I tried several times to get into this book but it just wasn't for me. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The German writer Norman Ohler published a great read, that in his native country was published as Harro and Libertas, two lovers who became involved in the resistance against in Germany.
The lovers Harro Schulze-Boyen and his wife, Libertas, were amazing courageous couple. They resisted the Nazi’s in their own country; however, their historical roles were not recognized. Not in West-Germany and not in the DDR.

Harro was a lieutenant in Goering’s Reich Air Ministry and uses his position to lay his hands on classified information for the Allied Forces. Libertas worked as a film censor for the Kulturfilm Zentrale. They became leading figures of the famous Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra), a rather loose group of bohemians’ networks which inspired the American title of the book. In the UK the book is published under the title The Infiltrators – of like-minded Berliners who opposed the Nazi regime. Harro and Libertas were bohemians themselves and led a love life that openly opposed the morals of the Nazi regime.

The book reads like a novel, but it is a true story and full of humour and tragedy. They were both executed in 1942. Hitler hoped that their names would be erased from history. Ohlers impressive book brings them back to our European collective memory. He has delivered a script for a Hollywood film. Leonard di Caprio already took up this challenge.

Full marks for this great book
I want to thank Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I found this book intriguing but it didn’t hold me or captivate me as much as I thought it would.

I admire the people and all they did to stand up to the Nazis but I didn’t feel like I learned anything new. This wasn’t as gripping as a read as I was hoping for.

Norman Ohler follows up his fantastic book Blitzed (my favourite book of 2016) with The Bohemians, another history book about the Third Reich, focusing mainly on two figures, Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen, a young couple who were part of the German resistance to Hitler’s Nazi regime during the war. I’d like to say this was every bit as eye-opening and gripping as Blitzed but unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good.

I expected another great story of a subject I don’t really know much about - the Germans who stood up to the Nazis - having only read Hans Fallada’s novel Alone in Berlin and seen the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie. Well - this is one story that won’t be made into a Hollywood movie anytime soon!

About the most exciting thing Harro and Libertas do is transmit military information to the Soviets (Harro was a Luftwaffe officer so had access to some classified material), which they barely managed to do once and which was ignored by the Russians anyway. Most of the time the transmitter didn’t work and eventually, through incompetence, the Russians would rumble the resistance. It couldn’t have been much more fruitless an exercise!

Their other activities included printing up subversive pamphlets and stickers, sending out the pamphlets in the mail and putting up the stickers at an exhibit. Libertas worked in the film industry and had some influence over what projects got green-lit, choosing content that went right up against the rules of what was allowed under Nazi propaganda.

I kept waiting for some revelatory new detail to emerge or for the story to show why it needed to be told but it was never very interesting. It’s not a good sign when you look back on a book and realise it didn’t tell you much more than the blurb on the back did initially! And it’s an overfamiliar story if you’re aware of the history of this period: these were another group of brave souls who did what they could to resist history’s definitive thugs and unfortunately paid the ultimate price.

Ohler’s writing style is similar to Truman Capote’s “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood so that the history book often reads like a novel. It’s a bit too neat for a nonfiction history book and felt like Ohler was taking too many liberties at times, but I guess it does make for an easier read for more general readers. The title is also something of a misnomer - Libs is allowed to sleep with as many men as she wants but when Harro decides to have an affair with another woman and she finds out, she starts screaming about divorce. Not very “bohemian”!

I just want to make it clear though that I really do admire people like Harro, Libertas and everyone else in their group. Standing up to the Nazis like they did was beyond brave and to stick to their principles in the darkest of times, right in the heart of and at the height of evil, deserves to be honoured. Not many people could do that - I certainly couldn’t. And what’s worse is that the Gestapo pricks who tortured these people got to escape punishment themselves and live out the rest of their natural lives after the war. If there was real justice in the world, it should have been the other way around with the Nazis swinging from a noose instead.

That said, as incredible as their sacrifices were, it doesn’t make for a gripping or enlightening read - and I have to say that because I picked this up expecting to be riveted like I was with Blitzed and I so wasn’t with The Bohemians. Harro and Libs’ activities were uninteresting and minimally effective at best, which is probably why they’re largely unknown, and their story was similar to many others’ during the war - good people standing up to bad and sadly losing. The final part with the Nazis eventually catching up to the resistance was kinda interesting but it wasn’t worth slogging through the whole book for.

As noble as Harro, Libs and their associates’ aims were, an entire book on them is a rather tedious reading experience and, if you want to know the details of these people, a quick scan of Wikipedia is probably sufficient instead. If you’re as much of a fan of Blitzed as me, don’t expect a similar experience with The Bohemians.

This book focuses on Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boyse and the resisters that were so important during the war. The diaries, photos and other personal belongings that the author used to write this book made this more enjoyable. I learned so much by reading this. I always wondered how people could just go about their lives like nothing was different during World War II, but this book shows that not everyone did. It also explains what life was like for those that wanted to help. I got a better understanding of the struggles of these heroes. I highly recommend this one!

Norman Ohler's book focuses on the lives of the couple Harro and Libertas Schulze-Bowen as a means to tell the larger story of the resistance of the titular Bohemians in war-time Berlin who engineered their activities within and around the Nazi party. Harro and Libertas are young people from well-to-do families (Libertas, more so, with many connections to ruling SS officers of the time) who, while carving out a life together, become deeply entrenched with a vaguely connected group of young artists, writers, musicians, activists, etc.., eventually referred to as The Red Orchestra, who work to undermine the fascist control of the Nazi party over the citizens of Germany. Harro, idealistic from early on, bears the scars of early torture by the party for his contributions to the leftist-liberal magazine Der Gegner when he meets the privileged Libertas. Libertas soon becomes disillusioned with the life she had been leading and joins Harro and his friends in carrying out acts of espionage and anti-Nazi propaganda activities. Eventually the work of the group and its member are discovered through a radio counterintelligence operation.

Ohler was granted access to much information about his subjects through surviving family members and de-classified information. He brings this information to life through snappy=paced writing and revelations of intimate details that bring the reader closer to who the Bohemians were as people as well as resistance fighters. Equally, the fact that the Nazi party worked so hard to erase the lives of members of the Red Orchestra from collective memory adds to the poignancy of Ohler's telling.

There is a lot of information in the book and it can get a little bogged down in parts, but it also downright nail-biting as well. A really beautiful portrait of flawed and extraordinary humans who risked everything to fight against fascism. So much to admire here and highly recommended.

Thank you to the author Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Netgalley for and advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Bohemians. By Norman Ohler

As far as I know, not many authors have been knowledgeable enough to describe antifacist citizens in Germany. There is a tendency to dwell on stories of soldiers from any other country during WWII. Winner’s Justice. It is refreshing to read Mr. Ohler’s book on the lives of some of Germany’s unconventional soldiers. Led by Harro Schulze-Bowen and Libertas Haas-Heye, and a group of Berlin literary, avant-garde residents, he describes how they sought to overthrow Hitlers Third Reich. The author has carefully constructed the story with the aid of actual letters, photo albums, files, notes and diaries. He was able to access Gestapo interrogation transcripts, and interview witnesses. Only one descriptive section on the sadistic treatment of the German prisoners was necessary. I was amazed at this enormous undertaking, pleased at his success in bringing attention to these neglected heroes. In spite of all the information at his disposal, he succeeds in knitting it all in a smooth, cohesive knowledgeable story. All WWII aficionados must read and add this tome to their collection.

This is the story of Harro Schulze-Boysen and his wife, Libertas, opponents of the Nazis from the early days of the regime. Harro and Libertas were young intellectuals; he a publisher of a politically-oriented magazine, and she a publicist and film critic. They enjoyed art and music, intellectual debate, and socializing with a wide circle of other bohemians.

Harro’s idealism was destroyed when, almost as soon as the Nazis took power, his magazine was shut down and he and a colleague were arrested. They were beaten unmercifully for days, until his friend died. Through the efforts of his family, Harro was able to gain his release.

