Nobility in decline
Adel im Untergang is a novel by the writer Ludwig Renn , which was written in exile in Mexico in 1944.
background
The novel is a kind of memory book, which is above all a recapitulation of what has been experienced. However, its title already points beyond the memoir-like: “Adel im Untergang. An age is visited. ”Renn, who comes from the nobility , analyzes his class and makes it clear through the plot that it can only survive its fossil and parasitic existence in an alliance with the bourgeoisie .
content
Arnold Vieth von Golßenau, Renn's original name, comes from an old Saxon noble family and meets us as a young man typical of the time and class. He will embark on an officer career, so one of the usual careers is predetermined for him. The noble Royal Saxon Leib-Grenadier-Regiment No. 100 will be his home. As early as 1910, people “expected” the war to come. Arnold will have to prove himself in this way, says his father, who, as a high school teacher , believes that he has taken a path that is not entirely appropriate to his class as a prince educator . Arnold sees in the father's decision the logical continuation of the family's view of life.
After Arnold was accepted as a flag boy in the regiment , all high expectations and ideas seem to have become reality. He likes the splendor of a life whose sole task is to protect and share in the might of the mighty. The evenings in the turbulent casino , dealing with members of genders burdened with tradition, the previously unaccustomed free life, which is of course exhausted in drinking, smoking, talking about glory, amouring and displaying splendid uniforms, convey the awareness of a special position; He also found a taste for the military exercises. After a while, however, Arnold begins to recognize the hollowness and pomposity of many of the men he has taken to be the prime of the nation.
“But I only knew that I was deeply repelled by the Prussian military operation as I saw it. I was also disgusted by the silliness and superficiality of the ensigns, who had no interests whatsoever other than drinking, whores and throwing money away. ""
So Arnold observes how one exhausts oneself in gossip about good games, how one turns alcoholism and excessive sexuality into virtues. All of this sharpens his critical awareness. However, he is still far from realizing that the anachronistic and parasitic feudal apparatus is out of date. So he turns more instinctively to the common people of the regiment.
“Now we came to the first room of my recruits. Long and broad Proß stood there in front of his cupboard and smiled somewhat sadly with his good-natured blue eyes. I would have liked to talk to him. That was a person with a good heart and a somewhat heavy mind. But also with the one next to him, with everyone I wanted to have at least one personal word today ... ""
Arnold internally distanced himself more and more from the caste to which he belonged after birth and upbringing. He cannot make the radical break because his practical and theoretical experience of the world is too little. He would then have to build an existence on his own and he did not learn that, he was not brought up to do this among the parasites of society. The grotesque wish arises in him that a war would put an end to the grotesque casino ghost. “What do we, the superficial dance boys, know about reality?” He wonders when he is temporarily assigned to the military prison staff . The inhuman methods he got to know there, with which soldiers are tortured for the slightest offense, repel him for good.
When the war with the murder of the Archduke is within reach, the officers' caste is completely exposed in a casino palaver. Arnold receives the news of the coming war ambiguously, on the one hand he regrets that the annual Hofgarten Festival will now be canceled, but at the same time he hopes that he will finally be able to pay his debts through higher wages and faster promotions. Few understand the seriousness of the hour. Arnold Vieth von Golßenau no longer believes in the mission of the nobility.
Film adaptations
The film was made into two parts for GDR television in 1980, directed by Wolf-Dieter Panse . A DVD edition from Studio Hamburg Enterprises is announced for August 4th, 2017.
literature
- Novelist; People and Knowledge, Volkseigener Verlag Berlin - 1974, 1st edition, License No. 203.100 / 73 (E)
Web links
- A lieutenant thinks about it - and was Ludwig Renn, Der Spiegel 1947, issue 23