The head

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Cover of the first edition

The head is a novel by Heinrich Mann , which was finished on February 21, 1925 and was published by Paul Zsolnay in the same year .

Two friends, the German intellectuals Terra and Mangolf, imbued with “belief in spirit”, rose to key positions in the German Reich in the Wilhelmine era before the First World War, and killed themselves towards the end of the war.

characters

Actor
  • Klaus (also: Claudius) Terra, patrician son , lawyer
    • Lea (also: Leonore) Terra, actress, his sister
    • Princess Lili (also: Madelon), the mother of Terra's illegitimate son Klaus (also: Claudius)
  • Dr. Wolf Mangolf, son of an agent
    • Bellona Mangolf, née Knack, his wife
  • Count Leopold Lannas
    • Countess Alice Lannas, his daughter
    • Countess Altgott, former opera singer, his girlfriend
  • Baron von Tolleben
Minor characters
  • The emperor
  • Privy councilor von Knack from Knackstadt, heavy industrialist in the arms business
  • Count Erwin Lannas, son of Leopold Lannas
  • Kurschmied, actor
  • Admiral von Fischer
  • Gubitz
  • Professor cup

scene of action

The novel is mostly set in Wilhelminian Berlin, in Liebwalde near Berlin, but also in a northern German port city, in Munich, in the Rhineland, in the middle between Berlin and the Rhineland, in Paris and in South Tyrol .

Action period

The plot runs from 1891 to 1917. The year 1891 is mentioned at the beginning of the novel. Heinrich Mann interpreters have found out the end time. The "Nachbemerkung" quotes from a letter by the author in which he refers to a small experience from the spring of 1917. This incident, in turn, is woven pretty directly into the end of the novel.

action

The Princess Lili

In 1891 the twenty-year-old Klaus Terra fell in love with "the woman from over there". Terra, the patrician son in a north German port city, lives across from Princess Madelon. She lets him call her Lili and thinks that a necklace doesn't have to be a gift. Terra wants to run away with Lili. The princess, much older and more sensible than Terra, does not flee with them. But Terra breaks away from his father and goes to Munich. He buys a carousel at the fair. After her father went bankrupt, Terra degenerated into a social pimp .

Later, in Berlin, he becomes the "head of advertising " for a company that does fraudulent stock exchange transactions . There he meets Princess Lili again, who has put her money in the " swindle agency ". It looks like Terra is blowing the dubious company. Thereupon the company director gives himself the ball. When Terra visits the princess in her apartment, it turns out that they both have a two-year-old son. Lili called him Klaus. She encourages Terra, the interrupted study of jurisprudence complete and supports him. That little money is not enough. Terra gives Italian lessons to Countess Alice in Lanna's house . There he meets Mangolf. The childhood friend, meanwhile on a steep career path in government circles, does not want to know anything about the "head of advertising" of the "Berlin swindle agency".

Terra falls in love with Alice. Terra encounters the landlord. Terra plays "an apostle of humanity" to the count. Count Lannas comes to appreciate Terra. Terra appears as a pacifist and asks Lannas to abolish the death penalty . Lannas listens attentively, discusses animatedly and even listens to Terra Mangolf's assessment.

The most wonderful experience

When Terra is a lawyer, he pumps his friend Mangolf on. With the money he sets up as a poor lawyer and gives the princess alimony . Terra has a remorse. He has to marry the princess. Finally he forgets the idea of ​​a marriage of convenience, wins “ridiculous private matters” as a lawyer and saves workers from the penitentiary “who have incited other workers to strike ”. Count Lannas, who has become Chancellor of the Reich , does not agree with Terra's sideline actions and makes the poor advocate a member of the Reichstag for the Reich Party . Destined to speak, Terra described the coming war as "the most wonderful experience of our people" in a fiery speech before the House. Thereupon Knack becomes aware of the speaker. Chancellor Lannas speaks about the German love of peace, because no member of parliament has previously used the term in his speech.

The MP Terra visits his sister, the actress Lea, between two Reichstag sessions. It looks like there is an incestuous relationship between the siblings.

Princess Lili is smart enough not to insist on the connection with Terra, which she believes is suicide. Meanwhile, the son is six years old, she still has a newborn daughter. The child's father is Terra's friend Mangolf. The princess, however, pretends to the “rough Junker ” Baron von Tolleben that he is the child's father.

