Biedermann and the firestarters
Biedermann and the Arsonists is a drama by the Swiss writer Max Frisch . It is about a citizen named Biedermann who takes two arsonists into his house, even though they let it be known from the start that they will set it on fire. The subtitle is "A lesson without teaching".
Frisch took up the Biedermann material several times in his work. A first prose sketch was made in 1948 under the impression that the Communists came to power in Czechoslovakia . It was titled Burlesque and was published in the diary 1946–1949 . Frisch later processed the material as a radio play Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter , which was broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk in 1953 , as well as the play Biedermann und die Brandstifter , which premiered on March 29, 1958 in the Schauspielhaus Zurich . Dissatisfied with the reception of the piece, Frisch concluded a sequelwhich was first performed at the German premiere at the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt on September 28, 1958.
Along with Andorra, Biedermann and the Arsonists is Max Frisch's best-known drama. It has been staged on numerous stages since its premiere and is part of the frequently discussed subject matter in German lessons. The book edition already reached millions of copies in 1982.
content
Biedermann and the firestarters
Scene 1 : Gottlieb Biedermann, a wealthy hair tonic manufacturer , reads about the latest arson attacks in the newspaper and is furious about the perpetrators. The arsonists' approach is always the same: disguised as harmless peddlers , they nest in the attic of the house, which they later burn down. The maid announces a visit to Anna, a peddler who introduces himself as Josef Schmitz, a former wrestler and homeless man. He complains that he is always thought to be an arsonist and appeals to Biedermann's humanity. Biedermann, who has just hard-heartedly dismissed his employee Knechtling, likes the role of philanthropist and lets Schmitz spend the night in the attic.
Scene 2 : The next morning, Biedermann's wife Babette accuses her husband of being too good-natured. She wants to put Schmitz in front of the door in a friendly but firm manner. But Schmitz also manages to win Babette for himself by apologizing for his lack of manners, which are a result of his difficult childhood. It rings. An alleged fire insurance representative is at the door. Schmitz recognizes him as his friend Wilhelm Maria Eisenring, a former waiter.
Scene 3 : After Schmitz and Eisenring have rumbled all night in the attic, Biedermann makes another attempt to throw Schmitz out of the house. The fact that he suddenly has two guests in the attic leaves him as speechless as the many barrels of gasoline that suddenly find themselves there. A policeman brings Biedermann the news that Knechtling has committed suicide. When he asks about the contents of the barrels, Biedermann takes refuge in the white lie of "hair tonic". When asked by the choir, Biedermann plays the innocent. He didn't smell gasoline, and one shouldn't think only the worst of everyone.
Scene 4 : In Biedermann, the fear grows with the premonition. He doesn't want to make enemies of his two guests and invites them to dinner. They talk more and more openly in front of him about detonators and combustible wood wool. You can even measure the fuse with its help. The best disguise, says Eisenring, even before joke and sentimentality, is the truth because nobody believes it. When Biedermann has left the attic, Dr. phil. to his two cronies, an academic with glasses, whom Eisenring mockingly calls do-gooders and does not recognize as like-minded people because he has no desire for fire, but always remains serious and ideological.
Scene 5 : The goose is being prepared, dinner should be as unadorned as possible in order to promote the friendship between Biedermann and his guests. Biedermann rejects Knechtling's widow, who disturbs him in the preparations: he has no time for the dead. A funeral wreath arrives which, due to a mistake, is dedicated to the nursery Biedermann instead of Knechtling. When Biedermann got the best wine from the cellar, he confessed to the audience that he had suspected something long ago, but what should he have done?
Scene 6 : At dinner, Biedermann drinks with Schmitz and Eisenring to their friendship and is in a good mood. Schmitz gives a taste of his acting skills and appears as a ghost with a tablecloth thrown over it. His shouts of “ Everyone !” Turn into “Biedermann!” Finally, he proclaims that he is a servant's ghost. For a moment, the Biedermanns are concerned. But when Schmitz Fuchs announces that you stole the goose , Biedermann sings along loudly again. When distant sirens can be heard, Biedermann is relieved that there is no fire in his house until Eisenring seriously declares that they would always lure the fire brigade away from the crime scene first. With growing despair, Biedermann sticks to the conviction that his two guests are not arsonists, but his friends. As a token of his trust, he even secretly slips them the matches, whereupon Schmitz and Eisenring leave. Dr. phil. enters and reads a statement in which he distances himself from the crimes of the arsonists who do not want to change the world like him. Then Biedermann's house goes up in flames and several gasometers explode .
