The Bridge (Gregor Dorfmeister)

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The bridge is the first novel by the writer Gregor Dorfmeister . It was published in 1958 under the pseudonym Manfred Gregor and gained greater fame through the film adaptation of the same name by Bernhard Wicki from 1959. In 2008, another remake was released for the TV station Pro 7 , see Die Brücke (2008) .

The autobiographical novel describes the deadly combat mission of seven young people who were drafted into the Volkssturm in April 1945 shortly before the end of the Second World War and who were supposed to defend the eponymous bridge in their hometown. Although the story Die Brücke belongs to the genre of the anti-war novel, the novel also contains elements of the educational novel , as, apart from the actual story, in flashbacks it also thematizes the youth and the growing up of the protagonists under National Socialism .

action

Seven young people - Albert Mutz, Ernst Scholten, Karl Horber, Klaus Hager, Jürgen Borchert, Walter Forst and Siegfried "Siegi" Bernhard - spent the Second World War in their hometown in southern Germany. Everyone was drafted into the Volkssturm in the spring of 1945, shortly after they turned 16 . In the barracks yard they come across various NCOs as trainers, the impulsive Alois Schaubeck and the gloomy, withdrawn Adolf Heilmann.

After two weeks of training, the front is getting closer. Schaubeck dies in a low-flying attack on the barracks. Heilmann and Lieutenant Fröhlich, who was also drafted, advise the boy to desert from the barracks area; however, they refuse. The following night, May 2, 1945, there was an alarm and the entire unit was sent to the front to meet the Americans. However, Fröhlich managed to have the boys posted at the back of the front at an apparently unimportant bridge in the city under Heilmann's orders.

Heilmann continues to try to get the boys to give up. He puts on civilian clothes and wants to check the situation in the city for the boys, but he is caught by military policemen and shot while trying to escape. The boys are left alone at the bridge. The commanding general crosses the bridge and places the boy with his adjutant, Sergeant Schlopke, to the side. The general's plan is to lure the Americans into a trap at the bridge and then to blow up the bridge in order to cut off the path of advancing reinforcements and to gain time for the withdrawal of his own troops. Schlopke initially pretends to want to hold the bridge, but deserted a short time later successfully, so that the boys want to defend the bridge on their own.

Meanwhile, the front lines are retreating so that the boys are suddenly on the front line. The bridge comes under fire from Lightning fighter bombers, and Siegi Bernhard is killed. The loss does not deter the young people, but rather spurs them on to defend the bridge all the more doggedly. So they set up an ambush that completely astonishes the Americans advancing with tanks. Walter Forst uses bazookas to destroy two of the Sherman tanks before he takes cover under the bridge after a perplexed encounter with an American soldier. The other boys, however, gradually fall victim to the battle: Jürgen Borchert is the victim of a sniper, Karl Horber is shot in his machine-gun position, and Klaus Hager dies in the desperate attempt to close a house armed only with a bayonet storm. At the end of the battle, however, the Americans withdraw. However, Walter Forst dies when the pile of bazookas he has deposited under the bridge detonates.

Now the general's plan comes into play: a demolition squad is ordered to the bridge. Albert Mutz and Ernst Scholten who stayed behind are now shocked that the bridge, which their five friends paid with their lives to defend, is now about to be blown up. Both fight a gun battle with the detonation squad, which then withdraws. However, Ernst Scholten has been fatally wounded and dies in the arms of his friend. Albert Mutz finally wanders aimlessly through the city and falls asleep in a house entrance. While the Americans are now occupying the city, Mutz returns to his mother's house.

Autobiographical elements

In an interview from May 2015, Dorfmeister reported on the autobiographical elements of his novel. He and seven other boys were drafted into an SS barracks in Bad Tölz in April 1945 . After a few days of training, the eight boys would have had to defend a small bridge on May 1st that led over the Loisach near Bad Heilbrunn . According to Dorfmeister, the young people shot down a tank on the opposite side, burning a US soldier. Then they came under heavy fire from the Americans and had to flee. Only three of the eight boys were able to save themselves, including the village master. According to the order, the three should have defended another bridge in Bad Tölz the next day. While the disaffected village master fled, his two remaining comrades had fallen while defending the bridge: “I went to the bridge, the two were lying there dead, an old woman passed by and spat at them. I will never forget this picture. "

Flashbacks

It is characteristic of the novel that the life story of each character mentioned is told in its own flashback. These flashbacks allow conclusions to be drawn about the personality and mindset of each character. The individual flashbacks are:

