The Seventh Cross

Last updated
The Seventh Cross
Anna Seghers Das siebte Kreuz 1942.jpg
First edition
Author Anna Seghers
Original titleDas siebte Kreuz
LanguageGerman
Published1942
PublisherEl Libro Libre
OCLC 295393

The Seventh Cross (German : Das siebte Kreuz) is a novel by Anna Seghers, one of the better-known examples of German literature circa World War II. It was first published in Mexico by El Libro Libre In 1942. The English translation came out in the United States, in an abridged version, in September of the same year (published by Little, Brown and Company). [1] The first full English translation, by Margot Bettauer Dembo, was published in 2018. [2]

Contents

Plot summary

Seven men imprisoned in the fictitious Westhofen camp (based partly on the real Osthofen concentration camp) have decided to make a collaborative escape attempt. The main character is a Communist, George Heisler; the narrative follows his path across the countryside, taking refuge with those few who are willing to risk a visit from the Gestapo, while the rest of the escapees are gradually overtaken by their hunters.

The title of the book comes from a conceit of the prison camp. The current officer in charge has ordered the creation of seven crosses from the trees nearby, to be used when the prisoners are returned – not for crucifixion, but a subtler torture: the escapees are made to stand all day in front of their crosses, and will be punished if they falter.

Reception

Publication of the novel was surrounded by a certain amount of fanfare; by the end of September, there were already plans for a comic strip version of The Seventh Cross, it having already been selected as a Book-of-the-Month Club book.

According to Dorothy Rosenberg, who wrote the afterword for the 1987 Monthly Review Press edition, statistics indicate that 319,000 copies of The Seventh Cross were sold in the first twelve days alone, and the novel was printed in German, Russian, Portuguese, Yiddish and Spanish by 1943.

After the end of the Nazi regime, the book was well received in Germany, and particularly in the East; the author, Seghers, was known to be a Communist, and some of the "heroic" or sympathetic characters in The Seventh Cross are also members of the Communist Party.

Adaptations

A film version starring Spencer Tracy and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer premiered in 1944; a publicity stunt, in which MGM organized a pretend "manhunt" for a Tracy look-alike in seven cities for the public to take part in, accompanied the normal film promotions.

The libretto of German composer Hans Werner Henze's Ninth Symphony is based on The Seventh Cross.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exile</span> Event by which a person is forced away from home

Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suffer exile, but sometimes social entities like institutions are forced from their homeland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lion Feuchtwanger</span> German writer

Lion Feuchtwanger was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Heym</span> German writer

Helmut Flieg or Hellmuth Fliegel was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym. He lived in the United States and trained at Camp Ritchie, making him one of the Ritchie Boys of World War II. In 1952, he returned to his home to the part of his native Germany which was, from 1949 to 1990, the German Democratic Republic. He published works in English and German at home and abroad, and despite longstanding criticism of the GDR remained a committed socialist. He was awarded the 1953 Heinrich Mann Prize, the 1959 National Prize of East Germany, and the 1993 Jerusalem Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Seghers</span> German writer

Anna Seghers, is the pseudonym of a German writer notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian Communist, Seghers escaped Nazi-controlled territory through wartime France. She was granted a visa and gained ship's passage to Mexico, where she lived in Mexico City (1941–47).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga Benário Prestes</span> German Brazilian Communist militant

Olga Benário Prestes was a German-Brazilian communist militant executed by Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelia Funke</span> German author of childrens fiction

Cornelia Maria Funke is a German author of children's fiction. Born in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, she began her career as a social worker before becoming a book illustrator. She began writing novels in the late 1980s and focused primarily on fantasy-oriented stories that depict the lives of children faced with adversity. Funke has since become Germany's "best-selling author for children". Her work has been translated into several languages and, as of 2012, Funke has sold over 20 million copies of her books worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Hellmut Kirst</span> German novelist

Hans Hellmut Kirst was a German novelist and the author of 46 books, many of which were translated into English. Kirst is best remembered as the creator of the "Gunner Asch" series which detailed the ongoing struggle of an honest individual to maintain his identity and humanity amidst the criminality and corruption of Nazi Germany.

