30 April 1945

Alexander Kluge is one of the major German fiction writers of the late twentieth century and an important social critic. As a filmmaker, he is credited with the launch of the New German Cinema movement. Wieland Hoban writes regularly for Muzik and Ästhetik and Fragmen, and the book series New Music & Aesthetics in the 21st  Century. He has translated several works from German, including those by Theodor W. Adorno and Sibylle Lewitscharoff.

“Readers familiar with how Hitler committed suicide on the last day of April 1945 will find that story enmeshed here in a dense tangle of plots playing out on the same fateful day. In this fractured polynarrative, gifted novelist Alexander Kluge depicts the travails of the famous (Martin Heiddegger, Ezra Pound, Thomas Mann) and the anonymous (refugees, scavengers, merchants). . . . A compelling translation of a vertiginous descent into a world-shaping cataclysm.”

• 1. Alexander Kluge · Arrival at the Endpoint‘Galloping Daybreak’Death in ConfusionThe Weapon of DisregardThe Way to the WestThe Most Dangerous Weapon of the Second World WarEn Route Further WestwardsWhat is a Born Fighter?No Securing of Property at the Sudden Dawn of a New AgeThe Ways of MoneyA Future FortuneAt Least for a GlanceOn Imagined RoadsUndertaking in the Manner of a ‘Scouting Game’, Simply Because There Was Petrol AvailableA Practice Fight out of RecklessnessAftershocks of WartimeFilm Scene in the ParkEnd of an EpochProcessing the SpoilsOvercome by the FrontOne Disaster among MillionsNo Enemy Was Needed to End the WarA Fatal Encounter between Two JurisdictionsAn Anti-Bolshevik Prague for One DayMuch That Had Been Left Unfinished Was Still Meant to Be Taken Care ofThe Last Days of ‘Eternal France’A Provisional LifeThe Trains East of the Brenner Pass Were Running at Full Tilt Three Russian Offensives in the Eastern Alps and up the Danube‘But this one is called Ister. It dwells in beauty’The End of Hostility, Experience at the Vienna Burgtheater A Hotel in No Man’s LandThe ‘Black Hand’ of 1914 Would Not Have a Chance against the President of the USAOutrageous Decisions in So Short a TimeMore Waste than ever Before Deadline Pressure for the FührerVenus Plus Mars in Square Relation to Saturn: The Constellation of DeathThe Threshold for Violent Killing in a Stone Age Tribe‘Everyone Approved of the Killing’How Small a Number of Military Predictions Survived a Quarter-CentryArrival at the EndpointOn Side PathsHe Wished He Could Come Home‘Guilt, the Oldest Marble’The Intertwinement of the Spiritual World with the RealA Ghostly Celestial Phenomenon over the BrockenHeiner Müller: The Iron CrossThe Last Meteorologist of Pillau 2. Reinhard JirglWar BirthsAfterpiece. Lucky Shadow3. Alexander Kluge · in a Different Country The Large-Scale Celestial Events, Neutral towards the Turbulently Changing Fronts on the GroundJudgement at DawnMetaphor of a Refugee Who Ended up in the Neutral CountryWill You Be Emigrating in the Foreseeable Future?A Current Advertisement for Life InsuranceNewspaper Report on a Tragic Detail Transfer of Migrant Workers to Their Home Countries through SwitzerlandA Military Hospital Crosses the Border with Heavily Wounded PatientsFree TimeThe Weekly Film Schedule at Zurich CinemasThe Explosive Device in the Gotthard TunnelOn the ‘Black List’Background Conversation in 1983Laconic ReplyA StragglerThe Grave of Stefan Man4. Reinhard JirglThe Great MarchThe Smile of a Family Man5. Alexander Kluge · In the Reich CapitalDivision of the City into Combat SectorsHow I Lost My FriendAs the Last Poet in the Reich Ministry of PropagandaSkirmishes on the Eve of 30 April at Heerstrasse City Train StationAn Unreal Final Connection between 1936 and April 1945Commemoration of Dead WordsReading TimeAs a Faithful EyewitnessThe Last and Only Action by the New Reich Chancellor in Matters of Foreign PolicyLast