War Girls Complete Collection

Chapter 6

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for reading WAR GIRL URSULA.

While writing Unwavering (Book 3 in the Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany Trilogy), I read through the many letters my grandmother sent during her time in prison.

UnwaveringShe mentioned twice a prison guard whom the prisoners called “Blonde Angel”. She didn"t say much, just something along the lines of, “The Blonde Angel allowed me an extra 15 minutes of visit time” or “The Blonde Angel said women aren’t executed anymore”. But those two sentences intrigued me enough to start wondering what kind of person the Blonde Angel might have been and why she became a prison guard, of all professions.

I have no idea about her real name, but I created Ursula Hermann as homage to the real life person who brought a modicum of comfort to the lives of my grandmother and the other inmates. Apart from the reference to her nickname, the person of Ursula Hermann is entirely fictional.

Pfarrer Bernau, the priest, whom you may remember from Unwavering as well, was modeled after the Catholic priest Buchholz and his Protestant colleague Poelchau, who both worked in Plötzensee and belonged to the resistance.

UnwaveringDuring an air raid on the night of September 3rd 1943, a large portion of the prison was destroyed. In the ensuing chaos four prisoners who’d been sentenced to death managed to escape. I took this real event as inspiration for Ursula and Tom’s story. You can read more about the role of the Plötzensee prison in the Nazi terror here:

http://www.gedenkstaette-ploetzensee.de/07_e.html

Since so many readers have asked: yes, there will be a continuation of Ursula and Tom’s love story.

Initially I had planned this series to have three books, one about each of the sisters, but as it often happens to me, while writing I had more ideas about stories that wanted to be told.

So, without giving you spoilers, both Ursula and Tom will make appearances in later books of the series, but only after the war has ended, the two of them can meet again and will get their own book.