In the penal colony

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Title page of the first print
Publisher's cover of the first edition in 1919

In the penal colony is a story by Franz Kafka that was written in October 1914 and published in 1919. An explorer is shown the legal system of a penal colony . It consists in the fact that after the verdict has been determined, each defendant is tortured for hours by a meticulous machine and then killed. What he has to heed is inscribed in his body. The explorer present at a demonstration leaves the island immediately after the unexpected outcome of the execution.

History of origin

The story was written in October 1914 during a work holiday when Kafka actually wanted to work on the novel The Trial . In November 1916 she read Kafka in Munich as part of a literary lecture series in front of a small audience, Rainer Maria Rilke was also present. According to the legend, several listeners fainted at the atrocities presented. The response was generally negative. A newspaper critic called Kafka a lustful horror.
Kafka originally planned to publish the penal colony together with The Judgment and The Metamorphosis under the title Punishments . However, his publisher considered such a subject to be unsaleable. Due to various delays due to the skepticism of his publisher, the publication as a single story by the publisher Kurt Wolff did not take place until 1919. In a letter of October 11, 1918, Kurt Wolff wrote to Kafka “... this poem, which I love extremely, if mine Love also mixes with a certain horror and horror at the terrible intensity of the terrible material ... "

The young journalist Kurt Tucholsky was also very touched by the story and wrote: "Since Michael Kohlhaas , no German novella has been written that apparently suppresses all inner sympathy with conscious force and yet is so perfused by its author."

action

The judiciary of the penal colony

A respected explorer visits a remote island that is a penal colony of an unspecified powerful land. He is invited to take part in a public execution. This is done by a strange device developed by the late commander of the island. The machine, which is operated by an officer who evidently performs a judicial function, consists of a complex device. Its purpose is to carve the violated commandment deeper and deeper into the body of the condemned person in a long and bloody procedure, which ultimately leads to his death.

The officer is a proponent of the apparatus. Since the death of the old commandant, this form of punishment has found more and more opponents. The new commanders can also be counted among them. He is probably hoping for critical remarks from the traveler, an expert in the field of the penal system, to put an end to this technical and at the same time archaic method of punishment. It is a method that does not even give the defendant a verdict prior to execution, let alone give him an opportunity to defend himself. Only during the twelve hours of agony that the condemned man has to endure does he supposedly recognize its meaning from the writing, which is carved into his body again and again and deeper by the screaming machine.

In the upcoming execution, a simple, somewhat simple-minded soldier who was assigned as a servant and allegedly disobedient to his master, should be scratched with the words "Honor your superior" . Another soldier is on his side to guard him. A kind of friendship develops between the two, which leads to bizarre moments.

The indifferent role of the traveler

After the structure and function of the device have been explained to the traveler in great detail and the naked convict has already been strapped to the machine for the execution, the officer turns to the traveler before he starts the apparatus and asks him to stop later to express positively to the new commander about the punishment machine. The traveler refuses this, but assures the officer, who had hoped to be able to ensure the continued existence of the machine, that he would not make any negative comments about the machine in public. He wanted to tell the commandant his aversion to this machine in private. Although he disapproved of the inhumanity of the whole process, as a citizen of another country he was not empowered to judge it.

The execution of the officer

When the officer realizes that he cannot convince his visitor, he has the perplexed convict freed from the machine and put on his already discarded clothing again. Instead of him, the officer takes off his clothes and lies down naked on the device, the gears of which he sets so that it can scratch the words “Be just” on his back.
After the two soldiers have properly lashed it down, the machine suddenly starts up by itself, but works very differently than intended. Not screeching, but completely silent, the mechanism starts without the slightest whirring and becomes faster and faster. The gears rise out of the switch boxes and the entire device seems to be about to jump apart and go to pieces. The needles of the so-called Egge not write as they should, but only sting deep and deeper into the dripping of blood Body: "[...] that was not torture, as they wanted to reach the officer that was just murder." So Instead of hours, it only takes a few minutes until the victim is executed and, with a long iron thorn in his forehead, hangs over the rubbish pit. His dead face shows no sign of salvation, as he described enthusiastically before, but merely looks at the explorer with open eyes "calm and convinced" .

