Culture | Exorcising German history

In “Fatherland”, an author reckons with his Nazi grandfather

Burkhard Bilger’s book asks just how guilty his forebear was

Three women walk along bombed damaged streets and buildings showing the destruction of the city in July 1945 following the allied occupation of Berlin, Germany.  (Photo by Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).
Image: Getty Images

Germans born in the 1940s came of age in a shattered world. The Kriegskinder, or children of the war, inherited a country of ruins and silence. Cities were choked by rubble; millions of people were displaced.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Sins of the grandfathers”

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