A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis by Catherine Bailey

A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis Reviews

• 
  Kaethe

  This is how highly I think of Catherine Bailey's work: she has a new book, I place an order, I receive it, I start reading it. Why no, I hadn't even noticed the subtitle until I pulled the book up here to mark it Currently Reading.
  Doesn't matter. It's going to be fascinating.
  
  ***
  
  And it was. I hate the title though. Not that I have a better suggestion.
  
  The topic is right in my wheelhouse: women in wartime. In this case, a young woman, daughter of the German ambassador to Italy during WWII. She met and married an Italian nobleman, bore two sons, and tried to hold the estate, its farm, and the surrounding community safe against the Germans. Meanwhile her father and her husband are both off, fighting against their respective country's fascist leaders.
  
  The Gestapo come for her, taking her and the boys to Austria, where they are taken from her and she is sent through a succession of concentration camps.
  
  Italy isn't a country whose history I know very well, and although I've read a fair amount about WWII none of it was ever about the resistance within Germany to the Nazis and their atrocities. You know how in time travel stories everyone's first thought seems to be "Let's kill Hitler?" There couldn't have been many more attempts on his life if all those stories were true. I had no idea.
  
  It is heartening to know that so many within these countries were resisting, often at enormous personal and familial cost. There are those who think blaming some poorly-treated minority for the ills of their society, rather than, say, the actual people who are running the government and controlling the capital. But there are also the others who despise aggression and are appalled by violence. I need to hear more of those stories.
  
  Side bar: it is not a "brothel" full of "prostitutes" in the concentration camps. Rape as an act of war isn't any less horrific for being indoors and controlled by military authorities.
  
  Library copy
• 
  Martin

  Did you ever wonder why the German populace allowed, tolerated or actively supported Hitler in his rise to power and his awful reign of terror? Many of us have wondered (and some would say it has even more relevance in America today) where the “good” Germans were while their nation morphed in front of their eyes. Well, this excellent non fiction account will help answer that question to some degree. While it is not the main thrust of the book, you will learn of the true German heroes, the German resistance, whose moral courage brought the ultimate sacrifice for many. And that is the set up for the rest of the story where vengeance is sought on their surviving family members. This is almost three books in one. You have the story of the resistance and the multiple attempts on Hitler’s life, more attempts than I had known about. (That’s not a spoiler, we all know what happened to Hitler in the end!) Then there is the compelling tale of one of the conspirators’ daughters, married with two young children living in Italy, who is captured and imprisoned by the Gestapo, along with other “prominent” families. Their tribulations are horrific, yet, because of their privileged status, they don’t suffer as much as the Jewish captives in the camps (although in my view they had it pretty darn bad!) Finally there is the story about the separation from the children and search for them post war (again, not a spoiler, it’s in the book’s subtitle!) I found the whole story fascinating because it’s a part of WWII history that is rarely told. It is well written, almost as a fast paced novel, with an occasional sideline excursion off the main plot. I highly recommend it, with one suggestion: skip the photos in the middle of the book (or maybe only look at the first few pages) since some will reveal things you may prefer to discover as they develop in the story. Overall its really interesting and well written.
• 
  Donna

  This is WWII Nonfiction. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator , Cassandra Campbell, did an excellent job.
  
  For being a piece of world history, I liked the research that went into this book. I also liked that this book presented a different angle on the all the suffering that occurred during this tragic time that I haven't read before. I even got a little choked up at the end.
  
  The title states exactly what the beginning and the ending of this book are about. The middle, however, felt a little like a 'bait and switch'. It left the original story and covered all the horror of camp life during WWII, like every other book focused on WWII. Then it eventually picked back up with the family and the missing boys and finished the story I have never heard before. So 4 stars.
• 
  M.K.

  Catherine Bailey has done it again! A Castle in Wartime is a superb story, full of incredible detail about those who worked against Hitler, their families who were imprisoned in the aftermath, children who were lost as a consequence and the struggle to survive. WWII stories both true and fictional always remind me of incredible feats of courage as well as horrible acts of evil and man's inhumanity to man. Catherine Bailey is a wonderful writer who I first encountered through her book The Secret Rooms, which is set in WWI. And I was fortunate enough to win a copy of A Castle in Wartime through a Goodreads giveaway. This one includes love, war, loss, friendship, and so much more!
• 
  Connie

