Reunion by Fred Uhlman

“Either no God existed, or there did exist a deity who was monstrous if powerful and futile if powerless.” 

Reading a story in which history has not yet caught up with itself is particularly devastating, shaped by the quiet tension between what the characters can know and what the reader already does. Fred Uhlman’s Reunion is a quiet but daring novella about the loss of innocence in pre-war Germany, told through the intense and tender devotion between two adolescent boys who believe, briefly and sincerely, that friendship exists beyond politics.

Set in Stuttgart in 1932, the story follows Hans Schwarz, the Jewish son of a local doctor, and Konradin von Hohenfels, a young aristocrat from an influential family. Against the soft hills of Swabia, the boys form a bond rooted in literature, philosophy and a shared desire to understand their country and their place within it. Their conversations are intimate and idealistic, filled with poetry, questions of God, and faith in a Germany they believe to be fundamentally good. 

Uhlman resists simple narratives. There are no villains neatly drawn, only people shaped by fear, loyalty and social inheritance. The story serves as a reminder that history’s greatest horrors are often composed of small, personal betrayals and unspoken choices. Brief, lyrical and deeply moving, Reunion distils the vast tragedy of twentieth-century Europe into a single human connection, and asks what is lost when innocence collides with ideology.