Dunkelnacht (Dark Night)
Dunkelnacht is the story based on the events that occurred in Penzberg, a small town south of Munich on the 27th and 28th April 1945.
On April 28, 1945, the citizens of Penzberg wanted to surrender the city to the advancing Americans without a fight. The former SPD mayor Hans Rummer, prevented the local coal mine from being blown up and informed the prisoners of war and forced labourers there that the war was over. At this point, under orders from the local Gauleiter, a hundred Nazi fanatics from the so-called “Werewolf movement” stormed the town hall, and executed Rummer and seven other men without trial. In the following hours another eight suspected resistance fighters were hanged – two were women, one of them pregnant. The following day, the Americans arrived in Penzberg.
We follow the protagonists through the events of the two days. In particular, through the eyes of two teenagers, Annie and Georg, who are slowly falling in love and who come from very different political backgrounds.
Dunkelnacht is a important and brilliant novel by one of Germany’s most important children’s writers.