BASED ON A TRUE STORY

1938. The British Ambassador hosts a lavish reception in the Berlin Embassy. Rittmeister Wolfgang von Mau is commanded to seduce newly arrived Welsh diplomat, Elise de Clare. What he and his commanding officers don’t know, is their meeting is no coincidence. Her name isn’t Elise, she works for British intelligence and has been ordered to spy on the Rittmeister. As Wolf and Elise meet the demands of their paymasters and negotiate the whirl of Berlin high society, war clouds gather on the horizon bringing the “Gotterdammerung” the twilight of the Gods, to Europe. Lights go out, blackout falls, hostilities commence, and Wolf and Elise discover the unthinkable has happened. They have fallen in love.

This book is based on a true story. Not my story but one entrusted  to me by a very close and dear friend. Whenever I think of her, I see again the expression in her eyes when she recalled her past and the experiences and people that influenced and shaped her life. I met her at a Writers’ Circle. As years passed measured by the output of  manuscripts rather than time, mutual suspicion became mutual respect until a close friendship developed that enabled us to ignore the decades that separated our births. My favourite memories of her, beautiful and impossibly elegant as she was in life, are those when she read her own work or recited one of Shelley’s or Byron’s longer poems from memory to a rapt audience. Even now, years after her death I occasionally pick up the telephone to talk to her and the sense of loss hits anew, raw and painful. The pain is always present, but while writing this I sensed she was with me, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she corrected every single, minute error in punctuation and layout. In my defence, publishing requirements have changed a great deal since you published your entertaining and often humorous articles, in Country Life and The Lady, old friend, but I am grateful for the time we shared and the lessons you taught me in writing and life. Two decades before I was born, Elise worked in the British Embassy in Berlin. She wrote many articles (far more than she sold) on life in Germany before the outbreak of the second world war but most were returned with a personal note, which says a great deal about their quality. ‘Beautifully written, but no one is interested in pre-war Germany.’ I promised her that one day I would write her story and now, it feels like the right time. It was a dream to write, because not only did I step into Elise’s world, but the world of my mother my grandmother and the East Prussian family I never had the opportunity to meet.

Elise’s first meeting with Rittmeister Wolf von Mau

‘Cavalry officer, Rittmeister Wolf von Mau is the Reich’s and Embassy’s gift to female British personnel,’ Gilbert murmured close to my ear. ‘He’s twenty-four, young for his rank but his father was a general in the last show. The family were Juncker Prussian aristocrats before the Nazis abolished nobility titles and established Hitler’s classless society of one people, one country, one leader. Now they’re merely wealthy. They own farms, grain mills and have contracts to supply dairy and meat to the military. The Rittmeister is well read, educated and personable, unlike those who owe their promotion to their position within the Nazi party, which incidentally none of his family has joined.’   -‘You know a great deal about him,’ I commented suspiciously.  – ‘We’ve had to work together occasionally. It’s as well to know your enemy.’ – ‘His photograph doesn’t do him justice.’ – ‘If you like hulking Teutons . . .’ – ‘I do, especially ones with deep blue eyes,’ I broke in.

This piece is for those who wonder just how much truth is in the story.

 The book is set in Pontypridd,  Berlin and partly in the village of Lichtenhagen in East Prussia, which was renamed Yablonevka post war  by the Russians. I  set  a pre-war wedding in “For Elise” in the church pictured below. (when it had all its walls and a roof). My grandmother was christened in this church. Storks still build their nest in the chimney but it has deteriorated in the years that have elapsed since I travelled to Kaliningrad (which used to be my family’s home when the city was  Konigsberg).. The photograph is of a group of students who are trying to stabilise the ruins of the medieval buildings in and around Kaliningrad. I wish them well in their endeavours .This is a link to their website   — The Ruin Keepers    —- https://castlesandfamilies.com/russia/ruin-keepers-kaliningrad-heritage-preservation