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.