The People's Hare

The People's Hare follows the story of Albert Behrens, a young artist living in Berlin on the cusp of World War II. After reading an article in the SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, in which Superman is dissected and then vilified by the Nazis (after all, his creator Jerry Siegel is Jewish), Albert decides that the Third Reich needs its own cartoon hero.

Unexpectedly, his idea reaches the desk of Heinrich Himmler, whose spies have noted the recent appearance of a popular animated rabbit in America. Intrigued, Himmler enlists Albert in Nazi Germany’s propaganda war and between them, Der Volkshase ("The People's Hare") is born.

The Hare brings fame to Albert, but it all comes with a terrible cost exacted in the prison cells of the Gestapo, the mud and snow of the Russian Front, Stalin’s gulags and, ultimately, by the bitter wedge driven between Albert and his lover, fellow artist Renata Sanger.

Although quick to read, like such luminous works as Orwell’s Animal Farm and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, The People’s Hare rattles around one’s head for a long time. No one who meets Albert Behrens is likely to forget him.