Crabwalk Crabwalk , published in Germany in 2002 as Im Krebsgang , is a novel by Danzig - born German author Günter Grass . As in earlier works , Grass concerns himself with the effects of the past on the present ; he interweaves various strands and combines fact and fiction . While the murder of Wilhelm Gustloff by David Frankfurter and the sinking of the ship the " Wilhelm Gustloff " are real events , the fictional members of the Pokriefke family bring these events into our own time . Title . The title , " Crabwalk " , defined by Grass as " scuttling backward to move forward , " refers to both the necessary reference to various events , some occurring at the same time , the same events that would lead to the eventual disaster . Crabwalk might also imply a more abstract backward glance at history , in order to allow a people to move forward . The protagonist ' s awkward relationships with his mother and his estranged son , explored via the crabbed process of scouring the wreckage of history for therapeutic insight , lends appropriateness to the title . Plot summary . The narrator of the novella is the journalist Paul Pokriefke , who was born on 30 January 1945 on the day that the Strength Through Joy ship , the " Wilhelm Gustloff " , was sunk . His young mother - to - be , Tulla Pokriefke ( born in Danzig , and already known to readers from two parts of the " Danzig Trilogy " , " Cat and Mouse " and " Dog Years " ) , found herself among the more than 10 , 000 passengers on the ship and was among those saved when it went down . According to Tulla , Paul was born at the moment the ship sank , on board the torpedo boat which had rescued them . His life is heavily influenced by these circumstances , above all because his mother Tulla continually urges him to fulfill his ' duty ' and to commemorate the event in writing . In the course of his research , the narrator discovers by chance that his estranged son Konny has also developed an interest in the ship as a result of Tulla ' s influence . On his website ( ' blutzeuge . de ' ) he explores the murder of Gustloff and the sinking of the ship , in part through a dialogue in which he adopts the role of Gustloff , and that of David Frankfurter is taken by another young man , Wolfgang Stremplin . The two eventually meet in Schwerin , Konny ' s and Gustloff ' s hometown . Wolfgang , though not Jewish , projects a Jewish persona . He spits three times on the former memorial to Gustloff , thus desecrating it in Konny ' s eyes . Konny shoots him dead , mirroring the shooting of Gustloff by Frankfurter ; after the deed he hands himself in to the police and state that , " I shot because I am a German " ; Frankfurter had said , " I shot because I am a Jew " . The narrator is eventually forced to realise that his imprisoned son has himself become a new martyr , and is celebrated as such by neo - Nazis on the Internet . Characters . Konrad Pokriefke . Konrad ( known as " Konny " ) is the son of Paul Pokriefke and Gabi ; after his parents ' divorce , Konny is brought up by his left - wing mother and has little contact with his father . Highly intelligent , he is characterised as a ' loner ' by his parents . He has a very good relationship with Tulla , who tells him stories of the ship , and with whom he eventually goes to live . Via his website he forms a love - hate relationship with Wolfgang : divided by their political views , they are nevertheless connected by similar characters and a love for table - tennis . At his trial he claims that he has nothing against Jews themselves , but that he considers their presence among Aryan populations to be a ' foreign body ' ; his father considers that he has a ' slow - burning ' hatred for the Jews . Tulla Pokriefke . Tulla is short , thin , white - haired since the sinking of the ship , and attractive to men even into old age . Politically she is difficult to classify , except as an extremist : on the one hand she repeatedly praises the ' classless society ' of the Strength Through Joy ship and supports her grandson even after the murder ; on the other hand , she becomes a model functionary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in East Germany , weeping on the news of Joseph Stalin ' s death . Tulla speaks with a strong accent ( a form of Low German described by the narrator as ' Langfursch ' , after the part of Danzig she is from ) . She seeks at every opportunity to put the story of the ship into the public domain , because it was the subject of silence for so long . When her attempts to persuade her son to write about the disaster fail , she turns her attention instead to her grandson . She also supplies Konny with the weapon which he uses in the murder , after he is threatened by neo - Nazi skinheads . The old one . The mysterious figure of the old one stands between Grass and the narrator Paul . Belonging to the generation of those who fled west after the end of the war , he encourages Paul to write of the sinking as a substitute for his own failure to do so . The narrator refers to him as his " employer " or " boss " . The possibility of identifying him with Grass serves to prevent the equation of the narrator with the author .