The Order of The Day by Éric Vuillard -2017 - translated by Mark Polizzotti from French

“In order to sanction the annexation of Austria, they held a referendum. They arrested the few remaining dissidents. From their pulpits, priests called upon the faithful to vote Nazi, and the churches bedecked themselves in swastika banners.

Ninety-nine point seven-five percent of Austrians voted in favor of incorporation into the Reich. And while the twenty-four gents from the beginning of our tale, the high priests of German industry, were already studying how to carve up the country, Hitler had made what we could call a triumphant tour of Austria. On the occasion of that fantastic homecoming, he had been cheered everywhere he went.” From The Order of the Day.

The Order of The Day by Éric Vuillard won the 2017 Prix Goncourt (given for best fiction in French).  It centers on the 1938 Anschluss, the event in which Austrians overwhelmingly voted to be taken over by Nazi Germany. It begins with a meeting of twenty four captains of German industry and finance in which they decide how they will carve up Austria.  Vuillard makes use of actual persons, many of the companies they ran still exist today.  The meeting was lead by Joseph Goebells. Vuillard in just a few paragraphs shows the depth of corruption.  

The Nazis were very pro-business and that was all the business leaders cared about.  Their biggest fear was communism.We see how the leadership of Austria collapsed.

The book is sort of a collage of historical events and persons.  The business leaders all used slave labor from concentration camps.  Ninety percent of whom died.   One particularly despicable industrialist after much negotiation agreed in 2000 to pay survivors of his labor camps, he dragged out negotiations as long as possible so more survivors would die, $1250.  Then he cut it to $750.00, then he stopped paying.  

We see the horrors of the camps through the eyes of a child.  The recitation of the names of the camps and the many still existing companies that made use of inmates is chilling.

We acquired this book, the reading time is under two hours, in a flash sale for $1.95.  It is now back to $11.95. I greatly admired this book but i cannot endorse a full price purchase of the Kindle edition to those I do not know.  

From Random House

“ABOUT THE ORDER OF THE DAY

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Boston Globe, and Literary Hub

Winner of the 2017 Prix Goncourt, this behind-the-scenes account of the manipulation, hubris, and greed that together led to Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria brilliantly dismantles the myth of an effortless victory and offers a dire warning for our current political crisis.

February 20, 1933, an unremarkable day during a harsh Berlin winter: A meeting of twenty-four German captains of industry and senior Nazi officials is being held in secret in the plush lounge of the Reichstag. They are there to extract funds for the accession to power of the National Socialist Party and its Chancellor. This opening scene sets a tone of consent that will lead to the worst possible repercussions.

March 12, 1938, the annexation of Austria is on the agenda: A grotesque day intended to make history—the newsreels capture a motorized army on the move, a terrible, inexorable power. But behind Goebbels’s splendid propaganda, an ersatz Blitzkrieg unfolds, the Panzers breaking down en masse on the roads into Austria. The true behind-the-scenes account of the Anschluss—a patchwork of minor flourishes of strength and fine words, fevered telephone calls, and vulgar threats—all reveal a starkly different picture. It is not strength of character or the determination of a people that wins the day, but rather a combination of intimidation and bluff.

With this vivid, compelling history, Éric Vuillard warns against the peril of willfully blind acquiescence, and offers a reminder that, ultimately, the worst is not inescapable.”  From Random House 

ÉRIC VUILLARD is a writer and filmmaker born in Lyon in 1968 who has written nine award-winning books, including Conquistadors (winner of the 2010 Prix Ignatius J. Reilly), and La bataille d’Occident and Congo (both of which received the 2012 Prix Franz-Hessel and the 2013 Prix Valery-Larbaud). He won the 2017 Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize, for L’Ordre du Jour. His most recent book, Sorrow of the Earth, was his first published in English; The Order of the Day is his second. He lives in Rennes, France.

Ambrosia Boussweau