Len Deighton - Winter: A Berlin Family 1899-1945

Len Deighton's novels dominated the 1980s. His trilogies of spy series were massive bestsellers. His books on the Second World War, in particular, Bomber were justly well received and non-fiction books on the war and cooking also bear mention. Deighton's works filled my Dad's shelves, though I only really read the ones about aircraft! The spy novels were a little too intellectually challenging for young me.

I have probably had Winter on my own shelves since my father died but only recently picked it up. It is a classic 1980s family epic, which has loose connectioned with some of Deighton's other spy novels. As the subtitle suggests, this follows the lives of a Berlin family, the Winters, as they live through the most turbulent times of German history. The Winters are wealthy. As the new century dawns, the patriarch Harald Winter, an industralist is beginning to see the investment possibilities of German rearmanent. Throughout the next four decades, he makes millions from the manufacture of arms, despite initially convincing himself that rearming like this will prevent war, rather than lead to one.

The families' general liberal politics is neatly subverted. Harald has a mistress, a Jew, and the family complains bitterly both about the revolutionary movements that overtake Germany ending World War One, and the rise of the fascists. Both of these, they see, as bad for business. But the Nazis are also good as they stop the left, and Harald's sons are pulled closer into the emerging mass movement with the younger becoming a member of the Freikorps - the fascist movement that helped crush the workers from 1919 to 1923, and then the Nazis itself.

The other son ends up in the US, were he becomes a key figure in the Allies attempts to overthrow Hitler from without. He also ends up investigating war crimes and this leads to their final coming together.

The story is faintly ludicrous. One of those slightly contrived tales that places key figures at key moments in history so the author can tell the story of a particular period through their characters. Deighton however, does it well, not least by making most of the central figures of his book unpleasantly rich bourgeois Germans who make a mint from selling arms, and supporting fascism. As a result the story rattles along through the rise of Hitler and the collapse of Germany. There are plenty of smaller sub plots and intrigues that keep the reader engaged.

However there are some problems. There is a lot of exposition by the characters. Deighton clearly felt that some of the events he describes would be too unknown and needed explaining. This is fair enough, but there are times when the characters talk to each other weirdly because they are really talking to the reader. The other problem is that the book tends to ignore wider events. The War and Holocaust are the background, and I felt their impact and horror was somewhat deminished as a result. It means that the role of one of the sons as a senior figure in the Nazi party becomes more about his attempts to protect individual interests. Not as a cog in a wider murder machine.

All in all, its a good read and its encouraged me to revisit some of Deighton's other works and have a look at the ones I ignored all those years ago.

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