The Kindly Ones

Jonathan Littell
4.02
14,658 ratings 1,534 reviews
Named one of the "100 Best Books of the Decade" by The Times of London "Oh my human brothers, let me tell you how it happened." A former Nazi officer, Dr. Maximilien Aue has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. An intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music, he is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Eichmann, Himmler, Göring, Speer, Heydrich, Höss—even Hitler himself—play a role in Max's story. An intense and hallucinatory historical epic, The Kindly Ones is also a morally challenging read. It holds a mirror up to humanity—and the reader cannot look away.
Genres: FictionHistorical FictionWarWorld War IIFranceHolocaustHistoricalLiteratureNovelsGermany
984 Pages

Community Reviews:

5 star
6330 (43%)
4 star
4586 (31%)
3 star
2198 (15%)
2 star
858 (6%)
1 star
686 (5%)

Readers also enjoyed

Other books by Jonathan Littell

Lists with this book

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Hunger Games
The Kite Runner
Best Books of the 21st Century
9834 books21723 voters
The Hunger Games
Pride and Prejudice
To Kill a Mockingbird
Best Books Ever
74242 books275050 voters
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Hunger Games
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Best Books of the Decade: 2000s
7226 books28355 voters
The Book Thief
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five
World War II Fiction
1269 books1971 voters