On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Siegfried Lenz (1926-2014), Éditions Robert Laffont is republishing German lessona novel which made him famous, as well as two of his short stories less known in France: The fireboat et End of war. Written twenty years apart, they are both set in the Baltic Sea, a true strategic corridor between the north and east of Europe.
Siegfried Len | The Fireboat followed by End of War. Trans. from German and prefaced by Isabelle Liber. Robert Laffont, 286 p., €17
They take place at different times, the very last days of the Second World War for one, the 1980s for the other, but they are in both cases nourished by the experiences and memories of their author who was incorporated at seventeen into the Navybefore becoming after the war a member of Group 47 which brought together writers keen to renew German literature corrupted by the years of dictatorship. He shared a good part of his life between Hamburg and a small Danish island.
Despite the years that separate them, the two stories do not lack in common. Both related to what has sometimes been called the “sea novel”, which could go fromOdyssey to Joseph Conrad – and even well beyond – these are two variations around themes dear to Siegfried Lenz such as imposed duty, morality, resistance to violence or individual responsibility.
The fireboatfirst of all, was inspired by Siegfried Lenz by the stationary ship that he saw in the evening from his Danish island, a lightship (or lightship) equipped with a lantern intended to signal the entrance to a channel or any danger. The story begins as a police intrigue, when Captain Freytag, who commands this boat, takes on board a group of castaways who quickly reveal themselves to be a gang of criminals. Various incidents pit these thugs against the crew, but it is mainly between their leader, a certain Doctor Caspary, and Captain Freytag that the confrontation takes place, in terms of more feigned than real courtesy where the threat constantly shines through.
If it is obviously out of the question for them to trust each other, a complex relationship is established between these two adversaries who also know how to use cold humor, and measure themselves more and more against each other like two champions defending two opposing causes, two irreconcilable ways of thinking. The violence that is expressed sporadically on the ship explodes when Caspary asks the captain to weigh anchor to take them ashore. Freytag refuses, because changing position would mean leading to the destruction of the other boats deprived of a marker:
«– A ship that sinks offshore is an isolated tragedy and that is the price that sailors have to pay, but a lightship that is no longer at its station is the end of order at sea.
– Order, Captain, is the triumph of people without imagination; on this point also our opinions differ.»
The opposition between the two men, beyond the immediate issue, is therefore radical and fundamental. But how long will the captain be able, without risking his life, to refuse to do what his crew has already accepted under threat?
The police intrigue thus gains another dimension, which is further enriched when the conflict between the two men is coupled with another conflict between Freytag and his son Fred, also present on board. The latter in fact takes his father’s refusal to use force against the bandits as cowardice, not understanding that he is doing it to preserve lives and gain time, while discreetly working to prevent Caspary and his gang from leaving the boat. Experiencing only contempt for his father at the time, Fred also accuses him of having lacked courage during the war, the day when taking the risk of saving a man could cost the lives of himself and his crew. Faced with these accusations, Freytag defends himself in the manner of Bertolt Brecht, who considered a country in need of heroes to be very unfortunate (Bertolt Brecht, At the Galilee vineyard) : « I have never been a hero, and I don’t intend to become a martyr either, because both of them always seemed suspect to me: they died too easily, and even in death they were still convinced of their cause – too convinced, I would say, and that leads to nothing.»
Freytag’s strength lies in his experience which shaped his judgment, and in his patience: “ I know what something is good for and when“, he declares to his men who mutiny and prepare to weigh anchor. Responding to violence with violence when you have no chance is an absurd sacrifice, Freytag chooses a less brutal, but thoughtful solution, even if it means coming up against the incomprehension of others – starting with that of his own son. When the last word of the story falls, “ everything is in order“, the son finally understood that his father’s attitude was profoundly just and moral, and that the order he speaks of is a higher order.
The same dilemma arises in End of war to the commander of the minesweeper MX12, who received the order to repatriate wounded soldiers, surrounded and trapped facing the sea on the Curonian Spit (in present-day Latvia). The action takes place during the very last days of the war, when Hitler is dead and Admiral Dönitz has ordered the Commander of the Fleet on May 4, 1945 to sign the capitulation (still partial, therefore) of the armies engaged in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and northwest Germany. Informed, the crew considers the war over and refuses to accomplish a final mission as perilous as it is impossible. He mutinies, and the second takes command.
Contribute to the independence of our critical space
The situation is thus reversed compared to fireboatsince it is the commander who persists in carrying out the order received while the crew evades, but the issue remains the same: the commander does not act out of blind obedience, but because he considers the order fair and still believes it is possible to save soldiers destined to death or captivity among the Russians. Neither sterile heroism nor useless sacrifice, therefore, but a calculated risk. But, just as he is not a fanatical officer, his sailors are not cowards. During the war council that followed, a sinister masquerade as the capitulation was recorded, the commander at no time overwhelmed his men whose valor and courage he knew, and yet sentences were pronounced. The narrator, one of the sailors, ends thus: “Â The war will never end, said the radio, for us who were there, it will never end.» Does Siegfried Lenz, who himself deserted to surrender to the English, speak in the voice of this soldier?
How far should loyalty to authority go? The question posed by these two pieces of news is at the heart of German lessonwhere the young Siggi Jepsen must deal with the “joys of duty”. Obedience on one side, resistance on the other, how does an individual react in extreme situations, faced with choices that involve his or her responsibility? While our time sees the resurgence of crises, wars, and questions about the future, the reading of Siegfried Lenz is once again relevant, because he is one of those who raise the question of personal commitment in their works of fiction. And also because his style – always so alert in Isabelle Liber’s translation – is anything but forbidding. This passage from End of warwhen the boat leaves its Danish port, testifies: “The banks receded, the strait widened, seagulls on guard above the rear deck fluttered in the light wind, as if in case. We left behind us the pier, the brilliant white lighthouse gleamed in the sun, we left behind us the fortress where a mad king had once lived out his final years. The dying waves of our bow lapped at the rocks ».
The subject but also the architecture of the two short stories may betray a certain influence of American novelists, especially Hemingway, whom Siegfried Lenz admired for his style, and undoubtedly also for his characters: such as the Santiago du Old man and the seaa lone man struggling with a monstrous force who affirms his dignity by surpassing himself. With this important difference, however, that Lenz, far from exalting solitary heroism or virile pride, prefers the modesty of one who speaks little, but acts well, according to the moral law of which he perhaps finds the model in Kant. Sacrifice then only has meaning if it allows one or more lives to be saved, glorious death to accomplish a desperate mission or in the name of a vague ideal (such as, for example, Nazi ideology) having no meaning. It is undoubtedly this moral aspect, combined with a perfect mastery of the art of the storyteller, which makes fireboat in particular a subject of study appreciated in German schools, and quite often invites directors to bring the work of Siegfried Lenz to the screen.
