The Trial (Bredel)

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The Examination is a documentary novel by Willi Bredel , published in London in 1934. In it, the author, in the role of communist Walter Kreibel, tells his own story about the months in the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in March 1933.

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From day one at the Fuhlsbüttel institution, Walter Kreibel became aware of how the system of National Socialist terror works. Prisoners are tortured, degraded and even forced to commit suicide or murdered out of sheer arbitrariness. The guards are portrayed as brutal and inhuman. But there are also deviations, for example an SS doctor who conducts political and philosophical discussions with Kreibel and the Communist Reichstag deputy Heinrich Torsten. An SS man also supports the prisoners by smuggling useful things into the detention center for a fee. Kreibel always comes into situations in which he wants to give up. But he always orientates himself on his fellow prisoner Heinrich Torsten. Kreibel admires him for the fact that, despite the severe torture of the guards, he still remains steadfast and does not betray anyone. When Kreibel is released months later, he wants to give up his political work. Feelings of guilt towards his party drive Walter Kreibel to continue anyway. He does that despite the danger of never seeing his wife and child again. From then on he works illegally.

Emergence

In the novel The Examination , Willi Bredel processes his experiences at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in 1933. He was already working on the book in the concentration camp, so he could quickly write it down and publish it in London in 1934. The book is considered the first authentic news of fascist terror in Germany. In addition, the work of Bredel shows the resistance of the anti-fascist prisoners. In his novel, Bredel made sure to change the names of his fellow prisoners. One of them was Mathias Thesen , named Heinrich Torsten in the novel . Bredel himself slipped into the figure of the communist Walter Kreibel. Names of the men from the security guards and members of the SS remained unaltered.

The book has been translated into 17 languages. In 1945 over a million copies were already in circulation.

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