Heinrich Böll

From New World Encyclopedia


A monument of Heinrich Böll in Denkmal in der Greifswalder Straße, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Sculpted by Wieland Förster

Heinrich Theodor Böll (December 21, 1917 – July 16, 1985) was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. His ironic novels treated the aftermath of German militarism during the first half of the 20th century and the effects of its Nazi past on German society in the second half of the 20th century. Böll was deeply effected by the Nazi experience, especially the destruction of his home town, Cologne.

Biography

Böll was born in Cologne, Germany to a liberal, Catholic, pacifistic family. He successfully resisted joining the Hitler Youth during the 1930s. He was apprenticed in a bookseller, then studied German at the University of Cologne. Drafted into the German Army, he served in France, Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union, and was wounded four times before he was captured by Americans in April 1945 and sent to a POW camp. His wounds (he had lost all toes to frost bite) made him a regular in hospitals until the end of his life. At the age of 30, he became a full-time writer.

His first novel, Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), was published in 1949. Many other novels, short stories, radio plays and essay collections followed, and in 1972 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the first German to receive this award since Hermann Hesse in 1946. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he is one of Germany's most widely read authors. His best-known works are Billiards at Half-past Nine, The Clown, Group Portrait with Lady, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, and The Safety Net.

Böll was deeply rooted in his home town of Cologne, with its strong Roman Catholicism and its rather rough and drastic sense of humor. In the immediate post-war period, he was preoccupied with memories of the War and the effect it had—materially and psychologically—on the lives of ordinary people. He has made them the heroes of his writing.

His villains are the authority figures in government, business, and in the Church, whom he castigates, sometimes humorously, sometimes acidly, for what he perceived as their conformism, lack of courage, self-satisfied attitude and abuse of power. His simple style made him a favorite for German-language textbooks.

He was deeply affected by the Nazi takeover of Cologne, as they essentially exiled him in his own town. Furthermore, the destruction of Cologne by Allied bombing raids scarred him irrevocably. Architecturally, the newly-rebuilt Cologne, prosperous once more, left him indifferent. (Böll seemed to be a pupil of William Morris: He made known that he'd have preferred Cologne cathedral unfinished, with the 14th century wooden crane on top of it, as it stood in 1848). Throughout his life he maintained numerous relations to Cologne citizens, rich and poor. When he was in hospital, the nurses often complained about the "low-life" people who came to see their friend, Heinrich Böll.

His works have been dubbed "Trümmerliteratur"—the literature of the rubble. He and his wife lived in Cologne and the Eifel mountains. However, he also spent time on Achill Island off the west coast of Ireland. His cottage there is now a local museum. He recorded some of his experiences in Ireland in his book 'Irish Journal'.

He was at one time president of International P.E.N. He travelled frequently as a representative of the new, non-Nazi Germany. His appearance and attitude were in complete contrast to the boastful, aggressive type of German which had became infamous all over the world during Hitler's reign. Böll was particularly successful in Eastern Europe, as he seemed to portray the dark side of capitalism in his books. He sold millions of copies in the Soviet Union alone. When Alexander Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union, he first took refuge in Heinrich Böll's house.

Heinrich Böll died in 1985 at the age of 67. His memory lives on at, among other places, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and a special Heinrich Böll Archive in the Cologne Library.

Billiards at Half Past Nine

Billiards at Half-past Nine
Author Heinrich Böll
Original title Billard um halb zehn
Country Germany
Language German
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Penguin Books (Eng. trans.)
Released 1959
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 280 pp (Eng. trans. paperback edition)
ISBN ISBN 0-14-018724-3 (Eng. trans. paperback edition)

Billiards at Half-past Nine was written in 1959. It reflects the Böll's opposition to the period of Nazism as well as his aversion to war in general.

Plot introduction

The entirety of the novel takes place on the day of September 6, 1958 but the story stretches back to the turn of the century through the use of flashbacks and recollections of memories by the characters. It follows the Faehmel family in post-Nazi Germany as well as their history during the First World War through the present day of 1958.

Plot summary

The novel begins with Robert Faehmel's secretary's description of Robert and the knowledge that something is out of the ordinary in her routine life. Robert is an architect who is meticulous in everything he does. An old school friend of Robert had shown up and Leonore, his secretary at the office, sent him to the Prince Heinrich Hotel where Robert always is from the hours of 9:30 to 11:30. This is to cause trouble for the entire Faehmel family, which includes three generations of architects: Heinrich Faehmel, his son Robert and Robert's son, Joseph. Through the old bellhop at the Prince Heinrich, Jochen, the reader learns that it is a man named Nettlinger who wants to see Robert, but Jochen refuses to let the man into the billiards room to disturb his patron.

