A Small Town in Germany

Infobox Book |
name = A Small Town in Germany


image_caption =
author = John le Carré
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
genre = Thriller novel
publisher = William Heinemann
release_date = October 1968
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 304 pp (hardcover first edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-434-10930-4 (hardcover first edition)
preceded_by = The Looking-Glass War
followed_by = The Naïve and Sentimental Lover

A Small Town In Germany is an espionage thriller by John le Carré, set against a background of concern that former Nazis were returning to positions of power in West Germany.

Plot introduction

The novel concerns the search for an official at the British Embassy in Bonn who has gone missing with secret files.

Explanation of the novel's title

Bonn is the titular small town, chosen as West Germany's capital after World War II mainly due to the advocacy of Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany after World War II, who came from the area.

Plot summary

A Small Town In Germany is set in the late 1960s in Bonn, which was, at the time, the capital of West Germany. A British Foreign Office official named Alan Turner arrives from London to investigate the disappearance of a minor functionary in the British Embassy named Leo Harting. Along with Harting, several secret files have disappeared. The head of security at the embassy, Rawley Bradfield, is hostile to Turner's investigation. Despite this, he hosts both Turner and Ludwig Siebkron (head of the German Interior Ministry, who is close to Klaus Karfeld, a German industrialist, who is building support for his new party with some success) to dinner at his home Tuesday night. Turner starts off suspecting Harting was a spy, but comes to realise that Harting had been secretly investigating Karfeld's Nazi career, and had become certain that Karfeld was the former administrator of a wartime research facility that had poisoned thirty-one half-Jews; and, in fact, is hiding not from the British but from Siebkron, and is probably planning to assassinate Karfeld. To Turner's chagrin, Bradfield is not sympathetic to Harting's situation, and not interested in protecting him. Bradfield regards Harting as a criminal and a political embarrassment.

Characters in "A Small Town In Germany"

* Leo Harting - official at the British Embassy in Bonn
* Alan Turner - British Foreign Office Official
* Ludwig Siebkron - German Interior Ministry official
* Klaus Karfeld - German Industrialist and Neo-Nazi Politician

Allusions/references to actual history, geography and science

* At the time of publication there were worries that the extreme right was rebuilding in West Germany. It should be pointed out, however, that these fears later proved to be unfounded, as the extreme right to this day remains a marginal factor in German politics, with no representation in the Bundestag.
* The West German Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, was, like Karfeld, a former committed Nazi, who had joined the NSDAP in 1933. Although Kiesinger was cleared of war crimes by the denazification courts, radical groups such as the Red Army Faction argued that an informal but powerful network of ex-Nazis, including Kiesinger, controlled the country.
* Real locations in Bonn such as the British Embassy feature prominently.

Trivia

* John le Carré had previously worked in the Bonn embassy.
* A Small Town In Germany does not feature John le Carré's most famous character George Smiley.

Release details

* 1968, UK, William Heinemann, ISBN 0-434-10930-4, October 1968, Hardback
* 1970, UK, Pan, ISBN 0-330-02306-3, 3 July 1970, Paperback