3 - Hundejahre: Between Revelation and Obfuscation

Summary

THE FINAL WORK of the trilogy, Hundejahre (1963) focuses on the shift from “passive-aggressive” relationships to outright physical violence combined with vindictive verbal exchanges. The initials “HJ” implied in Hundejahre remind the reader of the Hitlerjugend, the Nazi youth organization. Foregoing any pretense of rational interaction, Walter Matern and Tulla Pokriefke mete out both insult and violence to peers who are physically and ethnically different. Eddi Amsel and Jenny Brunies—he a half-Jewish boy and she a Roma foundling—stand in for Nazi Germany's persecuted minorities. Grass's fairy-tale style to some extent obscures the brutal reality of the Holocaust, which his characters also seek to ignore, but the contrast between repression and vivid suffering offers compelling evidence of the pervasiveness of victimhood in the Third Reich. His characters exhibit some of the evasiveness seen in Katz und Maus, and there are instances of abusive language as well as physical aggression. Yet in Hundejahre, Grass's portrayal of communication begins to shift toward the dialogues that would become typical for much of his career. Amsel repeatedly speaks out against injustice and pursues his aggressor Matern, using a combination of artistic representations of evil—his scarecrow collection— and persistent efforts at dialogue. Although his attempts at conversation never result in mutual understanding, Amsel opens the door on the past, orchestrating discussions in postwar Germany that reflect Grass's own move into the political forum in the early 1960s.

This epic novel—which Grass always said was his favorite of his works—is challenging due to its complex interconnections, fugue-like repetitions, mixture of myth and history, and the protagonists’ puzzling behavior. Hundejahre contains three books, the last of which takes place in the Federal Republic. The first section (1917–27, “Frühschichten” or Morning Shifts) is narrated by Amsel alias Brauxel and describes the friendship between Matern and Amsel, who grow up in the same village on the Vistula River outside of Danzig. In Book 2, the two boys attend high school in Danzig, and love letters (“Liebesbriefe”) from Harry Liebenau to his cousin Tulla describe the abuse of their friends by Tulla and Matern. The third book, narrated by Matern, depicts his travels through Germany (“Materniaden” or Materniads) as he seeks to prove other Nazis’ guilt and desperately tries to repress his own.