Aftermath
Gottlieb Biedermann and his wife Babette believe they are in heaven because they always obeyed the Ten Commandments . It is only when the play's staff gradually approaches that they realize that they are in hell. Schmitz appears as Beelzebub , Eisenring in the figure of the devil . Biedermann protests his innocence for the fire that destroyed the whole city. He did nothing different than any other citizen. In addition, he is even demanding compensation for everything he went through. He learns from the devil that there is a quarrel between heaven and hell. Heaven has pronounced an amnesty for all high-ranking personalities. Whoever wears a uniform when killing is saved. Only honest men and intellectuals, petty criminals and conscientious objectors are sent to hell. Then Hell goes on strike and sends its personnel back to earth. Biedermann and Babette cling to their faith, kneel and await their rescue.
people
Gottlieb Biedermann, head of a hair tonic factory and house owner
Gottlieb Biedermann is an ambitious businessman to whom reputation and popularity are important and who literally walks over dead bodies. He is a master of repression. He appears quite energetic, but only succeeds if his statements are accepted and his instructions are carried out without objection. His “doer” and “master of the house” pose (if he takes them at all) does not help against the arsonists. He merely claims to be “not a monster”: For example, after he has resisted his dismissal, he lets his former employee Knechtling know that he should “lie under the gas stove” and later wonders when he is his Advice follows. He is more or less compelled to show the "humanity" that Biedermann shows towards the arsonists because he can be criticized and has a guilty conscience. Biedermann is always fooling himself and others.
In the aftermath, which Biedermann shows in hell, he tries to avert his presumed fate ("eternal damnation") by affirming his innocence. In fact, Biedermann did not only make himself an accomplice by handing over the matches to the arsonists, but at the latest when he truthfully stated to the policeman that the barrels in his attic contained "hair lotion"; a bold lie that shows that he by no means always kept the Ten Commandments in life. This mendacity of Biedermann is not only directed towards the outside, but above all it is also present towards himself, which is the basis of his mentality of the cowardly, fearful, mentally bent and repressing “cannot be what must not be”.
Babette, Biedermann's wife
Babette is Gottlieb Biedermann's wife with a heart condition and a conscientious housewife. She looks fearful towards the arsonists and - like Gottlieb Biedermann - is not up to them. She wants to expel Schmitz from the house; But she succeeds just as little as her husband. Schmitz confronts Ms. Biedermann in clear words with her intention. Trying not to appear “rude” and not to “offend” Schmitz, however, she denies this intention and becomes a victim of her guilty conscience when Schmitz refers to his “bad youth”. In the end, she realizes the seriousness of the situation and does not suppress her suspicions. With her questions and comments, she also contributes to the fact that Eisenring's image as the arsonist takes on clearer contours. However, none of this leads to stopping the disaster, as Babette Biedermann ultimately lacks the energy to do this, especially since her husband is clearly dominant in the marriage . That he generally does not consider women to be potential decision-makers becomes clear in scene 5: There he asks the audience: "Be honest, gentlemen : what would you have done, for God's sake, in my place?"
Babette's narrow-mindedness becomes particularly clear in the aftermath: She completely misunderstands her new situation by wondering what Anna is doing in “heaven” and complaining about the “unreasonable demands” of her new life.
Josef Schmitz, the wrestler (arsonist)
Josef Schmitz, known as Sepp, is a tall, stocky man who pretends to be unemployed and homeless. With his bold demeanor (strictly speaking he is trespassing), he puts the people in the Biedermann household on the defensive from the start. His body language and allusions (he does not seem to injure or kill people unintentionally; an impression that is confirmed in the aftermath) appear threatening. Schmitz says he used to be a wrestler in the heavyweight category ; a statement that underlines his physique. He is sentimental in his statements to Biedermann in order to arouse pity. Schmitz himself refutes the allegation that he was not responsible for his “bad behavior” by pointing out that people had already criticized his habit of smacking their lips in the orphanage. He will therefore obviously not behave mannerly. Apart from that, it is not only an expression of “bad behavior” (unlike what Eisenring portrays it) when Schmitz plays the “ghost knechtlings” during the celebration during the presentation of a scene from the drama “ Jedermann ”, especially since Eisenring has initiated the production insofar as Schmitz's “derailment” is not to blame. Schmitz's intelligent and creative handling of the “everyone” material also calls into question the thesis that he is “uneducated”.
In the aftermath, the actor Josef Schmitz plays the role of Beelzebub, who lost the “children's belief” in justice after the great fire disaster.
