The Long Farewell

A Haunting Descent into the Heart of Fascism

Set against the ominous backdrop of 1930s Dresden, The Long Farewell follows Hermann Becht—a troubled young man grappling with a deep Oedipal conflict—as he becomes entangled in the political and moral collapse of pre-war Europe. With a father in the SS, a Jewish lover, and a Belarusian mother, Hermann is torn between identities, loyalties, and ideologies.

As personal trauma collides with historical catastrophe, Hermann’s journey leads from flight and espionage to the unspeakable horrors of Treblinka. Haunted by what he witnesses, his fractured psyche draws the attention of Carl Jung in Switzerland—yet even the famed psychiatrist cannot free him from the psychological grip of his past.

Spanning Germany, France, Poland, and Switzerland, this powerful novel explores the seductive force of fascism, the complexities of inherited guilt, and the dark extremes of vengeance. The Long Farewell is both a disturbing psychological study and a profound reflection on the roots of collective violence.

Get your copy of The Long Farewell today and confront the echoes of history that still shape our world.

Excerpt from the book

“… a genuine peace, founded not on the olive-branch waving of weepy lament, rather on the triumphant sword of a master race that will make the world subservient to the building of a higher culture.”

Marina Nesdrova had an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu during Hitler’s address. She had heard those self-same arguments fanatically and confidently expressed when she was a young girl in Russia. She knew where such words led.

Hitler’s breaking voice, his tinny Austrian accent, the way he pressed his lips together after the crowd’s hysterical cheering and stroked that ludicrous tear from his eye, arousing her anger and disbelief. She cast an unobtrusive glance sideways. Hans was intently staring at his idol and almost imperceptibly nodding. Her husband’s brown uniform seemed too large for him, though it fitted his slender form like a glove.

Marina was undecided as to which was the worst: the hysterical voice of that little man whose head jerked about like a cockerel and stuck his chest out at every burst of applause or the marching music played in preparation for the Nazi leader’s arrival. She was disgusted at the pompous banners with their ridiculous runic symbols, which hung above the trees of Brühl’s Terrace. And at Hitler executing his St. Vitus’s dance on the platform opposite the breathtakingly beautiful Cathedral.

At that moment, as though he had been reading her thoughts, the statesman shouted, “Mark my words, fellow citizens: you cannot be a good Christian and a good German simultaneously!”

Marina clenched her teeth. This man was influential; his puny exterior was purely deceptive. She closed her eyes, and the white plains of Stanoviche surfaced in her mind like a threatening image of future events.

She quickly glanced to one side and noticed Hans peering at her from the corner of his eye. He blames me for not listening closely; he blames me for being a Catholic, a Belarusian, a melancholy creature, a useless mother; lately, he’s been blaming me for being alive.

Marina Nesdrova had come to Dresden in 1919 as a refugee from the Russian revolution. She had converted to Catholicism then, and now, fourteen years later, she professed its orthodoxy all the more fanatically: after all, Catholicism preached the easy remission of sins. Her husband Hans Becht had once adhered to Protestantism; now it was Hitler. Like that man up there, he is obsessed with ancient, bloodthirsty Teuton gods.

Marina briefly glanced right at her son Hermann. Lately, he had been the only one to come into her bedroom when she was suffering one of her bad days: lying in bed overwhelmed by an icy fear, with a pain inside her that could only be a harbinger of death. Alcohol was the only thing that helped at such times, and with the bottle close at hand, she would lie and wait for it all to pass. She neglected housework and family. Hans no longer even bothered to pretend to be concerned and slept downstairs. Despair and self-reproach chained her to the bed, and no one offered any ounce of solace except her son, who would occasionally come and sit beside her on the bed, silent, but sometimes caressing her hair. She couldn’t respond. She could only stare blankly into the void. Once in a while, he would play a record for her; there were times when Tchaikovsky provided some succor.