Enemy Bride is the true story of a strong-willed American girl, Jane Archer, who wanted to be an actress. When she went to Germany in 1932 to attend acting school she met a German physics student, Horst Schillbach, and they fell in love. In 1938, she returned to Germany and the couple married, just as rumors of war were swirling around Europe and the world. When war came, Jane stayed with her husband rather than return to the United States.
From 1938 to 1945 hers was the life of a civilian under Nazi rule, but in her personal and professional life she lived among anti-Nazi artists and intellectuals. These people abhorred the lawlessness of the regime and the mass psychosis of its followers. This condemnation can be summed up in a comment made by her playwright friend, Heinz Coubier, on the evening after the event known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, when all the shops owned by Jews in Berlin were smashed. Heinz Coubier said “Adolf Hitler will not rest until he has reduced all ignorant, envious and corrupt Germans to the gangster level which is his own.”
Archer tells of the plight of German civilians, many of whom wondered why they ever voted for this man, Adolf Hitler. She writes of constant day and night bombing of Berlin and her survival in the splittergraben (air raid shelter) with her neighbors, all common German people, filled with propaganda and wishing the bombing would stop and that there would be enough food.
In April 1945, Archer left Berlin and joined the refugee trail, along with countless others who were fleeing the approaching Russians. For the next two months she would attempt to gain the Bavarian border, to get to the town where she and her husband had agreed to meet. As she traveled towards Bavaria she was both helped and hindered by the American GIs and officers she met along the way. Many of the Americans hated all Germans, and spat at her feet for marrying a German. Others helped her in her escape. At long last she reached safety.
Meanwhile, her husband, left in Berlin, faced his own obstacles to freedom. This story examines a facet of the war heretofore unexamined. The writing spares no one, and captures the insanity, grit, sadness, and even the occasional ironic humor of the times. It is a German story told by an American and told well. There are many books already in print about this war, and no doubt there will be more. Enemy Bride is a worthy contribution to the literature.
From 1938 to 1945 hers was the life of a civilian under Nazi rule, but in her personal and professional life she lived among anti-Nazi artists and intellectuals. These people abhorred the lawlessness of the regime and the mass psychosis of its followers. This condemnation can be summed up in a comment made by her playwright friend, Heinz Coubier, on the evening after the event known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, when all the shops owned by Jews in Berlin were smashed. Heinz Coubier said “Adolf Hitler will not rest until he has reduced all ignorant, envious and corrupt Germans to the gangster level which is his own.”
Archer tells of the plight of German civilians, many of whom wondered why they ever voted for this man, Adolf Hitler. She writes of constant day and night bombing of Berlin and her survival in the splittergraben (air raid shelter) with her neighbors, all common German people, filled with propaganda and wishing the bombing would stop and that there would be enough food.
In April 1945, Archer left Berlin and joined the refugee trail, along with countless others who were fleeing the approaching Russians. For the next two months she would attempt to gain the Bavarian border, to get to the town where she and her husband had agreed to meet. As she traveled towards Bavaria she was both helped and hindered by the American GIs and officers she met along the way. Many of the Americans hated all Germans, and spat at her feet for marrying a German. Others helped her in her escape. At long last she reached safety.
Meanwhile, her husband, left in Berlin, faced his own obstacles to freedom. This story examines a facet of the war heretofore unexamined. The writing spares no one, and captures the insanity, grit, sadness, and even the occasional ironic humor of the times. It is a German story told by an American and told well. There are many books already in print about this war, and no doubt there will be more. Enemy Bride is a worthy contribution to the literature.
