Jonathan Littell’s novel The Benevolents caused a shock when it first appeared in France in 2007. When it was published in Germany one year later, the reactions were even more vehement, as was to be expected, considering the fact that we are dealing with a novel that explicitly describes all the atrocities committed by the Germans in World War II. What will be the effect on the American reader, now that the English translation is finally on the shelves?

The Benevolents is the story of the SS-major Maximilian Aue. Aue takes part in practically all the cruelties of the Third Reich. In the first part we see him in the Ukraine, where he is engaged in the ‘Aktionen’ against the Jews. It’s Aue’s task to rationalize the brute slaughtering of the Jews by his fellow-soldiers. Aue is very good at rationalizing….

In the second part the story shifts to Stalingrad. Here Aue is witness-on-the-spot of the defeat of the ‘Sechste Armee’, actually the turning point in World War II. In the last part the wounded Aue is back in Berlin, awaiting the final collapse of the Third Reich. Now, why would anyone want to read this ‘history-through-the-eyes-of-nazi’, especially when it stretches for over a thousand pages?

The reason is simple. Everything that happened in the war is in this book. It’s cruel, it’s astonishing, it’s lucid; it has love, it has war, it even – at times – has compassion. At times we even come to like Aue. How can that be? How do we come to feel compassion for this nazi who commits the most cruel atrocities you can't even imagine being possible. This is where literature comes in: the book is extremely well written. Littell pulls you right into the head of Aue. Okay, he makes you think, Aue is a nazi. But he is not a beast. He is a sort-of well-reflected nazi, he knows what he is doing and why he is doing it. You almost find yourself agreeing with him when he rationalizes the killing of the Jews near Kiev. Anything better than this blood-shed slaughtering by his companions, you come to think. And in the next moment you hate yourself for even considering this thought.

One also gets to know Aue as a humorous, well-read and intelligent person. You almost feel sorry for him when he can’t love the one person in the book that really cares for him, the nurse who looks after him when he is back in Berlin. You are constantly swept between these two feelings: one the one hand I understand this man and on the other hand I hate him.

It is this amazing quality of The Benevolents – that you can actually feel compassion for a nazi-officer – that will have its effect on the American reader as well. It’s not a story about a hero, it’s a story about a man we all could become, when we were placed in the situation of war, but – thank God – we are not.

Jonathan Littell, De Welwillenden, vertaling Jeanne Holierhoek & Janneke van der Meulen, Arbeiderspers, ISBN 9789029566544