German lesson

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Cover of the first edition, 1968

The novel The German Lesson by Siegfried Lenz appeared 1968. Lenz brings the central theme of the German in this work postwar literature to the point: The amalgamation of guilt and obligation in the period of National Socialism . The focus is on the contradiction between the fulfillment of duties and individual responsibility.

The conflicting beliefs are personified in the novel's opponents, the policeman Jens Ole Jepsen and the painter Max Ludwig Nansen. The latter has a role model in Emil Nolde , whose works were ostracized under National Socialism as "degenerate art".

In the framework of the story, the policeman's son, Siggi Jepsen, remembers the events in an institution for young people who are difficult to educate and writes them down in a reflection essay. The title German lesson is therefore to be understood in two ways: as a German lesson from the pupil Siggi Jepsen and as a lesson in German history.

content

Elbe island Hahnöfersand with the penal institution Hahnöfersand - the institution in the novel is located on a "sister island ".

Siggi Jepsen, inmate of an institution for difficult-to-educate young people, is given the essay topic “The joys of duty” in a German lesson and fails because of it: He leaves an empty notebook. The reason for his failure, however, is that he has too much to say on this subject - while under arrest, which he has voluntarily extended, Siggi now writes about his childhood and youth, which were under the sign of "duty" Has. Siggi Jepsen's father Jens Ole was the “northernmost police station in Germany” in the Schleswig-Holstein village of Rugbüll.

In 1943, Jens Ole Jepsen received an order from the National Socialist authorities to ban the expressionist painter Max Ludwig Nansen from painting and to monitor this ban. Although Jepsen has been friends with Nansen since his youth and he even saved his life once, he has no doubts about his duty to rigorously follow these instructions. When he tried to instigate his son Siggi, who was ten at the time, to spy on the painter, he got him into a conflict of conscience, because Nansen's studio was like a second home for Siggi. He decides not to obey his father and instead helps Nansen hide pictures.

Siggi's father is driven by fanatical fulfillment of duty, less by National Socialist ideology, in contrast to his wife, who, as is occasionally expressed, is completely convinced of National Socialism. When Siggi's brother Klaas mutilated himself so that he would no longer have to do military service, he was cast out by his parents - he could only survive the war with luck and Nansen's help.

Even after the end of the war, Jepsen had no doubts; on the contrary, he insisted on the conviction that it was still his duty to destroy Nansen's pictures. Occasional hints of the "second face" come to his aid here. When the old mill, in which Siggi housed some of Nansen's pictures, goes up in flames, Siggi assumes that his father discovered the hiding place and set it on fire. Siggi is now delusional that he has to "save" Nansen's pictures from his father. He becomes an art thief, which ultimately leads to his arrest and admission to the reformatory.

Form and narrative perspective

Siegfried Lenz's novel Deutschstunde is a framework story . The narrative presence of Siggi Jepsen in the correctional facility from 1952 to 1954 forms the framework, his past from 1943 to 1945 reminiscent of the years 1943 to 1945 the internal story . While the narrative time as well as the narrated time extend over a longer period of time and the passage of time is a constantly present motif (e.g. by looking at the Elbe), the narrative location is extremely narrow: the closed room of an institution, which is in turn on one Island is located. Mental mobility is only possible for the protagonist in memory. Both the educational institution and the village of Rugbüll are model locations. Winfried Freund describes the village as a “province par excellence” and “a model for acutely restricted life”, “aside from society and history”.

The novel is told in the first person. He takes the perspective of Siggi Jepsen and uses forms of expression of the youth language , casual addressing and recognizable exaggerations. Lenz himself spoke of role prose . The youthful first-person narrator is contrasted by the scientifically dry nominal style and the technical terms of the thesis of the fictional psychologist Wolfgang Mackenroth, which is repeatedly mounted in the novel. Another element of multiperspectivity is the doubling of Siggi Jepsen's perspective, the contrast between the frog's eye view of ten-year-old Siggis in the narrative past and the commentary bird's eye view of the almost adult in the present. The story-telling process is always present to the reader through insertions of the narrating protagonist. The memory itself, on the other hand, is fragmentary, fragmentary and often determined by chance, which, according to Wilhelm Große, is "reflected in the loose assembly of the individual chapters".

interpretation

Title and Background

Emil Nolde in a portrait photo from 1929

The title Deutschstunde refers to the German lesson , which aims to instruct students in the German language and literature. The essay topic “The joys of duty”, which Siggi Jepsen is prescribed in the educational institution, also aims at a character education and values ​​transfer. Such kind of reflective essays were a popular means of ideological instruction , especially in the time of National Socialism . As so-called free discussions , however, they kept their place in school lessons even after 1945. At the same time is German lesson but also a history lesson about German history and "typically German" qualities such as the importance of the ethical principle of duty . Last but not least, a misunderstood sense of duty was one of those German virtues that made National Socialism and its consequences possible in the first place. In the publishing contract, the working title was still Die Deutschstunde .

