the legacy of flight and expulsion from the eastern territories

Department of German Studies GE431 German Memories of the War: From Perpetration to Suffering

The Legacy of Flight and Expulsion from the Eastern Territories A comparative analysis of Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s Der Verlorene (1998) and Günter Grass’s Im Krebsgang (2002) QUESTION THREE: Compare and contrast Treichel’s Der Verlorene and Grass’s Im Krebsgang as narratives about the legacy of flight and expulsion from the German Eastern territories. Student Andrew Jones Module Convenor Helmut Schmitz

WORD COUNT 4076 excluding footnotes

GE431 GERMAN MEMORIES OF THE WAR: FROM PERPETRATION TO SUFFERING The Legacy of Flight and Expulsion from the German Eastern Territories

German Studies © Andrew Jones 2014

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The Legacy of Flight and Expulsion from the Eastern Territories A comparative analysis of Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s Der Verlorene (1998) and Günter Grass’s Im Krebsgang (2002)

Despite nearly seventy years having passed since the end of the Second World

War and the concurrent flight and expulsion of some 14 million ethnic Germans

from Eastern Europe,1 the legacy of these mass population transfers continues

to play a significant role in contemporary German politics and society. This

significant role has its roots in the former Bonn Republic, where around

two-thirds of the survivors of flight and expulsion would settle,2 represented by

their own political party until the late 1950s,3 their own ministry until 1969,4 and

various pressure groups that continue to wield power and garner attention to

this day.5

Notwithstanding the great attention flight and expulsion has attracted in the

political sphere, as Ölke explains:

in der historischen und der literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschung stellte das Erinnern an Flucht und Vertreibung ebenfalls ein Randthema dar, das bis über die Wende hinaus nur vereinzelt oder mit ideologisch problematischer Tendenz bearbeitet wurde.6

Such bias was recently exhibited by Erika Steinbach, president of Der Bund der

Vertriebenen, who, when expressing the desire for a museum documenting

flight and expulsion to be built in close proximity to the Holocaust Memorial in

Berlin, referred to the flight and expulsion of the Germans as an “entmenschte

1. See Karoline von Oppen and Stefan Wolff, “From the Margins to the Centre? The Discourse on

Expellees and Victimhood in Germany”, in Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed. Bill Niven (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 194.

2. See Oppen and Wolff, “From the Margins to the Centre?”, 194. 3. See Bill Niven, “Introduction: German Victimhood at the Turn of the Millennium”, in Germans as

Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, ed. Bill Niven (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 3.

4. See Frank Brunssen, “Tabubruch? Deutsche als Opfer des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Günter Grass’ Novelle ‘Im Krebsgang’”, Oxford German Studies 35, no. 2 (2006): 119.

5. See Jeffrey Luppes, “‘Den Toten der ostdeutschen Heimat’: Local Expellee Monuments and the Construction of Post-war Narratives”, in Narratives of Trauma: Discourses of German Wartime Suffering in National and International Perspective, ed. Helmut Schmitz et al. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), 89ff.

6. Martina Ölke, “‘Flucht und Vertreibung’ in Hans-Ulrich Treichels ‘Der Verlorene’ und ‘Menschenflug’ und in Günter Grass’ ‘Im Krebsgang’”, Seminar 43, no. 2 (2007): 119.



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Rassenwahn” comparable to the treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust.7 Not

only is this statement highly problematic, it clearly lacks any historical

understanding. The Holocaust was the systematic murder of a people due to

their race, whilst expulsion was the legal population transfer of a people in order

to strengthen the geopolitical integrity of Europe’s nations in order to prevent

future conflict.8 Steinbach’s statement is thus symptomatic of a revisionist trend

that attempts to realign the victim-perpetrator paradigm in favour of German

suffering and victimhood. This realignment, due to the failure to recognise or

understand how German suffering is intrinsically linked to German perpetration,

transforms the Germans retrospectively into absolute victims.9

In response to such debates surrounding German suffering and victimhood,

Taberner explains how “contemporary German novels concerned with the

expulsions from the East, and indeed with ‘German wartime suffering’ as a

whole, engage not only (and often not even primarily) with the events

themselves but also participate in a series of related discussions”.10 Two such

texts are Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s Der Verlorene and Günter Grass’s

Im Krebsgang. Whilst both texts are concerned with flight and expulsion from

the Eastern territories, the events themselves take a secondary role, with

greater focus given to the legacy of these events. This legacy is shown to be

unavoidably linked to that of National Socialism and its crimes, hence other

issues of the past, such as issues of guilt and responsibility (individual or

collective), denial and repression, and ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, are thus

interwoven throughout the author’s respective narratives, allowing them to

engage in wider debates and to avoid such problematic decontextualisation as

exhibited by Steinbach.