After this macabre spectacle of the self-destruction of man and machine, the traveler, accompanied by the two soldiers, visits the grave of the old commandant before leaving in a hurry. He successfully prevents the two soldiers from following him and also leaving the island.

Final Fragments

There are three fragmentary writings from August 1917 in which Kafka tried out new final variants. These describe the traveler as mentally and physically very exhausted, at one point he almost seems to go mad. Suddenly - like a ghostly apparition - the executed officer appears again with the sting protruding from his shattered forehead.

shape

The narrative can be divided into three sections:

  • Demonstration of the execution machine
  • the officer's unsuccessful self-sacrifice
  • the traveler leaves the island

In the first section, the officer describes the shocking killing machinery in great detail, in a natural tone, as if it were the instructions for a vacuum cleaner. More dramatic and marked as exclamations and questions, on the other hand, is the officer's appeal to the traveler, which he hopes will help him to fulfill his hopes.

In the second section, the collapse of the machine is narrated in an unspectacular manner in short, calm sentences; a calm fading away, as it would actually only be expected in a final game.

The third section also remains laconic. Just as the traveler wants to quickly leave the events behind, the story strives towards the end without linguistic detours and frills.

The perspective figure that gives the reader an inside view is the traveler. But he is not the person actually affected or the victim. On the other hand, the officer, who is very committed, even pathetic, reveals nothing of his actual, momentary inner world of feelings. This creates an anonymous narrative perspective that does not allow identification with any of the people.

Text analysis

The system and the apparatus

Kafka describes the apparatus as an oversized parlograph in the functionality of a phonograph with a vibrating metal plate and needle. This apparatus is the main subject of the story, it represents the "unity of writing and death, of ecstasy and Thanatos ".

The criminal proceedings described violate the principles of modern civilization in several respects, since it contradicts the idea of ​​the separation of powers. The written law is the drawings with intertwined letters and ornaments that are significantly unreadable for travelers, which control the killing apparatus and thus carry out the sentence. The officer is judge and, as operator of the apparatus, executor at the same time. The convict is unaware of his indictment and the verdict. There is no defense, since guilt is “always undoubted” .

The fate of the accused is not in the foreground. The very first sentence of the story makes it clear that it is not the person but “a peculiar apparatus” that forms the center of attention. The torture and killing apparatus is a mechanical-electrical machine that is controlled in its work cycles by drawing sheets (similar to punch cards). It unfolds its fascination not only with the officer, but also increasingly with the traveler, who actually detests this system of law enforcement. It combines technical precision with the hope of deeper knowledge of injustice. But both moments fail: the apparatus collapses; the officer obviously does not recognize anything at the moment of death.

The public festival of torture , as described by Michel Foucault in his book Surveillance and Punishment , contains echoes of the criminal procedure in the colony. Not only the image of an autocrat who all power unites in itself and at the same time judge and executioner, the absence of a defense ability of an evidentiary hearing and a verdict and torture directed at the body punishment can be applied to Foucault's festival of tortures towards interpret. Foucault's description of a criminal practice that was widespread in Europe from the Middle Ages to the middle of the 19th century and which focuses on the display of the tortured body of the convicted person corresponds to the words of the officer when he looks back on the times of the old commandant , in which the executions took place in front of an audience.

The apparatus is also an expression of a rationalization: the prosecution, the torture, which in the premodern jurisprudence is supposed to make the convicted confess his guilt, and the subsequent execution coincide.

The traveler

The traveler, who is granted the function of judge for the penal and enforcement system of the island, is a coldly doubting researcher, but he is ambivalent in the penal colony and in the long run almost succumbs to the gruesome attraction of the machine and also of the old commander, its universal one technical skills he seems to have respect. At his grave "he felt the power of earlier times" . Of course he is against torture and the legal system that allows it, but it is a rejection for formal reasons. The island's legal system does not meet the criteria of its European legal conceptions. The traveler does not seem to have been touched by humans or really disgusted by the cruelty of the process of punishment and killing.

He is most likely to be impressed by how the officer, with complete belief in the matter, lets the machine carry out the judgment of the machine on himself (“the traveler would not have acted otherwise in his place”) . So it is this self-contained loyalty to principles that is recognized and even admired.

Compared to the officer he is taciturn. The injustice is outrageous, but he does not want to announce his rejection aloud, but rather just explain it to the new commanding officer in private.

