Anyone who utters a consoling word is a tratior by Alexander Kluge

Anyone who utters a consoling word is a traitor by Alexander Kluger

German fiction

Original title –Wer ein Wort des Trostes spricht, ist ein Verräter

Translator Alta L Price

Source – Personal copy

As you may know, I am a massive fan of Kluge’s written works. He is a writer, filmmaker, and maybe the greatest secret of German writing. I still find it problematic that someone so similar in style to Sebald in his writing has not been better known in English. His works on the whole deal with the war and tend to look at it in great detail and try to take apart what happened, and here is the same it uses the post-war trials in Germany after the war of SS officers and those involved in the holocaust. It is a tribute to the German Jewish Judge Fritz Bauer, the man who tried Eichmann.

A wise man from Salamanca-doctor, theologian, jurist and forebear of Fray Luis de Léon–was a visionary. He could wind his way along the paths of the INTELLIGIBLE WORLD, parallel to the mere world of factual reality, to navigate the tunnels of the future. He never told a soul exactly how he did it. In the period prior to the 1492 edict of expulsion, it became glaring that Saint Dominic’s zealous followers posed the threat of persecution.

This sage advised several of Salamanca’s Sephardic families to emigrate to Lisbon before the forced expulsion. But they shouldn’t trust the Catholic rulers of Portugal for long, either; rather, he advised they continue their journey before 1497, moving on to the more tolerant Ottoman Empire or the Netherlands.

The Spanish Jews trying to escape

As always, his stories are like a whole view. He has mentioned he likes the Buchner quote I’ve always wanted to see what my head looks like from above.” That is how the book is made it events from France around Proust and certain French generals. I appreciate how the train line is so well built in Poland. He mixes little tales and history so well together. Tales like the expulsion of the Jews from Salmanca moved first to Catholic Lisbon, but then they headed north to Holland and Amsterdam. How the sheer number of forced labourers in 1942 had overwhelmed the Reich, and plans were in place if they reached India. Later on we see another mention of those Jews from Salamanca about Spaniards in the Fatherland. He has to lead Jewish history and life from 1492 to 1942 at times and the massacre of these Jews. We also witnessed Mass shootings at the camp, and then the post-war era led to the trials overseen by Bauer.

In the summer of 1942, the number of forced labourers from the Eastern territories in the German Reich reached its peak.

The units carrying out raids and organizing the transports were already overwhelmed. By the beginning of 1943, companies had begun rejecting many of the labourers being sent to the Reich because underage, incapacitated and sick people were being included, so they were loaded right back onto return transports to the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The condition of those shipped back home (often to the wrong place) appalled the local population–this was yet another organizational error that made itself felt anew every time another load of people was picked up. These errors were brought up at the Central Conference of Reich Labour Commandos, and it was proposed they be prevented by better staff training going forward. In the meantime, the VALUE OF THE LABOUR FORCE, which the Reich had easy access to in the previous year but was now increasingly difficult to obtain, was recognized in principle by Reich leaders.

The sheer number and loss of those made to do forced Labour

The book title is a partial quote from the motto of the art theorist and avant-garde artist Bazon Brock and suits the work Kluhge has made the war his own in his writing he is a fan of the writer and theorist Adorno. He has the talent to mix fact and fiction, walk the line of truth and justice, and the dark times in his own country and shine a light on what happened during those years. I am still not sure why he is not better known in English, maybe because he is on a smaller publisher, his books are online and easy to get hold of. He has said in speeches he likes to tread the line of fact and fiction.  Theory and practice, he also used the full quote from the title of the book. The poet can’t do that, but he can certainly tell about it – constellation, documentary and the authenticity of the original experience. No consolation stories. Whoever speaks a word of consolation is a traitor. He is the voice of the Germans’ soul and regret of those times. So this is the 6th book from Kluge I have reviewed. I have two more on my shelves. Have you read this book?

Winstons score – A 48 stunning stories