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Why reviews of this book came so late in the major national papers is a mystery. Anita Kugler's "Scherwitz, der jüdische SS-Offizier", the story of the - possibly - Jewish SS officer, Eleke Scherwitz, is the most exciting
non-fiction book of the season. (Read an excerpt in German.) Kugler, a first-rate journalist, tells
the story of a young man who saved - but perhaps also murdered - Jews
in the Latvian concentration camp at Lenta. The German courts sentenced him with exceptional harshness after the war, justifying their decision with the comment that his being Jewish made his crimes particularly abhorrent! Kugler's book follows the trail of this survivor. If it hadn't been a question of life and death, Scherwitz - after 700 pages we still do not know if this was his real name - could easily be portrayed as an impostor. This unbelievable story is also a book about writing history. Kugler set out to find Scherwitz' contemporaries and went door to door through villages asking about him. And she spent seven years in the archives. Her conclusion: even eye witnesses lie. FAZ critic Hans-Jürgen Döscher complains Kugler can establish conclusively neither the origins nor the motives of her "hero". In the SZ, historian Susanne Heim finds Scherwitz' story "as exciting as a detective novel", while still deserving to be called good historical writing.
Valentin Groebner writes a new type of history in "Der Schein der Person",
a social history of medieval practices of personal identification and ID control. Writing in the FAZ, historian Michael Borgolte praises the 'new scientific style' of the author, which is both narrative and highly readable. Groebner's study shows above all that there was a large gap between the attempt to establish even an approximate record of the person, and the true state of affairs in the Middle Ages. The book argues that as in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, successful surveillance reflects more the wishes of those in power than a real state of affairs. Borgolte is absolutely thrilled with Groebner's approaches to his theme, calling study "brilliant", and praising the "new scientific style", "narrative joy" and pointed reference to today's readers. The SZ does not deny the book's entertainment value, but finds it lacking in methodological integrity.
Science 
The rediscovery of the work of natural scientist, explorer and multi-talent Alexander von Humboldt
(1769-1859) by Die Andere Bibliothek publishing house made the cover of Germany's
top news magazine Der Spiegel. Published anew are the two-volume "Kosmos" as well as "Ansichten der Kordilleren und Monumente der eingeborenen Völker Amerikas" and "Ansichten der Natur". Critics commend Hans Magnus Enzensberger for renewing German interest in this seminal author. The NZZ called the work the "opus magnus
of a universal thinker", while the SZ praised Humboldt's approach of
"understanding the world through its designs". According to the FR, Humboldt's writing is as least as thrilling as the adventure novels of Alexander Dumas and Robert Louis
Stevenson. The FAZ further also recommended the audio book of "Kosmos".
There was general praise for Matthias Hagner's historical study on brain research, "Geniale Gehirne". The fact that genius is located in the brain does not go very far in explaining it, comments Eberhard Ortland in Die Zeit. For one thing, it is not exactly easy to take a look into the – living – brain. And finding an answer to how genius gets in or originates there is not easy at all. Michael Hagner's study looks at scientists' attempts to explain it. Geniuses' brains have been "collected, palpated and measured" and cut in slices for centuries, on the search for the "nature of spirit". Hagner's thesis and major discovery is that this nature is a scientific assumption, and has always been the child of a specific cultural spirit, which Hagner investigates in his study. Often, these cultural spirits answer to less attractive names, like "racism, sexism, and eugenics". Ortland appreciates Hagner's "richly documented and illuminating study", which avoids any "denunciation of the neurosciences", but has a "sharp eye for historical constellations." The FAZ feuilleton, which has a programmatic interest in everything scientific, has certified the book as the long awaited "major contemporary novel" which has appeared in the form of nonfiction.
Philosophy
US philosopher Philippa Foot remains to be discovered in Germany. Fittingly, her book "Die Natur des Guten" (Natural Goodness) has now been translated into German. Foot argues that moral judgements are not subjective, and that there are objective moral rules. For NZZ reviewer Ludger Heidbrink the thin volume on the basic principles of moral philosophy gives "great reading pleasure", although he disagrees with the author's conclusions: At the end of her book, Foot must accept the compromise of a rationalistic virtue morality, which assumes a "natural goodness" of man to justify the morality of his actions. The FAZ, FR and SZ also give the book extensive reviews.
Critics agree that Harald Weinreich's "Knappe Zeit",
a history of time shortage, is anything but a waste of time. The book
collects insights of philosophers and writers from ancient times to the
present into the shared human perception that time is in short supply.
The SZ and the FAZ admire the ease with which Weinrich travels
through western intellectual history. In the FAZ, medieval historian Kurt Flasch admires the author's erudition and scholarship, as well as his original contributions to the Western conception of time. For Flasch, Weinreich's originality lies in his "approach blending philology with medical history". Weinreich draws attention to the etymology of the Latin word "tempus", which means both "time" and "temples" – the flat regions on either side of the forehead.The Latin word already reflected the relationship between time and the human body.
Equally well received is Elmar Holenstein's "Philosophie-Atlas",
which traces the "places and pathways of thinking" worldwide. The
book's maps and pictures have evoked the penny drop effect from all
critics. One should not expect a history of philosophy but rather, as
one NZZ reviewer put it, "a geographic accompaniment to readings in
philosophy".
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The Austrian writer Josef Haslinger talks about his sexual encounters with paedophile priests as a boy in a Catholic boarding school. Instead of joining the chorus of moral outrage, he acknowledges the full spectrum of feelings that these episodes provoked, and argues that simple criminalisation is not the way forward.
Since its publication in January, Helene Hegemann's novel "Axolotl Roadkill" has been at the centre of a debate whose vagaries of terminology have allowed the seriousness of the case to be downplayed. Philipp Theisohn wishes the literary establishment would drop all its talk of intertextuality in favour of a more democratic category: plagiarism.
UPDATE: The German Book Prize 2009 has been awarded to Katrin Schmidt for her novel "You're Not Going to Die". Read excerpts from all the shortlisted titles - including one from the Nobel Prize laureate Herta Müller's novel "Everything I Own I Carry With Me".
Günter Grass has just published his diary from 1990, recording the tumultous events after the fall of the Berlin Wall. "From Germany to Germany" is a list of ominous predictions for the future of German unity. The former GDR writer Monika Maron looks at how blinded Grass was by his own preconceptions.
This year Turkey was the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We introduce the books that attracted the most critical attention.
and all the best for 2009!
This year's prestigious Büchner Prize went to Austrian writer Josef Winkler. He talks to Paul Jandl about dung heaps, patriarchs, the fear of speechlessness and the elegance of John Paul II's coffin. Photo © Jerry Bauer / SV
The six finalists for the German Book Prize 2008, an annual award for the best German language novel, have now been announced. Signandsight.com presents English excerpts of the shortlisted titles for the first time.
The legendary German poets, Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, met and fell in love in Vienna 1948. Their electric and torturous correspondence, which continued until 1961, has now been collected in book form for the first time. Ina Hartwig on what was probably the most complicated love story in post-war Germany.