Der Tod in Rom

Tod in Rom, Der, a novel by W. Koeppen, published in 1954. A satire on contemporary conditions, it shows a Germany in which unrepentant officials of the Nazi regime have secured prominent positions, while a resentful younger generation is left to cope with the scars of the past. The central figure, the SS General Judejahn, who has escaped proceedings which would have led to his execution, embodies the intractable brutality of the Third Reich. He is obsessed with sex, which impels him to sleep with a Jewish barmaid, and with the ‘final solution’, which explains his decision to ‘execute’ her; he shoots the wrong woman, who happens to be Jewish and a near victim of his in the past. His death in Rome arises from his relentless sexual exertion. The finale includes an overt parody of Th. Mann's Der Tod in Venedig.