Dialog International

New Translations of Hilde Domin

      I first encountered the poet Hilde Domin in a poetry seminar in Freiburg where we discussed the anthology Doppelinterpretationen - published by Hilde Domin.  The book consists of individual short poems by some of the most important postwar German poets - Günter Eich, Peter Huchel, Ingeborg Bachmann, Nelly Sachs, and - Hilde Domin.  Each poem is followed by a self-interpretation of the poet and then an interpretation by a literary critic.  Hilde Domin's contribution was Lied zur Ermutigung II ('Song for Encouragement II') followed by her own interpretation and then interpreted by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. The short poem is in many ways representative of Hilde Domin's oeuvre.

Lange wurdest du um die türelosen
Mauern der Stadt gejagt.

Du fliehst und streust
Die verwirrten Namen der Dinge
Hinter Dich

Vertrauen, dieses schwerste
ABC.

Ich mache ein kleines Zeichen
In die Luft,
Unsichtbar,
Wo die neue Stadt beginnt,
Jerusalem,
Die goldene,
Aus Nichts

 

This poem contains many of the themes that reoccur in so many of Hilde Domin's poems.  First there is the persecution ("gejagt").  Domin (née Löwenstein) was a Jew, and along with her husband Erwin Walter Palm, was went into exile to flee the Nazi terror ("du fliehst")  leaving behind her German language (for Domin, a kind of Heimat).  Despite losing everything the Lyric-I can learn to trust ("Vertrauen") and evokes the dream home of the Jewish diaspora - Jerusalem.  This sense of optimism in the face of evil and Nothingness ("aus Nichts")  is why Hilde Domin has been called " the poet of "dennoch" ("nevertheless"). 

The book Doppelinterpretationen also has an introductory essay by Domin - Über das Interpretieren von Gedichten - which outlines in abbreviated form some of the ideas in her book on postwar poetics  Wozu Lyrik heute which was in part written as a response - or rejection - of Adornp's famous statement "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." For Domin, poetry after Auschwitz is absolutely essential.  

HIlde Domin is largely unknown in the US and other English-speaking countries, even though her reputation has only grown in Germany, where today she is recognized as an important postwar poet along with Marie-Luise Kaschnitz and Peter Huchel.  Nelly Sachs is better-known here since her poems were published in English translation after she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.  Finally, this year we have TWO bilingual English-German collections of Hilde Domin's poem published here: one- With My Shadow: The Poems of Hilde Domin,  by Sarah Kafatou, a writer and translator who knew Hilde Domin, and also The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin, by Maine poet and German Scholar Mark S. Burrows.  I have read Mark Burrows book but not Sarah Kafatou's translations. Julie Enszer has an interesting piece in the Jewish Book Council comparing both translations. I found The Wandering Radiance extremely valuable, not only for the wonderful translations, but also for the foreword by Hilde Domin's biographer Marion Tauschwitz (see my review of her biography) and Mark Burrows' excellent essay about Domin's life and poetic style.  The book also has a translation of a short essay by Hilde Domin on 'Exile and Homeland' - the two poles she synthesizes in so many of her poems. 

Compared to the work of other postwar poets - notably that of her friend Paul Celan - Domin's poems are accessible, even to some extent 'simple' - "Vollkommenheit im Einfachen" as the critic Walter Jens described them. This explains, to some extent, her popularity in Germany. Mark Burrows has some insightful comments on her style:

"What distinguishes her poetic voice is her startling use of metaphor, unexpected twists of diction, and a syntax often compressed to the point of abruptness. She eschewed rhyme and meter in favor of free verse from the the start, and by her third collection (Hier), published in 1964, had abandoned punctuation almost entirely. The temperament of her poems depends on a distinct musicality shaped largely by the rhythm of speech. Plainness? Perhaps, but one carried by a sense of "fullness: that demands readers' attention in "listening" their way into the sound and pace of her voice - and their own."

"Plainness" with a sense of "fullness" - presents some distinct challenges to the translator. Mark Burrows does a superb job in recreating Hilde Domin's unique poetic voice for the English readers:  Here is Burrows' translation of her poem Wie wenig ich nütze bin: However Little Use I Am

However Little Use I Am

However little use I am,

I lift a finger and leave behind

not even the smallest stroke

in the air.

Time smudges my face,

It has already begun.

Behind my steps in the dust

rain washes the street clean

like a housewife.

I was here

I cross over

without a trace.

The elms along the way

nod to me as I come,

a green a blue a golden greeting,

and forget me

before I’ve passed by.

I cross over-

But leave perhaps the small sound of my voice,

my laughter and my tears

and also the trees’ greeting in the evening

on a small scrap of paper.

And in passing,

entirely without intention,

I light one or another

of the streetlamps

In the hearts along the roadside

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marie Luise Kaschnitz and ChatGPT

After finishing Dagmar von Gersdorf's biography of Marie Luise Kaschnitz I began reading Kaschnitz's short stories.  One of her strongest and best-known stories is Das dicke Kind (1952) (engl.'The Fat Child').  On a lazy summer afternoon I was curious whether ChatGPT could write an analysis of the story for me.  This was the output:

Die Erzählung "Das dicke Kind" von Marie Luise Kaschnitz ist eine tiefgründige und metaphorische Geschichte über Einsamkeit, gesellschaftliche Normen und den Drang nach Akzeptanz. Durch die Darstellung eines übergewichtigen Kindes in einer Welt, die von Perfektion und Schlankheit geprägt ist, konfrontiert die Autorin den Leser mit der Realität des Andersseins und den damit verbundenen Herausforderungen.

