Die in spring
Die im Frühling is a 2015 novel by the German writer Ralf Rothmann . It tells the story of Walter Urban and Friedrich ("Fiete") Caroli, two seventeen-year-old milkers from northern Germany who were forcibly recruited in February 1945. The novel describes the final months of the Second World War in an intense way .
action
In February 1945, the two 17-year-old milkers' apprentices Walter and Fiete were drafted into the Waffen SS . After three weeks of basic training, the friends are brought to the front in Hungary for war deployment. While Fiete has to fight at the front, Walter is used as the driver. But he too experienced the atrocities of war when, for example, he had to watch the murder of three farmers. In the meantime Fiete has been wounded while fighting at the front and Walter visits him in the hospital. Fiete learns that his parents died in an air raid on Hamburg. When Walter hears that his father, who was employed as a security guard in the Dachau concentration camp but was transferred to the front in Stuhlweissenburg , has fallen, he asks for a few days off to look for his father's grave. Hauptsturmführer Greif approves Walter's request because he saved his son Jochen. But Walter's search remains in vain. After his return he learns from his comrades that Fiete has deserted to avoid being deployed to the front again. Walter tries desperately to save his friend's life and asks Sturmbannführer Domberg for mercy. But Domberg is condescending to Walter and is more interested in Walter's education than in his cause. It also becomes clear that Walter and his comrades are supposed to shoot Fiete. Domberg cynically advises Walter to aim well in order to spare his friend unnecessary suffering. The next morning Fiete is taken to the square, tied to a stake, and Walter and his comrades are ordered to shoot. Soon afterwards, Walter becomes an American prisoner of war. After his release he went to his hometown Essen-Borbeck . His mother's reception is very cold and Walter returns to Northern Germany. But the manager Thamling can no longer employ Walter as a milker, since the work is now taken over by machines. Walter finally makes his way to Kiel to visit his childhood friend Elisabeth. She accepts Walter's marriage proposal, whereupon the couple can take up a job as a milking couple on a farm nearby.
Narrative
Rothmann's novel is particularly noticeable because of its very special narrative style. He has the narrator describe his surroundings and actions in remarkable detail. This attention to detail leads to a strong atmospheric compression of the work. In addition, Rothmann gives the impression that the events are perceived through the eyes of the narrator Walter. However, the reader does not get an inside view of the character, as the narrator reproduces the event without comment and as if unemotional. Rothmann is guided by the seconds style , which has its origins in the epoch of naturalism . Rothmann's use of synesthesia is also striking . In addition, the targeted juxtaposition of atrocious war incidents with idyllic, peaceful descriptions of nature is striking. The most significant characteristic of the work is the lack of any judgmental judgment. The detailed descriptions of the atrocities, however, challenge the reader to come to terms with what happened.
characters
Friedrich "Fiete" Caroli
Friedrich “Fiete” Caroli is a seventeen-year-old milker apprentice who started his training on the farm of the Thamling family in northern Germany. His parents died in a bomb attack on Hamburg , and Fiete himself was thrown out of high school because of his bad behavior. He has blonde, often uncombed curls, shaded eyes, long, curved eyelashes and no beard, so he is more of a boyish appearance. He usually wears his work clothes: steel toe shoes, wide drill trousers and a blue pullover with holes in the moth. He is rather sloppy with his appearance, his hands are often dirty and saliva sticks to the corner of his mouth. Fiete is cheeky, cynical and lazy and drinks and smokes regularly, and he is also in a relationship with the girl Ortrud, who is pregnant by him. Although he rejects the war and does not want to join the Waffen-SS , he is forcibly recruited at a dance event near the Thamlings' court in February 1945 and, after a poor training, has to go to the front, while his best friend Walter stays behind as a driver of a supply unit . Due to his ill-considered nature and the belief that he would die anyway if he did another mission, he deserted, was caught and sentenced to death. All attempts by his best friend to save him fail and he is finally shot by several young SS men, including Walter.
background
Biographical parallels
The author Ralf Rothmann , born in Schleswig in 1953, grew up in the Ruhr area , which was the subject of four of his novels before “Die im Frühling”. His father was actually a Melkerlehlering, was forcibly recruited into the Waffen SS at the age of 17, later moved to the Ruhr area and worked underground there. He died at the age of 61 and didn't talk much about himself. Ralf Rothmann could not find his grave later, just as Walter unsuccessfully searched for his father. Thus the prologue and epilogue of the novel correspond to reality. Various locations from the novel, such as Kiel and the Ruhr area, also refer to Rothmann's biography. The author devises fictional circumstances under which his father could have been in the war in order to be able to process and better understand his past. In this way, he also creates a basis for other war children to grapple with their parents' secret past.