The figure of the painter Max Ludwig Nansen is based on the expressionist Emil Nolde, whose birth name was "Hansen" and who lived in Seebüll in the north of Schleswig-Holstein . Nolde's pictures were ostracized and confiscated by the National Socialists as so-called “ degenerate art ”. After he was banned from working in 1941 , his so-called " unpainted pictures " were created privately . The picture The Man in the Red Coat , which occupies a central position in Nansen's work in the novel, is reminiscent of Nolde's picture Trio , in which a man - albeit in a yellow coat - performs a handstand. The first names Max and Ludwig refer to two other Expressionist artists who were persecuted in the Third Reich: Max Beckmann and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner .

Unlike the fictional character by Lenz, Nolde was a staunch National Socialist, anti-Semite and admirer of Adolf Hitler until the end of World War II, despite the confiscation and suppression of his art in the Third Reich . According to Jochen Hieber, it is not known how detailed Siegfried Lenz knew about Nolde's burdened biography at the time the German lesson was written. At an appearance in the German Literature Archive in Marbach in 2014, Lenz described the painter as a problematic person who behaved “a bit catastrophically” in political terms. Judgment could not be held retrospectively, but he accused Nolde of never having apologized for his collaboration with the National Socialists, even after the war.

mandatory

The focus of the German lesson , as in other works by Siegfried Lenz, is the concept of duty , the questions about the limits of duty and the contradiction between the fulfillment of duty and individual sense of responsibility , which is juxtaposed in the two antagonists Jens Ole Jepsen and Max Ludwig Nansen. The policeman Jepsen is the prototype of the conscientious and obedient petty bourgeoisie , incapable of democracy , who made a significant contribution to the Nazis' seizure and exercise of power. He acts according to the maxims “order is order” and “I only do my duty” and knows no limits in his fulfillment of duty and obedience to authority, so that he becomes the inhuman executor of the dictatorship. Even after the end of the Third Reich, he was unable to correct the duty once it was recognized, and he remained an incorrigible rider of principles . He is strengthened by his wife Gudrun, who shows the typical characteristics of a philistine in her rejection of everything strange and new .

In contrast to them stands the painter Nansen, who does not recognize any authority and derives the maxim of his actions exclusively from his own convictions and his sense of responsibility. Duty, as Nansen understands it, is only "blind presumption" for him, while resistance is inevitable in order to guarantee his individual artistic self-development. Siggi Jepsen, faced with the choice between these two antipodes, decides out of sympathy for the painter Nansen and under the impression of his father's manic and exaggerated sense of duty soon develops his own sense of duty, which moves him to save the painter's pictures. The essay topic “The joys of duty” presented to him shows how strongly the ideal of duty embodied by his father remained anchored in society even after 1945.

Time, development, artist novel

Through the different time levels, Lenz links a time novel , the depiction of the ideological entanglements in the time of National Socialism, with an educational or development novel , the intellectual development of the young Siggi Jepsen on the threshold of his coming of age. Only the penetration of the two levels of time, the simultaneity of experienced history and reflective present in the sense of a work of remembrance makes it possible to come to terms with the past and set off into the future. Winfried Freund puts it: “In retrospect, the narrator looks forward. The answers for tomorrow develop from yesterday's questions. […] Understanding the past is the prerequisite for acting sensibly in the future. ” Deutschstunde also proves to be a modern artist's novel, which in the character of Siggi Jepsen shows the emergence of a writer from dealing with the past. The counterpoint to Siggi Jepsen's personal memory work is the perspective of the psychologist Wolfgang Mackenroth, whose objective-scientific investigation lacks personal concern and subjective experience. The study by the psychologist turns the young person into a mere "demonstration object".

