Kellogg–Briand Pact renunciation of war

The Kellogg–Briand Pact renunciation of war is presented as an international undertaking to outlaw war and settle disputes by peaceful means. Its significance lies in the scale of that promise: the leading world powers signed an agreement to renounce war, while the novel’s Berlin is also governed by detailed systems of expulsion, supervision, and arrest.

Negotiation and Commitment

Negotiated in Paris in 1928, the pact was associated with Frank Kellog, the American Secretary of State; August Briand, the French Foreign Minister; and Gustav Stresemann, the German Foreign Minister. The agreement bound the nations that signed it to outlaw war and use peaceful means to settle their differences. The account emphasizes that all the leading world powers signed, presenting the pact as a broad international commitment rather than a bilateral arrangement.

A Promise Beside Domestic Law

The treaty’s renunciation of war belongs to a different sphere from the administrative and criminal laws that shape Franz Biberkopf’s life. After his prison sentence, the police order declares him a threat to public safety and morals and demands that he leave Berlin and surrounding districts within fourteen days. If he returns, it threatens a fine of 100 marks or, if he cannot pay, ten days’ imprisonment. The order’s precise boundaries, deadline, and penalties show law operating not as a general promise of peace but as immediate power over an individual’s movement.

Procedure and Enforcement

The order does not end with expulsion: Franz is placed under the supervision of an ex-prisoners’ welfare centre, where he must report monthly while his employment is investigated. Elsewhere, a police raid gathers people from a pub and takes them to the station; at police headquarters, detainees are searched, questioned, and processed through forms recording their identities, arrests, and addresses. These episodes do not describe the pact’s operation, but they set its international aspiration beside the concrete reach of domestic institutions.

Significance

The pact offers a formal rule for restraining conflict among states: disputes are to be resolved peacefully, and war is to be outlawed. The narrative’s legal episodes reveal a different kind of authority, one exercised through expulsion notices, reporting requirements, raids, and detention. The contrast does not make the pact a rule governing those police actions; rather, it makes the distance between a declared international ideal and the coercive routines of everyday law visible.