Red Orchestra by Anne Nelson

From The Week of February 28, 2010

It fascinates us, I think, to look back on periods in our history which exhibit all the symptoms of mass insanity. How did that happen, we ask in bewilderment. That would never happen now, we sagely reassure ourselves. The Nazis are the perfect case study for this phenomenon. All but the most pessimistic among us will agree that the average soul is a good soul. But if that's true, how do we explain the Nazis? How can so many ordinary people, good people, sane people, participate in a regime so heinous as to defy description?

Though Ms. Nelson does not directly speak to this most strange of human phenomenons, she does, in Red Orchestra, put a sizeable hole in the notion that opposition to Hitler and his cronies was non-existent. She, here, lifts the curtain of history upon a troop of brave, young men and women, educators, artists, performers, thinkers, who, upon witnessing Hitler's rise to power, try to do something about it. Swimming as they did in similar social circles, these allies were able to exchange messages, plan sedition, and pass on secrets to Allied governments, all in an effort to destabilize Hitler's regime and bring about a change for the better, for the sane. But as with most well-run, totalitarian regimes, their efforts were uprooted, unmasked and paraded scornfully before the people with a good lie or two thrown in just to make sure everyone knew who deserved the devil's horns. Some of them were executed by shamefully packed German courts while others escaped harm, but the outcome is not the objective of Ms. Nelson's tale. Hers is a lesson in conscience, conscience in the face of what people know to be wrong. It is a story about being overmatched, out-manned and out-gunned and going ahead anyway. Because right is not conditional. It's not dependent upon whether or not someone is going to take your head off for saying what is true. Right is right, no matter what the consequences are. This group of friends understood that and acted accordingly. Examples of greater courage are few and far between. (3/5 Stars)