<i>For the New Intellectual</i> 1961 book by Ayn Rand

For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is a 1961 work by the philosopher Ayn Rand. It is her first long non-fiction book. Much of the material consists of excerpts from Rand's novels, supplemented by a long title essay that focuses on the history of philosophy.

Helen Deutsch was an American screenwriter, journalist, and songwriter.

<i>The Seventh Cross</i> (film) 1944 film by Fred Zinnemann, Andrew Marton

The Seventh Cross is a 1944 American drama film, set in Nazi Germany, starring Spencer Tracy as a prisoner who escaped from a concentration camp. The story chronicles how he interacts with ordinary Germans, and gradually sheds his cynical view of humanity.

The Ninth Symphony of the German composer Hans Werner Henze was written in 1997.

<i>Transit</i> (Seghers novel)

Transit is a novel by German writer Anna Seghers, set in Vichy Marseilles after France fell to Nazi Germany. Written in German, it was published in English in 1944, and has also been translated into other languages.

Francis Nenik works as a farmer and writes in his free time. He has published several novels. Current works include XO as well as a collection of short stories with strict alliteration (2013).

<i>The Underground Railroad</i> (novel) 2016 novel by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad is a historical fiction novel by American author Colson Whitehead, published by Doubleday in 2016. The alternate history novel tells the story of Cora, a slave in the Antebellum South during the 19th century, who makes a bid for freedom from her Georgia plantation by following the Underground Railroad, which the novel depicts as a rail transport system with safe houses and secret routes. The book was a critical and commercial success, hitting the bestseller lists and winning several literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. A TV miniseries adaptation, written and directed by Barry Jenkins, was released in May 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Leitner</span>

Maria Leitner was a Hungarian writer and journalist in the German language. She is remembered as a pioneer of "undercover reporting".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lina Meruane</span> Palestinian-Chilean writer and professor (born 1970)

Lina Meruane Boza is a Chilean writer and professor. Her work, written in Spanish, has been translated into English, Italian, Portuguese, German, and French. In 2011 she won the Anna Seghers-Preis for the quality of her work, and in 2012 the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for her novel Sangre en el ojo.

Jirmejahu Oskar Neumann (1894–1981), also known as Oscar Neumann, was a Czech lawyer and writer in Bratislava, part of the Slovak State between 1939–1945. From December 1943, during the Holocaust, he served as president of the Slovak Judenrat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernanda Melchor</span> Mexican novelist

Fernanda Melchor is a Mexican writer best known for her novel Hurricane Season for which she won the 2019 Anna Seghers Prize and a place on the shortlist for the 2020 International Booker Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osthofen concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp

The Osthofen concentration camp was an early Nazi concentration camp in Osthofen, close to Worms, Germany. It was established in March 1933 in a former paper factory. The camp was administered by the People's State of Hesse's Political Police, with guards first drawn from SA and SS, later only SS men. The first prisoners were mostly Communists or Social Democrats, but later Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists and non-political Jews were also sent to the camp.

Margot Bettauer Dembo was a German-born American translator of fiction and non-fiction. She translated writing from German to English, and is known for her translations of works by Judith Hermann, Robert Gernhardt, Joachim Fest, Ödön von Horvath, Feridun Zaimoglu, and Hermann Kant. Her work won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the Goethe-Institut/Berlin Translator's Prize. She translated multiple non-fiction memoirs and historical accounts of World War II, as well as several works of fiction.

References

  1. Seghers, Anna (1942). The Seventh Cross. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC   247228531 . Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  2. Seghers, Anna (2018). The Seventh Cross. New York: New York Review Books. ISBN   9781681372129. OCLC   1050709235.