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Un-Clouded Perspectives:
Interview with James Cloud
By Carin Chea
As a young child growing up in an era precipitating the Second World War, James Cloud wrestled with questions even the most erudite of scholars struggled with: How could race, religion, or culture cause such a divide amongst otherwise peaceful neighbors?
With his first grade teacher being Jewish and his neighborhood grocer being German, Cloud grappled with ethical and moral questions that inspired his future career trajectory.
He would grow up to be an award-winning educator and accomplished linguist. And after earning a degree in Industrial Design from The Institute of Arts in West Berlin, Cloud would return to the states to pursue further higher education.
Now in his golden years, Cloud has not slowed down and has become a first-time author. His Brandenburg book series, Brandenburg: A Story of Berlin and Brandenburg II: The Ninth Circle of Hell, have received a warm welcome in the literary world, and it is evident that readers want more.
Where are you living right now?
I’m currently in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But you grew up in Las Vegas, New Mexico, right?
Yes. That’s a funny coincidence.
Tell us about how your appreciation for the German culture started.
I was 80 years old when I got the idea to write these books, and I had just gone through a divorce and cancer. Over a lifetime I had a lot of interaction with German people.
The big question going around during the post-war years was, “How could such a developed, civilized nation like Germany degenerate into the unbelievable nightmare of Nazism?”
I decided to put some ideas on paper and it developed into a story. However, that question remained and my books really developed themselves to search for an answer. I’ve tried to answer that question from a German perspective.
I started doing research, and I realized that the declaration of war by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1914 in World War I was just the beginning of a series of tragic events leading to an unimaginable nightmare.
I understand you also lived in Germany for some time.
I lived in West Berlin, Germany for five years starting in 1967. I was a student at the Arts Institute so I had little jobs here and there. I was a translator for the British Military Mission which would bring me to East Berlin at times.
I became acquainted with people in West and East Berlin and I saw patterns when they started to talk about the war. I would feel a caution from them. It took a while before people felt like they could have confidence in me.
I’d see all kinds of experiences and met people who really tried to defend why they followed Hitler; and on the other hand, people who hated the whole thought.
I began to sense that my German friends were cautious and it took a while before they’d open up about their lives living under the Nazis.
Most of my characters are composites of people I knew when I lived in Germany. Book one, Brandenburg: A Story of Berlin, attempted to answer the question of: How could Hitler happen to Germany?
There was a divide amongst the people who lived through the war, and their children who had broken off relationships with their parents because they blamed them for the Holocaust. It’s a social conflict that lasts to this day.
Even now, Germans ask, “How could the nation of Germany develop into the barbarism that was Nazism?”
How do you go about explaining that?
The German social structure before World War I was all wiped away by the war, and it left a big political vacuum.
In 1900, Germany was a very rich country and had the third largest economy in the world. Bismarck was the first chancellor in German history; they called him the Iron Chancellor.
From 1870 up to World War I, Germany’s rise was meteoric. That caused uneasiness with some of their European neighbors and they’d jostle each other, stepped on each other’s toes.
In contrast, at the end of the war in 1918, Germany was bankrupt, and all the western powers laid all the blame of World War I on the Germans.
When the stock market crashed, American banks could no longer support German banks. The effects of the depression in Germany were more severe than they were in America.
The 1920s experienced great inflation in Germany. Housewives would go to their husbands’ place of work and collect their pay and immediately go to the market to buy food because they never knew when the prices of food would go up.
Then Hitler comes along, with his charisma, and was a gifted speaker. He said he could solve all the Germans’ problems. People gravitated to Hitler because he promised he could be their savior, and that’s what they were looking for. Hitler had an audience who was ready to listen.
What made you want to publish your first book at the age of 80?
These ideas were kicking through my end. I kept asking myself, “How could the Holocaust happen in a country like Germany?”
After cancer, you’re supposed to wait five years to go through the all clear. The German Holocaust question had really come back to me over and over through my life.
I decided to tell this story because whenever you see a lot of Holocaust stories, you don’t get a lot of the perspective from the German side. I’m excited to delve into it and open it up and try to answer the question.
How would you describe your novels?
They are historical fiction told through a German perspective by those who lived through the experience.
What do you want your readers to take away from your books?
Every person or nation is capable of inhumanity, even those we call good people. I don’t think there’s one nation or group of people who have the monopoly on cruelty.
We really have got to work harder about talking civilly and hearing each other. When a society loses communication or breaks down, we have chaos and it’s too late.
Are the main characters inspired by anyone in your real life?
They’re a composite of people I met. I took bits and pieces of the stories I heard while in Germany and put them into this story.
Who do you see playing the protagonists if Brandenburg were made into a film?
One of my characters is Herbert’s father, who is a surgeon. I really admire Thomas Kretschmann who was in The Pianist.
For more information, please visit www.JamesCloudBooks.com
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