Grass’s Im Krebsgang focuses on three generations of the Pokriefke family: the

narrator, Paul, his mother, Tulla, and his son, Konny. Tulla fled from the East on

7. See Samuel Salzborn, “The German Myth of A Victim Nation: (Re-)presenting Germans as Victims in

the New Debate on their Flight and Expulsion from Eastern Europe” in A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present, ed. Helmut Schmitz (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007) 92.

8. See Salzborn, “The German Myth of A Victim Nation”, 92. Also see Niven, “Introduction: German Victimhood”, 16f.

9. See Niven, “Introduction: German Victimhood”, 13. 10. Stuart Taberner, “Literary Representations in Contemporary German Fiction of the Expulsions of

Germans from the East in 1945”, in A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present, ed. Helmut Schmitz (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 243.



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the Wilhelm Gustloff, which, torpedoed by a Russian submarine, sank, killing

thousands of people in history’s biggest ever maritime disaster. Tulla wishes for

her story to be remembered in literary form, but her son is reluctant to fulfil this

wish, for he fails to see her as a victim. Paul instead insists on relativising and

contextualising her suffering in the light of German perpetration. The novella is

thus a complex multi-layered narrative that, in a crab-like manner, constantly

moves backward, forward and sideward in time, from as early as 1895 up until

the present day, to tell of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and a familial

trauma that is transferred from one generation to the next.

Treichel’s Der Verlorene, by contrast, is temporally more constrained than

Grass’s text, concerning itself with an expellee family living in West Germany in

the immediate post-war years of the 1950s. Nevertheless, although the novel is

told from a contemporarily situated first-person perspective, from that of a

young boy growing up at the time, due to this narrator’s unrealistic

precociousness, both in terms of knowledge and writing style, it can be

presumed that a later, more reflective perspective bleeds through. The reader

consequently gains a sense of how the narrator (both then and now) fails to

understand or empathise with his parents’ suffering. The narrator even appears

to resent his parents, for, indeed, the narrative perspectives of both texts

highlight how the war generation has failed to adequately come to terms with

the past, leaving it to the second generation to tell of the parents’ suffering, a

suffering that has also become their own.

For the family of Der Verlorene, their suffering is made metaphysically visible by

the absence of the narrator’s brother, Arnold, who was lost during the parents’

flight. The truth behind the loss of Arnold is, however, supressed. The narrator

is at first led to believe “daß Arnold auf der Flucht vor dem Russen verhungert

sei”.11 This intrigues the narrator and we are informed that “alle [s]eine […]

Fragen nach den näheren Umständen der Flucht und dem Verhungern [s]eines

Bruders Arnold beantworte sie [die Mutter] nicht” (DV:11). Despite the events

having a major impact on her life, the mother is reluctant to talk about what

happened in detail, which indicates that she is concealing something. 11. Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Der Verlorene (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1999), 11.

Subsequent references to this text shall appear in the body of the essay, appearing in parentheses with the abbreviation ‘DV’ followed by the relevant page number.



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Indeed, only when the mother deems that the narrator is “alt genug […], um die

Wahrheit zu hören” (DV:12) does he learn that “Arnold ist nicht tot. Er ist auch

nicht verhungert […]. Er ist gar nicht gestorben […], er ist verlorengegangen”

(DV:13). The mother’s previous denial can be seen as a coping mechanism that

allows her to supress feelings of guilt and shame, which would enable her to

live a relatively stable life. However, when the prospect of finding this lost son

becomes a reality, the ‘truth’ and her guilt has to be acknowledged so she can

find what she has lost.

