All The Light We Cannot See Sparknotes

In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the tragedy of World War II is exposed and seen through the eyes of the guilty men who aided in its vengeful mission. Nazism flourished, as it let the masses of Germany believe in their own self-importance again. Their dreams were revived. Adolf Hitler exploited this weakness by fabricating an opulent future for those whose lives had been ravaged by the Treaty of Versailles. One man with one idea lifted up an entire country, but he did not want or care for their hope. He yearned only to harness their aspirations and manipulate them into anger and hatred, which fueled his campaign against what he condemned as chaos. To many, the Nazi doctrine promised the fulfillment of desires and an escape from destitution; this fraudulent vision was exposed during World War II, in the personages
First, Sergeant Major Reinhold von Rumpel, an Aryan jeweler in Europe, was recruited by the autocratic regime to identify treasures pilfered from capitulated countries. Initially, von Rumpel’s duties excited him and he was proud to be a gemologist for the institution of the Führer Museum. The war had given him opportunities to handle “things he did not dream he would see in six lifetimes”, like “a seventeenth century globe…with rubies to mark volcanoes, sapphires clustered at the poles, and diamonds for world capitals” (142). The eager sergeant’s wishes became reality, but he would soon come to grasp under the pressure of his poor health, the emptiness of his life. The turning point in von Rumpel’s attitude toward his career involved the progression of his lymphoma and groin cancer,