The throat
Der Schlund is a youth book by Gudrun Pausewang , published in 1993 , which tells the story of a girl from Kassel who has to witness how the Federal Republic of Germany is transformed into a dictatorship , similar to the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
The book is recommended for reading in curricula for German in lower secondary level.
It has also been translated into Danish ( Afgrunden ) and Spanish ( El abismo )
action
Germany towards the end of the 1990s: Due to an economic crisis (in the media belittlingly referred to as "lull"), the social tensions in the country have increased significantly. More and more locals end up as beggars on the streets and at the borders there are always armed conflicts with migrants who want to gain access to the country.
Gesa Lorbach is a student at a high school in Kassel . Her older adoptive brother Jirgalem, a dark-skinned orphan from Ethiopia , was adopted by her parents before she was born, and she also has two younger siblings: Ulf and Ulrike (Rike), who was born with Down's syndrome . The mother runs a bookstore, the father is a left-wing publicist. While Gesa's paternal grandfather is very open to modernity, the maternal grandfather is still convinced that the National Socialist rule under Adolf Hitler was a great time. He shows that he does not accept Jirgalem as black and Rike as disabled as full members of the family. His wife, on the other hand, always avoids the subject of the past when she is asked about it.
The poor social situation quickly had a political impact: two state elections led to landslide-like changes: In Hesse , the SPD suffered heavy losses and the also ailing CDU was forced to form a coalition with the Republicans . In Thuringia , the latter even reach 30 percent and become the second strongest party. With the German Front (DF), which failed at the five percent hurdle , there is also a party whose supporters march in black uniforms and carry flags with a red sun on a yellow background. However, after an attempted coup , the party is banned. From its core, however, a new party emerges with the German People's Movement (DVB), which is similar in content, but more moderate in appearance. Their figurehead is the former television presenter Mark Schlott, who can inspire the masses with his charisma . In the federal elections, DVB won 15.7 percent of the vote, and the Republicans were the strongest party with 35.6 percent. Both parties form a coalition and form a narrow majority government. The new government did not last long, however, as the Republicans split, a large number of whom were moving to DVB. In view of the changed situation, there will be new elections in which the strengthened DVB will now emerge as the big winners and even provide the sole majority. Schlott becomes the new Federal Chancellor and the other parties will soon be banned.
A brief revival of Nazi nostalgia is prohibited by the party, Schlott emphasizes that the DVB is a completely different type of party and therefore cannot be compared with the NSDAP. The first political measures followed quickly: the right to asylum was canceled without replacement, the DVB began building a large wall around Germany, which would create many jobs for a long time. Political opponents are arrested, certain groups (such as those suffering from AIDS ) are sent to special camps. Mentally handicapped children are torn from their families and taken to state care institutions. Finally, people of non-European descent are also being deported. The state is also renamed the “Republic of Germany”, the Bundeswehr is henceforth called “State Army ” and a new national anthem is introduced. A kind of Führer cult around Schlott quickly developed.
The Lorbach family experienced the change of power first hand: The father had to flee abroad to Prague because of his texts critical of the regime , the mother had to give up her bookstore and had difficulty finding a job again. For financial reasons, the family has to give up their previous home and move in with grandfather. Jirgalem senses the increasing racial discrimination and temporarily fled to the United States , but soon returns because the mood there is now similar towards people of dark skin. He finally tries to go to his father in Prague, but his attempt to escape fails. He is arrested and is supposed to be deported, but is able to escape from the transporter and make his way back to Kassel. However, his life in hiding depresses him so much that he finally hangs himself. Rike comes to a home because of her handicap, after a while the family receives the sad news that she has died of an illness - the family suspects that the child was deliberately murdered because of his handicap and looks at the euthanasia during the Nazi era remind. The family would like to emigrate, but they know that they do not have the necessary qualifications to be accepted by other countries. Gesa's brother Ulf, who was initially very critical of Schlott, is increasingly positive about the new system and ends up spending more and more time with relatives who have come to terms with the new system.
One day, by chance, Gesa runs into an old friend from her school days and it turns out that he is active in the resistance against the system. He can finally convince Gesa that it makes sense to defend yourself and not let everything happen. As after dropping their baccalaureate the headmaster Gesa asks as the year's best to keep the speech at the graduation ceremony, Gesa provides a unique opportunity came: She writes a politically compliant speech which it places before, but a day of celebration she reads a secretly written the second speech before, in which she openly describes Schlott as a dictator and calls for resistance against him. Gesa is then dragged from the stage and dragged out of the hall, even if some of the audience show solidarity with her. Her thoughts are that if she survives all of this she can later tell her children that she knew what was happening around them and acted against it.
Political background
At the beginning of the 1990s, right-wing parties in reunified Germany enjoyed electoral successes , which contemporaries interpreted as a shift to the right in the Federal Republic. The main reason for this was seen to be the high number of asylum seekers who came to the Federal Republic.
The Republicans stayed well below the 5 percent threshold in the federal elections and only made it into a state parliament three times. In the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in 1992 , however, they were able to achieve 10.9 percent of the vote and became the third strongest force from scratch. The German People's Union won 6.2 percent of the vote in Hamburg in 1991 and 6.3 percent in Schleswig-Holstein in 1992.
Parallel to the political development, violent riots against asylum seekers had taken place (around 1992 in Rostock-Lichtenhagen ).
literature
- Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel, 160 (1993), 86, pp. 140-142