Wilhelm Maria Eisenring, the waiter (arsonist)
Wilhelm Maria Eisenring, known as Willi, gains access to Biedermann's apartment on the pretext of being a sales representative for fire insurance. He wears a tailcoat and ensures that everything that is needed for a successful arson gets into Biedermann's attic. Eisenring states that his middle-class parents wanted him to study law, but that he worked as a waiter, which would explain his clothes and his elegant language . Like Schmitz, he also claims to have become unemployed and homeless. Eisenring explains his familiarity with Schmitz (in disputes between him and Schmitz it sounds like the father is talking to his son) by saying that he already knew him from school and saw him again in prison. Despite his polite demeanor, Eisenring is just as bold in his behavior as Schmitz, in that he also ignores Biedermann's expressions of will and "demonstrates" them. For example, it is difficult to understand why he constantly rebukes Schmitz for his “bad behavior”, but ties a damask tablecloth around him as a “bib” and thus provokes the Biedermanns seemingly senseless.
The pleasure in provocations of this kind can probably be explained by the fact that Eisenring has resentment towards the rich: he claims Schmitz that people above a certain income limit are always "punishable". During the celebration, he also spoke to the Biedermanns about a "trauma" that he suffered as a waiter in that he had to clean his hair, which was greasy from goose food, while the guests were allowed to use small finger bowls. Eisenring's need for revenge also becomes clear in the aftermath. There he instigated a “strike” as the “devil” and had the choir put out the hellfire because he was tired of the fact that all the “gentlemen” he didn't like as a waiter went to heaven and he was only secondary Sinners like the Biedermanns should receive.
Dr. phil., the academician (arsonist)
Dr. phil. is an academic from a good family. He is also an arsonist, but unlike Schmitz and Eisenring, not because he likes arson, but out of ideological motives. Eisenring calls him a "do-gooder". Dr. phil. plays a supporting role and appears twice briefly at the end of the actual drama. The first time he appears, he stands next to his two colleagues because he is not really doing anything to prepare for the arson. Only at the final appearance does he read out a lengthy text with which he distances himself from Schmitz and Eisenring's unideological pleasure in crimes. However, the distancing only takes place at a point in time at which it can no longer achieve anything in practice.
In the aftermath, Dr. phil as " monkey " the role of a door-keeper between Limbo and Hell by (ultimately it yourself and) "abstempelt" while the "cardinal sin" exclaims the files of newcomers.
Anna, the maid
Anna is the maid of the Biedermanns and as such a status symbol that makes Biedermann's prosperity evident. Normally she carries out the instructions given to her quickly, to Biedermann's satisfaction and without any sign of reluctance. In the end, however, resistance stirs in her: she first apes Biedermann in his absence and angrily steps on a tablecloth after Biedermann had previously instructed her to pretend she was a member of the family. When Biedermann orders her to return to her old role, she cries in the presence of the arsonists. So your loyalty seems to have limits.
Anna also goes to hell (the aftermath shows this) because she stole from her employer. In general, however, she does not seem to be inclined to act independently (in the interests of her employers): One wonders, for example, how Eisenring managed to get petrol barrels into the attic without Anna sounding the alarm. Biedermann only notices these barrels on his return, when they are already completely in the attic.
police officer
He only appears in scene 3 and explains to Biedermann that Mr. Knechtling has put himself under the gas tap. He wants to talk to Biedermann in private , when he discovers the barrels filled with gasoline, but is fooled by Schmitz and Eisenring that this is hair lotion called Hormoflor . The policeman believes them and laughs and then goes away with Biedermann.
Widow servant
Is in Biedermann's house in scenes 4 and 5, but doesn't speak a word during the entire time. Although Anna tells her that she shouldn't have any hope, she talks to Biedermann. But he rejects her with the words: “Because, as you can see, I have no time, Frau Knechtling, no time to deal with the dead”. Instead, she should turn to his lawyer. Then she goes.
The choir, consisting of firefighters
As in Greek tragedy , the choir has the important function of describing and commenting on facts and events as well as warning and admonishing honesty and the audience with Max Frisch . The choir accompanies in a distant but also attentive manner and is interested in the course of events. It symbolizes world knowledge and world conscience, perhaps also Biedermann's better insight.
The choir consists of fire brigade people , led by a choir director. Their job is to protect people and make them feel safe. However, the fire brigade is not omniscient and therefore relies on receiving information (through observations and taking notes from the population). In contrast to the chorus in Greek tragedy, Frisch's choir does not claim to have the authority of an omniscient and omnipotent deity who, according to ancient tradition, should actually speak from his mouth; According to the choir, it is not about making a moral or legal judgment about Biedermann. In this respect, the occupation of the choir with fire brigade people represents an alienation effect . Another alienating effect is that the dactyls used and the formal language do not really match the object of the statements and the choir passages thus contain a parodistic element.
