Losing all to brutal Nazi rule, Conrad von Runstadt must surrender his dream of farming with his Father and Brother in America and a family with Marta Engels, killed in a Gestapo raid on their wedding day.He must choose between beheading or service in the SS in Operation Barbarossa and fight to stay alive against Russian military onslaughts. Compelled by his moral code to oppose war crimes and civilian massacres, he can only dare to hope his last tie to his former life, his deceased lover’s sister, Grit, is still alive; she does live, but as an unwilling consort to a deranged doctor in Ravensbrook Concentration Camp. Fate provides Conrad means to find her. His love compels Conrad to save her. Pure luck gives him the opportunity.
SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.
Antagonist
The Antagonist is the Nazi party and its loyal members; “Good Germans,” those who attribute righteousness to depraved leadership,Schutzstaffel comrades who kill non-combatants, brutal camp guards. A false friend with a hidden agenda. As Reichfurher Adolf Hitler cajoles the crowd at a rally where Brownshirt thugs attack Conrad, his influence is direct and overwhelming.
Laws that create a life plan for Germans from Deutsches Jungvolk through the Waffen S.S. allow the Reich to control the lives of its citizens cradle to grave.
Lower level antagonists such as Lieutenant Inspector Johannknecht, Kurt Kalbfliesch, and Sergeant Roessler exert pressure and pain throughout the work.
Dr. Anton Reinhold inhumanity towards the experimental “Rabbit prisoners” and his abuse of Grit Engels, the prisoner whom he suborns with food and seduces to procure an Aryian child for his wife, is the one Nazi who finally stands in the way of Conrad’s quest for his old love and a new life.
THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).
“Meet Again”
“The Groom's War”
“Those We Hold Dear”
“The Death of Angels”
FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: Comparables
“The Baker’s Secret” – by Stephen P. Kiernan; Morrow/HarperCollins, 2017
“The Note Through The Wire”- by Doug Gold; Allen & Unwin, 2019
“To Die in Spring” - by Ralf Rothmann; Macmillan, 2015
FIFTH ASSIGNMENT:
1.Hook Line
If you must live, you must fight.But in the name of human decency, who is your enemy?2.Conflict line
When the your society takes all (tribe, morals, ethics, scruples) you hold dear, how do you hold to them; how do you live with yourself if you don’t?
SIXTH ASSIGNMENT:
Conditions for protagonist’s inner conflict
Oppressive Nazi measures, such as singling out of Jews to deny his friend’s education and the abolition of the German Boy Scouts to require participation in the politically oriented Hitler Youth alarmed Conrad.
Note the following scene:
“With the “Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools,” Ichten Berman, because he was Jewish, no longer had the right to an education. Ichten was also excluded from Hitler Youth.The friends felt betrayed.
“Ichten, it’s not fair! I won’t go to school.” Conrad’s tears burned in his eyes, “I won’t join the Jungvolk either if you can’t!”
“Conrad, don’t be foolish!” Ichten violently shook his head.
“What’s the difference, if you can’t go, I don’t want to be there!”
“Conrad, you have to go on,” Ichten spoke with wisdom and faint hope, “Germany won’t always be like this.People will come to their senses! You must continue so you can help me catch up when they do!”
“It’s not fair. I don’t like it!”
Ichten said quietly so that Conrad had to strain to hear, “For now, Germany is not worried about what you or I like. We do what we must. Times will change.”
His Hitler Youth experiences, during which play was encouraged to become battle, with real injuries experienced and side on side gang type violence were not what Conrad expected, or something he had experienced in Pfadfinders.In the German Boy Scouts, politics and violence had not existed.
The safer, seemingly powerful expression of his loyalty to the autocratic regime sometimes captured his imagination in strong new feelings that Conrad could boast of to his Grandfather.Wilhelm’s response to these new, powerful emotions, his ethical teachings, his quiet disdain for the Nazi party alarmed Conrad.”
But it gave him the impetus to think for himself, to question authority in the face of righteousness.
