The Hitler Recordings (excerpt)

It is 2003.

Oskar Herzog is Chief of Acquisitions at a prestigious auction house in Berlin.

Greta Heineman approaches him with what appears to be the acquisition of the century:  A full set of 330 recordings of Adolf Hitler at the piano, playing everything from Beethoven at one end of the scale through to Jelly Roll Morton at the other (and all points in between).

The problem is that Greta needs big money and she needs it fast.  Too fast.  Her son, Adam, as it turns out, has been kidnapped by a neo-Nazi group trying to force her to release the recordings, which have been in her family for three generations.

Taught the piano by Greta’s grandmother, the Hitler of the recordings proves to be a pianist of rare power and beauty.  All who hear him are arrested by his brilliance.

But Herzog is arrested by something more – the chronological sequence of the recordings, which he comes to believe contain another meaning.

Using an Enigma machine and code book, he finally manages to crack the code laid out within the recordings.  The truth revealed therein is both startling and shocking.

Catching Greta in a lie about her mother’s death, Herzog tracks down the old woman, and the pieces of this amazing puzzle begin to come together.

A lavish concert is held, wherein Hitler’s piano rolls are played alongside the Berlin Philharmonic.  The effect is electric, and the way is open to a public announcement.

With the backing of organizations opposed to the neo-Nazis, Greta manages to confront Herzog with a dilemma that places the entire acquisition in the balance.

In a thrilling, almost “whodunit” format, The Hitler Recordings forces us to reconsider certain of our preconceptions about good and evil, and the tradeoffs we are prepared to make in setting off one against the other.