Book Review - "The Devil's Mercedes" by Robert Klara

Back in the late 1930's and early 1940's, the Mercedes-Benz Company of Germany manufactured any number of automobiles that were used as staff cars by members of the high command of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.  Among those cars was the Grosser 770K Model 150 Offener Tourenwagon.  The 770K's were massive limousines.  They were twenty feet long that would seat eight people.   The seats were made of glove soft leather and filled with goose down.  With their special armor plating and inch thick bullet proof glass, they weighed over 10,000 pounds.  They were as menacing and as evil looking as the were the men that they were meant to carry.

As WW II was coming to a close, much of the Reich's automotive fleet was destroyed, but many of the cars were confiscated by Allied Forces and taken as "spoils of war."  Two of the 770K's eventually found their way to America, and this book, "The Devil's Mercedes", tells the unlikely story of what happened to these two cars.  At first, they were put on display as a means of raising funds for various charities (which did happen).  Each was touted as "Hitler's personal car", but were they really?  In time they moved from being curiosities to becoming symbols of Hitler and Hitler's Germany itself.   Backlash against them developed and there were factions of people who thought that the cars should be destroyed.  On the other end of the spectrum, many people used them as rallying points for neo-Nazi sympathizers.  Owning these cars - and at least one of them was responsible for setting record sales prices on more than one occasion among car collectors - became a burden and curse in itself.

By the way, one of the secondary threads of this book was the hobby of Car Collecting.  People we're doing this almost since the beginning of automobiles themselves.  Back in those days, it was possible to ask permission to root through some old farmer's barn, find an ancient car, offer thirty or forty bucks for it, and then restore it and either keep it, or sell it for a profit.  Such a hobby is now a Rich Man's game, and it is so in large part for the then enormous prices that the "Hitler cars" were able to fetch in post-war America.

As I said, each of these cars was heavily hyped as being "Hitler's cars", but tracing the actual provenance of each of them was an almost impossible task.  The story of how one man, a native German working as a librarian for a Canadian museum, was able to do so makes for a terrific detective story.   It should be noted that it wasn't until the 1980's, forty years after the conclusion of the War that such a positive identification was able to be made.

Both of the two cars that Klara tells about in this book are still out there, and one of them can still be seen by the public, but you're going to have to read the book to find out where they are.  You won't be sorry.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

By the way, this is the third book by Robert Klara that I have read and written about on this Blog.  The first was about the funeral train of President Franklin Roosevelt:

https://grandstander.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-fdrs-funeral-train-by.html

The second was about the restoration and remodeling of the White House during the Truman Administration:

https://grandstander.blogspot.com/2014/12/book-review-hidden-white-house.html

All three of these books are fascinating and worth reading.  I can't wait to see what Mr. Klara will write about next.

The Books of 2014

One of the (many) joys of retirement is having the time to read as many books, and as many kinds of books as you want.  In 2014, I read 43 books.  Yes, I actually keep track of such things.  And, yes, I will confess that there were some, but not many, among those 43 books, that I either skimmed, or never finished, because, I am doing this for my pleasure, and if I find I'm not enjoying it, I toss it!

Anyway, looking back at the list one more time, here are some recommendations for you, just in case you missed them the first time around, or if perhaps I didn't mention them in an earlier Grandstander post.

Non-Fiction

"Their Life's Work" by Gary W. Pomerantz.  A book about the Pittsburgh Steelers dynastic teams of the 1970's.  If you are a life-long Steelers fan and think that there is nothing more that could possibly be said about these teams (as I did), think again.  It has been called the football version of Roger Kahn's classic "Boys of Summer", and a higher compliment could not be paid.   You will gain new respect for Chuck Noll and Joe Greene after reading this.  A definite MUST READ for football fans in general and Steelers fans in particular.

"One Summer - America, 1927" by Bill Bryson.  The always entertaining Bryson takes a look of momentous and (seemingly) mundane events that occurred over the course of the summer of 1927.  Fascinating, informative, and immensely readable.

"Pedstrianism" by Matthew Algeo.  A look at a spectator sport that swept America in the late 19th century, made celebrities of the athletes, and even led to the use of performance enhancing drugs, but then disappeared from the landscape of the American sporting scene almost as quickly as it appeared.  

"Where Nobody Know Your Name" by John Feinstein.  A look at life in baseball's minor leagues over the course of one season.  Feinstein focuses on about a dozen minor league folks: players, managers, an umpire, and even a broadcaster.  Fabulous book that will reinforce your knowledge, in case you've forgotten it, that ANY player who makes it to the Major Leagues has truly earned it.


"FDR's Funeral Train" and "The Hidden White House" by Robert Klara.  Remarkably detailed and endlessly fascinating books on Presidential history by Klara.  The first one describes the funeral train that left Warm Springs, GA in April 1945 with the dead body of President Roosevelt and traveled to Washington DC and Hyde Park NY and back to Washington in the space of four days, and how one Presidency ended and another began.  The second describes the renovation and rebuilding of the White House that took place during the Truman Administration from 1949-52.

Fiction

I read a number of novels over the course of the year, including those from perennial favorites Jonathan Kellerman, John Sandford, Jeffery Deaver, Carl Hiaasen, and even Agatha Christie, but I want to focus instead on the works of Max Allan Collins.

I have written about the incredibly prolific Collins in this space on many occasions.  I first discovered him in 2013 when I read one of his "historical mysteries" called "The Titanic Murders", and I have been hooked ever since.  He has written literally hundreds of novels and short story collections, and, frankly, not all of them are to my taste, but I enjoy his aforementioned historical mysteries, and I absolutely love his series of of private detective novels involving the character of private eye Nathan Heller.

