"Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We..." (german: Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...) is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by the German author

Heinrich Böll Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...

(1917–1985). It tells the story of a seriously wounded soldier during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

being carried on a stretcher through the school which he left three months earlier, because the school is being used as a makeshift

military hospital A military hospital is a hospital owned and operated by a military. They are often reserved for the use of military personnel and their dependents, but in some countries are made available to civilians as well. They may or may not be located on a ...

. The narrator slowly notices details confirming where he is, but ignores and explains them away in an

internal monologue Intrapersonal communication is the process by which an individual communicates within themselves, acting as both sender and receiver of messages, and encompasses the use of unspoken words to consciously engage in self-talk and inner speech. Intr ...

. At the end of the story, in the art room, he sees unmistakable confirmation that he is indeed in his old school: his own handwriting in chalk on the blackboard: ''Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we...'' The story was first published by Verlag Friedrich Middelhauve in 1950 as the title story in a short story collection. Today, ''Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We...'' is one of Böll's most famous stories and is one of the best known of examples of '' Trümmerliteratur'' ("Rubble literature").

Plot

The unnamed first-person narrator begins the story in a truck and is transported through a partially burning city that he cannot identify, and is also unable to accurately gauge the amount of time spent traveling. He arrives in front of a makeshift

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

set up inside of a school and is carried inside on a stretcher, describing the details of the corridors and staircases that he passes through. Everything seems eerily familiar to him, but he ascribes those feelings to the pain and his fever. The narrator entertains the thought that all schools use the same interior layout and decorations, which would explain why he recognizes every door sign or picture on the wall. In the art room, while waiting for the doctor to come, he asks one of his companions where he is, and learns he is actually in

Bendorf Bendorf () is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. north of Koblenz. Structure of the town The town consists of the following districts: *Bendorf *Sayn *Mülhofen *St ...

, his hometown, but is still uncertain that he is indeed in his old Gymnasium, named after

Frederick the Great Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the S ...

, in which he spent eight years as a pupil. Alongside the question of his location, a second question of the severity of his wounds is raised. Both of these questions are answered directly after one another: he sees his own handwriting on the chalkboard, containing the quote "Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we..."from three months agotruncated because his lettering was too large to fit on the board. Right after this realization, he also discovers that both of his arms and one of his legs are missing. The narrator recognizes the firemanwho was looking after him while waiting for the doctor to cometo be Mr. Birgeler, the custodian of his old school, with whom the narrator drank his milk during the breaks between classes. The story ends with the arrival of the doctor and the narrator whispering "Milk..." to Birgeler. Although the story is written in the first person past tense, it is left uncertain if the narrator survives his injuries.

Title

The title is directly taken from Schiller's translation of the famous Epitaph of Simonides, commemorating the heroic Battle of Thermopylae. In German, the full

distich A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

reads: :''Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, verkündige dorten, du habest
Uns hier liegen gesehn, wie das Gesetz es befahl.''" The historic context thus praises death while defending the ''Vaterland'' and had in fact therefore been specially selected to prepare the young men for war. Böll uses it to demonstrate that even the "humanities-oriented" Gymnasium had their curricula adapted to

Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...

. At the same time, the German title cuts the word ''Sparta'' short to ''Spa...'', bringing up thoughts about the municipality of

Spa, Belgium Spa (; wa, Spå) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is situated in a valley in the Ardennes mountains south ...

, site of the German Headquarters during the previous Great War. The current

is thereby shown as history repeating itself.J. H. Reid: ''Heinrich Böll, "Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa..."''. In: Werner Bellmann (editor): ''Klassische deutsche Kurzgeschichten. Interpretationen''. Stuttgart 2004, page 98.

References

Secondary literature

* * Klaus Jeziorkowski: ''Die Ermordung der Novelle. Zu Heinrich Bölls Erzählung "Wanderer, kommst Du nach Spa..."'' In: ''Heinrich Böll. Zeitschrift der koreanischen Heinrich Böll-Gesellschaft''. 1st ed. (2001), pp. 5–19. * David J. Parent: ''Böll’s "Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa". A Reply to Schiller’s "Der Spaziergang".'' In: ''Essays in Literature'' 1 (1974), pp. 109–117. * * * * * Albrecht Weber: ''"Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa..."''. In: ''Interpretationen zu Heinrich Böll verfaßt von einem Arbeitskreis. Kurzgeschichten I''. 6th ed. Munich 1976, pp. 42–65. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We... German short stories 20th-century German literature Trümmerliteratur World War II fiction