wallman on boell

Natalia Wallman

Heinrich Boell, The Train Was on Time

�Everything bad comes from those resounding voices; those resounding voices started the war, and those resounding voices regulate the worst war of all, the war at railroad stations (p. 170).

Boells story takes us on the journey of a German soldier to the Eastern Front. The reader is transported immediately back to 1943 and into a train full of sleeping soldiers who lay around, across, under, and on top of their luggage (p. 166). The train is filled with the smell of stale tobacco smoke mixed with the smell of stale sweat and that strangely gritty dirt that clings to all soldiers in the mass (p. 166). In his story, Boell lets the reader experience what it was like being a German soldier returning to war.

Boell presents to us the fateful story of Andreas, although Andreas could be any one of many German soldiers who has the same thoughts about the expectation of his own death. The train is full of soldiers on their way to the same fate. Not because they want to be there, but because they are all being manipulated by those resounding voices.

The story is a hint of Boells own opinion of the war. Through Andreass eyes, we see his opposition to a war that exposes misery, and suffering, Ive suffered every instant from this ghastly uniform, and theyve nattered my ears off, and they made me shed blood on their battlefields, real blood it was and Ive seen nothing but dirt and blood and shit and smelled nothing but filth and misery (p.215). Andreas was trying to find peace at least in his thoughts, praying for the others, even for the ones that would have been unforgivable to pray for a soldier of the Third Reich, If they knew Id prayed for the Jews theyd arrest me on the spot or stick me in the madhouse (p.193).

The train is full of different lives affected by the war. Willis story uncovers rampant prostitution during the war, you go all over Europe, sleep with a French girl here and a Rumanian whore there (p. 181). That his wife is unfaithful to him also is an example of how many broken marriages occur during war time. Through Willis stories we also learn about the existence of the black market between opposing forces.

The story of the blond fellow that was corrupted by the sergeant major shows us some of the emotional changes in soldiers lives that lead to suffering during that time. In his story one old soldier refuses to become like that sergeant major and is later killed by him. The letter saying he had fallen for Greater Germany (p. 197) is sent to his wife. How many others, refusing to do what they thought was wrong had fallen for Greater Germany?

Boell shows us a Polish brothel that is active in the resistance movement. Any information that the prostitutes learn from their clients is passed on and used to oppose the German forces. The main character with his friends and Olina who betrayed her country because she spent all last night with Andreas

instead of sounding out the general (p.249), become a target for that organized opposition system.

Andreas in The Train Was on Time is a German soldier who is like many others; just a tool in the hands of those who are leading the war. He, like other innocent soldiers, is powerless to change his life in order to escape his own death. Boells The Train Was on Time is not just a story about fate but a story about the fate that waited for many soldiers during the war any time, day or night, a night full of terror, a night with no home, not even the smallest, smallest warm corner to hide in those nights had been summoned up by the resounding voices (p. 249).

Questions:

· What keeps Andreas from not changing trains and going back to Germany? How does Boell use the train to represent Andreass final destiny?

· Olina talks about their mosaic espionage system. Was that system just?

· Why was Olina the first person that Andreas shared his fears about dieing with?

· How does Boell bring out the readers sympathy for Andreas?