Guten Tag, Hey everyone In this video I will tell you all about the top
10 German novels of all time. Not only that, you will also get to know the top 10 German novelists.
The German culture is more associated with pragmatic science and mathematics,
therefore in art and humanities the bi-products are more in terms of music, philosophy and
psychoanalysis. Music is very mathematical, philosophy and psychoanalysis deploy scientific
methods. So it is not a coincidence that the greatest composers like Mozart, Beethoven,
and Bach; the greatest philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and two great
psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung are all the product of a German culture that promotes
pragmatism over idealism. It’s also not a coincidence that Johannes Gutenberg invented the
printing press in the German city of Mainz in 15th century that revolutionised literature as a whole.
But when it comes to literature, Germany has plenty of it. So let’s get right into it.
These 10 novels by 10 different authors will give you a solid introduction to German literature.
I start with the oldest and end with the latest, so you can learn the German
literary history as well. Rest assured, Hitler’s Mein Kampf is not on this list.
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) by Johann Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is the father of German literature, a poet, playwright,
also a scientist and intellectual. The Sorrow of Young Werther was his first novel when he
was 24 years old and his most well-known too, which he based on his own personal experience
of an unfulfilled love. Through a series of letters to his friend, Werther, a young artist,
tells about his romance with Charlotte, a country girl engaged to another man. An intense emotional
torture of a doomed love from the very start, the rejection and seeing her marrying another man.
The love triangle means one of them has to lose. Evolution cannot accommodate everyone, which means
some people simply cannot procreate. In this case it is a tragic end for the young artist.
He commits suicide with a pistol that was sent by his lover, Charlotte. Goethe himself
became a celebrity after the publication of this novel. Even Napoleon loved it. Also
the novel’s tragic end caused “Werther Fever” among young Europeans, with copycat suicides.
It also intensified the German romantic movement that spread throughout Europe.
You can even see its impact on great Russian writers like Pushkin and Lermontov
both dying in romantic duels. The German Sturm un Drang movement in art, music and literature means
pouring out emotions that is characterised by individual freedom. Fun fact, Arthur Schopenhauer,
the German philosopher of suffering and misery was a close friend of Goethe.
My next pick is a really short novella, not very well-known.
The Marquise of O (1808) by Heinrich von Kleist Heinrich von Kleist (1777 –1811) was a novelist,
poet and playwright from Frankfurt and lived around the same time as Goethe.
His short novella, The Marquise of O is set during the Napoleonic wars in Italy, in which a woman of
high rank is about to raped by soldiers but at the last minute saved by a Russian commander.
During this ordeal she is unconscious and this proves vital later because she gets pregnant,
so the plot centres on who is the father. Is it one of the soldiers or the commander or
could be a servant. She is thrown out of the family for betraying herself so carelessly,
but later proven innocent. The commander turns out to a good man who marries her and they live
happily ever after. This novella has one of the best first line ever: “In M---,
an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O---,
a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up children, inserted the
following announcement in the newspapers: that she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find
herself in a certain situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting
to disclose his identity to her; that she was resolved, out of consideration to her family,
to marry him.” It’s a great novel of intrigue and mystery, but also short and fun to read.
Now, we enter 20th century Prague.
The Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka I have made a whole video about Franz Kafka
in which I talk about his life, then summarise all his novels and give ten lessons based on
his writing, philosophy and life. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you watch it as I
spent weeks on that video. Okay, The Metamorphosis is one of the greatest German novels, or novella
or short story. It’s everything. What is it about? Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself
turned into an insect or vermin. He cannot go to work and cannot communicate with his family.
This paralysis is like a nightmare in which he finds himself completely isolated, useless and
unwanted. So what does he do? Metaphorically speaking, he takes matters into his own hands. He
has no hands but only legs. The novella is about how society or family treats a man who cannot
provide for his family anymore. It is also about human alienation in the modern age where you’re
no longer connected with your work or your family or society other than through your productivity.
From a dark room in Prague to a hospital in the Swiss mountains.
