Auerhaus Residents Move to Cologne

Auerhaus Residents Move to Cologne marks the end of the household’s shared life in Auerhaus and the beginning of its residents’ next stage together. They remain in the house until Harry finishes his apprenticeship, then move to Cologne and rent a dilapidated house in the middle of the city. The departure is both a practical change of address and a transition in the book’s form: the central story gives way to an extended account of what happened afterward.

The Move from Auerhaus

The residents’ stay at Auerhaus lasts until Harry completes his apprenticeship. At that point they do not simply disperse: they all move to Cologne together. Their new home is a run-down house in the city center, a detail that makes the move feel less like arrival at a polished destination than a continuation of their improvised communal life in different surroundings.

From Story to Afterword

The narrator presents the move as the point at which an ending can begin. The main story is, in effect, over; what follows is a long epilogue concerned with the later lives of the people who shared the house. The shift places the move at a narrative threshold: Auerhaus remains the defining setting of their collective experience, but the account now looks beyond it toward the separate futures that unfold after the household’s time together.

Harry’s Later Life

The epilogue begins to sketch Harry’s subsequent path. He performs civilian service at an AIDS aid organization and later studies fashion design at a university of applied sciences. His designs include trousers and jackets fitted with electric drums, rattles, horns, and flashing lights. These specific details give the post-Auerhaus passage its distinctive, lightly comic character: the move opens onto lives that continue in unexpected forms, rather than supplying a single, conclusive ending.