The Reader

“The pain I went through because of my love for Hanna was, in a way, the fate of my generation, a German fate.”

Part One

The novel opens with 15-year-old Michael Berg falling ill on his way home in post-WWII Germany. A kind woman, Hanna Schmitz, helps him. After recovering from hepatitis, Michael visits Hanna to thank her, and they begin an intense affair. Despite their 20-year age difference, Michael becomes deeply infatuated. Their relationship is marked by a routine where Michael reads aloud to Hanna before they make love. Over time, Michael notices Hanna’s volatile temper and mysterious absences, but he remains devoted.

One day, Hanna abruptly disappears without explanation. Michael is heartbroken but moves on with his life, studying law. Years later, while observing a war crimes trial as a law student, he is shocked to see Hanna among the defendants. She is accused of being a Nazi SS guard at Auschwitz and later at a satellite camp where hundreds of Jewish women died in a locked church during a fire.

Part Two

During the trial, Michael realizes Hanna is illiterate, which explains her dependence on him reading to her. He understands that her shame about her illiteracy led her to make choices—like taking a job as a guard—that concealed her secret. The other defendants shift blame onto Hanna, presenting a document she supposedly wrote. Unable to read it, she accepts responsibility rather than admit her illiteracy. She is sentenced to life in prison while others receive lighter sentences.

Struggling with guilt over whether to reveal her secret, Michael remains silent. He begins recording books on tape and sending them to Hanna in prison. Over the years, she teaches herself to read and write using these tapes. Eventually, she corresponds with Michael, expressing remorse for her crimes.

Part Three

After 18 years, Hanna is about to be released. Michael, now divorced and emotionally distant, visits her in prison. He arranges a job and housing for her, but Hanna, overwhelmed by guilt and the changing world, hangs herself the day before her release. Michael is left to handle her final wishes, including donating her savings to a Jewish literacy organization.

Years later, Michael reflects on his relationship with Hanna, the moral complexities of her actions, and his own complicity in silence. The novel ends with him visiting Hanna’s grave, still haunted by unresolved questions of guilt, love, and responsibility.

Key Ideas

• The burden of guilt in post-war Germany
• Illiteracy as both personal shame and moral blindness
• The power of literature to reveal and conceal truth
• Generational trauma and unresolved historical responsibility
• The complexity of loving someone complicit in atrocities