10 German Classics You Should Read Right Now
There has been a point in most readers’ lives, when we all got dead set on finishing the classics—those books that are referenced throughout time and which often land themselves on high school or college student’s required literature lists. For an American, classics may mean books like Frankenstein, To Kill A Mockingbird, anything from Shakespeare or Moby Dick. Reading these books gives you a glimpse of the societal lens of an era and how language around certain topics has developed over the decades.
It is difficult to whittle the list down, but for you we have collected “classics” of Germany. These books are significant for their time period, their subject matter, and for their influence on future authors. Just like some of the classics in the United States, a few are from foreign authors but were translated and gained popularity in Germany—some of these may even be familiar with!
“The Wave” by American writer Todd Strasser is about a history teacher who conducts an experiment in his classroom where he seeks to demonstrate what it’d be like to live in Germany under the Third Reich. He slowly integrates principles and practices of the Nazi regime into class—slogans, rules of conduct, and an organizational structure, and a feeling of identity and community. His experiment was meant to demonstrate how, though it seems easy to assume only evil people would join in the Nazi movement, through slow exposure and manipulation, even normal people can be swept up in destructive political movements.
Im Westen Nichts Neues / All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, published Im Westen Nichts Neues in 1929. His book made a splash for its unromantic portrayal of soldiers’ hardship both during and after their time at war. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, Remarque’s book became one of the first books to be publically burnt. It has since sold 2.5 million copies and has been translated into 22 languages.
Tauben im Gras / Pigeons on the Grass
Unique in that the events of the entire book take place in the span of one single day, Tauben im Gras portrays the intensity of living in an occupied Germany. All day, allied planes fly overhead. It’s focus on characters experiences rather than events occurring helps highlight the personal cost to Germans of living in the 1950’s.
Die Leiden des jungen Werther von Goethe / The Sorrows of Young Werther
If you thought you could escape a classics list without Goethe you were wrong. Goethe, like Shakespeare in the States, is a grind you just have to endure as a student. Die Leiden des jungen Werther von Goethe, published in 1774, was one of the most important novels in the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) period of German literature and was rumored to have been written in full in five weeks. The plot revolves around a love triangle between the young Werther, Charlotte and Albert and the tragic mental and physical downfall of Werther.
Die Verwandlung / Metamorphosis
Look familiar? Multi-national novelist and reigning king of magical realism Franz Kafka in 1915 in Leipzig. In the novel, a traveling salesman wakes to find himself transformed into a bug. His works have influenced other great writers and magical realists like the famed Gabriela Marcia Marquez.
Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was a jack of all trades—philosopher, poet, playwright, and historian. He was also buddy buddy with an already famous Wolfgang von Goethe. He, too, contributed to the Sturm und Drang literary movement and his drama The Robbers included it’s quintessential emotional language, individualism and symbolism, centering around two brothers pitted against each other.
Die Blechtrommel / The Tin Drum
Part of the Danzig Trilogy, Günter Grass’s book, published in 1959 has been praised as having portrayed the forgotten face of history. They focus on the rise of Nazism and the lasting effects of World War II on areas separated after the war ended.
Der Vorleser / The Reader
A book written by a lawyer and judge doesn’t seem like it’d make the classics list but this 1990’s novel captured the attention of generations of Germans coming to terms with their past. Much of the book deals with the divide between those who were born before and after the atrocities of the second world war. It has been translated into 25 languages and was adapted into a film starring Kate Winslet.
Those who saw the movie adaptation of this book probably didn’t suspect that it was originally based on a German historical fantasy novel by author Patrick Süskind. This book combines murder and sensuality by following the character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with an exceptional sense of smell. He only explores the possibility of taking another life after discovering the wonderful scent of a young girl. Though the plot sounds creepy, this book has been the inspiration for everything from a Russian musical to a music video of Marilyn Manson.
Winnetou and Old Chatterhand
The most stunning part of German writer Karl Friedrich May’s adventure novels of the American Old West are that he, despite writing in first person, had never actually been there, or to the United States in general. He is one of the best-selling German authors of all time, selling 200 million copies of his books worldwide.
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