Der Hunger treibt’s rein, der Geiz behält’s drin!

“Der Hunger treibt’s rein, der Geiz behält’s drin!” is the Auerhaus residents’ comic response to Frieder’s mock prayer before meals. Repeated at the table, the rhyme makes a shared meal into a modest ritual of belonging, binding everyday domestic life to the group’s capacity for humor and celebration.

A Prayer Turned into a Household Joke

Before eating, Frieder announces, “Lasset uns beten!” The others answer together, “Der Hunger treibt’s rein, der Geiz behält’s drin!” He concludes with “Amen.” The call-and-response borrows the shape of a formal prayer but replaces solemn religious language with a joke about hunger and thrift. Its structure matters: Frieder opens and closes the ritual, while the group supplies its central line in chorus.

The saying’s pairing of hunger with stinginess gives the joke its compact, balanced form. Hunger drives food in; thrift keeps it in. Instead of describing a particular dish or meal, the rhyme turns eating into a shared comic occasion. Its humor is not detached commentary from one person: it is spoken collectively, and so briefly makes the household sound like a single voice.

Repetition Among Ordinary Routines

The first recorded meal-time exchange appears amid a description of the group’s everyday life: getting up, making breakfast, playing badminton, obtaining food, and cooking together. The narrator calls this a “richtiges Leben”—a proper or real life—built from repeated tasks and conversation. The prayer and answer belong to that practical rhythm rather than interrupting it; the ritual is one of the small forms through which the residents make a life together.

That domestic normality carries a serious context. The group’s abundant talk, the narrator explains, means keeping watch over someone who had once tried to kill himself. He admits that even after weeks he does not understand why anyone would want to die. Against that unresolved fear, the meal-time joke does not provide an explanation or a cure. It marks a different, limited kind of response: the residents gather, eat, and repeat a familiar line together while remaining attentive to one another.

The Ritual at the New Year’s Dinner

The exchange recurs as the household sits down to a meal prepared by Frieder. He has cut vegetables, put potatoes on to cook, and stirred a cheese sauce. Once again he calls for prayer, and the others give the same response. This time, however, he continues after “Amen” by proposing a New Year’s party that will also celebrate Harry and Pauline moving in.

The repeated formula thus leads directly from a familiar meal ritual into a new plan for the household. The suggestion surprises the narrator, who considers parties rather dull and assumes Frieder feels much the same. Their usual parties, as the narrator remembers them, involve sitting somewhere, drinking—beer for the narrator and the Imiglykos Frieder brought—and talking or watching people. Frieder’s proposal is not presented as a sudden transformation of that habit so much as an unexpected decision to mark the occasion together. The shared joke at the table helps set the scene for a celebration that welcomes new residents and gives the household’s collective life another occasion of its own.

Meaning and Function

The line’s significance lies in its use, not in any explanation of its origin. Each time, Frieder’s formal-sounding invitation and closing “Amen” frame a colloquial group refrain; repetition makes the joke recognizable as a small custom of the shared house. Its comic inversion of prayer brings ceremony down to the level of appetite, but it also lends an ordinary meal a collective form.

In the scenes where it appears, the refrain sits beside the work of living together: preparing food, eating, talking, and looking after a vulnerable friend. Its return before the dinner that prompts plans for a New Year’s and housewarming party connects routine to celebration without erasing the more difficult circumstances surrounding the household. The phrase is funny because it treats hunger and thrift lightly; its warmth comes from the fact that the answer is spoken together.