Uwe Timm: In My Brother's Shadow

Abstract

Memoirs are remarkably personal yet also universal. Guilt, both personal and universal, about the inhumanity of war is the driving motif in this work by Uwe Timm, one of Germany's most noted contemporary writers and novelists. Uwe Timm's personal guilt concerns his brother, sixteen years older, who was a sapper in the Death's Head division of the SS. As a member of the SS, did he commit any atrocities when at war in Russia? Timm also feels a more universal guilt in relation to his brother. He is also baffled as to why so many otherwise well-meaning people can accept, even participate in, outrageous crimes against humanity. While he writes about Nazism, implicit in his concern are American warders in Iraqi gaols, suicide bombers and other inhumane creatures of the 21st century. Timm's only memory of his brother is a game of hide and seek where his brother lifts him into the air and he has the sensation of floating. This sense of being adrift drives the narrative structure of this moving work and allows Timm to move backwards and forwards between present and past. Timm wanted to write about brother, who died in October 1943 from injuries received on 19 September, but couldn't while any other members of his family were still alive. Once his mother and sister had died he felt free to express his thoughts. Even though it was forbidden, his brother had kept a diary while in action. The small notebook had been returned to Timm's parents with his brother's other effects. Timm read his brother's war diary reluctantly, afraid of what it might say. However, it is what it doesn't reveal that causes Timm most anguish. He finds no sign, except in a final, guarded sentence, that his brother ever questioned the brutality in which he was engaged. While his brother's diary is the key to this elegant narrative, Timm writes as well about his father, mother and sister. The long-lasting effects of the war on the family become apparent. Timm and his family were emotionally scarred by the events to which they were party.