Book Review of “The Man in the Bunker” by Rory Clements

 

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A new twist on the ‘search for Hitler.’

 

This is a well-researched novel about a confused and yet pivotal period in European history.

It involves several characters from the author’s previous novel “Hitler’s Secret” but isn’t exactly a sequel because there is no reference to that story, even though it could have been relevant.

In the immediate post-war period there are shortages and hardship in a Britain struggling to return to peaceful progress but still not perceiving that the defeat of Hitler might have left Stalin poised for further advance in a westerly direction. In Germany and Austria there is still chaos and effective anarchy, in that soldiers of the allied powers trying to impose “rule by laws rather than fear” are able to act arbitrarily and even murder as they please. One of the “good” characters is determined to use an investigation into Hitler’s real fate and current whereabouts as a sort of one-man witness extermination programme. More than one of his superiors threatens him with retribution for this, but the threats, for one reason or another are all empty. Life is very cheap in occupied Germany and Austria. Life in liberated France is governed by an unhappy mixture of self-righteous retribution and hypocrisy: the corrosive aftermath of NAZI conquest.

The OSS and MI6 decide to send professor Tom Wilde, from the previous novel, to Berlin, Nuremberg and Bavaria to find out what really happened to Hitler in his bunker and Wilde is encouraged and skilfully manipulated by a senior Russian SMERSH officer. For most of the novel the only real evidence that something might have happened other than the official narrative of Hitler’s suicide in the bunker, consists of lethal action against anyone asking questions. SMERSH, of course, “firmly believe” that Western intelligence agencies have Hitler in secure and comfortable custody and are planning to use him for their own wicked purposes. There is a twist in the tale about the outcome of the search for Hitler, but there’s also a twist in the tale about what, exactly, SMERSH wants to get out of the OSS/MI6 search for Hitler.

The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements is published by Bonnier Books on the 20^th of January 2022.