The seventh cross
The Seventh Cross is a novel by Anna Seghers about the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp during the National Socialist era .
In 1938 Anna Seghers began work on her novel while in exile in southern France. Since she was unable to conduct research on the location of the novel, she resorted to a region as a setting that she knew as a native of Mainz . The Osthofen concentration camp on which it was based was located on a factory site near Worms, which was closed at the time .
The first chapter appeared in the Moscow magazine "International Literature" as early as 1939 . In 1942 the complete novel was published in English in the USA and in German by the Mexican exile publisher "El Libro Libre" ("The Free Book"). Also in 1942 a comic version was published in the USA. As it was published in numerous American newspapers, the complete pictorial version was likely to have reached up to 20 million readers at the time. In 1944 a revised and abridged edition was published for the US soldiers sent to the European theater of war. Anna Seghers later continued the life of some of the characters in stories (“The End”, “ The Saboteurs ”, “Forty Years of Margarete Wolf”).
action
In 1937 Georg Heisler breaks out of the Westhofen concentration camp near Worms with six other prisoners . The concentration camp commandant Fahrenberg orders the escaped people to be brought back within seven days. He had the crowns of seven trees cut and a crossbar attached to each of the trunks at shoulder height, so that seven crosses were created, one for each fugitive. Six of the escaped are either caught or perish while trying to escape, but the seventh cross remains free. Georg Heisler finally manages to escape in the direction of the Netherlands.
Each of the seven fugitives with their different professions and biographies represents a social class. The representatives of National Socialism , especially the camp commandant SA-Scharführer Fahrenberg, embody political attitudes in Nazi Germany. Together with the marginal characters in the novel, a cross-section of society at that time is created.
In seven chapters, the novel describes Heisler's seven-day flight, which could only succeed because Heisler, despite all his courage, is not an individualist like the other fugitives, but as a communist finds support from his comrades in the underground. But also well-meaning Germans, not politically organized, help him on his escape.
content
Georg and six other concentration camp inmates flee early in the morning on a work assignment outside their camp after they have knocked down a guard. You look for them with dog squadrons and spotlights. When they are outside the camp, the guards Mannsfeld, Ibst and Meißner climb over a slope to catch the refugees. Albert Beutler is captured, the others initially manage to escape. The commander of Fahrenberg had the area cordoned off, seven plane trees cut and a cross board nailed to each trunk. After the prisoners break out, Fahrenberg swears that he will have the prisoners back together in seven days.
Georg Heisler crawls through the sewer system and comes to a field. He goes to the next village, where he steals something to wear in a shed. To get out of this village unharmed, he takes a machine part with an article slip on it to identify himself with. When he arrives in Buchenau, he rests. All the gates close and he hides behind a pile of wood. Georg finally manages to escape from the village by climbing over the wall. He wants to go to Frankfurt to see his lover Leni. When traveling in a brewery vehicle, he is dropped off on a country road between Oppenheim and Mainz.
From the next village Georg takes the tram to Mainz. There he goes to the cathedral to sleep in an alcove. He takes off his convict suit and pretends to go to church. Since his hand is injured by broken glass, he goes to a Jewish doctor's office for treatment the next morning.
Georg goes down the Rhine and swaps clothes with a boatman. He hikes on with an angler named “Pike Tail”. When a police officer speaks to him, he flees. He runs into an industrial area, and since he is not being followed, he buys a beer at a stall and persuades a beer driver to take him with her. This drops him off behind Mainz-Mombach and Georg sleeps in a shed. The next morning he crossed the Rhine by ferry and hitchhiked to Höchst and from there to Frankfurt-Niederrad . Full of hope he knocks at Leni's, but she is now in a relationship with a National Socialist and pretends not to recognize Georg. Georg "storms" the apartment and lets go of something to eat.
After following the rails, he stands in front of the house that the dead Belloni (who was shot in the feet while escaping over the roofs and who fell from the roof) had described to him. Mrs. Marelli gives him clothes and 8 marks which Belloni had given her too much. He follows a girl to her room and lies down there. Later he wakes up to noises and escapes from the window.
At the Eschenheimer Tower in Frankfurt he meets Füllgrabe. This wants to face and take Georg with him. Now Georg wants to go to Botzenbach. Since he knows that everyone in his family is being watched, he wants to send someone out, and thinks of Paul Röder.
Röder lives in Frankfurt-Bockenheim at Brunnengasse 12. Paul is there, he takes him into the apartment, but Georg doesn't tell right away that he broke out of Westhofen. Paul wants to help him, so he goes to Mr. Schenk's in Moselgasse. Schenk is in Westhofen and his wife has not lived there for three months. Then Paul goes to Mr. Sauer, but he doesn't want to know Georg because he thinks Paul is a Gestapo spy. That's why Röder brings Georg to his aunt Katharina Grabber, who owns a haulage company and hires and hides Georg.
With the help of his old work colleague and communist Fiedler, Paul organizes accommodation for Georg with a certain Doctor Kress in the Riederwaldsiedlung . The next morning, Fiedler's wife comes with an envelope containing a note with the location, a forged passport and some money. Georg is supposed to be at the ship "Wilhelmine" at the landing stage at the Kasteler Brücke in Mainz at 5:30 am the next day. Georg is dropped off by Kreß in Kostheim and goes to the Kasteler Bridge. There he shows the guard his passport and gets on the boat.
