Michael (novel)
Michael is a novel by Joseph Goebbels . The work, published in 1929 by Franz-Eher-Verlag in Munich , describes, according to its subtitle, "A German Destiny in Diary Sheets". In literary studies it is considered to be of little success and is only of interest today in its historical context.
Emergence
The book is often described as semiautobiographical. Goebbels mixes his own career with that of a childhood friend named Richard Flisges who died a few years after the First World War in an underground accident.
The first unprinted version was created in 1924. Goebbels made significant changes for publication in 1929: He now incorporated the ideology of National Socialism . Goebbels' only novel also remained the author's only known fictional work.
content
Michael was a soldier at the front in World War I and as such has had terrible experiences behind him that are deeply engraved in his consciousness. At the time of the Weimar Republic he initially studied, always carrying only one book with him ( Goethe's Faust , the first part of the tragedy, for the second he says he is “too stupid”), but then becomes a miner because he thinks that To be able to serve Germany better as such.
The narrated time span is one and a half years. At the end of it, Michael dies in the mine. At the center of his often emphatically anti-intellectual record is the search for God. In doing so, he also made some adventurous considerations about Jesus Christ (that he was not a Jew does not have to be scientifically proven, it is clear), Nietzsche , Goethe , Vincent van Gogh , Mozart and Beethoven . In the finale, a redeemer figure appears in the form of a character resembling Adolf Hitler . In addition, a love story is an ingredient for the novel.
reception
The book had numerous editions , especially during the time of the “ Third Reich ”. Historian Klaus Vondung sees the subtitle of the novel as signaling a “representative claim”. Joachim Fest believes that Michael can provide some information about Goebbels' state of mind and self-view . For Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch , however, his "strict psycho-historical and intellectual-historical interpretation is still pending " in 1987. Otherwise, the book is considered a pseudo- expressionist work imbued with “irrational nationalist Nazi pathos”.
In the 1970s, Elfriede Jelinek's novel was caricatured under the same title as “Youth Book for the Infantile Society” (1972). Hanns Dieter Hüsch recorded the novel in Goebbels' original text for a record in 1974 in order to answer future generations for the questions “How could you fall for it? Where did that start How did it come to this? ”To raise awareness.
In 1987, under the shortened title Michael: A novel, an edition by Joachim Neugroschel, translated into American English, was published by Amok Press in New York .
A Japanese translation by Hiroshi Ikeda (池 田浩士), professor at the University of Kyoto , was published in 2001 by Kashiwa shobō (柏 書房) in Tokyo .
In 2013 a Russian translation was published by Algoritm. The chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations of Russia , Rabbi Sinowi Kogan, criticized the publication in Moscow in August 2013 in an interview with the RIA Novosti agency :
“The freedom of speech and the lack of censorship by no means provide for the publication of such novels. Goebbels, Hitler and their companions were condemned as criminals and the publication of their works is a time bomb for peace and harmony in our society. It is directed against the young generation and against all those who are now coming into existence. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rainer Schmitz: What happened to Schiller's skull. Everything you don't know about literature ; Berlin 2006, p. 241
- ^ Klaus Vondung: Die Apokalypse in Deutschland , dtv 1988, p. 465
- ↑ nd engl. Wikipedia article cited: Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich , p. 88
- ↑ Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch: Redemption and Destruction: Dr. phil. Joseph Goebbels: on the psyche and ideology of a young National Socialist 1923–1927 , Boer 1987, p. 80
- ↑ intercord 28 564-3 U
- ↑ Yōzefu Gebberusu: Mihyaeru . nikki ga kataru aru doitsuteki unmei. In: Doitsu no unmei (= Doitsu nachizumu bungaku shūsei ). No. 1 . Kashiwa shobō, Tōkyō 2001, ISBN 4-7601-2065-3 ( http://www.kashiwashobo.co.jp/book/b227857.html , http://katalog.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/cgi-bin /titel.cgi?katkey=67529166 [accessed June 21, 2016]).
- ↑ German-speaking department of the agency