Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990 TAG: 9003252167
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by ROBERT I. ALOTTA
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
"The Knight, Death and the Devil" is an unusual work. Called "a historical biographical novel" by its author, the book mirrors Ella Leffland's fascination with Nazi Germany and Hermann Goering.
After the publication of her "Rumors of Peace," she collected books on Goering and tapes of Weimar and Third Reich speeches, Wehrmacht and SA songs. She toured Germany and visited the sites that Goering had made famous - or is that infamous? Her obsession - coupled with interviews with Goering's bodyguards, his nephew and former Third Reich notables as Albert Speer and Adolf Galland - results in an impressive novel.
Though "The Knight, Death and the Devil" is impressive, it strikes a strange note: It creates a sympathetic Goering. Misunderstood as a child, he excelled at playing soldier and getting kicked out of school. Goering swore loyalty to Hitler and remained loyal to the day he slipped the poison capsule onto his tongue.
Much of what Leffland has uncovered may be true. She may have discovered information on Goering that has been ignored by historians, but . . . Goering and the rest of Hitler's crowd were perpetrators of genocide. They loved their mothers and fathers and had pets, but that doesn't make them models for today's youth.
Perhaps 50 years is insufficient to forget the Third Reich's contributions to the world.
by CNB