13 h 7 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to ordinary lives when an empire falls and the world they know breaks apart?
In The 9th of November, Bernhard Kellermann turns to Germany at the end of the First World War. War, hunger and anger strain a society whose old order is giving way. The title points to the day in 1918 when the German Empire falls, the Kaiser loses his throne and a republic is declared in Berlin.
Revolution reaches beyond the centres of power. Unrest among sailors spreads to cities, workers and soldiers form councils, and the monarchy gives way within days. Against this upheaval, Kellermann offers a wide view of a nation under strain. Private lives are swept along by public events, while grief, blame and fear make the future feel uncertain.
What you’ll discover
- An old world ending Enter a society where war and revolution break the familiar structures of power.
- History through private lives Feel how vast public events reach people whose lives cannot stand apart from them.
- Revolution across a nation Explore the upheaval as unrest spreads and workers and soldiers form councils.
- The weight of ruin Face the grief, anger and fear that surround defeat and the collapse of an empire.
- A sweeping social vision Discover Kellermann’s view of a nation under pressure, caught between collapse and an uncertain future.
Who will love it
Readers who love big city novels, stories of family secrets and the fall of empires, and people who like to see a whole society, from salons to tenements, through many different eyes.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A general receives a green letter
- Dora's carpets and a war of talk
- Two young men and two sisters
- Otto's night and the glass on his head
- The father with the letters in his pocket
- Ackermann, Ruth and the new faith
- Dora's ball and the great offensive
- What the story is really about
- How the book is told
Who’s who
- General von Hecht-BabenbergA proud staff general pushed from the front to a Berlin desk, who trusts maps and rules and cannot look at his own daughter.
- RuthThe general's gentle, untidy daughter, who works in a public kitchen, reads Marx and prepares to leave her class for a plain life.
- OttoThe general's son, a decorated first lieutenant, secretly afraid of the front and hungry for every pleasure before he returns.
- Mr. HerbstA retired teacher in a Havelock whose son fell at Quatre Vents, and who wants an answer from the general he blames.
- AckermannA wounded student soldier and clerk with gentle eyes, who dreams of brotherhood among nations and plans a deed to wake the city.
- Dora von DoenhoffThe laughing hostess of a villa full of carpets, who cannot bear boredom and keeps her own secrets from the general.
- Hedi WestphalA privy councillor's elder daughter, tired of thrift and waiting, who looks for a richer and bolder life.
- Klara WestphalHedi's young sister, who loves the boy pilot Heinz with a faithful heart and follows his train on a map.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 13 h 7 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Der 9. November
by Bernhard Kellermann · 1920
A general who runs the war from a Berlin desk is stalked by an old man in a Havelock who wants a son back.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The 9th of November is a novel by Bernhard Kellermann, set in Berlin in the last year of the First World War. It follows a few months, from the cold winter of 1918 to the day the old order falls.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A general receives a green letter
The story opens on a wet winter evening in Berlin. General von Hecht-Babenberg, fifty-eight years old, leaves the war office in a fur coat with a red collar. The porter hands him a thin letter in an ugly green envelope, and the general reads its face with distaste. Through the glass door he glimpses a small, blue-pale face, a mask with grieving eyes, which vanishes at once.
In his limousine the general thinks of the people in the street as raw material, no more than soldiers waiting for orders. He nearly runs down a crippled soldier in the mud of Wilhelmstrasse and never gives it a thought. Six months earlier he was taken from his field command and put behind a desk, and he blames an old rival, a powerful man at court. The cause was a hill called Quatre Vents, which he held too long and lost.
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What is The 9th of November about?
It follows a Berlin general, his children and a grieving father during the last months of the First World War. Scenes in salons, hospitals and tenements show a society losing hope as a great change approaches.
Who is Mr. Herbst in The 9th of November?
He is a retired teacher in a long Havelock coat whose son Robert fell at the hill called Quatre Vents. He follows the general, who commanded there, and his grief and hatred shape much of the plot.
What does the date 9 November mean in the book?
It is the day in 1918 when revolution broke out in Berlin and the old imperial order fell. The novel builds toward it and shows how its people meet that day.
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