by Reng, Ronald
Confronted with the subject of depression, most people realised that they had at best a vague idea of the illness. So there was much talk of how Robert’s tragic fate should be used to strip the illness of its taboos. Because many depressives still don’t know they’re suffering from the illness. Symptoms like a lack of drive and sleeplessness are often interpreted as purely physical suffering. It would be too much to hope that the illness will be better understood all of a sudden, but perhaps this book will do something to help depressives find more sympathy and understanding.
The last photograph of Robert blurs before my eyes, and so many other images come flooding back.
Robert sitting on the terrace of his holiday home in Portugal. He loved sitting out in the open when night fell and a pleasantly cool feeling settled on the skin after the heat of the day. On the mountain opposite, the Palácio da Pena gleamed in all its glory.
‘It’s so beautiful, you can only believe it if you say it out loud, over and over again: I’m sitting here on the terrace, looking at the Palácio da Pena.’
Teresa, who had heard this sentence dozens of times, blurted out, ‘You’re always on about your fantastic Palácio, but in ten years you haven’t managed even to go and take a look at it!’
It was July 2009, four months before his death, and he had so relaxed into the happy moment that even Teresa’s outburst amused him. He sought her hand. ‘We will take a look at the palace,’ he said. ‘We have our whole lives to do it.’
Notes
Apart from the interviewees quoted in the book, I would like to give cordial thanks to a number of other people who helped me with my work on Robert Enke’s biography: Rüdiger Barth, Barbara Baumgartner, Matthias Cleef, Jan Döhling, Lotfi El Bousidi, Christoph Fischer, Max Geis, Rui Gomes, Thomas Häberlein, Karsten Kellermann, Christof Kneer, Birk Meinhardt, Jörg Nabert, Peter Penders, Cordula Reinhardt, Harald Stenger, Josep Miguel Terés, Daniel Valdivieso, Tino Zippel.
One quote from Robert Enke has been taken from interviews with Robert Mucha/11 Freunde, Michael Richter/Kicker, Matthias Sonnenberg/Sport-Bild and Katharina Wolf and Gregor Ruhmöller/Bild Zeitung. I have taken two quotes from Victor Valdés from a conversation with Michael Robinson for Informe Robinson.
As background literature I found the following useful: Josef Giger-Bütler: Sie haben es doch gut gemeint. Depression und Familie, Beltz, 2010; Piet C. Kuiper: Seelenfinsternis: Die Depression eines Psychiaters, Fischer, 1995; Psychologie Heute-compact: ‘Depression. Die Krankheit unserer Zeit verstehen’; Thomas Müller-Rörich et al: Schattendasein. Das unverstandene Leiden Depression, Springer, 2007; Ursula Nuber: Depression. Die verkannte Krankheit, dtv, 2006.
I had problems with the question of how to deal with Robert Enke’s diaries. On the one hand they are a unique insight into the world of a depressive – and one of the intentions of this book is to help people understand what depression really is. On the other hand they are personal notebooks. My only clue lay in Robert’s wish that he talk about his illness himself, as well as something that he said to me in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in February 2004: ‘I’ve started taking some notes for our book.’
I’ve tried to pick individual passages out of his diaries which to my mind provide an impressive description of the illness. I have deliberately excluded passages that I see as too revealing, as well as (with one justified exception) remarks about other people. Which part of his diaries he would have published and which not, I will never know.
Ronald Reng
Barcelona, August 2010
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English translation © Shaun Whiteside, 2011
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First published as Robert Enke: Ein allzu kurzes Leben in 2010 by
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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
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