Elisabeth Storrs is an Australian novelist who writes historical fiction. We’ve connected for many years on the joys and challenges of writing historical fiction. After writing a trilogy set in Ancient Rome – great stories – Elisabeth has now written a novel set in Nazi Germany. I had the privilege of reading Fables & Lies and can report that it is both an excellent story as well as a unique and compelling perspective on World War Two, including the power of propaganda. Here’s Elisabeth on that topic.
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My novel, Fables & Lies, arose from my fascination with the archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, who not only proved the ancient city of Troy existed but also discovered a fabulous cache of gold there known as Priam’s Treasure. Schliemann smuggled the trove out of Turkey then “bequeathed” it to the German people. During WW2, the treasure was kept in a Berlin museum. After the Soviets plundered the city, Priam’s Treasure disappeared mysteriously for 50 years.
When researching the story of the Trojan gold’s disappearance, I discovered the museum curator who braved air raids to protect the priceless exhibit was a member of Himmler’s SS Ahnenerbe Ancestral Heritage Research Institute. These Ahnenerbe scholars subverted prehistory to promote the Aryan Myth which exhorted Germans to believe in their superiority, and ultimately justified conquest, dispossession and murder.
My protagonist, Freyja Bremer, is a patriotic museum assistant raised on Nazi dogma. Through her love affair with Cambridge educated archaeologist, Darien Lessing, her eyes are opened to the rot beneath the Regime’s lies, as they both strive to protect their nation’s treasures. Intertwined is Freyja’s forced marriage to Kaspar Voigt, an Ahnenerbe scholar, and her quest to discover what her husband’s twisted research entails. As such, Freyja’s safekeeping efforts and her journey to enlightenment form the spine of the novel. However, I also explore Himmler’s promulgation of the Aryan Myth through the Ahnenerbe.
What was the Aryan Myth?
This fable held out Nordic-Germanic peoples evolved from survivors of Atlantis who migrated across the world to sow the seeds of all great civilizations before being weakened through interbreeding with inferior peoples. The ‘pure Aryans’ were super-humans with distinctive racial traits – blue eyed, fair-haired and physically fit. They formed the ‘Master Race’ and were ‘bearers of culture’ whose descendants were destined to be rulers.
Unfortunately, this fanciful construct led to monstruous real-life consequences when Nazi ethnologists implemented positive and negative eugenic policies. The ‘positive’ aimed to strengthen the Master Race through breeding programs. The ‘negative’ involved eliminating the disabled as well as those considered racially impure including Jews, Romani, Slavs and Persons of Colour – the so called ‘destroyers of culture’ who were said to be overbreeding. Dehumanization, persecution, and extermination ensued, first with euthanasia programs, and finally with genocide.
Atlantis, you say?
Himmler was a believer in occult fantasies such as Atlantis and the Holy Grail. In the early years, the Ahnenerbe conducted outlandish quests including one to Tibet to locate traces of Atlantis. In fact, the subject matter of Spielberg’s Indiana Jones movies were derived from such expeditions. However, the Ahnenerbe also employed reputable academics who made Faustian Bargains to progress their careers. Many conducted archaeological excavations to convince Germans (and the world) that Stone Age Indo-Aryans originated in northern lands and spread their influence south and east across Europe. This theory underpinned claims Germany was entitled to conquer ‘ancestral lands’ in Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
Did the German people really believe in the myth?
Faced with the challenge of writing my book from the perspective of German civilians, I read many sources examining whether ordinary Germans were victims or perpetrators. But to consider an entire population as a monolith is to ignore the diversity of motivations of millions of individuals. As such, I suspect only the ‘True Believers’ swallowed the concept of the Atlantean survivors but the theories espoused by reputable prehistorians could well have permeated the national consciousness. The concept of superiority was built on an existing degree of German exceptionalism. Additionally, there was endemic antisemitism and a prevailing prejudice against Slavic people, particularly the Poles. This stemmed from the fact Poland had been carved up for centuries between Germany and Russia prior to WWI. By 1916, Germany had conquered Russian owned Polish territory only to be forced to cede it when Poland was made a sovereign territory under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
This forced surrender of eastern lands led to a bitter grievance. An unfounded conspiracy theory known as ‘the stab in the back’ asserted the German army had not been defeated in 1918 but instead the country had been brought down by Jews, socialists, and corrupt Weimar Republican politicians who fomented civil rebellion. Many ‘Ethnic Germans’ who now found themselves Polish citizens due to the redrawing of borders were angry and resentful, particularly when much of the rich industrial heartland was given to the Poles. Recovering these ‘Borderlands’ became the focus of many Germany’s politicians, including Hitler and his National Socialist Party. Their relentless propaganda asserted the Führer would reclaim the Borderlands, return Germany to greatness, and build a national community rooted in ‘blood and soil’ as the Master Race.
The indoctrination begins
The Nazis’ indoctrination of the populace started in earnest with children. The subversive view the origin of the ‘Aryan race’ was from Nordic lands was inculcated in students through the curriculum and excursions to museums and archaeological digs. School magazines were full of pseudo-archaeology and Norse mythology. History was divided into ‘Germanic eras’ with fanciful names such as the ‘Time of Becoming’, ‘Time of Suffering’ and ‘Time of Awakening’.
