A stirring novel about the famous physicist Max Planck as a father and human being in his gravest hour: Planck was able to save his son by committing to Hitler. How does one do the right thing when everything is wrong?
October 1944. At the age of 86, Max Planck faces the most difficult challenge of his life. The Nobel Prize winner must put together a “commitment to the Führer”. A great deal is riding on this because Planck’s beloved son Erwin, who was involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July, is being held on death row in Tegel, Berlin. Planck thinks back to happier times and the dark turning point. His friends are in exile; he particularly misses Albert Einstein, who is carrying out research in America. Together with his daughter-in-law Nelly, Max Planck writes a clemency appeal for Erwin; he is discovering the enormity of the human condition in a prison cell. In the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler is daydreaming in front of a painting. And Eduard Einstein realises what, ultimately, holds the world together; meanwhile his father does not even suspect that he is being deceived by his Russian lover.
Steffen Schroeder writes about the friendship between Max Planck and Albert Einstein, about the relationships of famous fathers to their sons, about love in turbulent times.
“These are the strongest moments in Schroeder’s book – when he gets up close and authentic.” Die Welt about Was alles in einem Menschen sein kann
