2024-08-12 12:36:09
No one has the courage to do that yet. Nora Bossong tells about the wife of the Nazi propaganda minister – and her lover, about whom little is known in history. How do you draw Nazi figures, delusional people and followers? This is still an explosive question today.
All attention! Nora Bossong dared to do something. He wrote the first novel about Magda Goebbels. So far, none of his male colleagues have come up with this obvious idea. German writers, apparently what the sociologist Nicolaus Sombart called “the anti-feminist of the once German man,” were not interested in the wives of major criminals. It will destroy the aura of their dark heroes.
But as interesting as the story of the wife of the “Reich Minister for Public Light and Propaganda”, who of all the great Nazis is probably the most devoted to his “leader”, is, the second protagonist in the new novel by the poet and writer prose, born in 1982, is presented in an interesting way. “The man by your side”. And not Joseph Goebbels. Not even Günther Quandt, whom Magda was already married to. Another person is called Hans Kesselbach here, even though he sometimes calls himself Fritz Gerber.
Goebbels research actually knows of a “student” with whom the First Lady of the Third Reich maintained a long-term relationship in addition to her two marriages. We also know from records from his area that his name was Fritz Gerber. But no more. All the best! In this way, the imagination of the writer can be ignited by this character. And in doing so, it creates a lot of magic in the cabin. Nora Bossong’s Hans Kesselbach writes himself not only fictional parts in a well-researched historical novel. He is a sampler. Hans stands in the opposite of Magda’s character image, which gives an additional relief.
The work of Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena was born in 1901 as the illegitimate daughter of a Catholic minister. In 1908 he adopted a Jewish grandfather and was now called Friedländer. However, her biological father continued to stay in touch and introduced Magda to Buddhism. His first great love was a Zionist. He quickly wore a Star of David on a chain around his neck and wanted to go to Palestine. For Quandt then he became a Protestant.
But your hunger for unbridled faith was only really fed when you read Alfred Rosenberg’s classic “The Legend of the 20th Century”. His circle of acquaintances around 1930 also included the gay Hohenzollern Prince August Wilhelm (Auwi), who was among the SA bullies and who recommended voluntary work for the NSDAP as a cure for the Quandt consort, who was struggling with depression. This will be Magda’s entry for exceptional service in the work of the group and its leader.
In her farewell letter to her son from her first marriage, Harald Quandt, Magda Goebbels wrote the oft-quoted statement from the Führerbunker on April 28, 1945, which perhaps best sums up her character: “Our wonderful word is perishing, and with it. everything I know is beautiful, admirable, noble and good in my life. The world behind the Führer and National Socialism is not worth living in. “
Okay, and now Hans. There is no faith. Not even a little conviction. Bourgeois defensive reactions against the proletarian brown pack, of course – Nora Bossong is familiar with the values of the bourgeoisie and has mastered the corresponding vocabulary. But morals and a sense of difference didn’t get you that far after 1933. Especially not if you were gay. And this is Hans – according to the wishes of his author.
Dear Magda Goebbels
Gay lover Magda Goebbels: You have to come to that. More than that, someone who stands by his man and has an impeccable sex life. What’s the point of being the disciplined son of a Prussian official? Hans knows how to pull himself together, he said: “Maybe I did my job very well because I looked at it as my responsibility. I tried a lot with Magda’s body, with her shoulders and breasts, and I tried a lot again because I was afraid she would notice that all this was strange to me.
Hans tried and pushed himself in other ways: he left his contacts with the social democrats when he shouldn’t have. And he, who voted for the Liberals in the last free elections, joined the Association of National Socialist Lawyers in 1934. According to the motto: “It’s the way it is.” It’s not easy to have sex in Berlin anymore, so we go abroad. Hans contacted the consulate general in Milan, where another of Nora Bossong’s heroines in her novel “Ilana Weber” had previously worked as a diplomat. Incidentally, he is also harassed by the super-Nazi Palmer, who has the defenseless Cantonist Weber on his toes just as he did Hans Kesselbach.
Hans, a follower of excellence, knows how to adapt, both formally and sexually, and if the course comes through. What is it about this that attracts the writer so much that he is writing a story around it for a second time? Therefore, this type is not reflected in modern literature. Hans Kesselbach, who shows the “cold heart of the bourgeoisie” (as Fritz J. Raddatz, who also hates this type, was once called), is tormented by the author with melancholy and disappointments with life, but no more.
The novel, which treats its characters with as little moralizing as possible, is also stylistically far away from emotion. Hanseatic coolness (Bossong is from Bremen) pervades the book. Levels are short and sweet. Formulas and dialogues are punchy, often exciting, punch lines are well placed, and there is always an extra part of them at the end of the episode. As an antidote to today’s fever or rhetoric, you read this for a while with curiosity and respect for the author’s comfortable artistry, which, however, has less in common with Magda Goebbels than with Hans Kesselbach. But at some point you ask yourself what the whole thing is about. And it’s easy to close the freezer compartment after 290 pages.
Nora Bossong:Reichskanzlerplatz”. Suhkamp, 296 pages, 25 euros.
#Nora #Bossongs #Magda #Goebbels