History Literature / BernieGunther

* BadgesAndDogTags: Bernie fought as a regular soldier in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI (either in Turkey or on the Western Front, [[ContinuitySnarl depending on the novel]] -- although he could have seen service in both theatres) before joining the Berlin police.

* ''If the Dead Rise Not'' (2009)

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, as Bernie interacts with a lot of RealLife people. UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich pops up in several novels, usually giving a reluctant Bernie one task or another. Joseph Goebbels orders Bernie to investigate the murders in the Katyn forest (''A Man Without Breath''). Police chief Arthur Nebe is his boss in Nazi Germany. In fact, at one point or another Bernie meets just about every Nazi bigwig except for Hitler himself (although he does have a conversation with Hitler during a dream in ''Field Grey''). In ''The Lady from Zagreb'' Bernie gets tangled up with spies in Switzerland and meets Allen Dulles. After the war, Bernie runs afoul of East German spy chief Erich Mielke and briefly befriends Somerset Maugham.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, as Bernie interacts with a lot of RealLife people. UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich pops up in several novels, usually giving a reluctant Bernie one task or another. Joseph Goebbels orders Bernie to investigate the murders in the Katyn forest (''A Man Without Breath''). Police chief Arthur Nebe is his boss in Nazi Germany. In fact, at one point or another Bernie meets just about every Nazi bigwig ''except for Hitler himself'' (although he does have a conversation with Hitler during a dream in ''Field Grey''). In ''The Lady from Zagreb'' Bernie gets tangled up with spies in Switzerland and meets Allen Dulles. After the war, Bernie runs afoul of East German spy chief Erich Mielke and briefly befriends Somerset Maugham.

The series as a whole follows Bernie Gunther from 1928 to 1957. The first three novels--''March Violets'', ''The Pale Criminal'', and ''A German Requiem''--were published 1989-1991 and were later grouped together as the "Berlin Noir" trilogy. After a 15-year hiatus in which Kerr wrote several other novels, he came back to the Bernie Gunther series and wrote eleven more books. The last, ''Metropolis'', was published a year after Kerr's death from cancer in 2018.

* BuxomIsBetter: Bernie certainly thinks so. Throughout the series, his sarcastic cynicism is oddly juxtaposed with an open appreciation of women with large breasts. Time and again he finds himself complimenting the cleavage of one or more {{Love Interest}}s. In ''Prague Fatale'' he outright states that he likes boobs, but doesn't understand ''why'' he likes them so much.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, as Bernie interacts with a lot of RealLife people. UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich pops up in several novels, usually giving a reluctant Bernie one task or another. Joseph Goebbels orders Bernie to investigate the murders in the Katyn forest (''A Man Without Breath''). Police chief Arthur Nebe is his boss in Nazi Germany. (In fact, at one point or another Bernie meets just about every Nazi bigwig except for Hitler himself.) In ''The Lady from Zagreb'' Bernie gets tangled up with spies in Switzerland and meets Allen Dulles. After the war, Bernie runs afoul of East German spy chief Erich Mielke.
* HistoricalFiction: The Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, and post-war West Germany and the Cold War, as seen through the eyes of one weary detective.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, as Bernie interacts with a lot of RealLife people. UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich pops up in several novels, usually giving a reluctant Bernie one task or another. Joseph Goebbels orders Bernie to investigate the murders in the Katyn forest (''A Man Without Breath''). Police chief Arthur Nebe is his boss in Nazi Germany. After the war, Bernie runs afoul of East German spy chief Erich Mielke.

* FinalSolution: Bernie is acutely aware of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, having seen it happening with his own eyes when posted to the Eastern Front in 1941. He spends most of the novels set after 1941 on wrestling with his own guilty conscience, and in ''Field Grey'' he actually recounts his role in an execution of around 30 captured NKVD personnel, following which his questioning of orders to murder as many Jews as possible brings him to the attention of senior SS officers.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many, as Bernie interacts with a lot of RealLife people. UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich pops up in several novels, usually giving a grudging Bernie one task or another. Joseph Goebbels orders Bernie to investigate the murders in the Katyn forest (''A Man Without Breath''). Arthur Nebe is his boss in Nazi Germany. After the war Bernie runs afoul of East German spy chief Erich Mielke.

* PrivateEyeMonologue: All the novels are told with the standard cynical first-person narration. Sometimes Bernie actually is a private detective but at other points he's working for the Kripo or, much worse, the SS.

* AnachronicOrder: Averted through the first five novels, which take Bernie from 1936 to 1950. Then the first part of ''If the Dead Rise Not'' takes Bernie back to 1934 before the second part picks up the chronology of the series in 1954. ''Field Grey'' really goes to town with this trope, with scenes in 1954 along with flashbacks to 1931, 1940, 1941, 1945, and 1946. Then the series gets more anachronic with ''Prague Fatale'' that jumps back to 1941. This style is continued to the end, with the last novel, ''Metropolis'', going all the way back to 1928 and the beginning of the Bernie Gunther story.
* BuxomIsBetter: Throughout the series, Bernie's sarcastic cynicism is oddly juxtaposed with an open appreciation of women with large breasts. Time and again he finds himself complimenting the cleavage of one or more {{Love Interest}}s. In ''Prague Fatale'' he admits this, saying that he likes boobs but doesn't understand ''why'' he likes them so much.

* FemmeFatale: Many--not all, but many--of the OnceAnEpisode lovers that Bernie encounters over the course of the series are spies/agents using their sexuality to manipulate him.
* FinalSolution: Bernie is acutely aware of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, having seen it happening with his own eyes in the East. He spends most of the novels set from 1941 on wrestling with his own guilty conscience.

* SeriesContinuityError: In ''March Violets'' and ''The Other Side of Silence'' Bernie says he fought on the Turkish front. In other novels he speaks of fighting against the French in Flanders.

* TranslationConvention: UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is referred to throughout as the Leader, rather than by the German equivalent ''Fuhrer''.

* FatBastard: Hermann Goring.

* ''The Other Side of Silence'' (2016)

* SeriesContinuityError: In ''March Violets'' Bernie says he fought on the Turkish front. In later novels he speaks of fighting against the French in Flanders.

The "Bernie Gunther" series was a series of fourteen HistoricalFiction detective novels written by Philip Kerr.

* ''Prussian Blue'' (2017)

* ''Field Grey'' (2010)

* PoliceState: Nazi Germany. A cynical cop in ''The Pale Criminal'' wonders why Bernie is acting so high and mighty about corruption when people are being tortured and beaten to death in the building as they speak. Characters throughout are careful about what they say, with the knowledge that they could be informed on and sent to a concentration camp.

* KnightInSourArmor: Bernie hates the evil and depravity of the Nazis, and hates himself for not more actively resisting it. He starts out cynical and only grows more so over the course of the series.

The series as a whole follows Bernie Gunther from 1928 to 1957. The first three novels--''March Violets'', ''The Pale Criminal'', and ''A German Requiem--were published 1989-1991 and were later grouped together as the "Berlin Noir" trilogy. After a 15-year hiatus in which Kerr wrote several other novels, he came back to the Bernie Gunther series and wrote eleven more books. The last, ''Metropolis'', was published a year after Kerr's death from cancer in 2018.

* HistoricalFiction: The Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, and post-war West Germany and the Cold War, as seen through the eyes of one weary detective.