Subtitled Or Something to Do with Books
It was the subtitle that reeled me in. I dived in expecting this to be full of nostalgia for the books that influenced the 1972 Nobel Laureate. There is some of that but it is not the main focus. Set in the years 1933 -1937, this is a memoir of Böll’s formative schooldays which just happened to coincide with the years in which the Nazis consolidated their powerbase. So fond school memories, with which Böll begins most chapters, are soon related to the background. There are bigger isues to deal with.
Written some 45 years after the events, Böll is careful not to let hindsight impinge on the story. His aim is to describe the boy he was and the family he belonged to together with the impact that events had on their lives and the city they lived in (Cologne). The book ends very specifically on February 6, 1937, the day Böll graduated from high school, but he makes no other claims to historical accuracy with regard to the chronology of events. As he says, all his notes were destroyed during the war.
Böll’s family was Catholic with bohemian leanings and a natural aversion to Nazism. Outsiders though not belonging to any persecuted minority. They did not join the Party, did not attend rallies and, for a while at least, did not have to compromise. At school Böll was bored and, often played truant with his mother’s collusion, bicycling through the Rhine valley, often with a girl for company. When he did attend school, he studied Mein Kampf in great detail …
Our teacher, Mr Schmitz, a man of penetrating, witty, dry irony … used the hallowed text of Adolf Hitler the writer to demonstrate the importance of concise expression, known also as brevity. This meant that we had to take four or five pages from Mein Kampf and reduce them to two.
Thus, says Böll, not entirely tongue in cheek, I can thank Adolf Hitler the writer for some qualification to be a publisher’s reader and a liking for brevity.
If it hadn’t been for the Nazis, these would have been an idyllic few years. But the face of the German world was changing and Böll’s memoir conveys the shock of the general populace by events in 1933 such as the burning of the Reichstag, the signing of the Concordat (described by Böll as a body-blow) and the execution of alleged Communist conspirators in Cologne. Still the hope that Hitler wouldn’t last long died on June 1934 with the Röhm putsch. It was the dawn of the eternity of Nazism.
As the Nazi grip tightened, and the family finances deteriorated because Böll’s tradesman father couldn’t obtain any contracts, it was decided that material survival took priority over political survival, and that one member of the family had to join a Nazi organisation. His elder brother, Alois, was elected by the family council. Alois never really forgave them for it, even though in those early National Socialist years there were way of bribing your way out of the obligatory duties
The family’s biggest worry though was what’s to become of the boy? They all knew that Hitler meant war. Böll talks about his generation being schooled for death, the greatest honour being to die for the Fatherland. Which profession would offer a safety blanket? The priesthood? But Böll had discovered the opposite sex and was not willing. So with membership of the Nazi Labour Front an inevitability, Böll decided to do something with books and obtained an apprenticeship in a quiet, non-Nazi bookstore.
As the memoir ends, the illusion of remaining an outsider prevails. Böll has dodged a metaphorical bullet. As history shows, he wouldn’t be so lucky dodging the real ones which began to fly just two years later.
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December 2017 marks the centenary of Böll’s birth, so to commemorate the event, I intend to work my way through Melville House Publishing’s Essential Böll Series. I started with the memoir to have a biographical reference point when (re-)reading his fiction.
Lizzy's Literary Life (Volume One) 
Nice collection I have a couple from that collection also a number of older books by him
This sounds like an exciting memoir of a part of his life. Imagine the horror of trying to keep a family alive when Hitler rose to power. I like to read memoirs so will consider this one.
it must have proved increasingly difficult to stay aloof from the Nazi machinery – if you were not visibly a supporter then you were considered a potential threat.
I have had this on my TBR for so long and really must read it ! I used to love Heinrich Böll tho haven’t read any for years .
Böll has fallen a bit out of fashion in Germany, as it seems to me. But for me he will be always an important author, not only because of the literary value of his works, but also because he offered orientation in understanding how life for ordinary Germans was during the Nazi area (and also in the period thereafter, when a lot was left unsaid in most families). He had a tremendous influence on many young people in the 1970s, also because of his participation in the “Frieensbewegung” (Peace Movement), and because he was reaching out to people and groups in the society that would otherwise be marginalised and left without voice. We called him (and it was not meant ironically) the “Good Heinrich”. His centenary will be a good opportunity to (re-)read him. Thanks for your nice review, Lizzy!