Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Novels such as "Tschick" and "Sand" made Wolfgang Herrndorf one of the most important writers of contemporary German literature. The author spent the last two years of his life on the north bank of Wedding, where, despite serious illness, he learned to see the world with new eyes. His biographer Tobias Rüther talks to Fabian Peltsch about Herrndorf's love for the Plötzensee and his sense of beauty in the midst of ugly functional buildings.
Wolfgang Herrndorf is certainly one of the most famous German writers to ever live in Wedding. He spent the last two years of his life here from 2012 onwards. Did he ultimately find a home in Wedding?
Tobias Rüther: Herrndorf was never a chronicler of the city. Berlin through the ages: that was not something he was interested in, he did not write about it. But Wedding had a Special Place in his heart because he discovered Plötzensee in the later phase of his life, around 2011. He then went there all the time to swim. Shortly afterwards he moved nearby, into an attic apartment on the north bank. The apartment was extremely important to him. After years of a more student-like life, he bought real furniture here for the first time.
In “Work and Structure", his digital diary, which also documents his cancer, includes a small photo of his balcony.
Tobias Rüther: Yes. He has a different view of the world from up there. Towards the end of his life his writing style becomes softer and more melancholic. There are passages where he stands at the window, looking at the sky, the birds and the canal. Or a mouse that comes to visit him. These are really very touching passages. This is also a phase of his life in which he remembers his time as a painter in Nuremberg. At the same time, this apartment is also the place where he destroys pictures and notes and letters. He also draws a line under a certain part of his life there.
Did he also realize that he could soon become a successful German author?
Tobias Rüther: He had no time to think about his historical role. He looked death in the face and concentrated strictly on working on his books. When "Tschick" took off, he and his wife went to the Asian snack bar on Friedrich-Krause-Ufer on the other side of the canal. They sat down to eat in the Aldi parking lot. That is the only moment of celebration of "Tschick" that his widow Carola Wimmer told me about. He was certainly happy about the success of "Tschick". But he didn't think: Now I've finally made it.
What did he find so special about this small inner-city lake?
Tobias Rüther: Herrndorf spent his childhood in Norderstedt in the north of Hamburg, where there was a gravel pit lake nearby where he would go ice skating in the winter. His parents originally come from Preetz, a town south of Kiel. It is a landscape full of lakes, and he spent a lot of time on the Postsee there as a child. The forest lake-like nature of the Plötzensee must have blown him away. He often described the Plötzensee. There are also many photos of him there. One of the last meetings with his friends from the online forum "Polite Paparazzi" also took place at the Plötzensee.
Also the dike master is said to have visited Herrndorf often.
Tobias Rüther: This wasn't exactly a bar for artists and writers. You could get a beer and a schnitzel here for little money. The current owners may not even know anything about Herrndorf. When Herrndorf got sick, he stopped going to bars as much.
However, he still evidently takes time for trips to the Wedding area, as can be read in "Work and Structure". For example, in October 2011 he writes, "I ride my bike along the north bank and am so delighted by the trees and cars and light." And he did this despite the fact that he was already seriously ill at the time.
Tobias Rüther: With the tumor diagnosis, he also began to have a regular daily routine. That was different in the ten years before that in Berlin. He often lived for the day. And the difference between day and night was basically irrelevant to him. Now he gets up early and goes to bed early. His daily routine is very structured, which is also related to his therapy appointments. And yes, he also goes for a lot of walks, often around Plötzensee. That was the place in Wedding that became very important to him.
When his health started to deteriorate, he also began to have problems with his orientation. When he went for a walk, he could no longer find his way home. In "Work and Structure" he describes this impressively and quite tragically. His new home in Wedding suddenly became a labyrinth.
Tobias Rüther: Yes, he completely loses his bearings and his friends try to guide him home. All of this is really bothering him.
He decided early on to take his own life on the canal.
Tobias Rüther: He already mentions in "Work and Structure" that he thinks about this question when he goes for a walk. He also looked for a place in the direction of the Westhafen - but it ended up being a spot on the banks of the Hohenzollern Canal. If you stand there today, you can see far in both directions over the canal and the bridges. Opposite you have these functional buildings and terrible high-rises and the arterial road to Tegel. In a sad way, this place is also a very typical Wolfgang Herrndorf place. He always saw that there was beauty in this industrial landscape, in this rubbish of civilization. Herrndorf always believed that beauty shows itself to those who have an eye for it.
Today there stands a “small metal cross welded together from two T-rails with a view of the water”, just as he had wished for in “Work and Structure”.
Tobias Rüther: Yes. But the place has not become a place of pilgrimage. Sometimes there are candles there. In the summer the place simply becomes overgrown. I could imagine that was also what he wanted. That this place with this simple cross would retain its dignity and intimacy.
The writer Wolfgang Herrndorf died in 2013 at the age of 48. Tobias Rüther spent over ten years researching his biography, which was published by Rowohlt Verlag in August of this year.