The year of the wolves

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The Year of the Wolves is a book for young people from 1962 by Willi Fährmann and the third part of the tetralogy The Bienmann Saga .

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In the last winter of the war, 1944/1945, the Bienmann family had to flee from their East Prussian homeland before the front approached. As a 12-year-old Konrad experienced the cruelty of war up close.

In the late summer of 1944 the world still seems to be in order, even if you can already hear the distant thunder of cannons from the front: The harvest is good, Konrad can go fishing and love his grandfather Lukas (cf.The long way of Lukas B. ) Let stories be told and a new baby is about to arrive. Although the children are playing war on the village street and vacationers from the front report of atrocities, the reality of the battlefield seems far away. While some people already expect defeat, others still believe in victory.

But in autumn the Russian front draws closer and closer. Konrad's family now also has to pack their things on a horse-drawn cart and leave the village. Her destination is Berlin, where the family wants to meet at Konrad's uncle, as agreed beforehand just in case. Grandfather Lukas will no longer be there because he dies shortly before departure.

In the trek with countless other families, the Bienmanns head west. But already at their second rest stop, an aunt, they only find a charred house instead of relatives. And it gets worse: Konrad witnessed burning villages, artillery fire and the constant fear of being captured by the Russians. While on the run, near Danzig, Konrad's sister Elisabeth was born. Out of a gut feeling, his mother refuses to board the ship in Danzig that is supposed to take her across the Baltic Sea. Only afterwards does it become apparent how right she did: the ship was the Wilhelm Gustloff . The Bienmann family dares the dangerous escape across the frozen lagoon. Konrad experienced low-flying attacks and a night on the swaying ice, he saw other cars break in the ice and whole families drowned in the ice-cold water. He experiences the feeling of total helplessness and being at the mercy. But in the end with a lot of luck you will reach Berlin.

In this novel, Fährmann describes the cruelty of war from the perspective of a child and thus chooses the perspective that makes identification the easiest. Especially for the generations born after the war, the cruelty of the war is unimaginable; it exceeds the reader's imagination as well as that of Konrad.

The Year of the Wolves was added to the shortlist for the German Youth Literature Prize in 1963.

literature

  • Willi Fährmann: The Bienmann saga . Arena-Verlag, Würzburg