Following a failed coup and assassination attempt, Adolf Hitler exacted sweeping revenge against participants and their families, detailed in the skillful Ann Bausum's engrossing Ensnared in the Wolf's Lair: Inside the 1944 Plot to Kill Hitler and the Ghost Children of His Relentless Revenge.
Charting Hitler's rise to power and subsequent resistance by notable German dissidents, Bausum frames a failed attack on Hitler at his isolated military outpost, the Wolf's Lair. Trusted associates and community leaders, some connected by blood and others by shared disgust with Nazi leadership, banded together against the regime to mount an assault code-named Operation Valkyrie. Despite missed opportunities and unavoidable delays that stymied the assassins, when Valkyrie deployed on July 20, 1944, it was only a series of coincidences that saved Hitler's life.
The vast reach of Valkyrie fueled Hitler's mounting paranoia. His policy of Sippenhaft--or "family punishment"--implicated relatives in anti-Nazi conspiracies and demonstrated Hitler's merciless commitment to retaining political control. Within weeks, the investigators held some 700 extended family members (teenaged to elderly)--of the suspected disloyals, guilty by association but often with no understanding of their ties to the attempted uprising.
Meanwhile, with parents detained, Gestapo agents seized detractors' youngest children, holding them in a secluded rural facility and giving them scant information, much of it lies. Through strong primary resources, emphasizing four detainees who offered her their first-person accounts, Bausum recounts heartbreaking months of isolation and anxiety: these children were stripped of family connections, berated and silenced, earning their nickname "the ghost children." Bausum evocatively laments, "The uncertainty swirled and festered in endless mental loops, depriving the children of their sense of security." As Germany neared surrender, Bausum traces the children's flagging morale, eventual family reunions and the damaging, lasting impact of Sippenhaft confinement.
Bausum's writing is uncomplicated and respectfully frames the ghost children's shared experience of trauma for an older middle-grade audience. Supporting photographs on almost every spread humanize the Valkyrie players, and rich primary resources notably feature journal entries from Christa von Hofacker, who kept a diary while detained as a 12-year-old. Extensive backmatter includes a full listing of families ensnared by Sippenhaft, author's note, bibliography and much more.
As with her previous work, Bausum (The March Against Fear; Viral: The Fight Against AIDS in America) excels in tackling thorny issues with frankness and approachability. This gripping insight into German dissidence and Valkyrie should fascinate and inform history enthusiasts and modern upstanders alike. --Kit Ballenger, youth librarian, Help Your Shelf
Shelf Talker: Hitler quelled German resistance with family punishments that included young children, several of whom recount their detainment during World War II.