Un cristiano attraverso guerra e rivoluzione. La tetralogia di Alfred Döblin "Novembre 1918"

While in exile, Alfred Döblin wrote his novel tetralogy November 1918. The First World War and the German Revolution of 1918-1919 are the narrative topics, which are dealt with by him in great intensity and temporal concentration, but with a variety of people and perspectives. Although the novel is interpreted here as a book of conversions, the personal religious biography of the author is deliberately left in the background. More important are the conversion stories in the work itself: that of a war-traumatized Berlin high school teacher, but also that of Rosa Luxemburg, which are helpful for understanding the impossibility of realizing an earthly paradise through violence. More generally, Döblin asks how one can become a Christian under such tragic historical circumstances and how Christians should have responded to these events.