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Lotte Frank graduated from university and briefly worked as a detective before being fired for clashes over employee treatment. She now works for a research company and plans to become a writer. Her novel focuses on a slave fleeing owners to become free. Lotte interviewed Karl Schuwald about events involving his father and two students, Johan and Edmund. She took a particular interest in Johan and became familiar with a storybook that caused Johan to faint, leading her to analyze the author's works and their possible influence on Johan's development.
Lotte Frank graduated from university and briefly worked as a detective before being fired for clashes over employee treatment. She now works for a research company and plans to become a writer. Her novel focuses on a slave fleeing owners to become free. Lotte interviewed Karl Schuwald about events involving his father and two students, Johan and Edmund. She took a particular interest in Johan and became familiar with a storybook that caused Johan to faint, leading her to analyze the author's works and their possible influence on Johan's development.
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Lotte Frank graduated from university and briefly worked as a detective before being fired for clashes over employee treatment. She now works for a research company and plans to become a writer. Her novel focuses on a slave fleeing owners to become free. Lotte interviewed Karl Schuwald about events involving his father and two students, Johan and Edmund. She took a particular interest in Johan and became familiar with a storybook that caused Johan to faint, leading her to analyze the author's works and their possible influence on Johan's development.
Drepturi de autor:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formate disponibile
Descărcați ca RTF, PDF, TXT sau citiți online pe Scribd
Upon graduating from Munich University, Lotte Frank
surprisingly joined the large Southern German detective agency Wanz & Wanz, but was fired after a year for numerous clashes with management over employee salary and welfare. She now keeps a low profile working for a Munich research company, and plans to become a writer. Her first novel is said to be an escape suspense set in the Middle Ages, about a slave who flees his owners and attempts to become a free man. She met me at a cafe in Schwabing near her alma mater, dressed in what would be considered, for her work, a rather rough outfit: navy jacket, cut and sewn shirt, knee- length skirt. Most striking of her features were her large, round glasses, and her bobbed hair with a pigtail on the side. She had a charming, jaunty air. The files she carried under her arm were apparently the results of a survey on which type of white sausage teens prefer: boiled or fried.
- Let's get to the questions. Tell me how it was you
came to be involved with these events. "When I heard from the student office that Mr. Schuwald was hiring female college students for part time jobs, I figured it was my big chance. It ended up being cleaning and laundry and stuff like that." - Your big chance? "Yes, I was interested in the Vampire of Bayern. When I told Herr Schuwald that I wanted to write a thesis on 'Mental Profiles of Bayern's Rich and Powerful in the Middle Ages and Today,' he thought it was very funny. He wanted to know if he was my subject. And when I worked there, I noticed the students he hired to read to him... whom I found an interest in. Especially Karl... and Johan. Johan Liebert." - Why were you interested in these two? "As far as the reading was concerned, Karl was a horrid student. The things Schuwald used to say to him! I figured he would quit in no time. Schuwald would treat his readers harshly, but he never fired them. Instead, most of them would simply stop coming after a few times. I honestly thought Karl was just another one of them. But even after all the things Schuwald said to him, even through all the pain he was clearly suffering, Karl came back every week like it was the only thing that mattered. I figured there must have been something to it. As far as Johan goes... he was just so handsome and perfect that it surprised me anyone like that truly existed." - And Edmund Fahren? "Eh, either way. He was blond and pretty, but sort of take-it-or-leave-it, as far as I was concerned." - So, you kept an eye on what Mr. Schuwald did everyday. "Yes. Karl told me he would go out on the town every Friday night. So we followed him." - And this is how you met the prostitute known as the "Red Hindenburg," and learned that there was another young man claiming to be Schuwald's son. "Right, we learned that she was using Karl's mother's name to leech money from Schuwald, and that Edmund Fahren had stepped forward, calling himself the rightful son. Karl and I went to his dorm, and he had committed suicide... And from then on, it was just one thing after another." - You have also met Anna... that is, Nina Fortner. "Yes, I met her at the school library. She came every day, and researched things until the library's closing time. I was curious, so I talked with her. Nina was looking into a series of unsolved serial murders that had happened in Bayern over the past few years, including, to my surprise, the murder of Karl Schuwald's mother..." - As a matter of fact, you are the first person I've spoken with who has talked about Nina Fortner. Can you tell me your impressions of her? "She was very pretty, with long blonde hair... sort of naive, or should I say, withdrawn... But I think she felt a calling, a strong will inside of her. It was almost like desperation, in a way. From the moment I met her, she reminded me of Johan... with one big difference. Something that Johan did not have... that was her expressions. She had the most wonderful, human expressions on her face." - This is the question I have been most curious about... Karl told me that you were quite familiar with Johan's fainting episode with the storybook "The Nameless Monster"... Can you tell me about it? "Ah yes. When I heard that he had fainted, I rushed to the hospital. Bodenheim State Hospital... Johan had already been checked in, and I met the librarian who had been there when he fainted. I asked her about the book he had seen, because of course I was curious, so I looked it up for myself." - And what did you think, after you read it? "I didn't just read 'The Nameless Monster,' I got my hands on everything that Emil Scherbe... well, everything that author did."
