this really was a good read, the characters were well done and it felt like it belonged in the time period. It was a enjoyable read and had a few suspenseful moments.

This book is a sad tale of one person’s naivety because he is centered in his mind around one purpose. His pursuit was building radios and the composition of them which takes a technical mind. Those that have mathematical and building techniques such as computers which back in the 1930’s to 40’s shortwave radios that could transmit that kind of distance had to be quite unique. Josef Klein was a German immigrant living in New York. He had no clue that he was being used by the Nazi Party or that his inventions were being used to pass messages.
When he found out he was devastated, but was deported. He then was living with his brother which was not a good scenario because his family was pro Hitler. The. He went to live in South America only to discover that you can never run from those that want to find you.

I usually like true stories, but this one did not have enough details to give more of definitive answers. I had a lot of questions and the supporting characters seemed to not add much to the storyline. I wish there was more about the main character.I was left with nothing to back up the characters.

I am not a fan of time jump books, I feel like all too often they are disjointed and take away from the story for me. I didn’t care for it in this book either. I also felt this book had no action, everything was a bit slow motion. That is an a bad thing, but it takes a certain mindset to read. It worked, but it is something to be aware of. I enjoyed the characters and the setting. I especially enjoyed the narrator‘s point of view a “Nazi Spy.” It was a fresh and different view of WWII events than I usually read. Overall I enjoyed the book, I’m not rushing to recommend but I wouldn’t not either.

Originally published in German as ‘Der Empfangerer’, this translated historical novel is based on the real account of a Nazi spy ring that operated in New York in the early years of WW2.

Josef Klein is a German immigrant who arrived in New York after the end of WW1 wanting to start a new life for himself. After he found himself a job with a printing firm, he settled in East Harlem where he loved the lively community and especially the Jazz to be heard in the bars. When he becomes interested in amateur radio, he builds his own set and quickly becomes proficient at Morse code. Soon he is absorbed in communicating with people from all over the world, even forming a relationship with a female ham radio operator in the Catskills. After he adopts a lost German Shepherd he names Princess, he settles into a comfortable if meagre life, connecting to people with his radio, listening to Jazz and reading Thoreau who he admires for description of living in a cabin in the woods

Josef isn’t interested in forming friendships with other Germans or joining in the activities of German nationalist groups, such as the German American Bund. However, the printing company he works for prints a lot of leaflets for them and eventually the fact that he is German comes to their notice. When he is asked by a group of Germans to help send messages of a business nature to a company in Germany for them, he naively agrees to help. When he sees that these messages are encrypted, he feels uncomfortable sending them, but by then he is trapped into continuing even when he feels that what he is doing is wrong and could lead him into danger.

In following what happens to Josef, the novel weaves between several timelines; from Josef’s time in New York to his return to his home town of Neuss in post war Germany, before leaving again for Brazil, and finally settling in Costa Rica, in San José. At first these jumps in locations and time makes the narrative seem disjointed, but the lasting effects of Josef’s role as a radio operator for the Germans will eventually come into focus as the whole picture emerges. The narrative is quite spare and serves to make the novel seem somewhat flat with little drama. Although Josef’s character is well developed and an empathy for him and his naivety develops, the story is quite bleak and even Josef’s romance seems underwhelming. His inability to act to stop being used to transmit messages to Germany, seems to extend to his personal life and his ability to form close relationships. By the end of the war, he will reflect back on his time in New York and the decisions he made then which now shape his life.

This is an interesting, literary account of the days preceding America’s entry into WW2 and the activities of German nationalist groups in promoting fascism, seen through the eyes of one young man who got swept up naively into their conspiracies and suffered the consequences.

Historical fiction is my favorite genre to read. I loved this time period and the characters were interesting. However, the overall plot lacked depth. I wanted more from the author early on. Unfortunately, I only made it through 50% of this book before moving on.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read The Radio Operator. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into it. It just didn’t hold my attention. I do intend to give it another go because the storyline definitely interests me.

This historical novel centers on Josef Klein, a character based on a relative of the author. He came from Germany to settle in New York before World War II. He worked for a printer that did work for local Nazis, among others. His interest in radio came to their attention, and he found himself dragged into doing work for them.

The book follows Josef from his early years in New York through the war years and into his post-war life, including some romantic entanglement that doesn't really possess any passion in the pages of the book. Josef doesn't come across as the most sympathetic character. He's not necessarily someone to be disliked. Rather, he elicits a sort of emotional shrug.

Even when it comes to the premise of his being a radio operator, a sphere that would have given another author fodder for discussions with far-flung locations during a tumultuous time in history, and allowed her to paint all sorts of interesting scenes, there was nothing there. The author referenced a few conversations with other radio operators in far off lands, but that was it. That part of the story, or a real feel for Josef's love of the radio, wasn't developed.

I don't think the author has the writing power to really develop characters so you care about them. It feels more like she just expects us to care, perhaps because this is based on someone who was a member of her family, so she and her family cared. It just didn't get there for me. Not a bad book, but definitely not a page-turner, either.

Ulla’s writing style reminds me of Ernest Hemingway’s and I love historical fiction. Nonetheless, I found myself zoning out at times and having to rescan paragraphs. I didn’t connect with the novel.

I cannot say that I liked this book. Maybe it lost something in the translation. The concept was decent but the novel itself seemed terribly disjointed. It seemed to have too many blanks and jumped around too much. Figuring out what was going on in this novel was a chore for the reader. I did like the initial setting in which a German immigrant is living in the US prior to WWII. He has built a pleasant life for himself living in Harlem, enjoying jazz music, and fooling around with his ham radio. Then he meets a younger woman over the airwaves.
The story was bleak, though I did feel for the main character. He got sucked into something he couldn't handle and didn't understand. I felt sorry for him. If this was the author's objective, she effectively communicated her message and I received it. However I'm not entirely sure if I got the point or not. Maybe the author intended something completely different.
Maybe this novel worked better in the German language for a German audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Is there still romance to radio? Was there ever romance to begin with? Or is it a dangerous instrument after all, not to be trusted more than the person behind the microphone?

With "The Radio Operator," Ulla Lenze has written a compelling, straightforward, page-turner of a novel that approaches these questions with subtlety and directness. There’s not much fat to her prose; every detail is purposeful and the story moves briskly due to a lack of metaphor or narrative digression. Its nonlinear timeline quickly falls into place as we get behind Josef Klein, or Don Jose as he is currently known, a German expat looking back on his life from the veranda of an estate in Costa Rica.

He wanted to come to America in 1925 because in the wake of the Great War there was nothing left for him in Germany. He arrives on Ellis Island in great awe and with great hope and sleeps in parks and boarding houses for recent immigrants until he has struggled on the street for long enough. He gets a job with a printer and finds an apartment in Harlem. There he goes to the Cotton Club and falls in love with jazz, and not long afterward, with the radio: “He switched on the transceiver and took a seat. Quiet signals trickled in through a flood of static and squeals….he enjoyed listening to the crackle of the atmosphere, the feeling that the whole world was flowing toward him.” He doesn’t write to his brother Carl in the old country much, and he doesn’t go out of his way to meet new people outside of his ethnic enclave. But that’s the way he likes it, because at home with his radio, his German shepherd Princess, his Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday and bottle of whiskey, the whole world can open up to him while he sits safely and contentedly within himself. Thoreau is Josef’s favorite author; the cabin he built for himself is his favorite place for his mind to wander.

Then it is 1939, and the old world is growing restless again. Nazi sympathizers have found their way into America. There are Swastika flags in shop windows and fascist rallies in Madison Square Garden. Josef is approached by familiar faces in his neighborhood, respectable men who wear the uniform. They offer him an opportunity to make some extra money. They need a radio operator for business in Germany.

The author is wise to set this story within the confines of Western fascism’s classical period. Readers will likely see that sympathizers of various lost causes—racism, sexism, and fascism—are alive and well with us today. Particular praise is due to the author for not being heavy-handed with this comparison; the story reveals itself naturally, and readers who get wrapped up in the narrative may even miss the cues in front of them. That is certainly the case with Josef, and it raises an excellent question—should we sympathize with his own ignorance to assist the Nazis in their nascent war efforts, when it was so easy to play the fool?

By 1949, it is too late for Josef. The worst has become him, and while he has survived, he has the rest of his days to reckon with his past. He emigrates briefly back to Germany, back to Carl and his family, to whom he has been sending care packages of basic supplies for the past two years. Germany is in ruins; Josef is forced to wear his brother’s clothes and work for him selling soap to their neighbors. But over time, as he returns to a country that he fled before the trouble started, as he fought for the wrong side of history in ways that were deemed not good enough and in poor spirit, Josef comes to reckon with his past and realize who he is: no matter where he goes from here, he will always be a German.

With a deft hand, Ulla Lenze sketches a stirring portrait of the repercussions that indecision and a reluctance to act can have on a person’s character and their psyche. We’ve all heard the expression that not deciding to act—failing to make a decision either way—is deciding not to act. Maybe Thoreau in his cabin couldn’t escape what troubled him, knowing that his problems persisted outside his door. And maybe it was not the world that was on the other end of Josef’s radio receiver, but the machinations of a plot far greater in scope than he could understand.

But behind the microphone, sitting at the desk, is the operator: the one that controls the board, the one who chooses to speak. What does he tell the world?