Crabwalk - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The narrator of the novella is the journalist Paul Pokriefke, who was born on 30 January 1945 on the day that the Strength Through Joy ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, was sunk. His young mother-to-be, Tulla Pokriefke (born in Danzig, and already known to readers from two parts of the Danzig Trilogy, Cat and Mouse and Dog Years), found herself among the more than 10,000 passengers on the ship and was among those saved when it went down. According to Tulla, Paul was born at the moment the ship sank, on board the torpedo boat which had rescued them. His life is heavily influenced by these circumstances, above all because his mother Tulla continually urges him to fulfill his 'duty' and to commemorate the event in writing.

In the course of his research, the narrator discovers by chance that his estranged son Konny has also developed an interest in the ship as a result of Tulla's influence. On his website ('blutzeuge.de') he explores the murder of Gustloff and the sinking of the ship, in part through a dialogue in which he adopts the role of Gustloff, and that of David Frankfurter is taken by another young man, Wolfgang Stremplin.

The two eventually meet in Schwerin, Konny's and Gustloff's hometown. Wolfgang, though not Jewish, projects a Jewish persona. He spits three times on the former memorial to Gustloff, thus desecrating it in Konny's eyes. Konny shoots him dead, mirroring the shooting of Gustloff by Frankfurter; after the deed he hands himself in to the police and state that, "I shot because I am a German"; Frankfurter had said, "I shot because I am a Jew".

The narrator is eventually forced to realise that his imprisoned son has himself become a new martyr, and is celebrated as such by neo-Nazis on the Internet.