by K.C. Sivils
Needing to stop the flood of humanity fleeing communist oppression by
making it to the divided city of Berlin, the communist government of
East Germany took drastic measures. In August of 1961, construction
of the Berlin Wall began.
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Two young lovers, an American
refugee worker, and an East German seminary student, find themselves
separated by the wall. Desperate to be reunited and build a life
together, Angela Wettin and Michael Dieterich, with Michael’s
brother Joseph, set in motion a dangerous plan to escape by tunneling
under the Berlin Wall.
Determined to stop any hope of
gaining freedom, the East German Stasi, the dreaded secret police of
the communist state, formed Department XX/4 to infiltrate and spy on
the Church in East Germany.
Faced with betrayal, dangerous
cave-ins, and family conflict, the trio enters a life-and-death race
against the Stasi and Department XX/4.
Can they gain their
freedom before they are caught by the Devil’s Spies from the Stasi?
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“It’s after two in the afternoon,” Angela complained to the nearby soldier. The GI studiously ignored Angela. He’d learned the hard way to ignore pretty girls when on duty. Hating the fact time moved so slowly, Angela decided the best course of action was to get a cup of tea before making her crossing into East Berlin. She’d expected to at least see Michael on the other side of the checkpoint, and if not Michael, then her fiancée’s partner in crime, Werner.
Shouting, followed by the sound of gunfire, jarred Angela out of her pique. A hundred or so yards from Check Point Charlie, a young man appeared at the top of the wall, caught in the wire. Spellbound, Angela watched as the man made no effort to free himself from the wire, simply rolling off the top of the wall and falling, taking several feet of barbed wire with him.
The bark of gunfire stopped, and a West Berlin police officer pulled himself up to the top of the wall and peered over, looking down. Screams from the onlookers propelled Angela forward. Sprinting towards the chaos, she could hear the cries of a man in pain, begging for help.
Another West Berlin police officer reached the wall as the first dropped down from it. They spoke, and the second officer climbed the wall and shouted to the man on the other side. Angela watched in horror as the second officer produced bandages and dropped them over the wall.
“Murderers!”
“Criminals!”
As an angry crowd gathered, Angela took notice of the escapee who had made it over the wall. He was cut and bleeding and clearly stunned by what had happened.
“You! You’re an American!”
Turning to the voice, Angela stared at the red, angry face of a young Berliner.
“Neither side will do anything to help him! Get the American soldiers!”
The sound of tear gas canisters being launched could be heard from somewhere on the other side of the wall. In seconds, tendrils of the greyish-white gas and its pungent smell began to reach across the wall.
The Berliner covered his face and pushed Angela. Shouting, “Go! Now, while there is still a chance to help him!” Angela nodded, relieved to suddenly find herself useful. She turned and ran as fast as her feet would take her to Check Point Charlie.
“Someone’s been shot trying to escape,” Angela panted as the Lt. in command of the detail came out to meet her. He said nothing, instead looking up in the sky at the helicopters that had suddenly appeared.
“We have our orders, Ma’am.”
“Your orders?!”
“Yes, Ma’am. We contacted General Watson for instructions.”
“Good, do something.”
“Ma’am, our orders are to stand down.”
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How did you come up with name of this book?
More people had died under the rule of communist governments than any other form of government or ideology in human history. Something the devil himself would be proud of.
Throw that in with the fact the Church in East Germany was the target of the Stasi Department XX/4, it seemed like an appropriate name for a story set in East Berlin that involved the Communists infiltrating and spying on the East German Church and Christians.
The exact name came about after writing down about ten combinations of the words devil, spies, and some other topics related to Cold War Berlin. Once I wrote down The Devil’s Spies the title simply made complete sense to me.
Perhaps it should be noted I always come up with the title of the book I am writing before starting the first chapter.
What is your favorite part of this book and why?
The different levels of conflict found within the story. Conflict is a part of life.
If you could spend time with a character from The Devil’s Spies, who would it be? And what would you do during that day?
Joseph Werner. I would love to sneak around with him and see how he goes about running his assorted black-market enterprises. It would be interesting to see who his customers are as well.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
In the case of The Devil’s Spies, many of the characters are fictionalized versions of real, historical figures who are well known such as President Kennedy, Vice President LBJ, and Mayor Willy Brandt. Others are obscure and sadly, often forgotten today. For example, Peter Fechter, the youth who was shot trying to climb the Berlin Wall and died in the attempt, is largely a footnote in history today.
The remainder are figments of my imagination who decided to take part in the telling of the story that became The Devil’s Spies.
Do your characters seem to hijack the story, or do you feel like you have the reigns of the story?
My characters like to tell me their story. Especially if I know them well. Periodically, I have to set them straight and control what they say and do. But, by and large, they inspire the story. It’s just a matter of knowing and understanding your characters.