Children were not the only ones targeted. There was a particularly seductive element to encouraging Germans to believe themselves ‘bearers of culture’ after post WWI deprivations. Extensive newspaper reports reveal popular public tours of archaeological sites and museum exhibitions promoting the supremacy of Aryan origins. The ‘Our Ancestors’ exhibition featured scale models of medieval houses and life-sized mannequins of Germanic warriors in battledress. Himmler appeared in a movie, German Past Comes Alive, which showcased an excavation featuring Hitler Youth assisting in a dig. In comparison, movies such as Jud Süß (Sweet Jew) and Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) were released as virulent antisemitic propaganda. A ‘Soviet Paradise’ museum exhibition depicted Slavs as uneducated peasants living in squalor.
After Germany invaded Russia, the Nazis’ determination to justify the invasion was exemplified by the Ahnenerbe’s ‘German Academic Action’. This involved embedding prehistorians with the army to brainwash soldiers to believe the conquest of Russia and Ukraine was a ‘homecoming’. Troops were supposedly reincarnations of Aryan peoples such as the Ostro-goths and Scythians who once ruled the region. In effect, the Greater Reich would stand on the remains of Germany’s ancestral realm.
Trapped in a cocoon of ‘fake news’
The Nazi Utopia soon disintegrated into a reign of terror. Deprived of the chance to read or hear foreign news, the populace was fed a diet of ‘fake news’ about what was happening in the outside world as they were restricted to listening to radio programs transmitted via ‘Volksemfänger’ wirelesses which were limited to local frequencies. Loudspeakers were installed in public spaces to blast out government edicts. SS and SA troops ran rampant with unchecked violence. Political dissidents, journalists and intellectuals were interned in concentration camps as ‘enemies of the State’. Surveillance was imposed through Party ‘Block Wardens’ monitoring neighbourhoods. People were encouraged to turn on each other leading to a wave of denunciations to the Gestapo.
As the climate of fear grew, the onslaught of policies that eroded or eliminated public institutions and civil liberties led to a degree of apathy among many. Overwhelmed, citizens passively accepted the changes, feeling powerless or afraid to stop the abuses of power. As the tide of the war turned, Germans were even more cut off from the truth unless they dared to listen to foreign radio which carried a death penalty. Others, of course, were fanatics ready to blindly follow the Führer and support the Reich to the bitter end.
History repeats
It is chilling to watch similar preconditions to those arising after WWI occurring across the Western world, with right wing nationalistic governments espousing fascist policies that are anti-democracy, anti-intellectual and anti-free press. Bizarre conspiracy theories abound. Antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. And replacement theory is being touted once again with migrants supposedly threatening to overbreed and destroy traditional culture. Social media algorithms isolate people in a continuous loop of skewed views as effectively as Volksemfänger radios. As a result, families and communities are polarized just as Germans were.
History is repeating in disturbing ways. I feel Fables & Lies is a novel for our times and will give readers a better understanding of how a populace and institutions can fall under the spell of zealots. Most of all, the book shows history is never neutral, and that courage can be found in the smallest acts of defiance.
Thank you, Elisabeth. Fables & Lies is indeed a chilling reminder of how autocratic regimes gain control of their citizens and a warming of the dangers we currently face.My review: Fables & Lies is a unique look at Germany during Hitler’s
Fables & Lies by Elisabeth Storrs
Under a brutal regime, what price must be paid to preserve truth, treasure and love in a world built on lies?
WWII Berlin. Freyja Bremer, a patriotic museum assistant, marries Kaspar Voigt, an ambitious SS scholar, to protect her father. Yet she is unaware her husband is instrumental in Himmler’s twisted quest for Aryan supremacy.
As she strives to safeguard the priceless Priam’s Treasure from air raids, Freyja falls in love with Darien Lessing, an archaeologist who exposes the moral decay beneath the Regime’s myths. Her awakening drives her into perilous resistance — aiding a Jewish doctor and his wife, Darien’s sister — while uncovering Kaspar’s role in the SS’s darkest programs, which subvert history to justify invasion, abduction and murder.
As Berlin collapses into chaos and bloodshed, Freyja, caught between duty, deception and desire, must risk everything to preserve truth in a world built on lies.
A heartbreaking yet triumphant love story, Fables & Lies shines light on lesser-known aspects of the Nazi Regime. It gives voice to the complex moral struggles of German women, the forgotten resistance of Gentiles married to Jews, the dangers of contested history, the evils of Himmler’s racial studies program and the unsung bravery of German museum curators who saved their nation’s treasures.
A must for readers who love emotional, thought-provoking WWII historical fiction, Fables & Lies explores the complexities of survival, resistance, impossible choices and moral conflict while featuring thwarted love, dark family secrets and a journey to enlightenment. Perfect for fans of Kelly Rimmer, Laura Morelli and Anthony Doer.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.
