Mapping the Contours of Oppression: Subjectivity, Truth and Fiction in Recent German Autobiographical Treatments of Totalitarianism (Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur 156)

Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur in Verbindung mit Peter Boerner, Bloomington; Hugo Dyserinck, Aachen; Ferdinand van Ingen, Amsterdam; Friedrich Maurer†, Freiburg; Oskar Reichmann, Heidelberg herausgegeben von Cola Minis† und Arend Quak

156

Mapping the Contours of Oppression Subjectivity, Truth and Fiction in Recent German Autobiographical Treatments of Totalitarianism

Owen Evans

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of "ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence". ISBN: 90-420-1719-8 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in The Netherlands

For my family and Kate

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Contents Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

1 ‘Auch ich hatte die Finger im Spiel’: Ludwig Harig, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (1990)

19

2 ‘Das Ich liegt immer jenseits der Worte’: Uwe Saeger, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen (1991)

53

3 ‘Für jeden war es einmalig’: Ruth Klüger, weiter leben: Eine Jugend (1992)

95

4 ‘Taktieren mit der Macht’: Günter de Bruyn, Zwischenbilanz: Eine Jugend in Berlin (1992) and Vierzig Jahre: Ein Lebensbericht (1996)

137

5 ‘Die Katalyse des Schreibens’: Günter Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele: Erinnerungen (1997)

181

6 ‘“Man soll nie lügen. Oder nur, wenn es nicht anders geht”’: Christoph Hein, Von allem Anfang an (1997)

231

7 ‘Es gab nur noch die eine Aufgabe: Gegen das Vergessen anzuschreiben’: Grete Weil, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (1998)

255

8 ‘Mutmaßungen über Pawel’: Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe: Eine Familiengeschichte (1999)

291

Conclusion

325

Bibliography

329

Index

351

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Acknowledgements I should like to record my thanks to the many people and institutions who supported me during my work on this book: first and foremost to Hinrich Siefken and Colin Riordan who both offered invaluable advice and support before, during and after my sabbatical and were, and have remained, so willing to act as referees for me; to the Arts and Humanities Research Board (as was) for awarding me a Research Leave grant that turned one semester of study leave into a twosemester sabbatical; to the British Academy who awarded me a Small Grant to spend a month’s research in Germany during my sabbatical; to staff at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach for their support during my stay there; to the University of Wales Bangor for allowing me study leave, and especially to Tony Brown who encouraged me to apply for the AHRB grant in the first place; to my former colleagues in the Modern Languages department in Bangor for indulging me for so long and then letting me go with so many kind words; and to the many cohorts of Bangor students who seemingly never tired of hearing about this project, and especially to those who gave me such a moving send-off in December 2004. I should also like to thank two very important people for their continued, invaluable encouragement: Graeme Harper, for remaining such an inspiration and for pushing me into academic areas I might otherwise have avoided, and finally my wife Kate, who was working flat out on her PhD during my work on this project and yet remained so supportive throughout. This book is dedicated to her and my family. This project would not have been possible without the support of these people. If any errors remain, however, then these are solely my responsibility.

Owen Evans University of Wales Swansea November 2005

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Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used throughout the book: A

Grete Weil, Meine Schwester Antigone

CH

Bill Niven and David Clarke, eds., Christoph Hein

CIP

Graham Jackman, ed., Christoph Hein in Perspective

DN

Uwe Saeger, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen

E

Günter Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele

EI

Günter de Bruyn, Das erzählte Ich

H

Jonathan Glover, Humanity

HOL

Paul John Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories

ITM

Primo Levi, If This is a Man

JSS

Jean Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne

KF

Alfred Andersch, Die Kirschen der Freiheit

L

Grete Weil, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben

LH

Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ed., Ludwig Harig

NDE

Grete Weil, ‘Nicht dazu erzogen, Widerstand zu leisten’

PB

Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe

Q

Monika Maron, quer über die Gleise

SE

Günter Kunert, Schatten entziffern

SL

Joachim Walter, Sicherungsbereich Literatur

US

Klaus Hammer, ‘Gespräch mit Uwe Saeger’

VA

Christoph Hein, Von allem Anfang an

VJ

Günter de Bruyn, Vierzig Jahre

WD

Ludwig Harig, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt

WL

Ruth Klüger, weiter leben

WM

Ludwig Harig, Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf

ZB

Günter de Bruyn, Zwischenbilanz

Introduction In the aftermath of the collapse of East Germany and the reunification of Germany in 1990, it has been striking just how many autobiographies have been published in German which explore the legacies of the country’s two totalitarian regimes. The reasons why these books have appeared are difficult to ascertain. In his review of Günter Kunert’s Erwachsenenspiele Tilman Krause celebrates the reappearance of what he terms ‘diese vorsichtigen Überwindungsversuche einer theoretisch überwölbten Vernachlässigung des eigenen Ichs’ that at last challenge ‘die These vom “Tod des Subjekts”’.1 Some have wondered, such as Jörg Magenau, whether the motivation to write autobiography ‘etwas damit zu tun [hat], daß am Jahrtausendende Bilanz gezogen wird?’.2 Although there may well be some truth in this ‘pre-millenial’ theory, one senses that within Germany it has more to do with a new type of Stunde Null, in sociopolitical and cultural terms. Certainly, as Stephen Brockmann has explored at length, there have been calls by commentators such as Frank Schirrmacher and Karl-Heinz Bohrer for a new literature which should ‘be a purely aesthetic game unencumbered by the heavy and oafish moralism of political commitment’.3 Might the prevalence of autobiography indeed suggest a move away from the political? Might these texts be seen as an attempt to establish a moralism rooted in the private sphere, whilst at the same time essaying a regeneration of a genre recently much maligned?

1 Tilman Krause, ‘Rasender Roland der Zeitgeschichte: Unter düsteren Himmeln grimmig komisch; Erinnerungen von Günter Kunert’, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 October 1997, p. 2. 2 Ludwig Harig, ‘Dieses nachgedachte Leben: Ein Gespräch mit Jörg Magenau’, in Ludwig Harig, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1997), pp. 3746 (p. 37). All subsequent references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (LH, 37). 3 Stephen Brockmann, Literature and German Reunification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 71.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

The truth is that the reasons for this autobiographical trend cannot easily be pinned down, and to attempt to do so would extend beyond the scope of the present study. For the eight authors chosen for scrutiny here, the motivation is a personal one and cannot be ascribed to any external cultural agenda or aesthetic programme. Each author wished to take stock of life under totalitarian regimes, and they provide fascinating, often disturbing, insights into their experiences with their mapping of the contours of oppression. A cross-section of texts has been carefully selected for analysis and together they embrace existence in the Third Reich and the GDR from male and female authors of different ages and backgrounds. Three texts deal exclusively with National Socialism and its aftermath. In Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (1990) Ludwig Harig describes with sometimes shocking candour how he was seduced as a boy by the Nazis, whilst Ruth Klüger in weiter leben (1992) and Grete Weil in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (1998) provide harrowing testimony of the persecution they suffered as Jews. Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen (1991) and Christoph Hein’s Von allem Anfang an (1997) meanwhile deal exclusively with life in the GDR, with the former documenting the author’s sense of guilt at having served as a border guard at the Berlin Wall and the latter describing childhood in the 1950s. The remaining texts comprise a contrastive approach, looking at both regimes in question. Günter de Bruyn’s acclaimed two-volume autobiography, Zwischenbilanz (1992) and Vierzig Jahre (1996), explores life as an ‘inner emigrant’ and the attendant compromises one necessarily had to make in both regimes to survive; Günter Kunert’s Erwachsenenspiele (1997) charts the author’s life as a Halbjude during the Third Reich and then his inevitable disgruntlement as a convinced Communist at the way in which East Germany evolved along profoundly undemocratic lines; and Monika Maron’s fascinating autobiographical collage of letters and photographs in Pawels Briefe (1999), which tells her family history beginning with her Polish grandparents and their eventual persecution at the hands of the Nazis and concluding with her own experiences in the GDR. Each author tackles their project in different ways, as befits an individual personal document, but as we deal with each account in turn, it is striking how many common features emerge as they describe the impact of totalitarianism on their sense of identity. Although it is not the intention here to propound a new theory of autobiography as a literary genre, one must first address briefly the current status of autobiography. There has been an array of recent

Introduction

3

studies of ‘life-writing’ which set out to test the credibility and value of such texts in more detail. The primary concern is to examine each of the texts here as a discrete piece of work, exploring how each author deals with their personal material and seeks to imbue it with the authenticity generally demanded of autobiographical writing. Nevertheless, it has been possible to tease out certain similarities in form and content, allowing for an inherently contrastive element to the present study. In this way, the texts reveal what Linda Anderson has called ‘the very pervasiveness and slipperiness of autobiography’.4 Perceptions of what constitutes autobiography have changed considerably in what we might call the modern era, so that the classical paradigms established by Augustine, Rousseau and, in the German context, by Goethe are no longer deemed appropriate or infallible. Feminism in particular has challenged these models, and so it is unsurprising perhaps to note that women should have produced the majority of recent studies of autobiography. In one of these, Mererid Puw Davies offers a neat summation of this shifting perspective: The traditional notion of autobiography has been identified intimately with the concept of a coherent, articulate self and its intelligible, linear evolution. Yet part of the twentieth century’s philosophical and experiential legacy has been to show that such legible, serene subjectivity is bought at a – perhaps unbearably – high price; or at the very least, that it is only one of a number of psychological 5 possibilities.

Some of the texts selected here appear to fit the more traditional pattern Puw Davies describes. The volumes by Günter de Bruyn represent arguably the best example and bear the hallmarks of the author’s very clear attachment to the German literary heritage of the nineteenth century, and most notably to Theodor Fontane. By the same token, however, his own theoretical work on autobiography reveals a more nuanced appreciation of its limits as a form and highlights some of the qualifications one must bring to the text. Fittingly in this respect, de Bruyn’s other literary hero is the iconoclastic Jean Paul, whose own fragmentary Selberlebensbeschreibung was much less orthodox – and to contemporary theoretical perceptions much more modern – than the 4

Linda Anderson, Autobiography (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 2. Mererid Puw Davies, ‘Introduction’, in Autobiography by Women in German, ed by Mererid Puw Davies, Beth Linklater and Gisela Shaw (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 7-15 (p. 7). 5

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Goethean model.6 If de Bruyn’s own autobiographical project does ultimately conform more to the traditional pattern Puw Davies illustrates, then Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is an excellent example of the slipperiness that Anderson remarks upon. Indeed, elsewhere Karen Leeder has identified an array of texts, written like Saeger’s in response to the Wende, which reveal a ‘slippage between documentary and literature’.7 Saeger conflates a wide range of different ‘texts’ in his putatively personal reflection upon the incipient collapse of East Germany. In this way, the present study sheds a little light on how problematic any normative, canonical approach to autobiography has become; it does not attempt however to extrapolate from these texts any new theory or model for wider application. As a result of recent theories on the genre, it has become problematic for academics wishing to work on autobiography to find a definition of the form to satisfy every theoretical position. As Anderson remarks: ‘The question […] is not simply what kind of genre is autobiography; it is rather how does the ‘law of genre’, to take the title of Jacques Derrida’s famous essay, work to legitimise certain autobiographical writings and not others?’.8 Can the texts under consideration here all be seen unequivocally as autobiographical statements? To what extent can Christoph Hein’s Von allem Anfang an – a ‘fictional autobiography’ – be dealt with alongside Grete Weil’s traditional narrative in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben? Is it possible to settle on an inclusive term that embraces each of the texts? It is Paul John Eakin’s excellent recent study, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves which has provided a useful model for the present analysis, in that, as the title implies, there is an essential element of fiction to any narrative about the self.9 Ironically enough, Eakin’s title offers more than a faint echo of the Goethean paradigm of the blend of Dichtung and Wahrheit. Without wishing to advocate the continued application of Goethe’s text per se as in any way canonical, one can advocate the key concepts of his title as still being relevant for the creation of any autobiographical text in the modern 6 See Günter de Bruyn, Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (Halle: Mitteldeutscher, 1975). 7 Karen Leeder, ‘“Vom Unbehagen in der Einheit”: Autobiographical Writing by Women Since 1989’, in Puw Davies et al (eds), pp. 249-71 (p. 254). 8 Anderson, p.9. 9 Paul John Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). All further references in the text will appear in the form (HOL, 43).

Introduction

5

era. The elements of Dichtung and Wahrheit in themselves, when conflated in myriad combinations, can generate an infinite array of possible narratives of self wholly congruent with recent theoretical assertions that the genre is fluid. As Anderson’s insightful study reveals, Virginia Woolf provides a convincing example of the literary possibilities that exist when fact and fiction – Wahrheit and Dichtung – are melded in the pursuit of constructing literary subjectivity. In view of both the work of Derrida and feminist theorists, Anderson illustrates how ‘modern’ Woolf’s perspective on autobiography was and how influential it remains. The blending of fact and fiction was evident, Anderson argues, in Woolf’s attitude to biography: It is not possible to separate lives from books, or identities from how they are represented, Woolf suggests, and much of what we think of as ‘true’ or historically given, is really an ideological construct; in other words, a fiction. […] [Woolf] tried to imagine a different kind of biography which could bring together fiction’s attention to the ‘intangible personality’ and the ‘inner life’ with the veracity and substance of historical fact, which could somehow create, as she said, ‘that queer amalgamation of dream 10 and reality, that perpetual marriage of granite and rainbow’.

Anderson underlines how Woolf believed it was impossible to draw the line definitively between writing history, biography and fiction, and even though the author adopted a more factual approach for her autobiographical ‘Sketch of the Past’ (1940), it was presented as an ‘improvisation’, thereby intimating the inclusion of more creative extrapolations than conventional accounts would usually encompass.11 By extension then, autobiography would also be dependent on fiction to plug the gaps that would inevitably appear in the narrative due to the problematic nature of memory: In the ‘Sketch’, Woolf writes a memoir which is profoundly sceptical of what ‘remembering’ means. Instead of a subject who recalls the past from some stable place outside it, Woolf traces moments which slip from and exceed the conscious control of the subject, deciding that ‘the things one does not remember are as important’ as the things one does. Writing the self involves moments when the self is lost, when cracks appear and unconscious memory floods in […]. The self is never secure, nor can it form its own narrative. At best there are scenes or moments to return to which ‘arrange themselves’, and which are ‘representative’ or ‘enduring’. For Woolf the self is a construct 10 11

Anderson, pp. 96-97. Ibid., p. 99.

6

Mapping the Contours of Oppression which is known as much through its fragmentation as its unity. More than most writers she makes us aware of the process of flux and splitting which underlies, and constantly threatens, any notion of 12 attained subjecthood.

If the self is a construct, then any attempt to render it in written form must also be a construct, in that it requires a form to convey it that can only ever be an approximation. It is a fact that each author in the present study readily concedes with caveats either explicit in the content of the text or implicit in its form. In Das erzählte Ich: Über Wahrheit und Dichtung in der Autobiographie (1995), even the more traditionally-minded Günter de Bruyn remarks upon the inherent artificiality of the form in terms strikingly reminiscent of Virginia Woolf: ‘Ein getreues Abbild des vergangenen Geschehens können Historiographie und Autobiographie schon deshalb nicht geben, weil sie erzählen und damit der Vergangenheit eine Form geben, die sie von sich aus nicht hat’ (EI, 66).13 Each author here duly strives to test their memories and, where possible, to substantiate their accounts with documentary evidence. They each employ a blend of Wahrheit/fact and Dichtung/fiction, although the extent to which this process is realised varies from author to author as our exploration will demonstrate. If the texts to be explored are reliant upon a certain amount of Dichtung, to what extent then does that impair their credibility as autobiographical narratives, given the ongoing debates about such forms of life-writing. If the self is a construct, does it mean that autobiography as a literary pursuit is ultimately futile and worthless? Of course, New Criticism attacked intentionality as any guarantee of credibility, as Anderson also points out at the outset of her survey. Whilst it is fair to assume that not every memoir is entirely trustworthy – one need only consider the number of self-justificatory autobiographies produced in the wake of the GDR’s demise for sufficient evidence of this – by the same token, one should not categorically reject all autobiographies as inauthentic or as fictions in any negative sense.14 So, we return again to the problem of how best

12

Ibid., pp. 101-2. Günter de Bruyn, Das erzählte Ich: Über Wahrheit und Dichtung in der Autobiographie (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995). All references to this volume will appear in the main text in the form (EI, 66). 14 For an engaging overview of trends in the GDR memoirs and autobiographies published in the five years after the Wende, see Julian Preece, ‘Damaged lives? (East) German memoirs and autobiographies, 1989-94’, in The New Germany: Literature 13

Introduction

7

to define the texts selected for this survey, and how much credence we can grant them. Given that the authors make varying use of Dichtung, is there sufficient Wahrheit underpinning their texts for them to be seen as meaningful personal narratives? The texts to be analysed here are united first and foremost by the palpable need of the authors to bear witness to their experiences of totalitarian life, which had an intensely damaging impact on their individuation. One senses that each author was motivated chiefly by a personal, therapeutic need to examine the ways in which their sense of self was shaped, or distorted, by external forces during this key period in their lives, rather than any desire to provide a life chronicle for posterity. Despite the unorthodox nature of some of the texts – chiefly those by Hein and Saeger – none of the texts purposefully seeks to deconstruct the autobiographical form; the desire to document the experience of totalitarianism far outweighs any theoretical concerns about the form and its reliability as a rendition of self. Indeed, the subjectivity intrinsic to the form would appear to be paramount to the authors. Each of them spent their formative years in an intensely repressive socio-political regime that actively sought either to mould individuals in its own image – exemplified best in the cases of Harig and Saeger – or to categorise them, potentially fatally, as ‘other’, as the accounts by Grete Weil and Ruth Klüger can attest. Each of the authors consequently suffered from what the eponymous character of Christa Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T. (1968) identified as the ‘Schwierigkeit, “ich” zu sagen’, which in her case compounded her efforts to conform to dogmatic collective norms in the GDR and thereby contributed to her demise.15 For the eight authors here, their decision to adopt an autobiographical form to recount these experiences in a liberal climate thus represents a quite deliberate attempt to reassert, to rescue the self. In this way, they might even be seen to be reconstructing a subjectivity that had been repressed, even deconstructed, by totalitarianism. Despite the questions raised about the role and reliability of autobiography in the modern context, it has traditionally been seen to reflect subjectivity. What is more, as a form it was deemed wholly unacceptable in totalitarian contexts. Günter de Bruyn’s wish to tackle his wartime experiences in an autobiography, for example, was blocked by the GDR authorities, who insisted his project be and Society after Unification, ed. by Osman Durrani, Colin Good and Kevin Hilliard (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 349-64. 15 Christa Wolf, Nachdenken über Christa T. (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986), p. 173.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

transformed into a Socialist Realist Entwicklungsroman. By virtue both of its traditional perception as the medium for self-expression and its negative reception in totalitarian contexts, the autobiographical form was ideal for it allows the authors to articulate their sense of self unfettered. The modern condition may still insist there is ‘difficulty in saying I’, not least in a text, but in relative terms, and compared to the repression these authors had had to endure, the autobiographical form represents a celebration, indeed a liberation, of the subjectivity denied them during their formative years. The way in which these texts tackle the assault on selfhood by the repressive climates and explore the ramifications of this stifling influence, is strongly reminiscent of Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T., the epitome of her literary and theoretical investigations into individual experience in the GDR throughout the 1960s. This controversial, yet fascinating, novel made a decisive break from the monolithic Socialist Realist model, drawing on the author’s discovery of Brecht’s theoretical writings on realism and his call for a more critical engagement with it. As Dennis Tate observes, Wolf believed Brecht had ‘given her confidence in the validity of her subjective perceptions as an author’.16 In his seminal study of the GDR novel, Tate devotes a chapter to those works of the late 1960s and early 1970s which bore the hallmarks of ‘subjective authenticity’, the term coined by Wolf in her writings at the time to describe her preoccupation. Tate outlines that ‘the dominant theme of nonconformist GDR writing after 1965’ was ‘the threat to identity represented by a socialist society which has failed to develop according to expectations’ (EGN, 136).17 Wolf was at the vanguard of literary attempts to reorientate the focus onto the individuals who comprised that society and their subjective experiences of daily life in the GDR, warts and all. She sought to examine the everyday experience of ordinary citizens – ‘die Banalität dieses Alltags’ – in a form unencumbered by the dogmatic constraints imposed by the Socialist Realist model, and in particular she was drawn to the diary as a medium for this more individual approach.18 In her opinion, with the 16

Dennis Tate, ‘“Breadth and Diversity”: Socialist Realism in the GDR’ in European Socialist Realism, ed. by Michael Scriven and Dennis Tate (Oxford: Berg, 1988), pp. 60-78 (p.69). 17 Dennis Tate, The East German Novel: Identity, Community Continuity (Bath: Bath University Press, 1984), pp. 135-76. Further references to this chapter will appear in the text in the form (EGN, 136) 18 Christa Wolf, ‘Tagebuch – Arbeitsmittel und Gedächtnis’, in Lesen und Schreiben (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1972), pp. 61-75 (p. 66).

Introduction

9

erection of the Berlin Wall surely signalling a reduced ideological threat from the West, the typical GDR citizen by the mid-1960s could no longer be found in the pages of schematic Socialist Realist works, which located their characters firmly in a society where political issues still dominated. On the contrary, for GDR society to evolve, its literature had to reveal the existential concerns of the private sphere and the hindrances to self-realisation that existed in order to help foster personal development. Only if literature were allowed to convey a recognisable, authentic picture of individual experience – the ‘Durchschnittsproblematik gewöhnlicher Menschen’ (EGN, 137) in other words – could significant social progress be achieved: a back-toBasis approach, one might say. As Tate explains, works such as Nachdenken über Christa T. and Brigitte Reimann’s Franziska Linkerhand (1974) depict the ongoing alienation of individuals, and suggest that ‘the dream of selfrealisation, still remote on account of the imperfections of socialist society […] could again only be pursued on an aesthetic plane’ (EGN, 174). Wolf’s theoretical writings reaffirmed the influential role of authors in GDR society, and she posited that an author’s ‘Sehnsucht nach Selbstverwirklichung’ (EGN, 174) was an essential quality of meaningful literature, thereby stressing the vital subjective element that was to underpin such work. Wolf readily admitted to exploiting autobiographical elements in her writing, in order to create fiction that was both subjective and authentic, but stressed that it was not necessarily explicit autobiography, which might restrict its application on a wider scale. The best representation of this approach is engendered in her novel, Kindheitsmuster (1976), which many commentators have nevertheless classified as her autobiography. But the tale of Nelly Jordan, who may well bear similarities with the author, thematises the problems of rendering subjectivity and reconstructing the past. At one point, the narrator remarks: ‘Die Beschreibung der Vergangenheit – was immer das sein mag, dieser noch anwachsende Haufen von Erinnerungen – in objektivem Stil wird nicht gelingen’.19 The narrator endeavours nevertheless to produce as coherent an account of her past as possible by resolutely avoiding the first-person singular pronoun in her account: passage between the three time planes in the narrative is recorded with the pronouns du, sie and wir:

19

Christa Wolf, Kindheitsmuster (Berlin: Aufbau, 1976), p. 215.

10

Mapping the Contours of Oppression Der Endpunkt wäre erreicht, wenn zweite und dritte Person wieder in der ersten zusammenträfen, mehr noch; zusammenfielen. Wo nicht mehr ‘du’ und ‘sie’ – wo unverhohlen ‘ich’ gesagt werden müßte. Es kam dir sehr fraglich vor, ob du diesen Punkt erreichen könntest, ob 20 der Weg, den du eingeschlagen hast, überhaupt dorthin führt.

Despite the difficulties the narrator faces with the first-person pronoun, she does eventually resort to the ich-perspective on the very last page. Wolf’s approach to the problems of rendering the self in Kindheitsmuster, and indeed in Nachdenken über Christa T., recall Virginia Woolf’s advocation of using fiction to supplement the factual material of history writing and autobiography. On account of certain parallels between the author and her protagonist, recent commentators such as Barbara Kosta have treated Kindheitsmuster as autobiography, albeit a text which both ‘transgresses the traditional borders of autobiography anchored in liberal humanism’ and ‘unsettles the “autobiographical pact” [proposed by Philippe Lejeune]’.21 In view of the decision to classify the text in this way, one might usefully advocate Wolf’s text as a modern – or perhaps, more accurately, a modernist – alternative to challenge the hegemony of Dichtung und Wahrheit as the classical model of the form, especially in the German literary context. If one is unhappy about accepting the notion of the coherent self evident in Goethe’s autobiography, then Wolf’s ‘subjective authenticity’, which eschews the concept of the omniscient author/narrator and allows for a more fluid combination of Dichtung – here meaning either the use of unequivocally fictional elements or structuring devices common to fiction – and Wahrheit in the pursuit of an authentic account of the self, represents a useful counter-position. As if to underline this paradigm shift from the classical model, Kindheitsmuster is prefaced by a fascinating disclaimer, which declares at the outset: ‘Alle Figuren in diesem Buch sind Erfindungen der Erzählerin’.22 As Kosta neatly suggests: ‘The disclaimer serves as an acknowledgement of the limits of autobiographical composition, an admission that writing and imagination alter characters and events, and that only one version or interpretation of the self is ultimately produced’.23 The authors in the present survey are similarly aware that their accounts represent one 20

Ibid., p. 453. Barbara Kosta, Recasting Autobiography: Women’s Counterfictions in Contemporary German Literature and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 55-6. 22 Kindheitsmuster, p. 6. 23 Kosta, p. 56. 21

Introduction

11

subjective position alone and are prepared to accept that this perspective might be just one amongst many. That does not, however, invalidate their testimony. In any event, they strive to authenticate their accounts as much as possible with documentary evidence to supplement their memories. This approach recalls Christa Wolf’s intriguing statement at the beginning of Nachdenken über Christa T. which states categorically that the protagonist is ‘eine literarische Figur’, only to add: ‘Authentisch sind manche Zitate aus Tagebüchern, Skizzen und Briefen’.24 Despite Wolf’s problematisation of autobiography, emphasised not only by the disclaimer but also by the very form of Kindheitsmuster itself with its interplay between three discrete narrative time frames, ‘subjective authenticity’ remains a useful term to describe the literary approach adopted by the authors of the texts in the present study. Hein’s ‘fictional autobiography’ adheres closely to Wolf’s model, whilst both Saeger and Maron employ some unequivocally fictitious components in their accounts. But the others too, by shaping their lives as stories – to borrow Eakin’s formulation – can be seen to be using structural devices redolent of fiction: Harig classifies his text as a ‘Roman’, for example, while the structure of de Bruyn’s first volume recalls a traditional Entwicklungsroman. But in each case the exploitation of Dichtung is designed to reflect as authentically as possible the way in which identity is formed. As the epigraph to Nachdenken über Christa T. ponders: ‘Was ist das: Dieses Zu-sich-selber-Kommen des Menschen?’.25 Johannes R. Becher’s quotation clearly does not apply solely to Wolf’s novel; it sums up precisely what each author selected here is endeavouring to do with their accounts, be it the unequivocal fiction of Hein or the more traditional approach of de Bruyn. They are each exploring the way in which their sense of self was formed under dictatorial regimes. In this regard, it seems doubly apposite to adopt Wolf’s term to define the autobiographical work here, inasmuch as ‘subjective authenticity’ was conceived in extremis to depict the marginalisation of individual experience in the repressive climate of a totalitarian regime. It would therefore seem to remain a fitting medium for the transmission of such experiences in hindsight, even though the shackles have long since been removed. The way in which the authors write subjectively and authentically does vary, but it is equally striking how many common 24 25

Nachdenken über Christa T., p. 7. Ibid., p. 5.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

concerns emerge in their exploration of how the self is constituted and the ways in which the process of identity formation was impaired in the totalitarian context. In this respect, Paul John Eakin’s analysis of the relational forces that shape the self has proved invaluable. Drawing as much from neurobiological and psychological material as existing literary theories on autobiography, Eakin challenges ‘the myth of autonomy’ that has underpinned classical renditions such as Dichtung und Wahrheit: We tend to think of autobiography as a literature of the first person, but the subject of autobiography to which the pronoun ‘I’ refers is neither singular nor first, and we do well to demystify its claims. Why do we so easily forget that the first person of autobiography is truly plural in its origins and subsequent formation? Because autobiography promotes an illusion of self-determination: I write my story; I say who I am; I create my self. The myth of autonomy dies hard, and autobiography criticism has not yet fully addressed the extent to which the self is defined by – and lives in terms of – its relations with others. (HOL, 43)

Eakin emphasises the ways in which the self is shaped in relation to other forces, be they familial, social, cultural or linguistic, and makes good use of textual examples to support his view. His focus is principally on English-language literature, although, in view of his problematisation of defining autobiography as ‘literature of the first person’, he fittingly devotes some time to Kindheitsmuster. The examples he cites were selected as they crystallised his ‘belief that all identity is relational, and that the definition of autobiography, and its history as well, must be stretched to reflect the kinds of self-writing in which relational identity is characteristically displayed’ (HOL, 43-4). The validity of Eakin’s contention seems axiomatic when considering autobiographical treatments of life under a repressive totalitarian regime which actively sought to shape its individual citizens. As Harig’s account displays, young people were especially susceptible to these pressures. Although the family might represent the primary site of individuation, the inevitable penetration of the private sphere by the public world under dictatorships naturally has a damaging effect on a more natural, wholesome process of identity formation. One feature which recurs is the importance of language to the authors’ sense of self. For Harig, his susceptibility as a boy to the Nazis was attributable to his seduction by a language that in hindsight he realised was infected ideologically and morally, in ways that Victor Klemperer laid bare in his memorable LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen. For the Jews Klüger and Weil, for example, the link to

Introduction

13

their native tongue was severely ruptured by National Socialism and gave rise to problems in self-perception, which exacerbated their exclusion from their original Austrian and German identities respectively. A related concern here is the role the authors’ Heimat played, either in providing a basis upon which a degree of resistance to invidious ideological forces was founded – one thinks here of de Bruyn’s inner emigration in the Mark Brandenburg , for example – or in helping to rehabilitate a sense of identity once the danger had passed, as in the case of Grete Weil whose devotion to her Bavarian Heimat was crucial. Conversely, Ruth Klüger, a native Viennese, was relieved to emigrate to America, and has since retained a deep ambivalence about the city of her birth. Another common feature to the accounts selected is the role played by the family. Although this influence was not unequivocally positive in every case – one need only cite the difficult mother/daughter relationships evident in the works by Klüger and Maron – the family naturally remains a significant relational environment. Eakin sets great store by the notion that identity is ‘developed collaboratively with others, often family members’ (HOL, 57) and the family both represents ‘the key environment in the individual’s formation’ and ‘serves as the community’s primary conduit for the transmission of its cultural values’ (HOL, 85). For most of the authors here the family generally acts as the antithesis of the damaging socio-political environment outside, although the protection it affords is not absolute. This antithetical position is especially true in the cases of de Bruyn and Kunert, for example, whose families endeavoured to cocoon them from National Socialism and to instil in them an altogether more humanist ethos. Even though in these instances the family stand in opposition to the community at large, they simply reinforce Eakin’s basic premise of the family’s role as a conduit. Moreover, even where tension exists between the author and other relatives, the family is key to the individual’s identity formation. Eakin observes that one family member generally emerges as especially influential: he dubs this figure the ‘proximate other to signify the intimate tie to the relational autobiographer’ (HOL, 86). This influence is often, but not always, a parent – in Hein’s novel, for instance, it is the protagonist’s ‘aunt’ who shapes his perceptions. But even where the bond between the author/narrator and this ‘proximate other’ is conflicted, as it is between Klüger and Maron and their mothers, Eakin argues convincingly that this does not reduce the significance of this figure for the self; the ‘proximate other’ does not

14

Mapping the Contours of Oppression

have to be a role model. It is by no means unusual, Eakin stresses, for autobiography to be motivated by what he calls ‘unfinished business’ (HOL, 87) – an exceedingly apt term to describe both weiter leben and Pawels Briefe. Although the authors all shed light in their accounts on the relational forces that shape the self, one does not find all the elements explored above in every text. Broadly similar patterns can be identified, yet it is fitting and unsurprising, given the necessarily individual nature of the autobiographical project, that there should be discrepancies and stark contrasts between the texts. Nevertheless, the one feature common to each text is the overwhelming sense that the account was motivated by a very personal, even existential, need, be it guilt, shame, mourning or anger. In her theoretical work on literary authenticity and the interplay in this regard between fiction and autobiography, author Anna Mitgutsch has identified ‘die Aura des Notwendigen’ as the key component for imbuing a text with credibility: Es gibt eine Intensität der Sprache und der Darstellung, eine Überzeugungskraft, die anders nicht zu erreichen ist. Diese Intensität läßt sich schwer simulieren. Sie kommt aus der Verletzung, aus dem Schmerz, der nicht rückgängig zu machenden Beschädigung. Sie fordert eine Simplizität und eine Genauigkeit, eine ungeschminkte Direktheit, die im freien Spiel mit Entwürfen und Möglichkeiten gekünstelt wirken würde. Solchen Texten haftet die Aura des 26 Notwendigen an.

The imperative Mitgutsch speaks of underpins each text here. Although theorists over recent decades have proclaimed the death of autobiography or raised objections to its reliability or suitability as a literary form, this issue is of secondary importance to the eight authors here. In view of what they have endured under totalitarianism, all that matters to them is dealing with this ‘seelischer Notstand’, and they have quite purposefully chosen a subjective literary mode to do so.27 If their accounts can be read as defences of the private realm in that they reassert the legitimacy of individual experience, after either having endured pressure to conform to a collective identity or had a segregationist identity imposed upon them, then their work may conceivably also be seen as an inadvertent defence of

26

Anna Mitgutsch, ‘Erinnern und Erfinden’, in Erinnern und Erfinden. Grazer Poetik-Vorlesungen (Graz: Droschl, 1999), pp. 5-31 (p. 12). 27 Ibid., p. 25.

Introduction

15

autobiographical writing per se as a valid literary form; at the very least the texts can be interpreted as a call for its reappraisal. If autobiography has divided critical and theoretical opinion, then so too has the perception of what constitutes totalitarianism. In his acclaimed study of National Socialism, historian Michael Burleigh casts his eye over the attempts to ‘banish the term […] from polite academic society’ and concludes that the concept remains a useful one ‘for anyone who does not baulk at mentioning National Socialism in the same breath as Soviet Communism, and for anyone interested in the fundamental psychology rather than the surface of things’.28 It is Burleigh’s emphasis on the ‘fundamental psychology’ which dovetails neatly with the present study’s focus on the relational nature of identity formation. Whilst it is possible to appreciate some of the objections to theories of totalitarianism, such as whether one can truly equate National Socialism with GDR socialism – and to that comparison, of course, we must add socialism as practised in East Germany – what interests us here is the fact that in spite of differences these regimes sought to stifle individuality by broadly similar means. As Burleigh remarks: While the ‘ism’ part of the word is unappealing, the ‘total’ part captures most strikingly the insatiable, invasive character of this form of politics, which regarded the individual, freedom, autonomous civil 29 society and the rule of law with uncomprehending hatred.

Each of the texts selected here provides ample evidence of this invasiveness and the ramifications for the sense of self in an environment that pressurised or persecuted individuals. In their respective recent studies of East Germany, the historians Mary Fulbrook and Mike Dennis also raise the issue of the applicability of the term ‘totalitarianism’, but specifically with reference to the situation in the GDR. They both include sections which carefully synopsise the differences between Nazi Germany and the GDR, before agreeing that the aim of denying individuals the space to develop their own identities free from state interference, denotes a striking similarity between the two systems. The autobiographies of de Bruyn and Kunert, which encompass these two regimes and inevitably comprise a contrastive element, tend to support the historians’ conclusions. The highly critical depiction of unsavoury practices in the GDR in Erwachsenenspiele has particular resonance 28 29

Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich:. A New History (London: Pan, 2001), p. 14. Ibid., p.14.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

given the author’s experiences as a half-Jew in Nazi Germany and his concomitant belief in Communism, suggesting perhaps that the juxtaposition is not entirely unjustified. As Fulbrook and Dennis point out, there was no programme of mass genocide in the GDR, but they both nevertheless stress the insidious means by which the State endeavoured to control the people. As Fulbrook observes: The total claims made on citizens by the SED are clearly reminiscent of those of the Third Reich, and have given some basis to attempts to compare the two regimes under the general conceptual heading of ‘totalitarianism’. (It is perhaps in this preliminary, categorizing function with respect to regime claims – if at all – that the concept is of some use.) In general, the attempt at total influence on people, and the total transformation of attitudes, was not a realizable goal in either the Third Reich or the GDR. But, in different circumstances in each case, the attempts were not without effects, some more and some less 30 conducive to the stability of the dictatorship.

In describing these attempts to shape identities, Dennis refers to the ‘sophisticated methods of “structural violence”’ deployed in the GDR, for despite the ‘humanistic residue of Marxism’, the Stasi penetrated public and private spheres with great alacrity and disturbing thoroughness.31 So many of the myriad files that represent the Stasi’s legacy in the new Germany document in great detail the concerted efforts made to suppress individuality and induce conformity to the accepted ideological norm. By virtue of the coercive tactics employed in Nazi Germany and the GDR with the aim of divesting the individual of any selfdetermination, it seems appropriate, as Fulbrook remarks, to refer to the two regimes as ‘totalitarian’, whilst at the same time stressing that neither was totally successful in achieving total dominance over its citizens. To find evidence of absolute totalitarian control one has to turn to the realms of fiction and Orwell’s 1984. As part of his rehabilitation following acts of ‘thoughtcrime’, Winston Smith is given a lesson in what it means to be an individual in a totalitarian society by his torturer, O’Brien: ‘It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is slavery.” Has it ever occurred to you that it 30 Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 284. 31 Mike Dennis, The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945-1990 (Harlow: Longman, 2000), p. 305.

Introduction

17

is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone – free – the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all32 powerful and immortal.’

Each of the eight authors in the present study detail the effects of this degree of coercion, and none of them emerged from their experiences unscathed; and yet each account also stands as testament to the ability of individual spirit to endure. In his analysis of Hannah Arendt’s work on totalitarianism, Michael Geyer highlighted the scholar’s belief in this very capacity to endure as the fundamental weakness of dictatorships to achieve total control: [Arendt] reasoned in the face of terror that the ultimate object of totalitarianism was human spontaneity as the ever-renewable source of democracy. She also reasoned that one would have to destroy all of humanity before one could destroy this perennial well-spring of human rebirth and political renewal. Nothing less than the destruction of humanity is what totalitarianism intended […]. But she upheld that 33 the human spirit could not be cowed.

By bearing witness to what they have experienced, each author testifies to the durability of spirit Arendt perceived, reasserting the individual’s capacity to survive and thereby giving the lie to the totalitarian belief that the individual would be defeated and either subsumed into the collective or extinguished. In this regard, the choice of the authors to recount these experiences in an autobiographical form appears significant. Despite debates as to the validity of the genre and doubts about its capacity to convey truth, it would seem to possess inherent value when depicting both totalitarianism’s systematic assault on the self and the self’s ability to prevail despite the violence inflicted upon it. Even where fiction is used to enhance the authenticity of the narrative – ‘Was man erfinden muß, um der Wahrheit willen’, as the narrator in Nachdenken über Christa T. puts it – it is nevertheless a self-consciously subjective enterprise confirming that individuality has not been defeated.34 In this case, the medium of the narrative is as much the message as the material relayed within. In many ways, this notion tallies with what Linda 32

George Orwell, 1984 (London: Penguin, 1989), p. 276-7. Michael Geyer, ‘Restorative Elites, German Society and the Nazi Pursuit of War’, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Comparisons and Contrasts, ed. by Richard Bessel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 134-64 (p. 139). 34 Nachdenken über Christa T., p. 29. 33

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Anderson has identified as autobiography’s potential role as ‘the text of the oppressed’: ‘Autobiography becomes both a way of testifying to oppression and empowering the subject through their cultural inscription and recognition’.35 Given that the legacies of Nazi Germany and East Germany are still the subject of scrutiny and debate, autobiographical treatments of these periods offer valuable insights not only into how individuals experienced them, but also into the psychological pressures they exerted, all of which might explain why so many autobiographies on these regimes have appeared on the market since 1990. They represent an implicit call for understanding and remembrance, breaking what Ernestine Schlant has called – in relation to the Holocaust at least – ‘the language of silence’.36 Thus proclamations about the death of autobiography are to be seen to have been rather precipitate. The following chapters will indicate why this is so.

35

Anderson, p. 104. Ernestine Schlant, The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust (New York: Routledge, 1999). 36

One

‘Auch ich hatte die Finger im Spiel’ – Ludwig Harig, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (1990) Ich halte […] Harigs autobiographische Romane, insbesondere aber das Buch Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, für eine der bedeutendsten und wichtigsten literarischen Kommentare, die 1 mit dem Jahrhundert geführt worden sind.

In his contribution to one of the earliest major studies of Ludwig Harig, Frank Schirrmacher was unequivocal in advocating the considerable literary and moral qualities of the author’s autobiographical novel, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (1990): ‘Kein Autor ist bisher so weit gegangen in der ganz unaufgeregten, lakonischen Art der Darstellung des Dritten Reiches’.2 This is high praise indeed when one reflects both upon the myriad literary treatments of the period and also upon the fact that Schirrmacher had been at the vanguard of calls in the post-Wende period for a more consciously aesthetic literary model to replace the political and moral paradigms that had so dominated post-1945 German literature in East and West. It is impossible to overlook the added irony here that Harig himself had originally made his literary reputation as a disciple of philosopher Max Bense and the Stuttgarter Schule, under the influence of which he devoted himself to the production of avantgarde texts that Schirrmacher amongst others appeared to be advocating after 1989. Harig had been drawn to the concrete poetry of Ernst Jandl and most particularly to the experimental poetry of Raymond Queneau, which railed against the static nature of syntax and vocabulary by adopting mathematical strategies to generate literary texts. In an interview, Harig spoke of his enduring fascination with language and how ‘die Magie, die von Wörtern, von der Sprache, vom Erzählen ausgeht, ist bei mir unauslöschlich wirksam geblieben’ 1 Frank Schirrmacher, ‘Halbe Ordnung, ganzes Leben: Ludwig Harig und die Geschichte’, in Wörterspiel – Lebensspiel: Ein Buch über Ludwig Harig, ed. by Alfred Diwersy (Homburg/Saar: Karlsberg, 1993), pp. 7-17 (p. 14). 2 Ibid., p. 16.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

(LH, 41). By way of contrast, in a survey of Harig’s literary career the exacting Marcel Reich-Ranicki declared himself decidedly underwhelmed by the author’s own contribution to konkrete Dichtung. Far from being entrancing, the critic adjudged Harig’s early efforts ‘Totgeburten’, although his assessment of these texts mellowed later with the publication of Harig’s autobiographical novels: ‘[…] Vielleicht war der lange Umweg tatsächlich nötig. Vielleicht brauchte Harig die schwierigen Erfahrungen [mit konkreter Dichtung], um sich der Eigenart seines Talents zu vergewissern’ (LH, 14).3 In truth, Harig’s canon covers a broad spectrum, embracing essays and short stories as well as poetry, but Reich-Ranicki is correct inasmuch as it is the novels Ordnung ist das ganze Leben (1986), Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt and Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf (1996) which have brought him wider acclaim for precisely the reasons that Schirrmacher has identified. Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt represents an ideal cornerstone for the present survey. Despite having abandoned the less accessible aesthetic games of his early career, Harig still presents the reader with something of a puzzle by defining the seemingly unequivocally autobiographical account of his childhood as a ‘Roman’, thereby playing with traditional perceptions of the autobiographical form: indeed, this categorisation pertains to each text in his autobiographical trilogy. Various critics have stressed the personal framework upon which each volume is crafted, but have dealt with the identity of the narrator in contrasting ways. Frank Schirrmacher, for example, is under no doubt as to the direct correlation between the author and his narrator: ‘[…] Das ist ein Satz des Erzählers, […] also ein Satz Ludwig Harigs’.4 Werner Jung, however, provides a more nuanced appreciation of what Harig is aiming to achieve: Die Texte haben zwar einen hohen biographischen Anteil, suggerieren jedoch von vornherein niemals die Idee einer ‘Selberlebensbeschreibung’. […] Hier wird keine Biographie in chronologischer Ordnung mit teleologischem Finale berichtet, sondern es werden die Brüche und Widersprüche von Personen, die Ideosynkrasien [sic] in den Turbulenzen des 20. Jahrhunderts geschildert. Und zwar als Roman, in erzählter Form. Darunter versteht

3

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, ‘Die Vergänglichkeit und die Ordnung’ in Ludwig Harig, pp. 11-16. 4 Schirrmacher, ‘Halbe Ordung’, p. 13.

Ludwig Harig

21

Harig einen konstruktiven Akt: die literarische Umgestaltung bzw. 5 überhaupt Gestaltung von Erinnerungsfragmenten.

Although it is hard to concur with Jung’s suggestion that Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt never appears to read like an autobiography, his analysis of the way in which the text has been constructed from memory fragments is far more useful. By opting to categorise his text as a novel, Harig is not suggesting that what is depicted is pure invention: ‘Meine Bücher sind Romane, obwohl keine einzige Episode erfunden ist’ (LH, 39). He is principally concerned with the structural devices of a novel, which facilitate a far more accessible engagement with the material than a merely documentary approach could achieve: [Ein Roman] ist das nachgedachte, nacherinnerte Leben. Das nachgeschriebene, aber nicht das aufgeschriebene Leben, das vielleicht ein Tagebuch wäre. Um romanhaft zu erzählen, muß man der Suggestivkraft der Sprache mehr zutrauen als der dokumentarischen Richtigkeit in sich selbst erklärender Literatur. Der Leser muß sich im Text wiedererkennen können oder den eigenen Vater, Großvater, die Mutter oder Tante. Er muß in den Personen emotional mitleben können. […] Das rasche Erkennen des eigenen Lebens im fremden ist das Entscheidende. Auch die Erzählstruktur des Romans fehlt in den Berichten. Die plausible Erzählstruktur ergibt sich aus der Bewegung der Erinnerung. (LH, 38) [original emphasis]

In this regard, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt anticipates the approach adopted by most of the authors in the present survey in giving shape to their memories. As Jung has observed, Harig eschews a rigidly chronological arrangement of his material, dividing the text fairly evenly into twelve discrete chapters, each of which focuses on a particular theme – signalled by programmatic headings such as ‘Juda verrecke!’ – while simultaneously shedding light on the strands that underpin Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt as a whole, such as the seductive power of language. Thus chapters variously examine Harig’s family background and the political traditions inculcated into him, the restoration of the Saarland to Germany in 1935 with overwhelming public support in the plebiscite, the pageantry of National Socialism, the onset of war and the consequences of anti-Semitism and euthanasia. This collage of themes and events makes for an engaging personal document, but one which conflates private and public 5

Werner Jung, ‘Erinnerung, Ordnung, Spiel’, in Sprache furs Leben - Wörter gegen den Tod: Ein Buch über Ludwig Harig, ed. by Benno Rech (Blieskastel: Gollenstein, 1997), pp. 164-81 (p. 169).

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

perspectives on the history of the Nazi period. By not focusing solely on his own experiences and placing them in a much broader context, Harig’s account acquires a more universal dimension. Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt is thus both Bildungsroman and an analysis of a generation, which is signalled indeed by the epigraph, a quotation from Hitler in the Völkischer Beobachter: ‘Diese Jugend, die lernt ja nichts anderes als deutsch denken, deutsch handeln. […] Und [diese Knaben] werden nicht mehr frei, ihr ganzes Leben’ (WD, 5).6 Although one is aware that the text is firmly anchored in the author’s own life – no attempt is made to conceal the biographical correspondence between Harig and his narrator – one could equally set Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt alongside works such as Günter Grass’s Katz und Maus (1961) and Ödön von Horvath’s Jugend ohne Gott (1938) as perceptive examinations of the susceptibility of a generation to the trappings of totalitarian regimes. By the same token, the knowledge that Harig is relaying personal experience serves to enhance the impact of his analysis compared to the fictional renditions of Grass and Horvath. Although classifying Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt as a novel could be seen as evasive in that it appears to free the author from the constraints of having to guarantee absolute accuracy, Harig implies in the interview quoted above that his decision ‘romanhaft zu erzählen’ should actively improve, rather than impair, any claims to authenticity. In this respect, his perception of how to handle autobiography corresponds closely with that of Günter de Bruyn, as articulated in his study Das erzählte Ich: Über Wahrheit und Dichtung in der Autobiographie. As the title suggests, de Bruyn takes the Goethean paradigm as his starting-point and examines the interplay between the two fundamental elements of classical life-writing, although one should make careful note of the crucial inversion. What emerges strongly here, and in his own autobiographical volumes, is the primacy of truth and authenticity, and the sense that Dichtung has less to do with invention or fiction than with the way in which the material is structured: Banalität oder Langeweile zu erzählen, ohne banal oder langweilig zu werden, ist eine Kunst, die, wenn sie gelingt, verdeutlicht, daß das Erzählen von Wirklichkeit etwas anderes als diese ergibt. Denn aus Geschehnisse oder Zuständen einen erzählenden Text zu machen, heißt nicht nur, die Realität, soweit es geht, Wort werden zu lassen, 6

Ludwig Harig, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1994), p. 5. All references to this edition will appear in the text in the form (WD, 5).

Ludwig Harig

23

sondern auch, sie zu reduzieren und in eine Ordnung zu bringen, die sie von Natur aus nicht hat. Auch wenn man das eigne Erleben nicht, wie im Roman, durch Erfindung bereichert, reduziert oder verfremdet, wird es durch Erzählen verändert, es wird neu und anders, eben erzählbar, gemacht. Das Zu-Erzählende wird vom Erzähler sozusagen gebändigt, er zwingt es in eine Form, die es vorher nicht hatte; er bestimmt Anfang und Ende, bringt Details, wie das Wetter, die Landschaft oder die Zeitgeschichte, in von ihm gewünschte Zusammenhänge, so daß sie nicht nur für sich stehen, sondern eine Bedeutung annehmen, und er legt die Schwerpunkte fest. (EI, 67)

It is this retrospective marshalling of the material in autobiography that is redolent of the production of fiction, which for de Bruyn is essentially little different from the approach adopted by historians: ‘Ein getreues Abbild des vergangenen Geschehens können Historiographie und Autobiographie schon deshalb nicht geben, weil sie erzählen und damit der Vergangenheit eine Form geben, die sie von sich aus nicht hat’ (EI, 66). It is this same process that Harig refers to in describing Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt as ‘nachgeschriebenes’ rather ‘aufgeschriebenes Leben’, and which for Werner Jung represents ‘die literarische Umgestaltung bzw. überhaupt Gestaltung von Erinnerungsfragmenten’. Both Harig and de Bruyn illustrate that, in order to enhance the resultant narrative and its accessibility as a text, the autobiographer is forced to select his or her material and not just attempt to list everything that occurred. Thus in the case of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, each chapter focuses on a particular ‘Schwerpunkt’, but the objective structuring of the material allows the autobiographer to establish connections and juxtapositions that were impossible to ascertain at the time, but which acquire a dramatic or illuminating quality in the retrospective narrative. In the chapter ‘Siehst du im Osten das Morgenrot’, Harig draws a series of parallels, the true significance of which can only be appreciated from the narrative present. For the boys’ ‘abenteuerliche Indianer- und Geländespiele’ (WD, 111) in the summer of 1939 are not only shown as a more enjoyable variation on the paramilitary training they were already undergoing as members of the Jungvolk, but are also analogous to the ‘games’ being played by SS soldiers masquerading as Poles in order to engineer the outbreak of war. As Hitler is making his infamous speech on 1 September 1939, the boys’ games collide fatefully with the real world, although the full ramifications are unclear to them: Plötzlich kam alles anders. Als wir tags darauf in den Wald eindrangen, wurden wir gewahr, daß sich etwas verändert hatte, ja daß

24

Mapping the Contours of Oppression es von nun an nicht mehr so sein würde wie früher. Wir stiegen am Schächtchen zum Brennenden Berg empor, umgingen den Steilhang, durchquerten das Tannenstück, brachen durchs Unterholz, und da auf einmal, hinter dem Bunker am Eingang der Klamme, regten sich uniformierte Gestalten. […] Es waren nicht Hirschbacher Rattenköpfe in Indianerkleidern und auch nicht Dudweilerer Jungvolkpimpfe in Sommerkluft: Was wir sahen, war anderes Kriegsvolk. Wir sahen grüngraue Röcke mit Silberknöpfen. Es waren Soldaten. Es waren Soldaten der Heeresgruppe West, die am 25. August in die Bunker des Westwalls eingerückt waren. (WD, 118)

The significance of such developments eludes the boys at the time; the episode merely seems exciting. To Harig looking back fifty years later, and to a contemporary readership, however, the juxtaposition of events possesses an inherent dramatic tension one would expect of fiction, as well as indicating how susceptible the boys were to the Nazis’ exploitation of their innocent adolescent attraction to adventure stories. To have restricted the narrative focus to Harig’s private experiences alone would have reduced the impact of such incidents and made for a far less compelling account. As it is, the narrative nears a point ‘an dem der Leser der Geschichte einen Sinn abgewinnen kann’.7 In addition to producing a text that encourages interpretation, the structuring of the material in this fashion also allows the author to examine the nature of what he remembers; in other words, to test the authenticity of his account, the Wahrheit. Despite averring that nothing in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt has been invented, Harig constantly places his memories under scrutiny, making use of contemporary materials such as newspaper articles or photographs to test the accuracy of his recollections; in this way, he never appears complacent. In particular, Harig returns to the locations of his childhood and, where possible, speaks to people there about what they themselves remember of the time. He revisits the scenes of the innocent ‘Indianerspiele’, the town of Idstein where both his boarding school and the dreaded Kalmenhof – a mental asylum from where patients were transported to their death – were located, and also to the woods near Hülen where his liberation from National Socialism occurred. The interplay between past and present is common to each volume of Harig’s trilogy, which in itself is not an unusual feature of autobiography, as most of the texts in the present study reveal. As de Bruyn observes: ‘Dieses ständige Spielen mit dem Damals und dem Heute gibt der Autobiographie ihren besonderen Ton’ (EI, 65). 7

Ludwig Harig, ‘Erzähltes Leben’, Freitag, 28 June 1996, quoted in Jung, p. 170.

Ludwig Harig

25

Nevertheless, it is striking how often the formulation ‘jetzt, fünfzig Jahre später’ (WD, 180) recurs in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, for it reveals the rigour with which Harig works to authenticate his memories. Thus the reader must concede that this is no naïve attempt either at self-justification or to rewrite history. The chapter ‘Nix wie hemm’ provides the finest example of Harig’s reconstruction of the period, documenting how the young boy experienced the campaign that preceded the plebiscite about the future of the Saarland. Indeed, it reflects precisely that fine line between historiography and autobiography that de Bruyn has remarked upon. If the author in the narrative present is not naïve, his younger self most definitely was at the time under scrutiny, utterly transfixed and confused in equal measure by the rhetoric: Was sollte ich davon halten? Ich war ein kleiner Junge, ich konnte nicht wissen, was dieses Nationale, was dieses Demokratische bedeutete, wie weit das Sozialistische in beider Namen voneinander entfernt lag. Ich buchstabierte auf meine kindliche Weise an den unverständlichen Wörtern herum, kam aber zu keiner Lösung. Nur dieses ‘Nix wie hemm!’ war ein handfestes, ein greifbares Wort, das keine Zweifel aufkommen ließ. Auch wenn es ein Heimkehren ins Reich und nicht ein Heimkehren zu Vater und Mutter unter das häusliche Dach bedeutete: Heimkehren ist gut, Heimkehren ist schön, Heimkehren ist etwas Beglückendes, läßt das Herz höher schlagen und den Puls an den Schläfen klopfen. (WD, 56-7)

In the narrative present, Harig pours over contemporary newspaper articles and photographs in order to supplement his account and compensate for his understandable ignorance and bewilderment at the time. In particular, with the aid of the documents he reconstructs a picture of the meeting, in his home of Sulzbach, of the ‘Einheitsfront’ (WD, 60) who opposed National Socialism, while he also imagines his father and grandfather at a rally in Koblenz addressed by Hitler: ‘Ich stelle mir die Männer vor, die diesem Führer lauschten, die Fahne grüßten, im Fackelschein durch die Nacht marschierten und das Saarlied sangen’ (WD, 58). The evocation of the turbulent period recalls Grass’s descriptions of Danzig from the childhood perspective of his protagonists. If Harig displays none of Oskar Matzerath’s picaresque qualities in Die Blechtrommel, his seduction by National Socialism and the resultant moral distortions he experiences can be compared to those of Heini Pilenz in Katz und Maus. Poring over various newspapers and photographs, Harig extrapolates a more panoramic picture from his own, naturally more limited, memories,

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but is unable to resolve satisfactorily his frustration that the events seem as incomprehensible now as they did to the seven-year-old then: Ich sitze da, den Kopf in die Hände gestützt, und lese. Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert keucht und ächzt vorüber und hat es nicht zu Atem gebracht. Nein, die großen Worte leben noch immer nicht, es ist kein Hauch in sie gefahren, sie stehen steif und ungerührt, sie leben als Buchstaben weiter. Ich lese in den Zeitungen von damals, in meinem Kopf gehen Menschen ein und aus, doch es sind nicht wirkliche Menschen, die ich gekannt habe, ich sehe nur unbekannte Gesichter, höre nur fremde Laute, sie sind auf eine seltsame Art schrill und widersprechen sich auf schamlose Weise. (WD, 62)

On the one hand, he is able to imbue his recollections with sufficient form and colour to evoke a picture of the period in his account, and yet there is a deep dissatisfaction that everything ultimately remains rather too vague: ‘Alles ist schwarzweiß vor meinen Augen wie die alten Fotos, auf denen nicht zu sehen ist, ob die Fahnen schwarzweiß oder schwarzrotgold in der Sulzbacher Augustsonne glänzten’ (WD, 62-3). Yet it remains a fine example of the way in which Wahrheit and Dichtung are conflated in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, even if the only certainty in this particular instance is the overwhelming support in the Saarland for a return to the German fold: ‘Am 13. Januar 1935 war die Frist abgelaufen. Das Saarvolk trat an die Wahlurnen und stimmte ab: 90,8 Prozent für die Rückgliederung an Deutschland, 8,8 Prozent für den Verbleib unter Völkerbundverwaltung, 0,4 Prozent für den Anschluß an Frankreich’ (WD, 66). It is as evocative of the time as Grass’s snapshots of Danzig. If the depiction of the Saar plebsicite is relayed from the relative detachment of an innocent bystander, Harig’s examination of his direct participation in the Zeitgeist, employing the same dual temporal perspective, makes no effort to conceal either his complicity or his sense of shame: he was not always so innocent. In his analysis of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, which he defines as Harig’s ‘Gewissensprüfung’, Hermann Lenz describes the author as a ‘schonungsloser Registrator’ of the time, ‘besonders, was ihn selbst betrifft’ (LH, 48).8 It is this ‘Schonungslosigkeit’ that makes Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt such a compelling analysis of personal complicity with National Socialism and its impact is undiminished by its apparent status as a novel. Indeed, it invites comparison with 8 Hermann Lenz, ‘Ludwig Harigs Gewissensprüfung: Über seinen Roman Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt’, in Ludwig Harig, pp. 47-50.