Upstairs, Robert is telling the young bellboy, Hugo about his life and we find out that Nettlinger used to be a Nazi policeman. Robert and his friend Schrella, both of whom were schoolmates with Nettlinger, had opposed the Nazis, refusing to take "the Host of the Beast," a reference that equates both the "anti-Christ" of the Bible with the Nazis. Schrella had disappeared after being beaten by Nettlinger and their gym teacher, Old Wobbly, also a Nazi policeman.

Nettlinger and Old Wobbly have not just beaten Schrella and Robert, but corrupted Robert's brother, Otto. Heinrich Faehmel, who married Johanna Kilb, had four children, of which Robert is the only one still living— Otto having died in 1942 at the Battle of Kiev. Johanna is now committed to a mental institution, going there after she tried to save some Jews from the cattle cars going to the extermination camps. It is now Heinrich's 80th birthday. Heinrich and Robert meet in a bar after going to visit Johanna, sitting down and talking for the first time in many years.

Meanwhile, Schrella has returned to Germany and talks with Nettlinger, who tries to make amends for his past life despite the fact that he has not really changed and remains an opportunist. Schrella goes to visit his old home.

We meet Joseph Faehmel and his girlfriend, Marianne. Joseph has just learned that Robert was the one who destroyed the beautiful Abbey his grandfather had built and this greatly upsets him. Marianne tells him the story of her own family; her mother had been so brainwashed by the Nazis that she had tried to murder her children at the end of the war.

Johanna, who is still in possession of her wits as she ages, leaves the sanatorium with a pistol which she intends to use on Old Wobbly for his sins past. The entire family gathers in the Prince Heinrich Hotel for the birthday party and Johanna shoots at Old Wobbly, but does not kill him. At the conclusion of the novel, Robert adopts the bellhop Hugo, and he and Joseph carry in the birthday cake which is shaped like the Abbey. Heinrich slices it and hands the first piece to his son.

Characters in "Billiards at Half-past Nine"

  • Robert Faehmel – an architect who opposed the Nazis but was in the army towards the end of World War II and demolished St. Anthony Abbey by the orders of a Nazi general
  • Heinrich Faehmel – Robert's father who built St. Anthony Abbey and celebrates his 80th birthday
  • Johanna Faehmel – Heinrich's wife, committed to a sanatorium in 1942 for trying to go into the freight cars with the Jews headed to the extermination camps
  • Joseph Faehmel – Robert's son, also an architect who is helping to rebuild St. Anthony Abbey
  • Ruth Faehmel – Robert's daughter
  • Schrella – Robert's school friend who opposed the Nazis and disappeared in 1936, reappearing in 1958
  • Nettlinger – Robert and Schrella's classmate and former Nazi policeman who has risen in status since the end of the war
  • Hugo – the bellboy at the Prince Heinrich Hotel who is at the end adopted by Robert
  • "Old Wobbly" Vacano – former Nazi policeman who was Robert and Schrella's gym teacher
  • Marianne Schmitz – Joseph's fiancée whose Nazi-indoctrinated mother tried to kill at a young age
  • Heinrich Faehmel, Jr. – Heinrich's first son who died at seven with love for the Kaiser
  • Otto Faehmel – Heinrich's second son who was brainwashed by the Nazis and was killed at Kiev
  • Ferdi Progulske – Robert and Schrella's schoolmate who was executed by the Nazis after trying unsuccessfully to assassinate Vacano.
  • Jochen Kuhlgamme – the old bellhop at the Prince Heinrich
  • Edith Schrella – Schrella's sister who was killed by shrapnel in the World War II

Form and structure

The majority of the story takes place through the use of flashbacks. This complex plot structure affords the author the opportunity to more fully explore past events and to show the impact that Nazism had not only during the 1930s and 1940s but on present realities. St. Anthony's Abbey becomes the focal point for the war and the strife that did not end with the end of the Nazi regime, but remains to be resolved in the lives of the characters and, by implication, the German reading public for whom the book was intended.

Point of view

The point of view of the novel is very important and the rotating first person perspective gives the story its deep insight. Fully eleven different characters provide a first person perspective in the novel and each chapter switches the point of view. The first is told by Robert's secretary, Leonore, the second by the old bellhop Jochen, the third by Robert, the fourth by Heinrich, the fifth his wife Johanna, the sixth by Robert again, the seventh by both Schrella and Nettlinger, the eighth by Joseph Faehmel and his fiancée Marianne, the ninth by Schrella, the tenth by both Robert and his daughter Ruth, the eleventh is again told from the perspective of Johanna, the twelfth and thirteenth by nearly every different character in the story. Some of these chapters are told in first person and others by third person omniscient and specifically follow the thoughts of a certain character.

Böll's decision to have so many different narrators creates a panorama of post-Nazi society, and allows the reader to see the characters not only from their own perspective, but through the perception of the others as well. In the beginning, we first meet Robert through his secretary and then old Jochen; it is not until the third chapter when we actually become face to face with the protagonist. We meet Heinrich Faehmel in the first chapter, but only through the eyes of Leonore, the secretary. Our connection to characters is constantly being filtered through the perceptions of the different narrators. This creates questions of narrative reliability and a shifting sense of meaning. The subjective retellings is a reflection on the world the Faehmel family lived in and a commentary on their society.

