It is not uncommon for relationships, clothing, parties and enjoyment of life to occupy the thoughts of a 19-year-old ingenue. And Susanne "Sanna" Moder, the narrator of Irmgard Keun's After Midnight, loves such things. But Sanna is telling her love story in Frankfurt, Germany, in the 1930s with the politics of Hitler and Nazism permeating not only the country but even these aspects of individual life.
Although Keun's book, written and first published in 1937 after she fled Germany, is set in the course of less than 24 hours, the events of that day and Sanna's memories cast an indelible portrait of "ordinary" life at the time. It is a life where little is not affected by Nazism and politics.
Keun portrays Sanna as somewhat vacuous or at least generally ignorant of political details. When she hears speeches warning that those who impede the Nazi program will be smashed, her "heart stands still ... because how do I know I'm not one of the sort who are going to be smashed?" But she is clever. Despite admitting she admits she doesn't understand the nuances, she does know there are simply certain things you shouldn't talk about or do. Yet her observations, often unintentionally sardonic, help reveal life and society under Nazism. For example, when someone says Hitler united the whole German nation, Sanna thinks that's fine but "it's just that the people making up the whole German nation don't get on with each other."
Personal relationships certainly aren't exempt. Sanna and her girlfriend, Gerti, are interested in their love lives and the story's ultimate resolution revolves in large part around Sanna and the man she loves. But Gerti is in love with the son of a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman. As a result, Sanna observes, he "is a person of mixed race, first class or maybe third class — I can never get the hang of these labels." Regardless of the label, Nazi race laws make the relationship illegal and the two risk their freedom by seeing each other.
Likewise, when Sanna recalls being summoned to a Gestapo office, it appears a "place of pilgrimage. Mothers are informing on their daughters-in-law, daughters on their fathers-in-law, brothers on their sisters, sisters on their brothers, friends on their friends, drinking companions on their drinking companions, neighbours on their neighbours." There is also a less consistent stream of people looking for those who have "disappeared" but they "are not so well and kindly treated as the informers."
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