The will, followed by Cross loveless, Heinrich Böll

Overview: These two works completed loveless Cross in 1947 and The Testament written in 1948, are among the earliest writings of Heinrich Böll and illuminate the genesis of his work.

In The Testament, 1943, on the Atlantic Wall, two officers compete: the Catholic Rhineland concerned about the lives of his men, the fanatical Prussian order and discipline. They reveal their true nature in Russia.

Cross loveless recounts the fate of a Catholic family from 1933 to 1945.Two brothers are opposed: the first, attracted by Nazi ideology, the second champion of individual resistance to the regime. Their reunion on the Russian front will be tragic.

The author describes his experience of war, a huge waste of human, but in the depths of abandonment, the opportunity to prove to ourselves, a glimpse of a chance of salvation.

These texts are marked with an impression that belongs only Böll humanist: the authenticity and an exasperated faith in God.

Born in Cologne in 1917 into a Catholic family, Heinrich Böll was convened in spring 1939 for a short period until 1945. Back in his hometown, he emerged as the leading writers of the postwar generation. Several collections of essays, a hundred stories, a dozen novels that mark his literary career, crowned by the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. He died July 16, 1985.

Translated from German by Alain Huriot

Impressions: I had the feeling of having found a nugget. Two stories, two facets of Heinrich Böll. "The Testament" is a critic of corruption and mediocrity of the German army. "The cross without love" is unquestionably a work of major Catholic .....

The idealist and humanist Christian conflict. One is committed to his country, unaware that it has signed a deal with the horror ... He rejected without really find his faith and his friends, on behalf of an Ideal named 'Germany'. Although in his quest he finds evil ... The other is a dreamer opposed to national socialism ....

A vigorous style, an almost mystical background. A true aesthetic shock !!!!!!! A Bernanos German? ...