First published in 1956 in German, and published only in 2003 in English, Payback is a graphic depiction of the bombing of an unnamed German city during World War Two (WWII). Its author, Gert Ledig, wrote three books, two dealing with events in that war, and a third that looks at the aftermath. Hailed at first as a great writer for his first novel, Die Stalinorgel (The Stalin Organ), which revealed his experiences on the Russian front, he was vilified for Vergeltung, translated now as Payback, because the German public was unwilling or unready to deal with what he had to say in this book.

Television has brought the effects of war closer to us then to previous generations. Their only knowledge of war was through newspaper or radio reports, word of mouth, a few books, or personal experience, the latter usually left unrevealed to outsiders. It left most people quite unaware of what the effects of war are on the warriors, and on civilians caught in the middle of warring parties.

Now we see daily the horrendous cruelty of which men and women are capable toward fellow humans they consider expandable because they are not of their beliefs, their ethnic or racial background, or political persuasion. In every part of the world there is war or something close to it. Hate toward or of those not considered the right kind seems more pervasive now then ever before. It is television that brings this to us. Human nature, however has surely always been capable of horrendous acts. The events in Iraq, in the Sudan, in Palestine or Israel, to mention only a few hot spots of conflict, are realities that we see, yet seem to be unable to really comprehend. Yet they are not new, but millennia old.

When the WWII ended and the United Nations were founded, there seemed hope for a moment that war would be eradicated. The Cold War came along and affirmed this hope to be a naive assumption. Korea, Vietnam, and various African conflicts soon confirmed that war is part of the natural cycle of human behaviour, however sad and however futile it all ends up to be in the final analysis.

Ledig obviously had little sympathy for or belief in the goodness of human nature. His book is a chilling account of the inner beast in all of us. He has no sympathy for victimhood. What he witnessed as a soldier, and as a civilian caught in a bombing raid, made him realize that victims soon turn into aggressors. He, thereby, confirmed what has puzzled psychiatrists for a long time, and to which an answer has eluded them so far: "Why is it that many, perhaps most, victims in later life turn into victimizers?"

Ledig tells his story in vignettes. Although it covers a mere 69 minutes in the life of this city, he gives us a glimpse of every aspect of life below and above the surface of this place. It could be Munich, where he lived after he was returned to civilian life because of injuries received at the Russian front, or Hamburg, Berlin or Vienna. The latter three each contained the stories-high flak towers (anti-aircraft gun towers) that he describes, and which also served as shelters for thousands of civilians. In the end they turned into horrific tombs for those who sought shelter in them. Munich, where Ledig lived, had no such towers.

Payback is graphic in its depiction of what happens when humans are subjected to relentless bombing. It is, of course, fiction, but it has a ring of truth to it. What repels the reader is Ledig's way of communicating what he may have witnessed or overheard. It is excessive in its detailed description, voyeuristic in nature, and highly emotionally charged; it is also, paradoxically, cold, calculating, and merciless.

Stylistically, Ledig's language is clear, uncluttered, and has a sharp edge to it that cuts right to the bone of the subject. For a German, his sentences are unusually short. The author takes no sides, and he allows no space for redemption.

Although the German critics and public responded very negatively to his work when first published in 1956, to this reader, he wrote a very German novel. It reminds me of Käthe Kollwitz's art: relentlessly sad, morbid, hopeless, graphically merciless, revealing the ugliness of human nature, but seldom its goodness, and in many cases is pared down to the bare essentials. The only difference between the two artists is that Kollwitz dwelled on the victims, while Ledig allowed no such identification. His characters are all good and evil in one, victims and executioners alike.

In 1999, shortly after Ledig died, Payback was republished in Germany. He was aware of the forthcoming publication. After years of neglect, most of them spent living in England, he had suddenly been rediscovered, following a lecture in Zürich by the German writer W.G. Sebald. Not that the late Sebald, who died in a car crash in England at age 57 in late 2001, had actually known about Ledig. He had left Germany at age 21 and became a tenured professor at the University of East Anglia, and lived in Norwich, quite unaware of another German writer living somewhere in England, who had been as interested in the bombing of German cities as he had been. Sebald's lecture, inadvertently, sparked a new phase in German history. Having scolded his fellow Germans for hiding the past, for deliberately forgetting, he inspired a new wave of "remembering", which has taken a tone, however, that he had not anticipated, nor wished for.

Germans have embraced Ledig's book and other tomes, such as the historian Jörg Friedrich's exceedingly bad history, Der Brand (The Burn), which has not yet been translated into English. Ledig would most certainly be horrified that his book has been taken as proof that Germans are the victims in WWII. Friedrich, although he does not say so directly, uses language that accuses the Allies, in particular the British, of being war criminals. But, more of Der Brand in another review. Let it suffice that Payback has touched the wrong nerve of today's Germans.

Hiding from the past, refusing to teach it in schools, leaving the historic context out of the events that led to the bombings of German cities, they now see everything in the context of victimization. Payback has its place in literature because it does open up an unpleasant past. It also has a place in literature because Ledig's writing style is so unusual. In some ways, one can say his style anticipated the more unsavory elements of today's movies, in which nothing is hidden, nothing is left to the imagination, and artless realism prevails.

Poet and translator Michael Hofmann wrote an excellent introduction to Payback, giving some of the background that led to Ledig's way of writing, his political attitudes, and his style. He speaks of Ledig writing a kind of comedy of errors, a book that deliberately shades into comedy because of is gruesomeness. One cannot quite agree with him on this point. If it is seen as comedy, it is beyond black comedy, it is really a grotesque that defies genre description of any kind.

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