Spring

It starts with 39 seconds that signal the end – the end of a life. Two brothers, Robert and Christian Rauch, begin to understand what happened in the past. A man suddenly appears in front of the family terrace: “Roll call, Doctor, roll call!” His shout reawakens their father’s past as a doctor in Dachau, leading to a trial that ends only years later. In awe-inspiring language and with unparalleled compactness, Thomas Lehr analyses a story with distressing events: “The momentous topics of the past century take on a new, unexpected form in this novella, and suddenly reappear with dazzling significance,” wrote reviewer Helmut Böttiger in Die Zeit. After the success of his masterful novel Schlafende Sonne (Sleeping Sun), Spring has at last been reissued.