Heller started as a Chicago police officer in the early 1930's and then became a PI. The stories are written as first person "memoirs" of Heller's, and they recount his numerous cases involving real historical figures such as Al Capone, Frank Nitti, John Dillinger, Huey Long, Bugsy Siegel, Charles Lindberg, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Ruby, and Jack and Bobby 
Kennedy (yes, Heller gets involved in the JFK assassination!).  You have to suspend disbelief when you consider that ONE guy could be involved in the investigation of seemingly every major crime of the twentieth century, and even Collins agrees that this is ridiculous, but once you do, you are in for some very entertaining reading.

In 2014, I read ten books by Collins.  Six of those were Nate Heller novels.  In all, Collins has written fifteen Nate Heller novels and published three collections of Heller short stories. I have read all but four of those novels and all of the short story collections, and my goal for 2015 is to finish reading the Heller Canon in its entirety.

You don't have to read these novels in order of publication, but if you want to start, I would suggest that you start with the first one, "True Detective", wherein Nate gives you a lot of his biographical detail which is helpful as you read subsequent novels.  After that, you can pretty much dive in anywhere along the way.

If you like mystery and detective fiction, you won't be sorry.

Here's to great reading for everyone in 2015!

Book Review: "The Hidden White House"

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a book in this space called "FDR's Funeral Train" by Robert Klara.  Shortly after I finished reading that book, the good folks at Amazon recommended another book by Mr. Klara, "The Hidden White House", which I purchased and immediately read.

This one, as you can see from the subtitle above, is about the reconstruction of the White House that took place during the Administration of President Harry Truman.  "Reconstruction" is putting it mildly, because, essentially, the White House was pretty much torn down and totally rebuilt.  Only the outer walls and the roof were left standing as the iconic building was totally disassembled, gutted, and rebuilt.  I was aware that such a "remodeling" job took place back in Truman's days, but was unaware of the enormity and the scope of the job that was done.

The White House was built in the 1790's, was rebuilt following the burning of the building by the British Army in the War of 1812, was remodeled yet again in 1902 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and yet again in during the Coolidge Administration.  During WW II, it fell into a state of disrepair to the point that, by the time the Trumans moved in, the place was, quite literally, falling down upon the staff and residents.  The only way to save it, was to complete gut the place and rebuild, and there were some folks who felt that one alternative at the time was to completely level the place, outer walls and all.

Like most things involving the government, there was political bickering, cost overruns, and delays.  A job that was to be completed in 660 days, or slightly less than two years, took three years and three months to complete. Part if the reason was the politics of the time - the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Korean War, the President's plummeting approval ratings - and part of it was just a good old-fashioned government boondoggle. Author Klara has done an unbelievable amount of research into every thing that went into the entire project, some of it is mind-numbing (right down to how many cubic yards of concrete were poured during the reconstruction), but it really is a fascinating story.  

Here's my favorite part of the tale. The project was dragging on so long, that it began to look like the Trumans were never gong to get back into the White House.  The President had decided that he was not going to seek reelection in 1952, and, by God, he wanted to spend his last year in office living in the White House.  So, in January of 1952, Harry called all parties involved in the project into his office and "gave 'em hell".  He was tired of deadlines not being met, so he, the President of the United States, was now going to set one.  The Queen of the Netherlands was going to make a state visit to the USA on April 2, Truman had invited the Royal Family to stay in the White House, so the project had to be done by then.  No ifs ands, or buts.  It was impossible, everyone involved said, but guess what?  The Trumans were back in the White House by the last week of March.

The lesson is that when someone in authority wants something to happen, really WANTS it, it can and does get done.

So, Robert Klara is now two-for-two in writing interesting books about Presidential history.  I can't wait to see what he's going to write about next.

Book Review: "FDR's Funeral Train" by Robert Klara

I just finished reading this really fascinating book that is about, as the title suggests, the train trip from Warm Springs, GA to Washington, DC to Hyde Park, NY and back to Washington following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs on April 12, 1945. 

Having come of age in an era when Presidents can be anywhere in the United States, or the world for that matter, in a matter of hours, it fascinated me to read about an event such as the death of a President and its aftermath taking place on a train ride, and a very lengthy ride at that while, oh yeah, a war was going on.  Consider this time table.

The President died at around 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon.  His body was prepared by an Atlanta funeral director, and the train left Warm Springs for Washington on mid-morning Friday.  (Mrs. Roosevelt was flown from Washington to Warm Springs on a special military transport plane and arrived late on Thursday night.)  It took 22 hours for the train to arrive in Washington on Saturday morning.  

After a brief state funeral service in the White House, it was back on the train late at night for the trip to Hyde Park.  The train arrived there at around 10:00 on Sunday morning.  There was a brief burial service at the Roosevelt Estate, whereupon the train, after about a three hour stop, headed back to Washington and arrived late Sunday night.

On board the train from Washington to Hyde Park was the new President, Harry Truman, and much of the trip was spent with Truman being briefed about his new job.  He brought with him, to he chagrin of the Roosevelt loyalists, who slowly began to realize that their days of power would soon be drawing to a close, some of the men who would become HIS key advisers in a new Administration.  Even in the first hours of his Presidency, Harry Truman, much looked down upon by many, proved to be a pretty shrewd guy.

It is also amazing to read of the logistics that had to take place to plan a state funeral at the White House, a burial in Hyde Park, and figure out who would attend and who would ride on the train from Washington to Hyde Park.  In fact, two trains made that trip, the second one being filled with mostly Congressional dignitaries. 

I read a book like this and realize how much I wish my Dad was still with us.  I would have loved to have talked to him about the events described and picked his brains about it.  I know that he would have remembered, if not all the details, but a lot about the personalties of the key players in this real life drama.

Very interesting book about a momentous time in our history and an era that will never return.