The open ending stands in contrast to the educated personality in the classic Bildungsroman. There remains a skepticism against any traditional values ​​and norms. In their place comes the open acceptance of the "risk of life", the initiation of entry into freedom without ready-made answers and concepts. Nevertheless, in the end for Winfried Freund, “the cautious optimism of the humane realist who gives people a chance again” becomes apparent when they mistrust parties and programs as well as the pedantic fulfillment of duties and open up to the possibility of a better future. Freund sees the success of the German lesson due not least to the fact that it is one of the few novels of the present that venture a hopeful outlook into the future, in which the author combines "contemporary and development novels, historical discussions and personal learning processes."

reception

Siegfried Lenz reads in Bonn (1969)

Siegfried Lenz's novel Deutschstunde became one of the greatest fiction sales successes in Germany after 1945. The novel, on which the author had worked for four years, was published in 1968 for the Frankfurt Book Fair and in the middle of the student unrest in 1968 , which earned it special attention . The Hoffmann und Campe publishing house sold 250,000 copies within a short period of time . On 16 December 1968, the novel reached No. 1 on the bestseller list of the mirror , where he stayed the next few months. In the annual list of the following year, he was still in first place by a large margin. After the book had been translated into more than 20 languages, Lenz received a watercolor by Emil Nolde from his publisher in recognition .

The reception in the literary criticism was benevolent but restrained. The moral commitment and craftsmanship of the author was contrasted with a low artistic value of the work. Voices like Günther Just, according to whom Lenz “advanced to world literary rank” with his novel, remained in the minority. Werner Weber read a "masterpiece [...] whose seriousness is full of sadness - as it may only be with an observer who has a sense of humor." Peter Laemmle described the novel in Kindler's Literature Lexicon as a "literary coming to terms with the past ", in Lenz "more." with moral rather than political criteria ”, criticizing the epic proliferation and the“ scheme of good and evil ”. According to Harro Zimmermann in the Critical Lexicon of Contemporary German Literature, Lenz demonized "the everyday banality of fascism rather than being able to explain its origin." He saw the danger of relieving those who followed National Socialism by merely blaming "pathological cases." how the dutiful policeman Jepsen “was moored. Hartmut Pätzold criticized the “privatization of the social processes presented” in general, while Hans Wagener just welcomed the “close connection between provincialism and the ideology of the Third Reich”, which made Rugbüll a “ metaphor for Germany”.

Thanks to the paperback edition, the novel soon found its way into school lessons and, according to Wilhelm Große, established itself as “a school classic in German lessons”. For Manfred Lauffs, the title predestines the novel for a “'favorite' of school reading”, as it addresses school lessons themselves and offers “a large number of opportunities for identification, comparison and distancing” in Siggi Jepsen's experiences. In addition, the reading gives "a lesson about Germany, German history, German duty, German fate and German guilt" in an objective, representative and didactic form.

In the GDR, Deutschstunde was first published by Aufbau-Verlag in 1974 , six years after it was published in the Federal Republic. Reviewers attested the novel's lack of understanding of war and fascism . The appraiser Anneliese Große came to the judgment in 1968 that "we are not able to reprint the novel." In 1974 this judgment had changed to the extent that Kurt Batt saw the novel in the epilogue of the construction edition as an "exception" in the criticized early work Siegfried Lenz 'and even considered it a "literary stroke of luck". He stated: "As always in Lenz's works, the main character is also subjected to moral tests here." He praised the fact that "the ethical problems [...] are narrated in their characteristic time-typical form", but also criticized the fact that "Lenz's narrative world remains sealed off from non-bourgeois questions and alternatives".

Against the background of Emil Nolde's behavior during the Third Reich, his repeatedly expressed admiration for National Socialism and his anti-Semitism , Jochen Hieber sparked a debate in the feature pages in 2014 about Lenz's novel, its authenticity and history of impact. For example, the “prohibition of painting” pronounced against Nansen in the novel radiated a transfiguration of the real Nolde, even though Nolde was only prohibited from selling his work. Likewise, Mackenroth's biographical sketch in the novel has been significantly “refined” compared to the Nolde model. Therefore, the "history of the impact of the novel [...] must be rewritten." Jutta Müller-Tamm supported the allegations and recognized in the novel "a tendentious handling of historical contexts". Willi Winkler, on the other hand, mocked that “literary scholar Hieber should have heard of the difference between a real and a fictional character”. According to Ulrich Greiner , German teachers will have to make their students even more aware of the difference between Emil Nolde and Max Ludwig Nansen in the future, but that does not change the fact that "the 'Deutschstunde' 'is one of the most important novels in German literature." Philipp Theisohn sees it at least the possibility of a different reading posture, since the novel - in contrast to the relevant reading aids - "the transformation of one's own horizon of interpretation, the associated change in the incidence of light and the lightening and darkening of the characters" is as deeply inscribed "as few other texts of the 20th century Century.

Adaptations and Discounts

Peter Beauvais processed the novel material into the two-part television film Deutschstunde in 1971 .

