Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor

Alexander Kluge’s work has long grappled with the Third Reich and its aftermath, and the extermination of the Jews forms its gravitational center. Kluge is forever reminding us to keep our present catastrophes in perspective—‘calibrated’—against this historical monstrosity. Kluge’s newest work is a book about bitter fates, both already known and yet to unfold. Above all, it is about the many kinds of organized machinery built to destroy people.

These forty-eight stories of justice and injustice are dedicated to the memory of Fritz Bauer, determined fighter for justice and district attorney of Hesse during the Auschwitz Trials. ‘The moment they come into existence, monstrous crimes have a unique ability,’ Bauer once said, ‘to ensure their own repetition.’ Kluge takes heed, and in these pages reminds us of the importance of keeping our powers of observation and memory razor sharp.

‘A short collection of anecdotes, very short forays, and observations, one that highlights the atrocities of the Holocaust but at the same time highlights how we continue to ignore the warning signs, has history taught humans anything? A collection that reads like forty-eight scraps for potential further investigation by Fritz Bauer.’—Messenger’s Booker

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