Wolff's "Progress Report". Dr. Jacques Pluss's Battle of Berlin Volume and "Der Ewige Jude" Novella.

Jacques Pluss continues his research into the fine details of the Battle of Berlin, 1945, and expects to conclude that research some time in 2013. Then, the writing will begin. As is often the case, the Berlin project is taking much longer than expected -- although the work will be set as "historical fiction," Pluss, an author who has had intensive training in historical research, has insisted all along that the Berlin volume must be as historically accurate as possible. Consequently, Pluss has taken time to visit various archives in Germany and Switzerland, still has an immense syllabus of books, articles, and studies to plow through, and has had to acquire at least a working knowledge of (reading) basic Russian -- no easy task. Dr. Pluss plans to include in his book a good deal of action and information from the "Russian perspective," an approach not often used by American writers.

As a break from the Berlin research, Dr. Pluss recently started work on another project, tentatively entitled Der Ewige Jude after the majesterial propaganda film of the same name produced under the supervision of Dr. Josef Goebbels. In his short volume, however, Pluss plans on composing a fictional story about mistaken identities and child thievery in World War 2 Russia. In brief, his story-line centers upon the legal and emotional struggle of two sets of parents, one Russian Christian and the other Polish Jewish, over custody of a presumably Christian toddler at the end of World War 2. Who are the true parents of the little child? Did Jewish parents leave a child with a Russian couple in an attempt to save the child from German occupation forces in the early 1940's? If so -- and that must be proven, above all else -- did that child survive the War, or did it die, leaving the Jewish parents devastated? And did those parents then attempt to "steal" another tiny child, truly Russian in fact, from his/her parents in an attempt to assuage their guilt over abandoning their own kin? This story will make for an intense, emotionally charged detective tale taking place at a time of tremendous upheaval in eastern Europe. At this point, this project is in its infancy and Pluss cannot project any completion date for the short volume.

Both books will be marketed as e-volumes with a short-run of printed volumes for collectors, and will be published by Pluss's own publishing firm, Aargau Books LLC, established in 2004 primarily to publish Pluss's first novel, the lengthy Jumping Fences. An Artfully Crafted Madness (October, 2005) after two commercial publishers expressed interest in that work but insisted that it be greatly shortened or broken down into three separate volumes. Pluss believed the effectiveness of his book would be compromised by such a move, so he established his own publishing firm to publish it the way he wanted. Jumping Fences is still available through Barnes and Noble, Overstock.com, Amazon.com, and, in e-book form, through Google Books. Recently, an individual signed volume of  Jumping Fences, already considered "rare," was being advertized by an internet used book dealer for $74.95.

-- Wolff.