The traveler is not a man of action, but an intellectual. He doesn't want to get in common with the two simple men, the convict and the soldier, doesn't want to be in the same boat as it were. In the end, he shooed her off his boat and sentenced her to stay on the island.

The officer

In contrast to the traveler, the officer, who once describes himself as the president of the court, is full of perverted enthusiasm for the torture machine, whose inventor and builder, the old commanding officer, he unconditionally adores. He has even tried several times to exhume his unworthily buried body. He always carries the control drawings for the machine in his breast pocket, they are so close to his heart, as it were.

It is noticeable how often he makes physical contact with the traveler in a rather unsold manner. He grabs his hands, hangs himself in his arms, even hugs him. He would like to convey his enthusiasm to the traveler with haunted words and implore him to do his utmost to preserve the apparatus. The traveler, however, refuses to give him the hoped-for approval with a laconic “no”, but then shows a certain sympathy: “Your honest convictions affect me, even if they cannot be misled.” His reaction ultimately leads to the turning point in history. The officer who really believes that the apparatus is an instrument of justice, without hesitation, subjects himself to the cruel procedure which was previously intended for the convicted person.

The officer, whose supplication and willingness to make sacrifices seem almost more human than the passive and unemotional distance of the neutral traveler, is completely determined by the fatal fascination that the apparatus and its creator exert on him - which reduces his positive qualities to absurdity from the start. Nevertheless, his consistency and his death betray a certain tragic dignity.

The new and the old commanders

Both commanders do not appear personally in the story, but are only mentioned in the officer's description. While this was a familiar, close colleague of the old commanding officer, the new one is hardly reachable for him. The latter does not endorse the old legal practice, but is not opposed to it either. He conveys an absolutely unsoldatic image, especially characterized by the women around him, who, like a pack of pedigree dogs, look like mere accessories for the commander and dominate the scene in a playful, feminine way. There is also no protest from this group or even dismay about the cruel torture practices.

The old captain was a captivating personality. He cast a spell not only on the officer, but also on many others. There is a dark secret about his work and his death, because the clergyman did not allow his burial on consecrated ground. At his tomb in the tea house, the traveler also gains the impression of a historical memory. Since his tombstone speaks of resurrection, it is evidently given religious significance. His supporters are a secret brotherhood that is waiting for their commander to return and restore them to power.

interpretation

As is usually the case with Kafka, there are many different, but no conclusively satisfactory interpretations for the narrative. According to a secular reading, the story appears as a parable of a fanatical ideology and a dictatorial apparatus of power, which degrade people to machine fodder. In such a totalitarian system, the legislative, executive and judicial branches are evidently identical and are united in the person of the officer of the penal colony. There is no charge, and consequently no defense, and the characteristic of injustice is arbitrariness.

According to a metaphysical reading, the narrative has to do with atavistic blood religions on the one hand, because it depicts the public ritual performance of a basically arbitrary human sacrifice that seems to serve the satisfaction of an inhuman world of gods.

On the other hand, the penal colony also reflects civilizing religious ideas, because through the pain the victim should achieve a redeeming and transfigured insight into the truth of his guilt and the meaning of his suffering. His guilt, like original sin, would therefore be a guilt set with existence itself and is therefore “always undoubted”. Every individual offense would be the concrete manifestation of a general existential guilt. And even if the accused had not committed the offense he was accused of, he would be able to commit it at any time with this understanding of humanity.

Another approach assumes that the text is to be understood as a parable and that the machine is a symbol for human fate. Therefore, the person does not know the judgment before the “execution” and cannot defend himself.

Regardless of the individual interpretations, the assertion “The guilt is always undoubted” remains a central statement that refers to various aspects of the narrative. It may be that Kafka has worked through his own experience of writing as an approach to an absolute that only seems attainable through death.

Interpretation as a "prophetic vision"

The focus of the surreal story is a completely deformed judicial system, which Kafka describes in a factual style that can be compared with that of a travelogue in detail and without any emotion. Additional discomfort when reading this story is caused by the fact that there is no identification figure in the text. The reader finds himself in a situation between figures that appear grotesque to tragic. He will not want to identify with any of them.

