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A review by nancyflanagan
Cradles of the Reich: A Novel by Jennifer Coburn
3.0
The Lebensborn program under German Nazis has long been a fascinating topic to me. It's hard to find solid information about it--not surprisingly, records were destroyed and living witnesses are long gone, 80 years later. There deserves to be a great novel about the program--I've read a few, but they're either poorly written or trying too hard to be an easily digestible novel.
This, alas, is also not the novel the topic deserves. It feels very much like a tentative, first novel: undeveloped, incoherent characters, a plot that simply ends, rather than concluding. It's an easy, quick read (which is OK) but doesn't really take a moral stance about impregnating young Aryan women, or stealing children from Poland, then letting German families adopt them. The moral questions here are illustrated by 'bad' Germans and 'good' people. It's just too simplistic to fully illustrate what was going on in the Lebensborn program--the grief, the deception, the entitlement.
And honestly--we deserve a world-class novel about this program (which seems to have disappeared from public consciousness). Three stars. Nice try--no cigar.
This, alas, is also not the novel the topic deserves. It feels very much like a tentative, first novel: undeveloped, incoherent characters, a plot that simply ends, rather than concluding. It's an easy, quick read (which is OK) but doesn't really take a moral stance about impregnating young Aryan women, or stealing children from Poland, then letting German families adopt them. The moral questions here are illustrated by 'bad' Germans and 'good' people. It's just too simplistic to fully illustrate what was going on in the Lebensborn program--the grief, the deception, the entitlement.
And honestly--we deserve a world-class novel about this program (which seems to have disappeared from public consciousness). Three stars. Nice try--no cigar.