When the abyss of evil opens again, what would you do?
The Abyss (German original title: Der Schlund) is a German dystopian novel by Gudrun Pausewang, the author of The Cloud and The Last Children Of Schewenborn. It was published in 1993.
After an immigration crisis and an economic recession that was euphemized as the “Doldrums” in the media, Gesa Lorbach, a teenage girl from Kassel, has to witness the rise of a new right-wing extremist dictatorship in Germany. People of Color, queer people, people with disabilities, Muslims and of course Jews suddenly aren’t safe anymore, and speaking out against the regime lands you in a reeducation camp. Problematic for the Lorbach family, since their oldest son Jirgalem was adopted from Ethiopia, their father is a passionate left-winger and their youngest daughter Rike has Down syndrome. Losing more and more people to it, she wants to resist…but how?
The Abyss contains examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating:
- Opi Geschner’s right-wing extremist worldview is seemingly shared by no one else in the Lorbach family as long as he is alive. His wife behaves ambiguously.
- Subverted with Germany in the eyes of the world. While it is first said that the public in foreign countries would be outraged about the developments in Germany and the country loses all its friends on the international stage, the last chapters imply that a similar system to the Schlott dictatorship seems like a solution for many people there now too...
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The book was published in 1993. It is set around the year 2000.
- Addiction Displacement: Invoked by the DVB to cure drug addicts. They change their addiction to supporting the regime.
- Addled Addict: The son of a neighbor of the Lorbach family is described to be one. This is ended in one of the reeducation camps.
- An Aesop: “History can always repeat. Stay awake.” And “You can be brave and stand up against evil too.”
- Being Good Sucks: Standing up against Schlott gets you in grave danger, and most of the populace will think that you want the Doldrums back instead of that you want to be free.
- Big Bad: Hitler Expy Mark Schlott, a former TV host who becomes the new Federal Chancellor of Germany.
- Black-and-White Morality: Downplayed. While it is usually quite clear who is good and who is evil, there are also shades of grey.
- Black Shirt: The Black Guard is this a nearly literal way.
- Blatant Lies: The Lorbach family is told that their youngest child Rike died of heart failure while in special needs housing. They immediately see that this must be a lie, due to the resemblance to the Aktion T4.
- Book Burning: One happens before the Kassel university, one of the books burnt is one written by Gesa’s father.
- Bury Your Disabled: Rike, Gesa’s disabled sister, is implicitly murdered together with the rest of her Special Needs School class.
- Camp Gay: Dennis Korf, the gay man the Lorbach family rents a room to, was a professional ballet dancer before the Doldrums, sells clothing for a living, uses strong-smelling perfume and is very proud of his expensive suits.
- Christmas Episode: Several Christmases in the Lorbach family are covered as narrative devices.
- Clothesline Stealing: Jirgalem steals drying clothes from a line to tarn himself when escaping his deportation.
- Cool Old Guy: Opi Jupp Lorbach, who lives in a great house, loves all members of his family and has two Spitz dogs. He also takes in a two-digit number of refugees after the local refugee home is burnt down by Black Guards and hides Jirgalem after his escape.
- Corrupt Church: Played straight for the Catholic Church's clergy, who is said to have submitted to the Schlott dictatorship. Inverted for many believers, who prove to be a beacon of La Résistance.
- Creator Breakdown: In-universe. Jirgalem’s songs get darker and darker with him getting more and more desperate. The last one before his suicide is outright death-seeking.
- Cult of Personality: One is built around Schlott, with his picture in every classroom and media reports usually being about his good deeds.
- Day of the Jackboot: Happens when the DVB is finally elected with an absolute majority result.
- Days of Future Past: Germany develops in a way very similar to real-life Nazi Germany. A common criticism of the book is that the events are so similar to Nazi Germany’s history that it ceases to be exciting in any way – you can basically google what will happen next.
- Democracy Is Flawed: The Doldrums show it in vibrant colors. The government totally neglects doing something about it, and is far too busy bickering with each other. Nevertheless, autocracy under Schlott is the really bad thing.
- Despair Event Horizon: Jirgalem crosses it after his successful escape from a deportation transport when he realizes that it means no freedom for him besides being back home.
