Book Review: Munich

Review: Munich by Robert Harris

It is 1938, the year when the Munich Agreement takes place. Adolf Hitler pursues to annex Sudetenland, a region of western Czechoslovakia inhabited by more than 3 million people, mainly German speakers. England is not prepared for a conflict. Neville Chamberlain, the British minister, flies to Munich, Germany, as an attempt to prevent a future World War and take by himself assurances from Hitler that peace and only peace will follow in Europe. After only twenty-four hours, Neville Chamberlain returns back to London having an official agreement and Hitler's affirmation that this is going to be his last territorial claim in Europe.

Robert Harris uses two long-lost university friends to tell his story; Hugh Legat is one of the Chamberlain's private secretaries and Paul Hartmann is a German diplomatic and secretly a member of anti-Hitler resistance. 

There are some edgy scenes like the planning of Hitler's murder and the two guys' attempts to get the ticket to Munich. However, there aren't really any extreme stuff that confirms the book's genre (Historical Fiction).

Hugh Legat receives a mysterious file with valuable information, which is proved to have come from his old friend, Paul Hartmann. Hartmann was already planning to go to Munich -using his German friends who had stronger connections- and make anything that is possible to assure peace, but Legat's arrival to Munich wasn't planned until he receives that file. The fact that he was also fluent in German helped him to convince the persons in charge to let him be a member of the Chamberlain's escort. 

Both men cooperate to secure a diplomatic solution. They continuously have to make hard decisions and put in danger their jobs or even their lives... They are different and not willing to change. I can now tell that their private moments are really the most enjoyable moments of the book, making the plot even more interesting.

Writing about a fictional story set around a real historic event isn't an easy job, but Robert Harris carried through with it. He really did great research and managed to objectively represent those events and, at the same time, describe the two men's fruitless tries for peace.

The third part of the book is just thrilling. Neville Chamberlain, apart from the official agreement, manages to return to England holding another document that includes all the stuff that Hitler said in past speeches and could be proven beneficial to England or, even better, prevent a war. "And what if he breaks his guarantee? If he breaks it, then the world will see who he really is. Then, nobody would have doubts." Just some words that faded and were downplayed by history... 

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