Die Geschichte handelt von einem Mädchen, das aufgrund seines Gewichts von der Gesellschaft ausgeschlossen wird. Es wird als "dick" und "unförmig" beschrieben und muss sich mit dem Spott und den Verurteilungen anderer auseinandersetzen. Das Mädchen sehnt sich nach Zugehörigkeit und versucht verzweifelt, den Erwartungen der Gesellschaft gerecht zu werden. Es unterzieht sich Diäten und strengen körperlichen Übungen, nur um letztendlich zu erkennen, dass es unmöglich ist, den Idealen anderer gerecht zu werden.

Marie Luise Kaschnitz verwendet eine klare und prägnante Sprache, um die Einsamkeit und das Leiden des Kindes darzustellen. Sie beschreibt die körperlichen und emotionalen Schmerzen, die das Mädchen durchmacht, und vermittelt dem Leser so eine starke Empathie. Die Autorin drückt subtil die Kritik an einer Gesellschaft aus, die Schönheitsnormen und oberflächliche Urteile priorisiert, während sie die Individualität und Vielfalt missachtet.

Ein wesentliches Element der Erzählung ist die Symbolik. Das dicke Kind steht metaphorisch für all diejenigen, die aufgrund äußerlicher Merkmale oder anderer Unterschiede ausgegrenzt werden. Es verkörpert die Suche nach Anerkennung und Liebe, die jeder Mensch empfindet. Die Autorin verdeutlicht dies durch die wiederkehrende Darstellung des Mädchens, das sich in Fensterscheiben betrachtet und sehnsüchtig nach einem besseren Selbstbildnis sucht.

Ein weiteres Thema, das in der Erzählung behandelt wird, ist die Frage nach der wahren Identität. Das Mädchen versucht, sich den Erwartungen anderer anzupassen, indem es versucht, seinem Äußeren zu entkommen. Es will jemand anderes sein, jemand, der von anderen akzeptiert und bewundert wird. Doch letztendlich erkennt es, dass die äußere Erscheinung nicht das ist, was einen Menschen ausmacht, und dass wahre Schönheit von innen kommt.

Die Erzählung "Das dicke Kind" regt zum Nachdenken über gesellschaftliche Normen, Schönheitsideale und die Bedeutung von Individualität an. Marie Luise Kaschnitz gelingt es, die Gefühle des Lesers zu berühren und ihm eine neue Perspektive auf Themen wie Einsamkeit, Selbstakzeptanz und die Bedeutung wahrer Schönheit zu geben. Die Geschichte ermutigt dazu, Vorurteile zu hinterfragen und die Vielfalt anzuerkennen, die unsere Gesellschaft bereichert.

Insgesamt ist "Das dicke Kind" eine eindringliche und bewegende Erzählung, die auf subtile Weise wichtige gesellschaftliche Themen.

A nice essay with the theme that inner beauty will win out over physical beauty : the Ugly Duckling metaphor. Only problem is the essay has nothing to do with the story Das dicke Kind. The ChatGPT 'analysis' is something that a clever but lazy undergraduate student would write having just read the title but not the story itself.  The essay starts out correctly - Die Erzählung "Das dicke Kind" von Marie Luise Kaschnitz ist eine tiefgründige und metaphorische Geschichte - but the second half of the sentence does not have anything to do with Kaschnitz's story - Geschichte über Einsamkeit, gesellschaftliche Normen und den Drang nach Akzeptanz.

In Das dicke Kind the narrator - ich-Erzählerin - confronts her child-self and achieves a psychological breakthrough. The fat child appears unexpectedly in the narrator's study which also served as an informal lending library for the neighborhood children.  But instead of books, the child apparently wants food. The narrator at first finds the child repulsive:

"es lag etwas in seinem Wesen, das mich mit Ärger und Abneignung erfüllte.  Ja gewiß, ich habe dieses Kind von Anfang an gehaßt. Alles an ihm hat mich abestoßen."

Nevertheless, the narrator secretly follows the girl as she makes her way to a small lake to go ice skating. The girl moves slowly and awkwardly -like a caterpillar (Raupe) - and eventually breaks through a layer of ice.  The narrator makes no move to help/save the girl, but something begins to stir in her as layers of repressed memories peel away. The ice metaphor recalls Kafka's dictum that literature must act as "an axe for the frozen sea within us" (sie muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns). Finally, as the girl manages to save herself with her force of will to live the narrator recognizes the fat child as her own buried self (ich brauchte ihm nicht mehr zu helfen. Ich hatte es erkannt..."),

Something comforting in the thought that ChatGPT still has much to learn.

