Sound of Hunger

Sound of Hunger is a true story thatcentres on two German brothers, Erich and Georg Gerth, u-boat commanders, andthe First Word War and its aftermath. The Gerths’ lives and careers as navyofficers are set against the military, political and social environment oftheir times. Carefully-nurtured myths of national innocence and guilt areuncovered; discrediting truths and war crimes of both the Allies and Germany arebrought into the limelight. This is not conventional history, but a personalview of the events that were integral to the Gerth brothers, to see how theywere changed by what they heard, were taught and experienced. Sound ofHunger is unashamedly intimate in selection, perhaps eccentric in places; apersonal journey that explains what was newly-found, how it was investigatedand understood. Whatever you think you know about this war, be prepared tochallenge your beliefs.

Thebook takes its title from the thrust of the war, not in the trenches, but inthe deliberate attempts by both sides to starve each other’s civilianpopulations. The damage to Germany’s children was generational as foodshortages were deliberately extended by the Allies to force Germany to adebilitating peace.

Thebrothers were born in booming Berlin in the 1880s, their father dying when theywere young. Their mother sacrificed to see them through one of Berlin’s mostprestigious secondary schools and paid their considerable fees as cadets. In theburgeoning naval fleet, they were of the lowest social class allowed into thiselite new force. Their careers were exciting, extracted from German archives: spyingin South America, bombardment of the English coast, sea battles, torpedoed andmined ships, and desperate survivals. One, as a French prisoner of war for overtwo years, made daring escape attempts, the other scuttling his boat in theMediterranean amid collapsing Austrian armies. Remarkable contacts tumble fromthe pages, villains and heroes, the Kaiser, Alfred von Tirpitz, family-friend WilhelmCanaris, Karl Dönitz, the Red Baron, Adolf Hitler.

TheGerths’ personal decisions are interwoven with Germany’s bid for world power, navaltraining, the founding of the Flanders u-boat bases, the importance of theBaltic and the Mediterranean, the economic blockade of Germany and itsdevastating effects on European neutral countries, unfettered submarinewarfare, prison camps, Britain’s virulent propaganda designed to drag Americainto the conflict, and the German collapse.

Thestory does not end well. The brothers return to Germany and the post-war fightto the death between a new socialist republic, a murderous officer corps andthe Spartacist revolution. The Gerths are forced to take sides. One becomes aphilosopher and a businessman, seeking mental refuge. The other marries acountess and is swept into extreme right-wing politics: manning the barricades,the murder of communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, covertlypreparing the second u-boat fleet for the next war. Canaris is everywhere scheming.Close family contacts are developed with Europe’s Catholic hierarchy, even to EugenioPacelli, the pope-to-be, the Spanish royal family, and with elite Parissociety, in a very public attempt to rouse religious sentiment against a secondworld war. Everything falls apart. The German President and Foreign Minister togetheract with Rudolf Hess to ruin one of the brothers. Heinrich Himmler moves totake over of the legendary Ufa film studios, beggaring another family member.The family’s Jewish connections are disclosed: it is a time of forgedpassports, concentration camps, attempted flight to South America; and childrenhidden in Roman convents. The Gestapo steps in. One brother dies in poignantand lurid circumstances, the other becomes a recluse after watching the ruinsof his family home and business, flattened by Britishcarpet bombing of a demilitarised town.