Kurt Vonnegut Dead at Age 84

His wife, Jill Krementz confirmed that Mr. Vonnegut died as the result of irreversible brain injuries stemming from a fall several weeks ago.

Born in Indiana, yet living in Germany, Kurt Vonnegut lived through the firebombing of Dresden, Germany by the Allied forces in 1945 while he was a young prisoner of war. Many of his writings address or were clearly shaped by those events.
Vonnegut wrote, “The firebombing of Dresden, was a work of art”. “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”

As an avid reader of Vonnegut’s work, I understand him to be a man of empathy and compassion, that despised Hitler and all that the Nazi’s represented. However at the same time he watched in horror as Thousands of his neighbors were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death.

He came to understand and write about how in war it is the Innocents that pay the price for the greed and obsessions of the leaders. A lesson as relevant today in Iraq and Iran as was in the 40s in Germany.

Good by Mr. Vonnegut, You will be missed.

So it goes.
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