When the narrator learns the truth, he subsequently realises “daß Arnold

verantwortlich dafür war, daß ich von Anfang an in einer von Schuld und Scham

vergifteten Atmosphäre aufgewachsen war” (DV:17). This atmosphere is

created by the parents’ inability to come to terms with the loss of their son and

to acknowledge their role in this loss. Indeed, they have little time to, for “der

Vater kümmerte sich sieben Tage in der Woche um das Geschäft, und die

Mutter half ihm sieben Tage in der Woche dabei” (DV:79). The parents have

instead heavily invested themselves in the world of work and business, again to

supress their feelings of guilt and grief. Their dedication to work parallels the

theories put forward in the Mitscherlichs’ Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, where the

Germans wholeheartedly devote themselves to the ‘Wirtschaftswunder’ so they

can avoid having to come to terms with their troubled past.12

The parents’ inability to mourn, however, has not only created a poisonous

atmosphere, but it has resulted in their remaining son also becoming lost. “Die

Eltern [übersehen] durch die Trauer um den auf der Flucht verlorenen Sohn den

anwesenden Sohn und ihn dadurch gleichfalls zu einem Verlorenen machen”,13

writes Nuber. The narrator thus feels detached from the family and has little

sense of identity. This, in literary terms, is made visible by the narrator’s use of

the definite article instead of the possessive when referring to his parents, and

the narrator himself even remains nameless throughout. The narrator’s

detachment from the family also visually manifests itself in the family photo

album, which depicts Arnold “wie ein bedeutender Mensch”, whilst the narrator 12. See Alexander Mitscherlich and Margarete Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Grundlagen

kollektiven Verhaltens (München: Piper, 1977). 13. Achim Nuber, "Kindheit und Jugend im Zeichen von Flucht und Vertreibung: Hans-Ulrich Treichels ‘Der

Verlorene’ im Kontext zeitgenössischer Biographieerzählungen”, in Flucht und Vertreibung in der deutschen Literatur: Beiträge, ed. Sascha Feuchert (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001), 278.



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is “auf den meisten Photos nur teilweise und manchmal auch so gut wie

überhaupt nicht zu sehen” (DV:9). The narrator’s subordinate status and the

importance of the lost son is thus highlighted by the prominence of Arnold and

the insignificance of the narrator in the photos his mother shows with pride.

Discovering the truth about his brother therefore also makes the narrator realise

“daß Arnold, der untote Bruder, die Hauptrolle in der Familie spielte und mir

eine Nebenrolle zugewiesen hatte” (DV:17).

The narrator is assigned a ‘Nebenrolle’ for he is temporally and emotionally

distanced from the trauma that dominates family life and therefore lacks

empathy for his parents’ and even his brother’s plight, having no direct

experience of this trauma: “Schließlich hatte ich ja auch niemanden verloren.

Ich hatte nur erfahren, daß die Eltern jemanden verloren […] hatten” (DV:49).

Here we again gain a sense of the narrator’s detachment and distance through

the use of depersonalised terms. Nevertheless, despite struggling to fully

understand what he has been told (DV:13), he initially attempts to comfort his

mother, reassuring her that she saved his brother’s life (DV:16). The mother,

however, admits “daß das Leben Arnolds gar nicht bedroht gewesen sei”

(DV:16). We are told that “die Russen hätten es immer nur auf eines

abgesehen gehabt” (DV:16), which corroborates the previous statement,

alluding to the presumed rape of the mother, an event that she similarly

represses. She only refers to the rape in euphemistic terms, for example,

describing it constantly as “etwas Schreckliches” (DV:14). Whilst there is no

denying the horror nor the injustice of her rape, the fact remains that “sie habe

voreilig Angst um ihr eigenes Leben und das Leben ihres Kindes gehabt, und in

Wahrheit habe sie auch voreilig das Kind weggegeben” (DV:16). It is thus

indicated that the mother’s fear was rather presumptuous and premature, and,

as Clarke explains, a “misapprehension [that] is founded to a large extent on

her racist belief that the Russians are murderous barbarians”.14 This racism is

evident through her use of the collective singular (‘der Russe’) when referring to

the Russians, a usage reminiscent of the Nazi period’s use of the collective

term ‘der Jude’, which implies that the Russians have replaced the Jews as

Germany’s new scapegoat. The mother, for example, fails to mention why they 14. David Clarke, “Guilt and Shame in Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s ‘Der Verlorene’”, in Hans-Ulrich Treichel, ed.

David Basker (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004), 65.



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indeed had to flee in the first place, emphasising instead the role of the

Russians and thus shifting blame.

The mother’s racism is a relic of National Socialism but is not exclusive to her.