ConnectionEverything Went Too Quickly to Process the New Realities InwardlyIn the Basements of the CharitéIsland of CivilizationNormally One Pays for Erotic Services; Here One Pays for Lives to Be SavedEducation Struggle to the LastHe Had Only Got Three of His Students Through to Spandau-WestThirst in the WastelandNews across the International Date Line6. Reinhard JirglA Proletarian Clytemnestra7. Alexander Kluge ·In a Small TownIn a Small TownDigging for the DeadLoot with No Practical ValueDomeyer Garden Centre at Burchardi GreenAssigned to Removal Work: From the Large Space to Simple CultivationRe-enacting ConquestLife in the Rhythm of HaricutsHaircut for the New TimesBarteringEarly Commercial Flowering, Blown away a Moment LaterGitti and the Captain Wandered along the Shore, holding Hands (‘Several heavens walked beside them’)Transatlantic DoorTufts of GrassView of the Brocken A Day with a Surprise 8. Reinhard JirglUncanny Bridge-BuildingEarly Shift. Scene for an Imaginary Front Theatre.9. Alexander Kluge · On the GlobeImmense Redistribution of Military Forces Halfway around the GlobeA Stock-Market LeapThe System of CertificatesCircumnavigation of the Early by ShipDisappointing Arrival in East AsiaRobinsonad in the IceNeutral ShipFortunate LandingCoup in ArgentinaIn the Seven-Hill City of San FranciscoThe Genesis of the VetoThe Patriot of Lviv‘What To Do?’‘All wheels stand still if your strong arm wills it’On Folding BedsWith Embers That Burn for Over 40 YearsIn the Eye of the Secret Service A Labour Leader at the Hotel PalaceA Senior ComradePilloried by the New Generation 10. Reinhard JirglAfter MidnightThe Oldest PeaceShadow Figures 1. We all fall down.11. Alexander Kluge · Heidegger at Wildenstein CastleAn Enclave of German SpiritFrom the Attendance ListWildenstein Castle Was No ShipTransientsUnoccupiable TerritoryCrossing to SwitzerlandThe Night March to Neu-BreisachMineness of ConcernThe Three Leaves of the LilyCuriosity and the Lust of the EyesIs It Possible, as Hölderlin Says, to ‘Fall” Upwards?‘The Aroundness of the Environment’‘Man Was Originally Similar to Other Creatures, Namely, Fish’Announcement on Swiss RadioNews on Radio Beromünster at 9:40 a.m.Heidegger on Actuality‘Primordial Will as Spirit’The Entertainment Character of ThoughtThe Brothers Grimm and the ‘Small Border Traffic of Fairy Tales’‘Fallen Into the Well’The Temporality of Hope12. Reinhard Jirgl Shadow Figure 2. Into the Light13. Alexander Kluge · I, the Last National Socialist in Kabul I, the Last National Socialist in KabulA Building Block for the Fourth ReichThe Tunnel to LeuthenA Warlike Leftovers Radio Work in the Final HourGroup Photo with CapitulatorsA Failed SurrenderEpisode near Eitting: Taken Prisoner along with Their PrisonersSurrender at Unusual TimesBite Inhibition in WolvesFailed Surrender by the Last Followers of Antony and CleopatraCertain Captivity, an Uncertain Status‘Whether the governor of a besieged fortress should go out and parley’‘I will lay my head on screws until all bridges are blown to pieces’Handover of a CityA Surrender That Was Unprofessional in Form but Successful in ContentLife-Saving Message to the EnemyEmergency Supplying of Shaft Mines Knows No FrontsExhausted as We wereAt RestDevastated Youth: Hitler Youth Area Leader Friedrich Grupe ReportsFair Copy Based on the LatinNetwork of LoyaltyThe Loyalty MachineNocturnal Confession Performance of a PlayBetrayal of Comrades on All SidesHatred without Distinction of Person‘Darkness in the minds if the perpetrators’The Uncanniness of PropsDisloyalty, Sacrificial Death‘When I see you, I must weep’‘I readily trust others’Awkward Leap‘Mourir pour Danzing’: Nobody Wants to Die for Gdansk‘When I look at a head officer, I imagine how he would look headless’New Use for Old Property14. Alexander Kluge · In Place of a Postscript Photograph CreditsAcknowledgements