Debbie Rix reveals seven little known facts about herself for her readers in this exclusive
Author Debbie Rix
Of my eight novels, all are based on real women in history. They have been architects, silk weavers, journalists and actresses, but beyond their innate talent, they all demonstrate something else: courage, fortitude and ingenuity. Also falling into this fiercely self-reliant category are the two leading characters in my latest novel “The German Mother”. Leila and Minki are two journalists on the opposite side of the political spectrum in 1930s Germany. Leila is a left-leaning Jew who is forced to flee her country, taking up the fight against Nazism abroad. Minki is apathetic about politics but through a romantic liaison with Joseph Goebbels is drawn into the inner circle of the Nazi Party. Only when the Party’s policies begin to affect her own family do the scales fall from her eyes, and she finally becomes the brave freedom fighter she perhaps was destined to be. Leila and Minki are my kind of women: fearless and indomitable.
I am drawn to historical stories with parallels in the world today. “The German Mother” centres on two themes: free speech and eugenics. The censorship of the press was essential for the Nazis to ‘control the narrative’, in today’s parlance - dissenting newspapers were simply closed down. No governments would dare do that today, but some have suppressed free speech on social media, and banks have closed the accounts of clients holding dissident opinions. So censorship is still with us. As for eugenics, it was a hot topic in the early part of the twentieth century in both America and Europe, when intellectuals were openly discussing the societal benefits of sterilising - and even murdering - people whose disabilities made them a burden on the State. Still today, assisted dying is the subject of much discussion. There may be circumstances when it can be justified, but the Nazis embraced the policy with such frightening enthusiasm that many people now view it with abhorrence.
Readers sometimes ask where I get the ideas for my novels. My historical research is quite in-depth, so once I get embedded in a period of history, I often find unusual stories unknown to the general public. For example, I got the idea for “The German Mother” when I was researching my previous novel “The German Wife”. I had read about a Jewish journalist named Jella Lepman who was on the liberal left, and was forced to flee Germany with her two young children in the mid-1930s. She went to London where she worked for the newly-created BBC German Service. At war’s end she returned to Germany working for the Americans in their process of ‘de-nazification’ – trying to eradicate the ideologies of her country’s past, and embrace tolerant democratic principles. Jella was an inspiration to me, and she now appears as Leila in “The German Mother”.
One of the most enjoyable and productive aspects of my work is visiting the places featured in my novels. I find I cannot write without experiencing those places for myself - their sounds, smells and atmosphere feed my storylines. Museums and exhibitions are also rich with material: my entire last novel was inspired by a single photograph of a captured Russian slave who was hanged for a relationship with a German woman.
I am not a planner, and I admire the many novelists who are. These self-disciplined writers often don’t start a novel until they have a fully worked-out story. I do not. Mine is a messy process: I read widely, travel to my locations and make copious notes, but without a clear plan. Sometimes, in an effort to enforce discipline on myself, I write a long list of events that take place during the period of my novel, and pin it to my notice board, alongside a list of my characters with their ages, and significant dates (marriage, divorce, death etc). Beyond this, I fill notebooks with ideas, and stick ‘post-its’ with little hand-written scribbles into books to remind me of something significant, but that’s all. Thankfully, having fully researched the historical background, I begin to develop a rough idea of where my novel is heading, but I often find my characters taking control of my narrative, almost leading me by the nose to a satisfactory storyline. In a strange way, the novel can start to write itself. Sometimes, when my writing is going really well, I feel more like someone taking dictation than being the actual writer - it’s really quite a mysterious process.
In my most recent novels (“The German Wife” and “The German Mother”), I have chosen to feature real historical figures as characters. It is a risky strategy, as the reader may reject my portraits of such well-known figures, but I enjoy using my imagination to bring these people to life in fiction, while sticking close to what is known historically about their personalities. In the case of Nazi Germany, because I deal with some of the worst aspects of the regime, I feel my stories must include the people actually in charge of the atrocities. “The German Wife”, for example, was partly about the terrible medical experiments in Dachau, so it was important to feature Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s deputy, who set up the first medical laboratories in Nazi labour camps. Similarly my latest novel, “The German Mother”, is largely about Nazi propaganda, so I have had to feature Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda chief in Hitler’s government, as a central character. Fortunately, Goebbels himself was such an egotist that he kept an almost daily diary - amounting to nearly one million words - so I could be sure of my facts when writing about him.
My books take about a year to complete. From the first sketchy idea, through the research and then the process of writing and editing, I find myself becoming increasingly enthusiastic about the novel, culminating in the pleasure of seeing my ‘baby’ in print. Then I experience a momentary period of let down, as my baby leaves the nest...followed immediately by wanting to start the next novel. Fortunately, I have a couple more 20th century war stories up my sleeve, but after that, who knows? Perhaps my imagination will be excited by a new era of history.
1941, Germany: There’s a man in uniform outside my door. They’ve come for her. My beautiful little girl is wrenched from our home and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. But I vow to find Clara… no matter what it takes.
Minki Sommer strokes the blonde curls away from her daughter’s face and her heart swells. Clara is the most precious thing to her and each day she whispers a promise to keep her safe…
Before the war began, Minki had everything – an attentive husband, three adorable children, and a successful career as journalist. But all that changed in an instant.
Her sweet Clara, with her blue eyes and porcelain features, started having fits. Since then, Minki hasn’t been able to sleep properly because she knows children with illnesses like Clara’s are being stolen away in the night.
Her husband’s connections high up in the Nazi Party make the situation even more dangerous. Minki tries to escape the city with her children, but finds she is unable to leave. And then the moment she’s feared arrives: her husband has betrayed her.
Minki is devastated as her darling girl is ripped from her arms. But she vows she will use every last breath in her body to find her missing child, no matter how dangerous it is to cross a country at war…
Inspired by true stories, this is a heart-wrenching and unputdownable novel about a mother’s fight for the survival of her child in World War Two Germany. Fans of Orphan Train, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and My Name is Eva will be utterly gripped by this beautiful, tragic historical novel.
Debbie's Latest book The German Mother is out now
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