This becomes clear when the family go to Heidelberg, just one stop in the

parents’ journey to be reunited with Arnold. Ölke describes the trip as “eine

symbolisch verdichtete Reise in die deutsche Vergangenheit”, 15 for such

racism, and even ideas of racial superiority (both relics of the Nazi past) are

shown to remain rife in post-war West Germany. The parents believe Arnold to

be the ‘Findelkind 2307’ and as a result they must be subjected to various tests

and measurements in Heidelberg to prove their relation to this mysterious

figure. Not only has this figure been dehumanised, becoming a categorised

number in a manner reminiscent of the National Socialist period, but the tests

the family are subjected to are also reminiscent of the period, of Nazi eugenics.

The professor who administers these tests is similarly stuck in the past, for, as

Preece points out, “his scientific methods are no more advanced than his social

views, which, insofar as they contain a racial component, are consonant with

his science”.16 Echoing the politics of expellee organisations and of National

Socialism, the professor implies that the expulsion from and the confiscation of

the German Eastern territories is “vorläufig jedenfalls” (DV:109). The father,

encouraged by this, then reminisces about the East. He says that the “der

Boden war gut in Rakowiec, guter Weizenboden”, to which the professor

replies, in a statement that demonstrates his racism and ideas of racial

superiority, “daß ein Boden so gut sei wie die Menschen, die ihn bearbeiteten”

(DV:109). The father is also shown to subscribe to this view, telling of the

superiority of the German Rakowiec I over the Polish Rakowiec II, in addition to

the perceived suitability of the Poles for use as ‘Knechte’ (DV:110). As Clarke

explains, “this possible ideological identification with Nazism does not lead to a

sense of responsibility for the crimes of Hitler's regime, [and] since the parents

15. Ölke, “Flucht und Vertreibung”, 126. 16. Julian Preece, “The German Imagination and the Decline of the East: Three Recent German Novels

(Edgar Hilsenrath, ‘Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr’; Hans-Ulrich Treichel, ‘Der Verlorene’; Günter Grass, ‘Im Krebsgang’)”, German Monitor 59 (2004): 38.



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tend to focus their attention on their own suffering at the hands of Russian

troops”,17 denazification appears to have faltered or even failed.

With the failure of denazification and the ever-present reminders of the past in

Treichel’s novella, the idea that the end of the war marked a new start in

Germany, a ‘Stunde Null’, is constantly undermined. Germany is shown to be a

repressive environment where little has been learnt from the past. Family life is

also dominated by the past, in this instance, memories of flight and expulsion as

well as the simultaneous loss of the German Eastern territories and their son.

The legacy of this family’s flight and signs of their trauma are everywhere and

this trauma is instilled into the narrator. We are told, for example, how “die

Eltern reisten nicht [...] wegen der Flucht. Zwar war die Flucht keine Reise

gewesen, doch alle Reisen schien sie an die Flucht zu erinnern” (DV:122). This

infects the surviving son, who throughout the novel becomes increasingly travel

sick. As Taberner argues, “[the parents’] connection to the past infects the

present in which the son exists. If he enjoys the pleasures of an economic and

political stability in part enabled by a continuity of ideology and personnel, he

also becomes identified with Nazism”.18 This is why the narrator develops travel

sickness, seemingly allergic to the products of his family’s labour, enabled by a

continuation of the past; it is also why he is so reluctant to conform to his

parents’ concept of identity: “Ich wollte niemandem ähnlich sein” (DV:57).

The same fear of becoming ‘infected’ by Nazism is why Paul in Im Krebsgang is

at first reluctant to fulfil his mother’s wishes and write of the sinking of the

Wilhelm Gustloff. Like the mother in Der Verlorene, Tulla fails to mention why

she had to flee the East with this part of her past having been decoupled from

its context. However, by contrast, Tulla constantly talks of her suffering and

appears not to repress or supress anything else. As a result, Paul, defined by

his mother as “das Jongchen, das mitten im Unjlick jeboren wurd”,19 rebels, for

he does not want to be seen as a victim nor does he wish to be associated with

the history of perpetrators. Consequently, as Krimmer explains, we have “a

17. Clarke, “Guilt and Shame”, 64. 18. Stuart Taberner, “Hans-Ulrich Treichel's ‘Der Verlorene’ and the Problem of German Wartime

Suffering”, The Modern Language Review 97, no. 1 (2002): 133. 19. Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2004), 93.

