The Assassination (Mulisch)

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The assassination ( Dutch original title De Aanslag ) is a novel by Harry Mulisch from 1982 . The German-language edition was published in 1986 in the translation by Annelen Habers by Carl Hanser Verlag .

Guilt and responsibility are the central themes of the work. Coming to terms with the past is the common thread that runs through the five episodes of the story. The main character is Anton Steenwijk, who was 12 at the beginning of the novel, and although he denies it, he spent the rest of his life investigating the incident.

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  • 1945: At the end of the Second World War, shortly before the Netherlands was liberated from German occupation, the Dutch National Socialist Fake Ploeg was shot by Dutch resistance fighters in front of the house of the neighbors of the Steenwijk family in Haarlem (the author's birthplace) . The neighbors in the house to the right of Steenwijks lay the body in front of the family house, whereupon the German occupiers burned the Steenwijks' house down and shot the parents and Anton's older brother.
  • 1952: The now 20-year-old Anton Steenwijk (who moved to live with his uncle in Amsterdam) returns to Haarlem for the first time. He learns from a neighbor that a memorial was erected after the war and visits it.
  • 1956: In connection with the Hungarian uprising , Anton Fake meets Ploeg, the son of the shot member of the National Socialist Movement in Nederland (NSB), and gets to know his view of things. He understands that his life also changed that evening. Likewise, Anton has to endure the justifications and excuses of his former classmate.
  • 1966: At the funeral of a resistance fighter, Anton overhears one of the guests reporting about an assassination attempt that he had carried out. The description sounds familiar to him and through his questions he learns that it was actually the killing of the collaborator Fake Ploeg in Haarlem. Now he understands why the assassination attempt was necessary to avoid further victims.
  • 1981: During a peace demonstration, Anton happened to meet the neighbor's daughter, who 36 years earlier had laid the body together with her father, the helmsman Korteweg, in front of his parents' house - and found out her motives, which led to his family and not the family Aartsen became a victim of the German occupiers. The Aartsen family had hidden persecuted Jews from the Gestapo as an instrument used by the German occupiers and the Kortewegs therefore did not want to burden them with the consequences of the body's discovery.

The fictional character of Cor Take is based on the historical resistance fighter Jan Bonekamp , Truus Coster on Hannie Schaft (1920–1945).

Striking stylistic devices

Throughout the book, Mulisch uses antitheses to underline the internal and external conflicts of the plot.
In the first episode, the Steenwijk family suffered from the cold of the starvation winter - after the attack, their house went up in flames, which destroyed all of their property. A bitter irony lies in Anton's realization that it “at least warmed him up”. In order to differentiate the resistance fighters (and thus also love) from the fascists (and their hatred) the author chooses the metaphors of “light” and “darkness”.

In the third episode, however, this black-and-white painting is put into perspective when Anton learns the view of Fake Ploeg, the son of the shot fascist. For him, too, life changed that evening and even without blaming him in any way, he and his family suffered from his father's actions - for example, he had to leave Haarlem after the war.

In each chapter there is a specific event or fact that relates to Anton's past or mental life. At the end of the fourth chapter, for example, in which Anton meets the former resistance fighter Cor Takes, who is responsible for the attack and thus also indirectly for the death of Anton’s parents, this “event” is a burning cigarette. After talking to each other, Takes leaves the room while Anton stays behind, trapped in dark thoughts. The rest of the cigarette will burn the ashtray. Anton tries to extinguish the smoldering fire with his whiskey, which creates a black pulp. After trying in vain to open the window, he leaves the room.

This is one of the many hints that Anton never processed the events of his childhood and did not manage to do so (he cannot open the window), but that these still have an influence on him, although they have actually disappeared a long time in the past (The smoke of the cigarette, although no longer visible, can still be smelled). Here again the volcanic metaphor, which appears again and again from the beginning of the novel (quote from Pliny) to the end (dust cloud), especially clear when Ploeg junior meets. and Anton in 1956 as part of the anti-communist demonstrations. Not only does something burn up here, but there is even an eruption when the stove explodes.