Major themes

Böll was an impassioned pacifist; Billiards at Half-past Nine treats the stupidity of war. The two world wars that the characters live through, and fight through, are never projected in a positive light, but as destructive to the country, the society and to all those involved.

The main story revolves around Robert's role in World War II. He was in school with Schrella when his friend and he first swore "never to put the Host of the Beast our lips." (p. 42) Schrella invited him to join his small group of dissenters and both were beaten and whipped by Nettlinger, Old Wobbly and the police. Both of them also disappeared for a periods of time to save themselves. Later, however, Robert is required to join the army, and becomes a demolition expert, destroying buildings bridges and everything in the path of the German Army. It is in this position, under the command of a crazy German general, that he carries out the order to destroy St. Anthony Abbey which his father had built. He knows it is senseless but carries out the order nevertheless. The worthless destruction of the Abbey is symbolic of the uselessness of the war Germany fought and of war in general.

Robert's mother also refused to conform to the Nazis and was put into a sanatorium because she tried to get in the cattle cars with the Jews going off to the extermination camps. During the First World War, her sentiments were no different. She expresses what her husband, Heinrich, felt at the time, but had been too afraid to voice. Though it is his wife who is eventually certified crazy for her opposition to the war, her objection is clearly viewed as the only sane response to the insane war.

The devastation of the war is also seen in the lives of other characters. Joseph's fiancée, Marianne, was a child during the waning years of the Second World War. Her father was in the military and her mother was a nurse. When they saw that Germany was about to fall to the Allies however, they were so indoctrinated by the Nazi propaganda that they decided it was better to die for their dying cause than to live in an occupied Germany. Her father "fired a bullet into his mouth," (p. 204) and died in front of Marianne. Her mother put a rope around Marianne's younger brother's neck and hung him from the doorway. Marianne was next, but the act was interrupted and she survived.


Legacy

Böll's greatest legacy is in trying to address the shadow of the Nazi past on post-war German society. Böll was a gentle, peace-loving man but he was tenacious in his efforts to raise the causes of the that horrific past in the face of the natural tendency of those who would prefer to sweep such things under the proverbial rug. He was a leading advocate for peace.

Selected bibliography

  • Kreuz ohne Liebe, written 1946-1947; publ. 2002
  • Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), 1949
  • Das Vermächtnis (A Soldier's Legacy), written 1948-1949; publ. 1981
  • Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa (Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans), 1950
  • Die schwarzen Schafe (Black Sheep), 1951
  • Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit (Christmas Not Just Once a Year), 1951
  • Wo warst du, Adam? (And Where Were You, Adam?), 1951
  • Der Engel schwieg (The Silent Angel), written 1949-1951; publ. 1992
  • Und sagte kein einziges Wort (And Never Said a Word), 1953
  • Haus ohne Hüter (House without Guardians), 1954
  • Das Brot der frühen Jahre (The Bread of Those Early Years), 1955
  • Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal), 1957
  • Die Spurlosen (Missing Persons), 1957
  • Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen (Dr. Murke's Collected Silence), 1958
  • Billard um halb zehn ( Billiards at Half-past Nine ), 1959
  • Ein Schluck Erde, 1962
  • Ansichten eines Clowns (The Clown), 1963
  • Entfernung von der Truppe (Absent Without Leave), 1964
  • Ende einer Dienstfahrt (End of a Mission), 1966
  • Gruppenbild mit Dame (Group Portrait with Lady), 1971
  • Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum), 1974
  • Fürsorgliche Belagerung (The Safety Net), 1979
  • Was soll aus dem Jungen bloss werden? (What's to Become of the Boy?), 1981
  • Vermintes Gelände, 1982
  • Die Verwundung (The Casualty), early tales, publ. 1983
  • Frauen vor Flusslandschaft (Women in a River Landscape), 1985 (publ. posthumously)

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

German

  • Werner Bellmann (Ed.): Das Werk Heinrich Bölls. Bibliographie mit Studien zum Frühwerk. Opladen 1995. ISBN 9783531126944
  • Werner Bellmann (Ed.): Heinrich Böll, Romane und Erzählungen. Interpretationen. Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 9783150175149
  • Vormweg, Heinrich, Der andere Deutsche. Heinrich Böll. Eine Biographie. Köln 2002. ISBN 9783462031713

English

  • Butler, Michael, (Ed.): The Narrative Fiction of Heinrich Böll. Social conscience and literary achievement, Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780521465380
  • Confino, Alon and Fritssche, Peter, eds., The work of memory : new directions in the study of German society and culture, University of Illinois Press, 2002, ISBN 0252027175
  • Reid, James H., Heinrich Böll. A German for His Tim, Oxford/New York/Hamburg 1988. ISBN 9780854965335

External links


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