all or nothing

All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski, translated by Anthea Bell (NYRB, 2018; originally published Germany in 2006)

Sigrid Nunez recommended this book to me at one of our lunches last fall and I immediately went to 3 Lives bookshop and bought it.  Soon thereafter Afterwords, the book club I belong to, decided to read it, and we were scheduled to discuss it on March 17, but had to postpone our meeting due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All for Nothing is set in a large manor house outside a small village in East Prussia.  The year is 1945.  The Russians are advancing from the east and a large part of the population is fleeing westward, but the von Globigs, the family in the Manor House, seem unable to to make a decision about whether to flee or stay.   

The family consists of Katherina; the beautiful, introverted, and depressed mother; her twelve-year-old son, Peter; Auntie, a distant relative, a spinster who runs the estate in exchange for room and board, some pocket money, and grudging affection.  Two resentful Ukranian maids and a Polish manservant complete the household.  The father, Eberhard, is serving as an officer in the German army in Italy.  During the final weeks the family remains in their beloved homestead various refugees are quartered, officially or secretly, in the house.  The presence of these strangers force familial secrets and strains into the open, resulting in inevitable flight and tragedy.  The concluding chapters harrowingly describe the plight of the family as they join the mass doomed exodus west.  By focussing on the family’s intimate lives during a time of tremendous public upheaval, Kempowski succeeds in telling a riveting story about the personal effects of war.  He writes with brutal and unsentimental honesty, and reading the book is painful and upsetting.  It was especially difficult to read this book during this period, for its constant sense of menace and imminent doom seem too close for comfort.