Ulrich Plenzdorf’s kein runter kein fern: Disability, Masculinity, and Literary Social Criticism in the Period 1976–1991

Abstract

In this article, I analyse Ulrich Plenzdorf’s novel kein runter kein fern, an often-overlooked text critiquing the society of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the late 1970s that focuses primarily on the theme of disability. Plenzdorf’s protagonist, a boy with a mild learning disability, is pressured to develop a masculine body to overcome his mental handicap. Analysing the story from a perspective based on Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies and Julia Hell’s Post-Fascist Fantasies, I argue that Plenzdorf is showing the GDR as a militarized, masculine society, unable to deal with disability in a humane manner. His protagonist therefore has no other choice but to cope with his disability by becoming what he calls a ‘panzermann’, that means a man whose feelings are cut off with a tank-like body. Furthermore, by drawing on a rich collection of archival materials, I show how Plenzdorf’s depiction of disability, masculinity, and GDR society caused a major literary scandal, and how he radicalized these topics in later adaptations. Reviewing this material that has not been published before, I argue that Plenzdorf widened his criticism during the Wende years and transformed his criticism of the GDR society to a criticism of the German society as a whole.