  • Sergeant Schaubeck and the alcohol : Alois Schaubeck avoids the war effort, but terrorizes the recruits as a grinder. Outside of duty, his passion is alcohol and inconsistent love affairs. Schaubeck dies when a Mustang covers the NCO's mess with machine gun fire.
  • Frohlich and Gaius Julius Caesar : After all of his students have been drafted and eventually even his own son and several have fallen from them, also is teacher Franz Fröhlich ordered the Wehrmacht. Although he has dealt with strategy in his school career , his experience has given him pacifist traits. Since the boys remind him of his students, he feels particularly attached to them and plans to save them from the war.
  • Sergeant Heilmann and the war : Adolf Heilmann blocked his own career as an officer when he made a thoughtless political statement on the war school course. Heilmann is a tough soldier and in May 1944, the only survivor of his unit after the attack on a Soviet position with a serious leg injury, only crawling on his hands, escapes to his own lines.
  • A general and his orders : The general is described as a capable officer, but no longer thinks in human, but in military terms. Accordingly, the withdrawal of his unit is more important to him than the individual fate of the boys posted at the bridge, which is metaphorically equated with a windshield wiper .
  • Sergeant Schlopke and the Feldgendarm : Schlopke survived the whole war unscathed and would like to survive it to the end. In this way he saves himself from the police by a lie in which he describes the defense of the bridge as GKdoS and, unlike Heilmann, maintains his composure.
  • Siegi Bernhard and his books : Siegfried Bernhard is the youngest and smallest of the boys. His father died years ago while working as a miner . Siegi himself likes to read books in his spare time and often gets lost in his imagination. The dream of heroic deeds runs through his life, which is why - in thought of the legendary story of the knight Curtius - he does not throw himself into cover during the air raid on the bridge, but instead stands upright. Siegi dies from shrapnel .
  • Studienrat Stern and the educational ethos : The former teacher and friend of the boys was unable to take part in the First World War because of a disability . Over the years, however, he learned to deal with this disability and eventually found his calling in education.
  • Ernst Scholten and Johann Sebastian Bach : Ernst Scholten comes from a big city and ends up on a farm near the small town as part of the children's area . The city is often skeptical of him because of his mischievous manner and daring plans. For example, he and his friends break into a disused mine, poach or steal a farmer's eggs. On the other hand, he is also musically gifted and enjoys playing the flute.
  • Jürgen Borchert and the strengthening of the body : As the son of an officer, Jürgen Borchert wants to emulate his father and tries above all to build himself up physically. After his father died in December 1944, Jürgen was forced to withdraw his application to become an officer candidate under pressure from his mother. Accordingly, he is not very enthusiastic about finally being drafted as a team rank.
  • Karl Horber and the guilty conscience : Karl Horber's mother dies when he is born. Above all else, the son of a hairdresser has a reputation for committing countless misdeeds, whether it is skipping school or carrying out dangerous experiments such as the manufacture of gunpowder. Among his friends is Horber additionally provides a reputation when he invites them to go through a knothole in the wall Barbara, the employees of his father, to watch the move observed . Karl later observes his father having sex with Barbara. The mood of the notorious jester therefore worsens significantly by the time he is engaged.
  • Klaus Hager and the fear of life : The inconspicuous but emotional gaunt often devours his frustration and suffers from his dominant and overly cautious mother, which is why he finally tries to commit suicide . Ultimately, a love affair with Franziska Feller, the daughter of refugees from Eastern Europe, helps him over the life crisis. In the course of time, however, Klaus developed feelings of jealousy that culminated when he saw Franziska say goodbye to a young soldier at the train station, so that he broke up with her. Only when he entered the barracks did he learn that Franziska had only said goodbye to her brother.
  • Walter Forst and the Standartenführer : From an early age, Walter Forst had a particularly tense relationship with the Nazi regime, since his tyrannical father is also an SS Standartenführer . In addition, he was friends with the Jew Abraham Abi Freundlich during his childhood and witnessed the family's escape immediately before the pogrom night in 1938. At school, Walter has the reputation of being both talented and conflict-seeking. Among other things, he sabotaged a school party for Adolf Hitler's birthday by distributing hydrogen sulfide . He later has an affair with the gymnastics teacher Siegrun Bauer, who becomes pregnant as a result. However, Walter manages to connect this story with his father. Before moving in, Walter Forst lived out his passion for American jazz music , got drunk, and went on with his father's maid. Then he confesses everything to his mother.
  • Albert Mutz and the fifth commandment : Albert Mutz grew up in a deeply religious family and as a child was particularly influenced by depictions of punishment and penance . He is often beaten by his mother for offenses. His older brother Konrad went to war as an air force officer and was later taken prisoner. In his youth Albert begins to build a collection of war toys in the attic ; However, the collection is destroyed under the impact of Konrad's war experiences. At school, Albert's interests occasionally collide with those of the Nazi regime; For example, on the occasion of a visit by an SS-Sturmbannführer, he once expressed his intention to be a train driver rather than a soldier. In his youth he befriends a girl named Traudl, but turns away from her when he is called up. In the end he caused the greatest conceivable conflict of conscience when he shot one of the soldiers of the demolition squad who threatened Ernst Scholten.

