The Wega company

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The Wega company is a radio play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt from 1954. It was successively produced by the broadcasters Bayerischer Rundfunk , Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Hamburg and Südwestfunk . The three productions were first broadcast in 1955. It takes place in a dystopian future in which the Cold War continued until the year 2255 and is now about to escalate. The plot is reproduced by the travel doctor Mannerheim, who made eleven recordings on behalf of the secret service during the Wega mission and is now playing them in abridged and commented form to the President of the United States, the Free States of Europe and America.

Temporal background of the creation

The radio play was written in 1954, at a time when the Cold War was entering its hot phase. In Korea the war between the communist north (supported by China) and the western-oriented south (supported by the USA) had just ended with a ceasefire agreement, but this was already a sign of the global division of states into western and eastern states. In Europe, the former German Reich was effectively divided into two parts: the West-supported FRG and the GDR, which was dominated by the Soviet Union. In Europe, the “West” and the “East” were meanwhile two roughly equally strong power blocs. In addition to this, the Soviet Union had caught up with the USA in the nuclear weapons sector for the first time in 1953 with the first successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb, which resulted in an atomic stalemate. At this point there was no sign that this simmering conflict could resolve itself in the near future; In view of current developments, it looked more like the differences between the two power blocs would increase.

action

The situation of the human world is as follows in the year 2255: The earth is split into two great power blocs, namely the United States, the free states of Europe and America, and a second coalition consisting of Russia, Asia, Africa and Australia. In addition, the eastern coalition was recently able to seize the moon in a military strike. Venus serves both earthly coalitions as a penal colony, whereby the western states send communists and criminals, while the eastern states send adherents of the western way of life and also criminals there. The situation on Venus is being monitored by commissioners who send both power blocks.

After contact with the last commissioner on Venus was broken off, a delegation from the United States, Free States of Europe and America, consisting of Secretary of State Horace Wood, Travel Doctor Mannerheim, Captain Lee, Colonel Camille Roi, Secretary of War Costello, Minister for Extra Terrestrial Areas and the Secretary of State for Affairs on Venus, on the spacecraft Wega on the way to Venus. Your mission is to get the residents of Venus to work together against the Eastern coalition on Earth as the Cold War is on the verge of escalation.

On the trip, Foreign Secretary Wood informs the travel doctor Mannerheim that he knows of his secret mission to monitor him and, if necessary, bring about a desired end to the mission. In an interview with Colonel Roi he also remarks that he is also part of the mission on behalf of the President of the United States, Free States of Europe and America, in order to prevent a military attack on Venus in the event of the failure of the mission with Vega that the residents ally themselves with the opposing coalition.

After a first conference on the spaceship Wega, at which it can only be established that hardly anything is known about the political situation on Venus, the delegation finally lands on the penal colony and meets the representatives of Venus, John Smith and Petersen Murderer from Germany. The foreign minister's welcome speech is disrupted by volcanic eruptions and a storm, which is why the people involved go to a submarine for their first meetings in the absence of permanent settlements on the planet. There it quickly turns out that there is no government or even politics on Venus, and that the authorized representatives only take part in the negotiations because they had received the radio message from Vega and just have time. This situation confuses the earthly delegation, which is why they initially withdraw to Vega.
There the emissaries of the earth are now discussing how to proceed. While Costello and the other members of the delegation are frustratedly pushing for the negotiations to be broken off, Secretary of State Wood, who is quite sympathetic to the lack of politics on Venus, is forging a plan that the negotiating partners of Venus should be declared head of state and them the Would like to promise a return to earth.

Back on Venus, the delegation now meets a new representative: the former Polish street whore Irene. She now represents Smith and Petersen in the new negotiations on a hospital ship, as they have to go whale hunting. After again brief negotiations with the earthly politicians, she refuses, on behalf of all Venusians, the offer to return to earth and to take sides in the upcoming earthly war. The representatives of the United, Free Planets of the Earth return to Vega in horror, especially since the ambient temperatures on Venus are now giving them a lot of trouble.

While the delegation on the Vega is being tended to by ship doctor Mannerheim, Colonel Roi informs Foreign Secretary Wood that Vega has loaded ten sharp bombs on behalf of the President in case the negotiations with the Venusians should fail. Wood takes note of this but would like to make one final attempt at negotiation. Accompanied by Mannerheim, he goes back to Venus.
There he again meets a new authorized representative, this time his former college friend and last inspector Bonstetten. At first he tries to persuade him to give in, but Bonstetten also confirms the position of the other authorized representatives: The inhabitants of Venus are satisfied with their situation and have no interest in returning to Earth. He describes life, as it is possible on Venus, as difficult, but more honest than is possible on Earth. Here one lives according to fixed social values, while on earth one only lives according to these values.
When Wood becomes aware of Bonstetten's irreconcilability, he threatens him in a subordinate sentence with the bombing of Venus by Vega, but withdraws this threat immediately. In return, Bonstetten confirms to him that the inhabitants of Venus have already expected such a procedure and have therefore spread over the entire planet in order to keep the damage of an attack as low as possible. He sees his view of the character of the people on earth confirmed, but without blaming Wood or any other person. Resigned, Wood has to acknowledge the hopelessness of the mission and returns to Vega with Mannerheim and the promise not to bomb.

