March fallen. Gereon Rath's fifth case
March Fallen is a historical novel by the German author Volker Kutscher , set in early 1933 at the time of the takeover by the National Socialists , which was published in 2014 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch . It is the fifth detective novel in the series about Detective Inspector Gereon Rath. The action begins six months after The Fatherland Files .
In addition to the ostensible criminal act, which is in the tradition of American hardboiled detectives, the book is again characterized by its vivid painting of morals at the end of the Weimar Republic in Berlin and the depiction of political developments, including the Reichstag fire at the beginning of the Third Reich , which took place in its consequences with regard to the end of the republic are not taken seriously by all persons involved. In addition to fictional ones, there are also people from contemporary history and historical events that are portrayed from the point of view of the main character.
action
Soldier murders in the shadow of the Reichstag fire: Gereon Rath investigates hard on the edge of legality. Rose Monday 1933: Gereon Rath celebrates Carnival in Cologne, and the morning after that begins for him with a bad hangover, the wrong woman in bed and a call from Berlin: The Reichstag is on fire! Immediate vacation lock! But Gereon Rath inherits his new case from his unloved superior Wilhelm Böhm, who maneuvered himself into political sideline under the new Nazi police chief: A homeless man was found stabbed to death on Nollendorfplatz. Its prehistory leads way back to the war in March 1917, when German soldiers left scorched earth behind during "Operation Alberich" in northern France. Unpunished murders, embezzled gold bars from a French bank and a captain caught in a perfidious booby trap lead to a series of murders sixteen years later. The key to all of this seems to be the soon-to-be published war novel by Lieutenant A. D. Achim Graf von Roddeck to be. Rath investigates, but other things keep interfering with him, and the preparations for his wedding to Charlie Ritter are still the slightest problem. He is involved in the communist hunt of the political police, has to deal with SA auxiliary police officers and the new police president and free a business friend of the gang boss Johann Marlow from the clutches of the SA.
Historical background
Reichstag fire
The fire in the Reichstag building in Berlin occurred on the night of February 27-28, 1933 and was based on arson . Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested at the scene . Until his execution, van der Lubbe insisted that he had set the Reichstag alone on fire. His sole perpetrator already seemed unlikely to many contemporaries and is still controversially discussed. Critics of the single perpetrator thesis suspect that the National Socialists were directly involved. The political consequences are undisputed. On February 28, 1933, the presidential decree for the protection of the people and the state (Reichstag fire decree) was issued. Thus the basic rights of the Weimar Constitution were de facto suspended and the way was cleared for the legalized persecution of the political opponents of the NSDAP by the police and the SA . The Reichstag Fire Ordinance was a decisive stage in the establishment of the National Socialist dictatorship . The prisons were soon overcrowded, with new inmates arriving every day. Political prisoners were now held in improvised detention centers. This is how the “ wild” (also “early”) concentration camps came into being . The Reichstag fire fell in the middle of the election campaign for the Reichstag election of March 5, 1933 . As the first statements at the scene of the crime showed, even high circles of the NSDAP were convinced that the KPD was attempting to insurrection . Other contemporary observers considered it an action by the new rulers to legitimize planned political reprisals. The event came - regardless of the real perpetrator - extremely convenient for the National Socialists. The NSDAP's election campaign was already being conducted as a “fight against Marxism ”. The fire now gave the party the opportunity to use force more radically against the left-wing parties using state power.
Hitler's takeover
The new elections of November 1932 resulted in a drop in votes for the NSDAP. Most observers interpreted this as the beginning of the end of the NSDAP. A majority capable of governing still did not exist. Chancellor Franz von Papen , who had meanwhile started economic stimulus programs, resigned after it became clear to him that he did not have the support of the Reichswehr in securing a dictatorship. In addition, due to a procedural error by Papen, the Reichstag had managed to express its suspicion in a legally ineffective but effective manner. Due to the lack of support from Defense Minister General Kurt von Schleicher , which had become visible in the course of a military simulation of a possible uprising (the " Ott business game "), Hindenburg refused to dissolve the Reichstag without setting new elections. This elimination of parliament, based on the state of emergency argument, would have been an obvious breach of the constitution. Papen's successor was Kurt von Schleicher, who until then had pulled the strings in the background and was responsible for Papen's fall. But his concept of finding a way out of the crisis also failed. He had striven for a broad "cross front" from the trade unions to the left wing of the NSDAP around Gregor Strasser, but Strasser had to capitulate to Hitler. On January 28, 1933, Schleicher also had to resign after he himself had recently unsuccessfully asked Hindenburg to declare a state of emergency. Schleicher himself was not a democrat, his relationship with the NSDAP changed several times, most recently he recommended a cabinet to Hindenburg under Hitler ( files of the Reich Chancellery , Doc. No. 72 of January 28, 1933). Schleicher could not have known that he of all people, the master of intrigues, had now become the victim of an intrigue himself: on January 4, 1933, his former protégé Franz von Papen had met with Hitler for secret negotiations in the private house of the Cologne banker Kurt von Schröder . This conversation was followed by others, most recently in the presence of the State Secretary of the Reich President, Otto Meissner , and the son of the Reich President, Oskar von Hindenburg , both influential advisors in the camarilla of the aged Paul von Hindenburg. They agreed on a coalition government made up of German nationalists and the NSDAP, which, besides Hitler, would only include two other National Socialists, namely Wilhelm Frick as Minister of the Interior and Hermann Göring as Minister without Portfolio and acting Prussian Minister of the Interior. Papen himself was intended as Vice Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia. Hindenburg, who had resisted the chancellorship of the "Bohemian private" Hitler until the end, was reassured by pointing out that a NSDAP leader "framed" by a conservative cabinet majority meant little danger. Another central argument for Hindenburg was the formal constitutional conformity of the Hitler solution. The appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933 actually meant the end of the Weimar Republic - even if the Weimar Constitution was never formally suspended. Paul von Hindenburg had been dealt with by various lobbyists' associations and the advisers of his camarilla during these weeks. In November 1932, several agrarians, bankers and industrialists called on him to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in the famous industrialist submission, while in the same month a DNVP-affiliated “German Committee” under the heading “With Hindenburg for the people and the Reich!” For the Papen government, for the DNVP and thus clearly against the NSDAP. There were also pressures in connection with the Osthilfe . To what extent all of this really influenced his decision is difficult to say - Hindenburg was 86 years old at this point.