Review: Dagmar von Gersdorff's Marie Luise Kaschnitz: Eine Biographie

I always felt I had a good knowledge of postwar German literature, but I knew next to nothing about the work of Marie Luise Kaschnitz (1900-1974), Which is odd, since Kaschnitz was a prolific poet and author - equally admired for her poetry and short stories.  She won every conceivable award in Germany for her work -including the prestigious Georg Büchner-Preis in 1955.  Yet Kaschnitz is not mentioned at all in Peter Demetz's survey Postwar German Literature.  Nor does she appear in Anatol Regnier's Jeder schreibt für sich allein (see my review) - a survey of German authors who remained in Germany during the Third Reich - even thought her first novel - Liebe beginnt - was published in 1933 and was well-received.  I became interested in Kaschnitz after I came across a selection of her late poems translated by the German-American poet Liesel Mueller (1924-2020), whom I very much admire.  I suspect that Kaschnitz is largely passed over today, since her poems- especially her most powerful late ones - are highly personal. 

Liesel Mueller writes in her introduction:

"The switch from "we" to "I" allowed the poet and her persona to come together, as they had not done so before, and to free a lyrical voice that was uniquely hers. Yet there was never any danger of solipsism. She never wavered in her belief that writers must bear witness, nor abandoned her defense of objective values." 

She alluded to this in her acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner-Preis:

"Den billigen Trost, den manche Leser vom Gedicht erwarten, habe ich nie geben wollen, und wenn meine Verse im Gegensatz zu den sogenannten hermetischen oder surrealistischen eher verständlich waren, so hängt das damit zusammen, daß mein Weg in der Lyrik mich von der Natur zum Menschen geführt hat und daß ich nie ganz vergessen konnte, daß ich mich Menschen mitteilte, freilich solchen, die die Mühe des Ungewohnten und nur langsam zu Begreifenden nicht scheuen."

Dagmar von Gersdorf's straightforward biography of Marie Luise Kashnitz does a good job of illuminating the personal aspects of her poetry, often including snippets of her poems while describing key episodes of the poet's long life. I would have liked to see a more critical assessment of her poetry and prose - what made it unique and still speaks to us today.  What also struck me about the biography is the bibliography, which includes hundreds of names: a  Who's Who of postwar German literature and publishing. Kaschnitz had the gift of friendship. She was an early admirer and friend of Paul Celan and attempted to console him during his plagiarism scandal  - and was devastated by his suicide. Kaschnitz was something of a mother figure to Ingeborg Bachmann and supported her through her bipolar mood swings.  Coincidentally Kashnitz died in Rome close to where Ingeborg Bachmann tragically died in a fire (likely suicide as well). Other close friendships include Theodor Adorno and - late in life - the poet Peter Huchel. 

In her long life, Marie Luise Kaschnitz witnessed the death and destruction of war and lost friends and beloved siblings along the way.  But it was the death of her husband - the archeologist Guido von Kashnitz - that nearly silenced her for good.  Dagmar von Gersdorff describes the centrality of the poet's long marriage to Guido in her life. She was completely devoted to him - despite his infidelities.  And for a long period following the death of Guido she was incapable of writing.  But in 1962 she published perhaps her strongest collection of poems Dein Schweigen - meine Stimme - all dealing with the death of her husband. She somehow found her voice (Stimme) again.  As Liesel Muller writes: "The pull of opposing forces, here represented by the longing for death and her native liveliness and curiosity, became characteristic of her poetry,"

Here is the last stanza of her poem "Ich lebte":

                    Angst zu sterben
                    Und Angst zu leben
                    Hielten sich die Waage noch immer.
                    Natur trug unbekümmert ihr altes Gewand
                    Herzzerreißende Schönheit.
                    Das Leben war noch immer ein Geheimnis,
                    Der Tod ein andres.

Review: Uwe Wittstock's Februar 33: Der Winter der Literatur

This is a terrific book that should be read along with Anatol Regnier's Jeder shreibt für sich allein (see my review).  Whereas Regnier's book covers the fate of German writers who remained in Germany during the NS-period (1933-1945), Wittstock writes about how writers reacted to the Nazi seizure of power, covering the the first six weeks of Hitler's chancellery - from January to early March 1933. Wittstock describes the dilemma of many of the greatest 20th century writers during those short weeks - day by day, sometimes hour by hour.  It is an amazing feat of research drawing on memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews with surviving relatives - every source available.  During that short 6-week period Germany was transformed from a liberal democracy to a barbaric dictatorship, and any writer who opposed the new regime faced an existential crisis: to go, to stay, to wait and see.  Few could have imagined in January 1933 that as respected public figures, whose books and plays were enjoyed by millions of Germans, they could within weeks be detained and, in many cases, tortured and sent to concentration camps.  Even a Nobel Prize - as in the case of Thomas Mann - was no guarantee of safety, for Mann was a vocal supporter of the Republic and therefore persona non grata to the Nazis.

Yet there were some who could see exactly what was happening and going to happen.  Joseph Roth, whose Radetzkymarsch is on my list of the Ten Greatest German Novels, got on the next train to Paris as soon as he heard the news that Hitler was the new Reichskanzler.  As he wrote to his his friend Stefan Zweig:

"...unsere literarische und materielle Existenz ist ja vernichtet... Es ist gelungen, die Barbarei regieren zu lassen. Machen Sie sich keine Illusionen. Die Hõlle regiert."

As a Jew, Roth knew he was especially vulnerable. Yet some Jewish writers hesitated to leave.  The novelist Herman Kesten, a Jew, was fully aware of the danger, but his family was sick with the flu and he couldn't leave them. Still, he ran to the French Embassy in Berlin to obtain a visa as preparation to flee Germany.  The Jewish poet Elsa Lasker-Schüler was about to have her drama Arthur Aronymus staged in Darmstadt by the respected director Gustav Hartung - a triumph that would have revived her career and provided some deserved financial security. But the Nazis intervened, and ordered Hartung to fire all Jews associated with his theater. Elsa Lasker-Schüler eventually did make it out of Germany and ended up in Israel. 