Subsequent references to this text shall appear in the body of the essay, appearing in parentheses with the abbreviation ‘IK’ followed by the relevant page number.



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narrator who is engaged in a prolonged struggle to overcome his victim

status”.20

Due to the timing of Paul’s birth, his victim status is, nonetheless, rather

coincidental. Unable to remember his ‘suffering’, this trauma is in a sense

inherited, like the narrator’s in Der Verlorene, and Paul therefore similarly

resents his family. Paul even wishes he had been lost like Arnold: “lieber als von

Mutter auf der Löwe geboren, wäre ich jenes Findelkind gewesen, das sieben

Stunden nach dem Schiffsuntergang von dem Vorpostenboot VP1703 geborgen

wurde” (IK:142). Separated from the mother, who instils this sense of trauma

into the son’s life narrative, Paul, in a sense, would be liberated from its legacy.

Indeed, due to his emotional distance from his mother, he manages to similarly

distance himself from flight and expulsion for a long time. However, with the fall

of the Wall, Tulla is able to meet her grandson, Konny, and, as her own son is

unreceptive to her stories and wishes, hope is instead reignited by her

encounter with the third generation: “Na, vleicht wird mal main Konradchen

eines Tages drieber was schraiben…” (IK:94).

Konny is more receptive to the idea of Germans as victims than his father is,

due to a temporal and contextual distance. Konny is an empty vessel waiting to

be filled, and, indeed, Paul tells of how his mother “[hat] ihm [Konny] mit

Flüchtlingsgeschichten, Greuelgeschichten, Vergewaltigungsgeschichten

vollgepumpt, die sie zwar nicht leibhaftig erlebt hatte” (IK:100f.). Furthering the

idea of being ‘infected’ by the past, Paul comments how Konny has been

“eingeimpft” with these tales of German suffering by Tulla (IK:70). The past is an

infectious and dangerous disease that is still to be cured. Indeed, Im Krebsgang

shows how ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ and its focus on German perpetration

has resulted in the creation of a repressive, dogmatic and potentially dangerous

atmosphere, where important parts of the country’s past, such as German

suffering (in this instance flight and expulsion), are ignored and considered

taboo. Paul, for example, explains how part of his reluctance to write about the

Wilhelm Gustloff stems from the fact that “doch keiner [mochte] was davon

hören […]. Die Gustloff und ihre verfluchte Geschichte waren jahrzehntelang

20. Elizabeth Krimmer, “‘Ein Volk von Opfern?’: Germans as Victims in Günter Grass’s ‘Die Blechtrommel’

and ‘Im Krebsgang’”, Seminar 44, no. 2 (2008): 272.



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tabu, gesamtdeutsch sozusagen” (IK:31). Tulla corroborates this, explaining

that “[man] ieber die Justloff nicht reden jedurft hat. Bai ons im Osten sowieso

nicht” (IK:50). In the GDR at least, due to the role of the Soviets in society and

in the sinking of the ship, the topic could be considered taboo. However, this

taboo status elsewhere, both past, in the Bonn Republic, and present, in its

successor, the Berlin Republic, is rather questionable. As has already been

pointed out, the expellees were a sizeable contingent of the populations of both

Germanys and were in particular highly visible in the West German political

system. Consequently, “Grass hat mit Im Krebsgang kein Tabu im Sinne eines

Verbots gebrochen”, explains Brunssen, for “die Geschichte der Wilhelm

Gustloff […] ist seit den frühen 1950er Jahren ausführlich dokumentiert”.21 Tulla

acknowledges this, but she instead desires an emotive account that

encapsulates the full extent of her suffering: “Wie aisig die See jewesen is und

wie die Kinderchen alle koppunter. Das mußte aufschraiben” (IK:31). The

(factual) events themselves are thus not taboo, rather (emotive) German

suffering is perceived taboo due to the perceived emphasis on German

perpetration in ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’.

