Rhidian Brook’s The Aftermath has been on my radar ever since I watched a film with the same name and discovered it was adapted from a book by a Welsh author.
The story is set in Hamburg in 1946, a city ravaged by repeated waves of bombing from the Allied Forces. The task of restoring some kind of order from the chaos is underway In the British Occupied Zone. It’s a mammoth undertaking. Food is in short supply; bomb craters make the roads treacherous and gangs of feral children play among the ruined buildings. Through the rubble stream thousands of displaced citizens “walking in dazed, languid fashion, going nowhere in particular, carrying the remnant objects of their old lives.”
The task of rebuilding falls to Colonel Lewis Morgan, a sensitive and principled man. British officers are expressly warned to be on their guard against “dangerous elements” in the German population and their families are given explicit instructions how to behave to any Germans they may encounter.
Don’t try to be kind — this is regarded as weakness. Keep Germans in their place. Don’t show hatred; the Germans will be flattered. Display cold, correct and dignified curtness and aloofness at all times.
Morgan’s attitude however is more compassionate. His fellow officers consider all German people to be potential insurgents just waiting for the signal to unlease their pent up anger on the occupying force. But in the streams of people “walking in dazed, languid fashion … carrying the remnant objects of their old live,.” Morgan sees simply people who need to be fed and housed.
Reconciliation rather than retribution is, he believes, the only way forward. But he’s careful about openly expressing his views , recognising that to show sympathy towards their former enemy goes against the official line.
His solicitude extends into his personal life. When Lewis and his family are given accommodation in a large riverside house, he draws the line at evicting the current owners — a German widower and his daughter. Instead, he proposes that they all share the house, a decision that challenges both families emotionally and psychologically.
For Lewis’s wife Rachael, the presence of the Lubert family in their shared house is particularly challenging. In her eyes they are the people responsible for the death of her son in the Blitz, making it difficult to accept her husband’s attitude of tolerance and forgiveness. Slowly it becomes apparent that Stefan Lubert also understand the meaning of grief, his beloved wife disappeared during a bombing attack and has never been heard of since.
Cleverly Brooke resists a very simplistic good versus evil depiction. The British soldiers and their commanders are sometimes crass, too ready to accept the “all Germans are vile” line but also sometimes fair and just. Some element of the German population resent being viewed as inferior and want a return to the glory years of the Reich; others just want to find their loved ones and begin to rebuild their lives.
It’s a novel strong on atmosphere, capturing the bleakness of life in the city but also showing how even in the darkest days, people can find moments of beauty and tenderness.
The film is well worth watching but the book is even stronger.