Friedrich by Hans Peter Richter

First published:Damals war es Friedrich, 1961 (English translation, 1970)

Type of work: Historical fiction; young adult literature

Principal characters:

• Fritz, the narrator of the story, a German boy whose upstairs neighbor and closest friend is the Jewish protagonist
• Friedrich Schneider, the Jewish boy through whose experiences Fritz learns what it means to be a Jew during the Holocaust
• Fritz’s parents, who sympathize somewhat with the plight of Jews but join the Nazi Party primarily to secure better living conditions and secondarily for fear of possible reprisals
• Herr Schneider, and
• Frau Schneider, Friedrich’s educated but naïve parents, who do not heed warnings to leave Germany
• Herr Johann Resch, the malevolent and sadistic apartment landlord, who is also warden of the local air-raid shelter
• Herr Neudorf, the sympathetic teacher, who explains why Friedrich may no longer attend school

Overview

In Friedrich, Fritz, the adult German narrator, describes the experiences he shared with his Jewish best friend and upstairs neighbor, Friedrich Schneider, from their births in 1925 until 1942. The plot is shown through the eyes of the innocent, youthful narrator, who offers only objective descriptions of dialogue and of events that culminate in the “final solution” in Nazi Germany. Although they have lived in the same apartment building for more than four years, from 1925 until 1929, Fritz’s parents scarcely know the Schneiders. Yet, as Fritz narrates, the boys become friends when one day Mrs. Schneider must go to the city hall and asks if she can leave her son with Fritz’s mother. In spite of her father’s violent anti-Semitism, Fritz’s mother welcomes the four-year-old Friedrich but makes a point of his Jewishness. As time passes, Fritz learns about Jewish customs, and Herr Schneider, a post office official, in small ways aids Fritz’s family, whose only income since Fritz’s father became unemployed is support from the retired grandfather and what Fritz’s mother earns washing clothes.

Times are hard when Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of the Third Reich in 1933, and the boys witness the beginnings of overt hostility toward Jews, exemplified by the appearance of swastikas and by boycotts against Fritz’s Jewish doctor and the local stationer. Friedrich, not understanding why his father forbids him to attend the Jungvolk with Fritz, sneaks in with his friend but leaves alone, humiliated after he is forced to recite, “The Jews are our affliction.”

Although the Schneiders are frightened when their landlord, Herr Resch, orders the family to move from his building and Friedrich’s father is fired from the post office, the family is temporarily relieved when a judge decrees that the family may remain in their apartment and Herr Schneider is hired as department manager in a Jewish merchant’s store. Nevertheless, ominous warnings escalate as Fritz’s father encourages his son’s participation in the Jungvolk, Herr Neudorf explains to the class why Friedrich may no longer attend school, and the Schneiders’ cleaning lady is intimidated into quitting.

In 1936, Fritz’s father, in a rare conversation with Herr Schneider, explains why as a German he joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party), and he warns the Jew to leave Germany immediately. Blinded by his naïve faith in civilization and strong German chauvinism, and inured to threats by memories of two thousand years of anti-Semitic persecution, Herr Schneider chooses to ignore the warning but begs Fritz’s father to care for Friedrich and Frau Schneider should it become necessary. In spite of their fervent handshake sealing an unspoken promise, Fritz’s father does nothing when the time for action arrives.

Violent pogroms envelop German Jews in 1938, and even Fritz participates in a destructive rampage once, as if it were a game. The Schneiders’ apartment is destroyed, and Frau Schneider dies. Friedrich and his father barely manage to obtain a little food through doing odd jobs and leave their apartment only under cover. Yet one night in 1941 when Friedrich is away, Herr Resch discovers that the Schneiders are harboring an aged rabbi, and he informs the Gestapo, who arrive and drag the men off into the night.

Friedrich goes into hiding until one evening in 1941, when he furtively visits Fritz to obtain a picture of his parents. When bombing begins, Herr Resch tells Friedrich to remain in the apartment and not even attempt to enter the bomb shelter. Terrified, Friedrich bangs on the door of the shelter and begs to come in. Herr Resch refuses, despite the pleas of those inside. After the raid, Friedrich is found dead, and in ironic truth Herr Resch proclaims, “His luck that he died this way.”