Bertolt Brecht also had several plays in various stages of production but he knew he was close to the top of the list of writers to be arrested.  He checked himself into a hospital for a hernia operation that he needed anyway.  Hospitals at that time were not required to divulge the names of their patients. Brecht was able to make his way to Denmark and eventually to the United States.

Some writers and artists were fortunate enough to be outside of Germany during the Nazi seizure of power. Eric Maria Remarque, whose anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues was hated by the Nazis, had already moved to Switzerland. Best-selling author Vicki Baum was in the US.  Nazi thugs raided the Berlin studio of the painter Georg Grosz, but he was already working as an art teacher in New York. Thomas Mann and his wife were enjoying a restful stay in the Swiss Alps following a lecture tour.  Mann wanted to return to Munich to retrieve his manuscript for Joseph und seine Brüder, but his children Klaus and Erika warned him to stay out of Germany. The Nazis did raid his house but the manuscript was fortunately rescued.

Wittstock writes about the sad fate of the Prussian Academy of Arts.  Thomas Mann's brother Heinrich Mann was president of the Dichtung (Poetry)  division of the academy, which included many of the best known writers of the Weimar Republic.  After Heinrich Mann and artist Käthe Kollwitz signed a declaration calling the new regime "barbaric" the members conspired to expel Mann from the academy without having the courtesy to inform him in person - an act of pure cowardice.  Only one member - Ricarda Huch - acted honorably and immediately resigned in protest.  The poet Gottfried Benn was one of the members who did not resign. Wittstock provide a plausible explanation for Benn's initial enthusiasm for the Nazis: resentment.  Wittstock compares the careers of Benn with Alfred Döblin.  Both were medical doctors.  But the prolific Döblin achieved fame with the publication of the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (also on my Top Ten list) which was made into a successful feature movie.  Döblin was able to shut down his medical practice and devote his time to writing.  Benn's medical practice was primarily treating prostitutes and down-and-out patients in the working class district where he lived.  That practice paid poorly.  Yes, his lyric poetry was admired by many - but poetry also paid poorly. So his position on the Prussian Academy of Arts was a vindication of sorts:

"Nun endlich bekam er did offizielle Anerkennung, die ihm so fehlte, endlich gestand man ihm seinen Platz in der literarischen Elite des Landes zu. Jetzt war er kein ärmlicher Prostituiertenartz mehr, der fürseine Gedicthe kaum mehr als ein paar gute Kritiken bekam, sondern nahm er seinen Sitz ein in der Tafelrunde der berühmtesten deutschsprachign Schriftsteller der Zeit." 

Besides famous writers like Gottfried Benn and Alfred Döblin, Wittstock writes about the fates of many lesser-known writers.  One of my favorites - the Berlin poet Mascha Kaléko - makes a cameo appearance as she encounters the satirical writer Walter Mehring on the street and warns him that some SA-men are on the next block looking to arrest him.  Mehring immediately rushes to station to get on the next train to Prague.

Not everyone made it out of Germany.  Some, like Erich Kästner remained by choice.  The publisher of Die Weltbühne, Carl von Ossietzky was urged to leave by his friends but stubbornly refused.  He was arrested and sent to a concentration camp where he died, despite being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936.  The anarchist poet and essayist Erich Mühsam was arrested immediately after the Reichstag fire and was tortured to death at the Oranienburg concentration camp. Looking back, it is hard to imagine how these writers coped with the life and death decisions that confronted them in those terrible few weeks in 1933.   Many of those who fled the Nazi terror thought it would be only for a few months.  Surely the German people would not tolerate living under a Nazi dictatorship for long.  Many would never set foot in their homeland again for the rest of their lives.

Review: Brigitte Reimann's novel Die Geschwister

I became interested in the East German writer Brigitte Reimann (1933-1973) after reading this recent piece by Kate Connelly in The Guardian. I have read most of the famous DDR writers - from Anna Seghers to Christa Wolf - as well as a few not so famous, but knew virtually nothing about Brigitte Reimann, who evidently was something of a cult figure in the DDR.  Connelly writes:

Reimann, who has been compared to the writers Carson McCullers and Edna O’Brien and who counted Anna Seghers and Ernest Hemingway among her literary heroes, became a cult figure with a reputation similar to that of a beatnik poet.

Die Geschwister ("Siblings") is about to be published in English translation, so I started with that short novel (the DTV version I have called it an Erzählung (story).  The first person narrator - Elisabeth Arendt - a 24-year-old painter and art instructor at a coal mining plant (Braunkohlenkombinat) somewhere in the eastern DDR.  Elisabeth (or "Betsy") has two brothers: a much older brother Konrad - who left the DDR for the West ("das andere Deutschland") and Ulrich - just slightly older that then narrator.  Most of the story is about her relationship with "Uli" - the novel begins and ends with a heated argument between Besty and Uli , but the reader doesn't learn why they are fighting until the last part of the novel.  What struck me most about the novel is the almost incestuous relationship between bother and sister: the two can't keep their hands off each other. Uli admits he has difficulty maintaining relationships with other girls because none seems to measure up to Betsy.

