So You Want to Read Like a German Concentrator

Willkommen! Any Germanic Languages & Literatures concentrator (there are around five of them) could tell you that the world owes an immense debt to German, Austrian, Swiss, and Scandinavian writers. This list includes texts drawn from a wide variety of time periods and literary genres, ranging from 18th-century dramas to young adult fantasy novels published in the 2000s. Viel Spaß beim Lesen!

“The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

“If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.”

Written in only five and a half weeks in 1774, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is an impassioned story rife with teenage angst, unrequited love, and existential dread. Immediately after its publication, Goethe became a literary celebrity and Napoleon even carried the novel during military campaigns. Although some may find Werther egotistical and melodramatic, the importance of this piece in literary history cannot be overstated.

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

“I am haunted by humans.”

This historical fiction novel is set in Nazi Germany during World War II, and follows the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl whose Communist mother must give her up to foster parents. The narrator of this harrowing novel is Death, who collects souls from Holocaust victims, German soldiers, and civilians alike. “The Book Thief” explores the role of reading in Liesel’s life as she begins to understand war, grief, love, and suffering. Although the plot is compelling and the characters are heartbreakingly realistic, it is the rich prose in Death’s passages that truly elevates this text to the literary masterpiece it is known as today.

“The Short End of the Sonnenallee” by Thomas Brussig

“Beautiful memories in an ugly time.”

A street named Sonnenallee (Sun Avenue) is bisected by the Berlin Wall, and Micha Kuppisch is unfortunately on the shorter end, in East Germany. This story follows Micha’s adventures in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as he runs into trouble with German Democratic Republic officials, listens to illegal Rolling Stones albums, and falls in love with Miriam, a girl in his class. “The Short End of the Sonnenallee” has a lighthearted tone that belies the immense political significance of the Berlin Wall, which forms the backdrop for the bittersweet process of growing up, as love letters are swept away into the narrow “death strip” between East and West.

“Grimm’s Fairy Tales” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

“Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near.”

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were philologists who, in their quest to understand the history of the German language, created one of the most well-known collections of folklore and fairy stories in the world. “Cinderella” (“Aschenputtel”), “Snow White” (“Schneewittchen”), “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Frog Prince” (“Der Froschkönig”), among many other stories, were popularized by this 1812 publication. The Grimms’ methodology for collecting and recording folk stories forms the basis for modern fairy tale classifications like the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

This 1946 text was written by an Austrian psychologist who survived the Holocaust. The first half of “Man’s Search for Meaning” recounts Frankl’s experiences in the Nazi death camps, where he observed the varying ways inmates coped with the immense physical and psychological traumas inflicted upon them each day. Frankl writes about the meaning of sacrifice, the ability to choose one’s response amidst even the worst circumstances, and the ultimate human freedom to become whatever we will.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque

“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial — I believe we are lost.”

A novel about the ultimate destruction of innocence and the death of the old world, “All Quiet on the Western Front” has long been a staple of high school classrooms, but too few see beyond the SparkNotes summary to the true beauty and brutality of Remarque’s work. A veteran of the First World War himself, Remarque explores the extreme suffering of young men in the trenches, and the way they were unable to leave the battlefield behind and return to civilian life. His novel is a reflection on the lost generation, who watched the “bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades” replace everything they’d ever known, ushering in a new age that we all live in the shadow of today.

“Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse

“And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.”

This text, written in 1922 by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse, tells the story of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. Born to a prestigious Brahmin family, Siddhartha grows discontented with his life and leaves his family. A story exploring how language and communities confine humans into a narrow and unfulfilling existence, “Siddhartha” is a masterpiece that follows a single human life from inception to its conclusion.

“The Golden Pot” by E.T.A. Hoffmann

“I may be permitted, kind reader, to doubt whether you have ever been enclosed in a glass bottle, unless some vivid dream has teased you with such magical mishaps.”

E.T.A. Hoffmann, the author of “The Nutcracker,” regarded this 1814 text as his finest work. His fantastical prose truly encapsulates the wonder and dreamlike beauty of the German Romantic movement in the early 1800s, inspiring later pre-Raphaelite and modern fantasy movements. “The Golden Pot” follows the story of Anselmus, a student in Dresden, who works for the mysterious Archivarist Lindhorst. This tale is an otherworldly tour-de-force, referencing Atlantis, enchanted crystal bottles, and the Prince of the Spirits.

“The Völsunga Saga”

“And that same gold will be your death, as it will be the death of all who possess it.”

This 13th-century Icelandic saga inspired George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones,” J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” and Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. The story parallels real events occurring in Central Europe in the 5th century, when the Burgundians were under threat from the Huns. Variations of this legend moved further north over the centuries, through Denmark and Sweden, all the way to the skalds of Iceland. A legendary tale full of dragons, murder, family feuds, epic battles, witches, shapeshifters, and wolves, “The Saga of the Völsungs” is one of the most beautiful and horrific medieval sagas to survive to modern day.

“Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke

“She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

On a dark and stormy night, the daughter of a bookbinder sees a strange man in the rain outside her window. After running to tell her father, the bookbinder lets the man inside — and 12-year-old Maggie learns that her father’s beautiful voice can read book characters to life. This last tale speaks to the everlasting power of imagination; it’s the perfect book to read under warm blankets during a midnight rainstorm.

—Staff writer Laura B. Martens can be reached at laura.martens@thecrimson.com.