Like so many of Böll's works, Ende einer Dienstfahrt has sharply divided critical opinion. For some, mostly Eastern European critics, the Gruhls' 'happening' is an act of resistance against the West German state, and Birglar society a refuge of those humanistic values which are lacking on higher social and political levels. Some Western critics on the other hand have claimed that in presenting their action as a purely aesthetic one the Gruhls render it quite harmless—as Manfred Durzak has put it [in Der deutsche Roman der Gegenwart, 1979]: 'Statt Aufsprengung der Sinnlosigkeit steht am Ende Verharmlosung durch Verniedlichung der moralisch gemeinten Tat als Kunstwerk'—and have also found the village idyll too Utopian to be credible as a microcosm of contemporary society. This striking divergence of views reflects not only the different ideological assumptions of the two groups, but also, more importantly, the fundamental ambiguity and 'hintergründige Ironie' of the novel itself, which have on the whole not been sufficiently recognized by critics. In fact only one of those cited, Hans Joachim Bernhard, appears to appreciate that Böll is not, despite his own comments, expressing a straightforward 'Aufforderung zur Aktion', but exploring both the possibilities and the limitations, or, to use Bernhard's terms, the 'Macht und Ohnmacht' of art as a form of social and political protest, and that the Gruhls' apparent 'Verharmlosung' or 'Verniedlichung' of their action is a manifestation of the cunning of what are essentially 'Schelm' figures who are as concerned with self-preservation as they are with exposing the mechanisms of the state and its bureaucracy [Die Romane Heinrich Balls, 1970].

As far as the small-town setting is concerned, it has not generally been realised that its idyllic, 'humanistic' features are seriously undermined, indeed shown to be naive and ineffectual, by the numerous indications that the state is deliberately exploiting these elements from behind the scenes for its own political purposes, specifically to prevent the Gruhls' action from arousing wider public interest. The emphasis placed by critics on the charming social foreground has led not only to an underestimation of the role of the state but also to a failure to comprehend its essential nature in the novel. For the state is just as much a 'Schelm' or trickster as the Gruhls themselves—in fact there are several important hints that its most powerful representatives are to be viewed as modern variants of one of the classic rogues of European literature, Reynard the Fox, most notably Prosecutor Kugl-Egger's exasperated reference to his superiors as 'diesefn] rheinischen Füchse[n] As this article aims to show, it is only in the light of the parallelism between what are in essence two opposing groups of Rhenish foxes—a parallelism that is reflected in Frau Stollfuss's ambiguous allusion to 'diese Füchse' when she, like her husband, realises what both the Gruhls and the state are up to—that Böll's central concern in the work, the problematic relationship of the artist as social critic and the state, can be fully understood.

Böll provides some useful, though by no means altogether reliable clues to this relationship in his 'Einführung in "Dienstfahrt'", where he neatly, if rather ironically, summarizes the ambiguous position of the artist vis-à-vis society in general and the state in particular (hinted at by the metaphor of the 'Irrenhausdirektor'). On the one hand, Böll suggests, society's bland and genial reception of art amounts to the artist's relegation to a kind of padded cell where he is at best humoured. At the same time, the realisation, prompted by public response to the 'Provos' in Amsterdam and to 'happenings' generally, that all forms of art are taken seriously by society led him to the conclusion that society may be tricked by an art which is on the surface innocuous but in reality serious social criticism into accepting its subversive kernel, so that, as a result, 'Kunst, also auch Happening, eine, vielleicht die letzte MÖglichkeit sei, die Gummizelle durch eine Zeitzünderbombe zu sprengen oder den Irrenhausdirektor durch eine vergiftete Praline ausser Gefecht zu setzen'. In this way the resourceful artist can perhaps break out of his 'padded cell' and even have some political impact on the state itself.

The central incident of Ende einer Dienstfahrt, the burning of an army jeep, represents just such a combination of time bomb and 'vergiftete Praline'. The most noteworthy aspect of this incident, which is in fact an act of sabotage, is that it is staged as a multi-faceted work of art by the Gruhls. And indeed, at the subsequent trial (reminiscent of the 'Gerichtstag' in the Reynard tradition), whose proceedings constitute the body of the work, the Gruhls' action, in the course of which they had sung a litany and beaten out a rhythm with their pipes, '"seelenruhig" und "mit offensichtlicher Genugtuung'", is described by a professor of art, Büren, as a 'Kunstwerk' embodying five dimensions: 'die Dimension der Architektur, der Plastik, der Literature, der Musik . . . und schliesslich tänzerische Elemente, wie sie seines Erachtens im Gegeneinanderschlagen der Tabakpfeifen zum Ausdruck gekommen seien'. The testimony of the waggish Büren, who delights in stressing his status as a 'Beamter', puts the official seal of approval on the Gruhls' own presentation of their action as a happening, rather than a political protest. This act of trickery on their part enables them to protest with relative impunity against what they perceive as the wastefulness of an absurd military system and the society of which it is symptomatic, and to expose it to ridicule.

