Dialog International

Scrap the Nobel Prize for Literature?

This year there was no Nobel Prize for Literature because of a #MeToo scandal involving a member of the committee in Stockholm.  It wasn't much missed, and it gave us a chance to reflect on the often absurd choices for this particular prize since it was first awarded in 1901.  Back then Leo Tolstoy was recognized as the greatest living novelist, yet the prize went to an obscure poet - Sully Proudhomme - completely forgotten today, but little known even then.  Throughout the years there have been more misses than hits with the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Among those writers passed over are some of the greatest writers - widely read and admired even today: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Ibsen, Strindberg, Zola, Proust, Kafka, Rilke, Brecht, Croce, Hardy, Henry James, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D. J. Lawrence, García Lorca  - just to name a few of the most obvious. 

When it comes to German language prize winners, Robert Messenger of the Weekly Standard has a special beef with Elfriede Jelinek: 

"In 2004, an Austrian mediocrity named Elfriede Jelinek got the prize, and the only possible explanation is the academy’s relishing her public role in opposing Austria’s anti-E.U. firebrand Jörg Haider—or maybe it was her opposition to the Iraq war. Reviewer Joel Agee in the New York Timesremarked of her tenth novel, Greed, “Nothing is farther from Jelinek’s mind than advancing a plot or even just telling a story. Her business is social dissection. Not vivisection, for none of her specimens are alive.” I am happy to take his word for it. In a typical Nobel oversight, Jelinek is the sole representative of a great Austro-Hungarian literary tradition to receive the Nobel. Not Rilke, not Kafka, not Altenberg, not Zweig, not Hofmannsthal, not Schnitzler, not Musil or Bernhard or Broch. Not Heimito von Doderer. Not Joseph Roth. Not Paul Celan."

"Not Paul Celan."  In 1966 Celan was rejected by the committee for the prize in favor of Nelly Sachs - a good but hardly comparable talent - mostly because Sachs was then living in Sweden. (See my post: Why Paul Celan was rejected for the Nobel Prize). And Messenger is on the mark by pointing to the political considerations of the committee in awarding the prize.  The conservative CSU politician Franz-Josef Strauß grumbled that awarding the prize to Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass  was nothing less than "politischen Werbung" as both writers were strong supporters of Willy Brandt.  Today, no one doubts that Blechtrommel is one of the seminal novels of the 20th century, while Heinrich Böll's star has faded.  Still, Böll was a distinctive voice for postwar Germany (see my review of Und sagte kein einziges Wort ) but Wolfgang Koeppen was a greater writer and was not even considered for the prize. 

Occasionally the Nobel committee makes interesting choices - propelling a relatively unknown writer out of obscurity into the public eye.  That was certainly the case with Herta Müller - winner of the 2009 prize.  I doubt I would have read her novels if she hadn't won the prize, but her unique voice deserves to be widely read (see my review of Atemschaukel). Examples such as Herta Müller  is why we should NOT scrap the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Every autumn brings the opportunity to quarrel about who is deserving or undeserving, allowing us to praise or ridicule the committee's choice.  At least we are talking about LITERATURE as well as writers and their books.  In the age of Twitter, Facebook, Fake News , etc.  -  that is indeed a blessing. 

Review: Sebastian Haffner's Geschichte eines Deutschen

The Weimar Republic has always been a special interest of mine. The journalist and historian Sebastian Haffner was an ideal eyewitness to this turbulent period since he came of age just as he Great War was ending and lived in Weimar's epicenter - Berlin - with his family and as an apprentice lawyer.  His memoir of the period, Geschichte eines Deutschen, was written in exile in 1938, but was not discovered until after his death in 1999 by his son.  It was published in 2001. 

Haffner was well-suited to write about the rise and collapse of the Republic.  He was a talented writer, well-versed in European history and literature.  He was Liberal - in the classical sense, a conservative democrat who was highly critical of the political parties - both left and right - in Germany.  The young Haffner became enamored of the charismatic German foreign minister Walther Rathenau, who, to Haffner, represented the best of Germany and the greatest hope for German democracy.

"Rathenau und Hitler sind die beiden Erscheinungen, die die Phantasie der deutschen Masse aufs äußerste gereizt haben: der eine durch seine unfaßliche Kultur, der andere durch seine unfaßliche Gemeinheit".

Rathenau's assassination by right-wing extremists was a severe blow to Haffner and his hopes for the Republic. From that point on Haffner saw very little in terms of political response that would stand in the way of the Nazis. 

I found Haffner's discussion of the brief period of stability  - from 1926 to the death of Gustav Stresemann in 1929 - particularly insightful. For a brief period the German people were not buffeted by war, revolution, ruinous inflation. Foreign investment was flowing into the country, Germany was at peace with other European nations thanks to the diplomacy of Stresemann. Berlin was the global center of cultural innovation.  And yet for many Germans - especially the younger generation - stability was anathema:

"So empfanden sie das Aufhören der öffentlichen Spannung und die Wiederkehr der privaten Freiheit nicht als Geschenk, sondern als Beraubung. Sie begannen sich zu langweilen, sie kamen auf dumme Gedanken, sie wurden mürrisch - und sie warteten schliesslich geradezu gierig auf die erste Störung, den ersten Rückschlag oder Zwischenfall, um die ganze Friedenszeit zu liquideren und neue kollektive Abenteuer zu starten."