After all, it seems highly disconcerting that the fire fighters are asked in the aftermath of the "Teufel Eisenring" to put out hell - a request that initially leaves the choir speechless, but which it then obeys. Neither a speechless choir nor a god who causes injustice and “bad guys” who therefore resign are compatible with the tradition of Greek tragedy.
The choir creates distance from the action and thus gives the audience the opportunity to rethink the past, the current or the upcoming events. Right from the start, the choir foresees what will happen to the Biedermann house and even advises Biedermann to be careful.
Development of the "Biedermann" material to drama
A narrative text titled burlesque in Frisch's diary from 1948 already contains all the important motifs of the later drama, such as the inclusion of a stranger out of the wish not to look like a monster, the later second guest, the suspicion of the planned arson , ignoring the barrels of gasoline in the attic, attempting to fraternize over dinner for fear of the arsonists, and ultimately the fatal outcome. The historical reason for this draft was the overthrow in the Czechoslovak Republic in February 1948, from which the Czechoslovak Republic emerged as a communist people 's republic , and which Frisch had occupied in the previous diary entries.
In 1952, Frisch received an order for a radio play from Bayerischer Rundfunk . Using the material in his diary, he then wrote the radio play Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter , which was broadcast in 1953. In the radio play version - unlike in the later drama - Biedermann survived the fire and is then interviewed by the "author". This character is not identical to the author Max Frisch and takes on tasks that the choir performs in the drama. Biedermann is expressly named here as the person who “made the fire possible”, but which, according to the “author”, is not associated with a conviction. The author suggests that on the contrary, most of the listeners in Biedermann's place would think and act very similarly, that Biedermann's injustice is a very common injustice. He speaks of "Mr. Biedermann in ourselves".
In 1957, Frisch reworked the radio play into a drama and gave it the slightly different title Biedermann und die Arsonstifter .
First performance, creation of the aftermath, further implementations
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Max Frisch with Oskar Wältin at rehearsals in 1958
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On March 29, 1958, the play was premiered together with the one-act play The great Wut of Philipp Hotz at the Schauspielhaus Zurich under the direction of Oskar Wälterlin . The main roles were occupied by Gustav Knuth , Ernst Schröder and Boy Gobert .
The one - sided anti-communist reception of the play did not correspond to Frisch's intentions: "Although Gottlieb Biedermann exposed himself in his speeches, [...] the honest men of Zurich did not find it laughable, but gave serious applause: That’s how it happens, yes, that’s how it happens, if you let communists into your house! To stop this convenient misinterpretation, I wrote for the German stage a sequel: Herr Biedermann as German Bourgeois , who fraternized with the Nazi "In two months of work, starting from June 1958 was created for the German premiere of. The Fire Raisers to the Municipal theaters in Frankfurt am Main on September 28, 1958, a sequel to the play that transports Biedermann and his wife to hell, where they meet Eisenring and Schmitz again. Later, Frisch deleted the epilogue again, "because it relates the parable to the past and to a specific country, that is, it cancels the parable as such”.
On May 22, 1958, the NDR broadcast the television game Biedermann and the Arsonists . Among others, Willy Maertens (Biedermann), Charlotte Schellenberg (Babette), Walter Richter (Schmitz) and Hanns Lothar (Eisenring) played under the direction of Fritz Schröder-Jahn . In 1963, directed by Hellmuth Matiasek, the TV version Biedermann and the Arsonists was created for ORF with the participation of Fritz Muliar (Biedermann), Greta Zimmer (Babette), Helmut Qualtinger (Schmitz) and Kurt Sowinetz (Eisenring). 1966 wrote Max Frisch a new version of the play for television production The Fire Raisers by Radio Bremen , which a year later under the direction of Rainer Wolffhardt with Siegfried Lowitz (Biedermann) Bruni Lobel (Babette), Harry Kalenberg (Schmitz) and Herbert Bötticher (Eisenring) was filmed. Further film adaptations were made in 1961 for Dutch television and in 1966 for Finnish television. and 1984 for Swedish television.
Between 2005 and 2007 the composer Šimon Voseček set the piece to music in his opera of the same name. In September 2013 this was premiered in Vienna in the Semperdepot as a production of the Neue Oper Wien under the musical direction of Walter Kobéra in a production by the director Béatrice Lachaussée .
interpretation
Biedermann und die Brandstifter is a representative work of post-war literature . Alongside Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the Swiss Max Frisch is the most important representative of Swiss German-language literature of this era. The central themes of his literary oeuvre are above all self-alienation and the struggle for personal identity.
