An advertisement in the newspaper
An advertisement in the newspaper is a novel by the GDR writer Günter Görlich , which was first published in 1978 by the Neues Leben publishing house and had 14 editions by 1989. 1979 there was a licensed edition in the FRG . This was followed by editions in Bulgarian, Slovak and Czech (1981), Polish and Russian (1982), Estonian (1983), Ukrainian (1984) and Danish (1986).
In the novel, Görlich addresses the suicide of a teacher and takes a critical look at authoritarian pedagogical approaches. The places of the action are abbreviated with P. and L.; however, the cities of Potsdam and Ludwigsfelde can be derived from the context .
content
The committed teacher Manfred Just - in his mid-thirties - comes from an extended high school in the district town of P. to a polytechnic high school (POS) in the small town of L. With his pedagogical views, his arrogant appearance and his conspicuous appearance, the new teacher is first viewed critically by the college. In addition, a certain mistrust of the new plays a role, since his transfer was linked to a hierarchical decline and it is difficult to imagine that this happened voluntarily.
His views of the discourse and the free expression of opinion in the classroom and in the staff stand in an apparently insurmountable contrast to the planning and regulation mania of the director Karl Strebelow. He therefore instructs his deputy Herbert Kähne to sit in on Just's class. However, Kähne takes an interest in Just's educational views and begins to rethink his role as a teacher. A kind of friendship develops between the two teachers, which, however, does not experience any real depth. When the new teacher Anne Marschall came to the school one year after Just, the friendship between Kähne and Just suffered from a stronger devotion from Just to the new teacher.
Little is known about the relationship between the two, but the reader learns that both use each other's views as food for thought in their own work. During the summer vacation of Just's second year at the POS in L., the latter goes into the care of a friend who is a doctor at a district hospital. During this time, Just exchanged letters with Anne Marschall; In these letters he confesses his love for her, at the same time he gives information about the current findings and describes in detail his time before he came to L. and the relationship with his colleagues, especially Herbert Kähne. The reader can only deduce Marshal's answers to Just's letters from the respective replies.
Just describes that his illness, which is not described in detail, can only be treated with an operation, that he will be disabled afterwards and under no circumstances will he be able to work as a teacher again. He describes the fear of an intervention in his letters. The correspondence is interrupted by Anne Marschall's study trip. At around the same time, colleague Herbert Kähne and his wife Eva, who is also friends with Just, set out on a trip to the Caucasus . During this time, Just wrote his last letter, which ended with the words: "And when you have this letter in your hands, hopefully everything will be over for me."
While leaving the Caucasus, Kähne buys a German newspaper at a train station. Through an obituary notice in the newspaper, he and his wife learn of Just's death, which hits them both hard. It comes as a surprise and suddenly for them, because Just rarely told private things and they knew nothing about an illness. After Kähne and his wife have returned to L., they try to find out what Just ultimately died of. Kähne receives information from director Karl Strebelow that he died of an overdose of tablets. Since apparently there is no suicide note and therefore a suicide has not been proven, the director orders that the matter be presented in public and in front of the students as an accident, also and above all to keep the school away from any damage.
Kähne is not satisfied with the director's explanation. The encounter with Just's former students, who admired their teacher and are also not satisfied with the explanation of the school management, prompted Kähne to continue investigating the matter. A meeting with Anne Marschall remains without further information for the time being. Only later does she give Kähne his letters as a friend of Justs. Kähne finds out how much Just valued him. He takes the letters as an incentive to be more resolute in expressing the views he has recently changed with Just, especially to the director, and to become "uncomfortable".
construction
The structure of the novel deviates from the chronological order of the events as described in the table of contents above. It is divided into three parts. The first part begins with teacher Herbert Kähne's trip to the Caucasus, who leads through the novel as a first-person narrator . When he and his wife read the obituary, the narrator begins a retrospective of the past two years, which only shows the reader the subjective perception of a friend and colleague and therefore leaves questions unanswered and raises them anew. The second part begins after Herbert Kähne's arrival in L., a time in which, against the background of Manfred Just's death, he returns to everyday school life and tries to find out about his death himself. The third part, which takes up almost a quarter of the novel, solves the mystery of Manfred Just's death. These are Manfred Just's letters to his lover Anne Marschall, uncommented by the narrator. The conclusion is formed by the thoughts of the narrator, who draws his conclusions from the experience he has gained through reading the letters.
reception
The novel reached a total circulation of almost one million copies and was therefore Görlich's most successful work. It was not without controversy and was discussed controversially, especially among educators.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on issues, editions and publishers ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the catalog of the German National Library (accessed on August 31, 2010)
- ↑ About literature and language ( Memento of the original dated August 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - A blog by Heinz W. Pahlke (accessed on August 31, 2010)
- ↑ Helmut Fickelscherer: "Downfall of a Man and a Time" , a review in Berlin Reading Signs, Edition 04/97, Edition Luisenstadt, 1997 (accessed on August 31, 2010)
- ↑ Torsten Harmsen: But the books! - On the death of the well-known GDR writer and controversial functionary Günter Görlich , July 17, 2010 in Berliner Zeitung (accessed April 28, 2014)