The exposure is achieved not by the burning of the jeep itself, which is incomprehensible to most of those who witness or hear about it, but by the ensuing trial, which has no doubt been anticipated by the Gruhls and which they seem to regard as a continuation of the happening itself, as their behaviour in court suggests—for example, their constant amusement at the proceedings and the evidence given, made possible by their apparent indifference to the outcome of the trial. It is characteristic of their cunning that they remain by and large reticent, particularly about the motives behind the happening. It is left to the witnesses to draw the social, legal and political implications of their action and in the course of so doing, in keeping with the spirit of the Reynard satire, to provide a damning indictment of a whole range of abuses in contemporary West German society. This is all the more telling since it emerges particularly from the testimony of a number of so-called experts in their respective fields, even though some of them clearly present their evidence tonguein-check.

For the older Gruhl the incident is the culmination of a lifelong opposition to militarism and state bureaucracy going back to his period of service with the army in France during the Second World War, where he saw action on the 'MÖbelfront', as he describes it, restoring antique furniture for German officers. The incidents which are reported from this period reveal the same guile and healthy sense of self-preservation as are manifested in the happening and its aftermath. This is exemplified especially by his denial of any political motivation following his arrest for clandestine activities on behalf of the French resistance and his claim that he had acted merely out of friendship for his acquaintance Heribault. The same attitude also comes out at a later stage when he falls victim to what another subversive figure, the tax-expert Grähn, calls the merciless tax system, for which, as an independent craftsman, Gruhl is a ridiculous anachronism. In order to survive he displays considerable cunning in evading taxation and escaping the clutches of the bailiff and thus outwitting the state bureaucracy, whose relationship to the individual citizen is described by Grähn and the bailiff, Hall, in terms of the metaphor of the hunter and his prey, which is clearly an elaboration of the underlying allusion to the state as a Reynard figure, an elaboration which in this case hints at the more brutal and rapacious aspects of Reynard's behaviour.

The younger Gruhl's motivation in staging the happening can be found in an alarmingly similar experience to that of his father in the army (a point that Böll is at pains to stress in order to attack postwar West German rearmament by implying a fatal continuity of the German military tradition). His artistic skills were also exploited during his period of military service when he had been obliged to make bar-fittings for the officers' mess. However, whereas his father had been prepared to exploit the corruption of the officer corps for his own benefit by subtly blackmailing his superior into giving him promotion, the son had suffered intensely under the weight of the tedium and wastefulness of military life, which had come to a head for him in the absurd 'Dienstfahrt' of the title. Indeed, it is his awareness of the favouring of unproductivity over creativity, the contrast between the senselessness and emptiness of the military routine and the parlous financial situation of his highly talented and industrious father, the feeling of impotence in the face of the military and bureaucratic machine, which result in the display of anarchism revealed in the jeep-burning incident of which the son is the instigator and in which the father is a willing collaborator.

The Gruhls' insistence on the purely aesthetic quality of their act of protest provides them with a kind of 'Narrenfreiheit' . At the same time, however, it has decided disadvantages. The artistic form which their action assumes plays into the hands of the state which, while clearly recognizing its subversive potential, cunningly defuses the issue in a number of ways: by charging the Gruhls not with sabotage but merely with 'grober Unfug' and 'Sachbeschädigung', by having the army forgo its jurisdiction over the son on the basis of a technicality, by having the Gruhls brought to trial before an elderly judge, Stollfuss, who is renowned for his light sentences, by holding the trial in the provincial setting of the Gruhls' home town, Birglar, where sympathies run strongly in their favour, and by exerting pressure on the press not to give the affair publicity.

