Guilt is both an emotion and a responsibility. Psychologically, guilt is a feeling associated with harm or wrongdoing. The idea of guilt is situated in a sociocultural context. German Kollektivschuld, collective guilt, is a notion that has been pondered since World War II for the atrocities of the Holocaust. In an influential essay, Carl Jung defines it as an undiscriminating “tragic fate” that befalls everyone associated with a terrible act (Jung, 1970). Jung argues that the nature of collective guilt is irrational, unjust, and as a psychic phenomenon, the guilt of Germans is a matter of fact. Bernhard Schlink links Germanness as a burden with this idea. In a collection of essays titled ‘Guilt about the Past,’ he argues that the collective experience of tragic events weaves a web of guilt that entraps Germans in their overwhelming historical responsibility (Schlink, 2009). Here, I analyze the critical role of collective guilt in shaping relationships in his novel, The Reader.
Bernhard Schlink is professionally an author, academician, lawyer, and judge. He was born at the end of World War II in 1944. In 1988 while Schlink balanced two careers, as a law professor at Humbolt University, Berlin, and as a judge at the constitutional court of the federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia, he felt something was missing from his life (Bolonik, 2001). It was writing fiction. Since 1989, his literary career has broadly focused on Germany’s historical legacies and past. In an interview with the New York Times, he says that his novels are avenues to explore and define his German identity (Erlanger, 2002). Through fiction, he attempts to come to terms with his connections to Germany’s past. He navigates the question of his complicity in loving those who were perpetrators, accommodators, or blind acceptors of the heinous crimes against Jews. He questions his responsibilities as part of the second generation born in the post-war era.
The focus of The Reader, Schlink’s fourth novel, is the second generation coming to terms with the role played by the previous generation in the Holocaust. The Reader is an international best-seller that has been translated to over 40 languages, sold millions of copies, adapted to a film, and touched countless individuals (Cizmecioglu, 2018). The 3-part novel begins with a love affair between the 15-year-old schoolboy Michael Berg and 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna Schmitz. This comes to an abrupt end when Hanna disappears. As a law student attending trials as part of a seminar course, Berg comes to know Hanna’s past. Her secret of being an illiterate former SS[1] guard is laid bare to Berg, begets moral conundrums, and evokes philosophical reflections.
First, I argue that collective guilt plays an essential role in shaping the relationship between Berg and the older generation. Specifically, I explore how Berg’s relationship with his parents and his lover, Hanna, is defined by guilt juxtaposed with the generational gap. Second, I examine how romantic love, which provides redemption, influences these relationships. In particular, I argue that Berg’s love for Hanna affects all his future relationships.
The Psychological Landscape
While Schlink denies being an autobiographical writer, the parallels between Berg’s background and his are undeniable. Edmund Schlink, his father, was an influential Lutheran pastor, theologian, and academic. Irmgard Oswald, his mother, was a theology student of his father before marriage. Berg’s father was a philosopher who lost his position as a lecturer at a University for organizing a talk by a famous biblical critic, Spinoza. He was reinstated to his former position after the war. Edmund Schlink was removed from his teaching position at a seminary for public criticism of German Christianity in 1937 and became a pastor at a confessional church. He held a chair professorship in theology at Heidelberg University from the end of the war till retirement. Schlink became a lawyer because of his passion for history, and Berg was a legal historian. Schlink married his high-school sweetheart, a lawyer, when he was young, and they separated a few years after they had a son. Berg married his classmate from university while clerking. They divorced 5 years after their daughter was born. In an interview with the Guardian about The Reader, Schlink says that“because I have experienced some of these things, I use them. We can only write about what we know on some topics” (Wroe, 2002). While characters in The Reader may be drawn upon from personal experiences, the broader sentiments resonate with the struggles of post-war Germany. Schlink himself says, “It is also my biography, and that of my generation,” reflecting upon this period (Erlanger, 2002). The environmental factors which shaped the relationship between Berg and the previous generation, his parents and Hanna, are generally applicable to the second generation.