The emperor laughs

At an evening party, Terra unintentionally makes the emperor laugh by renewing his call for the death penalty to be abolished in front of the very highest ears. “What then?” The emperor Berliners, astonished at the “abysmal ideological foolishness”. Terra is saddened by his unforgivable faux pas. But Knack hires the humanistic Terra "as a syndic and member of the board" in his company. So pacifists are sidelined. Knack also knows about the friendship between Chancellor Lannas and Terra and uses it for his own purposes. For example, after the defeat of the Russians against the Japanese in the fall of 1905, Lanna and Terra talk about current world politics. Alice interferes in the power games of the two, storming her father, he should let his subordinate, the "new state secretary ", take care of things with the emperor. Alice means her “still young bulldog” great boy whom she married. The young woman, “who would rather rule than love”, gets involved in poker for power. Lannas is against the war that bellicose German industry longs for. The dialogue between Lannas and Terra is very frank. Terra confesses to the Chancellor that he is in charge of Knack's “espionage and bribery office”. Knack earned not only from the German armaments, but also from that of the enemy. Lannas, whose eyes were opened, turns out to be as powerless as his emperor against the arms industry. Lannas wants to "keep the balance" and sends Terra to Paris. As his "secret agent" he is supposed to spy on the French to what extent Knack is really involved internationally. Terra, who already had the stupid idea of ​​abolishing the death penalty, has another good idea: Lannas should gain control of industry by establishing the state's coal and ore monopoly. Lannas, grieving, wants to take up the new idea that is supposed to prevent the war. But the Reich Chancellor turns out to be too weak.

Mangolf

Wolf Mangolf, the son of an agent, had received his doctorate in Munich in 1894 and was promoted to the position of private secretary of State Secretary Count Lannas in Berlin in the Foreign Office . Lannas makes Mangolf a privy councilor. The "co-owners of power" tolerate Mangolf, but see him as an intruder. Mangolf's capital is just his genius. In 1894, Mangolf gave a nasty chauvinistic speech to the Pan-Germans in the Hasenheide . The emperor is so pleased with the “Pan-German bullshit” that Lannas has to promote the subordinate to the Secret Legation Council . Mangolf, in his euphoria, aims high to become Chancellor. First of all, he makes a good match. Mangolf marries Mrs. Bellona von Tolleben-Knack, “the richest bourgeois heiress” in Germany, daughter of the armaments industrialist Knack. As a well-formed young lady, she had been sacrificed by Herr Papa to the Baron von Tolleben. The marriage fell in two and from then on Tolleben courted Alice Lannas (see above). The old Knack hopes that his daughter's connection with Mangolf will influence Lannas. Bellona loves Mangolf, but he does not love his “cannon princess”, because he has been Lea's lover from a young age. On the day of the wedding there is a scandal. The actor Kurschmied, an admirer of Lea, wants to stab the groom. Terra disarms the assassin. Kurschmied wanted to avenge Lea. Because Mangolf disdained Lea for the sake of her career. In front of the sensation-hungry press, Terra makes it appear that there is no connection between the assassin and Leah. Mangolf wants to leave his young wife and go back to Leah. Lea does not participate.

Mangolf becomes Undersecretary of State. When Mangolf is challenged to a duel by his arch-rival, the Pan-German Baron von Tolleben, the bourgeois does not turn out to be a man of honor. The father of Princess Lili's newest child wants to be a great boy. It shouldn't be Mangolf. The rivalry is based on “profound opposites”. First of all, both gentlemen are competitors in Princess Lili's bed and secondly, Mangolf is the hated successor to Tolleben's first wife Bellona Knack. Alice Lannas had married Tolleben in the meantime (see above). Mangolf pulls out all the stops to get out of the line of fire of the very safe aristocratic shooter. He hopes for the help of his friend. But Terra, meanwhile employed by Knack, is in the Rhineland. So the whiner Mangolf meets with Terra halfway between the Rhineland and the capital of the Reich. Terra prevents the duel, arranges things by going to the Pan-Germans and simply advocating political interests. Tolleben, the son-in-law of Reich Chancellor Lannas, must by no means fight with Mangolf, the son-in-law of the Privy Councilor von Knack, an exponent of "armaments capital". When Terra threatened that Knack's payment to the Pan-Germans could not materialize, the valiant Kämpe Tolleben no longer got his shot.