The characters in the story demonstrate how a horror scenario can take place under their eyes without anyone resisting it.

The traveler and the officer stand for two basic human patterns that enable a totalitarian system . Either behavior enables this system to sustain itself. One is the cool technocrat, who recognizes the horrors of the system but does not prevent it as a hesitant head person. The other is incapable of recognizing the cruelty in his compulsion to perfect and his enthusiasm, is also a seduced victim as a perpetrator and becomes a victim of his own choice. He represents a career as a protagonist of evil, which, like the entire story, lends itself to a depth psychological interpretation. The attraction emanating from the apparatus of violence seems magical and insurmountable; that is the embarrassing - and agonizing - message of history.

Kafka's relationship to war

The disturbing narrative, which many see as a “prophetic vision of the unimaginable atrocities” perpetrated by people on people with the beginning of totalitarian barbarism in the 20th century, was written by Kafka about two months after the start of the First World War , as the later ones Atrocities of war were still unknown. The publisher Kurt Wolff hesitated with the publication. He feared that one might see it as a negative allegory of war.

Kafka's attitude towards war is marked by contradictions. In a laconic note of 2 August 1914, he writes: "Germany has declared war on Russia - Afternoon swimming school." Z He speaks. B. on the "hatred of those who fight" , for whom he passionately wishes all evil, and describes the patriotic parades, which were also held in Prague, as "the most disgusting side effects of the war" . On the other hand, he tried to get accepted into the military in good time so that he could go to the front after the outbreak of the World War, as he wrote extensively in letters to Felice Bauer.

Biographical interpretation

The development of the story follows a pattern that often occurs with Kafka. He fails in the attempt to end one of his three novels - here the process , but instead creates simultaneously a masterful narrative.

References to other Kafka works

There is a close connection with the guilt and punishment fantasies of the novel The Trial . However, the physical effect in the literal sense does not yet get under the skin that much. In this respect, the penal colony is more comparable to the metamorphosis , where Gregor Samsa receives a tormenting and ultimately fatal wound from the apple stuck in his shell, which his father threw at him. The palm-sized wound of the young patient in a country doctor , described almost with relish in all its forms, also belongs in this environment.

References to reality

The present story was created at the same time as the First World War, but is also reminiscent of medieval torture scenes. From his working life as an industrial accident expert, Kafka knew very well how machines can prepare people's bodies. There is also a reference to the working life of his fiancée Felice Bauer , because the device that digs metal into flesh is reminiscent of the early forms of the phonograph . T. writes in wax. As the authorized signatory of her company Lindström AG , Felice was responsible for the sale of parlographs (dictation machines), an electroacoustic advancement of the phonograph.

Robert Heindl , an acquaintance of Hans Gross , whose student Kafka was at the Karl Ferdinand University in Prague, visited penal colonies in the South Seas on behalf of the German Reich. In the book My Journey to the Penal Colony , Heindl describes how an executioner in a penal colony designed an execution machine. These connections suggest that Kafka processed Heindl's travelogue in the penal colony .

Sadomasochistic echoes

But this is not just about a public issue that has human rights and their disregard as its content. Kafka's penal colony not only comments on political events (such as the disregard for human rights), but also reflects - although the usual father-son conflict or the artist problem is missing here - a topic that is personally very moving for Kafka. It was from Octave Mirbeau's (early forbidden) novel The Garden of Torments (“Le Jardin des supplices”) with its sadomasochistic torture scenes and travel reports about an exploration of German colonial officials in the Pacific, but also from writings by his doctoral supervisor Alfred Weber from his law studies influenced. He wrote to Milena Jesenská in November 1920: "I am concerned with nothing more than being tortured and tortured" and to his friend Grete Bloch on November 18, 1913: "You don’t have the desire to intensify pain as much as possible?" Heinz Politzer describes Kafka as a “mystic of masochism”.

Kurt Tucholsky took this aspect into account as a reviewer and saw in Kafka's text a representation of unrestricted rule that combines sexuality and the display of power.

Writing as agony

Kafka's diary entries also document the self-tormenting aspect. He suffers when he cannot write. But he also suffers when he writes because he is usually dissatisfied with the result. Writing is an agonizing compulsion and a deep, albeit rare, satisfaction. By turning the human body into writing material in the penal colony, Kafka has set a macabre monument to the artistic writing process.

