An attempt at love (short story)
An attempt at love is a short story by Alexander Kluge . It appeared in 1962 in his first prose publication, "CVs". The story deals with events in the concentration camps and refers to an experiment from 1943 that was actually carried out in an extermination camp in Germany.
The short story caused consternation, was soon introduced as class reading in schools, but on the other hand also brought Kluge accusations of pornography. It is Kluge's most famous prose work and illustrates the cruelty in the extermination camps during the Nazi era with sober objectivity. With his story, Kluge hit the nerve of the times. When the story was published, the Auschwitz trials were imminent.
content
The story focuses on the attempt at mass sterilization in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War . In 1943 X-rays appeared, which served as the cheapest means of sterilization . An experiment is described with which the sustainability of the infertility thus achieved should be tested. In the "experiment", a female and a male prisoner were brought into a room in the expectation that they would have sex. They were Jewish test subjects who had been carefully selected in advance, so that one would certainly believe that there was a mutual erotic interest. The prisoners were given a larger, carpeted cell. What happened in the cell could be followed by the camp administration through a porthole. The experiment failed, however, as the two test subjects avoided any contact, even with attempted manipulation and violent interventions by the camp management. The two prisoners were then shot.
shape
In an introduction the reader is informed about the conditions and the aim of the experiment to be carried out. The following part is formally reminiscent of an interview , as each individual paragraph begins with a short, concise question, which is followed by an answer. It initially seems that strangers - the questions are asked in the we-form - ask a concentration camp functionary questions and he answers them. In these answers the reader receives information about how the experiment went in detail. Through Kluge's choice of the we-form, the reader is suggested to be one of the concentration camp functionaries himself and to observe the prisoners through their eyes. In the course of the dialogue, however, it turns out that the questions are not asked by strangers, but by one of the participating concentration camp functionaries to himself. He tries to use this dialectical method to remember the experiment in order to understand why it failed back then.
Historical background
The short story was published in 1962, that is, immediately before the first Auschwitz trials . It can be assumed that the documentation Medicine Without Humanity by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke, Kluge served as the source of his story. Mitscherlich and Mielke published texts for the first time in 1948 about the practices carried out by Nazi doctors in the concentration camps .
interpretation
The short story can be interpreted on different levels. The formal level offers a good platform for interpretation. The self-questioning of the speaker deals with the organizational and technical side of the experiment. He only takes this side into account in his recapitulation and search for the reason for failure. This brings the reader closer to the coldness and indifference of the National Socialists. According to the files, the two subjects felt great affection for one another. Based on this fact, it was assumed that the attempt would succeed. This conclusion shows the reader the inability of the concentration camp officials to think outside the objective, logical level. It was precisely this inability that guaranteed the sad "success" of this regime. The factual sobriety, the rationalization. The reader only learns about the existence of the test subjects from the concentration camp functionary, one of the perpetrators. Her resume ends when she is shot. In the text neither a description of the interior nor a dialogue between the inmates is mentioned. In the files, too, only the prisoners' initials are written. This illustrates the idea of wiping out entire lives of the Nazi regime. The fact that the reader only learns something about the prisoners' lives through the perpetrator shows the control and power that the National Socialist system had over their enemies. In the text, the speaker asks himself the question: “Have we been aroused ourselves?” Now there are two answers to this question: on the one hand the appropriate one and on the other the true one. The speaker replies: “At least before the two in the room; at least it looked like that. On the other hand, we would have been forbidden to do so. As a result, I don't think we were aroused. ”His answer contains both the appropriate and the correct answer. He first says that they were more aroused than the two in the room, which can mean they were aroused. However, he is by no means allowed to admit this, as it means “racial disgrace”. So he corrects himself and immediately slips back into the rationalizing way of speaking. He says they are forbidden to do so and because of that they would not have been aroused.
literature
- Alexander Kluge: An attempt at love. In: AK: CVs. Stuttgart: Goverts, 1962. pp. 133-136.
- An attempt at love. In: AK: Chronicle of feelings. Vol. 2. CVs. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp, 2000. pp. 770-772.
- An attempt at love. In: Classic German short stories. Edited by Werner Bellmann . Stuttgart: Reclam, 2003. pp. 253-257. - This print is based on the 2000 edition.
Web links
- Alexander Kluge: "An attempt at love", table of contents and interpretation accessed on June 3, 2014
- Der Spiegel, October 13, 1969. Retrieved March 8, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christian Schulte: Alexander Kluge: "An attempt at love". 2004. Retrieved June 6, 2014