Here is another scene:
“At age fourteen, Conrad’s von Runstadt’s Jungvolk membership was reassigned to the Hitler Youth.He found opportunities to build the same skills as in the Pfadfinders, but there were sinister undertones in what he was called upon to do and trust his loyalties. War games, violent wrestling, and tussling brought bloodied noses, and worse, hemorrhaged pride.
In the parks and forests, troops of boys would stalk one another and rip the armbands off their opponents’ as trophies. Broken bones were common, as were eye-pokes. Conrad disliked such roughness, and he was called out and humiliated by his cohorts, by his troop leaders. Bullies excelled at their craft. Boys who forsook participation, who thought for themselves, suffered at the will of the Nazi regime and the bullies it encouraged.
Wilhelm von Runstadt was not blind and had never been a stupid man. The white-haired gentleman reserved a silent rage for the government’s attempt to corrupt Conrad, and they discussed the changing political landscape often. Wilhelm spoke cautiously about the contemptible lies force-fed to seduced German youth, and he encouraged Conrad to look at facts, to draw his own conclusions.
After Conrad’s Hitler Youth meetings, he would buttonhole Wilhelm, weeding on cowhide knee-pads in his garden, to impress his grandfather with what he had learned.
“Grandpa, our Youth leader said Germany will need good soldiers in the years to come, to fight the Jew menace. We must fight to keep our Fatherland safe for us Germans.”
Wilhelm squinted, the sun in his eyes. He despised that Conrad could innocently get them in trouble by repeating their conversations.
“Mein Enkel, you do know that not everyone in this Third Reich believes Hitler is a good leader?”
“Our Fuhrer is making our homeland better. The Fuhrer is making jobs, and people are not so hungry.”
“Let’s sit in the shade,” Wilhelm stood, “on the bench.”
“Conrad, some of what your Youth leader said is true, some people are better off,” Wilhelm said. He mopped his pale forehead with a kerchief, “but the Bermans and their store?Are they better off? Is the government being fair when it forbids us to buy from them?”
“Grandpa, the Bermans are Jews.” Conrad told him passionately, “The Fuhrer says they ruined Germany!”
“Conrad, they are our neighbors. I have bought fresh greens and fruits from their family my whole life.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before we knew what they do to Germany!”
Wilhelm said in a level voice, slowly then, carefully.“Conrad, what have the Bermans done to Germany?”
“They lost the Great War!”Conrad cried, “You know the Jews control the money in Germany, the Jews are all crooked!”
“Harold Berman lost us the war?” Wilhelm took offense. “And please do not be so insolent as to tell me what you think I know!”
“Well, the Jews did,” Conrad squirmed on his seat, “I can’t say if Harold Berman did.”
“Conrad, I hope you haven’t spoken like this to Harold, he is already very hurt by these policies.”
“Well, no, Grandpa, I wouldn’t do that, ever!”
“Why not?”Wilhelm demanded.
“Harold is my neighbor.Ichten is my best friend.”
“But yet you think they lost us the war? “Wilhelm said, unbelieving, “Harold was a German soldier in the Great War.” His eyes searched the boy’s face. “Harold Berman was a very good soldier.”
Conrad studied an anthill by his shoe. “How could that be? Why would he do that and then ruin Germany?“ He threw up his hands, “How can you say that?The Fuhrer says different!”
Conrad leaped to his feet, “Why would you say good things about these people?”
“Conrad, I can say it because he was my corporal for two years before the side of his face was shot away.I was his Lieutenant.”
Wilhelm saw the boy’s confusion, and tears of conflict in his eyes.
“Conrad, sit down.”
“Sit down,” Wilhelm ordered.
Conrad sat on the bench again.
“Conrad, do you think the Fuhrer wants you playing with Ichten anymore? Do you give Hitler that power?”’
Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?
Loss of marta, grit, tribeThe loss of his mentor, his family, and tribe, and those he loves to fascism, a changed society clashing with his moral code; these are the powerful forces drive the young German soldier to stand for humanity and seek peace.
