Summer Re-Read #1

Summer of My German Soldier

By Bette Greene

The (a) story is a tragic love story. We follow Patty Bergen, a young Jewish girl growing up in the American south during World War II. Her home life is brutal and unfair, and when she comes in contact with a “Nazi” prisoner of war, she finds more love and acceptance from him than most anyone she’s ever known.

I put “Nazi” in quotes, because Anton Reiker is anything but. He is a victim of circumstance, thrown into a war he doesn’t believe in, raised to cherish knowledge and understanding in a society that has learned to cherish violence. He sees a value in Patty that she’s never imagined, and through his friendship she finally begins to grasp at her own worth.

But the world at this time is full of fear, and the love a Jewish girl has for a young German boy is not enough to heal two cultures torn by war.

The (A) story is about power. Not just the power a tyrant can have over a nation, but the power any one person can have over another’s life. As Anton so describes it:

“Cruelty is after all cruelty, and the difference between the two men may have more to do with their degrees of power than their degrees of cruelty. …Would your father’s cruelty cause him to crush weak neighboring states? Or would the Fuhrer’s cruelty cause him to beat his own daughter? Doesn’t it seem to you that they both need to inflict pain?” (134).

This is seen, obviously, through the war and through Patty’s relationship with her father. But the degrees of power through cruelty or love are further demonstrated by others who touch Patty’s life throughout the book. She observes the influence of different forms of power from her nanny, her classmates, the townspeople, the local sheriff, her grandparents, the reporter who takes her under her wing, as well as the young man who’s captured her heart.

But the power also lies in Patty’s hands, as over the course of her summer with Anton she learns that she can either be knocked down by the storms that come her way, or she can use her strength to brace against it and get through the night.

This book charmed me for several summers when I was a younger reader. As an adult and a writing student, I still find it charming, but difficult to read at times. The brutality of Patty’s family hurts. Some of the reasons for her torment may require a little suspension of disbelief, but they still manage to tag along with the themes of power and society.

Much of the language is definitely not PC, but granted, this was a story taking place in the forties as written by an author in the seventies: so it is understandable, if a little hard to read. And there are bits and pieces of dialogue that hit me as unconvincing (As a creative writer, a couple times I found myself thinking, “No one would string those words together like that—not even someone as learned as Anton”).

The age difference between the two also distracts me while re-reading it as an adult. While Anton is twenty-two years old, Patty is only twelve. A ten year gap would have been easier to grasp if she had been a little closer to the age of a legal adult—or even at least in her mid-teens. Still, their connection is unique and does not enter into risky territory (The extent of Anton’s feelings for Patty remain somewhat vague beyond a friend/mentor and friend/student relationship), so I wouldn’t hold this fact against the book.

Is it worth reading? Definitely yes. Despite my critical eye, Summer of My German Soldier is a beautiful story about love and loss, friendship and hardship and one girl’s journey toward self-acceptance in the midst of chaos.

A great start for any summer reading list.