All for Nothing is an extraordinary novel by the German author, Walter Kempowski. Deeply rooted in fact and decades of research, the novel moved me, more than expected, and has secured a long-term place in my head. Trying to figure out how it achieved this – and why I’m so keen on having others read it – has been a most interesting challenge. Really good books are treasures, and this one really resonated. It has led to more reading and exploration on my end, and thinking it through has even shifted my appreciation of literature’s value. Kempowski’s writing explores difficult, unanswerable questions, problems and situations that can give meaning to what it means to be human.
Written in 2006, the book tells the story of a family estate in East Prussia and those around them during the first half of 1945. The Soviet Union army was advancing. Almost everyone knew that World War II in Europe was in its final stages, but speaking openly about a defeat for German was treason. What could one do? And for those in the know, guilt for the war, for inaction, for an inability to effect change, complicated things. History was in the process of sweeping the world away. Circumstances were beyond difficult. What is of value and what can remain in the face of such an onslaught?
Details define the action as Kempowski crafts the novel’s characters with great care. The writing reflects Kempowksi’s obsession with exploring life in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. His other works include the German Chronicle, which examined his family’s life during the war, and Das Echolat (Echo Sounder), a semi-experimental ten-volume effort based on an encyclopedic array of documents, from personal letters to official reports. All told, Kempowski collected millions of primary sources. The historian and teacher in me deeply appreciates his focus and approach. Truly comprehending a historical fact requires more than thinking about a headline or summary; it demands diving into the details, exercising imagination, pathos and courage. Kempowski takes us on such a journey. The novel renders the weight of history nearly unbearable and easy judgments impossible.
Partially through reading All For Nothing I made a side journey, an exploration into non-fiction history, with Ian Buruma’s Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939 – 1945. The award-winning book promised a different take on the war. Buruma is an exceptional writer and the book, which he calls a love letter to the city, is very well done. His father, a Dutch teenager at the start of WWII, was forced to move to the city and work for the German war machine. He survived, as did many in the city, at great danger and cost. Buruma intersperses personal stories, formal history, and interviews with survivors. An account of the city, looking at how people lived, or tried to live, amidst a rising tide of horrors, reinforced key themes in Kempowki’s novel. Survival is paramount for most, but not for all. Bravery is complicated, rules and morality are suspect, and sometimes looking away is essential. Both works, coming from different perspectives, tell us a great deal about life and people in extraordinary times.
One does not read All For Nothing for the conclusion. Outcomes are, after all, foreordained. John Milton Keyne’s famous critique of economists’ indifference to short-term changes (“in the end we are all dead”) is appropriate here. We can no more “root” for our characters than we can change history. Meaning and value come from what we do along the way, when there is the possibility of agency. Accordingly, Kempowski paints his novel with profound attention to the intentional and the accidental, to gestures of kindness and cruelty, and the overall indifference of history, especially during wartime. To the extent that we pay close attention, they can tell us about values. Life in war is neither predictable nor reasonable.
All for Nothing gives the attentive reader a powerful take on what it means to be human. Kempowski achieves this through great literary skill and above all, a radical empathy. The book’s title, ironically or not, tells us that if we do care, there is the possibility of something. The very act of writing and reading it is yell in the dark, an affirmation of human possibility. Kempowki’s effort is a powerful affirmation. What more can one hope for? Great literature can do that. The novel deserves that accolade.
David Potash