Setting sketch
The setting is prewar and wartime Europe, Germany, and America, staging for war; the repressions, enslavements, the battles, and the camps.
The Weimar Republic is in a great economic depression, and with it and the recovery efforts, the shock of societal change. There is no work, suicides spiral, German children starve in the streets, and wild dogs fight over their corpses, while some mothers are reduced to prostitution to feed their young. Bitter about the debilitating reprisals included in the Great War peace agreement and their loss of livelihood, Germans look for strong leadership. They hope for a decisive statesman-messiah who can set things right.
Under Nazi rule, young German men and women must serve the Reich and prepare for war to right the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles.
With Hitler in power in starving 1933 Germany, the Pfadfinders are banned, and Conrad must join the Deutsches Jungvolk.Ichten, his Jewish best friend, is excluded. With political indoctrination and roughhouse exercises, Deutsches Jungvolk is a poor substitute for the German Boy Scouts.
The Nazi party gets civilians back to work and on their financial feet, and Germans follow along because they have nothing. By 1936, Conrad must join the Hitler-Jugend, Hitler Youth, a group to educate and train male youth in Nazi principles and train boys to enter the SA (Storm Troopers).
Coming into his adulthood, Conrad runs afoul of a Brownshirt at a Hitler rally.His concerned grandfather arranges for the young man to visit his father in America to let things cool off.This visit opens Conrad’s eyes even further to his possibilities.But his grandfather Wilhelm is taken prisoner back in Germany, and he must return to help his Stuttgart family.
At a street festival, Conrad von Runstadt meets two beautiful sisters, one a nurse, the other a store clerk. He falls in love with stunning Marta and must learn to balance his social life with his political life because his lover is engaged in distributing anti-Nazi publications. For Conrad, It is a time of fast living, jazz clubs, quick decisions, and desperate choices.
By November 1, 1940, he is taken into the Reich Labour Service, the RAD, a six-month stepping stone in pre-Military civil labor. In early May 1941, he is forcefully conscripted into the Waffen S.S. Germany has invaded Poland, and will soon launch Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.
New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
1. Story Statement
Losing all to brutal Nazi rule, Conrad von Runstadt must surrender his dream of farming with his Father and Brother in America and a family with Marta Engels, killed in a Gestapo raid on their wedding day. He must choose between beheading or service in the SS in Operation Barbarossa and fight to stay alive against Russian military onslaughts. Compelled by his moral code to oppose war crimes and civilian massacres, he can only dare to hope his last tie to his former life, his deceased lover’s sister, Grit, is still alive; she does live, but as an unwilling consort to a deranged doctor in Ravensbrook Concentration Camp. Fate provides Conrad means to find her. His love compels Conrad to save her. Pure luck gives him the opportunity.
SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.
Antagonist
The Antagonist is the Nazi party and its loyal members; “Good Germans,” those who attribute righteousness to depraved leadership, Schutzstaffel comrades who kill non-combatants, brutal camp guards. A false friend with a hidden agenda. As Reichfurher Adolf Hitler cajoles the crowd at a rally where Brownshirt thugs attack Conrad, his influence is direct and overwhelming.
Laws that create a life plan for Germans from Deutsches Jungvolk through the Waffen S.S. allow the Reich to control the lives of its citizens cradle to grave.
Lower level antagonists such as Lieutenant Inspector Johannknecht, Kurt Kalbfliesch, and Sergeant Roessler exert pressure and pain throughout the work.
Dr. Anton Reinhold inhumanity towards the experimental “Rabbit prisoners” and his abuse of Grit Engels, the prisoner whom he suborns with food and seduces to procure an Aryian child for his wife, is the one Nazi who finally stands in the way of Conrad’s quest for his old love and a new life.
THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).
“Meet Again”
“The Groom's War”
“Those We Hold Dear”
“The Death of Angels”
FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: Comparables
“The Baker’s Secret” – by Stephen P. Kiernan; Morrow/HarperCollins, 2017
“The Note Through The Wire”- by Doug Gold; Allen & Unwin, 2019
“To Die in Spring” - by Ralf Rothmann; Macmillan, 2015
FIFTH ASSIGNMENT:
1.Hook Line
If you must live, you must fight. But in the name of human decency, who is your enemy?2.Conflict line
When the your society takes all (tribe, morals, ethics, scruples) you hold dear, how do you hold to them; how do you live with yourself if you don’t?