Religious approaches to interpretation

The officer's self-sacrifice, which at the same time frees the penal colony from the cruel execution machine, is reminiscent of the sacrificial death of Christ. In this sense, his suffering, with echoes of Christian martyrdom, could be interpreted as a self-chosen passion. The sixth hour of torture is spoken of (and the knowledge connected with it) as in the St. Matthew Passion. In addition, there is an analogy to the Christian doctrine of purgatory, the purification of the soul and the subsequent redemption, which is manifested in the transfigured expression of the executed. The person of the deceased old commanding officer, whose resurrection his followers hope for, is also assigned a religious affiliation.

Quotes

  • "[...] Here at the head of the bed, where the man [...] lies face down first, is this little felt stump that can easily be adjusted so that it goes straight into the man's mouth. Its purpose is to prevent screaming and biting your tongue. Of course the man has to pick up the felt, otherwise his neck will be broken by the neck strap. "
  • "[...] How quiet the man gets around the sixth hour! Mind goes to the stupidest. It starts around the eyes. It spreads from here. A sight that could tempt you to lie under the harrow. Nothing else happens, the man just begins to decipher the writing [...]. [...] it is not easy to decipher the writing with your eyes; but our man deciphers them with his wounds. [...] "
  • The traveler thought: It is always questionable to intervene decisively in strange circumstances. He was neither a citizen of the penal colony nor a citizen of the state to which it belonged. If he wanted to condemn or even thwart this execution, one could tell him: You are a stranger, be quiet.

Self-testimony

  • Kafka, in a letter to publisher Kurt Wolff on September 4, 1917: “There may be a misunderstanding with regard to the penal colony. I have never asked for this story to be published from a completely free heart. Two or three pages shortly before the end are made, their presence indicates a deeper defect, there is a worm somewhere ... "
  • Kafka after the reading in Munich: "I shouldn't have read my dirty little story."

reception

  • Bauer / Seeberger (141 ff.) See the painful depiction of the body as the processing of religious forms of imitation of Christ.
  • Höfle (p. 82 ff.) Presents the variety of interpretations over the past decades. As a possible interpretation, he suggests that the reader can be seen in the traveler and that with each reading the world of the old commandant is resurrected anew.
  • Sudau (p. 133) points out that for Kafka, pain and suffering were the real fact of existence. With a touch of religion (New Testament, crucifixion of Jesus), the processes also move closer to civilized ideas of religion. This is the complex of issues of guilt, court and punishment, which not only affects social criticism, but has existential and religious significance.
  • Zimmermann (p. 83): "The two positions that meet here are therefore genuinely European: on the one hand, a conventional humanity that is quite helpless, on the other hand, a purposeful enthusiasm for technology that is completely inhumane."
  • Honold / von Jagow (p. 477/484): “This is a story about the human body; and of what can be done to a person through technical and social adjustments, through the exercise of sadistic sexual fantasies. But the same applies: This is a story that is about writing, about the magic and violence of the writing hand and its instruments. ... It is both impertinence and seduction to read into the adventure of the penal colony. "
  • Philip Glass ' chamber opera In the Penal Colony on a libretto by Rudolph Wurlitzer is based on Kafka's story. It premiered on August 31, 2000 in Seattle.

Text output

  • Roger Hermes (Ed.): Stories and other selected prose. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3 .
  • Peter Höfle (Ed.): Franz Kafka: In the penal colony. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2006, ISBN 3-518-18878-X .
  • Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch, Gerhard Neumann (Hrsg.): Prints during lifetime. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-10-038153-X , pp. 201-248.
  • Paul Raabe (ed.): Complete stories. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1970, ISBN 3-596-21078-X .

