Erich Denningsen

Erich Denningsen is Helga Denningsen’s husband, an unemployed man whose visits to Fiete Honka’s workplace become increasingly frequent and whose easy companionship helps draw Fiete into the Denningsens’ social circle. Fiete reads that welcome as evidence of a private intimacy with Helga and, increasingly, as grounds to displace Erich. The resulting contrast is central to Erich’s role: he appears as a convivial guest and a financially troubled husband, but in Fiete’s imagination he is transformed into an obstacle to be eliminated. Erich is not shown being killed; his departure to fetch food instead creates the opening for Fiete to assault Helga.

Identity and Circumstances

Erich is introduced through Helga’s birthday gathering at work on July 13. He arrives at her workplace and includes Fiete in the celebration, bringing Würfel and a portable radio as well as beer and brandy. The three drink, play dice, joke, and listen to music. Erich’s contribution is practical and sociable: he helps turn Fiete’s night shift into a party rather than treating the guard as an outsider. Fiete, who initially refuses alcohol, soon joins in.

Erich’s employment situation becomes clear only after he begins coming around more often. When Fiete asks how he has time for the visits, Erich admits that he is out of work, insisting that the condition is temporary. Fiete notices how often Erich stresses that word, but the passage does not establish how long Erich has been unemployed or what caused it. In a drunken conversation, Erich also says that he has broken his legs three times. Fiete turns this disclosure into a judgment of his body and character, associating the injuries with Erich’s waddling gait and treating them as proof that he is foolish and unworthy of Helga.

The material circumstances of Erich and Helga’s marriage surface in Helga’s private conversation with Fiete. She worries that her small wage from cleaning offices and Erich’s unemployment benefit will not cover the instalments on their house. Erich’s unemployment therefore has consequences for the household, even as Fiete uses it to imagine himself superior to him. Fiete’s account of Erich’s supposed laziness and dependence is not an objective description: it is part of the increasingly hostile story Fiete constructs about the man he wants out of the way.

Fellowship with Fiete

The relationship begins in the ordinary rituals of company. After the July 13 celebration, Fiete makes his first patrol only once Helga and Erich have left, rushing around in an effort to sweat off the alcohol and privately worrying that his drinking on duty might be discovered. The gathering has offered pleasure, but it also makes his self-imposed rule against drinking while on duty harder to maintain. The next day, guilt and boredom compete with the memory of how entertaining the night had been; he eventually drinks the remaining brandy and beer.

On July 31, after Fiete finishes his first patrol, the Denningsens are waiting in his office with a marble cake bearing five or six lit candles. Helga takes Fiete’s large hand between her smaller ones and squeezes it. Erich adds his birthday wishes, including a hope for Fiete’s health and long life. The scene gives Fiete an experience of being remembered and celebrated at work, not merely included in another couple’s evening. It moves him to tears and becomes one of his happiest birthdays.

The celebration continues with beer, brandy, dice, and music from Erich’s radio. Erich turns up the volume when a good song comes on, and the three dance with one another. In the exuberance of the evening, he kisses Fiete on the mouth. Fiete has never been kissed by a man and does not know quite what to make of it, but the gesture does not interrupt the party. Erich also invites Fiete to visit the couple at their home in Tonndorf. These are acts of warmth and inclusion; the passage gives no indication that Erich intends them as anything other than friendly hospitality.

The Rival Fiete Invents

Fiete’s interpretation of Erich changes as his own desire for Helga intensifies. He reads her clothes, looks, and moments of tenderness as signs that she is attracted to him, although the evidence he relies on does not establish that she wants a relationship with him. Erich’s presence becomes an irritant precisely because Fiete recasts the marriage as an obstacle to an imagined future. The financial strain Helga confides in him is absorbed into that fantasy: rather than simply hearing her worry about the house, Fiete treats it as evidence that she needs rescuing from her husband.

His view of Erich becomes openly contemptuous. He fixates on the broken legs, the waddling gait, and the food Erich brings to their dice evenings, depicting him as idle and selfish. He imagines that Helga is trapped in the marriage and tells himself that she cannot free herself without his intervention. This conviction is Fiete’s, not a plan or request expressed by Helga. His supposed rescue of her is inseparable from his sexual possessiveness and his wish to take Erich’s place.

The contrast between Erich’s manner and Fiete’s interpretation sharpens the danger. Erich is described as friendly, attentive, and sympathetic, yet Fiete imagines him as a calculating rival who may be planning to get rid of him first. Fiete’s suspicion has no confirming evidence in the scene. It feeds his agitation, alongside alcohol and sexual frustration, and turns an ordinary marriage into a contest that exists chiefly in his mind.

The Murder Plan and the Assault on Helga

Fiete considers following Erich to the toilet, kicking him behind the knees, and shooting him in the head with a gas pistol. He recognizes that the weapon is not a real firearm and imagines that several shots would be needed. He plans to tell Helga that Erich has gone to buy cigarettes or other supplies, then use the time before she goes looking for him to dispose of the body. These are contemplated actions, not events: Erich is not shown entering the toilet, being shot, or being killed.

The immediate opportunity comes when Erich says he will go to the nearby snack bar to get shashlik and fries for himself and Helga. Fiete has thought Erich gone for longer than the errand should take and begins counting to sixty, imagining that Erich may have been struck by a vehicle or train. He wants him dead, but the passage does not confirm that anything has happened to Erich; he has simply not yet returned. While he is away, Fiete declares his desire to Helga and attacks her, tearing at her blouse and bra. Helga cries out in fear and pain, strikes him until he lets go, and runs away. Too drunk to pursue her, Fiete locks the office door and continues drinking, fearing that she will go to the police and that he will lose his job and go to prison.

Erich’s narrative significance lies in the gap between the sociable man shown in the birthday scenes and the rival manufactured by Fiete’s obsession. His unemployment and the couple’s financial worry are real pressures, but Fiete turns them into a justification for possession and violence. At the climax, Erich is away on a mundane food errand, not carrying out the hostile scheme Fiete attributes to him. That brief absence enables Fiete’s assault on Helga; it does not resolve Fiete’s imagined rivalry or establish Erich’s fate.