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Am Beispiel meines Bruders (2003)

von Uwe Timm

Weitere Autoren: Siehe Abschnitt Weitere Autoren.

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312683,274 (3.86)8
The German novelist chronicles the short life and untimely death of his older brother Karl, who joined the SS and was killed on the Russian front, leaving his family to grapple with his absence. A renowned German novelist's memoir of his brother, who joined the SS and was killed at the Russian front. Uwe Timm was only two years old when in 1942 his older brother, Karl Heinz, announced to his family he had volunteered for service with an elite squadron of the German army, the SS Totenkopf Division, also known as Death's Heads. Little more than a year later Karl Heinz was injured in battle at the Russian front, his legs amputated, and a few weeks after that he died in a military hospital. To their father, Karl Heinz's death only served to immortalize him as the courageous one, the obedient one, the one who upheld the family honor. His childhood was marked by the mythology of his brother's lost life; his absence-the hole he left in the family-just as palpable as if he were still alive. His mother's sadness and his father's rage over the loss of Karl Heinz ultimately defined Uwe's relationship with his parents. But while they eulogized the boy, Uwe wondered: who really had his brother been? The life and death of his older brother has haunted Uwe Timm for more than sixty years. His parents' silence was one of the most painful aspects of his family history. Not even after the war ended, and details of unspeakable horrors emerged, did his parents ever acknowledge Germany's guilt and Karl Heinz's role in it. They simply said: We didn't know. After the deaths of his parents and older sister Timm set out in search of answers. Using military reports, letters, family photos and cryptic entries from a diary his brother kept during the war, he began to piece together the picture, discovering his brother's story is not just that of one man, but the tragedy of an entire generation. In the Shadow of My Brother is a meditation on German history and guilt, one that is both nuanced and measured.… (mehr)
  1. 10
    Das falsche Leben. Eine Vatersuche von Ute Scheub (Tinwara)
    Tinwara: Deals with the same topic. Autobiographical reconstruction of what familymembers did during the second world war, in Nazi Germany. Written by an author too young to have experienced the war consciously.
  2. 00
    Heimat: Ein deutsches Familienalbum von Nora Krug (Henrik_Madsen)
    Henrik_Madsen: Both books explore the life and dark aspects of the author's family members in nazi Germany.
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(read in Dutch translation: Mijn broer bijvoorbeeld), thoughtful, sensitive memoir of the writer’s older brother who died fighting for the Waffen SS at the Eastern Front in September 1943.

In the process of ordering the scarce tangible and intangible memories and memorabilia that his brother left behind in pictures, short steno style diary notes and stories by family members, Uwe, who was a toddler of three at the time of his brother’s death, also discusses the devastating bombing of Hamburg, where they lost their family home, the controversial nature of atrocities committed by the Nazi regime and the capacity to forget of many, his father’s desperate attempt to rebuild his live as a fur coat artisan, his mother’s resilience and demise, and his sister’s sad spinster life without paternal love that was somehow mitigated by a final 2.5 years lasting love affair completely at the end of it. Uwe Timm waited until all witnesses had passed way, before he could muster the courage to write this sensitive book.

As one of the few German post war writers he ponders the kind of Questions that Primo Levi, Jorge Semprun, Jean Amery and Imre Kretesz raise. The tendency of the ‘father’ generation (Uwe refers to the generation of his parents, the perpetrators) to deny any knowledge or awareness of the Nazi’s atrocities (holocaust, killing of innocent victims in the East) is closely linked to a studious strategy of ‘looking away’ and ‘non-engagement’ that was adopted by many in response to a desire to be one of the crowd, stay anonymous, duck one’s head. The latter was a response to the climate of fear and punishment instilled by Nazi authorities and their many henchmen. But how does such an attitude relate to the cultivated attitude and self-perception of many Germans that they defended to the last man, stayed strong, were courageous? Can it be courageous to look away from one’s own atrocities and afterwards confront the enemy with prying questions about how they failed to bomb the railway lines and crematoria of Auschwitz, how they failed to adopt more Jewish refugees before the war? Uwe ran into an intensifying conflict with his father during his post-war youth about such questions. He lamented the fact that all those courageous Bearers of Iron crosses and what not, did not want to carry their responsibility for the committed or witnessed atrocities, but rather referred to the famous ‘befehl ist befehl’ (orders are orders) notion to abscond individual responsibility. With Kierkegaard’s notion of individual responsibility in mind, Uwe wonders to what extent the ‘Ich habe es nicht gewusst’ (I didn’t know) of so many post-war apologists was sincere or rather the result of a deliberate act of ‘looking away’, reneging individual responsibility (even as a witness). Reading Browning’s book on the activities of the Einsatzcommandos killing Jews and Soviet commissars in the wake of the advancing German forces in the East, Uwe suffers eye problems (a crack in his cornea). Browning writes of witnesses who refused to participate in the killings for conscious reasons, escaping without corporal repercussions (they were demoted to perform other jobs in the Einsatzcommando). This literally makes Uwe’s cornea crack (violently open his eyes). Browning through these consciously objecting members of the Einsatz commandos (a mere 2 % of all perpetrators) opens the door for reneging the famous ‘Befehl isst befehl’ excuse.