Secondary literature

  • Benjamin Bauer, Julia Seeberger: Representation piety and imitatio christi. Christian expression of the body memory in Kafka's In der penal colony and Döblin's Die Dancer and Her Body. In: Andrea Bartl, Nils Ebert (Ed.): The other view of literature. Perspectives on the literary perception of reality. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8260-5582-9 , pp. 141–158.
  • Peter-André Alt : Franz Kafka. The Eternal Son. A biography. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 .
  • Bernd Auerochs: In the penal colony. In: Bernd Auerochs, Manfred Engel (ed.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 207-217.
  • Manfred Engel: Kafka and the modern world. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd Auerochs (Hrsg.): Kafka manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0 , pp. 498-515, esp. 504 f.
  • Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose & stories. 16 interpretations. Klett, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 .
  • Cerstin Urban: Franz Kafka: Erzählungen II. Bange, Hollfeld 2004, ISBN 3-8044-1756-6 (series: King's explanations and materials, Bd. 344).
  • Reiner Stach : Kafka. The years of decisions. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-596-16187-8 .
  • Wiebrecht Ries : Kafka as an introduction. Junius, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88506-886-9 .
  • Hans Dieter Zimmermann: Kafka for advanced students. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-51083-3 .
  • Bettina von Jagow , Oliver Jahraus : Kafka manual. Life, work, effect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 (contribution by Alexander Honold).
  • Astrid Lange-Kirchheim: Franz Kafka: "In the penal colony" & Alfred Weber : "The official". In: Germanic-Romanic monthly . 27, 1977, pp. 202-221 (similar assessment of bureaucracy in prose and science).
  • similar in: Eberhard Demm (Ed.): Alfred Weber as a politician and scholar. The presentations of the 1st Alfred Weber Congress in Heidelberg, October 28-29 , 1983. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 113–149.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Literature Knowledge Franz Kafka Carsten Schlingmann Reclam p. 93.
  2. ↑ http://www.franzkafka.de/franzkafka/fundstueck_archiv/fundstueck/457420
  3. ↑ Alt, p. 477.
  4. ↑ Alt, p. 476.
  5. ^ Kurt Wolff correspondence from a publisher 1911-1963 Gutenberg Book Guild p. 49
  6. ↑ Alt, p. 192.
  7. ↑ Peter Höfle (Ed. And Com.): Franz Kafka: In der Strafkolonie. Suhrkamp, ​​p. 45 ff.
  8. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , p. 143 ff.
  9. ^ Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 480.
  10. ↑ a b Alt, p. 486.
  11. ↑ a b Peter-André Alt: Franz Kafka: The Eternal Son . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4 , p. 482.
  12. ↑ Alt, p. 480.
  13. ↑ a b Alt, p. 489.
  14. ↑ Alt, p. 138.
  15. ↑ Alexander Honold from: Bettina von Jagow, Oliver Jahrhaus (Hrsg.): Kafka manual life-work-effect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6 , p. 496 f.
  16. ↑ Peter-André Alt, p. 140.
  17. ↑ Sudau, p. 130.
  18. ↑ Sudau, p. 134.
  19. ↑ Sudau, p. 135
  20. ↑ Alt, p. 385.
  21. ^ Wiebrecht Ries: Kafka for an introduction. Junius Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88506-886-9 , p. 73.
  22. ^ Honold, von Jagow, p. 478.
  23. ↑ Alt, p. 482.
  24. ↑ Reiner Stach Kafka: The years of decisions. S. Fischer Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-596-16187-8 , p. 557.
  25. ↑ Alt, p. 277.
  26. ^ Robert Heindl: My trip to the penal colonies http://d-nb.info/361482639
  27. ^ Franz Kafka stories II Cerstin Urban p. 43 King's explanations
  28. ↑ Alt, p. 493.
  29. ↑ Alt, p. 485.
  30. ^ Ralf Sudau: Franz Kafka: Short prose / stories. 2007, ISBN 978-3-12-922637-7 , p. 132.
  31. ^ Honold, von Jagow, p. 482.
  32. ↑ Alt, p. 589.
  33. ^ Honold, von Jagow, p. 477.
  34. ↑ Sudau, p. 134.
  35. ↑ Peter Höfle (Ed. And Com.): Franz Kafka: In der Strafkolonie. Suhrkamp, ​​2006, ISBN 3-518-18878-X , p. 52 (Suhrkamp base library 78).
  36. ↑ Stach, p. 154.
  37. ^ In the Penal Colony (2000). Work information at IRCAM , accessed on October 26, 2018.
  38. ↑ Further foreign language references on this connection in Trivium. Zs. For humanities and social sciences # 7, 2010, special issue Max Weber: Bureaucracy . only online

Web links

Wikisource: In the Penal Colony  - Sources and full texts