In this same publisher, Asteroid Books , another novel was previously published about the German debacle, which takes place from January to May 1945. In Dying in Spring, by Ralph Rothmann , we were made to see the adventures of two German boys, who Despite themselves, they are called up when the Third Reich is dying.
The one about these boys was going to be one of the many stories that had to be forgotten for the future. And it is precisely here where, as this novel proves, the individual – and later collective – silence will emerge, into which the defeated country will fall. It will be like a way to cope with the blame. W.G. Sebald ‘s quotewe find it devastating: “The human being’s ability to forget what he does not want to know, to not see what is in front of him, has rarely been put to the test better than in Germany at that time.”
All in vain, by Walter Kempowski (1929-2017), is the story of the blindness of the Germans in the final hour. It shows their complicity and partly their fanaticism, but also –and here is the most interesting part– their own suffering as a people,specifically that of the Germans from East Prussia, faced with the terrifying thrust of the Red Army. We are located in Mitkau, a point not far from the port city of Konisberg, today Kaliningrad, the former birthplace of Immanuel Kant. Everything takes place in an aristocratic mansion, run down like the family that occupies it, the Von Globigs, a decadent heritage of the junkers, the influential Prussian hawks.
The village of Georgenhof will become a kind of caravanserai for picturesque people, who come from somewhere and go to nowhere. Everyone is lucky to be welcomedby the unappetizing Katharina, Mrs. Von Globig (her husband Ederhard is stationed on an indefinite mission in Italy). A distant aunt and little Peter, Katharina’s son, make up the Globig family nucleus. Two Ukrainian maids and a hurano Polish laborer work at Georgenhof.
Everyone seems to forget what they do not want to know, they insist on not wanting to see what is in front of them
The Russian invasion looms on the horizon, as explosions are heard near Mitkau. The snow, the fluffy snow of the environment, covers an inconcrete sensation of waiting and marks the footprints of everyone who wanders around Georgenhof. They find welcome here a Nazi violinist, a fugitive Jew, a Baltic nobleman and his long-suffering wife, a crippled pianist, an economist obsessed with stamps or, among other characters, Dr. Wagner, mentor of little Peter. The local party boss, Drygalski, comes and goes constantly to snoop around and find out what’s going on there.
In reality, Georgenhof is just a reliquary of the past were it not for the Hitlerian salutes lavished on visitors: Heil Hitler! And it is the walls of this enormous field shell that seem to shelter the quote from WG Sebald. Everyone seems to forget what they don’t want to know. Everyone insists on not wanting to see what is in front of them. The Russian offensive will lead to chaos and the particular fate of each one. The novel recounts the catastrophe of the German rout while everything seems wrapped in a kind of unreality, of parodic suspension. The caravans of refugees that flee calamitously to the west are leaving behind their dead by hunger or by the bombing of enemy planes. The fatality is observed by the reader through the eyes of little Peter, from whereeverything is contemplated with innocence and even with adventurous astonishment , but without a declared horror.
The historical context of All in vain is part of the offensive of the Red Army on East Prussia, on the way to Berlin. It will be the beginning of what some historians have called the Prussian genocide. Since the end of 1944 the Soviet revengewill leave its trail of massacres, rapes and atrocities (Gumbinen, Nemmenrsdorf, Metgethen, Neutief). After the immediate armistice, and years after the end of the conflict, millions of ethnic Germans (especially in parts of Poland), will be forced to flee to the west through savage and other more civilized deportations. It is estimated that 30,000 Germans died during the walks to the west. Old Prussia, cast in part from Germanity, will disappear geographically from the map of Europe.
Germany, year zero of Rossellini will show the difficult denazification in the key of neorealism. The rubble of Berlin hints at the parable of guilt here . But there is also under the vast rubbish heap a desire for silence. All silence is eloquent. Although Walter Kempowski is best known for this novel, he is also the author of a series of fictionalized chronicles (Deutsche Chronik) and another monumental work compiling oral and written testimonies from Germans about World War II (Das Echolot). Just this month marks the 75th anniversary of its end.
