This was really interesting and I was entranced from the beginning of the book. I really wanted to know how the story developed. This was very well researched and the factual and fictional stories worked well.

Thoroughly recommend.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

I have read several books around this era. This was a different historical novel. I enjoyed the different take the author took in writing this book. I liked the perspective it was written in. It is a sad love story with a tragic sad ending. I can not being basically forced to have a relationship with someone- then falling in love. Then the lover was sent away and after the war they were brought back together only to have the lover end up leaving in the end. Love does strange things to people. I really enjoyed this book.

Wow, what a heart-wrenching, extremely sad, and completely gripping WWII story! I was hooked from the first chapter and stayed glued all the way until the end, in one sitting!

Inspired by true events, Rix gives us a glimpse into the life of an affluent Nazi family. This story follows Annaliese, the wife of Hans, a doctor that is forced to work at Dachau labor camps. I found this perspective, through the eye of a Nazi family, to be very interesting because I have often wondered how those that worked at the Nazi camps and committed so many atrocious acts could live with themselves and sleep each night!! Did they have the capacity to show empathy, love, or any kind of emotional feelings towards another human being, showing that they cared in the least for the prisoners of Dachau.

There’s no forgetting or forgiveness for the unspeakable acts that took place at the concentration camps during WWII, but in The German Wife, Rix provides us with the innermost feelings of those forced into a lifestyle under the Nazi regime. You begin to understand some of the loss, regrets and struggles that people like Annaliese, had to face during this time, trapped in a life she never wanted, but unable to get out for fear of the dangers that loom.

Throughout the book, I had to keep reminding myself that I can’t feel sorry for a Nazi family because of the atrocious acts they have committed in the labor camps, but Rix’s storytelling stirs emotions of empathy, leaving me to battle my emotions throughout. Wondering, what choices I would have made if I was faced with the same scenario.

I fell in love with the dual timeline story about ordinary people fighting for survival during our darkest time in history. Rix writes deeply moving characters and I especially adored Annaliese. I was able to feel every emotion that Annaliese felt throughout the book. Although the book is sad in so many places, there is also hope, love and beauty in one of the most tragic historical times in our history.

Unlike most WWII historical fiction, this book is the story of a SS wife and her husband. It is interesting because it tells a little of SS side of the time and what was expected of them. Also the consequences if you did not comply and the constant fear.

I loved this story. It is not a neatly wrapped love story but a story of surviving and a little insight into the Germans. At the end of the book the author explain what was real as even though it is fiction, real people were used for some of the characters. I really enjoyed this book.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Boukouture, for the opportunity to read an advance copy of The German Wife. I was very excited to read this book and as I sit down to write this review, I am truly torn. I devoured the book in just a few days - I could hardly put it down- but as I read it, the story seemed overly romanticized and the characters, were mostly unlikeable - and although flawed - all were redeemed. So, on the one hand, I was taken in by the story, was drawn to it and was eager to finish it, which would usually earn it at least 4 stars, but on the other hand, and I don't mean to throw shade here, it read like a lightweight romance novel (maybe why I was so drawn in!). Mad respect to Debbie Rix. She is clearly a talented writer, but in my opinion, the storyline and character treatment were too light and in the end, inappropriate for the subject matter. Given the gravity of the situation and the war crimes committed - WWII Germany, Dachau, a doctor who becomes an SS officer - some characters seem conflicted and have personal dilemmas to deal with, but are not tortured by their predicaments and other characters seem shallow and/or 1-dimensional. The characters were mostly privileged and proclaimed to have been shielded for the most part from what was really going on. At some point, it was hard to like the main character, especially when she admits to not staying on top of the newspapers or politics because she just doesn't want to know. Attitudes seemed fickle in some cases which at times helped neatly tie up loose ends. For instance, when one character is in love, but can't deal with his past, he flees the situation thus freeing up other characters to make different life choices. I loved the author's style of writing and was immediately engaged by the story, but also constantly wondered when the other shoe was going to drop. This is fiction, and while there is a historical component to the setting and some truths woven in to the story, it seems unrealistic and even fanciful - especially given the atrocities that occurred against the neat resolution to the story. I wanted to give this book 4 stars. In good conscience though, I just couldn't as I felt the subject matter was dealt with too lightly.

