German with Dog (Short story)
German with Dog (Short story)

Summary/Abstract: János Székely (1929–1992) was a Transylvanian Hungarian poet, writer, playwright and translator. The short story “German with Dog” comes from the book A nyugati hadtest (1979, The Western Corps), a slim volume of seven interlinked short stories that bears comparison with Babel’s Red Cavalry and is one of the most compelling literary works about war. Presenting the vicissitudes of the Western corps of the defeated Hungarian army in the Second World War through the optic of a young cadet, Székely’s book is an autobiographically based catalogue of violence, shame and coercion, which examines the workings of the war machine with unsparing precision. From the portrait of a cadet bullied by the whole company, through the tale of a teacher forced to execute a student of his who deserted the army, to the story of the German soldier and his dog who methodically kill weak prisoners who dropped out on a death march, each of these stories offers a detached analysis of the ethics of defeat, full of unforgettably intense images. Székely shows how war moulds everyone and everything to its purpose, combining fear, honour and cruelty into a ceaseless monstrosity.

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