German Drummer146;s New Beat

Crabwalk is the story of the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise ship turned refugee carrier, torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in 1945. Some 9,000 people, mostly women and children, fleeing from the advancing Red Army, went down in the Baltic Sea. It was the deadliest maritime disaster of its time and also the most forgotten. Titanic made celluloid history but Gustloff is neither mourned nor remembered.

For years after the war, Germany made a conscious decision not to lament its losses. Most Germans feared that to do so would be to undermine the atrocities that they had inflicted. It was a time for repentance and reparation.

Life in Germany is lived by its past. The swastika, that symbol of Aryan purity, is banned. Uniforms and authority are suspect, the young are encouraged not to accept anything unquestioningly. Nazi history is not disowned but taught. Germany cannot and does not want to forget. But in the process it has eclipsed some of its own pain and history, which was perhaps essential after the Holocaust. Only the nationalist right has spoken of it. Now may be the time for the nation to discuss it.

Gunter Grass8217;s brilliance lies in asking the right questions at the right time. For decades he has been Germany8217;s best-known chronicler. In Tin Drum, Grass, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999, captured the Nazi years. And with his Too Far Afield he provoked a whole nation with his critical views on the reunification of Germany.

In Crabwalk, Grass seems to have touched the right chord. His narrator is one of the few survivors, a middle-aged journalist who lives in Berlin. Pokriefke, born on a lifeboat the night the Gustloff sank, is coaxed by his mother to piece together the tragic events.

Researching the subject he discovers that the ghost ship is alive on the Internet. In the chatroom8217;s shadowy world of half-truths, a voice praises the Nazi 8220;strength through joy8221; scheme that organised pre-war cruises for the working class. Gustloff was one such ship that later carried refugees. It was named after a Nazi functionary, shot dead by a Jew. There is another voice 8212; this one, apparently, Jewish, who defends the assassin. To Paul8217;s horror the voice applauding the Reich is of his son Konrad8217;s. And the other 8212; of a German kid who pretends to be Jewish. As in the tradition of chatroom friendships, the two meet. In a dramatic turn Konrad kills the other because it was his duty: 8220;I shot because I am a German.8221;

Crabwalk does not merely chart the rise of neo-Nazism. It is more complex than that. Konrad is no skinhead 8212; in fact, he himself has been harassed by them in the past. But unanswered questions, a refusal to discuss German losses, or to critically analyse Nazi policies 8212; in school Konrad is stopped from writing an essay on the positive aspects of the strength through joy scheme 8212; push him towards fanaticism. Crabwalk warns of the dangers of this reverse silence.

Crabwalk8217;s translation may be stilted but it makes its point: if Germans are not going to address their history now, their right wing will.