All Is Not Fair in Love and War

By Gisela Ganska

This story is about a woman from the upper echelons of society who refuses to be subjugated in the struggle for survival in post-war Germany. She discovers that the key to her future is neither servitude to, nor acceptance of the seemingly unbearable. She realizes that the path to a meaningful future is dependent on her mastering the present, however unthinkable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gisela Ganska
• Release date: Feb 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005765781

Book preview

ALL IS NOT FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

by Gisela Ganska

Copyright 2022 Gisela Ganska

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not

be distributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage

your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer.

Thank you for your support.

This book is a work of fiction and contains sexually explicit scenes and graphic language.

Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author´s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is coincidental

A woman from the upper echelons of society refuses to be subjugated in the struggle for survival in post-war Germany. She discovers that the key to her future is neither servitude to, nor acceptance of the seemingly unbearable. She realizes that the path to a meaningful future is dependent on her mastering the present, however unthinkable.

Chapter One

The next morning when it was discovered that the Russians had left, everybody quietly left the room. Hardly a word was spoken and the dining hall with several tell-tale marks of what had occurred within its walls, was left in a state of disarray for several days. In fact, for the next few days it was as if the day-to-day activities of the household had been put on hold. Everyone felt a greater need to be alone in the privacy of their own rooms, in an attempt to come to terms with what they had been through.

Eventually life returned to normal, from the outside looking in that is, and the servants resumed their chores. Not a word was spoken about ´that day` and no direct references to anything connected with the collective trauma of the household, were made.

One afternoon, a day or so later, the Count, addressing his two maids said, Lisl and Magda would you please clean up in the dining hall, it´s a mess, and the matter was closed.

The Count was aware that the war was lost, although not yet ended. What impact this would have on their lives remained to be seen but until then he intended to do his best for his family and the other members of his household. Disaster often comes in the company of tragedy and in this respect the people in the manor house were not spared. Within the space of a fortnight, two women in the Count´s household had died, both as a direct consequence of ´that day`. The Count`s mother-in-law, who had not left her bed since being forced to pose naked in front of the soldiers, had come down with a high fever and it was concluded that she had lost the will to live. A day or so later Lisl, one of the maids, had a miscarriage and a week later she was found floating in the duck pond. First losing her fiancé on the western front and then losing the baby she was carrying had obviously been too much for her to cope with.

When the war finally ended in May, the local administration had become Polish and the hunt for Nazis and Nazi collaborators was in full swing. The Count was not surprised when he was hauled in for questioning. They were not Russians but Poles assigned to the administration of what they referred to as ´the recovered territories`. The Count had always despised the Nazis and due to his war injuries from the first war, had never been in a position to have to pay lip