Ludwig Harig

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Alfred Andersch’s Die Kirschen der Freiheit (1952), which contemporary reviews similarly praised for its candour. Harig sets the tone from the outset with his sudden recollection of René, the boy who remains synonymous with the author’s guilt and whose unknown fate underpins the text: Mehr als fünfzig Jahre habe ich nicht an den kleinen René gedacht. Mit dem ersten Schultag fing sein Unglück an, wie habe ich es vergessen können! Sein Unglück ist nicht zu meinem Glück ausgeschlagen, wie man damals hätte denken können; was ich ihm angetan habe, ist nicht wiedergutzumachen. (WD, 7)

On the first day at school, while all the other children stood with their mothers, the narrator recalls René was dropped off by an elegant woman in a French car, and from that day onward was forever alone: ‘Er hatte sich abseits von uns an die äußerste Hausecke gestellt […] und sah noch bleicher und ernster aus als wir anderen’ (WD, 9). René was destined to be cast in the role of victim, since he was ‘klein’ and ‘schmächtig’ (WD, 9), and perhaps most significantly of all his name was French: Immer blieb er übrig. Und hatten wir uns in langer Reihe zu zweien hintereinander aufgestellt und es fehlte niemand, so daß für ihn ein Nachbar hätte da sein müssen: Es war niemals jemand zu finden, der sich neben ihn in die Reihe gestellt hätte. […] Eher kam ein ermogeltes Dreierglied zustande, als daß sich aus der geraden Anzahl lauter Zweireihen gebildet hätten. Der Kleine in seinem hübschen Kleidchen blieb übrig. Er war überzählig, er war überflüssig. An diesem ersten Schultag hatten sich die Banknachbarn im Nu zusammengefunden, schon vor der Treppe, die uns hinaufführte in eine neue, unbekannte Welt, hatten wir Fühlung genommen, Bündnisse geschlossen, waren Spießgesellen geworden, paarweise aneinandergeschweißt, und alle zusammen waren wir die Meute, die ihr Opfer braucht. (WD, 11)

Although the description of children’s cruelty is by no means original, as in Grass’s Danzig novels it is the historical context that makes the constant repetition of terms denoting René’s exclusion so chilling. Although nobody would be his friend, he was still indispensable: ‘Er war so nützlich in unserem deutschen Charakterstück, in dem es ja nie an einem Außenseiter fehlen darf, sei es, daß er Jude, Zigeuner oder Franzose ist, zumal wenn er so scharf gezeichnet ist wie René’ (WD, 21). The themes of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt as a whole, as well as the clues to Harig’s motivation for writing, are distilled into this opening chapter, the programmatic nature of which is signalled by its bearing the same title as the novel. The problems of recreating a

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

picture of the past are addressed, along with Harig’s fruitless efforts to establish what happened to René. Interviewing people in the village, the author can find no evidence of René’s family having ever owned a French car, and learns only that the boy’s mother may have suffered mental illness and fatefully been institutionalised as a result. A class photograph proves just as unhelpful: ‘Doch je aufmerksamer ich in die vertrauten Gesichter schaue, um so gründlicher zerfasern mir die Bilder vor den Augen, und mir scheint, als sei das Leben trügerischer als die Erinnerung’ (WD, 23-4). He recognises all but two faces, but is uncertain which one is René. It is no surprise when his quest for information about the orphaned boy comes to a bureaucratic dead-end: ‘Die Akte ist ausgesondert’ (WD, 25). The only certainty is that racial segregation compelled René to step out of line and that the narrator himself, who suppressed any sympathies he had for the boy, was no less culpable than the others in rejecting him: ‘Ich roch den Duft der Seife, mit der er gewaschen worden war, ein feines Parfüm, das ihm entströmte, es gefiel mir, so nahe bei ihm zu sein, doch als er mir seine Hand auf den Arm legen wollte, rückte ich von ihm ab und stieß ihn aus der Bank’ (WD, 22). Shortly thereafter, in the wake of the Saar plebiscite, René disappeared and, to the narrator’s shame, was expunged from his memory for fifty years: ‘Die Vernunft schwieg. Die Erinnerung schwieg. Das Gewissen schwieg’ (WD, 17). The sudden recollection of René unsettles the author, manifesting itself in a gruesome nightmare, and thereby stimulates his personal reckoning with a childhood spent under the influence of National Socialism. Thus he reflects upon his time at the boarding school at Idstein and draws parallels between the ease with which René’s disappearance was absorbed and the way in which he perceived events at the Kalmenhof: […] Ich dachte an kahle Zellen im Kalmenhof in Idstein, der Nervenklinik, wo wir täglich die Kranken sahen, die in gestreiften Leinenanzügen durch den Krankenhausgarten schlurften. […] Immer neue Transporte kamen an, doch das Haus wurde nicht voll. Am Rathaus lasen wir die amtlichen Mitteilungsblätter für Sterbefälle: Die Liste der Toten aus dem Kalmenhof war immer seitenlang. Es wurde gemunkelt, [der Leiter] lasse Autobusse voller Kranker nach Hadamar transportieren, wo sie auf dem Mönchsberg in Sterbekammern gebracht, mit Spritzen getötet, in Krematorien verbrannt, schließlich in den Lüften aufgehen würden als ein violetter Rauch, der die ganze Umgebung mit Ruß und Gestank verpeste, bis nach Limburg zöge und schon dem Bischof in die Nase gezogen sei. […]

Ludwig Harig

29

Was wir gesehen hatten, behielten wir für uns, anfangs sprach keiner zu anderen davon, hörte keiner von anderen darüber, später erkannte ich, daß jeder etwas bemerkt hatte, was ihn hätte stutzig machen müssen. Dann, als wir freimütig darüber sprachen, waren wir längst von der Notwendigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Rassenhygiene überzeugt und hätten selbst den Praktiken der wilden Euthanasie zugestimmt, die in den letzten Kriegsjahren auch im Kalmenhof praktiziert wurde. (WD, 175-8)

Harig makes no attempt to defend his willing suppression of the horrors committed in the name of National Socialism or his part in it. This refusal to absolve himself from blame is underlined by the closing section of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt in which he concedes: ‘Auch ich hatte die Finger im Spiel, und ich spielte auf meine Weise mit’ (WD, 271). He can describe what occurred, but offers no explanation. Reflecting once more upon the fate of René and the victims of Kalmenhof, he states simply: ‘Nein, ich kann nichts ungeschehen machen’ (WD, 272). Thus Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt starts and ends with a sincere acknowledgement of guilt that can never be expiated.9 Indeed, it drives the narrative and in this way is very reminiscent of Katz und Maus. Just as Harig is unable to atone for his persecution of René, so the narrator of Grass’s Novelle is left regretting the way in which he and others had treated their eccentric contemporary, Mahlke, with the enlarged Adam’s apple, who like René had tried so hard to fit in. Pilenz, who may have been responsible for the apparent death of Mahlke when the latter dives to a submarine wreck and disappears, is racked with guilt like Harig. Rather than suppressing his guilt any longer, he opts to record his experiences: ‘Ich […] muß nun schreiben’.10 But Pilenz, again like Harig, is forced to admit that he cannot ultimately right the wrongs done unto others: ‘Wer schreibt mir einen guten Schluß?’.11 Despite his desperate efforts to track Mahlke down, he knows his efforts will be in vain, and so his missing contemporary becomes the personification of his guilty conscience. René fulfils the same role for Harig. Comparisions of Harig’s text with Katz und Maus are intriguing, for both deal with patterns of persecution and the moral 9

It is perhaps interesting at this point to note Anderson’s reading of Paul de Man’s interpretation of Rousseau’s Confessions in which the expression of guilt often appears insincere and staged: ‘The point therefore is not what Rousseau confesses but the act of confession, the drama of the self’. See Anderson, p. 51. 10 Günter Grass, Katz und Maus (Darmstadt and Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1986), p. 5. 11 Ibid., p. 111.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression

perversion of youth under National Socialism. Nevertheless, by virtue of its autobiographical nature Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt has far closer ties with Andersch’s Die Kirschen der Freiheit. Classified as a ‘Bericht’ – presumably to underline its authenticity – and widely praised by contemporary critics for its reputedly honest exploration of its author’s involvement with National Socialism, Die Kirschen der Freiheit now appears a decidedly inauthentic response, ironically surpassed by Harig’s ‘Roman’. Andersch seems more concerned with aesthetics, dwelling at length on existentialism and justifying his desertion in those terms. Irrespective of whether his desertion was anything other than a question of self-preservation, which in itself is reason enough, Andersch’s evocation of the eponymous cherries at the conclusion seems to owe more to Arthur Rimbaud’s sonnet ‘Le dormeur du val’ than any genuine moment of existential freedom. The exaggerated aestheticism of the scene – with Andersch stumbling across a blossoming cherry tree, a metaphorical oasis in the ‘Wildnis’ – fails to convince, imbuing the moment with too much symbolism for it to appear genuine: ‘In der Mulde des jenseitigen Talhangs fand ich einen wilden Kirschbaum, an dem die reifen Früchte glasig und hellrot hingen. Das Gras rings um den Baum war sanft und abendlich grün’ (KF, 130).12 When one considers the historical context within which Andersch was writing Die Kirschen der Freiheit, trying to reconcile his left-wing politics with the existing Cold War atmosphere whilst at the same time denying any complicity with Nazism, it reinforces the view of the text as a piece of carefully contrived literary opportunism rather than true autobiography. The sharpness of the apparently luscious cherries thus neatly reflects his awkward position, puncturing the idyllic illusion, just as Rimbaud’s sleeping soldier in the serene valley is, in fact, dead: ‘Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine,/ Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit’.13 For Harig, his liberation also occurs in nature, but its depiction is less suffocated by symbolism. Indeed, as the author observes: ‘Ich hätte nicht gedacht, daß die Freiheit etwas so Banales sein würde’ (WD, 234). Having escaped from an American truck carrying German POWs, Harig and his companion make it to the edge of a wood and lie in the grass staring up at the clouds in the sky: ‘Das 12

Alfred Andersch, Die Kirschen de Freiheit (Diogenes: Zurich, 1968). The final section is called ‘Die Wildnis’, pp. 117-30. All references to the text will appear in the form (KF, 130). 13 Arthur Rimbaud, ‘Le dormeur du val’, in Anthologie de la poésie française, ed. by Georges Pompidou (Hachette: Paris, 1961), p. 441.

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also war die Freiheit, sich ausstrecken im Gras unter blühenden Apfelbäumen’ (WD, 235). Feeling ‘zum erstenmal frei’ (WD, 234) Harig finds that the bellicose poems in an anthology presented to the young boy soldiers earlier appear to have been transformed: ‘Auf einmal wirkten sie gar nicht mehr so waffenstrotzend wie noch in den letzten Kriegswochen’ (WD, 236)’. Even here there is an intriguing echo of Andersch’s text, for where the latter appears to employ an allusion to Rimbaud in his moment of freedom, Harig finds his own situation mirrored in a Hölderlin poem: ‘Das Gedicht Hölderlins aber […] spricht von Jünglingen, die im Gras liegen und schlümmern’ (WD, 236-7). Where Harig’s account convinces, however, is in his refusal to allow the description of this moment to deflect away from his involvement in National Socialism. It is presented soberly as an undeniable turning point in his life, but his observation that the poem induces in him ‘den Schlaf des Vergessens’ (WD, 237) does not in any way imply that he believes he had been washed clean. The apparent ease with which Harig and his family were able to forget the past is heavily criticised in the remainder of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, especially with regard to the strange, disturbing visits made by an acquaintance of Harig’s father. He would sit silently in the corner of the kitchen, bearing the scars of Nazi brutality on his body: Haben wir über ihn gesprochen? Haben wir uns je mit seinem Leiden auseinandergesetzt? Nein, wir haben ihn vergessen und sein Leiden auch. Erst heute fällt mir alles wieder ein, und wenn ich so angestrengt wie in diesem Augenblick an ihn denke, höre ich seine schweren Atemzüge und sehe seine gefurchte Stirn, hinter der er Gedanken wälzte, die unausgesprochen blieben. Damals scheuten wir uns, ihn danach zu fragen. Vielleicht hatten wir Angst vor einer Antwort, die unsere Schuld bezeugt hätte. Ich kann mich drehen und wenden, wie ich will, heute ist es zu spat. (WD, 242)

Idyllic though his freedom may have been, Harig is at pains to reveal how it too was illusory and in no way alleviated his guilt. As a reflection of how he does not seek to abdicate his responsibility, Harig tackles his liberation once more at the beginning of the third volume in the trilogy, Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf (1996), reiterating how ‘an jenem Tag am Waldrand von Hülen war ich frei von Zwang und Gewalt, doch nicht frei von Schuld’ (WM, 11).14 Yet not everyone is convinced by Harig’s description, as is evidenced by the response of a teacher at a reading: 14 Ludwig Harig, Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1999). All page references to this edition will appear in the text in the form (WM, 11).

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression ‘Entweder sind Sie ein oberflächlicher Mensch, an dem alles abläuft wie an einer Regenhaut, oder Sie sind ein Lügner, ein raffinierter Provokateur, der seinen Lesern eine sentimentale Damaskusgeschichte auftischt, eine Bekehrung aus heiterm Himmel, in welcher der böse Saulus zum frommen Paulus wird’, wetterte [der Lehrer] und attackierte mich mit schamlosen Vorwürfen. (WM, 10)

The author’s irritation is clear, and understandable up to a point, for one cannot overlook the astringent self-criticism that pervades Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt. Once again, a comparison with Die Kirschen der Freiheit uncovers the considerable candour of Harig’s account and calls into question the validity of the teacher’s criticism. Whereas Andersch seeks to distance himself from the Nazi state at every opportunity, rejecting his ‘sogenannten Kameraden’ (KF, 63) – a phrase he repeats on a number of occasions – and professing that he responded to ‘den totalen Staat mit der totalen Introversion’ (KF, 46), Harig at no time attempts to suggest that he was anything other than an enthusiastic young Nazi. One need only consider his enthusiastic Referat on the racial peculiarities of Jewishness – ‘Ich hatte mich in einen Rausch gesteigert, innerhalb einer Minute war ich zum Propagandaredner geworden’ (WD, 201) – as an example of how he had ‘die Finger im Spiel’ (WD, 271). Harig does not get lost in intellectual abstraction. He simply presents events as he remembers them, tests the accuracy of his memories as much as possible by facilitating the interplay of past and present in the narrative. In keeping with the detached tone he maintains throughout, no claims are made as to what the text should achieve. He thereby provides an objective, credible, and at times severely self-critical, account, but without ever offering any explanation for how he was seduced and why he behaved as he did. Most importantly of all, there is no trace of self-justification. It is left to the readers to judge it, even if they may ultimately be as unconvinced as the young teacher. By way of contrast, in Die Kirschen der Freiheit Andersch frequently appears evasive. By purporting to tell the truth, one senses that his account veers towards self-exoneration: Dieses Buch will nichts als die Wahrheit sagen, eine ganz private und subjektive Wahrheit. Aber ich bin überzeugt, daß jede private und subjektive Wahrheit, wenn sie nur wirklich wahr ist, zur Erkenntnis der objektiven Wahrheit beiträgt. (KF, 71)

Although claims as to the universal application of autobiographical accounts is by no means unusual, it is rather inappropriate, especially in the modern era perhaps, for the autobiographer to make these claims so boldly on his or her own behalf without corroborative

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evidence or issuing caveats about the accuracy of what is recalled, as Harig does. The weakness of Die Kirschen der Freiheit stems from the absence of any real self-interrogation and the attendant attempt to imbue events with some deeper significance. Andersch’s absolute certainty strikes a discordant note, not least when he also professes that his book has ‘die Aufgabe, darzustellen, daß ich, einem unsichtbaren Kurs folgend, in einem bestimmten Augenblick die Tat gewählt habe, die meinem Leben Sinn verlieh und von da an zur Achse wurde, um die sich das Rad meines Seins dreht’ (KF, 71). On the face of it, Harig’s liberation can also be seen as an ‘Achse’, but he neither buries the past thereafter – his guilt about René in particular haunts him too much – nor claims to have been following a mysterious ‘unsichtbaren Kurs’. There was no other agency at work in his life but his own convictions. By way of contrast, despite Andersch’s own claims on behalf of his ‘Bericht’, and notwithstanding the valuable insights it affords into the period, Die Kirschen der Freiheit rarely appears more than an aesthetic construct, more Dichtung than Wahrheit. Whereas Andersch claims to have achieved inner emigration in the Third Reich – ‘Der Ausweg, den ich wählte, hieß Kunst’ (KF, 45) – Harig was absorbed fully into the totalitarian system of Nazi Germany and does not seek to conceal this fact. As a consequence, one of the most compelling aspects of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt is the picture of totalitarianism it paints, and those features that so entranced the young author. Primary amongst these is the seductive power of language. Harig’s career has constantly revolved around the myriad qualities of language, as we have seen from his association with the Stuttgarter Schule, so it is no surprise that Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt should explore the origins of this enduring fascination. Most of the chapters bear as titles contemporary slogans and sayings with strong propagandistic overtones, the tenor of which George Orwell adapted for the fictional ‘Newspeak’ in 1984. Alongside the eponymous statement, Harig selects headings such as ‘Wer nicht arbeitet, der soll auch nicht essen’ and ‘Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran’ to shed light on how, in the absence of strong corrective influences, his generation were susceptible to the conditioning signalled by Hitler in the quotation which forms the epigraph to Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt: ‘Diese Jugend, die lernt ja nichts anderes als deutsch denken, deutsch handeln’ (WD, 5). Christian Bergmann has produced a searching study of the formative power of language in totalitarianism, focusing in particular on its use in Nazi

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Germany and the GDR as an ‘Instrument der Macht’.15 Bergmann teases out aspects specific to both totalitarian regimes in his analysis, but his general findings on the way language structures were predicated on the integration of the individual into the collective in both dictatorial systems, together with his exploration of the various means by which this process was achieved, correlate closely with some of Harig’s experiences as articulated in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt. Bergmann’s examination of the ritualisation of language, which was designed to embed each individual firmly into the sociopolitical system, recalls Harig’s early school experiences where group recitation was practised and only René, fatefully, refused to participate: Wir liebten das Sprechen im Chor, den gedehnten Leiergesang, der so praktisch war. Ja, wir schätzten ihn sehr, weil wir so mühelos in ihn hineinschlüpfen konnten, ohne daß Herr Peiter es bemerkte. Es war der namenlose Singsang der Menge, in dem jeder seinen eigenen Mund verlor, wenn er nicht gerade Vorbeter oder Wortführer sein wollte. Nur René betete die Litaneien nicht mit […]. Er möge den Mund aufmachen, sagte der Lehrer, er möge sich an uns ein Beispiel nehmen und nicht aus der Reihe tanzen. (WD, 19-20)

The process not only fostered a sense of belonging to the ‘Gemeinschaft der Klasse’ (WD, 20), within which one could abdicate responsibility, but also, as evidenced by the case of the nonconformist René, served the equally useful purpose of revealing the consequences of stepping out of line. As Bergmann underlines, language rituals in such repressive climates do not fulfil a communicative, but rather a formative psychological function: Die Sprache teilt [bei rituellen Kommunikationshandlungen] nichts mehr mit, wie es sonst in der Kommunikation üblich ist. Statt dessen übt sie eine vereinnahmende Kraft aus. Dadurch wirkt die Sprache 16 verhaltenssteuernd, und das macht sie außerordentlich wichtig.

In particular, it is in the chapters dealing with his time at Idstein that Harig provides substantial empirical evidence to support Bergmann’s argument. Indeed, he makes the level of conditioning to which he was subjected explicit, by entitling one of these important chapters ‘Ein pawlowscher Hund’.

15

Christian Bergmann, ‘Totalitarismus und Sprache’, Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 38 (1999), 18-24 (p. 18) 16 Ibid., p. 19.

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In music lessons with the fanatical Toni Piroth, the boys sang songs that conveyed the ‘völkischen Werte aus den Idealen der Jugendbewegung’ (WD, 161) which they did not have the capacity to grasp, but which in the case of Harig at least entranced him just the same: Ich weiß bis heute nicht genau, wovon Toni Piroth sprach, wenn er diese Werte und Güter beschwor, es war für mich etwas Ungewisses, etwas Verschwommenes, das aber, in großen Worten und im Stabreim ausgedrückt, für meine Ohren wunderbar klang. […] Piroth sang vor, Piroth sprach vor, ich sang mit, ich sprach mit, ich hatte kein Gespür für den Kitsch in diesen Sprüchen und Gesängen, hörte nicht die verlogenen Worte, nicht die falschen Töne. Ich nahm sie gierig in mich auf, ich wurde ganz satt davon. (WD, 162)

What is more, Bergmann argues, the formulaic, clichéd nature of these ‘verlogenen Worte’ facilitated ‘das Ausschalten eines anderen Denkens’, especially in the absence of any external moral agent providing an alternative model.17 In his allegory on fascism, Jugend ohne Gott, Ödön von Horváth’s narrator, a teacher, finds himself at odds with his class, disturbed both by their innate aggression and passive absorption of the propaganda. Tellingly, he employs a linguistic metaphor to illustrate the differences between himself and this generation: ‘Ich rede eine andere Sprache’.18 Unbeknownst to the narrator, a small group of his pupils do speak his language and form a ‘Klub’ committed to the preservation of the humanistic ideals he espouses, which doubtless reflects the author’s inherent optimism that the evil would not endure. In ‘Ein pawlowscher Hund’, Harig devotes some time to the fate of Willi Graf, one of the key figures in the ‘Weiße Rose’ and whose fate he juxtaposes with that of René. He therefore reveals that there were indeed those who spoke ‘eine andere Sprache’ in the Third Reich, but crucially for him, they had no direct impact on his life.19 Thus, while the ‘Weiße Rose’ and the ‘Edelweißpiraten’ were agitating against the Nazi regime and René was being persecuted, Harig and his schoolmates were dutifully digesting Goebbels’s infamous speech in the wake of the defeat at Stalingrad: Der Lautsprecher des Radioapparates war bis zum Anschlag aufgedreht, es dröhnte und schepperte, die Fenster standen weit offen, 17

Ibid., p. 20. Ödön von Horváth, Jugend ohne Gott (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1994), p. 16. 19 It is interesting to note here that in Zwischenbilanz, Günter de Bruyn encountered two teachers who resemble Horváth’s fictional narrator in activating the minds of their charges. 18

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression als sollten auch die verschlafenen Idsteiner Bürger diese Kunde vom totalen Krieg vernehmen. Im tosenden Geschrei der Parteigenossen, das uns ansteckte und zu Händeklatschen und Trampeln mit den Füßen aufreizte, bekannte Goebbels seine fanatische Entschlossenheit, mit Sehnsucht erwarte er die Stunde, in der der Führer die neuen Waffen austeile und seinen Truppen wieder den Befehl zum Angriff geben könne […]. (WD, 170-1)

The depiction of Harig’s susceptibility to propaganda in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt reflects what Bergmann has identified as the capacity for language in Nazi Germany – the vernacular famously defined by Victor Klemperer as ‘Lingua Tertii Imperii’ (LTI) – to prioritise emotion over intellectual reflection: ‘Sie sollte nicht zum Denken anregen; ihr Ziel bestand vielmehr darin, Massen in einen rauschhaften Zustand zu versetzen’.20 Nowhere is this more apparent than in the disturbing chapter ‘Juda verrecke!’, which documents the young author’s unquestioning adoption of anti-Semitic attitudes. The chapter relates Harig’s selection to present a paper on Hans Günther’s Rassenkunde des jüdischen Volkes and the enthusiasm with which he ultimately embraced his task. The most unsettling aspect of the chapter derives from the young Harig’s systematic suppression of his innate sense that the theories posited in the book are at odds with empirical reality. As a young boy, Harig had only had the most positive of associations with Jews, recalling with a measure of fondness ‘feine, freundliche Menschen’ (WD, 185) who had run Levy’s clothes store, his mother’s favourite shop: Behagliche, wohltuende Viertelstunden bei Levys! Der Geruch nach Mottenkugeln und Appretur zog in meine Nase ein, es waren scharfe und doch angenehme Gerüche […]. Von Mutter wußte ich, daß Herr Rothenburg Jude war, wie schon Herr Wallenstein vor ihm und Herr Levy vor Herrn Wallenstein Juden gewesen waren. Mutter hatte mir in leisem Tonfall und mit einem seltsamen Klang in der Stimme davon gesprochen, so daß ich das geheimnisvolle Entzücken an Herrn Rothenburgs Duftpalast für ein Gefühl halten mußte, wie es nur in jüdischen Umgebungen geweckt wird. (WD, 186)

Misunderstanding his mother’s surreptitious observations about Herr Rothenburg, Harig savours this ‘jüdisch[e] Entzücken’ (WD, 186) until he sees, much later, a graffito declaring ‘Die Juden sind unser Unglück’ (WD, 184) and feels ashamed of his previously positive perception of the Jews. Harig’s sudden shame provides further substantiation of Bergmann’s thesis on the transformative power of 20

Bergmann, p. 24; Victor Klemperer, LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen (Leipzig: Aufbau, 1975).

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language in a totalitarian context, and the chapter charts the steadily changing connotations of Jewishness for the author in the increasingly anti-Semitic climate. As he begins to research his paper, Harig is struck by the way Günther’s racial ‘theory’ clashes with his own experiences. He juxtaposes images of ruthless Jewish merchants with the friendly Herr Rothenburg, has reservations about the ability to detect Jews by their physiological appearance and is especially troubled by the suggestions that they have a distinctive smell – ‘Und am Geruch, sagt Dr Günther, am Geruch erkenne man sie am ehesten’ (WD, 197) – when his memories are of the pleasant ‘Duftpalast’ at Levys’. But his complete immersion in the book inexorably, and chillingly, effects a change in his perceptions, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary: Was sollte ich denken? Nichts anderes konnte die Wahrheit sein als das, was dieses Buch mit wissenschaftlichem Titel, 305 Abbildungen, Schlagwörterverzeichnis und einem Motto aus Goethes Dichtung und Wahrheit ausführlich beschrieb. Ich las und war verhext. (WD, 190)

In the ensuing presentation, Harig enthusiastically regurgitates what he has read and reiterates the persuasive power of the text he has been reading: Aus meinem Mund sprudelten die Thesen Dr. Günthers, über die Lippen sprangen seine Argumente, drängten sich Bilder und Vergleiche, und so eitel er mir auch erschienen war, wie er dastand in meinem Halbschlaf und eine Idee beschwor, ich mußte ihm folgen in seinen Beispielen und Beweisen, ich hatte keine Wahl. Ja, es mußte wohl sein, zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes, der deutschen Ehre. Doch wußte ich, was das war: deutsches Blut? Wußte ich, was das bedeutete: deutsche Ehre? Ich hatte mich in einen Rausch gesteigert, innerhalb einer Minute war ich zum Propagandaredner geworden […]. (WD, 201)

It is an insightful depiction of the morally distorting effects of propaganda on innocent minds in the Third Reich, exploring the way in which childhood perceptions unencumbered by prejudice were displaced by the most unsavoury of values. In Jugend ohne Gott, Horváth’s narrator is dismayed at the way his charges recycle racist slogans gleaned from the radio and the newspapers in their geography essays – ‘Alle Neger sind hinterlistig, feig, und faul’ – and in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt Harig describes his own susceptibility to equally distasteful attitudes, but those which the State held to be

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wholly commensurate with notions of ‘deutsch denken’ and ‘deutsch handeln’ (WD, 5).21 Harig’s description of his ‘conversion’ to the extreme perceptions of National Socialism provides useful corroboration for Jonathan Glover’s dissection of patterns of behaviour during the period, and in particular for what he calls the ‘assault on the moral resources’ (H, 327), in his exhaustive study of moral values in various regimes and conflicts in the twentieth century.22 Drawing on an array of material, such as psychological studies and eyewitness accounts, Glover explores in his chapter on National Socialism the way in which the Nazis moulded German attitudes. He refers to the ‘psychological mechanism of adjustment’ (H, 345), whereby the movement fostered the persecution of the weak and defenceless, as well as the dehumanisation of those segments of society infamously selected as scapegoats: The Nazis systematically attacked the human responses. They set out to erode the moral status of Jews, homosexuals and others, denying them the protection of respect for their dignity. In the spirit of what they took from Nietzsche, they worked to replace sympathy with hardness. […] People were to be transformed. There was to be a new Nazi identity, rooted in an outlook actively hostile to the responses which constitute our humanity. […] Nazism was a more fundamental assault on moral values [than Stalinism and Maoism]. It was a twisted deontology: hardness and inhumanity were seen as desirable in themselves, aspects of an identity that expressed ‘the will to create mankind anew’. (H, 327)

Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt provides ample evidence to support Glover’s analysis. The victimisation of René, for example, is presented as inevitable, and even fostered by the teachers in Harig’s school, and despite later being disturbed by practices in the Kalmenhof clinic, the boys come to accept the ‘Notwendigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Rassenhygiene und hätten selbst den Praktiken der wilden Euthanasie zugestimmt, die in den letzten Kriegsjahren auch im Kalmenhof praktiziert wurde’ (WD, 177-8). That Harig should subsequently espouse so wholeheartedly and without question the Nazis’ spurious views on the racial impurity of Jews comes as no surprise. What Harig illustrates, and Glover remarks upon in his study, 21

Jugend ohne Gott, p. 13. Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (Jonathan Cape: London, 1999), p. 327. All references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (H, 327).

22

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is the way in which propaganda can fill minds, especially innocent minds, with information and opinion, while at the same time inhibiting the capacity for critical thought. For Harig, it was the language in particular that intoxicated him, and one can cite the ‘Juda verrecke!’ chapter as an especially clear demonstation of Bergmann’s theory of how language can dictate behaviour, and thereby facilitate the psychological and moral reorientation that Glover concentrates on. Harig makes no secret of having been entranced by the Nazi’s racist beliefs and the words that conveyed them: ‘Ich nahm den Mund voll. Ich käute wieder. Ich spuckte es aus’ (WD, 202). Yet it is important to stress that Harig is not seeking to exonerate himself in this way or to abdicate any sense of responsibility. His paper is juxtaposed in the chapter with a quotation from Goebbels’s diary in the wake of the infamous Wannsee Conference of January 1942 detailing how the Endlösung is to be applied. Harig does not comment on this stark juxtaposition. He simply proceeds to describe the jokes he and his contemporaries make when using soap in the showers, purportedly made from the human remains of concentration camp victims, which seems far more harrowing than Goebbels’s diary entry concerning the logistical issues of the process: Wenn Schwimmseife ausgegeben wurde, sagte der Führer vom Dienst: ‘Reibt nicht gleich wie die Wilden, damit ihr nicht beim ersten Waschen einen ganzen Juden verbraucht’. Und eines Tages, als wir uns nach einem Fußballspiel duschten und der Schaum der Schwimmseife in dicken Flocken durch den Waschraum flog, meinte einer: ‘Jetzt haben wir in einem Abwasch eine kinderreiche Judenfamilie abgerieben’. Wir lachten. Es schäumte und spritzte; unser Gelächter war so herausfordernd, als wären wir selbst unsterblich und niemand auf der Welt könnte uns je das Fell über die Ohren ziehen. (WD, 203)

Glover refers to the so-called ‘cold jokes’ that people use as a device to assuage their consciences, but stresses too that there is an inherent aggression to such jokes – ‘The cold joke is a display of power over its victims’ (H, 341) – so that they become a ‘flaunting display of the joker’s own hardness in the face of the claims of compassion’ (H, 341). The boys’ jokes in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt display this hardness, and yet as Harig remarks in the narrative present: ‘Ja, Schwimmseife war etwas Feines, und sie roch so gut’ (WD, 203). None of the boys appears to have reflected on the perverse irony that, despite its alleged origins, the soap was so sweet smelling, or perhaps, as Glover suggests, the joke was indeed ultimately some kind of

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defence mechanism. An episode at the conclusion of the chapter would support the assertion that, in truth, there were moments when the boys were aware of the iniquity of what they were doing. Sent to Frankfurt to help clear up the rubble from an air-raid, the boys see a Jewish man in the street: […] Es war ein alter Mann, mit Bart und Brille, er trug ein schwarzes Käppchen auf dem Kopf und an der Steppjacke aufgenäht den gelben Stern. Ich sah ihn an und wußte nicht, was ich denken sollte. Einer sagte zu Kurt Groth: ‘Du kannst hingehen und ihn anspucken, niemand wird dich daran hindern.’ Kurt rührte sich nicht vom Fleck. (WD, 206)

Although the author’s guilt at his complicity with National Socialism underpins the whole text, nowhere is his horror at his own behaviour more palpable than in this chapter. He cannot be accused of evasion or self-deception, charges which one might easily level at Andersch in view of his stance in Die Kirschen der Freiheit. Why would one include such disturbing anecdotes if not to expect, or even invite, criticism? He can provide no explanation for his behaviour, but equally attempts no self-justification and cites no mitigating circumstances, for how can one excuse or justify the morally inexcusable? When he remarks upon the manipulation of the youth by the Nazis, referring to himself as ‘ein Pawlowscher Hund’ (WD, 182), Harig is simply stating the bald facts with which we are familiar. He does not seek to exonerate himself, a point he reiterates at the conclusion of the text, lest anyone is under any misapprehension as to his motives: ‘Auch ich hatte die Finger im Spiel, und ich spielte auf meine Weise mit’ (WD, 271). In the course of its exploration of the psychological effects of growing up under the Nazis, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt is especially effective in conveying the intoxicating visual appeal of National Socialism, which also recalls elements of Jugend ohne Gott. Harig explores this phenomenon most clearly in the programmatically titled chapter ‘Unsre Fahne flattert uns voran!’. The scene is set with his grandfather’s intense chauvinism, which naturally finds its focus in the Saarland in hostility towards the French, support for the reintegration of the region into the Reich, as well as his feelings of ‘Schmach’ and ‘Schande’: Wenn [mein Großvater] von ‘Schmach und Schande’ sprach, rumorte es mir unter der Schädeldecke; ich warf die Wörter hin und her und zwängte sie durch die Windungen des Hirns, doch was sollte es bedeuten, wenn er meinte, Schmach und Schande empfinden zu

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müssen, weil er nicht mit einer Fahne zeigen durfte, für welches Land sein Herz in der Brust schlug? (WD, 68)

Thus begins the author’s captivation with flags in particular, which are prominent prior to the plebiscite and naturally on 1 March 1935, the day the Saarland rejoined Germany. Harig describes this day as ‘ein Festtag im Fahnenrausch’ (WD, 69), but in the remainder of the chapter we learn of his own deep-rooted ‘Fahnenrausch’, stimulated by the words used by his grandfather. So captivated is he by his friend’s swastika flag that he steals it for himself, but his flag fetish finds its most potent outlet in the propaganda film Hitlerjunge Quex (1933). The film, depicting the eponymous hero’s murder by Communists, seduces the young Ludwig, who is particularly struck by the martyred Hitler Youth boy’s defiant dying words: ‘Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran’ (WD, 79): Aus diesem Fahnentraum wollte ich nicht wieder erwachen. Als ich dann zu mir kam und die roten Polster der Kinostühle unter dem Lichtschein zu prunken begannen, blinzelte ich mit den Wimpern, ließ willenlos die Augen übereinandergehen in der Hoffnung, wieder einzutauchen in den beglückenden Fahnenrausch. (WD, 80)

As a measure of how deep an impression the film left on the young boy, Harig notes that images from the film have not left him despite the passage of time: ‘In wieviel stillen Stunden ist mir diese Kinofahne aus dem Gedächntnis aufgetaucht, in wieviel wilden Träumen ist sie mir seither erschienen, und es ist mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert vergangen’ (WD, 76). Although the orchestrated pomp and ceremony of the Nazis, as depicted in Leni Riefenstahl’s masterful, but disturbing, film of the Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934, Triumph des Willens (1935), did not only have an effect on the young, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt reveals just how much more susceptible children were in the absence of any more dynamically wholesome formative influences. In reality, for Harig there was little difference between a strong attraction to the Quex story and an unquestioning acceptance of Günther’s racist agenda, in that the messages conveyed by both texts were unchecked by any strong moral authority, which would have permitted a more objective appraisal of each. Both aspects contributed to what Glover calls the ‘psychological atmosphere’ (H, 353) of National Socialism, which he argues was intrinsically as important as any actual belief in what the Nazis set out to do. It is this mood which Harig captures so disturbingly well in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, as Schirrmacher has observed:

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Nachgeborene haben es schwer, sich die Atmosphäre von Faszination, Verbrechen und Bedrohung vorzustellen, für die das Dritte Reich damals stand. Hier, wenn irgendwo, kann man die allmähliche Verrückung, die stillschweigende Verführung eines Bewußtseins im 23 Detail studieren.

As so often in the text, Harig reflects with hindsight on his ‘Fahnenrausch’, and especially his feelings towards Hitlerjunge Quex; in the narrative present he is unable to account for the impact the film and its key moment exerted upon him at the time: ‘Der Fahnenrausch dauert ein paar Augenblicke’ (WD, 83). It is a despairing last line of the chapter, its concision reflecting incredulity at how impressionable he had been. In truth, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt is not as ingenuous as it may appear in its interrogative approach. Indeed, the title of each volume of Harig’s autobiographical trilogy emphasises precisely why he was so susceptible to the ‘psychological atmosphere’ he depicts, for each implies a compulsion to obey, to conform, to fit in with the rest. The roots for this compliant behaviour lay in his family’s ethos, embodied most clearly in his father, for whom a sense of duty was paramount. In the volume devoted primarily to his father – the appositely titled Ordnung ist das ganze Leben – Harig examines the attitudes inculcated into him at home by the man who had fought in the First World War and whose view of the world had been shaped by Prussia. Harig places his text firmly in the tradition of other Vaterbücher, in which the authors described the influence their fathers’ generation had on them: Diese Autoren gehören zu meiner Generation, deren Väter stark wirksam in einem verhängnisvollen Erziehungsprozeß waren, denn die meisten von ihnen kamen aus deutschnationalen, revanchistischen Verhältnissen. Sie hatten im Ersten Weltkrieg gekämpft und waren von preußischer Ordnungs- und Prinzipienfestigkeit geprägt und nach dem nicht bewältigten Versuch, eine Demokratie zu schaffen, anfällig für den Nationalsozialismus. Ohne wirkliche Nazis zu sein, sind viele dieser Ideologie verfallen, weil sie sich eben nationalistisch, revanchistisch, militaristisch gab. (LH, 37)

In Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, the focus shifts to explore the specific nature of his father’s influence upon him, and it is striking how this conditioning manifested itself in apparently innocent childhood activities. Harig’s father took interest in his son’s plasticine

23

Schirrmacher, ‘Halbe Ordnung’, p. 16.

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creations, for example, especially if the boy crafted elephants and camels, which he described as ‘die nützlichen Tiere’ (WD, 85): […] Ihm imponierte der willige Elefant, das willige Kamel, der willige Sohn: gerne bereit sein zu tun, was gefordert wird, das fand seinen Anklang, das Willige als Prinzip, ja das war nach seinem Geschmack. (WD, 85)

Just as the plasticine is ‘biegsam und beweglich’ (WD, 84) in the young Harig’s hands, so he himself appears to have been equally pliable. The most striking representation of the father’s influence on his son is found in the prominence of the colour blue in Harig’s memories – ‘“Blau ist eben die schönste Farbe, die es gibt”, sagte Vater […]’ (WD, 85) – and ‘vor allem Preußischblau’ (WD, 86). Once again, Harig’s proclivity towards using blue plasticine for his animals seems on one level typical of children who love to use all kinds of colours in their drawings, yet as the chapter ‘Wer nicht arbeitet, der soll auch nicht essen’ underlines, Harig’s choice of blue was not as innocent as it may appear. The colour permeates his childhood just as the ‘Blaubach’ runs through his home village of Sulzbach: ‘Sein Wasser war wirklich blau, und wenn man die Hand hineintauchte und wieder herauszog, dann war sie blau gefärbt, als hätte man in einen Topf voller blauer Farbe gegriffen’ (WD, 86). Inevitably, Harig is himself figuratively stained by the colour inasmuch as he dutifully adopts the Prussian mode of behaviour it connotes, despite not fully comprehending the implications of it. If Harig was struck by his father’s passion for Prussian blue, then the onset of National Socialism is similarly reflected in his grandfather’s predilection for brown. Although he was bewildered and transfixed by slogans and ‘Wörter, die damals imposant aufklangen’ (WD, 58), the young Harig was nevertheless able to register the emergence of a new dominant ideology by the new colour: Es kam zum Blauen das Braune hinzu, Vaters Preußischblau wurde durch Großvaters Parteibraun aufs beste ergänzt, wie Vater das Blau hielt Großvater das Braun für eine schöne, eine symbolische Farbe, es ist die Farbe des Bodens und des Brotes, von welcher der Reichsminister gesprochen hatte. (WD, 89)

Although he spends time with his grandfather, Harig seems less drawn to brown; Prussian blue remains the pre-eminent colour within the family, not least in the wake of his grandmother’s death and the inevitable impact it has on her kith and kin:

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Es begann eine neue Zeit. Großvaters Hunsrücker Einfluß schwand dahin, sein Parteibraun hellte sich im Jungvolk- und Hitlerjugendbraun auf. Doch so sehr ich mich von Braunhemd und Fahne zum Schwärmen verleiten ließ, die Hände nicht immer nach blauem Plastilin auszustrecken und auch den Pinsel nicht nur ins Blau des Malkastens zu tauchen: Zu Hause dominierte Preußischblau die Palette. Überall wo ich hinsah, herrschte Preußischblau […]. (WD, 97)

Harig thereby reiterates that his father was not a true Nazi, whilst accepting that his views were nevertheless fertile ground upon which National Socialism could build, especially in the case of his son. In many respects, Harig’s depiction of his father is sympathetic. Despite the accentuation of ‘Fleiß und Ordnung’ (WD, 93) in their family life, Harig’s father is not presented as tyrannical. With hindsight, however, the author is critical of his father’s adherence to otiose values, reflected in a life-long devotion to the Kaiser: ‘Wie gern wäre er bis zu seinem Tod ein loyaler Soldat des Kaisers gebleiben!’ (WD, 88). Later, after reading Fontane’s Frau Jenny Treibel, Harig is able to recognise his father’s Weltanschauung in the character of Herr Treibel, and thereby learns where his own attitudes originated: Vater hatte seine Lektion gelernt, und ich lernte sie von Vater. Alles ist Preußischblau, lautet die Lektion, Preußischblau ist die Farbe des Konservatismus, und der Konservatismus fügt die Bretter zusammen, auf denen wir spielen. (WD, 87)

It is clear from this chapter as a whole, how Harig’s sense of self was moulded by his father along the lines that Paul John Eakin has explored in his engaging study of autobiography, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. Eakin argues persuasively that ‘autobiography criticism has not yet fully addressed the extent to which the self is defined by – and lives in terms of – its relations to others’ (HOL, 43). In this respect, Eakin is drawn to the psychologist John Shotter, from whose work he quotes directly, paying particular attention to his notion of ‘social accountability’: ‘[…] What we talk of as our experience of reality is constituted for us largely by the already established ways in which we must talk in our attempts to account for ourselves – and for it – to the others around us. […] And only certain ways of talking are deemed legitimate.’ […] The premise of Shotter’s concept of social accountability is that ‘one ontologically learns how to be this or that kind of person’ in conversation with others. Identity formation, then, is socially and more specifically discursively transacted […]. (HOL, 62-3) [original emphasis]

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It is natural, Eakin goes on, ‘that the key environment in the individual’s formation is the family, which serves as the community’s primary conduit for the transmission of its cultural values’ (HOL, 85), and he accentuates in particular the crucial role of what he dubs the ‘proximate other’ (HOL, 86) in this constitutive social process. As we have seen in the introduction, this key figure is described as anyone who exerts a strong influence on the self, but is most usually a parent: in Harig’s case, unsurprisingly, it was his father. What makes Eakin’s theory so compelling with regard to Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, but by extension to each text in the present study, is that it is axiomatic just how powerful this process of shaping the self would have been in regimented totalitarian systems, such as in Nazi Germany or East Germany, which sought actively to create a new social identity. It is not always the case that the family operates uncritically. In the case of Günter de Bruyn, as we shall see in Chapter 4, the family was able to operate as a protective barrier up to a point, as they did not embrace Nazi ideology and sought to shield the youngest child from it. But with Harig in particular, whose family was so receptive to the values embodied in the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft because of its Prussian ethos, it is not difficult to appreciate how he would have been so much more susceptible to Nazi attitudes, not least on account of the strong influence of his ‘proximate other’. In the same way that his father had internalised the need to obey authority, reflected in a devotion to the Kaiser, Harig himself was conditioned to behave likewise. The title of the novel is indeed apposite. In truth, Harig’s father is not presented as having embraced National Socialism without question. As news of synagogues being burnt reaches the village, he tries to shield his children: Als ein Nachbar erzählte, er habe in Saarbrücken die Synagoge und vor der Synagoge eine Stoffpuppe in jüdischem Gottesdienstgewand brennen gesehen, die habe sich im Feuer bewegt, als sei sie lebendig, sagte Vater: ‘Erzähl vor den Kindern nicht solche Geschichten.’ Vater achtete darauf, daß kein schlimmes Wort unser Ohr traf […]. (WD, 106)

Much later on, Harig’s father chastises him for his anti-Semitic comments: ‘“Die Juden”, sagte Vater, “das sind Menschen genau wie wir, nur haben die eine andere Religion”’ (WD, 205). Even his father’s attendance at a Nazi rally in Koblenz addressed by Hitler shortly before the Saar plebiscite is seemingly justified as having been motivated ‘aus blindem Gehorsam’, as opposed to his grandfather participation ‘aus Lust’ (WD, 59). Thus in many respects, the depiction of Harig’s father in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt does

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indeed tally with the author’s suggestion that he had been ‘anfällig für den Nationalsozialismus’ but without having been a Nazi. Yet by the same token, he is presented as having prejudices, being especially bigoted towards Catholics – ‘Diese seien nämlich bekannt dafür, daß sie nicht so tüchtig und aufgeschlossen für das Nützliche seien wie die Evangelischen’ (WD, 108) – and his apparently trivial dislike of cats – ‘Sich in eine Katze vergaffen sei liederlich, sagte Vater, so jemand vergesse leicht das Notwendige, habe nur ein Auge für Kinkerlitzchen und Nichtsnutzigkeit’ (WD, 108) – leads his son almost to kill a cat: ‘Es kam mir vor, als wären alle Katzenhalter katholisch, und nur die Katholischen würfen ein Auge auf so etwas Unnützes wie eine Katze’ (WD, 108). The incident not only reveals a less savoury side to his father’s character, but also the extent of his influence over the impressionable boy. Moreover, the simple equation the boy makes, inspiring him to try and kill the cat, bears the hallmarks of the crude, and cruel, nature of Nazi propaganda which dehumanised the Jews, and indeed other groups, deeming them similarly ‘unnütz’. In this way, the incident foreshadows Harig’s later anti-Semitic school project by revealing how such obedience could be so evilly exploited. Harig’s portrait of his father reveals the extent to which his sense of self was formed by his family background, instilling in him an ethic of duty and discipline which made his exploitation by the Nazis inevitable. But Eakin also refers to Shotter’s contention that identity formation is as much a discursive as a social transaction. In Harig’s case, one might cite his seduction by language at this time as evidence of that discursive process, a process which clearly cemented the social aspect of individuation. He is not only affected by contemporary slogans, such as the ones he employs as chapter headings in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, but also by the emotive language of people such as his grandfather, although he can barely grasp what these terms mean: ‘Schmach und Schande, gekränkte Ehre, verletzte Ehre, abgeschnittene Ehre: Ich habe diese Wörter zuerst aus dem Mund meines Großvaters gehört’ (WD, 68). Later on, these patriotic phrases that evoke the sense of betrayal after the Versailles Treaty – naturally a sensation that was felt especially strongly in the Saarland – are superseded by more chilling references to ‘deutsches Blut’ (WD, 201) in the context of racial purity. In particular, Harig is transfixed by the term ‘Endlösung’: Für uns hing alles an einem Wort. Eines Tages fiel das Wort. Es war Dr. Gilbert, der es aussprach. Wir saßen im Rittersaal, der Radioapparat war ausgeschaltet, der Führer vom Dienst stand auf der Treppe, seine Trillerpfeife schwieg. Dr. Gilbert drängte den Führer

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vom Dienst zur Seite, rückte an seinem Dolch und öffnete den Mund. Wir hörten das Wort. Es war das Wort ‘Endlösung’. […] Was sollten wir uns vorstellen unter einer Endlösung? Wir wußten es nicht und wußten es dennoch. (WD, 203)

Glover considers the term ‘Endlösung’ to be one of many euphemisms to facilitate the process of denial for those complicit with the extermination of the Jews, but who sought to evade the reality of what was being carried out. When one considers how totalitarian regimes instrumentalise language for their ideological purposes, his argument has considerable force, and Christian Bergmann lends Glover’s thesis support here, when he speaks of the ‘Aushöhlung der Sprache’: Das Benannte ist anders, als man es von der Benennung her vermutet. Es kommt zu einem Auseinanderfallen von Sprache und Welt. Das bleibt für die Zeichenbenutzer nicht folgenlos. Sie haben keine Sprache mehr, die die Welt hereinholen könnte; und so beginnen sie – als Gefangene ihrer Sprache –, in einer fiktiven Welt zu leben. Die Phrase tritt an die Stelle des tatsächlichen Seins. Das verhindert 24 letztlich dessen Bewältigung.

In view of Bergmann’s observation, one might assert that terms such as ‘Endlösung’ were not actually defensive euphemisms for Harig. His use of such terms reflected the way in which inchoate perceptions, attitudes, and moral identities had been hijacked by the system. Harig’s experiences reveal him to have become a ‘prisoner of language’, as Bergmann puts it, not so much in denial as simply using the linguistic terminology one was expected to. The fact that he demonstrates how his sense of self was moulded by the Prussian values inculcated into him by his father and then reinforced by the language of National Socialism should not though be read as an attempt at self-justification. He is simply recording how the discrepancy between ‘Sprache and Welt’, between humanistic values and Nazi values, came into being. Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt examines how an individual’s identity was manipulated, how a moral identity was eroded, and thereby reflects how a nation’s identity was likewise adjusted, but Harig does not deny his own complicity with National Socialism. Having explored the roots of his seduction by National Socialism and the impact its various features had on his sense of self, Harig seeks towards the end of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, and especially in the final chapter, ‘Die Löwen von Saint Irénée’, to heal the rift between language and the empirical world, or at least to 24

Bergmann, pp. 22-3.

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initiate a process of moral reorientation. It is fitting, as a Saarlander, that he should spend a year in Lyon, the site of Klaus Barbie’s crimes, as an assistant d’allemand. Where his grandfather in particular had harboured a deep antipathy towards the French – ‘“Ich bin nicht als junger Mensch vom Hunsrück ins Saargebiet gekommen, um jetzt neutral und später vielleicht Franzose zu werden”’ (WD, 51) – Harig is able to contribute to a rapprochement, symbolised most potently by his father’s fondness for his son’s best friend from Lyon: Vater […] schüttelte dabei jedesmal den Kopf und fragte, wie es nur hatte möglich sein können, daß deutsche und französische Männer aufeinander hätten schießen und sich töten wollen. ‘Wenn ich euch so sehe, kann ich es mir nicht mehr vorstellen,’ sagte er und drückte seine Zigarettenkippe genau auf dem Wort ‘chagrin’ aus. Er schaute mich an und nickte, schaute Roland an und lächelte, und da wußten wir, wie stolz Vater war, daß wir uns gefunden hatten und Freunde waren. (WD, 267)

Harig naturally encounters some hostility in Lyon, but accepts it as inevitable and justified. He was doubtless prepared for the same reception to Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt. On the one hand then, his motives for producing the text are clear: it is an attempt to come to terms with his own experiences, whilst simultaneously creating a document of the period. But he is equally concerned with the nature of language; if Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt illustrates how language became infected and explores the ramifications of this infection, then Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf is concerned with charting how his personal reckoning with the events depicted in the preceding volume was achieved by the reacquisition of a language untainted by National Socialist rhetoric. With linguistic reorientation came the moral realignment of the self. The incipient recovery described in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, from the moment he fled the American soldiers and found tranquillity in the countryside near Hulen – the significance of the moment is underlined by his second treatment of it in Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf where it is defined as ‘der Tag, an dem mein zweites Leben beginnt’ (WM, 8) – is cemented by his time in Lyon. The role that language ultimately plays in the realignment then forms the primary focus of the final volume of the trilogy. Although it is hinted at in the final chapter of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, in that Harig completely immerses himself in French, revelling in this ‘new’, untainted language and pondering the difficulties of translating Rimbaud’s poetry. Where once he had been exposed to Volk ohne Raum and exhorted to burn any copies of subversive texts such as

Ludwig Harig

49

Opfergang or Auf den Marmorklippen, in Lyon he encounters Vercors’s Le silence de la mer and the work of Antoine de SaintExupéry. Although Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt is our main concern, it is worth looking briefly at Harig’s preoccupation with language in the subsequent volume, dealing as it does with repairing the damage inflicted by National Socialism. Harig has described the text as a whole as ‘vor allem ein Roman über Sprache, von der Macht der Sprache, ja ein Roman der Sprache selbst’ (LH, 42). Throughout Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf Harig declares his unconditional love for words – one chapter is devoted to the mysterious word ‘Mutabor’ – but also seeks to liberate certain words and phrases from the perversions they suffered under totalitarianism. Unsurprisingly he devotes a sizeable section to the influence of Max Bense who opened the author’s eyes to the intrinsic playfulness in language. In many ways, Bense might even be considered another ‘proximate other’, certainly in a professional context, for the way in which his teachings, distilled in the periodical augenblick, inspired a whole new perception of what language could achieve: Da auf einmal fiel es mir wie Schuppen von den Augen! […] Ich las, und ich schrieb, und die Augen gingen mir vollends auf. Eine ganze Kindheit und Jugend lang hatte ich die Sprache, die ich hörte und die ich selbst sprach, als ein Mittel der Verständigung begriffen, hatte von Vater die Wörter Ordnung und Pünktlichkeit und von Mutter die Wörter Fleiß und Sauberkeit gehört, beachtete, beherzigte, befolgte, was sie meinten und sprach sie brav und willig nach. Nun aber lernte ich das Sprachspiel kennen, und ich staunte Bauklötze. Hinter Vaters altehrwürdiger Arbeitswelt tauchte Max Benses neuartige Kunstwelt auf, dem Handwerkerszeug hielt er das Spielzeug entgegen, und ich griff freudig danach. (WM, 231)

Words that had previously dictated his identity and governed his behaviour were freed from their proscriptive role, and Harig began producing experimental texts influenced heavily by Bense and other purveyors of konkrete Dichtung such as Ernst Jandl, but also by the work of French avant-garde poet Raymond Queneau. Queneau railed against the static nature of syntax and vocabulary, and in the 1960s his experimentation led him to adopt a mathematical approach to the literary form and culminated in Cent mille milliards de poèmes – translated by Harig in 1984 as Hunderttausend Milliarden Gedichte –

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comprising ten sonnets composed on the same rhyme scheme and grammatical structure.25 Reflecting on his own avant-garde texts, Harig suggests that subconsciously they represented an outlet for him to purge himself of the ‘Ordnungsprinzipien’ he had absorbed from his father: Ich habe möglicherweise […] diese Ordnungsprinzipien in meiner experimentellen Phase als junger Schriftsteller ausgelebt. In meinen experimentellen Texten herrscht dadurch, daß sie aus mathematischen Prinzipien entwickelt sind, eine unglaubliche Ordnung. Ich habe eine ganze Reihe der Ordnungsprinzipien des Vaters, um nicht mit ihm verwechselt zu werden, ins Schreiben verlagert. (LH, 39)

Although it is an interesting notion, it seems more convincing to view the autobiographical trilogy as this outlet, in that each one deals directly with the precise contours of his father’s influence, whilst analysing his own efforts to tackle the problem. He professes in Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf to have been alarmed at the ease with which others were able to employ ‘die alten Wörter’ of National Socialism in the immediate postwar period, but concedes that during this same period in his own family a veil was carefully drawn over the past: ‘“An die Arbeit!” befahl Vater, “und kein Wort mehr über Hitler, kein Wort über Stalingrad, kein Wort über den verlorenen Krieg. Wir haben jetzt Wichtigeres zu schaffen”’ (WM, 27). The inevitability of having to face up to the past at some stage underpins the earlier sections of Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf, and thus dovetails with the later sections of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, in which the final chapter delights in the promise of a new beginning, whilst soberly reiterating that the historical burden remains: ‘Nein, ich kann nichts ungeschehen machen’ (WD, 272). If there is an element of shame in Harig’s enjoyment of his freedom in 1945 – ‘Es war eine Freiheit, die mir nicht hätte gefallen dürfen, doch sie gefiel mir’ (WD, 244) – then the publication of such a searching, self-critical examination of life under National Socialism as Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt can be seen to atone for that. Indeed, in view of Harig’s concerns with his susceptibility to language, as well as the way in which the Nazis had infected language, one can appreciate why an immediate reckoning with his involvement in National Socialism did not seem prudent, irrespective of his father’s reluctance to do so. Although it is far too late for the wrongs of the past to be righted, Harig now makes every effort to 25

Raymond Queneau, Hunderttausend Milliarden Gedichte: Aus dem Französischen übertragen von Ludwig Harig (Frankfurt a.M.: Zweitausendeins, 1984).

