Alexander Starritt, author of We Germans, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Fiction winner in 2021 and choice for DLPP’s Author Series, spent Wednesday morning, October 10th, talking to students at Tipp High School and answering their questions about his book. The visit was sponsored by the Tipp City Library, represented by Library Director Lisa Santucci, and Tippecanoe High School, represented by Principal Katherine Weaver. This event was made possible by support from the Tipp City Foundation. 

Starritt’s book We Germans is a fictional account of his grandfather being drafted into the German army in World War II. Long after the war, the grandfather writes a long letter to his grandson, explaining the horror and misery of war and his guilt and shame for participating in its atrocities. The letter is discovered after his death and presents to his grandson a series of questions concerning personal and collective morality and the contradictions of war.

In reality, Starritt’s grandfather, a kind and loving man, would say little about his participation in the war when Starritt’s family visited him in Germany during summer vacations. Thus, Starritt set the stage for a story that described some of the contradictions of war and its moral dilemmas.

Three Tippecanoe High School students, Audrey Kinninger, Allie Goff, and Eli Ramos, broadcasting on WYSO Dayton Youth Radio, began the morning by asking Starritt about his novel. One question was, “What inspired you to write the novel?” Starritt answered that he found it hard to reconcile the fact that his grandfather, who was a lovely man, who was very kind and good to me could have participated in the terrible things Germany did in the war.

Another student asked Starritt to name the one topic they’d discussed that he’d want to share with everyone. Starritt responded, “Seeing your country from the outside, particularly in war, was the subject of the book. You’re surrounded by people saying, ‘What we’re doing is right, we’ve got to win, we are the good guys here, others are dreadful, evil, terrible people.’” He said we should ask ourselves those questions no one wants to answer.

A final question was, “Is there a message you’d like to give to the youth about writing?” Starritt said if you want to be a writer, the two main things you must do are “Write a lot and read a lot. The whole thing is to write to an audience. The only way to get better is showing work to an audience that isn’t going to tell you that everything is wonderful.”  

Starritt then joined Jordan Conn, also a former Dayton Literary Peace Prize author, on the stage at the Center for Performing Arts with Tippecanoe and Minister High School students. Conn served as the moderator, asking Starritt questions and inviting students to ask some.

Conn began by summarizing the situation which Starritt’s grandfather had faced: he was never a Nazi, just a young man drafted into the German army. He was in league with those who carried out some of the most heinous crimes in human history, killing six million Jewish people. He was not a monster; in fact, a deeply devoted husband, so, “Sometimes evil is just doing your job?”

A student asked, “Why did you write this book?” Starritt responded, “It was not a book that I wanted to write, but a book I had to write. I had to answer the questions myself - How did these terrible things happen, not by sadists but by ordinary people.” Later, after more student questions, Starritt continued, “The answer I got to was that we think of good and evil as being absolute. Those are unchanging qualities. But history has shown us that’s not true. Once this country thought slavery was a good thing, but right and wrong is constructed by the society and culture you live in.” So, as society and culture evolve, so do most people’s values.

After the two Q&A sessions at the high school, Alexander Starritt, along with representatives from the school, library, Tipp Foundation, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and select students traveled to Chafee’s in downtown Tipp for lunch … and more conversation.