Vienna Prelude (novel)
Vienna Prelude (1989) is the first novel of Bodie and Brock Thoene's Zion Covenant Series.
Plot summary
In 1936, Berlin-born Elisa Lindheim, under the assumed identity of a Czech-German Linder (in reality, she is the daughter of German Messianic Jewish department-store-owner Theo Lindheim and his Austrian-born wife Anna), is lead-violinist for Vienna Philharmonic, playing her position mostly on a Guarnerius.
On A Visit Home at Christmas in 1936, Eliza and her father Theo plan to go on vacation to Austria. When she had just arrived in Berlin, American journalist John Murphy (who prefers to be addressed by his last name) had seen her hailing a taxi and not thought much AbOUT it. At the railway station, a Gestapo officer points out several "offences" committed by Eliza (sitting on a park bench, hailing a taxi, ...; all of these are forbidden to documented Jews, such as the Lindheims); the officer reminds Theo that there is a fine which May Be paid, but his plans of bribe-taking are thwarted by Murphy's appearance and intervention. Theo is arrested later that night in Munich, which Eliza retells to Murphy when the train arrives in Vienna. Anna and Eliza's two brothers have already escaped earlier to the Tyrol and are staying at the Wattenburger farm--where one of the family's two sons, Otto, is enamoured greatly of the Austrian [...] movement.
Murphy (and several of his colleagues) help Theo escape from Gestapo surveillance in Berlin, to Tempelhof airfield, where Theo takes off in an ancient biplane, aiming for Prague; his aircraft crashes near Munich and he is arrested and taken to Dachau with the forced name of Jacob Stern. Theo's family is not even aware of his whereabouts--until Eliza finds out from Philharmonic colleague Rudy Dorbransky, a flamboyant Warsaw-born Jew. At the time, Dorbransky has been fatally injured by Sudeten [...] Georg Sporer, after being framed for [...] another [...]'s sister.
A Viennese Jewish professor named Julius Stern soon joins Theo's barracks at Dachau where he contracts typhus (from which he dies, and which Theo later contracts). During a meeting at Berchtesgaden on 1938/02/12, Austria's Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg is forced by [...] to release all imprisoned Austrian [...] Party members and let them participate in the government--[...] in exchange orders a release of Austrian prisoners held in Germany. As prisoners are named only by surname and first initial (as a method of humiliation), the dead Julius is scheduled to be released under this (temporary) agreement--but when the name "J. Stern" is called, Theo comes forward and is released to a Viennese hospital.
As the Anschluss unfolds, Murphy marries Eliza for the sum of $6,000 (he is actually in love with Eliza, but does not wish to reveal it immediately) at the US Embassy in Vienna. Theo escapes from the hospital, and Murphy almost runs over him with his Packard automobile; recognising Theo, he hides him in the boot and drives to the Austro-Czech border (with a Wermacht lorry hot on his tail) and thence to Prague.
In 1972, American music student Ernestine Holt is in a London INSTRUMENTS shop searching for an affordable (for her limited means) violin. The owner finds an undocumented Guarnerius (the same one used originally by Eliza) and sells it to her at a bargain price.
Almost immediately followed by Prague Counterpoint.