The Earthquake

This semi-allegorical novel, published in 1950, tells how a series of earthquakes bring about the disintegration of society. The narrator and central character has killed his wife and his state of mind is being analysed by a psychiatrist. As part of this investigation, he records incidents from his life beginning with his childhood and concluding with the act of uxoricide. Presumably the following description is intended to refer to the Nazi regime:
“In those days we were ruled by a party whom the wits styled the ‘Government of the Industrious Ants’. The name was not ill-chosen considering that their national emblem was a wheel and their motto ‘To rest is to rust’... [The regime] went so far as to bind the citizen not only with laws but also with all kinds of unwritten rules and expressions of opinion which were never clearly defined and could thus be interpreted in a variety of ways. To discover the correct interpretation required in the subject a herd instinct, an instinct for uniformity. The threat of danger was greatest, therefore, to those who wanted to roam freely and indeed they were the chief victims of the hunters and their bloodhounds.”

The author, Heinz Risse (born 30 March 1898), grew up in Düsseldorf. On completing his schooling in 1915 he enlisted in the army and served on the Western Front. Here he recalls fighting around the village of Fleury. Although wounded by a grenade in 1918, he was the only one of his 22 classmates to survive the war. After the war he studied in Marburg, Frankfurt and Heidelberg universities and pursued a career in accountancy. He did not begin writing fiction until after the Second World War, his first literary work (a collection of novellas) being published in 1948. He went on to write five novels, mostly with sociological and philosophical themes, as well as short stories and numerous works of non-fiction. In 1956 he received the Immermann literary prize of the city of Düsseldorf and in 1974 he was awarded the cultural prize of the city of Solingen.

The narrator describes the life-changing event that occurred when he had just reached adulthood:
“As long as my father was alive it was taken for granted that I should go to the university when I had finished school... My plans disintegrated when my father was suddenly killed in the earthquake. I had to start earning a living and after passing my leaving examination at school, entered an insurance firm as a junior... My mother was compelled to go out to work.“
Such was the experience of many families when the main breadwinner was killed in the First World War.