‘Marrow and Bone’ by Walter Kempowski  (1992) – 188 pages        Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins

German author Walter Kempowski was punished by the Nazis as a teenager and later imprisoned for 9 years by the East German Communists. In other words, he is my kind of hero. Walter Kempowski was also an exceptional fiction writer, especially in his novel ‘All For Nothing’ about the last days of World War II in East Prussia.

‘Marrow and Bone’, originally translated as ‘Homeland’, is a very different work of fiction from that novel. Whereas ‘All For Nothing’ is a deeply imagined and intensely moving work of historical fiction, ‘Marrow and Bone’ is ironic, deadpan, and topical, taking place at nearly the time it was written in 1992. Some of the offhand observations in ‘Marrow and Bone’ are ones that the German people of that time could more readily appreciate than us outsiders. It is contemporary fiction aimed at the Germans of the time and risks being somewhat outdated now. However ‘Marrow and Bone’ still has its rewards for today’s readers.

A young Hamburg writer, Jonathan Fabrizius, decides to go on a road trip to what was formerly East Prussia and which is now part of Poland, his expenses paid for by a Japanese auto manufacturer. Both his parents lived in East Prussia, and both died near the end of World War II.

Jonathan’s girlfriend Ulla does not accompany him since she is busy with her project organizing depictions of cruelty in art for an exhibition. Besides Ulla and Jonathan have not been getting along very well anyway.

“Cruelty? The subject was infinite.”

This is an example of Kempowski’s irony. Ulla is studying cruelty throughout history but has no interest in Poland where 6 million citizens were killed as a direct result of the German Nazis. She’s too busy with her cruelty project, and she’s had enough of “that Jewish stuff”.

The author’s sarcasm is directed at the attitudes of these young Germans toward their Nazi past and even the Holocaust. These young Germans are preoccupied with all their new gadgets, and touring an old concentration camp from World War II is such a bore.

Anyway Jonathan goes on this road trip through Danzig, now Gdansk, all the way to eastern Poland to what was East Prussia. He still wants to refer to these villages and cities by their old German names rather than their new Polish names. Jonathan has the typical German disdain for the Poles.

Gdansk, Poland Today

A lot of the sarcasm here went over my head. One would need to better understand the opinions and attitudes that Germans and Poles have had about each other through the ages to fully appreciate some of the subtle humor here.

Only when Jonathan visits the church where his fleeing mother died giving him birth at the end of World War II and only when he visits the Vistula Spit where his father was killed in battle is Jonathan finally moved.

My final grade for ‘Marrow and Bone’ is probably more a result of my not fully comprehending some of the ironies and sarcasm here rather than deficiencies in the novel itself.

Grade:    C+

‘All for Nothing’ by Walter Kempowski (2006) – 343 pages Translated from the German by Anthea Bell

‘All For Nothing’ is a magnificent atmospheric novel of the last months of World War II from the point of view of the East Prussian Von Globig family, Their estate is peaceful at the start, but they can hear the distant shelling of the Russian infantry advancing farther and farther into Germany. The near-rural setting is almost idyllic but the tension builds gradually as the shelling gets louder and closer each day. The question is: When should they evacuate?

“He placed the empty stamp album on top of the logs and watched as the eagle slowly caught fire and then sank into ashes. Watching it disappear, like the Germany of the good old days.”

The once-rich Von Globig family lives in a stately manor house called the Georgenhof. The father Eberhard is away in Italy serving the German army as an officer in supplies. Left in the Georgenhof are his beautiful and winsome wife, Katharina, and their fair-haired, inquisitive twelve-year-old son Peter who plays with his train set and his microscope. Running the household is Auntie, an older woman relative from Silesia. Working under Auntie are two Ukranian maids, Vera and Sonia, and a young Pole Vladimir who does the necessary work outside.

Various travelers stop by the Georgenhof, most from the East fleeing from the Russians. They are welcomed, tell their stories, stay a short time and move on further west. Katharina also secretly listens to BBC broadcasts which tell of the attacks on Germany from the West. She hears the following report on Konigsburg:

“Burnt-out granaries, a flight of steps with the banister rail rising from the rubble, and of course the ruins of the cathedral and the castle. The British had done a thorough job, you couldn’t deny that. A lovely city, but finished now.”

The folks at the Georgenhof are mostly apolitical, but their fanatic busybody neighbor Drygalski is an ultra-Nazi who constantly watches them with suspicion. Katherina must always keep a watchful eye out for him. For Drygalski and other Nazis, there was no crime more heinous than sheltering a Jew even for one night.

Later all the folks living at the Georgenhof must leave, joining the mass exodus of German people heading west just in front of the Russian army. It is far from an orderly evacuation with many deaths along the highways and roads.

After devoting many years of his life to documenting and collecting the personal observations of thousands of Germans in regard to World War II, Walter Kempowski wrote this vivid wonderfully constructed final masterpiece of a novel. Here is an excellent summary of the dramatic life of Walter Kempowski.

There is a musical quality to the individual sentences which makes them a pleasure to read. In spite of or because of the frightfulness of the events which are occurring. ‘All for Nothing’ is a powerful work of art that captures, in authentic detail and with compassion, the evacuation nightmare for the German people of those last days of World War II.

Grade : A+