  This is Fey and her families story. It’s very informative of the atrocities people had to go through. Fey and her two kids were taken, arrested and separated. They were resisters to the Nazi regime. They sacrificed everything to resist. This historical look back in a horrific time in our world is a eye opener. It has maps in it showing the occupied and un-occupied areas among some that show the front lines and neutral areas. The things this family including Fey’s father, Hitlers ambassador to Italy as well as her husband an Italian aristocrat. If you love historical books, I recommend you getting this one! It’s due out 10/29/19
• 
  Joanne Annabannabobanna

  By intertwining one family’s history with the historical events of WWII, it is impossible not to become absorbed by the heightening pathos of this complex story. The reader is drawn in by the idea that such a terrible trauma could be experienced by a privileged and elite German, non-Jewish family. The author describes the harrowing circumstances with empathic understanding, making four hundred pages read like a thriller.
  
• 
  Lisa of Hopewell

  My Interest
  
  If you’ve seen Tom Cruise’s film The Valkryie you know that not everyone fully supported Hitler. There was a German resistance movement even within the Wehrmacht. One of the Valkryie conspirators was Ulrich Von Hassell. He was later executed for his part in the plot to kill Hitler. His daughter, Fey, had an interesting war as well. This book tells her story from after the time of Valkryie until the end of the war.
  
  
  
  Fey_von_Hassel_mit_Roberto
  Source
  Fey and her sons
  
  
  The Story
  
  Fey Von Hassell was a very privileged young woman who married an equally privilege Italian aristocrat. Not only was Fey the daughter of a Valkryie conspirator, but her maternal grandfather was Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. She grew up on a fine estate and her family’s friends had all been in the Kaiser’s own circle. Her husband’s family had similar connections, only in Italy. After Valkrie, with her husband in Rome in the new Italian government as a cover for his resistance work, Fey is taken into custody and separated from her sons.
  
  As the war grinds to its end, Fey and other “Sippenhäfltlinge” (kin of prisoners) are moved from location to location–sometimes to concentration camps, but never in the same circumstances as the Jewish prisoners awaiting death. They were all Germans, Aryans, but the relatives of “traitors.”
  
  As happens in wartime, miscommunication hampers Fey’s ability to make sense of it all. Arriving at one destination, some of the little party of “Prominenten” prisoners, who by now included prominent POWs such as two men providentially named “Churchill,” but who were, in fact, no relation to Winston, are reunited with their seized children, but Fey is not. As Himmler uses the group as a bargaining chip, Fey becomes determined to make a change in her life that seems impossible, but that gives her comfort to survive the moment.
  
  Finally, at war’s end, she realizes the intended change in her life cannot take place and that she must try to find her children again, all the time fearing that they have been given new names and perhaps even been adopted by a new family. Bureaucracies of several nations now stand in her way, yet she and husband Detalmo, are determined to find their boys.
  
  
  My Thoughts
  
  I do not seek to minimize Fey’s very real trauma, but I was somewhat relieved to read her words of angst at having been in the camps, however briefly, and not had to suffer as the Jewish prisoners did. At no time did she go hungry. Occasionally in travel, there were uncomfortable conditions and yes, her life was in danger from bombing and later from execution–an extremely traumatic idea to live under. Unlike those in the concentration camp awaiting their deaths, Fey’s suffering was confined to about a year at the end of the war. Did she suffer trauma? Of course many times over. But nothing compared to the Jews.
  
  She was right to be proud of her father, whose personal moral code could not stomach Hitler. No one could resign a commission under Hitler, so he did what he could and helped plot to kill the man. Her husband, too, worked with the resistance in Italy to end the war. Those are proud accomplishments speaking of the best morals and true courage.
  
  I have read other books on German aristocrats in the war and most leave me wondering “why are you complaining?” [See the bottom of this post for reading suggestions]. Fey, though, had a mother’s greatest nightmare come true and lived through it. That, too, is a proud accomplishment. That the search for her sons was not that arduous compared to that of many displaced persons, does not lessen the trauma the events inflicted on her.
• 
  Linden

  Daughter of Hitler's ambassador to Italy is arrested by the SS after her father's involvement in the failed July 20 plot. This is the story of her imprisonment and subsequent search for her young sons.
• 
  Liz W.