The play Biedermann und die Brandstifter is a mixture of comical and macabre elements with a dark theme and ending (a burlesque). However, it is not a tragic piece, because the protagonist Biedermann does not consciously and compulsorily go into a catastrophe for the sake of a sublime value, but instead suffers an avoidable "fate" out of cowardice, stupidity and delusion. It is the poetic design of a prototypical event with people in their unmistakable, typical roles. There is a great deal of tension in the dialogues, most of all in the discrepancy between what one should actually expect and what is actually being said.
Of all the different fresh dramas, Biedermann und die Brandstifter is the briefest and most consistent. The drama knows no digressions and digressions . The Biedermanns are portrayed throughout the story as cowardly followers who have neither imagination nor steadfastness. Only their bourgeois opportunism makes it possible for the arsonists to do their work and achieve their goal without great effort.
The setting in the radio play is a modernized Seldwyla , i.e. a fictional city in Switzerland. In the piece, on the other hand, there is no specific reference to time or place. Therefore, the drama can be interpreted against different historical backgrounds.
The meaning of the name "Biedermann"
Biedermann and (the) Biedermeier
The name "Gottlieb Biedermann" refers to the name "Gottlieb Biedermaier", from which the epoch name " Biedermeier " , which has been customary since 1900, can be derived. Gottlieb Biedermaier is a figure who was invented by the lawyer and writer Ludwig Eichrodt and the doctor Adolf Kussmaul and under whose name various poems were published in the Münchner Fliegende Blätter in the years from 1855 . The term Biedermeier as an epoch designation originated around 1900.
The name arose from two poems with the titles Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit and Bummelmaier's Lament , which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in this sheet in 1848. Biedermaier was written until 1869 , only after that the spelling with ei came up. The fictional Mr. Biedermeier was a poetic Swabian village teacher with a simple mind, who, according to Eichrodt, helped his little room, his narrow garden, his unsightly spots and the poor lot of a despised village schoolmaster to earthly happiness. In the publications, the honesty, the small spirit and the apolitical attitude of large parts of the bourgeoisie are caricatured and mocked.
The revolutionary poet Ludwig Pfau wrote a poem entitled Mr. Biedermeier as early as 1847 , which denounced narrow-mindedness and double standards. It starts with the lines:
- Look, Mr. Biedermeier is walking there
- and his wife, the son by the arm;
- his step is as gentle as on balls,
- his motto: Neither cold nor warm.
The parallels to Max Frisch's “Biedermeier” citizen Gottlieb Biedermann are obvious: Biedermann too wants to live comfortably, “have his peace and quiet” and not attract the attention of the authorities in an unpleasant way (for example by being suspected of having something to do with the arsonists which would be the case if he confessed to the policeman that the barrels on his floor contained gasoline).
Honest man and "everyone"
In several places the similar sound of the words "Biedermann" and "Jedermann" is played. The connection becomes clearest in scene 6: Schmitz, who receives a tablecloth from Eisenring and thus looks like a ghost , first calls out: "Everyone" and then varies this call to: "Good man". Then he pretends to be the ghost of the servant who has just died.
It is immediately clear to everyone involved that it is a parody of the scene from Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play " Jedermann ", in which death contacts the protagonist, everyone, at a party to announce his imminent end. The mention of the name Knechtling makes it clear that Biedermann's “fate” is not going well. The supposed macabre joke has a deep meaning: Like everyone else, honest man is called upon to be accountable for his life and “to repent”, but this does not happen. Biedermann remains blinded.
“Who shuns the transformation / More than the disaster / What can he do / Against disaster?”, The choir asks rhetorically at one point . This makes it clear that Biedermann, unlike the mystery play in the style of Hofmannsthal's Jedermann , is unable to turn back if the protagonist is still able to enjoy such games in the prose sketch from 1948 and in the radio play version. In both texts it is shown that Biedermann calms down by remembering Max Mell's apostle play , in which a pious, kind-hearted girl shames two villains with her kindness and is able to dissuade them from their plans. Also insofar as Biedermann does not learn that a corresponding success requires genuine faith from him, which he does not have and which he cannot bring himself to, the drama is a "lesson without teaching".
Shortly before the catastrophe, the choir also used the term “everyone”: “Everyone knows what to do.” This may apply to the fire fighters, but it obviously does not apply to honesty.
