The German Lesson

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The German Lesson
Author Siegfried Lenz
Original title Deutschstunde
Translator Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
Country Germany
Language German
Genre Novel
Publisher Hoffmann und Campe
New Directions Publishing (English version)
Publication date
1968
Media type Print
Pages 470 pp (English edition)
ISBN 978-0-8112-0982-3 (English version)

The German Lesson (original title: Deutschstunde) is a novel by the German writer Siegfried Lenz, published in 1968 in Germany. The English edition The German Lesson was published in 1986 by New Directions Publishing, New York City. Deutschstunde was translated into several languages.

Plot

Siggi Jepsen (the first-person narrator), an inmate of a juvenile detention center, is forced to write an essay with the title "The Joy of Duty". In the essay, Siggi Jepsen describes his youth in Nazi Germany where his father, the "most northerly police officer in Germany" does his duty, even as his task is to debar an old childhood friend, the painter Max Nansen, from his profession. Siggi feels compelled by Nansen's paintings, "the green faces, the Mongol eyes, these deformed bodies ... " and, without the knowledge of his father, manages to hide some of the confiscated paintings. Following the end of World War II, Jepsen is interned for a short time and later reinstalled into his position. When his father then nonetheless continues to carry out his former orders, Siggi brings paintings that he believes to be in danger to safety. His father discovers his doings and dutifully turns him in for art theft. While forced to write the essay on "The Joy of Duty" during his term in the juvenile detention center in Hamburg, the memories of his childhood come to the surface and he goes far beyond the "duty" of writing his essay by filling several notebooks, the makings of this novel.[1]

Characters

  • Siggi Jepsen
  • Jens Ole Jepsen, Siggi's father, a police officer
  • Max Nansen, a painter, pursued by the Nazis, whom Lenz based on the expressionist painter Emil Nolde[1]
  • Gudrun Jepsen, Siggi's mother
  • Klaas, Siggi's brother
  • Hilke, Siggi's sister

Adaptations

In 1971 de (Peter Beauvais) filmed de (Deutschstunde (film); Deutschstunde) for the German TV-broadcaster ARD section SFB.[2]

Releases details

References

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Further reading