Devorah Katz asked Ursula Werner:

I finished The Good at Heart a few weeks ago and cannot get it out of my mind. I read that you wrote the novel after discovering some of your own family history. If you do not mind sharing, how much of the story is based on your family and how much is fictional?

Ursula Werner What is true about the story is that my own great-grandfather, Hans Ernst Posse, was (like Oskar Eberhardt) a member of Hitler's cabinet. Hans Posse was Minister of Economy during the Weimar Republic, and Hitler asked him to stay on when he assumed power. He had to join the Nazi party to do so. Here's a link to his story, and how I learned more about him, on my website:
https://www.ursulawerner.com/the-good...
As far as I know, no members of my family were actively involved in smuggling Jewish refugees across the Swiss border.

I've mostly made up the other characters, though some of them are based on real-life people. Erich Wolf is modeled after Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer who was executed for his part in the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. Johann Wiessmeyer is based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was also assassinated for his role in the resistance (I let Johann survive).

The house and town where the Eberhardts live is based on a real house and town in southern Germany, on Lake Constance. My mother still lives there, and the pink Catholic church Birnau is within walking distance of her home.

flag