Stalingrad (novel)

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Theodor Plievier: Stalingrad , 3rd edition, El libro libre publisher , Mexico 1946. This edition is based on the Moscow edition.

The novel Stalingrad of Theodor Plievier is part of a trilogy of three novels (Moscow, Stalingrad, Berlin) about the great war in the East during the Second World War . In this volume the downfall of the 6th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad , the suffering of the soldiers at the front, the wounded and the detached life of the staff officers and General Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus are described in a realistic, drastic form . The grievances caused by unconditional compliance with the commands “Surrender excluded!” And “Where you stand, there you stay!” Are relentlessly portrayed and make this work an anti-war novel. It is the description of the downfall from the perspective of the German 6th Army; the situation on the Soviet side is only discussed here and there.

Among the praising critics were Wolfgang Borchert , Alfred Andersch , Stephan Hermlin , Johannes R. Becher , Hermann Pongs , Jürgen Busche , Peter Härtling , Hermann Kant and Günther Rücker . Alfred Andersch praised Stalingrad as "the first great work of art in German post-war literature".

Structure of the plant

The collective hero

Plievier's novel has no main character - its hero is the entire 6th Army . That is why he describes the experiences of soldiers of all ranks in closed episodes in which Plievier shows how different people react to the catastrophic conditions in the cauldron. Again and again, however, Plievier describes what the soldiers have in common: they all also benefited a little from National Socialism. In Plievier's eyes, they are therefore not entirely without responsibility for their fate.

Nevertheless, individual fates are presented in an emotionally comprehensible way. There are characteristic examples of all ranks. Pointing the way are the degraded criminal company soldier August Gnotke, with whom the novel begins (“and there was Gnotke”), as well as the tank commander Colonel Manfred Vilshofen. At the end of the novel, both march side by side into captivity.

The dissolution of order

Plievier describes how the soldiers in their hopeless situation, abandoned to starvation, can no longer live like humans in makeshift quarters and therefore forget all humanity.

The scandalous fate of the wounded is documented, who had to move from main dressing station to main dressing station in the narrowing basin of Stalingrad because there were no horses and no trucks to transport them. The fate of the many who starved to death, froze to death or were simply left behind (e.g. in the Gumrak station building) is described.

In a mental review (after the last retreat into the urban area of ​​Stalingrad) on the previous stop orders at a height, then the Pitomnik airfield, and finally the Tartar Wall, it becomes clear that human losses were caused without the situation improving.

The staff quarters often appear as islands of order, but these too are swept away into flight and into general misery.

Only at the end does Plievier turn his attention to General Paulus and his staff. When they finally realize that Hitler's order to hold out was pointless and a crime against their subordinates, they do not ensure that the army is handed over in an orderly manner, but rather only surrender for themselves and thus avoid their responsibility.

Hermann Göring's speech about the death of the soldiers in Stalingrad was broadcast on the radio and therefore also heard in the boiler. For the soldiers it was a funeral speech during their lifetime and so they learned that it had already been copied. (".. If you come to Germany report that you saw us lying in Stalingrad as the law ordered" ...)

Description of the phases of the withdrawal

The objective data of the withdrawal are also included in the plot of the novel:

  • The breakthrough of the Soviet troops on November 19, 1942 northwest of Stalingrad, the order to "enclose" the German 6th Army on November 22, 1942, and the closure of the ring on November 23, 1942 are presented.
  • The constant shrinking of the 6th Army through Russian attacks, hunger, cold and illness from 330,000 men on November 19, 1942 to 190,000 on January 10, 1943, down to 91,000 who were taken prisoner, is kept in mind.
  • The Russian offer of January 8, 1943 to surrender German troops on January 10, 1943 at 10:00 a.m. is documented.
  • The constant shrinkage of the boiler and the withdrawal of the main battle line after the attack by the Russians from January 10, 1943 to January 12, 1943 is described.
  • The order to hold the bridgehead around the village and the Pitomnik airfield until the food office is cleared is mentioned.
  • The division of the boiler into Stalingrad-Mitte and Stalingrad-Nord is worked out.
  • The accidental and uncoordinated surrender of the south basin and later the north basin, the departure of the field marshal in his car as a “private person” while the captured troops had to work their way through the snow on foot, is recorded.

