What remains of twelve years of Nazism in Germany in the spring of 1945? Only ruins. They are material rubble because the entire nation was practically destroyed by years of bombing and was now completely at the mercy of enemy armies. They are spiritual rubble because little more than a decade of Hitlerian propaganda infected the souls of Germans, paving the way for the logic of extermination, suspicion, fear, and contempt for all that was different. Germany has committed abominations and is about to receive further abominations in revenge. And as Soviet troops lay siege to Berlin, there seems to be no room for the future. Some fight, convinced that it is better to die than to live in a world without Hitler. Others commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of those Russians, whom the Nazi regime depicted as inhuman beasts. Many await the end, drained of everything. Others seek impossible escape routes in a race against time in the final days of the Third Reich.
This is the setting of Andrea Frediani's latest novel, The Night of the Traitors (Newton Compton Edotori, 2026, €12.90, 352 pages. Also available as an ebook), a thriller that takes us to Germany during the fall of Hitler. Here we meet two friends-cum-enemies, Konrad and Alois, who defect to try to reach Berlin before it falls to the Soviets. They have collaborated for years on the Linz Project, stealing priceless works of art from their owners, often Jewish. Despite this, and despite having known each other practically forever, the two are profoundly different. Konrad is a staunch Nazi, but he is also a pragmatic man.
He understands that everything must change for everything to stay the same. For him, Nazism has lost a battle, but the war for domination is still long. He simply wants to survive while waiting for better times. Alois is awakening from years of curse. He was part of the system, but he is recovering from the infection that has affected almost all Germans since 1933. He believes the rubble around him is clear evidence of the errors and horrors of Nazism. He doesn't want excuses. He wants another chance.
Both, however, have a clear goal in mind: to exploit their past connection with Joseph Goebbels to get their hands on the paintings they helped steal and confiscate, and exchange them for safety. Theirs is a dramatic race against time, a journey into the horror of a front ravaged not only by bombings and looting, but also by mass suicides, columns of refugees and deportees, abandoned concentration camps, destruction, and rubble. But that's not all. There are the gangs of fanatical youths of the Werwolf (a direct offshoot of the SS), the traveling courts-martial to execute defeatists, the Gestapo squads hunting for deserters, all proving more dangerous and ruthless than their enemies. Tensions build between Konrad and Alois, culminating in a showdown in the besieged capital and a meeting with the Nazi leader, right in the last bastion of power: Hitler's bunker. Who between Konrad and Alois will survive and help build a new Germany?