Konny, having grown up in a society where history is considered to be ‘schon

bewältigt’, struggles to see German suffering as his father does, in the context

of German perpetration, and hence aims to cast the Germans as absolute

victims. When Konny takes up the challenge of writing of the Gustloff, one that

his father until then had failed to tackle, Paul is critical of Konny’s “Bedürfnis

nach einer sauberen Opferbilanz” (IK:104). The same could easily be said of

Paul himself however, who similarly seeks a clean balance, but rather in favour

of casting the Germans collectively into the role of the guilty perpetrator: “die

waren alle, ob noch unschuldig oder nicht, militärisch gedrillt und auf ihren

Führer vereidigt…” (IK:105). Paul, nevertheless, later recognises the failings of

his dogmatic approach influenced by ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’. At Konny’s

trial he realises that the process has failed, for it has instead created a stifling

political correctness that has allowed his son’s extremist views to breed:

21. Brunssen, “Tabubruch?”, 130.



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Was tun, wenn der Sohn des Vaters verbotene, seit Jahren unter Hausarrest leidende Gedanken liest, auf einen Schlag in Besitz nimmt und sogar in die Tat umsetzt? Immer bin ich bemüht gewesen, zumindest politisch richtig zu liegen, nur nicht Falsches zu sagen, nach außen hin korrekt zu erscheinen. Selbstdisziplin nennt man das. (IK:210).

This statement implies that he always, to some extent, felt sympathy for

German suffering, a suffering that is actually his own. He realises German

suffering, intrinsically linked with German perpetration, had been wrongly

repressed, a conclusion with which Tulla and Konny would both agree. Tulla, for

example, bemoans that “im Westen ham se […] immerzu nur von andere

schlimme Sachen, von Auschwitz und sowas jeredet” (IK:50), whilst Konny

similarly complains that his mother “mir mit ihrem dauernden Auschwitzgerede

oft auf die Nerven gegangen ist” (IK:195). The schools in both former East and

West Germany also fail to allow Konny to present on the topic of the Gustloff

(IK:183f.). The dawn of modern technology and reunification has, however,

complicated things. As Midgley explains, away from the constraints of reality,

“Konny’s chatroom provides an environment in which people can assume

conflictual attitudes in the absence of any socially restraining influence”,22 and

the restrictive political correctness of ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ is removed

with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Grass, under the alias of the mysterious ‘Arbeitgeber’, admits to his own guilt, to

his complicity in the failings of ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’: “Eigentlich, sagt er,

wäre es Aufgabe seiner Generation gewesen, dem Elend der ostpreußischen

Flüchtlinge Ausdruck zu geben” (IK:99). He points the finger of blame at his own

generation for the failure of ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, which, focusing on

German perpetration, largely ignoring German suffering, has created this

dangerous political correctness. As Florack explains, “das Versagen der Eltern

[führt] zur Verblendung der Kinder”.23 A story of German victimhood is thus

littered with stories of German guilt.

22. David Midgley, “Günter Grass, ‘Im Krebsgang’: Memory, Medium, and Message”, Seminar 41, no. 1

(2005): 64. 23. Ruth Florack, “‘Köpfchen in das Wasser, Beinchen in die Höh’: Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis von

Opfern, Tätern und Trauma in Günter Grass' Novelle ‘Im Krebsgang’”, in Täter als Opfer? Deutschsprachige Literatur zu Krieg und Vertreibung im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Stefan Hermes, et al. (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2007), 48.



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Part of the problem of the legacy of flight and expulsion in this novella, lies in

the symbolism of the date on which the ship sank, a date that Paul describes as

a “dreimal verfluchtem Datum” (IK:16). It is a date loaded with meaning in

German history, the date of Wilhelm Gustloff’s birth, the date of his namesake’s

sinking, and the date of the Nazi seizure of power (IK:11). This day of German

suffering is unavoidably linked with the start of German perpetration.

Nevertheless, as Paul explains, “Geschichte ist ein verstopftes Klo. Wir spülen

und spülen, die Scheiße kommt dennoch hoch” (IK:116) and the process of

coming to terms with the past, in this instance with the legacy of flight and

expulsion that is intrinsically linked to the legacy of National Socialism, “hört

nicht auf. Nie hört das auf” (IK:216). Paul sees the process of

‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ and its counter movement as never ending, a view

with which Grass implicitly agrees. Throughout the course of this complex

novella, Grass thus aims to show that if “the memory of the Holocaust victims [is

supressed …], nationalism and neo-Nazism may easily rise again, but if you

suppress the memory and mourning of German victims, the same might

happen”.24

All things considered, flight and expulsion from the German Eastern territories is

