Back then it was Friedrich

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At that time it was Friedrich is a book for young people by the German writer Hans Peter Richter from 1961. In 1969 a revised version of the novel was published . It is one of the best-known German youth books on the subject of National Socialism and is often read as school reading.

content

The main character of the book is a Jewish boy named Friedrich, born in 1925, who lived in the time of National Socialism . The entire story is told from the first-person perspective of another boy whose name is not mentioned. He tells in a reserved, barely judgmental tone that intensifies the horror of the events. At first everything is peaceful, he lives with Friedrich in the same house (which belongs to the house owner H. Resch) and he is a week older than his best friend, with whom he plays a lot. But when Hitler comes to power, Friedrich has to realize that for him as a Jew things will turn bad over time and the boy next door will have less and less time to look after his friend and will be at the mercy of the events of the day. In the end Friedrich dies in a bomb attack because the block warden Resch refuses him access to the air raid shelter .

The title refers to the motto that precedes the book:

Back then it was the Jews .
Today it's the blacks there , the students here .
Tomorrow it might be the whites, the Christians or the officials .

The appendix of the book contains some notes and explanations about Judaism and the historical events. A chronological table lists historical dates between the Nazis' takeover of power on January 30, 1933 and Germany's capitulation in World War II on May 8, 1945, including pogroms and ordinances on the disenfranchisement of Jews during the Nazi persecution of Jews .

characters

  • Friedrich Schneider is a normal, "accidentally Jewish" child who shows a number of positive qualities: Friedrich is peaceful, polite and grateful. In 1934 he has to leave general school. In the course of the plot, Friedrich becomes more and more responsible, but later also reacts noticeably desperate and aggressive (probably because of the death of his mother), which illustrates the psychological stress. He died in a bomb attack in 1942 because he was not allowed into the air raid shelter and was fatally hit by a bomb fragment.
  • Mrs. Schneider is of Jewish faith and the mother of Friedrich. On the one hand she is a reserved, but at the same time generous, modest and friendly woman. On the night of the pogrom from November 9th to 10th, 1938, she was attacked by a Nazi horde in her apartment and died as a result of the abuse.
  • Mr. Schneider is Friedrich's father, initially a generous and sociable man who initially held a (apparently) secure position as a post office clerk. Because of his beliefs, he was given leave of absence after the National Socialists came to power and later worked as a department head in a department store. As a Jew, he does not take part in religious life in an overly strict manner. Herr Schneider embodies the type of Jewish German who does not want to admit the danger that threatens him from the murderous racial policy of the Nazis. This fatal interpretation of his situation is based on a religious interpretation of the victim role of the Jews, and he sees this victim role as a constant in Jewish history. In the course of history, after the death of his wife, he developed into a depressed and sullen person and was picked up by the Gestapo and probably taken to a concentration camp in 1941, when he gave shelter to a rabbi friend of his who was wanted on a wanted list .
  • The narrator , whose name is not mentioned in the book, first becomes Pimpf and later also the Hitler Youth , but in his private life he turns out to be someone who has no reservations about Friedrich and his family and who also shows limited solidarity with him. Nevertheless, during the Reichspogromnacht he allowed himself to be drawn into a collective destructiveness, which he immediately regretted.
  • The narrator's father , also an unprejudiced man, lets his boy play with Friedrich and shows solidarity and friendship with the Schneider family in a private setting. But that does not prevent him from joining the NSDAP for reasons of opportunity and for the sake of professional advancement . In assessing the political situation, he shows himself to be more far-sighted than Herr Schneider, to whom he makes clear the danger that threatens Jews. He tries in vain to persuade Mr. Schneider to emigrate from Germany.
  • The narrator's mother , a helpful and friendly woman, has no prejudice towards her Jewish neighbors and lets her son play with Friedrich. However, she has nothing to counter the violence against her neighbors. When her husband, a typical victim of the global economic crisis , becomes unemployed, she has to make a living, which is rather uncomfortable for her.
  • Grandfather is the maternal grandfather of the first-person narrator; He embodies the type of the authority- fixated petty bourgeois of the Wilhelmine style, whose structure of prejudice against Jews is based on (alleged) personal experiences. Accordingly, he forbids his grandson to play with Friedrich. This type does not show any tendency to verbal or physical violence against Jews, but it is one of the spiritual pioneers of the persecution of Jews in Germany. He works for the Reichsbahn and supports the family financially.
  • Mr. Resch is the type of the brutal Nazi who only cares about his own advantage. As an obvious reader of the striker , he was a staunch National Socialist from the start , which is why the Schneiders are a thorn in his side. He is callous, ruthless, cruel and practices all typical forms of anti-Semitism, from verbal abuse to brute force. He's not even afraid to plunder the Schneider's apartment after the Gestapo deployed. The Blockwart debt in his role as warden indirectly the death of Frederick by this entry to the shelter denied and mocked him still behind.
  • Polycarp is Mr. Resch's garden gnome and plays an important role in the first and last chapter of the book. Like Friedrich, Polycarp was hit in the head by a bomb fragment during the air raid. Resch's "human" treatment of his garden gnome stands in stark contrast to his inhuman treatment of Friedrich.