Between the bookends of the sibling's argument, Reimann writes beautifully about the sibling's childhood during the war and the hardships just after the war, as her father returned as a diminished man from years in a POW camp.  Towards the middle of novel Betsy and her mother have a reunion of sorts with Konrad - now a "Wessie" - in West Berlin.  It does not go well.  Betsy despises her older brother for "abandoning" the country that trained him as an engineer. 

"Du haβt die Republik so blind und dumm, wie man einen Gläubiger haβt.  Du wirst es ihr nie verzeihen, daβ du ihr deine Ausbildung und deinen Beruf verdanken.  Das ist es. Deinen Beruf", fügte ich hinzu, " mit dem du Westmark verdienst."

Later she nearly accuses Konrad of being a Nazi and storms off, wandering the streets of Berlin, totally lost until she sees a welcoming sign that she is leaving the "west sector". 

Towards the end of Die Geschwister we learn the reason behind the heated argument between Besty and Uli: her beloved Uli has also made plans to flee to the "other Germany."  For Betsy, this is an existential crisis, and she betrays her brother's plan to her fiance Joachim - the manager of a VEB steel plant and party stalwart.  Here is where the novel breaks down, for the efforts of Betsy and Joachim to convince Uli to stay - the back and forth to stay or leave - becomes tiresome. Also, Betsy admits that - although she remains committed to the socialist ideals of her beloved DDR and could never consider leaving, she could also never be a true Party member: her family background is "bourgeois" (bürgerlich).  And because of this innate orientation she can never be a true proletariat:

"Was wir gelernt haben haben und was unser Kopf begriffen hat, das it bloβ die Oberfläche, die Haut ... Aber innen, im Herzen, wenn du es so nennen willst, in einem letzten Gehirnwinkel, denken und fühlen wir noch als Bürgerliche."

This and other nods to Leninist orthodoxy - perhaps necessary to get published in the DDR - put me off somewhat. So, on balance, I wasn't a huge fan of Die Geshwister, despite Brigitte Reimann's obvious writing talent.  So I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle her unfinished novel Franziska Linkerhand (600+ pages!).

For anyone interested in reading a lesser-known but brilliant DDR novel I strongly recommend Rummelplatz by Werner Bräunig.

Review: Lion Feuchtwanger's DIe Geschwister Oppermann

Many years ago I read Lion Feuchtwanger's two-part novel Erfolg (1930), a roman à clef that dealt with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi movement in Bavaria.  Hitler is represented in the comical figure Rupert Kutzner, and various other luminaries of the late Weimar Republic  appear as recognizable characters. Feuchtwanger wrote himself into the novel as the writer Tüverlin. The novel - one of the great Weimar  Zeitromane - is even today a highly entertaining read but was also a serious warning at the time about Hitler and fascism.  For some reason I never read Feuchtwanger's follow-on novel Die Geschwister Oppermann (1933) even though I had a copy in my personal library.  A recent review in the New York Times of a new translation of the novel compelled me to finally read it. 

The tone of Geschwister is much different than Erfolg.  It is no longer just a warning about a fanatical nationalist, who seems more clown-like than threatening. In Geschwister the red lights are flashing and sirens blaring: the story moves from Bavaria to Berlin - the seat of the government - and Hitler is chancellor.  The Oppermanns of the books title are a prominent, - well to do -  Jewish family in Berlin.  The three Oppermann brothers are all respected professionals; they each served honorably in the Great War for Germany, and, if asked, considered themselves to be loyal Germans.  The idea that they could somehow be persecuted in a modern, civilized society seemed preposterous. Yes, they see the new chancellor and the regime as a threat, but only a temporary one.  They have faith that the German people will come to reject the violence and excesses of the Nazis (called "Landesknechte") and a sane, liberal government will be restored.  Only one child - Ruth, the Zionist daughter of Edgar Oppermann - sees the writing on the wall and makes preparations to emigrate to Palestine.

The central figure in Die Geschwister Oppermann is the writer and intellectual Gustav Oppermann.  Gustav is a bachelor and bon vivant who enjoys fine wine, cigars and dining at his club. He considers himself an intellectual and scholar and works intermittently on a biography of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - the 18th century proponent of German Aufklärung ('enlightenment').  Gustav embodies the "free-floating intelligentsia" ("freischwebende Intelligenz') described by the sociologist Karl Mannheim in his study Ideologie und Utopie (1929). The intellectual, Mannheim posited, operates outside the social classes and above the political fray. Gustav is more interested in his girlfriends and the arts rather than politics, but he has nothing but contempt for the crude language and actions of the Nazis. So he unthinkingly signs a petition attacking the new regime in Berlin.  This act puts Gustav in danger of arrest and torture at the hands of the Landesknechte and he is forced to leave leave Germany once the Reichstag burns.  Gustav, with his financial means, could lead a comfortable exile existence in Switzerland and the South of France, but he is haunted by reports of repression and barbaric torture in his homeland.  When he receives news that his friend, the Jewish professor Johannes Cohen, died "unexpectedly" in a Nazi concentration camp, Gustav decides he must return to German incognito to see with his own eyes what is happening. Eventually he falls into the hands of the Gestapo and is detained at the Moosbach concentration camp. This is the most difficult section of the novel to read, for Gustav's treatment - as well as the that of the other inmates - is barbaric.  He does survive - barely- and is released from the camp.  But his health so badly compromised by the harsh beatings and labor that his body fails.  On his deathbed he dictates what he saw and experienced at Mossbach to his friend Dr. Frischlins.  He realizes that his Lessing biography was useless against Hitler; he can use what remains of his talents to bear witness to the crimes against humanity he experienced at the hands of the Nazi.  Dr. Frischlin describes his last moments:

