Magda Goebbels is a reviled character having killed all six of her children, before commiting suicide, in the infamous bunker during Adolph Hitler's final days. How could any woman commit such a despicable act?

Meike Ziervogel has courageously portrayed Magda as a woman first and foremost..and a very damaged one at that. The illegitimate daughter of a servant girl, she was made to feel unwanted throughout her childhood. However, this made her more determined and very ambitious, craving the love and recognition denied to her for so long. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, was the answer to all Magda's prayers. In him she found a soul mate and relished the attention and notoriety being his wife brought her way. Like her mother before her, her relationship with her five daughters and one son was tenuous to say the least. Constantly unwell, her children barely saw her for days on end.

The author has cleverly told Magda's story, spanning fact and fiction, in to eight short chapters. We learn of Magda's early life, her mother's somewhat spiteful take on her own daughter, and, achingly sad, are excerpts from the eldest child Helga's diary. She is just fourteen,on the brink of adulthood, and Ms Ziervogel has really understood the psyche of an unloved child writing to her only friend.

Meike makes no excuses for Magda, but presents her story honestly and intelligently, combining historical fact with wise perception. Magda's "vision" for what would become of her children if they were to fall in to the hands of the "brutish" enemy seems deluded, but how easy it must have been to believe, shut away underground with no hope left

Someone once told me that "hurt people hurt people" and this is never more evident than in this wonderful short novel. Magda and Helga will remain with me for some time. ( )