Ludwig Harig

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assess that past objectively and in searching detail. He revisits the locations from his past in order to test his memories, but even with the benefit of hindsight he remains unable to explain why he acted as he did. Revisiting the sites of certain events does little to help, and often appears simply to deepen his dismay and disbelief. Yet it is this failure to resolve his feelings of shame which imbue the text with its importance, and lifts it above Andersch’s rather shameless attempt at self-justification in Die Kirschen der Freiheit. Andersch professes to have sought his escape in art, and in a way one might argue that he succeeded, but only in creating an unconvincing fiction for himself to escape into. In contrast, Harig never shirks his responsibility. Despite the apparent evasion of classifying his text as a novel, this choice of genre has more to do with the way the material is structured than with its veracity. Moreover, the interplay between narrated past and narrative present imbues his account with the sense of detached reflection that is wholly lacking from Andersch’s apparently more aesthetic preoccupations. Defining Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt as a novel is not an evasion; on the contrary, the novelistic framework facilitates a more incisive, authentic exploration of the period, in which the private sphere of Harig’s family also sheds light on the public sphere. The author’s extensive examination of documentary material underlines how we are not dealing with a fiction here. As Dieter Meier-Lenz remarks: ‘Die Erinnerungsarbeit wird zu einer mühevollen archäologischen Grabungsarbeit, die den Vorgang einer Verführung exemplarisch und analytisch nachvollzieht’.26 The author truly generates the impression in the text that he has been digging around in his past, revealing himself to be a ‘schonungsloser Registrator’ (LH, 48), as Hermann Lenz observes. In the interview with Jörg Magenau, Harig finds himself in agreement with the idea posited by Peter Bichsel that ‘erst das Erzählen den Menschen zum Menschen macht’: Bichsel sagte: Der Mensch ist nicht nur ein erzählendes, sondern auch ein erzähltes Wesen. Indem von ihm erzählt wird, wird er Mensch. Das ist am innigsten da vorhanden, wo er von sich selbst erzählt. Man kann sagen, daß man nicht nur von sich erzählt, sondern daß man sich

26

Dieter Meier-Lenz, ‘Erinnern und Schreiben: Zum 70. Geburtstag von Ludwig Harig über seine autobiografische Prosa’, Die Horen, 42 (1997), 39-47 (p. 44).

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression erzählt. Im Erzählen schafft man sich selbst und schafft sich neu. (LH, 27 39)

At first glance, it might appear that Harig is justifying the kind of process Andersch adopts in Die Kirschen der Freiheit, in effect rewriting history. But in truth, when one analyses Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, it is clear that Harig believes the process of writing about oneself crystallises one’s sense of self, and in this regard his formulation closely echoes the title of Eakin’s study of identity formation and the registers of self in autobiography. By turning his life into a ‘story’, Harig creates the necessary narrative space from which to explore how his identity was formed. Nevertheless, although he is able to isolate those influences which played a major part in his individuation and instilled in him the need not to step out of line, he cannot satisfactorily explain why he behaved as he did nor why he held the beliefs that he held. He steadfastly refuses to exonerate himself, and fittingly returns at the conclusion to the French boy, whose fate he helped to seal: Ich denke zurück, vierzig Jahre, fünfzig Jahre. Ich habe nichts vergessen, und ich frage mich, ob ich nicht Schuld daran habe, daß der kleine René ausbrechen mußte aus Reih und Glied und im Waisenhaus verdarb? Daß der arbeitsscheue Nachbar im KZ verschwand und die Peitsche zu spüren bekam? Auch ich hatte die Finger im Spiel, und ich spielte auf meine Weise mit. Lachend hatte ich mich mit Schwimmseife gewaschen und den alten Juden noch einmal ausgelöscht. (WD, 271-2)

Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt represents a candid analysis of subjectivity in a totalitarian context, which simultaneously sheds light on the experiences of a generation that the Nazis sought to mould into an ideal. Whilst the text cannot truly be seen as a defence of the private realm – for Harig cannot defend his actions – it does nevertheless explore the malign influences on the self under National Socialism and embody the process of moral realignment. By acknowledging complicity with the crimes of the Third Reich, one might argue that the author has been able to rescue individuality from the collective. He has, at last, broken ranks as René once did.

27

Interestingly Anderson believes Augustine’s Confessions evinces a similar reconstitution of self: ‘The author does not so much remember the past as recast it, grasping and reshaping himself in the process […]’. See Anderson, p. 19.

Two

‘Das Ich liegt immer jenseits der Worte’ – Uwe Saeger, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen (1991) The inclusion of Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen in any study of autobiographical writing might provoke strong feelings in those familiar with this complex, yet enthralling, text. In truth, it is for this very reason that it deserves its inclusion; it challenges many of the assumptions associated with the form and content of classical autobiography, but in a more self-conscious and searching fashion than we find elsewhere in the present study. Is it an autobiography per se? Can it be viewed like Harig’s text as a novel which exploits the freedom thus afforded the author to structure his material in pursuit of the truth, or is it perhaps closer to Christoph Hein’s ‘fictional autobiography’? In fact, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen seems more complex still for it contains an array of different texts, which we might usefully call ‘documents’. The author utilises both fictional and autobiographical matter in various different forms – prose, poetry, film screenplay, diary entries, notes, and transcripts – supplemented by extensive use of quotation and allusion, to Greek mythology for example. As a result, the postmodernist might consider Saeger’s text a mouth-watering example of intertextuality, but that would be too narrow a basis upon which to judge it. One need only consider the subject matter of the text to appreciate that there is nothing playful or experimental about Die Nacht danach und der Morgen. On the contrary, it represents an intense personal enquiry – ‘eine wütende Selbstanklage’.1 It is a private reckoning with a painful past, and exploits the different literary forms in order to facilitate the exploration at hand in as comprehensive a manner as possible, but without relying on any traditional conception of autobiography as the vehicle for such an investigation. The result is one of the earliest, and least celebrated, post-Wende examinations of life in the GDR and the compromises that citizens were compelled to make. The evaluation of 1 Hannes Krauss, ‘Geist und Nacht: Nachdenklichkeit und Selbstzweifel in Uwe Saegers neuem Buch’, Freitag, 1 November 1991, p. 20.

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the role intellectuals in particular played in the system, and the extent to which they were complicit with, and thereby perpetuated, that system underlines the importance of Saeger’s text to any investigation of East Germany’s legacy. But that is to stress the inherent value of the text, whilst sidestepping the crucial generic issue. How are we to define Die Nacht danach und der Morgen? The author himself avoids pinning the text down in any way: Die Nacht danach und der Morgen bears no specific description, although he described it as a ‘Bericht’ (US, 57) in an interview which appeared prior to its publication.2 By way of contrast, the synopsis on the dust jacket would appear to invite a reading that it is unequivocally autobiographical, by referring without qualification to the experiences of the ‘Schriftsteller Uwe Saeger’ in the text. One should perhaps be rather cautious in citing the opinions of the Piper Verlag’s publicity department as authoritative, especially when they refer to the text with unconcealed enthusiasm, and no little bias, as ‘die bisher gewichtigste literarische Auseinandersetzung mit Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Menschen in der ehemaligen DDR’.3 Austrian author Anna Mitgutsch has highlighted the tendency of publishing houses to pander to the public’s thirst for true-life stories with a degree of bitterness, for she feels her work has been devalued to some extent by this approach: Der Markt bedient eilfertig dieses Bedürfnis und achtet darauf, keine Zweifel an der Echtheit des Dargestellten, d.h. an der Identität von Leben und Werk aufkommen zu lassen. Das Erklären eines Buches zur Autobiographie ist oft eine Marktstrategie, der der Autor ausgeliefert ist, ohne gefragt zu werden. Das sogenannte autobiographische Schreiben, dieses Kokettieren mit einer konkreten Wirklichkeit, die das Dargestellte erst legitimiert, ist eine Erfindung des Marktes und eine bewußte Mißachtung des Kunstanspruches eines 4 Werks.

Although Mitgutsch’s objection relates specifically to the accentuation of autobiographical elements in fiction – the ‘Identität von Leben und Werk’ – her reservations are shared to some degree by Paul John Eakin, who comments on today’s ‘decadent culture of disclosure’ 2

Klaus Hammer, ‘Gespräch mit Uwe Saeger’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 39.5 (1991), 51-59 (p. 57). All subsequent references to the interview will appear in the form (US, 57). 3 Uwe Saeger, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen (Piper: Munich, 1991). All page references will appear in the text in brackets in the form (DN, 67). The quotations here are taken from the inside of the original dust jacket. 4 Mitgutsch, p. 30.

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(HOL, 157), which may be a bi-product of the proliferation of confessional talk shows on television and which may account in part for the sustained popularity, and commercial potential, of different forms of life-writing in contemporary society. But even with the comments of Eakin and Mitgutsch in mind, one must nevertheless observe that the principal narrator of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is called ‘Uwe Saeger’. Moreover, the description of the narrator’s military service in the opening section does correspond with the dates provided in available biographical sketches of the author.5 One can find any number of clues in the text that the narrator and the author, Uwe Saeger, are identical. An interesting contrast in this regard would be Christoph Hein, whose Von allem Anfang an has appropriated the autobiographical form, but whose narrator is not synonymous with the author, despite a broadly similar biography.6 However, that has not prevented some reviewers from talking of Hein’s text as an autobiography, which would doubtless not surprise Anna Mitgutsch in the slightest.7 Due to the very absence of any definitive genre appellation, the author does appear highly evasive, in a manner that Mitgutsch might well approve of, but it is a potentially infuriating approach when one considers the highly variegated nature of the text as a whole. There are, in fact, no fewer than four versions of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ present in the text, each bearing the same title: (i) the overarching work itself; (ii) a short prose text written by the narrator, following completion of his military service as a border guard at the Berlin Wall; (iii) a screenplay derived from this original version, also by the narrator; and (iv) the prose text purportedly written by Mike Glockengiesser, the son of a former army acquaintance of the narrator, as a riposte to the latter’s original text. In the absence of the term ‘Autobiographie’ or some such definition on the title page, one ought to resist a straightforward autobiographical reading of the text, and yet the author does little to deflect such an investigation once and for all. If one is prepared to accept the terms of the ‘autobiographical pact’ posited by Philippe Lejeune, whereby amongst other criteria any work in which protagonist, narrator and 5

Peter Hanenberg, ‘Uwe Saeger’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ), pp. 1-9 (p. 1). This entry in the KLG was revised on 1 April 1999. 6 For a detailed analysis of Hein’s text, see Chapter 6. 7 See, for instance, Irmtraud Gutschke, ‘Die grünen Augen des Evangelisten Lukas: Christoph Hein legt alle Masken beiseite und spricht über sich selbst, seine Kindheit’, Neues Deutschland, 2 September 1997, p. 10.

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author share the same name can be deemed autobiographical, then we would appear to have found a useful means not only of justifying the inclusion of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen in the present study, but also of plugging the gap Saeger has studiously neglected to fill.8 Nevertheless, it is the existence of that very lacuna which needs to be explored. Why is it there? With its inherent ambiguity, then, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen presents us with a more challenging case than any of the other works in this study. Even the playful Christoph Hein avoids any such ambiguity by calling his narrator Daniel. The problematisation of the narrator’s identity, which underpins the narrative, is bound up completely with the text’s aim. The difficulty of establishing whether the author and narrator are synonymous reflects the pressures exerted on individuals in the GDR, who necessarily lived their lives in a schizophrenic tension somewhere between conformity and contradiction. In his survey of patterns of behaviour in the GDR, especially amongst intellectuals, Hans-Peter Krüger identified ‘eine Kultur sich selbst widersprechender Individuen’, a condition which the ambiguous relationship between author and narrator in Saeger’s text appears to mirror.9 Although by no means a new topic for eastern German authors to explore, the nature of Saeger’s investigation of the phenomenon Krüger describes, throws new light on this complex psychological problem, which extends far beyond earlier representations. Günter de Bruyn’s treatment of it in Preisverleihung (1972), for example, in which the psychological ramifications of the protagonist’s dilemma are signified by the odd shoes he wears before the award ceremony of the title, now seems rather tame alongside a literary examination which raises the complex issue of identity formation itself. Without doubt, Saeger’s account derives extra piquancy from its genesis at a time when the GDR was crumbling and the future was unclear, which in turn necessitated an Aufarbeitung of the past on both a public and private level. Moreover, its publication in the wake of the furore following the appearance of Was bleibt (1990), which was both an assault on Christa Wolf and her colleagues in the GDR, as well as on GDR culture as a whole, is significant.

8

See Philippe Lejeune, ‘The Autobiographical Pact’, in On Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota press, 1989), pp. 3-30. 9 Hans-Peter Krüger, ‘Ohne Versöhnung handeln, nur nicht leben’, Sinn und Form, 44 (1992), 40-50 (p. 46).

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Even if others have revealed that it is not without its flaws, Lejeune’s thesis on autobiography is a useful tool up to a point with which to deal with this text, but we need first to examine Saeger’s own comments in the Nach-Sätze appended to his text.10 They underline the author’s own grasp of the complex nature of identity formation, and his doubts about the representation of this process in literary form. Saeger appears almost reluctantly to have engaged himself ‘als mein eigener Chronist’ (DN, 225), by acknowledging his decision as an ‘anrüchige Eitelkeit’. He suggests, therefore, that his use of his own name is simply a ‘Notation’ and concedes ‘daß allenthalben immer ein Ich zuviel im Text ist’. Nevertheless, he proceeds with a statement that signals the factual nature of the framework upon which the material is crafted, while simultaneously allowing for different interpretations of the events depicted: Alle Namen sind unverfälscht gebraucht. Personen und Begebenheiten sind so wiedergegeben, wie sie sich mir vermittelt haben, sie sind dargestellt als mein Bild von ihnen; sie sind also im Sinne anderer Erfahrung korrigierbar. (DN, 225)

In effect, Saeger is advocating that his text possesses a measure of ‘subjective authenticity’. He accepts that his own perception cannot but be limited; it is necessarily a subjective interpretation, which can be challenged. However, key information is ‘unverfälscht’, with clear, concrete and presumably verifiable correspondence outwith the text; it has an undeniable authenticity as a result. It underlines that we are not dealing with a traditional form of autobiographical writing. Saeger’s approach thus problematises the issue of rendering personal experience, whilst still attempting so to do. In this way, one can locate his text in the literary tradition of ‘subjective authenticity’ in the GDR that was prompted by Christa Wolf’s theoretical work in the 1960s and subsequently found expression in her highly controversial Nachdenken über Christa T.. As has been explored in the introduction to this volume, Wolf’s narrators in the seminal novels Nachdenken über Christa T. and Kindheitsmuster make ready use of invention in order to facilitate their account, incorporating imagined dialogues or situations into the texts for example. Within the realms of the fiction of these two works, this is entirely to be expected. Given the complex nature of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, it comes as no surprise that Saeger should muddy the waters still further by admitting to the same practice: 10

See, for example, Anderson, pp. 2-3; Eakin, (HOL, 2-4).

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‘Ausschließlich in meiner Zuständigkeit befindet sich der Text von dem Punkt an, wo sich die Realität der Fiktion bediente’ (DN, 225).11 For any reader, seduced by the dust jacket’s invitation, who has approached the text as unequivocally autobiographical, this disclaimer – recalling those issued in the above-mentioned texts by Christa Wolf – comes as something of a shock, and provokes further questions. At first glance, this declaration may just relate to the inclusion of the various ‘fictions’ within Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, which bear that same title. However, when one bears in mind the qualifications Saeger has voiced about how his interpretation of events cannot be definitive, doubts begin to surface about where precisely the dividing line falls between fact and fiction. In Mitgutsch’s opinion, the question of distilling a text into these two components is actually redundant: Aber es wird wohl nicht so sein, daß es nun zwei Wirklichkeiten parallel oder gleichzeitig gibt, die korrekte, nicht mehr faßbare, und ihre fiktionalisierte Bearbeitung, sondern die beiden verschmelzen zur erzählten Geschichte. Und der wahre Sachverhalt kann neben der Fiktionalisierung, zumindest im erzählenden Text, nicht bestehen, einerseits weil auch die Fakten im Text zu einer Funktion des Erzählens und damit fiktionalisiert werden, andererseits weil das biographische Erinnern zum bloßen Rohmaterial für die neue 12 Wirklichkeit des Texts wird.

Though Mitgutsch’s assertion is valid when dealing with an overt fiction, it cannot help us with Die Nacht danach und der Morgen. Saeger’s avoidance of any label whatsoever for his text makes it impossible to apply Mitgutsch’s thesis in this instance. Moreover, his observation that his responsibility begins ‘von dem Punkt an, wo sich die Realität der Fiktion bediente’ acknowledges that ‘zwei Wirklichkeiten’ do co-exist in the text. Not only in its formal construction, then, but also in its texture, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is an almost bewilderingly complex assemblage. As the author explains: Eine besondere Kennzeichnung dieser Situation habe ich mir zugunsten des Textes untersagt. Denn, und unbedeutend, ob dieser Text es ist oder nicht ist, das Kunstwerk überlebt durch sein Vermögen, sich, in die Realität gestellt, dieser zu öffnen. Denn das Werken der Kunst ist, so, wie die Zeit die Wahrheit des Raumes darbietet, die Wahrheit der Zeit zu schaffen. (DN, 225) 11

Saeger’s strategy of using fiction to supplement fact recalls that of Virginia Woolf explored in the introduction. See also Anderson, pp. 92-102. 12 Mitgutsch, p. 10.

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That Saeger should not wish to tie his text down, and thereby allow it room to move, adds to the appeal of this ‘Merkwürdigkeit ersten Ranges’.13 It invites and evades categorisation at the same time, exploiting gaps in formal definitions, but it is not intended as a playful device. Saeger has far too much on his mind to be dabbling in postmodern artifice. Carsten Gansel believes that the inherent dynamic at work in Saeger’s text is reminiscent of Uwe Johnson’s writing which was characterised by ‘der bis zur Selbstaufgabe gehende Versuch von Wahrheitsfindung’: ‘Die verschiedenen Darstellungsarten [in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen] stehen gegeneinander, sie ergänzen, korrigieren und relativieren sich. Es ist dies ein Kreisen um die “Wahrheit” jenseits der Neigung zu schnellem (Ab)Werten’.14 With its blend of Dichtung and Wahrheit – a ‘Mischung authentischer und simulierter Szenarios’ – it does, in fact, evoke the classical Goethean autobiographical paradigm, albeit without Goethe’s grand claims to the universality of his experience, revealing instead a more interrogative, and less self-assured, approach.15 In an engaging article, Karen Leeder has explored how recent purveyors of autobiography have produced increasingly hybrid texts that interweave fact and fiction and experiment ‘precisely with self-conscious “fictions of autobiography”’.16 Although Leeder focuses principally on women’s writing, her observations are useful in placing Saeger’s text in a broader context. Does this therefore mean that plans to invoke Lejeune’s pact should be abandoned outright? If the author himself rejects a definitive label, presumably not wishing to anchor his text too firmly, would it not be prudent to avoid any attempt to read Die Nacht danach und der Morgen as autobiographical? Clearly, as stated above, the author rules nothing out, but equally rules nothing in. We too have room within which to operate. In actual fact, we might argue that Uwe Saeger has quite deliberately left his fingerprints all over his text, to such an extent that, for all the caveats he issues, he still invites us to approach it, albeit with due caution, as a predominantly personal account,. The various different directions in which the text seems to 13 Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR (Kiepenheuer: Leipzig, 1996), p. 492. 14 Carsten Gansel, ‘Notiertes Leben als Versuch der Entlügnung’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 41.1 (1993), 135-38 (p. 137). 15 Gert Oberembt, ‘Trojas Pferd hat einen leeren Bauch: Der Mecklenburger Schriftsteller berichtet in seinem Roman über die Mauer und den Mauerfall’, Rheinischer Merkur, 29 May 1992, p. 20. 16 Leeder, p. 260.

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be pulled can be seen as a reflection of the author’s own disorientated sense of self in the Wende period, suddenly prey like his fellow GDR citizens to completely new internal and external pressures almost overnight. Moreover, by virtue of the absence of any categorically subjective label, Saeger’s account also becomes that of others. It is a representative depiction of an individual coming to terms with a suddenly changed socio-political reality. Although the form and content of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is not typical of autobiography, it nevertheless exploits a number of forms and devices redolent of the genre. Most prominent amongst these is the explicit use of passages purported to be extracts from the narrator’s diary.17 These serve to record his thoughts and feelings as the momentous events of the autumn of 1989 unfold during the main narrative, thus fixing the events described firmly in their historical context. Indeed, in a manner reminiscent of Was bleibt, the period of the text’s creation is recorded at the end, in this case from November 1989 to February 1990: tellingly, the period during which the GDR’s future was at its most unstable encompassing the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November, Helmut Kohl’s ‘TenPoint-Plan’ and preparations for the GDR’s first freely democratic elections. Just as importantly in the context of our exploration, however, the diary operates as a medium for confession for the narrator, through which he reflects upon his lethargy during the Wende with caustic self-criticism. At one point he writes pessimistically: ‘Dieses Tagebuch ist mein Beichtstuhl, aber es kann mir keine Absolution erteilen’ (DN, 117). Despite the different documents that comprise the entire text, and the professed conflation of fact and fiction within, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen can be seen, in part at least, to adopt the form of a personal confession. Having made subtle allusions to Goethe in the Nach-Sätze, Saeger appears also to be recalling the classical autobiographical form established by Augustine, mirrored later by Rousseau. Such formal echoes alone clearly offer little more than circumstantial evidence that we are dealing here with some form of autobiographical writing. Nor does the presence of an Ich-narrator provide sufficient corroboration. Many commentators on autobiography underline how indistinguishable the form can be from the first-person novel, and cite examples of novels that parody or

17 Christa Wolf purports to use authentic ‘Zitate aus Tagebüchern, Skizzen und Briefen’ in the creation of Christa T. See Nachdenken über Christa T., p. 7.

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masquerade as autobiographies.18 Although we must, naturally, treat Saeger’s own comments with caution, we cannot ignore the fact that Uwe Saeger is very much a character in his own work, as he concedes in his interview with Hammer: ‘Es ist ein unangenehmer Text geworden, das formuliere ich so für mich, er enthält keinen Satz, aus dem ich mich herausnehmen kann’ (US, 57). That the author and the narrator are synonymous is indicated in part by the biographical correlation between the two. But at various instances within the text, this equivalence is cemented still further. Like Saeger, the narrator is married with three children, and worked as a teacher. In recounting in his diary the family’s participation in the ‘Aktion Sühnezeichen’ demonstration in Breest on 3 December 1989, the narrator provides not only a concrete description of events on the day Egon Krenz was ousted as leader of the GDR, but also an intimate portrait of family tensions. Crucially, each family member is named and their various attitudes to the Wende are indicated. Such depictions by the narrator are doubtless easily verifiable, but also, as indicated in the Nach-Sätze, ‘im Sinne anderer Erfahrung korrigierbar’ (DN, 225). But it is the obvious willingness of the author to identify himself so unambiguously as the narrator on other occasions in the text that is most striking, in view of his reluctance to categorise it definitively. For example, he recalls his appearance on a cultural television programme in 1980 discussing his first novel, Nöhr. Nöhr was Uwe Saeger’s début novel, published in 1980 by Hinstorff, the publishing house that, according to the text, had earlier rejected his original prose version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’. Nevertheless, he meets an employee there ‘der eben darum interessiert war’ and who was subsequently to become the author’s ‘Entdecker’ (DN, 17). Similarly, in a diary entry on 20 November 1989, alarmed by his lethargy the narrator refers to himself as ‘mein Problembürger’ (DN, 117), which alludes directly to an essay, ‘Der Problembürger’, written by Saeger and published in Litfass in 1989.19 The narrator’s open letter – ‘ein laues offenes Briefchen’ (DN, 215) – to which the Stasi man, Mike Glockengiesser, disparagingly refers, would appear to correspond to an article Saeger published in Freie Erde on 28 October

18

For a recent survey of the form, and examples of the complex nature of the dividing line between autobiography and the novelistic equivalent, see Martina WagnerEgelhaaf, Autobiographie (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000), pp. 4-10 (p. 4). 19 Uwe Saeger, ‘Der Problembürger’, Litfass, 45 (1989), 137-43.

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1989 titled ‘Neue Taktik für alte Strategie?’.20 And finally, in the same vein, the poem included in the main body of the text, ‘Heimat. Vorletzter letzter Versuch’, appeared as ‘Heimat. Vorletzter Versuch. Mein Oktoberlied’ in Temperamente under the author’s name.21 Ultimately, in the key section, where the narrator confronts his own complicity with the GDR regime by having served at the Berlin Wall as a border guard, he directly accuses ‘den Soldaten Saeger’ for his response to the ‘betonierte Grenze zur Welt, vor der er in machtgenehmer Pose seiner staatsbürgerlichen Pflicht genügte’ (DN, 191-92). As a result, the direct association between author and narrator, which subtly underpins the text without dominating it, cannot be overlooked at moments such as these, nor can its effect on the reader, who only stumbles across Saeger’s caveats about the personal dimension of the text at the very end. By then the link has been made and is hard to sever, even if we can accept that the work is not an autobiography in any traditional sense.22 The main narrative thread of the text covers the period 17 November to 31 December 1989, dealing with the narrator’s reflections on the Wende and providing temporal coordinates by means of chronological, if irregular, diary entries. The opening section, by contrast, contains no specific reference to when it was written, although we can assume from its synoptic nature that it was the final segment to be completed, presumably therefore in February 1990. In the manner of a preface, it prepares the reader for what will follow, such as the discussions about coping with the GDR past or the role of critical intellectuals, and recounts in concise form events that will be explored in greater detail later, such as the negotiations about filming the screenplay entitled ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’. It appears more objective than the later sections of narrative, which by contrast contain bitter, self-critical and introspective observations, conveying a sense of greater immediacy, of having been compiled as events unfolded before the narrator’s eyes. By virtue of its sober recording of detail, the introduction generates an impression of greater reflection and detachment, indicated best by the laconic, factual tone of the opening sentence: ‘Am 4. Mai 1972 begann mein 20

Uwe Saeger, ‘Neue Taktik für alte Strategie?’, Freie Erde, 28 October 1989. Reprinted in Neue deutsche Literatur, 38.3 (1990), 168-70. 21 Uwe Saeger, ‘Heimat. Vorletzter Versuch. Mein Oktoberlied’, Temperamente (1990), 95-98. 22 See Leeder’s analysis of Daniela Dahn’s Westwärts und nicht vergessen for an interesting comparison with Saeger’s approach, pp. 261-62.

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eineinhalbjähriger Wehrdienst bei der Nationalen Volksarmee der DDR’ (DN, 5). The opening section bears the hallmarks of the detached reflection one might indeed expect to find in a retrospective analysis of the key moments in one’s life. There is no indication that we should not read it as the observations of the author; the details appear concrete and verifiable, and tally with Saeger’s biographical details on the dust jacket. On account of the problems of being entirely certain that the author and narrator are identical, Wolf’s notion of ‘subjective authenticity’ is a most welcome tool. It allows us to explore, and validate, those features which might be deemed autobiographical, but without restricting the text’s ability to engage openly with reality as fiction would and as Saeger presumably intends. Die Nacht danach und der Morgen does indeed provide an authentic and credible picture of an East German intellectual’s attempt to come to terms both with events in 1989, but also, and most crucially, with GDR life as a whole. When one considers the nature of the Literaturstreit unleashed by the publication of Was bleibt in 1990, the anxiety and disorientation that are the most striking feature of the narrative present are utterly believable ramifications of the GDR’s collapse. Since the state gave prominence to its intellectuals, its subsequent demise encumbered those same people, such as Christa Wolf, with the invidious legacy of being seen as ‘Staatsdichter’ by certain Western commentators. It appeared to matter little that many of these intellectuals had courted persecution or expulsion in the struggle to reform the system.23 What we find in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is an individual’s perspective on this period of re-adjustment, which actually anticipates some of the issues that would arise with the demise of the GDR – the extent of the Stasi’s penetration of the cultural scene, the process of Abwicklung and the border guard trials, to name but three – as well as depicting the emotional turmoil one would expect to find in such a subjective account of this period. Saeger’s own problematisation of the nature of writing about oneself, which recalls Nelly Jordan’s realisation in Kindheitsmuster ‘daß es um vieles schwieriger ist, über sich selbst zu schreiben als über allgemeine Ideen, die einem geläufig sind’, underpins the text.24 Even if Saeger has left his fingerprints all over the material of his 23

For the most comprehensive treatment of the row, see Thomas Anz (ed.), ‘Es geht nicht um Christa Wolf’: Der Literaturstreit im vereinten Deutschland (Munich: Spangenberg, 1991). 24 Kindheitsmuster, p. 296.

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narrative and indicated that he is writing about himself, he acknowledges simultaneously how this process of self-depiction can only ever offer an approximation, a fictional construct, which militates against us calling Die Nacht danach und der Morgen an autobiography in any traditional or authoritative sense. That would be too definite, too certain, and the abiding impression of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is the uncertainty, the doubt, and the despair of ever understanding why one acted as one did and whether one can ever forgive oneself. Saeger cannot claim such authority, even over his own self, and therein the core concern, and critical thrust, of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen are to be found.25 It is a concern, moreover, which essentially transcends the issue of how to categorise this work. For this very problem of writing about oneself, articulated in the opening section, not only foreshadows the narrator’s subsequently extensive self-analysis during the Wende, but also symbolises the universal problem of identity formation in the GDR, especially for those who spent most, if not all, of their lives under the socialist system.26 Paradoxically, Saeger contends that writing was an existential process for him: ‘Ich schreibe in erster Instanz für mich, es ist mir Lebenshilfe, es ist als Tätigsein wie als Begriff für Selbstverwirklichung das einzige Vehikel, das meine biologische Existenz zu tragen vermag’ (US, 54). The crisis thus appears all the more acute for the author. In the opening section, the narrator synopsises the eighteenmonth period of his military service in the National People’s Army (NVA), before concentrating on the final hours of his military service at the Treptow barracks in considerable detail. It is sufficient to provide an insight into the ritualised life of aggression, the consumption of alcohol and border patrols at the Berlin Wall, which created ‘eine hundehafte Haltung’ (DN, 6) in the conscripts: Konnten wir so ein Besäufnis einmal nicht realisieren, kamen schnell und zumeist grundlos Aggressivitäten auf. Wir haben uns nie schikaniert, aber es wurden Schläge ausgeteilt und kindliche, aber nicht mehr korrigierbare Feindschaften entstanden. Das sich konkret nie personalisierende aber uns permanent vorgestellte Feindbild wurde so möglicherweise mit abreagiert. […] Und vielleicht wars sogar 25

Leeder identifies a comparable disorientation in Volker Braun, expressed in his poem ‘Das Eigentum’: ‘und unverständlich wird mein ganzer Text’. See Leeder, p. 250. 26 Karsten Dümmel provides a useful study of literary representations of the problems of identity formation in the GDR in Identitätsprobleme in der DDR-Literatur der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997).

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Methode, uns durch Lebensentzug in eine gewisse Beißstimmung zu versetzen. (DN, 6-7)

As Stefan Wolle has observed, it was one of the major ironies of the GDR that its military adhered to the stereotypical Prussian model from the past, and he cites the pomp and ceremony that accompanied the changing of the guard at the Neue Wache on Unter den Linden every Wednesday afternoon: ‘Preußens Gloria war auferstanden mitten im Herzen der Hauptstadt der sozialistischen DDR’.27 In the context of the decidedly mixed ideological message of this practice, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen sheds light on the repercussions this historical continuity had on individuals in the GDR. The Prussian nature of the barracks not only had an impact on the interpersonal relationships of the soldiers, and their intellectual capacities – the narrator remarks that he had been unable to finish reading a single book during 548 days in the NVA – but more damagingly upon the narrator’s family life: ‘Mein Sohn wurde vier Wochen nach meiner Einberufung geboren, als ich entlassen wurde, war ich ihm ein Fremder’ (DN, 7). As soon as he is able to free himself from the primitive conditions in the barracks, he resolves to record his experiences, and after reiterating this fact to his fellow ‘Entlassungskandidaten’, he even wields his intention as a threat to an overly punctilious officer, who tries to prevent him boarding a direct train home: Die ganze Scheiße schreibe ich auf, sagte ich, die ganze Kacke Tag für Tag fünfhundertachtundvierzigmal und diesen Mist, den Sie jetzt mit mir machen, und das auf einer Extraseite. Der Leutnant musterte mich, grinste weiterhin. So, so, sagte er, der Herr ist wohl ein Künstler! (DN, 11)

Thus begins an obsessive, and initially perhaps slightly pretentious, preoccupation with fulfilling this promise: ‘[…] Jetzt war ich ein Künstler, ich mußte es beweisen’ (DN, 12). While trying to rebuild his marriage and cope with the ‘marternde Schuldienst’ (DN, 12), the narrator struggles to find the creative outlet to allow him to confront his experiences. The inability to resolve the problem expresses itself in physical terms reminiscent of withdrawal symptoms: ‘Ich war noch immer wie krank, wie wund, und die alten Schmerzen stellten sich immer wieder wie neu ein, sobald ich im Muster gemachter Erfahrung dachte’ (DN, 13). Principally, it is the ‘formale Schwelle’ (DN, 13) that prevents him 27

Stefan Wolle, ‘Staatsfeind Faschist’, in Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit. Die Spiegel-Serie über den langen Schatten des Dritten Reichs: Spiegel Special – Das Magazin zum Thema, ed. by Rudolf Augstein, 1 (2001) 182-88 (p. 186).

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from being able to transpose the wealth of memories and moods into literary form: […] Ich brauchte eine Konstruktion, in die ich all das einbringen konnte, die aber dennoch erlaubte, daß ich in meinem Eigenen unangetastet blieb. So endeten alle Schreibversuche in den Anfängen, und sobald Uniformiertes oder militärisches Zeremoniell zu gestalten war, geriet es in die altbekannten Witzeleien, jede Demütigung verflachte zur Karikatur, die Typen zur Maskerade, die Dressur zur nur peinlichen Übung. Ich brauchte die exemplarische Situation, in die ich diese 548 Tage bringen konnte. (DN, 13)

Eventually he settles on prose fiction as the medium, and begins work on the tale that would become ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’, the text, it transpires, allegedly only the Stasi now have a copy of. But his travails do not ease. Driven less by ‘die Wucht der Inspiration’ than by ‘der Zwang des Versprechens’ (DN, 14), the narrator likens the exercise to ‘eine Flucht auf Krücken’ (DN, 14), all the more frustrating when he had ‘nach nichts Stofflichem zu suchen’ (DN, 14). The frustratingly painstaking process of transposing his experiences into fictional form is described in detail, so that the sense of disappointment with the end product is wholly expected. He concedes that, although unable to write himself ‘frei vom Gewesenen’ (DN, 15), the original prose version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ successfully reduces the impact of his military service to ‘ein mir ertragbares Maß der Schmach’ (15), which would tally with his comments about the existential import of writing in the interview with Klaus Hammer. But the modest therapeutic benefits in psychological terms are tempered, if not undermined, by his dissatisfaction with the initial outcome in literary terms. The tale amounts to no more than nineteen handwritten pages, which seem insufficient ‘den Riß durch die Welt etwas deutlicher in seiner ganzen Schäbigkeit präsentieren zu können’ (DN, 16). Worse still, the narrator cannot shake his ‘Zweifel des Ungenügens der Worte’ (DN, 16) but offers no concrete analysis of the inadequacy of language.28 Nevertheless, the problems outlined here presage the narrator’s situation in the main narrative, when we find him mired in a creative crisis and unable to overcome writer’s block, which appears to have been unleashed by the incipient demise of the GDR. As in the opening section, the crisis appears to be both of a linguistic and psychological nature, deriving from an inability to locate a literary construction suitable for the analysis and resolution of 28

This concern is one of the principal features of Was bleibt and also recalls Harig’s experiences as witnessed in Chapter 1.

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another ‘Riß durch die Welt’, but this time pertaining to the collapse of East Germany and the hole being torn in the Wall. His original tale offered at best a partial solution to the problem, but its only concrete success was in getting him noticed by his eventual publisher. The screenplay adaptation, with which we are presented in its entirety at the end of the introduction and which comprises one-third of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, appears destined never to be filmed, on account of the author’s apparent ambivalence about the project. Ultimately, the narrator is forced to admit that the material may have become exhausted for him as a source of inspiration, ‘doch bleibt seine in mich gegründete und verwachsene und durch nichts aufhebbare Gegenwärtigkeit erhalten’ (DN, 20-1). He seems pessimistic about ever finding a means of exploring the forces that have shaped his own identity, a concern for GDR intellectuals and citizens alike in a post-Wende climate marked by accusation, denunciation and Abwicklung. So what are we to make of the original ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’? Is it truly as flawed as the narrator would have us believe? In a bid to objectify his experiences, the narrator creates a protagonist, Frank, and follows him during the evening of his release from military service. There is clear correspondence between the narrator’s account of his experiences in the opening section and the fictional rendition. Both have served at the Berlin Wall and find the return home exposes how they have changed irrevocably, and not in any positive way. Both must pay a heavy price for their time in the NVA, as their private lives are ravaged by destructive tensions. In view of the problems facing readers of the main overarching text, the parallels do not seduce one into an autobiographical reading in this instance, largely because of the attention to the fate of other characters. Within the screenplay itself, Frank’s predicament is mirrored by that of his erstwhile colleague, Jürgen Glockengiesser, nicknamed Glogies, who comes from the same town and whose marriage has already fallen victim to his military service. For Frank, his relationship with Kathrin foundered following the birth of their daughter: ‘Damals, nach der Geburt, konnte ich nicht gleich fahren, da waren die Entlassungen, und ich bin ja auch kein Verheirateter […]. Sie hat nicht begriffen, daß ich am nächsten Tag nicht mit Blumen da sein konnte’ (DN, 29). As a consequence, the burden of the specific nature of their military service – defined by the narrator in the opening section as ‘Dienst […] Aug in Aug mit dem Klassenfeind, dem

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sogenannten’ (DN, 5) – weighs especially heavily upon them. Whilst Frank and his colleagues must contemplate the ruins of their private lives, they are also confronted with widespread social ignorance of what military service entailed for the young men. In particular, it is the morbid fascination of civilians, eager to hear about incidents at the Wall with the so-called ‘Friedenswacht’ (DN, 65), which upsets the returnees most. As Frank snaps at the two girls who flirt with him and Glogies in the station buffet: ‘Ihr sagt Mauer, und dann seid ihr fertig damit’ (DN, 65). Yet it does not deter one of them from enquiring: ‘Aber ne echte Möglichkeit hattet ihr da doch nicht? ne Möglichkeit rüberzukommen?’ (DN, 65). She cannot know that Frank had indeed prevented his companion’s bid for freedom, and that she is therefore rubbing salt into a wound, however inadvertently. Although it focuses solely on the first hours of his release, the screenplay indicates how problematic the readjustment to everyday life is going to be for Frank in particular, and by implication for the others as well. At the conclusion, when Frank is devastated to learn that Kathrin has given up their daughter for adoption, his earlier relief at having left the army with ‘eine glatte Rechnung’ (DN, 53) is shown to be totally illusory. Like the narrator of the main text, he may not have been required to use his firearm at the border, but in Frank’s case it is small compensation for the personal loss he has suffered. As morning arrives, he collapses, a little melodramatically perhaps, on the street overwhelmed by grief and engulfed by images from his past, central to which are shots of him on duty at the Wall. The interplay between the narrator’s autobiographical observations in the opening section and the fictional rendition of them in the screenplay also titled ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ is intriguing, not least in the context of investigations into the precise nature of the overarching text. It reveals how trying to provide a definitive label for the material is somewhat irrelevant, if not futile. The key concern is that the accounts should ring true as believable treatments of individual experience. As the narrator observes: ‘Die Lüge der Kunst schafft die eigentliche Wahrheit des Lebens, denn die Wahrheit der Kunst ist außerhalb jeglicher Faktizität’ (DN, 15). By this token, the screenplay serves its purpose relatively effectively on the whole, bearing the hallmarks of ‘subjective authenticity’. And yet, the narrator’s evident dissatisfaction with the outcome suggests he cannot totally accept the validity of it, for the material at its heart remains too personal to him perhaps, too close, and therefore requires a more directly subjective approach. But ultimately, Die Nacht danach

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und der Morgen seems to suggest that no written account can ever heal the ‘Bruch in meinem Leben’ (DN, 5) constituted by his deployment at the Berlin Wall. The text reveals that this rupture runs very deep, affecting his sense of self and thereby his capacity for selfexpression. Thus no one format or rendition can heal this wound, all of which might explain why Saeger should adopt an eclectic approach in the end, reflecting a, possibly futile, desire to unite disparate aspects of his identity into a more unified whole. It is this sense of frustration that pervades the main narrative of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen. It begins - after the insertion of the screenplay - with a diary entry for 17 November 1989. Unsurprisingly, the sense of betrayal is expressed strongly as the full scale of the corruption and hypocrisy of the ruling elite emerges. The narrator remarks bitterly: ‘Jahrealt der Witz: Der Kapitalismus steht am Abgrund - wir sind einen Schritt weiter. War der Abgrund so tief, daß wir jahrelang stürzen mußten, um so weit unten anzukommen?’ (DN, 97). His children pester him about when they can travel to the West, and already appear to have turned their backs on the GDR. The narrator intimates that they require ‘einen (einen nur) Punkt, an dem sie Halt finden können’ (DN, 97), but as the narrative progresses, and the magnitude of his own disorientation becomes clear, it is surely he who most needs this security. Driving home from D., following a meeting of Neues Forum and his first encounter with the mysterious Mike Glockengiesser, he is overwhelmed by a sense that he has been robbed: […] Ein Stück von dem Unbennenbaren Heimat war mir abhanden gekommen, und je näher ich meinem Ort kam, desto häufiger brachen weitere Stücke davon ab. Ich fuhr heimwärts in die Fremde. Düstere Ortschaften. Manchmal ein sterniges, fernhöhnendes, wolkenfreies Himmelsstück. Mehrmals die Verlockung, einen Baum als Zielpunkt zu nehmen. (DN, 111)

This disturbingly suicidal compulsion anticipates the nightmare he suffers later that night, in which he is stoned and buried under rocks in a hole in the ground. The narrator’s disorientation manifests itself twofold, and both conditions are potentially damaging for him as a writer. Firstly, he is unable to rid himself of a debilitating creative lethargy, at a time when critical intellectuals could, and should in his opinion, be offering guidance: Aber ich kann nicht aus meiner Lethargie, verloren ist meine innervative Energie der zweiten Oktoberhälfte, die irgendwie glückhafte Taumelei einer aus dem Tag gewachsenen Arbeit. Worüber

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression ich vor Wochen noch leichthin reden konnte, daß sich das deutschdeutsche Problem in diesem Herbst ebenso rasant wie eindeutig miterledigen würde, nämlich in einer Föderativen Deutschen Republik, dafür werden mir nun die Worte falsch und widerborstig, nichts behält mehr Bestand in seiner ehemaligen Gültigkeit, als hätte ich alles nur in Täuschungen gekannt. (DN, 116)

The views expressed here are those shared by many GDR intellectuals and writers at this time, especially at the large demonstration at Alexanderplatz on 4 November 1989, where luminaries such as Christa Wolf, Stefan Heym and Christoph Hein grasped the unprecedented opportunity to address the public at an open, democratic forum and called for a reformed democratic GDR. For some reason, the narrator’s optimism and engagement has ebbed away. At several points in the narrative, he laments his ‘Trägheit’ (DN, 116; 171) and ‘Verzweiflung’ (DN, 174), but appears unable to combat them in any way, least of all by writing himself free. For the plain truth is that the changing circumstances of the GDR have not only affected him politically, but also creatively, which is potentially far more damaging. Frustrated by this second symptom of his disorientation, the narrator attempts to find inspiration and motivation by turning to the work of other authors, such as Thomas Mann’s Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, from which he deploys an extensive quotation, including telling observations such as: ‘Der politische Künstler ist der wirkungshungrigste Künstler, den es gibt, aber er verdeckt seinen Wirkungshunger mit der Lehre, die Kunst müsse Folgen haben, und zwar politische’ (DN, 115). Against this yardstick, the narrator has fallen a long way short. Ironically, his failure to fulfil the role set out by Mann by engaging with the socio-political currents sweeping East Germany does nonetheless find literary expression, in the long hermetic poem entitled ‘Heimat. Vorletzter letzter Versuch’, which recalls the work of the Prenzlauer Berg poets.29 At first glance the narrator’s poem would appear to correlate with Stephen Brockmann’s definition of the poetry produced in the avant-garde scene by writers such as Uwe Kolbe and Bert Papenfuß-Gorek as being predicated on ‘the refusal of meaning itself and thus explicit political messages’.30 The language is certainly disjointed with idiosyncratic use of syntax and orthography, which militate against simple comprehension. 29

One wonders whether the title is an allusion to Christa Wolf’s essay collection Fortgesetzter Versuch (1979), but one which implies that continuity is increasingly unlikely. 30 Brockmann, p. 91.

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Nevertheless, a string of images do emerge, despite the linguistic complexity, which conjure up an impression of the events surrounding the Wende. As a result, rather than transgressing ‘boundaries into a land beyond meaning’, as Kolbe believed the aim of the avant-garde texts to be, the narrator’s poem both embodies the efforts of the lyrical ‘I’ to connect somehow with what is going on around him and frustration at his ultimate failure to do so.31 A collage of images and expressions in the poem generate ready associations with the circumstances of the GDR in the autumn of 1989. Obvious images of borders and fences rest alongside references to the ‘Leichen unserer Umweltinitiativ’ (DN, 121), reflecting the disastrous ecological conditions in the GDR, as well as possessing metaphorical force with regard to the state of the country as a whole.32 ‘Die Traurigkeit des alten/Mannes angesichts seiner selbst gegenüber der Parade’ (DN, 122) makes one think of a tired, bewildered Honecker on 7 October 1989, as Gorbachev initiated the machinations to topple the hardliner from power and the sealed trains travelled from Czechoslovakia and Hungary through the GDR to the West: ‘Im Zug der quer durch/Hier/Nach Westen fährt’ (DN, 122). Yet the mood of the poem is in no way celebratory. From the outset, the ‘I’ is trapped: Im Eisen steck ich Verschmiedet in Zäunen, Drähten, Gittern Angetan mit der Fessel der freien Wahl meines 33 Freien Raumes ohne FreiRaum. (DN, 120)

His exclusion from the euphoria and optimism around him, he senses, is due to his ‘Heimat’ itself: Doch Heimat, auf was ich tret Hier, was mir den Buckel Krümmt, das Maul Mir stopft, die Haut mir macht zum dicken Fell, den 31

(wie?) (womit?) (warum)

Ibid., p. 92. Wolfgang Gabler has examined Saeger’s preoccupation with the theme of borders, and its presence here provides another clue to the synonymity of author and narrator. See Wolfgang Gabler, Erzählen auf Leben und Tod: Uwe Saegers Prosawerk der 80er Jahre (Neubrandenburg: Literaturzentrum, 1990), pp. 41-9. 33 The imagery again evokes Saeger’s work, as the publication directly preceding the text in question was a collection of short stories called Haut von Eisen (Munich: Piper, 1990). 32

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Arsch mir ankert bis auf den Grund Grundlos und mich Hinreißt in Disziplin & Vernunft & Sicher Heit und mich ausgrenzt Vom Terrain der Hoffnung. (DN, 122)

(wo?)

A disturbing image to be sure, especially as the frequent use of oxymoronic constructions - ‘das Land in Jubeltrauer’; ‘vom eignen fremden Land’ (DN, 121) - imply the lyrical ‘I’’s ambivalence, rather than indifference. Structurally, the oxymoron might also suggest the ideological divide between West and East Germany, terms which until 1989 operated as political antonyms. Although we see him skulking about ‘verschlagen in Tümpeln, Löchern, Teichen’ (DN, 121), it is apparent that he longs, but is unable, to take part in this new freedom heralded by the blackbird: Es öffnet der Raum sich. Es ballt sich der Zeit. Und ich treib und treib und bin doch bereit Will wanken nicht und weiche doch Vorm dialogischen Gebet Hab mich nicht und will mich noch Gesellen zum Letzten der wi(e)dersteht. Wie leb ich weiter? (DN, 123-4)

But the blackbird’s voice is ‘wohl schrill’, and the ‘I’ succumbs to a pessimistic evaluation of the country’s future: Dann stehn die alten Bremser wieder vorn Diese von Vernunft ganz Ausgebufften Und stoßen frisch ins alte Horn Und lächeln lieb und lassen schuften. (DN, 123)

The presence of the blackbird as a commentator on events echoes the work of Georg Trakl, in which the bird is often a critical or melancholic voice. Indeed, one might argue that the tone of the poem is reminiscent of Trakl’s work; it may not be as apocalyptic, but it has an inherent bleakness and evokes a sense of decay which one finds in the Austrian’s canon.34 With these possible Trakl allusions in mind, it does not come as a surprise that the lyrical ‘I’ signals earlier in the 34 See for example ‘Verfall’, in Georg Trakl, Werke, Entwürfe, Briefe, ed. by HansGeorg Kemper and Frank Rainer Max (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984), p. 39.

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poem that he expects little to change; he speaks of the ‘tollkühn verzögert[e] Schußfahrt nach Sankt Reform’ (DN, 122). What initially appears a positive assessment of the courage displayed by many at the time, is quickly moderated by the ironic ‘Sankt reform’ and a rather complex constellation of oxymorons: for the surge towards reform is both audacious (‘tollkühn’) yet subject to delay (‘verzögert’), and one must beg the question whether this truly constitutes a headlong rush (‘Schußfahrt’). Thus the enduring impression is of an energy restrained, or worse still dissipated, and in turn anticipates the image of ‘die alten Bremser’. Far from representing a land beyond meaning, the poem invites a reading on both a personal and political level. Its depiction of the ebb and flow of events, mirrored in stylistic devices such as oxymoron, reflects the uncertain future ahead for the GDR and its citizens. One might argue in light of events since reunification in 1990, especially from the perspective of eastern Germans, that the poem contains a degree of prescience. In the context of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, however, the poem is significant for offering insights into the narrator’s disorientation. His citation of Thomas Mann would suggest that he is not advocating or seeking to adopt an overtly apolitical stance in the manner of the Prenzlauer Berg poets. He does try to evade an invitation to attend the Neues Forum meeting, however, by stressing his intention to remain ‘weiterhin wie ehedem ohne parteiliche oder andere organisatorische Zugehörigkeit’ (DN, 102). Moreover, at this point he highlights how fundamentally the socio-political situation has already changed, so much so in fact that he would now feel ‘nur noch als Nachredner’. By the time he writes the poem, despite having stressed the need ‘jetzt nur nicht ermüden in den Anfängen’ (DN, 102), he appears to have fallen victim to just such inertia, reflected in the stasis afflicting the lyrical ‘I’. The poem is an expression of frustration at not being able to engage with events, but in itself does not embody a solution. The lyrical ‘I’ appears to draw comfort from language: […] Ach Lieb, die Worte Sind die Orte Meiner Leidenschaft. (DN, 124-5)

For the narrator, however, there is no suggestion that the poem has helped him cure his creative block. What the poem does provide,

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though, is a clue to the root of the problem. It intimates that the narrator’s disorientation stems from the changes that his ‘Heimat’ is presently undergoing. Irrespective of whether one is prepared to view Uwe Saeger as being synonymous with his narrator, the clue to the narrator’s crisis – his ‘seelischer Notstand’ – provided by the poem is substantiated considerably when one consults the author’s biography and recalls Eakin’s theory of the ‘relational self’.35 Is it not the case that the narrator’s unsettled condition during the Wende can be attributed to the incipient collapse of the only society he has ever known? As Karsten Dümmel has observed, Saeger, born in 1948, belongs to the ‘mittlere Autorengeneration’.36 Wolfgang Emmerich borrows the title of a poetry collection by Uwe Kolbe, another of this young generation who began publishing in the 1980s, in describing these authors as ‘hineingeboren’ into the GDR.37 Emmerich focuses primarily on the literary characteristics to which we shall return, but Dümmel’s survey is useful in teasing out the psychological traits of this generation, not least because Saeger is one of the authors he cites. Indeed, Dümmel himself belongs to this same generation, born as he was in Zwickau in 1960. For the likes of Saeger, the erection of the Berlin Wall destroyed any theoretical hopes of an alternative mode of existence in the GDR. In effect, their world shrunk overnight. As a consequence, the lives of most of these authors followed a broadly similar pattern, with many of them trying many different jobs before finally embarking on a literary career. Citing examples of some of these jobs, Dümmel posits the theory that they mark the authors’ early attempts ‘möglichst viele Erfahrungen zu sammeln’, a form of compensation for the opportunities that had been curtailed after 1961.38 Many had believed that the Wall would, in truth, facilitate a more openly critical relationship with the GDR regime, but such hopes were swiftly dashed. The writers who belonged to the middle generation and would have benefited from the more emancipated atmosphere that many expected once the growing pains of the GDR had ceased, came to embody, and then articulate, this frustration: ‘Ihre Zeit beurteilten sie als geschichtslos; dabei empfanden sie sich selbst als hineingestellt

35

Mitgutsch, p. 26; Eakin (HOL, 43-98) Dümmel, pp. 38-48. 37 Emmerich, Literaturgeschichte, pp. 401-18. 38 Dümmel, p. 40. 36

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und hineingeboren in eine für sie längst nicht mehr veränderbare Welt’.39 If the dogmatic experiences of childhood and adolescence had suppressed this generation’s capacity to engage uninhibited and unhindered in a truly dynamic process of socialisation and individuation, then events such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Biermann expatriation in 1976 and the expulsion of nine authors from the Schriftstellerverband in 1979 underlined the fundamental incongruity between the theory and practice of Communism. Dümmel is surely correct to point out that the older authors of this generation, such as Christoph Hein and Volker Braun, who had some experience of life before the GDR came into existence, naturally found it easier to preserve hopes of reforming the system despite these events.40 Such hopes were illusory for the younger writers, and their disillusion manifested itself in themes such as ‘Stagnation, Werteverlust, Verwahrlosung der Alltagsästhetik’ and the depiction of ‘die Kleinigkeiten des Alltags mit ihren tausendfachen Demütigungen’.41 Sigrid Damm even went as far as to insist in 1988 that this was a ‘Generation ohne Biographie’.42 Damm’s thesis is arguably a little too strong. Writers of Saeger’s generation did have a biography, albeit a dull and restricted one where opportunities were curtailed by the nature of the society around them. But it was a society that deliberately set out to shape them by controlling their formative experiences. If, as Eakin argues, our sense of self is dependent upon relational forces, at the macro and micro level, then even a critical perspective upon society can be seen ex negativo as a product of that self-same society. Consequently, the narrator’s disorientated condition in the main narrative of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen can be interpreted as an identity crisis unleashed by the collapse of familiar surroundings, notwithstanding his long-standing rejection of them. His ambivalent attitude towards contemporary events in the autumn of 1989, therefore, reveals the depth of the GDR’s influence on his sense of self. Modes of behaviour and expectation had been inculcated in him. He is unable to turn his 39

Ibid., p. 40. Christoph Hein was another to address the demonstration on 4 November 1989 and voice hopes of reform, rather than reunification, thereby underlining his resilient optimism. By contrast, as we have seen, Volker Braun was less sanguine. 41 Dümmel, p. 47. 42 Sigrid Damm, ‘Unruhe’, Sinn und Form, 40 (1988), 244-49 (p. 247). Interestingly, Saeger described himself as having ‘keine Biografie’ in the interview with Hammer, p. 57. 40

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back on that literally and figuratively bankrupt state, unlike his children who have not yet been subjected to the same degree of conditioning. In fact, the opposite occurs: he begins an intense and thorough re-examination of his own role in that state, which results in, what Hannes Krauss has called, ‘die Selbstbezichtigung des Autors’. Krauss suggests, moreover, that the fragmentary nature of the text as a whole is not the result of ‘Nachläßigkeit oder gestalterischem Unvermögen […], sondern aus elementarer Not’.43 Confronted and ashamed by his inertia, the narrator initiates a sustained, caustic deconstruction of his role as a writer in the GDR. It is a relentless excoriation: […] Ich bin immer nur der Verschlossene, Eigenartige, Kauzige, aber doch der Vernünftige, nach ihrem Sinne Vernünftige gewesen, ich war mein Problembürger, aber ich war keine Gefahr. Und das sollte man sein, ist das Vaterland in Gefahr, für die, die es in Gefahr gebracht haben. Und nun, da alles auf dem Spiel steht, kann ich mich nicht einmal dazu überwinden, einen Aufruf zu unterzeichnen. Die Karawane zieht weiter, diesmal laufen sogar die Hunde mit, nur der Dorftrottel sitzt unverändert am Brunnen und klappert mit den leeren Eimern, aber es wird keiner mehr kommen, der sie ihm füllt - und dieser, der da blöd himmelwärts grinst und die Sonne wieder einmal auf der falschen Seite sucht, der bin ich. (DN, 117)

Far from being the ‘engineer of the soul’ that Stalin envisaged, the narrator presents himself as the village idiot encapsulating his feeling of having been neither a meaningful moral authority nor a genuine threat to the totalitarian system. Saeger had earlier made the same observation in his interview with Klaus Hammer: ‘Ich habe mich als Person nie in totaler Gegnerschaft zum totalitären Regime befunden. Ist das nun ein Schuld? Oder Versagen? Ich muß antworten: Ja’ (US, 56). The self-critical assessment of his ineffectiveness as a thorn in the State’s side leads naturally into an appraisal of the function of GDR authors in general, which to a large extent parallels the issues in the Literaturstreit that erupted in the summer of 1990. Initially directed at Christa Wolf and Was bleibt, the debate later escalated to embrace all GDR authors, and ultimately post-1945 German literature as a whole. If we are to believe the dates between which Saeger worked on the material in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen – and there is little

43

Hannes Krauss, ‘Verschwundenes Land? Verschwundene Literatur? Neue Bücher – alte Themen’, in Verrat an der Kunst, ed. by Karl Deiritz and Hannes Krauss (Berlin: Aufbau, 1993), pp. 273-78 (pp. 275-76). This more general article is derived, in part, from his specific review in Freitag.