Looking for further explanations why Germans would regard the violent treatment or killing of Untermenschen as ‘normal’, Uwe wonders whether it matters that the prevailing German attitude (or societal norm) to the use of violence was one that saw violence as a legitimate (normal) expression of aggression and pedagogical edification. The application of violence was ubiquitous in Nazi society, whether at school, at home, or sanctioned by the State at a time of war. Violence was regarded as a positive force, a normal exhortation. Uwe wonders to what extent his father would have been able to reflect critically on notions like patriotic duty and personal sacrifice, seen in the context of post-war literature that extolls that those very values are key in understanding what kept the crematoria in concentration camps going.

In the end Uwe desperately looks for clues in the short annotations of his brother’s war diary for a sign of compassion and exculpation on his brother’s part. He cannot find any, except perhaps the final statement in the diary where his brother observes that ‘the listing of cruel acts does not make sense’. Without further context, it is difficult to interpret the meaning of these words. Did his brother participate in the atrocities perpetrated on the Eastern front? Is this an expression of disgust? Or were such war acts so common, so normal, that they did not warrant noting? ( )
  alexbolding | Nov 16, 2021 |
I would recommend this book to anyone of Germanic heritage, The author's only memory of his older brother was of a game of hide and seek before his brother was deployed to the Russian front during W.W. II as a member of the SS and died in the Ukraine. Uwe Timm's family was always haunted by his dead brother and "In My Brother's Shadow" is his attempt to discover who his brother was, and how his brother, his family ad the German people fit into the post W.W. II world conscience. ( )
1 abstimmen manatree | Jan 3, 2010 |
If you have a brother, you will probably know what kind of person he is. You know his character, his personality, and often you won't be very surprised by the decisions he makes in life. Simply because you grew up together. Uwe Timm didn't know his brother, because there was a 15 year age difference. And because his brother died in the war at the age of 18. And, more than anything, because his brother, Karl-Heinz, grew up in Nazi-Germany, whereas Uwe is part of the post-war generation, growing up to despise nazism, and horrified by the Holocaust.

So, who was this brother? Why did he join the SS-Totenkopf-division? What did he do at the eastern front, in Ukraine and Russia, an area where the most horrible atrocities were committed by the German army?

Uwe's problem seems to be that his reconstruction has to rely on some letters that Karl-Heinz sent home from the front to his family, and a diary that he kept, with nothing more than some very short notes of his day to day activities. These documents don't give much information, especially no personal information. So, to make a long story short, Uwe can't answer any of the questions that he has posed about his brother.

That is a bit of a disappointment. To himself in the first place. But also to his readers. What is left is a family history with a lot of black holes. The good thing is that Uwe Timm is a very capable writer. He is able to write about the members of his family in loving detail. The way his mother moved her hands. The way his older sister finally found love at the age of 72. His writing makes this story worthwhile. ( )
2 abstimmen Tinwara | Feb 16, 2009 |
Uwe Timms bog ”Min bror, for eksempel” gjorde et stort indtryk på mig, da jeg læste den her til aften. Forfatteren er født i 1940, og der er tale om en selvbiografisk skildring af familiens liv under og efter nazismen; et liv som han af gode grunde ikke selv har kendt meget til, men som alligevel har hvilet som en tung skygge over tilværelsen.

