We Germans A novel

Before his grandfather Meissner's death, Callum, raised in Scotland with "only a Hollywood understanding" of Nazi actions, awkwardly tried to initiate a conversation about the war, but Meissner offered little in response. After his death, however, Callum finds a lengthy letter describing events that occurred during Meissner's service on the Eastern front in late 1944. Ordered by their captain to raid a rumored food-storage depot, Meissner and four fellow soldiers were confronted with atrocities committed by their own army. Meissner wrestles with the culpability of individual Germans for the crimes of the state, trying to find an answer he can live with. He eventually rejects the idea of collective guilt but concludes that those actions tainted all Germans with a shame that "can't be atoned for; it is a debt that cannot be paid." Callum's descriptions of his grandfather's postwar life are interspersed throughout. British writer Starritt's second novel, after The Beast (2017), will intrigue fans of introspective, morally complex war fiction narrated from the perspective of those who served, such as works by war veterans Tim O'Brien and Phil Klay.

Scottish-German writer Starritt (The Beast) unearths the horrors of the eastern front in WWII Poland through a letter written by a veteran of the German army to his grandson in this thoughtful, unsettling chronicle. Meissner begins the long letter by addressing a question he presumes his grandson was afraid to ask him: "Did you do terrible things?" "It's hard to say," Meissner writes, "but certainly not in the way you presume." Meissner recounts his memories of the fall of 1944 near the German border, when he and four fellow soldiers search for a rumored stockpile of food delicacies. They come across a hunting lodge that's being guarded by Feldgendarmen, German military police. Upon killing some of the Feldgendarmen and pilfering the Wehrmacht's store of food and alcohol, the five soldiers flee, fearing pursuit by the remaining Feldgendarmen. As they wander through the woods and ponder their next moves, they come upon a Russian tank brigade and capture one of them before attacking the other Russian tanks. The aftermath of the skirmish is most memorable to Meissner as he recalls the bravery of one of his fellow soldiers, who helped carry him to safety from the Russians. Starritt's gritty depictions of the horrors of war and the moral choices faced by soldiers add intensity to the ruminations on courage. This is a fascinatingly enigmatic addition to the literature of Germany's coming to terms with the past. Agent: Rebecca Folland, Hodder & Stoughton. (Sept.)

An elderly German tells his grandson about his World War II experiences on the Eastern Front in this flawed but thoughtful work. Hitler's disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union led to the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians. Starritt views the war through the eyes of elderly survivor Meissner, a German artillery soldier. His memories of those days, his thoughts about guilt and shame, have been reawakened by questions from his grandson, Callum, who grew up in Scotland but feels "an odd sensation of connectedness" to Germany and a shame that "has gathered, like a mulchy spot on an apple." In a long letter to Callum occasionally interrupted by the younger man's comments, Meissner says he wants to explain something about his war. "I can't quite articulate it myself," he says, but "it's to do with courage." In autumn 1944, after fighting and retreating in Russia and Ukraine, he's in Poland, near the German border. Meissner and four others get separated from their unit after being ordered to go looking for a rumored food depot. They see Polish villagers hung by unidentified men from a single tree "in bunches, like swollen plums." They kill German soldiers guarding the food depot (the rumors were true) who refuse to share. When they later see other German troops rape and crucify women, Meissner wonders if it's in retaliation for his group's action against the food depot. They steal a tank and use it against the Russians. These episodes are well drawn; the brief time inside the tank is a small masterpiece. But it's not entirely clear where courage comes in as Meissner's theme despite a few brave actions. Elsewhere he struggles to define his views on the Holocaust. He stresses that he didn't see the camps and doesn't feel any collective guilt. "What I do feel, ineradicably, is shame." That at least is clear, the legacy of shame. It hasn't diminished for an old man many years after the war's end, and it remains inescapable for his grandson born in the 1980s in a different country. Starritt himself shows courage in his approach to one facet of the war's legacy and may offer solace to Germans like Callum who also suffer from their "connectedness" and to those close to them. A risky, provocative novel with some exceptional writing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.