Father/Land: A Personal Search for the New Germany

But then a reunified Germany emerged as Europe's dominant force, and it became important to know: Was the nation ready? Could it escape the ghosts of the past? To find out, Kempe traveled across the country, talking to students, teachers, pensioners, emigres, soldiers, professionals, Holocaust survivors, cutting-edge diplomats, urban pastors, "normal Germans, " and the radical fringe. At the same time, he began to explore his own German roots, to seek out the family members and documents that would illuminate his own soul.

The result, Father/Land, is a brilliant, unorthodox work of observation, insight, and commentary, a provocative book that will become required reading for anyone seeking to understand modern Germany. And it is something more. For in researching the past, Kempe discovered that the ghosts were not limited to others, that the contradictory threads of good and evil wove through his own life as well. After years of denying his Germanness, he would have to confront it at last.