49 pages • 1 hour read
Armando Lucas CorreaThe German Girl
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Hannah, Berlin, 1939”
The German Girl begins in Berlin in 1939. Hannah is the 12-year-old protagonist and first-person narrator of the first chapter, which begins with Hannah confessing that she is thinking about killing her parents. She wonders how many aspirin it would take to kill her father before deciding suffocating them with a pillow would be the best method. She then claims that her parents are planning “to get rid of” her in some way (5), before concluding that “in the end, I didn’t kill my parents” because “they forced me to throw myself into the abyss alongside them” (6).
Hannah then describes aspects of her life in Berlin. Her mother Alma lives enclosed in the apartment; her only contact with the outside world is the route to and from the cinema. Her mother particularly enjoys Greta Garbo, who appears German but is actually Swedish. Hannah’s father Max had been “arrested at his university office” (7) and taken into custody for an offense that Hannah doesn’t understand. We learn that although Hannah’s family rents out rooms to other tenants in the apartment, these tenants look down on Hannah and her family. When a mother and her daughter, Gretel, find Hannah in the elevator, the mother chooses to take the stairs and calls Hannah “dirty people” (9). Afterward, Hannah runs up to her apartment, crying, and takes a scalding hot bath in an attempt “to get rid of every last trace of impurity” (10). She then hugs her mother because she feels her mother understands her and runs to meet her friend Leo at the train station.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Anna, New York, 2014”
Anna, a 12-year-old living in New York in 2014, narrates the second chapter. The chapter begins with Anna stating that her father left her mother when her mother was pregnant with her. Her mother held up hope that her father would return, even after receiving his death certificate in the mail. Anna’s mother is a shut-in, just like Hannah’s mother in the previous chapter. Anna’s mother “has converted her bedroom into her refuge” (15), and Anna is her caretaker. Anna receives an envelope sent from her missing father’s family. It’s from Havana, Cuba. We learn that Anna’s father was raised by an aunt named Hannah and that Anna was named after her. Inside the envelope there is a note: “For Anna, from Hannah” (17). The envelope contains “old photograph contact sheets, and lots of negatives, together with a magazine—in German?—from March, 1939” (17). The cover of the magazine, titled The German Girl, has a picture of a blond girl. Anna’s mother says the girl on the cover looks like Anna. They also find a postcard with a photo of a ship. “It’s time to find out who Dad is,” Anna says (18). Anna says she also wants to get to know her relative, Hannah. She falls asleep looking at the postcard.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Hannah, Berlin, 1939”
Hannah meets her friend Leo at a café in the city, but Leo says, “We have to get out of here” (22). Hannah understands that Leo means not only the café but Berlin in general. As they cross the city, Hannah pauses on a bridge to look down at the river Spree, and a man begins taking photos of her. Hannah thinks he is someone who wants to be accepted by the “Ogres,” Leo’s term for people who “thought they were pure” (8) and who “attacked” and “shouted insults” at people like Hannah (23). They escape the man and arrive at another café where they hope to eat “fresh Pfeffernusse spice cookies” (24). Instead, they find the windows smashed and the café closed. “Another sign that we must leave,” Leo says (24).
Hannah and Leo take the train to Herr Braun’s place. Herr Braun is a “disgusting, deaf old man” (25). Leo calls him an Ogre as well. Hannah and Leo often sit “beneath the window of his messy dining room, with cigarette butts and dirty puddles” all around them (25). They do this so they can listen to the Ogre’s radio for news, which their parents prevent them from doing at home. Hannah says, “Sometimes the Ogre used to see us and shout insultingly ‘the word beginning with J’ that Leo and I refused to pronounce. As Mama insisted, we were Germans first and foremost” (25).
