With one's back to the wall
The book With the Back to the Wall , published in 1990, is the second volume in the trilogy of turning points by Klaus Kordon . It tells the experiences of a boy from a communist working class family from Berlin in 1932 and 1933 , against the background of the beginning of the Nazi regime .
This trilogy also includes the novel The Red Sailors , published in 1984, and the book The First Spring , published in 1993 .
action
The book takes place in 1932 and 1933 in Berlin- Wedding . The life of working-class families there is shaped by the global economic crisis with its consequences such as high unemployment and poverty as well as the political tensions at the end of the Weimar Republic with street battles , frequent changes of government and the beginning of the Nazi regime .
During this time, 15-year-old Hans Gebhard, who has just finished school and has not found an apprenticeship position, starts work in the warehouse of the AEG plant in Wedding. He doesn't like his job, but he is happy to be able to support his family with his income. At the factory, he meets Kitty for the first time, with whom he starts a relationship.
Even if Hans, in contrast to his parents and his older brother Helle, who are staunch communists , does not have clear political convictions at first, he is increasingly forced to take a stand: On the first day of work he is met by colleagues who are members of the SA , beaten up because they believe he, like the rest of his family, is a communist. His girlfriend is also “half-Jewish” and must therefore be afraid of the Nazis. The political tensions continue in the Gebhardt family: Günther, the friend of Hans' sister Martha, joins the SA. While Martha is not very bothered by this and enjoys the advantages that Günther's faster rise in the party hierarchy gives them, the rest of the family is shocked and there is increasing alienation.
After the Reichstag fire , Hans' father and Helle and his wife are among those arrested. Martha's boyfriend is among the auxiliary cops who arrest her, which ultimately destroys Martha's relationship with the rest of the family. As a sign of resistance, Hans and Mieze hoisted a red flag on the roof of Helle's house a little later . When Hans comes home, some men, among them Max Sauer, lie in wait for him and beat him up. Hans is seriously injured, but he turns down an offer to continue his schooling in Moscow. He wants to stay in Berlin and continue to offer resistance .
Awards
- Zurich Children's Book Prize "La vache qui lit"
- Bookworm Award (ZDF)
- Dutch youth book award "The silver pen"
literature
- Klaus Kordon, with his back to the wall . Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1990. ISBN 978-3-407-80061-9
- Klaus Kordon, With his back to the wall , school edition. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2002. ISBN 978-3-407-78884-9
Web links
- Discussion on the pages of the "Lesebar" of the work center for children and youth media research at the University of Cologne
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c With your back to the wall. Novel - Klaus Kordon. BELTZ publisher's website, archived from the original on June 13, 2014 ; accessed on May 30, 2014 .