Kaffee und Zigaretten

A book about the atuthor - and about Germany

01.03.2019

How is that my first von Schirach? What have I been doing with my life?? I requested an ARC of the audiobook, mainly out of curiosity and because the fantastic Lars Eidinger narrates the texts, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed the book - clearly, I have been missing out so far. Ferdinand von Schirach stated that "Coffee and Cigarettes" is his most personal publication: In 48 vignettes - short stories, dialogues, observations, contemplations - he talks about his life and the things that occupy his mind (that the book shares its title with a movie by Jim Jarmusch is a coincidence, says the author, but it certainly is a peculiar one if you know that movie). In case you're now asking why in the world that should be interesting, you clearly don't know who this author is. Ferdinand von Schirach has worked as a criminal defense lawyer and published his first collection of short stories at age 45 - like most of his work, they were focusing on the question what crime and how we deal with it says about our society as a whole. In "Coffee and Cigarettes", von Schirach talks about the role his (in Germany well-known) family history played in his decision to become a lawyer in order to defend the rule of law: Born into old German nobility, his grandfather Baldur von Schirach was gauleiter under Hitler in Vienna and got convicted in the Nuremberg trials as one of the main war criminals. Ferdinand von Schirach's own father, an alcoholic, committed suicide, and his cousin was so ashamed by his family's Nazi past that he legally changed his last name and tried to prevent the public from knowing about his family - you might know this cousin as the writer Benedict Wells. In "Coffee and Cigarettes", Ferdinand von Schirach talks, among other things, about his father, his own suicide attempt, his depression, his time at a boarding school (which he attended with descendants of Speer, von Ribbentrop, and von Stauffenberg - so kids of Nazis and resistance fighters!), his first love who came from a family that was in the resistance, he mirrors himself in the works of Austrian Oscar winner Michael Haneke ("The White Ribbon") and a documentary about other famous lawyers, he meets Imre Kertész, and he meditates about transience and purpose. So yes, this is a personal book about the author, but it is also a book about Germany: Many Germans have ancestors who were in the NSDAP and/or contributed to WWII and the Holocaust in different capacities, and the question how to deal with that on a personal and a societal level is still very current. This book gives us the perspective of a man who chose to become a lawyer, and who has the gift to use clear, minimalist, laconic language to talk about big issues (even if some of them might appear small at first - until you have a closer look). A wonderful book, and Lars Eidinger does a brilliant job reading the audio version.