Book Review: An Honorable German

Lincoln Journal-Star

Now here is a World War II novel with a big difference. It is from the German point of view, with a principled main character who is an offbeat hero, respecting orders, doing his job, but with unabashed morality. This unusual attitude eventually gets him into terrible trouble.

The hero is Maximillian "Max" Brekendorf, a German naval officer engaged to a marvelous woman, Mareth. He is in glory as the German war machine overruns Europe and is victorious at sea.

While serving on the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, Max winds up in Montevideo, Uruguay, when the ship limps into harbor, fatally wounded from battle.

This leads to a delicate situation of getting back to Germany to continue fighting. The idiosyncrasies of international law and tests of honor face our hero as he attempts to travel home to face yet more duty at sea.

The longer the war lasts, the more uncertain becomes Max's future, until he is faced with a final mission that has all the look of a desperate Nazi ploy to escape a dark future.

Max has his own choice to make, between duty to a failing Third Reich or maintaining his honor. It doesn't help that his thoughts are constantly on the fate of his fiancee.

This is a debut novel for Charles McCain, and it is a stirring drama of ocean warfare and a highly imaginative take on conscience and nobility in battle.

Francis Moul, Ph.D., is an environmental historian.

"An Honorable German" by Charles McCain, Grand Central Publishing, 374 pages, $24.95

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