As she said this, she pulled out several storybooks
from among the thick stack of files she carried. Klaus Poppe's "The God of Peace," Jakub Farobek's "The Man With Big Eyes and the Man With the Big Mouth," Emil Scherbe's "My Garden," Helmuth Voss's "A Peaceful Home"... some of which I had never seen before. My only thought was, is this the source of Johan's story? These fairy tales shaped him into what he is?
"I read all of them... the art is unique. You don't
see many people draw like this, do you? The problem is what's inside. I think for average kids who live a normal life, these would be unremarkable for the most part. But what if you really preached the stories to them, as if they were the Bible? As something that HAD to be read and understood. There's a message in them. But I can't tell exactly what kind. I feel a kind of evil from it. But I can't tell what sort. Aside from "A Peaceful Home," it's a commonality in all of them... I can't explain it. There are so many ways you can take them. How would a human being interpret these books?"
I found her words to be quite fascinating. How did
the storybooks create Johan? By leaving the interpretation of the books up to the children, after they had been read. And not just left up to the children, but forcefully read to them in an extremely restricted and terrifying environment, pounding it into their minds in a place that fills them with malice and nihility. The best and brightest of Czechoslovakia's psychologists must have had an idea of what this would produce.
[Picture] (upper half sketch of a smiling Lotte, holding
files) Ms. Frank tells me it's nice to be a writer, but that detective work provides its own good ideas. A very unique individual.
[Picture] (photo of Nameless Monster storybook and sketch
of Lotte speaking excitedly) Lotte's detective thoroughness has led her to read most of Franz Bonaparta's storybooks. She has an excellent analysis of Bonaparta's style, as befitting a person of considerable insight. I believe she has ample talent to be a novelist.
- Did you see Johan after his fainting episode?
"From time to time at school... This was around the time that Johan and Karl grew somewhat estranged from me. I had quit my job for Mr. Schuwald, and I didn't go to the ceremony when the fire broke out. But the one thing that I CAN say is that the book changed Johan's plans, if not his entire life." - Changed his life? "When I asked the librarian about the circumstances of his collapse, she said he just happened upon the book. It was an unexpected incident. Or more like, he had forgotten about the book's existence." - He had no memory of it? "Yes, I believe he had lost his memory. Until he saw it again... And when he saw "The Nameless Monster," he remembered that he himself was NOT a monster. It might have been the instant that he returned to being human."
Johan cast aside his ambitions of Schuwald's fortune
in the flames, and disappeared. He would leave to the Czech Republic on a journey of self-discovery, possibly to fill in the pieces of his missing memories.
- Did you meet with Nina again, after the burning of
the library? "I went to see her in the hospital. She said that Dr. Tenma had saved her life. After being discharged, she went to Dr. Reichwein's house, where Dr. Gillen put her under hypnosis. She talked about a fairy-tale land... and three frogs. I figured that she must have been missing part of her memory as well. The same thing with Johan. The next day, she disappeared. I'm sure she must have remembered where this fairy-tale land was, or where Johan would be going. I saw her once again, near the end of the whole string of events. She had gotten all of her memory back... and she was in a bad state. It was hard to get close to her..." - How do you feel about Johan now, after all is said and done? "I understand that he was a terrifying person, but I was a bit like Karl, and I didn't delve too deeply into him... Looking back, there were definitely some things about him that send shivers down my spine, but I wouldn't say that I hate Johan, or feel angry at him." - Karl seems to have complex feelings about Johan as well. Do you think that it's possible he planned to kill Karl in the library? "Hmmm... I wouldn't say so. Schuwald learned of Johan's plot before it happened, and still went to the ceremony... He made up an errand for Karl to run so that he wouldn't be present... and I think Johan accounted for all these things. If he really wanted to kill Karl, he could have done so long before that." - Why do you suppose Karl escaped Johan's sights? "I don't know if Johan was really such a methodical, plan-oriented person... He was able to get whatever he wanted so easily that it was equally simple for him to bring an early end to it. He grew tired of fame and wealth just before he would have had them for himself. But what Karl wanted was something that Johan could never have... Karl wanted the evening lights of homes in the city... the sight of people returning home... the harmony of family... the warmth and the bonds... All things that Johan could not have... and could not understand... And he probably couldn't kill anyone who sought such things."