The hour of the dead eyes

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The Hour of the Dead Eyes is an anti-war novel by the East German writer Harry Thürk , which was published in 1957 and was a great success in the GDR . After a new edition in 1994, the novel topped the bestseller lists for several weeks. According to his own statements, the author, who himself served in Hermann Göring's Parachute Panzer Division 1 in Masuria towards the end of the war, had processed autobiographical experiences together with fictional, narrative elements in his work. The model and theme of his novel are the traces that the war leaves in the souls of young and gullible people.

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Blurb

Harry Thürk wrote an incredibly exciting book. More impressive than almost any other literary work of the post-war period is the authenticity with which the author describes what happened at the front. The characters in this novel are drawn from reality. Harry Thürk dedicates the book to his fallen comrades who were caught in the error of being heroes and whose audacity would have been worth a better cause. They knew what it took to run an enterprise like this. They not only mastered their own weapons, but also those of their opponents. They were trained in driving, blasting and laying mines. They mastered half a dozen different methods of killing .

action

The story takes place in the winter of the war 1944 / 45 in the East Prussian village hazel garden in Mazury, which a paratrooper company serves as a base for their operations. Haselgarten, close to the front, had previously been temporarily occupied by the Red Army , but was able to be recaptured by the Wehrmacht . The village is deserted except for the widowed farmer Anna and her feeble-minded servant Jakob. The company is led by Lieutenant Alf, the nephew of the regimental commander Colonel Barden. They are “front scouts” and carry out dangerous commando operations behind enemy lines. An eight-man group , led by Sergeant Klaus Timm, receives the order to blow up an important supply bridge. This group includes Thomas Binding, Werner “Zado” Zadorowski and the explosives expert Naumann. In addition to young paratroopers, old veterans who have already participated in combat missions in Crete and Sicily also serve in the unit .

When night fell, a Junkers Ju-52 dropped the Timm group from a height of 100 meters above their operational area in the Soviet Union . The bridge was blown up and the supply route interrupted, but then the group lost itself in the darkness. A part runs into the provision of Soviet assault guns and is completely worn out in the fire fight. Only the explosives expert Naumann can survive badly injured and is found by Timm, Binding and “Zado”, who can bring him to the pick-up point in a daring action. The Junkers machine can locate the paratroopers using a magnesium torch and fly them back to Haselgarten. Hardly any notice is taken of the loss of the four comrades, at least the job was carried out successfully. The Red Army supplies stall and the dreaded winter offensive is delayed.

The next day a sergeant major from the Feldgendarmerie shows up and asks about the command post of 3rd Company. He had to take a comrade into custody there and bring him to a field court . In the late phase of the war , military policemen were hated at the front because they mercilessly carry out Schörner's orders and use extremely brutal measures to try to keep up the falling morale . “Zado” sends the unsuspecting Sergeant Major's vehicle into a minefield , in which he and his driver perish.

Binding and “Zado” become friends with the lonely farmer Anna and arrange to meet there for a meal with food, which the two Wehrmacht soldiers had obtained from their Furier . When opening a roulade can with his knife and the bloody juice escapes, Binding gets weak and vomits. It's the same knife he's used to kill dozens of enemies in close combat. A technique that was taught them to drill by Sergeant Timm. Anna feels sorry for him, as the hardship and cruelty of the war will change a young person like Binding forever.

The tension at the front is growing. In October 1944, the Red Army had already made an advance against Gumbinnen and Goldap , until this could be cleared up again by the Wehrmacht in November. There are increasing signs of a large-scale Soviet winter offensive. The front scouts are given the task of disrupting the deployment in the hinterland. The assignment, for which three groups are intended, is meticulously planned in advance by a major and modeled on a sandpit model . They also receive winter equipment and snow camo shirts. The 1st group is to take up posts on the connecting road and intercept a staff vehicle and take the high-ranking staff officer prisoner. Group 2, five men strong, has to take a train station and cause two freight trains to collide. The 3rd group, to which Binding and “Zado” are assigned, is to track down hidden ammunition bunkers for the artillery in a forest area and destroy them with mines. The aim is to mess up the schedule for the major Soviet offensive and to seriously disrupt the preparatory phase. Naumann, who has now recovered, is terrified of the imminent suicide mission and shoots himself. All three groups are dropped off in a secluded wooded area and move to their destination. The Timm group found the Soviet ammunition bunkers, but because of the dense chain of posts of the enemy, they couldn't get through without killing themselves. To give the impression that they have carried out their mission, they blow up a Soviet supply truck with their mines. A Russian soldier is fatally wounded. Her sergeant Timm looks on unmoved as he dies, while Binding experiences a severe trauma. Once again, Timm, Binding and “Zado” are some of the few survivors. None of the other two groups had made it.

