Red against red
Rot gegen Rot is a volume published in 1928 (published in 1929) with three stories by the Franco-German writer Joseph Breitbach , Das Radieschen , Rot gegen Rot and Das would be laughed . In 2008, an anthology was published under the title Rot gegen Rot. Die Erzählungen , which contains all of Breitbach's stories, including those that were originally published elsewhere, such as Die Rabenschlacht (1973), Lärm and the fragment Clemens . Two of the stories published in 1929, "Das Radieschen" and "Rot gegen Rot", were adapted as a television film broadcast in 1979 under the title "Radieschen" .
content
The original volume, published under the title Rot gegen Rot. Stories by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in 1929, contains three stories, Rot gegen Rot , Das Radieschen and Das Would Laughed , which were banned in Germany in 1933. The work is expressly mentioned on a list of the books to be removed from German libraries at the time .
Red against red
The lift boy Karl works in a department store and is a member of the Communist Party . A love relationship develops between him and the saleswoman Lene Kempt, but unlike Karl Lene Kempt is not interested in politics and reproaches him for neglecting her in favor of his party work. However , Karl has to hear from his comrades that he is neglecting the party. The balancing act between love and politics fails: Lene cheats on Karl with the travel agent of the department store because she feels abandoned; on the other hand, several comrades of the party have to flee because Karl failed to pass on important news. As a result, Karl has gambled away both his girlfriend and party affiliation and leaves town.
The radish
The second story of the band thematically follows on from the first and takes place about a year later. However, the main character here is now Lene Kempt, the former girlfriend of the escaped elevator boy Karl. She is meanwhile also an avid member of the communist party, and tries to win her colleagues for the party. In the department store there is envy and resentment among colleagues, the superiors treat their subordinates with arbitrariness and shamelessly exploit their privileges. The men regard the girls as fair game and always try to get closer to them. Lene tries to clear up Betty Neuburger, a young and naive colleague, about the grievances in the business and to get them to join the party. After the two quarreled and even fought in front of customers, they were fired. Lene tries to blackmail the head of the shoe department, Max Lindemann, who among other things had a relationship with Betty Neuburger. Eventually she got him to write her a recommendation for a Berlin manufacturer so that she could get a new job. However, your denunciation still has an effect, as Lindemann and several saleswomen are finally fired. Lene goes to Berlin and her brother Franz has to protect Betty Neuburger from an attack by the angry Mrs. Lindemann. He calls her his bride.
That would be laughed at
The third story is about the electrician Paul Bopp and his girlfriend Emma. Paul also works in a department store, probably the same one where the first two stories took place. He is also a communist, but his girlfriend sees the civil life of the civil servants, for whom she works as a maid, as her ideal. After her planned marriage to Paul, she also wants to run a well-equipped household, while her boyfriend does not value furniture, apartments and clothes, and even rejects them for ideological reasons. Nevertheless, he lets her persuade him to buy a bedroom for the common household, which he does not like, mainly because the purchase has to be made in installments. Finally, to test his reaction, Emma tells him she is pregnant. Paul reacts calmly and says they would get married earlier then. When she suggests that the supposed child be aborted, he reacts very violently: That is forbidden, she would like to go to prison? The next day, Paul is annoyed by both reactions: marrying his pregnant girlfriend appears to him as a fear of bourgeois morality and his rejection of an abortion as a bow to the law against abortion, which he actually rejects. Buying pieces of furniture for the shared apartment, with which he wants to surprise Emma, seems to him to be a weakness and betrayal of communism. Meanwhile, Emma defends herself against the advances made by her employer's subtenant, who is a department head in Paul's department store. When Paul loses his job, she asks the lodger (who pretends to be a communist to her) to find Paul a new job. Paul rejects this, however, because he considers the head of the department to be an exploiter and assumes that he has a relationship with Emma. Finally, Emma actually starts a relationship with the department head, as she can use his money to finance the equipment for the apartment they share with Paul - she openly admits that she wants to cheat on her husband.
Historical background
At the time, Joseph Breitbach was working as head of the book department himself in a department store, so he knew the conditions behind the scenes of such a company from his own experience. Personal experiences may also have been decisive for the conflict between party season and sentiment presented in the stories, as well as the hierarchical structure within the party, since Breitbach sympathized with communism at the time. The publication of the book had personal consequences for him: He was dismissed because he had damaged the reputation of his company, the Landauer department store in Augsburg , with the stories . Breitbach's stories are among the first literary works that are set in one of the then modern department stores and deal with the life of employees.
filming
"Das Radieschen" and "Rot gegen Rot" were shown on January 17, 1979 in a television film with the title "Radieschen" combined by the ARD.
reception
The BBC praised the tales Joseph broad brook "Joseph broad brook shows a widespread communist culture and subculture and opens up amazing new insights." Martin Mosebach lifts in the Frankfurter Rundschau the objectivity of the narrative broad Bach out, so in the stories capitalism and Nazis do not show up as an enemy images .
expenditure
- Red against red. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart u. A. 1929 [Delivered 1928].
- Red against red. (= Mainz series. New series. Volume 7). Edited by Alexandra Plettenberg-Serban and Wolfgang Mettmann [complete edition of all of Breitbach's stories].
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b red against red , pearl divers
- ↑ a b TV preview: Rot gegen Rot , Die Zeit , January 12, 1979
- ↑ Bibliography, The following bibliography, compiled by Wolfgang Mettmann, comes from the volume "Exhibition to Remember Joseph Breitbach". Koblenz City Library 1983. It is gradually being updated. ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Academy of Sciences and Literature , Mainz
- ↑ Joseph Breitbach: Rot gegen Rot Only the lift boy is at home on all floors , FAZ
