Fatherland

A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets

By: Burkhard Bilger

Narrated by: Burkhard Bilger

A New Yorker staff writer investigates his grandfather, a Nazi Party Chief, in “a finely etched memoir with the powerful sweep of history” (David Grann, #1 bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon)

“Fatherland maintains the momentum of the best mysteries and a commendable balance.”—The New York Times

“Unflinching and illuminating . . . Bilger’s haunting memoir reminds us, the past is prologue to who we are, as well as who we choose to be.”—The Wall Street Journal

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews

One spring day in northeastern France, Burkhard Bilger’s mother went to the town of Bartenheim, where her father was posted during the Second World War. As a historian, she had spent years studying the German occupation of France, yet she had never dared to investigate her own family’s role in it. She knew only that her father was a schoolteacher who was sent to Bartenheim in 1940 and ordered to reeducate its children—to turn them into proper Germans, as Hitler demanded. Two years later, he became the town’s Nazi Party chief.

There was little left from her father’s era by the time she visited. But on her way back to her car, she noticed an old man walking nearby. He looked about the same age her father would have been if he was still alive. She hurried over to introduce herself and told him her father’s name, Karl Gönner. “Do you happen to remember him?” she said. The man stared at her, dumbstruck. “Well, of course!” he said. “I saved his life, didn’t I?”

Fatherland is the story behind that story—the riveting account of Bilger’s nearly ten-year quest to uncover the truth about his grandfather. Was he guilty or innocent, a war criminal or a man who risked his life to shield the villagers? Long admired for his profiles in The New Yorker, Bilger brings the same open-hearted curiosity to his family history and the questions it raises: What do we owe the past? How can we make peace with it without perpetuating its wrongs?

Complex truths!

This is the story of complex truths, the decisions led by and died by. Thanks for the honesty.

An Interesting History Lesson

I found the book very interesting. I was born in France to American military parents in 1952 and lived in Stuttgart as a preteen in the 60’s. I was well aware of the history of the war and studied German and French. Thanks for relaying your family history to all of us who are still fixated with WWII.

Interesting Personal Story in the Nazi Years

This book is a microcosm of a family and a region (Alsace-Lorraine) during the Nazi years and also a multi-generational and geographical exploration with many personal stories and character sketches. The only thing that irritated me was the author’s habit of inter-weaving different stories together and chronological jumping back and forth. For example, a story may begin and end in separate parts of the book, and while a particular story is fascinating, one must wait for its resolution. Also, the narration is a bit irritating as the author/narrator tends to raise his voice and sound harsh when using direct quotes. Other than these two flaws, this is a 5 star book.

Liberal arts education on display

His interplay of the different elements in his fathers life and his mothers life and others is all consuming for him. His tenacity with exploring some of the archives helps re-create the day today existence. It is like a book I read years ago that said one German woman felt she could claim she did not know what was going on because she never looked at the slaves marching by in her small town.

Stunningly personal

My family has a similar way with things. We do not talk about the war or how it effected all of us. Listening to Bilger speak of his grandfather was so familiar to how my Oma speaks of her father, this felt like my own history even though it is from the other side.