The Swastika Tattoo

The Swastika Tattoo is a historical novel set in Nazi Germany, steeped in exhaustive research including interviews in Germany with people who lived during that era.

The story centers around a German shipbuilding family spanning almost 70 years (1936 to 2005). Conflict emerges in the home of young Rudolph, living with his grandparents who protect him from knowing the real truth about the disappearance of his parents.

His grandfather proudly builds U-boats to support the German war effort. Young Rudolph becomes a fervent Hitler Youth whose desire to rise in the movement could be unwittingly crushed by his grandmother’s affection for a Jewess shopkeeper. Rudolph’s Hitler Youth leader becomes suspicious of the grandmother’s persistent absence at parades and other political events and sets a series of hurdles to test the limits of Rudolph’s loyalty.

Rudolph presses on to become a U-boat radio operator during WWII, but is captured and sent to an American prisoner of war camp where he experiences the friendship of an American farm family and learns the meaning of democracy.

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 convictions he formed as a child still plague him, greatly influencing his daughter, and ultimately his own grandson.

Copyright Geraldine Birch.  All rights reserved.