Gottlieb Biedermann's role
The drama is a prime example of the political stupidity of the citizen. Biedermann is too comfortable and too fearful to compete against the more powerful because he is very afraid of the possible consequences. In the beginning, Biedermann does not want to give Schmitz a shelter, but he succumbs to a combination of subtle threats of violence and flattery, with which the unemployed heavyweight wrestler Schmitz Biedermann skilfully uses Biedermann's selfishness, distrust and guilty conscience. Once he has let him into his house, he openly admits what he is up to, and he explains his plan precisely to Biedermann. But he pretends that all preparations for the arson are jokes or tests of courage, and tolerates them. Biedermann seems to assume that what must not be, will not be either; because it would never happen to him that someone he took so self-sacrificingly would start a fire in his house. He seems to close his eyes to reality and refuse to admit the terrible. But since Biedermann does not mean what he says at crucial points, he is probably not a naive idealist, but only presents himself as such out of fear.
Frisch himself commented on his protagonist: “If you ask me, I do not find this Gottlieb a villain, even if as a contemporary he is dangerous. In order to have a clear conscience - and he needs that to be calm - he just lies to himself. [...] Gottlieb would like to appear as a good person. He even believes that he is: by not discovering himself. ”Biedermann is an average citizen whose dilemma is that he wants to be good without changing anything. The fact that he must therefore always lie to himself makes him dangerous. "What is bad, however, is that Gottlieb Biedermann's neighbors are likely to perish: that's where the comedy ends."
Relation to communism
Due to the genesis of the drama ( see above ), Biedermann and the arsonists were often understood as a warning against communism . So was Edward Stäuble : "The revolution took place in Czechoslovakia exactly according to this pattern: An unsuspecting, honest, trusting civil society took the Bolshevik arsonists into her house and had it finally put up powerless, that their invaders, the State Building on on fire. ”And Friedrich Torberg also judged:“ Whether he wanted it or not: Max Frisch wrote the classic satire against communism, against its infiltration technique and its bourgeois henchmen. He even [...] exercised self-criticism: in the end, when the fire was already burning, he quickly allowed an intellectual to appear, a disillusioned do-gooder whose protest rally was already drowning in the roar of the fire. He has his own honesty - for what else would his willingness to grant concessions have been? - I said goodbye and got angry. "
Relation to National Socialism
The subsequent epilogue of the play, however, suggested the parabolic reference to the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany under Adolf Hitler . Hellmuth Karasek saw “a parable in which Hitler's seizure of power is aptly captured. The experience that Hitler never made a secret of his true intentions in Mein Kampf can be seen here in a scenic way. Terror can be blunt as soon as it has involved the citizen, made him an accomplice. He can be sure that the victim will not believe what he suspects. Cowardice closes its eyes and ears to the truth. "
In this sense, Biedermann can be seen as an example of the good faith, convenience, cowardice and lack of foresight of many Germans who actively or passively supported National Socialism. Similar to the arsonists, Hitler also proclaimed his political goals early on, including in his work Mein Kampf . Although many citizens and politicians of the Weimar Republic were aware of the radicalism of National Socialism and the danger it posed , a large number of them - like Gottlieb Biedermann in the drama - did not defend themselves against the threat of violence. Biedermann even helps Eisenring measure the fuse and thus actively contributes to his own misfortune. He thus confirms the quote: “Joke is the third best disguise. Second best: sentimentality. But the best and safest camouflage is still the bare and bare truth. Nobody believes them. "
Further interpretations on the content of the piece
Other voices turned against too narrow interpretations of the piece as a mirror of communism and National Socialism. Klaus Müller-Salget judged: “Both are nonsensical in terms of the play. [...] Neither the National Socialists nor the Communists would have assumed "pure pleasure" as a motive for action [...]. The demarcation of the arsonists from the ideologues [Dr. phil.] prohibits an assignment of the two to a certain political party or group. ” Friedrich Luft saw the parable Biedermann and the Arsonists in many ways, equally applicable to the atomic bomb and to political extremism :“ You can apply the moral of this lesson to the youngest without teaching Create the past. [...] Or you can (and should) think of the arsonists who are cooking with the new big fire, with the devil bomb. We tolerate it. We see it and find many reasons to do it. But the fuse is on. Woe! Or one can think of the democratic tolerance with which extreme arsonists are bourgeoisly endured by us, on the far right and the far left. [...] For reasons of public comfort, we simply push away the impulses of a better insight: Isn't everything so bad ... "
Max Frisch himself declared in 1978, 20 years after the first performance of the play: “Who is actually meant by the two arsonists, the question has been asked by at least a thousand students in twenty years. Gottlieb Biedermann is a bourgeois, that is obvious. But which party do the two arsonists belong to? - no sentence they say indicates that they want to change society. So no revolution, no do-gooders. If they start a fire, it is out of pure lust. There are pyromaniacs . Your activity is apolitical. [...] I mean, they both belong to the demon family . You were born out of Gottlieb Biedermann himself: out of his fear, which results from his untruthfulness. "
Bertolt Brecht's influence
Max Frisch calls his drama A didactic play without teaching . The generic name Lehrstück indicates that Max Frisch sees his work in the tradition of Bertolt Brecht . The parable character of the play Biedermann and the Arsonists is also inspired by Bertolt Brecht. Paul Dormagen interprets the addition “without teaching” in the sense of: “without the dogmatic ideology to which Brecht was committed”.
