The green monster

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The green monster is a novel by Wolfgang Schreyer from 1959. It was filmed in 1962 by Rudi Kurz for the DFF . The background to the plot is the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán organized by the CIA in 1954 as part of Operation Success or Operation PBSUCCESS . The novel is considered to be one of the highest-circulation works in GDR literature. The book was reprinted seven times under the new title The Green Pope until 1986; In 2000 a revised version was published in Rostock under the old original title Das Grüne Ungeheuer .

History of origin

The history of its origins is still unknown. According to his own statements, Schreyer wrote his most successful novel apparently in just eight weeks at the beginning of 1959, but admitted to himself in retrospect, despite all the positive reviews, certain weaknesses in the representation of Latin American conditions. The title picture of the first edition still bears the reference “factual novel”, which is missing in the new edition from 1961. In fact, the main storyline is fictional, but closely intertwined with what actually happened in Guatemala in June 1954.

Brief summary and plot structure

The total of 93 short chapters often have headings based on film or book titles or ironically alienate them: the third man , captains stay in the stern (after the DEFA film captains stay on board from 1959), fruits of anger , seeds of violence , wolf among wolves ( Hans Fallada ) or farmers, bigwigs and bombs (Hans Fallada). Both the book title and the chapter headings consciously suggest adventure and excitement to the reader.

The first-person narrator, of whom the reader never gets his real name and of whom he only knows that he was a non-commissioned officer in the German Air Force during the Second World War , falls into the trap of a young woman in Savannah (Georgia) who threatens to to report him for alleged rape by her . While on the run from the police, he finds help from an old friend, Steve Baxter, whom he knows from Augsburg from the post-war period, where they both worked in the black market business. Baxter was a "kitchen cop" in the United States Army at the time . Steve establishes contact with Don Miguel, a dubious businessman, who gives the narrator a forged Mexican passport in the name of "Antonio Morena". "Morena" is hired as a pilot at Don Miguel. As it quickly turns out, “Morena” is now working for the Green Monster gang, the green monster: the United Fruit Company (UFCO, now Chiquita Brands International ), which controls large parts of Central America directly or indirectly. The term seems to come from Schreyer himself; in Central America the UFCO was usually ironically referred to as "El Pulpo", "The Octopus".

"Morena's" mission is to kidnap a Guatemalan intellectual , the journalist Dr. Luis Guerra, and his daughter Isabel, called Chabelita. During the attack on Guatemala, the commandant of the port of Puerto Barrios , Major Guerra, the brother Dr. Guerras, are forced to surrender the city to the invaders . But due to the conversations with Dr. Guerra and Chabelita “Morena” begins to reconsider his participation in the coup . He escapes through the front lines with Chabelita, is arrested, freed himself through a bluff and finally arrives in the capital Guatemala City . But now the Arbenz government has fallen. The attempt to get asylum in the Mexican embassy fails. In the end, "Morena" manages to smuggle Chabelita and her father to the air force base and to flee to Mexico in a hijacked plane, where Dr. Guerra founds a progressive newspaper in which "Morena" now works.

Table of contents

The unknown narrator falls victim to a trap in Savannah. A young girl named Joan forks him up on the street in her Cadillac and seduces him into an affair. In fact, she intends to report him for attempted rape, then marry and sue for high severance pay in the divorce. He manages to escape from the hotel room, but the police are looking for him.

He looks for and finds his old "friend" of the Augsburg black market businesses of the post-war era , Steve Baxter. Baxter promises help. He immediately establishes contact with a dubious businessman, Don Miguel. This gives the narrator a forged Mexican passport in the name of "Antonio Vasques Morena", b. 1925 in Mexico.

But the price for "Morena" is high: He is hired as a pilot for the Green Monster gang, as Baxter calls them. His first assignment is the kidnapping of Dr. Luis Guerra, a Guatemalan journalist, and his daughter Isabel, called Chabelita. You fly with Baxter and "Morena" as a pilot apparently from Florida to Guatemala; In fact, the flight is a fake and the plane lands on Dagger Island off Honduras, where a gang's reception committee is already ready.

"Morena" previously believed to work for a criminal organization, but he now realizes that he is part of a political enterprise: The United Fruit Company, together with the CIA and the US government, plans to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala, which advocates land reforms that are seriously damaging the company. Dr. Guerra plays a key role in the planned war: through blackmail, his brother, Major Guerra, port commander of Puerto Barrios, is to be forced to surrender the city to the invaders without fighting.

From Dagger Island , Baxter and “Morena” take an old American speedboat , the Estrella fugaz (“shooting star”), to Puerto Barrios and pick up senior officers there for the coup. The reader learns a lot about modern piracy and the "Mord-AG" ( Murder, Inc. ) as part of the American gangsterism.

Back on Dagger Island, “Morena” learns that Steve is actually the bodyguard of “Don Miguel”; this is actually the former Guatemalan general Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes . Fuentes is the real head of the invasion . He was also responsible for the plan to kidnap Guerra. Since the general knows that Guerra would not be prepared to persuade his brother to give up Puerto Barrios, even under severe torture , he develops a perfidious plan: one of his officers is supposed to rape Chabelita in order to put Guerra under pressure. Since the other officers are all drunk or impotent, "Morena" opts for it. Together with Dr. Guerra and Chabelita manage "Morena" to deceive Fuentes: Dr. Guerra, allegedly shaken by the rape of his daughter, writes a letter to his brother urging him to hand over the city to the invaders without a fight. But by means of a secret sign that only he and his brother know, he turns the message of the letter into its opposite: Puerto Barrios should be defended in any case.