SIXTH ASSIGNMENT:
Conditions for protagonist’s inner conflict
Oppressive Nazi measures, such as singling out of Jews to deny his friend’s education and the abolition of the German Boy Scouts to require participation in the politically oriented Hitler Youth alarmed Conrad.
Note the following scene:
“With the “Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools,” Ichten Berman, because he was Jewish, no longer had the right to an education. Ichten was also excluded from Hitler Youth. The friends felt betrayed.
“Ichten, it’s not fair! I won’t go to school.” Conrad’s tears burned in his eyes, “I won’t join the Jungvolk either if you can’t!”
“Conrad, don’t be foolish!” Ichten violently shook his head.
“What’s the difference, if you can’t go, I don’t want to be there!”
“Conrad, you have to go on,” Ichten spoke with wisdom and faint hope, “Germany won’t always be like this. People will come to their senses! You must continue so you can help me catch up when they do!”
“It’s not fair. I don’t like it!”
Ichten said quietly so that Conrad had to strain to hear, “For now, Germany is not worried about what you or I like. We do what we must. Times will change.”
His Hitler Youth experiences, during which play was encouraged to become battle, with real injuries experienced and side on side gang type violence were not what Conrad expected, or something he had experienced in Pfadfinders. In the German Boy Scouts, politics and violence had not existed.
The safer, seemingly powerful expression of his loyalty to the autocratic regime sometimes captured his imagination in strong new feelings that Conrad could boast of to his Grandfather. Wilhelm’s response to these new, powerful emotions, his ethical teachings, his quiet disdain for the Nazi party alarmed Conrad.”
But it gave him the impetus to think for himself, to question authority in the face of righteousness.
Here is another scene:
“At age fourteen, Conrad’s von Runstadt’s Jungvolk membership was reassigned to the Hitler Youth. He found opportunities to build the same skills as in the Pfadfinders, but there were sinister undertones in what he was called upon to do and trust his loyalties. War games, violent wrestling, and tussling brought bloodied noses, and worse, hemorrhaged pride.
In the parks and forests, troops of boys would stalk one another and rip the armbands off their opponents’ as trophies. Broken bones were common, as were eye-pokes. Conrad disliked such roughness, and he was called out and humiliated by his cohorts, by his troop leaders. Bullies excelled at their craft. Boys who forsook participation, who thought for themselves, suffered at the will of the Nazi regime and the bullies it encouraged.
Wilhelm von Runstadt was not blind and had never been a stupid man. The white-haired gentleman reserved a silent rage for the government’s attempt to corrupt Conrad, and they discussed the changing political landscape often. Wilhelm spoke cautiously about the contemptible lies force-fed to seduced German youth, and he encouraged Conrad to look at facts, to draw his own conclusions.
After Conrad’s Hitler Youth meetings, he would buttonhole Wilhelm, weeding on cowhide knee-pads in his garden, to impress his grandfather with what he had learned.
“Grandpa, our Youth leader said Germany will need good soldiers in the years to come, to fight the Jew menace. We must fight to keep our Fatherland safe for us Germans.”
Wilhelm squinted, the sun in his eyes. He despised that Conrad could innocently get them in trouble by repeating their conversations.
“Mein Enkel, you do know that not everyone in this Third Reich believes Hitler is a good leader?”
“Our Fuhrer is making our homeland better. The Fuhrer is making jobs, and people are not so hungry.”
“Let’s sit in the shade,” Wilhelm stood, “on the bench.”
“Conrad, some of what your Youth leader said is true, some people are better off,” Wilhelm said. He mopped his pale forehead with a kerchief, “but the Bermans and their store? Are they better off? Is the government being fair when it forbids us to buy from them?”
