Kirst, Hans Helmut | 1950 | Galgenstrik [orig. Wir nannten Ihn Galgenstrick] | Baarn, De Boekerij, 19xx | yyyp.

This is a rediscovery not from my library but from my father’s library which mainly consisted of Marabout pocket books. I probably read them all. It helped my knowledge of French considerably and I read some very goods which were at that time – more than 40 years ago – fairly new.

Le Lieutenant est devenu fou, Marabout (1963) was probably the first Hans Helmut Kirst novel I read. I do not know what happened to it or to the other Marabout’s. Once in a while I come across a title which makes me think back on these days where I could read hours on end. Yesterday, at the Oxfam bookstore, I happened across Galgenstrik a Dutch hardcover edition. I immediately picked it up. So, strictly speaking this is a rediscovery from my father’s library.

Years ago the title and the cover presentation, in the French pocket edition, gave the impression of a comedy with a happy end. But in war and in almost all Kirst novel the end usually is not happy, or only very exceptionally. And though Strick and Vogel remain free the war still has to be lost and the peace regained.

First Lieutenant Strick (notice the similarity both in name and in rank with Kirst) is a front fighter who is transferred back to Germany for exceptional behavior. Arrived in Rehausen his first act is to have the station commander, who organizes train shipments of luxury foodstuff to the ‘home front’ instead of repatriating heavily wounded soldiers from the Eastern front, arrested for corruption. This endears Strick to Kessler, the new SS-Officer who wants to increase die national-socialist feeling in the district. To do so, Strick is appointed NSFO, Nationalsozialistischen Führungsoffizier, as was Kirst. In this position he continues a fight against corruption, until he is implicated in the conspiracy of July 20th and as such is arrested.

Wir nannten Ihn Galgenstrick was Hans Helmut Kirst’s first novel. Although he rejected nazi-fascism, he did not completely distantiate himself from certain national-socialist ideas. Although as a first lieutenant on the Eastern front Strick probably was if not directly guilty at least by association of crimes committed in Russia, Kirst strictly limits himself to depicting Strick in Rehhausen as a soldier who merely tries to survive as honorably as possible, without touching anything pertaining to Russia. Opposite the honorable Strick and his resistance friend and sidekick Vogel are the nazis, those who gain from the war and suppresion of dissidents, corrupt members of a chain of higher ranked officers. In Kirsts novels one only finds two types of Nazis. Those who strongly believe in the “Bewegung”, who won’t allow dissenting ideas or opinions and who have no problem with eliminating – even in person – those who have. The others are only interested in their own ease and luxury. Those also can go over corpses, as long as they are not bothered by their smell. In Wir nannten ihn Galgenstrick we notice that Kirst rejects the first, but still appears willing to understand them, whereas the second he roundly despises. It is only in Kirst’s later novels that he will fully come clean against both national-socialism and the wehrmacht.

This does not make this novel any worse. Although not Kirst’s best novel, with a bit of a questionable ideology – other novels of his are much clearer in that regard e.g. 08/15 – nevertheless it was again fun to read and generally a recommended rediscovery.