Customer Reviews

Death in Rome

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Death In Rome", by Wolfgang Koeppen is characterized by Michael Hoffmann, who both translated the work, and wrote the introduction as, "the most devastating novel about the Germans I have ever read". This book was written in 1954 and when published caused a massive reaction, almost exclusively negative, for the primary characters were either participants in, or the offspring of the World War II Nazi regime. Published only 9 years after the defeat of The Third Reich, its subject matter was still white hot and equally sensitive. This was during a time when people were trying to put the past irrevocably behind them in the hope that time would provide distance, and distance would erode the world's memory.

Everything in this book is at the very least provocative even when read from a distance of 50 years. The author even names his characters to overtly provoke, and incite. Gottlieb Judejahn and the other primary characters are family and obviously share the last name. Gottlieb's possession of the name is arguably the most notorious. He is generously characterized as an unreconstructed Nazi SS Officer whose last name combines the word for Jew with the balance that translates to madness, and weed out. Another name Pfaffrath is a disrespectful name for a priest, and the name Adolf needs no elaboration. The author evens ratchets up the tension when the son (the Priest Adolf) of the unrepentant SS Officer witnesses his father as he fouls a room deep in The Vatican. The author says that as he watched, "Adolf Wept".

These examples are just parts of the setting that surround a bizarre family reunion in Rome. While unfortunate that Mr. Koeppen's work was so suppressed; it is not a stretch to understand why. With the wounds of the atrocities still fresh in the worlds' mind, and with some of the architects still roaming the streets of Europe, this author had the courage to not follow the crowd advocating let's put the past behind us, and to be brutally candid about what the end of the war meant and did not mean.

This book is a masterpiece. It has the wow factor. Somewhere around page 10 I felt I was reading something very different and unique. This is about how people confront or deny cataclysmic events where they played a role. I'd never heard of this book or writer before coming across the excellent reviews that precede mine. There was no letdown. You get a front row seat on German relatives of all types dealing with the past, present and future. It's early 1950's. The family for overlapping reasons are in Rome.

Within this small group Wolfgang Koeppen captures perhaps most of the ways Germans reacted to defeat, the holocaust and the new world. There is the unrepentant ex-General Judejahn, coming back from exile in Africa. He is perhaps the most vivid character; physically repulsive - fleshy, sweating with massive paws for hands hoping he may return home AND be welcome showing his full conceit.

His wife Eva may be the most evil as she longs the Nazism that gave her status and allowed her to channel and direct her hatred which is now reserved for her son who's chosen the Catholic Church to find meaning and solace knowing his family was central to the killing machines and death camps. She is raw with anger and dominating in her brief appearances.

There is Friedrich Pfaffrath, a deeply amoral character representing the feeble enablers to the pre War madness who then make themselves useful to the allies later. They live in a denial of past deeds that is hard to fathom.

While the story takes place in Rome, Koeppen gives us haunting flashbacks; very brief almost photographs that tells of their previous lives during the War. Koeppen makes it very clear that each of the older crowd was not just "following orders". They are responsible. We can see it. Perhaps this is why his book was said to be so unpopular at the time.

Around all these characters there is a plot. Just look at the title! This is a family with issues. There is great pace. The first person voice moves quickly between 6 or 7 characters. The scenes move or overlap. At one time you are in the bar with Judejahn. Next you are outside looking at him through the eyes of his son and nephew. There are twists and turns aplenty. I particularly enjoyed using Google Maps to following along as the streets are all accurately portrayed.

It is exhilarating to read such original work and it will stick with me for quite a long time. For all the history books and novels centered around the War how many actually get you inside the people and then make it believable? It's done here and it works beautifully.

Wolfgang Koeppen's 'Death in Rome' is a profound and thought-provoking novel written in the mid-fifties. While set against the backdrop of Rome, the main theme is a portrayal of the early after-war German society. It is a remarkable book for several reasons. When first published, it was either criticized or, more commonly, ignored only to be praised a few years later by some of Germany's great authors such as Grass and Boll. Death in Rome was the third book of a trilogy, written by Koeppen in quick succession at the time - all addressing aspects of the "new" Germany. It was followed by 40 years of literary silence, except for travel writings and a short autobiography of his youth. Nevertheless, he is now regarded as one of the best German literary authors and his work has experienced a revival since his death in 1996.

The members of one family meet, more or less by chance, in Rome. The protagonists each personify one aspect of German society: the military, the bureaucracy, religion and art. Koeppen weaves the complex story around an unrepentant former SS man, a then and now middle-level bureaucrat, a young priest and a young composer. The latter two being the sons of the older generation. Symbolism and mythology meet the reader everywhere. The links between Germany and Rome are multifaceted, reaching well back in time. The main characters' names were selected for their meanings: Judejahn for the SS man and Adolf for his priestly son. Siegfried, his young, gay composer cousin, explores experimental music that was forbidden during the Nazi period. He also befriends a conductor and his Jewish wife who had escaped the camps.