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reason not to – then his self-critical analysis of the role of the writer in the GDR shows remarkable foresight. Wolf was accused of cowardice for not having published her short piece at the time of its creation, purported to be 1979. But any text that made surveillance by the Stasi its explicit theme would have stood little chance of publication in the GDR, especially in the wake of the Biermann expulsion and the cultural freeze that ensued. Her only option would have been to publish in the West, but as Stephen Brockmann indicates: ‘One of the reasons for Wolf’s effectiveness as a medium for debate and reflection in the GDR was that her books were available to ordinary East German citizens in book stores and libraries’.44 He goes on to compare the situation of GDR authors who remained in the country with the inner emigrants under the Third Reich, and highlights the dilemma that faced them: ‘For many writers who had left the GDR, staying in that country meant conforming to an intolerable political system; for many writers who had remained in the GDR, leaving the country meant abandoning all hope for positive reform from within’.45 The narrator of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen ponders this very question, from the perspective of one who remained and now feels compelled to reassess the validity of this decision: ‘Warum denke ich jetzt, daß es anderer, wesentlicherer Mut gewesen wäre, wenn ich nicht hier geblieben wäre? Warum jetzt die Überzeugung, daß mir da doch eine Wahl war?’ (DN, 119). The answers he proposes echo arguments advanced by those who believed that GDR literature would cease to be relevant with that country’s demise: Weil die Literatur hier erledigt worden ist, weil sie, wie schillernd auch immer, Indiz für Enklave, Versperrtsein, des Insichgeworfenseins bleibt, bedeutsam und lächerlich, Kunstbe- und Kunstnachweis ohne Trennlinie? Dichter wachsen aus der Enge. Oder? (DN, 119)

It would appear that his creative crisis derives largely from existential concerns, a fact that Saeger makes explicit in his interview: ‘Schreiben war, ist und bleibt alles, was ich wirklich vermag und was ich mit Leidenschaft tue, und würde sich das erledigen, gleich durch 44

Brockmann, p. 68. Ibid., p. 69. Günter de Bruyn, an author who stayed in the GDR, provides a balanced personal view of this same dilemma in the chapter ‘Auf der Kanzel’ in Vierzig Jahre (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996), pp. 215-22. It is especially illuminating in describing the reactions that emigrations unleashed in writers and readers alike. See Chapter 4.

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welche Umstände, hätte sich auch die Person des Schreibers erledigt’ (US, 53). Even if he had been by his own estimation ineffectual as a writer – ‘Ich bin […] zuallererst ein gescheiterter Autor’ (US, 58) – the incipient collapse of the only socio-political system he has ever known threatens his livelihood: ‘Aber woraus rekrutiert die Kunst ihre Wahrheiten in einer lügefreien Gesellschaft? Was hätte die Kunst noch zu verhandeln, wenn die tatsächliche Freiheit einmal die des künstlerischen Gewissens übersteigt?’ (DN, 119). Here too, the narrator’s understanding of literature as a purely political tool, which may well struggle to survive in the currently changing environment, to some extent anticipates the debate stirred by critics such as Karl Heinz Bohrer and Frank Schirrmacher. For as Brockmann outlines, those critics who were suspicious of, if not downright hostile to, politically committed literature advocated the reassertion of more aesthetic criteria after 1989: Literature […] should be a purely aesthetic game unencumbered by the heavy and oafish moralism of political commitment. The political role of literature in the two Germanys, critics argued, was a relic from the unhappy authoritarian past, and it should be discarded as writers in both Germanys integrated themselves into a normal western 46 democracy.

Naturally, for authors inured to a dogmatic perception of literature – even if it was a perception they sought to undermine or rail against – a seamless transition to a new approach is inconceivable. And although there is a strong case for arguing that Die Nacht danach und der Morgen does essay a more aesthetic – it would be inappropriate to call it playful – method, which bears none of the hallmarks of Socialist Realism whatsoever, one cannot overlook the narrator’s inherent understanding of his role as that of a moral authority, albeit a capacity in which he believes he has failed miserably: Und wachsend die Schuld, meine persönliche Schuld, auch das geringe Wissen um Verhältnisse, und zumeist waren es ja Ahnungen, nicht stärker verlautbart zu haben, daß ich meine oft gebrauchte Wendung ‘Ich bin ein Schreiber, und mehr kann und will ich nicht sein’ heute wie ein schlechtes Alibi für Feigheit, Trägheit und Inkonsequenz betrachten muß. Und wenn ich in Gesprächen noch darauf bestehe, daß ich nie anderes getan hätte, als nun angeblich alle tun, nämlich ehrlich, d.h. nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen das Seine zu tun, so weiß ich doch, daß das zu wenig war, und das war es immer und unter allen Umständen. (DN, 116) 46

Brockmann, p. 71.

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The feeling that one could, and should, have done more as an author is not uncommon in work published by GDR authors after 1989. In Was bleibt, for instance, the narrator reflects on ‘ein bevorzugtes Leben wie das meine’ that can only be justified by ‘hin und wieder die Grenzen des Sagbaren zu überschreiten, der Tatsache eingedenk, daß Grenzverletzungen aller Art geahndet werden’.47 In Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, the narrator concedes that he never truly pushed the authorities, never put his head on the block for the sake of truth. Worst of all, rather than violating any borders, either physically or metaphorically, he spent twelve months protecting the Berlin Wall for the State. And therein lies the root of his debilitating personal crisis. It emerges forcefully that the nature of his military service has haunted him. Not only from the vivid nightmares he suffers at regular intervals, all of which can be seen to possess an inherent metaphorical force stemming from his time as a border guard, but also in the manner in which his original fictional treatment reappears once the Wall has fallen, it is clear that a personal reckoning with his past is essential. Measuring his achievements alongside the original motivation and rationale for embarking on a writing career, the narrator feels that he has fallen well short of his avowed intention to expiate his sense of guilt in literary form for having complied with the State. In the course of his discussions with the director and producer about realising the ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ film project, the narrator is appalled at the effect his reminiscences have on him: Ich fühlte körperhaft Scham in mir wachsen. Ich schämte mich, daß ich so gedient hatte. Ich redete die Armeerlebnisse wie einen Wall vor mich. Jede Minute der 548 Tage hatte ich klar vor mir. Ich redete den Jargon, ich roch und schmeckte, wovon ich sprach. Und die Herren fragten nach mehr, wollten zusätzliches Futter für den Film. Und ich redete und redete. Und ich schämte mich. Es war noch immer in mir. Ich sah die Gesichter, ich lief die Wege. Die beiden bekundeten, wie nötig dieser Stoff gerade jetzt wäre, jetzt müsse man die ganze Perversion und den ganzen Deformismus, den diese Dinge zur Folge hatten, vor die Leute bringen. (DN, 184)

The corporeal impact of these memories shock and overwhelm him. That he can recall his ‘Armeerlebnisse’ in such vivid, sensual detail, reveals how deeply engrained they have become in him; they are latent, finding expression principally in dreams. On the journey home, his thoughts elide into the detailed recollection of a military exercise at Streganz, crawling through the tunnels of the army range during a 47

Christa Wolf, Was bleibt (Munich: DTV, 1994), pp. 20-21. In light of the criticisms levelled at the author, quotations such as this seem doubly apposite.

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simulated gas attack. The claustrophobic, disorientating experience is relayed in the present tense, which not only intensifies the description, but also hints at the enduring resonance of the memory for the narrator – ‘Es war noch immer in mir’. He is so utterly transfixed that he remembers nothing of the drive home: ‘Ich wußte nichts von den letzten gefahrenen Kilometern’ (DN, 188). From the narrator’s perspective, the failure to tackle his problems satisfactorily in literary terms is symptomatic of an inability to deal satisfactorily with his complicity. As the narrator reflects upon his memory of the Streganz exercise, the full extent of his collusion with the State becomes clear to him: In diesen Minuten […] begriff ich, daß man auch ohne nachweisbare, anklagbare Schuld schuldig sein kann, und daß eine solche Schuld, die als eine politisch-moralische zu fassen ist, nur in der Haltung eines andern – vielleicht als Erbpflicht zum Widerspruch? – abgetragen werden kann. Und Die Nacht… war ebenso Indiz dafür, daß ich vor 18 Jahren nichts begriffen hatte […]. (DN, 190)

In the most bitterly self-critical passage in the text, ‘der Soldat Saeger’ (DN, 192) is castigated for having accepted the Berlin Wall as an ‘Antifaschistisch-Demokratischen-Schutzwall’ (DN, 192), thereby swallowing the official euphemism without question. With hindsight, the narrator intimates that even at the time he knew that passive resistance was problematic, or most likely ineffectual. In the face of an apparently incontrovertible reality, he compares his response to that of Willy Brandt, the Mayor of West Berlin in 1961, whom he quotes extensively at this point in the text. Although as powerless as Saeger, Brandt resolved never to accept the Wall: ‘“Es macht keinen Sinn, mit dem Kopf durch die Wand zu wollen – es sei denn, die wäre aus Papier. Aber es macht sehr viel Sinn, sich mit willkürlichen Trennwänden nicht abzufinden”’ (DN, 191). In contrast, Saeger’s ‘kleinliche[s] Ziel’ amounted to ‘ohne Schuld nach 548 Tagen wieder heimkehren zu können’ (DN, 191). Moreover, whereas Willy Brandt channelled his considerable energies and political will into the diplomacy of détente, in order to effect a meaningful response to the situation, Saeger adopted an altogether less productive attitude – ‘er trank’: Und hätte der Soldat Saeger nicht gesoffen, wäre möglicherweise die einzige Kampfhandlung gewesen, daß er sich eine Kugel in den eigenen Kopf schoß, aber eine offen bekundete Gegnerschaft, eine Ablehnung der Dinge und Verhältnisse, ihre Bekämpfung auch hätte er nie in Erwägung gezogen. (DN, 192)

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Once again, the impact of this personal experience is rendered in physical terms, for the narrator feels his service in Berlin as ‘heute ein wuchernder Wundfraß’, quite literally a caustic image. Yet again, there is an indication that Saeger’s motivation derives from an intense personal pain, which had led him to consider suicide. As Eakin has argued most persuasively in a section entitled ‘The Embodied Self’, such obvious physical and psychological disfigurement will naturally have ramifications on the individuation process.48 In this context, the narrator’s citation of Georg Trakl at this point in the text is illuminating, for here is a man whose identity was truly disfigured by his torturous experiences, especially in the First World War at the battle of Grodek. Trakl wrote the eponymous poem in hospital following a nervous breakdown in the wake of the battle. For the narrator, it represents the ‘schmerzhafteste Dichtung, die ich kenne’ (DN, 192). The poem is, indeed, a powerful, and disturbing, evocation of the poet’s traumatic experiences, replete with the apocalyptic images of decay and destruction which characterise much of Trakl’s later work, and tragically anticipate his subsequent death from a cocaine overdose. As we have seen, the poem included in the main body of the text underlines the affinity the narrator feels with Trakl. The fate of Trakl perhaps puts his own into perspective. Nevertheless, events in the autumn of 1989 and their impact upon him underline the way his fate appears to be bound up irrevocably with the Wall: ‘Die Mauer ist mein Trauma’ (DN, 191). The experience of having been a border guard is not erased by the Wall’s collapse, ‘denn das Ausbrechen der andern (die Flüchtigen, die Landesverräter, die Staatsfeinde!) entschuldigt nicht den, der bestellt war, es zu verhindern, es zu unterbinden mit allen Mitteln’ (DN, 193). It is only now, on the verge of the Wall’s disappearance, that he finally recognises ‘wie [die Mauer] mir eingewachsen ist’ (DN, 191). The symbol of division and oppression is quite literally a part of him, in an image that recalls the opening lines of his poem. By examining the complex, introspective nature of the narrative, the more insidious aspects of totalitarianism in the GDR and its impact on identity can be detected, but we must also consider the more overt external structures and manifestations of totalitarian rule that are presented in the text. For as with Was bleibt before it, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen illustrates the overt pressure placed upon intellectuals in the GDR by the Stasi. The tactics of intimidation 48

Eakin (HOL, 26-42).

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generally employed by the East German secret police have been well documented.49 In the shape of the mysterious Mike Glockengiesser, Saeger’s text reveals the lengths that the Stasi were prepared to go in order to induce cooperation, or at least to keep critics of the regime in check. At the end, we are still unsure whether the Stasi man truly is the son of one of Saeger’s erstwhile army comrades. When one considers Saeger’s admission that he has exploited invention in his account, it matters little whether the Stasi officer is actually real or fictional. That no mention of Glockengiesser is made in the opening section of the text, which in all other respects establishes a factual framework to Die Nacht danach und der Morgen that corresponds to Saeger’s biography, might hint at the character’s fictitious nature. Nevertheless, in view of what we now know about the Stasi’s involvement in the cultural scene, the fact remains that Glockengiesser is an entirely credible character. His contact with the narrator betrays the hallmarks of ‘Zersetzung’, according to Joachim Walter ‘eine der wichtigsten und am häufigsten angewandten MfS-Methoden der siebziger und achtziger Jahre’.50 The Stasi’s own guidelines, quoted by Walter, detail how anonymous or pseudonymous correspondence was a key facet of the strategy aimed at imposing psychological pressure on an author, which could be ‘so nachhaltig, da der Bearbeitete die Ursache seiner Verunsicherung oft nicht orten, sondern nur ahnen konnte und sollte. Dieses Gefühl eines anonymen Bedrängtseins schlug nicht selten um in Selbstzweifel und Resignation, was ausdrücklich beabsichtigt war’.51 Although the intimidation of the narrator of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen does not originate from an anonymous source, its effect is no less unsettling. In fact, one might argue that the intimidation deriving from 49

One of the earliest, and best, studies is provided by Joachim Gauck, Die StasiAkten: Das unheimliche Erbe der DDR (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991). For an alternative, but no less illuminating, perspective, Timothy Garton Ash’s The File (London: HarperCollins, 1997) can be recommended. Joachim Walter has compiled the seminal study of Stasi’s interface with literature with his monumental Sicherungsbereich Literatur: Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Ullstein, 1999). For a recent study of this area, see also Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman (eds.), German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 50 Joachim Walter, ‘“Kosmonauten der stillen Erkundung”: Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit’, in Günther Rüther (ed.), Literatur in der Diktatur: Schreiben im Nationalsozialismus und DDR-Sozialismus (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1997), pp. 283302 (p. 288). The article offers a condensed, and very accessible, summary of aspects of his larger survey. 51 Ibid., p. 289.

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someone purporting to be related to a former colleague of the narrator is actually more disturbing. It is the first communication from Mike Glockengiesser, nine days after the collapse of the Wall, which actually triggers the narrator’s renewed efforts to come to terms with his military service The mysterious correspondent claims to have come into possession of the narrator’s original prose version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ following his estranged father’s death. The narrator is initially mystified: ‘Ich kann nicht erklären, wie der Text an Glogies gekommen sein könnte’ (DN, 101). When he meets Glockengiesser, however, the narrator is immediately disturbed by the man’s odd and threatening manner. He occupies a flat recently vacated by refugees who have fled to Hungary, boasts of his skills in ‘die lautlose Sprechakustik’ (DN, 109) and jousts semantically with the narrator, who soon wishes he had not allowed a mixture of curiosity and vanity to inspire him to seek the man out: Ich wünschte, nicht in diese Wohnung gelangt zu sein, mich nicht in so ein Gespräch verwickelt. […] Und was ging mich ein Mike Glockengiesser an und seine Fragen nach einem längst erledigten Text? (DN, 110)

As the text as a whole reveals, the material in question is far from ‘erledigt’. As he makes to leave the flat, Glockengiesser thrusts an envelope into his hand containing a copy of his own version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’, a riposte to the narrator’s original. The following week, the narrator is telephoned by a DEFA producer, seemingly out of the blue, about the possibility of filming the screenplay. Ultimately, the sudden interest would appear to have little to do with coincidence. The unsettling impact of this sequence of events on the narrator is doubtless accentuated by his own creative impasse. Ironically, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen itself would appear to embody a resolution of this problem, and thus represents the diametric opposite of the Stasi’s probable aim. The narrator reads Glockengiesser’s literary response to the original story with reluctant fascination. In essence, it borrows heavily from the original tale, recounting the return home of two conscriptees, but with the added dramatic tension of being set in October 1989. As a result, the narrator grudgingly concedes that it surpasses his own, rather laboured, version: Die Politisierung des Materials war eindeutiger, brisanter, und auch wenn hier ebenfalls das Thema auf einen Strich abgehandelt, der Handlungsrahmen mit dem ersten Wort vorgegeben war und nie

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression verlassen wurde, griff der Text stärker als der meine ins Allgemeine. […] Der Text des M.G. war nicht nur heutiger, das mußte er ja sein, er würde auch nie altern. Der Text des M.G. (& Co.) war nur noch eine Variante. Das Plagiat, das ist eine Kennzeichnung zum Selbstschutz, behauptete sich gegenüber dem Original. (DN, 169)

The external action of Glockengiesser’s version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’ illustrates the self-same mixture of public confusion and disillusion that the narrator witnesses at the Neues Forum meeting and that characterises his own response to the Wende. In expressing fears about the future direction of the GDR, Glockengiesser’s text does indeed display a degree of foresight, not least in raising the issue of how former border guards will now be judged. Like Frank in the original tale, the narrator of Glockengiesser’s text – who incidentally is also called Glockengiesser – has the good fortune never to have needed to fire his weapon. In contrast to Frank’s relief at his supposedly ‘glatte Rechung’, however, his relief is tempered by recent events and the realisation that sweeping changes are inevitable: Wir alle, die keine Mörder geworden sind, hatten nur Glück, wir sind davongekommen, aber wir sind es nicht für immer, denn einmal werden wir auch nach dem Möglichen gerichtet werden, einmal, wenn wir wissen, daß dieses Glück nur in der Vernunft anderer gegründet war. (DN, 158-9)

In this respect, Glockengiesser’s text is decidedly prescient, for the first border guard trials actually took place in 1991 and were highly problematic in legal terms. In spite of Saeger’s suspicions that Glockengiesser’s tale is ‘ein gestellter Text’ (DN, 167) with an ulterior motive, it possesses validity as a vivid commentary on the GDR of the Wende period. Glockengiesser later sends the narrator a cassette, a disjointed, drunken monologue in the form of a Werkstattgespräch, one might say, which confirms Saeger’s suspicions and explains how various aspects and details of the text were allegedly drawn from Stasi files – if the Stasi man is to be believed. The plan had been to inveigle Saeger into helping Glockengiesser, or the man purporting to be the son of Jürgen Glockengiesser, with his writing: ‘Und, Uwe, wär nicht dieser Herbst gewesen, du hättest angebissen! (DN, 199). Naturally, we do not learn what form the ‘Zersetzung’ may eventually have taken, although Glockengiesser confirms that a similar attempt had been made to ensnare the narrator ten years or so before, but had foundered on his ‘beschissnes Mißtrauen’: Ach, Uwe, weißt du noch, wie du uns einmal mit einem unserer eigenen Männer angeschmiert hast? Der Kerl hat zehnmal so viele

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Blätter wie ich beschrieben, und es lief gut an. Du galtest schon als kooperativ. Ist ein Aktenvermerk. Hab ich selbst einsehen können. Aber so war die Strategie damals. Festnageln den Mann, und so fest wie nur möglich. Und als der sein Mikro aufbaute, weil du ja, und wie wars anders zu erwarten von dir, für alles so wunderbare Sätze hattest, weil er sie sich zu Hause in Ruhe anhören wollte, diese goldenen Worte des großen Meisters Saeger, da ist bei dir der Groschen gefallen. (DN, 204)

The narrator’s sudden recollection of encountering the Stasi at that time reveals how the tactic of ‘Zersetzung’ could affect those targeted by the MfS, as Joachim Walter has documented at considerable length. Two men had visited him and denied that the budding author, with whom he had been in contact, was one of their operatives: Und da wußte ich sicher, er war ihr Mann gewesen. Und sie waren nur gekommen, um zu ermitteln, wo der Fehler war mir gegenüber, falls sie die Aktion als Fehlschlag werteten, und um sich ein Alibi zu verschaffen. Aber ob so oder so, im Netz war ich ihnen doch gewesen, und war es da am Tisch vielleicht stärker als je, denn wenn sie es drehen wollten, konnten sie es drehen, sie brauchten den eigenen Mann nur mit Harmlosigkeit lackieren und konnten mich als Denunzianten ausspielen. Ich habe den ganzen Sommer ’80 gebraucht, um damit fertig zu werden. Ich war immer in Erwartung eines Unheils, das von dieser Episode seinen Ausgang nahm. Ich trank viel 52 und ich schrieb nichts. (DN, 213)

Having just published his début novel, Nöhr – a text dealing with the inability of individuals to break away from a restrictive everyday existence – the author would doubtless have been a prime target. Clearly unsettled, it is striking that the narrator should resort to alcohol once more, as he had following his tour of duty at the Berlin Wall. Mike Glockengiesser obviously believes that his more personal ‘Legende’ – the Stasi term for such entrapment scenarios – might have achieved a similarly unsettling effect on Saeger, had it not been for the events of the Wende. Despite the failure of the operation on account of the sociopolitical upheaval of 1989, it transpires from Glockengiesser’s cassette that the Stasi have clearly still been keeping tabs on the narrator throughout the autumn. In an ironic twist, when one considers the proactive role the Stasi played in combating insurgency, the narrator is chided for his inactivity and apparent indifference towards the fate of the GDR: 52

This passage is reminiscent of Was bleibt, in which the narrator is similarly afflicted by a debilitating paranoia.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Aber jetzt! Wir wußten, daß was kommen würde diesen Herbst, glaubs nur. Aber der Meister schreibt ein laues offenes Briefchen, dichtet ein paar Verschen und zimmert ein fremdgehaltenes Komödchen und…Und sagt im übrigen, leckt mich am Arsch, oder? Einmal hast du deine Demo-Runde durch die Stadt mitgemacht, hast dir obligatorisch für zwei Stunden einen abgefroren im Ueckerpark, damit mans sah, der Meister war mit dem Volk, der Meister war unter uns – und das wars dann schon von ihm. Kein Wort weiter, kein Schritt mehr vor die Tür. Hatte der Meister etwa Angst? War er sich zu schade? Wars doch nicht seine Stunde, nicht seine Zeit? (DN, 215)

Ultimately Glockengiesser dismisses his assignment – ‘du warst meine Aufgabe’ (DN, 216) – as a dull waste of time: ‘Warst du nie wert, den Einsatz’ (DN, 204). In complaining that Saeger always hid ‘hinter deinen Worten immer brav’ (DN, 203) and that words are all one can expect from him, the Stasi man unwittingly sounds a second ironic note: for the narrator’s words have, in fact, dried up, at least for the present. Furthermore, the existential situation of the two diametrically opposed characters seems strikingly similar, thus reflecting a far broader social pattern, for both are plagued by doubts about their professional futures. On the one hand, mercifully, Glockengiesser is now unemployed: ‘Ich war ein Stasi. […] Das färbt durch’ (DN, 216). Conversely, the narrator himself is uncertain whether he will be able to write again now that the Wall has fallen. Shaken by the Stasi, and as if to free himself from the expectations placed upon a political mode of literature, he resigns from the Schriftstellerverband in what amounts to ‘der letzte mögliche Schritt, mir die Schreibfähigkeit zu sichern’ (DN, 222). In the final analysis, the Stasi’s effort to hook the narrator can be seen to have exacerbated a latent identity crisis. He was already suffering from writer’s block prior to Glockengiesser’s letter, but the latter’s intervention arguably forced the narrator to confront an issue that had long been suppressed, namely guilt at his complicity with the State as a border guard, but also at his timidity as an author. Indeed, the narrator can be seen both as Täter and Opfer. The text thus depicts most effectively not only the causes, but also the symptoms, of the pressures exerted on individuals in the GDR. What is more, the psychological ramifications of this pressure are manifest in the very form of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, the disjointedly hybrid nature of which reflects the disorientation of the author. The conflation of different documents in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, some of which appear overtly autobiographical and others of which may be fictional, makes it impossible to define it as a conventional autobiography. Saeger provides a kaleidoscopic collage

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– ‘Ein Konvolut aus Fiktion, Tagebuch, Bekenntnis, reflektierender Erinnerung und Lesefrüchten’ – which is more restricted in its temporal scope than Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt or Zwischenbilanz for example, the anecdotal and thematic approach of which offer insight into the personal development of the respective authors over sustained periods of their lives and thereby mirror the structure of the Entwicklungsroman.53 In Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, the primary focus is on two key historical periods when, as the title of the text suggests, the narrator’s life changed overnight: the author’s eighteen-month military service in the NVA in 1972-73 and the Wende period from November 1989 to February 1990. The narrative time is not chronological; rather it is syncopated with leaps back and forth within passages of interior monologue, giving the effect of snatches of memories being flung together. In this respect, the movement between temporal planes in the narrative closely resembles the same almost arbitrary process in Kindheitsmuster, in which the narrator glides between three different periods in her life: the Third Reich, her return to the site of her childhood in 1971, and the writing up of both experiences from 1972 to 1975. Carsten Gansel sees striking similarities between the two texts in their handling of memory: Christa Wolf fragte […], was das Ergebnis wäre, ‘wenn wir den verschlossenen Räumen in unseren Gedächtnissen erlauben würden, sich zu öffnen und ihre Inhalte vor uns auszuschütten’. Uwe Saegers 54 Buch […] ist der poetische Versuch, eben das zu tun.

On that basis then, Saeger opts to focus on two key personal moments, both of which are presented effectively as a ‘Bruch in meinem Leben’ (DN, 5), rather than a detailed, or at least more comprehensive, overview of his individuation. The reasons for this decision emerge within the text, as it would appear to indicate that thorough selfknowledge lies beyond the grasp of the author. If this is true, how can subjectivity be conveyed in textual terms? On several occasions, the narrator throws up his hands in despair at being unable to explain himself and find the words or the form to do so. Contemplating his meeting with the DEFA producer and the director, and the memory of the military exercise it unleashed, the narrator is frustrated to find himself ‘wieder außerhalb der Worte, diesen Orten meiner Leidenschaft’ (DN, 190), an allusion to the conclusion of his earlier 53 54

Krauss, ‘Geist und Nacht’, p. 20. Gansel, p. 135.

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poem, and deeply ironic in the context of his current creative block. The notion of elusive subjectivity is reiterated when he is unable to explain his resignation from the Schriftstellerverband: ‘Ich will es erklären, vermag es aber nicht. Wie auch, das Ich liegt immer jenseits der Worte’ (DN, 221). If the narrator has apparently failed consistently to find a linguistic rendition of self, it is little wonder that he should avoid defining Die Nacht danach und der Morgen as an autobiography, for how can Saeger produce his life-story if he believes the ‘Ich’ lies beyond words? The dilemma is one he shares with the narrator of Kindheitsmuster: Der Endpunkt wäre erreicht, wenn zweite und dritte Person wieder in der ertsen zusammenträfen, mehr noch: zusammenfielen. Wo nicht mehr ‘du’ und ‘sie’ – wo unverhohlen ‘ich’ gesagt werden müßte. Es kam dir sehr fraglich vor, ob du diesen Punkt erreichen könntest, ob 55 der Weg, den du eingeschlagen hast, überhaupt dorthin führt.

And yet, despite his protestations about the intangible ‘Ich’, Uwe Saeger’s fingerprints are all over the text. Of his initial prose version of ‘Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’, he remarks: ‘Dabei war ich mein Material und ich war mein Thema’ (DN, 14), but that holds true for Die Nacht danach und der Morgen as a whole, irrespective of whether it constitutes an autobiography in any traditional understanding of the genre. The use of verifiable factual detail from the author’s life, such as references to his family and his publications, together with the extended use of the diary form and dream sequences, all combine to indicate that, in its fabric and texture, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is an unequivocally subjective book. So what is Saeger trying to achieve? Is this not postmodern playfulness after all, an aesthetic game? One need only acknowledge the strong moral and self-critical tone of the narrative to reject such an interpretation. As the preoccupations of the narrators in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen and Kindheitsmuster reveal, there are striking parallels between Wolf’s belief in an author’s ‘Sehnsucht nach Selbstverwirklichung’ (EGN, 174) and Saeger’s approach to his text. Nevertheless, whereas Wolf’s narrator in Nachdenken über Christa T. speaks of the ‘Schwierigkeit, “Ich” zu sagen’, Saeger’s description of the self lying ‘jenseits der Worte’ must be interpreted as being more pessimistic still.56 In spite of the narrator’s greater problems with ‘Selbstverwirklichung’ in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, the fact 55 56

Kindheitsmuster, p. 453. Nachdenken über Christa T, p. 173.

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that he remains preoccupied with the issue of personal identity would appear to show the continued validity of Wolf’s concern with individuation as a fundamental feature of GDR society, not least as that socio-political entity was on the brink of collapse. How could it be otherwise in a totalitarian system that sought quite deliberately to mould its citizens to fit a template? Equally significantly, Wolf also spoke of the ‘der Zwang des Aufschreibens, als vielleicht einzige Möglichkeit des Autors, sich nicht zu verfehlen’ (EGN, 174). Saeger is driven by this same existential imperative: it underpins not only the description of his tortured efforts to write about his military service in the opening section, but also his struggles to deal with the social upheaval during the Wende. The compulsion to write is evident, and even though the words prove frustratingly, almost cripplingly, elusive, it is this very compulsion that is key; it marks an attempt at least to articulate the self as coherently as possible, instead of surrendering to silence. If Wolf’s work of the late 1960s acts as a social barometer of its time, then Saeger’s text from 1991 performs a similar function. Indeed, it confirms the persistence of the dangers Wolf had earlier identified as an inherent threat to the GDR’s evolution into a true socialist state. By 1989, individuation was still subject to debilitating pressures that stunted the growth of fully rounded identities. As a representative of the middle generation, Saeger bears all the scars of his GDR upbringing. He appears to lack Wolf’s optimism or conviction that socialism is intrinsically a positive phenomenon. Whereas Wolf believed self-realisation could be attained in aesthetic spheres, as a first step to its development in society as a whole, Saeger’s text suggests that, a generation on, this is no longer a realistic hope. That the text bears no genre description underlines this fact: he simply does not know how best to define this intrinsically subjective text, and simply exploits a blend of different literary materials more in hope, it seems, than expectation of achieving his aim. Despite the unequivocally autobiographical elements, Saeger cannot pin his concept of self down with any certainty, as a consequence of the State’s persistant efforts to mould its citizens in its own image and not to allow them room in which to develop naturally as individuals. Die Nacht danach und der Morgen thus remains a collage of fragments, mirroring the fragmented identities of those individuals – ‘sich selbst widersprechende Individuen’ to borrow Krüger’s phrase again – born into the GDR who had been pulled in different directions by the pressure exerted upon them. As Günter de Bruyn has observed:

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Dieses Gespaltensein oder Verstecken gab es in vielen Schattierungen und Nuancen, von der vollkommenen Trennung der beiden Leben bis zum Ineinanderfließen der Grenzen, was im ersten Fall zu Zynismus führte, im zweiten eine äußerst diffuse Denk- und Gefühlslage 57 ergab.

All in all, Saeger’s text reveals how the GDR had made no progress at all since Wolf revealed her concerns in the late 1960s, and at the time of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’s creation was on the brink of total collapse. Die Nacht danach und der Morgen stands as a fine example of ‘subjective authenticity’, albeit a more self-conscious blend of autobiographical and fictional elements than some of Wolf’s finest work: self-conscious indeed, but not self-assured, for Saeger reveals how debilitating the sense of personal disorientation had become, especially for those of his generation who had known nothing beyond the borders of GDR experience. As such, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen is a desperately important document, published at a time when many former East Germans were already beginning to appreciate the hollowness of Helmut Kohl’s seductive promises of blossoming landscapes. In a final dream-vision sequence, the narrator sees himself as Laokoon – like Cassandra, destined never to be believed – warning the Trojans about gifts from the Greeks: ‘Aber das Volk! Es bleibt wie es war und wie es ist, ein Haufen auf dem Weg zum bessern Markt’ (DN, 223). It is no advocation of ‘Ostalgie’, but rather a plea for restraint, since Die Nacht danach und der Morgen uncovers how difficult the personal legacy of the GDR is to bear. Overnight, the world has changed, arguably for the better, but it will take time to adjust to the changed Heimat: […] Es waren andere Landschaften, die sich auftaten, ich hörte anderes Tönen, faßte die alten Dinge wie fremd, schmeckte neuen Stoff im Gewohnten, roch zwischen den alten Düften und dem alten Mief die Ingredienzen des Neuen, und dieses eiserne Gebilde, in das ich verfügt bin, härtete unverändert, und doch entwickelte sich unentdeckter Raum darunter. (DN, 221)

On this occasion, the narrator describes himself as being trapped in an iron construction, but aware of space opening up below, presumably room in which he might move. Yet, paradoxically, at other times, the narrator describes himself as ‘wurzellos’ (DN, 185). Can one be 57

Günter de Bruyn, ‘Deutsche Zustände’, in Deutsche Zustände: Über Erinnerungen und Tatsachen, Heimat und Literatur (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1999), pp. 7-65 (pp. 27-28).

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trapped in iron, but truly rootless? The paradox, which recalls the oxymorons of the ‘Heimat’ poem, does not represent a contradiction. It is more an expression of the ambivalence the narrator feels about events, which derives from the need to deal with the past, before truly engaging with the present: ‘Immer fühlte ich das gelebte Leben wie Ballast, wie Makel, die subjective Geschichte als Fessel, auf die unlösbar nur weitere Verstrickungen folgten’ (DN, 185). As the complex structure of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen indicates, however, confronting the past is easier said than done, due to the depredations inflicted upon individuals by the State. Naturally, absolute conformity was demanded of the people, but as de Bruyn has indicated ‘Scheinanpassung’ was tolerated as an alternative by the regime, as it was ‘eine Geste der Unterwerfung’.58 In a culture of constructed, rather than organic, identity formation, the individual could to some extent be absolved of any responsibility for his or her own actions. For Saeger, as we have seen, his passivity in the GDR engenders a deep sense of shame and guilt, but it is hard to censure him, when one considers the environment within which he grew up. For surely the State was guilty of unleashing a policy of ‘Zersetzung’ upon its people at large, and not just against its active opponents. The problems that Saeger has in coming to terms with his actions reflect the scale of those pressures, arguably in a more effective manner than Wolf was able to achieve in Was bleibt. No matter how unjust the criticisms of the text were, Was bleibt does deal with experiences that were remote from those of most ordinary citizens, to the extent that it might appear far too élitist at times. Die Nacht danach und der Morgen does raise similar concerns, but offers more insight into the nature of GDR society at large. By virtue of its eclectic construction, it might be seen to be trying to combat ‘Zersetzung’, by creating space to facilitate as detached a reflection upon one’s experiences as possible in the circumstances by means of interweaving autobiographical fact and fiction. In that way, much as Wolf hoped in the 1960s, it might then be feasible to achieve ‘Selbstverwirklichung’ and reconstruct a sense of self that a climate so inimical to the concept of subjectivity had hindered for so long. And therein lies the considerable strength of this remarkable, challenging book. Ultimately, it matters little where precisely the line between fact and fiction is drawn in Die Nacht danach und der Morgen: what does count is that it conveys an authentic sense of 58

Ibid., p. 28.

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subjective experience that transcends the confines of classical autobiography, as Saeger intimates in his ‘Nach-Sätze’. Thus, the pressures placed upon individuals come to the fore, together with the sense of disorientation that many people were to feel as the GDR crumbled; not so much because the State was much beloved by its people, but rather that it had been their home and embodied familiar surroundings. Many GDR commentators have described the effects of this overnight transition to freedom with detachment, but Saeger has arguably provided the earliest searching literary analysis of the ramifications from a subjective perspective. Although many may not have shared his reservations about events during the Wende period itself, by the time Die Nacht danach und der Morgen appeared in 1991, it is certain that many readers from the former East Germany would have recognised the prudence in the notes of caution he had sounded with regard to the GDR’s legacy. Indeed, his tackling of the Stasi issue in such detail has been seen ‘als Vorwegnahme dessen, was die Öffentlichkeit einige Monate später als “Stasi-Plantage” erfahren sollte’.59 Eakin’s exploration of the psychological and social forces that shape the self helps us to understand just how disorientating it must have been for GDR individuals with the collapse of the State. In view of Eakin’s findings, Saeger’s account stands as an entirely plausible and convincing account of the damaging effects of totalitarian structures on identity. In this regard, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen can be compared with Harig’s Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, for both authors actively colluded with the respective regimes. They were Täter, therefore, but by the same token on account of their relative youth they might also be seen as Opfer. In his survey of autobiographical attempts to heal ‘damaged lives’ in the GDR, Julian Preece posits the theory that ‘it will be left to literature to depict the variegated nuances of biographical experience’ from the former East Germany.60 He also feels that more youthful voices had been absent from the ‘autobiographical symphony’ of the post-Wende period.61 In both respects, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen would appear to fit the bill: its highly complex blend of Wahrheit and Dichtung makes it 59

Emmerich, p. 492. Preece, p. 364. 61 Ibid., p. 361. It should be noted that these young voices can now be heard. Recent important texts by Jana Simon and Jana Hensel detail the experiences of the so-called ‘Zonenkinder’, who feel that their childhood experiences in the GDR are being devalued in the new Germany. 60

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an apposite tool with which to examine the ‘variegated nuances’ Preece speaks of, whilst Saeger, a representative of the middle generation, is a younger figure with whom many can identify. Despite the problems in finding the appropriate ‘Konstruktion’ (DN, 13) for his self-analytical piece and the later frustration at his writer’s block, the narrator appears with Die Nacht danach und der Morgen to have taken steps towards the resolution of a personal crisis, whilst simultaneously providing a potential model for reorientation for others.

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Three

‘Für jeden war es einmalig’ – Ruth Klüger, weiter leben: Eine Jugend (1992) It seems to me unnecessary to add that none of the facts are invented.1

In view of the wealth of documentary information now available on the subject of the Holocaust, and especially that compiled by survivors, Primo Levi’s simple declaration of the authenticity of his account at the conclusion of the preface to If This is a Man might strike one to be as superfluous as the author himself implies. Levi ranks alongside intellectuals such as Paul Celan, Jean Améry and Jorge Semprun as one of the Holocaust survivors whose work, infused with the horror experienced in the concentration camps, has justifiably won critical acclaim. Nevertheless, as Ernestine Schlant’s recent, thought-provoking study of West German literary treatments of the Holocaust reveals, the gentle insistence inherent in Levi’s assertion that the details of his account have not been invented remains important for breaking the silence that can still shroud this dark period. In this context, the autobiography of academic Ruth Klüger, the simply titled weiter leben, is not out of place alongside Levi’s Holocaust account.2 As a Germanist, Klüger has written extensively on the problems inherent in representations of the Holocaust in art, and it is naturally a preoccupation that permeates her own account of her experiences. It is axiomatic that she should have been drawn to Levi’s work in particular, as both were imprisoned at Auschwitz, and she cites his experiences of the camp as a counterpoint to her own in weiter leben. In a review of both a recent biography of Primo Levi and a collection of interviews with the author, Klüger takes the biographer to task, in particular, for producing ‘eher ein Sammelsurium an 1 Primo Levi, If This is a Man - The Truce (London: Abacus, 1987), p. 16. All subsequent references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (ITM, 16). 2 Ruth Klüger, weiter leben: Eine Jugend (Munich: DTV, 1998). All page references to this edition will appear in the text in he form (WL, 12).

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Material als ein ausgewogenes Werk’ which contrasts starkly with Levi’s own concise, and precise, treatment of his life: Gerade die Eigenschaften, die Levis Werk so unvergeßlich machen – stilistische Disziplin, Logik, kurz, der Geist der Aufklärung im Reich der organisierten Unvernunft – fehlen dieser Biografin, die sich hinund herreißen lässt, von einem Thema zum anderen übergeht, oft 3 anscheinend nur ihren eigenen Vorlieben folgend […].

The qualities of clarity and concision she extols in the Italian’s work have significantly been ascribed to her own account of a life affected by the persecution she suffered as a child. On the occasion of Klüger’s receipt of the Grimmelshausen-Preis, Marcel Reich-Ranicki underlined the affinity between these two survivors when he spoke of her proclivity for ‘das Understatement – doch ist es ein leidendes, ein schreiendes Understatement, sie liebt die vielsagende, provozierende Knappheit’.4 While the objective tone of the autobiographical accounts of Klüger and Levi is undeniably similar, and highly effective, in rendering the horror both authors suffered, there are also certain crucial differences. Both profess to have been motivated by a desire to bear witness to all they have seen, and to this end composed documents during their internment: Klüger composed poems which she memorised and recited to herself, and then published immediately after the war, while Levi began committing his impressions to paper in Auschwitz itself: My need to tell the story was so strong in the Camp that I had begun describing my experiences there, on the spot, in that German laboratory laden with freezing cold, the war, and vigilant eyes; and yet I knew that I would not be able under any circumstances to hold on to those haphazardly scribbled notes, and that I must throw them away immediately because if they were found they would be considered an act of espionage and would cost me my life. (ITM, 381)

The importance of literature not only as a means of recording one’s experiences of the concentration camp but also of preserving one’s humanity therefore finds its ultimate expression in the autobiographical accounts both duly published. On account of the intensely subjective motivation underpinning their texts, both authors 3 Ruth Klüger, ‘Verschüttete Aufklärung: Der Schriftsteller Primo Levi lässt sich nicht von seinem Tod, sondern von seinem Leben her verstehen’, Die Zeit, 9 March 2000, p. 58. 4 Marcel Reich-Ranicki, ‘Vom Trotz getrieben, vom Stil beglaubigt: Rede auf Ruth Klüger aus Anlaß der Verleihung des Grimmelshausen-Preises’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 October 1993.

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deny any didactic intent. Whilst this assertion undoubtedly holds true for Levi, who maintains his distance in the text and provides a detached chronicle of life in Auschwitz, there are sections of weiter leben where Klüger intrudes more directly in the text, employing rhetorical devices aimed at evoking a response from the readers or challenging certain attitudes and modes of behaviour. In this way, for all the contextual and stylistic correlations that exist, one ought to view If This is a Man and weiter leben rather as complementary texts which broaden the focus of debate on the Holocaust. If one is to adopt a comparative approach in order to locate Klüger’s text in the canon of Holocaust literature, another author one should mention at this juncture is Jean Améry. Although weiter leben generally echoes Levi’s work in its objective chronicling of experiences, there are numerous sections where Klüger addresses her readers more directly in a manner recalling the essayistic, but unequivocally autobiographical, writings of the Austrian intellectual in collections such as Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten.5 Indeed, the title of Klüger’s text can be seen as an allusion to Améry’s Weiterleben – aber wie?, whilst providing an answer to the question of how it is possible to live on.6 Améry’s essays in the former collection are marked by a style which is as subjective and emotional as Levi’s is objective and detached. At times, Améry replicates his trains of thought, as if wondering aloud, as he wrestles with how best to assess the impact Nazi persecution had on his sense of self. On occasion, there is evidence of similar discursiveness in Klüger’s own approach. The differences between the accounts of Klüger and Levi, and even Améry who was also imprisoned at Auschwitz, illustrate how the KZ experience cannot in fact be reduced to a simple template. When one considers literature produced by Holocaust survivors as a whole, despite the mutually corroborative subject matter, the subtle differences between various accounts can be seen as a reassertion of the authors’ individuality. Survivors have come to terms with their experiences in a personal manner, and in this way their individual reflections rescue a sense of self from the collective dehumanisation that the concentration camps sought to impose on the prisoners. For

5 Jean Améry, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1977). Subsequent page references to this edition will appear in the text in the form (JSS, 77). 6 Jean Améry, Weiterleben – aber wie? (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1968).

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Klüger, this degrading process was best exemplified by the enforced nakedness of the prisoners on their entry into the camp: Die auferlegte Nacktheit ist […] Selbstentfremdung, Verlust an Identität. Wer sich selbst auszieht, der sagt, ich mach, was ich will, oder sogar, bitte, du kannst mich. Ein Zuwachs an Selbstgefühl. Wer gezwungen wird, sich nackt bloßzustellen, verliert sich streckenweise. Der Zustand ist neutral; der Kontext ist alles. (WL, 144)

Each subjective account interprets that context anew, providing fresh perspectives on the experience and thereby contributing to a more differentiated appreciation of the Holocaust and its victims. Despite the status of Levi’s text and the authenticity of the picture he paints, Klüger indicates nevertheless that her perspective on Auschwitz differs considerably as she was twelve years younger and in her short life had never known anything but persecution: Das Autoritätsgebaren in Auschwitz war stets auf Aberkennung gerichtet, Ablehnung der menschlichen Existenz des Häftlings, seines oder ihres Rechts dazusein. Primo Levi hat das in seinem Buch ‘Ist das ein Mensch?’ beschrieben. Der aber kam mit dem Selbstgefühl eines erwachsenen, fertigen Europäers dahin, geistig als Rationalist und geographisch als Italiener beheimatet und gefestigt. Für ein Kind war das anders, denn mir war in den wenigen Jahren, die ich als bewußter Mensch existierte, die Lebensberechtigung Stück für Stück aberkannt worden, so daß Birkenau für mich einer gewissen Logik nicht entbehrte. (WL, 113)

It is interesting to observe that Améry suffered the same disorientation that Klüger attributes to Levi, where ‘Selbstentfremdung’ stemmed principally from ‘Heimweh’, from being forcibly uprooted from a recognisable, stable environment: ‘Die Vergangenheit war urplötzlich verschüttet, und man wußte nicht mehr, wer man war’ (JSS, 77). Although the picture of, what has been termed, the univers concentrationnaire may seem quite clear, by virtue of the many artistic and documentary representations of the Holocaust that now exist, each new account can provide different insights to shock or elucidate that humiliating experience still further.7 The enduring fascination with mankind’s capacity to inflict evil in general, and with genocide in particular, would indeed seem to underline the scope that remains for discussion of the Holocaust. One need only consider Stephen Spielberg’s adaptation of Schindler’s List (1993) or Daniel Goldhagen’s controversial Hitler’s Willing Executioners as recent, and

7

For a detailed examination of the term univers concentrationnaire, see Schlant, p. 2.

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contrasting, examples of the ongoing debate.8 In his preface to If This is a Man, Levi indicates that his book ‘adds nothing to what is already known to readers throughout the world on the disturbing question of the death camps’, but believes it ‘should be able […] to furnish documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind’ (ITM, 15). Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben represents an equally insightful contribution to this same process revealing ‘the continued significance of the Holocaust for German self-understanding’.9 As with so many of the texts in the present study, it does not suffice to call weiter leben an autobiography without first looking more closely at the text’s form. Although the essential content is unequivocally personal, the form can be seen to invite a variety of different categorisations, not least because the author’s own subtitle is the rather nebulous ‘Eine Jugend’. Whereas Günter de Bruyn’s fundamentally traditional autobiography Zwischenbilanz is defined as ‘Eine Jugend in Berlin’, weiter leben has little in common in terms of structure or form. The text is carefully divided into sections relating to the various ‘Stationen’ (WL, 79) in Klüger’s life: ‘Wien’; ‘Die Lager’ – sub-divided into the chillingly significant sections ‘Theresienstadt’, ‘Auschwitz-Birkenau’ and ‘Christianstadt (Groß-Rosen)’; ‘Deutschland’; ‘New York’; and finally ‘Göttingen’. Yet, as an example of the text’s inherently reflective nature, Klüger appears to harbour doubts about the suitability of marshalling her material in this way: Ich wollte meine Erinnerungen ‘Stationen’ nennen und ganz unbefangen an Ortsnamen knüpfen. Erst jetzt, an dieser Stelle, frage ich mich, wieso Orte, wenn ich doch eine bin, die nirgendwo lange war und wohnt. Wiederholt bin ich gestrandet, und so sind mir die Ortsnamen wie die Pfeiler gesprengter Brücken. Wir können nicht einmal sicher sein, daß es die Brücken hier, wo es nach Pfeilern aussieht, gegeben hat, und vielleicht müssen wir sie erst erfinden, und es könnte ja sein, daß sie, obwohl erfunden, trotzdem tragfähig sind. Wir fangen mit dem an, was blieb: Ortsnamen. (WL, 79)

That she should ultimately opt for this structuring, inappropriate though it may seem to her, reflects how autobiography imbues one’s memories with a structure not present at the time of experience, thereby creating an artificial, yet necessary, interpretative framework: in other words, turning one’s life into a story, to cite Eakin. This resolution may seem all the more unsatisfactory when dealing with the 8

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1996). 9 Schlant, p. 19.

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Holocaust, inasmuch as the autobiographer is trying to make sense of the inherently senseless. Ultimately, as weiter leben indicates, it is not the form but the content of the material dealing with the univers concentrationnaire which counts. Klüger reiterated the point in a review of various additions to the wealth of Holocaust literature: Die oft aufgeworfene Frage, ob man den Holocaust ‘ästhetisieren darf’, wird irrelevant vor diesem Sachverhalt. Die Holocaust-Literatur ist im Schnittpunkt zwischen dem einmaligen und dem wiederholbaren Megaverbrechen angesiedelt. Sie mag Gedicht, Fiktion, Drama, Berichterstattung und was es sonst noch gibt, sein. Auch ob sie ‘schön’ oder gräßlich ist, ist Nebensache, solange sie uns 10 hilft, die ‘Wahrheit’ zu verstehen, nämlich wer wir wirklich sind.

Klüger is surely right to stress the primacy of truth over form, especially when there remains a strong tendency to question the validity of the Holocaust as a subject for art. It is interesting to note how the recent Hollywood adaptation of Jurek Becker’s Jakob der Lügner (1969) was severely censured for trivialising the persecution of the Jews, despite the original text’s widely positive reception and the success of an earlier GDR film adaptation, which was paradoxically nominated for an Oscar in 1975. One cannot help but feel that objections to Jakob the Liar stemmed largely from the casting of eccentric comedian Robin Williams in the lead role. Conversely, the controversial La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful), the film written, directed by and starring Italian comedian Roberto Benigni won three Oscars, including Best Foreign Picture and Best Actor in 1999, despite its fundamentally comic perspective on life in a KZ and the broad similarities with Becker’s tale in depicting attempts to keep hope alive.11 Klüger’s own account of the Holocaust and its aftermath is grounded in an essentially reflective approach, akin to essay or reportage and thus reminiscent of Jean Améry’s writings. In contrast to Günter de Bruyn’s autobiography, which as we shall see in Chapter 4 is neatly divided into short, discrete chapters bearing poetic titles redolent, perhaps, of short stories, Klüger’s sections are unostentatious, and largely chronological and factual. Where de Bruyn is content to marry factual Wahrheit with an element of literary 10

Ruth Klüger, ‘Was ist wahr? Kann man “schöne Literatur” über den Holocaust schreiben? Welchen Anspruch erheben die jüngst erschienenen Romane und Erzählungen über KZ und Verfolgung?’, Die Zeit, 12 September 1997, p. 64. 11 For coverage of the film’s reception, see Robert Gordon, ‘Real Tanks and Toy Tanks: Playing Games with History in Roberto Benigni’s La vita è bella/Life is Beautiful’, Studies in European Cinema, 2 (2005), 31-44.

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Dichtung, Klüger appears to strive more specifically for sober accuracy, and often interrupts her narrative to deliberate on the implications not only of what she is saying, but how she is saying it: Gestern schrieb ich diese Sätze, heute scheinen sie falsch, verquer. Ich will sie löschen, zögere. Was stimmt hier denn nicht? Schon der Ausdruck ‘Wer je…’ Ich spreche von einem Augenblickszustand in meinem Leben, als hätte er Offenbarungscharakter. Autoritäre Sätze, ‘ich weiß etwas, was du nicht weißt’, das mich berechtigt zu verallgemeinern. Was weiß denn ich von freien Entscheidungen, außer daß ich manchmal, zum Beispiel damals, die Trägheit überwunden habe, die ich als das eigentliche Lebenselement, anzusehen gewohnt bin. (WL, 167)

Such interpolations highlight the dialogic quality of weiter leben, in which Klüger consistently addresses her readers, whom she believes incidentally to be exclusively female: ‘Wer rechnet schon mit männlichen Lesern? Die lesen nur von anderen Männern Geschriebenes’ (WL, 82). Although occasionally ironic asides such as the above might appear evocative of novels from the Romantic period, Klüger’s dialogue with her readers is not conceived to illustrate the text’s fundamental artificiality, but is predicated instead on a desire both to engage the reader in discussion and to strive for accuracy. Nevertheless, by virtue of its very hybrid nature, Marcel ReichRanicki proposed that weiter leben could indeed be seen as a prime example of the ‘Mischform’ he perceives the novel to be: Haben wir es etwa mit einem Bildungs- oder Erziehungsroman zu tun, hätte das Buch auch – wie ein Kritiker meinte – ‘Ruth Klügers Lehrund Wanderjahre’ betitelt sein können? Die Antwort hängt davon ab, was sich der Leser aus der Sache macht – in des Wortes schöner doppelter Bedeutung. Das soll heißen: Von einem geschlossenen Ganzen kann hier nicht die Rede sein, das Skizzenhafte und Fragmentarische dieses Buches wird von seiner Autorin nicht verheimlicht, sondern programmatisch betont. Und letztlich bietet sie uns vielleicht weniger als einen Roman, doch zugleich mehr: Ihre Aufzeichnungen enthalten Geschichten und Porträts, Episoden und Miniaturen, die unmerklich und wohl unbeabsichtigt ins Gleichnishafte übergehen und in denen, mag vieles nur in Umrissen erkennbar sein, die Epoche ihren Wiederschein findet, einen düsteren, 12 einen unheimlichen.