Quotes

Large passages of the novel are considerably more drastic and rousing than the following quotes:

“Half a daily rate! 50 grams of crisp bread (a slice and a small corner), 8 grams of lunch (7 peas), 25 grams of evening meals (a bite of meat), 5 grams of drinks were the full daily rate at this point, and Wedderkop had only received half a daily rate. "
“There was still a waymark, but it was no longer the stakes rammed into the ground with straw mopping attached to them. They had been put away as firewood, and now all twenty, all thirty, all forty paces stuck out, one with a thigh and a broad pelvic bone, the other with an ankle and hoof up, one straight and the other crooked in a pile of snow Horse legs as a sign. "

Authenticity of the novel and assessment by those returning from Stalingrad

The descriptions in the novel are based on interviews with contemporary witnesses and documents.

According to Victoria Paul, Plievier was an emigrant in the Soviet Union and in May 1942 had to psychologically evaluate the letters from the soldiers of Stalingrad that had fallen into Soviet hands in Ufa . In May 1943 he received permission in Moscow to write the novel Stalingrad and to interview survivors of the 6th Army in prison camps.

The interviews of some of the survivors of Stalingrad by the journalist Gerald Praschl confirm the dire conditions for the soldiers at the front, the lack of camaraderie in the struggle for survival and the distance from the front of General Field Marshal Paulus.

In the novel Dogs, do you want to live forever, there is a reference to Plievier's activity on the Soviet side. In this novel, written in 1958 by the Austro-German Stalingrad fighter Friedrich Weiss under the pseudonym Fritz Wöss , the fictional character Hauptmann Wisse is interviewed shortly after his capture on February 3, 1943 by a person wearing a Russian officer's uniform without a badge of rank. speaks perfect German and introduces himself as Plievier. In this interview, Plievier suggested to the fictional character Hauptmann Wisse to write an experience report in the form of a novel 15 years later, whereby the fictional character Hauptmann Wisse is identical to the fictional character Friedrich Weiss alias Fritz Wöss. Quote from Plievier in this interview: “I know that the fact that I speak German does not manifest for you that I also feel German. I experienced Stalingrad from the other side ... I want to write a book about it ... in German, also for German people. "

The Stalingrad fighter Joachim Wieder describes Plievier's work as a necessary book, "which wanted to move its readers to reject the war through shock therapy."

“The various scenes and individual episodes of the event are entirely accurate, but the image of the German soldier of the various ranks, whose thinking and language were not very familiar to the emigrant, is largely recorded. The overall atmosphere is not properly captured in that the end is projected to the beginning and the novel begins with an orgy of horror that hardly allows for any increase. The ups and downs of the moods, in which the individual phases of the development of the battle were reflected, are missing, and in the juxtaposition of all the terrible facts, all the agonizing incidents and images of a downright apocalyptic downfall, there are no bright lights that were actually there . His characters are hardly able to arouse real human sympathy, they are seen like bacilli through a microscope. "

In the documentary film Stalingrad by Sebastian Dehnhardt from 2006, interviews with contemporary witnesses reflect the numbness and catastrophic supply situation of the soldiers, the well-being in Paulus' headquarters (cognac, cigar smoke, smell of fried food) and the senseless stop order and the prohibition to break out of the cauldron approved.

The message of the novel is clear in any case: war and senseless human sacrifice are to be avoided.

plant

Theodor Plievier: Stalingrad. Novel. El libro libre , Mexico 1945, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1945 (other editions by Verlag Kurt Desch, Munich; as a paperback by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 2nd edition 5/1978, ISBN 3-442-03643-7 ; by Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh ; as a paperback by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2002, ISBN 3-462-03054-X . It has been translated into 15 languages ​​according to the "German National Library" database and has been published in 17 countries.)

Plievier also processed his novel into the one-hour radio play of the same name, which was recorded on the SWF in 1953 .

literature

  • Helmut Peitsch: Theodor Pliviers Stalingrad. In: Christian Fritsch, Lutz Winckler (eds.): Fascism criticism and image of Germany in exile novel , Berlin 1981, pp. 83-102.

Single receipts

  1. ↑ See Michael Rohrwasser: Theodor Plieviers war pictures. In: Ursula Heukenkamp (ed.): Guilt and atonement? The experience of war and the interpretation of war in the post-war German media (1945–1961) , Amsterdam / Atlanta 2001, Vol. I, pp. 139–154, p. 140.
  2. ↑ Paperback edition of Stalingrad in Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag from 5/1978, p. 131
  3. ↑ Paperback edition of Stalingrad in Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag from 5/1978, p. 210
  4. ↑ Authenticity by Victoria Paul (PDF file; 43 kB)
  5. ↑ Stalingrad. Interviews with survivors in 2003 by Gerald Praschl.
  6. ↑ Joachim Wieder: Stalingrad and the responsibility of the soldier , FA Herbig, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7766-1778-0 , pages 305-306
  7. ↑ Radio play: Anti-war classic: Stalingrad , broadcast on February 11, 2017 on Deutschlandfunk

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