The biggest mistake Germany made during reunification is that one side was the victor, while the other was the defeated, according to a prominent German writer and thinker.

German novelist Bernhard Schlink, the writer of the award-winning 1995 novel “The Reader” and many other works that shed light on the theme of the past, guilt and postwar generation of Germany, says if he could give advice on Korean reunification, it would be to respect each other.

“You two (North and South Korea) will be the victors,” the author told reporters in Seoul on Thursday, during a weeklong visit here to receive this year’s Park Kyung-ni Literary Prize. 

“We (West Germany) didn’t respect them (East Germany) enough,” the author said. “We didn’t respect their world in which they found their pride, their joy, their self-esteem.

“What we didn’t do then has come back as resentment.”

The two sides are growing together, the author said.

“(But) growth could have happened faster if we had been more respectful of their experiences.”

Schlink, however, stated that the division of Korea was very different from that of Germany.

“I carefully realize what a merciful fate of conversion Germany had in the 1990s when the country was reunified,” he said. “The links (prior to the reunification) were never cut off between East and West Germany. Millions in the west would go to the east, and vice versa, and they will often meet in other countries like Romania and Hungary.”

The brutality with which the two Koreas are kept apart is much harsher than anything Germany experienced, he said.

Also he noted that it is more difficult to deal with the past when the problem is within yourself, referring to the divided status of Korea.

“There are no distinct others who caused this. The victim and perpetrator are hard to distinguish,” he said

It is for this reason that the author referred to the Korean War as a civil war, as people are still living with the consequences of the war.

Schlink, 70, was selected as this year’s recipient of the prize for addressing the issue of how current generations should deal with those who were involved in past atrocities, according to the organizer, the Toji Foundation of Culture.

“I don’t write about the Holocaust, I don’t write about World War II. I write about my generation, which is affected by our parents’ generation that was involved.”

“Sometimes they can be our beloved fathers, uncles, pastors or teachers, who we owe our intellectual development to. Nice people like them were involved in something awful,” says Schlink. “The question is, how does one cope with that?”

The annual award was established in 2011 to honor the late novelist Park Kyung-ni, a major figure in Korean literature known for her multivolume novel “Toji (The Land).”

The first recipient was the Korean novelist Choi In-hoon, author of “The Plaza,” followed by Russian novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya, author of “Daniel Stein, Interpreter,” and U.S. novelist Marilynne Robinson, author of “Housekeeping,” in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

This year’s awards ceremony will be held Saturday at the Toji Foundation of Culture in Wonju, Gangwon Province.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)