The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Due Date: 8th April 2005

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Long Essay

Question 2: Knowing about the writer of a literary text can shape significantly the way that it is read. Consider the effect of the writer's context on your understanding of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is the product of a political and social genius: it is a

comment on Germany and society in general and is, as its author, Heinrich Boll would

have it described, "a pamphlet disguised as a novel" . It was written, not just to

entertain, but above all, to criticise the society in which it was produced. It is therefore

impossible to fully understand the major ideas and themes of the text, and even, to and

extent, the storyline itself without some knowledge of the milieu in which it was

composed. Being aware of the context in which The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum was

produced intensifies the impact of the major issues which it explores (notably the

detrimental effects of power abuse, language abuse, and discrimination on the basis of

wealth and social standing) by forcing us to rethink the childish yet widely held belief

that a novel is merely a story and inviting us to read the this text not as a fairy tale, but as

a excruciatingly honest commentary on humanity and modern social values.

Heinrich Boll was born towards the end of the First World War, and lived his childhood in its shadow. During this time he wrote many short stories with the background of economics and social consequences of the war. These reflected his experiences as a witness to Germany's defeat in World War One - national humiliation, international debt due to the Treaty of Versailles, which also encompassed loss of land and foreign occupation, the political instability of the Weimar Republic, and the almost inevitable collapse of the German economy resulting in hyperinflation, unemployment and later, Great Depression of the 1930s. The shocking social, economic and political conditions in Germany eventually led to the rise of Hitler, Nazi Germany and later, to the Second World War. As a youth, Boll was conscripted into the army of the Third Reich, something to which he was strongly opposed. In 1944, he wrote in a letter, "I hate the war and all those who love it" .

His writing at the time consistently revolves around the futility of war. Boll's hatred of war and Nazism indicates, possibly, his opposition to dictatorial or nationalistic systems in which power is held by the elitist few and exercised abusively over the defenceless majority. It is also important to note that Boll was very aware of, and even more disgusted by, the role of language in the success of the Nazis. He understood the power of propaganda and without a doubt developed a strong dislike for any organisation who abused language by using it to manipulate and deceive the public at this point in time.

Up until this time, Boll's context had shaped him as a writer, impacted upon his values and attitudes and strongly influenced his writing both in terms of content and style, but it is not until the mid 1940s that we begin to see direct links from Bolls experiences and the society in which he lived to The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. At the conclusion of the Second World War, in which Germany was once again defeated, the country fell back into economic, political and social disarray. However, this time it was not only in ruins, but was also divided up amongst the Allies into two regions. East Germany - controlled by the Soviet Republic - was rebuilt as a Communist regime which was modelled on the newly founded Bolshevik state of the USSR. West Germany (Boll's homeland) - controlled by the USA - was reconstructed as a capitalist state which used a similar system to the one employed by the United States.

It is the nature of this capitalist state which provides the basis for the corrupt, selfish regime which we see constructed and criticised in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. In order for the German economy to recover from the ravages of war, it needed rapid reindustrialisation, rising standard of living, and overseas commercial enterprise. The very models of the men needed to promote this are present in the text under the names of Luding and Straubleder - two very wealthy, highly accomplished and extremely powerful industrialists. Boll uses these two characters to explore the failings of capitalism in the sense that it allows power fall into the hands of a small elite who are selected, not by any process of democracy or on the basis of their skills as leaders, but simply by their elevated financial, and thus social, positions.

As German society recovered from war, riding for the most part on the backs of self-righteous, egotistical industrialists similar to those represented by Luding and Straubleder, it grew into an increasingly capitalist, power hungry society which operated purely on the basis of self-interest, profit and control. By the 1960s and 1970s, it was dominated by towering power structures which abused their position of power and immorally colluded with one other in order to manipulate the powerless minority and keep a firm grip over their own place. In The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, these power structures are represented by such institutions as the press, the police, wealthy entrepreneurs, and to a lesser degree the government, the army, the police force, the press, the church and law firms.

During the second half of the 1960s, left wing protest movements began to spring up across the USA and Western Europe, speaking out against issues such as American involvement in the Vietnam War and lobbying for civil rights. In West Germany, the acts of terrorism which sometimes accompanied these demonstrations were very minor in terms of the threat they posed as a result of acts of violence and menace, especially compared to what was happening in Cuba or Northern Ireland. However, anyone who was associated with these groups was dealt with very harshly by the police and press, not because they were a threat to the public, but because they were a threat to those in power. Their non-conformist and active approach to politics intimidated anybody who was in a position of power because it meant