shown in both texts to be a complex and multi-layered issue. Indeed, whilst the

suffering of those involved is undeniable, the ‘absolute victim’ status desired so

much by the war generation is denied them by the second generation, who

relativise German victimhood with German perpetration. As a result, the

novellas, rather than focusing primarily on the events themselves, contextualise

flight and expulsion by exploring interrelated issues and focusing to a greater

extent on its legacy, with this legacy being largely interchangeable with the

legacy of National Socialism. This allows both authors to pass comment on

contemporary Germany and its memory culture. Grass’s emphasis on

perpetration, for example, “reiterates the author’s anxiety in the early 1990s that

a reawakened interest in formerly German territories further to the East in the

newly expanded, post-unification Federal Republic might lead to revisionism or

24. Peter Oliver Arnds, “Beyond ‘Die Blechtrommel’: Germans as victims in ‘Im Krebsgang’”, in

Representation, Subversion, and Eugenics in Günter Grass's ‘The Tin Drum’, ed. Peter Oliver Arnds (Rochester: Camden House, 2004), 154.



12

even revanchism”.25 Treichel, on the other hand, in the legacy of flight and

expulsion, “hat […] ein wesentliches Motiv für die Entstehung der deutschen

Nachkriegsmentalität erkannt”26 and sees the roots of many of the debates and

issues surrounding German victimhood to stem from this mentality. A denial and

repression of the past has resulted in a failure to adequately come to terms with

this past, which, in turn, has also produced an enduring trans-generational

sense of guilt and shame and a repressive environment where German victims

are largely ignored and deprived of sympathy.

The legacy of flight and expulsion is also shown to have had devastating effects

upon intrafamilial relationships. Parents, who experienced flight and expulsion,

are distant and lack empathy, whilst their children fail to empathise with their

parents’ trauma. There is also a distinct lack of (caring) father figures, with the

father of the narrator in Treichel’s text a strict emotionally-stunted disciplinarian,

whilst Paul in Grass’s text has no idea who is father actually is and fails to be

there for his own son. Furthermore, Paul in Grass’s text, in contrast to Treichel’s

narrator, feels overburdened by the stories of his mother’s trauma, for she, by

contrast, never ceases to talk of her suffering. Additionally, due to Grass setting

Im Krebsgang in the present, and when read in conjunction with Treichel’s Der

Verlorene, the reader is able to realise that the process of coming to terms with

the past is a flawed continuing process. Remnants of the past remain and

threaten to crawl out of the woodwork, in turn threatening the stability and

‘normalisation’ of Germany. Indeed, common in both texts is the wish of the

second generation to break from the haunting spectre of the past, but, as both

authors make clear, the past, the legacy of flight and expulsion, cannot simply

be forgotten and broken away from the mainstream, the past should instead be

remembered so future generations can learn from it mistakes.

25. Taberner, “Literary Representations in Contemporary German Fiction of the Expulsions”, 241. 26. Thomas Schäfer, as quoted by Nuber, "Kindheit und Jugend”, 275.



13

Bibliography Primary Texts

Grass, Günter. Im Krebsgang. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2004.

Mitscherlich, Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich. Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens. München: Piper, 1977.

Treichel, Hans-Ulrich. Der Verlorene. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1999.

Secondary Literature

Arnds, Peter Oliver. “Beyond ‘Die Blechtrommel’: Germans as Vctims in ‘Im Krebsgang’”. In Representation, Subversion, and Eugenics in Günter Grass's ‘The Tin Drum’, edited by Peter Oliver Arnds, 152-160. Rochester: Camden House, 2004.

Baker, Gary Lee. “The Middle Voice in Günter Grass’s ‘Im Krebsgang’”. The German Quarterly 83, no. 2 (2010): 230-244.

Braese, Stephan. “‘Tote zahlen keine Steuern’: Flucht und Vertreibung in Günter Grass' ‘Im Krebsgang’ und Hans-Ulrich Treichels ‘Der Verlorene’”. Gegenwartsliteratur: ein germanistisches Jahrbuch 2 (2003): 171-196.

Brunssen, Frank. “Tabubruch? Deutsche als Opfer des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Günter Grass' Novelle ‘Im Krebsgang’”. Oxford German Studies 35, no. 2 (2006): 115-130.