Historical novels set during WWII fill the fiction book lists and have gained immense popularity recently. Most revolve about the brave antics of women serving the Resistance in some manner and the fight against the evils of fascism. Rix's The German Wife takes a different path--the role of a good German wife to a high ranking SS officer. Annaliese, the wife, skates through life due to the status of her husband Hans Vogel. While pain and suffering and deprivation rotted Germany to the core, Annaliese lives a blessed life in a beautiful home, married to a handsome spouse, and enjoying the trappings of wealth. Yet she is miserably unhappy; her life is an empty void. Not only that, she has failed at being a good German hausfrau--no children. Hans, a doctor at Dachau, brings home a Russian POW to slave on her property. Alexander opens Annaliese's eyes and heart to the the reality of life in Nazi Germany for those at the mercy of the SS.

The German Wife traces the evolution of Annaliese from her humble beginnings as a shopkeeper's daughter to the wife of a high ranking SS doctor. Without revealing spoilers, her world comes crashing down when Alexander, the Russian POW becomes her gardener. He exposes the real world to a woman ensconced in her comfortable life. As Germany loses the war, Annaliese finds herself at the mercy of the American occupiers, poverty, and a destroyed nation. Her life takes unexpected turns throughout the novel as her cozy world reveals its true cost.

The German Wife doesn't try to apologize or undermine the horror of life under the Nazi regime for the victims of their cruelty and terror. The author weaves her tale showing the duality of normal life for the Vogels--Annaliese as the dutiful wife and Hans going to work at Dachau. Using Hans as the window to humanity yet torn by the reality of his position, Rix weaves the horror of the medical experiments performed at Dachau into her narrative. The barbaric behavior of the SS is usually portrayed from the victim's point of view. Rix offers an alternate reality, from those who perpetrated the violence. Hans reveals the endemic horror of the camps as he is charged to carry out experiments. Through his perspective, we see the worst men can do in the name of ideology. Hans tries to shield his wife from the horrors of reality but when Annaliese learns what is really going on, the bonds of love are pushed to the breaking point.

Rix creates a world seldom seen in novels by normalizing the world of the SS and their lives. Often portrayed as evil incarnate, the SS in the German Wife are ordinary men who are caught up in the propaganda and tightly controlled society of Nazi Germany. Their reality differs dramatically from those they crush with their inhuman cruelty. Rix threads her story to the aftermath of the war and the American occupation. She weaves some very viable threads through her narrative and tackles some of the very sticky issues of life in Nazi Germany for the elite and the repercussions of the war. The scars left on the survivors carries on long after the defeat of the Third Reich. Secrets, tragedy, and loss pervade the lives of those left behind.

As a WWII historian, I teach a class on Nazi Germany. I found many of the things Rix included as accurate and reflective of the time. By offering an alternate view of the inhuman narrative of life in Nazi Germany, Rix shows the reality of the normalization of cruelty and war crimes. It shows how easy it is for men to commit evil acts and not comprehend the ugliness of their deeds. Rix wrote the novel during the Covid pandemic, using the isolation and lock down as inspiration for her look at how the concept of a normal life can insulate and protect those affected by the reality. Her straight chronological narrative avoids many of the trite traps and unrealistic plot points often found in historical novels based on women's lives. Thankfully she avoids one of the most overused and irritating traits so popular today used by authors who embrace a dual timeline. It's almost refreshing that Rix does a straight chronology of her narrative. So many authors today include some hapless soul who is transported to discover the past by inheriting a distant relative's beach house or finding a long lost letter or some other nonsensical trick. The German Wife is a straight forward tale of a woman caught in a world that no longer makes sense. Rix shows that even the simplest of our actions have consequences and we are not as innocent as we think.

The German wife is a book that tries to understand what life must have been like for those women whose husbands, sons, fathers and other menfolk were involved in Hitler's Germany. The wife in question, Annalise, is married to a doctor at the Dachau concentration camp. We see the story from her point of view, when she is very much in the dark about what her husband is doing and from his point of view. While the book doesn't defend his actions, it does attempt to explain, to an extent, why he might have been involved in such a thing.
As is often the case with this kind of book, it's easy to forget that these were real events. While many of the characters on the page are the result of the writer's imagination, the events that they are witnessing are not. There are also some real-life characters shown here.
I have mixed feelings about this book and that is largely because of what it deals with. It is a gripping story, but also an unsettling one. I enjoyed the book and wanted to know what would come of the people within it, but as I say, the subject matter isn't really an easy one to deal with. Overall though, this was a good and interesting read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and given voluntarily.

In Germany, at the beginning of Hitler's reign, Annaliese meets a doctor named Hans Vogel who gives her all she could want in life. In order to advance his career, he takes on the role of medical researcher at Dachau - a German labor camp. As an officer in the Third Reich, Hans is expected to have a large family to help the Aryan race and he and Annaliese are having difficulties getting pregnant after many years of marriage. After learning that he is impotent, Hans arranges for Anna to sleep with their gardener, a slave from Dachau and they will pass the child off as their own. What he did not count on was Anna falling in love with the gardener. When the Allies defeat the Germans, Hans escapes Germany and Anna decides to stay behind with her son. Years later, Anna learns the many secrets Hans kept from her and how much she should have known.