"Morena" is now flying with Fuentes to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa . This is where the actual headquarters of the invaders is located. Here "Morena" also met Colonel Castillo Armas , the military leader of the invasion. If Fuentes looks like an operetta general, Armas makes a competent military impression, but also has a certain resemblance to Adolf Hitler . For her own safety, Chabelita is now transformed into a fellow of the "Morena", who has meanwhile been promoted to captain , and is now called "José Barillas". In an attack on Fuentes, apparently staged by his rival Armas, Baxter is shot while the general is only slightly wounded.

After the invaders marched in, Armas set up his new headquarters in Esquipulas . “Morena” and Chabelita are staying with a German coffee farmer, Hardenberg, a conservative German national who explains to them how the German plants in Guatemala were nationalized under pressure from the USA during World War II. Independently of this, Hardenberg also welcomes the fall of the Arbenz government. In this episode the reader learns a lot about the recent history of the Dominican Republic and its President Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina . "Morena" is now used as a pilot against the government. Although he succeeds several times with the help of deceit to let the attacks run into the void, he now realizes that a decision must be made. He decides to flee with Chabelita to the territory of the government troops.

On the run into the jungle, however, “Morena” forgets to remove the “Liberation Army” badge from his uniform. When they encounter government troops in Chiquimula , the soldiers beat him up. Both are arrested and taken to the commandant, Colonel Gusano. Gusano recognizes “Morena”: he was on board the Estrelle fugaz eleven days earlier . Gusano secretly works with the insurgents. "Morena" puts everything on one card and dares a big bluff. He was a secret envoy from Major Reyes, the head of the rebel air force, and on a special assignment for the Arbenz government on the way to the capital. Gusano believes him and sends him and Chabelita to the capital with an escort under Capitan Cruzfer.

But the car they start with is stranded in a ford and they have to continue by train. On the way the train is bombed by invader planes. You can all reach the capital on foot and take quarters at the Palace Hotel. Cruzfer tries to get in touch with the new President Díaz, but fails. As they all go to the American embassy, ​​they discover that US Ambassador John Emil Peurifoy has just initiated the change of power: Díaz has resigned in favor of Monzón, a puppet of the UFCO.

Back at the hotel, “Morena” and Chabelita decide to flee again. During a heavy thunderstorm, they abseil out of the hotel room window and get into the guerras' house, which has since been searched by the police but is empty. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Guerra one; he freed himself from Fuentes captivity and made his way to Guatemala. The last hope of the refugees is now the Mexican embassy. Once there, the reception is friendly, but the ambassador warns against a stay: the new government does not always accept the right of asylum and demands the surrender of particularly prominent former members of the government. “Morena” sees only one possibility. He's hiding Dr. Guerra and his daughter in a car and smuggled them into La Aurora International Airport . In the confusion of the new rulers' seizure of power, he succeeds in hijacking a plane and flying his companions to Mexico. After arriving in Mexico, Dr. Guerra a small newspaper; “Morena” will now be his researcher. In the afterword, the novel is referred to as a factual report. The history of Guatemala up to February 1958 is presented in report form.

background

Schreyer's “factual novel” cleverly combines a fictitious main plot with real events in Guatemala; Schreyer's research was probably based largely on Western reporting. With the German background of the main character “Morena”, Schreyer made the rather exotic setting of his novel palatable to the (East) German audience. The main character is visibly based on the author, both in terms of age and the fact that Schreyer was an officer candidate in the Air Force.

The fictional "Morena" meets all sorts of real protagonists of the CIA coup: General Ydígoras Fuentes, Colonel Castillo Armas, the American star journalist Homer Bigart, Colonel Díaz and US Ambassador Peurifoy. The plot often includes excursions into Guatemalan history or the relationship between the USA and the states in Central America and the Caribbean. It is noticeable that the Guatemalan communists, for whom the invasion is actually taking place, do not appear at all. Dr. Guerra is "left" and supports land reform, but does not seem to be a member of the Guatemalan Workers' Party, the Guatemalan Communist Party.

The protagonist, by no means by chance a German who was thrown out of bourgeois life through and after the Second World War, goes through a classic dramaturgical development. From the perpetrator, he develops into a rather uninvolved observer until he takes on a new position himself and actively intervenes. Schreyer avoids any superficial propaganda; theoretically the novel could have been written by a West German in West Germany. In terms of style and narrative structure, it is clearly superior to its West German counterpart, the Banana War by Karl Heinz Poppe, which appeared in 1960. However, this novel was also published under license in the GDR in 1962.

The green monster remained Schreyer's most successful novel. From that point on, he couldn't get rid of the subject of Latin America. In The Adjutant he describes the assassination of the Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina in 1961. This work was made into a three-part film by the DFF in 1971 under the same title and directed by Peter Deutsch .

expenditure

  • Wolfgang Schreyer: The green monster , East Berlin 1959.
  • Wolfgang Schreyer: The Green Pope , Berlin-Ost 1961, 8th edition 1986.
  • Wolfgang Schreyer: The green monster , revised new edition Rostock 2000.

literature

  • Wolfgang Schreyer: The second man. Review of life and writing . Das Neue Leben, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-360-00932-0 .

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