- This is a beautifully written historical novel that is both a tragic love story and a savage critique of the madness of the Third Reich and the Nazi theories of race and Aryan superiority.
- Young SS officer, Ernst, is attracted to the authoritarian order of the Reich, despite having barely survived a brutal family upbringing. Perhaps predictably he becomes violent towards his young wife, Herta. He’s unable to control his frequent bouts of anger.
- The SS is the priesthood of the Reich. The officers, in their totally black uniforms, are deemed superior to women in every respect. After marriage the wives are expected to be completely subservient to their husbands and all their domestic, professional and sexual needs. The perversion is truly ugly. Before they can be married the wives are ordered to undergo a 'training course'.
- Her husband becomes a favourite of Himmler and Goring because of his passion for science, birds and animals, and his earlier trailblazing exploration of the wilderness of Tibet. The Nazi fantasy is that the Aryan race was created there, and is thus to be held sacred. Ernst is authorised to gather a team of scientists and embark on another mission to Tibet. He will bring back to the West numerous examples of the rich wildlife, mainly birds, that barely any Westerner has seen. The museums are clamouring for them.
- The problem is they have to be killed and stuffed. This is what thrills Ernst. He is obsessed with shooting animals - hundreds and hundreds of them.
- Herta's beautiful words end this powerful novel:
'Their enforced immortality could never take away the beauty of their fragile, fleeting lives.
I fly away from you now, no need for final words. The most powerful language belongs to them. It's the animals who make us human'.
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