THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST By Martyn Burke. HOW Did one of history's most cultured societies descend into the depravity of the Nazis?

 The Gossip Columnist,

Sunday, April 22, 1945

    Q. What is there from your own experience that you brought into the story of The Gossip Columnist?

A. “In totalitarian societies I’ve seen the terror and the crushing of moral guidelines, and always there is the question you ask yourself: “How did it get to this?” I spent a lot of time researching the step-by-step descent of one of history’s most cultured societies into the depravity of the Nazis –and I wanted to see it through the eyes of my most prominent character, Bella, as she has to flee from her job as the gossip columnist at Berlin’s biggest newspaper I’ve also seen in action, the old adage “Information Is Power”.  One of the first documentaries I made was called “Politics In Filmmaking” It was a look at how information is handled –everything from Hemingway narrating a film about the Spanish Civil War to spending time with members of the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted.”

   Recently, journalists have been dismissed for their political views, as conservative owners have taken over news organization. Similarly, in Bella’s Germany, where even the owners were dismissed, she is the rare journalist, who’s kept her job at a major newspaper. This fictional character, based on a real journalist, is the narrator of The Gossip Columnist.  She is a clear-eyed resporter in a time when the Nazis Regime controlled every form of media– films, radio and newspapers–so news was whatever they said it was. 

       If they wanted an inconvenient event to be forgotten they simply obliterated its existence by having it never mentioned, filmed or written about. Bella was essential, because her reportage on their appearances and importance at social events was thought to raise the public image of the Hitler regime.  She was also privy to informationa bout the sexual circus that was Berlin in the 1920s and early 30s.  This was crucial. since her  younger sister, Karin, unusually beautiful and oddly oblivious to danger, worked in clubs and cabarets.  Not infrequently, Bella would get a tip and need to act quickly to rescue Karin from harm. 

 In this complex novel of action, risk and courage, you learn about the family’s descent into political madness.  The day her father, who worked in a bank, came home wearing a Nazis armband excited by the new power hierarchy in business, was the day Bella left home. As the economy tanks the security of the business and her family, food is scarce.  All that can be sold is hawked, including for some the virtue of their children. All sacrifice was somehow normalized for the Reich war.  Bella finds her way to the paper and official stories. She also finds ways, undercover, for anonymous truthtelling.