The Silent Angel is the first novel Heinrich Böll wrote, and yet the last one to be published. When he wrote it his financial situation was so desperate he had to put it aside frequently to earn his keep with more profitable short stories.

When the manuscript was finished, his publishers were reluctant to go ahead with it, even after Böll had agreed to many changes. Finally, he resigned himself to never seeing this novel in print (it was published posthumously, on what would have been his 75th birthday). Consequently, he incorporated much of the material and the plot in his next novel, And Never Said a Single Word. His criticism of bourgeois Catholicism, which he attacks and exposes as hypocritical, is also later developed in The Clown, reviewed above.

Overall there is Böll’s contempt for those types who know all too well how to look after themselves and who after the war carried on as if nothing had happened, turning the restoration of democracy to their own advantage and brushing off the chance for a truly new beginning.

On the day of Germany’s capitulation, Hans, a young soldier, has just returned to a destroyed Cologne. He has nowhere to go and does not even possess valid papers. Carrying the testament of a fallen fellow soldier with him, he searches for his widow. She, in turn, is cheated of her inheritance by her brother-in-law, the successful, (and catholic) Herr Fischer. When Hans tries to ask for support later, the same Herr Fischer turns him away.

Later, Hans meets Regina, in whose house he looks for shelter. Regina, who has lost her baby only days before, lets him recuperate with her, and after a while, they start a relationship. Hans tries to get himself work on the black market to support the two of them. He finds help with an unorthodox priest who lets him have some of the church offerings and who turns a blind eye when he learns that Hans and Regina are not married.

The melodrama that such a plot suggests is avoided by Böll’s matter of fact descriptions of the dying, the despairing, the unjustly treated. Although there is a love story, it is not enough to redeem a very harsh reality, and, as the title suggests, if there are any angels, they are mostly made of plaster.

The Silent Angel does not discuss the war, and hardly touches the later postwar era. Really it is about what normal people felt just after the war had finished. The historical significance of the capitulation disappears in the tiredness of the people, too preoccupied with the necessities of living to feel anything but a vague sense of relief.

The novel can be regarded as an important document of the state of Germany in May 1945, and is one of the best examples of Trümmerliteratur — ‘rubble literature’. It shows the human condition, stripped of all pretences, of the ‘lost generation’ — in Böll’s words ‘a generation which has «come home», a generation that knows there is no home for them on this earth’.

‘He gave her five marks and saw the coupons lying in his hand, tiny scraps of printed paper. «Are they any good?» he asked softly. She raised her eyebrows indignantly and blinked her eyes like a doll. «Of course,» she said «don’t you know we’re at peace now?» «Peace,» he said, «since when?»

«Since this morning,» she said. «We’ve been at peace since this morning... the war’s over...»

«I know,» he said. «It’s been over for a long time, but peace?»

«We’ve capitulated; don’t you believe it?»

«No...»

She called to an amputee who was sitting a few steps away in the remnants of a wall, holding an open packet of cigarettes before him. He hobbled over. «He doesn’t believe we’re at peace,» she said[...]

«Yes, it’s true, the war’s over, really over. Didn’t you know?»

«No,» said Hans. «Where can I buy bread with these coupons? Are they good?»’ p 45