Like many other works by Rothmann, “Die im Frühling” is about the everyday coping of the “little people” in a historical context. The author shows different social classes in a neutral way, for example the educated Sturmbannführer Domberg and the rural life of Fietes and Walter are characterized. In general, there are many parallels to Rothmann's other works, including the recurring animal metaphors.
Günter Grass and the Frundsberg Division
Walter and Fiete involuntarily join the Waffen SS and end up in Hungary with the "Division Frundsberg", the unit in which 17-year-old Günter Grass also served. Günter Grass was drafted into the 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" of the Waffen-SS on November 10, 1944 at the age of 17 and was held in American captivity until April 24, 1946. Grass did not mention his membership of the SS in his biographies published until 2006. It was always said that he had become an anti-aircraft helper in 1944 and then called up as a soldier in the armored force in the Wehrmacht . Shortly before the publication of his autobiography “ When peeling the onion ”, Grass explains that as a 17-year-old he was a member of the Waffen SS. With his confession a debate began about Grass' role as a moral authority in post-war Germany. In an interview, Günter Grass made it clear that while he was a member of the Waffen-SS he was not involved in any war crimes of the Second World War and did not fire a single shot. He was the loader and therefore responsible for reloading, but not for shooting.
As a result, there were demands for the withdrawal or return of awarded awards. Grass should lose the honorary citizenship of the city of Gdansk and return his Nobel Prize for Literature . In the end it did not materialize, and the claims were withdrawn by both the residents of Gdansk and the Nobel Prize Committee.
interpretation
Dilemma situation, becoming innocent-guilty
Becoming innocent is a central theme of the novel. Walter has to shoot his best friend Fiete. Failure to act would have dire consequences for himself - he would also be shot - but also for the rest of those involved in the firing squad. They would have to pay with their lives for Walter's disobedience. “They count the bullets and if one is missing, they send us all to the front before lunch. And tonight we're guts on the tank tracks. ”(P. 170) Regardless of how Walter decides, he's guilty. This is a classic dilemma situation. It shows once again the brutality and coldness of Nazi rule. The consequences for Walter are terrible: During his time as a soldier, he only fires one shot, but it hits Fiete. Walter will not get over that for the rest of his life. Fiete’s answer to Walter’s question about the consequences for the shooter in the last conversation between the two protagonists before the execution has prophetic traits: Walter will “probably bequeath a great sadness” (p. 163). He carries this sadness within himself (see p. 7). The novel leaves open whether it has passed on to his son.
Epigenetics
“And once, when I mentioned my dreams, he told me that there is a memory of the cells in our body, including the semen - and therefore egg cells, and that is inherited. Being mentally or physically wounded does something to the offspring. "(Quote p. 162, lines 10–15 Suhrkamp Verlag)
Fiete says that he often dreams of being shot and that his father, who had seen many bad things in the last war, brought up the trauma inheritance because he believed that his son was often startled at night because of it.
The epigenetics describes specify what factors the activity and development of cells. The gene change does not take place here through mutation , but through DNA methylation , in which enzymes subsequently mark and change certain DNA segments. This intervention does not affect the nucleotide sequence , because the methyl groups couple above the actual base sequence without changing their order. In this way, the cells control which proteins are produced when, since they can switch the genes off and on again through the marking. These markings are chemically very stable and are carried over from one generation to the next. But if the person who inherited this genetic change from their parents grows up in a particularly harmonious, stress-free and calm environment, this can be reversed and the person is "cured". The epigenome thus determines the identity, as a result of which the organism constantly adapts to its environment. Epigenetic changes can be responsible for tumor formation, for example.
review
“You read Ralf Rothmann's new novel about a friendship overrun by evil, under high tension and full of admiration for the closeness to the protagonists. Die in Spring is undoubtedly one of the most important, exciting new releases of the season and at the same time a moral challenge. One can rightly say: With Die im Frühling the post-Grass era has been heralded powerfully, precisely because, symbolically speaking, parricide does not take place. "
“Die im Frühling im Frühling” is a terrific novel that should be stronger than any reading environment - and is much more than just the anti-war novel that it has been referred to over and over again. The best book I've read this year. "
"Die im Frühling" is a fine and defiant resistance to everything that is zeitgeist and medium-sized for me, the most important German novel of the year so far. A book for adults. A miracle of nuances, charges, comfort too. It fills the silence. It can break silence. It's not always too late for that. "
Web links
- Content and review on dieterwunderlich.de
- Book presentation in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on August 4, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.zeit.de/2015/25/ralf-rothmann-im-fruehling-sterben
- ↑ Sebastian Hammelehle, Maren Keller: "Die im Frühling" by Ralf Rothmann: Should I read that? In: Spiegel Online . June 29, 2015, accessed April 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Ralf Rothmann: Die in the spring. In: swr.de. July 15, 2019, accessed April 26, 2020 .