Emil and the detectives

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Emil and the detectives. A novel for children is a 1929 novel by Erich Kästner .

Sculpture in Marburg

action

Twelve-year-old Emil Tischbein travels from the small town of Neustadt to Berlin for the first time to visit relatives. His mother gave him 140  marks to support his grandmother financially. This money is stolen from him in the train compartment by a fellow traveler who calls himself Grundis. Since Emil has eaten up something himself at home, he doesn't dare to contact the police and pursues the thief from the Zoo station on his own. He is addressed with the horn by the Berlin boy Gustav of the same age : “You are probably not from Wilmersdorf? ”Gustav rounds up some friends who set up a war chest and organize an intelligence service (“ Parole Emil! ”). The child detectives shadow the thief across Berlin and collect clues. This leads to an argument because some boys do not want to fulfill the task assigned to them. Since Emil informs his relatives by messenger, his cousin Pony Hütchen also joins the detectives.

When the thief, made nervous by the persecution, wants to exchange the stolen banknotes in a bank branch, he is caught by the detectives and a large number of children and handed over to the police. During the investigation, the wrong names of the thief are first put on the table (Grundis - Müller - Kießling). Then the banknotes found on him are identified by the fact that they have fine holes because Emil had pinned the money in his jacket pocket with a pin. Further investigations reveal that Grundis is a wanted bank robber. Emil receives a thousand marks as a reward.

rating

In the book, humor, adventure and portrayals of the environment are mixed up by Kästner. The novel tone of the story stimulated children's literature. Before that, children's books were almost consistently fairytale, moralizing, or both.

story

Emergence

Erich Kästner was inspired by Edith Jacobsohn , publisher of Weltbühne , to write a book for the Berlin children's book publisher Williams & Co. Up to this point, Kästner had published poems ( Herz auf Taille , 1928) and worked as an editor for daily newspapers, wrote reviews and feature sections. Within a few weeks, the story of Emil, the boy who successfully chases a thief through Berlin, was written.

Kästner, whose first name was Emil, was inspired by his biography for the characters Emil and his mother and also appears in the plot himself - in his real job as a newspaper journalist. For the story, Kästner went back to an experience from his childhood in Dresden: There he persecuted and hired a fraudster who had harmed his mother, a hairdresser. One bank break-in mentioned in the book is likely to be the Sass brothers' discount break-in .

The illustrations come from Walter Trier . The book was published in the fall of 1929 and was a great success.

After 1933

Emil and the Detectives was the only work by Kästner in 1933 that was initially not indexed or burned in the 1933 book burning in Germany . Erich Kästner was the only one of the ostracized writers to be personally present at the burning of his own works. He was recognized but otherwise not bothered. In 1936, however, Emil and the detectives were also banned by the National Socialists .

continuation

Kästner wrote a sequel in 1934 under the title Emil and the Three Twins . The story takes place mainly on the Baltic Sea, about two years after the adventures from the first book. Emil and the Three Twins was published in 1935 by Atrium Verlag Basel / Vienna / Mährisch Ostrau, the successor to Williams & Co.

Adaptations

Film adaptations

Stage versions

Kästner set up the novel for theatrical performances in 1930. The play can still be seen frequently, especially in children's and youth theater. Examples of this are the open-air theater performances in Lübbecke-Nettelstedt (2018, 2008, 1980), Emmendingen (2014), Heessen (2005), Reutlingen (2003) or Sigmaringendorf (2001).

Settings

The musical Emil und die Detektiven , whose music is by Marc Schubring and whose libretto is by Wolfgang Adenberg , premiered on November 12, 2001 in the Berlin Theater on Potsdamer Platz . It premiered on October 6, 2006 in the poet's birthplace at the Dresden State Operetta. The main roles were played by children from Dresden. Directed by Michael Schilhan , the musical was performed at the Graz Opera in the 2015/16 season .

In 2008, the East Swiss Theater Jetzt showed its own version in which young people sometimes wrote the scenes themselves. The director was the theater maker Oliver Kühn. The Bernhard Theater in Zurich brought a Swiss-German version of this children's musical onto the stage (dialect adaptation by Erich Vock ), the action was moved to Zurich and the world premiere took place on November 16, 2013.

With the premiere on January 8, 2017, the Atze Musiktheater in Berlin will also perform a setting of the piece under the musical direction of Sinem Altan . A special feature of the production is the participation of school classes in the performances.

Games

The book has also been the subject of a board game for children several times:

  • Already in 1931 the publisher Jos. Scholz, Mainz, Emil and the detectives. An exciting game for young and old
  • In 1969, Otto Maier Verlag, headed by Erwin Glonnegger, the publisher at the time, brought out the game under the same title as the novel as a search game in memory style, in which both thieves and banknotes have to be collected.
  • In 2003 the publishing house Schmidt Spiel und Freizeit published a children's game devised by the author Helmut Walch , which is similar to the well-known Scotland Yard (game) and has additional deductive elements. It also appeared under the title Emil and the Detectives .

Others

The typescript by Emil and the Detectives is on display in the permanent exhibition in the Modern Literature Museum in Marbach.

For Kästner's 100th birthday in 1999, Deutsche Post issued a special postage stamp with a motif by Walter Trier from Emil and the detectives with a face value of 300 pfennigs (Michel no. 2035): "There is nothing good except: You do it."

Exhibitions

  • 2014: All right, Commissioner? Knatterton, Kottan, Emil and other detectives , Caricature Museum Krems , April 6 to November 16, 2014.

literature

  • Erich Kästner: Emil and the detectives: A novel for children (illustrations by Walter Trier ). 152nd edition, Dressler , Hamburg 2010 (first edition 1929), ISBN 978-3-7915-3012-3 .
  • Stephanie Haack: Emil and the detectives. The illustrations in foreign editions . In: Imprimatur. A yearbook for book lovers . New episode XXI, Society of Bibliophiles, Munich / Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 47–78 (with illustrations and additional notes), ISSN  0073-5620 .
  • Gerhard Lamprecht: Emil and the detectives. In: Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Thomas Koebner (eds.): Film genres. Children and youth film Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-018728-9 , pp. 25-30.

Web links

Commons : Emil and the Detectives  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official Journal III of the Magistrate of Berlin, No. 176 (reorganization of the city, people's and other city libraries), in it: black list, under K: "Kaestner, Erich: alles except er: Emil".
  2. ↑ See Karsten Brandt: The dissociation of a writer in the years 1934–1936: Ödön von Horváth and HW Becker.
  3. ↑ Emil and the detectives
  4. ↑ Production of the Atze Music Theater
  5. ↑ Illustration in “Play with!” Paper games from the publisher Jos. Scholz Mainz, Mainz 2006, p. 3
  6. ↑ Luding games database: Emil and the detectives
  7. ↑ Luding games database: Emil and the detectives
  8. ↑ briefmarken.cc: Michel No. 2035 KB
  9. ↑ Announcement on the exhibition ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 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. , accessed August 5, 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kariertermuseum.at