Last Stop Vienna

A Novel
Last Stop Vienna

Germany in the 1920s, in the early days of Hitler and the Nazi party, was a country plunging into darkness and violence. Andrew Nagorski has written the story of a doomed generation, of evil, hopelessness, sexual perversion and murder that set the stage for the ultimate destruction of a society. But in a stunning denouement, a young Nazi brownshirt, acting out of passion and revenge, changes the course of history.

 

Germany in the 1920s, in the early days of Hitler and the Nazi party, was a country plunging into darkness and violence. Andrew Nagorski has written the story of a doomed generation, of evil, hopelessness, sexual perversion and murder that set the stage for the ultimate destruction of a society. But in a stunning denouement, a young Nazi brownshirt, acting out of passion and revenge, changes the course of history.

Karl Naumann, a German teenager who has lost his father and brother in World War I, has tried to find a place in a defeated, demoralized and anarchic Berlin. Impressed by the returning veterans who refuse to lay down their arms and fight running battles with communist revolutionaries, and alone and adrift on the streets, he is recruited to their cause and camaraderie. He is sent to Munich, where he works his way up the ranks to become one of Adolf Hitler's bodyguards, a storm trooper.

The new movement is increasingly split between Hitler and rival leaders, including Karl's mentor, Otto Strasser, a real-life Nazi activist. As the schism within the party widens, the battles intensify and Hitler asserts his dominance, Karl must determine where his loyalty lies. He has fallen in love with a nurse, Sabine, whom he marries, but he is infatuated with Hitler's young niece, Geli Raubal, who is caught up in a deeply disturbing sexual relationship with her uncle.

Nagorski imagines a fascinating alternate ending to Adolf Hitler's ill-fated affair with his niece, Geli, in this fast-moving, riveting debut novel about a naive young stormtrooper who inadvertently becomes the fuhrer's romantic rival Nagorski paints a complex portrait of a vengeful young man...

Books like Last Stop Vienna are precious reminders, guiding us through the stumbling wilderness of accidents that is the truth of history, that the future is at play at all times, and that it remains, to the last, in our own hands.

A fascinating counter-factual historical novel about Adolf Hitler. The adjective fascinating is much overused, but not in this case. For a first time novelist, Mr. Nagorski has made a successful debut.

Nagorski challenges the outcome of history by asking What if?namely, what would have happened if Hitler had not risen to power in Germany Its a thrilling ride through the strange, tumultuous Weimar Republic during the 1920s.

Nagorskis writing is precise and sculpted, moving seamlessly from scenes of lovemaking to descriptions of appalling violence. He has done his historical research well and places [his main character] Naumann at the center of many key events in the rise of the Nazi movement. Nagorski also paints a...

by Bernhard Wenzl

Last Stop Vienna established Andrew Nagorski as a talented writer of historical fiction. Instructive and in places thrilling, the novel also deserves to be read by those interested in the initial stage of Nazism, history recreated as literature. Its creative blending of fact and fiction not only...