Convince us why you feel your book, The Devil’s Spies, is a must read.
It’s a cautionary tale based on historical events. Humanity has an infinite capacity for both evil and stupidity, both of which are driven by laziness or greed of the worst kind. Despite having a historical record to show us the folly of our choices, we will repeat the same mistakes of the past over and over.
People seem to have this blind willingness to “let the government do it.” It’s a dangerous thing to trade freedom of choice and personal liberty for a promise of security. Small people will seek out the positions of power over others and once they have that power, they will do whatever it takes to extinguish the slightest hint resistance or individual free thinking.
The great lie of communism is that it promises equality. It doesn’t. Lenin believed in the need to create an elite, intellectual ruling cadre that controlled the masses, the same masses he promised to elevate and set free from the chackles of oppression.
How well did that turn out?
What’s even worse, is that if you rob one man to pay another, you make both of them poor, if not in terms of actual poverty, then in poverty of life and the ability to create and make things prosper. People don’t grasp the fact that government, any form of government, doesn’t create anything.
Now, people will say, “look at all the jobs the government created.” Those are government jobs, paid for by the money of the taxpayers, who happen to be the ones who take all the risks, do all the innovating, and do the real work of building an economy. Government merely acts as a conduit to transfer the wealth and economic prosperity created by others to whatever group or individual the government sees fit.
History shows us the Berlin Wall wasn’t built to protect East Berlin. It was built to keep the citizens of East Germany and other parts of the Eastern Bloc from fleeing communism. Economics were a consideration as well as the Soviet Union and East Germany were losing the very individuals necessary to produce economic activity so the communists could redistribute the products those with education and skill would produce.
The Stasi spied on everyone. The organization kept records on everyone. The driving force behind Department XX/4 was the fact the Church was the one place where people had some small degree of freedom and within the confines of the church body, people would speak freely about things they dare not whisper anywhere else.
Throw in the fact that communism cannot tolerate any social force that dictates what is morally right and wrong and will often protest the excesses of the government and you have an institution that must be destroyed. It was surprising the Church and Christianity was allowed to exist at all.
As I take in the news on a daily basis, I find it disturbing how intrusive government has become. Not just the United States government, but the so-called democracies of the West. London is the most surveilled city in the world. The FBI has gone on record, begrudgingly, as having deliberately infiltrated the Catholic Church in the United States and placing believers who attend traditional Latin mass on lists of possible domestic terrorists.
Each day, the government seems to be encroaching more and more into the lives of citizens. Many welcome this encroachment. They feel it makes their life safer and the government will provide for them. They don’t realize they have made a deal with the devil.
So, if you want to read it that way, The Devil’s Spies can be seen as a cautionary tale. That government should be kept as far away as possible from certain aspects of people’s lives. Freedom to speak what is on one’s mind as well as the choice to worship the God one believes in, or not, are fundamental human freedoms that are not granted by government.
Or you can simply read it as a story. A story I hope every reader finds entertaining and engaging.
Fun Facts/Behind the Scenes/Did You Know?’-type tidbits about the author, the book, or the writing process of the book.
The Devil’s Spies was not written in chronological order. I wrote the first few chapters in order to introduce the primary characters. Then I moved on to the actual events that were included in dramatized form in the book. Once those segments were finished, I worked on different storylines that made up the story as a whole. Finally, I pieced everything together and worked to make the story an integrated whole as far as the big picture story went.
I have a general idea when I sit down to tell a story how I want it to start and how I want it to end. In general, I have some ideas of what goes in the middle. As the characters develop, they seem to sort of take on a life of their own and tell me the remainder of the story. Of my seventeen novels and novellas, none of them were written from start to finish in chronological order.
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U.S.A. Today and Amazon Best-Selling author is the creator of the
scifi crime noir series of Inspector Thomas Sullivan novels as well
as the southern noir series of stories centering around the private
investigator James Benoit “Heat” Heatley.
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A longtime fan of
crime noir and science fiction, director Ridley Scott’s adaptation
of Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi classic Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep into the masterful Harrison Ford vehicle Bladerunner encouraged
Sivils to consume as much of both genres as possible in his younger
years.
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A fan of past noir
masters such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Sivils also
enjoys the current generation of storytellers like Sandra Woffington,
Tom Folwer, Jeff Edwards, Renee Pawlish, and James Scott Bell.
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In addition to his
aforementioned series, Sivils is also the creator of the Agent Nelson
Paine Historical Mystery series set during WW II and the early years
of the Cold War.
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In a previous life,
Sivils was a varsity basketball coach and high school history
teacher. He and his wife, Lisa, have three adult children, seven
grandchildren, and two four legged furry children who still live at
home, Bella and Mr. Darcy.
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