There are different levels of connections between the different characters as they move in and out of focus of the story line. One is reminded of a ballet or a complicated but well-structured dance where each participant performs his or her part without seeing the overall picture that unfolds for the reader. Rome in its decaying beauty is treated almost like one of the characters in this composition. Koeppen underlines the intricate choreography by leading from one element in the story to another, often interrupting in the middle of a sentence only to complete it in a different scenario. The language also moves from factual detailed descriptions of events to intimate reflections and analysis of characters. For example, Judejahn is not all that he appears and his contradictions are explored through flash-backs to his youth. His wife Eva would rather see him as a dead hero of the past than as a survivor who is at odds with the present. In many ways, Siegfried represents the centre of the narrative and his voice alternates with that of the author. Still, he is not without his own demons. Both he and Adolf attempt to distance themselves, physically and mentally, from their parents and what they represent. However, given their upbringing, can they really escape?

Death in Rome must have been an uncomfortable book for Koeppen's contemporaries who felt it easier to put the book aside than to confront the issues it exposed. Reading the novel today with the advantage of historical perspective, it has to be seen as one of the first successful efforts to critique German society as it emerged from the Nazi period. This novel is an engaging, if disturbing, read. I regret that I didn't know about this and the other books in the trilogy in my younger years. Still, Death in Rome is as powerful a book now as it was when it was first published and should be recommended to readers of all ages interested in recent European history. [Friederike Knabe]

Why is this author almost unknown in this country? This novel from 1954 is a compact masterpiece, a lurid but fascinating dance of death that anatomizes the German psyche in the decade following the Second World War. Its setting is Rome in the early 1950s, evoked in a brilliant collage of sights, sounds, tastes and smells. Into this, with the choreographed contrivance of artistic licence, Koeppen brings together several members of a German family, scattered by hatred or exile since 1945. Chief among these is Judejahn (the name has overtones of "Jew hunter"), an ex-Nazi general and executant of the Final Solution, now training the armies of some Arab country under an assumed name. He is brought to Rome by his brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath, a loyal functionary who once claimed that his position as Oberpresident of a province made the events of Kristallnacht none of his business, now denazified and elected Oberbürgermeister by the citizens of his town. Pfaffrath believes that the conscience-laundering process can be applied to Judejahn also, not realizing the intensity of the other's continued devotion to the ideals of the old Third Reich.

Set against these as representatives of the younger generation are their respective sons, who also happen to be in Rome at the same time. Judejahn's son Adolf, coming upon a stalled train of concentration camp inmates in the last days of the war, suffered a crisis of conscience and is now in process of becoming a priest. His cousin Siegfried Pfaffrath is a composer, turning his back on German Romanticism to write in the new atonal style. The four men come together for the first time at the premiere of Siegfried's symphony, a scene that forms the dialectical climax of a book that has already screwed itself up to fever pitch and plumbed the depths of despair. Listening to the music, the deacon Adolf feels "it was like a reflection of his childhood in a broken mirror. The Teutonic fort was in the music, the exercise grounds, the woods, sunrise and sunsets and dormitory dreams. But the cynicism and unbelief, the narcissistic flirtation with despair, and the drift into anarchy drove Adolf away."

As in his earlier PIGEONS ON THE GRASS (1951), which deals with the post-Hitler limbo in a German city under American occupation, Koeppen switches subjects and viewpoints almost paragraph by paragraph, now listening to Siegfried in the first person, now following him in the third, now breaking off to another character, or looking something outside the story altogether such as his wonderful reflection on the Pope at prayer. The effect is musical, but while the earlier novel was almost skittish and jazzlike, here the rhythms are slower, the connections tauter, the language cutting deeper. Originally separate, Koeppen's four figures (and several others beside them) circle one another in a tighening spiral, to come together in a climax of outward hatred and inner doubt. Keeping them separate for so long, Koeppen can show their private lives as clearly as their public personas, revealing everything from grandiose mania to crippling self-loathing, even in the same person. He can contrast their sexual proclivities: the confused yearning of Adolf, the pederasty of Siegfried, or the sadism of Judejahn. But it is by no means all inner monologue; a clear sequence of events generates increasing momentum over a couple of days. The climax, when it comes, may seem contrived, but the psychology is utterly convincing, etched in blood, bile, and acid.

The brilliant translation by Michael Hoffman is a living thing, jumping from high art to slang, exalted and depraved by turns. Hoffman has also provided that rare thing: an introduction that can safely be read before the book itself and which greatly deepens one's appreciation of it. And renders my own comments derivative by comparison.

This serves both as a guide to the beauty of Rome, with the Eternal City as the backdrop of this book, and a guide into the soul of post World War II Germany. An excellent plot, and interesting story, and incredible literary techniques make this a must-read for anyone with an interest in Rome, post-World War II Germany, or German authors in general. The sheer number of profound statements in this book is a testament to the genius of Wolfgang Koeppen. In addition, this is not a heavy read, thanks to a great translation, it is quite an easy read.

