"History is what it is, but it is also what we make of it. What we call history" is not a thing, an object of study, but a story we choose to tell about things. Thus all history writing requires a fictive or imaginary representation of the past"." Richard Slotkin.
Gunter Grass, in his novel "Crabwalk", rewrites, revises and revisits the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. Grass chooses an indirect, but subtle way, to communicate the real essence of Nazi Germany through, persons, places, objects and symbols. In fact, the plot, setting and characters in the novel combine to generate the whole process of historical revisionism. .
In "Crabwalk", Grass has presented history as a kaleidoscope creating different patterns from every view. The historical event of the sinking of The Gustloff becomes a prism through which the attitudes of three generations of Germans are refracted thus revising history differently. History is revived in the novel through different sources including memoirs, internet, blogs, chat rooms and objects like the Wilhelm Gustloff ship. A desire to rewrite history, leads the characters in "Crabwalk" towards negationism ". .
"Crabwalk" is essentially a historical novel in which Grass employees the sinking of The Gustloff, to reveal the history of Nazi Germany and attempts of its second generation to forget it. In this novel Grass makes his readers as well as characters go through a process of self evaluation. Thus the historical event of the sinking of the ship becomes a minor incident in comparison to the hatred and racial prejudice which had been affecting Germans, Russian and Jews on a larger level. In Lus words "What matters therefore in the historical novel is not the retelling of great historical events, but the poetic awakening of the people who figured in those events" (42). This poetic awakening in "Crabwalk" is achieved through revisiting history in order to rewrite and revise it.