The Magic mountain (1924) by Thomas Mann If Goethe is the grandpa of German literature,
Thomas Mann is the father. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. I made a separate video
about his masterpiece, the Magic Mountain, so you can watch it here. What is it about?
It’s a novel of illness, physical illness juxtaposed with historical or societal illness.
Europe was experiencing a kind of madness during that time, the first half of the 20th century.
Wars, industrialisation and colonial expansion. At the heart of The Magic Mountain is the battle
between three different philosophies. On the one hand, we have humanism which promotes individual
freedom and rationality and wants to change the world for the rational individuals, while
on the other hand, we have socialism that promotes economic equality and wants to get rid of classes.
Somewhere in the middle we have romanticism which promotes the enjoyment of life and beauty
and doesn't want to change a thing. The novel is
much more than that so please watch my video to learn ten lessons from the novel.
My next pick deals with the madness of war.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) by Erich Maria Remarque
This is one the most successful German novels of all time, sold more than 20 million copies around
the world. What is it about? Well, as the title suggests it’s about war. Don't mention the war.
During World War One, one soldier’s alienation from civilian life makes him to question the
purpose of war by telling how futile it is. For example, in the battle, every day the soldiers
advance a few metres and then the next day they lose a few metres in territory. Basically it is
telling us that there are no winners in the war. But only the loss of lives. Soldiers become war
machines. Humanity slowly die out of them. When peace arrives, it is too late for the soldiers.
Why? Some sacrifice their lives for nothing. Those who survive the war, become so alienated
that cannot adapt to the civilian life. Becoming a soldier is a psychological and emotional shift.
Returning to civilian life is their biggest challenge. The saying that war changes you
is no understatement here. I think this novel should be read by those who enlist themselves
to be soldiers. Soldiers are recruited often by lofty promises and they never tell them
what’s like to come back. No wonder suicide is high among ex-soldiers. It’s a fantastic novel.
From the futility of war to the lower depth of society.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) by Alfred Döblin Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) was a novelist and
a doctor. Berlin Alexanderplatz is his most well-known novel.
It’s set in the working class neighbourhood of Berlin called Alexanderplats in the 1920s.
It’s written in multiple points of views, using multiple sources, like newspaper articles,
songs, speeches and books, sound effects. What’s it about? When Franz Biberkopf is released from
prison after serving jail for murder, he returns to his grim underworld of crime and poverty. He
has one person he feels very close, his girlfriend who is a prostitute. But when she is murdered by
one of Franz’s own friends, he questions how much his life has sunk so low. How can he get out of
this miserable world? There is hope, there is happiness but nothing lasts forever. A victim
of circumstances, his friendship with some really bad people drags him deeper into crime and misery.
The novel depicts how life was in the poor underworld of Berlin during the tumultuous
years between the two great wars before Hitler came to power. In a way Franz’s life mirrors that
of Germany’s circumstance at the time, defeated in world war 1, heavily ostracised by other countries
and made to pay a huge amount of compensation, so Germany was so cornered that when Hitler
offered a mad solution everyone bought it. In desperate times, people take desperate decisions
with terrible consequences. The greatest irony of this novel is that at the end Franz becomes
a prison guard. Germany turned into a prison for millions of people in the decades that followed.
My next choice takes us to Vienna in the last days of Austro-Hungarian empire.
The Man Without Qualities (1934) by Robert Musil Robert Musil was an Austrian novelist whose novel
The Man Without Qualities is considered a masterpiece of German Literature.
I have discussed this in a separate video, so here I will tell you this. It’s about a man who
feels alienated by society ans feel resigned. He doesn't want to change the world like his peers.
Instead he sits back and watch as his country, the Austro-Hungarian Empire
is collapsing in front of his eyes. In Europe modernity gave people the task of changing and
moulding the world the they wanted but in this novel, the man without qualities has no such
intention. Instead he looks and reflects at himself, not the outside world. He watches
the outside world with a kind of derision and laughter and refuses to participate in it.
From a man without qualities to a boy who refuses to grow up.
