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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2020
SCIENCE FICTION OFFERS not only the opportunity to criticize and challenge the political and social reality of the here and now but also the chance to poke fun at it. We have seen how Theresa Hannig's Die Optimierer takes aim at the enthusiastic cooperation of people in their own enslavement (“Jeder an seinem Platz!” [Everyone in their place]), or how Juli Zeh's Corpus Delicti skewers German obsessions with healthy living and social conformity (“Santé!”). And yet these texts have a broader agenda, according to which the satirical element is part and parcel of a broader critique or warning. In this chapter, I focus on German texts that have dialed up the satirical aspect to highlight what they see as wrong with present society.
Joachim Zelter's novel Die Schule der Arbeitslosen (The School of the Unemployed, 2006) is set in Germany in the year 2016. In order to solve the problem of long-term unemployment, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Job Agency) has set up a new type of training center called Sphericon, a fictive “action center” that aims to produce ideal job applicants through a mix of classes on positive thinking, résumé writing, physical exercise, and so on. The center is located far from any other town and “trainees” are bused in and spend three months in this semimilitary institution. There are severe sanctions for those who refuse to participate—they lose their benefits or, if they leave the bus on the way to Sphericon, they simply “disappear”:
Any further claim against the federal agency is null and void. From now on you exist beyond the care of the state. Your name and personal data will be erased. Your suitcases will be disposed of. As if two people had jumped off a ship at sea, into nothingness.
Zelter offers a bitter satire: in this “school of life” the unemployed lose the rest of their dignity, but this is sold to them as the chance to begin a new life. They live in groups of six, sleep in bunk beds, with only a few lockers separating men and women. They have to listen to inspiring stories and slogans (“work is freedom,” 28), watch a television show called Job Quest, and are awakened at night to present themselves for fake job interviews and psychological evaluations.
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