All the other escaped are either caught or are dead. Fahrenberg has the living refugees tied to the plane trees. Fahrberg and Zillich are exchanged as commanders. All seven plane trees will be felled under the new management of Sommerfeld and Uhlenhaut. It remains to be seen whether Fahrenberg will subsequently commit suicide in a hotel; however, it is suggested very believably.
characters
Georg Heisler
The communist Georg Heisler is the central figure in the novel; He is the only one of the seven refugees to survive by fleeing to the Netherlands . His youth was marked by fickle friendships.
Ernst Wallau
The former works council and MP Wallau is also one of the seven refugees and is a role model and spiritual help for Heisler. After he is caught, he does not speak and is eventually killed by Zillich.
Filling ditch
Füllgrabe is a wealthy merchant who made donations to communists before coming to the concentration camp. It is said of him that he could manage to escape. He already knew Heisler from earlier and meets with him in Frankfurt , where Füllgrabe tries to persuade him to go to the Gestapo with him , which Heisler refuses. Finally, Füllgrabe goes to the Gestapo and surrenders.
Historical context
Anna Segher's portrayal of Westhofen is based on reports from prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . The name "Westhofen" alludes to the concentration camp in Osthofen , a neighboring town of Westhofen in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Alzey-Worms . However, the Osthofen concentration camp had already been dissolved in 1934. It is possible that Max Tschornicki's real escape from the Osthofen concentration camp served as a model.
With her novel, Seghers wanted to show that prisoners could break out of a concentration camp with the help of like-minded people, that fascism was being fought in Hitler's Germany, and that the National Socialists were not all-powerful.
reception
In the GDR , the novel The Seventh Cross was also discussed as compulsory reading in German lessons at secondary schools, especially since Anna Seghers was President of the German Writers' Association in the GDR from 1952–1978 . The seventh cross was included in the ZEIT library of 100 books as the only work by a woman , and it is also part of the ZEIT student library . Marcel Reich-Ranicki described it in 1988 as a masterpiece of German literature and as the most important German novel about life during the “ Third Reich ”, and included it in his 2002 Canon of German Literature. The first German version of the picture novel was published under: Anna Seghers / William Sharp : The seventh cross. With original illustrations from 1942. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2015. ISBN 978-3-351-03604-1
The seventh cross was selected for the ninth season of the Frankfurt reads a book series of events , which took place in the Rhine-Main area from April 16 to 29, 2018 .
Adaptations
The director Fred Zinnemann , who came from Austria and emigrated to the USA , made a film of The Seventh Cross in the USA in 1944 (original title: The Seventh Cross ). The role of Georg Heisler was played by Spencer Tracy . Other roles played Signe Hasso (Toni), Jessica Tandy (Liesel Roeder), Agnes Moorehead (Madame Marelli) and Hume Cronyn , who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting role for his role as Paul Roeder in 1945 .
In 1955, Hedda Zinner adapted the material for a radio play in the GDR . a. Willy A. Kleinau , Harry Hindemith , Franz Kutschera , Ernst Kahler , Paul Streckfuß , Aribert Grimmer , Horst Preusker , Werner Pledath , Horst Schönemann , Paul Lewitt , and Gerry Wolff contributed.
music
- Hans Werner Henze composed his Sinfonia No. 9 (1995–1997) based on motifs from the novel The Seventh Cross .
- The Swiss composer Marc Kilchenmann composed the Seghers tetralogy for transverse flute and string quartet on the basis of the novel : No. 1: Each new step is always only the penultimate one , No. 2: Now being together, whatever hell , No. 3: Nothing about him was right, but his gaze was right , No. 4: Under the same danger, in the same cool wind .
Secondary literature
- Rüdiger Bernhardt: Text analysis and interpretation of "The Seventh Cross." Series King's Explanations and Materials 408, Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 1st edition 2012 ISBN 978-3-8044-1982-7 .
- Ursula Elsner: Anna Seghers, The Seventh Cross . Oldenbourg Interpretationen, 76, Munich 1999. ISBN 3-486-88696-7 .
- Dagmar Fischborn ( Dagmar Borrmann ) Theatrical adaptations of epic texts as a special form of interrelationship between theater and literature. Franziska Linkerhand and The Seventh Cross at the Mecklenburg State Theater Schwerin. Dissertation A. German National Library. Signature Frankfurt: H 85b / 6201, signature Leipzig: Di 1985 B 4212.
- Alexander Stephan : Anna Seghers: 'The Seventh Cross'. World and impact of a novel. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7466-5199-9 .
Web links
- Osthofen Memorial State Center for Civic Education Rhineland-Palatinate
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thomas von Steinaecker : Guide for American soldiers. Anna Seghers' famous novel "The Seventh Cross" almost never appeared . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 28, 2015, p. 18.
- ^ The client was the King Features Syndicate , which belonged to the publishing group of the newspaper empire of William Randolph Hearst . Signatories of the time not as a comic but as a pictorial novel advertised picture novel was Leon Sander , who since his emigration in 1934 from Berlin to New York under the pseudonym William Sharp as a caricaturist and cartoonist worked. A first German version appeared in 2015.
- ^ Günter Morsch : Sachsenhausen. The "concentration camp near the Reich capital" . Metropol, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-170-4 , pp. 94–96.
- ↑ http://www.projektosthofen-gedenkstaette.de
- ^ First broadcast of the literary quartet, 27th minute.
- ↑ http://www.frankfurt-liest-ein-buch.de/ , accessed on September 4, 2017
- ↑ The seventh cross. In: Radio play classics on DLF . October 22, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2016 .