Oppermann bat mich, ihm eine Frage zu beantworten, die ihn beunruhigte: ob ich nämlich ihn und sein Leben für unnützlich hielte. Ich erwiderte ihm, er habe under sehr gefährlichen Umständen seine Bereitschaft gezeigt, für das Richtige und Nützliche einzutreten. Er habe indes nuch gesehen, was ist, und keinen nützllichen Rat gewußt, was zu tun sei.  Er habe einen Marathonlauf gemacht, un eine Meldekapsel zu überbringen: leider nur sei kene Botschaft in der Kapsel gewesen.

Feucthwanger wrote Die Geschwister Oppermann as a warning to the German people: there can be no appeasing the forces of Nazism.  Unfortunately, the book was published outside of Germany, so very few Germans could actually read it at the time.  But Feuchtwanger's warning is relevant for us today in the United States as a growing sector here embrace fascist conspiracies and ideas.  What is astonishing is that Feuchtwanger had clear knowledge of the Nazis network of concentration camps, just months after the 1933 seizure of power.  Of course, he could not imagine - nor could anyone in 1933 - the horror of the "Final Solution." 

 

 

 

 

Erich Kästner in the Third Reich

As a follow-up to my previous post about writers who remained in Germany during the NS-period where I mentioned Erich Kästner in passing, Der Spiegel published a short piece that puts Kästner's particular situation in more complete context.   Erich Kästner despised the Nazis, and, for the the most part, the animosity was mutual. Kästner was perhaps the only author of note who was brave enough to attend the Nazi book-burning orgy in Berlin on May 10, 1933. He watched as the fanatical students consigned his own books to the bonfire, shouting "»Gegen Dekadenz und moralischen Verfall« ("Down with decadence and moral decay!")  A woman spotted him in the crowd and shouted "»Dort steht ja der Kästner!« ("Kästner is standing right over there!«)  so he was lucky to make it out from the horrible event unharmed.  What followed were twelve miserable years: his books were banned - except for the beloved children's book Emil und die Detektive. He was arrested several times and interrogated by the Gestapo.  Yet he stayed in Germany - unlike so many other talented writers.  He was the first to admit that he wasn't a hero - he never participated in any underground resistance activity: 

»Ich bin ein Deutscher aus Dresden in Sachsen.
Mich läßt die Heimat nicht fort.
Ich bin wie ein Baum, der, in Deutschland gewachsen,
wenn's sein muß, in Deutschland verdorrt.«

("I am a German from Dresden in Saxony.  My homeland will not let me go. I'm like a tree that grew in Germany - and, if it comes to that, will wither away in Germany.")

Erich Kästner somehow survived through the Nazi dictatorship.  After the war, his career once again took off.  Looking back on the dreadful period he wrote:

»Die Ereignisse von 1933 bis 1945 hätten spätestens 1928 bekämpft werden müssen. Später war es zu spät. Man darf nicht warten, bis der Freiheitskampf Landesverrat genannt wird. Man muß den rollenden Schneeball zertreten. Die Lawine hält keiner mehr auf. Sie ruht erst, wenn sie alles unter sich begraben hat … Drohende Diktaturen lassen sich nur bekämpfen, ehe sie die Macht übernommen haben"

("The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been stopped in 1928 at the latest. After that it was too late.  You can't wait until the struggle for freedom is labeled as treason. You need to squash the rolling snowball. No one can stop the ensuing avalanche after that.  It ends only after everything is ruined. ... Threatening dictatorships can only be stopped before they have taken power.")

In 1930, Thomas Mann gave his famous speech in Berlin - "Appell an die Venunft" ("Appeal to Reason") before a large audience that included Nazi thugs and the writer Ernst Jünger.  No doubt Jünger was amused.  He knew the Republic - which he hated- was finished.

That same year Erich Kästner published my favorite novel of the Weimar Republic - Fabian: Geschichte eines Moralisten.  Towards the end of the novel the protagonist Fabian thinks:

"Vernunft kann man nur einer beschränkten Zahl von Menschen beibringen, und die sind schon vernünftig."

(You can only bring a limited number of people to Reason, and they are already reasonable.)

Review: Anatol Regnier's Jeder schreibt für sich allein: Schriftsteller im Nationalsozialismus

Shortly after the war ended in 1945 Thomas Mann, wrote the following concerning literature published in German during the 12 years of Nazi dictatorship.

"It may be superstition, but in my eyes books that could be printed at all in Germany from 1933 to 1945 are less than worthless and ought not to be touched. They are impregnated with the smell of blood and disgrace. They ought all to be pulped."

Was Mann correct? Was everything published in the Third Reich worthless?  Was it possible to make a living as writer and maintain a shred of integrity?  Of course, I am familiar with the works of the exiled writers - from Mann to Brecht to Lion Feuchtwanger and many others.  But what of the writers who didn't - or couldn't - leave Germany during that terrible period?  That is subject of Anatol Regnier's fascinating book "Jeder schreibt für sich allein" - a riff on Hans Fallada's novel "Jeder stirbt für sich allein" (1947). 