- Driven to Suicide: Jirgalem, after going through too much.
- Dystopia: Germany under Schlott is pretty much one: land in death camps for being born with the wrong skin color, with a not fully-functioning body or mind or as a member of the wrong people, get arrested for your sexuality or will-broken in a reeducation camp when you aren't worshiping the Glorious Leader. And everything surrounded by a large, massive wall.
- Election Day Episode: There are several elections covered throughout the story.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Omi Geschner questions her daughter Ingrid Lorbach about her fears regarding the DVB, since she won't think about abortions at her age anymore and is also neither a Po C nor queer nor a Muslim nor disabled and also altogether a quite upstanding citizen. She answers that she isn't worrying about herself but for everyone who is one of the latter. Omi Geschner doesn't understand why anyone isn't It's All About Me.
- Evil Laugh: Mark Schlott laughs loudly in his victory speech.
- Expy: Mark Schlott is of course a Hitler expy, and his Black Guards are expies of the SA. Nevertheless there are also expies on the side of good: three young people, consisting of two university students and one of them’s younger sister, who try to shoot Schlott – expies of the Nazi-German resistance group Weiße Rose.
- Face–Heel Turn: Subverted. Ulf grows interested with the DVB and their youth organization, but with the help of his sister Gesa’s speech, he sees through their vice in the end and stands with her.
- Failed State: Narrowly averted. Germany nearly turns into one during the Doldrums, with the country being so impoverished that literal slums are cropping up in German cities.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Jirgalem has a relationship with a white nurse, who leaves him for a white colleague as soon as an interracial relationship becomes too dangerous for her.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: The journalism job of Gesa’s father, who isn’t paid enough for his works as an author anymore. He hates it, but tries to make the best out of it.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: Invoked. The DVB seems to be able to get the jobless people from the streets – but by forcing them to work in a project to wall up Germany’s borders, what will presumably not last long. Jirgalem manages to flee a deportation transport and to come back home without being discovered.
- Faux Affably Evil: The DVB’s Black Guard. On the one hand, they attack LGBTQ+ bars and disturb demonstrations against human rights violations to gain a fearsome reputation, but on the other hand, they pose as nice and give the people things like large children’s parties, sports and singing festivals.
- Fictional Political Party: The Deutsche Front (DF, meaning “German Front”), later changing their name to Deutsche Volksbewegung (DVB, meaning “German People’s Movement”).
- Five-Token Band: The Lorbach family, consisting of a vocal left-winger (Gesa’s father), a black man (Gesa’s adopted brother), a woman with AIDS (Gesa’s aunt) and a disabled person (Gesa’s younger sister, who has Down syndrome). And they also rent a room to a gay man.
- Genre Savvy / Pragmatic Villainy:
- The DVB stops Putting on the Reich quite soon, knowing that it will make them Obviously Evil and drive too many against them.
- The regime also doesn't practice Released to Elsewhere, at least not in regard of healthy ethnic Germans (in regard of sick and/or non-ethnic Germans anyway). Several ethnic Germans who land in reindoctrination camps come back alive, but successfully reindoctrinated.
- They are also quite fond of environmental policies, punishing crimes against the environment with prison at minimum.
- Great Escape: Jirgalem escapes from a deportation transport that should bring him to an internment camp.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Bernd Geschner and his wife Irene are portrayed as this, only concerned for their own well-being, doing business with what- and whoever is profitable at the moment and producing most of their products in Bangladesh while viewing their Bangladeshi workers (the same as non-whites in general) as sub-human.
- Hail to the Thief: Some students in Gesa’s music class (herself included) start ridiculing the over-the-top proud new national anthem of Germany as soon as they learn it.
- Happily Adopted: Jirgalem is adopted and grew up very well in his adoptive family.
- History Repeats Itself: The Nazi era history of Germany nearly duplicates to an extent that it ceases to be exciting since the next events are quite predictable.
- I Have No Son!: An example with a grandparent. Opi Geschner doesn’t view his black adopted grandson Jirgalem and his disabled granddaughter Rike as his grandchildren and openly not even as members of the family.
