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Am Beispiel meines Bruders: Deutsche Lektüre für das 3. und 4. Lernjahr
In der Familie Timm ist der lteste Sohn Karl-Heinz etwas ganz besonderes. Immer wieder wird von ihm erzhlt. Es gibt viele Fotos von ihm und sein Tagebuch wird jahrelang aufgehoben. Sein frher Tod liegt wie ein Schatten auf der ganzen Familie. Wer war der Bruder Was hat er im Krieg erlebt Warum war er freiwillig bei der SS gewesen In diesem Buch wird der Weg einer Familie im Deutschland der Nachkriegszeit erzhlt. Und man merkt immer wieder, dass einer fehlt : Der Bruder.
- GenresNonfiction
Paperback
Published February 9, 2015
About the author
Uwe Timm
88 books115 followersUwe Timm was the youngest son in his family. His brother, 16 years his senior, was a soldier in the Waffen SS and died in Ukraine in 1943. Decades later, Uwe Timm approached his relationship with his father and brother in the critically acclaimed novel In my brother's shadow.
After working as a furrier, Timm studied Philosophy and German in Munich and Paris, achieving a PhD in German literature in 1971 with his thesis: The Problem of Absurdity in the Works of Albert Camus. During his studies, Timm was engaged in leftist activities of the 1960s. He became a member of the Socialist German Student Union and was associated with Benno Ohnesorg. From 1973 to 1981 he was a member of the German Communist Party. Three times Timm has been called as a writer-in-residence to several universities in English-speaking countries: in 1981 to the University of Warwick, in 1994 to Swansea and in 1997 to the Washington University in St. Louis. He has also been a lecturer at universities in Paderborn, Darmstadt, Lüneburg and Frankfurt.
Timm started publishing in the early 1970s and became known to a larger audience in Germany after one of his children's books, Rennschwein Rudi Rüssel, was turned into a movie. Today he is one of the most successful contemporary authors in Germany. His books Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (The Invention of Curried Sausage) and Am Beispiels meines Bruders (In my brother's shadow) can both be found on the syllabi of German schools. His readers usually appreciate Timm's writing style, which he himself calls "die Ästhetik des Alltags" ("the aesthetics of everyday life"). Timm imitates everyday storytelling by using everyday vocabulary and simple sentences and generally tries to imitate the way stories are orally told. His works often indirectly link with each other by taking up minor characters from one story and making this character the main character of another work. For example, a minor character like Frau Brücker from Johannisnacht is taken up as a main character in his book Die Entdeckung der Currywurst. Timm's works also tend to have autobiographical features and often deal with the German past or are set in the German past.
After working as a furrier, Timm studied Philosophy and German in Munich and Paris, achieving a PhD in German literature in 1971 with his thesis: The Problem of Absurdity in the Works of Albert Camus. During his studies, Timm was engaged in leftist activities of the 1960s. He became a member of the Socialist German Student Union and was associated with Benno Ohnesorg. From 1973 to 1981 he was a member of the German Communist Party. Three times Timm has been called as a writer-in-residence to several universities in English-speaking countries: in 1981 to the University of Warwick, in 1994 to Swansea and in 1997 to the Washington University in St. Louis. He has also been a lecturer at universities in Paderborn, Darmstadt, Lüneburg and Frankfurt.
Timm started publishing in the early 1970s and became known to a larger audience in Germany after one of his children's books, Rennschwein Rudi Rüssel, was turned into a movie. Today he is one of the most successful contemporary authors in Germany. His books Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (The Invention of Curried Sausage) and Am Beispiels meines Bruders (In my brother's shadow) can both be found on the syllabi of German schools. His readers usually appreciate Timm's writing style, which he himself calls "die Ästhetik des Alltags" ("the aesthetics of everyday life"). Timm imitates everyday storytelling by using everyday vocabulary and simple sentences and generally tries to imitate the way stories are orally told. His works often indirectly link with each other by taking up minor characters from one story and making this character the main character of another work. For example, a minor character like Frau Brücker from Johannisnacht is taken up as a main character in his book Die Entdeckung der Currywurst. Timm's works also tend to have autobiographical features and often deal with the German past or are set in the German past.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 4, 2020
Uwe Timm is a maven of engaging and enlightening fiction about the GERMAN EXPERIENCE in the 20th century and especially the Hitler years and their long aftermath. 15 years after its appearance, it is still a FRESH TAKE ON VERGANGENHEITSBEWÄLTIGUNG - coping with the past. THIS BOOK is available in English In My Brother's Shadow: A Life and Death in the SSand sheds so much light upon Timm's "Entdeckung der Currywurst" The Invention of Curried Sausage), his bestselling novella which heavily draws upon his own and his family's experience - as shown implicitly by THIS BOOK, rendering the novella so uniquely authentic despite its functionality the reference to which is "woven" into at least the framework story. What yarn it is, really!
Why am I reviewing this (in your place, probably) rare German-language edition? I never had the English editions in my hands. And the libertine title translations are putting me off.
