Uber Alles A Novel Of Love, Loyalty And Political Intrigue In World War Ii [Paperback]

In less-conflicted times they might never have met, but as Germany lurched toward World War II many lives were forced to change direction. Dieter is the orphaned son of a music professor and one of that teacher's pupils. His father had been killed in World War I and his mother died in the influenza pandemic of 1917, leaving the young man as a ward of the music school where he had been born. There he played the piano for gratuities and earned the favor of older boys in the school dormitory by sharing their bunk space, until an edict closing the Jewish-managed school evicted him into pre-war Berlin. Dieter became the resident piano man in a pub favored by students and Nazi military personnel.

Sofie is the indulged daughter of a prominent Wehrmacht general, and a graduate music student at Berlin's finest university. She serves as her father's hostess in his elegant home on Wilhelmstrasse, which is frequented by prominent leaders of the Third Reich. Sofie enjoys the new popular music being written and performed in America - but banned from most German halls. She and her fellow students regularly visit the pub where Sofie is attracted to Dieter. This leads to an invitation to Dieter to tune her piano in the Wilhelmstrasse residence, and an unlikely alliance is formed between the two young people.

They learn that each had a Jewish mother; Dieter's is deceased and Sofie's remains in her native Poland where she is a senior operative of the SSW, Poland's European intelligence-gathering network. When The Oster Conspiracy, an attempt on Hitler's life by some of his military officers, is uncovered, the blanket of suspicion comes dangerously close to Sofie's father and the young couple is forced to flee secretly to Prague, Czechoslovakia. There they are relatively safe until a minor Gestapo operative becomes suspicious of their identity and begins to delve into their backgrounds.

With her father's help, Sofie relocates to France where she enjoys succesl#)