Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Inge's story begins in the secret jazz bars of Hitler’s Berlin.

It is a story full of passionate first love, betrayal, terror, flight, starvation and violence. There is suffering here on a scale that her granddaughter had never dreamt of. And a desperately tragic secret that has been kept for sixty years.

It was so nice to read something about the war from not just a woman’s perspective but also a German perspective. Inge’s war is beautifully written, impeccably researched and very engaging.

I recently watched ‘The Final Account’ - over the course of more than a decade, the documentary film-maker Luke Holland collected interviews with surviving witnesses and participants of Hitler’s Third Reich. These were people who were there. Soldiers in the army, members of the SS, women who worked in the offices of the concentration camps. Those who lived nearby. It is a programme that was hard to watch. One man in particular was still proud of what he’d done. One woman, who worked in an office in a camp, said it was nothing to do with her. She said the treatment of the Jewish people horrified her. Then she laughed as she recalled hiding her boyfriend – a guard at the camp – when the allies came. There were those, of course, who were horribly ashamed, who took their share of the responsibility.
A few years ago we visited Munich – a wonderful place, wonderful people, friendly, welcoming, beautiful. On our final day there we visited Dachau, and suddenly things weren’t so wonderful. What got to me most was that the camp was there for all to see. Everyone. No one could have not known.
Of course we all hope that we would stand up to fascists. That we wouldn’t turn a blind eye, or worse, be involved. But documentaries like ‘The Final Account’, and the proof of places like Dachau niggle away – would we really be any different? Would we be brave enough to say no?
‘Inge’s War’, for me, is another story that poses this question.
The writer’s grandmother, Inge, grew up in East Prussia, an area that was, in a lot of ways, removed from what was happening in the rest of Germany. On the whole, people just carried on with their lives, at least at first. Inge’s parents disapproved of Hitler, but they kept their heads down, not really believing that anything bad would happen. So removed were they, that they allowed Inge to move to Berlin in 1940, at the age of fifteen.
Here, Inge met Wolfgang, a young man who had avoided being called up. When he finally has to go to war, Inge discovers she’s pregnant. He promises to stand by her, but his father forbids it, and feeling betrayed, Inge returns home.
The story then follows Inge and her parents, as the war does find them, and they too have to flee. What happens to Inge from them on makes for a dark tale, and the author comes to understand her stern, guarded, taciturn grandmother.
It’s unusual to read about German refugees, the terror they felt, caught between the Nazis and the Russians at the end of the war. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for them, for women like Inge, who were collateral damage in all of this. But, for me at least, that sympathy was always tainted a little by what happened to Jewish people, the Romani people, LGBT people, the disabled, and all the other groups targeted by the Nazis. It’s hard to feel as much sympathy for people fleeing who voted for Hitler, who may have watched their Jewish neighbours being taken away. Who turned a blind eye at the trains full of human beings. And the author recognises this, feels this conflict herself. But she asks the questions too of what would we, the readers, have done? Can we honestly say we would have intervened, spoken up, acted?
The research here is, of course, impeccable, and the writing so accomplished. Accessible without dumbing down, thoughtful, respectful, and, unsurprisingly given the author’s relationship to Inge, completely genuine and authentic, this is, without doubt, an important book.
Whole-heartedly recommended (as is ‘The Final Account’).

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing, and the author Svenja O'Donnell.
This was a really involving and emotional read. A fascinating story which was incredibly well researched, providing the context and clarification needed at every point. A story from the perspective of the German population caught in the middle, living with the shame of a war that they did not agree with, and arguably victims themselves. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in this genre, focused our WW2 and Europe's darkest hour. 5 stars.

Svenja O’Donnell grew up in France with an Irish father and a German mother. During her childhood, she was exposed to the stories at school about German atrocities in the Second World War, which brought shame to her about her partly German ancestry. She looked at her grandmother, Inge, who said that her family are not equal to the Nazis in a suspicious manner since her grandmother rarely spoke of her family’s past in Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia. A curiosity about the past locked deep inside her grandmother’s mind slowly began to open for the author as she called to her grandmother on one fine day, telling her that she’s calling from Kaliningrad — as the city is called now more than fifty years after the displacement that forced Inge to leave East Prussia.

