Otoo, “Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin,” 2016

Categorized as 200-level course, 300 or 400-level course, Black German Studies, Gender & Sexuality, Lesson Plan, Migration Studies, Race & Ethnicity, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Women Creators

Frame and Preparation

Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin

Frame

  • German history/legacy of WWII and Holocaust
  • Gender relations
  • Intergenerational relations
  • Time and historical progression
  • Migration
  • Race
  • Labor

Introduction

While Sharon Dodua Otoo had published two novellas in English prior, this short story was Otoo’s first piece to be written and published in German, and won the Ingeborg Backmann Prize in 2016. In 2022, it was published in a new volume alongside two additional pieces by her: “Dürfen Schwarze Blumen Malen” and “Härtere Tage”.

“Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin” infuses social criticism with a playful premise and humor, challenging the stale perspectives on German history.

Preparation

Provide background information about the author as a non-native German speaker/writer, a woman of color, and that the story won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2016.

Perhaps during or after, but not before, the discussion, explain that Helmut Gröttrup was a real person, a German rocket scientist under the Nazis who developed weapons.

Text and Discussion

Discussion

  • Who or what is the speaking egg? What role does this figure play in the story?
  • Describe the triangle relationships between Herr Gröttrup, his wife, and the cleaning woman, Ada. How do they know each other? How do they speak to one another? What are their opinions of one another?
  • What are the dynamics between each of these individuals regarding gender, age, and race?
  • Who is speaking in the italicized portions of the text? Is it the same narrator in the other parts of the texts, or a different one? To whom is it speaking?
  • What idea of history is presented in the story? Linearity? Repetition? Cyclicality? 
  • Why doesn’t Herr Gröttrup know who Ada is? What can this tell us about who these figures are in the story? 
  • What do we know about Herr Gröttrup’s past? How does this past influence his present, and what does it tell us about the place of Germany history in our present?