The Paris Notebook

The Paris Notebook is about a secret. It's a secret that might be big enough to destroy Adolf Hitler's reputation. The story takes place in 1939 Germany with Hitler's former psychiatrist Ernst Viktor undertaking the publication of his patient notes in order to stop Hitler. Dr. Viktor treated Hitler during WWI when he suffered from hysterical blindness. I found this angle on WWII to be amusing, believing it to be fiction. It isn't.

The publisher's summary:

When Katja Heinz secures a job as a typist at Doctor Viktor’s clinic, she doesn’t expect to be copying top secret medical records from a notebook. At the end of the first world war, Doctor Viktor treated soldiers for psychological disorders. One of the patients was none other than Adolf Hitler. The notes in his possession declare Hitler unfit for office – a secret that could destroy the Führer’s reputation, and change the course of the war if exposed.  

With the notebook hidden in her hat box, Katja and Doctor Viktor travel to Paris. Seeking refuge in the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, they hope to find a publisher brave enough to print the controversial script. Katja is being watched though. Nazi spies in Paris have discovered her plan. They will stop at nothing to destroy the notebook and silence those who know of the secret hidden inside. 

I loved this novel. It is a riveting story with plenty of tension from the first pages. You can feel the fear among Katja and Dr. Viktor as they prepare the transcribed copy of the doctor's patient notes as well as keeping the manuscript hidden. Their fears that the Nazi's would find out what they were doing were appropriate. They were surrounded by Nazi sympathizers who were watching them closely. The plot premise is that if Hitler's psychiatric records were published, he would not be able to remain in control of Germany. I am not sure whether I believe this premise since Hitler governed by fear. I can appreciate, though, that the characters believed this to be true. They were living in desperate times. 

The setting for the story was Hamburg and Paris. The characters lived and worked in Hamburg but traveled to Paris several times to find a publisher. Every move they made in Paris was more suspenseful than their movements in Hamburg. I think that their train travel was the most suspenseful part of the story though. The Gestapo checked every train car looking for Jewish travelers as well as suspicious Germans before the trains left Germany. Katja was Jewish but this fact was a secret from the other characters. There were alot of twists and turns in the story that added to the suspense factor.

The Author's Note at the conclusion of the book tells the reader what part of the novel is based on truth and what part is fiction. I was astonished to find out that Lance Corporal Hitler was treated for a psychiatric disorder after a gas attack during WWI by Dr. Edmund Forster. Forster wanted to publish Hitler's medical records because he was troubled by his former patient's rise to power. Forster is believed to have passed them on to a group of anti-fascist German writers in 1933. One of them is Ernst Weiss who wrote a novel in 1938 called The Eyewitness. It was not published until the 1960s and it is believed that Dr. Forster's notes are the basis for the novel.

The Paris Notebook is definitely a must read!  I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.