Determined to thwart the Nazis’ destruction of his country, Harro played a long game. He kept his head down, fell in love with Libertas, the daughter of a well-connected family and a member of the Nazi party, and married her. She was soon persuaded to Harro’s views, but they continued to appear to be no more than normal German workers by day and inveterate partiers by night. Harro was even able to join the Luftwaffe, after Libertas put in a good word for him with Hermann Goering, a friend of her family.

But Harro and Libertas were the hub of a number of circles of resistance; at the start mostly people who held discussion groups, then distributed anti-Nazi postcards and plastered walls with provocative statements. But when, as a result of his Luftwaffe work, Harro learned that Germany planned to break the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and attack the USSR, he knew he had to step up his activities.

Harro knew that the attack would destroy Germany one way or another. If the attack succeeded, nothing would be able to stop Nazism, and its ruination of Harro’s beloved Germany. He made the momentous decision to work with a Russian to warn the Soviets.

Tragically, Stalin could not be persuaded that Hitler would betray him, and Harro was implicated when one of his compatriots was captured and tortured into giving up a cryptographic key that allowed the Nazis to crack communications identifying Harro. Harro and Libertas were arrested in August, 1942, tortured, and executed in December. Many resisters connected to them met the same fate.

The White Rose resistance group is well-known, as are the military plots against Hitler. The work of other German resistance groups is less well-known and understood.

Author Norman Ohler has done a great deal of archival research to piece together a painstakingly detailed history of Harro and Libertas, and several other members of the circles they worked with. Ohler draws a vivid picture of Harro and Libertas as personalities, of the beliefs and experiences that made them resisters, the evolution of their activities over a decade, and the intricacies of their work with other resisters.

As someone interested in WW2 history and espionage, I found this a fascinating and unusually detailed story of underground activities. It’s hard not to be moved by Harro and Libertas, who knew that they were likely to be caught eventually and what the consequences would be, but chose to continue to resist.

I received a digital advance review copy from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, via Netgalley.

"Bullet Hangman's rope and guillotine
Won't have the final say.
The world will be our judges,
Not the judges of today."
- Harro Schulze-Boysen

Norman Ohler's book, The Bohemians, follows Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen and their network of resisters fighting against the Nazi regime in Germany. At its heart, it is a book about hope and resistance and how while so many Germans kept their heads down during the war and did their jobs quietly, there were many others who saw it as their moral duty to stand up for what was right in the name of the country they loved. This book tells a riveting tale and Norman Ohler does a fantastic job of closely following the various people involved in a way that feels intimate to their thoughts and actions without veering into too much historical speculation. He is a dutiful recorder of this history and I found his writing to be engaging and immensely thought-provoking in the way he laid out this narrative. This book also has a lot to add to the canon of World War 2 books as well, because it tells a true story that almost no one has ever heard before. It was a goal of the Nazis that the efforts of Harro, Libertas and their friends and acquaintances never be heard, that their secrets would die with them and that their memories would be erased from the world. Yet in this book, Ohler pulls them out of the dark corners of history and makes sure the world remembers these young Germans and the sacrifices they made for their country. He highlights their bravery, their humanity and their pain, and the result is a story that I hope all may come to know. I am so glad to have read this book and certainly look forward to recommending it to everyone I know.

The Bohemians by Norman Ohler gave me an EXCELLENT understanding of what "Bohemians" really are. It's a term I've heard all my life, but never really knew what it meant. The book describes how a young couple and their small circle of friends covertly infiltrated and undermined the German Nazi Leadership. Using a writing style like the narration of a documentary, the book covered many years, leading up to and into tuhe World War. While their Bohemian lifestyle allowed them subtle access to the early development of the Nazis and the Secret Service - it could not protect them from the harsh cruelty of burgeoning nightmare of Hitler's rule. Holding their fiery hatred deep inside, and bravely enduring much sacrifice and pain, they feigned loyalty to Mein Fuhrer. Quietly, the Bohemians were able to kick a dent in the Nazi efforts and save many lives.