Much of Haffner's memoir - especially the riveting sections after 1933 - deal with the question of German acquiescence to the Nazis.

"Noch am 5. März 1933 hat die Mehrheit von ihnen gegen Hitler gewählt. Was ist aus dieser Mehrheit geworden? Ist sie gestorben, vom Erdboden verschwunden? Oder, so spät noch, Nazi geworden?"

And Haffner doesn't exclude his own personal behavior from this discussion.  Could he have done more to push back against the Nazis- even among his own circle of young jurists?  Geschichte eines Deutschen was translated into English  by Haffner's son Oliver Pretzel and published with the title Defying Hitler.  But Haffner would be the first to reject the notion that he "defied" Hitler.  In one gripping passage he describes how a group of SA thugs intrude on the courthouse where Haffner was clerking as an apprentice lawyer.  His Jewish colleagues were all violently pushed out into the street and one of the thugs confronted Haffner with the question: "Sind Sie arisch?" - he meekly answered "Ja!". 

Another interesting observation of Haffner's is the impossibility of "innere Emgration" - retreat into the private sphere - in a totalitarian system:

Wohin immer man sich zurückzog - überall fand man gerade das wieder vor, wovor man hatte fliehen wollen. Ich lernte, dass die Nazi-Revolution die alte Trennung zwischen Politik und Privatleben aufgehoben hatte, und dass es unmöglich war, sie enfach als "politisches Ereignis" zu behandeln.[...]sie wirkte wie ein GIftgas, das durch all Wände dringt."

So the only option for Haffner was self-imposed exile to Great Britain. 

Geschichte eines Deutschen was written in 1938, but Haffner could see clearly that Germany was on a path to war.  Also, he was very clear that anti-Semitism was a driving force of the Nazis and Jews were facing mass detention in concentration camps - although he could not have imagined something as monstrous as the Holocaust.  Finally - and here Haffner was especially prescient - he knew that Germany could only be liberated from Nazism by outside force.

With the rise of the AfD in Germany, and authoritarian movements in the USA and throughout Europe, Haffner's book as relevant today as it was when it was written.

Identity and the German Volksseele

It was so much easier back during the Reich to determine who was a real German.  All one needed to do was produce an Ariernachweis as proof that one's blood was not tainted by foreign lineage.  Today it's more challenging because of the Grundgesetz and all.  But that hasn't stopped the right-wing "philosopher"  Caroline Sommerfeld from coming up with a typology of German identity.  First and foremost, according to Frau Sommerfeld - who feels more at home in the völkisch atmosphere of Austria - is the paramount importance of Ancestry ("Abstammung"):

"Deutschsein ist prima facie eine Frage der Abstammung. Alles weitere ist kontraintuitiv und daher begründungsbedürftig. „Deutsch ist, wer deutsche Eltern hat“, pflegt Götz Kubitschek zu sagen. Daß jemand auch aus anderen Gründen und auf anderen Ebenen Deutscher sein oder werden kann, setzt diesen Kern des Begriffs nicht außer Kraft."

But what about a person who doesn't have a German Ancestry?  Say, for example, a black African?  Can he or she ever be considered echt Deutsch ("genuine German)?

"Wenn wir einen einzelnen Schwarzafrikaner hernehmen, der nach Deutschland kommt, eine Deutsche heiratet, mit ihr Kinder bekommt und sich sukzessive mit der deutschen Volksseele verbindet, dann nähern sich seine Kinder und Kindeskinder ihrerseits schrittweise dem Abstammungsdeutschtum an und werden so auch leibliche Teile des Volkskörpers"

Okay, the operative word here is nähern (to approach, or get close to).  So a black African can "get close" to being German if his or her "African" genes are diluted over the generations through marrying a German. An then only if  he or she bonds with the deutsche Volksseele (" the soul of the German Volk").  Frau Sommerfeld doesn't explain exactly what the deutsche Volksseele actually is - , presumably some mystical concoction of Blut and Boden. 

In an earlier interview in Der Spiegel, Dr. Sommerfeld was much more explicit: a non-white can NEVER be considered German:

Auf die Frage, ob jemand, der nicht weiß ist, Deutscher sein könne, antwortet sie: "Nein!" Deutschsein sei zwar keine reine Rassenfrage. "Aber es hat auf jeden Fall ganz elementar eine ethnische Komponente. Mit der Staatsbürgerschaft allein ist es nicht getan."

Here in the United States things are a bit simpler: anyone from any race can become an American citizen, and this is generally accepted by all.  If there is such a thing as an amerikanische Volksseele, then it has to do with a fervent commitment to Liberty - although our Volksseele is tainted by the original sins of Slavery and Genocide of the indigenous peoples. 

That's not to say becoming an American was ever easy.  There has always been resistance to people of different color coming to our shores.  After all, it was Ben Franklin who complained  about the hordes of German with "swarthy complexion" over running the young nation (see Ben Franklin on "Stupid, Swarthy Germans").  But this prejudice didn't prevent millions of Germans from coming to American in pursuit of Liberty - including a draft dodger from Kallstadt named Frederick Trump.