Restless night (book)
Unruhige Nacht is a story about an episode from World War II by the German writer Albrecht Goes , which he wrote in 1949 and published in 1950 by Friedrich Wittig Verlag. The text, also known as the war novella , was filmed twice and translated into twelve languages by 1958.
Biographical background
Goes participated as a Protestant pastor and Wehrmacht soldier in the Russian campaign of World War II. As a so-called war pastor, he had to take part in five executions of German soldiers. Tormented by remorse, "[he] discharged his anguish in 1949 in a short novella".
content
Restless Night describes the events of one evening and one night in Proskurow (Ukraine), which was occupied by the Germans, in October 1942. The first-person narrator is called here as an evangelical war pastor of the Wehrmacht from his military hospital location in Vinnitsa to Proskurow to meet the German soldier Baranowski Prepare for an execution that would overtake him early in the morning. Baranowski had been sentenced to death by a court martial for desertion. In encounters with various members of the Wehrmacht and in conversations with the prisoner, the first-person narrator, and thus the author, reflects on the moral implications of the Second World War. At the same time, the reader gets an insight into the dual role of a military chaplain who accompanies someone sentenced to death up to the last minute. On the one hand, the clergyman is a pastor, gives consolation and prepares someone for eternal life on God's behalf. At the same time he is part of the military system, acts on behalf of his armed forces superiors and is not allowed to question the legality of the conviction and the shooting. The reflections of the first-person narrator reflect this conflict and imply that in 1942 one was aware of the crimes of the Nazi regime, including the persecution of the Jews , and that after the war it was not possible to excuse oneself as ignorant: “And if we should remain, then will we are asked: what have you done? And then we will all come along and say: we, we have no responsibility, we just did what we were told. I can already see it in my spirit, sir, the whole army of protesters, the hand washers of innocence. "
reception
The anonymous author of a SPIEGEL article stated in 1958: “The 80 printed pages received an unusual international response.” Carl Zuckmayer is said to have been extremely moved while reading it. The English literary critic Harold Nicolson welcomed the story in the London Observer as a "useful illustration for the reader who tries to understand the mentality of the decent German".
Expenses (selection)
- Restless night . Hamburg: Friedrich Wittig Verlag, 1950. (first edition)
- Restless night . Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988. (several editions)
- Restless night . With the author's afterword. Kiel: Friedrich Wittig Verlag, 1995.
Adaptations
- Unruhige Nacht (1955) , German television film by Franz Peter Wirth
- Restless Night (1958) , West German war film by Falk Harnack
- Restless night . Audio book read by the author, SAGA Egmont 2018.