Wolfgang Pohl, on the other hand, criticizes “that Frisch took over the socio-critical analysis of Marxism and especially von Brecht, but distanced himself from its practical-political consequences without replacing them with another concept”. In particular, Pohl criticizes the circular argument character of Frisch's concept: the end leads into the beginning. While the parabola is based on a question, the model ends with the question without the possibility of an answer becoming apparent - the model "fulfills itself in a problematization and thus comes close to the 'floating parabola'."
The aftermath shows: The "devils" Eisenring and Schmitz go back to earth, and (so the viewer must think) everything starts from the beginning. The fact that the people in the play do not learn anything does not necessarily mean that the viewer does not feel thoughtful. The lack of a given solution can also be interpreted to mean that Frisch leaves the search for a solution to the readers and viewers and thus prompts them to think independently. According to this interpretation, Frisch would have oriented himself more to the technique that Brecht uses in his play Mother Courage and Her Children (this also ends with the protagonist having learned nothing) than to the conception of Brecht's didactic pieces.
On the other hand, there are statements by Frisch that suggest that he has come to terms with the fact that large parts of his audience are also unwilling and incapable of learning. In his “Diary 1946-1949” Frisch writes: “Every human answer, as soon as it goes beyond the personal answer and assumes a general validity, will be contestable, we know that, and the satisfaction we find in refuting other people's answers, consists in forgetting at least the question that troubles us - that would mean: we don't want an answer at all, we want to forget the question. So as not to be responsible. "
"Die Zeit" summarized the verdict in 1959: "For Frisch, who initially played theoretical theater with literary figures ( The Great Wall of China , Don Juan or The Love of Geometry ), Brecht's example meant a dramaturgical release towards the representational."
reception
According to Volker Hage, Biedermann und die Brandstifter is “the most famous play by Frisch and one of the most successful German-language stage works at all”. It was staged 250 times on German-speaking stages by 1996 and is often used as school material, which is also supported by the sales figures of the paperback edition, which already exceeded one million in 1982. Marcel Reich-Ranicki took The Fire Raisers 2004 as one of 43 plays in his canon of German literature and called it Frisch's most important drama or a "genius stage sketch".
Friedrich Torberg also saw Biedermann and the arsonists as "an important piece by an important author" that ignites a "brilliant fireworks display". He spoke of the premiere as a “gorgeous performance [...] of a perfect evening at the theater [...]. The audience cheered. ”In Siegfried Melchinger's perception, “ the audience in the Zurich production was more amused by the Hotz than by the Biedermann, who, in turn, had received greater praise. ”For him, the play seemed“ a bit bumped up ”and he criticized "the schematized poverty of the figures". Hellmuth Karasek evaluated this property in exactly the opposite way. For him, Biedermann und die Brandstifter was "the most straightforward, concise and consistent of all the fresh dramas". It is "most abstracted from all private casualness, from all personal characterization". It was precisely in this “mathematical calculation” and “uncompromising consistency” that the action and persons were subordinated to the parabolic form, which he saw as the “stupendous persuasiveness” of the drama.
Werner Weber called the piece a “game of deceptions”, which consists “in the incessant disclosure of all trick secrets”. The story itself is "radically undramatic" in its straightforward course. The drama lies in the language: "in the masking and unmasking of the word." In the contradiction between existence and appearance, "a high dramatic tipping effect is shown". The apparent “conversation piece is closely related to a suspension of language.” Max Frisch proves himself to be a poet “in such an eerie amusement play”. Friedrich Luft described the piece as "Weltanschauung grotesque with joke, irony and deeper meaning. A piece of the secret present, made visible with the sharpness of bitter joke. ” Heinz Ludwig Arnold , on the other hand , saw Biedermann und die Brandstifter as one of Frisch's weakest dramas, because in his opinion it“ symbolizes too hypertrophically, is too external, because its processes are too visible are because it is not ambivalent enough, not open enough, not artistic enough; rather too artificial, too constructed ”.