On board the spaceship, Wood orders the bombing after a brief conversation with Colonel Roi, and the Vega begins her journey back to earth. During the start, Wood justified his approach to himself and Mannerheim as inevitable, since the Venusians' negotiating attitude did not allow any other reaction. Finally, he decides to do a little reading in his bunker during the unstoppable war on Earth.

interpretation

The radio play The Vega Company is set in 2255, so it is a fictional story set in the future. The question of whether it is a utopian story cannot be answered clearly. According to Gero von Wilpert, a utopia depicts a "conceptual construction in an imagined, spatially or temporally distant world that is achievable, practically unrealizable, ideal state of humanity, state and society". In this radio play, however, two different human societies are presented: the society on earth, which is characterized as depraved, power-obsessed and corrupt, and the society on Venus, which is hailed as the “paradise of humanity”, but which is eventually wiped out. On the one hand, a positive social image of the future is drawn here (Venus), on the other hand, an oppressively negative one (earth). If one takes as a prerequisite that, taking into account the definition, the society of the earth is meant, then one cannot speak of a utopia in this case, but strictly speaking has to use the opposite concept of dystopia . However, it is undisputed that the radio play can definitely be classified in the category of science fiction literature. It is a story that takes place in the context of a scientific-technical vision of the future, and in which everyday life situations are assumed that sound fantastic and unbelievable to the people of the time the radio play was written, as well as to us today's readers and listeners. An exemplary example of this is the making of other heavenly bodies habitable by humans.

Pairs of opposites

Earth vs. Venus

The conflicts in The Vega Company are all presented according to the same principle, namely in the form of pairs of opposites. The most obvious pair of opposites are first of all the two worlds of human life, namely the earth and Venus. There is no need to go into the earth at this point, it does not appear to be any different from what it is today. Most of the information about the environment on Venus comes from a comment by Mannerheim at the beginning of the fifth recording. It tells of numerous volcanic eruptions, persistently severe storms, even of electrical discharges in the sky, which inevitably gives the reader or listener the impression that this is a real "hell". It stands in the “sharpest contrast to the earth”, which by its environmental conditions looks like a paradise in comparison.

Earthly power blocks

If you look at the situation on earth in the year 2255, you will inevitably see the next pair of opposites: the two coalitions of states. On the one hand there is the group of the United, Free States of Europe and America , on the other hand the group around the Soviet Union, Asia, Africa and Australia. Both are opposed to each other on many issues, but together they use Venus as a penal colony, whereby the Western coalition exposes communists and criminals there, the Eastern coalition criminals and Western sympathizers. The allusion to the situation during the Cold War is inevitable at this point, but is exacerbated by the descriptions during the first conference on the spaceship Vega: The conflict developed in such a way that an escalation became inevitable. The enemy was able to conquer Australia and even the moon, whereby the United, Free States of the earth fell further and further behind. The peace is no longer tenable, since the own power base is dwindling, and it is certain that the war will lead to a great wave of destruction. Through these descriptions and the further characterizations of the two earthly coalitions, Dürrenmatt builds an atmosphere of confrontation and bipolarity.

Secretary of State Wood vs. Group around Minister of War Costello

Another pair of opposites are the characters on Vega. On the one hand there is the group around War Minister Costello, which also includes Colonel Roi, the Minister for Extra Terrestrial Areas and the State Secretary for Affairs on Venus. You appear in the radio play as political hardliners, and are characterized by a noticeable skepticism towards the inhabitants of Venus and towards the mission itself. Correspondingly, they rigorously urge that diplomatic efforts be broken off when the Venusians do not seem to accept the offers of the earthly delegation. They also see the inhabitants of Venus more as a means to an end to successfully end the conflict. This group also causes the atmosphere on Venus the most to create, the Minister for Extra Terrestrial Areas even faints during the talks with Irene due to the heat (or figuratively due to the consistent attitude of the plenipotentiaries) and the Secretary of State suffers when he returns to Vega a hit. Foreign Secretary Horace Wood appears as a counterpart to this group. In accordance with his political position and function as head of the mission, he is extremely diplomatic in both the conferences and negotiations. Where the other delegation members act ideologically and narrow-minded, Wood reacts with thoughtfulness and sympathy for the people on Venus and their arguments. He wants to offer them the opportunity to atone for the crimes they have been charged with on earth and to enable them to make a fresh start on earth as a reward for their cooperation with the United States, the Free States of Europe and America . Accordingly, he is also opposed to the use of nuclear weapons as a means of blackmailing cooperation.