Den i titlen nævnte bror var frivillig i Waffen-SS og døde i efteråret 1943 ved fronten i Ukraine. Uwe har knap en erindring om ham, men er alligevel dybt optaget af hans skæbne. Familiemæssigt fordi han tydeligt mærker, at særligt faderen regner ham for underlegen i forhold til den døde, men også som tysker af den efterkrigsgeneration, der ikke kunne tolerere, at forældrene fortsatte deres heroisering af krigen og benægtelsen af noget som helst kendskab til eller ansvar for den masseudryddelse, som nazisterne iværksatte som et led i krigsførelsen mod øst.

Naturligvis står spørgsmålet om broderens direkte skyld centralt i undersøgelsen. Deltog han aktivt i massakrer? Og hvis han ikke gjorde det, hvordan ville han så have reageret, hvis han nu var blevet stillet over for opgaven? Hvorfor meldte han sig frivilligt til det nazistiske elitekorps? Sporene er små: Bogen har først kunnet skrives efter forældrenes død, og den efterladte dagbogs lakoniske optegnelser giver ikke meget at gå efter. I sidste ende håber Timm, at anfægtelsen har bidt sig fast i den ukendte brors sind, men han ved det ikke.

Bogen er også en beskrivelse af det tyske efterkrigssamfund, hvor en enorm elefant i rummet – forbrydelsen og ansvaret for den – stod upåtalt hen i årevis. Specielt faderen, der i mellemkrigstiden havde kæmpet som frivillig mod bolsjevikkerne i Baltikum og altså havde klare bånd til højreradikale grupper, skyder skylden på alle mulige andre end sig selv: Det var Hitlers indblanding, der førte til krigsnederlaget, han kunne intet have vist om de nazistiske forbrydelser, og hvad han selv måtte have foretaget sig var naturligvis sket efter ordre.

Timms bog indskriver sig i den tyske tradition for Vergangenheitsbewältigung, og er som sådan et fornemt eksempel. Der skrives indsigtsfuldt om den vanskelige fortid, som i et samfund, hvor alle var medskyldige i et eller andet omfang, trænger ind i alle afkroge. Overalt tales og tales der om krigen og de døde, mens ofrene ganske som tidligere overses. Familiens anekdoter er krigsanekdoter og den fornemmelse af skyld, som krigsgenerationen med stigende desperation forsøger at skyde fra sig, forplanter sig til dens børn. ( )
  Henrik_Madsen | Feb 5, 2009 |
A pesar de lo que indica el titulo esta es una historia general de la posguerra y cuenta muy poco, poquisimo, sobre las viviencias del hermano que estaba en el frente, sirviendo con las Waffen SS.

Lo unico interesante es el, corto, analisis de la humillacion a la que quedaron sometidos los varones alemanes en la posguerra. ( )
  emed0s | Apr 6, 2007 |
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Bell, AntheaÜbersetzerCo-Autoreinige Ausgabenbestätigt
Lindskog, JörnÜbersetzerCo-Autoreinige Ausgabenbestätigt
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The German novelist chronicles the short life and untimely death of his older brother Karl, who joined the SS and was killed on the Russian front, leaving his family to grapple with his absence. A renowned German novelist's memoir of his brother, who joined the SS and was killed at the Russian front. Uwe Timm was only two years old when in 1942 his older brother, Karl Heinz, announced to his family he had volunteered for service with an elite squadron of the German army, the SS Totenkopf Division, also known as Death's Heads. Little more than a year later Karl Heinz was injured in battle at the Russian front, his legs amputated, and a few weeks after that he died in a military hospital. To their father, Karl Heinz's death only served to immortalize him as the courageous one, the obedient one, the one who upheld the family honor. His childhood was marked by the mythology of his brother's lost life; his absence-the hole he left in the family-just as palpable as if he were still alive. His mother's sadness and his father's rage over the loss of Karl Heinz ultimately defined Uwe's relationship with his parents. But while they eulogized the boy, Uwe wondered: who really had his brother been? The life and death of his older brother has haunted Uwe Timm for more than sixty years. His parents' silence was one of the most painful aspects of his family history. Not even after the war ended, and details of unspeakable horrors emerged, did his parents ever acknowledge Germany's guilt and Karl Heinz's role in it. They simply said: We didn't know. After the deaths of his parents and older sister Timm set out in search of answers. Using military reports, letters, family photos and cryptic entries from a diary his brother kept during the war, he began to piece together the picture, discovering his brother's story is not just that of one man, but the tragedy of an entire generation. In the Shadow of My Brother is a meditation on German history and guilt, one that is both nuanced and measured.

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