Point of View

Friedrich is told the past tense by an unnamed narrator who is born a week after the protagonist and is his constant companion for sixteen years. He narrates memories from boyhood and adolescence in days of economic depression and recovery, and the grown of political and racial fanaticism. In each scene he writes in the moment rather than as a memoir, recreating the emotions, psyche, and intellectual development appropriate to the age. He tells stories that illustrate the gradual evolution of the Nazi state and its segregation, degradation, and depravation of the Jews. The narrator does not attempt to conceal his own intellectual or moral shortcomings, or his admiration for what he sees of Jewish life, or his enthusiasm for the trappings of Nazism. The narrator seems always to find himself caught up in something and hard-pressed to sort it out.

Setting

Friedrich is set in...