“We Did Not Know”: Reading German Silence, Guilt, and Responsibility in Uwe Timm’s In My Brother’s Shadow: A Life and Death in the SS

「我們對此一無所知」：試論烏韋•提姆《我的納粹哥哥》中德國人的沈默、罪惡、與責任

自二次世界大戰以來，大屠殺及納粹所犯下的滔天大罪成為德國人的羞恥與罪惡，羞恥與罪惡就如夢靨，纏繞戰後德國。這其中最難以面對的就是德國人對猶太人苦難所表現出來的「沈默」。德國作家烏韋‧提姆（Uwe Timm）在其自傳式著作《我的納粹哥哥》中，試圖剖析德國對納粹的記憶所帶來的眾多複雜難解的議題。書中提姆的哥哥卡爾‧海因茨於十八歲時自願成為納粹武裝親衛隊的一員，並在抗俄前線作戰時負傷身亡。哥哥戰時的日記在他去世後被送回提姆家，提姆從日記中得知哥哥參與攻擊歐裔猶太人和俄國士兵的行動，但哥哥對戰爭平淡及不帶感情的敘述卻與提姆記憶中勇敢溫柔的形象大相逕庭。於是以哥哥為例，提姆深究長存於二戰後德國家庭的重要疑問。為描述德國的罪惡和責任，提姆在兩種不同模式的衝突再現裡切換：一為對哥哥逝世的痛苦，延伸成為提姆一家和普遍德國人的痛；二為記述納粹罪行受害者－－猶太人－－的痛。本文以批評家蘇珊娜‧盧曼（Susanne Luhmann）所提出之「倫理回憶」（ethical remembrance）及恩內斯婷‧施蘭特（Ernestine Schlant）所關注之「德國人的沈默」（German Silence）此二論點，分析提姆在《我的納粹哥哥》一書中如何建構戰後德國第二代及其後代新的回憶史觀。這樣的史觀不是與父母輩的作為全然劃清界線，而是願意擔負父母輩及德國的歷史責任，打破德國人對猶太人苦難的「沈默」。

Since the advent of World War Two, the haunting presence of the Holocaust aswell as the legacy of shame and guilt for the crimes of the Nazi era have troubledgenerations of post-war Germans. In Germany’s dealing with the Nazi past, thevexing difficulty of representing Jewish suffering has become the most challenginglegacy of the Holocaust. Uwe Timm’s autobiographical work In My Brother’sShadow attempts to respond to this challenge by recounting and problematizingGerman silence toward Holocaust victims. Timm’s work tells the story of hisolder brother, Karl-Heinz, who had volunteered for the Waffen SS at 18 and diedfrom battle wounds while fighting on the Russian front. Reading his brother’s wardiary which was sent to the Timm’s family after Karl’s death, Timm is faced withconflicting feelings about his brother, who was remembered and idolized in thefamily as a brave and gentle spirit. Making use of his brother’s example, Timmpursues questions that have been of central importance to many German familiessince the Second World War. In an attempt to address the legacy of German guiltand responsibility, Timm alternates between two modes of conflicting representation:on the one hand, he empathizes with the sufferings of his brother—by extension,the sufferings of his family and ordinary Germans—and on the other, healso accounts properly for the suffering of Nazi victims. This essay will use categoriesof Susanne Luhmann’s “ethical remembrance” along with ErnestineSchlant’s conception of “German silence” about the Holocaust to argue that In MyBrother’s Shadow offers a new remembrance approach for second and subsequentgeneration Germans to acknowledge the genuine suffering of Jewish victims andto keep their memories of it in Germany’s critical reflection on the Nazi past.Timm’s pedagogical model of confronting the familial legacies of perpetration involves a willingness to acknowledge the guilt of the parent generation as wellas to bear personal relationship to German responsibility for the Holocaust.