Reich-Ranicki’s analysis of the diverse nature of Klüger’s text aptly illuminates the key difference between weiter leben and If This is a Man. Albeit unwittingly perhaps, Klüger has produced a more structurally complex and self-consciously literary text than Levi. In 12

Reich-Ranicki, ‘Vom Trotz getrieben, vom Stil begläubigt’.

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terms of its form, it arguably resembles Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen more closely than any other text in the present survey, in that it comprises a variety of different types of document. More specifically, where other authors underline the authenticity of their texts with materials such as letters, photographs or files – Grete Weil, Monika Maron and Günter Kunert being good examples – Klüger, like Saeger, exploits more ‘aesthetic’ documents such as poems. The importance of poetry for Klüger is a recurrent theme of weiter leben, and her academic work indicates how this passion has endured. She recounts how her great aunt reproached her when she noticed ‘daß ich Gedichte aufsagte, eine Angewohnheit, die bei mir bis zur Manie gedieh und zweifelsohne ebensosehr neurotischen als kunstliebenden Ursprungs war, so daß ich auch auf der Straße Reime vor mich hinmurmelte’ (WL, 13). But this precocious attachment to poems, most notably Schiller’s ballads, would subsequently become a means of survival during her internment at Auschwitz. Klüger finds nothing out of the ordinary in her recitation and composition of poetry at this time, insisting that ‘viele KZ-Insassen Trost in den Versen gefunden [haben], die sie auswendig wußten’ (WL, 123). Whilst she concedes that others may have derived comfort from religious or philosophical pieces, from her own point of view it was not so much the content of the poems as the recitation per se that was crucial, both as ‘Zeitvertreib’ and as a potentially life-saving mental stimulus: Ist die Zeit schlimm, dann kann man nichts Besseres mit ihr tun, als sie zu vertreiben, und jedes Gedicht wird zum Zauberspruch. Denn dem Inhalt nach war nicht viel in den Schillerschen Balladen, das mich den Durst bei den endlosen Appellen in Auschwitz hätte vergessen lassen […]. In gewissen Lagen, wo es einfach darum geht, etwas durchzustehen, sind weniger tiefsinnige Verse vielleicht noch geeigneter als solche, die das Dach überm Haus sprengen. Übrigens gab es schon vorher im normalen Leben Situationen, zum Beispiel beim Zahnarzt, wo ich die Zeit nicht genießen konnte, sondern sie, etwa mit Hilfe von ‘Die Kraniche des Ibykus’, vertreiben mußte. Die Schillerschen Balladen wurden dann auch meine Appellgedichte, mit denen konnte ich stundenlang in der Sonne stehen und nicht umfallen, weil es immer eine nächste Zeile zum Aufsagen gab, und wenn einem eine Zeile nicht einfiel, so konnte man darüber nachgrübeln, bevor man an die eigene Schwäche dachte. (WL, 124)

Despite the seemingly reductive function of poetry as a way of passing the time, its significance in keeping the author mentally alert should not be overlooked. Clearly there is no right or wrong way of ‘using’ poetry, least of all in such a desolate and God-forsaken

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location, where the mere presence of poetry could keep an individual in touch with their humanity and the humanistic traditions of the past. Schiller’s poems might be viewed as the means whereby Klüger was able to retain a defiant claim to the German cultural heritage, despite her apparent exclusion from it as a designated Jew. Although it may not necessarily have been a conscious strategy, when one considers Klüger’s young age at the time, it was significant nonetheless as a way to preserve her identity. Unsurprisingly, one finds a similar preoccupation in If This is a Man, where Levi endeavours to recite, and translate into French, the ‘Canto of Ulysses’ from Inferno for his companion, Pikolo. Frustrated by his inadequate mastery of French and the gaps in his memory, Levi is nonetheless encouraged to continue his recital: ‘How good Pikolo is, he is aware that it is doing me good’ (ITM, 119-20). Over and above the intellectual stimulation of trying to piece the canto together, Levi wonders too if Pikolo ‘despite the wan translation and the pedestrian, rushed commentary, […] has received the message, he has felt that it has to do with him, that it has to do with all men who toil, and with us in particular’ (ITM, 120). Both Klüger and Levi therefore express a belief in the lifeaffirming quality of poetry. Amidst the moral darkness, one can sense how brightly such poetry must have shone for the likes of Klüger and Levi. And yet, as an interesting counterpoint to this apparently redemptive quality of poetry, in his evaluation of the experience of intellectuals in concentration camps based on his own time at Auschwitz, Jean Améry argues that intellect was transformed ‘zu einer Art unerlaubtem Luxus’ (JSS, 26). Momentarily catching sight of a flag one evening on the march back from a work detail in the IG-Farben factory, Améry too is reminded of a poem: ‘Die Mauern stehn sprachlos und kalt, im Winde klirren die Fahnen’, murmelte ich assoziativ-mechanisch vor mich hin. Dann wiederholte ich die Strophe etwas lauter, lauschte dem Wortklang, versuchte dem Rhythmus nachzuspüren und erwartete, daß das seit Jahren mit diesem Hölderlin-Gedicht für mich verbundene emotionelle und geistige Modelle erscheinen werde. Nichts. Das Gedicht transzendierte die Wirklichkeit nicht mehr. Da stand es und war nur sachliche Aussage: so und so, und der Kapo brüllt ‘links’, und die Suppe war dünn, und im Winde klirren die Fahnen. (JSS, 26)

Set alongside the accounts of Klüger and Levi, Améry’s description of poetry drained of its power and a situation where ‘der isolierte Einzelne noch dem letzten SS-Mann die gesamte deutsche Kultur samt Dürer und Reger, Gryphius und Trakl überlassen [mußte]’ (JSS,

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28) reflects the highly differentiated nature of the individual’s experience of the univers concentrationnaire. It is futile, even facile, to attempt to reduce that experience to a universal template. Klüger composed two Auschwitz poems – ‘Auschwitz’ and ‘Der Kamin’– in 1944, but not until she had been transferred to Christianstadt: In Birkenau wäre es mir nicht gelungen, von 5 Millionen Ermordeten zu reden. […] Da war die Sache noch zu hautnah, der Kamin löste panisches Entsetzen aus, und der Impuls zur dichterischen Bewältigung wäre dem stärkeren Bedürfnis nach Verdrängung erlegen. Im nächsten Lager war es umgekehrt, da wollte ich mein Erlebnis verarbeiten, auf die einzige Weise, die ich kannte, in ordentlichen, gegliederten Gedichtsstrophen. (WL, 126)

On the one hand, Klüger dismisses these poems as ‘Kindergedichte’ (WL, 126), and devotes considerable time to a meticulous, even pedantic, analysis of their structural and aesthetic shortcomings. Yet, conversely, the explanation she provides of how and why they were thus conceived offers fascinating insights into their immeasurable importance for her at that time: ‘Es sind Kindergedichte, die in ihrer Regelmäßigkeit ein Gegengewicht zum Chaos stiften wollten, ein poetischer und therapeutischer Versuch, diesem sinnlosen und destruktiven Zirkus, in dem wir untergingen, ein sprachlich Ganzes, Gereimtes entgegenzuhalten’ (WL, 127). Despite the author’s retrospectively critical assessment of the poems, the extracts included in the text in truth betray a remarkably mature quality which belies the youth of the poet. Confronted in Auschwitz by the ‘Muselmänner’ – described as the embodiment of ‘apathische Hoffnungslosigkeit’ and ‘Menschen, denen der Selbsterhaltungswille im KZ abhanden gekommen war’ (WL, 107) – Klüger resolved with ‘Der Kamin’ ‘eine Sprache zu finden’ (WL, 107), which would enable her to retain a sense of hope, born of a mixture of ‘kindische Verblendung und Todesangst’ (WL, 107) that these poor unfortunates had lost.13 As she says simply: ‘Ich hab den Verstand nicht verloren, ich hab Reime gemacht’ (WL, 128). In an interview in Die Zeit, Klüger underlined her belief in literature ‘als Mittel der Wahrheitsfindung’, a means of interpreting

13

Levi refers to the ‘Muselmänner’ in his chapter ‘The Drowned and the Saved’, which describes those prisoners who were equipped to survive and those, such as the ‘Muselmänner’, who were doomed. Améry too describes them in his survey of intellectuals in Auschwitz, (JSS, 28-9).

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the world.14 As one might expect, therefore, Klüger categorically rejects Adorno’s provocative assertion ‘daß man “keine Gedichte nach Auschwitz” schreiben dürfe’ (WL, 38). On the contrary, she argues vigorously in weiter leben in defence of poetry’s inherent value as ‘eine bestimmte Art von Kritik am Leben’ (WL, 127), which helps one understand the world far more comprehensively and directly than historical documents allow. The intellectual and emotional investment in literature, it seems, facilitates an active response instead of a passive absorption of the facts: Wer nur erlebt reim- und gedankenlos, ist in Gefahr, den Verstand zu verlieren […]. Ich hab den Verstand nicht verloren, ich hab Reime gemacht. Die anderen, die vor den zweidimensionalen Dokumenten stehen, verlieren den Verstand natürlich auch nicht, denn sie sind ja nicht mit dem Geschehenen, sondern nur mit einem unausgegorenen Abklatsch konfrontiert. Wer mitfühlen, mitdenken will, braucht Deutungen des Geschehens. Das Geschehen allein genügt nicht. (WL, 128)

Klüger’s argument amounts to a passionate defence of an aestheticisation of the Holocaust which engages the reader. In view of her comments above, it is axiomatic that she should reject the theory posited by some intellectuals that the Holocaust should only be processed ‘ausschließlich mit Hilfe solcher hermetischer Lyrik’ (WL, 128). It comes as no great surprise, therefore, that in spite of her admiration for Paul Celan, she should be so critical of his complex poetry. Ernestine Schlant provides a detailed survey of the debate about whether or not the Holocaust should ever be conceptualised linguistically, summarising in particular how Adorno eventually rescinded his initially dogmatic refusal to countenance any literary adaptation thereof. As the title of her study indicates, Schlant is especially interested in literary representations of the Holocaust that deal with silence or speechlessness, taking issue with George Steiner’s proposal ‘to relegate Auschwitz to silence in order not to contaminate human language’: Yet a language that serves only as the ‘creator and bearer of humane, rational truth’ and expurgates the frightening, inhuman, and unspeakable aspects is a censored language, and is on the road to becoming as barbaric as any of the manipulated languages of totalitarian regimes. The language George Steiner desires would not 14

Marita Pletter, ‘Der Pazifik hat die richtige Farbe: Ein Gespräch mit der Schriftstellerin Ruth Klüger über Auschwitz, über das Judentum, über das Schreiben’, Die Zeit, 3 March 1995, p. 67.

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retain the memory that is perhaps the only meaningful association we can have with Auschwitz: never to forget the abyss of inhumanity of 15 which man is capable.

Schlant’s position is thus very close to Klüger’s own, for large sections of weiter leben are concerned with filling the silence, and rescuing the individual’s experience from being forgotten. Moreover, Schlant indirectly provides legitimation of Klüger’s own Auschwitz poetry; it may not possess the same aesthetic quality as the work of Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs - whose remarkable work Schlant believes forced Adorno into his recantation - but it is no less authentic or meaningful. Klüger’s ruthless excoriation of her own poems indicates that she perceives them solely as useful emotional documents to enhance the authenticity of her account, but does not attribute any significant literary quality to them. Irrespective of her own, rather harsh, assessment of their deficiencies, those of her poems that she interpolates into the text of weiter leben represent significant attempts to interpret the univers concentrationnaire and consequently possess intrinsic value for their blend of Wahrheit and Dichtung. The first poem she cites is one dealing with her father, who left his family behind in Vienna, only to perish in a concentration camp in France. In Klüger’s eyes, it is an interesting example of the ‘gedächtnisfreundliche Verse’ (WL, 35) she composed to reconcile her vague memories of her father with the fact of his violent death. In truth, she feels that her father ‘ist zum Gespenst geworden. Unerlöst geistert er’ (WL, 30). In this way, her poems about him are to be seen as purely functional personal documents with validity solely as exorcisms. Her Auschwitz poems might therefore be seen to perform a similar function. Whatever their perceived frailties, Klüger’s Holocaust poems anticipate weiter leben in one key respect: tone. Although the author could not tackle Auschwitz directly as a topic until she had been moved to the next camp, the detachment with which she deals with the experience is remarkable, as in these lines from ‘Der Kamin’, for example: ‘Jeder ist zermürbt von Leiden,/Keine Schönheit, keine Freuden./Leben, Sonne, sie sind hin./Und es lodert der Kamin./Auschwitz liegt in seiner Hand,/Alles, alles wird verbrannt.’ (WL, 107). In his assessment of weiter leben, Thomas Steinfeld referred to the ‘schlichten, einfachen, manchmal schroffen Ton, den 15

Schlant, p. 9.

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man braucht, um das Außerordentliche, ja auch das Entsetzliche mit dem Gewöhnlichen verbinden zu können, damit die Welt an Deutlichkeit gewinnt’.16 It is difficult to raise too many objections to Steinfeld’s analysis, for in the sections dealing directly with her KZ experiences the texture of Klüger’s narrative closely resembles the unemotional tenor found in If This is a Man, in endeavouring to articulate the indescribable. One can cite any number of examples from weiter leben of Klüger’s largely unsentimental narrative, but it is the sections recounting life in the concentration camps that provide the most effective illustration. At this point, the text is replete with aphoristic observations – ‘In Birkenau bin ich Appell gestanden und hab Durst und Todesangst gehabt. Das war alles, das war es schon’ (WL, 119) – or anecdotes delivered with an economy of style – ‘Schließlich war diese alte Frau so weit. Setzte sich meiner Mutter auf den Schoß und urinierte’ (WL, 110). No attempt is made to embellish the description or to inject any sense of drama or pathos into the text. Klüger simply records in bald terms the reality of life in the KZ and how one had to adapt to it: Zwei alte Frauen stritten. Worte wechselnd standen sie am Eingang der Baracke. Ich sehe sie gestikulieren mit ausgemergelten Händen. Da kam eine dritte Frau, Blockälteste oder was immer, und stieß den beiden die Köpfe aneinander. Die Brutalität dieser Dritten, die offensichtlich dazu befugt war, war mir wie ein Schlag auf den eigenen Kopf. Tiefer Schreck, Auflösung des Umgangs unter Menschen. (WL, 122)

Levi is equally detached in his description of the so-called ‘Muselmänner’: But with the […] men in decay, it is not even worth speaking, because one knows already that they will complain and will speak about what they used to eat at home. Even less worthwhile is it to make friends with them, because they have no distinguished acquaintances in camp, they do not gain any extra rations, they do not work in profitable Kommandos and they know no secret method of organizing. And in any case, one knows that they are only here on a visit, that in a few weeks nothing will remain of them but a handful of ashes in some near-by field and a crossed-out number on a register. (ITM, 95)

Levi explains the simple truth that these people were of no use to one’s own survival, and so nothing was to be gained from associating

16

Thomas Steinfeld, ‘Von der Hexenküche. Preis der Frankfurter Anthologie: Lobrede auf Ruth Klüger, die herbe Meisterin des mittleren Maßes’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 May 1999.

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onself too closely with them. To readers now, such ruthless pragmatism is decidedly unsettling. In Lektionen des Verborgenen Helena Janeczek records how much her Polish-Jewish mother, herself a Holocaust survivor, values Levi’s autobiography, yet curiously enough dislikes weiter leben on account of what she considers ‘eine[n] allzu aggressiven Ton’.17 It is an exaggeration, perhaps, to suggest that Klüger is in any way aggressive, for she is generally successful in eschewing any lingering bitterness. In this context, one need only compare Klüger with Jean Améry, who makes no secret of his resentment of Germany, and especially the way the country has rebuilt itself whilst trying to consign the Third Reich to history and to relativise the crimes committed between 1933 and 1945: Hartnäckig trug ich Deutschland seine zwölf Jahre Hitler nach, trug sie hinein in das industrielle Idyll des neuen Europas und die majestätischen Hallen des Abendlandes. […] Ich hegte meine Ressentiments. Und da ich sie nicht loswerden kann, noch mag, muß ich mit ihnen leben und bin gehalten, sie jenen zu erhellen, gegen die sie sich richten. (JSS, 109)

Although Klüger too has certain reservations about postwar German attitudes, there is no evidence in weiter leben of the deeply engrained bitterness that Améry articulates. Nevertheless, as Steinfeld observes, there is no mistaking a frequent brusqueness in weiter leben. At certain points in the narrative, a hint of resentment does break the surface, such as where Klüger describes how various people after the war, including her husband, cast a ‘Schleier über unsere Erfahrungen’ (WL, 235): Wir waren wie Krebskranke, die die Gesunden daran erinnern, daß sie sterblich sind. Oft erzählt mir [mein Mann], wie kalt der Winter 44/45 für ihn war. Einmal faßte ich mir ein Herz und sagte, daß ich selbst den harten Winter, von dem die Rede sei, ohne die guten Decken, die warme Kleidung und die ausreichenden Rationen der amerikanischen Streitkräfte, und daher sehr genau, im Gedächtnis habe. Er gerät aus der Fassung, weil ich ihm Erinnerungen auftische, die mit seinen konkurrieren. Da hab ich gelernt, daß die Kriege den Männern gehören. (WL, 236)

The author is similarly perturbed that certain people often underplay the validity of her Holocaust experiences because she was ‘only’ a child at the time: 17 Helena Janeczek, Lektionen des Verborgenen (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1999), p. 96.

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Heute gibt es Leute, die mich fragen: ‘Aber Sie waren doch viel zu jung, um sich an diese schreckliche Zeit erinnern zu können.’ Oder vielmehr, sie fragen nicht einmal, sie behaupten es mit Bestimmtheit. Ich denke dann, die wollen mir mein Leben nehmen, denn das Leben ist doch nur die verbrachte Zeit, das einzige, was wir haben, das machen sie mir streitig, wenn sie mir das Recht des Erinnerns in Frage stellen. Kindern, die Pogrome und anderen Katastrophen entkommen sind, hat man oft untersagt, diese Erfahrungen zu verarbeiten und sie dazu angehalten, sich wie ‘normale’ Kinder zu benehmen. (WL, 73)

Klüger is equally frustrated by the notion that ‘Frauen keine Vergangenheit [haben]’ (WL, 12). History, she argues, is seen as the preserve of men: ‘Und ich schweige und darf nur zuhören und nicht mitreden’ (WL, 111). As she had endured and railed against the patriarchal nature of Judaism as a child – in particular, she was precluded from saying the Kaddisch (‘Todesgebet’) (WL, 25) for her father as he had wished – one can forgive Klüger the sense of resentment that punctuates the text on this issue. In recounting the death of her grandmother, Klüger underlines how the Holocaust explodes the ‘alte Vorstellung, oder vielmehr das alte Vorurteil, daß Frauen von Männern beschützt und geschirmt werden’ (WL, 84). As a result, women should be entitled to articulate their memories in the same way as men, for there was an undeniable equality in persecution and suffering. A commitment to feminism underpins the text, therefore, but must be seen in the context of wresting a voice for all witnesses whose testimonies have been drowned out or ignored, for whatever reason. In an interview, Klüger tellingly described her text as ‘eine Befreiung aus der Sprachlosigkeit’, but to suggest that weiter leben possesses a primarily feminist agenda, as Jennifer Taylor has done, might be seen as a rather too reductive approach.18 That said, aspects of weiter leben can certainly be seen to herald the later essay collection, programmatically titled Frauen lesen anders.19 But even here, not least in the title piece, Klüger’s criticism of male readers appears essentially ironic, rather than overtly feminist.

18

Anton Legerer, ‘Irgendwo muß jeder leben dürfen: Im Gespräch die Staatspreisträgerin Ruth Klüger’, Die Furche, 30 October, 1997, p. 7; Jennifer Taylor, ‘Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben: Eine Jugend: A Jewish Woman’s “Letter to Her Mother”’, in Out of the Shadows: Essays on Contemporary Austrian Women Writers and Filmmakers, ed. by Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger (Riverside: Ariadne, 1997), pp. 77-87. 19 Ruth Klüger, Frauen lesen anders (Munich: DTV, 1996).

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Despite the desire to set the record straight on several matters and to convey a more nuanced picture of the univers concentrationnaire, Klüger insists that weiter leben was not motivated by any didactic intent: ‘Das Buch ist keineswegs pädagogisch. Es liegt mir fern, darüber zu befinden, was “richtig” ist’.20 The initial stimulus to put pen to paper turns out to have been a near-fatal accident in Göttingen and the encouragement she subsequently received from friends who visited her in hospital: accordingly weiter leben bears the dedication: ‘Den Göttinger Freunden – ein deutsches Buch’ (WL, 284). In the way that Klüger addresses her ‘Freunde’ throughout the text, it is indeed possible to view it principally as a dialogue, as ‘Kommunikation’ rather than ‘Selbsttherapie’.21 The narrative is generally so assured and calm that Klüger, looking back on her life, seems to have reconciled herself already to her experiences. In this way, weiter leben is not simply a therapeutic exercise in itself, but can also be seen to chart the stages of Klüger’s recovery from her experiences of the Holocaust and her successful development of a voice with which to describe the process. In particular, it is the poems that are interpolated into the text that offer glimpses of an individual coming to terms with the Holocaust and rescuing a sense of self. As well as being contemporary documents that can be used to further understanding of the horror, Klüger acknowledges that the poems possess a therapeutic quality that transcends any putative artistic value. This feature of her poetry is epitomised in the section where Klüger assesses the poem she wrote for her father, in lieu of the Kaddisch she was not allowed to say for him at the time of his death: Ich meine nicht, daß man ‘keine Gedichte nach Auschwitz’ schreiben dürfe. Ich meine nur, daß Gedichte neben ihren Schaukelrhythmen und unreinen Reimen auch aus sinnträchtigen Sätzen bestehen, und hinter diesen lauert oft wieder ein anderer Sinn, der in meinem, in diesem Fall aus einer zähneklappernden Angst besteht, sich der Wahrheit zu stellen. Was hier nicht zur Sprache kommt, ist die knirschende Wut, die unsereiner irgendwann haben muß, um den Ghettos, den KZs und den Vernichtungslagern gerecht zu werden, die Einsicht, daß sie eine einzige große Sauerei waren, der mit keiner traditionellen Versöhnlichkeit und Märtyrerverehrung beizukommen ist. Man muß diese Wut gehabt haben, um sich wieder zu beruhigen, und wenn man sie gehabt hat, dann wird man keine solchen Gedichte mehr schreiben, wie das obige (‘Mit einem Jahrzeitlicht für den

20 21

Pletter, p. 67. Ibid., p. 67.

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Vater’), keinen Exorzismus der Gaskammer, Beschwörung mit Kerzen und anderem Spielzeug. (WL, 38)

When she talks of having needed to exorcise the ghosts of the Holocaust victims, like her father, one is minded of Levi’s motivation for If This is a Man, which he describes in the preface as ‘an interior liberation’ (ITM, 15). In this respect, weiter leben signals the successful resolution of those psychological problems that Klüger had to confront, such as dealing with the uncertain nature of her father’s death, a potentially suicidal depression in the early days in New York and the ‘knirschende Wut’ she mentions above. Klüger’s text may be best understood as a chronicle of her life up to the 1950s in the United States, with by far the longest section devoted to her time in the concentration camps of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Christianstadt. In addition, Klüger appears especially eager in weiter leben to provide at times a corrective view of the Holocaust to militate against a perceived proclivity to reduce commemoration of the horror to the level of kitsch. It is a concern that she has dealt with subsequently in essays, most unequivocally in ‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen. Die Hintertüren des Erinnerns: Darf man den Holocaust deuten?’.22 As we have already seen, Klüger is perturbed by those who have sought to marginalize the experience of women and children, but as the above essay makes clear, she has identified a widespread tendency to trivialise the Holocaust as whole. The problem, she argues, stems from too many people being unable to deal with uncomfortable or traumatic memories, either their own or those of other people. In this regard, the essay opens bluntly: Das menschliche Erinnerungsvermögen ist eine Fähigkeit, keine Tugend. Wir erinnern uns, nicht weil wir sollen oder wollen, um keines kategorischen Imperativs willen, sondern weil wir so veranlagt sind, weil es uns nicht gegeben ist, uns nicht zu erinnern. Das Erlöschen der Erinnerung ist eine Krankheitserscheinung, kein 23 Normalzustand.

But she is not only stressing the legitimacy of her need to articulate her own memories; more importantly, she is also demanding that others should listen. The German wife of a colleague at Princeton, referred to in weiter leben as Gisela, embodies this unwillingness to accept the truth, and Klüger cites several examples of this woman’s gaucheness to illustrate her point: ‘Auschwitz, ja, nach allem was sie 22

Ruth Klüger, ‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen. Die Hintertüren des Erinnerns: Darf man den Holocaust deuten?’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 December 1995. 23 Ibid.

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gehört habe, sagte Gisela, das müsse arg gewesen sein, aber da sei ich doch nicht so lange gewesen, oder?’ (WL, 93). Once again, and with considerable justification perhaps, Klüger appears rather resentful ‘wie sie mir blitzsauber und kellnerinartig die Gnade ihrer späten Geburt serviert und mir das Pech meiner früheren Geburt ungnädig übelnimmt’ (WL, 111). Klüger recounts how, in a number of situations, she is made to feel like an embarrassment because of what she had to endure and the way in which her very existence challenges the oversimplified preconceptions of many of those she encounters: Theresienstadt sei ja nicht so schlimm gewesen, informierte mich [Gisela], die sich der Gnade der späten Geburt erfreute. […] [Es] war ihr daran gelegen, alles Geschehene in ihre beschränkte Vorstellungswelt einzuordnen. Alle Kriegserlebnisse sollten auf einen einzigen Nenner, nämlich den eines akzeptablen deutschen Gewissens, zu bringen sein, mit dem sich schläfen läßt. […] Giselas Besserwisserei war unüberhörbar aggressiv. Sicher hat sie mir unter anderem übel genommen, daß ich bei warmem Wetter keine langen Ärmel trage oder auf andere Weise, etwa durch Armschmuck, die tätowierte Auschwitznummer zu verbergen trachte. (WL, 85-6)

Klüger’s brutally honest account can therefore be seen to counter this resistance to acknowledge the past. In reality, she remarks, although life in Theresienstadt was ironically far better in many respects than it had been in Vienna, the camp was still synonymous with ‘Hunger und Krankheit’ (WL, 86) and the site of persecution that should never be forgotten. The text is replete with other such examples aimed at correcting some of the preconceived ideas the author has encountered. The horrific, cramped conditions that the deportees had to endure in the railway trucks on the way to Auschwitz, for example, in Klüger’s view find no correlation in film and fictional representations; her description, therefore, can be seen to set the record straight: ‘Waren wir 60 oder 80? Bald stank der Wagen nach Urin und Kot, man mußte dafür Gefäße vom Mitgebrachten finden, und es gab nur die eine Luke, um diese zu leeren’ (WL, 109). Klüger also illustrates on a number occasions how little solidarity existed between the prisoners in the camps. In common with Levi’s account, she reveals how the Jews were ‘der letzte Dreck’ for political prisoners ‘wie wir es für die Nazis waren’ (WL, 137). As a telling postscript to this situation, she believes that the postwar refusal of the Poles to commemorate separately the Polish Jews who were murdered at Auschwitz indicates a disturbing level of anti-Semitism and a significant distortion of the truth. As she tells two German students, who spent their community

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service whitewashing fences at Auschwitz: ‘Die Polen sollten nicht einfach die polnischen Juden als polnische Opfer zählen, denn vergast worden seien ja vor allem die Juden, und die ermordeten Kinder seien allesamt Juden- oder Zigeunerkinder gewesen’ (WL, 78). It undoubtedly sticks in her craw that, in her opinion, Auschwitz has subsequently been transformed ‘vermutlich zu einer einträglichen Einkommensquelle für Polen’ (WL, 78). On account of her rejection of the Polish attitude to Auschwitz, it comes as no surprise to learn that Klüger should be so suspicious of, what she calls, the ‘Museumskultur der KZs’ (WL, 69). Rather than promoting a better understanding of what happened, these memorials paradoxically run the risk of distorting the past because they cannot possibly recreate the horror experienced by the prisoners. On a visit to Dachau, she is struck by the artificiality of the camp, which is now ‘sauber und ordentlich’ and has more in common with a ‘Ferienlager’ than a site of ‘gefoltertes Leben’ (WL, 77). The reconstruction in the present demands of the visitors ‘schon mehr Phantasie, als die meisten Menschen haben, um sich vorzustellen, was dort vor vierzig Jahren gespielt wurde’ (WL, 77). The horrific nature of the past thus remains elusive, beyond the reach of imagination. Primo Levi voices similar reservations following a visit to the museum at Auschwitz, in which gruesome relics are displayed: ‘Tons of human hair, hundreds of thousands of eyeglasses, combs, shaving brushes, dolls, baby shoes, but it remains just a museum – something static, rearranged, contrived’ (ITM, 390). But rearranged for whose benefit, one might ask? Is it not possible that these pitiful collections of mundane objects might bring home the reality of the Holocaust to those fortunate enough not to have been there? weiter leben makes it clear that Klüger considers these symbols far too reductive, merely inspiring an exaggeratedly emotional response that hinders a true appreciation of the reality of what had occurred: Ein Besucher, der hier steht und ergriffen ist, […] wird sich dennoch als ein besserer Mensch vorkommen. Wer fragt nach der Qualität der Empfindungen, wo man stolz ist, überhaupt zu empfinden? Ich meine, verleiten diese renovierten Überbleibsel alter Schrecken nicht zur Sentimentalität, das heißt, führen sie nicht weg von dem Gegenstand, auf den sie die Aufmerksamkeit nur scheinbar gelenkt haben, und hin zur Selbstbespiegelung der Gefühle? (WL, 76)

With their fetishising of the personal effects of the victims, the KZ memorials are to be seen as the apotheosis of kitsch, becoming art forms in themselves – ‘something static, rearranged, contrived’ to quote Levi again – but which distract away from the reality of what

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occurred there. As a consequence, the sincerity of the emotional response they arouse must be called into question. As Schlant observes in The Language of Silence, the authenticity of the hysterical responses generated in Germany by the broadcast of the American television film Holocaust in 1979 was equally suspect. She identifies instead ‘a false identification [with the fate of the Jews] premised on a media-generated portrayal and resulting in an overwrought response juxtaposed with a surprised and new awareness of the Holocaust’.24 weiter leben might be viewed, therefore, as the attempt to relocate the Holocaust in an authentic setting and to militate against such hysterical responses to the historical reality. For this reason, it is possible to understand why Klüger dislikes the epithet ‘erschütternd’ (WL, 201), a term she finds all too often in reviews of Holocaust memoirs. It is clear that she would rather readers of these texts – and by extension, visitors to concentration camp memorials, or viewers of television programmes – displayed the same emotional detachment which underpins weiter leben. Although Klüger herself has never returned to Auschwitz, unlike Levi, she did travel to Theresienstadt and, significantly, was delighted to find the bustling little Czech town of Terezín in its place: Da ging ich beruhigt fort. Theresienstadt war kein KZ-Museum geworden. Es war ein Städtchen, wo Menschen lebten. Nach Saars trüber Soldatenstadt der 1840er Jahre und meinem übervölkerten Durchgangslager der 1940er Jahre hat es dort wieder Wohnlichkeit und Gewöhnlichkeit gegeben. (WL, 105)

In effect, the return of normality to the area is the best commemoration for the horrors of the past. Instead of an unnatural vacuum, life has begun again. Her dislike of the museum culture surrounding some KZ can be seen in the wider context of the problem she has raised of how best to represent the Holocaust. In view of Klüger’s aim of facilitating a more rational, unsentimental and unprejudiced attitude to the horror, it is informative that she should cite two literary examples that, she believes, are guilty of the ‘KZ-Sentimentalität’ she opposes: Bruno Apitz’s Nackt unter Wölfen (1957) and Anna Seghers’s Das siebte Kreuz (1942). Provocatively, Klüger intimates in her critique of both, otherwise celebrated, novels that they distort reality to such an extent that they are little more than fairy tales. Her objection to Apitz’s autobiographical novel, which relates how political prisoners save a 24

Schlant, pp. 97-8.

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Jewish child in Buchenwald, derives from the harmonious picture of solidarity painted therein; she duly dismisses it as ‘ein Kitschroman’ (WL, 75). With regard to Seghers’s novel, which recounts the escape of seven prisoners from a KZ, only one of whom eludes recapture, she appears to bristle at its reception as ‘das schönste Buch über das Dritte Reich’, and ponders whether ‘dessen Schönheit sich jedoch darin ausdrückt, daß die gelungene Flucht des Einzelnen, das Überleben des Einen von Sieben, für den Triumph, den Sieg des Ganzen, des Guten steht’ (WL, 140). In her analysis, Klüger makes no mention of the political motivation underpinning both texts, focusing solely on what she feels is their fairy-tale depiction of the situation. By implication, it is such works that have helped shape the perceptions of those such as Gisela, who have subsequently trivialised or sentimentalised the Holocaust accordingly. There are, Klüger argues, two forms of aestheticisation: ‘Die eine ist Wahrheitssuche durch Phantasie und Einfühlung, also Interpretation des Geschehens, die zum Nachdenken reizt, die andere, die Verkitschung, ist eine problemvermeidende Anbiederung an die vermeintliche Beschränktheit des Publikums’.25 It is clear into which category Klüger believes these two novels fall. In truth, Klüger’s critique does not take into consideration the different contexts within which Apitz and Seghers were writing. Her objection to the depiction of Buchenwald in Nackt unter Wölfen is the most easy to understand. Although Apitz himself spent eight years in the camp, his account was produced in the GDR in the mid-1950s and duly bears the hallmarks of Socialist Realism, with the attendant partial interpretation one would expect from such a work. Despite its perceived value as an example of GDR Vergangenheitsbewältgung, one can imagine Klüger’s reaction to the inherent pathos that pervades the novel’s elegiac dedication: ‘Ich grüße mit dem Buch/unsere toten Kampfgenossen aller Nationen, die wir auf unserem opferreichen Weg/im Lager Buchenwald zurücklassen mußten. Sie zu ehren,/gab ich vielen Gestalten des Buches/ihre Namen’.26 In the case of Seghers, however, Klüger’s assessment appears rather harsh. Produced in exile, Das siebte Kreuz is underpinned by a defiant optimism that National Socialism could be defeated and that a sense of humanity would prevail. The escape from KZ Westhofen thus symbolises ‘ein Zweifel an ihrer Allmacht. Eine Bresche’.27 In the same way that both Klüger and Levi demonstrate how important the preservation of hope was, so 25

‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen’. Bruno Apitz, Nackt unter Wölfen (Leipzig: Reclam, 1975), p. 5. 27 Anna Seghers, Das siebte Kreuz (Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1989), p. 82.

26

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Das siebte Kreuz reflects the same conviction of the author in exile. The inherent message in Seghers’s novel would, therefore, appear to correlate closely with Klüger’s own experience: In der ganzen Hitlerzeit habe ich keinen Juden je den Gedanken aussprechen hören, Deutschland könne siegen. Das war eine Möglichkeit, die einer Unmöglichkeit gleichkam, ein Satz, der tabu war, ein Gedanke, den man nicht zu Ende dachte. Hoffen war Pflicht. (WL, 106)

The dedication in Das siebte Kreuz is also significantly less exclusive than Apitz’s: ‘Dieses Buch ist den/toten und lebenden Antifaschisten/Deutschlands gewidmet’.28 Although Klüger’s desire to correct certain perceptions generally corresponds with the intrinsically dialectical purpose of the narrative, it is inevitable that weiter leben should veer at times towards a more overtly didactic course. It is especially evident on those occasions when the author addresses her readers directly. Anticipating scepticism during her account of how she was able to avoid selection in Auschwitz, for example, she remarks: ‘Hört zu und bekrittelt sie bitte nicht, sondern nehmt es auf, wie es hier steht, und merkt es euch’ (WL, 135). At another juncture, she criticises those who believe it to be in the gift of the victims to provide absolution for the perpetrators: Ein Unrecht wird ja nicht ausgeglichen durch die Gemütsverfassung derer, die davon betroffen waren. Ich bin mit dem Leben davongekommen, das ist viel, aber nicht mit einem Sack voller Schuldscheine, die mir die Gespenster etwa mitgegeben hätten zur beliebigen Verteilung. Dann könnten ja gleich die Täter den Opfern dafür verzeihen, daß die Opfer sie in eine schwierige Gewissenslage gebracht haben. […] Gebt euch doch die Mühe zu fragen, was diese gewaltsam entwurzelten Menschen sich dachten oder was sie von sich aus wollten. (WL, 159)

In the face of such attitudes, Klüger’s cynicism is wholly understandable, but her use of the imperative appears incongruous amidst the generally controlled tone of the narrative. It is as if the author herself has been overwhelmed, albeit briefly, by her emotions or outrage, and resorts to the kind of sermonising approach that runs the risk of perpetuating the very responses she is endeavouring to counteract.

28

Ibid., p. 7.

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The problem stems, perhaps, from Klüger’s uncertainty about who her readers might be, who might be interested in her experiences: ‘Für wen schreib ich das hier eigentlich?’: […] Schreib ich es für die, die nicht mit den Tätern und nicht mit den Opfern fühlen wollen oder können, und für die, die es für psychisch ungesund halten, zuviel von den Untaten der Menschen zu lesen und zu hören? Ich schreibe es für die, die finden, daß ich eine Fremdheit ausstrahle, die unüberwindlich ist? Anders gesagt, ich schreib es für Deutsche. Aber seid ihr das wirklich? Wollt ihr wirklich so sein? Ihr müßt euch nicht mit mir identifizieren, es ist mir sogar lieber, wenn ihr es nicht tut […]. Aber laßt euch doch mindestens reizen, verschanzt euch nicht, sagt nicht von vornherein, das gehe euch nichts an oder es gehe euch nur innerhalb eines festgelegten, von euch im voraus mit Zirkel und Lineal säuberlich abgegrenzten Rahmens an, ihr hättet ja schon die Photographien mit den Leichenhaufen ausgestanden und euer Pensum an Mitschuld und Mitleid absolviert. Werdet streitsüchtig, sucht die Auseinandersetzung. (WL, 142)

Even if, as the form of the imperative implies, the addressees may well be her friends and even though these apparent lapses from the generally detached tone of the narrative do not diminish the overall force of weiter leben, there is a provocative, almost irritable, edge to passages such as the above that one does not find in Levi’s work. Levi never abandons the ‘calm, sober language of the witness’ (ITM, 382) and thereby carefully ensures the objectivity of his account, which resembles a testimony in court. As he remarks: ‘The judges are my readers’ (ITM, 382). One never feels that Klüger wishes to be judged by her readers. She wants not only to engage them in discussion, but also to provoke a response in them. The considerable strength of weiter leben derives from the disturbing clarity of its depiction of totalitarianism from a child’s perspective, providing a fascinating insight into the formative influences of National Socialism that both complements and contrasts with Ludwig Harig’s depiction of the same period in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt. The resilience Klüger displayed despite the traumatic nature of what she experienced is remarkable, from the increasingly repressive climate in Vienna to the darkness of Auschwitz. In view of the extermination that took place at Auschwitz, the fact that she was not allowed to sit on a park bench at seven years of age might seem banal. Yet the contrast explains the distorted view of the world that Klüger acquired during her formative years and why she should have suffered psychological problems after the war, having to readjust to a way of life predicated on ‘normal behaviour’. The action of a stranger, who surreptitiously gives her an orange on a tram,

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can no longer be interpreted simply as a gesture of kindness when viewed in its totalitarian context: ‘Ich stand ratlos vor dieser moralischen Ausweglosigkeit, wo man nichts richtig machen konnte’ (WL, 52). By the same token, the ‘Ablehnung der menschlichen Existenz des Häftlings’ at Auschwitz is not without ‘ein[e] gewisse Logik’ (WL, 113) for the young girl. By way of contrast, Jean Améry demonstrates the problems that faced adults who found themselves in the same situation: Ein langes Training, die Erscheinungen der Alltagswirklichkeit in Frage zu stellen, verbot [dem geistigen Menschen] das schlichte Eingehen auf die Lagerrealität, denn diese stand in allzu schroffen Gegensatz zu allem, was er bisher als möglich und dem Menschen zumutbar angesehen hatte. Er hatte in der Freiheit stets nur mit Leuten Umgang gehabt, die der human-vernünftigen Argumentation zugänglich waren, und durchaus wollte er nicht begreifen, was nun wahrhaftig gar nicht kompliziert war, nämlich: daß ihm, dem Häftling, gegenüber die SS eine Logik der Vernichtung gebrauchte, die in sich ebenso folgerichtig operierte wie draußen die Logik der Lebenserhaltung. (JSS, 30)

The fact that Klüger could view this same environment as a logical progression from her experiences in Vienna underlines the full, alarming extent of the damage inflicted upon her childhood by totalitarianism. It is interesting to observe in autobiographies dealing with the Nazi period how often the role of cinema emerges, providing evidence of its value as both a propaganda tool and a barometer of the period. The young Harig was captivated by the Nazi films he saw and was duly seduced into the Hitler Youth, while Günter de Bruyn’s visit to Emil und die Detektive was overshadowed by Hitler’s accession to power. For Klüger, encouraged by her mother to go and see Disney’s Snow White illegally, the experience represents one of her most traumatic moments in Vienna, when she is spotted by the baker’s daughter, the epitome of a zealous young Nazi: Die Falle war, wie gefürchtet, zugeschnappt. Es war der reine Terror. Die Bäckerstochter zog noch ihre Handschuhe an, pflanzte sich endlich vor mir auf, und das Ungewitter entlud sich. Sie redete fest und selbstgerecht, im Vollgefühl ihrer arischen Herkunft, wie es sich für ein BDM-Mädel schickte, und noch dazu in ihrem feinsten Hochdeutsch: ‘Weißt du, daß deinesgleichen hier nichts zu suchen hat? Juden ist der Eintritt ins Kino gesetzlich untersagt. Draußen steht’s beim Eingang an der Kasse. Hast du das gesehen?’ Was blieb mir übrig, als die rhetorische Frage zu bejahen? (WL, 47)

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The incident leaves the young girl in no doubt for the first time as to the perilous situation she and her family find themselves in: ‘Ich hatte das Gefühl gehabt, in tödlicher Gefahr zu schweben, und dieses Gefühl verließ mich nicht mehr, bis es sich bewahrheitete. Ohne es richtig durchdenken zu müssen, war ich von jetzt an den Erwachsenen voraus’ (WL, 49). Defiantly Klüger later went to cinemas in the city centre, which afforded greater protection with their anonymity, in order to watch Nazi propaganda films. Not only were these visits an act of subversion, but they also allowed her to acquaint herself with ‘die herrschende Ideologie […], die mich ja betraf, die ich nicht einfach durch Gleichgültigkeit quittieren konnte’ (WL, 54). By familiarising herself with the nature of anti-Semitism in films such as Jud Süss, Klüger was better able to appreciate the irrational mechanisms of National Socialism, and especially the bitter irony of how the Nazis exploited persecution for profit: Die Nazis haben sich für alles bezahlen lassen, und dieser kommerzielle Zynismus steht in enger Verbindung mit den Untugenden, die sie den Juden nachsagten. Wo ein unsauberer Profit zu machen war, und sei er auch noch so kleinlich, wie die 10 Pfennige pro Judenstern, haben die Nazis einkassiert. (WL, 50)

With its exposure of the Nazis’ hypocrisy in this regard, this passage underlines the spurious nature of their racial perceptions, and echoes Harig’s similar observations when reflecting upon his Referat. The unsettlingly banal nature of the threat that underpinned daily life in Vienna, which Klüger’s precocious grasp of the ideological workings of National Socialism clearly exacerbated, is in many respects more unnerving for the reader than her experiences of the concentration camps, the reality of which has been the subject of so many accounts and depictions. Yet Klüger is at pains to emphasise the differentiated nature of the KZ experience, which cannot be summarised simply or reduced to a series of universal criteria: ‘Hinter dem Stacheldraht-Vorhang sind nicht alle gleich, KZ ist nicht gleich KZ’ (WL, 83). There were fundamental differences between the three camps she was imprisoned in, which explains why she devotes time to each in turn in her account. Nevertheless, highlighting the individual nature of each camp does not detract from the suffering that existed in them all. Whether or not Theresienstadt was officially a KZ, or simply a ghetto, for example, is an irrelevance; as Klüger points out bluntly, no matter its ‘true’ designation, it remained ‘der Stall, der zum Schlachthof gehörte’ (WL, 82). Similarly, although conditions in Christianstadt were much better than in her previous camps – the

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prisoners were issued with proper clothing, for instance, and the female guards are described as not unfriendly – the inmates were still perceived as animals: ‘Das Kalb, mit dem man spielt, bleibt trotzdem Schlachtvieh’ (WL, 147). Although the experience was less brutally degrading than at Auschwitz, it was dehumanising nonetheless. In addition to her painstaking depiction of life in each camp, Klüger is careful to stress how each subjective account of that reality will naturally differ: ‘In Wirklichkeit war auch diese Wirklichkeit für jeden anders’ (WL, 83). Certainly, although her general depiction of Auschwitz does tally in many external aspects with Levi’s, for example, her perspective as a young girl is naturally quite different. From her point of view, despite the acute overcrowding and the fact that one was ‘mit Haut und Haar einem anonymen Willen ausgeliefert, durch den man jederzeit in ein unklar wahrgenommenes Schreckenslager weiter verschickt werden konnte’ (WL, 86-7), Theresienstadt emerges, with disturbing irony, as ‘ein besseres Milieu für ein Kind’ than Vienna had been. The months she spent at the camp ‘haben ein soziales Wesen aus mir gemacht’ (WL, 103); she managed to acquire something of an education from fellow inmates – all the more attractive to the precociously rebellious young girl for being forbidden by the camp authorities – and was exposed to a rich cultural heritage on account of the array of intellectuals amongst the prisoners. ‘Ich hab Theresienstadt irgendwie geliebt’ (WL, 103), she concedes, fully aware of the reaction such a confession might elicit. In relative terms, juxtaposed alongside the description of her childhood in Vienna, it is easy to see why she might feel this way. Yet one must not overlook the important qualification in her remark. For all the beneficial influences she was exposed to in the camp, it remained a prison: Ich hab Theresienstadt gehaßt, ein Sumpf, eine Jauche, wo man die Arme nicht ausstrecken konnte, ohne auf andere Menschen zu stoßen. Ein Ameisenhaufen, der zertreten wurde. […] Wer will schon Ameise gewesen sein? Nicht einmal im Klo war man allein, denn draußen war immer wer, der dringend mußte. In einem großen Stall leben. (WL, 104)

There is no qualification now. What is more, the disgust underpinning the description of the conditions militates against the notion that Klüger is in any way truly ambivalent about Theresienstadt: ‘Da kam man sich wie der letzte Dreck vor, das war man auch’ (WL, 104). There is, Klüger admits, a fundamental problem with every account of Holocaust survival from which weiter leben itself is not exempt: ‘Der Bericht, der eigentlich nur unternommen wurde, um

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Zeugnis abzulegen von der großen Ausweglosigkeit, ist dem Autor unter der Hand zu einer “escape story” gediehen’ (WL, 140).29 Rather than being universally celebrated, the fact of that escape can give rise to particularly insensitive theories as to how it was achieved: ‘Ein Bekannter, ein Jude in Cleveland, verlobt mit einer Deutschen, sagt mir ins Gesicht: “Ich weiß, was ihr getan habt, um euch am Leben zu erhalten. […] Ihr seid über Leichen gegangen”’ (WL, 72). It is an unsavoury and disturbing image in the context, and Klüger was depressed by this perception, for survival was in reality purely a question of good fortune: ‘In Wirklichkeit war es Zufall, daß man am Leben geblieben ist’ (WL, 73). In Auschwitz, life or death was predicated on the arbitrary nature of the various ‘Selektionen’ that took place. In If This is Man Levi describes this degrading process, during which one had to present oneself naked to the guards, and concurs with Klüger that survival on these occasions ‘depended above all on chance’ (ITM, 131). Klüger underlines how ‘das Wort Selektion in Auschwitz einen bösen Klang [hatte]’ as one could never be sure ‘daß es wirklich eine Selektion für ein Arbeitslager und nicht eine für die Gaskammer war’ (WL, 128-9). In Klüger’s case, her good fortune stemmed from her mother’s insistence that they present themelves for selection for a putative work detail requiring women aged between fifteen and forty-five. The chances of successful selection for the author were remote; she was just twelve and was certain she did not look any older than thirteen. As a result, she was duly rejected, but exceptionally managed to slip into the other queue, where the intervention of a young woman assisting the SS guard saved the girl’s life: ‘Dieser Mensch war eine junge Frau, in ebenso hoffnungsloser Lage wie wir alle, die nichts anderes gewollt haben kann, als einen anderen Menschen zu retten’ (WL, 132). She urged Klüger to pretend to be fifteen and then successfully countered the guard’s reservations about the girl’s physique: ‘Fast jeder Überlebende hat seinen “Zufall”, das Besondere, Spezifische, das ihn oder sie unvermutet am Leben erhalten hat. Meiner hat die Besonderheit, daß sich die Fremde einmischte’ (WL, 134). Klüger cannot explain why the woman interceded on her behalf, thus enabling her transfer with her mother to the camp at Christianstadt. She describes this selfless act as ‘etwas Beispielloses and etwas Beispielhaftes’ (WL, 132), thereby underlining her good fortune, but also refuting the ‘pauschales Fehl29

One might argue that Jean Améry did not ever escape, despite his survival, which is why his essays are imbued with a sense of barely suppressed despair that tragically anticipates his eventual suicide.

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und Vorurteil’ according to which ‘in allen Lagern nur die brutalste Selbstsucht gefördert worden [sei], und wer von dort herkomme, sei vermutlich moralisch verdorben’ (WL, 91). On the contrary, Klüger argues, the incident reveals ‘daß gerade in diesem perversen Auschwitz das Gute schlechthin als Möglichkeit bestand, als ein Sprung über das Vorgegebene hinaus’ (WL, 136). Irrespective of the role of good fortune, that there was still the capacity for humanity to prevail is crucial. Klüger is adamant that her survival be seen in these terms, as a confirmation of humanity, rather than something morally questionable. Klüger’s reservations about Seghers’s Das siebte Kreuz derived from its suggestion that the escape of one person could in some way represent a triumph. Yet, ironically, weiter leben might be viewed in a similar way. The truth is that accounts such as those by Levi and Klüger are so important precisely because they do celebrate human endurance in the face of inhumanity. For all the harrowing detail that they contain documenting the way totalitarian regimes persecute those deemed outsiders, there is something inevitably uplifting about the survival they depict. It is especially the case for Klüger, for whom liberation from oppression constituted freedom for the very first time in her life. Escaping with her mother and a friend from the enforced march following the evacuation of Christianstadt, Klüger ‘erlebte […] das unvergeßliche, prickelnde Gefühl, sich neu zu konstituieren, sich nicht von anderen bestimmen zu lassen, ja und nein nach Belieben zu verteilen, an einem Scheideweg zu stehen, wo eben noch gar keine Kreuzung gewesen war, etwas hinter sich lassen, ohne etwas vor sich zu haben’ (WL, 169). In retrospect, Klüger includes a poem in the text which problematises the apparent self-determination of the moment: ‘schwimmend weitergeschwemmt/im flüssigen Teer/einem Meer zu/aus Wasser – ah Wasser! – /dann doch nur Salz’ (WL, 168). The poem appears to anticipate the disillusionment that the author would feel in the immediate postwar period, but by her own admission this fact should not diminish the elation of the freedom so suddenly attained. The mood of elation in the section titled ‘Flucht’ echoes sections in Harig’s and de Bruyn’s autobiographies dealing with comparable moments of liberation from the yoke of National Socialism. Common to all three is a carefree, idyllic depiction of the moment, located significantly in nature, but by virtue of what she had had to endure, Klüger’s savouring of freedom far transcends that of the other two:

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Es war, als ob man die Welt in Besitz nähme, nur weil man aus eigenem Antrieb von der Landstraße Gebrauch machte. Die Frage war nicht so sehr, wohin, das war nicht mein Anliegen. Freiheit bedeutete weg von. Weg von dem tödlichen Marsch, von den vielen Menschen, von der ständigen Bedrohung. Die Luft roch anders, frühlingshafter, jetzt, da wir sie für uns allein hatten. Jeder nächste Tag war sowieso unerforschlich, und da wir nicht vorsorgen konnten, machte ich mir keine Sorgen. […] Neu war, daß das Dasein federleicht wurde, wo es gestern noch bleiern gewesen war, da denkt man nicht, jetzt kann dich einer wegblasen, sondern man denkt, daß man fliegt. Es war da ein Wohlgefühl, als sei endlich das eingetroffen, worauf ich, seit ich denken konnte, gewartet hatte. (WL, 172)

In view of the conditions Klüger had endured in the various camps, the sensuous nature of freedom and a carefree attititude to where each day would lead display a childhood innocence that the author had never previously been able to enjoy. Not even the sense of danger that still remained could dim Klüger’s spirits: Wenn ich vorhin schreib, man möge in meine Geschichte nicht den Optimismus, der einen Roman wie ‘Das siebte Kreuz’ bestimmt, hineinlesen, so ziehe ich diese Bitte jetzt, wenn auch mit Vorbehalt, zurück, denn auf diesen ostdeutschen Landstraßen zu der Zeit vor Kriegsende waren wir drei so hoffnungsvoll wie nur je, voller Lebenslust und Gelächter. Das ist subjektives Verhalten und verringert das Elend der Zeit um keinen einzigen Toten. Wir haben viel gelacht auf dieser Flucht. […] Wir genossen das, was wir hatten, das nackte Leben, denn es war zum ersten Mal wirklich unser. (WL, 174)

It is telling that, looking back, Klüger feels compelled to defend this blitheness, in much the same way that her retrospective poem qualifies the true extent of this freedom. It is as if she is eager not to allow the fact of her own survival to deflect from the Holocaust, conscious that many people, such as Gisela, have relativised the horror in this way and view survivors as an alibi. And yet, one cannot fail to be affected by this simple reassertion of individuality and humanity, for one rarely has a sense of the author smiling or laughing in weiter leben. It is inevitable that this idyll could not last. In possession of false papers acquired from a kindly priest – itself, reminiscent of the help afforded Georg Heisler in Seghers’s novel – the three escapees settle temporarily in Straubing and reintegrate themselves into society as the war draws to an end. In view of Klüger’s obvious attachment to the German cultural heritage, it is striking that she should signal this assimilation with an allusion to Hölderlin: ‘So kam ich unter die Deutschen’ (WL, 182). Although they are able to blend in relatively

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seamlessly, two incidents have a profound effect on the author and signal the end of their untroubled existence. Firstly, Klüger is shaken by the sight of KZ prisoners being escorted through the streets of Straubing and feels, however inappropriately, as if she is guilty of betrayal: Ich hatte ‘uns’ noch nie von außen gesehen. Was mich von denen trennte, waren nur einige Wochen, nach jahrelanger Gemeinsamkeit. Sie waren so müde, sahen allesamt wie Muselmänner aus. Dagegen waren die Schäferhunde an ihren Seiten munter und wohlgenährt. Meine früheren Leidensgefährten gingen ganz langsam und kraftlos, ich hatte mir schon einen viel festeren Schritt angewöhnt. Ich war ein deutsches Kind geworden, das an manchen Sonntagen in die Kirche ging, dort mit einiger Mühe gelernt hatte, ein Kreuz zu schlagen, auf dem Kartoffelfeld aushalf und im übrigen kam und ging, wie es ihr paßte. Und da waren sie nun, meine Leute. […] Das war mein letzter Kontakt mit denen im KZ. Sie gingen mitten durch die Stadt, mitten auf der Fahrbahn, in vollem Tageslicht, und rechts und links von mir standen Menschen, Männer und Frauen, auch Kinder, und sahen beiseite. Oder verschlossen ihre Gesichter, so daß nichts eindringen konnte. Wir haben unsere eigenen Sorgen, behelligt uns bitte nicht mit humanen Ansprüchen. Wir warteten auf dem Bürgersteig, bis die Untermenschen alle vorbeigezogen waren. Als die Amerikaner kurz darauf einmarschierten, hatte niemand je was gesehen. Und gewissermaßen stimmte es sogar. Was man nicht wahrnimmt und aufnimmt, hat man tatsächlich nicht gesehen. In diesem Sinne hatte nur ich sie gesehen. (WL, 185-6)

The pivotal nature of this moment is underlined by Klüger’s first encounter with an American soldier, who seems uninterested in the fact that she and her mother are camp survivors. Although the arrival of the Americans is ‘ein unvergeßlicher Tag’ (WL, 191), the sense of elation Klüger had imagined fails to materialise: ‘Hier war mein erster Amerikaner, und der hielt sich die Ohren zu. Also eines stand fest: nicht unsertwegen war in diesem Krieg gekämpft worden’ (WL, 191). That Klüger should commit her Auschwitz poems to paper so soon after the end of war and send them to a newspaper, bespeaks the urgency of the moral responsibility incumbent on survivors to bear witness to the Holocaust and combat the apparent blindness of the Germans to the Jews’ fate.30 As with Levi, one senses that Klüger was determined to ‘survive with the precise purpose of recounting the things we had witnessed and endured’ (ITM, 398). Yet, in the immediate postwar period, the Germans did not want to acknowledge 30

Schlant’s study explores at length just how difficult this task was to become, and indeed has remained to the present day.

