In the crab

Im Krebsgang is a novel by Günter Grass published in 2002 . As in earlier works, Grass deals in great detail with the effect of the past on the present and with how it is processed. In this text he interweaves different storylines and thereby links reality and fiction . While the murder of Wilhelm Gustloff by David Frankfurter and the sinking of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff are real events, the fictional members of the Pokriefke family transfer the sinking to the present day.

action

Relationships of the characters in the work

First-person narrator of the novel is the journalist Paul Pokriefke, that of January 30, 1945 the day of the sinking Strength through joy -Schiffes Wilhelm Gustloff was born by a Soviet submarine. His still very young mother-to-be, Tulla Pokriefke, born in Danzig , was among the more than 10,000 passengers and was saved when the ship went down. Immediately after the rescue, Paul is born on board the torpedo boat "Löwe" that accompanied the Gustloff. His father is unknown even to his mother. Paul's life is shaped by these circumstances, especially because his mother Tulla urges him again and again that it is “his duty” to deal with the misfortune in writing.

In the course of his life, Paul begins to do research in order to come to terms with what happened, and he comes across an interesting website, www.blutzeuge.de. The narrator later notes that his separated son Konny has also developed an interest in the history of the ship through Tulla's influence and that he is the one who started the website. Paul has a rather distant relationship with Konny, as his former wife Gabi left him with their son after the divorce and has estranged Konny from his father. Konny is more and more enthusiastic about the sinking of the ship as well as the story of the namesake. He records these events on his website and virtually takes on the role of Wilhelm Gustloff , an NSDAP functionary who was shot by the Jewish student David Frankfurter and then hyped up as a martyr (“ martyr of the movement”) by the National Socialists . Konny is anonymous in this virtual world and can exchange ideas with other chatters such as Wolfgang Stremplin on the Gustloff topic, with Wolfgang taking on the role of the real David Frankfurter. Konny even takes the pseudonym "Wilhelm" on the Internet, while Wolfgang Stremplin uses the name "David".

An "enemy friendship" develops between the two young men, which ends in a personal meeting. Wolfgang, who took on the role of the Jew David Frankfurter, allows his love for Judaism to be reflected in himself by pretending to be a real Jew in the chat. At the meeting, in Konrad's eyes, Wolfgang desecrated Gustloff's former memorial by spitting three times, which is why Konny, who at the end of the novella had become right-wing extremist with no sense of reality, - like Gustloff from Frankfurt - with four shots from a pistol that his grandmother Tulla shot had given him kills. Konny turns himself in to the police with the words "I shot because I am German". This reflects what happened in the past: After the real David Frankfurt had shot Wilhelm Gustloff, he posed with the words “I shot because I am Jewish”.

The first-person narrator is horrified to discover that his imprisoned son is now being celebrated on the Internet as the new “martyr”, that is, as a fascist martyr image.

people

Konrad Pokriefke

Konrad (also called "Konny") is the son of Paul Pokriefke, with whom he has little contact due to the divorce of his parents, and Gabi, who brings him up anti-authoritarian. “He is a typical loner, difficult to socialize.” He is also very intelligent, which is shown by the fact that he passed his Abitur in prison with an average of 1.6. He has a very good relationship with Tulla, who tells him many stories about Wilhelm Gustloff, which is why he developed a neo-Nazi attitude and launched the website www.blutzeuge.de. There he spreads his views on the history of Gustloff and meets Wolfgang Stremplin, with whom he engages in heated verbal battles, but nevertheless develops a kind of love-hate relationship through his predilection for table tennis and a similar character image. He also represents the characteristics that are regarded as “typically German”, such as loyalty to principles, order, diligence and willingness to help.

