The fall of the city of Passau

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The Fall of the City of Passau is a post-apocalyptic - dystopian science fiction novel by the German writer Carl Amery , published in 1975 . It was his greatest literary success.

Historical context

In the preface Amery described the novel as a "finger exercise" to which his science fiction novel on Leibowitz praise of the US writer Walter M. Miller, Jr. have inspired. Miller's novel tells of events in the post-apocalyptic USA after a global nuclear war .

When the work was created, the environmental activist Amery was shaped by the impressions of the so-called " first oil crisis " in 1973, increasing environmental destruction and pollution , raw materials becoming scarcer and the social and political changes associated with or triggered by them.

action

The novel is told retrospectively from the year 2112. The main part of the action takes place in 2013 almost exclusively in Passau and its immediate vicinity.

In 1981, an unspecified “plague”, which the few survivors do not know whether it was a “ punishment from God ” or whether it was caused by a “ mad scientist ”, wiped out almost all of humanity. Only about 50,000 people still live in Europe. In the area of ​​the former Germany there are only small groups of “farmers” or “nomads”, usually fewer than 50 people each. The cities are devastated, the country mostly overgrown and untilled. The only larger settlement is the city of Passau. It is the only halfway "functioning" city because it has an administration and a mayor. The city even has electricity, a few still-running tractors, and food - apparently - in abundance. The next largest group of people (less than 50) live in Rosenheim and “in Hungary”.

Passau's mayor is called "Scheff" by everyone and came to the city in 1983, two years after the disaster. Since then, a new era has applied there. He governs Passau autocratically and leads a kind of feudal court. In an effort to expand his power and make Passau more powerful, he campaigns among the farmers and nomads of the surrounding area to move to the city. The real reason, however, is that the city will not be able to survive long on its own, because since the epidemic it has been drawing on the remnants of civilization that are still usable. The city needs more and more food and other resources, which it is unable to produce itself. The little that craftsmen produce in Passau is sold at a high price to the farmers in the area in order to get what they need for life. The farmers live largely self-sufficient in a kind of subsistence economy , but suffer from the townspeople. Passau's apparent prosperity stands on feet of clay; because the farmers in the area are exploited by the urban population who want to live in comparable prosperity - but at the expense of the rural population. The “Scheff” decides to plunder the surrounding area and systematically destroy it in order to store everything that can be used (especially salt that the Rosenheimers own) in the city.

Two “ambassadors” from what was once the city of Rosenheim have set out for Passau to see “the glory of the city” and are received by the “Scheff”. A banquet that appears to be given in their honor turns out to be a life-threatening trap; the Rosmer should be eliminated so that the Passau can get to their salt deposits. The two ambassadors can barely escape. In the following 100 years the conflict escalated both between Passau and Rosenheim and within the city between the “Schulsii” and “Gernothari”, descendants of the “Scheff” and others. In the year 2112 this finally leads to the "Battle of Passau". Horsemen with bows and arrows, Rosnemers and nomadic “Hungarians” conquer the city and finally drag it down.

Narrative structure

The novel has three levels of action and begins with the chronicle Magnalia Dei per Gentem Rosmerium (“The great deeds of God through the people of the Rosmer”) by the chaplain Egid, which he wrote in Anno Domini 2112, which is also counted as the year 131 APP (“Post Pestilentiam “, That is to say after the epidemic) was written to describe the events. This chronicle, actually written in “bold Latin”, which is reminiscent of the 7th century Merovingian chroniclers , differs not only visually from the rest of the novel, because its text is printed in Fraktur , but also linguistically, because the chronicle is for the novel) has been translated into a kind of “neo-medieval” German (with dialectal pseudo- Bavarian ). The main part of the novel, on the other hand, takes place in 2013. This is interrupted again and again by short inserts that explain the background stories of the main characters, starting with the outbreak of the epidemic in 1981.

reception

The German touring theater Comoedia Mundi performed the play Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Passau in 2011 . The Bavarian heavy metal band Atlantean Kodex released a song on their 2013 album The White Goddess with the title “Der Untergang der Stadt Passau”.

expenditure

  • The fall of the city of Passau. Science fiction novel. Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy No. 3461. Heyne, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-453-30332-6 . New edition 1997 as No. 7001, ISBN 3-453-12804-4 .
  • Current issue: The fall of the city of Passau. A science fiction from Bavaria. 2nd edition. SüdOst Verlag, Regenstauf 2015, ISBN 978-3-86646-712-5 .

literature

  • Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's Science Fiction Guide. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 14.
  • Armin Rößler : Carl Amery's 'The Fall of the City of Passau'. An examination of the central topics. Secondary literary series 38, First German Fantasy Club 2001, ISBN 3-932621-39-5 .
  • Günter Koch: Use of language and knowledge of language: Carl Amery's novel “The Downfall of the City of Passau” in comparison with Walter M. Miller's novel “Lobgesang auf Leibowitz” . In: Jan-Oliver Decker: Scandal and breaking taboos - ideal world and home: Images of Bavaria in literature, film and other arts . Stutz, Passau 2014, pp. 183–201.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 46.
  2. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 39.
  3. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 15.
  4. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 39.
  5. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 40.
  6. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 7.
  7. ↑ Amery: The fall of the city of Passau. P. 7, footnote.
  8. ^ Clemens Helldörfer: The rise and fall of the city of Passau . Thunder and lightning for the end of the world. In: Nürnberger Zeitung . July 9, 2011 ( comoedia-mundi.de [accessed on May 25, 2016]).
  9. ↑ Interview with Manuel Trummer (Guitars). In: The Metal Crypt. September 8, 2013, accessed on May 25, 2016 (English, interview with Manuel Trummer).