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the brutal extremes of anti-Semitism, while the Americans apparently did not wish to hear about it, both of which anticipate the attitudes that were to confront the author throughout her adult life. That the Holocaust should to this day remain a controversial subject – one is minded of the recent furore that engulfed Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners – reveals how important the testimonies of the likes of Levi, Améry and Klüger remain, both as insights into the darkness of totalitarian regimes and provocative reminders not to forget the crimes committed. They are significant attempts to break the silence, to articulate that which others cannot or will not. When one considers the terror and repression that marked Klüger’s formative years, it is not a surprise that many of the elements that constitute the framework of identity in other texts in the present study should be problematised in weiter leben. Where for other authors a sense of self is predicated on the influence of a ‘proximate other’, or a strong affiliation with one’s Heimat or indigenous language and culture, Klüger’s relationship to each of these constituents was distorted, or inchoate at best. It is especially true of her relationship with her mother, which is rarely less than antagonistic, despite the common suffering they endured in concentration camps. As Eakin has observed, tension between the self and this ‘proximate other’ does not necessarily render the influence on the self invalid or insignificant: When the bond is conflicted, however, the motive for memoir is likely to be more intense, and a great number of relational lives could be classed under the heading of ‘unfinished business’. These lives are set in motion by the existence of tensions and secrets; there is a disruption, distortion, or omission in the family narrative that must be repaired. […] The autobiographical act in these cases affords the opportunity to speak the previously unspoken, to reveal what has been hidden or repressed. (HOL, 87)

Jennifer Taylor’s reading of weiter leben can be seen to correspond with the notion advanced by Eakin, arguing as she does that one might read Klüger’s text as a ‘modern “Brief an die Mutter”’, in other words, a conscious allusion to Kafka’s Brief an den Vater, ‘written, published, and yet meant (perhaps) never to be read by the addressee’.31 It is an interesting hypothesis, albeit one that overlooks the fact of the book’s actual dedication to ‘den Göttinger Freunden’. In her article ‘Autobiography, Memory and the Shoah’ Carmel Finnan proposes a more convincing argument that the author’s decision to 31

Taylor, p. 79.

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produce her account in German was largely ‘guided by the dynamics of her relationship with her mother. Her mother, she states, does not read German books’.32 In reality, then, the author appears to be deliberately excluding her mother from discourse, an action that seems highly ironic for an author who devotes so much time in the text to dialogue and combating the perceived silence that shrouds the Holocaust. Klüger’s mother emerges as a capricious figure, who could be suffocatingly tender or alarmingly indifferent and cruel.33 On one occasion, she treated her daughter’s head lice with petrol and ignored the obvious distress this caused; Klüger admits that she began to doubt ‘ob die Grausamkeiten der Erwachsenen zufällig seien’ (WL, 62). Her mother later refused to allow her to be evacuated from Vienna to Palestine on the grounds that they should never be separated: ‘Ich glaube, das hab ich ihr nie verziehen’ (WL, 63). On arrival at Auschwitz, Klüger is appalled both by her mother’s suggestion that they should commit suicide together by throwing themselves against the electrified fence and then her almost nonchalant reaction to her daughter’s refusal, ‘als hätte es sich um eine Aufforderung zu einem kleinen Spaziergang in Friedenszeiten gehandelt’ (WL, 115). And yet, ultimately, it was her mother’s insistence in not being separated and presenting themselves for selection that probably rescued Klüger’s life. Herein lies a fundamental ambivalence in the author’s relationship with her mother that one can also adduce in Monika Maron’s Pawels Briefe. In both cases, the commonality of experience fails to mitigate the generational conflict. Even though during the immediate postwar period Klüger’s relationship with her mother was at its most stable – ‘Es war die Zeit, in der ich sie am meisten geliebt und auch verehrt habe’ (WL, 206) – and her mother encouraged her in her education, culminating in her precocious enrolment, at the age of fifteen, at the University of Regensburg, their emigration to the United States placed their bond under immense strain once more. The emotional dislocation is reflected in the lack of correlation that exists between their memories – ‘Ihre Erinnerungen deckten sich nicht mit

32

Carmel Finnan, ‘Autobiography, Memory and the Shoah: German-Jewish Identity in Autobiographical Writings by Ruth Klüger, Cordelia Edvardson and Laura Waco’, in Jews in German Literature since 1945: German-Jewish Literature? ed. by Pól O’Dochartaigh (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 447-61 (p. 452). 33 Taylor proposes another reading of weiter leben as Klüger’s attempt to reclaim the German fairy tale, and thus argues that the text is a reworking of Schneewittchen with the author’s mother as the evil stepmother.

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meinen’ (WL, 234) – and, more damagingly still, in their lack of a common language: Meine Mutter und ich hatten keine Sprache miteinander. Die ihrige dient nicht dem Gedankenaustausch, sondern der Manipulation. Meine Mutter ist nicht identisch mit ihrer Sprache, war es nie, ihre Sprache ist wie die Garderobe der Schauspieler, sie sucht sich aus, was gerade in ihre jeweilige Rolle paßt. Sie verwendet die Wörter wie Schminke. (WL, 255-6)

On account of this conflicted linguistic bond, one can understand perhaps why Klüger should have had no qualms about opting to write her account in German, thereby excluding her mother from participation therein. In spite of the shared trauma, there is no impression that the experience brought them closer together. In fact, Klüger already anticipates this tension in the narrative, recounting how in Vienna her family seemed constantly riven with animosity. That the author and her mother should apparently adhere to this pattern, stands in stark contrast with Klüger’s affectionate, if indistinct, picture of her father, who himself was not averse to, often violent, mood swings. In truth, therefore, the influence of Klüger’s ‘proximate other’ is reflected not in emulation, but in reaction, and the emotional deficiencies are offset by the close bonds the author enjoyed with her nanny, Anja – who briefly fulfilled the role of surrogate mother – and then much later with her three closest friends, all of whom she met at college in the United States. Tellingly, she observes: ‘Wir waren vaterlos, unsere Väter hatten wir nicht oder kaum gekannt, und die Mütter waren uns allen ein Problem. Wir ersetzen einander die Eltern’ (WL, 251). Although it is tempting, perhaps, to view weiter leben as conforming to the typical pattern of myriad mother-daughter texts that have been the focus of many recent feminist studies, it would be a rather narrow interpretation of the text as a whole. Klüger’s portrait of her mother is underpinned by a sense of regret, if not unequivocal forgiveness, but within the context of the text it throws light on the author’s remarkably resilient sense of self, that had to withstand not only the persecution of the Nazis but the idiosyncracies of her mother. It seems to have imbued the young girl with a sense of independence and a strong-willed outlook that finds expression in the narrative tone of weiter leben. If the author’s relatively dysfunctional family ties provided no stable foundations for individuation, other than in steeling her emotionally, then identification with her Heimat and her linguistic and cultural background provided no compensation; her liaisons with both

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became profoundly ambivalent as well, despite very strong attachments initially. As a young girl, Klüger was infused with a ‘nestwarmen Patriotismus’ (WL, 39) and admits in hindsight to having been ‘für ein Heimatgefühl sehr empfänglich’ (WL, 41). It is apparent, and wholly understandable, how Austria’s transformation into Ostmark, with the greater institutionalisation of anti-Semitism that the Anschluß brought, should erode Klüger’s patriotism, despite her attempt to preserve a, rather romanticised, concept of her home: Wenn die Deutschen erst weg sind, so dachte ich lange, dann ist das alles auch wieder meine Vergangenheit, meine Legende, und die Stadt ein Ort, wo auch ich hingehöre. Inzwischen galt es, sich den Glauben an Tannengrün und Ährengold nicht nehmen zu lassen, also den Glauben an ein Land, das Österreich hieß und nicht Ostmark, und wo die Deutschen nichts zu suchen hätten. Ich verfaßte dementsprechend einige vaterländische Verse, zeigte sie meiner Mutter und erfuhr zum ersten Mal die Beschämung einer vernichtenden Kritik am eigenen Werk. Tränenvoll plädierte ich für das andere, wahre Österreich, das gibt es doch, das sagt ihr doch selbst oft, dieses Österreich ist’s, worüber ich schreibe. Nichts zu machen. (WL, 41)

It is the distortion of this affiliation with her home that signalled the onset of National Socialism. From being the site of her patriotism, Vienna became the ‘Stadt, aus der mir die Flucht nicht gelang’ (WL, 19) and where ‘Juden und Hunde waren allerorten unerwünscht’ (WL, 18). Améry coins the oxymoronic term ‘Feindheimat’ (JSS, 85) to describe this dramatic exclusion from previously safe, familiar surroundings. Boa and Palfreyman have underlined how the concept of Heimat can be seen to belong ‘to an antithetical mode of thinking in terms of identity and difference, of belonging and exclusion’, where the binary constellation of self and other helps to forge a sense of identity.34 For Klüger, the Anschluß turned her status on its head, completely undermining her inclusion in an Austrian identity and pushing her, first figuratively and then literally, beyond the boundaries. She no longer belonged; she became exclusively Jewish, and therefore representative of the other. Reflecting upon her problematic relationship with the city of her birth, Klüger neatly sums up her ambivalence by describing Vienna as ‘heimatlich unheimlich’ (WL, 68), an oxymoronic phrase not only echoing Améry’s term but also the binary system that Boa and Palfreyman identify as fundamental to Heimat. Any inclusive, positive affiliation with Vienna is irrevocably juxtaposed with exclusion and persecution: 34

Boa and Palfreyman, p. 27.

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Sprechen und lesen kann ich von Wien her, sonst wenig. An judenfeindlichen Schildern hab ich die ersten Lesekenntnisse und die ersten Überlegenheitsgefühle geübt. […] All, die nur ein paar Jahre älter waren, haben ein anderes Wien erlebt als ich, die schon mit sieben auf keiner Parkbank sitzen und sich dafür zum auserwählten Volke zählen durfte. (WL, 19)

In effect, Klüger’s experiences of National Socialism epitomise the fact that Heimat ‘contains within itself its negative and other’.35 This same inherent antagonism also underpins Klüger’s affiliation with her native language. The poems she adored as a child were written in German, but so too were the anti-Semitic posters that comprised her first reading. As we have seen, composing and reciting Germans poems contributed to her survival of the concentration camps, most especially in Auschwitz, and yet after the war she was desperate to emigrate as soon as possible, for fear that a prolonged delay would stimulate ‘unbeabsichtigt und ungewollt eine zunehmende Verbundenheit mit Deutschland, deutscher Sprache, deutschen Büchern, auch mit deutschen Menschen’ (WL, 204-5).36 Her extreme ambivalence towards German is evidenced by her willing suppression of the language in the United States, signified by choosing to write poems in English, only for a German academic at Princeton to persuade her much later to join his department on the strength of the poems she composed in Auschwitz. She therefore finds her way back to the German language, but remains torn about her profession: So bin ich über meine Auschwitz-Gedichte zur Auslandsgermanistin geworden. Wenn ich schlecht gelaunt bin, ist mir das nicht recht, denn ich werde den Verdacht nicht los, daß dieser Beruf für eine wie mich eine Charakterlosigkeit ist. Als wäre ich dadurch in die Schuld der Deutschen geraten. […] Wenn ich gut gelaunt bin, sehe ich eine poetische Richtigkeit, wenn nicht Gerechtigkeit, darin, daß gerade von diesen Gedichten der Weg zu meinem passend-unpassenden Beruf geführt hat. (WL, 202)

Rather than signifying any degree of reaffirmation of a cultural or linguistic identity, her profession remains rooted in an enduring ambivalence. In the light of her problems with the concept of identity predicated on a spatial or linguistic Heimat, Klüger has subsequently 35

Ibid., p. 28. Améry expresses a similar ambivalence towards Germany and the language: ‘Ich vermied es, seine, meine Sprache zu sprechen, und wählte ein Pseudonym romanischer Resonanz’ (JSS, 107).

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challenged the notion that one needs to have roots to guarantee a sense of one’s own identity: Heimat – ich weiß nicht, ob man den Begriff braucht. Wir leben in einer Zeit, in der es mehr Flüchtlinge gibt als je zuvor. Die halbe Welt wohnt nicht mehr dort, wo sie geboren wurde. Da muß man sich andere Vorstellungen machen, als daß der Mensch irgendwo Wurzeln 37 haben muß, das müssen die Bäume, aber nicht die Leute.

In view of the incarceration she suffered as a child – even Vienna is described as ‘ein Gefängnis, mein erstes’ (WL, 19) – Klüger’s advocation of a sense of belonging that does not necessarily presuppose a physical Zuhause, tallies with her admission in weiter leben to being eternally restless. She defines herself as ‘ein ungeduldiger, zerfahrener Mensch, eine, die leicht was fallen läßt, mit oder ohne Absicht, auch Zerbrechliches, Geschirr und Liebschaften, nirgendwo lange tätig ist und oft auszieht, aus Städten und Wohnungen, und die Gründe erst erfindet, wenn sie schon am Einpacken ist’ (WL, 9). Klüger’s sense of identity appears instead to derive from itinerancy: ‘Denn Flucht war das Schönste, damals und immer noch’ (WL, 9). That a sense of freedom should have remained important to the author is axiomatic. On escaping from the concentration camp march, she observes: ‘Freiheit bedeutete weg von’ (WL, 172). Having been classified as a ‘displaced person’ in 1945 – which for many people constitutes a stigma – Klüger has chosen to remain so; displacement has become more important for forging her sense of self than any static or communal Heimat: ‘Eine Nationalität braucht niemand. Das bildet man sich ein. Mir genügt das Pendeln zwischen Amerika und Europa’.38 Despite many of the similarities that exist between the positions of Klüger and Améry then, they diverge on the issue of Heimat. Améry argues that ‘Die Heimat ist das Kindheits- und Jugendland. Wer sie verloren hat, bleibt ein Verlorener’ (JSS, 84), but Klüger’s formative years were spent in conditions far from conducive to the development of any natural affiliation to one’s environment. For Améry however, forced into exile in Belgium as an adult and having to adapt to a new culture, it is understandable that, for all his conflicted feelings towards German, he should have believed it ‘nicht gut, keine Heimat zu haben’ (JSS, 101). In view of the divergence in opinion between Klüger and Améry on this issue, it is interesting briefly to contrast Klüger’s 37 38

Legerer, p.7. Pletter, p. 67.

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aversion to and Améry’s advocation of a sense of identity anchored in a traditional notion of Heimat, with the perception of two other women authors and academics, both of whom were forced into exile: Hilde Domin and Grete Weil.39 Although in no way a victim of the same intense persecution as Klüger, Hilde Domin was nevertheless forced into exile by the Nazis and spent time in three different countries. As a result, she concedes, her earlier poems testify to a longing to be able to remain in one place: Außer dem Gehen kommt in meinen Gedichten […] vielleicht nichts soviel vor wie das Wohnen oder Wohnen dürfen. Bleiben dürfen. Die meisten Wohnungen in meinem Leben waren Fluchtwohnungen, Zufluchtwohnungen, oder verwandelten sich plötzlich, aus scheinbar ganz normalen Behausungen. Das steckt einem in den Knochen ein 40 Leben lang.

In effect, her position is the inverse of Klüger’s; whereas Klüger was incarcerated and now celebrates a rootless existence, Domin was continually on the run and requires rootedness. The only similarity exists in the way these early experiences have subsequently conditioned their attitudes. The same contrast can be found in their perception of German. As one might expect after enforced exile, Domin longed for nothing so much as the opportunity to return home: […] Ich verwaist und vertrieben, da stand ich auf und ging heim, in das Wort. […] Von wo ich unvertreibbar bin. Das Wort aber war das deutsche Wort. Deswegen fuhr ich wieder zurück über das Meer, 41 dahin, wo das Wort lebt. […] Ich war 22 Jahre weg gewesen.

What for Domin was the apparently natural synonymity of language and Heimat, which together engendered freedom and security, was ruptured for Klüger, whose childhood was marked by persecution that found linguistic, as well as physical, expression. German words such as ‘Selektion’ and ‘Kamin’ and ‘Untermenschen’ connoted a threat to her very existence. Grete Weil’s reaction to her enforced, and at times hazardous, exile in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation has much in common with Hilde Domin’s. Weil had to adapt to life in a country she found 39

Grete Weil’s experiences will be the focus of Chapter 7, but brief mention at this point is informative. 40 Hilde Domin, ‘Meine Wohnungen – “Mis moradas”’, in Gesammelte autobiographische Schriften: Fast ein Lebenslauf (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1998), pp. 71138 (p. 71). 41 Hilde Domin, ‘Unter Akrobaten und Vögeln: Fast ein Lebenslauf’, in Gesammelte autobiographische Schriften, pp. 21-31 (pp. 21-2).

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ugly and whose language she did not speak. As any lapse into her native tongue could lead to arrest, she had to suppress her identity. Consequently, when the Allies liberated Amsterdam, the author sought to return to Germany at the earliest opportunity, even though she knew that her Heimat would be much changed. More important, however, was the chance to rediscover her true voice. As we shall see in Chapter 7, she shared Domin’s ‘Glück, die eigene Sprache sprechen zu dürfen und sprechen zu hören’, not least because she was determined to record all she had witnessed.42 If Weil differed greatly from Klüger with regard to their relationship to language, the manner in which their Jewish identities were imposed upon them by National Socialism, and the ensuing persecution they suffered, is identical. Weil had considered herself a German through and through and had rarely been to a synagogue; Klüger was a patriotic Austrian, and although her family observed certain Jewish traditions and festivals, they ate pork and, like the Weils, went ‘ausnahmsweise in die Synagogue’ (WL, 42). For Weil, it was the arrest of her husband in 1933 that made her aware of the ramifications of her ‘new’ identity; for Klüger it was primarily the Anschluß that heralded the change. The young Austrian patriot became ‘jüdisch in Abwehr’ (WL, 41). She wore her star with pride – ‘Unter den Umständen schien er angebracht. Wenn schon, denn schon’ (WL, 50) –, delighted in attending the Nazi propaganda films and even changed her name from Susanne to Ruth in the belief that it was more Jewish: ‘Niemand hat mir gesagt, daß Susanne genau so gut in der Bibel steht wie Ruth. Wer war schon bibelfest bei uns zu Haus?’ (WL, 41-2). She admits that as a child she did not really grasp what it meant to be Jewish, and concedes in the narrative that she remains ‘eine sehr schlechte Jüdin’ (WL, 44), not only, one assumes, because she cannot remember any of the festivals, but also on account of her rejection of the patriarchal nature of Judaism. And yet weiter leben underlines just how important her Jewishness has been for her, reflected in the effect her KZ tattoo had on her: Mit dieser Tätowierung stellte sich bei mir eine neue Wachheit ein, nämlich so: Das Außerordentliche, ja Ungeheuerliche meiner Situation kam mir so heftig ins Bewußtsein, daß ich eine Art Freude empfand. Ich erlebte etwas, wovon Zeugnis abzulegen sich lohnen würde. […] Niemand würde abstreiten können, daß ich zu den Verfolgten zählte, denen man Achtung entgegenbringen mußte […],

42 Hilde Domin, ‘Leben als Sprachodyssee’, in Gesammelte autobiographische Schriften, pp. 32-40 (p. 40).

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wegen der Vielfalt ihrer Erlebnisse. Man würde mich Ernst nehmen 43 müssen, mit meiner KZ-Nummer […]. (WL, 116)

Despite her expectations, however, both her victim status and her record of events were challenged after the war, so that it became necessary for her to bear witness to the Holocaust, a process which reached fruition with weiter leben. In this respect, again, she has much in common with Grete Weil, whose Jewish identity truly crystallised in the aftermath of the war, but could not be conceived of in any conventional sense: ‘Das Judesein ist vorhanden, doch gelingt es mir nicht, es mit Inhalt zu füllen. […] Übrig bleibt, daß ich als Jüdin erfahren habe, was Leiden bedeutet’.44 Weil resolved, as a result, to tackle the Holocaust in her literary work: ‘Es gab nur noch die eine Aufgabe: Gegen das Vergessen anzuschreiben’.45 Klüger’s position, expressed in her essay ‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen’, indicates that Weil’s personal definition of Jewishness might equally be applied to her: ‘Die Erinnerung an das Leiden ist auch eine Art Schatz, ein Besitz, und wer ihn uns entreißt, macht uns ärmer’.46 Indeed, weiter leben makes this equation of Klüger’s suffering with her Jewish identity quite explicit. Confronted by others’ wishes that she should suppress her memories and refrain from walking around ‘wie ein Mahnmal’ (WL, 237), Klüger felt that her experiences were either being trivialised by the likes of Gisela, or worse still were being ignored. With barely concealed contempt, the author recalls the advice her aunt gives her in America: ‘Was in Deutschland passiert ist, mußt du aus deinem Gedächtnis streichen und einen neuen Anfang machen. Du mußt alles vergessen, was dir in Europa geschehen ist. Wegwischen, wie mit einem Schwamm, wie die Kreide von einer Tafel.’ Und damit ich sie mit meinem schwachen Englisch auch verstünde, vollführte sie die Geste des Abwischens. Ich dachte, sie will mir das einzige nehmen, was ich hab, nämlich mein Leben, das schon gelebte. Das kann man doch nicht wegwerfen, als hätte man noch andere im Schrank. (WL, 22930)

Unsurprisingly therefore, after arriving in New York, the author was plagued by deep depression, which appeared to be both a delayed 43

For Améry, his tattoo is a similarly crucial element of his Jewish identity: ‘Ich bin Jude, dann meine ich damit die in der Auschwitznummer zusammengefaßten Wirklichkeiten und Möglichkeiten’ (JSS, 146). 44 Quoted in Lisbeth Exner, Land meiner Mörder, Land meiner Sprache: Die Schriftstellerin Grete Weil (Munich: A1, 1998), p. 109. 45 Ibid., p. 68. 46 ‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen’.

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reaction to the recent past and to the pressure on her to suppress what had happened: Ich kam mir wertlos vor, sah mich durch fremde Augen, und es gab Stunden, da hatte ich das Gefühl, ich sei nicht befreit worden, sondern ich sei davongekrochen, wie eine Wanze, wenn das Haus ausgeräuchert wird. Sicher ist so ein Bild eine Nachwirkung der Nazipropaganda, doch zu einer Zeit, die die Frauen abwertete, war es naheliegend, mich selbst abzuwerten. (WL, 239)

Despite the impact of gender inequality, however, she acknowledges that the only remedy for this sense of her own superfluousness would have been ‘womöglich kein Jude [zu sein]’ (WL, 239); being male would not have made a difference. She posits the theory, with hindsight, that she was suffering from culture shock. It is nevertheless striking that she should have associated her problems at the time with her Jewishness. With the passage of time, she clearly came to view the unwillingness of people around her to acknowledge her past suffering as a stifling of her identity. From her own point of view, her Jewishness was no longer a problem; it was part of who she had become. Thus weiter leben might be seen both as the realisation of her desire, as a Jew, ‘Zeugnis abzulegen’, but also as a reaffirmation of self, albeit a self with which at the time of writing she was comfortable. She has effectively rescued her identity. In the interview in Die Furche, Klüger explains how her identity was a source of concern when she was younger – during the period covered in weiter leben, therefore – but that it is no longer an issue: Ich bin in einem Alter, wo man nicht mehr an seinem eigenen Wesen oder Wert verzweifelt. Meine Identität setzt sich aus so vielen Dingen zusammen, daß ich mich nicht festlegen möchte, und sagen möchte, also Priorität hat, daß ich Jüdin bin oder daß ich eine Frau bin, daß ich Amerikanerin bin oder daß ich Mutter bin oder daß ich Germanistin 47 bin.

Her assertion is borne out by weiter leben, which documents the pressures she had to withstand and distils out the elements that have enabled her to stay alive and have shaped her sense of self. Having been forced into various roles since the advent of National Socialism – as Jew, concentration camp prisoner, ‘German’, ‘displaced person’ and finally American – and gathered an array of different experiences as a result, Klüger obviously delights in the multiple roles deemed so typical of the modern condition. Klüger’s identity rests in an 47

Legerer, p. 7.

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eclecticism that transcends conventional notions of belonging, but is no postmodern affectation. Nevertheless, about one thing she is adamant. Of all the elements that constitute her identity, Auschwitz should categorically not be seen as one of them: Das Wort Auschwitz hat heute eine Ausstrahlung, wenn auch eine negative, so daß es das Denken über eine Person weitgehend bestimmt, wenn man weiß, daß sie dort gewesen ist. Auch von mir melden die Leute, die etwas Wichtiges über mich aussagen wollen, ich sei in Auschwitz gewesen. Aber so einfach ist das nicht, denn was immer ihr denken mögt, ich komm nicht von Auschwitz her, ich stamm aus Wien. Wien läßt sich abstreifen, man hört es an der Sprache, doch Auschwitz war mir so wesensfremd wie der Mond. Wien ist ein Teil meiner Hirnstruktur und spricht aus mir, während Auschwitz der abwegigste Ort war, den ich je betrat, und die Erinnerung daran bleibt ein Fremdkörper in der Seele, etwa wie eine nicht operierbare Bleikugel im Leib. Auschwitz war ein gräßlicher Zufall. (WL, 139)

One finds the same emphatic refutation of Auschwitz’s ‘benefits’ in Améry’s work: ‘Wir sind in Auschwitz nicht weiser geworden, sofern man unter Weisheit ein positives Wissen von der Welt versteht: Nichts von dem, was wir dort erkannten, hätten wir nicht schon draußen erkennen können; nichts davon wurde uns zu einem praktischen Wegweiser’ (JSS, 44). The corrosive imagery Klüger employs is also strongly redolent of Grete Weil’s novel Generationen, in which the narrator remarks: ‘Meine Krankheit heißt Ausschwitz, und die ist unheilbar. Ich habe Auschwitz, wie andere Tb und Krebs haben’.48 The refusal to countenance the use of Auschwitz as anything other than a destructive metaphor accords with Stephen Brockmann’s rejection of Günter Grass’s notion that Auschwitz was ‘the ultimate guarantor of German identity’ as ‘from a practical standpoint, it is unclear how any positive political identity can emerge solely on the basis of Auschwitz’.49 To underline her wish not to be associated with the epitome of hell on earth, Klüger has never returned to Auschwitz, a place where nobody belonged. By virtue of its unsettling insights into the brutal depredations inflicted on Ruth Klüger by the Nazis, the value of weiter leben resides in its attempt to rescue individuality and assert the subjective nature of the Holocaust experience. Despite the broadly similar elements that pervade the literature of Holocaust survivors – evident in the comparison of Klüger’s text with Levi’s If This is a Man, for 48 49

Grete Weil, Generationen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1989), p. 7. Brockmann, pp. 189-90.

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instance, or Améry’s essays – the experiences of the authors must be seen in their own terms. It is a point that Klüger is eager to make: Die Rolle, die so ein KZ-Aufenthalt im Leben spielt, läßt sich von keiner wackeligen psychologischen Regel ableiten, sondern ist anders für jeden, hängt ab von dem, was vorausging, von dem, was nachher kam, und auch davon, wie es für den oder die im Lager war. Für jeden war es einmalig. (WL, 73)

Each of the survivors’ testimonies together therefore contributes to a more differentiated understanding of the Holocaust, and prevents it from being trivialised or reduced to the level of kitsch and simply explained away. Klüger is determined in weiter leben to combat this tendency, and her strong reservations about the ‘KZ-Museumskultur’ chime with Ernestine Schlant’s observations about the ‘epidemic of commemorating’: Remembrance engages in works of atonement, erupts in conflicts and protests, settles as spectacle and ritual, but always retains its ambivalent, irresolute quality. There is danger that public observances of remembrance days and anniversaries lead to ritualization und relieve the individual from the responsibility to remember. This increasingly public memory work is further enhanced through a plethora of films and TV series, documentaries, and exhibitions […]. Institutionalization, ritualization, mythization, spectacularization – all tend to absorb and obscure the reasons for which they were created 50 and to replace individual memory work with public gestures.

Ruth Klüger has conceived weiter leben as her contribution to ‘individual memory work’. By virtue of its discursive, and frequently provocative, narrative approach, Klüger’s autobiography actively seeks to engage the readers in dialogue, thereby initiating a dynamic commemoration of the Holocaust that she clearly deems more appropriate than any static, artificial monument. But weiter leben is a very private text too, dealing with the period of the author’s life when memories and a sense of self were formed. That they were forged in an atmosphere of repression and persecution, and later subjected to other people’s wish for silence, makes the text indeed a defence of the private realm. It breaks the silence others sought to impose, whilst also celebrating the capacity of humanity to prevail, reflected most obviously in the title. When one considers what has befallen many other Holocaust survivors such as Jean Améry and Paul Celan, Klüger’s testimony is an ‘escape story’ that is cause for celebration indeed. 50

Schlant, p. 243.

Four

‘Taktieren mit der Macht’ – Günter de Bruyn, Zwischenbilanz: Eine Jugend in Berlin (1992) and Vierzig Jahre: Ein Lebensbericht (1996) The second volume of Günter de Bruyn’s autobiographical project was arguably one of the most eagerly anticipated publications of the post-Wende period.1 The author, whose literary achievements in the GDR had to a large extent been overshadowed by more illustrious, high-profile colleagues such as Heiner Müller and Christa Wolf, published the first volume of his autobiography, Zwischenbilanz, to universal acclaim in 1992 and thereby emerged as one of the most successful of former GDR authors to survive the transition to the new Germany.2 His enhanced status was cemented by his enunciation by the leading conservative politician Wolfgang Schäuble as the ‘Schriftsteller der deutschen Einheit’.3 Although de Bruyn was uncomfortable with such accolades, which demanded that he surrender precious time in order to make public appearances, his acclaimed integrity, supported by his extensive literary historical work and underpinned by a firm belief in the cultural unity of Germany that forty years of division had not weakened, imbued him with a symbolic quality at a time when the euphoria of 1989 had given way to a more strained atmosphere between the old and new Bundesländer. It seemed inevitable that Vierzig Jahre would be weighed down by so much expectation, and unsurprisingly the reception it was accorded was more mixed than that of its predecessor. Nevertheless, it was a striking feature of the reviews that there was broad consensus concerning not only the author’s honesty, but also his carefully 1 Günter de Bruyn, Vierzig Jahre: Ein Lebensbericht (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996). Subsequent page references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (VJ, 29). 2 Günter de Bruyn, Zwischenbilanz: Eine Jugend in Berlin (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1992). Subsequent page references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (ZB, 29). 3 Schäuble, Wolfgang, ‘Laudatio auf Günter de Bruyn’, in Verleihung des Preises der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. an Günter de Bruyn: Weimar, 15. Mai 1996, ed. by Günther Rüther (Wesseling: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1996), pp. 7-17 (p. 17).

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balanced attitude to his experiences of the forty years in question, which he stressed related principally to this period of his own life, but which naturally also coincided with the lifespan of East Germany. Many reviews identified in Vierzig Jahre the ambivalence that characterised de Bruyn’s attitude towards the GDR; indeed, it is reflected in some of their titles: ‘Anpassen, widerstehen’ or ‘Einer mit Wenn und Aber’, to cite just two.4 In this regard, the review titles evoke associations with the protagonist of the novel Preisverleihung (1972), Teo Overbeck, who is plagued by the dilemma of whether to conform or criticise, and ultimately effects a clumsy compromise. Yet, there is nothing clumsy about de Bruyn’s measured description in Vierzig Jahre of how he faced the same predicament and allowed his ‘Ruhebedürfnis’ (VJ, 228) to dictate his actions wherever possible. The majority of reviews welcomed de Bruyn’s text enthusiastically, praising its self-critical candour. Johannes Wendland for one admired the way it had done away with ‘falscher Nostalgie und ebenso falscher Verteufelung’.5 Nevertheless, some critics – interestingly enough, mainly from the East – felt he had pulled far too many punches for Vierzig Jahre to be an effective analysis of the GDR. They had failed to take into consideration de Bruyn’s deliberate description of his text as ‘ein Lebensbericht’ [my emphasis], which implied that the primary focus of the text was to be his life, and not that of the GDR. For Michael Opitz, the text was ‘zu glatt, zu paßgerecht’ and lacked ‘Reibungsmomente’.6 In truth, however, de Bruyn’s narrative approach was no different from the one he had adopted in Zwischenbilanz, in which the tone was both balanced and self-critical. All that had changed were the expectations of some critics, who appeared to be demanding a searching socio-political survey, undoubtedly because the subject of the GDR and its legacy was very much on the contemporary agenda, with ever more Stasi revelations in particular making the headlines at the time. But it was inappropriate to expect an author, whose fiction is marked by his even-handed treatment of his characters, to abandon discretion all of a sudden and to adopt the more denunciatory tack that many appeared to demand. 4 Charlotte Wiedemann, ‘Anpassen, widerstehen’, Die Woche, 30 August 1996; Rolf Michaelis, ‘Einer mit Wenn und Aber: Der zweite Band von Günter de Bruyns Lebensbericht: Vierzig Jahre’, Die Zeit, 1 November 1996. 5 Johannes Wendland, ‘Widerstand ohne Triumph. Günter de Bruyn hat seine Autobiographie geschrieben: Vierzig Jahre in der DDR’, Sonntagsblatt, 9 August 1996. 6 Michael Opitz, ‘Ohne zu stören. Zu glatt: Der zweite Teil von Günter de Bruyns Autobiographie Vierzig Jahre’, Freitag, 20 December 1996.

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The template that de Bruyn would later employ for his autobiographies was established much earlier with his sympathetic biography of Jean Paul, the remarkable details of whose life acquire fascinating definition by means of the biographer’s skilful sociopolitical contextualisation of the subject. The material is kept on a tight rein, being divided neatly into short thematic chapters that introduce an array of other characters – family, friends, writers, philosophers, aristocrats – with the result that Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1975) reads in the main like an historical novel. Both autobiographical volumes largely share this same construction, which allows de Bruyn to interweave private and public history to great effect, thereby revealing just how potentially damaging to the individual this interface could be in totalitarian climates. The Jean Paul biography also illustrates de Bruyn’s commitment to factual accuracy, in that he celebrates, rather than conceals, the many contradictions that underpinned the iconoclastic author’s ‘bewegtes Leben’, in order to avoid creating a distorted picture of his subject.7 In the case of his own life, de Bruyn attempts a self-critical analysis of his experiences and maps the contours of conformity and contradiction that shaped his life under two German dictatorships. His voice is diffident and never heroic; it is left to the reader to judge the author’s actions. Despite the criticism that has been levelled at Vierzig Jahre from some quarters, it is noticeable the extent to which de Bruyn’s credibility as an autobiographer has never been impugned. The declaration of the ‘berufsmäßige Lügner’ (ZB, 7) at the beginning of Zwischenbilanz to abandon fiction and ‘die Wahrheit zu sagen’ (ZB, 7) has never been called into question. The nature of truth has preoccupied protagonists in his fiction, and on account of the autobiographical elements that pervade his work, de Bruyn’s approach adheres closely to the tenets of ‘subjective authenticity’ established by Christa Wolf. He himself contributed to the debate in the GDR about the need for a more differentiated, less dogmatic, brand of literature with a series of essays such as ‘Über den Schriftsteller als Entdecker’, in which he proposed that literary authenticity was contingent upon the conflation of elements he referred to as ‘Erlebtes’ and ‘Erfundenes’, elements which recall the Wahrheit and Dichtung of the Goethean autobiographical paradigm.8 In Zwischenbilanz, de Bruyn 7

Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, p. 113. Günter de Bruyn, ‘Über den Schriftsteller als Entdecker’, in Jubelschreie, Trauergesänge: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991), pp. 57-65. 8

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recalls how he learnt the importance of this blend of narrative elements as a boy, when regaling his friend with tales of his involvement in his brother’s gang: Ich erzählte nur gern von [Wolfgangs Clique] – und ich lernte dabei, daß man Wirklichkeit durch Erzählen nur schattenhaft wiederbelebt, wenn die Fähigkeit fehlt, sie um Mögliches, das wie Wirkliches wirkt zu ergänzen. Tatsachenberichte einfallslos aneinandergereiht, ergeben nur blasse Geschichten; erst die Erfindung verleiht ihnen Kontur. (ZB, 28-9)

De Bruyn’s preoccupation with the nature of truth and authenticity has continued, and his essay collection on the nature of autobiographical writing bears the revealing title Das erzählte Ich: Über Wahrheit und Dichtung in der Autobiographie (1995). The allusion to Goethe’s famous text hints at de Bruyn’s adherence to the traditional conception of autobiography as a literary medium, but the significant inversion of the original title signals that his principal concern is with the authenticity of any such account. It is only natural that the qualities deemed essential for producing authentic literature should pertain to autobiography as well, a genre demanding the highest guarantee of authenticity to be in any way credible. The essays advocate constantly the need for a critical approach to the autobiographical material in question, adding the important qualification that the end result can only ever be a construct of what actually happened: Ein getreues Abbild des vergangenen Geschehens können Historiographie und Autobiographie schon deshalb nicht geben, weil sie erzählen und damit der Vergangenheit eine Form geben, die sie von sich aus nicht hat. Um Geschichtsquellen oder Erinnerungen erzählbar zu machen, muß eine Auswahl getroffen, eine Ordnung hergestellt und Schwerpunkte gesetzt werden. Erreicht wird damit eine Wahrheit, die Goethe eine Grundwahrheit genannt hat, man könnte auch sagen: eine Wahrheit der Kunst. (EI, 66)

In both volumes of his autobiographical project, de Bruyn selects and arranges his material in the manner outlined in the passage above, in an attempt to produce an accessible, and authentic, account. In de Bruyn’s view, it is this structuring process that constitutes Dichtung in an autobiographical context: ‘Dichtung im autobiographischen Schreiben ist die Fähigkeit, das Vergangene gegenwärtig zu machen, Wesentliches in Sein und Werden zu zeigen, Teilwahrheiten zusammenzufassen zu dem Versuch der ganzen Wahrheit über das schreibende und beschriebene Ich’ (EI, 31-2). Autobiography has the intrinsically constructed nature of literary fiction, but de Bruyn

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stresses that, unlike fiction, this process of Dichtung does not have anything to do with literary invention; it simply represents how one gives shape to one’s memories and experiences, ‘inventing’ a coherent form and structure for them, in other words, to enable others to relate to them. His view therefore tallies with Ludwig Harig’s approach to the material in Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt. Nevertheless, de Bruyn is careful to underline the conditional nature of the texts thus constructed. In the opening paragraph of Zwischenbilanz he talks of the text as a ‘Vorübung’ and a ‘Training im Ich-Sagen’ (ZB, 7), whilst in Das erzählte Ich he indicates how any analysis of the GDR in Vierzig Jahre can only ever be provisional due to the ‘Mangel an Distanz’: ‘Die politischen Zustände von gestern sind noch nicht zur Historie geworden; die Flut der Geschehnisse hat sich noch nicht zur Geschichte geklärt und geformt’ (EI, 59). Rather than reducing the sense of authenticity, such caveats serve to enhance the credibility of the texts produced in that de Bruyn can be seen to be striving for the truth and seeks to corroborate his account wherever possible. It is an approach to autobiography that is both subjective and authentic. De Bruyn’s primary concern is the problematic nature of memory. It is a particular feature of Zwischenbilanz, where the gap between narrated past and narrative present is wider than in the second volume of his autobiography, but attention is also drawn to unreliable memories in Vierzig Jahre, albeit less frequently. In Das erzählte Ich, de Bruyn warns of the problems intrinsic to well-polished anecdotes ‘denen man anmerkt, daß sie schon oft in geselliger Runde erfolgreich erzählt wurden’ (EI, 41) and that would probably fail any ‘Echtheitsprüfung’. He is duly sceptical of some of the memories included in his autobiography, such as his apparent encounter with an American pilot the morning after his house has been bombed: ‘Ob ich, wie meine Erinnerung will, die Begegnung mit dem US-Piloten an diesem Tag hatte, stelle ich lieber in Frage: sie paßt hier zu gut’ (ZB, 162). That both volumes of his autobiography excel, nevertheless, in the neat division of the material into short, episodic chapters, might appear to contradict his assertion that ‘das Leben kunstvoll gesetzte Pointen nur selten parat [hält]’ (EI, 41), were it not for the repetition throughout of qualifications such as ‘wenn mein Gedächtnis mich nicht täuscht’ (ZB, 49). He can vouch for the veracity of certain memories on account of the deeply painful impression they made. His war experiences, for example, which culminated in a severe head injury that in turn caused temporary aphasia, gave rise to ‘Angstträume […], die durch den Schock dieser Tage ausgelöst

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wurden und sich bis heute von ihm nähren’, but which also ‘die Klarheit meiner Erinnerungsbilder nicht verwischt, sondern gefestigt [haben]’ (ZB, 225). Similarly, and even more poignantly, de Bruyn recalls Christmas 1941 when news of his brother Wolfgang’s death reached the family on Christmas Eve. ‘Und den Menschen ein Wohlgefallen’ is arguably the most affecting chapter in either volume of his autobiography, in that the extremes of emotion it embraces are amplified by the context, as signalled by the opening lines: ‘Die Weihnachten der Kindheit habe ich mit lebenslangen Weihnachtsleiden bezahlt’ (ZB, 116). De Bruyn conjures up a delightfully rich description of the family’s festive customs, being able to draw on an array of photographs which provide ‘fast lückenlos, eine Foto-Chronologie’ (ZB, 118). Having thus established the context, de Bruyn undercuts the mood with the verbatim inclusion of the letter from Wolfgang’s company commander notifying them of his death: ‘Diszipliniert wie wir waren, fand die Feier unter dem Weihnachtsbaum trotzdem statt’ (ZB, 120). On account of the extremes of emotion, reflected in the juxtaposition of the fateful letter with ‘das vertraute zweite Lukas-Kapitel (ZB, 120) – the cornerstone of the family celebrations, as the quotation in the chapter title indicates – and accentuated by the family’s resolutely disciplined reaction to the tragic news, one can appreciate why this memory has remained so vivid. Where he is unable to corroborate an episode fully, de Bruyn is careful to draw attention to his misgivings, as in the scene with the American pilot, or to concede that some events may not have coincided exactly as he describes, even though it is entirely plausible. The example he cites in Das erzählte Ich relates to the chapter ‘Kinofreuden’, in which de Bruyn indicates how his first cinema visit, to see good triumph over evil in Emil und die Detektive, could well have taken place on the evening of 30 January 1933: Die Weltgeschichte aber trat an diesem Abend, oder an einem ähnlichen, am Buschkrug in Erscheinung, und zwar in Gestalt von Herrn Mägerlein aus Nummer 5. Der nämlich kam […] angetrunken und in bester Laune aus der Kneipe, schloß sich uns an und redete davon, daß es nach all den bösen Jahren nun mit Deutschland wieder aufwärts gehe, denn endlich sei, seit vormittag 11 Uhr, der Adolf dran. (ZB, 53) [my emphasis]

Even though they were not prompted by Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship of Germany, the young de Bruyn’s tears at the end of the film unwittingly anticipate the tragedy that was to befall his

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family. In this way, de Bruyn has instilled in his account a dramatic tension, which is only achievable with the benefit of hindsight: Wie im ganzen Buch ist auch in diesem Stück nichts erfunden, und doch verquicken Dichtung und Wahrheit sich hier miteinander, weil Verbindungen zwischen verschiedenen Bereichen hergestellt werden, die erst der Erzähler im nachhinein sieht. (EI, 68)

Even if the events were not quite as synchronous as described, it is nevertheless an authentic depiction of the fateful nature of the Nazis’ seizure of power and its impact on ordinary people. The scene acquires a representative quality by setting de Bruyn’s personal memories in their broader historical context, and is one of myriad examples of the way in which de Bruyn’s family history simultaneously reflects that of Germany. As with ‘Den Menschen ein Wohlgefallen’, ‘Kinofreuden’ is a good example of de Bruyn’s understanding of how Dichtung and Wahrheit operate in an autobiographical context. This collision of the private and public spheres continues in Vierzig Jahre, but in contrast to Zwischenbilanz, de Bruyn’s recollection of these moments naturally appears more authoritative. As an adult he was more often an active participant in contemporary events and can vouch more forcefully for the accuracy of his depictions thereof, as in the chapter ‘Schlachtenbummel’, for example. De Bruyn quite literally steps into history on 17 June 1953, motivated by the desire ‘Geschichte mitzuerleben’ (VJ, 46) when the demonstrations against the inflated work norms swept past his East Berlin office. Although not without the occasional ‘Erinnerungslücke’ (VJ, 48), de Bruyn’s personal account provides insight into the tense atmosphere on a day, which ultimately accelerated the State’s desire to perfect its monitoring of the people. It is no less important a day, therefore, than 30 January 1933, in that both had ramifications for ordinary individuals; the only difference in Vierzig Jahre, however, is that the author knows the juxtaposition of private and public experience on 17 June 1953 definitely occurred. The unreliability of his memories in general is a leitmotif in both volumes, and it is this candour which ensures their credibility. From the apparently trivial interrogation of memories derived from family photographs to the more anguished realisation that his contact with the Stasi endured far longer than he remembered, de Bruyn shows himself to be unrelentingly suspicious about the accuracy of what he is able to recall:

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Where possible, de Bruyn employs documentary evidence in his reconstruction in order to test, correct, or supplement his memories. Extant photographs and letters shed light on friends and relatives, although in the case of his elder brother, Karlheinz, who went missing in 1944, the end result of such a process remains fragmentary at best: Zwar kann ich neben meinen Erinnerungen auch Briefe, seinen Nachlaß und Auskünfte Dritter benutzen, aber dem durch Verklärung unklaren Bild von ihm kann das alles keine klareren Umrisse geben: zu sehr wirkt die Verehrung aus Kindertagen noch nach. (ZB, 220)

To underline further still the difficulties facing any autobiographer, de Bruyn, who as a youngster assiduously maintained a diary, is forced to acknowledge the inherent unreliability of this document. In the chapter detailing de Bruyn’s desperate attempts to conform during his Kinderlandverschickung period, he expresses his surprise on rereading his journal entries from this time: Der Tagebuchschreiber, in dem ich mich selbst kaum wiedererkenne, scheint damit genauso einverstanden zu sein wie mit der Kontrolle des Bettenbaus und der Schrankordnung, der Wäsche und der Füße, der Lektüre und des Ausgangs, der nur gruppenweise möglich ist. Eigne Meinungen scheint er nicht zu haben […]. Von Heimweh ist genauso wenig die Rede wie von Angst […]. Zu dem Privaten, das ausgespart bleibt, gehört nicht nur die Familie, die Briefe an Reni und die eine abrupt endende Freundschaft, sondern auch die Lektüre […]. Nie ist von Polen oder Juden die Rede, aber auch nicht von Hitler. […] Da andere politische Meinungen als die herrschenden nicht vernehmbar werden, wird Politisches nie zum Problem. Die 45 Jahre, die das Tagebuchschreiben vom Wiederlesen trennen, haben die Erinnerung an manche Ereignisse, die damals erwähnenswert schienen, getilgt; andere, die verschüttet waren, wurden durch das Lesen wieder freigelegt; und wieder andere, die nie vergessen waren, lassen deutlich werden, was der Chronist verschweigt oder entstellt. Ob das aus Vorsicht, aus Unfähigkeit oder in selbstbetrügerischer Absicht geschah, ist im Einzelfall nicht auszumachen, insgesamt herrscht aber der trübe Eindruck vor, daß dieser Knabe von 14 Jahren hier konformes Verhalten übt. Er gibt sich Mühe, so zu erscheinen, wie er die anderen sieht. (ZB, 109-10)

Rather than plugging gaps, his diary poses more questions. Yet the resultant tension between what the present self recalls and what the past self records, exposes the psychological pressure the teenager was under to fit in with his surroundings and the ‘Angst des Außenseiters,

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als solcher erkannt zu werden’ (ZB, 111). In conjunction, memory and documentation do therefore recreate an impression of the past, even if, ironically in this instance, it is the process of remembering that appears more accurate. In effect, the episode simply confirms the autobiographer’s need for caution and a dialectical confrontation with the past in its various forms. That memory is not always so reliable is evinced by the ‘Streng geheim’ chapter in Vierzig Jahre, which recounts the Stasi’s attempt to recruit de Bruyn as an Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (IM). The author’s encounter with his Stasi file is a chastening experience. He draws attention to the unreliability of some aspects of the files, such as ‘die widersprüchlichen Charakterisierungen’ of him compiled by various of his literary colleagues who acted as informants and who clearly ‘nur wenig von mir [wußten]’ (VJ, 190). Nevertheless, he is forced to concede that other details significantly contradict his own recollection of events: Auch bei wiederholter Lektüre kommen Angst und Scham wieder, und es quält mich das Mißtrauen in mein Erinnerungsvermögen, das offensichtlich in den inzwischen vergangenen Jahren schönfärbend und entlastend tätig gewesen war. Ohne Kenntnis der Akten hätte ich diese Episode anders berichtet. Ich wäre guten Gewissens schonender mit mir umgegangen, weil einiges, das mich belastet, verdrängt oder vergessen war. In meiner Erinnerung hatte ich mich standhafter verhalten, und das endgültige Nein hatte ich früher gesagt. (VJ, 192)

The whole chapter is derived from the article de Bruyn published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in February 1993, entitled ‘Dieses Mißtrauen gegen mich selbst’.9 Die Welt responded with a short, rather sensational report in which the self-critical tenor of de Bruyn’s article, as well as the actual facts of the contact, were disregarded.10 In contrast, an article in Neue Zeit drew attention to the author’s own revelation of these contacts as soon as he came across them in his files and praised his response: Vor allem aber schafft er etwas, was bisher keiner der betroffenen Schriftsteller fertigbrachte: sich zu schämen. Günter de Bruyn spricht von eigener Feigheit, von Schuld und Verzweiflung. Er ist entsetzt über sich selbst. Dieses Schamgefühl und diese Erkenntnis verdienen Respekt. So tief wie de Bruyn hat niemand bisher die Wahrheit ausgelotet. Er zerstörte seine Lebenslegende, die – wie er meint – 9 Günter de Bruyn, ‘Dieses Mißtrauen gegen mich selbst. Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit: Ein Beitrag zum Umgang mit den Stasi-Akten’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 February 1993. 10 Anon, ‘De Bruyn gibt Kontakte zur Stasi zu’, Die Welt, 19 February 1993.

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His handling of the whole episode reflects both his integrity and the rigorous self-assessment that characterises his autobiographical work. The confrontation with the Stasi files indicates indeed how difficult it is to write the truth. In fairness, one cannot reasonably accuse de Bruyn of complicity; on the contrary, his refusal to be snared by the Stasi’s ‘Legende’ strikes one as very brave, especially for one so diffident. De Bruyn’s own assessment of the episode bears no trace of self-justification or victimisation. Instead, the passage is shot through with feelings of ‘Beschämung’, ‘Verzweiflung’ and ‘Schmach’, and the whole experience is consequently defined as ‘die Tragödie meines Versagens’ (VJ, 201). The original article bears the illuminating subtitle ‘Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit’, thus the chapter can be viewed with some justification as a template for the narrative approach in Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre as a whole, in which the autobiographer wrestles constantly with suspicions about himself and his capacity to remember. In Das erzählte Ich, de Bruyn opines that ‘für die Selbstdarstellung der Grundsatz der Schonungslosigkeit gelten [muß]’ (EI, 58), and the credibility of his autobiographical project derives from this rigorous self-appraisal, as adduced by chapters such as ‘Streng geheim’. He does not denunciate or condemn; he is merely critical where criticism is required. In the post-Wende period, when accusations of Stasi involvement were rife, often stoked by a frenzied media as in the case of the Literaturstreit that engulfed Christa Wolf in the early 1990s, de Bruyn’s measured, detached tone in both volumes emerged as a paradigm. No less a figure than Marcel ReichRanicki drew attention to this exemplary quality of the narrative in his review of Zwischenbilanz: […] Er schreibt ernst, doch nie schwerfällig, nüchtern, doch nie trocken, er vermeidet gewagte Bilder und angestrengte Formulierungen. […] Was immer er erzählt, er tut es mit Gleichmut und Gelassenheit, ohne daß ihn je Gleichgültigkeit oder gar 12 Gefühllosigkeit bedrohen würden.

The moderate tone is enhanced by the inclusion of humour, most often at the author’s expense, but it is not without its own melancholic 11

Anon, ‘Respekt’, Neue Zeit, 20 February 1993. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, ‘Deutsche Mittellage’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 April 1992.

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nuances. In particular, de Bruyn pokes fun at his various unrequited infatuations with women, such as G. and Ilse, whom he placed on a pedestal and preferred to worship from afar. It is in the chapter describing his marriage, however, that the ramifications of this idolisation of women, which his experiences of military life had intensified, become clear: ‘Eine Glanz von Idealität umgab [alle Frauen], der sie schön, doch auch unnahbar machte, und der, das war die traurige Seite der Sache, Erwartungen an sie knüpfte, die einzulösen ihnen unmöglich war’ (ZB, 359). That this realisation strikes him only on his wedding day, the description of which otherwise proves an effective vehicle for comedy, suggests that the portents for the newly-weds are not encouraging. In Vierzig Jahre, de Bruyn describes how not even the ominous fracture of both wrists during a riding lesson can deter him from his long-held dream of keeping horses, spurred by the Karl May stories he adored in his youth: ‘Mit zwei Gipsarmen winkte ich ab, als mir das Aufgeben meiner Pferdepläne empfohlen wurde, betrieb meinen Ruin nur noch eifriger weiter’ (VJ, 163). He proceeds to outline in embarrassing detail how the reality does not match the expectations aroused by Karl May, alluding perhaps to the same discrepancy between theory and practice in the GDR as a whole. The horses are ill-tempered and frequently escape, and instead of being able to devote himself to his work, de Bruyn spends most of his time ensuring the horses are fed or chasing after them. With great relief, he is finally able to sell them. As well as injecting humour into the narrative, such selfdeprecating moments ensure that de Bruyn never appears in any way heroic. At times, his self-portrait recalls the diffident anti-heroes in his fiction, thereby underlining the subjective authenticity of his work. It comes as no surprise that Teo Overbeck’s public difficulty in Preisverleihung is very closely based on de Bruyn’s own embarrassing contribution at a Böll reading in East Berlin, at which people hoped ‘hier Wahrheiten zu hören, die sie selbst nicht äußern durften’ (VJ, 133). Charged with initiating the discussion in front of a large, and highly expectant, audience, de Bruyn is unable to keep his stagefright at bay and nervously stammers out a long, and allegedly nonsensical, question: Mich quälte mein Versagen noch lange, bis ich es einer Romanfigur anhängen konnte, die mit zwei verschiedenen Schuhen bekleidet auf das Rednerpult geht. Ein bißchen plump ist dieses Symbol für das Schwanken zwischen Wahrheitsbemühen und Feigheit hier wohl

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Once again, the humour is underpinned by a more serious point, namely the ‘Taktieren mit der Macht’ (VJ, 133) that life in a totalitarian environment necessitated. Nevertheless, de Bruyn emerges as a figure with whom one can readily identify. By means of the moderate and differentiated tone of the narrative, together with the selection and structuring of the material, his private experiences appear both authentic and accessible, thereby acquiring a universal quality that critics such as Reich-Ranicki were quick to praise: ‘Das Private und das Allgemeine, sie gehen hier unentwegt und doch unmerklich ineinander über’.13 This blend of private and public is the key to de Bruyn’s credibility as a chronicler of how individuals sought to cope with the pressures of life under two contrasting German models of totalitarianism. The abiding impression of both Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre is of a man plagued with fear and forced into uncomfortable compromises with the prevailing totalitarian regimes. In order to preserve his personal integrity, de Bruyn kept his distance from authority wherever possible, withdrawing into an inner emigration particularly in the GDR. At times this position demanded outward conformity, but his ‘Unfähigkeit zum Leben im Kollektiv’ (ZB, 27) and ‘Parteilichkeitsmängel’ (VJ, 25) emerge as leitmotifs of his autobiographical project. The author continually wrestles with the issue of conformity and whether he could, and should, have been a more active opponent of the regime. The scale of his attempts to conform during the Kinderlandverschickung alarms him when confronted with his diary, but his subsequent conscription as a Flakhelfer and ultimately into the Wehrmacht simply underlines how the development of many of his generation was inevitably stunted by these ‘Zwangsgemeinschaften’ (ZB, 147): ‘Zum Reifeprozeß junger Menschen gehört das Erkunden fremder Sozialbereiche; das aber war uns Frühkasernierten verwehrt. Wir kannten nur Familie und Militär, Unterordnung und Abhängigkeiten’ (ZB, 146). In this regard, de Bruyn’s experiences provide a neat contrast to those of Ludwig Harig and Günter Kunert; the former was willingly subsumed into the Nazi system and attended the élite Hitler Youth school at Idstein, while the latter was able to keep his distance from all organisations on account of his status as a Mischling, but whose life in Hitler’s Germany was 13

Reich-Ranicki, ‘Deutsche Mittellage’.

