The Man Who Knew Charlie Chaplin: A Novel About the Weimar Republic

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Koch’s seventh novel masterfully blends historical events and
real-life figures with fictionalized characters and scenarios. Otto H.
Kahn, board member of Paramount Pictures and confidant of Hollywood
luminaries like Adolph Zukor, is the prototype for his fictional hero,
self-made millionaire Peter Hammersmith (née Hammerscmidt). In this
tale of international intrigue, the Jewish Hammersmith travels to
Germany in 1929 as Herbert Hoover’s emissary to complete a report on
the crumbling Weimar Republic and the emergence of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi
Germany (as outlined in a little-known publication Hammersmith himself
unwittingly helped to finance—Mein Kampf).

In Berlin Peter arranges meetings with Albert Einstein and Marlene
Dietrich, among other notables of the day, and gives a newspaper
interview in which he refers to Hitler as “a graver danger to the
Republic than the communists or anybody else on the Right.” Despite
receiving an anonymous death threat, he continues his investigations and
meetings with prominent dignitaries, literati, and film personalities.
He also begins an affair with Brigette, a young starlet. As a token of
his regard for her, he has a brooch cast that depicts Chaplin the clown
with a striking resemblance to Hitler the demonic madman. A second death
threat ensues, and the tension builds as Peter prepares to file his
report. The Man Who Knew Charlie Chaplin is a delightfully entertaining
mix of fact and fantasy.