Death in Rome recounts a family reunion, of two generations of an extended German family, in post-war Rome. The present day events of the novel take place over a two day period, mostly at night. The four primary characters are Siegfried Pfaffrath, his father Friederich, his uncle Gottlieb Judejahn and Judejahn's son Adolf. The story is told in a mix of first person (Siegfried) and third person. But who are these characters, and what is the significance of their meeting? What role does Rome play in this story? Siegfried is an avant-garde composer, rebelling against his family and their traditions. He is in Rome for a performance of his work. Friederich, once a Nazi bureaucrat is now a respectable mayor. Judejahn, a former SS general, has been sentenced to death in absentia, and travels under a false identity. Judejahn has found a refuge in the army of an Arab state where he has easily exchanged being a Nazi for being a mercenary. Violence remains his primary driver. Judejahn's son Adolf is in training as a Catholic priest, but suffering a crisis of faith. In this novel, music, bureaucracy, arms and religion depict elements of the German soul. But distinctions between what might be good and bad within those elements cannot always be clear.

Siegfried exclaims: 'In my daydreams and nightmares I see the Browns and the nationalist idiocy on the march again.' Yes, I can understand why this book was ignored or criticized at the time it was published.

The interactions between members of this extended family, and their reactions to Rome, expose the extent to which they remain governed by the past. And not only their own individual pasts: each of the four elements (music, bureaucracy, arms and religion) has a past, as does Germany and Rome. Cultural collapse is a component of the novel but so, too, is the possibility of a different future.

`You've outlived yourself, you're out of power.'

Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) wrote three novels between 1951 and 1954. Death in Rome is the third of those novels, but the first that I have read. I'll be looking to read the other two. This is a powerful novel, one which I'll need to reread in order to appreciate it more fully. I wonder whether (and how) Wolfgang Koeppen's world view changed after writing this novel. Perhaps it became less bleak. Perhaps the younger generation (represented by Siegfried and Adolf) have exceeded expectations.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

We are in the early 1950s. In West-Germany, the Wirtschaftswunder, the miraculous recovery from the disaster of 12 years, is in full swing. `Denazification', the half-hearted attempt at identifying and prosecuting Nazis, is over. The paths of 3 German families cross again, this time in Rome, accidentally. (They don't live there, as the rather faulty product description on the amazon page claims.)

Siegfried Pfaffrath, the positive hero of sorts, a composer of modern music in the Schönberg line, has come for the première of his new symphony. He is an anti-Leverkühn, an alternative to Thomas Mann's composer in Doktor Faustus. He is the son of a senior Nazi politician. Siegfried struggles with his identity, he hates his family roots.
Pfaffrath senior had a political comeback in post-war West Germany and is the lord mayor of a major German city. He is the prototype of the career opportunist.

Most of all in his family, Siegfried hates his uncle Gottlieb `Götz' Judejahn. The uncle was a Nazi top gun, under death penalty from the Nürnberg trials, who had escaped and is in the services of an Arab country, as builder of an anti-Israel army. Judejahn is a killing machine. He hates his name Gottlieb (loved by God), bestowed on him by his father, a teacher, still much hated in memories. He prefers `Götz', with its more vulgar connotations, despite the allusion to the despised Weimarian Goethe. He thrives on the symbols and paraphernalia of power. The uniform has given him greatness.

It so happens that Siegfried's parents are in Rome at the same time, for a secret meeting with the uncle, who travels under an assumed name with a diplomatic passport. Pfaffrath sen. talks about bringing his brother in law back home, but carefully, in view of some lingering anti-fatherland moods at home. However the bad man is not really keen on that. He has amply what he needs: power and sex. His wife Eva, Frau Pfaffrath's sister, still wears black, even after learning that her husband is alive. She wears it for the Führer and the betrayal of her dreams. She also grieves the 'loss' of her son to the church.
Also present is emigrant conductor Kürenberg with his Jewish wife Ilse. K. will conduct Siegfried's symphony. Pfaffrath sen.'s memory makes him believe that he had helped and promoted Kürenberg during the Nazi years, before his emigration. K. remembers it differently. Ilse remembers that her father was murdered during Pfaffrath's time as district president. K despises his audiences of intellectuals and bureaucrats, he thinks of them as the devil's brood (Teufelszunft).

Koeppen's third novel in the Trilogy of Failure is a powerful dark modernist tale. It is such a pity that Koeppen did not succeed and continue writing. His trilogy, which I have now revisited, is much better than I remembered it from my first contact in the 1970s. The failure in the trilogy title is an interesting historical phenomenon. It means the lack of serious reform in the early West-Germany, the permanence of Nazi heritage, badly hidden. This perception would carry on into the years of revolt of the student movement of the 60s and even the terror movement of the `Red Army Faction'. It would only be overcome during the short years of Willy Brandt's regime in the 70s. With hindsight, it is a surprisingly outdated problem, and my recollection of its end will certainly be challenged by many.
If I had the time, it would be an interesting project to go into the contemporary reception of Koeppen's work and analyze the reasons for the failure of the trilogy in the market. In literary terms, it was an amazing success and deserves to be remembered among the best that Germany has produced after WW2. I rank it far higher than the more famous Grass and Böll.