Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Heinrich Boll'sBillard um halbzehn: The step beyond the static

  • Published:
Neophilologus Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. Marcel Ophuls, director and producer ofThe Memory of Justice (French production), 1976.

  2. “Blumen für Beate Klarsfeld” inDie Zeit. (Hamburg) 24 (1969) Nr. 2v. 10. I. 1969, S. 7.

  3. Heinrich Böll inHeinrich Böll: Eine deutsche Erinnerung — Interview mit René Wintzen. (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1979) S. 80.

  4. Ibid. S. 80.

  5. Ibid. S. 80.

  6. Ibid. (Interview: “Eind Land, das seine Geschichte erstickt hat”) S. 82. Also documented in Ophuls'The Memory of Justice.

  7. Heinrich Böll,Billard um halbzehn. (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1963). All quotations from this edition will be noted parenthetically in the text of the article.

    Google Scholar 

  8. A number of Böll scholars — Hans Joachim Bernhard.Die Romane Heinrich Bölls. (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1970); Marcel von Reich-Ranicki, Hrgb.In Sachen Böll. (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1968); James Reid.Heinrich Böll: Withdrawal and Re-emergence. (London: O. Wolff Ltd., 1973); Wilhelm Schwarz.Der Erzähler Heinrich Böll. (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1967); Walter Warnach. “Heinrich Böll und die Deutschen”Frankfurter Hefte: Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik. 33 (1978), Nr. 7, S. 51–62; Günter Wirth.Heinrich Böll: Essayistische Studie ü ber religiöse und gesellschaftliche Motive im Prosawerk des Dichters. (Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1969); — have suggested various interpretations in the critical discourse concerning the metaphor ofdas Sakrament des Büffels versusdas Sakrament des Lammes. While some describe the Host of the Beast as the threatening, manipulative measures of a military state, others perceive the Beast as representative of the powerful, conservative Roman Catholic Church which lends too much sympathy and support to the totalitarian regime. Böll's own criticism in this regard strongly coincides with those critics who see the Church as far too concerned with its liturgical protocol than with an essentially Christian, or more accurately, humanitarian obligation.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Scholars appear to agree more readily that the metaphor of the Host of the Lamb symbolizes the minority's resistance against the insensitive Church and the herd instincts of the majority who is taken in by the brute strength and self-interest of the Beast. The author's fundamental concern is that not only were the Lambs tortured during the thirties but that this persecution has become a recurrent force in the increasingly militaristic West German Republic of the fifties.

  10. This symbolic figure represents one of those “reasonable” members of the West German Defence Ministry which is now, in the fifties, locking the nation into the tangle of NATO's military obligations and allegiances. Johanna is horrified, on political and moral grounds, that the Ministry deems it fitting for such an event to take place.

  11. Heinrich Böll/Christian Linder.Drie Tage im März. (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1975) S. 89.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Founders College 236, York University, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3, North York, Ontario, Canada

    Michael C. Eben

Authors
  1. Michael C. Eben
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Eben, M.C. Heinrich Boll'sBillard um halbzehn: The step beyond the static. Neophilologus 70, 592–602 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02001214

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02001214

Keywords

Search

Navigation