The Hessischer Rundfunk organized a public reading of the poet in Frankfurt am Main from April 9th ​​to 17th, 1995 in 19 hours.

The first authorized stage version by Stefan Zimmermann was premiered on November 4, 2014 in Lahr by the a.gon Theater Munich . Florian Stohr played Siggi Jepsen, the painter Max Ludwig Nansen was portrayed by Max Volkert Martens .

In 2019, director Christian Schwochow re-staged the film for the cinema .

Lenz's estate is in the German Literature Archive in Marbach . Parts of it can be seen in the permanent exhibition in the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach, in particular the manuscript for the German lesson .

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Wolfgang Beutin: "German Lesson" by Siegfried Lenz. A criticism. Hartmut Lüdke Verlag, Hamburg 1970.
  • André Brandenburg: Siegfried Lenz, German lesson. Beyer, Hollfeld 1997, ISBN 3-88805-512-1 (= point of view - text in class; 512).
  • Theo Elm : Siegfried Lenz, German lesson. Commitment and realism in contemporary novels (= critical information , volume 16). Fink, Munich 1974, OCLC 601512919 (Dissertation University of Erlangen 1974, 143 pages, 8).
  • Winfried Freund : Siegfried Lenz: German lesson. In: interpretations. Novels of the 20th century. Volume 2. Reclam, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-008809-7 , pp. 212-240.
  • Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: German Lesson (= King's Explanations and Materials , Volume 92). C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-8044-1933-9 .
  • Fred Müller: Siegfried Lenz, German lesson. Interpretation (=  Oldenbourg interpretations , volume 80). Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-88679-7 .
  • Vladimir Tumanov: Stanley Milgram and Siegfried Lenz: An Analysis of Deutschstunde in the Framework of Social Psychology. In: Neophilologus 91 (1) 2007, pp. 135-148.
  • Albrecht Weber: Siegfried Lenz, German lesson. Interpretation . With contributions by Birgit Alt and Hendrik Rickling. Oldenbourg, Munich 1973

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 34–35.
  2. ^ Winfried Freund: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 216–217, 222.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 62–64, 69–71, 75.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 83-85.
  5. ^ Publishing contract between Siegfried Lenz and Hoffmann and Campe Verlag dated February 10, 1968
  6. ↑ Illustration of Trio z. B. Jan Bykowski: The fantastic Nolde - the grotesque Nolde . In: Weltkunst from April 29, 2017.
  7. ^ Winfried Freund: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 229, 232.
  8. ↑ a b Jochen Hieber : We learned the wrong thing . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from April 25, 2014.
  9. ↑ Sandra Kegel : This is how the cod hunts . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from April 6, 2014.
  10. ↑ Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 86–92, 117–119.
  11. ↑ Winfried Freund: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 215-222, 236-237.
  12. ↑ Winfried Freund: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , p. 213.
  13. ^ Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 16-17.
  14. ^ Fiction, non-fiction books . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1968, p. 158 ( online ).
  15. ↑ 1969 bestseller . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1970, p. 90 ( online ).
  16. ^ Jörg Magenau : Schmidt - Lenz. Story of a friendship . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-455-50314-2 , p. 49.
  17. ↑ Werner Weber : Rugbüll for example . In: The time of September 20, 1968.
  18. ↑ Quotations from: Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 101-107.
  19. ↑ Quoted from: Wilhelm Große: Siegfried Lenz: Deutschstunde , pp. 16, 111–112.
  20. ^ Elmar Faber : About the hardships and moments of happiness in German-German cooperation . In: Monika Estermann, Edgar Lersch (Hrsg.): German-German literature exchange in the 70s . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05486-7 , p. 31.
  21. ^ Julia Frohn: Literature Exchange in Divided Germany. 1945–1972 . Ch.links, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-807-3 , p. 176.
  22. ↑ Irene Charlotte Streul: West German literature in the GDR. Böll, Grass, Walser and others in the official reception 1949–1983. Metzler, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 978-3-476-00621-9 , pp. 99-100.
  23. ↑ A bit disastrous . In: Der Tagesspiegel from May 1, 2014.
  24. ^ Ulrich Greiner : Emil Nolde and Siegfried Lenz . In: The time of April 30, 2014.
  25. ↑ Philip Theisohn: delusions . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of May 10, 2014.
  26. ^ German lesson ( memento from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), a-gon.de, accessed on October 15, 2014
  27. ↑ Film starts: German lesson. Retrieved September 22, 2019 .
  28. ↑ Report in the Tagesspiegel.
  29. ^ Press photos of the new exhibition. ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive )