Königsallee (novel)
Königsallee is a novel by Hans Pleschinski that was published by CH Beck in 2013 . The theme is a fictional reunion between 79-year-old Thomas Mann and his former love Klaus Heuser in 1954 in Düsseldorf .
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The novel mixes reality with fiction: Thomas Mann actually visited Düsseldorf in the summer of 1954 and met his parents again, Klaus Heuser, whom he met on Sylt in 1927 and later invited to his home, but not him himself. Klaus Heuser, the long one had lived in Southeast Asia, planned to visit Germany at the time, but had not yet been in the country.
At the Hotel Breidenbacher Hof , the owners and staff are preparing to receive and accommodate the Nobel Prize winner and his wife Katia , and possibly one or more husband-daughters, appropriately. Particularly problematic is the fact that Albert Kesselring , who has already been released from prison, has quartered himself in the house and has to be removed under all circumstances, because one feared the scandal if Thomas Mann should meet this field marshal of the Nazi era. It is decided that Kesselring should move to private quarters with business leaders of the post-war period and treat him so badly in the hotel that he leaves it voluntarily. The hotelier is less aware of another problem: Shortly before the writer's arrival, Klaus Heuser and his partner Anwar Batak also stayed at the Breidenbacher Hof because staying with Heuser's parents Werner and Mira had become unbearable. The homosexual couple, who put the beds together in their two interconnected single rooms under the roof, caused a certain stir, but only Erika Mann , who arrived with her parents and noticed Heuser's name in the guest book, saw Heuser's stay next Near her father's problem. She fears an outbreak of emotions that Thomas Mann might no longer be able to cope with, so she seeks out Heuser and his companion in her apartment. Frantically and with several glasses of Jägermeister and other drinks, she tries to persuade Klaus Heuser to leave the house immediately and take up quarters elsewhere. Although he doesn't even think about leaving the Breidenbacher Hof, there is no meeting between him and his former admirer for the time being. Heuser and Anwar, who speaks broken German but obviously has a sense for the atmosphere, have hardly recovered from this visit when they are visited by Ernst Bertram , who, in a miserable manner, tries to win Klaus Heuser as an advocate for Thomas Mann , with whom he was once so closely connected that he even became the godfather of the youngest daughter Elisabeth . But this connection was broken after Bertram was won over to National Socialism while Thomas Mann emigrated. Golo Mann finally appears as the third supplicant when Klaus Heuser and Anwar have gone to dinner . This son feels unloved, withdrawn and in need of recognition and asks Klaus Heuser to play his latest book - already prepared with underlining and comments - into his hands when he meets Thomas Mann. The father should finally appreciate the talents of the son and his development as a historical writer.
Meanwhile, Thomas Mann is completing a cultural program that has been put together for him and an interview with a somewhat diabolical, short-stature journalist from Lübeck named Gudrun Kückebein, who reacts slightly tormented to well-intentioned, but sometimes rather unreasonable speeches, has breakfast with his practical wife and daughter who is driven by slight hysteria experiences an awakening in the hotel bed, which is modeled on the morning sensitivities of the aging Goethe , as Mann designed them in Lotte in Weimar .
Erika Mann is still trying to prevent her father from meeting Klaus Heuser. However, her mother, who also learned of Heuser's presence, finally wrote him a polite invitation to a reception that was to take place in the Düsseldorf paint box after Thomas Mann's reading . There the two gentlemen meet again after all; There is an exchange of looks and words that almost end in tears on both sides, a walk outside and finally a night taxi ride to the park of Benrath Palace , where they await the sunrise together.
The real Klaus Heuser
Klaus Heuser was a son of the painter Werner Heuser and his wife Mira and was born in Rome in 1909 . In 1927 Thomas Mann fell in love with the attractive young man on Sylt, whom he later that year invited to a 14-day stay in Munich. Heuser became a businessman, visited Thomas Mann again on August 12, 1933 in his exile in southern France, met him in Zurich in 1935 and emigrated to the Dutch East Indies in 1936 on the Heidelberg (Schiff, 1925) . Apparently he met his boy named Anwar in Sumatra . Heuser lived and worked in Padang and Bandoeng from 1936 to 1939 , in Shanghai from 1940 to 1950 , worked for the East Asiatic Company and from 1955 to 1958 for Rieckermann ( Hong Kong ) Ltd. & Co. Went to Saigon until 1975 , then back to Hong Kong. In the period after World War II, he made repeated visits to Europe. He spent the last part of his life in Düsseldorf, Germany. He died on July 17, 1994 in Meerbusch . His niece Sabine Benser-Reimann, daughter of the photographer Walther Benser and the painter Ursula Benser , who took over her uncle's estate, gave Pleschinski the materials that he could use for his novel.