The aftermath met with a predominantly critical reception. Hellmuth Karasek judged: “What is supposed to act like an aggravating confirmation of the unteachable nature of his sad hero becomes a trivializing, because by no means inevitable, sequel.” In the aftermath, Frisch had “no longer produced a piece, but a (certainly very sharp and funny) cabaret commentary ", Which narrows the drama" to a mere cabaret punchline. "For Friedrich Torberg, the consequence of the aftermath was that Frisch" not only diluted the morale of his play, but flatly halved it. " Johannes Jacobi suspected that the author had "swallowed Brecht's 'epic' pointer". Frisch “never rested whether the viewer was pointed out clearly enough about what the author meant.” He concluded: “The new appendix by Frisch is as amusing as it is explosive. There was only one thing he didn't get: a dramatic enrichment. Why did Frisch add a moral of history to the 'didactic piece without teaching' after all? "
In 1961, Max Frisch said in a conversation with Horst Bienek about the great success of his drama: “Exhausted from Homo faber , who had just finished, I did not feel able to go straight to the big piece about the Andorran Jew . I also hadn't written for the stage for a long time, finger practice was necessary. So I took the radio play to do my finger exercises for two months, which then went over 70 German and many foreign-language stages; I didn't expect that I would live off this hair oil swindler. ”In an interview with Heinz Ludwig Arnold in 1974, Frisch named Biedermann and the arsonists among his items“ the best in terms of craftsmanship. It's not my favorite thing. ”He agreed with Arnold that it was“ so successful in schools, because so much craftsmanship can be demonstrated, because the technical and the dramaturgical can be practiced and studied on it. ”
literature
- Max Frisch: Biedermann and the arsonists. A lesson without teaching. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1958 (= edition suhrkamp. Volume 41).
- Bernd Matzkowski, explanations on Max Frisch: Biedermann und die Brandstifter , text analysis and interpretation (vol. 352), C. Bange Verlag , Hollfeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-8044-1985-8 .
- Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Materials on Max Frisch, Biedermann and the arsonists . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-518-37003-0 .
Web links
- Interview with Thorsten Krug about his staging of Biedermann and the arsonists (Annaberg 2007/2008) (PDF; 17 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Walter Schmitz: Biedermanns Wandlungen: From the "burlesque" to the "didactic piece without teaching" . In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Max Frisch , Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-38559-3 , pp. 245, 250
- ↑ Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1963) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1967) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Biedermann en de brandstichters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Biedermann ja tuhopolttajat in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Biedermann och pyromanerna in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Biedermann and the arsonists at the Neue Oper Vienna .
- ↑ a b c Max Frisch: Who are the arsonists? In: Luis Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max fresh . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-39734-6 , pp. 146-147
- ↑ Quoted from Volker Hage: Max Frisch , Rowohlt, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-499-50616-5 , p. 80
- ↑ a b c Friedrich Torberg: Biedermann and the arsonists, in addition: The great anger of Philipp Hotz . In: Albrecht Schau (ed.): Max Frisch - Contributions to an impact history . Becksmann, Freiburg 1971, pp. 243-244
- ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: Max Frisch. Friedrich's playwright of the world theater volume 17 . Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1974, p. 73
- ↑ Max Frisch: Biedermann and the arsonists . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-18824-0 , p. 54
- ↑ Klaus Müller-Salget: Max Frisch . Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-15-015210-0 , pp. 56-57
- ↑ Quoted from: Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 75
- ↑ Paul Dormagen: Epilogue to Max Frisch: Mr. Biedermann and the arsonists. Radio play . Paderborn. Schöningh. o. JS 59
- ^ The parable theater Dürrenmatts and Frischs ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Peter Girod: waiting room of love . In: Die Zeit , No. 24/1959
- ↑ Hage: Max Frisch , p. 78
- ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki: The classic sketch . In: Die Zeit of May 5, 1972.
- ^ Siegfried Melchinger: These were studies in the new style . In: Die Zeit , No. 16/1958
- ↑ Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 67
- ↑ Werner Weber: To Frisch's "Biedermann and the arsonists" . In: Albrecht Schau (ed.): Max Frisch - Contributions to an impact history . Becksmann, Freiburg 1971, pp. 245-247
- ↑ Quoted from: Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 102
- ↑ a b Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max frisch , p. 143
- ↑ Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 76
- ↑ Johannes Jacobi: How easy the game becomes a gimmick . In: Die Zeit , No. 41/1958
- ↑ Quoted from: Manfred Durzak: Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Weiss. German drama of the present between criticism and utopia . Reclam, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-15-010201-4 , p. 208