The Traitors Circle
Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin
Jonathan Freedland has written a compelling, factually accurate ‘whodunnit’ about a courageous group of anti-Nazi dissenters and the ruthless individual who betrayed them to Nazi overlords during the Second World War. While this book is a thriller with a propulsive storyline, it is so much more. It is a well-documented history of the lives and times of the group’s elite members drawn, in several instances, from the aristocracy and upper echelons of German society. This is a true story and every line of dialogue is authenticated in the book’s comprehensive endnotes, and all characters and plot-lines are corroborated in references sourced across multiple government, institutional, academic and family archives, involving a broad number of contributors and scholars from Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States, all of whom Freedland acknowledges, with a special mention for Jonathan Cummings, a German speaker, ‘whose contribution was truly indispensable’.
Freedland’s readers, therefore, can trust his authorial voice for its accuracy and authenticity. Every detail in this remarkable story can be validated in an impressive range of primary and secondary sources. It is a fascinating narrative with innumerable and judiciously placed cliff-hangers to keep the reader engaged and, indeed, enthralled as the personal and political stories unfold and tensions escalate.
While this book has been translated into several European languages, it has not been translated into German, which prompts a degree of reflection. Does this speak to a German sensitivity about a book that could be construed by some as whitewashing or even as an attempt at redeeming the collective guilt of the German nation, focusing as it does on the irrefutable humanitarian virtues and credentials of its dissenting protagonists. It reveals conclusively—and even redemptively—a seismic shift from the unmitigated evil of Nazism to the ethical and religious principles that powered a small group of nine or ten idealistic individuals. Clearly, they are representative of a minority of Germans willing in those dark and dangerous times to put their lives on the line as dissenters.
Historical sources underpinning Freedland’s narrative reveal that five per cent of Germans rejected and opposed Nazi ideology. Nonetheless, this percentage translates into a significant total of three million people. Three million dissenters is a substantial number, but, in fact, that figure also throws into high relief the remaining 95 per cent of the German population who were completely compliant with Nazi ideology, a conclusion substantiated, for example, in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
What is abundantly clear is that Friedland’s ethical landscape in The Traitors Circle contrasts dramatically with his focus on pure evil in his previous book The Escape Artist: the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world, in which he exposed the very worst of humanity. It must have afforded the author a measure of psychological relief to switch, at long last, from the painful delineation of the blackest of evils to the shining examples set by good people in their principled and brave campaign against brutality, inhumanity and the Nazi’s eliminationist hatred of Jews.
The critical moment in this book that generates unimaginable suffering is the seemingly innocuous birthday tea party attended by a select few guests on 10 September 1943 in Berlin. Known to one another, the invitees were kindred spirits, cherishing the chance to exchange confidences in an unguarded manner. Their bond of trust and mutual respect ensured an open discussion of ‘defeatist’ views and their plans for government once Germany fell to the Allies, views that marked them as traitors in the eyes of the Nazis. At that moment, they never suspected they would be betrayed and that their frank conversation would unleash immeasurable suffering for all and death for some in their circle.
The elite group included Wilhelm Solf, a former colonial governor in far-flung parts of the German empire, his wife Johanna (Hanna), a young society hostess, and their daughter Countess Lagi. Another well-connected guest was the aristocratic Countess Maria von Maltzan. Imbued with patrician principles of the nobility, she despised the cult of national socialism. Arthur Zarden and his wife Edithe, the daughter of Jewish businessman Benno Orenstein whose fortune ensured the family’s acceptance in the highest circles, as well as their young daughter Irmgard, were also members of this dissenting circle. Then there was the devout Christian, Elizabeth von Thadden, a daughter of the landed aristocracy, with a true calling for educating young women. Among these dissidents was the diplomat Otto Kiep, formerly Germany’s Consul-General in New York where, controversially, he attended a dinner in honour of Albert Einstein. Most were righteous Gentiles, who sheltered Jews, helped them escape Germany and did all they could to boost their chances of survival. Many of these attendants at that ill-fated tea party would be tried as traitors to the Third Reich in a show trial presided over by the ‘hanging judge’ Roland Kreisler, which was widely reported at the time.
Freedland propels his characters along their torturous paths against a cavalcade of competing ideologies of totalitarianism, fascism and Bolshevism. The book abounds in vivid portraits of the evil historical figures that dominated that era, from Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler to Herbert (Leo) Lange, who pioneered the use of gas in mass murder and who assumes the inquisitorial role, unravelling the complexity of the treason he attributes to the dissidents. There are perceptive sketches of resistance among those who truly deserve to be memorialised, such as the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the latter having planned the failed attempt on Hitler’s life. Both Stauffenberg and Bonhoeffer were abused, humiliated and brutally executed.
Freedland’s canvas has both breadth and depth. Ultimately, his book prompts questions about the nature of good and evil and the human capacity for both. While it is easier to arrive at a clear indictment of evil, it is more challenging to identify elements that constitute pure goodness. Given the iniquitous cruelty and barbarism of the Nazi regime, one ponders what it would take for a human being to defy Nazi tyranny and the tyrants. It is a tribute to Freedland’s skills as a narrator that the lives and times of his characters resonate with us so profoundly and have much to say to today’s readers confronting our own troubling times.
The Traitors Circle: The rebels against the Nazis and the spy who betrayed them
Jonathan Freedland
John Murray Press, London
Hachette Australia
2025
