As the dark specter of the Nazis settles over Germany,
two wealthy and educated brothers are suddenly thrust into the rising tide of
war. Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the
call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced
into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as
Hitler’s hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find
themselves with innocent blood on their hands.
Following Germany’s eventual defeat, Karl and Gerhard are
haunted by their insurmountable guilt, and each seeks a way to escape from
wounds that will never heal. They survived the war and its revelation of
systematic horrors, but can they survive the unshakable knowledge of their own
culpability?
Review: Winter Men by Jesper Bugge Kold was originally
published in Danish in 2014 as Vintermænd, and is rendered into English by by K.E.
Semmel, who has done a tremendously fine work of it. This is an extremely
well-written novel, albeit a searing one, which will tug at the conscience of
readers as it takes a hard look at the moral quandaries facing the people of
Germany as the winds of change swept across the country during the World War II.
The novel is forthright and honest in its exploration of the subject while at
the same time draws the reader into the story through its magnificent and
stunning portrayal of the era and the people, alternating between scenes of
life in Hamburg and those in the war fronts and the concentration camps.
Author Jesper Bugge Kold’s thoughtful, grim and brooding
novel explores the lives of two brothers who were caught up in the vortex of
violence that swept the country as the Nazi propaganda was unleashed. The
brothers are Karl and Gerhard, who lives in Hamburg. Both of them are
well-educated, and quite affluent and respectable members of the society. Karl is
the director of a textile factory while Gerhard teaches mathematics at the
university. The brothers are not Nazi sympathizers yet the quirk turn of fate
so destined them that they were ultimately absorbed as members of the SS. While
others were not so lucky, Gerhard was handed the choice to either join the
Gestapo or be one among the teeming nameless people working for survival in one
of the concentration camps. As fate would have it, instead of being an inmate
Gerhard rose to become the commandant of a concentration camp.
Some may consider this well-researched work as an attempt
to exonerate many people who worked for the Nazi in the run-up to and during
the course of the Second World War. While this assumption may be a little
far-fetched, author Jesper Bugge Kold’s Winter Men is an examination of the
ethical and moral predicaments in which many Germans would have found
themselves during this period. Karl and Gerhard enrolled their services in the
SS not because they were ideologically drawn to it, but it was a pragmatic
decision based on the idea of surviving and thriving than not at all. But their
decision, whether good or bad, had its irreparable effect. They become tools,
with bloods on their hands. The end of the war was the beginning of
their travails, leading to a sad end for both. And what begs an answer is the
reasonable question: What would you have done if you were in their shoes?
About the Author: Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1972,
Winter Men is Jesper Bugge Kold's first novel. It was published in Denmark in
August 2014, and the same year it was nominated to the prestigious Debutant's
Prize at BogForum.
Jesper Bugge Kold grew up in Copenhagen and has a
bachelor's degree from the Library School and a master's degree from the
University of Information Technology. Later, working as a sports journalist on
several Danish TV-channels, he was editor on the national coverage of NFL. In
2009 he and his family moved to the countryside where he found time to start
writing.
Based on an enormous amount of research, Jesper Bugge
Kold has been in contact with former concentration camps, historians, and
museums during the writing of Winter Men.
