4503. Father / Land A Personal Search for the New Germany, by Frederick Kempe (read 2 Nov 2008) An American son of German-born parents who came to the U.S. in the 1920's digs into his family's past, and finds his father was a Nazi sympathizer and his great-uncle a vicious Nazi guard. The book consists of much interviewing of Germans in the 1990's and delving into how Germans deal with their Nazi past. There are interesting sections, but the book is ten years old and one wishes it were more current. The description of the great-uncle's deeds is repulsive to read. Some good insights on the German condition are given, with some optimism for the future Germany ( )

Two emotionally weighted projects inform Kempe's thoughtful exploration of present-day Germany. In one, Kempe, editor and associate publisher of the Wall Street Journal Europe, travels throughout Germany searching for the present and future of the country poised to regain its position at the political center of Europe. In the other, he examines his own family's links to Germany's Nazi past. The two-track structure works. Kempe, who was raised in America by German-born parents, introduces us to a fascinating array of characters: ordinary Germans who play on his basketball team; leaders of both the secular and Islamist German-Turkish community; German-born citizens who display thinly veiled racism. His personal search, meanwhile, leads him to look beyond the pro-German sympathies of his father and to uncover the past of a relative who was more involved in WWII atrocities than anybody in the family ever cared to know. Yet this is not a book that dwells on German guilt. Instead, Kempe struggles to understand how Germany understands itself as it steps back on to the center of the European stage so soon, historically speaking, after its total degeneration and defeat. He raisesAbut does not answerAthe question of whether Germany's regeneration is as deep as it has been rapid.