Klaus Heuser sporadically exchanged letters with Thomas Mann and is mentioned several times in his diaries, strongly influenced the image of Joseph in the Joseph novels and probably also that of Felix Krull and other erotically occupied characters, but was probably not so interested in his older admirer for his part like this one on him.
Reviews
Numerous critics judged Pleschinski's novel, in which Thomas Mann's works are quoted very extensively, as an amusing and eloquent joke in the tradition of Lotte in Weimar . Although the book was received mostly positively, there are also voices and comments that point to certain weaknesses.
In the FAZ one could read as a résumé: “Hans Pleschinski wrote a pleasantly cheerful summer book for the tireless among the admirers of Germany's“ most exciting family ”. Those who are not (yet) can be recommended to read Thomas Mann's “Lotte in Weimar” or “Felix Krull”, who also provided some of the key words for this novel. ”Hans Osterkamp, who wrote this review has, describes the novel as cute, but feels the constant references to Lotte in Weimar as penetrative in places and thinks that the person constellation draws "its narrative charm from that which is not fictional". He admits that the conversation scenes, which make up most of the narrative, are of high quality, but then states: “The reader [...] has to go through this millet porridge to get to the paradise of Benrath - and why? Because Hans Pleschinski [...] ignored Thomas Mann's sentence, which is found among the opening sentences of his essay on Kleist's "Amphitryon", which the poet says in his diary that they are what his love for Heuser is "immortal": "the hardest thing needful. restriction" "Alexander Cammann put the book in the time as" Hidden in postwar German society "and" an upscale Komödienstadl "before and comes at a very positive assessment:" the attraction of this Romans lies in Pleschinski's artful figure speech with a constant change of pitch. The constant memory, chatter and rumble looks like a (man) caricature and at the same time extremely real. The author perfectly orchestrates different voices [...] He proves once again that there is affection in the successful ironic break - in a clever passage the novelist rebukes himself against this twist that has become a cliché. Pleschinski defends Thomas Mann both against his idolaters and against his despisers. ” In his discussion, Jürgen Seul focused in particular on the main female characters, on the one hand on Gudrun Kückebein, who asks questions that make the husband gasp - for example about Hitler's “merits” for the development of Thomas Mann, on the other hand, on his female protectors from his own family. Erika's drawing in particular is quite authentic, says Seul. Seul describes the encounter with Heuser, which Erika Mann fears so much in the novel, as forgiving and melancholy. He sees the visit to the Benrath Palace Park as a “symbol for eternal love, blooming and passing away”, which may also refer to the main motifs Mann's later narrative alludes to The Deceived .
Play
The director Wolfgang Engel brought the novel's material to the stage of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in August and September 2015 . According to the dramaturge Oliver Held , the stage version of the novel, written by Ilja Richter , was changed by about "30 percent". Olaf Altmann designed the black and gray set made of ashlars reminiscent of the Berlin Holocaust memorial .
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- ↑ Lars Wallerang, Klaus Heuser enchanted his niece - and Thomas Mann , in: wz newsline, October 27, 2013
- ↑ Hans Osterkamp, Hans Pleschinski: Königsallee. How Thomas Mann once put his head back , in: FAZ, July 18, 2013
- ↑ Alexander Cammann, His last passion. Hans Pleschinski's virtuoso Thomas Mann novel "Königsallee" , in: Die Zeit, August 2, 2013
- ↑ Jürgen Seul, Shadows of the Past , on glanzundelend.de
- ^ Wolfgang Höbel: World premiere in Düsseldorf: Herr Mann loves Mann . Article from August 31, 2015 in the portal spiegel.de , accessed on August 31, 2015
- ↑ Christine Hoffmans: A piece for Düsseldorf . Article from August 30, 2015 in the welt.de portal , accessed on August 31, 2015
- ↑ Annette Bosetti: "Königsallee" in Düsseldorf disenchanted . Article from August 31, 2015 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on August 31, 2015