Clarke, David. “Guilt and Shame in Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s ‘Der Verlorene’”. In Hans-Ulrich Treichel, edited by David Basker, 61-78. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004.

———. “The Place of German Wartime Suffering in Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s Family Texts”. In Germans as Victims in the Literary Fiction of the Berlin Republic, edited by Stuart Taberner and Karina Berger, 118-132. Rochester: Camden House, 2009.

Dye, Elizabeth. “‘Weil die Geschichte nicht aufhört: Günter Grass’s ‘Im Krebsgang’”. German Life and Letters 57, no. 4 (2004): 472-487.

Florack, Ruth, “‘Köpfchen in das Wasser, Beinchen in die Höh’: Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis von Opfern, Tätern und Trauma in Günter Grass' Novelle ‘Im Krebsgang’”. In Täter als Opfer? Deutschsprachige Literatur zu Krieg und Vertreibung im 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Stefan Hermes and Amir Muhić, 41-56. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2007.

Krimmer, Elisabeth. “‘Ein Volk von Opfern?’: Germans as Victims in Günter Grass’s ‘Die Blechtrommel’ and ‘Im Krebsgang’”. Seminar 44, no. 2 (2008): 272-290.

Larkin, Edward T. “Hans-Ulrich Treichel's ‘Der Verlorene’: Digesting the Past”. Colloquia Germanica 36, no. 2 (2003): 141-161.



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Luppes, Jeffrey. “‘Den Toten der ostdeutschen Heimat’: Local Expellee Monuments and the Construction of Post-war Narratives”. In Narratives of Trauma: Discourses of German Wartime Suffering in National and International Perspective, edited by Helmut Schmitz and Annette Seidel-Arpaci, 89-110. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011.

Midgley, David. “Günter Grass, ‘Im Krebsgang’: Memory, Medium, and Message”. Seminar 41, no. 1 (2005): 55-67.

Niven, Bill. “Introduction: German Victimhood at the Turn of the Millennium”. In Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, edited by Bill Niven, 1-25. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Nuber, Achim. “Kindheit und Jugend im Zeichen von Flucht und Vertreibung: Hans-Ulrich Treichels ‘Der Verlorene’ im Kontext zeitgenössischer Biographieerzählungen”. In Flucht und Vertreibung in der deutschen Literatur: Beiträge, edited by Sascha Feuchert, 265-280. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001.

Ölke, Martina. “‘Flucht und Vertreibung’ in Hans-Ulrich Treichels ‘Der Verlorene’ und ‘Menschenflug’ und in Günter Grass’ ‘Im Krebsgang’”. Seminar 43, no. 2 (2007): 115-133.

Oppen, Karoline von, and Stefan Wolff. “From the Margins to the Centre? The Discourse on Expellees and Victimhood in Germany”. In Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany, edited by Bill Niven, 194-209. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Preece, Julian. “The German Imagination and the Decline of the East: Three Recent German Novels (Edgar Hilsenrath, ‘Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr’; Hans-Ulrich Treichel, ‘Der Verlorene’; Günter Grass, ‘Im Krebsgang’)”. German Monitor 59 (2004): 27-42.

Salzborn, Samuel. “The German Myth of A Victim Nation: (Re-)presenting Germans as Victims in the New Debate on their Flight and Expulsion from Eastern Europe”. In A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present, edited by Helmut Schmitz, 87-104. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Schmitz, Helmut. “‘History is a clogged toilet’: Günter Grass’s ‘Im Krebsgang’”. In On Their Own Terms: The Legacy of National Socialism in Post-1990 German Fiction, 263-286. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 2004.

Taberner, Stuart. “Hans-Ulrich Treichel's ‘Der Verlorene’ and the Problem of German Wartime Suffering”. The Modern Language Review 97, no. 1 (2002): 123-134.

———. “‘Normalization' and the New Consensus on the Nazi past: Günter Grass's ‘Im Krebsgang’ and the Problem of German Wartime Suffering”. Oxford German Studies 31 (2002): 161-186.



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———. “Literary Representations in Contemporary German Fiction of the Expulsions of Germans from the East in 1945”. In A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present, edited by Helmut Schmitz, 223-246. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Zehfuss, Maja. "Memories of the Flight and Expulsion from the East: Grass's ‘Im Krebsgang’”. In Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany, edited by Maja Zehfuss, 41-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

the legacy of flight and expulsion from the eastern territories

Documents

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