This is a well-told and researched Holocaust story from the German perspective. The characters are based on real people with a dose of fictionalization to make them more appealing. I particularly appreciated the author's notes where she explained the truth and the real intrigue behind the story and how it came to be. Debbie Rix took care to develop a story that would keep the reader intrigued from beginning to end. I will be reading some of Rix's backlist and getting to know her better as an author.

I have read all of Debbie Rix's books and this one does not disappoint. Another classic WW2 novel based on true events. Always educational, this is fascinating hearing a voice from the Germany point of view. We wonder how people managed not to notice what was going on in the internment camps. This is the story of a Dachau Doctors wife leading a privileged lifestyle while her husband was seeing and involved in the horrors. A great read that I tore through in a couple of days.

The book starts with Annaliese as an older woman with her adult son confronting her about his father and wanting the truth; immediately after, the book goes back in time and stays there until the very end. Annaliese lived in Germany when a few encounters with a man, Hans will change her life forever.

Annaliese marries Hans who becomes a doctor who works at Dachau. While I do believe he went there thinking that he would be doing good work, it quickly changed and I do believe that he didn't think he could get out of the Nazi hold. After finishing the book, I read a few other reviews just to see other's thoughts and a few said they couldn't believe how naive Annaliese was and I can see that. There has been many accounts that the German people weren't fully aware and in that time where news wasn't on tv twenty-four hours a day, I can believe that Annaliese didn't know what all was happening at her husband's work.

The author did such an amazing job of writing a World War II book where some of the atrocities were included, but it wasn't overwhelming. I knew that there were experiments done on those being held in these camps, but to see them through the eyes of a doctor who had a little bit of a moral compass was interesting to read.

This was my first Debbie Rix book, but will not be my last.

<b>Note:</b> I received an advanced copy of this book from Bookouture via NetGalley.

Germany, 1939: Annaliese is a doctor’s wife, living in an elegant grey stone house with ivy creeping over the balcony. But when her husband is ordered to work at the Dachau labour camp, her ordinary life is turned upside down by the horrors of war. And Annaliese finds herself in grave danger when she dares to fight for love and freedom…

America, 1989: Turning the pages of the newspaper, Annaliese gasps when she recognizes the face of a man she thought she’d never see again. It makes her heart skip a beat as a rush of wartime memories come back to her. As she reads on, she realizes the past is catching up with her. She must confront a decades-old secret – or risk losing everything…

Germany, 1942: Annaliese’s marriage is beginning to crumble. Her husband, Hans, has grown cold and secretive since starting his new job as a doctor at Dachau. When a tall, handsome Russian prisoner named Alexander is sent from the camp to work in their garden, lonely Annaliese finds herself drawn to him as they tend to the plants together. In snatched moments and broken whispers, Alexander tells her the truth about the shocking conditions at the camp. Horrified, Annaliese vows to do everything she can to save him.

But as they grow closer, their feelings for each other put them both in terrible danger. And when Annaliese falls pregnant she has to make an impossible decision between protecting herself and saving the love of her life…

That was not what I was expecting. I have been reading so many historical fiction World War II books lately that I do really like to get a different perspective of the war from the German side. This was an interesting mix of a situation in where the wife had been totally clueless of just how far her husband had to go and also from a newish perspective of how entrenched someone could get without really wanting to hurt the people around him. Especially from the perspective of a doctor and how warped a mind can be and how accustomed someone can get used to the horrors of what was going on around them. My least favorite part was the continuation of the ending.

