Two on the border

Two on the border is the title of a novel by Friedrich Wolf . In the work published in 1938, Wolf addresses the activities of the communist resistance in exile . The central figure is the communist worker Hans Döll. He has to flee from Germany to the Sudetenland from the Nazis . There he took part in the fight against the Hitler regime. The novel depicts this resistance struggle against the background of the politically explosive situation in the Sudetenland claimed by Hitler. It describes the problems of the communist resistance fighter Döll, but also the struggle of the local workers against the emerging fascism and for the improvement of their working conditions.

action

The novel begins in 1937 in a small Sudeten German village in Czechoslovakia near the German border. The communist metalworker Hans Döll, who was shot while fleeing from Hitler's Germany, escapes to the house of the small farmer Marie. Here he is nursed to health by Marie's daughter Loni, a worker at the local textile factory.
Döll wants to take part in the fight against National Socialism even in exile and reports to the Communist Party (KP) . However, there he encounters obstacles. Döll tries to commit suicide, which he happily survives. He is now thinking of fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War . Soon, however, he received an order from the Communist Party: he was to act as a courier to transport leaflets and news between Czechoslovakia and Germany. In addition, he is given a new identity: the worker Hans Döll becomes the smallholder Wenzel Langer. Döll is instructed to behave inconspicuously and not to be politically active. Loni and Döll get married. At Loni's workplace in the textile factory, exploitative working conditions prevail . There is a strike. Krapf, fascist and director of the company, becomes aware of Loni and Döll. He believes that both are on the company's side and that they also have a National Socialist attitude. Krapf offers Döll a job in the textile factory. There, however, there is another strike due to the frequent work accidents, in which Döll is not allowed to participate because of his party mandate. From now on he is regarded as a traitor by his work colleagues. In addition, Döll makes himself suspicious because of his secret walks to the border. When a little girl is murdered by an SS patrol there, Döll comes under suspicion. The strike in the textile factory continues. The situation escalated when fascists murdered the stoker Franz, one of the strike leaders and, like Hans Döll, a communist working underground . Since the strike threatens to lose the lead, Döll takes over against the party orders. He can no longer hide his assignment from his wife. Both join forces in the common struggle for better working conditions and against fascism. After a successful strike, Döll takes on a dangerous party assignment that is supposed to lead him back to fascist Germany.

Valuation aspects

Wolf's current contemporary novel tries to exemplify the anti-fascist resistance struggle of the communists in exile using the communist worker Hans Döll. The work, in which references to Wolf's own experience become clear, also fulfilled agitational purposes at the time. On the one hand, it signals that the exiled communists are not giving up. On the other hand, it informs the people in Germany about the political activities of the resistance abroad. So the novel takes on the character of a challenge. It is intended to motivate the people at home and the exiles to join the fight against Hitler .
With Hans Döll, Wolf tries to create a politically conscious and revolutionary worker and functionary who fearlessly and obediently carries out his party's mandate. But Döll is not a blind apparatchik . He is quite capable of acting appropriately to the situation and then disregarding strict party guidelines when overarching goals seem more important to him.
Wolf does not go so far as to question the actions of the CP. In the novel, the party appears as an anonymous institution operating in the dark. Ultimately, it remains opaque and apparently guided by higher wisdom - an indication of authoritarian Stalinist structures. A criticism of Stalinism or the current political events in the Soviet Union cannot be found in Wolf's novel.

In a later evaluation, the novel is rated as one of his most important works.

literature

Friedrich Wolf : Two on the border . Oprecht, Zurich 1938, DNB  1032702966 .

Individual proof

1. ↑ Text on the back of Friedrich Wolf: Zwei an der Grenz , paperback (licensed) edition No. 267, Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar, 1973.