SOURCE: "Siegfried Lenz's Short Story 'Die Festung'," in Modern Languages, Vol. 55, No. 1, March, 1974, pp. 26-32.

In the following essay, Hanson uncovers the techniques that make Lenz's story "Die Festung" one of his best.

Siegfried Lenz is one of the most highly respected and gifted writers in present-day Germany. He has not achieved the same notoriety, nor the same exposure as Günter Grass, his friend, and fellow-campaigner on behalf of the S.P.D., but at the age of 47 he has a body of work behind him which must put him, not only in Germany but probably in Europe also, in the forefront as a writer, particularly in the field of the short story. Where Grass is baroque imagination, poetic wordplay and Black Comedy, Lenz is a skilled, more subdued craftsman, with a keen eye for detail, an impressive and careful control of language and a fine sense...