TE23 Double Feature

Anne Weber

Fatherland

The awful thought suddenly occurs to me that of all the things from the past that weigh upon him, what might well hurt the most is the banal and vulgar fact of having had a Nazi for a father. And that this might also be at the root of his silence. By talking to me and perhaps to others close to him, he’s opened up a hairline crack in this vault of silence. He tells me he’s always been afraid that one day someone would make all this public. He says this to me, the only person in his family who regularly makes anything public, that is, who writes and publishes books. Why should anyone be interested in the fact that, like millions of other Germans, your father was a Nazi, I want to ask, but I don’t, because I feel it would be impertinent and disrespectful. At the end of the day it’s about the Rang family, and my father sees himself as the last worthy representative of that family. 174

As was customary in earlier generations, the family estate was passed down to him as the eldest son. The responsibility fell to him, as it did before him to his father, to look after Sanderling’s intellectual legacy, to work toward the rediscovery of their strange ancestor. Neither he nor his father really succeeded. If Sanderling hasn’t entirely faded into obscurity, it’s probably due less to the zeal of his descendants than to his friendship with Benjamin. Yet my father did several times endeavor to revive interest in his grandfather. And in carrying out those efforts, he always had the slight fear that someone could take an interest in the rest of the family’s history. Perhaps that concern even held him back from championing the Sanderling legacy with all the energy required. And now I come along, not an eldest son, but rather a youngest daughter, and without even bearing the right name. What am I supposed to do with this, with this Nazi grandfather? 175