  I received an ARC through Goodreads Giveaway and I handed the book straight off to my history loving father. He really enjoyed the story this book told. When he was describing it to me, I could tell that the love and the drive of those whose children had been taken really came through. My dad gave it a solid thumbs up and his recommendation!
• 
  Karen (Living Unabridged)

  Starts strong, well plotted, full of fascinating detail (although a few too many detours), peters out a bit at the end.
• 
  Beth

  some of the war descriptions are tough to hear, this is an amazing story of a failed coup against Hitler and how it affected those involved as well as anyone related to them.
• 
  Dawn

  Once again Catherine Bailey writes an amazing work of nonfiction that reads like fiction. I couldn't wait to read more every day so that I could find out what happens to this family. I do wish we had a little more info about after the war but I understand that's not the main objective in this book.
• 
  Francis

  Excellent book. When we think life is tough, it is good to read books like this. Tells the story of a family torn apart during World War II and how they dealt with it, particularly about the daughter, wife and mother.
  She saw and personally experienced many horrors.
  Something that almost always disappoints me with such books is the lack of prayer. She did pray, but it is mentioned in passing.
  At any time in our lives, especially during times of suffering and trial, prayer is essential. Why? Because God is ultimately in control if we let him be in control. Even in times of suffering and deprivation God can help us find ways around and most importantly He will console us with His grace.
  I am always disappointed that people who engaged in such atrocities as some mentioned in this book, often times got away, literally with brutal murder. I understand after the war, that people wanted to put that all behind, but it seems that there should be no statute of limitations to anyone engaged in atrocities.
• 
  Jackie

  There is a spectrum of WWII experiences. This one is pretty mild as far as things go. Makes a pretty fucking boring read.
• 
  Karin Mika

  This World War II book presents a slightly different version of the story of Hitler's realm of death and destruction. The main focal point of the story -- Fey van Hassell -- was the daughter of Ulrich van Hassell who was part of the plot to overthrow or kill Hitler (culminating in the failed attempt by Klaus van Stauffenberg). You can't read any books about World War II without being repeatedly shocked by barbarism of the Nazis and their followers. I doubt you can ever categorize it (or any other barbarism) as worst, but the chronicling of what these people did (complete disdain for life) should cause everyone to wonder how such evil can occur and do everything possible to stop it before it is allowed to flourish (and I'm not convinced we've done anything of the kind since Hitler).
  
  The book presents a lot of information on something not widely talked about -- the number of people who opposed Hitler from the onset, and who worked tirelessly to overthrow him if not kill him. These people often came from the "intelligentsia" and from the oldest families in Europe, but unfortunately, Hitler and his henchmen knew they existed and so they were often imprisoned and killed before they could do much. I was a bit surprised at how many high ranking individuals in the military were working against Hitler, but again, once there was even a rumor of betrayal, these individuals and/or their families were imprisoned or killed.
  
  Fey van Hassell was living in Italy while her parents were living in Germany. As the war turned and Civil War broke out in Italy, the Germans were still trying to control their own parts of Italy and occupied the van Hassell household. van Hassell wound up in the middle because she was perceived as a Nazi sympathizer while also being considered a possible threat by the Nazis because she was essentially Italian (and feared to be helping the partisans). Then life got worse when her father was arrested and executed as part of the van Stauffenberg plot. Hitler and then Himmler ordered that all family members of the collaborators be hunted down and imprisoned or killed. This included Fey van Hassell, whose two young children were taken from her and placed in an orphanage with different names. van Hassell then joined the group of collaborator families members (including grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc....) who went on an odyssey of forced re-locations and looming executions that lasted until the end of the war.
  
  It is amazing to consider that these arrested family members were some of the most elite, if not wealthy, in German society. Many were high ranking members of the military, and none really even had any knowledge of the plot to overthrow Hitler. They were moved from place-to-place, including concentration camps. Although by comparison they may not have endured the worst of the worst, they witnessed it, with a few dying from the conditions or disease. Depending on the day, they were sometimes told that they might live, or they might ultimately be executed. Most had their children taken away from them as Fey van Hassell did.
  
  The book does have somewhat of a happy ending in comparison to many in the war. van Hassell's mother and sister worked tirelessly and were able to locate the van Hassell children in an orphanage near Innsbruck. (The tenacity necessary as well as the luck involved was an amazing story itself.) van Hassell was also able to re-unite with her husband (who was an Italian partisan) and they were able to move back to their home.
  
