Cradles Of The Reich

Today I finished the novel “Cradles Of  The Reich,” by Jennifer Coburn. The novel is about a lesser known but dark topic of World War II Women in Germany would have sex with SS Officers to have children to populate Hitler’s “master race” and once these babies are born they are never seen again. Lebensborn also kidnapped babies from mothers in occupied territories to be raised by German families. I recently did a Q&A with Jennifer Coburn about the novel which you can read through the link here https://booknotions.com/qa-with-jennifer-coburn/ . The novel comes out on October 11^th I was lucky enough to get an early copy from Netgalley.

Pros

My favorite characters were Gundi and Irma. Gundi is secretly part of the resistance in Germany. Irma wants to keep her head down and start a new life, but suddenly starts to grow a conscience as the story goes on. Gundi’s story had me on edge. Gundi is carrying a dangerous secret; the father of her unborn baby is Jewish. Hilde was sadly an indoctrinated college student who believes in Hitler’s cause. Part of me wanted to slap some sense into Hilde and the other part of me felt somewhat bad for her because you knew she was far too gone into believing the madness. I like how Jennifer wrote Hilde without excusing her actions.

Cons

There was nothing I disliked. I only wished it was longer I wanted an epilogue of what happened to the characters after the war.

Overall

Overall I enjoyed the novel very much. I hope more history and historical fiction novelists get on board and write about lesser known parts of history that need to be told. It becomes dangerous once we forget the past. When we forget the past we are doomed to repeat it.