The kiss on the mouth

Terra regrets that Alice, "the love of his whole life", has become his enemy in the power struggle. He kisses the woman on the mouth in her garden - "for the first time in his life", and husband Tolleben "by the window upstairs" watches. Terra doesn't want to marry Alice, she wants to love. He tells Alice that Tolleben should have a child from Princess Lili. The real father of the little girl was Mangolf. Terra is torn between Alice and Princess Lili (their son is now fifteen years old). Alice hates her husband from Tolleben because of his illegitimate child with the princess. Alice and Terra decide to kill madmen.

Terra goes to Paris at Lannas' behest. The talks there about pacifism and “belief in the spirit” are unsuccessful. When he returns home, Alice is already waiting for him. Alice wants to overthrow her father, Chancellor Lannas, and wants to use Terra's "cardsharp talent". Alice favors her husband Tolleben, whom she wanted to kill, as the new Chancellor. Mangolf is their worst enemy. Terra should beware of false friends.

The very highest chat bag

When the Kaiser carelessly divulged state secrets to the enemy - they are written in English newspapers - the dismantling of Lannas takes its course. Mangolf, who wants to take Tolleben's place, wants to “expose” the emperor. The monarchist Lannas initially indignantly refuses. Then he makes a serious mistake. Lannas goes to a session of the Reichstag, at which it hails "unanimously terrible insults of majesty ". From these people he accepts - Terra cannot believe it - the task of “conveying the wishes of the German people” to the emperor. When a bill that he introduced to the Reichstag fails, he asks the emperor to be dismissed and receives it. Lannas, who at least made it to the prince, dies.

Tolleben becomes Reich Chancellor and Mangolf State Secretary in the Foreign Office.

Five years later, we are writing in 1914, Mangolf estranged himself from his wife Bellona and made his growing daughter an enemy when he tried to convince her that Tolleben was not her father but himself.

The “lazy pacifist Tolleben” does not cut a good figure in the Reichstag against the aggressive MPs. According to the motto “The enemy is the working pig”, the unions are to be smashed.

Terra urges Mangolf to prevent the upcoming war. Mangolf thinks his friend's idea of preventing war with the law on the state coal monopoly is silly.

The great dying
In South Tyrol

In the eyes of the police, Lea is to be responsible for the death of a young woman with whom she got involved. Terra helps the sister escape. Both go underground in the South Tyrolean mountains. Lea perishes in the rough nature. Back in Berlin, Terra has to witness how his son Klaus stabs Princess Lili - his own mother - because she thwarted his marriage.

Chancellor Tolleben had a fatal accident while driving the automobile into the Reichstag. Lannas' son Count Erwin is also killed. Tolleben wanted to announce the beginning of the war.

With the outbreak of war, Terra loses his position with Knack. Terra's son Klaus dies in the field when he first comes into contact with the enemy for the fatherland. Terra admits that he has lied and cheated in life, but he does not want to murder. Mangolf, first bourgeois Chancellor, wanted power, got it and doesn't want Terra to destroy his war. Mangolf expresses a desire to expand.

When the war can no longer be won for the German Reich, Mangolf is scolded a traitor and spied on by his own daughter. The young girl is still his enemy and believes in the German victory to the end.

Terra, penniless, becomes a clerk at the court martial and then again a lawyer for the poor. He goes to his friend Mangolf. Both the lawyer for the poor and the Chancellor came to the conclusion that God would only accept them together. So they commit suicide - with two bullets in the head.

The head

In two places in the novel, Terra and Mangolf are referred to as the head.

  • Bellona tells Mangolf that he and his friend Terra have no luck with women. Bellona knows why too. Both gentlemen are "too heady".
  • In Terra, the actor Kurschmied worships the power you can rely on. Terra be the head.

The trail of blood

Heinrich Mann first called the "head" "The Blood Trail". By this the author means the trace “which leads through the whole of life” and which Terra wanted to “erase”. Foolishness, as Terra finally realizes. That trail can be followed through the novel.

  • It already begins with Lannas when he certifies the Germans “labor, order and method”, qualities that only Germans have.
  • That goes on if one does not want to tolerate war. Then a general comes up to an admiral and jokes: a division must strike over to England and over there. But in 1909 there was still no fleet. So Russia should go to India first.

The author names facts from the history of the German Empire on the way to the First World War.

But French and international politics also find their way into the novel.