  But the sheer detail of the barbarism (of the Nazis AND the Soviet troops) just sticks with the reader. What occurred is almost incomprehensible, and really not all that long ago. What is also incomprehensible was the utter denial about doing anything wrong, or doing things "because it was wartime" or ordered. Some of the souls of those people (if they existed) really d0 need to rot in hell -- some of the ordinary people as well who demostrated such incomprehensible cruelty that it is hard to fathom.
• 
  Fran Johnson

  This is the story of Fey von Hassell and her family during World War II. Her father, Ulrich von Hassell, is executed by the Nazis for being part of the plot to kill Hitler. Her husband, the Italian aristocrat Detalmo Pirzio-Biroli, is part of the underground in Rome. At first she and her two young boys live undisturbed in their castle in northern Italy. Then the Nazis come and arrest Fey and take her two boys to a German orphanage where they are given new names to ultimately be adopted by Germans. Fey is jailed in horrible conditions but later is held captive with other relatives of people involved in the plot to kill Hitler. They are to be kept barely alive to be used as hostages if needed by Hitler.
  
  This is the true story of this family's ordeal, based on first-hand family accounts, concentration camp records, and files from the SS.
• 
  David Danielson

  A Castle in War Time is part thriller, history book and action adventure plot all rolled into one.
  
  I thought the book started slowly as there were a lot of characters and places to introduce, but it didn’t take long for Catherine Bailey to get me hooked and make me want to keep reading.
  
  I read a lot of books on World War 2 and thought I knew most of the major events that took place. This book has so many interesting facts and things that I never knew before.
  
  Seeing the end of the war through the eyes of Fey and the rest of the Sippenhaftlinge was spell binding. I never knew anything of Himmlers secret plot to use these prisoners as pawns with the allies.
  
  This is a must read for anyone interested in World War 2, but be warned you won’t be able to put it down. Be prepared to laugh, cry, and be amazed at every twist and turn of this amazing story.
  
  T
• 
  Theresa Jehlik

  This absorbing story details the World War II experiences of Fey von Hassell. She was the daughter of Germany's ambassador to Italy and married to an Italian aristocrat. When Italy pulls out of the Axis powers in 1943, Fey's world falls apart. Her husband leaves to join forces with the Italian resistance while the German SS occupy her home in Brazza. When her father is implicated in the failed July 20th plot to kill Hitler, Fey's children are removed to a German orphanage in Innsbruck. She is continually moved to a series of prisons concentration camps throughout the Reich until the war ends. This tome of a book is well researched and reads almost like a thriller. Maps and illustrations are helpful during several sections of the book. It's another view of World War II as seen through the eyes of a family that was anti-Nazi from the beginning.
• 
  Kathy

  Once again Catherine Bailey gives us a cracking historical read with this book. Set in the last years of WWII this story highlights the difficult choices that befell people in places like Italy. The battles, and resistance there and their effects on ordinary people are not something that is covered often in popular media histories but you get a look at some of these stories here.
  
  You also get a rather nasty look at the SS and just some of their dirty deeds. This book takes you on a tour of some places in the dying days of the war you don't expect to end up at. While the central figure in this book Fey von Hassell was lucky in many ways - with the sort of luck you only normally see in novels - it never the less is a story that just when you think things are going to get better....they don't. A recommended read if you like modern history.
  
  
• 
  Linda

  First off the title of this book is terrible but the book itself is great. Well written and researched. At first Fey comes off fairly spoiled and naive but Catherine Bailey does a really good job of giving background and then as the story progresses explanations. As often happens when I read a book about some horrible atrocity I am shaken that people can be so awful and this is no exception. The fact that the nazis - on top of EVERYTHING else they did - took kids from their parents and changed their names so they couldn't be found is TOO much. The truth is that the kids take up very little of the book and most of it is about Fey and her experience being taken hostage by the SS. A fantastic read - well worth your time.
• 
  Keturah

  Well-written and we’ll-researched, it makes for an interesting look into the lives of people of privilege during the Nazi regime. Contains some recognition and awareness of the benefits of being wealthy, well-connected, and Christian during captivity by the Nazis. Could benefit from more exploration of how the main character’s identity and privileges as compared to many other shaped her experiences.
  
• 
  Erika Downing

  I love WWII books, but I thought I was going to take a long time to read this. Quite the opposite. The book revolves mostly around Fey, but the author really paints the experience for everyone involved and people in the general area. It’s hard to describe without giving too much away. Such a unique story that I’m glad I read.
• 
  Linda Brunner

  A compelling and meticulously researched look at one rather privileged family's experiences during WWII. No less traumatic given their wealth and connections, it was however heartening to read about the brave resistance at every level of society during Hitler's freakish reign. Including their own.
  
  Highly recommended.