The walk from Rostock to Syracuse
The story The Walk from Rostock to Syracuse by Friedrich Christian Delius is about a waiter in the GDR who spends seven years realizing his plan to follow Seume's footsteps to Syracuse. The model was the escape of Klaus Müller in a sailing boat from the island of Hiddensee in 1988.
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Delius calls Paul Gompitz the hero of the story, which is based on a true story. Gompitz read Johann Gottfried Seeum's Walk to Syracuse in 1802 and made the plan to travel to Italy once in his life.
For a long time he still hopes to be able to leave and return legally, and is preparing himself primarily by saving up western money and intensively studying depictions of ancient Rome and classical trips to Italy, but especially studying Seume's travelogue. But soon he is also making preparations for an illegal departure. To do this, he tries to smuggle West money into West Germany and learns to sail in order to try to escape across the Baltic Sea.
When he found out that even an invitation from the Lord Mayor of Bremen would not give him a legal opportunity to leave the country, he systematically prepared himself for an illegal departure, but without any intention of leaving the GDR permanently.
Paul Gompitz learns in the Federal Republic that it is far more difficult to find a job than in the GDR, and is shocked by the wage deductions for tax and social security . Nevertheless, he initially worked for some time in the Federal Republic of Germany before leaving for Italy, thinking of returning to his wife as soon as possible.
Since he - unlike Seume - is under time pressure, he takes long-distance trains and only chooses relatively few stopovers. But he made the experience that he was not perceived as a GDR citizen, but as a German, and that the Italians, who learned of his adventurous journey from the GDR, admire him.
Nevertheless, at the first glamorous highlight of his trip, in Rome , he is seized by longing for his wife and decides to end the trip sooner than originally planned.
In Syracuse, however, he can again really enjoy the confrontation with the atmosphere steeped in history and on his return trip by ship to Naples he doesn’t miss out on aiming for the island of Ustica , where he suspects the fabulous encounter between Odysseus and the Cyclops . Finally, in Mantua , he experiences the emotional climax of his trip, because when a restaurateur arrives on the piazza in front of the Palais , he is playing exactly the overture to Verdi's Rigoletto , which he has had with Italy since a film experience in his youth.
His return to the GDR begins immediately with an arrest by the Stasi and an interrogation. But like previous arrests by the Stasi, that doesn't really scare him. He is quickly released back home and tries to get back to everyday life in the GDR as soon as possible.
Notes on interpretation
The narrative, which clearly emphasizes its relation to Seume's travelogue, also contains allusions to Goethe's longing for Italy and to his literary work.
This becomes particularly clear in the letter to the deputy chairman of the GDR State Council, in which Gompitz wrote, shortly before his return, among other things: "For the sake of knowledge I have allied myself with the evil one" and ends with the sentence "The role of the world spirit, who saved old Faust from damnation is now in your hands. ”Here he ironically equates his“ spirit of violation of the law ”with Mephistopheles and calls on Egon Krenz to release him because he too“ always tried hard ”. Delius leaves it open as to whether Gompitz, like Faust, will at his end experience the forgiveness of his beloved, against whom he has sinned, through Gretchen.
The inner climax of the story, Paul Gompitz's experience in Mantua, is stylized less conspicuously by Delius towards Goethe's Faust . But the phrase “as if this moment was his highest reward” sounds very clear to the content of Faust's bet: “I will say at the moment: Stay a while, you are so beautiful! Then you may shackle me, then I will gladly perish. ”(Goethe: Faust I , Z. 1699–1702)
Paul Gompitz does not find this fulfillment like the betrayed blind fist at the moment of death, but very real because he escaped the GDR's sphere of influence. In the same way, his “redemption” is not brought about through love from above, but within a year of his return through the peaceful revolution in the GDR.