Hannah reflects on Leo’s living conditions and character. Leo lives with his father in a boardinghouse. His father, Herr Martin, is “an accountant who had lost all his clients” (27). His mother, brother, and other family escaped to Canada. Leo is tall, skinny, and energetic. Hannah reflects that both Leo and she could “pass for anyone” (29), but this quality sometimes counts against her with her “own people” (30). Finally, they hear over the Ogre’s radio that new laws are going to go into effect: They’ll have to start listing all their possessions, changing their names, and selling properties and businesses at prices the government will decide. “The cleansing had begun in Berlin, the dirtiest city in Europe. Powerful jets of water were about to start drenching us until we were clean,” Hannah reflects (31).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Anna, New York, 2014”
Anna reflects on her father, who she often confides in and has conversations with in her mind. A photo of her father shows “his dark hair, his big, hooded eyes, the hint of a smile on his thin lips” (33). His favorite book as a child was Robinson Crusoe. When Anna brings her mother her morning coffee, she finds her pale and lying completely still in bed. Afraid her mother has died, Anna runs up to the apartment of Mr. Levin, who she describes as “the only friend I have in the entire universe” (36). Together, Mr. Levin, his dog Tramp, and Anna return to her apartment, where Mr. Levin tells Anna that she should go to school. Anna goes outside and catches the school bus. When she returns from school, she finds her mother recovered and in full health. Not only that, but she’s set the table and prepared dinner. She seems to be in a great mood. The next day they go to a photo lab in Chelsea to develop the roll of film that Hannah sent from Cuba. There is a photo with the caption, “Taken by Leo May, 1939” (41). It shows a girl who looks like Anna staring through what could be the window of a ship’s cabin. On the taxi ride home, Anna’s mother tells her that she’s part German on her father’s side. This is surprising because up till now, Anna thought her father was purely Cuban. She questions why she learned Spanish, saying, “German would have been better” (42).
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The opening chapters introduce the two protagonists and first-person narrators. Hannah lives in Berlin in 1939, while Anna’s world is New York City in 2014. The novel weaves the two characters’ narratives together in alternating chapters. These alternating narratives allow the reader to observe similarities between the two characters’ lives even though they live worlds apart. Hannah’s world in 1939 Berlin is becoming increasingly hostile and dangerous to Jewish people like her family, her best friend Leo, and herself, as Nazism is rapidly rising throughout Germany. Jewish business owners are finding their windows smashed and their shops destroyed throughout the city. By the end of Chapter 3, it’s clear that conditions will only become worse. Meanwhile, Anna’s world is modern-day New York City.
Despite the great distances in time and place, Hannah and Anna’s lives share many similarities. For example, both Hannah and Anna have mothers who live shut-off from the world, choosing instead to remain cloistered in the safety of their own apartments. Both Hannah and Anna feel as though they only have a single friend in the world: Hannah has her friend Leo, and Anna has her neighbor Mr. Levin. Both Hannah and Anna are grappling with concepts involving their nationality, identity, and family. Hannah’s mother Alma, for example, speaks four languages fluently: French, German, Spanish, and English. At the end of Chapter 4, Anna reveals that she knows Spanish but wishes she knew German as well. These similarities point to an important connection between Anna and Hannah. This connection is further emphasized by the facts that the two are said to look alike and Anna was named after Hannah. This connection is made concrete when Hannah sends Anna an envelope with a roll of film and a postcard that seem to provide Anna clues as to who her father was.
Hannah and Anna are also both exploring what it means to be German. In Hannah’s context, 1939 Berlin, what it means to be German is changing before her eyes. Although Hannah and her family have lived in Germany longer than many of her neighbors, those same neighbors look down on Hannah, insinuating that because she is Jewish, she is not “pure” German. This conception of a “pure” German race is sweeping Berlin and Germany, making it increasingly dangerous for Hannah and Leo to live there. Meanwhile Hannah’s mother insists that she is just as German as anyone else in Germany, claiming, “I’m German, Hannah. I am a Strauss. Alma Strauss. Isn’t that enough, Hannah?” (8). At the end of Chapter 4, Anna learns that she too shares a German heritage. Although Anna does not live in as dangerous an environment as Hannah’s, her national identity is still meaningful to her, as it might provide a clue about her father’s past.