Partly family historical account and partly original field research, this book offers an interesting alternative viewpoint to the history of the Second World War. Many narratives have discussed the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Holocaust and in the areas occupied by them in Central and Eastern Europe, but few told the stories of the displacement experienced by the Germans who lived in then-East Prussia. East Prussia, with its capital Königsberg, had an important history during the seven-century of its German settlement. The Junker, an important part of German nobility, possessed vast lands there. Königsberg, the capital, was the place that gave birth to Immanuel Kant. During the war, East Prussia managed to be one of the safest places in the Third Reich with its self-sufficient ability that kept the citizens nourished, while other German regions experienced shortages and daily rations. But the advance of the Red Army and the imminent defeat of the Wehrmacht in 1945 changed the landscape quickly.

While reading this book, I got reminded briefly of Oskar’s account in Günter Grass’ "The Tin Drum" which chronicles the escape of the Germans from Danzig by train to the western part of Germany to avoid the capture of the city by the Red Army. But many from East Prussia did not have the chance to escape by train, as Pomerania and the areas around the Danzig Corridor fell earlier, isolating East Prussia further from east and west. The only passage west was by the sea, where Inge Wiegandt and her parents were forced to leave along with thousands of refugees. During the operation, the transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by the Red Army, sinking her along with between 5,000 and 9,000 passengers, many of them civilians like Inge. It was by sheer luck that the Wiegandts managed to escape to the west in the ship Göttingen, in which the author emphasised that war does not care whether the displaced were rich or civilians, all of them could die anytime and anywhere during the dark times.

Besides the flight, Svenja O’Donnell’s account of her grandmother’s attempt at survival also includes many aspects unwritten in the war. About rape, discrimination from her fellow Germans, and the betrayals from her lover who got sent to the Eastern Front amidst the difficult circumstances Inge was in. The difficult circumstances forced the soldiers to comply with their superiors, giving birth to the infamous Nazi atrocities, while the women like Inge were forced to keep silent as a way of coping with their difficult problems. The complexities of the war are something that the author only realised afterwards beyond the stereotype of ‘good Germans’ who resisted the Nazis by living in exile and ‘bad Germans’ who lent their support to Nazism. There were those who were silenced, who saw the neutral stance as an alternative to the gangster regime of Hitler but did not have any voice during and after the war as the political opinion is difficult to measure in a totalitarian state.

I see this book as an intriguing discussion, to rethink the Second World War not as a ‘German War’, but rather as something equally damaging to the Germans themselves. After the war, millions of Germans from the east of the Oder-Neisse line faced displacement as a result of the Allies’ decision during the Potsdam Conference to cede eastern German territories including East Prussia to Poland and the Soviet Union. The displaced people then settled in East and West Germany, bringing with them stories of their lost home. The author’s attempt to address this issue through her research into family archives and countless field trips for ten years are superb. Inge’s story is only one of the stories that only recently being uncovered long after the war ended when the past wound could finally be seen in a different light by the current generation. It proves something that the present might be constantly changing the past, as more truths are discovered.

A wonderfully written and very moving story. True stories are a favourite genre of mine, and the holocaust is an era I've always found interesting, so I knew immediately upon reading the synopsis that I wanted to read this book. Inge's War is a thought-provoking story of ordinary people and ordinary problems in extraordinary times. It tells of a love story cut short by war, and gives a voice to one of the many rarely heard in the narrative of the holocaust: a German who was neither Nazi or rebel. It is also a reminder that surviving war is a lottery of luck.

. Svenja O‘Donnell writes about her grandmother Inge who was born before WW2 in Königsberg, East Prussia. The books tells Inge‘s story of growing up in East Prussia, spending her adolescence in Berlin and returning home to Königsberg only to have to flee her home because of the Sovjet advance. The story was meticulously researched and emotionally gripping. My own family fled the same town at the same time and I‘m still researching their history and exact origins. Kudos to Svenja for doing such an amazing job and dealing so well with her own family‘s history.
Whoever wants to read it is in for an emotional ride and history lesson of a different kind. I really enjoyed reading it and can recommend it! Actually, I’d love to pick Svenjas brains on her resources.

*Many thanks to Svenja O'Donnell, Penguin Random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
An interesting book giving insight into the life of a German family whose origins are in the East Prussia and who tired to live through the Nazi times while not backing the dictatorship.

With thanks to Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing & NetGalley for the ARC.

The author, Svenja O'Donnell, grew up in France knowing little of her parents and grandparents life in prewar and war torn Germany.

Over time her grandmother opened up and slowly an astonishing story of survival and emigration emerged.

