Synopsis "Schade's Passage: A Novel of Berlin 1945-1946"
Schade's Passage is the first volume of a four-volume novel revolving around and in the city of Berlin in the 20th century (The Berlin Book). This volume traces the lives of various characters of various nationalities in the defeated rubble of Berlin from July 1945 to December 1946 as they come to terms with their personal and cultural situations attempting to create or recreate a stable and secure form of existence in the chaotic first years of peace on the European continent. Immediately after the end of hostilities they all somehow realize that the war may be over but the peace had not yet begun. The four allies, the USA, Britain, France and the Soviet Union's military governments attempt to rule their zones of Germany and their sectors of Berlin with a unified policy of de-nazification, reeducation, the punishment of war criminals and the introduction of democratic forms of government. This attempt includes the cultural sphere (book publishing, radio, newspapers, stage performances, movies, concert and popular music and nightclubs). The book is concerned with this aspect of life in the former capital of the nazi empire. It's characters include American, British, French and Soviet military government officers and civilians whose mission is to cleanse the cultural milieus of the city whose assignments bring them into often close contact with German cultural figures attempting to rejuvenate their careers. The tensions among the victors as to how this policy is to be carried out rises as their different goals become clearer. The Germans attempt to manipulate the differences for their own advantage which leads to the realization that the American non-fraternization policy of limited contact with the city's citizens is unenforceable. Sexual favors exchanged for food, protection and/or performance licenses break through the misguided attempt to maintain a distance between victor and vanquished. Forms of love and affection and greed triumph over behavior control mechanisms invented in the victors' capitals. Eventually things settle down to allow a minimum of cultural and political life within an atmosphere of mistrust, rising political tensions, especially regarding forms of government, the treatment of millions of refugees, and the conflict between those surviving Jews who wish to emigrate to Palestine and build a Jewish homeland and those who do not want to complete the nazis' project to free Germany of Jews, but rather rebuild the Jewish community in the city and the country. Woven into these over-arching problems and solutions are the stories of the individual characters and how they react and behave, the Germans to re-establish themselves whether or not they are burdened by a nazi past, the victorious allies to implement official policy without becoming heartless officials in the course of their duties. Sizzling sex scenes complement the official activities and the relationship between victor and defeated. How could it be otherwise?
