The ax from Wandsbek

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The Wandsbek ax is a novel by Arnold Zweig that was first published in Hebrew in 1943 by Sifriat Hapoalim and in 1947 in German by Max Taus Neuem Verlag in Stockholm.

action

The Wandsbeck butcher master Albert Teetjen got into economic difficulties due to the increasing competition from department stores. At the insistence of his wife Stine, he turns to his comrade from the First World War , the shipowner Footh, who is also a member of the Hamburg Senate. He arranged for him to represent the sick executioner in the Fuhlsbüttel prison . There he is supposed to execute four political prisoners with an ax , for which he is to receive a fee of 2,000 marks. With this blood money , the Teetjens manage to stay afloat for a while and to stimulate business with an advertisement . But then the neighbors find out where the money comes from, the origin of which Albert was able to conceal up until then. Thereupon the customers stay away and the economic problems of the Teetjens increase again. Due to remorse and the seemingly hopeless difficulties , Stine Teetjen hangs herself in the living room, whereupon Albert also commits suicide with his pistol .

To the background

Entry on the executions of Dettmer, Fischer and others on May 19, 1934 by Jan Valtin

Arnold Zweig lived in Haifa since 1934 . The novel was written there from 1941 to 1943; However, the first considerations and drafts date back to 1939.

The basis for the plot are events around the Altona Blood Sunday . The trigger for the novel, however, was the note “Suicide of an Executioner” on April 18, 1938 in the Deutsche Volkszeitung , a weekly newspaper published by the KPD in exile in Western Europe. As a result, the execution of Johnny Dettmer and three other anti-fascists had not been entrusted to the Hamburg executioner, but to the butcher Fock from Altona. Other events served as a template for the novel.

In addition to Dettmer, those executed were Hermann Fischer, Arthur Schmidt and Alfred Wehrenberg. They were convicted with other - later pardoned - defendants in the so-called "Eagle Hotel Trial". The First Public Prosecutor Heinrich Jauch represented the prosecution. The trial, however, had no direct reference to the Altona Blood Sunday, with which Zweig interwoven the plot.

The news from the Deutsche Volkszeitung is demonstrably wrong. Dettmer and the others were executed by the executioner Carl Gröpler and his assistant Reindel. The execution is described in detail by Jan Valtin in his autobiographical work Out of the night (German: Diary of Hell ).

In 1979, eleven years after Zweig's death, the book appeared for the first time in a West German edition. It was barely noticed.

filming

The novel was filmed twice: the first time in 1951 in the GDR by DEFA under the direction of Falk Harnack - see Das Beil von Wandsbek (1951) - and again in 1982 in West Germany by Horst Königstein and Heinrich Breloer - see Das Beil von Wandsbek (1982) .

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fig. In Heinrich Breloer, Horst Königstein: Blutgeld. Materials on a German story. 1982, p. 6.
  2. ^ Andreas Seeger, Fritz Treichel: Executions in Hamburg and Altona 1933–1945. Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-929728-39-7 , p. 36.
  3. ↑ Cologne 1957, p. 472 ff.
  4. ^ Author's edition published by Athenaeum Verlag
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel 33/1982: Legend of the butcher as an executioner