Back in the village of Haselgarten, the story of the farmer Anna is revealed. Before the war she worked in a Jewish dental practice in Gumbinnen until her boss was the victim of a pogrom . She was driven out of the small town because of racial disgrace and forcibly married to a “hereditary farmer” in a nearby village. After a miscarriage , Anna is abused and humiliated by her disappointed husband, who feels that he has been cheated of his heir. Her martyrdom does not end until her husband is called up for military service. A little later she received the news that he had died near Paris . In truth, he was drunk and was the victim of a traffic accident. Anna now lives as a war widow on her farm and experiences the Russians taking the place. A Soviet officer, also a Jew, is injured in the fighting and is cared for by her. When the Germans move in again, he is initially hidden and then finally pretends to be their idiot servant Jakob as camouflage.

Binding is awarded the bronze melee clasp. The paratrooper company is assigned "Vlasov soldiers" for a major operation . Sergeant Timm prepares his new platoon with merciless severity for the physically demanding tasks of the new assignment. In an icy river valley, he lets them practice moving at the lowest pace, carrying the wounded and waiting for hours in camouflaged positions in snow-covered terrain until they come to the brink of collapse. In the meantime, the Red Army succeeds in taking possession of the village of Haselgarten permanently.

Lieutenant Alf and Colonel Barden are on leave from the front, well aware of the explosive nature of the current situation on the main battle line . While their men prepare to die in combat, the two officers fly to Berlin and from there by train to St. Georgen in the Black Forest to spend a relaxing skiing holiday there. Lieutenant Alf meets a blonde in a bar and gets drunk with her. She takes him to her room, but because of the heavy consumption of alcohol, there is no sexual intercourse . Instead, Alf tells the woman brutal front-line stories from the everyday life of the paratroopers, which he has never experienced himself.

Unaffected by this, the paratrooper company started another mission. They camouflage themselves with the uniforms of the enemy and with the help of the “Vlasov soldiers” they bring up Soviet vehicles. Only when an enemy tank column approaches, their plan is revealed and they are exposed. Everyone except Binding is killed in the firefight. He escapes, breaks into the ice on a frozen lake and fights his way back to Anna's farm after an adventurous escape. Anna and Warasin both take care of binding. Warasin out of gratitude because the private had not betrayed him to the Wehrmacht at the time. The two ask him to surrender to the Red Army, which Binding refuses. Only when Binding wants to leave the farm does he discover that Timm and "Zado" have miraculously survived the fiasco of the last mission. The seriously injured Timm kills Warasin with a bazooka , and he is also responsible for his death, but he was already sure that he would not be able to survive his injury. Binding and "Zado" flee together from the insane NCO. After a certain time, the two exhausted and neglected men arrive at the HKL, where heavy fighting has broken out. On the way back to the German lines, they are stranded in no man's land and are caught in a German counterattack. In the end, because of their Soviet uniforms, they perish when their own troops use flamethrowers .

