German fiction
Prussia goes west

Bringing the end of the second world war to life

Books and artsNov 12th 2015 edition

All For Nothing. By Walter Kempowski. Translated by Anthea Bell. Granta; 343 pages; £14.99.

WALTER KEMPOWSKI was one of Germany’s finest post-war writers, though he always lived in the shadow of Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll, both Nobel laureates. Dominating his oeuvre is “Echo Soundings”, ten volumes of eyewitness accounts of the second world war. Yet he was also a talented novelist, his reputation cemented by “All for Nothing”, the last novel he wrote before he died in 2007, which is now translated into English for the first time.

The book is set in January 1945 and centres on a manor house in Prussia, the residence of the wealthy von Globig family. The mistress of the household is Katharina, who leads a quiet life of leisure at a civilised remove from the world outside. But wider events are about to intrude, with fiery glows on the horizon and the reverberations of shellfire heralding the arrival of the Red Army. Daily life is deteriorating as theft and looting gather momentum, despite ruthless punishment by the authorities. Katharina’s husband Eberhard is a Wehrmacht officer in Italy, so the fraught decision of when to flee is hers alone.

Kempowski’s treatment of this dark material is often surprisingly mischievous. Irony shines through his narration as his characters cling onto numbingly petty concerns despite impending catastrophe. Servants continue to bicker and a Nazi party functionary, Drygalski, snoops on Katharina, determined to catch her in breach of one or more petty regulations. But Kempowski is not concerned with evil stereotypes. Drygalski also cares scrupulously for the refugees flooding the area, in between mourning his dead son.

Even so, this is a world drained of idealism. In a pivotal episode, Katharina gives in to the town pastor’s pleas and hides a fugitive, but this has more to do with her passivity than any heroism. Denial is endemic, of both the horrors of the Nazi regime and the cataclysm arriving from the east. Kempowski’s idiosyncratic genius lies in his ability to weave this accumulation of human fallibility into something greater. His perspective on a grim slice of history steadily broadens out to become visionary, lending his novel the irresistible pull of great tragedy.

This article appeared in the Books and arts section of the print edition under the headline "Prussia goes west"

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