Tulla (Ursula) Pokriefke

The mother of the storyteller Paul Pokriefke was born in Gdansk in 1927 as the daughter of August and Erna Pokriefke. Tulla is one of the few survivors of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff (KdF ship) on January 30, 1945. Shortly after the rescue, on the torpedo boat “Löwe”, she gives birth to her son Paul. At the age of 21 she successfully completed her apprenticeship as a carpenter and subsequently Ursula heads the carpentry brigade as an SED member. She does not manage to convince her son, with whom Tulla has a very tense relationship (quote: "The witch with fox fur around her neck."), To write a book about the events of the misfortune so that it is not forgotten device. Since Ursula approaches the matter very single-mindedly and tenaciously, she is now trying to take this task to her grandson Konrad (quote: “But when I couldn't get a spark and just lost time, she began - as soon as the wall was gone - mine To knead son. "). The white-haired old lady with the fox around her neck is a figure in the novel that is difficult to classify politically.

The figure of Tulla Pokriefke already appears as an important marginal figure in the works Dog Years and Katz und Maus . Their appearance in the present work follows seamlessly. Plot lines from both works, such as the death of the deaf and mute little brother Konrad, are woven in here and characters such as Jenny Brunnies, Eddie Amsel, Harry Liebenau and Walter Matern from the Danzig trilogy are mentioned. Jenny Brunnies is the foster mother of the first-person narrator Paul. Harry Liebenau and Walter Matern are considered his possible fathers.

The figure of the old man

The old man is placed as a further figure between Grass and the narrator Paul Pokriefke; he knows more than the narrator and puts pressure on him in a hierarchical relationship. The narrator calls him an “employer” or “boss”, the one who repeatedly urges him to write the story. Grass sees himself in this figure. A clear reference to this is shown in Chapter 4: The "old man" is described by Paul Pokriefke as someone who is very attached to Gdansk (Grass's birthplace), has never gotten around to writing such an escape story in recent years, and who wrote the "Tome Dog Years". Paul's client, one of his previous lecturers, thus bears the author's autobiographical traits. The figure of the old man gives the author the opportunity to make it clear that it is not possible to equate author and first-person narrator here; In Pokriefke, Grass chooses a figure that clearly sets itself apart from him in order to convey “his” material from his perspective.

References to the Danzig trilogy

In Im Krebsgang the Gdańsk trilogy is continued in the present in that some characters known from the trilogy appear there and some events are taken up. Together with Grass' interim work locally anesthetized and the Danzig trilogy, Im Krebsgang has also been referred to as the Danzig quintet .

expenditure

• Günter Grass: In the crab. A novella. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-88243-800-2 . (14 weeks in 2002 at number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list ) (also as a paperback on dtv)

literature

• Ulrike Prokop : Trauma and memory in Günter Grass' Im Krebsgang (= Freiburg literary psychological discussions. Volume 23). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004.
• Theodor Pelster : reading key. Günter Grass: In the crab. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-015338-7 .
• Hannes Fricke: novels of the 20th century. Volume 3. Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-017522-4 , chapter “Günter Grass: Im Krebsgang”, pp. 351–368 (interpretation).
• Rüdiger Bernhardt : Günter Grass: Im Krebsgang (= King's explanations and materials. Volume 416). Bange, Hollfeld 2003, ISBN 3-8044-1791-4 .
• Sebastian Brünger: Wars of Remembrance - German culture of remembrance between literature and history based on Günter Grass' novella "Im Krebsgang" (= Mannheim social science theses . Vol. 06/004). University of Mannheim, 2004 (full text).
• Marco Fuhrländer: In the crab. In: Harenberg's cultural guide for novels and novels. Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-411-76163-0 , p. 297 f.
• Rolf Füllmann: Introduction to the novella. Annotated bibliography and person index. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-534-21599-7 , chapter "Günter Grass: Im Krebsgang", pp. 133-141 (interpretation).

Web links

• Review notes on Im Krebsgang at perlentaucher.de
• Chapter-oriented summary by Klaus Dautel (ZUM eV)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 32.
2. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 73.
3. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 63ff.
4. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 119.
5. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 189.
6. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 28.
7. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 67.
8. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 193.
9. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 100ff.
10. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 191.
11. ^ Günter Grass: In the crab walk. Steidl, Göttingen 2002, p. 77.
12. ↑ Katharina Hall: Günter Grass's “Danzig Quintet”. Explorations in the memory and history of the Nazi Era from “Die Blechtrommel” to “Im Krebsgang”. Lang, Bern et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-03-910901-2 .