The plot of the novel is embedded in a framework in which a first-person narrator returns to the city and the bridge after ten years. It turns out that this narrator is Albert Mutz. In the epilogue he talks to an old man who is skeptical of the nature of today's youth, expressed using the example of a group of people driving by on scooters . Albert Mutz replies:

“The youth are neither good nor bad. It is like the time in which it lives. "

Differences between book and film

In contrast to the novel, the 1959 film adaptation does not take up the flashback narrative structure of the novel, but instead tells the story in chronological order. Instead of flashbacks, a description of the everyday life of the boys before the call-up takes place in the first third of the film.

By and large, the actual plot of the novel in its most important aspects is faithfully reproduced in the film. Changes in content only included some of the fates of the young people:

  • In the film, the death of Siegi Bernhard is explained less with his desire for heroism, but more with a certain form of cowardice and peer pressure: First of all, it is shown how Bernhard throws himself to the ground as the only one while an airplane flies past in a distant way and instead by the others is laughed at. During the actual attack, Siegi then stops while the others throw themselves down.
  • In the film, Walter Forst dies during the battle when a tank shell hits him, so that only two of the boys survive the battle.
  • In connection with Walter Forst, it is also worth mentioning that the novel describes an episode with a skeptical civilian who tries to convince the young people to leave the bridge. In the film, this civilian tries to prevent Walter Forst from firing a bazooka. Since the civilian is behind Walter Forst, he suffers terrible burns on his face when the rocket beam fires.
  • Ernst Scholten was renamed Hans Scholten in the film.
  • Sergeant Schlopke is not portrayed in the film or at least not portrayed in the role intended in the novel. Nor is the death of Sergeant Schaubeck mentioned.
  • Sergeant Heilmann does not try to persuade the boys to desert, but to keep them busy until the bridge is planned to be blown. In addition, he does not dress in civilian clothes, when the police officers meet, they do not believe him that he has been instructed to secure the bridge and that he was on his way to the demolition squad. While trying to get back to the bridge so as not to let the boys down, Heilmann is shot.
  • The film ends with Albert Mutz leaving the bridge in shock. In the novel, however, it is still described how he wanders through the city and returns home.

reception

Apart from the film adaptations, the novel received relatively little attention when it was published. In its review of the film , Der Spiegel simply called the novel “irrelevant”.

On the occasion of a new edition in 2005, Die Brücke was examined again retrospectively. So wrote Heinz Ludwig Arnold in the Frankfurter Allgemeine :

“And so he [Manfred Gregor] can tell his current bridge story based on seven biographies, all of which are brought together by the madness of an ideology that made this war possible and led to such an end (and which is becoming the macabre strategic sense of military thought as, as it were, on the side, on only one and a half pages, in the chapter 'A general and his orders', conveyed very clearly). In the seven biographies of the seven boys Gregor tells the story of German society at that time [...]: Insights into families and illustrative material for behaviors that made it all possible or were unable to prevent what happened then. [...] [ Die Brücke ] is even stronger than its good film adaptation - and by the way also a very good book for young people. "

- Heinz Ludwig Arnold

Arnold also mentioned the writing style and noted that the book read "almost half a century later, not as distant and out of date as you might think."

Wolfgang Schneider discussed the novel in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and particularly emphasized the “sophisticated” time stratification. He also judged the language to be "unaffected".

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ^ War drama "The Bridge": The True Story , dated May 2, 2015
  2. ↑ The bridge on the rain . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1959, pp. 90 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Heinz Ludwig Arnold: Man is not made of steel . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 9, 2005, quoted at perlentaucher.de .
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Schneider: Review of Die Brücke . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 23, 2005, quoted by perlentaucher.de .