The German Wife

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child death, mental illness, and religious discrimination.

Sofie is the primary protagonist of the novel and one of its two first-person narrators. She tells her story in two timelines: first in Germany as the Nazis come to power and then in Huntsville, Alabama, where she joins her husband after he is recruited into Project Paperclip. Sofie is the youngest daughter of a wealthy German family. After her father’s death, she discovered that all the wealth, save the house she lived in, was gone. Sofie’s identity is intrinsically linked to her role as a wife, mother, and friend. She never pursued a career or a higher education and instead focused on her children and her husband, Jürgen. Outside of her family, her most important relationship is with her childhood friend Mayim, whose Jewish family loses all their money and stability as the Nazis rise to power in Germany. Sofie loves Mayim like a sister, and Sofie is heartbroken when she has to let Mayim leave the home they’ve shared as family.

Sofie is intensely optimistic, which is likely why she’s able to cope even with the loss of Mayim and her eldest son, Georg.