The policeman Bretschneider in Hašeks "The Good Soldier Švejk"

By rainocean45

Just wrapped up Hašek’s *The Good Soldier Švejk*, and I keep coming back to Bretschneider’s whole situation. He’s with the state police and ends up arresting a bunch of men at Švejk’s regular spot over what feel like made-up high treason charges—breathing room for the owner and Švejk too. Then at one point he tells Švejk he’s an anarchist (and I know Hašek was, but Bretschneider also gets described as a bolchevist during the time the book was written). After all that anti-authority talk, he buys a pile of nasty dogs from Švejk even though he knows they’re not really purebred like the ad said. And then, somehow, he just locks himself in his room with them and doesn’t feed them, so they eat him later—his excuse is basically that it’ll make the cleanup easier. I get the general anti-authority themes, but I can’t tell what his specific ending is supposed to mean. Is it just a weird Hašek episode with no real depth? Or is it like a “revolution turns on its own” kind of thing? The contradiction between his beliefs and what he does as a cop is already there, so this ending feels extra strange.