Time to live and time to die (novel)
Time to Live and Time to Die is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque . The German-language original edition was published by Kiepenheuer und Witsch in 1954 . In 1958 the novel was filmed in the USA under the title A Time to Love and a Time to Die .
content
Winter / Spring 1944: Wehrmacht soldier Ernst Graeber experienced the horrors of World War II on the Eastern Front and was forced to take part in the shooting of partisans in a destroyed Russian village . A short time later, his leave from the front was approved and he was allowed to go home for three weeks.
Many houses in his hometown were destroyed by bomb attacks, including his parents' house. He does not meet his parents and tries to track them down, but the authorities, which have been affected by the bombing, cannot help him. He goes to the parents' former family doctor, but only meets his daughter Elisabeth there. The doctor was arrested for expressions critical of the regime and is now in a concentration camp . Elisabeth has to sew uniform coats in a factory. In the following days Graeber and Elisabeth get closer and fall in love. He borrows a sergeant's uniform from a comrade in the barracks where Graber is staying, so that he can take Elisabeth out to a posh restaurant. The evening is interrupted by an air raid and the escape of the restaurant guests into the air raid shelter . The two finally get married because Graeber believes that Elisabeth would be better looked after as the wife of a soldier at the front and better protected from attacks by the Nazi regime.
Graeber happens to meet his old classmate Alfons Binding, who has meanwhile been promoted to district leader . Binding lives in a villa with a housekeeper and huge supplies of food and alcohol. Graeber despises Binding, but uses his generosity to be able to support himself and Elisabeth. Binding is later killed in an air raid on his villa.
Graeber visits his former teacher Pohlmann, who has since been dismissed from school because of his opposition. He lives in a ruin and hides the Jew Jakob there. Graeber supports the two of them with groceries from Binding's supply and talks to Pohlmann about his conflicts of conscience: He knows that after his return to the front he will have to continue defending a criminal system. However, Pohlmann cannot calm Graeber's conscience with simple answers. When Elisabeth's apartment is destroyed in another bomb attack, Graeber and Elisabeth initially come to Pohlmann. Towards the end of his vacation, Graeber learns from Jakob that Pohlmann has been arrested by the Gestapo .
Elisabeth receives a summons from the Gestapo, but Graeber intercepts it and goes there himself, fearing that Elisabeth might be arrested. In the Gestapo office he is informed of the death of Elisabeth's father and receives his ashes in a cigar box. He keeps Elisabeth silent about her father's death. Later both of them find an undestroyed restaurant and boarding house where they can spend the last night before Graeber's departure. Elisabeth says she hopes to have a child from Graeber. While Graeber does not want to put a child in such a cruel world, who might then have to fight in the next war, Elisabeth argues: “Should only the barbarians have some? Then who should put the world back in order? "
Graeber returns by train to the front, which has now been moved much further back. Many of his old comrades died or were wounded and were replaced by young, poorly trained recruits . Four civilians are arrested again as alleged partisans. Graeber is responsible for guarding them to prevent Steinbrenner, a staunch Nazi and former concentration camp guard, from taking over. Graeber toyed with the idea of secretly releasing the prisoners. One of them, who speaks a little German, even offers Graeber to flee with them. When the Red Army overran the village and Graeber's troops retreated further west, Steinbrenner wanted to shoot the prisoners. At the last moment Graeber decides to shoot Steinbrenner and release the prisoners. Since they do not dare to leave their cell, Graeber throws away his rifle and makes his way to his troops. The prisoners then leave the cell, one of them takes Graeber's rifle and shoots him.
Style and subject
The novel is shaped by Remarque's pacifist and anti-fascist attitude. The narrator vividly and often drastically depicts the effects of the war from Graeber's perspective. The love story between Ernst and Elisabeth suggests a certain romantic exuberance, which is contrasted by the struggle for survival and the necessary pragmatism of the lovers.
A central theme are the decisions of conscience that the war forced upon Graeber. He realizes more and more that as a soldier he is fighting for a system that is doomed to failure and that he rejects. Even so, it is only at the very end that he is able to resolve an act of genuine resistance.
Since this question of conscience is indirectly posed to every contemporary reader, the novel can also be understood as a "warning against German militarism with its command-obedience principle, [...] against restorative forces and the desired rearmament of the Federal Republic".
Publication history
The novel was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in September 1954 , and translations into English, Danish and Norwegian appeared around the same time. Translations into other languages followed in the next few years; a licensed edition for the GDR appeared in 1957 by Aufbau-Verlag .
The deviations between the first editions were already being discussed in the press in October 1954: While the foreign-language editions were based on the original typescript that Remarque made available to the publishers, the German edition made decisive changes and cuts by a total of around ten printed pages . These show a clear tendency to "defuse" and from today's perspective can be seen as a concession to the restorative, Cold War-shaped atmosphere of the Adenauer-FRG . Die Welt wrote on October 16, 1954, citing Danish and Norwegian newspapers: "What could annoy the incorrigible and unteachable has been deleted." The changes affect the following areas:
- Factual errors made by the author with regard to year numbers or ranks have been corrected.
- The importance of some minor characters was reduced by changing or deleting their respective background stories: Graeber's comrade Immermann went from communist to social democrat, the partly Jewish origin of soldier Hirschland was erased, as was soldier Steinbrenner's SS past.
- Statements about Nazi war crimes were deleted or detached from their connection to the war.
- The discussion about guilt and responsibility of the individual was shortened.
- The final scene was politically "disambiguated", as the civilians released by Graeber are now directly referred to as partisans and Graeber's admission of guilt has been deleted. The killing of Steinbrenner is portrayed as self-defense and not, as Remarque intended, as an act of resistance.
Despite official statements from the Kiepenheuer & Witsch publishing house that the changes had been accepted by the author, the accusation of censorship was loud. Remarque himself did not comment publicly on the matter. From his diary notes from March and April 1954, however, it can be seen that he did not approve of the changes and probably only accepted them to enable publication in Germany. It was not until 1989 that Kiepenheuer & Witsch published a new edition that revised the abbreviations and made the original version authorized by Remarque available to the German reading public.
Reception history
In the contemporary reviews, in part Remarque's efforts to come to terms with moral issues are acknowledged, but in part the portrayal of German war crimes is seen as an unjust degradation of the German soldier. While on the one hand the “literary qualities” of the novel and Remarque's “ethical attitude” are recognized, on the other hand there is the charge that Remarque, as an “emigrant”, could not allow himself to judge Germany in 1944.
Publication dates
Erich Maria Remarque: Time to Live and Time to Die. Novel . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1954. (Many more editions), revised new edition with an afterword by Tilman Westphalen. Cologne 1989, ISBN 978-3-462-01984-1 . Original version with appendix and afterword by Thomas F. Schneider, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-462-05146-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas F. Schneider: “'And an order is an order. Or not?' Erich Maria Remarque: Time to live and time to die (1954) “In: Hans Wagener (ed.): From Böll to Buchheim: German war prose after 1945. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1997, pp. 231–247, here p. 241.
- ↑ For a more detailed presentation and quotations from the press reviews, cf. Tilman Westphalen: When does what is otherwise called heroism turn into murder? Epilogue In: EMRemarque: Time to Live and Time to Die . Novel. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 6th edition 2009, pp. 395–415. ISBN 978-3-462-02726-6 .