FULL SUMMARY
Projekt 1065: A Novel of World War IIby Alan Gratz

Full Book Summary

At a Glance

  • Genre: YA historical thriller, wartime espionage
  • Setting: Nazi Germany (Berlin, 1943), the Swiss Alps, Bern, and London
  • Perspective: First-person from Michael O'Shaunessey, the Irish ambassador’s son and Allied spy

Opening Hook

A boy plays the perfect Nazi while plotting their downfall. In the glittering halls of Berlin’s diplomatic circles and the brutal ranks of the Hitler Youth, Michael O’Shaunessey learns to smile, salute, and lie. His mind becomes his weapon—memorizing secrets, decoding loyalties, and deciding who must be saved. But every victory cuts deeper, as friendship, courage, and truth collide with a war that demands impossible choices.

Plot Overview

Act I: A Spy in the Hitler Youth

Berlin, 1943. Thirteen-year-old Michael O'Shaunessey and his Irish-ambassador parents pose as neutral sympathizers while secretly aiding the Allies. Michael’s photographic memory makes him indispensable—he scans documents at Nazi parties and carries them in his head. A flashback to Kristallnacht in 1938, when Michael witnessed synagogues burning and a Jewish man’s murder, anchors his hatred of the regime and his resolve to fight. Forced into the Jungvolk and then the Hitler Youth, he learns to excel at the rituals he despises, sharpening his cover while gathering intelligence. For a closer look at these early chapters, see the Chapter 1-5 Summary.

Act II: The Mission

Michael befriends the small, timid Fritz Brendler—protection that pays off when Fritz Brendler reveals his father’s work on Projekt 1065, a revolutionary jet fighter. The blueprints could change the war. At the same time, a downed British pilot appears: Lieutenant Simon Cohen, who is Jewish. Michael hides him inside the embassy. Simon becomes a mentor, tutoring Michael in literature, moral clarity, and the courage it takes to choose right when every incentive says otherwise.

To gain access to Fritz’s home and the plans, Michael needs a promotion within the Hitler Youth—an ascent paved with cruel tests of loyalty. He trains to beat a crippling fear of heights for a final high dive, then brutalizes Fritz in a required boxing match to appear ruthless. Both boys are tapped for the SRD, the junior Gestapo. Michael now spends time at Fritz’s house, quietly memorizing and reconstructing Projekt 1065 schematics with Simon’s help. For character profiles, see the Character Overview.

Act III: The Climax

Michael’s new unit falls under the sway of SS-Obersturmführer Trumbauer, who recruits a special “science team.” Michael uncovers their real mission: assassinate Hendrik Goldsmit, a key Allied physicist, at a Swiss conference—using a suitcase bomb to kill everyone present. Then everything unravels. A planned escape for Simon goes wrong after a street fight with Edelweiss Pirates delays Michael; Simon is stabbed by Hitler Youth patrols and staggers back to the embassy.

To pierce the assassination ring, Michael and his parents devise a terrible gambit: he will turn over Simon and his own family to the Gestapo. The “betrayal” convinces the Nazis he’s a fanatic. His parents flee; Simon, dying and defiant, provokes SS guards into shooting him, protecting the cover and the mission. Michael is selected for the assassination team.

Act IV: The Confrontation

In the Swiss Alps, Michael discovers the bomb is meant for indiscriminate slaughter, not just Goldsmit. When he tries to alert the authorities, his teammates—suspicious of him—swap suitcases to trap him. On a cable car roof high above the snowfields, Fritz confronts Michael as a spy and destroys the hidden blueprints. They fight; the bomb tumbles into the drifts and detonates harmlessly—but the blast triggers an avalanche. Fritz is swept away to his death. Michael survives and manages to spirit Professor Goldsmit to safety.

Act V: The Resolution

Michael and Goldsmit reach the Irish embassy in Bern and are flown to London, where Michael reunites with his parents. Using his memory, he painstakingly reconstructs the full Projekt 1065 plans for British Intelligence. The price of victory arrives quietly: their service must remain secret to protect Ireland’s neutrality and ongoing operations. The O’Shaunesseys accept a safer post in Washington, D.C., their heroism hidden but decisive. For the final chapters, see the Chapter 96-100 Summary and the Chapter 101 Summary.

Central Characters

  • Michael O'Shaunessey
    A gifted mimic with a photographic memory, Michael performs loyalty while undermining it. His courage is not bluster but endurance—mastering fear to do what must be done. The novel tracks his moral education: when to lie, when to fight, and how far one can go before the self fractures.

  • Lieutenant Simon Cohen
    A Jewish RAF pilot whose kindness and intellect shape Michael’s conscience. Simon reframes bravery as choosing humanity over hatred, even at lethal cost. His death secures the mission and seals Michael’s cover, becoming the book’s moral fulcrum.

  • Fritz Brendler
    Small, eager, and desperate to belong, Fritz is both victim and agent of Nazi indoctrination. His friendship with Michael is built on shared need but strained by cruelty demanded from above. In the Alps, his suspicion curdles into fatal zeal, making him a tragic emblem of youth shaped by propaganda.

  • SS-Obersturmführer Trumbauer
    A chilling architect of fanaticism who prizes obedience over life. Trumbauer’s manipulation of children into instruments of terror exposes the regime’s strategy: weaponize innocence to mask atrocity.

For more on the cast, see the Character Overview.

Major Themes

  • Courage, Fear, and Confronting Weakness
    Michael’s acrophobia and the high-dive trial dramatize courage as practice, not absence of fear. The novel insists that true bravery is the steady discipline to face what terrifies you—moral tests as much as physical ones.

  • Friendship and Betrayal
    Michael and Fritz’s bond is forged in need and severed by ideology. The boxing match, the SRD’s demands, and the final rooftop confrontation show how systems of terror force betrayals that feel both unavoidable and unforgivable.

  • Moral Compromise and the Cost of War
    Turning in Simon and his own parents is a line Michael can never uncross—even if it saves lives. The book refuses easy absolution, portraying espionage as a series of choices that protect the many by scarring the few.

Literary Significance

Projekt 1065 stands out among WWII novels for its tight, propulsive plotting fused with an unflinching look at youth indoctrination. By embedding a spy story inside the Hitler Youth, the book examines how ordinary children become instruments of a violent ideology—and how one boy uses those same tools to resist it. Michael’s photographic memory becomes a narrative engine and a metaphor for the burden of witnessing, culminating in a finale that treats intelligence work as both heroism and trauma. The result is a page-turner with moral weight: a study of courage under coercion, sacrifice without recognition, and the hidden victories that shape history.