Von Ribbentrop's Watch

Synopsis

The credit crunch hasn’t done Gerald Roth any favours. The proprietor of Grapes of Roth, an upmarket wine merchant in a downmarket neighbourhood, his business is dying faster than he can say Maximin Grunhauser Abtsberg Kabinett 2008. Then fate throws Gerald a lifeline. He discovers that his old watch, left to him by his father, is surprisingly valuable. If he sold it at auction his money troubles could be over. Unfortunately, the reason his watch is so collectable is that it was once owned by Hitler’s Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, whose initials are engraved inside the case, alongside the sweetest little Swastika. Gerald’s secret dilemma emerges over out that he isn’t the only Roth with something to hide...

Our Review:

Simon Cole - 12 October 2010

Joachim von Ribbentrop was Germany’s foreign minister between 1938 and 1945, and was a key player in Hitler’s Third Reich. He had the dubious honour of being the first of the ten men to be sent to the gallows at Nuremberg. Just how his wrist watch, complete with his initials and a swastika engraved inside, came to be in a second hand watch shop in Los Angeles in 1985, to be purchased – quite by chance – by author Laurence Marks, is a mystery. This mystery and the very real moral dilemma it created – whether it was right for a Jew to profit from a Nazi relic – was the inspiration for this fictionalised account.

Set in the North London home of failing fine wine merchant Gerald Roth (Nicholas Woodeson), and his Jewish-convert wife Ruth (Gwyneth Strong), Gerald faces the same dilemma, when having sent a watch inherited from his father to be repaired, he learns of the potential value of the timepiece and considers selling the watch to bail out hi...

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