In 1871, modern Germany was founded; in 1945, it collapsed in catastrophe. Between these two dates lies a human lifespan. If the period saw much extraordinary, terrible history, it also encompassed ordinary, messy humanity. It is the role of writers to evoke this experience for us, and few have done so as memorably as Gabriele Tergit, the pen name of the journalist and author Elise Hirschmann, in her multi-generational saga The Effingers. It is strange, therefore, that her masterly portrait of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie should have fallen into oblivion. First published in 1951 – and drafted during the war, while Hirschmann was exiled in London – the novel has long remained in the shadow of her better-known Käsebier Takes Berlin (1931). Republished in German in 2019, The Effingers has subsequently appeared in numerous languages, and has now been triumphantly translated into English by Sophie Duvernoy. 

The novel begins, in true realist fashion, at a specific time and place. The year is 1878, and the young brothers Paul and Karl Effinger leave the southern German provinces to seek their fortune in Berlin. The first of three generations, the siblings establish themselves as industrialists and factory owners,