Escape preparations (tabular)
| time | place | action |
|---|---|---|
| Summer 1981 | Port v. Wolgast | starts with concrete planning |
| June 1982 | Gager | begins to sail; gives up job in the "bin" |
| Late 1982 | Gager | makes sailing license; buys dinghy |
| Winter 1982/83 | Rostock | studies maps; learns sailing theory |
| March 1983 | Rostock | decides to make a trip through GDR and ČSSR (in the footsteps of Seumes); hides "Valdep" in the ČSSR |
| May 1983 | Gager | sails; explores coast |
| July 1983 | Rostock | colors sails |
| Summer 1983 | Neuendorf | finds berth in the sailing harbor |
| Early 1984 | - | reads about radar technology |
| Spring 1984 | Prague | meets students from Karlsruhe |
| May 1984 | Lauterbach | begins work on the "Erich Weinert" |
| August 1984 | "Erich Weinert" | studies radar |
| Fall 1984 | Prague | checked "Valdep"; takes 300 DM back to the GDR |
| November 1984 | - | sends letters to the Ministry for All German Issues in Bonn |
| Spring 1985 | Hiddensee | joins the Stralsund – Hiddensee ferry; scouting out border guards |
| Pentecost 1985 | Rostock | sends 500 DM to Solingen |
| Summer 1985 | - | changes escape plan |
| October 1985 | Rostock | is visited by the Karlsruhe students |
| Winter 1985 | Rostock | sends another 500 DM to the FRG; works in Rostock train station |
| February 1986 | Rostock | goes to town hall with his cousin's Easter invitation, is turned away; buries hope to travel legally |
| Early summer 1986 | - | may not work on a ship (safety certificate withdrawn) |
| Summer 1986 | Hiddensee | works in the kiosk |
| August 13, 1986 | Hiddensee | for the first time the right wind is blowing; too much border guarding (25th anniversary of the building of the wall) |
| Winter 1986/87 | Rostock | works in the train station; reviews escape plan |
| May 1987 | - | goes to coast; inappropriate winds |
| July 1987 | Rostock | sells six-volume illustrated moral history by E. Fuchs (1000 DM on account in the West) |
| Fall 1987 | Leipzig | visits the Japanese (buyer of the books) who brings his suitcase to the West |
| November 1987 | Rostock | City partnership Rostock-Bremen; writes letter to Bremen |
| February 1988 | Rostock | is invited by the mayor of Bremen; Application refused in town hall; writes to "Weser-Kurier" |
| March 1988 | Prague / Karlsbad | digs up the remaining 2000 DM and sends two letters with 1000 DM each to the FRG |
| Spring 1988 | Rostock | prepares letters of protection |
| May 1988 | Neuendorf | painted boat mast |
| June 8, 1988 | Rostock / Hiddensee | Escape |
Trivia
In 2005 the story was the “book in the triangle” of the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region and was thematized and discussed at many events in the summer of 2006, after more than 2000 people voted in a vote by Rafik Schami's Die Sehnsucht der Schwalbe (28 percent), Doris Dörries Das Blaue Kleid (22 percent) and Robert Schneider's Die Untouchten (19 percent) had relegated to their places. 31 percent of the vote went to The Walk from Rostock to Syracuse .
Individual evidence
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↑ The walk from Rostock to Syracuse . Narrative. 1st edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-498-01302-5 (as paperback: 1998, ISBN 978-3-499-22278-8 ). Textbook edition: The walk from Rostock to Syracuse . Schroedel, Hannover 2004, ISBN 978-3-507-47012-5 (text edition with materials. Suitable for all federal states).
- ↑ "Without Italy you can't go into the box" Klaus Müller's journey from Rostock to Syracuse in 1988 ; Cornelia Geissler: This is his book. I am the miller. @ berliner-zeitung.de / archiv (October 31, 1995); Walk to Syrakus @ spiegel.de (July 24, 1995), accessed October 15, 2014
- ↑ "The walk from Rostock to Syracuse" is THE book in the triangle. Latest news - detail. (No longer available online.) In: “1 Buch im Dreieck”. Association 1 Buch im Dreieck e. V., July 22, 2005, archived from the original on March 9, 2010 ; Retrieved May 20, 2011 : “This book received 31 percent of the vote. […] More than 2000 people took part in the vote […] “ 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.
Web links
- Detailed table of contents in the ZUM-Wiki
- Brief notes on content and press reviews on the story
- Conversation with FC Delius about the walk from Rostock to Syracuse
- The walk from Rostock to Syracuse in class
- Find: Walk to Syracuse. Comparisons of "the day before yesterday", "yesterday" and "today"
