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Jugendliche fliegen zum Mond, finden eine heimlich von Deutschen errichtete Basis und fliegen mit einem anderen Raumschiff zurück.

Verglichen mit Rocket Ship Galileo ist das hier langweilig. Und schlecht recherchiert. Und ergibt überhaupt keinen Sinn. Noch weniger Sinn als Weltraum-Nazis. (Heinlein wusste noch, wie man mit denen umzugehen hat. Es gibt nur einen Überlebenden.)

Selbst wenn man sagt, bei einem Jugendbuch kommts nicht so drauf an: Wieso sollte die BRD Milliarden von D-Mark ausgeben, um ein paar dutzend unerwünschte Jugendliche heimlich auf dem Mond einzusperren? Teile lesen sich eher wie eine Text-Version eines Donald Duck Comics: »spiralförmige Arme« mit »Greifzangen«, die die Leute einfangen, und »ein metallener Ring um Thomas’ Bauch. Wie von einer zu groß geratenen Handschelle gefangen«.

Und keinen Bock mehr: »Man maß diese Strahlung in der Einheit REM (Radiation Equivalent Man). 1 REM betrug die natürliche Strahlendosis, der ein Mensch auf dem Planeten Erde ausgesetzt war.« Gleich vier Fehler in zwei Sätzen. REM ist eine amerikanische Einheit. Der Rest der Welt misst die Strahlendosis in Sievert. 1 REM = 10 mSv. Und das R steht für roentgen/Röntgen, nicht Radiation. Und für eine Dosis fehlt die Zeitangabe. Vermutlich meinte der Autor 10 mSv pro Jahr. Aber das ist falsch. Die Dosis liegt in Deutschland bei durchschnittlich 2,64 mSv pro Jahr, nicht 10. Danach verwechselt er SEP und SPE, und der Lektor hat das »Solat« statt »Solar« auch nicht korrigiert. (SEP = Solar Energetic Particle, also einzelne Teilchen, SPE = Solar (Energetic) Particle Event, also ein Sonnensturm mit vielen SEPs.)

So, yeah. When you are a GDR border guard who as actually found a Western agent, or when you are a NVA pilot defending his home country against the same agents, you get killed off by the author. One of them just plainly murdered, the other driven into an air crash. But when you are a literal Nazi who murdered Jews with the Einsatzgruppen, you get to escape, with a promise of no prosecution in the West. Bah. The protagonist is a war criminal, too, but he killed for Britain.

The rest of the plot: OK, it was entertaining. But silly. Basically all the details are off, as i wrote in my quotes and comments.

Somehow we are to believe that Mr Vaughn fell in love with Ms Campbell. That was done so perfunctory that i totally missed that plot point when it was first made. But Higgins needed something to motivate Vaughn, and apparently couldn’t come up with anything believable.

Yeah, well, not surprising, but the aviation bits are all over the place, too. Starting from Higgins calling runway lights landing lights. Nope, landing lights are on the airplane. Then the (Fieseler) Storch is running at »160 miles an hour«. That’s much too fast. The top speed of the Storch is 48 m/s, not the 72 m/s given. We never really learn whether the »MiG« is a MiG 17 or 21. It could be either, and it is sort-of important. The landing speed of a MiG 17 is close to the top speed of the Storch. The MiG 21s is much higher. So, a MiG 17 would have it much easier to follow the Storch.

Then they are told over radio (Why wasn’t he monitoring 121.5 MHz anyway?) to go to »Allersberg«, heading 340°. What? The good news is that Higgins has put Allersberg and Bitterfeld on different sides of the inner German border. The bad news is that he now has two towns on the wrong side. And the real Allersberg is in Bavaria, far away from where everybody is. Also, a heading (or course) of 340 is pretty much north-northwest. There isn’t much GDR left in that direction.

What would have been hilarious and, as i learned recently, realistic, if the MiG pilot would have been blasting away with his cannon and just not scoring any hits. Apparently Soviet pilots at least were quite often lousy shots.

What’s wrong with the Welrod‽ Even for the guns – along with the philosophers (Heidegger) – the author is sticking Nazis in there where there is no need.

Some more nits: Hard to say how it was in 1963, but i don’t think that there were that many Catholics in the Altmark then. Now, with decades of religious freedom, there are about 3 % Catholics and 10 % Protestants. But no, in the book pretty much everyone is a crypto-Catholic.

Apart from the monks. They are Anglicans. For no reason whatsoever. Yeah, sure.

Also »Cross of St. Michael«. Huh? The archangel? A big, heavy, wooden crucifix is the Cross of St.Michael? Sometimes Michael is shown with a cross of some sort: A slim lance, great to skewer the devil-dragon, with a crossbar. That kind of cross definitely has no Jesus hanging on it.

Lots and lots of details are just a bit off. Not just the West German Bitterfeld. The region of Germany where the book is set is just north, and east of Stendal. That actually is the Altmark. In the book it is called »Holstein Heath«. Yeah, no. Holstein is quite a bit away from there. Then there are a bunch of Catholics, and none of them seems at all concerned with the late pope. One even compares himself to »the« pope. Who? The dead guy? You don’t have a pope at the moment.

Also, the author puts a man named Nonecker in the Altmark. That is possible, but it rather looks like author thought that that was a typical East German name. It is not. Honecker was from the Saarland, and his name is more common in the west and south.

Speaking of names: Guy works for the big bad, name starts with Be, something something, a k sound, I kept confusing Comrades Berg and Becker.

So, they chartered a future plane to take them from West Berlin to West Germany, and then they want to land in East Germany? Is this a hijacking? Who told the pilot that they have to divert and land in the GDR? What did they say? I guess there was a lot of shouting involved! ... What? Oh. When he wrote Bitterfeld, he didn’t mean Bitterfeld, the town south east of Magdeburg, far inside the GDR. The town, part of Bitterfeld-Wolfen, famous for producing photographic film for East Germany. The town where we’ll meet if we don’t meet again in this world.¹

Instead of the real East German town the author dreamed up a fictional West German town. O...kay. And he adds some more Nazis. This time they people are gone, but they left a Nazi-Luftwaffe air strip behind.

1) An odd German saying, from some legend about a stage magician: Sehen wir uns nicht mehr auf dieser Welt, So sehen wir uns doch in Bitterfeld!

This is one of two points where the start of chapter 6 is confusing. So, the timing of this novel is quite important. It is set in May 1963. Not long from the factory? That is an understatement. By some minus 14 months.

»The first production-standard aircraft performed its first flight on 12 February 1963.« I guess the author stopped reading after getting this information. He probably didn’t know how »first flight« works. ... »The first delivery to a customer took place on 10 September 1964« Ah. You can’t just charter a jet in Berlin that only started flight testing some three months before in England.

Skorzeny? Looking that name up on Wikipedia: A Nazi who went and captured Mussolini for Nazi Germany. Once called The Most Dangerous Man in Europe. Yeah. That is who the FRG »Protection of the Constitution« guy wish he had at his disposal.

In general this book is a more exciting read than Knebel’s Crossing in Berlin, the other GDR spy thriller i got from the public bookshelf. But while that one just didn’t grip me, this one i may ditch: It is quite thick with old Nazis reminiscing about Nazi stuff.