Through Judge Stollfuss, who is only too willing to accept the Gruhls' aesthetic interpretation of their protest, the state is able to absorb their criticism and ensure that its significance does not become apparent beyond a small clique of Birglar initiates who know how to read the work of art as an act of protest. The judgement which Stollfuss hands down at the end of the day's proceedings reflects the ambiguity and the irony which lie at the heart of the work, for while it represents in some respects a victory for the Gruhls, the outcome is really an even more satisfactory one for the state. On the one hand the sentence of six weeks' imprisonment which the Gruhls receive does not amount to any real punishment, particularly as it has in fact already been served during their 'Untersuchungshaft'. Indeed, so idyllic was their period in custody that it could well be seen as a reward. On the other hand, however, the leniency of the sentence, which has been so cleverly engineered by the state, virtually rules out the possibility of the incident having further judicial repercussions or attracting wider publicity. The game of wits between the subversive artist and the state thus ends in a kind of stalemate—primarily because the state does not prove gullible like the King in the Reynard tradition but shows itself to be in every way as skilful a trickster as its opponents.

The state's trickery has of course been just as fraught with danger as that of the Gruhls. The strategy adopted by its more highly placed representatives who are the real manipulators of the trial, President Grellber and an unidentified parliamentarian, of remaining behind the scenes and exercising their power by proxy, notably through Judge Stollfuss, places the political interests of the state in the hands of a man who proves in his own way to be just as much a rebel as the Gruhls themselves. Although not officially initiated into Grellber's strategy, Stollfuss realises the role he is intended to play in the trial after hearing his wife's reports of her telephone conversations with his superior. During the proceedings he does of course in some respects serve the interests of the state, for example, by defending its right to insist on a closed court for the hearing of the military witnesses. At the same time, however, he reveals considerable independence of spirit, for instance, in his defence of the witness Horn, whose description of Gruhl's relations with the taxation office—'er befand sich im natürlichen Zustand der Notwehr'—is rejected as outrageous by the state prosecutor. More importantly, in his summing-up in this, his final case, Stollfuss steps completely out of his role of judge (symbolised by his removal of his cap) and dispenses advice to the Gruhls (advice they of course hardly need) which, coming from a public official, can only be regarded as subversive, in the sense that he seems to be advocating the behaviour of a Reynard as the only appropriate strategy in present-day society:

. . . sie sollten sich unabhängig vom Staat machen, indem sie ihm—das betreffe die Steuerschuld des Angeklagten Gruhl sen.—gar keine MÖglichkeit gäben, sie in ihrer Freiheit einzuschränken, und sie sollten, wenn sie diesen Tribut entrichteten, schlau wie die Füchse sein, denn es sei hier von einem Wissenschaftler, der als kompetente Kapazität gelte, die Gnadenund Erbarmungslosigkeit des Wirtschaftsprozesses geradezu bescheinigt worden, und einer gnadenlosen, erbarmungslosen Gesellschaft dürfe man nicht ungewappnet entgegentreten.

Like the Gruhls' protest, however, this act of rebellion on the part of Stollfuss is qualified by the fact that it is witnessed by only a handful of people and is thus hardly likely to undermine the state. Indeed, Böll subsequently draws attention again to the sinister power of the state in the second last episode of the novel by having Bergnolte, Grellber's observer at the trial, report in person to his superior, who notes the names of certain witnesses for further investigation. The power of the state, although nowhere else as explicit as in this particular incident, is in fact a constant presence throughout the work and provides a threatening backdrop to the trial, making it clear that the humanitarianism of the village has little bearing on the political decisions which determine the inhabitants' lives and is no more than a cosy facade which can easily obscure the realities of genuine political power and manipulation.

In the conflict between the state and that form of art which calls the state and its institutions into question, it is the state that has the last word. While the Gruhls achieve a substantial moral victory, enjoying the satisfaction of having taken on a much more powerful opponent in the state, of having exposed its essential nature and having forced it on to the defensive, the state is ultimately able to control and limit their protest. In a sense the Gruhls have emerged from the 'Gummizelle' of art, since they have clearly shown that art can pose a threat to the political interests of the establishment. At the same time, however, it is precisely the aesthetic nature of their protest which enables the state to deal with it so effectively and which thus prevents it from having any lasting consequences—there is certainly no question of it putting the 'Irrenhausdirektor' out of action, in other words, of subverting the state, which, though demonstrated to be hopelessly inadequate in other important respects, is eminently adept at preserving its own power.

The novel is thus considerably more sceptical and, one is tempted to say, more realistic than Böll's comments on the function of art in the 'Einführung in "Dienstfahrt'", which, in view of this, are perhaps best interpreted not as a description of his original intention but as a retrospective correction of the 'Verharmlosung' of the work by its first critics.