Regnier follows a number of writers starting with the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 to the postwar period.  And things weren't quite as black and white as Thomas Mann saw them.  There were gradations of collaboration with the Nazi regime. There were craven opportunists and mediocre talents such as Hans Johst, who entertained close ties with Goebbels and other Nazi officials as a chance to advance his career.  Others, such as Gottfried Benn - perhaps the greatest lyric poet of his generation - enthusiastically embraced the nationalist-socialist "revolution" as a victory of the German Geist, but quickly became disillusioned and retreated into his medical practice.  More typical, perhaps, was Erich Kästner - a beloved childrens' author - who witnessed his books being burned by the Nazis, but decided to remain in Germany for family reasons.  Kästner managed to publish a couple of apolitical novels and the Nazis permitted him to write the screenplay for a prestige movie production (Münchhausen) under a pseudonym 

Regnier closely follows the career of two writers in particular: the poet and novelist Ina Seidel and bestselling novelist Rudolf Ditzen, whose pen name was Hans Fallada.  Fallada's novel Kleiner Mann, was nun? (1932) depicted the fall of the middle class during the Weimar Republic - and was such a huge success that it was made into a Hollywood feature film.  Fallada's writing was initially denounced by the Nazis and the Gestapo even briefly imprisoned him. But he kept writing and even agreed to certain revisions of his texts required by the Nazi censors.  His 1937 novel Wolf unter Wölfen was a success and caught the attention of Goebbels, who commissioned Fallada to write an anti-Semitic novel (never completed).  Shortly before his death after the war ended Fallada was able to finish what is perhaps the best work of fiction about everyday life under the Nazi dictatorship - "Jeder stirbt für sich allein - which as recently as 2010 was a best seller in the UK under the title of Alone in Berlin. Ina Seidel was a popular novelist and poet during the Weimar Republic and her 1932 novel Das Wunschkind was a huge bestseller. She was a passionate supporter of the Nazis, and was one of 88 writers who signed the Vow of Total Loyalty ("Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft") to the Führer.  Her poem celebrating Hitler's 5oth birthday was widely published in newspapers and magazines.  After the war, Ina Seidel was able to rehabilitate herself and even today there are schools and streets in Germany bearing her name. 

Regnier's coverage of writers during the Third Reich leaves out a number of important writers. Notably, he elected not to write about the brothers Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger ("[Sie] sind für sich ein so groβes Thema, dass sie ein eigenes Buch rechtfertigen würden.") Missing also is the modernist novelist Wolfgang Koeppen, the poets Günter Eich and Ricarda Huch, and Peter Huchel.  Entirely missing are also those writers who were forbidden by the Nazis to publish their works.  The poet and novelist Elisabeth Langgässer was deemed a "half Jew" by the Nazis and could remain in Germany but not allowed to publish (Schreibverbot) ; her daughter Cordelia was a "full Jew" and deported to Auschwitz.  In 1933 Elisabeth Langgässer and Ina Seidel published an anthology of women poets (Herz zum Hafen. Frauengedichte der Gegenwart) which included poems by the brilliant Jewish poet Gertrud Kolmar. Kolmar also remained in Germany (to care for her father)  and was forbidden to publish,  and after the Novemberpogrom of 1938 was forced into slave labor at a Nazi munitions plant. In 1943 Gertrud Kolmar was transported to Auschwitz where she was immediately murdered.  There is no record of Ina Seidel making any attempt to intervene with her friend Joseph Goebbels to save the poet Gertrud Kolmar. 

Review: Magnificent Rebels by Andrea Wulf

What happens when the greatest philosophers, novelists, poets, playwrights, and scientists all converge on a small city in eastern Germany?  As Andrea Wulf writes in her delightful book, they change the way we see the world.  Jena, in the 1790s, was the cradle of Romanticism, which in the decades that follow spread to the rest of Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. Jena would seem to be an unlikely venue for launching an international revolution: it had no theater, no museums, no court culture as existed in nearby Weimar.  But it did have a university - and one where the faculty had unusual freedom to pursue and teach radical ideas.  In 1793 the university recruited a young philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who, influenced by Kant and the politics of the French Revolution, developed a radical gospel of subjectivity that electrified the students at the university.  Andrea Wulf does the right thing in not focusing on Fichte's virtually unreadable texts but rather convey the excitement he brought to his young students, and later, to the poets, writers, scientists who flocked to Jena to hear his lectures.  One luminary was Goethe, who made the short trip by horseback from Weimar to Jena to attend Fichte's lectures.  It was then that he bonded with Jena's most famous citizen Friedrich Schiller.  Soon other famous writers and thinkers followed - including the Schlegel brothers, the poet Novalis, the novelist Tieck and the von Humboldt brothers.  Since there was little other entertainment in Jena, deep friendships were formed among this brilliant group and they spent time with each other on long walks, gathering in one of the many taverns, and meeting for long dinners with lively arguments over the meanings of Fichte's philosophy.  Of course I was familiar with the works of Goethe, Schiller and the others, but in Wulf's book they all come alive: we learn about their habits, their sex lives, their petty jealousies, etc. 