Mannerheim vs. Colonel Roi

Secretary Wood's actions are controlled by another pair of opposing characters on Vega, namely Mannerheim and Colonel Roi. Both received their (secret) orders before the mission from the responsible forces within the United States, Free States of Europe and America : Mannerheim is supposed to control Woods’s actions, Roi is supposed to prevent the mission from failing through the final use of atomic bombs. Both people and the fact that Wood finds out before the first meeting with the Venusians what the secret purpose of sending Mannerheim and Rois to this mission is, he is concretely restricted in his actions. Neither can he take sides for the inhabitants of Venus during the negotiations or perhaps even desert with impunity like the commissioners, nor can he let the negotiations fail without Venus threatening serious consequences. Beusch therefore characterizes Mannerheim and Roi as executioner figures, as they appear quite often in Dürrenmatt's works.

Inhabitants of the earth vs. Inhabitants of Venus / Wood vs. Bonstetten

Finally, a final pair of opposites in The Vega Company are the different ways of thinking of the inhabitants of the earth and Venus, demonstrated using the characters Wood and Bonstetten. If one looks at the composition of the two societies or the groups of people mentioned as examples, the first differences become apparent. On earth, system-compliant representatives of the corresponding value continuum are primarily desired, which in this radio play are the government officials of the delegation. The inhabitants of Venus, on the other hand, are made up of convicts and outcasts, but since they come from both coalitions of states on earth, this is not a society dominated by criminals, but a completely normal, heterogeneous collection of individuals on a real scale. Your primary goal on Venus is to ensure your own survival as well as the survival of others, without which your own survival would be more difficult. Society is therefore characterized by practically applied humanity, which in the struggle for existence lets everything else take a back seat. In this sense, the authorized representatives express humility and reverence for the grace of life, and therefore also deny the sense of politics for the preservation of a society. In contrast, the representatives of the earth stand out as absolute materialists. They approach people and customs on Venus with arrogance and ignorance, and cannot reconcile the way of life there with their own experiences of the earth. In contrast to the Venusians, they emphasize the struggle for values, which stands above everything, without understanding, however, that the desired values ​​have long prevailed on Venus. After all, they try to attract the people of Venus, who they consider primarily from a material point of view as a means to an end in the fight against the opposing coalition on earth, to their side by offering power, but this fails because the Venusians seem to seek more than simply wealth and influence. The bipolarity of the two societies can be seen in the example of the two characters Wood and Bonstetten. Originally friends from earlier study times, both have taken different paths in life. While Wood made a career as foreign minister on earth by adapting to the prevailing system, Bonstetten at some point renounced an earthly career in order to be able to start a new life in this place as commissioner to Venus according to new guidelines and in a new environment. So their friendship seems to still exist even after many years, but the thought patterns of both have diverged so much that their final conversation ultimately fizzles out. Wood seems to have a certain sympathy for Bonstetten's analyzes of the differences between the two social systems on Earth and Venus, but on the one hand he seems to have to suppress them because of Mannerheim's presence, on the other hand Bonstetten also provides him with the appropriate arguments for himself not to join life on Venus, in the end even to extinguish it.

Dialog Wood - Bonstetten

The central point of the radio play is the dialogue between Secretary of State Wood and his former friend Bonstetten. First of all, it must be mentioned that the result of the conversation is already certain in advance: either Bonstetten agrees to a cooperation of Venus with the United, Free States of Europe and America, or the society of Venus is about to be destroyed. The reason is as follows: The presence of Mannerheim puts Wood under pressure not to give in to the Venusians or not to succumb to the seduction of the social rules of Venus himself. Because of this pre-determination of the earthly delegation, it is impossible to speak of diplomacy at this point. In this conversation the different views of the two societies become clear. While the pursuit of values ​​by all means is in the foreground on earth, the pursuit of life dominates on Venus due to the prevailing environmental conditions. In this regard, Bonstetten confirms the “freedom to act rightly in order to do what is necessary.” When, in the course of the discussion, Wood saw no further way out of making his mission a bloodless success, he even openly threatened the annihilation of Venus this threat, however, immediately withdrew. Bonstetten replies, however, that the inhabitants of Venus have already suspected such a procedure and have initiated appropriate emergency measures. In addition, he exposes Wood's further approach by saying: “You cannot take back the deed that you could think.” (This quote is similar to a central statement by Johann Wilhelm Möbius in Dürrenmatt's comedy Die Physiker: “What was once thought can not be withdrawn. ”) He also refuses to work with an earthly coalition, which Beusch finally describes as“ inhumanly consistent, but impressively human ”. Wood finally realizes that the ideals that people on earth ostensibly strive for actually prevail on Venus, but fails to break away from his thought patterns, Mannerheim's subliminal influence and the tough arguments presented by Bonstetten in the form of an advocatus diaboli to solve. After returning to Vega, he only has the option, forced by Colonel Roi, to destroy Venus by bombing it before the opposing coalition from Earth establishes diplomatic contact with it.