All incidents in the episodes point to the recurring “volcano motif”.

Construction of the novel

In the course of the book the constant reference to previous chapters is noticeable. There are a number of examples - the nocturnal conversation between young Anton and the unknown resistance fighter is particularly important. This warns him that the fascists would blame him on the assassins: "They will say that the illegals would have known what would happen then and that it is therefore their fault." In the third episode, exactly that happens, when Fake Ploeg throws the following at Anton's head: "They knew that there would be reprisals, and yet they kill him in front of your house."

Equally significant is the fact that 21 years after the assassination Anton found out who his cell mate was: a communist who was involved in the shooting of the fascist. This also explains her tears - she knows that her action changed little Anton's life in a terrible way. Truus Coster comments on this moral aspect of armed resistance as follows: "We have to destroy a little of ourselves before we can destroy them."

The explanatory component for the evening of the deed is just as important. It was not until 1981 that Anton found out why the body was placed in front of her house and not in front of another house. The neighbors on the other side gave shelter to Jews, which is why Korteweg did not drag the body to them; he didn't want the Nazis to discover the Jews.

It is characteristic of the novel that Anton managed throughout his life to downplay the traumatizing event from his childhood and never really tried to deal with it. This encapsulates the experience in its core and begins a journey through its future life. Because of his refusal to accept the act, Anton no longer has access to it, but the encapsulated experience has access to him. So it happens that the “capsule” can break open without his intervention and influence him again, even after fifty years.

With each episode, it becomes clearer in which dilemma the characters found themselves at the time, the assassins, but also the neighbors, whose motivation for action is understandably justified by the surprising ending of the novel. What remains is the Steenwijk family, who got caught between the deadly millstones of the occupiers, organized resistance and private moral courage without their own intervention.

Aspects: is Anton Steenwijk vengeful?

Helmsman Korteweg, Anton's neighbor at the time, who laid the corpse with his daughter in front of Anton's house and thus unintentionally caused the Steenwijks to die, feared revenge for himself and for his daughter Anton. Out of fear of death, he emigrated overseas with his daughter soon after the end of the war and later took his own life abroad. Why didn't Steuermann Korteweg carry the body to Aart's neighbors on the other side? Because he knew that the Aarts were hiding a Jewish family. And why didn't he leave the body in front of his house? The answer sounds banal: Because he did not expect to send the Steenwijks to their death with his short-circuit act, and because he wanted to protect the terrariums in his house with his favorites, the lizards, from being destroyed by the occupiers.

Two Dutch resistance fighters, Truus Coster and Cor Takes, carried out the attack on the fascist. Anton is locked up on the night of the crime with the shot assassin Truus. Before Anton is released, Truus confides in him that she loves Takes, but his lover does not know. Anton still wants to find takes 36 years later and tell him that, because Anton is the only one who knows about the love of the executed Truus. Anton would like to hear everything about the past, but then he would like to forget once and for all. He never had thoughts of revenge. However, the horrific winter night in 1945 made Anton a pessimist: Life in this world was a failure, a big failure, and it would have been better if it had never happened. Only when there was no more life, and thus no more memory of the death screams, would the world be all right again. (P. 164)

filming

In 1986 the novel was filmed under the same title by Fons Rademakers with the actors Derek de Lint , Marc van Uchelen , Monique van de Ven , John Kraaykamp , Huub van der Lubbe . The film won an Oscar in 1987 for best foreign language film .

output

  • Harry Mulisch: The Assassination: Roman . From the Dutch by Annelen Habers. rororoTB, Reinbek bei Hamburg 16th edition 2000, ISBN 3-499-22797-5 :

literature

  • Reinhard Wilczek: Harry Mulisch, “Das Assentat” ; Munich: Oldenbourg-Schulbuchverl., 2002; ISBN 3-486-80807-9 ; (Great! Reading; 7: Models for Literature Lessons 5–10)