Place and Plot: Anna Seghers, The Seventh Cross

In September 1938, Anna Seghers wrote a letter to the head of the Soviet publishing house for foreign literature in which she announces her plans forThe Seventh Cross: “I will finish a little novel, about 200 to 300 pages, based on an event that recently took place in Germany, a story that provides an opportunity to learn about very many levels in fascist Germany through the fate of a single man.”¹ The novel narrates the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp near the cities of Mainz and Frankfurt. While six fugitives are soon killed or captured, one,