Purpose and theme mesh in Friedrich as readers must search their own identities and clarify their own personal values in reading this book. Richter’s recounting of the events leading to the Holocaust leaves the ultimate universal question, one that has been asked repeatedly but cannot be answered: How could educated, “civilized” adults have tolerated, accepted, and even participated in, much less created, such barbarism? William Golding proposed the same theme in his fiction, but he made the question even more basic by using sheltered, innocent children in Lord of the Flies (1954) to question the validity of “civilization.”

The book also explores what can be done to prevent the senseless hatred that causes and the complacency that permits continuing barbarism that may ultimately threaten the very existence of humankind. Although the answers may never be found, the importance of dealing with these themes is paramount. What Richter does point out, in his innocent but chilling narrative, is that there can be no tolerance of governmental or personal hatred directed toward any member of a group simply because he or she is a member of that group. He indicates that tolerating even the first simple inroads of general bigotry without speaking out and destroying it immediately can lead to utter debasement of personal and governmental character and self-respect.

Friedrich is, in Hans Richter’s own words, a “somewhat autobiographical,” painfully accurate chronological documentation of the events in Germany leading to Hitler’s “final solution”—the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. Beginning in 1925, when nonviolent but deep and historically ubiquitous anti-Semitism boiled below the surface throughout Europe, the archetypal hatred appeared as a physical outlet against the economic depression in Germany and enabled Hitler to vent his own personal hatreds and create a focus for uniting the German people.

Most of the characters in Friedrich are rounded, and they represent a realistic cross section of the German populace, through whose actions and words the German people’s involvement with the genocide of World War II can be explained. Herr Resch is the recognizable prototype of the realistic absolute archvillain that exists in all societies. His ability to control a sizable group of law-abiding citizens through intimidation is representative of the many villains recorded in all literature. Without corresponding prototypical heroes willing to act and ready to sacrifice themselves, evil can rule. Because arch villains were present, and because not enough heroes appeared, a minority of activists were able to urge groups, already primed from infancy to dislike Jews, to perform acts together that, as individuals, might be unthinkable. The reader sees even young Fritz, who has had only positive experiences with Jews, join mob rule and senselessly destroy Jewish property.

The succeeding tragedies endured by the Schneiders follow the actual dates of laws, decrees, and regulations dealing with Jews, and the reader can begin to recognize how basically “good” non-Jews were induced to conform. Fritz’s father joins the party primarily to help his family financially, and later, when he realizes fully all that joining the party entails, even though he disagrees with the “rules,” he believes that he must continue his loyalty to ensure his family’s safety. Additionally, he rationalizes the inhumanity that he witnesses by saying that no government can be perfect, and one must go along with what provides the greatest benefits.

Friedrich is painful but important reading. It won two German prizes, one in 1961, when it was first published, and another in 1964. It was also awarded the Mildred L. Batchelder Award of the American Library Association in 1972. It is a tribute to Richter’s sensitivity that both German and American professionals and readers have responded with similar praise to this treatment of the Holocaust, as witnessed by an author, who, ironically, fought in the German army from 1942 to 1945 and won medals for bravery during that time.

With discussion, this book can provide young readers with much-needed information about the Holocaust, a period of history that should not be forgotten so that it will not be repeated. If the voids created by the objective, unemotional narrative style can evoke empathetic understanding of Fritz and Friedrich and their families, answers to the past and prescriptions for the future may become possible.

Sources for Further Study

Brown, Robert McAfee. Elie Wiesel: Messenger to All Humanity. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.

Kokkola, Lydia. Representing the Holocaust in Children’s Literature. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Sullivan, Edward T. The Holocaust in Literature for Youth: A Guide and Resource Book. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1999.

Wiesel, Elie. Interview by John S. Friedman. Paris Review 26 (Spring, 1984): 130-178.