“Grandpa, the Bermans are Jews.” Conrad told him passionately, “The Fuhrer says they ruined Germany!”
“Conrad, they are our neighbors. I have bought fresh greens and fruits from their family my whole life.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before we knew what they do to Germany!”
Wilhelm said in a level voice, slowly then, carefully. “Conrad, what have the Bermans done to Germany?”
“They lost the Great War!” Conrad cried, “You know the Jews control the money in Germany, the Jews are all crooked!”
“Harold Berman lost us the war?” Wilhelm took offense. “And please do not be so insolent as to tell me what you think I know!”
“Well, the Jews did,” Conrad squirmed on his seat, “I can’t say if Harold Berman did.”
“Conrad, I hope you haven’t spoken like this to Harold, he is already very hurt by these policies.”
“Well, no, Grandpa, I wouldn’t do that, ever!”
“Why not?” Wilhelm demanded.
“Harold is my neighbor. Ichten is my best friend.”
“But yet you think they lost us the war? “Wilhelm said, unbelieving, “Harold was a German soldier in the Great War.” His eyes searched the boy’s face. “Harold Berman was a very good soldier.”
Conrad studied an anthill by his shoe. “How could that be? Why would he do that and then ruin Germany?“ He threw up his hands, “How can you say that? The Fuhrer says different!”
Conrad leaped to his feet, “Why would you say good things about these people?”
“Conrad, I can say it because he was my corporal for two years before the side of his face was shot away. I was his Lieutenant.”
Wilhelm saw the boy’s confusion, and tears of conflict in his eyes.
“Conrad, sit down.”
“Sit down,” Wilhelm ordered.
Conrad sat on the bench again.
“Conrad, do you think the Fuhrer wants you playing with Ichten anymore? Do you give Hitler that power?”’
Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?
Loss of marta, grit, tribe The loss of his mentor, his family, and tribe, and those he loves to fascism, a changed society clashing with his moral code; these are the powerful forces drive the young German soldier to stand for humanity and seek peace.
Setting sketch
The setting is prewar and wartime Europe, Germany, and America, staging for war; the repressions, enslavements, the battles, and the camps.
The Weimar Republic is in a great economic depression, and with it and the recovery efforts, the shock of societal change. There is no work, suicides spiral, German children starve in the streets, and wild dogs fight over their corpses, while some mothers are reduced to prostitution to feed their young. Bitter about the debilitating reprisals included in the Great War peace agreement and their loss of livelihood, Germans look for strong leadership. They hope for a decisive statesman-messiah who can set things right.
Under Nazi rule, young German men and women must serve the Reich and prepare for war to right the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles.
With Hitler in power in starving 1933 Germany, the Pfadfinders are banned, and Conrad must join the Deutsches Jungvolk. Ichten, his Jewish best friend, is excluded. With political indoctrination and roughhouse exercises, Deutsches Jungvolk is a poor substitute for the German Boy Scouts.
The Nazi party gets civilians back to work and on their financial feet, and Germans follow along because they have nothing. By 1936, Conrad must join the Hitler-Jugend, Hitler Youth, a group to educate and train male youth in Nazi principles and train boys to enter the SA (Storm Troopers).
Coming into his adulthood, Conrad runs afoul of a Brownshirt at a Hitler rally. His concerned grandfather arranges for the young man to visit his father in America to let things cool off. This visit opens Conrad’s eyes even further to his possibilities. But his grandfather Wilhelm is taken prisoner back in Germany, and he must return to help his Stuttgart family.
At a street festival, Conrad von Runstadt meets two beautiful sisters, one a nurse, the other a store clerk. He falls in love with stunning Marta and must learn to balance his social life with his political life because his lover is engaged in distributing anti-Nazi publications. For Conrad, It is a time of fast living, jazz clubs, quick decisions, and desperate choices.
By November 1, 1940, he is taken into the Reich Labour Service, the RAD, a six-month stepping stone in pre-Military civil labor. In early May 1941, he is forcefully conscripted into the Waffen S.S. Germany has invaded Poland, and will soon launch Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.