'The Kindly Ones' by Jonathan Littell

The Kindly Ones is the fictive memoir of Max Aue, a Nazi officer. Intelligent and well educated, Aue never wanted to be a career officer, nor was he ever an ardent follower of Nazi ideology. Like so many other ‘ordinary’ Germans he is a victim of circumstance, and as the war evolves he finds himself caught up in the Nazi programme of exploiting the labour of concentration camp prisoners. This takes him in and out of government ministries and concentration camps; though a senior government official, he is reduced to the role of a spectator, a victim of institutional rivalry.

Plunging at times into violent and pornographic orgies, The Kindly Ones is not for the faint hearted. It is, however, quite a spectacular accomplishment, not least because it succeeds in exploring in great nuance some of the core themes of the Holocaust. It presents a splendid portrayal of how the various Nazi institutions competed with one another, often resulting in bureaucratic inertia and endless political battles. Littell shows how the Nazis did not start out with an extermination master plan. Rather, the killing came about only gradually, the gassing by trial and error. Another theme that Littell explores with great insight – and one that is contrary to popular belief – is how Nazi officers were in fact allowed to express their own opinions, and indeed challenge orders without fear of reprisal.

On a more abstract level the book explores the warped psychology of Nazi culture. Max Aue’s civilised veneer is gradually ripped apart, his character constantly oscillating between the civilised human being he once was, and still bears traces of, and the animal that he has become. One moment he is discussing literature with a fellow officer and the next he is executing a prisoner.

This is where The Kindly Ones fails. Max Aue paints a picture of himself as an ordinary person, like you and me. In the beginning of the book he takes pains to let the reader know that there is nothing to distinguish him from the reader. Consequently, we are led to believe that we would have acted similarly under the same circumstances. This is not controversial: that the majority of Nazi criminals were indeed quite normal people is a well established historical fact stressed in several history books such as Christopher R. Browning’s Ordinary Men.

Max Aue might think he is normal but the fact is that he is nothing like an ordinary person. Few people, at least as young as him, are as intelligent and well versed in literature, philosophy and music. Few people have an incestuous relationship with their sister. Few people go to the park cruising for gay sex. Few people kill their parents. Max Aue is all of that – or, at least this is what we are led to believe as The Kindly Ones mixes reality and fantasy into a surreal cocktail. If it is Littell’s intention to convey the idea that the Nazi perpetrators were ordinary people like you and me, then he couldn’t have chosen of worse protagonist than Max Aue. Max Aue’s murderous and sexual fantasies are so bizarre that if we are to believe that he is representative of the average Nazi, then we are also forced to acknowledge the veritable gulf that lies between the average Nazi and ordinary people like you and me. This realisation flies in the face of historical evidence suggesting that Nazi perpetrators were ‘ordinary men’ and undermines the thesis of Littell’s book.