Dürrenmatt's understanding of politics

Another central theme of the radio play is Dürrenmatt's understanding of politics. This can be formulated in three points:

1. Politics is a dirty business.

The Vega delegation visits Venus with the outward plan of negotiating with the residents there about military support in the event of a war on earth. However, the result of the negotiations is already certain in advance, without an opinion having been obtained from Venus: either Venus joins the offer of the delegation of the United States, Free States of Europe and America, or it is destroyed. A real right to have a say on approximately equal footing is not considered by the earth's emissaries, rather the ultimatum behind the mission should be concealed for as long as possible.

2. Politics is a means of striving for power.

Politics in general as well as in the specific visit of the delegation to Venus serves the sole purpose of strengthening or expanding one's own power base. This is to be achieved through cooperation between Venus and the Western Earth coalition. After the negotiations have failed, they even go over to the destruction of Venus in order not to give the opposing coalition the opportunity to ally itself with Venus. So in the end, after one's own position of power could not be increased, it is also ensured that the opponent cannot expand his power base.

3. Politics is a hindrance to the development of an ideal society.

The society of Venus, with its striving for life, is stylized by Foreign Secretary Woods from Dürrenmatt into a kind of perfect society. It is primarily concerned with ensuring the survival of all individuals in order to secure their own survival at the same time. Politics in the earthly sense is therefore considered pointless. It would simply take too much time and too many resources, politics would hinder the preservation of this society. The fact that the earthly delegation is now traveling to Venus to present political requests or demands is of course absolutely inappropriate in this situation, so that Woods’s plan to interest the Venusians in politics by increasing power, as well as the entire diplomatic mission, even before the start of the negotiations are doomed to failure.

Production overviews

BR production

The BR was produced in 1954 and first aired on January 18, 1955. With a playing time of 76'35 minutes, it is the longest of the three recordings.

The speakers and their roles:

NWDR production

The production of the NWDR Hamburg originated in 1955 and was first broadcast on January 20, 1955. With a playing time of 64'00 minutes, it is the second longest of the three recordings.

The speakers and their roles:

SWF production

The SWF was also produced in 1955 and first aired on July 19, 1955. With a playing time of 57'15 minutes, it is the shortest of the three recordings.

The speakers and their roles:

SchweizerRadio-DRS - production

The DRS was produced in 1968 and lasts 62'20 minutes

Director: Hans Hausmann

The speakers and their roles:

Trivia

The spaceship with which the delegation starts the journey to Venus and which gives the title of the radio play is named after a star in the constellation Lyra, see Wega . Other Vega names in other conflicts were Altair and Deneb. These names are also used to denote stars, see Altair and Deneb . In astronomy, the three stars form the so-called summer triangle .

literature

  • Hansueli Beusch: The radio plays of Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Dissertation, Zurich 1979.
  • Elisabeth Brock-Sulzer: Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Stations of his work. Diogenes, Zurich 1960.
  • Daniel Keel (Ed.): About Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Essays, testimonials and reviews from Gottfried Benn to Saul Bellow . Diogenes, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-257-20861-8 .
  • Gerhard P. Knapp: Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Studies on his work. Lothar Stiehm Verlag, Heidelberg 1976, ISBN 3-7988-0532-6 . (Poetry and Science, XXXIII).
  • Jan Knopf : Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33158-0 . (BsR 611).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German broadcast archive: ARD audio play database
  2. ↑ Utopia. In: Gero von Wilpert : Subject Dictionary of Literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 , p. 865, (1976, p. 79).
  3. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 117.
  4. ^ Science fiction. In: Wilpert: Subject Dictionary of Literature. 2001, p. 744.
  5. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 111.
  6. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 111.
  7. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 108.
  8. ^ Dürrenmatt: The Wega company. 1998, p. 109f.
  9. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 108.
  10. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 110.
  11. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 112f.
  12. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 112f.
  13. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 115.
  14. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 115.
  15. ^ Dürrenmatt: The Wega company. 1998, p. 116.
  16. ^ Dürrenmatt: The Wega company. 1998, p. 119.
  17. ^ Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The physicists. Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1998, p. 85.
  18. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 124.
  19. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 124.
  20. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 127.
  21. ^ Beusch: radio plays. 1979, p. 129.

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