Berlin and the remnants of the Nazi government fleeing north to Flensburg, the Loerber brothers are unexpectedly reunited. As Himmler and Speer vie to become the next Führer, deluded into believing they can strike a bargain with Eisenhower and escape their criminal fates, the Loerbers must employ all their talents — and whatever magic they possess — to rescue themselves and one another.
Deftly written and darkly funny, Germania is an astounding adventure tale — with subplots involving a hidden cache of Nazi gold, Hitler's miracle U-boats, and Speer's secret plan to live out his days hunting walrus in Greenland — and a remarkably imaginative novel from a gifted new writing talent.
Synopsis
"In their youth, Manni and Franzi, together with their brothers, Ziggy and Sebastian, captured Germany's collective imagination as the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers - one of the most popular vaudeville acts of the old Weimar days. The ensuing years have, however, found the Jewish brothers estranged and ensconced in various occupations as the war is drawing near its end and a German surrender is imminent. Manni is traveling through the Ruhr Valley with Albert Speer, who is intent on subverting Hitler's apocalyptic plan to destroy the German industrial heartland before the Allies arrive; Franzi has become inextricably attached to Heinrich Himmler's entourage as astrologer and masseur; and Ziggy and Sebastian have each been employed in pursuits that threaten to compromise irrevocably their own safety and ideologies." "Now, with the Russian noose tightening around Berlin and the remnants of the Nazi government fleeing north to Flensburg, the Loerber brothers are unexpectedly reunited. As Himmler and Speer vie to become the next Fuhrer, deluded into believing they can strike a bargain with Eisenhower and escape their criminal fates, the Loerbers must employ all their talents - and whatever magic they possess - to rescue themselves and one another." Germania is an adventure tale - with subplots involving a hidden cache of Nazi gold, Hitler's miracle V-boats, and Speer's secret plan to live out his days hunting walrus in Greenland.
The Barnes & Noble Review
If the image of Albert Speer, a prominent Nazi, juggling rubber balls as a way to relieve stress in the waning days of the Third Reich doesn't make you sit up and say, "Mein Gott, vas is los?" then Brendan McNally's debut novel, Germania, might not be for you. On the other hand, if rollicking adventures of Jews masquerading as Nazis, secret wartime shipments of gold, SS officers dreaming of hunting walrus in Greenland, and the tense emotional dynamics of theatrical families intrigue you, then Germania will fit the bill quite nicely. At the heart of the novel are the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers, a popular German juggling act (in more ways than one, as it turns out), who split up just as Hitler is rising to power in the early 1930s. Manni, Franzi, Ziggy, and Sebastian all go their separate ways, some serving in the German military and some going underground with Resistance groups. But as the Allies tighten the noose around Berlin in 1945, Hitler commits suicide, and major players like Speer, Heinrich Himmler, and Admiral Karl Dönitz vie to fill the Nazi power vacuum, the Jewish brothers are reunited through a series of complicated plot twists. McNally mixes fact and fiction in a novel that is one part Michael Chabon, one part Ken Follett, and one part Marx Brothers. During their heyday, McNally writes, the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers' "time in the air was a flagrant violation of the laws of gravity and physics." The same could be said about McNally's novel as it juggles unlikely bedfellows -- Jews and Nazis -- but pulls it off with the "ease of the daring young man on the flying trapeze." --David Abrams
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Former journalist McNally puts a magical spin on the last days of the Third Reich in his debut, a busy, beguiling novel perhaps too overstuffed with a dizzying cast and troves of lesser-known historical footnotes. Embedded in politics and far from the atrocities of the Nazi regime, figures like Albert Speer, Heinrich Himmler and Karl Dönitz become curiously sympathetic as they try to manipulate their ways out of their ineluctable futures. Woven throughout is the story of the Loerber quadruplets (known before the war as the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers-think: the Comedian Harmonists), who have psychic abilities and positions of power inside and in opposition to the Nazi regime: Manni is an assassin who can manipulate people's wills; Sebastian, long thought dead, works for the Blood of Israel resistance and can mass-broadcast dreams; Ziggy is a U-boat captain who can hear and control others' thoughts; and Franzi is a triple-agent in the SS's occult studies division and becomes Himmler's masseur and psychic adviser. The Loerber brothers, however, turn out to be less interesting on the page than Himmler, Speer and their contemporaries, though McNally's blending of the fantastical with historical record broadens and enriches an oft-told story. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Set in the closing days of the Third Reich, this is the story of quadruplets, the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers. Twelve years earlier, the brothers were the toast of Berlin with their high-energy mixture of acrobatics, mind reading, and vaudeville. Now Hitler's regime is falling, and the brothers have gone their own ways: Manni is an assassin, Ziggy a decorated U-boat captain, Franzi adviser to Heinrich Himmler but really a double agent for the Russians and the British, and Sebastian, long thought dead, is undercover with a Zionist terrorist group. The Russians want Franzi dead-he knows too much about their operation-and his brothers unite to spirit him to safety. In this wild debut, McNally throws in everything from flying boats and a fleet of miniature subs to mind control, a repulsive Himmler, and a narcissistic Albert Speer. There's enough energy here but, unfortunately, not enough direction. The plot goes astray halfway through, the psychic element adds nothing, and the conclusion doesn't point anywhere. This isn't a bad first novel; it just isn't a good one. Not recommended.-David Keymer, Modesto, CA