At the center of these events at the beginning of the Second World War is a man who, as a journalist, writes his articles under the abbreviation “Dr.

B. “wrote.

The author Daniel Birnbaum makes it unmistakably clear that the description is a novel, and consequently the veracity of a fiction.

At the same time, however, the reality of the historical events forms the background.

If the word entanglement, in its double sense of conscious action and fateful involvement, can have a meaning: It is used in “Dr.

B. “Shape.

Rose-Maria Gropp

Editor in the features section, responsible for the “art market”.

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Most of the other people involved, not just the prominent ones in the mix on the political stage, were there too.

Those who are caught up in this book will find themselves exploring them on their own paths.

They acted on the often invisible fronts in the apocalyptic confusion in Stockholm in 1939/40, which Daniel Birnbaum made incredibly vivid.

He brings the Swedish capital to life, which looks like a “Casablanca of the north” at that time: where people have gathered who just hope to be able to stay;

who fled mainly from the National Socialists, many of them in transit, hoping for visas, for onward travel, mostly to North or South America.

"Dr.

B. “is Immanuel Birnbaum, born in Königsberg in 1894 as the son of the main cantor of the Jewish community there.

Since the late twenties he has been a correspondent in Warsaw for German-language newspapers (including the Frankfurter Zeitung).

After the Germans invaded Poland, as a converted Jew and close to the resistance in Poland, he emigrated to Sweden with his wife and two teenage sons.

From Stockholm, Immanuel Birnbaum continued to write articles under his abbreviation for the liberal Basler Nachrichten from Switzerland, as well as for a correspondence office in Berlin.

Between the lines of a seemingly harmless letter

In Stockholm he also met the publisher Gottfried Bermann Fischer, who had also emigrated with his family. Bermann Fischer ran his exile publishing house there, in which he published the works of Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. He gave Birnbaum a job as a lecturer. And perhaps hoped from its connections - this is what the novel says, and there are some indications for it - to help obtain transit visas for the Soviet Union in order to be able to emigrate to the United States. Through Bermann Fischer, Birnbaum comes into contact with a group of anti-Nazi-minded Englishmen; Perhaps he did not know their exact plans, actually the most serious sabotage.

With great skill, Daniel Birnbaum brings the different storylines together: the subcutaneous entanglements of power-political calculations at the beginning of the world war and the onset of catastrophe for all culture, thus for human attitude and dignity. For the book's Immanuel Birnbaum, this means: He gets caught in the fatal dichotomy between sheer life support and his sense of integrity. Because from the Berlin correspondence office it is made clear to him that one expects information from the background knowledge of his profession, if he wants to receive further financial donations, for the maintenance of his ailing wife Lucia and the sons Karl Edward and Henrik. A fountain pen and invisible ink are leaked to him for this purpose;he writes with the yellow liquid between the lines of a seemingly harmless letter to Berlin. The message was intercepted by the Swedish postal control in February 1940; the English are exposed. Immanuel Birnbaum is arrested and imprisoned as a German spy for eight months; Bermann Fischer is also temporarily arrested.