March fallen
As March Fallen refers to the victims of the March Revolution of 1848 in Vienna and Berlin . The name was used for other events, including the victims of the Kapp Putsch of 1920 in various cities. Ironically, the term was used for the hundreds of thousands of people who applied for NSDAP membership after the Reichstag election in March 1933 . They have also been mocked as March violets. In order to keep its influence within the party small, the NSDAP issued an admission ban on April 19, 1933, with effect from May 1, 1933, from which certain groups, e.g. B. Members of the SA or SS were excluded. This lock was eased for the first time after four years with several changes, whereby a three-month party candidate was introduced. Then there was another large wave of entry into the NSDAP. From June 1937 to June 1938, 2.1 million people joined the party. The ban was finally lifted on May 10, 1939.
main characters
Gereon Rath
Detective superintendent from Cologne , who tended to go it alone, was a successful homicide investigator in his home country until a fatal shot from his service weapon and the resulting press campaign ruined his career there. On the mediation of his influential father, Gereon Rath moved in March 1929 to the local criminal police in the capital, where he was initially assigned to the moral police before he succeeded in switching to the murder inspection (inspection A). His arbitrariness and lack of self-restraint have prevented an overdue promotion to high commissioner so far. He is not interested in politics, but has to come to terms with the new rulers.
Charlotte Ritter
Called Charly. Commissioner candidate with the female criminal police and Gereon Rath's fiancée. She sees democracy threatened by Hitler's takeover.
Wilhelm Boehm
Chief Inspector at Inspection A, called the "Bulldog" and one of Ernst Gennat's most important employees. He has a very gruff tone, not only when dealing with suspects and witnesses, but also with colleagues and subordinates. Böhm doesn't like Gereon Rath because of his arbitrariness. He maneuvers himself into political sideline within the Berlin criminal police. Rath “inherits” his latest case from him.
Reinhold Graef
Detective Secretary at Inspection A. He is friends with Gereon Rath, to whom he owes his promotion.
Andreas Lange
Detective assistant at Inspection A. He is assigned to Gereon Rath as an employee.
Karin van Almsick
Commissioner candidate for the female criminal police, shares an office with Charlotte Ritter.
Ernst Gennat
Kriminalrat and head of Inspection A, called "Buddah" or " the whole serious " because of his corpulence (historical figure). He set up the murder inspection and introduced modern investigative methods, which made him a legend during his lifetime. He values Gereon Rath's ability as an investigator.
Johann Marlow
Businessman and organized crime boss, also “Dr. M. "called. Mastermind of the (fictional) ring club Berolina , which conducts illegal business of all kinds such as drug trafficking or illegal nightclubs. Berlin police officers are also on his payroll, Gereon Rath is not one of them, but has a special relationship with him. He comes into conflict with the SA.
Achim Graf von Roddeck
Lieutenant a. D., dancer and writer. His war memoirs, “March Fallen”, published in 1933, had an unexpected success on the book market.
reception
The novel received mostly positive reviews. The Hamburg local radio said: “Volker Kutscher tells an exciting, coherent crime story against the background of a short, extremely dynamic and politically highly charged period of time.” Der Tagesspiegel wrote: “How Kutscher created the atmosphere in Berlin during the sinking Weimar Republic and the conquering Nazis describes, that has density, feeling, movement. "and Der Stern :" Again the Cologne author cleverly interweaves the historical events [...] and the multi-layered crime thriller plot into a detailed, fascinating historical panorama. "
Sequels
In the series around Gereon Rath, two further novels and one novella have been published by October 2018 :
- Lunapark. Gereon Rath's sixth case. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016.
- Moabit . Galiani Berlin, Cologne 2017, ( prequel ; illustrations by Kat Menschik ).
- Marlow. The seventh Rath novel. Pieper, Munich 2018.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Ulrich Thamer: Beginning of the National Socialist rule. State of emergency . Federal Agency for Civic Education
- ^ Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau . Ed. Comité International de Dachau, Luxemburg 2002, p. 18ff.
- ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society . Vol. 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914–1949 . Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-32264-6 , p. 604.
- ↑ Juliane Wetzel: The NSDAP between opening and membership ban . In Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): How did one become a party member? The NSDAP and its members. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 3-596-18068-6 . Pp. 74-80.
- ↑ Märgefallene: Reviews. Retrieved November 6, 2018 .