EWW Pre-Class Assignment

If the Dead Rise Not

By: Phillip Kerr

Chapter One: 1516 words



Backstory: Since I was no longer a policeman but a hotel employee, it was as good as telling him I wasn’t a Nazi. Worse than that. A man who had been obliged to leave the Berlin detective force because of his allegiance to the old Weimar Republic might be just the type to ignore someone speaking treason about the Leader.

I’d been forced out of my job as a senior detective wit KRIPO—a job I had loved—and been made to feel like a pariah because of my adherence to the old Weimar Republic. 94 16%



Character Development: I turned away and walked quickly down Hedemann Strasse. It was a warm day, almost the end of September, when a word like “summer” made me think of something precious that was soon to be forgotten. Like freedom and justice. “Germany awake” was the slogan on everyone’s lips, only it appeared to me that we were clock-stepping in our sleep toward some terrible but as yet unknown disaster. This didn’t mean I was ever going to be foolish enough to say so in public, and certainly not when strangers were listening. I had principles, sure, but I also had all my own teeth.

103 15%



Scene Setting: It was the sort of sound you hear in the distance and mistake for something else: a dirty seam barge puffing along the River Spree; the shunting f a slow locomotive underneath the great glass roof of the Anhalter Station; the hot, impatient breath of some enormous dragon, as if one of the stone dinosaurs in Berlin’s zoo had come to life and was now lumbering up Wilhelmstrasse.

People stopped to stare and to salute the traffic jam of Nazi flags and banners the soldiers were carrying—an entire haberdashers store of red and black and white curtain material.

Since I was no longer a policeman but a hotel employee, it was as good as telling him I wasn’t a Nazi. Worse than that. A man who had been obliged to leave the Berlin detective force because of his allegiance to the old Weimar Republic might be just the type to ignore someone speaking treason about the leader. 158 9.59 or 10%





Exposition that moves the story: Even before he flicked the end of his cigarette at the brass band and hit the bass drum, a gap had opened around this ill-advised commentator, as if he were carrying a deadly disease.

I turned away and walked quickly down Hedemann Strasse. It was a warm day, almost the end of September, when a word like “summer” made me think of something precious that was soon to be forgotten. Like freedom and justice. “Germany awake” was the slogan on everyone’s lips, only it appeared to me that we were clock-stepping in our sleep toward some terrible but as yet unknown disaster. This didn’t mean I was ever going to be foolish enough to say so in public, and certainly not when strangers were listening. I had principles, sure, but I also had all my own teeth.

For a moment, I just bit my lip, irritated at being pushed around yet again, not just by this cadaver-faced cop but by the whole Nazi state.

I’d been forced out of my job as a senior detective wit KRIPO—a job I had loved—and been made to feel like a pariah because of my adherence to the old Weimar Republic. 199 8%



Dialogue that moves the story: Only the man standing next to me seemed less than enthusiastic.

“You mark my words,” he said. “That crazy idiot Hitler means to have another war with England and France. AS if we didn’t lose enough men the last time. All this marching, up and down makes me sick. It might have been God who invented the devil, but it was Austria that gave us the Leader.”



“Hey ou,” said a voice behind me. “Stop a minute. I want to talk to you.”

I kept walking.

“Didn’t you hear me?” he said. Taking hold of my shoulder, he pushed me up against an advertising column and showed me a bronze warrant disc on the palm of his and.

“No, I didn’t,” I said.

“The man who spoke treasonably about the Leader. You must have heard what he said. You were standing right next to him.”

“I don’t remember hearing anything.”

“So why did you suddenly walk away?”

“I remembered I had an appointment.”

“I don’t believe you,” the cop said. “Identification card,” he snapped his fingers impatiently. 177





Foreshadowing: it appeared to me that we were clock-stepping in our sleep toward some terrible but as yet unknown disaster. This didn’t mean I was ever going to be foolish enough to say so in public, and certainly not when strangers were listening. I had principles, sure, but I also had all my own teeth.

234 7%



Symbolism: Nothing noted.