Love Knot (ePub)

Long Synopsis

'The Love Knot' is set in the Weimar period during the early Twenties when the defeat of World War One and the harsh indemnities imposed by the Allies are causing major political and social rifts in Germany.

A young English expatriate, Gudrun Meir, finds herself sucked into the bohemian life of her adopted city, Munich. Its habitues include an ambitious demagogue called Rolf Eidhalt who is the focus of right wing interests, intent on erasing the shame of Germany's defeat through armed insurrection. Rolf Eidhalt was the nom de plume adopted by Adolf Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.

Gudrun also reluctantly becomes involved with her brother-in-law, Rupert Birkin, an English author who is exploring the idea of a small elite of intellectuals and artists who might influence the course of history. He has placed his hopes in the hands of his friend, the powerful English industrialist Gerald Crich. But thwarted in love Crich commits suicide. Birkin passes through a personal crisis in which he rejects his wife, Ursula's faith in the transforming power of love.

The two major characters are offered a Faustian bargain by Eidhalt, to place their art at the service of his emerging political movement that will lead eventually to the National Socialist Party. Gudrun and Birkin's modern love story is about a search for new values defined against the tide of 20th century nihilism.

The lovers move towards a climax in which Eidhalt attempts a coup to overthrow the State and Gudrun must flee one of his hit squads.

John Slavin