The doll king and me

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The Puppet King and I is an autobiographical novel first published in 1986 by the Weimar writer Armin Müller (1928–2005) from Silesia . It is about the adventurous friendship between a German and a Polish adolescent during the chaos of war in 1945. It is widely regarded as Müller's most important work.

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Shortly before reaching the "Himmelsstiege" in the Silesian Owl Mountains, where he grew up in the poor little house of his doll-making grandfather, the 16-year-old first-person narrator, a member of the so-called Volkssturm , is arrested by invading Red Army soldiers and after a stay in a hospital on the strictly guarded transport Sent to Russia. In the hospital he had to see how Nazi supporters strangled an anti-fascist. He will increasingly ponder the strange differences "that can drive people of the same origin into different camps", about the "moods and imponderables that influence what we call politics and from which history is made."

In an abandoned Polish village, the narrator manages to break away from the marching column. While looking for something to eat, he stumbles over an apparently wounded Polish boy in a gloomy basement, who is about to hit his throat. After overcoming the worst communication difficulties, the Silesian boy and the 19-year-old Pole (Staschek) team up to flee westwards. Both are threatened by hunger and disease as well as by the danger of being shot, as Staschek fought in a partisan unit first against the Germans, then against the Russians, until he finally deserted. Their mutual mistrust also often bothered them in the next weeks of deprivation. In doing so, the narrator gradually realizes that it is obviously not primarily a question of whether you are German or a Pole, but rather which side you are on: above or below. The two runaways become sworn friends with a great sense of humor. On their flight they get into numerous tricky situations, where they encounter simple people from the people, a fisherman or a railway attendant, sometimes unselfish help, sometimes underhandedness. Staschek pretends to be the narrator as his younger, deaf-mute and somewhat stupid brother, which of course is also good for some comedy.

Seriously, however, they are saving each other's lives. The narrator is finally depressed by their escape while, shortly before crossing the border into Silesia, they spend the night with an old woman whose apartment is on a prison camp with watchtowers. He's actually one of the men behind the barbed wire, the boy says to himself, because he owes his freedom to sheer coincidences. When they finally reach the mountain “Guckei” and the “Himmelstiege” happily, they find themselves in “Slonsk”, not in Silesia. The narrator's grandfather dangles with an icy beard in the old cherry tree next to his hut; he preferred to hang. The fate of the two friends remains open.

style

Although “interwoven with images”, Müller's language appears simple. She describes the spectacular in a completely calm manner; surprisingly, one takes it from one's young first-person narrator. For Georg Menchén, this 16-year-old Silesian has the "naive worldview that is somewhat reminiscent of the Simplicissimus of a seeker who follows the indefinite light of the white pink like the star of Bethlehem."

“The young man is a sensitive person who is capable of experiencing things, but he is not yet in a position to give himself an account of his feelings and experiences. He knows just as little about himself as he does about the world. The appearances of reality - and dreams, wishful ideas, fairy tales only designate the other side of reality - are symbols for him, whose mysterious meaning he only suspects, signs that stand for something that has not yet been consciously recognized. In situations of deepest despair, they should arouse hope for the future, they are antechamber to life, but not yet life itself. These are the situations that open the apprenticeship years in the classic Bildungsroman - the author comes from Weimar. Armin Müller, who received the 1997 Eichendorff Literature Prize for this novel, delegates the narrative function entirely to the first person; The story of the past and the narrative time prove to be largely identical. But the one-sided perspective of the first-person narrator is canceled out by the figure of Staschek and the same object is illuminated from two sides. In addition, there is always the inner confrontation with the world of impotent humanity of the grandfather and thus of one's own childhood. 'He only showed me half the world, held his hand in front of the other half.' The boy learns to stand next to him, to put himself in the shoes of the other - the enemy friend Staschek - and then to recognize himself. "

- Klaus Hammer 1998

Arno Surminski points out the two levels of the novel. “The outer setting is the chaos of 1945 in Silesia and Poland, the inner setting is the idyll of the mountain village. There are interrelationships between the two levels. Again and again the author fades from the harsh reality back into the idyll, a game with contrasts that gives the book its special charm. At the end, on returning to the mountain village, the two narrative levels collide with a force that makes the reader feel pain. "

An important part of Müller's flashbacks is the narrator's memory of the city girl Gesine, with whom he shares a seldom tender love story.

effect

A few months after the Doll King's appearance , Müller noted in his 1987 diary: “Almost everyone who has read The Doll King says that they have sensed that this book is not one of ten or twenty that someone like me delivers in his life, but something for which everything I've done so far is just a kind of preparation or preparatory work. The majority of the critics expressed themselves similarly. In fact, I didn't get very far trying to do something new. ”A few weeks later, he wonders what will remain of him. After naming a few works, he added: “Later maybe just one thing : The Puppet King .” In September, Müller mentioned that the book already had three doctoral students. What wonder if, with this strong response, there is a second edition in the same year.

For Wulf Kirsten , the book made an important contribution to the topics of "war" and "dealing with fascism". Even more important, however, was the special topic “Resettlement of Germans from Poland”, because according to Klaus Hammer it was taboo for GDR literature until then. "The novel Der Puppenkönig und I undermined the official version of 'brotherly' cooperation between two socialist states and laid the finger on a previously suppressed chapter of common history that had yet to be worked through." Since Müller's work was granted a Polish edition, it lies on the Hand that the staunch socialists were not guided by a thought of revenge, but rather a desire for reconciliation. In 2004, shortly before his death, Müller was made an honorary citizen of his hometown Swidnica (formerly Schweidnitz).

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Puppenkönig 2nd edition. Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1987, ISBN 978-3-7352-0003-7 , p. 120
  2. ↑ Puppenkönig , 1987, p. 157
  3. ↑ Puppenkönig , 1987, p. 281
  4. ↑ a b c Klaus Hammer: Armin Müller. The doll king and me. A trip to Silesia . Reviewed in 1998. Accessed August 27, 2010
  5. ↑ Georg Menchén: Memories are a piece of ourselves ... On Armin Müller's “The Puppet King and I” , in: Günter Gerstmann: Armin Müller. Farewell and Arrival , Bussert & Stadeler, Jena and Quedlinburg 1999, ISBN 978-3932906022 , pp. 75-77
  6. ↑ Arno Surminski on Deutschlandfunk , quoted from: Voices on "The Puppet King and I". ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 28, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.armin-mueller.org
  7. ↑ Armin Müller: I'll tell you summer in your ear , Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1989, ISBN 978-3735201539 , entry January 7, p. 12
  8. ↑ I'll tell you summer in your ear , entry February 25, p. 65
  9. ↑ I'll tell you summer in your ear , p. 291
  10. ^ In: New German Literature , Berlin. Quoted after votes on "The Puppet King and I". ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 28, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.armin-mueller.org