Annaliese Vogel was happily married to Hans who is a doctor at the beginning of WW2. When he signs up with the SS in order to protect himself and his career their lives are changed forever. Assigned to Dachau to initially work on experiments into disease control to protect German troops. As he is pulled into more sinister experimentation his attitude changes and Annaliese finds they are being pulled apart and their once happy marriage is in trouble. Hans is horrified by what he witnesses and has to do but he feels that if he wants to survive the war himself he has no other choice and has to enlist his wife at times for what he sees as the greater good.
The books prologue introduces us to Annaliese with her new life in America where she is a retired interior decorator. Confronted with a face from her past it brings back the memories she thought lay hidden. From here we are taken back to her life in Germany and see her struggles with what that entails as the war progresses. It is in these chapters we are given a different perspective of the war and what it meant for German families who lived on the periphery of what was happening.
There was a part of me that felt sorry for Annaliese as she did her best to adapt to the constant changes, living with her overbearing mother-in-law and her crumbling marriage. As she fought for normalcy there were times that I wanted her to stop ignoring what was happening and confront her husband. Even when she found out some of the horrors that were being inflicted on prisoners she seemed to bottle it up.
As the relationship grew between Annaliese and the prisoner her husband had managed to get assigned as their gardener, you could see the glimmer of the woman she used to be and her dreams of them making a life together were a way of shutting everything else out as ultimately you knew that their very different experiences in the war should they both survive would keep them apart.
With a mix of historical events and fiction I was certainly intrigued by this book, and I do hope that the fate of Hans after the war was part of the fiction part and that the trade-off he received was not common practice during that time. Even now I am not sure if I feel sympathy for Annaliese or uncomfortable about how she shut out things to preserve her own life but at she is certainly a character that I will remember

Reading The German Wife I was snatched from the real life for several hours and I never regretted it! This book is worth it! Amazing unforgettable story became one of my favourites!
I always wanted to know the History of the other side of the concentration camps, German side. I was wondering how people could lose everything human that was in them? How could they become those beings who are alien to the feeling of pity and compassion? Were they able to love, because many of them had families, wives, children? How did their relatives and friends feel about their work and responsibilities? Did they know what was happening in the camps? I found the answers to my questions in the wonderful book The German Wife.
I used to think that I would never show sympathy for an SS officer until I read this book. Hans's actions, his decisions to save himself and his wife, aroused in me a wave of worries and fear, and sometimes simply led to bewilderment.
On the other hand, Hans's wife, Annaliese, I can hardly say that I liked her, but I also cannot blame her.
I will recommend this awesome book to all lovers of History, historical fiction and fiction.
Thanks to Debbie Rix, Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this great book!

Fans of the WWII genre will find this dual time line novel which moves from WWII to 1989 unique in its viewpoint. Annaliese had no idea what her life would hold when she met Hans = she was 17, he was a doctor, and the world looked bright. Then the Nazis came to power and Hans went to work at Dachau. Annaliese is, I think, shockingly ignorant of what was happening so you must accept the conceit that she didn't know until she met and fell in love with Alexander, a Russian prisoner sent to work in her garden. Her pregnancy leads to tough choices, which echo down the years to the 1989, when Annaliese is resettled in the US. No spoilers from me. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An interesting read with some disturbing scenes.

Loved the dual time of pre WWII, during WWII Germany and 1989 America. Which just happened to be the year that the Berlin war came down. All three time periods come together nicely to give a compelling story.

Hans just gave me the ick the whole time. Even when he was supposedly being "nice". I think what bothered me the most about him was how he acted so morally superior to the other doctors he worked with. Maybe he wasn't a sadist or doing cruel experiments but he still looked the other way and participated. Additionally, he knew what he did was wrong and ran away and twisted the story. I think it is particularly icky that his cover story when he escaped was that he was a former prisoner. Anna definitely comes off whiny at times but its understandable because she is so young and dealing with a lot and really doesn't have much control over her life until she gets to America. Overall I found the story incredibly intriguing and almost couldn't believe it was based off a true story! I particularly liked the dialogue about Alexander's lack of free will during Anna's affair with him and how selfish it was of Hans and Anna to put him in that situation.

This book is based on true events and reading this book actually made me emotional.

The story starts with Annaliese who is married to Hans Vogel. When the Nazis come to power, Hans, who is a doctor gets a job to work as a doctor at Dachau. Though Annaliese seem to be living a perfect picturesque German family, she is trapped in a loveless marriage as she watches her husband, dressed in dark SS uniform leaving to work.

Soon, her husband, brings in a gardener, a Russian prisoner named Alexander. Annaliese soon finds solace and companionship and the two develop a friendship which in turn become a romantic relationship. Alexander tells Annaliese about the conditions at the camp, leaving her shocked as she vowed to save Alexander.

This book is beautifully written and I have to say, the author has done tremendous amount of research to make this into a factual story. Though the characters in the book are fictional, the emotions and feelings that each of these characters are facing seem too real. The appalling conditions at the camp, the brutal experiments that were conducted at the concentration camp was too disturbing to read that the reader must pause for a second that these things actually did happen in real life. Needless to say, my favorite part in the book was the blossoming romance between Annaliese and Alexander. The ending was really heartbreaking and touching as the story ended in the 1990's with the death of Annaliese.