- Intrepid Reporter: What Gesa’s father becomes in his time as a journalist. He bravely reports about the vice of the DVB, what sadly barely gets anyone’s interest.
- Jobless Parent Drama: Both Lorbach parents lose their jobs due to the Doldrums. The father cannot work as a full-time author anymore, what makes him turn to journalism, and the mother’s bookshop has to be closed.
- Landslide Election: How Schlott is finally elected.
- Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The DVB takes some heavy advantage of the Doldrums.
- Most Writers Are Writers: Gesa’s father is an author and left-wing publisher who becomes a journalist and finally a political defector. The mother owns a book shop until it has to be closed due to the Doldrums.
- National Anthem: A new one is introduced in Germany under the DVB. The trope is also discussed in a music lesson in which the new anthem is introduced, with Gesa saying that a national anthem isn’t a necessity, and that using the quite humble third stanza of the "Chant of the Germans" was better.
- Nazi Grandpa: Opi Geschner. He is very open about his never-changed beliefs and his outbreaks are dreaded. In his opinion, the Nazi era was the Glory Days of Germany and it is mainly a question of race and ethnicity whether one can consider themselves German. He doesn’t consider his grandchildren Jirgalem and Rike as those due to him considering them undesirables.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: How do Gesa and Opi Jupp find out that something is in fact wrong with the Special Needs Housing where Rike is forced to live now? She, known by them as a calm, cheerful and friendly person, is described to behave like a Jerkass towards everyone there.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Gesa, who is a student at a Gymnasium (the German equivalent to high school, not the sports ground).
- Patriotic Fervor: Invoked and enforced in-universe by the DVB.
- Police Brutality: The Black Guards attack people not in line violently.
- Properly Paranoid: The Lorbach family’s reaction to the rise of the DVB shows to be this.
- Putting on the Reich: The DVB does this deliberately, viewing the Third Reich as the most glorious age of German history and wanting to bring it back. They end it quite soon due to Schlott’s own order.
- Racist Grandma: Downplayed with Omi Geschner, who hold similar beliefs like her husband, but at least tries to hide them to keep the peace in the family.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Gesa is arrested after her valedictorian speech and dragged out of the school auditorium in handcuffs. However, some in Gesa’s audience solidarize themselves with her, and her brother Ulf finally realizes Schlott’s true nature.
- Released to Elsewhere: The DVB frames the mass murder of disabled children like this, similar to the real-life Nazi regime.
- Run for the Border: Gesa’s father flees Germany after the rise of the new dictatorship, crossing the border to Czechia on foot through the woods at nighttime. The reason: He openly spoke out against the DVB, especially their Black Guard.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: The Lorbach family’s reaction towards the events around the Doldrums? Mainly fear regarding the fate of German democracy. Later, Gesa’s mother is offered a job as a secretary in her brother’s factory, but declines since her brother supports the DVB.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Several classmates of Gesa leave Germany with their parents as political refugees. Also her family attempts this, but only her father goes through with it in the end.
- Society Is to Blame: The common reaction to the Black Guards burning down a bunch of refugee homes and killing several hundreds on them in the process. Deconstructed, since it is shown how everyone would have to blame themselves - any society is made up of everyone living in it.
- Starving Artist: Gesa’s father starts to work as a journalist since his books aren’t profitable enough to make a living anymore.
- Starting a New Life: Subverted. Jirgalem tries this in the United States, but leaves quite soon since the States are similarly racist, implying an Oppressive States of America in the book.
- The Dictatorship: What Germany becomes again in the book.
- Those Wacky Nazis: The DVB.
- Tyrannicide: An attempt of that is defied by Schlott’s bodyguards.
- Walls of Tyranny: Germany’s borders are walled up under the DVB – not just to force immigrants to get creative as hell, but also to make emigration far more difficult.
- With Us or Against Us: The DVB follows that idea, abolishing freedom of press and opinion.
- Wretched Hive: Many German cities become that during the Doldrums, including literal slums. It is said to happen everywhere else in the world too.
- You Cannot Kill An Idea: Gesa leaves the scene with this thought in her head.