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constantly overshadowed by the persecution of the Jews. Although not as compliant as Harig, de Bruyn possessed none of Kunert’s impudence, which also marked the latter’s resolutely critical stance in the GDR, as documented in Erwachsenenspiele, which will form the focus of discussion in Chapter 5. Despite the significant differences, however, the three accounts provide mutual corroboration of the pictures of Nazi Germany conveyed, especially in the case of de Bruyn and Kunert who were both born and raised in Berlin. Readers of de Bruyn’s autobiographical volumes gain lucid insights into the experience of living under totalitarianism, despite the auhtor’s best efforts at the time to evade the most damaging of its effects. The description of how National Socialism began to impinge on daily life is finely drawn, and whereas Harig’s family enthusiastically embraced the changes in the Saarland, de Bruyn’s family sought to shield the private sphere from what was going on around them. To some extent, as a Catholic family in Protestant Berlin, theirs was a detached position that was already wellestablished; in hindsight, however, de Bruyn is critical of his parents’ efforts to protect him from the reality: Die Seelenruhe meiner frühen Kindheit beruhte zum Teil auf Unwissenheit. Durch Verschweigen glaubten meine Eltern bei Hitlers Machtantritt die heile Welt des Sechsjährigen erhalten zu können. Sie verschonten mich also mit den Berichten von Verhaftungen und Morden, die meinen Vater an seiner Arbeitsstelle […] erreichten; doch hatte das nur zu Folge, daß Politisches tabuisiert wurde, ich meine Angst vor der Zukunft für mich zu behalten lernte und so der Bereich des Nicht-Sagbaren in der Familie wuchs. (ZB, 53)

The onset of National Socialism was signalled by the ‘plötzlich[e] Einheitlichkeit der Fahnen, die nun bei jeder Gelegenheit vor den Fenstern hingen’ (ZB, 54) – an image familiar from Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt or Horvath’s Jugend ohne Gott – and the increasing number of bans imposed.14 With a degree of humour, de Bruyn observes how personal physical contact was directly problematised as a result of Hitler’s rise to power, in that people were uncertain whether to greet one another with a traditional handshake or the new Hitlergruß. Although de Bruyn paints a picture of the ludicrous ‘Verdopplung der Leibesübung’ (ZB, 55) that could result, there is an inherent seriousness to his description, nevertheless, underlining the insidious effects of the new regime in Germany on its people and the psychological ramifications thereof. He indicates how the new 14

See, for example, the chapter ‘Fahnen’ in Jugend ohne Gott, pp. 112-13.

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chancellor was widely accepted, not least by the Catholic Church, whose tolerance of the Nazis he blames for his parents’ inability to respond more purposefully at the time. By contrast, his brother, Karlheinz, who was active in the Catholic Neudeutschland youth organisation, explained what was happening outside the confines of the family, and in the process exerted a strong influence on the young boy as a positive model of resistance, albeit largely passive in nature. It was a stance exemplified by the critical Catholic newspaper, Junge Welt, the tactics of which are summarised as being ‘dabei, die Grenze dessen, was man sagen durfte, zu erreichen, aber nicht zu überschreiten und es den Lesern zu überlassen, die vorgegebenen Schlüsse selbst zu ziehen’ (ZB, 58-9). Although he could barely read, the paper introduced the young de Bruyn to ‘Begriffe wie Zensur, Zwischen-den-Zeilen-Lesen und Totalitätsanspruch’ (ZB, 58) that would remain a feature of his life and work until 1989. Despite the inherent critique of his parents’ instinctively protective behaviour, it is clear just how important the family sphere as a whole was in shaping de Bruyn’s attitudes at the time, instilling in him key moral values, but also equipping him for survival not only in Nazi Germany but the GDR as well. In particular, he attributes this stoicism to his mother’s deep-rooted Prussian attitude to life: Jenes Pflichtbewußtsein, das uns auch in schlechten Lagen zum Aushalten zwang, haben wir wohl in erster Linie unserer preußischen Mutter zu verdanken, die ihre Grundsätze zwar nie klar formulierte, uns aber ein Beispiel gab. […] Pflichterfüllung, gleichgültig wo, wofür und warum, hatte ihren Wert in sich selbst; jedes Aufgeben war Niederlage, das die Selbstachtung kostete. Und deren Verlust war schlimmer als die Verachtung, die von anderen kam. (ZB, 127-8)

Although such stoicism bordered on subservience in his mother’s case, to the extent even that she only once talked about her rape by a Russian soldier after the war, it is clear that de Bruyn, despite some token rebellion, inherited the same commitment to endurance. As a result, he feels compelled to resist Karlheinz’s efforts to engineer his exemption from further participation in the hated Kinderlandverschickung on medical grounds: ‘Ich mußte Karlheinz des Verrats bezichtigen, das Attest über meine Blutarmut vernichten, vor Verzweiflung heulend in den D-Zug steigen, um in Oberschlesien noch ein halbes Jahr auszuharren: als Gefangener des eignen Zwangs’ (ZB, 129). The importance and sanctity of the moral values acquired at home were reinforced by his profoundly negative experiences outside the family in the Hitler Youth, during the Kinderlandverschickung and

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in the army. Although never a formal member of the Hitler Youth, de Bruyn did attend a camp at the behest of his friend Hannes, only to be horrified by the bullying atmosphere he encountered. Victimised for his inability to march properly, de Bruyn is humiliated by one of the leaders. It instills in him further his sense of individuality: Später nahm mich einer der verständigeren Führer beiseite und versuchte, mich von der Macht der Gewöhnung zu überzeugen; was ich vorgäbe, nicht zu können, könne doch jeder; jeder habe Einordnungs- und Anpassungsfähigkeit. Aber das beeindruckte mich wenig. Ich war nicht jeder. Und unter den vielen, die sich einordnen konnten, waren nicht die, die ich suchte und brauchte. Und deshalb gehörte ich dort nicht hin. (ZB, 91)

Although he managed to keep his distance from the Hitler Youth after that, he was unable to remain entirely immune from the deformation of youth that the Nazis were responsible for, as outlined more extensively in Harig’s account. His stubbornness at the Hitler Youth camp was replaced by a desperate attempt to conform during his Kindlandverschickung experience. What Zwischenbilanz uncovers is the all-pervasive influence that National Socialism exuded on society and how susceptible youngsters in particular were to these morally distorting forces. In comparison to Harig, who was completely immersed in the system without access to any corrective influences in the home, de Bruyn’s retention of his values, and with them a measure of inner resistance, reveal how, for the most part, his family attitudes inoculated him against the most corrosive effects. Nonetheless, there remained a life beyond the private sphere that had to be endured, and survived. Yet even during his military involvement, first as a Flakhelfer and then as a soldier, de Bruyn encountered positive models of resistance that alleviated the ‘Militäralltagsöde’ (ZB, 141), as well as providing crucial corrective markers. In the chapter ‘Kunsthonig’, de Bruyn provides a sensitive analysis of his generation’s experiences under National Socialism, the credibility of which was confirmed by reviewers such as ReichRanicki and Ludwig Harig, the latter of whom was an apposite critic. De Bruyn stresses that these immature young men were ‘patriotisch oder auch nationalistisch, aber nicht national-sozialistisch’ (ZB, 142), but concedes ‘natürlich waren wir alle, die wir 1933 Lesen und Schreiben gelernt hatten, von der herrschenden Ideologie infiziert worden’ (ZB, 142): Von der Welt isoliert, dumm gehalten und mit Vorurteilen beladen, waren wir als williges Kanonenfutter aufgewachsen; aber fanatische Nazis waren wir wider Erwarten nicht geworden. […]

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Die Einseitigkeit unserer Erziehung hatte uns zu politischen Analphabeten werden lassen. Man könnte auch sagen: wir waren unpolitisch, wenn man unter politischem Denken die Fähigkeit zur Entscheidung versteht. Der innere Widerstand, der sich da und dort, auch bei mir, regte, war weder politisch motiviert, noch wurde er so empfunden. Man fühlte sich unfähig zu dieser Art Leben; man lernte, sich zu entziehen; aber systemkritisch zu denken lernte man nicht – oder nur schwer, oder nur wenn ein Anstoß von außen kam. (ZB, 143)

By stressing the immaturity of his generation in his analysis, de Bruyn is careful to play down the suggestion that any coherent will to resist existed. His assessment is sober and not uncritical, but he is equally mindful to underline how the exclusion of more enlightened, critical influences inevitably led to their general conformity and stunted development. That de Bruyn did not fall prey to the same level of indoctrination as Harig – who saw himself as ‘ein Pawloscher Hund’ rather than a ‘politischer Analphabet’ – is not only attributable to his family, but also to the influence of brave individuals such as Referendar Krättge and Studienrat Dr Neumann, who taught German and History, two of the subjects whose content was extensively adapted by the Nazis for their ideological ends. Both teachers combatted the partial syllabi with provocatively allegorical interpretations in their respective subjects that threw critical light on the present, allusions not lost on the more perceptive pupils such as de Bruyn. For Krättge, teaching the class ‘die Folter-Ballade Die Füße im Feuer gab ihm Anlaß, über die mörderische Verfolgung Andersdenkender so zu reden, als seien nicht nur die Hugenottenkriege gemeint’ (ZB, 107). Moreover, he was brave enough to teach Wilhelm Tell ‘dessen Behandlung in der Schule schon ein Jahr zuvor von Hitler untersagt worden war’ (ZB, 107). Dr Neumann was equally adept at tackling historical issues, such as Caesar’s fall and Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, in such a manner ‘daß sie Aktuelles streifte’ (ZB, 145). But de Bruyn adjudges the teacher’s influence to have been more significant for having opened his pupils’ eyes to the plurality of ideas. In particular, Neumann’s ethos was reflected in his lectures on the Weimar Republic: ‘Das Führerprinzip der Nazis war ihm nur eine politische Idee unter vielen; zu keiner davon wollte er uns bekehren’ (ZB, 145). The role of these critically minded teachers recalls that of the narrator in Jugend ohne Gott, whose efforts to counter the prejudice inculcated in his pupils initially lead him into trouble, but ultimately finds resonance with a

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small group within the class.15 Despite the pressure on de Bruyn to conform, it is clear how the influence of Krättge and Neumann formed a crucial connection with his private values, by sustaining his awareness of the existence of contrary opinions in a totalitarian climate outwith the family. More significantly still, one might see in both teachers’ use of allusion and oblique reference an early object lesson for the future author in how to convey critical views in repressive socio-political and cultural climates, a subtle technique characteristic of de Bruyn’s best work. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht while still a teenager, de Bruyn was subjected to the same regime of brutality and conformity that had marked his brief, and misguided, dalliance with the Hitler Youth, even if his subsequent ‘vormilitärische Erfahrung’ had better prepared him for the rigours of military training. Nevertheless, as a reluctant recruit, de Bruyn was victimised once more: Die nie offen verweigerte, aber immer lustlose und langsame Befehlsausführung mußte den Unmut der Vorgesetzten erregen, und besonders die primitivsten unter ihnen, die Demut, Beflissenheit oder doch wenigstens Angst erwarteten, ließen oft ihre Wut über die Mißachtung ihrer Macht an mir aus. (ZB, 202)

De Bruyn strikes no heroic poses, indicating simply how incompetent a soldier he was, equally as clumsy at firing a weapon as driving a tank. But the humorous overtones of this self-portrait do little to mitigate the almost crippling mundanity of the military experience, which Heinrich Böll’s early fiction captures so well. That Böll’s early postwar fiction should consequently have exerted so strong an influence on the young de Bruyn, who was struggling at the time to come to terms with his own experiences, culminating alarmingly in a severe head injury, comes as little surprise: Als eifriger Leser verfolgte ich alles, was in den auf den Krieg folgenden Jahren über diesen geschrieben wurde, doch konnte ich darin die Kriegswirklichkeit, wie ich sie erlebt hatte, nicht wiederfinden, bis mir Bölls erste Bücher in die Hände gerieten und mir die Gewißheit gaben, daß ich mit meiner Art des Erlebens so alleine nicht stand. (VJ, 135)

The affinity de Bruyn felt towards his older colleague – de Bruyn compares him to a surrogate older brother – is reflected in the

15

In Jugend ohne Gott, the narrator is encouraged by the group of pupils who are inspired to form ‘Der Club’, in order to propagate his humanitarian ideals.

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thematic similarities that can be traced between his début novel, Der Hohlweg (1963) and Böll’s Wo warst du, Adam?.16 In contrast to the critical figures Krättge and Neumann, and in the absence of any immediate role models such as Böll, de Bruyn was surrounded by those whose ‘Systemeingepaßtheit’ (ZB, 202) he could never hope nor wish to emulate, such as Oberleutnant Krell, for example, de Bruyn’s commanding officer during his brief active service. Though Krell was critical of Hitler’s credentials as a military leader, ‘das hinderte ihn aber nicht daran, ihm bis zum letzten Tag noch zu folgen, wie das Gesetz es befahl’ (ZB, 206). Thus, in ‘Das Frontschwein’, Krell stands as an archetype of the dutiful German soldier, embodying the values that helped to sustain National Socialism for so long. Although de Bruyn does not seek to play down his own dutiful and compliant nature, he shared none of Krell’s inherent passion for conflict, which overrode any reservations he entertained about the Führer. Nevertheless, the portrait of Krell would be unequivocally sympathetic, were it not for the military vernacular he employed, blending vulgar, scatological and sexual imagery in the most inappropriate contexts. Whereas his mother’s idiosyncratic use of language is celebrated, the author’s rejection of Krell’s linguistic propensity to the vulgar can be seen as further evidence of the insidious effects of the Nazi regime’s pollution of a more wholesome and enlightened human sensibility. The vernacular itself is endemic of military life, nevertheless in ‘Das Frontschwein’ de Bruyn reveals how these intrinsically aggressive attitudes were encouraged to thrive under the Nazis. If sexual relationships are described in terms resembling hand-to-hand combat – ‘[ein] Nahkampf’ (ZB, 218) – then it is possible to see how some soldiers could be equally desensitised to the horrific excesses of National Socialism, especially towards those groups whose human dignity had been eroded by their treatment and classification as Untermenschen. That Krell’s ‘ständige[r] Gebrauch kriegerischer Metaphern […] bei Zeitungsschreibern und Politikern Schule gemacht [hat]’ (ZB, 218) should perturb de Bruyn still is wholly understandable.

16

For a more detailed examination of Böll’s influence on de Bruyn, see Owen Evans, ‘“Für mich ist er früh schon wichtig gewesen”: How Heinrich Böll gave Günter de Bruyn a Helping Hand’, in University of Dayton Review 24.3 (1997), 125-32, and J. H. Reid, ‘“Das unerreichbare Vorbild”: Günter de Bruyn und Heinrich Böll’, in Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, ed. by Dennis Tate (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 133-50.

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Not susceptible to such linguistic traits himself, the author nevertheless ascribes his own problematic relationships with women to the experience of National Socialism in general, a problem exacerbated still further by his military service. He admits to having always idealised women, and the various finely drawn portraits in Zwischenbilanz reveal the features of, what he dubs, his ‘mariologisches System’ (ZB, 361) which inspired him ‘in jeder Geliebten Maria zu suchen’ (ZB, 359): Die Männerwelt aus Stumpfsinn, Gleichschritt, Zoten und Gestank ließ alles Schöne in so unerreichbar weite Ferne rücken, daß die Distanz zwischen den Frauen und der Krone aller Frauen fast verschwand. Dem Träger von Waffenröcken konnten Weiberröcke heilig werden, und eine Küchenfrau unterschied sich nicht viel von Unserer Lieben Frau. (ZB, 360)

Each new love is placed on a pedestal, and the young man is clearly happiest worshipping the subject of his affections from afar. With hindsight, he observes how his almost mediaeval conduct – captured in the apposite title of the short story ‘Frauendienst’, a fictional rendition of his own wedding day and recounted in Zwischenbilanz in the chapter ‘Astronomisches’ – enabled him to preserve his feelings as long as possible from the inevitable disparity between Sein und Schein upon which each relationship ultimately foundered. Most alarmingly of all, it emerges that his wife is the only girl not fit into his system. That the marriage subsequently failed is alluded to with the utmost discretion in Vierzig Jahre. A striking feature of Zwischenbilanz is the degree of de Bruyn’s ignorance of the Holocaust. Far from being a disingenuous attempt to deflect from any complicity with the fate of the Jews, it simply emphasises how relatively sheltered the author had been. Sharing a hospital ward with SS men, de Bruyn hears harrowing, drunken accounts of massacres of Jews, about which he had never ‘auch nur andeutungsweise gehört’: An keinen Gedanken an [die Juden], an kein Gespräch über sie, ob mit Gleichaltrigen oder Erwachsenen, kann ich mich aus der Zeit nach ihrer Deportation erinnern. Wer keine persönlichen Bekannten unter ihnen hatte, dem kamen sie, als sie ihm aus den Augen waren, auch schnell aus dem Sinn – oder er behielt für sich, was er dachte; denn Mitleid oder gar Sympathie zu zeigen, konnte gefährlich sein. (ZB, 244-5)

His only direct encounters with anti-Semitism form the subject of the two ‘Hanne Nüte’ chapters, which both underscore his ignorance of the deeper implications. The first instalment deals with the de Bruyn

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family’s Jewish doctor, Dr Jakoby, and is effective as a portrayal of anti-Semitism from the perspective of a young boy who cannot comprehend why two SA men should be barring entry to the kindly doctor’s surgery: ‘[Die SA-Männer] sagten, ich sei doch ein deutscher Junge; und als ich darauf bestand, von Dr. Jakoby behandelt zu werden, wollten sie meinen Namen wissen; da riß ich mich los und lief, ohne zu antworten, davon’ (ZB, 80). The reasons for the doctor’s eventual emigration, reputedly to London, are never explained to the young boy, which naturally feeds his own anxiety still further: ‘Mich hat seine Vertreibung sicher nicht nachhaltig erschüttert, aber doch meine Zukunftsängste verstärkt’ (ZB, 81). In the second instalment, de Bruyn tackles the disintegration of his infatuation with Reni during a trip with her to the centre of Berlin in 1941 and a walk along the Große Hamburger Straße. De Bruyn and Reni barely exchange a word, so the boy records the hopelessness of wooing the girl in his diary as the ‘Abschied von der Kindheit’. Yet, the boy’s disappointment, and his melancholic rendition thereof, masks the deeper significance of the backdrop to this adolescent drama: In Renis Gegenwart war ich für die Straße wie blind gewesen; erst auf dem Rückweg bemerkte ich die ärmlich gekleideten Passanten, die gelbe Sterne auf Jacken und Mänteln trugen, und einen bleichen Jungen meines Alters, der an einem Parterrefenster stand. Auch er trug den Stern; sein Hemd war schmutzig; und da ihn eine Zigarette zwischen den Lippen klebte, sah er weniger mitleiderregend als unheimlich aus. […] Erst Jahre danach, als ich in dieser Gegend wohnte, erfuhr ich, daß ab 1942 die Berliner Juden in der Großen Hamburger Straße gesammelt und in den Osten abtransportiert worden waren, in ihren sicheren Tod. (ZB, 86-7)

The inherent tension in the passage between de Bruyn’s perception of the incident at the time and the true historical context stimulates the author’s retrospective sense of shame, although the episode per se once again underlines the boy’s basic lack of understanding of the world beyond the protective family sphere. That he should have remained relatively, and perhaps luckily, sheltered from the Holocaust and the violent excesses of National Socialism in general as a young adult is apparent in his strained attempt to describe the cold-blooded murder of Canadian POWs in Der Hohlweg. The insertion of this fictional episode into the novel betrays the fledgling author’s adherence to the tenets of Socialist Realism, which demanded a crudely schematic assemblage of obviously positive and negative characters, but fails to convince by virtue of a clear lack of

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authenticity – it was ‘erfunden’, not ‘erlebt’, an example of Dichtung without Wahrheit. In the closing chapters of Zwischenbilanz, especially the programmatically titled ‘Rückblick auf Künftiges’, the author reflects upon his experiences of National Socialism, as well as anticipating his treatment of East Germany and his perspective thereon. It underlines most effectively how the majority of his life has been spent under totalitarianism, but indicates the lessons he learnt in the Third Reich and his resolve to resist as much as possible the onset of similar modes of behaviour in the GDR, which were already apparent by 1949. Despite having managed to avoid joining the Hitler Youth, de Bruyn still witnessed at first hand Nazi methods of indoctrination, and so the re-emergence of similar practices in the immediate postwar period in Berlin had little effect on him: An mir ging die Propaganda spurlos vorüber, weil sie dem widersprach, was ich täglich erlebte; sie erinnerte mich an die Diskrepanz zwischen dem Krieg und den Kriegsfilmen; die StalinVerehrung war mir der Hitlers zu ähnlich; und der Zwang zum verordneten Denken und zum Eintritt in Organisationen war auch wieder nah. Die Dressurversuche am Menschen, die meine Kindheit vergiftet hatten, schienen mir unter anderen Farben und Fahnen wiederzukommen. (ZB, 323)

De Bruyn briefly entertained the notion of joining the Antifa movement, but concedes he was motivated less by genuine political conviction than his romantic designs on the group’s leader, Ilse. Uneasy at the girl’s proselytising zeal and alarmed by the naïve discussions within the group, de Bruyn sees little evidence of political maturity. Tellingly, he reiterates the phrase used earlier to describe his generation in the Third Reich: Allesamt waren wir politische Analphabeten, und ich war in dieser Hinsicht der Dümmste von ihnen, denn mein Interesse an Politik war gering. Mein Grundsatz war lediglich: was gewesen war, sollte nicht wiederkommen, und darunter verstand ich vor allem, daß keine Zwangsorganisation mehr mein Leben bestimmen durfte, am wenigsten Militär. (ZB, 307)

He is ambivalent about Ilse’s commitment to the cause, admiring her apparent sense of responsibility, yet conversely unable to suppress doubts about her sincerity. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that he soon withdraws from the group, and the end of his infatuation with Ilse simultaneously signals his last flirtation with socialism. But it is characteristic of de Bruyn’s self-critical tone throughout his autobiographical project that he should not portray his own stance as

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an ideal model for the postwar period. Older, and arguably less malleable a personality, de Bruyn adopted an essentially selfish position, encapsulated in the essay he produced at the time titled ‘Lob des Individualismus’and sent to Horizont, the youth periodical. Described with hindsight as ‘sehr ehrlich, aber auch dumm’ (ZB, 308), the essay significantly prefigures, albeit in inchoate form, de Bruyn’s disposition throughout the GDR to keep as much distance as possible from the authorities: ‘Ich wollte auf eigne Verantwortung leben und von jeglicher Ordnung, wenn sie schon sein mußte, in Ruhe gelassen werden’ (ZB, 307). To a large extent, his career choices in the postwar period and the early years of the GDR granted him a degree of relative freedom from the worst aspects of the prevailing ideological climate. Training initially as an emergency schoolteacher, a decision taken principally for material and existential reasons, de Bruyn was punished for refusing to join the SED by his placement in a remote village in the Westhavelland. De Bruyn indicates how the village was idyllic in many ways, but not without its problems, exemplified best by a child abuse scandal involving his Schulleiter and in which de Bruyn himself became embroiled. Even in this isolated geographical location, it is clear that one was not beyond the reach of the Party, which sent along Sittenpolizisten to investigate the matter and thereby stimulated deeprooted resentment within the community. The Party’s dogmatic reaction to the incident thus anticipates the GDR’s constantly evolving methods of monitoring and shaping its citizens, a preoccupation which prompted de Bruyn to reject the notion that an inviolate private sphere existed beyond the Party’s orbit. That geographical isolation was no guarantor of privacy from the prying eyes of the GDR authorities not only underpins the author’s last novel to date, Neue Herrlichkeit, but is also evidenced by the Stasi’s appearance at his own remote cottage near Beeskow, the apparent inaccessibility of which, described in the chapter ‘Walden’, had attracted him to it in the first place.17 In the librarian school in Berlin, where de Bruyn began training in October 1949, he was also able to witness the Party’s concerted efforts to incorporate individuals into the collective. The picture he draws at the end of Zwischenbilanz, and expands upon in Vierzig Jahre, serves as a microcosm of the GDR, in which the opportunists and careerists thrived, but where certain individuals such 17

In Neue Herrlichkeit, the anti-hero, Viktor, son of Politbüro member Jan Kösling, becomes infatuated with one of the staff at an isolated Party retreat. Despite the remoteness of the house, news of this unacceptable liaison soon reaches his parents.

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as de Bruyn were tolerated, as long as they were not rebellious, ‘weil jede Anpassungsgeste Unterwerfungswillen signalisiert’ (VJ, 16). It tallies with Mary Fulbrook’s assessment of the SED’s pragmatic acceptance over time of conformity rather than genuine ideological conviction, despite its firm commitment in the early years to the creation of the ‘new socialist person’.18 As Vierzig Jahre outlines, de Bruyn’s own position was characterised by the delicate balancing of conformity with a more critical attitude, or at the very least a healthy scepticism, towards the Party’s view. This ambivalence, which has been a constant thematic concern in de Bruyn’s fiction, marked his career both at the Zentralinstitut für Bibliothekswesen and as an author. Compared to Günter Kunert, who in Erwachsenenspiele catalogues myriad occasions when he came in direct conflict with the Party, de Bruyn might at first glance appear far too timorous an intellectual to have been an effective critic. Yet Kunert’s more provocative stance is directly attributable not only to his more extrovert personality, but also to his greater political conviction – he was a member of the SED until he was expelled – and the attendant disappointment at how far short of the Communist ideal the SED fell in the GDR. Despite no longer being a ‘politischer Analphabet’, de Bruyn retained a proclivity to evade politics wherever possible and thus never shared his colleague’s initial optimism in the GDR. Although Kunert’s account offers fascinating insights into the problems facing the most critical intellectuals and the impact their stance had on their lives, one can imagine that ordinary east Germans might relate better to de Bruyn’s more reticent and diffident tone in Vierzig Jahre. The author continually subjects his behaviour to scrutiny. Whilst documenting the schizophrenic nature of everyday life in general, the text is underpinned with a self-critical appraisal of his own actions. One senses that de Bruyn wishes he could have been bolder and laments his anxiety; as with Zwischenbilanz, his selfportrait invites identification precisely on account of its self-critical candour, which ensures in addition that the text never slips into selfjustification. With its examination of the compromises one was constantly required to make to survive, it provides a credible psychological profile of East Germans. On account of the persecution two of his closest friends suffered in the GDR, de Bruyn categorically rejects the concept of the Nischengesellschaft, which he feels trivialises the intimidation and 18

Fulbrook, pp. 129-50 (p. 130). See too Dennis p. xvi-ii.

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threat that could penetrate the private sphere: ‘Wie privat auch immer die Liebes- und Freundschaftsverhältnisse waren, irgendwann kamen sie doch mit politischer Macht in Konflikt’ (VJ, 23). In view of the State’s heavy-handed treatment of his friends Herbert and HansWerner, colleagues and kindred spirits at the Zentralinstitut, de Bruyn’s biting critique of the system that could institutionalise such perversions of justice is wholly understandable, but also unsettling, inasmuch as the author rarely succumbs to such bitterness in his work. It is a measure both of his deep-rooted rejection of the State, but also of his dismay at his own perceived impotence. Herbert had been arrested with his wife for attempting to flee to the West in the vain hope of rekindling their marriage, while Hans-Werner had been denounced for trying to arrange a petition to secure his friend’s release. De Bruyn is appalled and terrified by the resultant trials with their orchestrated audience responses and premeditated judgements for ‘Straftaten’ which amounted to little more than ‘Lappalien’ (VJ, 84). In the case of Hans-Werner, the trial was exploited as a public display of the inherent dangers of ‘intellektuelle Verworfenheit’ (VJ, 84), and de Bruyn is all too aware that the example being made of his friend was designed to intimidate people like him: Sollte der Zweck der Großveranstaltung aber in der Einschüchterung gelegen haben, war sie wohl ein Erfolg. An mir selbst merkte ich, wie diese Machtdemonstration wirkte: Während ich sie leicht durchschaubar, lächerlich und empörend nannte, fühlte ich, neben der Verachtung, auch eine Angst in mir wachsen, die künftig mehr Vorsicht empfahl. War es doch nur dem Zufall zu danken, daß ich nicht dort saß, wo Hans-Werner jetzt sitzen mußte. (VJ, 84-5)

Despite numerous other miscarriages of justice in the GDR, such as the Harich-Gruppe trial or the Biermann expulsion to name but two high-profile examples, it is the inappropriately ruthless treatment of his friends that made the most indelible impression on de Bruyn. That he should ultimately dismiss the attempts of critical socialists to salvage aspects of the GDR’s early years as alarming distortions of the reality, can be ascribed to his outrage at the needlessly heavy-handed persecution of his friends: ‘Daß [die mit ihrer Partei oft im Streit lebenden Sozialisten], die den menschlicheren Sozialismus wollten, damit ausgerechnet jene Zeit gelten ließen, die man als die des Staatsterrorismus bezeichnen könnte, wurde von ihnen kaum reflektiert’ (VJ, 232). His assertion that the GDR of the 1980s might be perceived as a ‘Rechtsstaat’ (VJ, 233) compared to its

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incarnation in the 1950s is thus laced with irony, citing how the State became more civilised, but without becoming any more democratic in the process: Wesentlich hatte sich am Staatsapparat nichts geändert, er war nur geschmeidiger und leiser gelaufen und hatte die Überwachung vervollkommnet und verfeinert. Geheimdiensttarnung zog man der Brachialgewalt vor. Man sperrte Andersdenkende nicht gleich ein, sondern füllte mit ihren Verfehlungen die Akten, um Material gegen sie bei der Hand zu haben, wenn Einsperren nötig sein sollte. (VJ, 178)

One must read this segment as a reminder of the cold realities of the GDR Alltag, for it stresses that any system capable of intimidating its citizens is beyond redemption or reform. Inevitably, de Bruyn is dismissive of those opposition groups who adhered to the belief that the GDR could ever be reformed along democratic lines. Moreover, in the post-unification context, his argument embodies an unequivocal rejection of ‘Ostalgie’. If the insidious mechanisms of social control meant that, in de Bruyn’s estimation at least, there was no true niche within which one was able to let off steam or ward off fear and intimidation, Vierzig Jahre nevertheless depicts how it was possible to eke out a relatively untroubled existence on the fringes of that society. Unable to escape being subsumed into the National Socialist system by virtue of his age, de Bruyn was able to remain far more detached in East Germany, having learnt valuable lessons from his childhood. Despite not belonging to the Party, his professional competence as a librarian made him indispensable, especially when he was required to participate in initiatives and projects that demanded his expertise, but the validity of which he was distinctly uncomfortable with from an ideological standpoint. As a librarian, for example, he had been involved in the assessment of works ‘die das Verbot nazistischer oder unter Nazismusverdacht stehender Literatur überstanden hatten, aber ihres Erscheinens in den zwanziger oder dreißiger Jahren wegen verdächtigt wurden, bürgerlich infiziert, also feindlich zu sein’ (VJ, 34). His description of the commission as ‘eine Art Volksgerichtshof für Bücher’ indicates his deep misgivings about his involvement, and his shame is exacerbated by being listed as one of the research assistants in the resultant publication: Für mich aber war und ist dieses Papier ein Grund zur Beschämung, doch zog ich damals daraus nicht die Lehre, daß Mitmachen Mitverschulden bedeutet, sondern hielt an der Meinung, daß man, um Schlimmeres zu verhüten, schlimme Posten wenn möglich besetzen

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression sollte, noch lange Zeit fest. Man mußte nur, dachte ich mir, die Methoden verfeinern. Die Offenheit, mit der ich im Aussonderungsgremium die mir teuren pazifistischen Titel verteidigt hatte, war tapfer, aber auch töricht gewesen und hatte bei den Funktionären nur Mißtrauen erregt. Um wirksam zu werden, mußte man die verordneten Theorien nicht zu widerlegen, sondern zu benutzen zu versuchen, und das Vokabular mußte der Sprachregelung angepaßt sein. (VJ, 35-6)

His stance at this time very much anticipates the ‘Taktieren mit seinem dauernden Wechsel von Mitlaufen und Distanzhalten’ (VJ, 204) which he feels characterised his literary career, and also holds true for many other critical authors. In this respect, then, de Bruyn’s experiences at the institute provided excellent training, not least in how to infuse apparent conformity with subtle subversion. One need only consider Preisverleihung as an example of this same approach in his fiction. Although superficially adhering to the dogmatic template of Socialist Realism by portraying an apparently model marriage, the events depicted continually jar with the reader’s expectations of a socialist model. Moreover, the narrative is laced with seemingly innocent asides – presumably from the narrator who has been charged with the task of examining the Overbeck family – which serve to shed light on the discrepancies between appearance and reality. As a result, the requisite happy ending is far from satisfactory for those who have been reading between the lines. Surprisingly, the book was dismissed as Trivialliteratur by Marcel Reich-Ranicki, for whom the subtleties of de Bruyn’s tone were clearly too finely nuanced.19 East German critics such as Heinz Plavius, however, tellingly censured the novel for its ‘Tendenz zu Wirklichkeitverlust’.20 Preisverleihung took two years to pass the censor, which underlines how problematic the original manuscript must have been. That the text retains enough of a critical edge in its published form is testament to how well de Bruyn had learnt to use the dogmatic system against itself. By way of contrast, with Neue Herrlichkeit de Bruyn adopted a more unequivocally satirical tone, thereby indicating his unwillingness to pull so many of his punches. The authorites in the GDR responded

19

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, ‘Zwei verschiedene Schuhe’, in Günter de Bruyn: Materialien zu Leben und Werk, ed. by Uwe Wittstock (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991), pp. 165-72 (p. 172). 20 Heinz Plavius, ‘Gefragt: Wirklichkeit’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 21.3 (1973), 15054 (p. 153).

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to the favourable reviews of the text in the West with a ban in East Germany.21 Without doubt the most fascinating aspect of Vierzig Jahre is de Bruyn’s analysis of his development as a writer and his evaluation of the role he played. The fundamental issue was the delicate balance between criticism of the State and the compromises one was forced to make: ‘Kritische Bücher wollte ich schreiben, aber die sollten in der DDR gedruckt und gelesen werden können. Auch Erfolg wollte ich damit haben, nicht aber durch diesen von einem Staat anerkannt werden, der von mir nicht anerkannt war’(VJ, 144). Was this delicate balance achievable? Could this tension ever be viewed as productive? It is clear from Vierzig Jahre that de Bruyn constantly entertained doubts about his efficacy as a critical voice, just as Uwe Saeger did. His decision to publish in the GDR was a major bone of contention with various friends, who felt he was sacrificing his integrity for the sake of ambition. In truth, de Bruyn had always contemplated writing for a career, and the desire to tackle his traumatic wartime experience in literary form, much as Böll had in his early career, was strong. But the troubled evolution of this project merely underlined the problems inherent in producing literature in an ideological climate. It had a significant effect on the subsequent course of de Bruyn’s career, reflecting in addition how vulnerable one’s sense of self could be. It is fascinating to note in Vierzig Jahre just how ambivalent de Bruyn was about his literary career. It is refreshing that he should admit to having been motivated, to some extent at least, by ambition, but that the appearance of his first two short stories, Wiedersehen an der Spree (1960) and Hochzeit in Weltzow (1960), should then have troubled him is typical of his attitude. He was clearly uncomfortable about being seen as conforming to the role he was expected to play: Als mir die beiden Broschüren, die in eine billige Anfänger-Reihe gehörten, vor Augen kamen, blieb die erwartete Freude aus. Meinen Namen auf den schäbigen Heften zu lesen machte nicht stolz, sondern beklommen. Nun war mein Autorenehrgeiz, den ich verheimlicht hatte, ans Licht gekommen. Nun konnte jeder die Diskrepanz zwischen meinen hohen literarischen Ansprüchen und meinen bescheidenen Produkten erkennen, und jeder, der meine Ansichten kannte, mußte deren Unterdrückung oder Verfälschung sehen. (VJ, 98)

21

For a fascinating insight into the way the GDR censors dealt with de Bruyn’s work, see York-Gothart Mix, ‘Zwischen den Zeilen und zwischen den Stühlen: Günter de Bruyn und die Literaturpolitik in der DDR’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, 47 (1997), 457-62.

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This feeling of having betrayed his principles was most prevalent in the wake of the publication of his first novel, Der Hohlweg, in 1963 and for which he was awarded the Heinrich-Mann-Preis the following year. Originally conceived as an autobiographical attempt to come to terms with his military experiences, the material was eventually manipulated into the form of a Socialist Realist Entwicklungsroman so typical of work produced at this time. He outlines his dismay at ‘die Verlogenheit des Buches’ (VJ, 115) in the chapter entitled ‘Der Holzweg’, which amplifies a much earlier essay with the same title.22 Although he sets his work on the novel in context, indicating how writing about the war and the immediate postwar period was only possible ‘mit Verschweigen und Lügen’ for ‘alles, was uns in diesen Jahren Angst gemacht hatte, war tabuisiert’ (VJ, 117), it in no way tempers the biting criticism of his own ‘Willfährigkeit’ (VJ, 116): Mein Ehrgeiz, gedruckt zu werden, war größer als die Verpflichtung zur eignen Wahrheit gewesen. Um den Erwartungen des Verlages entgegenzukommen, hatte ich meinen Erlebnissen und Erfahrungen einen anderen Sinn untergeschoben und die Verbote dabei immer im Kopf gehabt. Mein Blick war beim Schreiben starr auf die Zensur gerichtet gewesen, und diese erwies sich dankbar dafür. Das Buch wurde gedruckt, gelobt und mit einem Preis ausgezeichnet. (VJ, 116)

In truth, the novel has little in common with the fictional work that followed, so one can understand de Bruyn’s feeling that the book ‘war für mich tot’ by the time of its release.23 It is a long and sprawling text that corresponds fully with the Socialist Realist template established by Georg Lukács and thereby betrays ‘das ursprungliche Thema ans Erziehungsschema’ (VJ, 116-7). A fledgling author’s adherence to such a model is surely understandable, especially when one considers both the circumstances in which he embarked upon his literary career and the fact that the success provided him with the financial means to establish himself as a writer. Nevertheless, one can adduce from de Bruyn’s excoriation of Der Hohlweg a deep shame that he had been too ambitious, had therefore made too many compromises and sacrificed his ideals in the process. In truth, de Bruyn’s subsequent work must be viewed as an ample corrective to this initial conformity, even if the author constantly feared that he might forever be viewed as in some way complicit with the State.

22

Günter de Bruyn, ‘Der Holzweg’, in Lesefreuden: Über Bücher und Menschen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1986), pp. 310-15. 23 Ibid., p.315.

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The dilemma de Bruyn faced was ameliorated significantly by the resonance his work elicited from his readers, even with those early publications: Man signalisierte mir Einverständnis, behauptete, zwischen den Zeilen lesen zu können, und sah mein Eingehen auf Machthaberwünsche als notwendiges Opfer an. Man machte mich glauben, daß meine individuelle Sicht auf Menschen und Dinge durch Sprachregelung zwar verdeckt, aber nicht in eine parteigemäße verkehrt werden könnte. Gleichempfindende läsen das Ursprüngliche schon heraus. Daß ich das gerne hörte, ist leicht verständlich. Es besänftigte mein schlechtes Gewissen, machte mir Mut, auch künftig ans Veröffentlichen zu denken, und gab mir den Eindruck, Stimme mancher gleichgesinnter Stummer zu sein. (VJ, 98)

He had successfully transposed the subtle subversion honed in his role as a librarian into his fiction, which, in spite of his own misgivings, reflected just how much critical voices could achieve by undercutting the prevailing ideology. As well as being cheered by the existence of a community of like-minded individuals for whom he might act as a mouthpiece, in many senses de Bruyn received an affirmation of his sense of self. Despite apprehensions and reservations about his writing, others had perceived him as a critical intellectual, thus legitimising his decision to risk compromising his ideals by embarking on a literary career. If he was ashamed of his complicity with the Nazis, here then was the opportunity to expiate his perceived guilt by subtly cutting against the grain in East Germany to the acclaim of certain readers.24 In this regard, one might compare his role to that of the teachers who had made an indelible impression on him as a young man. Viewed in this light, de Bruyn’s career embodies the concept of Eigen-Sinn (‘a sense of one’s own self’) that Mike Dennis has identified as a feature ‘central to several recent investigations into those areas of life which, though by no means islands of political seclusion, enjoyed a certain breathing space from the allencompassing institutions and mechanisms of SED domination’.25 Dennis talks of this space being ‘located at the base of society’, but in de Bruyn’s case it is arguably more appropriate to refer to an existence on the margins of society.26 Decidedly uncomfortable in most cultural 24

By way of contrast, Kunert and Saeger profess that their work was not necessarily motivated by any responsibility to potential readers. 25 Dennis, p. xvi. 26 Fittingly, de Bruyn’s most recent publication to date bears the title Abseits: Liebeserklärung an eine Landschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2005).

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circles, as evinced by his unease at his own prizegiving – he wonders ‘wann ein Preisgekrönter, ohne die Konvention zu verletzen, die Feier verlassen darf’ (VJ, 120) – or the reluctance with which he attended gatherings of the Schriftstellerverband, de Bruyn endeavoured to keep his distance from the centre as much as possible. He held the Schriftstellerverband, for example, to be little more than a means for the Stasi to monitor and control the intelligentsia: Denn die Existenz der meisten Autoren war vom Wohlwollen des Verbandes abhängig, der auch Gewerkschaftsaufgaben, und sogar ausgezeichnet, erfüllte, und viele von ihnen waren Parteimitglieder, die man vor Abstimmungen, Diskussionen und Wahlen zu parteigemäßigem Verhalten vergattern konnte; jeder Verbandsversammlung ging eine instruierende Parteiversammlung voraus. […] Immer war von der Partei, und wohl auch von der Stasi, der gesamte Verlauf bis ins Einzelne vorbereitet und inszeniert. (VJ, 226)

To seek corroboration of de Bruyn’s picture, one need only turn to Günter Kunert’s account, which details at length his various conflicts with the Schriftstellerverband, as well as the extent of the Stasi’s penetration of the cultural sphere with all too compliant informants, whose reports on Kunert form a substantial part of the text’s fabric. Indeed, on a number of occasions Kunert was a direct target of the overt intimidation that de Bruyn describes as underpinning some of the more tense meetings of the writers’ organisation. De Bruyn avoided this intimidatory atmosphere as much as possible, and following the expulsion of nine writers from the organisation in 1979, he no longer attended any meetings. For de Bruyn, the acquisition of a remote cottage in the Mark Brandenburg was intended to afford him the seclusion into which he could withdraw: Waldeinsamkeit ist mir nie unheimlich gewesen. Immer waren es Menschen, die mich erschreckten. Denen war ich nun ausgewichen. […] Ich war, dachte ich, in die Emigration gegangen, ohne das Land, das mich hielt, verlassen zu haben. Dem Staat war ich auf seinem eignen Territorium entflohen. Hier würde es mir besser als vorher gelingen, die Zensur beim Schreiben aus meinem Bewußtsein zu tilgen. (VJ, 158)

Russian military manoeuvres during his first night in the cottage, together with a later visit from the Stasi, indicated how illusory this notion of complete freedom was, as Dennis has suggested. Even if de Bruyn’s belief that he might better disregard censorship by relocating to the country must be seen as naïve, the physical intrusions are nevertheless presented as isolated incidents. One was not entirely free

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on the fringes of society, but in essence one could exist relatively untrammelled in an environment more conducive to the preservation of a sense of self. De Bruyn’s natural proclivity both to keep a low profile and eschew a provocative tone in his fiction did not mean that his work could be dismissed simply as Trivialliteratur. Evidence unearthed since the Wende reveals the extent to which many of his texts were subjected to intense scrutiny from the censors. Indeed, the problems that marked the publication of Buridans Esel contributed to a severe nervous breakdown in the author, ‘eine Art geistiger Ohnmacht […], die neben dem Ehrgeiz auch das Verantwortungsgefühl betäubte, Probleme in weite Ferne rückte und in mir eine wohltuende Leere erzeugte, in der nur noch das therapeutische Reglement wichtig war’ (VJ, 139). The text itself was deemed ‘parteifeindlich und revisionistisch’ (VJ, 142), which duly caused a long delay in its appearance. On its publication, however, Buridans Esel enabled de Bruyn to exorcise the demons after Der Hohlweg, and to establish himself as a leading writer: [Buridans Esel] wurde gut verkauft und günstig beurteilt, oft übersetzt und filmisch verwertet; er beendete meine finanzielle Notlage, und er hob mich, nicht zuletzt weil er auch im Westen gedruckt wurde, auf eine höhere Bekanntheitsstufe und damit höher hinauf in der literarischen Rangfolge, die, ohne daß jemand ihre Kriterien hätte benennen können, im Urteil einschlägiger Kreise bestand. (VJ, 143)

If a higher profile in the West furnished him with a greater degree of protection and opportunites for travel abroad, the expulsion of Wolf Biermann in November 1976 called this position into question. The affair had immediate ramifications for the cultural life of the GDR, initiating a wake of expulsions and departures of leading artists to the West. Along with many of his colleagues, de Bruyn was forced to reassess the tenability of his role, already marked as it was by an intrinsic ambivalence. Visiting relatives in the Mark Brandenburg when news of the Biermann expulsion reaches him, de Bruyn is shocked to discover that there is little sympathy amongst the people at large for the abrasive artist ‘weil er doch hätte wissen können, was einem bei Frechheit blüht’ (VJ, 207). The author finds such conversations ‘deprimierend, aber auch nützlich, weil sie die Illusion zerstörten, daß die Artikulierung des eignen Freiheitsbedürfnisses sozusagen im Auftrag des Volkes geschah’ (VJ, 207-8). During many of his subsequent church readings, de Bruyn was irritated and dismayed by the attitudes of audiences to all those critical intellectuals who had chosen or been compelled to leave for the West:

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Interestingly, in his own, not uncritical, portrait of Wolf Biermann, de Bruyn himself appears just as guilty of admiring the courage rather than the substance of the former’s political convictions. In de Bruyn’s estimation, Biermann emerges as an egotistical figure, whose belief in a Communist utopia is naïve, but whose boldly critical voice is nevertheless admirable. Once more, de Bruyn’s ambivalence – a constant throughout his autobiographical project – cannot be overlooked: ‘Statt ihm zu Füßen zu sitzen, wollte ich ihn lieber von den hinteren Rängen aus bewundern, wo ich zwar in die Ovationen mit einstimmen, aber manchmal auch ein Kopfschütteln riskieren konnte, ohne ihm weh zu tun’ (VJ, 208). His critical attitude towards Biermann’s political convictions to some degree mirrors his emphatic rejection of the notion, advocated by some of his colleagues, that a reformed socialist GDR was the way forward in 1989: ‘Von [der DDR] hatte ich wahrlich genug’ (VJ, 254). Arguably the most engaging aspect of Vierzig Jahre is the examination of the complex and interrelated reasons why de Bruyn remained in the GDR. One element was undoubtedly a sense of responsibility to readers, even if the Biermann expulsion had suggested that they to some extent resented the privileges intellectuals enjoyed. When de Bruyn stressed at a reading in Dresden that he had no intention of leaving the GDR, he received overwhelming applause, despite his defence of those authors who had left the country in the aftermath of the Biermann affair. He failed to confess to the audience that a sense of responsibility to the people was one of the least significant of his reasons for remaining, and yet conversely he admitted earlier that he was ‘stolz darauf, aller Bedrückung zum Trotz auszuhalten’ (VJ, 204). This segment of Vierzig Jahre offers unequivocal evidence of the conflicting emotions that afflict de Bruyn constantly whenever he considers his career and what the correct course of action should have been for a critical intellectual. What at first arouses pride is then despised as ‘Seßhaftigkeit […], an deren Ende womöglich die provinzielle Verblödung stand’ (VJ, 204). As such, de Bruyn’s dilemma mirrors the soul-searching that the

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protagonist of Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen undergoes. It was a dilemma that clearly plagued all critically minded intellectuals. Although de Bruyn refused to see the departure of many of his colleagues as ‘eine Art Desertion’ (VJ, 217), he acknowledges that there were inevitable ramifications within the GDR with the exodus of authors of the calibre of Kunert, Becker and Kirsch: ‘Die unruhigsten, kritischsten und politisch aktivsten Leute suchten das Weite und schwächten damit die innere Opposition’ (VJ, 216). As such, the Biermann petition represented the zenith of such activities in the cultural sphere, but the rebelliousness of the intellectuals was brief and could not be transformed into more direct action. As Mary Fulbrook observes: […] Cultural revolt did not eventuate into much by way of political activism; rather, in the following years there were many intellectuals who followed Biermann to the West, whether willingly or unwillingly. Others maintained a marginal existence within the GDR; whether through the ‘alternative scene’ of the Prenzlauer Berg, or on the fringes of the Church. There individuals were able to contribute to a mood of critical disaffection with the nature of life in the GDR; they 27 were, however, less important organizationally, as forces for change.

As far as the Biermann petition itself is concerned, de Bruyn concedes that the document was significant solely for what it represented, with well over a hundred signatories, rather than its content, which was truthfully rather tame.28 It is interesting, therefore, to observe that de Bruyn’s eagerness to play a part in the protest was not motivated by conviction that anything concrete could be achieved; it was simply ‘um nicht als Befürworter der Regierungsmaßnahme zu gelten’ (VJ, 210). It was in truth an important political gesture from a man who had previously sought to avoid direct confrontation with the State wherever possible. In anticipation of a more repressive cultural climate in the aftermath of the Biermann affair, which would probably make the publication of novels very difficult for those who had signed the protest, de Bruyn was not unduly perturbed. Having recently completed his extensive study of Jean Paul, he resolved to research the forgotten and overlooked writers of the Mark Brandenburg ‘um diese Eiszeit zu überleben’ (VJ, 214). A preoccupation born initially of apparent necessity, de Bruyn’s interest in the literary history of his 27 28

Fulbrook, p. 84. With hindsight, Günter Kunert is similarly critical. See Chapter 5.

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beloved Mark has since spawned a whole array of essays and editions focusing on the likes of Fouqué and Ludwig Tieck. With the exception of Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre, he has devoted himself exclusively to this research since publishing Neue Herrlichkeit in 1984. In effect, he endeavoured to establish a mode of inner emigration predicated not only on physical distance from the State by securing the property near Beeskow, but also on intellectual detachment from the dogmatic practices and concerns of the GDR’s cultural life. It is indicative of de Bruyn’s natural predilection for privacy that the fall of the Wall has done little to alter this approach, even with his considerable popularity following the Wende. Despite this apparent self-indulgence, one could not in any way accuse de Bruyn of disinterest in socio-political matters. During the latter period of the GDR, stimulated perhaps by his experience of the Dresden reading, de Bruyn became a more strident critic of the State. As with his participation in the Biermann protest, the banning of Neue Herrlichkeit in 1984 for its perceived satire of leading members of the Politbüro was a further indication that de Bruyn’s continued presence in the GDR had little to do with support for the regime: […] Nun war ich im Abseits, in das ich gehörte. Mein Mißverhältnis zum Staat war offenkundig geworden. Mein Vertragsabschluß mit S. Fischer, den das Hinfälligwerden des Lizenzvertrages erfordert hatte, war für mich auch ein fröhlicher Abschied von dem ständigen Rücksichtnehmen auf die Zensur. Kompromisse wollte ich mir fortan nicht mehr gestatten. Als mir ein DDR-Leser wenig später vorwurfsvoll sagte, er habe die Neue Herrlichkeit wie das Buch eines Autors gelesen, der der DDR schon Ade gesagt habe und ihr keine Chancen mehr gebe, stimmte ich ihm erfreut zu. (VJ, 250)

Where previously he had subtly used Jean Paul’s critique of censorship to inveigh against the practice in the GDR, in 1987 he made an important speech at the Tenth Schriftstellerkongreß, in which he articulated his own critical appraisal of what he dubbed the State’s ‘Druckgenehmigungspraxis’.29 He became involved with a peace group until an unpalatable Stasi Zersetzungsmaßnahme – ‘eine pornographische Fotomontage’ (VJ, 239) – forced him to keep his distance, and in October 1989 he refused the GDR’s Nationalpreis, although the subsequent demise of the State, he remarks a little ruefully, meant that ‘meine Geste, die Halbheiten, Feigheiten und Versäumnisse von Jahrzehnten gutmachen sollte, ins Leere ging’ (VJ, 253). Despite de Bruyn’s care not to paint himself as a hero of passive 29

Günter de Bruyn, ‘Zur Druckgenehmigungspraxis’, in Wittstock, pp. 19-21.

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resistance, Tilman Krause argues that the significance of the writer’s stance should not be underestimated: ‘Das alles ist mehr als innere Emigration. Es ist Zivilcourage, die im Rahmen des Möglichen die dem Charakter des Autors adäquaten Spielräume ausmißt’.30 De Bruyn’s modest underplaying of his actions is typical of the autobiographical volumes, characterised as they are by a constantly balanced tone that contrasts with the more abrasively jaunty style of Kunert’s autobiography. He is forced to concede that to a certain degree the State’s bestowing of privileges on intellectuals did have the desired effect, at least as far as he was concerned. The sense of shame he feels at his involvement with the Third Reich in Zwischenbilanz is mirrored by that at his perceived complicity with the GDR: Ich wurde nicht nur in Ruhe gelassen, sondern war ohne Ankündigung in eine Privilegiertenstellung befördert worden, was angenehm, aber auch unheimlich war. Ich ahnte, daß man mich für mein Abseitsstehen belohnte und vielleicht auch dafür, daß ich im Lande blieb. Man nahm an, daß einer, den man in Ruhe ließ, auch keine Neigung hatte, die Ruhe zu stören. Auch Dankbarkeit stellte man möglicherweise in Rechnung; bei einem, der Ruhe zum Arbeiten brauchte, war das so abwegig nicht. Störend war nur der Gedanke, daß Gewährenlassen auch Vereinnahmen bedeuten konnte. Für die Propaganda im Ausland war mein Name als Beweis für tolerante Kulturpolitik nützlich. Ich sollte nach dem Willen des Außenministeriums auch im Pariser DDRKulturzentrum lesen, aber das lehnte ich ab. (VJ, 251-2)

But not everyone shared Krause’s opinion of Vierzig Jahre and praise for its author’s stance in the GDR. For others, such as Michael Opitz, the text was too timid and ‘manches klingt nach Rechenschaftsprosa’.31 It is hard to agree with such assessments, however, since so many of them appear to base their criticisms on the text’s perceived lack of personal information or the author’s care not to point the finger too much or denounce a host of names. Those individuals whom de Bruyn does take to task – two examples being his critical portrait of Arnold Zweig, whom he had admired as a young man, and the somewhat egotistical Wolfgang Harich – are not treated with any malice; the author simply seeks to present a nuanced picture, which does not mask their shortcomings, in a manner wholly consistent with his balanced assessment of his own actions. Nevertheless, in the words of Opitz, everything is ‘zu glatt, zu paßgerecht geraten’, which appears to insinuate that de Bruyn has 30 31

Tilman Krause, ‘Ein Zauderer behauptet sich’, Der Tagesspiegel, 14 August 1996. Opitz, ‘Ohne zu stören’.