The empire

"The Head" is the last part of a three-part series of works by Heinrich Mann, entitled

“The Empire. The novels of German society in the age of Wilhelm II. "

  • Part 1: The subject . Roman des bourgeoisie , written between 1912 and 1914, published in December 1918.
  • Part 2: The poor . The proletarian novel , written from 1916 to April 1917, published in August 1917.
  • Part 3: the head. Novel the leader .

Poetry and truth

  • Only one thing is as clear as day - by the emperor, the author means Wilhelm II, although he never mentions him by name. All other characters in the novel are more or less made up.
  • Heinrich Mann tormented himself with his "head" for seven years. He wanted to expose the causes of the First World War. Heinrich Mann admits that while he was writing he thought of Harden "most often with Mangolf" . But Harden was a publicist and not a politician like Mangolf.
  • Bülow was Chancellor of the Reich from October 17, 1900 to July 14, 1909. In the novel, Lannas was dismissed as Chancellor in 1909. So it is only logical that Heinrich Mann explicitly mentions Bülow in connection with Lannas (see below under “Testimonials”), but Lannas dies in the novel immediately after his release, Bülow, however, lives for twenty years after his resignation.
  • Assignments of fictional characters to persons of contemporary history can be found sporadically in the secondary literature on the “head”, but especially in the “follow-up comment”. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , Tirpitz , Friedrich von Holstein , Professor Ernst Hasse from Leipzig and Jean Jaurès are presented there as role models for fictional characters in the “head”.

Testimonials

  • In An Age Is Visited Heinrich Mann writes: "I only went to the leading figures of the empire in the summer of 1918, a few months before its collapse".
  • On May 12, 1924 Heinrich Mann wrote to Kurt Tucholsky : “As an old worker, I will finish my novel about the empire. Today almost no one can understand this; later a few hundred will find the key there. "
  • In a letter dated May 2, 1925, Heinrich Mann wrote: “I don't write anything like that anymore. It was the most complete and highest that I had to achieve. "
  • Heinrich Mann writes about the "head" in the "Kulturaufbau" Düsseldorf, born 1950, No. 6, p. 139:
    • "I worked longer on it than on any other novel, seven years, from 1918 to 1925. When I made the preparations, the empire was still there."
    • "'The Head' is a book of memories, as I have consciously experienced Bismarck's empire over the last few years ."
    • "For me, Chancellor Lannas (Bülow) is an intellectual not without spiritual ambition."
    • “When I heard Mangolf, I thought of Harden the most. I have brought Terra so close to Wedekind that he speaks his language and sentences from his pieces. "
    • "All in all: the spiritual layer of yore has failed."

reception

  • On the one hand, Kurt Tucholsky wrote to Heinrich Mann on November 7, 1925: “I got the 'head'. I have read it carefully and it has not been easy for me to understand. I know that something new has been done here. ”On the other hand, in the same letter, Tucholsky accuses the author of writing tormenting passages caused by excesses.
  • After Schröter and also after Koopmann, Heinrich Mann immortalized himself in the figure of Terra and Thomas Mann is recognizable in Mangolf .
  • Terra revolted against the state order and Mangolf made a career by submitting.
  • Kiesel states that the author blames the economy and the military for entering the First World War.

literature

Text output

  • Heinrich Mann: The head. Novel. Volume 8: Heinrich Mann: Collected Works. Pp. 165-651. Berlin and Weimar 1987, ISBN 3-351-00423-0
  • Heinrich Mann: The head . Fischer Tb. 12731, ISBN 3-596-12731-9

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 688
  2. ↑ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 643
  3. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 583
  4. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 621
  5. ↑ Facsimile in Anger, p. 210
  6. ↑ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 600
  7. ↑ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 322
  8. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 566
  9. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 285
  10. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 511
  11. ↑ a b text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 631
  12. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 534
  13. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 568
  14. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 553
  15. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 578
  16. ↑ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 557
  17. ↑ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 558
  18. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 549
  19. ^ Text edition Berlin and Weimar, p. 689
  20. ↑ Anger, p. 209
  21. ↑ Anger, p. 212
  22. ↑ Hocke, p. 72
  23. ↑ Anger, pp. 214, 215
  24. ↑ Anger, p. 213
  25. ↑ Kiesel, p. 1146, 9th line from the bottom
  26. ↑ a b Schröter, p. 93
  27. ↑ Koopmann, p. 32
  28. ↑ Kiesel, p. 1146, 15th line from the bottom