Tin Drum (1959) by Günter Grass (1927-2015) Günter Grass (1927-2015) was born in
Gdansk in modern-day Poland so he was in-between the German and Slavic cultures. He won the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 1999. He was part of a generation who wrote about how to come to
terms with the Nazi past. His masterpiece is Tin Drum about a Polish child, Oskar Matzerath, who
narrates his own story while in a mental hospital. At a young age, Oskar refuses to grow up to become
a shopkeeper. He also has a super power that when he scream he can shatter glass. This reminded me
of Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream which shows the deep human angst at the madness of the world.
Just remember that Oskar lived during the wars. His only prized possession is a tin drum that he
would do anything to keep it. He tells about his life and many of his love affairs before, during
and after the second world war. During the war he beats his drum to encourage soldiers to fight
and after the war he becomes a famous musician. Despite his success he cannot untangle himself
from his guilty past. At the end, his guilt is too overwhelming to continue so he implicates himself
in a murder that would send him to prison for the rest of his life. This is in a way about
the German guilt that affected the generation after the war, which Gunter Grass was part of.
The novel has so many elements, the madness of war, magic realism,
fantasy, erotic sex and philosophical questions. Oskar is an unreliable narrator who feels
suspended between being a good and evil. A Jesus figure and a Satan figure, all in one.
Fun fact, the film based on this novel won an Oscar in 1980. Nominative determinism?
Okay, Oskar’s past never left him, but in my next choice,
it’s the media that never leaves you alone.
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974) by Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Böll (1917-85) won the Nobel Prize 1972 and he was part of the generation of writers like
Gunter Grass who tried to openly question and understand the Nazi past. The Lost Honour of
Katherina Blum is a very short novel about how the media has the power to manipulate,
sensationalise and manufacture stories. Journalists no longer report the news but
they make the news. It’s a critique of Bild a powerful tabloid newspaper in Germany,
like the Sun in the UK. The novel is written in cold objective language. It’s about Katharina
whose only crime is that she spent a night with a man suspected of a murder.
Her guilt is by association. Soon journalists invades her house, vilifying her and flaming the
hatred towards her. She gets lots of hate-letters, this is 1970s before social media of course.
The barrage of hatred causes Katherina’s mother to die. Katherina has had enough, and takes matters
into her own hands. A revenge, not against the police or the public but the journalist.
The saying that don't shoot the messenger here becomes, you must shoot the messenger alone.
The novel is also about how language is malleable and easily manipulated by those in power,
i.e. journalists. I think the story resonates with many people because how powerless we are
against big media companies and some shady tabloid journalists.
My final pick is all about smell.
Perfume (1985) by Patrick Süskind Perfume is a German fantasy novel
and a bestseller that sold more than 20 millions copies around the world.
It is about Grenouille a French boy later a man who has an exceptional sense of smell. So what
does he do? He starts to produce a perfume. In my video on Proust and 6 French Stereotypes,
I talked about how smell is incredibly important part of the French culture, from smelly cheese,
to wine to the perfume industry and even Proust’s novel in Search of Lost Time in which smell is
fundamental in it as a theme and plot point. So this novel written by a German goes to town
with the idea of smell being very French. Even the protagonist’s name Grenouille means frog.
Anyway, Grenouille, the protagonist starts producing perfume, but he is so obsessed with the
sense of smell that his obsessions leads to commit all kinds of murders and cruelty. As times pass,
he learns to manipulate people with new smells that he develops. But oddly enough he himself
has no smell of his own. He has no body odour. So he has to develop his own body odour. But the more
he is able to manipulate smell, the more he hates people for being so easily fooled. He is repulsed
by how stupid people are. In a way he questions today’s consumerism and advertising industry.
They lie and we buy. In this novel smell causes men to commit murder and do horrible things.
I really enjoyed the novel and I think the sense of smell is much more powerful than we think.
So to sum up, German literature begins with romanticism, then human alienation
caused by modernity then the great wars caused by nationalistic madness,
and finally escape from it all.
If you want to win my copy of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum,
please write a comment down below. I will choose a random comment and send the book to you for free.