Romanticism was fueled by philosophy.  And Fichte's influence cannot be understated:

"Fichte's ideas were a work in progress.  He didn't arrive in Jena with a fully formed philosophical system: instead he developed and expanded as he lectured. His many students fed his imagination and thinking. He explored, found and generated his ideas, he said, 'with the listeners and before their eyes.' As they watched Fichte's thinking unfold, they felt they were witnessing something momentous. They were thrilled to see their hero conjuring up this new world.  Fichte's philosophy was alive - so new and revolutionary that even its creator had to revise it as he went along." 

As influential as Fichte was by 1799, his star would soon be eclipsed by Friedrich Schelling, who, in turn, was surpassed by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel - both of whom were recruited by the university.  Fichte, himself, was later accused of atheism and banished from Jena. 

The central figure in Andrea Wulf's narrative is Caroline von Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling - a brilliant free spirit who, no matter where was always the center of attention with her beauty and intelligence.  As a widow with a young daughter she carried on an affair with a French officer in French-occupied Mainz.  Then, pregnant, she was imprisoned  in Koenigstein along with her daughter Auguste by the Prussians for "consorting with the enemy".  After release from prison, she married August Wilhelm von Schlegel and began a highly productive collaboration. Together, they began translating and published the works of Shakespeare - translations that still hold up today. She wrote numerous articles, essays, and even a novel - all published under her husband's name.  For a brief period in 1799 Caroline presided over the "Jena Set" at her home in Jena - where the resident poets, philosophers, novelists met and worked together nearly every day - with Goethe frequently dropping in from Weimar.  The was a time of enormous creativity and productivity as the group worked and played in communal harmony.  But of course the harmony could not last.  The concentration of strong personalities and egos exerted a centrifugal force.  August Wilhelm Schlegel's brother Friedrich reveled in conflict and started a bitter feud with Schiller.  Friedrich's mistress, the married Dorothea Veit, poured fuel on the fire with vicious gossip about Caroline.  Goethe stayed above the fray and did his best to calm the acrimony. But to no avail: the members of the Jena Set went their separate ways. By the time Napoleon destroyed the city in the 1806 Battle of Jena, only Hegel had remained there - and barely managed to rescue his manuscript of Phänomenologie des Geistes as the city burned.  Still, the Jena Set lit the flame of Romanticism, which quickly spread across the continent to Britain and shortly thereafter, to America - influencing a generation of poets and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson - whose writings had a powerful influence on Friedrich Nietzsche. 

Review: Harald Jähner's Aftermath:Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich

What happens to a people whose country has been destroyed by years of war - entire cities reduced to rubble by relentless firebombing, a nation reviled internationally as a pariah for its perpetration of the Holocaust?  They find a way to keeping living, and, eventually even thriving.  That is the gist of Harald Jähner's wildly entertaining book Aftermath ( Shaun Whiteside's translation of Wolfszeit).  Jähner's focus is on the lives of ordinary Germans, not the postwar geopolitical situation. And he covers the key stages of Germany's recovery: the almost giddy exhilaration in the immediate aftermath of having survived the war, the harsh conditions of hunger an lack of housing which led to Cardinal Frings' blessing of petty theft of coal and food (which coined a new verb: fringsen), the social upheaval caused by  millions of displaced persons and expellees from the former Sudetenland and East Prussian who transformed both cities and rural villages, the critical role of the Black Market which vanished virtually overnight with the 1948 Currency Reform.  All of this is covered by Jähner in the early chapters of Aftermath. 

The later chapters deal with the beginnings of the Wirtschaftswunder - Germany's "Economic Miracle" as it rose from the rubble to become Europe's economic powerhouse.  Jähner focuses here on key individuals who are representative for this astonishing transformation: there is Beate Uhse, a wartime pilot who became a household name as a sex entrepreneur and brought the sexual revolution to Germany a decade before the hippies and the "68ers"; there was Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff  who led Volkswagen from 1948, making the car manufacturer an icon of Germany's newfound economic power; there was Hans Habe, a writer and publisher who was initially installed by the American occupiers to create 18 regional newspapers but who later "went native" and was instrumental in building West Germany's vibrant independent free press; and there was Willi Baumeister, an abstract painter and designers, whose art was promoted by the American CIA to counter Soviet-style socialist realism.  If I have any criticism of Harald Jähner's book is that he barely mentions  the Gruppe 47 of writers and poets who reconnected Germany to modern world literature. 

The final chapter of Aftermath deals with how many German's "repressed" their involvement in the Third Reich as well as their horrific experiences during the war.  This was a 'willful amnesia' - perhaps necessary to some extent to move on and focusing on creating a new future. In this context, the attempt by the American Occupation Forces at "denazification" of the German population was an abject failure.  Still, the United States -through its culture - played the essential role in postwar Germany's embrace of democracy, as  Jähner points out in a recent interview in The Guardian: 

American entertainment culture had a very pacifying effect on Germany: its films taught us previously unknown, relaxed and laconic attitudes. It wasn’t just chocolate and cigarettes that made American GIs attractive to German women, but because they embodied a freer lifestyle. They were softer than their German counterparts: American soldiers were seen pushing prams through bombed-out cities, which was absolutely unheard of at the time. Germany learned less about liberalism through official denazification programmes than through pop culture. If there is a lesson for these modern times, it is how important it is to keep on caring for a nation even once it has been defeated.