Kempowski had plenty of reasons to be angry-angry at his Nazi father whom he betrayed, at what the agonized Sebastian Haffner once called the “moral inadequacy of the German character,” at the literary world for snubbing him, and at every center of power involved in WWII: the Russians, British, Germans, Europe itself. The chronicler of brutality was never given a fair shake even by his fellow Germans, and despite strong book sales, by literary award committees. This novel is that good.Every self-professed American optimist should read the oeuvre of Walter Kempowski-not that they ever will.

When I came to the end, I wanted to go right back to the beginning and start again. This is a novel that bears witness to a terrible episode in modern history yet does so in ways that are compelling and yes, hopeful. The story of what happens next is unsparing but Kempowski manages to tell it with a light touch. The inhabitants of the Georgenhof join the refugees fleeing on the roads to the west. The war is closing in, the Red Army advances. And then the words ‘concentration camp’ uttered in an undertone. What would come of it all? ‘Who’d have thought it?’ … and then talking to Auntie about Pastor Brahms in Mitkau, who was said to be most incautious, saying all kinds of wild things in his sermons - God is not mocked, and so on and so forth, instead of keeping his mouth shut. He lowered his voice: the brickworks in Mitkau, the people who had to work there, prisoners in striped jackets. Tanks and trucks rumble past and daily life is disrupted by bombing raids and power cuts.ĭr Wagner was always talking to Katharina over the boy’s head about the circumstances, those circumstances to which they were now exposed. The distant guns are ominous signs that the front is moving inexorably closer. They are insulated from the war by status and wealth but hear the air raid sirens in the nearby town. The local Nazi party official – Drygalski, Heil Hitler! – keeps a wary eye on the goings-on at the Georgenhof. The house is run by Auntie with the help of two constantly squabbling Ukrainian maids, Vera and Sonya, and a handyman -Vladimir, the Pole, who has an embroidered P on his jacket. Their son is twelve-year-old Peter with his train set and microscope and always a cold or catarrh that keep him from the activities of the local Hitler youth. His wife, Katharina – “famous as a languorous beauty, black-haired and blue-eyed” – in a perpetual state of vague disengagement often locks herself away in her room. Eberhard von Globig is a Sonderführer, a special officer in the German army away in Italy confiscating wine and olive oil for the troops. An odd assortment of people lives in the Georgenhof – a small neglected estate in East Prussia.

All for nothing by walter kempowski