“We’re riding to hell with trumpets and drums”

“We’re riding to hell with trumpets and drums” is a refrain that gives Franz Biberkopf’s despair a public, almost processional form. It first frames a declaration of contempt for the world, then becomes the language of his stated intention to kill himself and, finally, accompanies his gunshot at a pursuing policeman. Each return changes the refrain’s force: from generalized rejection to suicidal resolve to an act that precipitates his collapse.

A refrain against the world

The phrase appears under the heading “The beginning of the battle,” followed by “The battlefield, the lure of the battlefield!” Its first extended use comes as Franz rejects the world and its people as unreliable. He imagines himself as a bird, horse, dog, or cat that could leave human society behind, and extends that wish into a fantasy of escaping the world altogether. The refrain does not describe a literal journey; it makes despair sound like a march toward an end.

From grievance to self-destruction

The next return is bound to Franz’s grievance against Reinhold. Franz says that Reinhold has drawn him back into criminal life, broken his arm, and left him isolated while the police pursue him over Mieze’s murder. He wishes he could kill Reinhold and believes that would bring him peace, but recognizes that he cannot reach him. The refrain follows his conclusion, “I’ll kill meself.” This is its starkest turn: the imagined ride to hell becomes the language of a decision directed against Franz himself.

A city of movement and machinery

The refrain’s force is sharpened by the novel’s recurring attention to Alexanderplatz and the city’s organized motion. Earlier, tramway notices set routes, fares, and passenger rules beside fragments of public life; at Alexanderplatz, the road is being torn up for the underground railway, and pedestrians cross on planks. Later, a pile driver pounds the ground outside Aschinger’s restaurant as crowds watch. These scenes do not literally illustrate Franz’s refrain, but they place it within a narrative where movement is governed by transit, work, and machinery—and where the city’s rhythms continue around individual hardship.

The refrain at the police raid

At the Alexanderquelle pub, three policemen approach Franz after a long pursuit. He does not get up; as the first policeman rushes toward him, he pulls a pistol and fires. The refrain returns immediately afterward, now attached to a real shot and the claim that everything on earth has been settled. The imagined procession has become an irreversible action. Franz is then struck and overwhelmed; his cry that he has only one arm and that everything is useless ends with him slumping beside the bannister. The repeated line thus binds his declaration of despair to the moment his remaining control gives way.