Anna's Bear: 5 Days of Moral Conflict And Pursuit, Nazi Germany, 1939

Winner: Lyra Award for Best Historical Fiction

Germany. 1939. Young Inga Salzer hardens her heart and prostitutes herself to the Nazi Lebensborn program which drives toward the expansion of the Aryan race. Now pregnant by an SS officer, she proudly anticipates offering her "sacred child of good blood" to the Third Reich.

Fifteen year old Max Drexel immerses himself in the brutal sports of the Hitler Youth and absorbs its worship of the Fuehrer and of Nature.
 
To further his career ambitions, Steffin Lindeman drifts toward an embrace of Positive Christianity which mingles the traditional Gospel with an ardor for the ancient gods of Nordic mythology.

There is nothing that can bring such wildly different people together…or it there?

Two-year-old Anna Drexel comes down with meningitis and is taken by the family doctor to his special clinic. It is there that the agonizing battle for Anna's life expands into a raging war for the hearts and souls of Inga, Max and Steffin.

And threatening them all is Karl Zorn, Gestapo Chief in Max's hometown of Heidelberg, who describes himself as "a simple man with simple pleasures." The chilling fact is that foremost of his pleasures is hunting down and killing his favorite game--human beings. .
 
So what would happen if a series of frightening events were to drive each of these people, each for his or her own particular purposes, on a five day mad journey into the depths of the Black Forest?

Based on years of research into the more bizarre aspects of Nazi Germany, Anna's Bear tells a story of moral conflict and fierce pursuit, with moments of surprising tenderness, high tension, and even hints of laughter in the midst of such darkness, finally leading to a totally unforeseeable ending.