10 h 48 minAudiobook15 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 when the wish to save the world becomes the power to change other people's lives?
In The People's Benefactor, Rudolf Haas explores the uneasy meeting of high ideals and public power. At the center is the hope that suffering can be ended. But helping many people requires more than conviction. It calls for resources, allies and decisions whose effects reach beyond the person making them.
Ambition, loyalty and doubt press against the promise of a good cause. The question is not simply whether someone wants to help, but what means that person will accept. As humanity becomes a cause to serve, individual people—and their own wishes—risk slipping out of view.
What you’ll discover
- The pull of hope Explore the belief that suffering can end, and the commitment such a belief demands.
- Ideals under pressure Consider what happens when a worthy aim meets the hard choices of public life.
- People behind the cause Look beyond the promise of helping humanity to the individuals that promise can overlook.
- Loyalty beside doubt Spend time with questions of conscience that good intentions alone cannot settle.
- A cost others share Reflect on how a grand design can place burdens on more than its champion.
Who will love it
Readers who love big novels of ideas, friendship and conscience, set in the Austria and Bohemia of the early twentieth century. Anyone drawn to strikes, social dreams and the quiet strength of family life will feel at home here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy loses his faith and finds friends
- Injustice drives him out of school
- Grief, a mentor and a doubter's question
- Prague, a duel and a refusal
- Vienna and the north: a young leader
- A victory, a love and a growing split
- Prison, a homecoming and a loyal circle
- Betrayal in the party and a rich man's offer
- What the story asks and how it is told
Who’s who
- Fritz HellwigA shy, stubborn Bohemian student who loses his faith, refuses to lie and dreams of a fair society.
- Heinz WartThe pale, passionate son of a merchant, who gives Fritz his first true friendship and burns with love for the poor.
- Eva WartHeinz's lively younger sister, who teases Fritz as a girl and grows into the loyal heart of his home.
- Otto PichlerA charming, easily swayed schoolmate who wants admiration and comfort above all and bends with every wind.
- Albert KolbenA wealthy, ironic doctor of philosophy with a hidden loyalty, who steers Fritz toward action and stands by his family.
- Robert KarusA wandering revolutionary from Odessa who scorns peaceful reform and wants freedom won by fire and iron.
- Leo ReinholtA textile manufacturer who speaks of profit but wants to try Fritz's plan for a factory owned by its workers.
- Father RomanusA gaunt Jesuit teacher with a preacher's voice, who watches his pupils through the town's women and wants Fritz brought back to the Church.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 10 h 48 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 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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El benefactor del pueblo
by Rudolf Haas
Fritz Hellwig defies a priest, refuses a duel and leads miners toward a dream of a fair society.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The People's Benefactor is a novel by Rudolf Haas, who died in 1943. It is set in the Austrian empire in the years when workers fought for the vote, and it follows one man from boyhood to middle age.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy loses his faith and finds friends
The story opens in Neuberg, a town of six thousand people in western Bohemia. Fritz Hellwig is eighteen, a dreamer who spends his afternoons lying in the red heather and asking where we come from and why we are here. His father, a teacher, died years ago, and his devout mother clings to him with a love that smothers him. When his reason begins to doubt what he was taught, he stops going to Mass.
His religion teacher is Father Romanus, a tall, pale Jesuit with a voice like an organ. Romanus knows every sin in town through the women who confess to him, and he watches his pupils through them. Fritz tells no one why he stays away. He only decides that he will never lie.
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What is The People's Benefactor about?
It follows Fritz Hellwig, a shy Bohemian boy who loses his faith, becomes a student, journalist and strike leader, and tries to build a fair community. It asks what an idealist owes his friends and family.
Who is Karus in The People's Benefactor?
Robert Karus is a wandering revolutionary from Odessa who believes freedom must be taken by force. He meets Fritz after a strike speech and becomes his sharpest opponent, in a clash of two ideas of freedom.
Where and when is the novel set?
It takes place in the Austrian empire in the years of the struggle for universal suffrage. Scenes move among the Bohemian town of Neuberg, Prague, Vienna and the coal basin of North Bohemia.
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