Kaspar Wettner met Birgit in East Berlin. He was, however, a West Berliner. Able to arrange for her dangerous escape to the West, he reunited with her when she successfully arrived there. They married, and Kaspar opened a bookstore. Birgit hoped to write a novel. They were young and both respected each other’s space and privacy. Although their marriage seemed very amicable, Birgit had begun to drink far too much. He did not know what troubled her causing her to escape through liquor, but after Birgit’s untimely death, decades later, he discovered that she had kept many secrets from him. He realized that he had hardly known what she had been doing prior to, or even during, much of his marriage to her. With difficulty, overcoming his overwhelming grief at losing her so unexpectedly, he set out to discover her past. With difficulty, he gathered the courage to read the texts and emails she left behind, searching for the manuscript he learned that she had been working on, as well. Using the bits and pieces of information he gleaned as clues, he set out on a journey to what was once known as East Berlin and began his search for more information about her past. He discovers that for some people, the support of the hateful regime and its philosophy has not changed much. At this time, however, the Berlin Wall had come down, and Kaspar was free to explore all of Germany, in a search that would bear fruit, and one day take him to Australia. What he discovered took him by complete surprise. Although Kaspar and Birgit had never had a child, one he would have welcomed, he discovered that Birgit had once had a child, a child she had left behind at birth, a child who was raised, (but not adopted legally), by her real father and his wife, in East Berlin. The man who was her real father was a rigid man, a supporter of National Socialism. He raised her with his wife, a more-kindly person, but her influence seemed negligible and was resented. The family dynamic was wretched. Of course, this rigid man blamed the unfortunate circumstances of Svenga’s life on Birgit’s promiscuity and not his own infidelity. Contacting the people he had not known, but who were revealed in the notes on her computer, Kaspar discovered people and families that were  heretofore unknown to him. In his search for Svenga, he also found a granddaughter. Sigrun happily embraced him as her grandfather, and her radical right-wing father, the husband of Svenga, resentfully allowed the relationship in order to get the money from the inheritance due Svenga from Birgit’s estate. Many of the people in East Berlin that Kaspar came to know, were not nice people; they were people stuck in the hateful world of the past.
As this story rolls off each page, the political scene in Germany after the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall is touched upon by the author, and the plight and lifestyle of the German people is explored. There were collaborators and resisters, and the survivors were each motivated by different philosophies, some more hateful than others, but support of the Nazis and/or the Communists was definitely present. The more negative narrative focuses, however, on the right-wing extremists and how those who raised her with that philosophy pretty much put Svenga on her path of destruction. Eventually, Svenga’s life choices also negatively impacted her daughter Sigrun’s. Would Kaspar’s influence and presence in her life save her from the influences of her own life that seemed to be unwittingly supporting crime and violence?
When Kaspar met the couple that raised his step-daughter, although he disagreed with the father’s behavior and beliefs, he did not judge them outwardly, preferring to engage with them in his effort to find her. When he later learned there was a granddaughter, the influence on his life was profound. Although the events and decisions made were sometimes unpleasant and unfortunate, the reader is not forced to  experience the guilt or shame alongside the characters, because of the author’s light hand. Instead, the reader is looking through the looking glass at the characters’ lives on both sides of the wall, figuratively and literally, and is subtly learning about the negative influence of both National Socialism and Communism. Instead of being forced to judge, for me, I believe the reader is forced to hope for a better outcome after all is said and done.
The reader is left, however, with many thoughtful questions to ponder.. What set Birgit on her path of secrecy? Why would she not have revealed her past to Kaspar? What set Svenga on so destructive a path to follow in her life? Who influenced Svenga to want to flee from the home of her “parents”? Why was she subjected to such discipline, by her father, when she was a young girl? Did she deserve it, or was his militaristic view of life responsible? What or whose influence corrupted the mind of her daughter, Sigrun, so that she also followed a hard-right path in contrast with her creative soul that loved music? Will Kaspar be able save Sigrun from herself? Has he had any influence on Svenga, positive or negative? How does all the knowledge Kaspar gains affect his life choices? Does he change positively or negatively?
The book illustrates the lifestyle and philosophy of those who embraced the Communist ideology, of those who benefited under the German Democratic Republic’s authoritarian rule, and those who supported National Socialism. It also revealed a bit of the life style of those who sought to flee from it, those who resented its restrictions and Nazi barbarism. Although it places much of the blame for whatever ailed the world on the influence of the radical right-wing, today we see that the radical right-wing may have very well switched sides and is embraced by the very people who had once disparaged and completely rejected it. Perhaps the lesson of history has not been learned.
East Berlin was part of the German Democratic Republic, created by the Soviet Union after WWII, and was not reunited with West Germany until 1990.  The wall separating East from West Germany, built at the Brandenberg Gate, in 1961, came down in 1989. The world remembers Reagan telling Gorbachev, “Tear Down That Wall”, in 1987! The book is even more interesting because of the way it subtly explores the differences between the East and The West, and the people who lived in each place, embracing alternate ways of life in the past and even now, in the present.