A lengthy but fascinating study of Naziism as seen through the eyes of one officer. ( )

Originally published on Upublica: http://www.upublica.com/article_c/art...

The Kindly Ones is the fictive memoir of Max Aue, a Nazi officer. Intelligent and well educated, Aue never wanted to be a career officer, nor was he ever an ardent follower of Nazi ideology. Like so many other ‘ordinary’ Germans he is a victim of circumstance, and as the war evolves he finds himself caught up in the Nazi programme of exploiting the labour of concentration camp prisoners. This takes him in and out of government ministries and concentration camps; though a senior government official, he is reduced to the role of a spectator, a victim of institutional rivalry.

Plunging at times into violent and pornographic orgies, The Kindly Ones is not for the faint hearted. It is, however, quite a spectacular accomplishment, not least because it succeeds in exploring in great nuance some of the core themes of the Holocaust. It presents a splendid portrayal of how the various Nazi institutions competed with one another, often resulting in bureaucratic inertia and endless political battles. Littell shows how the Nazis did not start out with an extermination master plan. Rather, the killing came about only gradually, the gassing by trial and error. Another theme that Littell explores with great insight – and one that is contrary to popular belief – is how Nazi officers were in fact allowed to express their own opinions, and indeed challenge orders without fear of reprisal.

On a more abstract level the book explores the warped psychology of Nazi culture. Max Aue’s civilised veneer is gradually ripped apart, his character constantly oscillating between the civilised human being he once was, and still bears traces of, and the animal that he has become. One moment he is discussing literature with a fellow officer and the next he is executing a prisoner.

This is where The Kindly Ones fails. Max Aue paints a picture of himself as an ordinary person, like you and me. In the beginning of the book he takes pains to let the reader know that there is nothing to distinguish him from the reader. Consequently, we are led to believe that we would have acted similarly under the same circumstances. This is not controversial: that the majority of Nazi criminals were indeed quite normal people is a well established historical fact stressed in several history books such as Christopher R. Browning’s Ordinary Men.

Max Aue might think he is normal but the fact is that he is nothing like an ordinary person. Few people, at least as young as him, are as intelligent and well versed in literature, philosophy and music. Few people have an incestuous relationship with their sister. Few people go to the park cruising for gay sex. Few people kill their parents. Max Aue is all of that – or, at least this is what we are led to believe as The Kindly Ones mixes reality and fantasy into a surreal cocktail. If it is Littell’s intention to convey the idea that the Nazi perpetrators were ordinary people like you and me, then he couldn’t have chosen of worse protagonist than Max Aue. Max Aue’s murderous and sexual fantasies are so bizarre that if we are to believe that he is representative of the average Nazi, then we are also forced to acknowledge the veritable gulf that lies between the average Nazi and ordinary people like you and me. This realisation flies in the face of historical evidence suggesting that Nazi perpetrators were ‘ordinary men’ and undermines the thesis of Littell’s book. ( )

http://thebookwormslibrary.com/?p=299... ( )

This book was a slog. It showed the inside of the mind of a man engaged in some of the most brutal acts you could imagine. I remember one reviewer saying it was like a Nazi "Zelig", and he was right. The protagonist, an SS officer, is difficult to like, but Littell did a magnificent job getting inside his head and letting us explore the perversion all around him,and making the perverted seem absolutely normal. It was very long, and when I got through, I wasn't sure that I had done anything but be voyeur to acts and people that I'd just as well rather not met, even on a page. I remember thinking at the beginning of the book that it really was the masterpiece the Prix de Goncourt said it was -- making the inhuman human. By the end, I have to admit I had lost my initial enthusiasm as Dr. Aue ambled through his life as the implementer of the endlosung - the Final Solution. ( )

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell makes me feel deeply unclean. I don't have any idea what I would do, in the same circumstances as the author sets his protagonist into, but I suspect I would have been this protagonist had the same things happened to me at the same ages. Now...well, a 50-year-old is a different creature than a 22-year-old, no matter that us 50+ers want to think otherwise.

I abandoned this book, a library 14-day checkout, at p364. Ivan and Max (who is our protagonist) are scuttling around looking for Croats, and I ran aground when "Feldgendarmen" and "ACHTUNG! MINIEN!" occurred in close proximity. I just could not endure one more moment of German military terminology and I dislike the German language with sincere fervor, and then there is the slickly sickly slimy Max, with whom I can't bear to spend one more eyeblink; but good lord people, the amount I've already read would be a novel by itself!

As anyone who's ever read one of my reviews knows, I don't do book reports. The events of this book aren't in any way a surprise to you if you've been awake in the past year. I can say, though, that anyone who wants to deny the existence of a Holocaust would do well to read this novel. It feels like the events could not possibly be true. No one could live through this, perpetrator or not, and face life as a sane being ever again. So far as I am aware, the German nation did not have a huge insanity problem after WWII, so ipso facto there was no Holocaust!

Littell's story shows how well he understands the history of the (factual) Holocaust, and his choice of a protagonist shows how well he understands human nature and its strengths. It's a deeply disturbing book for that reason alone. That a man could imagine this character, could write about him in his own voice and with clarity, precision, and artistry, is unsettling to my vision of authors as refiners of reality into truth.

If Truth can contain this, there is no safe place anywhere.

And there isn't.