The other characters in the novel can be (contrastively) assigned to the characteristics of perpetrator , victim or spectator ; many of these figures only appear in one chapter and are therefore quite static. A few figures (old woman, judge, Helga, teacher Neudorf, sergeant) are brought into decision-making situations and thus somewhat overcome the feeling of being completely at the mercy of terror.

reception

Back then it was Friedrich , when it was published in 1961, one of the first books for young people on the subject of the persecution of Jews in Germany. Today, in addition to the diary of Anne Frank and As Hitler stole the pink rabbit by Judith Kerr, it is one of the most famous youth books on National Socialism. The book was on the shortlist for the German Youth Literature Prize in 1962 . 1972 was awarded the Mildred L. Batchelder Award of the American Library Association awarded a non-American author for the best published in America young people. It also received the Sebaldus Youth Book Prize and the Woodward School Book Award . In 1989 dtv Verlag Richter awarded the Golden Pocket Book as an award for one million copies sold. The 62nd edition was published in 2013 .

The book belongs to the canon of school reading and is usually read in the 6th grade. The 32 episodes of the book have the character of short stories and because of their closed form they can also be read individually, which makes them particularly suitable for teaching. Use in school lessons is recommended in various teaching materials. Wolfgang Vogelsaenger praised the “factual style” and the “educational intent” of the author. Franz Waldherr called the novel a "historical literary text that represents historical reality in a way that is appropriate for the target audience", emphasizing the "exemplary exemplary character" of the episodes. The book is still popular with students today. In contemporary studies, however, there was also criticism of the book's content.

Ulrike Schrader spoke out in the magazine Praxis Deutsch (195, 2005, pp. 57–58) against reading German books for young people. Although the book has “undeniable merit as the beginning of the thematization of the National Socialist persecution of Jews in school”, it is based on a “ fatalistic view of history” that “leaves no room for maneuver, makes active intervention by persons involved seem impossible, and hence the question after responsibility and omission. ”Richter's attempt to“ correct traditional anti-Semitisms through a new way of portraying Jews and Judaism ”, she considers to have failed and instead emphasizes that he also“ the central event of the Nazi persecution of Jews, the murder of the Jews, in favor of an unspecific perpetrator-victim construction with relativising intent “fade out. According to Schrader, the children's book is a child of its time and must therefore be read as a "contemporary historical document of a processing of National Socialism ultimately aimed at relieving the burden". Also because the "depiction of National Socialism in the children's book At that time it was Friedrich (...) neither corresponds to the current state of contemporary history research nor to historical didactics ", "the book should no longer be recommended as reading for German lessons".

expenditure

literature

  • Tanja Kraus: Materials and templates for Hans Peter Richter "Back then it was Friedrich". Hase and Igel Verlag, Garching near Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3867607582
  • Franz Waldherr: Hans Peter Richter, at that time it was Friedrich . Oldenbourg-Schulbuchverlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-80802-8 .
  • Ulrike Schrader : Again and again Friedrich. Notes on the classic textbook by Hans Peter Richter. In: Praxis Deutsch . Zeitschrift für den Deutschunterricht , Vol. 32 (2005), Vol. 195, pp. 57-58, ISSN  0341-5279 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b "Back then it was Friedrich" / "Jews are undesirable in this health resort": Examples of the use of fictional and non-fictional texts in class
  2. Remembrance work: Basis of a culture of peace, p. 300 [1]
  3. Remembrance work: Basis of a culture of peace, p. 305 [2]
  4. a b Kirsten Kumschlies: Hans Peter Richter: At that time it was Friedrich . On KinderundJugendmedien.de .
  5. Schrader 2005, p. 57 ("Thesis 1")
  6. a b Schrader 2005, p. 57 (“Thesis 2”).
  7. Schrader 2005, p. 57 (“Thesis 3”).
  8. Schrader 2005, p. 58 (“Thesis 4”).
  9. Schrader 2005, p. 58 (“Thesis 5”).
  10. a b Schrader 2005, p. 58 (“Thesis 6”).

Web links