Genre: Book
Grade: A-
Notable People: Alexander Wolff
Title: Endpapers
Review: An extraordinarily rich book by this Vermont author (and former sports writer) given to me as a reading assignment from our German academic friends before they left for the winter for Deutschland. Wolff is the grandson of Kurt Wolff, a very famous 20th century German (later NY) publisher who published the discontented likes of Kafka, Sartre, Herman Hesse and Boris Pasternak- and was involved in Nazi resistance. He eventually escaped to France and then to New York, with his second wife, Helen, and together they created the very famous Pantheon Books in Greenwich Village. Kurt left his first wife, a Merck, in Berlin with their two children; Nico, who is the author’s father, stayed in Germany, and fought for the Nazis in the Wehrmacht, bur eventually emigrated to the US (once forgiven by the War tribunals as a helpless conscript) and hid his past. Alexander spent years and many trips to the homeland researching this book, and it is a fascinating family portrait, an informative treatise on war, and a very revealing take of the modern day German angst, guilt and defensiveness. Extraordinary insight into the powers behind the Fuhrer’s ascent and especially the role of the Merck Pharmaceutical power house and its cronies. Very powerful book.