"Exemplarily my Brother", as the title of THIS BOOK might better be translated, is as personal as the title promises but laconic enough to avoid any hints of self-pity in the face of Timm's brother being first severely maimed in combat on the Eastern Front in 1943 and then dying, not without writing to the family about his condition after double amputation and - hope of home-coming. It's heart-wrenching thinking about the chap himself and his parents receiving his letters.
Intimacy comes down to describing touching Timm's mother's hands, cheeks and neck when he arrived two hours too late at her deathbed. Juxtaposed is the void of the brother's life and death: TImm remembering just one encounter with him when he himself was only three years old and not his face. Of what he died exactly no answer is returned to the family, and neither the widowed mother nor later Timm himself make it to his grave.
THIS BOOK is a book of mourning, after the death of both parents and both siblings within the span of 50 odd years, it s about Timm's peculiar, not so untypical German pre- and post-war family, devoting only about one quarter of the text to the brother alone. His death was the one single tragic event especially in his father's life with his nationalistic leanings. Sacrifice to the Fatherland. After the war, short-lived success in business and social circles the father (sic! not just "Dad"-"Papa" which fits my times - I'm born 31 years later than Timm) falls far behind competitors in his trade, furrier, which he never had professionally learned and did not excel in, in contrast to Timm himself - and unable to meet payment deadlines, starts to drink and succumbs to heart failure before his 60th birthday. For Timm, a shock and a liberation. He confesses on the second-to-last page : "To this day, I try to fulfill his wishes" (my translation). This is so personal, and so typically German, it reprensents those many family dramas.
Why am I reviewing this (in your place, probably) rare German-language edition? I never had the English editions in my hands. And the libertine title translations are putting me off.
"Exemplarily my Brother", as the title of THIS BOOK might better be translated, is as personal as the title promises but laconic enough to avoid any hints of self-pity in the face of Timm's brother being first severely maimed in combat on the Eastern Front in 1943 and then dying, not without writing to the family about his condition after double amputation and - hope of home-coming. It's heart-wrenching thinking about the chap himself and his parents receiving his letters.
Intimacy comes down to describing touching Timm's mother's hands, cheeks and neck when he arrived two hours too late at her deathbed. Juxtaposed is the void of the brother's life and death: TImm remembering just one encounter with him when he himself was only three years old and not his face. Of what he died exactly no answer is returned to the family, and neither the widowed mother nor later Timm himself make it to his grave.
THIS BOOK is a book of mourning, after the death of both parents and both siblings within the span of 50 odd years, it s about Timm's peculiar, not so untypical German pre- and post-war family, devoting only about one quarter of the text to the brother alone. His death was the one single tragic event especially in his father's life with his nationalistic leanings. Sacrifice to the Fatherland. After the war, short-lived success in business and social circles the father (sic! not just "Dad"-"Papa" which fits my times - I'm born 31 years later than Timm) falls far behind competitors in his trade, furrier, which he never had professionally learned and did not excel in, in contrast to Timm himself - and unable to meet payment deadlines, starts to drink and succumbs to heart failure before his 60th birthday. For Timm, a shock and a liberation. He confesses on the second-to-last page : "To this day, I try to fulfill his wishes" (my translation). This is so personal, and so typically German, it reprensents those many family dramas.
June 4, 2026
A difficult read, not because of the German, although I had to check quite a few words, but because of the content, which honestly slowed me down.
The story follows the author and his family during the war and right after, with the ghost of his older brother connecting it all through his diary. Both the Father and the Brother were soldiers in WW2, the Brother a SS soldiers by his own choice. Even though he doesn't explicitly say it in the diary, for obvious reasons, I do not think he was that convinced after a while. He proba ly regretted it but couldn't come back. It's hinted, I think, also in some pieces of letters that the brother sent to the mother and that the author shares.
It showed, I think, quite well, how certain situations can somehow destroy a family or it's single members, and how some things were just not spoken about.
It was quite challenging to read, especially right now, but I liked the writing and I hope one day to read the full book instead of a shortened and "made easier" read.
The story follows the author and his family during the war and right after, with the ghost of his older brother connecting it all through his diary. Both the Father and the Brother were soldiers in WW2, the Brother a SS soldiers by his own choice. Even though he doesn't explicitly say it in the diary, for obvious reasons, I do not think he was that convinced after a while. He proba ly regretted it but couldn't come back. It's hinted, I think, also in some pieces of letters that the brother sent to the mother and that the author shares.
It showed, I think, quite well, how certain situations can somehow destroy a family or it's single members, and how some things were just not spoken about.
It was quite challenging to read, especially right now, but I liked the writing and I hope one day to read the full book instead of a shortened and "made easier" read.
August 21, 2025
The story of a ww2 german soldier, mentions several places topical once more because of Russia's invasion of ukraine. History repeating itself in rhymes, or rather without rhyme or reason.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews