8

Stoez or Stöz is not in my dictionary or various others. From context it probably means something like crap, mess or something referring for example to Germany in WW2. It may be from Köln area as it’s in Heinrich Böll and it's within an inverted comma section.

nachdem sie meinen Wilhelm, meinen Mann, für diesen Stöz da bei Amiens haben fallen lassen

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  • It could be a name, a typo or a dialect word. Did you rule out the former two? Does it actually read Stoez or Stöz? – Crissov Jun 14 '16 at 20:32
  • It has the umlaut version, it's not a typo but it is reporting someone's speech so could be a contraction e.g. he writes "son" for " so ein", or could be a dialect word (probably is). He uses it more than once but I'm having trouble tracking down the previous examples. – user22155 Jun 14 '16 at 20:36
  • The father tries to keep the son out of the fighting, while running a business building bunkers, the son gets himself shot, pretty much deliberately, for trying to sell weapons to the Danes, of the father it's said "was hatte er nun in der Hand? Nen ganz kleinen Haufen Scheisse, wenn Sie mich fragen, und er war konfrontiert mit diesem unbeschreiblichen Stoez." – user22155 Jun 14 '16 at 20:42
16

According to the "Rheinisches Wörterbuch", Stöz means "rubbish". Rhinian dialect would fit into a Böll story, and rubbish would IMHO make sense in the quoted phrases.

This interpretation is even better backed by another quote from Böll's "Gruppenbild mit Dame":

Lotte war der gleichen Meinung wie ich, daß das alles Stuß, bzw. in meiner Ausdrucksweise Stöz war.
Source

So we know from there that Stöz means Stuß, and Stuss as a more widely used word is in the Duden, again with the explanation rubbish.

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  • Ace. Lotte is the speaker in the quotes given too. – user22155 Jun 14 '16 at 21:06

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