Lorenz Waldmann was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up in Albany, New York.
He has traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East and India. Lorenz studied in Philadelphia, Hamburg, Mumbai and Chicago and holds degrees in history and anthropology.
As a result of extensive travels beginning in early childhood, he has had a lasting interest in distant places and times, particularly India. The author now lives in Boca Raton, Florida.
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An interview with Lorenz Waldmann about his life, the process of writing a novel, and why he decided to write A Shot Across the Bow.
I start with a period in history. This book differs from my first novel, Peppery Winds, because there are really two parts to it: one story is about this devious fellow Zekki, and the other is about a journalist Harry Haller.
There might have been two different books here, but Zekki and Harry’s lives intersect at so many times and places that I decided to bring them together. Zekki was a real person, and the story I tell is mostly based on actual events – but the book’s main character, Harry Haller, is an entirely fictitious character who is involved in events that actually took place. Although the scenes that take place in New York and Buffalo at the World’s Fair draw more on my imagination than others. I obtained elements of the Zekki story from a dossier compiled by a German Naval Intelligence officer in Constantinople, who is also a character in my book. It was a detailed dossier. I also found references to Zekki in newspapers on the internet.
Those were the two sources I had to work with for the Zekki story.
Not directly, but I felt that these might be topics of interest to readers. Not many people know that there were German settlements in pre-state Israel. The Templers – not to be confused with the medieval warriors – were a religious community, fundamentalist Christians. Eventually many of them became active Nazis. They used to march in their settlements near Tel Aviv and in Haifa in uniforms, carrying swastika flags. Of course, the Jews were outraged. But the Templers were good farmers and before the Nazis came on the scene, the Palestinian Jews profited from their knowledge.
One theme of the book is the Armenian genocide, and Constantinople was the center of it. It was also a fascinating cosmopolitan city and a nest of international intrigue.
The word “Yishuv” refers to the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine. Harry Haller is sent to Palestine by his Berlin newspaper to write a story about German settlers who call themselves Templers. Harry is Jewish and therefore naturally interested in the Jewish community, as well.
Much of what is commonly believed about the beginnings of the State of Israel is either a distortion or an outright lie. I wanted to repeat some simple truths, one of which is that every inch of land settled by Jews prior to the establishment of the State of Israel was legally purchased from the owners. The widely accepted idea that Jews came and stole the land is simply not true.
Most of the Jewish agricultural settlements were still in the startup stage, in need of funding from the outside. The war threatened to block the transmission of funds, thus seriously calling into question the survival of the settlements. An emergency delivery of funds from the U.S.
Jewish community brought some relief. Ottoman demands also threatened the Yishuv: the government demanded that they become Ottoman subjects, which would mean that eligible men would be conscripted into the army.
For the Armenian people, this trial was and remains of great importance. After the First World War, the leaders of the Ottoman Empire took refuge in Germany, their wartime ally. For the Allied powers, Great Britain, France and the USA, those men were war criminals because of their treatment of the Armenians, among others. These men lived in Germany more or less secretly, but with all comforts. The German Government pretended to be ignorant of their presence. In 1921, an Armenian hit team tracked down the man whom they held chiefly responsible for the crimes against their people. He was living in Berlin. This was Talaat Pasha, the former Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire. One of the Armenians, Tehlirian, shot and killed him. Tehlirian was captured and put on trial. The Berlin trial itself became an international sensation, a reporter for the New York Times attended it, for example. But of even greater interest was the fact that Tehlerian was exonerated, although he admitted the murder. The trial left many questions unanswered. How could the jury not convict the confessed murderer? Was the murderer truly acting entirely on his own? How did he find the victim? I found the whole matter fascinating. I gave much thought to it and came up with my own answers which I think are quite justified and, I hope, even true. Subsequently, the scholar who coined the term “genocide” pointed to this trial as the first instance of such a grave crime being discussed in a court of law. Genocide Studies is a field now offered in many universities, and anybody who enters it has to go back to this trial. These are the main themes of my book. And slippery Zekki was also a fascinating character, I thought.
Another theme that I wanted to remind readers of was the cloud of illusion under which the Jews of Germany were living under at this time. Antisemitism was at a peak there just after the first World War, but so many if them judged it to be a passing phase – and then came the Nazis.
Originally, the Templers were a community of pious Christians living in the area around Stuttgart, Germany. Disappointed with the direction of German society in the early 19th century, a number of them emigrated to Palestine, where they believed they could live a life more in accord with Jesus’s teachings. This book ends in 1921. But large numbers of the Templers in
Palestine eventually joined the Nazi Party.
The book I am currently writing refers to this development. The presence of the Templers shows that the Ottomans had opened Palestine to settlements – the Jews were not alone in this regard.
Yes, well. I added this observation because it illustrates that Western technology is not always superior to native methods. The early Templers brought “better,” more efficient plows with them to Palestine. But they learned that the native ones, which had not changed form since biblical days, were more suited for fields that received far less rainfall than those in Germany.
Yes, this refers to arid areas. My doctoral dissertation was on peasant life in India, and I was always interested in farming. Often, when Europeans and Americans saw the primitive plows that the Arab fellahin in Palestine used, they shook their heads in wonder. Biblical methods they would say. But as it turned out, the fellahin were right to continue in the old way.
As for the Yishuv, the Jewish settlements in Palestine – well this is obviously still a highly contentious issue. There is so much misunderstanding about it. For over a century, the flames have been fueled with lies. It amazes me to hear again and again, world-wide, after October 7, 2023 that the atrocities committed by Hamas did not happen – they were Israeli propaganda. I published this book before then, but the lies intended to de-legitimize Israel were all out there and I wanted, in a small way, to show what I know to be the truth. For example, that every inch of land now held by Jews was bought from the owners, who were mostly Arabs!
In the last quarter of the 19th century German anti-semitism entered a new phase. Jews were still spurned and sometimes murdered for “having killed Christ,” but Jewish converts to Christianity were more or less accepted into society. Then came the claim of racial inferiority. From that accusation there was no escape.
Anti-semitism became more virulent and the strains
of war – fear, deaths of soldiers, food and fuel shortages, and other hardships – only increased the anti-semitism. When Germany lost the war, the need for a scapegoat increased tremendously. The new German republic was weak, threatened by Communists and Nazis. For the Nazis, the Jews were Communists, for the Communists the Jews were capitalists; for many Christians the Jews were Christ killers; and in business and the professions the Jews were competitors.
Harry’s first thought was to inform the German public about the atrocities in the hope that exposure would put a stop to them. That proved impossible, but he was able to help his neighbors escape capture.
The man he helped was a prominent intellectual. Harry provided him and his daughter with disguises and personally accompanied them in the train that crossed the border into Greece.
Yes, she had walked out of a bad marriage and, while en route from Constantinople to her home in Palestine, she encountered a group of Armenian women and children. They were on a death march, being led by Ottoman gendarmes into the desert where they were left to die of hunger and thirst.
For the Armenian people, this trial was and remains of great importance. After the First World War, several leaders of the Ottoman Empire took refuge in Germany, their wartime ally. They believed they could cheat justice there. Teilirian was declared not guilty even though he confessed to the crime. It was a highly controversial verdict but many newspapers thought it just.
A Shot Across the Bow is a captivating historical novel set during a time of great upheaval as Harry Haller, a Berlin journalist, takes up a new post in Constantinople on the eve of WW1.
Through the actions and thoughts of the book’s characters, both real and fictitious, author Lorenz Waldmann brings this era to vivid life.
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