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The Swastika Tattoo
The Swastika Tattoo is the story of an intolerant bastard, Rudolf Meier, whose adherence to Nazi ideology is as visible as his swastika tattoo.
But Rudolf’s belief system begins to crumble in the sweltering heat of the Arizona desert where he picks cotton as a prisoner of war. Years spent in the Hitler Youth have taught Rudolf to believe Jews are swarthy, hook-nosed merchants. They are not cotton farmers who treat him with kindness, invite him for Thanksgiving dinner, and give him books by Hemingway. Now he finds himself in a wrenching moral delimma as he begins to understand American democracy and individualism amidst the tyrannical hold of the Nazi officers who control the POW camp.
The Swastika Tattoo is a a historical novel set in Nazi Germany and Arizona. The novel is steeped in exhaustive research including interviews in Germany with people who lived during that era.
Centering around a German shipbuilding family, the two-volume novel spans almost 70 years (1936 to 2005).
As the story opens in autumn 1944, Rudolf is asked a question by the farmer’s son that reverberates throughout his life: Why do the German people still believe in Adolf Hitler? Struck by the impertinence of the question and shaken to his core, Rudolf believes no one, particularly an ignorant American should question the leadership of Der Fuehrer.
Dreary months of waiting to return home become a time of learning for Rudolf. He becomes attached to the American family and after the horrific murder of a camp mate, Rudolf begins to understand the power of his Nazi officers, realizing his own life is in danger.
After the war, Rudolf returns to a broken Germany and to his only living relative, his grandfather. With his beliefs muted, and his country crushed, Rudolf attempts to rebuild his life, eventually marrying and raising a daughter. But the intolerant convictions he formed as a child still plague him, greatly influencing his daughter, and ultimately his own grandson.
Copyright Geraldine Birch. All rights reserved.