A family on the run from the advancing Red army as the war turns against Germany, a life in exile and the horrors and heartbreak that shaped the family's lives.

All is laid out and the author has to come to terms with truths that are hard to hear and difficult to understand.

The background is meticulously researched and brought vividly to life in harrowing detail.

An excellent read.

A beautifully written story, a memorable story about the second world war.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you Svenja O’Donnell for having the courage, strength and determination to research and bring together this heartfelt memoir about your family, in particular your grandmother, Inge. I applaud you.

The way O’Donnell delivers this unforgettable story about survival, family, friendship and resilience is outstanding. She sympathetically weaves in the harrowing detail of her grandmother’s life during WW2, bringing together an unquestionably captivating account, of events so inhumane, you cannot believe them to be true, so horrific.

What with the SS brutality and the Red Army and Danish retaliation the result was the most terrifying example of evil ever known. Hundreds of thousands of men, woman and children were either massacred, froze to death, starved or died of not an epidemic but treatable diseases that the Danes wouldn’t treat. A simple lack of care and neglect.

Mass rape, pillage and destruction.

However, this is also a story of love, family, endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against the odds.

I went from weeping to smiling to weeping throughout this memoir, it was startling, chilling and heartfelt.

Inge survived the atrocities of this war and lived to the grand old age of 93. Dignified.

O’Donnell shared glimpses of a life of privilege and affection. Inge was petulant, indulged and a little spoilt to a certain extent as a child, born to older parents, however what she experienced and had to endure even before the age of 22, was woeful, absolutely despicable.

I would like to have learnt more about Vati, Inge’s husband, about how they met. Inge was born in what is now Russia, had lived her adult life in Germany, died in Poland and was buried in France, so how did she meet Vati, who was younger and loved her child as his own?

What was most shocking, as well as orchestrating the death of millions of Jews was how Hitler and the SS treated German citizens. They could be detained indefinitely, without trial, in protective custody or concentration camps, if they didn’t do what the Fuhrer wanted them to do, such as the salute. Just taken away and murdered.

If seen to be undermining the war effort the authorities executed their German soldiers, numbers of around 20,000. Civilians suffered a similar fate, the numbers even worse. The mere telling of a joke at a Nazis’ expense, could result in execution.

Unbelievable! A monster.

‘Inge was given no time to make her peace with the things she had lost: childhood, ambition and love. Flight denies the luxury of time and does not allow for reflection. I suppose she only had two options: to give in to emotion and give up, or to put the past behind her and move on. It was a mindset that forged her future self: her ability to survive, always moving forward and never allowing herself to look back.’

Most definitely a recommend from me. You need to read this book.

Thank you to the author, Svenja O’Donnell, Netgalley, Penguin Random House and Ebury Publishing for this fabulous ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

Journalist Svenja O'Donnell is of Irish and German descent, she writes a evocative biography of her German grandmother, Inge, originally from Konigsberg in East Prussia, now Kalingrad in Russia, and her experiences and bitter survival of WW2, during and after the war, including fleeing the Russian retribution that followed. Inge has been reticent of her personal history, keeping everything locked up inside, until Svenja calls her from Kalingrad, which results in an emotionally tearful response, that leads her to connect with Svenja, and reveal the trauma and the harrowing life of suffering and starvation, endured by ordinary Germans. Svenja goes on to impeccably research the background of the war to place Inge's poignant, desperate, and heartbreaking story, of doomed love, loss, displacement, and the revelation of secrets kept buried for decades, in context.

There are far fewer accounts of WW2 from the perspective of Germans who never agreed with Hitler, even less from German women who carried the greater burdens of the war, but for understandable reasons, given the savage violence and brutality of the Nazi regime. Many Germans remained silent over their real thoughts and opinions due to fear, only to carry the searing shame and guilt, both collective and personal, throughout their lives, a guilt and shame felt by their descendants. These ordinary Germans had the misfortune to live through one of the darkest and vilest periods of European history, they were the unacknowledged other victims of Nazism, forced to face a barrage of horrors and challenges of the war and its aftermath, such as death, starvation and disease, doing whatever they had to do to survive.

Svenja relates her grandmother's story with compassion and empathy, Inge is a flawed woman with some very human failings, her personal history is related and documented in detail, it tells of the grim realities and the devastation wreaked on ordinary families and the population, the complexities of what war actually means, and more specifically what it entailed for German women and children. This is a moving and thought provoking must read from an author I can only admire in her search for the truth about her family. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Ebury.

