The man and his name

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The man and his name is a story by Anna Seghers from 1952.

In East Germany after the war near Berlin: The love of the young new teacher Katharina for the young locksmith Walter Retzlow is put to a tough test.

content

In retrospect, he actually doesn't really know how it happened. The youngster Walter Retzlow had got into the SS in the last year of the war . He doesn't have a tattoo on his left armpit. A few old friends live among the ruins of Berlin. Walter visits these occasionally, otherwise lives in a Berlin ruin hole and makes himself useful as a locksmith for the severely tested population. He happens to be mistaken for a Heinz Brenner. This is a deceased person who was tortured in prison and in a concentration camp while he was still alive . Walter, a questionnaire forger , takes on the identity of the anti-fascist and calls himself Heinz Brenner.

Walter wants to atone for guilt by working to rebuild the GDR . As a skilled locksmith in a newly founded MAS, he hides his dark past from both his work colleagues and his friend Katharina. Walter, a capable worker who has also proven himself in fighting natural disasters, even joins the party and is trained at one of its idyllically located schools.

The past finally catches up with Walter when he is recognized by Friedrich Gerber, alias Berg, a former SS member. Berg, who has also "reassembled the past" and has risen to a position of responsibility, is waiting for his hour to properly harm the communists in the Soviet Zone . While Berg leaves for West Germany immediately after the recognition scene, Walter stays at home and continues to cover up his true identity.

Finally, the sinner and his girlfriend Katharina go to a man he trusts - a teacher at the party school mentioned above - and confess. The teacher runs straight with Walter to the People's Police . The relationship with Katharina is - once again - falling apart. Walter goes to jail. The public prosecutor researches Walter's working environment, then refrains from prosecuting him and releases the delinquent. Walter's crime falls under the amnesty. The comrades from the party are less squeamish about this. They exclude Walter from their ranks. He can prove himself in a tractor factory. The locksmith takes care of the education of the apprentices there. Anna Seghers ends her story with cautious optimism. Katharina, who always stood by Walter in crucial hours, stays with him, so it looks like: “The two of them will soon be living together ... They will make love. It will not be easy."

interpretation

Written and published during Stalin's lifetime , reading it becomes a painful test of patience for the free-minded reader in the 21st century. Schrade calls the intended passages "strenuous rhetorical" and "downright enthusiastic". Although Anna Seghers, on the one hand, explores Walter's psyche deeply, on the other hand, she cannot abandon her black and white painting: the bad guys sit in the West and steer people like Berg. Walter meets him three times. In the east the good act. They are all old communists. The narrative can be read as a Cold War document . For example, a GDR citizen says: "We are surrounded by enemies, the war threatens us."

reception

  • Schrade emphasizes the special position of the text in the author's narrative work. Anna Seghers had otherwise never drawn a picture of Germany that was ruined after 1945 "with such harshness". The "divergence" of the two Germanys and "the development from the old to the new" will be demonstrated. The material that was not wanted by the GDR superiors - SS men slipped into the role of an anti-fascist in the construction of the GDR - was discussed controversially in the GDR Writers' Association . But Walter's “relationship to work” is decisive for the development of the protagonist. According to Anna Seghers, portraying such changes in a hero, based on his “inner 'shattering'”, is the author's task.
  • Concerning the credibility of the shown development of the young hero, the text proves to be the forerunner of Brigitte Reimann's “ Arrival in everyday life ”.
  • Martin Straub: "They built up their terribly beaten country, terribly beaten themselves." Anna Seghers´ story "The man and his name" (1999)

filming

literature

Text output

First edition
  • The man and his name. Narrative. 161 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952
Used edition

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9

Web links

  • The film in the German IMDb.

annotation

  1. ↑ Anna Seghers quotes from a telegram from Stalin to Wilhelm Pieck and puts the edifying words in Walter's mouth: "Fight with as much strength for the maintenance of peace as was used in war, by both peoples together." (Edition used, p. 54, 4th Zvu)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 462, 8th Zvu
  2. ↑ see also Brandes, p. 68, 9. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 67 center
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 106, 3. Zvo
  5. ↑ Schrade, p. 110, 17th Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 85, 11. Zvo
  7. ↑ Schrade, p. 109, 4th Zvu
  8. ↑ Schrade, p. 109, 11. Zvu
  9. ↑ Brandes, p. 68, 14th Zvu
  10. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 138, 14. Zvo
  11. ^ Schrade, p. 110, 5. Zvo
  12. ↑ Anna Seghers, cited in Neugebauer, p. 153, 7th Zvu
  13. ^ Batt, p. 199, 2. Zvo
  14. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 138, 8th Zvu
  15. ↑ quoted in Hilzinger, p. 223, 4th Zvu
  16. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 138, 1. Zvu