The psychological landscape in the post-war era after 1945 was influenced by Vergangenheitsbewältigung, working through or overcoming the past. The Reader is an empathetic work that employs this critical lens to provide a perspective of the culture in the decades after World War II. Berg poses a rhetorical question central to the theme of overcoming the past in the second part of the book: “But that some few would be convicted and punished while we of the second generation were silenced by revulsion, shame, and guilt – was that all there was to it now?” (p102 Schlink, 1998). This question is essential in understanding Berg’s relationships. It sets the stage for exploring the confines that limited Berg’s relationship with his parents. It highlights the uniqueness of the generational gap between the post-war generation and the Nazi generation and provides a fundamental perspective in studying Berg’s relationship with an older woman.
Guilt And The Question Of Love
The first thread of guilt and shame begins with parents. Berg says, “We all condemned our parents to shame, even if the only charge we could bring was that after 1945 they had tolerated the perpetrators in their midst” (p90 Schlink, 1998). As students learned about the past, it was natural for them to criticize the actions of their parents. Berg associated overwhelming shame with his connection with the older generation of perpetrators, voyeurs, willfully blind, accommodators, and acceptors. The main question that troubled Berg and his generation was: what should they do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? (Schlink, 1998). The truth of the matter was that they could do nothing to bring back the lost lives their parents’ generation had taken. The lucky ones, according to Berg, managed to dissociate themselves from their parents, thereby overcoming some of the shame and stigma associated with their action or inaction. As Berg says, “coming to grips with our parents’ guilt took a great deal of energy” (p 168 Schlink, 1998). He could not dissociate himself from his parents and greatly envied those who did. Berg felt that his love for his parents made him complicit in their crimes. The older generation was indistinguishably critiqued by the second generation.
Interestingly, even though Berg’s parents played no direct role in the Nazi agenda, he was repulsed. He made no excuses for them. He did not attempt to rationalize their inaction or view their behavior as a consequence of circumstance. In this manner, Berg’s love did not provide redemption for his parents from the reader’s perspective.
The horrors of the Holocaust are undeniable, but The Reader makes us sympathize with a former SS guard because we see Hanna’s crimes through the eyes of Berg’s love. In the years after Hanna’s disappearance, Berg was never able to form any meaningful emotional connections. As he reflects upon it later, Berg believes that he began hiding behind a front of arrogant superiority. Berg intentionally maintained only surface-level relationships and always remained withdrawn. After the failure of his first relationship, he never wanted to experience the same pain and embarrassment again. While this is a common experience, Berg’s feelings were complicated by his guilt. After a few relationships, a short-lived marriage, and a daughter, nothing changed. In the movie adaption, we see this picturized beautifully in a scene between Berg and his grown-up daughter, where he apologizes for being so distant and says, “I’ve never been open with anyone.” Michael was never able to fully move on and be free of Hanna. As he says, “…I was guilty of having loved a criminal.” (p133 Schlink, 1998). A large part of the book is devoted to Michael wrapping his head around this fact. He is sympathetic to her plight. He even excuses her crimes, citing her illiteracy as the misfortune which initiated a cascade of events beyond her control. However, in doing so, Berg’s conscience pricks at him.
The question remains whether culpability can have an excuse – even a good one – like illiteracy. Berg has no answers. The situation is further complicated by the legal proceedings that sentence Hanna to life in prison. The primary evidence against her was based on a report she allegedly authored. Berg, however, is aware that Hanna can neither read nor write. Exposing Hanna’s illiteracy would rob her of her dignity and freedom. In choosing to not do so, Berg carries the guilt of not exonerating a loved one. Numbed by the pain, he is left questioning his decisions. He does not visit Hanna after the conviction but regularly sends her tapes of him reading books aloud. In this manner, he maintains contact but enforces some distance.
“The pain I went through because of my love for Hanna was, in a way, the fate of my generation, a German fate, and that it was only more difficult for me to evade and more difficult for me to manage than for others?”, says Berg (p169 Schlink, 1998). In a similar vein, he carried the burden of his love for his parents. While others dissociated themselves from their parents and moved on, Berg fell in love with an older woman. The guilt of complicity extended to another relationship in his life. While Berg’s parents were acceptors and accommodators, Hanna was a perpetrator in the Nazi regime. Berg’s guilt was reinforced because while one cannot choose one’s parents, one chooses their partner.
