Rating: 4/5
Review:
Engrossing and thoughtful
We Germans is a thoughtful and involving book from an unusual and
revealing perspective. It is in the form of a letter from a German
veteran of the Eastern Front in the Second World War, responding to
his British grandson’s questions about the war. He concentrates on
a period of just a few days in autumn 1944 when the long, ruinous
retreat from Russia has turned into an undignified, exhausted,
straggling scramble to evade the pursuing Russian forces. There are
reminiscences and digressions which create a context and also some
interventions from the grandson, but this is chiefly a stark, human
portrait of defeat, the realisation that he has been fighting for
something fundamentally wrong and his attempt to resolve and come to
terms with his part in what has happened.
I found it readable
and gripping, and also quite profound in places. The handful of main
characters are convincing and human, as is their interaction with
each other. There are some scenes of real horror and Alexander
Starritt evokes very well the revulsion but also, after nearly four
years of fighting, the jaded acceptance of his narrator. His
analysis of the lack of guilt but sense of genuine shame is very
shrewd, I think, as is his discussion of whether having fought for
Germany under the Nazis automatically makes one an evil person.
These are complex and nuanced questions which are too often seen as
simple binary moral issues and I think Starritt brings a wider,
thoughtful perspective to the questions.
I did find the
interventions from the grandson a distraction and rather a clumsy,
unnecessary device – although his thoughts on dealing with his
mixed heritage are interesting and worthwhile. In spite of this, I
found We Germans a very engrossing read which has left me wiser than
I was, I think. Slightly flawed, but still very good and
recommended.
(My thanks to John
Murray for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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