13 - November 1918

Summary

DÖBLIN CALLED NOVEMBER 1918 an “Erzählwerk,” not a novel, since it narrates the events of German history from November 1918 to January 1919 on the basis of documents, and mixes historical and fictional characters. It was to be a trilogy, but the second volume grew to be too long, and Döblin divided it into two parts, thus creating the tetralogy November 1918: Eine deutsche Revolution. Döblin began writing the work at the end of 1937, and the first volume, Bürger und Soldaten 1918, was published in Holland in 1939. The manuscript of the second and third volumes, Verratenes Volk and Heimkehr der Fronttruppen, was virtually complete in 1940 when Döblin had to flee from Paris to escape the advancing German army, and was revised in Los Angeles. The last volume, Karl und Rosa, was written there in 1942 and 1943. Döblin was unable to publish any of the volumes either in German or in English during his exile in the United States, except for an episode entitled Nocturno, which was published by the Pazifische Presse of Los Angeles in 1944, and segments of the non-fictional part, titled Sieger und Besiegte and published by Aurora Verlag of New York in 1946. The second, third, and fourth volumes were first published by the Alber Verlag, Munich, between 1948 and 1950; the first volume had to be left out of this edition because of French censorship.