characters

  • Thomas Bindig . One of the young protagonists of the novel. Librarian in civil profession and drafted by the Wehrmacht at the age of 17. Although his hometown is bombed out and his family and fiancée are killed, Binding remains loyal to National Socialism . Binding is sensitive and the close combat experiences with soulless killing take him heavily.
  • Werner “Zado” Zadorowski . Knife thrower from Düsseldorf . On one of his tours he fell out with an NSDAP party official, which ended his career abruptly. He volunteers for the military and, together with Binding, is trained by Sergeant Timm with the paratroopers. With his caring manner and farsighted behavior, “Zado” represents a kind of father figure for Binding. In his private life, he is considered bitter. Because of his experience as an artist, he thinks all women are whores . But his proverbial sarcasm is his very own way of dealing with the horrors of war.
  • Sergeant Klaus Timm . Timm is 32 years old and comes from Hanau . SA fighter, troop leader in the Reich Labor Service and unteachable loyal to the Führer. Bearer of the Iron Cross and instructor for the paratroopers. Timm embodies the “killing machine” of a National Socialist soldier. For his soldiers, it is all about the effectiveness in completing the order.
  • Anna . She becomes an orphan at an early age and loses her last caregiver after a pogrom. The East Prussian Anna plays the long-suffering role of an innocent civilian victim of National Socialism.
  • Servant Jakob alias Lieutenant Georgi Warasin . German-speaking officer of the Red Army from Moscow . Warasin is a communist by conviction and in a dispute with Binding, after his camouflage is blown, presents clear socio-political views that the young German completely lacks.

linguistic style

“ Soon I will no longer be able to see the dead or the dying. I see her every night. When I lie with one of those thick-legged village whores, I see the corpses, and then the girl giggles and nibbles on my chocolate because she knows I won't say anything or do anything for an hour. It's the disgust. But it's not just disgust. It's a lot worse. Don't think about it so often. There is no longer any choice. You cannot jump out of a moving train. "

- Thomas Binding about his traumatic close combat experiences in Harry Thürk: The Hour of the Dead Eyes. 10th edition. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-384-6 , p. 12.

In 15 chapters, the story of a small paratrooper unit is told from the perspective of the authoritative narrator. Narrative time is the past tense . A “ relentless realism ” is characteristic of Thürk's narrative style . Special expression. This can be found in the quotation from Sergeant Timm, “ Where I am, will die ” In language that was already exaggerated for the taste of the time, “ skulls and abdomen that had been hit ” are described.

reception

Between 1958 and 1960, The Hour of the Dead Eyes was confiscated in the GDR and removed from the libraries because the State Ministry believed that the novel was ideologically problematic. The figure Warasin, who found shelter with the “Nazi” German Anna, and the author's dedication to his former comrades, which was interpreted as pro-Nazi, caused offense. The confiscation was part of its success as the work became a popular title in underground literature. This only changed when the book became compulsory reading for the Czechoslovak army. A planned film adaptation of the material under the title “House in Fire” in 1959 was prohibited by the Soviet military authorities because the character of Lieutenant Warasin was too problematic. In describing the events, however, the author used his literary freedom, because in reality there were no “front reconnaissance companies” in the paratrooper divisions. The relief strategy of Thürk's victim story continues to be criticized. “ The effectively fighting front pigs are opposed to correct-threatening slackers from the field gendarmerie and cautious stage officers ”. An article in the supplement "Art and Culture" magazine New Germany , Franz Hammer in 1958 , " Thürk was a naturalist and the objectivism fall ", sparked a polemic about the current war literature, but mainly he was accused of, " he would have sided with the other side, the murder elite ”.


Text output

  • Harry Thürk: The hour of the dead eyes. 10th edition. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-384-6 . (First edition 1957)

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harry Thürk: The hour of the dead eyes.
  2. ↑ Authors: Der Konsalik des Ostens. In: Der Spiegel. 29/1995.
  3. ↑ The Harry Thürk - Continuation Interview. P. 38.
  4. ↑ The Harry Thürk - Continuation Interview.
  5. ↑ Harry Thürk: The hour of the dead eyes. 10th edition. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-384-6 .
  6. ↑ fictional locality
  7. ↑ Main battle line
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Kai Köhler: The hard way of writing and the realism. The criticism of Harry Thürk's war novel "The Hour of the Dead Eyes". In: The paper.
  9. ↑ Harry Thürk: The hour of the dead eyes. 10th edition. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-384-6 , p. 412.
  10. ^ DEFA Foundation, House in Fire
  11. ↑ Paratroopers of the National People's Army, “Hour of the Dead Eyes”. ( Memento from February 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive )