Pursuit (novel)

Pursuit is a 1978 novel by the American writer Robert L. Fish . There is no German translation.

Fish picks up on a topic he used several times: The fate of former Nazis who left abroad after the end of the Second World War . Pursuit is the novel for the four-part British television series Twisted Fate .

action

The SS Obersturmbannführer Helmut von Schraeder, who anticipated Germany's military defeat, put a perfidious plan into practice at the end of 1944: he assumed the identity of a dead Jew in order to evade criminal liability. As a final official act, he sends himself to a relatively humane French concentration camp , where he can calmly wait for the approaching Americans to liberate him. To his horror, the prisoner transport stops on the open road and then drives back east. Buchenwald is the new destination . A desperate struggle for survival begins.

Von Schrader alias Daniel Grossman survives and, after the liberation, joins a small group of Jewish inmates who want to emigrate to Palestine via Italy. His plan to break away on the way fails due to a serious illness. His companions drag the almost unconscious man onto a passenger ship that is supposed to take them to the Middle East. He only comes to again on the high seas.

A British patrol boat tries to prevent illegal immigrants from landing in Haifa . An exchange of fire ensues in which von Schraeder / Grossman shoots a British soldier in self-defense. Persecuted as a terrorist and sentenced to death in absentia, he takes refuge in a kibbutz . Leaving the country is too risky. Grossman has been stuck in hated Israel for years , constantly afraid of being recognized.

He falls in love with a young Jew. The couple get married and have a son. The kibbutz is subject to frequent Arab attacks. Being one of the few with military experience, Grossman quickly became a leader in the community. He later made a steep career in the newly established Israeli army. Shortly before his promotion to Chief of Staff, he is finally exposed by his own son.