I don’t know what to say. A story which had to be told and I’m glad it was. My mother has now stolen my kindle to read it.

A true story that has been reimagined beautifully. It provokes the reader to engage in raising some important questions about the way people were treated and is enlightening about what truly happened

DNF, I found it too wordy and I did not enjoy reading it. I stopped about a third of the way into the book.

I struggled to get into this book (probably more to do with what was going on in my life than the book), and actually stopped reading it for a few months, and nearly didn't go back to it. However I did eventually go back to it and I am so glad I did. This story had me in tears, to think of the terrible things that happened during the war, and to think of it from a German perspective really opened my eyes. Thank you for a brilliant read.

I really enjoy stories of the war because I learn so much. Inge's War is just the same. I learned so much about how the German's also suffered. A good read.

A true story about the 2nd World War but from a German perspective.

The author has always known that her grandmother had suffered terribly throughout the 2nd World War. Still, as she is nearing the end of her life and has the opportunity to revisit her home town of Konigsburg, it seems to allow her to open her heart to her granddaughter and slowly the tragic story of her life is revealed.

This story contains elements that were commonplace during the war. The last farewell before a couple is separated, leading to a pregnancy, rapes of innocent and helpless women, terrible death and deprivations suffered by the people left behind while the men are away fighting.

The difference with this book is that the main character is a German woman and the descriptions described take place in a German town. I must admit I had no idea where Konigsberg was and was actually unaware of East Prussia’s position sandwiched between Poland and Russia. Still, the author brings the place to life.

Inge’s story is a truly horrific one, but despite everything, she manages to survive and finally reveals to her granddaughter a secret she has never revealed before.

This book is worth reading for the story alone but what made it stand out for me was how the German people had to try and survive under the Nazi regime. They were unable to express opinions without the threat of being arrested. They were trying to deal with shortages of everything and then when the war was finally over, due to the position of Konigsberg, being in the path of the Russians, intent on revenging themselves on the German people, desperately trying to escape.

It is easy to forget that there are two sides to every conflict and that the ‘enemy’ also consisted of ordinary people with no particular political bias having to cope with a brutal regime. When the rumours of the concentration camps became general knowledge, I can understand why some of the Germans could not believe that such brutality existed. Others denied any knowledge of their existence. It made me think what would I have done if I had been living under such conditions, it is human nature to survive in any way possible.

I really enjoyed this book, it made me think about how it must have been for the ‘other side’ during the war. It is a story well worth reading and even more heartrending knowing that this is a true story.

Dexter

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review

Inge’s War by Svenja O’Donnell
Rating *****. 4.75/5
The remarkable, amazing, and courageous journey of a young girl fleeing the Nazis and Soviets in WWII told by her granddaughter, Svenja O’Donnell. Svenja, a journalist of German and Irish descent didn’t really know her grandmother Inge. Inge was a cold, distant and unloving family member but one year things changed and over a period of years, Inge told Svenja of her desperate journey from Konigsberg in Prussia, to save her daughter, Svenja’s mother, and her parents.
Inge was born into a comfortable life in Konigsberg where she grew up to be quite spoilt and headstrong. Initially she wasn’t affected too much by the political changes in Germany. Later as student, in Germany, she met a wealthy friendly, loving family and the enigmatic Wolfgang. Months later, Inge pregnant and unmarried returned to Prussia. Wolfgang’s rich father would not permit him to marry her.
As the Soviets moved west towards Prussia, the Prussians knew that, after the atrocities committed by the German forces on Russia and her people, there would be little mercy. So it was time to flee. Desperation and hardship followed them through their journey to find sanctuary.
What follows took Inge many years to tell her story of her survival, the horrors, loss, the good and evil of humans and finally, her secret.
Inge’s War gives a totally different insight to Nazi Germany; many people did not want the war and did not support it, therefore were in danger themselves. I hadn’t read anything about the Prussians during this period so found the novel very interesting, formative and told from a personal insight.
Svenja O’Donnell is a very talented writer who brought all the pages to life, told with compassion and truth. Her research and journeys to the various places where Inge grew up, stayed in and survived enabled her today give a rich depth to the novel. One part of the novel which haunts me is what took place in Denmark.
Thoroughly recommended.
I thank Svenja O’Donnell, Penguin and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this remarkable novel. In return I have given an honest and unbiased review.