Shortly after the Chernobyl disaster, Gudrun Pausewang wrote Die Wolke, The Cloud. The novel appeared in 1987. It describes the consequences of a possible reactor accident in Germany, told through the fate of a 14-year-old girl. In 1988 it won the German Youth Literature Prize. It has sold more than a million copies, it is read in schools, and it was made into a film. After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Pausewang explained her purpose. Ich wollte warnen. I wanted to warn. Natürlich kann Warnung Angst wecken. Aber man sollte die Angst nicht so verteufeln. Sie wurde uns von der Natur mitgegeben als Hilfe zum Überleben. Of course a warning can awaken fear. But one should not demonize fear so much. Nature gave it to us as a help for survival.
literature
Schiller’s Diver
Friedrich Schiller wrote the ballad Der Taucher, The Diver, in 1797. It opens with a king’s challenge: Wer wagt es, Rittersmann oder Knapp, / Zu tauchen in diesen Schlund? Who dares, knight or squire, to dive into this abyss? The king has thrown a golden cup into a whirlpool. A youth dives and comes back with the cup in his hand. He reports: Da unten aber ist’s fürchterlich, / Und der Mensch versuche die Götter nicht. But down there it is dreadful, and man should not tempt the gods. The king then promises him his daughter in marriage, and the youth dives again. The ballad ends: Sie rauschen herauf, sie rauschen nieder, / Den Jüngling bringt keines wieder. They rush up, they rush down, and none brings back the youth. A teacher’s handbook on the ballad offers one reading: dass zu viel Kühnheit ins Verderben führt, that too much boldness leads to ruin.
Germany Is Hamlet
In April 1844, in St. Goar on the Rhine, the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath wrote a poem called Hamlet. It opens: Deutschland ist Hamlet! Germany is Hamlet. Every night, buried freedom walks at its gates and signals to the men on watch. But the prince does not act.
Er sinnt und träumt und weiß nicht Rat. He ponders and dreams and does not know what to do.
Sein bestes Tun ist eben Denken. His best deed is simply thinking.
Er lag und las zu viel im Bett. He lay and read too much in bed.
Drum fehlt ihm die Entschlossenheit. That is why he lacks resolve.
Paulinchen and the Cats
Der Struwwelpeter is a German children’s book of short warning stories in rhyme. Heinrich Hoffmann, a Frankfurt doctor, wrote it as a Christmas present for his three-year-old son. It first appeared in 1845. The first printing was 1,500 copies, and the 100th edition came out in 1876. One story is Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug, the very sad story of the matches. Paulinchen is home alone and finds the matches. Her two cats, Minz and Maunz, raise their paws and warn her. Der Vater hat’s verboten! … Laß stehn! Sonst brennst Du lichterloh! Father has forbidden it! Leave it! Or you will burn up in flames! Paulinchen does not listen. The cats warn a second time. Then her dress catches fire. At the end, only a small pile of ashes and her two pretty shoes are left, and the cats sit and cry.
Hänsel’s Pebbles
The Brothers Grimm first published Hänsel und Gretel in 1812. The two children are too hungry to sleep, and they hear the woman tell their father to leave them in the forest. Hänsel tells Gretel not to worry, he will help them. When the parents are asleep, he slips outside. The white pebbles in front of the house shine in the moonlight, and he fills his pockets with them. On the way into the forest, he keeps stopping and looking back. He tells his father that he is looking at his white kitten on the roof. In fact he is dropping pebbles on the path. That night the children follow the shining pebbles home. The second time, the woman has locked the door, and Hänsel cannot get out to collect pebbles. He crumbles his bread and drops the crumbs instead. The birds eat them, and the children are lost.
The Street Sweeper in Momo
Michael Ende published Momo in 1973. In the book, the grey men, die grauen Herren, are a gang of time thieves. They pose as a Zeitsparkasse, a time savings bank, and persuade people to save time. Momo’s friend Beppo, the street sweeper, is the older, slower and calmer of her two closest friends. He explains to her how he sweeps a very long street: Man muß nur an den nächsten Schritt denken, an den nächsten Atemzug, an den nächsten Besenstrich. You only have to think of the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom. The publisher Thienemann offers teaching materials for the book and recommends it for grades 5 to 8.
Without Haste, Without Rest
Goethe’s Zahme Xenien, his tame epigrams, include a verse of five short lines:
Wie das Gestirn,
Ohne Hast,
Aber ohne Rast,
Drehe sich jeder
Um die eigne Last.
Like the star, without haste but without rest, let each one turn around his own load. In German, Hast, haste, rhymes with Rast, rest, and with Last, load.
The Discovery of Slowness
In 1983 Sten Nadolny published the novel Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit, the discovery of slowness. It tells the life of the polar explorer John Franklin as the story of a slow man. In the novel his slowness proves to be a strength. A slow man can afford to wait, because he must wait anyway. An excerpt had already won Nadolny the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1980. The book drew wide interest in Germany.
The Burrow
In Franz Kafka’s late story Der Bau, The Burrow, an animal tells of the underground burrow it has built to protect itself. Even when the burrow is finished, the animal reads every sound as a sign of attack. A program note of the Karlsruhe State Theater describes it: Jedes Geräusch, jede Abweichung und jede Unregelmäßigkeit deutet auf einen drohenden Angriff hin. Every sound, every departure and every irregularity points to a coming attack. Vorsicht und Wachsamkeit mutieren zur Paranoia. Caution and watchfulness turn into paranoia. Kafka never finished the story.
The Joys of Duty
In Siegfried Lenz’s novel Deutschstunde, The German Lesson, of 1968, the young Siggi Jepsen must write an essay on a set topic: Die Freuden der Pflicht, the joys of duty. He hands in an empty notebook. As a punishment he must write it after all, and he writes down his memories of his father, the village policeman. The policeman’s task is to deliver to the painter Nansen a ban on painting imposed by the Nazis. The novel is still read in the upper grades of German secondary schools.
The father does his duty completely, and the novel asks what that duty served.