The Scent of a Storm: A World War II Story about Love, Courage, and Survival by Annette Oppenlander is a heartfelt tale of two love-crazed teenagers torn apart by the vagaries of war as Soviet soldiers pushed westward to Berlin through what was then East Prussia in the dying days of World War II. For Annie, now living with her daughter Emma in East Berlin under its repressive communist rule, 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall would prove to be a momentous time in many ways. A chance sighting on the television of a journalist whom she firmly believed to be her lover from years ago sends her into a recollection of those far-gone days. She and Werner had been lovers and she was left pregnant and all alone after Werner was sent by the Reich to dig trenches designed to halt the relentless advance of Soviet tanks into Prussia. As Annie and Werner revisit their early days and their struggles for survival as they both separately tried to flee the oncoming Soviet army, both are consumed with the possibility that their long-lost love may still flicker in each of their hearts. For Emma, though, it might be a chance to meet and finally get to know the father she had never known all these years.
The Scent of a Storm is a beautiful story that perfectly captures the helplessness felt by ordinary people when their leaders have taken them into a war they didn’t really understand and certainly, by the end, no longer believed in. To the victors go the spoils, as the saying goes, and for the millions of people displaced from Prussia at the end of the war, life was indeed tragic and brutal; for many of them, terminal. Author Annette Oppenlander has captured the essence of defeat and the struggle for survival for the people who wanted nothing more than to just go home – to a home, though, that no longer existed. She conveys the utter hopelessness of the vicious winter of 1944-45, as so many died on the long, cold march westward seeking sanctuary and just somewhere to call home. One can really feel the anguish, especially of the young people who were thrust into a situation not of their making, over which they had no control, and yet they were expected to fight against impossible odds to defend their homeland. What I particularly liked was that both Werner and Annie, despite their suffering, did grasp that what was happening to them was, in some way, understandable righteous retribution for the atrocities their own people had committed on the Soviets and others in the preceding five-plus years. This is a fantastic read that is impossible to put down and will steal the hearts of all true romantics, as well as historical fiction buffs. I can highly recommend this book.
Award-winning Author Publishes Historical Novel Inspired by True Events
SOLINGEN, Germany - Sept. 23, 2021 - PRLog -- German American novelist Annette Oppenlander is passionate about WWII stories from the civilian perspective. Her newest historical novel, The Scent of a Storm, explores the German refugee crisis of 1944/1945, when 10-14 million women and children in East Prussia, Silesia and other Eastern regions had to flee from the approaching Red Army. Many died on the way, many more were forced to resettle, never to see their homes again. Others were caught, enslaved, brutalized and killed.
The result is an intense historical love story that spans 45 years and ends during the German reunification in 1989/1990. Though her characters are invented, Oppenlander does thorough historical research and uses eye-witness reports to authenticate her tales.
"I want to tell stories that remind us of our past, maybe teach us something new," says Oppenlander. "Because the plight of the refugee is ever-present. A refugee has left everything behind and must forge a new identity and life in a foreign environment—a monumental task."
About the Story
East Prussia, 1944: Young lovers Annie and Werner are separated from each other when he is drafted into Hitler's Volkssturm. While the SS orders Werner to remove the dead bodies of frozen refugees from Königsberg's streets, Annie discovers she is pregnant. As she urgently awaits Werner's return, rumors of the advancing Red Army mount and with it, alarming reports of what they do to women. Running for their lives, Annie and her mother embark on a life-threatening journey west. Even before they can escape by boat, Annie makes a horrifying mistake, one that will haunt her forever. Werner, arrested and imprisoned in a Russian gulag, manages to escape after four months of cruelty and returns home. But his and Annie's family farms lie abandoned—the love of his life and his own family have vanished...
East Berlin, 1989: On the evening of November 9, when the borders between East and West Berlin open for the first time in nearly thirty years—a day which ultimately heralds Germany's reunification—Annie watches a correspondent on West TV who reminds her of her childhood sweetheart Werner, the man she thought was dead for 45 years. Together with her daughter Emma, Annie sets out on a search...
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