#BookReview Hitler’s Taster by V. S. Alexander @AvonBooksUK 

About the Book

Forced to protect him. Determined to bring him down…

Germany, 1943. Magda Ritter longs for a peaceful life. But war is drawing closer, and soon she is forced to serve the one man she hoped never to encounter – Hitler.

Taken to his mountain retreat, she is assigned the most dangerous job of all. She is to be the Führer’s ‘taster’ and check his food for poison. Desperate to escape, Magda joins an underground resistance group intent on ending Nazi rule.

To stop the atrocities around her, Madga must risk everything – her position, her family, and even her life.

Format: Paperback (400 pages)  Publisher: Avon Books
Publication date: 3rd May 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I’ve been attempting to continue the good work started whe I took part in NetGalley November by reading some of the older books on my NetGalley To-Read shelf. Hitler’s Taster is one of those having been on my shelf for so long that it was originally published as Her Hidden Life.

Hitler’s Taster is described as ‘a poignant tale of hope, danger and betrayal from the heart of history’s darkest moments’. The fact that Hitler employed a number of women to taste his food for fear of poison was a surprise to me, although not that he was paranoid enough to do so or that he was willing to have others die instead of him. After all, many millions did as a result of his actions.

Having arrived at Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, Magda quickly forms a relationship with Captain Karl Weber, an SS officer in charge of security in the kitchen where she and the other tasters perform their duties. From Karl she learns about the realities of the Nazi regime – the persecution of Jews and other minorities, the concentration camps and countless other atrocities. This is information which, for propaganda purposes, is being kept hidden from the German population, as is the truth about how badly things are really going in the war. Magda realises that not all Germans support Hitler’s regime, even within the ranks of his own army.

It was interesting to get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what it was like to be close to the Führer and the rather bizarre nature of life in his household. At one point, Magda is invited to take tea and his favourite apple cake with Adolf Hitler, there are dances organised and showings of films such as Gone With The Wind for those stationed at Berghof. As she observes, ‘We were trapped in a make-believe world propagated by the Reich while all around us battles were being fought, troops slaughtered and innocents butchered’.

On a brief trip to Berlin to visit her family Magda discovers the reality of what ordinary Germans are experiencing: food shortages, nightly bombing raids, buildings reduced to rubble, hospitals overwhelmed by the injured and the dying. It’s this, along with other events, that makes her determined that Hitler must die. She fantasises about the ways she personally might achieve this. Some are rather outlandish, others are no doubt similar to those being considered by the Allies. However, all of them are likely to end in her own demise.

At this point in the book, any notion the focus will mainly be on Magda and Karl’s relationship is rudely shattered as the story gets progressively darker with Magda experiencing first-hand the worst aspects of the Nazi regime. If anything, it becomes darker still including nightmare scenes as the soldiers of the Red Army overrun Berlin and take their revenge on German citizens.   Students of history will know how Hitler’s reign of terror ends but perhaps cannot quite imagine what it would have been like to witness it in person.

Hitler’s Taster surprised me. It took a direction I was not expecting with some scenes that were distressing to read, not least of which because they depict things that happened in real life to real people. In fact, no doubt those real life experiences were worse than described in the book. I don’t think any of us would disagree with the author when he writes in his afterword, ‘Another global war would surely lead to annihilation; therefore, we must maintain a constant vigil against those who would use their power to destroy’.

I received a review copy courtesy of Avon Books via NetGalley.

In three words: Dramatic, emotional, intense

Try something similar: People Like Us by Louise Fein

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About the Author

V. S. Alexander is an ardent student of history and the arts and loves writing historical fiction with strong women protagonists. The author of several novels and short stories, Alexander’s first novel was The Magdalen Girls, an Amazon best seller, set in 1962 Dublin. Her Hidden Life is V. S. Alexander’s second book. The author lives in South Florida where summer is never far away. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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