Benjamin Quaderer
Data Theft in the Dwarf State

Did anyone before Benjamin Quaderer write a Liechtenstein novel? I doubt it. But there are plenty of stories to tell about the tranquil principality with its secret dirty money stash. In this case, the storyteller is a con man, data thief, and public enemy number one.

By Marit Borcherding

© Luchterhand In the trade journal Buchreport, Benjamin Quaderer conveniently summarises his 585-page debut Für immer die Alpen (Forever the Alps) in three sentences: “A man from the Principality of Liechtenstein steals customer data from the largest domestic bank and sells it to Germany’s intelligence agency. This draws the small state into a tax scandal of unprecedented magnitude and the data thief into a witness protection programme. From there he picks up a pen and paper to write why he did what he did.”

So far so compact, and close to real life. The real-life role model for Quaderer’s protagonist Johann Kaiser is Heinrich Kieber, whose not-quite-legal handling of customer data from the LGT Bank in Liechtenstein in 2008 actually triggered a huge tax scandal in Germany.

RAPID-FIRE TRUE CONFESSION

It’s been a while since it all happened and Kieber wrote a book about his own story at the time. But Quaderer has written a novel that is so complex, entertaining, at times poignant and also contemporary that one can only congratulate the Liechtenstein native on his literary use of the otherwise rarely seen subject of tax evasion.

As befits a true confession, it all begins with Johann Kaiser’s childhood, which was unhappy. His sisters hate him, his mother leaves the family – he will always search for her. Princess Gina, the epitome of benevolent mother of the nation, holds her protective hand over him until her widely mourned death, as does a gnarled mountaineer, modelled after Heinrich Harrer. The personification of evil, on the other hand, is the children’s home director who torments little Johann whenever she can. He therefore steals his best friend’s moped and heads to Barcelona, hoping to find his “Mamá” there.

By now at the latest and because of his early tale of tragedy, we’ve grown fond of the main character and remain fond of him even when Johann, getting more streetwise, later uses trickery and tall tales about his upbringing and status at his elite boarding school. For one, he lies about being a descendant of Liechtenstein’s Hilti power tool dynasty. Thanks to a used, upscale polo shirt and his endearing manner, he convinces an industrial family of his supposedly well-situated family background. He will later fleece them properly in a real estate transaction.

A few chapters later on, what at first seemed like a fun con artist story turns, in another genre switch, into a brutal kidnapping story that’s simply made for the movies. Johann escapes his tormentors, but since the Prince of Liechtenstein refuses to punish them, it comes to the abovementioned big tax data showdown.

I WRITE THEREFORE I AM

Can we trust this narrator who alternates between despair, delusions of grandeur, driving ambition, and brazen cleverness? Kaiser the trickster counters any doubts about his honesty with solid footnotes, quoting extensively from a variety of sources, blacked-out passages suggest the intervention of authorities, and there are red-offset pages devoted to a psychologist. It all doesn’t really make him more graspable: As much as the eponymous Alps suggest ageless solidity and immovability, Johann Kaiser cannot be pinned down and categorised. This is also true for his manoeuvres in the prevailing capitalist economic and social system of data, (illegal) money, virtual numbers and characters. All of it may not be “there,” but should one domino topple amid these acrobatics, entire economies can be affected or even collapse.

Kaiser, constantly on the run, disguised as an obscure ordinary citizen, knows that his “true” identity, his told story, is also constituted by our participation, which makes him dependent on it. This explains his final plea, “That would be best of all: If you would never stop reading. I know I can’t ask you to do that. But, I’d like to remind you once again that I’ll only exist as long as you keep telling my story.” But before the reader shuts the book with a sigh over the fleetingness of human life, Johann Kaiser brings us back to the depths of everyday life with a pointed, “Don’t forget to pay your taxes.”