Döblin's remaining years were marked by poor health (he had Parkinson's disease) and lengthy stays in multiple clinics and hospitals, including his alma mater, Freiburg University. Through the intervention of Theodor Heuss and Joachim Tiburtius, he was able to receive more money from the Berlin office in charge of compensating victims of Nazi persecution; this, and a literary prize from the Mainz Academy in the sum of 10,000 DM helped finance his growing medical expenses. Alfred Döblin died in the hospital in Emmendingen on 26 June 1957 and was buried two days later in the village cemetery at Housseras next to his son Wolfgang. Erna soon joined them in the same cemetery when after turning on the gas tap in the family apartment in Paris on 15 September, she forgot to light the flame. Major works The Three Leaps of Wang Lun Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lun (The Three Leaps of Wang Lun) was Döblin's third novel (although it was the first to be published as a book), and garnered him the Fontane Prize. Published in 1916, (although back-dated to 1915), this epic historical novel narrates upheaval and revolution in 18th-century China, and was favorably received by critics, who praised its detailed and exotic depictions of China. Wang Lun also had an influence on younger German writers, including Lion Feuchtwanger, Anna Seghers, and Bertolt Brecht; for the latter, Wang Lun provided an impulse for the development of the theory of epic theatre. In commercial sales, it is Döblin's most successful novel after Berlin Alexanderplatz. Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine Döblin's 1918 comic novel has been seen, in its experimental narrative technique, its refusal to psychologize its characters, and its depictions of Berlin as modern metropolis, as a precursor to Döblin's better-known Berlin Alexanderplatz. Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine (Wadzek's Battle with the Steam Turbine) tells the story of Wadzek, a factory owner locked in a losing battle with a more powerful competitor. His futile and increasingly delusional countermeasures culminate in the fortification and quixotic defense of his family's garden house in suburban Reinickendorf. Following the dissipation of this endeavor, he suffers a breakdown and finally flees the country, eloping aboard a steamship bound for America that is powered by the steam turbines of his victorious competitor. Döblin wrote the novel in the fall of 1914, submitting it to extensive stylistic revisions while serving as a doctor on the Western front;