"The End (1942)" Summary

The town is aflame and in ruins when the people emerge from the shelter. The narrator's home still stands, but the windows have been shattered. Resch picks up his wounded garden dwarf, Polycarp. Friedrich sits on the stoop, eyes closed, face pale. The narrator's father involuntarily asks if Friedrich is crazy, and Resch orders him away. Mother things he has fainted. Resch is pleased to see such sympathy for a Jew showed by the wife of a Nazi Party member. Resch kicks Friedrich, and he topples onto the path, trailing blood. The narrator clutches a thorny rosebush. Resch judges, "his luck that he died this way."

"The End (1942)" Analysis

Friedrich, of course, is killed. Resch is pleased to see the narrator's mother show sympathy for a Jew - it may give him an edge some day. He is disappointed...