From the perspective of Berg’s romantic love, we don’t judge Hanna as harshly as we would other SS camp guards. Berg’s reflections of her situation frame her in a more favourable light and highlight her helplessness. As readers, we are more likely to forgive her actions due to Berg’s portrayal of her. In choosing to love Hanna, Berg’s actions lead to empathy for Hanna’s fate from the reader’s perspective. Despite her past as a war criminal, we sympathize with her as just another individual deserving of love, dignity, and respect. The book employs another moral conundrum that Hanna is 21 years older than Berg. This age gap brings a critical perspective of choice in loving someone. It could be argued that Hanna took advantage of Berg in a formative period and that his love was not a choice. However, Berg’s thoughts and actions over the years do not reflect this. Hanna even becomes his muse years after her conviction. The extreme case of loving a former SS guard highlights the quandaries faced by the second generation. It further highlights how love can provide redemption for it humanizes criminals, even those involved in a crime as horrific as the Holocaust.
Conclusion
Schlink, in an essay about collective guilt, says, “The task of dissociation from specific historical guilt leads to the creation of one’s own identity, an undertaking that every generation has to master.” (Schlink, 2009) By following the story of the protagonist in The Reader, we see what happens when the task of dissociation is unsuccessful. In Berg’s case, the manifestation of specific historical guilt is through his relationships with his parents and partner. There exists an illusion of choice about loving one’s parents. In no ideal scenario can dissociating oneself from their parents be the answer. While Berg felt a heavy sense of shame about his parents in his youth, his reflections change with age. He understands that he is not alone, and this is not a personal burden he carries. It plagues all second-generation Germans. Berg never fully came to terms with the trials and tribulations of his relationship with Hanna. There was no closure. In the latter stages of his life, Hanna becomes his literary muse. As Berg says, “Hanna became the court before which once again I concentrated all my energies, all my creativity, all my critical imagination” (p183 Schlink, 1998). He forms no meaningful emotional relationships in his life; he compares everyone to Hanna and finds that they don’t measure up. Berg says, “Whatever validity the concept of collective guilt may or may not have, morally and legally – for my generation of students, it was a lived reality” (p167 Schlink, 1998). Berg’s love of Hanna juxtaposed with his guilt for loving a war criminal, and his past of loving his parents despite the shame has resulted in his distant nature. The consequences of collective guilt have shaped the relationships between Berg and the older generation.
In summary, I have explored themes of collective guilt and love in Schlink’s novel, The Reader. I have situated the book in his oeuvre, studying the German identity and Germany’s past. The plight of the second generation in inheriting collective guilt and its consequences were analyzed from the lens of working through the past. The role of love in providing an avenue for redemption was briefly studied. To conclude, Berg’s predicaments, although fictional, are reflective of the experience of Germans in the post-war period coming to terms with their historical burden.
References
Bolonik, K. (2001) BERNHARD SCHLINK: WEARING MANY HATS, courant.com. Available at: https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2001-11-25-0111250360-story.html.
Cizmecioglu, A. (2018) Bernhard Schlink: ‘The Reader’ | DW | 08.10.2018, DW.COM. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/bernhard-schlink-the-reader/a-44506930.
Erlanger, S. (2002) THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Postwar German Writer a Bard of a Generation – The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/19/world/the-saturday-profile-postwar-german-writer-a-bard-of-a-generation.html?
Jung, C. G. (1970) Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 10. Available at: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691097626/collected-works-of-cg-jung-volume-10.
Schlink, B. (1998) The Reader. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Schlink, B. (2009) Guilt about the past. University of Queensland Press.
Wroe, N. (2002) The Guardian Profile: Bernhard Schlink, the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/feb/09/fiction.books.
[1] Schutzstaffel (SS) was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party
Sankalpa Venkatraghavan 