Stollberg's inferno

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Stollberg's Inferno is the only novel by Michael Schmidt-Salomon . It was first published in 2003 by Alibri Verlag, Aschaffenburg .

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Stollberg's Inferno is divided into forty-three chapters and a glossary (The historical characters in the novel and their post-mortem fate) . Throughout the novel, philosophical questions are answered at irregular intervals, primarily those about the meaning in a meaningless or absurd world. One of Schmidt-Salomon's core philosophical themes, the “turning away from free will”, which is largely dealt with in Beyond Good and Evil , is discussed in the thirty-seventh chapter.

The protagonist is the religion-critical professor Jan Stollberg, who dies of his third heart attack during a lecture.

Contrary to his ideological conviction, he finds himself in Christian limbo . Next to him are all the philosophers who advocated enlightenment ideas. When Ludwig Feuerbach is to be promoted to the “heavenly ramp”, he plans an uprising against God with Albert Camus , the communist shipyard worker Peter Ibanovic and other prisoners of hell.

One of the similarities with Dante's Divine Comedy is the reference to intellectual greats of modern times, in the case of Dante to those from ancient times and the Middle Ages. On his journey through hell, Jan Stollberg meets Ludwig Feuerbach, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche , Karl Marx , Bertrand Russell , Ernst Haeckel , Ernst Bloch , Herbert Marcuse , Theodor Adorno and Michail Bakunin, among others .

The author Schmidt-Salomon draws analogies from Christian notions of hell to the crimes of National Socialism . The words "Penance makes you free" are emblazoned above the entrance gate of a camp and numerous former SS members work as camp overseers in Hell.

Two scenes in the novel involve sexual acts. The reception among the critics was divided. Rolf Cantzen wrote in MIZ 2003 on this subject: "The fact that cocks swelling in purgatory after infernal orgasm difficulties is somehow comforting, but as a writer it is better not to venture into hot sex until the second or third novel."

Joachim Goetz received the sex scenes positively in enlightenment and criticism : “No artful terzinen, no 'brilliant' hellish fantasies, but a casual, funny and honest language, honest and not uptight, especially when it comes to the description of the love adventures of the Heroes go. '"

Stollberg's ideas of hell

The limbs in Stollberg's Inferno are divided into seven rings, the system being constructed like a funnel like in Dante's Divine Comedy . The number of limbo is also the same in the Divine Comedy .

The seventh, lowest ring houses the mortal sinners , the sixth exclusively Jews, the fifth all non-Christian believers (excluding Jews), the fourth all artists and scholars who did not please God but who did not go as far in their blasphemy as their colleagues in seventh ring, the third all non-Catholic Christians (including liberal Catholics), the second unborn child or unbaptized person who died at a young age, the first, uppermost ring, all “accompanying” non-Catholics who professed Catholicism in limbo.

The entrances to the seventh and sixth rings are each guarded by dead SS guards. The fifth ring is separated from the fourth ring by a large rock ditch. While the old concentration camps of the Third Reich were reinstalled in the sixth ring , the fifth ring does not need any overseers as its inmates are in an eternal religious war. In Stollberg's Inferno , Muslims, Buddhists, Hinduists, etc. hold on to their own beliefs even in Christian limbo. Baha'ullah , who wanted to end the conflicts of the great religions during his lifetime , also fails in the afterlife.

In the fourth ring there is a Catholic college for religious works , which is home to a "theological-psychological faculty" in which sadistic field tests are carried out. The "Faculty of Fine Arts" forces its inmates to compose songs in C major and to write church poetry. The third ring consists of a medieval city in which Christians of all denominations are in an eternal religious struggle, similar to the non-Christian believers in the fifth ring. The second ring is a duplicate of the Niagara Falls in which the water shoots up. Fetuses and embryos swim up the falls in large schools. In the first ring, the Paradiso , inmates can purchase everyday objects and relics with Christian “bonus points” .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Stollberg's Inferno. Novel . Alibri, Aschaffenburg 2003, ISBN 978-3-86569-049-4 .
  2. Michael Schmidt-Salomon: Stollbergs Inferno , p. 190 f.
  3. Schmidt-Salomon, from p. 132.
  4. ^ Rolf Cantzen: Book Reviews MIZ 3/03. (Review) MS Salomon: Stollberg's Inferno. (No longer available online.) Current Materials and Information, 2003, archived from the original on August 13, 2014 ; accessed on August 13, 2014 (German). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.miz-online.de
  5. ^ Joachim Goetz: Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Stollbergs Inferno. Novel. Alibri Verlag, Aschaffenburg 2003. 241 pages, paperback, Euro 16.-. (Review) Enlightenment and Criticism, 2003, accessed on August 13, 2014 (German).
  6. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 148.
  7. ^ Schmidt-Salomon, from p. 148.
  8. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 161.
  9. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 161 f.
  10. Schmidt-Salomon, from p. 173.
  11. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 183 f.
  12. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 188 f.
  13. Schmidt-Salomon, p. 194 f.