Sound of Hunger

Sound of Hunger is a true story that
centres on two German brothers, Erich and Georg Gerth, u-boat commanders, and
the First Word War and its aftermath. The Gerths' lives and careers as navy
officers are set against the military, political and social environment of
their times. Carefully-nurtured myths of national innocence and guilt are
uncovered; discrediting truths and war crimes of both the Allies and Germany are
brought into the limelight. This is not conventional history, but a personal
view of the events that were integral to the Gerth brothers, to see how they
were changed by what they heard, were taught and experienced. Sound of
Hunger is unashamedly intimate in selection, perhaps eccentric in places; a
personal journey that explains what was newly-found, how it was investigated
and understood. Whatever you think you know about this war, be prepared to
challenge your beliefs.


The
book takes its title from the thrust of the war, not in the trenches, but in
the deliberate attempts by both sides to starve each other's civilian
populations. The damage to Germany's children was generational as food
shortages were deliberately extended by the Allies to force Germany to a
debilitating peace.


The
brothers were born in booming Berlin in the 1880s, their father dying when they
were young. Their mother sacrificed to see them through one of Berlin's most
prestigious secondary schools and paid their considerable fees as cadets. In the
burgeoning naval fleet, they were of the lowest social class allowed into this
elite new force. Their careers were exciting, extracted from German archives: spying
in South America, bombardment of the English coast, sea battles, torpedoed and
mined ships, and desperate survivals. One, as a French prisoner of war for over
two years, made daring escape attempts, the other scuttling his boat in the
Mediterranean amid collapsing Austrian armies. Remarkable contacts tumble from
the pages, villains and heroes, the Kaiser, Alfred von Tirpitz, family-friend Wilhelm
Canaris, Karl Doenitz, the Red Baron, Adolf Hitler.


The
Gerths' personal decisions are interwoven with Germany's bid for world power, naval
training, the founding of the Flanders u-boat bases, the importance of the
Baltic and the Mediterranean, the economic blockade of Germany and its
devastating effects on European neutral countries, unfettered submarine
warfare, prison camps, Britain's virulent propaganda designed to drag America
into the conflict, and the German collapse.


The
story does not end well. The brothers return to Germany and the post-war fight
to the death between a new socialist republic, a murderous officer corps and
the Spartacist revolution. The Gerths are forced to take sides. One becomes a
philosopher and a businessman, seeking mental refuge. The other marries a
countess and is swept into extreme right-wing politics: manning the barricades,
the murder of communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, covertly
preparing the second u-boat fleet for the next war. Canaris is everywhere scheming.
Close family contacts are developed with Europe's Catholic hierarchy, even to Eugenio
Pacelli, the pope-to-be, the Spanish royal family, and with elite Paris
society, in a very public attempt to rouse religious sentiment against a second
world war. Everything falls apart. The German President and Foreign Minister together
act with Rudolf Hess to ruin one of the brothers. Heinrich Himmler moves to
take over of the legendary Ufa film studios, beggaring another family member.
The family's Jewish connections are disclosed: it is a time of forged
passports, concentration camps, attempted flight to South America; and children
hidden in Roman convents. The Gestapo steps in. One brother dies in poignant
and lurid circumstances, the other becomes a recluse after watching the ruins
of his family home and business, flattened by British
carpet bombing of a demilitarised town.