Three mates
Drei Kameraden is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque that was published in German in Amsterdam in 1936. It is dedicated to Ilse Jutta Remarque-Zambona, Remarque's first wife.
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The book describes life in Germany in the 1920s ; it takes place in the second half of 1928 and early 1929. Corruption, misery and hopelessness are widespread. The location of the action is a large, unnamed city - presumably Berlin , but never identified as such by location or local color. The eponymous characters are the first-person narrator Robert “Robby” Lohkamp and his old school friends and war comrades from the First World War , Gottfried Lenz and Otto Köster; Together they run a car repair shop, but the income they generate is barely enough to support three people. During an excursion they get to know the socially superior girl Pat (Patrice Hollmann), with whom Robert meets repeatedly and gradually integrates her into his world of backyard pubs and bars. An intense love relationship develops between Robert and Pat, which pulls Robert out of his lethargy and hopelessness; in time he begins to see meaning in life again.
During a vacation at the sea together, Pat suffers a hemorrhage . Köster rushes to help Karl in his racing car and brings Pat's doctor, Jaffé, to the patient, without whose help Pat would probably have died. It turns out that Pat has tuberculosis . This revelation clouded the hitherto carefree relationship between the two lovers. Jaffé later reveals that Pat only has a chance to go on living if she goes to a sanatorium in the Alps . When winter sets in, the time has come to leave. Robert accompanies Pat, but cannot stay with her for long. Despite the repeatedly mentioned chances of full recovery, Pat's condition continues to deteriorate. One day Robert received a telegram saying Robby, come soon . Immediately Robert and Köster rush to the Alps in the Karl to assist Pat. In order not to worsen her condition, Robert conceals from her both that the workshop has now gone bankrupt and that Lenz has fallen victim to a politically motivated assassination attempt . Robert decides to spend the rest of the time with Pat, realizing that she will probably never leave the sanatorium alive. In order to pay for the stay, the returned Köster sells his beloved car.
But all efforts are in vain. Robert tries everything to keep Pat alive and spends every free minute with her, but in the end she succumbs to her suffering in a "difficult and excruciating" agony. The novel closes with the words: "Then morning came and it was no longer."
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Who the three comrades named in the title are is not as clear as it initially appears. The closest possible interpretation is that the old war comrades Lohkamp, Köster and Lenz are meant. The three are inseparable and would die and kill for each other, as Köster's behavior after Lenz's murder shows. However, over time, Pat becomes an increasingly important part of Robert's life. That he increasingly regards her as a comrade shows his nickname for her ( "old boy" ). So the three comrades could also be the three Robert loses in the course of the novel: Lenz through the assassination attempt, Pat through the illness and Karl through the lack of money. The car is also seen as part of the group, so to speak: “Cars were friends, but Karl was much more to us. A comrade! "
Latest issue
- Three comrades . KiWi 1366, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-462-04631-1 .
filming
The novel was filmed in 1938 by Frank Borzage under the English title Three Comrades . The three comrades were portrayed by Robert Taylor , Franchot Tone and Robert Young . The screenplay was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald .
The film The Deer Hunter served three comrades as a loose template.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Remarque, Three Comrades, 1964, 1991 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, ISBN 3 462 02090 0 , p. 565.
- ^ Quote from Remarque, Drei Kameraden , Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1975, p. 327.