Overall, if you are into truly emotional and sensitive historical topic that covers Holocaust, this book is highly recommended. Worth five stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

Debbie Rix has crafted an enigmatic love story, wrapped it in a mystery and then set it inside a WW2 historical fiction novel! I really appreciated the unique perspective and the opportunity to read about a doctor who history forgot.

Set in Munich before and after the war, Annaliese Vogel is married to Hans, a doctor with a passion for research. Encouraged to join the SS to further his career, Hans is ordered to Dachau Concentration Camp where he conducts medical experiments on prisoners. Rix explores how a good man who has taken an oath to ‘do no harm’ can possibly deal with the cruelty he is forced to commit for The Fatherland. She bases her novel on true events and real people inside Dachau and pens an eye-opening story that delves into the darkness of Nazi ideology and its impact on innocent, ordinary people.

Not many books in this genre allow readers to see life at this time through the eyes of the Nazis. So many focus on the prisoners and their plight. In this novel, we see life through the eyes of a wealthy Nazi family. Rix brings readers to the spot where they see the need to examine their own lives before they point a finger at what those around them are doing. She hopes we may find that we are capable of the same things we are blindly criticizing others for doing.

The novel explores choices - those made from a horrible selection - and how they influence us in the future. Each character faced limited options and we see their thought process and see how their choice plays out. The agonizing over ethical and moral obligations and dilemmas is heartbreaking. Yes, it was uncomfortable and sickening to read about the treatment of the prisoners, but equally so to discover after the war what went on to obtain the ‘research’. I turned the final page realizing that we never really know what choice we would make until we step into another’s shoes.

This dual-timeline tale of ordinary people fighting for survival and dealing with the repercussions of their choices needs to be on your reading list come January 13, 2022.

I was gifted this advance copy by Debbie Rix, Bookouture and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Annaleise's Secret

This is one woman's journey from a happily married woman to a marriage of fear and distrust. The hidden horror of Dachau that are exposed and the far reaching effects of the cruelty of the Nazi party. Those that serve because they believe in the Reich and those that serve out of fear.

As Annaleise's husband Hans is drawn into the work at the Dachau camp he becomes darker and gloomier by the day. He never tells he tales of the camp and his work there, only that he is working on research for a cure for Malaria. She suspects it is more, but has no proof.

One day Hans hires Alexander a Russian prisoner to work in the gardens at their home to make them nice for Annaleise to make her happier. Alexander tells her of the horrors of Dachau and the truth about the research being done there. Alexander and Annaleise fall in love with each other and when she becomes pregnant she must make a heartbreaking decision to save the life of Alexander and her child.

Year later when her son is grown the past will come back to haunt her as she sees a familiar picture in the newspaper and wonders if her life is once again about to implode.

This is a story of the horrors of the concentration camp Dachau, a forbidden romance, a marriage broken and three people changed forever because of the cruelty of the Nazi's.

It was a sad story to read, and I cried for Annaleise and her life for what it might have been, for what she had lost, for what it became, and later for her losses again as she fought to regain her life and make a new life for her son. I also felt sorry for Hans and his losses, his forced obedience to the Nazi party and finally is last selfless act for his family. Alexander was a different character and played a part, I felt this character was too damaged by the camps he had nothing left to give to anyone.

It was a good book and I would recommend it.

Thanks to Debbie Rix for writing yet another great book, to Bookouture for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available for me to read.

I had so much apprehension going into this book. Do yourself a favor and dismiss any preconceived notions you may have about reading another WWII book. This book was AMAZING! So many books focus on the trials of those who were wrongfully hunted by the Nazi regime. This book provides one of the rare occasions where the war is portrayed via the eyes of an affluent Nazi family. It provokes a small amount of empathy for those who were forced to accept the status quo put into place by the Nazi regime even though their conscious identified it as wrong. An underlying theme for this book is that horrible situations make good people do horrible things.
Hans is a research doctor who wants to be acknowledged on a global scale. As the Nazis rise to power, Hans is forced to accept an assignment as an SS officer as a means to become better placed for medical recognition. His wife Annaliese is a stay at home wife who hates the Nazis, struggles with attempting to make her mother-in-law happy, pines for a child, and becomes increasingly aware that her husband is keeping something from her. When an opportunity arises that allows Hans to be acknowledged as a valued member of the party and give Annaliese the child she so desperately craves they take it.
This book does several things very well. Rix writes characters that are richly developed, easy to both love and hate, and that mesmerize the reader. Rix also shows how people were swallowed up by the Nazis and forced to accept their philosophy despite their better judgement. The character Annaliese entertains the notion that there were those amongst the Germans who were oblivious to the harshness of the regime. A very well executed story.
I received a copy of this title via the publisher through NetGalley.