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something to hide.32 When one considers de Bruyn’s shame at the contents of his Stasi file, the enduring dilemma of how his literary career in the GDR might be perceived and whether he could have been a more dynamic critic, Opitz’s comments must be called into question, or attributed to the critic’s misgivings about autobiography as a suitable vehicle for analysing the GDR’s legacy. On the contrary, Vierzig Jahre offers a searching insight into the compromises demanded of individuals in the GDR, who were required to juggle private and public concerns. On another level, de Bruyn analyses the role of critical intellectuals in a totalitarian climate and reveals how one’s actions could be exploited by the authorities for propaganda purposes, thereby confronting one with the difficult choice of whether to remain in one’s home country or go into exile. Vierzig Jahre ponders the consequences of both decisions, and is unable to resolve the problem. Leaving the GDR might well have been an easy option, and yet exile in itself was a privilege not afforded the majority of GDR citizens. Even though de Bruyn did not concur with the view that exile was a form of desertion, his reasons for remaining were ultimately less political: he could not contemplate leaving behind family and friends.33 The value of Vierzig Jahre inheres in its depiction of these conflicting emotions and pressures that faced many in the GDR, and not just the cultural élite. Its message quite simply is that people should not be placed in a position that stifles their sense of identity with the constant pursuit of compromise. Although the message is by no means unique to de Bruyn in the post-Wende period, that should detract neither from its validity nor the sensitivity with which the author conveys the problematic issue of reflecting upon life in a repressive climate. As we have seen, de Bruyn managed to withstand the pressure by withdrawing as much as possible to the margins of society. It is telling that he should so frequently choose to describe his position in the GDR as being one of ‘abseits’. Geographically, this peripheral position meant not only his isolated cottage but the Mark Brandenburg as a whole. It was the location of his long walks with Herbert, where they were briefly able to evade the psychological ramifications of everyday compromise in the library institute, itself a microcosm of the GDR Alltag. In this sense, it is no surprise that he should have subsequently begun to map the literary and historical topography of 32

Ibid. De Bruyn’s dilemma forms a neat contrast with the one facing Günter Kunert, as we shall see in Chapter 5.

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the area so extensively in his essays, as well as exploiting it as the setting for the novels Neue Herrlichkeit and the aptly titled Märkische Forschungen.34 The prevalence of ruined stately homes and monuments – the splendour of which Fontane had commemorated in his famous Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg – revealed how little the State cared for these remnants of a past it wished to forget. The region thus becomes synonymous with escape, with relative freedom from pressure. Although de Bruyn is uncomfortable with the notion of the private niche in the GDR, his love of the region of Brandenburg and his preoccupation with its literary and political history created a private space nevertheless, which compensated for the pressure he was otherwise subjected to as an author. Moreover, the obvious importance of the Mark Brandenburg for de Bruyn recalls Boa and Palfreyman’s spatial definition of Heimat as an ‘intrinsically conservative value connoting originary or primary factors in identity, or at least it expresses the longing, perhaps illusory, for such an absolute foundation or unchanging essence’.35 This suggestion should be viewed in conjunction with the theory posited by the author himself that the GDR’s endurance over a forty-year period can partially be attributed to the Prussian characteristics of a sizeable section of its citizens. In spatial terms, the Mark Brandenburg can be viewed as the core of historical Prussia, and in Neue Herrlichkeit de Bruyn employs clear allusions to the continuity that exists between the old and new orders, inherent not just in the hierarchical socio-political structures, but also in the attitudes and behaviour of the people: In der DDR-Geschichte spielen [diese sogenannten preußischen Tugenden] eine große Rolle. Die Leute, die ich in der Mark Brandenburg kenne, sind ausgesprochen preußischer Prägung, mit allen Vor- und Nachteilen: sehr verläßlich, arbeitsam, leicht zu lenken, immer nach Obrigkeit Ausschau haltend. Diese treue Nüchternheit in 36 kleinen Verhältnissen hat etwas historisch-Geprägtes.

Many of de Bruyn’s protagonists display these very attributes, with Teo Overbeck providing arguably the clearest personification of the damaging ramifications of the conflicting emotions that result in a GDR context: his wife chides him for his ‘fast asozial zu nennende 34

For a more detailed analysis of this facet of de Bruyn’s work than is possible here, see: Owen Evans, ‘Living in the Past?: Günter de Bruyn, Prussia and the Mark Brandenburg’, in Townscapes and Countryside in Contemporary German Writing, ed. by Osman Durrani and Julian Preece (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 225-41. 35 Boa and Palfreyman, p. 23. 36 Helmtrud Mauser, ‘Blick zurück: Günter de Bruyn im Gespräch’, in Wittstock, pp. 111-20 (p. 111).

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Moralität’.37 Whether one might reasonably extend de Bruyn’s thesis to include the GDR population as a whole is debatable, perhaps, and the author himself is careful not to do so, however compelling the argument may be. It is certainly true of de Bruyn himself, who admitted to an innate Prussian ‘Haltung des Aushaltenmüssens’ inherited from his mother.38 In many respects, the figure of de Bruyn’s mother, Jenny, stands out in Zwischenbilanz as the most memorable of the myriad portraits, but also as the most consistent influence on the author. It is no surprise that family and friends should have been so important and influential on someone as diffident as de Bruyn. His elder brother, Karlheinz, was a role model, but one that the author was unable to emulate. Amongst his friends there were those such as his abrasive friend H. or the melancholic Herbert, who were significant companions, but their influence on de Bruyn was ultimately limited by fundamental differences in opinion, most notably pertaining to his decision to embark upon a literary career. Although she is a much more peripheral figure in Vierzig Jahre, de Bruyn’s mother’s lasting influence upon her son comes to the fore in the text in his decision to remain in East Germany. In this way, the short introductory chapter ‘Möglichkeiten’ is programmatic. The author outlines how his ‘aus Harmoniebedürfnis entstandene Kompromißbereitschaft’ (VJ, 7) was key to his survival in the GDR, and concedes that ‘Schlimmeres, als geschah, hätte immer geschehen können’ (VJ, 7). It is an attitude strongly redolent of Jenny de Bruyn’s stoicism in Zwischenbilanz, most starkly evidenced by the way she relativises her rape by a young Russian soldier in 1945. De Bruyn’s aphoristic encapsulation of GDR life recalls those sayings so beloved of his mother: ‘Was sein muß, muß sein! Jammern nützt nichts! oder Hilft ja nichts! Mehr als diese Redensarten bekamen wir von ihr darüber kaum zu hören, aber täglich lebte sie uns Klag- und Selbstlosigkeit vor’ (ZB, 127). By instilling in her son ‘jenes Pflichtbewußtsein, das uns auch in schlechten Lagen zum Aushalten zwang’ (ZB, 127), Jenny de Bruyn might therefore be seen as the author’s ‘proximate other’. She is the personification of those values, endemic in the Mark Brandenburg, that proved crucial to de Bruyn’s own sense of self and enabled him to survive in the face of whatever adversity might have loomed. Although Zwischenbilanz 37

Günter de Bruyn, Preisverleihung (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1982), p. 106. Günter de Bruyn, Was ich noch schreiben will: Gespräch mit Ingo Hermann in der Reihe ‘Zeugen des Jahrhunderts’, ed. by Ingo Hermann (Göttingen: Lamuv, 1995), p. 52.

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signals how this dutiful attitude might have made de Bruyn susceptible initially to aspects of life under National Socialism, a sense of duty did not connote blind obedience. The structures of totalitarianism were to be endured, but this attitude was not synonymous with wholehearted endorsement. After learning the painful lessons from his experiences of the Third Reich, as an adult de Bruyn was far less susceptible in the GDR, as Vierzig Jahre outlines, even though his behaviour was still essentially marked by a stoical acceptance of his situation, which mirrored that of many in East Germany. Despite his general diffidence and the anxiety and selfdoubt that have plagued him throughout his professional career, de Bruyn’s sense of self has remained relatively robust, anchored firmly in his Heimat, the characteristics of which were embodied by his mother. Crucially, the candour and self-critical honesty that pervade both volumes of his autobiography reveal how de Bruyn never succumbed to the ‘provinzielle Verblödung’ (VJ, 204) he feared might result from his remaining in the GDR. Indeed, that he was constantly wrestling with the implications of his role as a writer demonstrates the pressures individuals faced on a daily basis, as well as revealing how it was possible to retain one’s integrity. For all the self-doubt about what his literary career could truly achieve, there is little doubt that de Bruyn made a noteworthy contribution to sustaining the critical mood of significant sections of GDR society. Less strident than colleagues such as Christa Wolf or Volker Braun he may have been, but his willingness to attend readings in the churches should not be underestimated. Indeed, one senses that the acclaim he has enjoyed since the Wende might be attributed to his deep scepticism of East Germany as an ideological phenomenon, unlike many of his colleagues who believed in reform of the GDR along true democratic lines as a viable alternative to reunification. In addition, on account of his more obviously diffident persona, de Bruyn emerges as an individual with whom many former East Germans could doubtless identify. His sensitive, yet objective, essays on the plight of former GDR citizens since 1989, such as ‘Deutsche Befindlichkeiten’ or the more recent ‘Deutsche Zustände’, emphasise how appropriate an advocate for his fellow eastern Germans de Bruyn has been in the post-Wende period.39 Rather than being vilified, his self-critical candour about his Stasi involvement was welcomed, and 39

Günter de Bruyn, ‘Deutsche Befindlichkeiten’, in Jubelschreie, Trauergesänge: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991), pp. 27-45; ‘Deutsche Zustände’, pp. 7-65.

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as Dennis Tate remarks, he was able to enjoy ‘a fully deserved moral bonus’ as a result.40 One might speculate that the understanding de Bruyn received can also be ascribed in part to the considerable success of Zwischenbilanz, with its honest and accessible portrayal of the inherent problems of coping with the pressures of totalitarian life. Without necessarily meaning to, de Bruyn spoke for a generation, interweaving private and public concerns and becoming in the process a figure with whom many could readily identify. As Sibylle Cramer emphasises, his credibility was significantly enhanced by the style and tone of his work: De Bruyns Prosa ist ohne Glanz ganz auf Genauigkeit des Ausdrucks, auf Wahrheit bedacht. […] De Bruyn verwandelt seinen Lebensbericht in ein offenes Gespräch mit sich selbst, […] ein experimentierendes Schreiben vor lesenden Zuschauern, die Zeugen des beweglichen Spiels und Gegenspiels von Gewißheiten und 41 Zweifeln, Vorbehalten und vorsichtigen Schlüssen werden.

So what were the author’s motives for commencing his autobiography? In Das erzählte Ich, de Bruyn admits that one of the principle reasons for writing was to produce a chronicle: Es ist der Chronist im Schreiber, der sich hier regt. Hier gilt es, das Ich in die historischen Geschehnisse einzuordnen, es aus ihnen erklären, durch sie vielleicht auch bewerten zu können. Das Ich und die Zeitläufe müssen aufeinander bezogen werden, in der Hoffnung, daß beide dadurch Konturen gewinnen und daß aus dem Einzelfall so etwas von einer Geschichtsschreibung von unten entsteht. (EI, 20)

He has spoken elsewhere of the ‘Chronistenpflicht des Autors’, which in itself is not by any means a motivation unique to de Bruyn.42 In this instance, however, his aim is expressed in terms of the interweaving of private and public, and the generally positive reception of both volumes of his autobiography underlines how successfully this juxtaposition has been achieved. Even though some felt that Vierzig Jahre did not provide the same panoramic sweep of its predecessor, with its naturally tighter focus on the cultural sphere of the GDR, there is still sufficient insight into the mechanisms of East German daily life to satisfy those readers who demanded such a focus. Nevertheless, de Bruyn was careful to stress that Vierzig Jahre would 40

Dennis Tate, ‘Changing Perspectives on Günter de Bruyn: An Introduction’, in Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 1-8 (p. 1). 41 Sibylle Cramer, ‘Selbstgespräche eines Wahrheitssuchers’, in Neue deutsche Literatur, 44.6 (1996), 121-24. 42 Sigrid Töpelmann, ‘Interview mit Günter de Bruyn’, Weimarer Beiträge, 14 (1968), 1171-83 (p. 1177).

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depict ‘mein Erwachsenenleben, das sich zwar in der DDR abspielte und von ihr beeinflußt wurde, aber doch mein Leben blieb’ (EI, 17-8) [original emphasis]. Despite the ‘aufklärerische Zug’ (EI, 20) inherent in de Bruyn’s perception of himself as a chronicler, the text was first and foremost to be an autobiographical reckoning with his own life – a ‘Selbstbefragung’, as Cramer terms it – rather than an analysis of the GDR per se.43 When one reviews de Bruyn’s canon and teases out the themes he has tackled in his fiction and essays, the articulation of subjectivity emerges as a recurrent concern, and in particular the degree of authenticity that subjective expression generates in a text. In his exploration of other authors’ work, he has constantly been drawn to the autobiographical features of their writing, examining the differing levels of authenticity thereby achieved. Jean Paul is advocated as a paradigm for having crafted his work around a core of personal experience, to such an extent in fact that de Bruyn extols his favourite author’s ‘Realitätsabhängigkeit’.44 Naturally, de Bruyn has proceeded to analyse autobiography per se as the purest embodiment of ‘subjective authenticity’, and it is this survey which is at the heart of Das erzählte Ich. Just why he should have been so preoccupied with the subjective features of writing can be explained by the problematic creation of his first novel, Der Hohlweg. What began as a private attempt to tackle his traumatic wartime experiences – especially the serious head wound he suffered – and was to have been an unequivocally autobiographical exploration was transformed inexorably into a formulaic Socialist Realist novel. The creative processes he was compelled to adopt refracted the subjectivity of the material to such a degree that most of the author’s personality was expunged from the finished product: ‘Als das Buch gedruckt war, war es für mich tot’.45 Although, on one hand, the experience represented a valuable introduction to the pressures facing an author in the GDR, which necessitated walking a thin line between conformity and subversion, the suppression of the subjective dimension of his début work conversely unleashed a far more damaging ‘Hemmung, sich selbst zu offenbaren’.46 Given both the State’s aim of creating ‘good socialist personalities’, irrespective of whether the individuals concerned wanted to be thus transformed or not, and the existence of 43

Cramer, p. 123. Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, p. 255. 45 ‘Der Holzweg’, p. 315. 46 Ibid., p. 314.

44

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the so-called ‘Nischengesellschaft’ in the GDR, we might argue that this inhibition was a feature of daily life under totalitarianism in general, and therefore did not just afflict those engaged in the production of literature.47 In view of the problems de Bruyn had faced with his attempted autobiographical reckoning with the war, it is clear how Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre can be seen to embody a therapeutic process. Zwischenbilanz in particular stands as a corrective of the début novel, covering as it does much of the same thematic ground as Der Hohlweg, but in a considerably more concise and accessible style. Both volumes of his autobiography facilitate the freedom to unfold, assess and express his sense of self that was necessarily precluded from the work he was able to publish in East Germany. At the beginning of Zwischenbilanz, when he talks of the text as ‘ein Training im Ich-Sagen, im Auskunftgeben ohne Verhüllung durch Fiktion’ (ZB, 7), de Bruyn is not being entirely ironic; his diffidence is entirely to be expected after years of totalitarianism had inhibited selfexpression. He had, after all, begun school in 1933 and spent the next fifty-six years under two German dictatorships. One need only consider the awkwardness of Teo Overbeck’s speech in Preisverleihung, itself based directly on de Bruyn’s own embarrassment at a Böll reading, or de Bruyn’s breakdown after Buridans Esel was published as examples of the crippling pressures individuals had to endure in such a repressive climate. Although reading and writing literature offered de Bruyn a means ‘um das Leben bestehen zu können’ (VJ, 242), his own interest in the autobiographical dimension of other authors’ work seemed to dictate that he would eventually seek to complete his own ‘Selbstauseinandersetzung’ (EI, 18), not only to lay the ghost of Der Hohlweg, but also to exorcise the personal demons unleashed by his experiences of totalitarianism in general. With the completion of his autobiographical project, de Bruyn achieved the blend of subjectivity and authenticity he had long sought, and arguably surpassed the best of his fiction in the process. The success of Zwischenbilanz in particular, reinforced by the numerous accolades that have been bestowed upon the author since 1989, supports this contention. While Zwischenbilanz effectively completed the circle begun, rather inauspiciously, with Der Hohlweg in 1963, Vierzig Jahre brought the autobiographical project up-to-date in 1996 47

Fulbrook, p.130.

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shortly before his seventieth birthday. It remains to be seen whether de Bruyn’s intimation that he will deliver the definitive overview of his life at eighty is ironic or not; there would seem to be few areas left uncovered. Might Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre be seen to connote the resolution of some kind of identity crisis for de Bruyn? In truth, this would be to overexaggerate the nature of the problem, which pertains principally to the capacity for self-expression. As Vierzig Jahre makes quite explicit, however, de Bruyn did suffer a deeprooted ambivalence about his role in the GDR and, despite his Prussian stoicism, struggled with the compromises demanded of him. His works of fiction are testament to the difficulties of balancing conformity and criticism, not only in their construction, as in the case of Der Hohlweg, but also in the dilemmas facing protagonists such as Teo Overbeck and Ernst Pötsch. In this respect, de Bruyn’s admission that ‘sich fast alles, was ich geschrieben habe, von subjektiver Erfahrung nährte’ (VJ, 242) is telling. With his autobiographical volumes, he was finally able to give free rein to self-expression and thereby initiate ‘der Versuch, mich über mich selbst aufzuklären, Grundlinien meines Lebens zu finden, mir auf die Frage zu antworten, wer eigentlich ich sei’ (EI, 19). If his career up to that point had been a form of Vorarbeit, an attempt to achieve the same kind of ‘Selbsterforschung’ (EI, 18), albeit one mitigated by the State’s dogmatic resistance to the articulation of individuality that forced him ‘lange um mein Leben [herumzuschreiben]’ (ZB, 7), then the successful completion of Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre does appear to have resolved that self-analytical imperative. This thesis can be substantiated by the fact that since 1984 de Bruyn has produced no further works of fiction. With the exception of his autobiography, he has dedicated himself exclusively to his work on Germany, concentrating primarily on his research into the literary and political history of his beloved Brandenburg. It certainly suggests that his creative work was driven by a need for self-expression, in order to affirm his sense of self, but it is a need that has now been stilled. He currently appears at ease professionally, happy to potter along the highways and byways of the past, free at last to devote himself to simple, personal pleasures, untroubled by any continual need to rescue a sense of identity directly in his work or to justify his actions. Amongst the myriad prizes he has won since 1989, he was awarded the notable Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Preis für Essayistik, while his recent full-length publications have been studies of leading figures in

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Prussian history, namely the Finckenstein family and Königin Luise, and cultural histories of Berlin and Brandenburg.48 Having long been engaged in mapping the contours of his private realm, de Bruyn reveals with his recent work – perhaps with considerable relief – that it is the lives of others that now hold his attention.

48

Günter de Bruyn, Die Finckensteins: Eine Familie im Dienste Preußens (Berlin: Siedler, 1999); Preussens Luise: Vom Entstehen und Vergehen einer Legende (Berlin: Siedler, 2001) and Unter den Linden (Berlin: Siedler, 2002).

Five

‘Die Katalyse des Schreibens’ – Günter Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele: Erinnerungen (1997) Although the title of Günter Kunert’s Erinnerungen appears at first glance to promise a more carefree life story than the other texts in the present survey – an impression reinforced by the paperback edition with its cover photograph of the author as an impish-looking young boy – one is swiftly and unequivocally disabused of this expectation. Despite the playfulness that pervades swathes of Kunert’s account of his childhood in Berlin, which was anything but untroubled on account of his status after 1933 as a ‘Mischling ersten Grades’ (E, 21), it becomes evident in Erwachsenenspiele that ‘the games that adults play’ are not always as harmless as the card games his parents regularly enjoyed with friends: Hier wird nicht gepokert, sondern Skat gespielt. Manchmal beteiligt sich als vierter Mann aus der Nachbarschaft mein künftiger Schwiegervater. Als ich seine Tochter heirate, ist er längst tot. Gemütlich um den Tisch versammelt, rufen sie einander ‘Kontra’ und ‘Re’ zu, ‘Grand mit Vieren’ und ‘Passe’! Inzwischen tagt die ‘Wannseekonferenz zur Endlösung der Judenfrage’, mit deren Beschlüssen die fröhliche Skatrunde insgesamt 1 zu Verlierern wird. (E, 42)

We have already seen elsewhere – with Harig and de Bruyn, for example – how some accounts of this period chillingly juxtapose private and public events, thereby indicating the threat to unsuspecting souls, and imbuing the texts with a dramatic tension and construction redolent of fiction. That persecution did not cease with the defeat of the Third Reich, but continued in an ever more refined, insidious manner in the GDR is the stark truth that underpins Erwachsenenspiele. Despite Kunert’s best efforts to preserve the generally light-hearted tone with which he recounts his childhood experiences, he is unable to prevent an understandable level of 1

Günter Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele: Erinnerungen (Munich: DTV, 1999). All references to this text will appear in the form (E, 41).

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bitterness and despair from permeating his autobiography in the sections documenting life initially in the Soviet-occupied zone (SBZ) and subsequently in the GDR. He objects to the fact that the Stasi’s Operativer Vorgang (OV) against him was codenamed ‘Zyniker’, but by the time of his Ausreise on 10 October 1979, his bitterness and disillusionment about the GDR’s capacity to change was irrevocable: ‘Wir schütteln den besagten Staub von unseren Füßen’ (E, 445). Erwachsenenspiele thus charts in detail the gradual frustration of one man’s political beliefs. In keeping with the reception of earlier autobiographical accounts of life in the GDR, Erwachsenenspiele elicited a broadly mixed response from reviewers, which would indeed support de Bruyn’s contention in Das erzählte Ich that it was still too soon to expect the definitive personal history of the GDR: Noch sind die Erlebnisse zu nah, um die wesentlichen von den unwesentlichen trennen zu können. Die politischen Zustände von gestern sind noch nicht zur Historie geworden; die Flut der Geschehnisse hat sich noch nicht zur Geschichte geformt. Man kennt Daten und Fakten, ist sich aber über die Höhe- und Wendepunkte nicht einig. Man weiß, wann die DDR endete, aber nicht wann und wie das Ende begann. (EI, 59)

Although relating specifically to his own text, de Bruyn’s attempts to moderate expectations do possess a much broader relevance. His own Vierzig Jahre was greeted with noticeable disappointment in some quarters that had been wildly enthusiastic about the earlier Zwischenbilanz, and a similar pattern emerged in the reviews of Erwachsenenspiele. As an author who had wrestled with the authorities throughout his career before his emigration and had been widely published in the West, but not in the East, Kunert’s autobiography was eagerly anticipated. Surely, where de Bruyn had been careful to pull his punches in typically diplomatic fashion, Kunert would be eager to settle some scores? He had, after all, been a far more abrasive intellectual than the reticent de Bruyn. Moreover, having been resident in the West for a decade before the fall of the Wall, and thus a distanced observer of the implosion of East Germany, was Kunert not especially well placed to assess events with the detachment that de Bruyn stressed was essential, but lacked himself? When one considers that Kunert has been an exponent of shorter literary forms – lyric poetry, Erzählungen, essays – it is interesting to note the form of his autobiography, which just happens to be the longest single volume in the present study. In the same way that de Bruyn uses the key historical coordinates of 1949 and 1989 as

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natural breaks in his account, since they represent undisputed ‘Höheund Wendepunkte’, Kunert opts to concentrate solely on the first fifty years of his life, culminating in his departure for West Germany in 1979. We do not learn, therefore, how he perceived the events of 1989. For an author who has only written one novel, Im Namen der Hüte (1967), fifty years might appear to be a lot of ground to cover in prose form. Rather than divide his material into the short, discrete sections that one finds in Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre or Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, Kunert constructs an elongated narrative that is, at times, breathless. His material is assembled in nine chapters only, the breaks in which are only loosely predicated on historical moments. It is testament to the engaging nature of Kunert’s style that the structure works, simulating the rush of memories that confront the autobiographer and giving the impression that his account is, perhaps, less consciously constructed than others. The very fluidity of the text might therefore be seen to reflect the author’s intent to render his experiences more directly, without them having first been filtered, weighed up or shaped in the manner of de Bruyn’s or Harig’s autobiographies. The impression of immediacy is reinforced by Kunert’s adoption throughout of the present tense, which itself mirrors the autobiographer’s apparent reluctance to look back on events with the wisdom of hindsight. It is as if he is caught up in the events and being slept along. There are very few examples of the author imposing on his narrative a retrospective interpretation of key moments and thereby implying that he had recognised the historical importance of events at the time. Certainly this rhetorical device of the dramatic present is at its most effective during the earlier sections of Erwachsenenspiele, where the narrator’s experiences underline the precariousness of the situation in which he and his family found themselves in Nazi Germany. In this way, then, the form of Erwachsenenspiele and Kunert’s reluctance to impose himself too much on the text might be seen to reflect not only the random process by which memories are recalled, where one incident can spark a whole chain of associations, but also the inability of the individual to attain an overview of one’s own life as it unfolds. In her rather disparaging review of Erwachsenenspiele, Andrea Köhler is particularly bothered by her belief that Kunert’s autobiographical account must be viewed as ‘das Zeugnis eines Verrats am literarischen Ich’.2 She justifies this accusation with 2 Andrea Köhler, ‘Selbstporträt im Scheinwerferlicht. Diesseits des Erinnerns: Günter Kunerts Erwachsenenspiele’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 October 1997.

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reference to a short piece written by Kunert in 1968, in which the author muses on the difficulties of portraying oneself on paper. The fact that, in Erwachsenenspiele, ‘das fremdelnde Ich aus dem Schatten der Poesie herausgetreten [ist]’ is thus a source of great disappointment to Köhler: ‘Alles wirft der Selbstbiograph über Bord, was dem Dichter heilig war: das Wissen um “die Fremde, die man selbst ist”, und das Bewusstsein von der Unzuverlässigkeit jeder Erinnerung’.3 In the piece in question, ‘Selbstporträt im Gegenlicht’, Kunert does indeed underline the problems inherent in any selfportrait: Sich selbst darstellen: Paradoxie, denn wie schlüpft man unter das eigene Gesicht, ohne sich vorher des eigenen Gesichtes als Maske bewußt zu werden, das ja danach nicht länger mehr das eigene, 4 ursprüngliche Gesicht sein kann. Reflexion entfremdet es. (SE, 11)

As Kunert goes on to define literary self-portraiture as the ‘Verwandlung von DIN A4 Bogen in so etwas ähnliches wie einen Menschen durch die Katalyse des Schreibens’ (SE, 12) [my emphasis], implying clearly that such work could only ever be an approximation of the individual, a construct, is Köhler not then correct in her assertion that Erwachsenenspiele signals some kind of betrayal of this earlier position? Where Köhler’s argument loses force is in her failure to examine the form of the narrative in Erwachsenenspiele. Kunert’s text eschews the structural coherence of de Bruyn’s volumes, quite deliberately it would seem. Although he splits his account into nine chapters, these divisions are so loose, and at times almost arbitrary on account of his avoidance of fixing the narrative with precise dates, that he might just as well not have bothered with these divisions at all. The lack of any clear structure in the ordering of the material reveals his approach to be less than orthodox, acknowledging the qualified nature of any attempt to render one’s life in written form. In this way, the very structure of Erwachsenenspiele might in fact be seen to support Köhler’s contention: ‘Wer kann da noch “ich” sagen, wo selbst die Natur sich den Mächtigen unterwirft?’.5 Kunert does not avoid the first-person pronoun as Wolf does in Kindheitsmuster, but the hybrid nature of the material in Erwachsenenspiele, together with 3

Ibid. ‘Selbstporträt im Gegenlicht’, in Schatten entziffern: Lyrik, Prosa 1950-1994, ed. by Jochen Richter (Leipzig: Reclam, 1995), pp. 11-13 (p. 11). All references to the anthology will be in the form (SE, 11). 5 Köhler. 4

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the consistent use of the present tense, problematises the degree of interpretation and analysis that underpins more traditional literary autobiographies. Where de Bruyn orders his material carefully around key events, or muses upon the apparent coincidence of private and public moments, Kunert tends to allow his memories a free rein, with the result that his narrative comprises principally episodic sections, rather than the more neatly rounded, seemingly more polished anecdotes we see in Zwischenbilanz, for example. De Bruyn does constantly question the accuracy of his memory, but admits to a degree of literary licence in producing an accessible account for readers. In many respects, Kunert appears less concerned with accessibility; with the style and structure of Erwachsenenspiele Kunert seems to be suggesting, even more forcefully than de Bruyn, that one’s memories cannot be easily tamed or fully trusted. While describing the first of several visits to Bulgaria, he readily concedes to not being able to remember which memories relate to which trip: Simone de Beauvoir schrieb einst, die Erinnerungen an ihre vielen Reisen hätten sich überlagert, wo was wann sei ihr ungewiß geworden. Mir geht es kaum anders. Mehrere Bulgarienreisen vermischen sich zu einer einzigen, die Chronologie ist von einer gefühlsmäßigen Folge abgelöst worden. (E, 231)

On occasion, the reader senses the same is true of other details that Kunert seeks to recall; after all, why should this problem simply pertain to trips abroad? In his study of autobiography, Eakin devotes some time to the exploration of ‘neural Darwinism’ with its notion that ‘memories are perceptions newly occurring in the present rather than images stored in the past and somehow mysteriously recalled to present consciousness’ and, accordingly, ‘“every recollection refers not only to the remembered event or person or object but to the person who is remembering”’ (HOL, 18-9). By its very form, Erwachsenenspiele acknowledges this dynamic and is consequently very much in keeping with the problems of getting inside one’s own head Kunert had identified in ‘Selbstporträt im Gegenlicht’. If Erwachsenenspiele appears at times a rather unreflective autobiography, it can be attributed to the author’s attempt to minimise the alienation that he believes accompanies any attempt to slip ‘unter das eigene Gesicht’ (SE, 11). Nevertheless, as Kunert confesses, producing a ‘Selbstporträt’ is a paradox, and Erwachsenenspiele is inevitably founded on just such a contradiction. As much as he eschews too much ‘Reflexion’ (SE, 11), Erwachsenenspiele does contain isolated moments where the author allows himself the

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opportunity to analyse with hindsight the significance of certain narrated events. By so doing, he reveals both the constructed nature of the narrative and the ultimately reflective motivation behind the creation of the text, which represents, perhaps, a contradiction of his apparent reservations about the accuracy and viability of the autobiographical form. Yet in the short piece ‘Heimat’ from 1986, Kunert had already admitted to an ambivalence about what the firstperson pronoun embodied. At the outset he suggests that ‘Ich zu behaupten, Ich zu schreiben’ constitutes a breach of the ancient ‘Gebot der Bescheidenheit’: Und zwar ohne vordem eine Legitimation für solche einsilbige Subjektivität geliefert zu haben. Mit ‘Ich’ beginnen Geständnisse und Bekenntnisse. Das Entblößerische eines derart unverfrorenen Daherkommens zwingt den Leser oder Zuhörer in eine Intimität hinein, die ihm peinlich sein muß. Jemand, der als erstes sein Ich in die Waagschale wirft, hat wohl kaum mehr zu bieten als dieses. Dennoch: Auch ich hebe auf diese fatale Weise an. Wohl weil, was ich anmerken will, eben den besagten Geständnischarakter besitzt, und so will ich es ungesäumt aussprechen: Ich gestehe. Ich bekenne. Ich gebe zu, viele meiner Texte aus keinem anderen Grunde verfertigt zu haben, als für diese kurze Weile des Schreibvorganges andernorts zu sein, abwesend von den äußeren Umständen meiner Existenz. (SE, 46) 6 [original emphasis]

But writing does not only provide escapism for the narrator; it also has an existential function which recalls Uwe Saeger’s situation: ‘Wo sonst kann man denn eigentlich leben außer in Wörtern und Sätzen, die den immer unbetretbaren Ort benennen?’ (SE, 47). With this observation in mind, one might see Erwachsenenspiele as operating in just this way, for the text is a construct – a Dichtung – allowing the author to project himself back to a similarly ‘unbetretbaren Ort’, namely the past. If confessions begin with ‘Ich’, then so too do memories. Kunert’s text hardly constitutes the betrayal Köhler believes, therefore, for it is simply a means ‘für diese kurze Weile des Schreibvorganges andernorts zu sein’. The author is making no great claims on behalf of his text, but is seeking merely to recreate an impression of a past no longer accessible in any form other than literature.

6 One might compare Kunert’s comments here with those of Uwe Saeger in the ‘Nach-Sätze’ to Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, in which he acknowledges ‘die anrüchige Eitelkeit, mich als mein eigener Chronist bestellt zu haben’ (DN, 225), but concedes to having done it anyway.

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But Andrea Köhler was not the only reviewer to express disappointment with Erwachsenenspiele. In by far the most critical review of the text, the author Jan Faktor was troubled by this loose style, and it was precisely the perceived absence of any reflection at all that jarred: Kunerts Buch fehlt aber noch mehr: Reflexion, Selbstbefragung. Und es ist schon mehr als verwunderlich, wie blockiert er hier ist, daß er seine essayistischen Fähigkeiten völlig brachliegen lassen muß. Er erzählt, bechreibt, und erzählt – und versucht nicht zu bündeln, innere Zusammenhänge zu verfolgen, versucht nicht einmal, die Ansichten von damals mit denen von heute in Beziehung zu setzen. Ganze Teile sind rein deskriptiv, lesen sich wie breit ausformulierte, trotzdem aber nur stichpunktartige Tagebucheintragungen oder wie eine kleine Chronik von – für die Familie wichtigen – Urlaubserlebnissen; also 7 wie Notizen, die als Erinnerungsstützen dienen sollten.

In Faktor’s view, rather than countering any sense of Entfremdung in his text, Kunert had, on the contrary, merely exacerbated it by a complete lack of engagement with his material. Although there are sections which tally with Faktor’s observations as to the episodic, diary-like quality of the text, such as the descriptions of the Kunerts’ visits abroad, there are crucial moments where the author does intercede in his text from the narrative present, thereby establishing the reflective process that Faktor wishes to see, but considers deficient in Erwachsenenspiele. Whilst it is true that such authorial interventions do not predominate in the narrative, it is misleading to suggest they do not exist at all. Indeed, Kunert’s account of the drafting of the petition in support of Wolf Biermann in November 1976 represents one of these rare, yet significant, departures from the apparently unreflective narrative stance in Erwachsenenspiele, suggesting that the text has not been assembled quite as randomly as it might initially appear. The description of the gathering of intellectuals at Stephan Hermlin’s home, in itself a criminal act, is vividly relayed, and Kunert makes it clear that everyone present was aware of the magnitude of the undertaking: Die Petenten sitzen in Hermlins Empfangsecke, hochgradig aufgeregt und schon die Folgen solchen Tuns körperlich verspürend. Uns allen ist bewußt, daß man uns kaum freundlich für den Protest gegen die Ausbürgerung danken würde. Der Grad unserer Beunruhigung ist individuell verschieden, doch sorglos ist keiner. […] 7 Jan Faktor, ‘Strapaziöse Affären. Oberflächenironie: Erinnerungsband Erwachsenenspiele’, Freitag, 10 October 1997.

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Christa Wolf äußert Zukunftsvisionen, die insgesamt um Bautzen oder sonstige Zuchthäuser kreisen. Das hebt nicht gerade die Stimmung. Jeder von uns rechnet sowieso mit dem Schlimmsten. Jedes Gesicht signalisiert den einen Gedanken: Das werden DIE nicht hinnehmen! DIE werden Maßnahmen ergreifen! (E, 376)

On returning home, Kunert’s anxiety is so acute that he proceeds to burn everything ‘was der Anklage als Indiz gegen uns nützen könnte’ (E, 378). Although his account underlines the genuine fear of the signatories at the time, Kunert now appears rather dismissive of the ‘dürftigen Sätze’ (E, 383) of the document drawn up primarily by Hermlin and Stefan Heym. He draws an ironic comparison of the ‘Unternehmen Hermlin’ (E, 379) with Guy Fawkes, remarking dismissively: ‘Was für dürftige Verschwörer sind wir gewesen, Freunde’ (E, 375). Yet, for all his criticism of the perceived timidity of the intellectuals’ response, he does now consider Biermann’s infamous concert in Cologne and its aftermath to have been the beginning of the end for the GDR: ‘[…] Die gesamte DDR wird in zwölf Stunden nicht mehr derselbe Staat sein. Diese “Mitternachtsmesse”, obschon das noch keiner zu vermuten vermag, läutet das Ende der DDR ein’ (E, 374-5). It is a view widely held today, as the event represents one of the acknowledged ‘Wendepunkte’ of GDR history, but it acquires an added weight from the fact that Kunert should share it, having been directly involved in the petition and experienced the aftermath. Another perceived failing of Erwachsenenspiele in Jan Faktor’s eyes is that it contains ‘keine Anstrengung um Ehrlichkeit vor sich selbst wie bei de Bruyn, kein unbedingtes Bemühen um Genauigkeit’.8 Once again, while it is certainly true that Kunert does not directly issue the same caveats about the reliability of his memory that one finds in other texts in the present study – not least in Zwischenbilanz – there are still many instances where he admits that he is not entirely sure of the accuracy of his account. As we have already seen, he is unable to separate out different memories of trips abroad. During the drafting of the Biermann petition, he admits that he had forgotten about some of the people who were present: ‘Als Augenzeuge unterliege ich Ausblendungen wie die meisten Augenzeugen’ (E, 376). On a number of occasions, Kunert confesses that he tends to be better able to remember scenes rather than precise dates – ‘Das Gedächtnis reproduziert Szenen, keine Daten’ (E, 410) – and it is characteristic of Erwachsenenspiele, that the narrative is 8

Faktor.

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seldom punctuated with precise historical coordinates. Moments that are already accepted as significant for the GDR’s history – 1953, 1956, 1961, 1976 – all feature as they do in Vierzig Jahre, but like de Bruyn, Kunert had no intention of producing a socio-political history of East Germany. There also appears to be little ground to accuse Kunert, as Faktor does, of a lack of ‘Selbstbefragung’. At several points in the narrative, Kunert tries to recall how he felt or wonders why he reacted as he did. He cannot remember, for instance, how he and his wife felt after witnessing the Berlin Wall for the first time: ‘Worüber haben wir gesprochen? Wie ist uns zumute gewesen? Wohl ziemlich übel’ (E, 218). The sense of disbelief at what they have seen is palpable in Kunert’s inability to recall what they said. Similarly, while contemplating the consequences of his involvement with the petition, he observes: ‘Warum hole ich mir neuen Ärger an den Hals? Habe ich aus meinen Erfahrungen nichts gelernt?’ (E, 376). There is nothing heroic in this statement. It indicates instead the moral obligation that critical intellectuals in the GDR such as Kunert felt, which compelled them to react to the expulsion, regardless of the likely consequences. It is certainly true that the narrative reads, at various points, rather like the author has been jotting memories down as he goes along, thereby simulating the act of remembering, reflecting indeed what Faktor refers to as the ‘stichpunktartige Tagebucheintragungen’. Erwachsenenspiele thus appears at first glance to lack the same detachment that one finds in de Bruyn’s autobiographical volumes, alongside which Kunert’s text comes across as a more wilfully subjective document. But the impression that Erwachsenenspiele is a less constructed and composed text is deceptive. As de Bruyn remarks in Das erzählte Ich, no autobiographer ‘kommt […] ohne das Auswählen aus’: ‘Er muß, will er sein Leben erzählen, die großen und kleinen Teilchen desselben sondern und wägen, Wichtiges von Unwichtigem trennen, einen Aussonderungsprozeß also vollziehen’ (EI, 12-3). Although Kunert may have been less precise in his selection than de Bruyn, eschewing the more aphoristic approach of his contemporary, he must still have engaged in an ‘Ausssonderungsprozeß’ of his own to produce Erwachsenenspiele. The clearest indication of his careful selection is evident in his extensive use of documents from the period covered by his account, which have the additional function of enhancing the authenticity of his text.

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Other texts in the present survey incorporate documents into the autobiographical account, in order both to facilitate the reconstruction of their lives and those of other significant people, as well as to test the accuracy of what they are recounting. In particular, Grete Weil’s Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben employs photographs regularly throughout, and as the title of Monika Maron’s Pawels Briefe indicates, the source material is derived principally from family letters, as well as photographs, as the author seeks to add detail and definition to the sketchy picture that she has of her grandparents in her personal quest for a sense of her own self. In Erwachsenenspiele, Kunert’s extensive use of extracts from his Stasi files, together with critical reports and reviews on him and his work, have a slightly different function. Rather than being employed to provide insight into the author’s sense of self, such documents serve to contextualise his life and experiences by indicating the extent to which the GDR sought to monitor and control individuals, most particularly intellectuals, who were perceived as a threat. As Wolfgang Emmerich explains: Die Schriftsteller und ihre Werke waren kein Objekt des 1950 gegründeten Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit (MfS) von Anfang an. Auch nachdem 1954 (als Konsequenz des 17. Juni 1953) eine Hauptabteilung V (HA V), zuständig für die Überwachung im eigenen Staate, gegründet wurde, stand die Literatur noch lange nicht im Brennpunkt des geheimdienstlichen Interesses. Eine gewisse Veränderung trat im Gefolge der vom Ungarnaufstand im Oktober 1956 ausgelösten Prozesse gegen Intelligenzangehörige und Schriftsteller wie Walter Janka, Wolfgang Harich und Erich Loest 9 ein.

The precise nature of what Emmerich dubs, presumably with calculated understatement, a ‘gewisse Veränderung’ is explored in length in Erwachsenenspiele, and it provides one of the most striking sections of the text. Kunert was himself a member of the so-called ‘Donnerstag-Club’, a diverse collection of intellectuals, inspired by the spirit of reform sweeping through Hungary and united by the ‘Wunsch nach Veränderungen’ (E, 194): ‘Wir glauben ernstlich an einen sozialistischen Frühling’ (E, 195). At the same time, Kunert was involved with the periodical, Sonntag, the editors of which were equally keen to tap into this new spirit of reform: Dialoge, denen im ‘Donnerstag-Club’ gleich, dehnen die Redaktionskonferenzen der Zeitschrift Sonntag. Die beiden Chefredakteure Heinz Zöger und Gustav Just breiten ihre Pläne vor uns aus. Vorbild ist der

9

Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, p. 63.

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‘Petöfi-Club’ unter der Leitung von Georg Lukács – unsere Zeitschrift muß ein Forum für die Liberalisierung. Die Redaktion erläßt einen Aufruf an alle Schriftsteller: Man möge doch jene Manuskripte einsenden, die entweder der Zensur zum Opfer gefallen oder aus Vorsicht nirgendwo eingereicht worden sind. Heraus aus den Schubladen mit den gewagten Texten! (E, 195-6)

The brutal suppression of the regime in Budapest brought with it an equally swift, and decisive, response from the GDR regime against its own perceived miscreants, and the ringleaders were arrested ‘als Umstürzler, Verschwörer, Staatsfeinde’ (E, 198). The fear unleashed both by the sudden crushing of any hopes for liberalisation and shock at the severity of the sentences imposed on the likes of Harich and Loest, reverberates through Kunert’s account. Because of his affiliation with these perceived counter-revolutionaries, Kunert inevitably came to the attention of the Stasi at this time, and the constant presence of ‘der unsichtbare Dritte’ (E, 200) is reflected in the regular extracts from his file which appear in the text from this point onwards. Despite the banality of much of what is recorded therein, the reports reveal the extent of the surveillance, representing arguably the most invasive infringement of the private sphere of any text here. In truth, that such banalities were recorded makes this intrusion all the more unsavoury. Equally palpable is the debilitating impact of this level of intimidation on the author: Man ist auf der Hut und meidet ‘heiße’ Themen. Die Lage ist derart hoffnungslos, daß sich ihre Erwähnung erübrigt. Mißtrauen grassiert, und mich wundert, daß niemand an unsere Tür klopft, um mich über meine Rolle während der Mitarbeit beim Sonntag zu befragen. Ich ahne ja nicht, daß der unsichtbare Dritte längst dagewesen ist, ohne daß etwas Auffälliges mich gewarnt hätte. Unter den guten Bekannten und Fast-Freunden tummeln sich jene, die mir mit großer Verspätung Vergessenes vermitteln. Wie in Briefen aus der Vergangenheit, obschon sie keineswegs an mich addressiert sind, lese ich nun, in den gestern noch geheimen Akten, wer und was ich in den Augen des Großen Bruders gewesen bin […]. (E, 200)

That the files have enabled Kunert to plug lacunae in his memory cannot but be seen as heartily ironic. Indeed, the author’s observations underline just how he uses the documentation at his disposal in quite a different manner from others. Rather than helping to sharpen the focus of his self-portrait, the reports are deemed too unreliable or inaccurate to be of any value in this regard. Picturing Erich Honecker approving his exit permit, Kunert ponders: ‘Ob [Honecker] sich nach den Hintergründen der Angelegenheit erkundigt hat? Was weiß er überhaupt von mir? Vermutlich nur, was ihm Mielke vorlegt. Also gar

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nichts’ (E, 440). These reports provide, instead, insight into both the minds of those who worked for the Stasi and the system they served. In this respect Erwachsenenspiele is akin to Reiner Kunze’s Deckname Lyrik, the sole contents of which comprise documents selected from the poet’s Stasi file.10 Jochen Hieber for one laments the inclusion of such files in Erwachsenenspiele, for if Kunert’s ‘Methode des ermüdenden Zitieren Schule machen [sollte] bei Selbstbiographen, die zumindest einen Teil ihres Lebens in der DDR verbrachten, haben wir noch viel schlechter Prosa zu erwarten’.11 Has Kunert survived decades of persecution by the Stasi, he muses, ‘um nun nicht besser zu schreiben als die Spitzel, die ihn denunzierten’.12 Indeed, Hieber is particularly scathing of perceived deficiencies in Kunert’s use of language, citing examples of grammatical errors and a perceived preponderance of substantives throughout, all of which leads the critic to conclude that Erwachsenenspiele is ‘eine mittlere Katastrophe’ stylistically.13 Despite Hieber’s pedantic analysis, there is little evidence to support his contention that Kunert’s prose has become infected by his exposure to his Stasi files. Is it not possible to see the intermittent looseness of the author’s syntax as an idiosyncratic expression of individuality, akin to the liberal – at times anarchic – linguistic aesthetic of the Prenzlauer Berg poets? One must surely allow a lyric poet of Kunert’s stature a measure of poetic licence, if for no other reason than that it undercuts the torturous, stilted prose style of the Stasi that features increasingly in Erwachsenenspiele. There is an undeniable quirkiness to Kunert’s style in the text, established from the very outset and maintained throughout. It recalls not only the best of his creative work, in which the role and form of language is a central concern, but crucially is a reflection of Kunert’s sense of self, of his individuality. As Peter Smith remarks, Erwachsenenspiele conveys the picture of a ‘stubborn individualist’, and nowhere is this identity more clearly defined than in the text’s highly idiosyncratic style.14

10 Reiner Kunze, Deckname ‘Lyrik’: Eine Dokumentation (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1990). 11 Jochen Hieber, ‘Anthrazit und Eierschale. Erwachsenenspiele: Günter Kunert hat seine Erinnerungen geschrieben’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 October 1997. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Peter D. Smith, ‘Once a dissident…’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 July 1998, p. 27.

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While it undoubtedly lacks the coherent structure one finds in de Bruyn’s autobiographies, for example, which imbues those particular volumes with greater narrative objectivity and consequently a more novelistic quality, Erwachsenenspiele displays instead a greater sense of freedom, as the narrative flows from one episode to the next, in breathless fashion at times. That the material is allowed much more of a free rein in terms of style and structure affords the readers an insight into Kunert’s personality and his sense of self. It comes as no surprise that the author of Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre is an author who established a reputation as a reflective figure, who preferred to maintain as safe a distance as possible from the ideological concerns of the GDR; conversely, the author of Erwachsenenspiele was a far more impulsive and committed individual, who, as a convinced Communist, belonged to the SED, but became embroiled in a series of controversies. Where de Bruyn emerges in his depiction of his childhood as an anxious boy who was relatively sheltered by his family and their status as Catholics in Protestant Berlin, Kunert, by stark contrast, displays a reckless nature, in spite of his precarious status as a Halbjude, which leads him into various potentially fatal scrapes. In any other context, the impish antics of the young Kunert would simply be interpreted as typical behaviour for boys of that age; that the backdrop for these episodes is Berlin in the grip of National Socialism lends the episodes a decidedly picaresque quality, which is enhanced significantly by the jaunty narrative style employed to relate them. The young Kunert is both precocious and rebellious, who loathes the ‘Purgatorium preußischer Provenienz’ of school: ‘Da wird geprügelt und geohrfeigt, gebrüllt und geschlagen, gehöhnt und erniedrigt’ (E, 19). On the few occasions when he does attend, it becomes clear that he does not fit in, despite his half-hearted attempts to do so: ‘Der Instinkt meiner Mitschüler verrät ihnen, daß ich mich bloß in Mimikry übe. Sie nehmen mich nicht an, und ich lege keinen Wert auf ihre Akzeptanz, und das wiederum spüren sie deutlich’ (E, 20). On account of his voracious reading at home, he alone knows that the poem, ‘Die Loreley’, purportedly written by an unknown poet, is in fact by Heine. That he knows the true identity of the poet underlines his status as an outsider: ‘Der Unbekannte ist einer von uns’ (E, 21). As with Ruth Klüger, it is a role he is quite proud of. Although unaware at this stage of the potentially dangerous situation he finds himself in, Kunert’s exclusion from certain activities, such as religion classes, has already marked him for life: ‘Ich bin ja durch eine

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Bezeichnung stigmatisiert, welche mir vierzig Jahre später, obschon aus anderen Gründen, noch einmal als Markenzeichen verliehen werden wird: “Dissident”’ (E, 20). His absence from school allows him to indulge his strong passion for reading, art and for the female form. A magazine containing pictures of French nudes captivates Kunert, until it is discovered by his mother and flushed down the toilet. Undeterred, he transfers his affections to an array of film actresses, such as Karin Himboldt: ‘Eine blonde Fee von sanftem Typus, und ich kaufe mir sofort eine Künstlerpostkarte meiner Abgöttin und trage sie in der linken inneren Brusttasche direkt über meinem Herzen’ (E, 55). Unsurprisingly, Kunert’s appreciation of the feminine charms brings about early sexual exploration, commencing with the girl who sells newspapers opposite their house and whose sudden evolution into a young woman entrances him: ‘Wie bringt man in so kurzer Zeit einen derart auffälligen Busen zustande?’ (E, 64-5). He invites the girl to visit the ruins of their recently bombed flat, and threatens to blow them up with a piece of shell-casing if she refuses to sleep with him: Wir beide wissen, das Geschoß […] kann gar nicht explodieren. Doch meine Gefangene spielt mit, entkleidet sich mit verdächtiger Geschwindingkeit und begibt sich umstandslos aufs Bett, damit ich meine geringen anatomischen Kenntnisse vervollständigen kann. Ich folge zitternd. Und muß von der Theorie zur Praxis übergehen. Nichts ist komplizierter, wie man weiß. Theoretisch beherrscht man alles Erforderliche, doch bei der Praxis ergibt sich oftmals Unvorhersehbares, mit dem man nicht rechnet. Ehe ich zur Besinnung und zum Bewußtsein meines Tuns komme, ist dieses Tun bereits vorbei. Der Abschied an der Haustür schließt zwar eine neue Verabredung mit ein, doch niemals mehr begegne ich der gutwilligen Rothaarigen. (E, 65)

Kunert is not too perturbed by this disappointingly brief encounter, as there are to be a string of other women, such as the young woman in the air-raid shelter, whom he is caressing when news of Hitler’s death reaches them, and two fiancées, the second of whom he locks in a room when he meets his future wife at a New Year’s Eve party in 1950. Marianne Kunert’s importance to the author as an indispensable source of support and encouragement subsequently becomes a major element of Erwachsenenspiele. Kunert’s roguish, reckless behaviour is not only evidenced by the machinations that characterise his love life. His passion for the cinema, especially for glamorous actresses – ‘Damen aus Schatten und Licht’ –, proves irresistible: ‘Magisch, magnetisch und manisch angezogen, schleiche ich mich in die Kinos, wo ich in

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weichgepolsterte Klappsitze einsinke, der Aktricen gewärtig. Darum verlocken mich die “nicht jugendfreien” Filme ganz besonders’ (E, 54). Kunert’s strategy of puffing on a cigar and effecting a deep voice at the box office brings him considerable success, but it is almost pyrrhic in nature, revealing the dangers of life in the Third Reich. Having survived one narrow escape, he is eventually caught by a Hitler Youth patrol leader in the cinema: Nachdem ich [dem Oberhitlerjugendführer] meine Herkunft gebeichtet habe, kommt die rhetorische Frage: ‘Du willst wohl nach Osten geschickt werden!?’ Das klingt kaum nach einer Einladung zu einer Vergnügungsreise. Meine Taschen muß ich ausleeren, den Inhalt auf seinem Schreibtisch ausbreiten. Außer einem Zigarettenetui besitze ich nichts Belastendes. Das Etui wird beschlagnahmt: ‘Du 15 weißt doch, daß Jugendlichen das Rauchen verboten ist!’ (E, 69)

More terrifyingly still, a Gestapo man later catches Kunert issuing a rather foolhardy defence of the American bombing of Berlin in the air-raid shelter. Kunert is interrogated in a neighbouring pub, the occupants of which ‘sind allesamt Doppelgänger des Mannes hinter mir’: Ledermäntel en masse. Offensichtlich ein heiterer Abend unter Gestapobeamten. Mir wird kaum Interesse zuteil, während mein böser Geist sein Notizbuch hervorkramt, um mit genießerischer oder nur alkoholbedingter Langsamkeit die Personendaten des Eingefangenen festzuhalten. (E, 71)

Managing to convince the interrogator of his regret at an ill-judged comment, Kunert escapes simply with a warning, the inherent threat of which, however, meant that he has never forgotten it: ‘“Du hörst von uns!”’(E, 71). When one considers how fragile his family’s existence was at the time, Kunert’s apparent audacity seems wholly irresponsible. Yet, the author does not seek to portray his actions as heroic in any way, self-critically acknowledging instead that his ‘Unvernunft’ could have had tragic consequences: Die Ankündigung eines Nachspiels schleppe ich die nächsten Wochen mit mir herum. Sobald mir der böse Geist einfällt, meldet sich mein Magen und eine sinnlose Reue und Selbstbezichtigung: Wie konntest du nur so leichtsinnig sein!? (E, 72)

And yet, the impishness of the narrative conveys an inherent sense of triumph at having resisted the pressure to conform, indeed, at having continued to play the role of the dissident. In the more sober passages 15

This incident echoes a similar experience for Ruth Klüger. See Chapter 3.

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that follow in the later sections of his account dealing with the GDR, there is evidence of this same nonconformity despite the different, yet very real, threat imposed on him by the State and the anxiety his provocative attitude inevitably induces. He appears not to have learnt any lessons at all from his close encounter with the Gestapo. To ensure that the depiction of his experiences of life under the Nazis acquires no heroic sheen, Kunert provides a telling selfdefinition of himself at this time: ‘Ich bin ein Nachfahre des Simplicius Simplicissimus. Einer, der dank seiner überwältigenden Naivität fast unangefochten durch die Schrecken und Scheußlichkeiten praktizierter Historie schlendert’ (E, 57). Although this description holds true for the early sections of Erwachsenenspiele, there is little doubt that the Kunert who inhabits the GDR is a very different individual, no longer protected by innocence. As a consequence, the author’s jauntiness is gradually eroded as he begins to realise the extent of the GDR’s moral and political bankruptcy. The natural impishness of the young boy is replaced in the older man by a necessarily more concerted, yet problematic, effort to retain an irreverent attitude to life, with the result that the narrative tone of the sections dealing with the GDR succeeds only in underlining the increasing dichotomy between what Kunert says and how he says it. The tension is revealed in the greater bitterness of the narrative at key moments. Hieber may object to the prevalence of secondary information from Stasi sources, but the presence of extracts from these files increasingly reflect the relentless pressure to which Kunert was subjected and under which it was hard to retain a sense of innocence. It is inevitable that the author’s perspective should grow more jaundiced. That is not to say that impishness is expunged completely from the narrative in the sections dealing with the post-war period, but it is increasingly tempered by the socio-political context. This more nuanced approach is evident in Kunert’s gently irreverent portraits of influential literati such as Johannes R. Becher and Bertolt Brecht. Whilst their achievements as cultural figures are not denigrated, Kunert is equally careful to avoid subscribing to any hagiographical agenda. He uncovers their foibles without malicious intent, but is careful to moderate his portraits with self-effacing descriptions of his own idiosyncracies. Becher acted as the young poet’s first patron and wrote of him in his diaries: ‘Ein junger Mensch hat mir seine Gedichte geschickt und sie sind begabt. […] Er ist ein aufmerksamer und talentierter

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Schüler, und wir hoffen, ein fleißiger auch”’ (E, 133-4). While praising Kunert’s work, Becher was less impressed by the young man’s appearance: ‘“Schlecht gekleidet, beinahe grotesk schlecht, mit eckigen verlegenen Bewegungen, ein verhungertes Vogelgesicht”’ (E, 134-5). For his part, ‘der begabte “Grashupfer”’ (E, 135) expresses his gratitude for the great man’s patronage, but it did not prevent him from a critical appraisal of Becher and his work: Bechers blasser Klassizismus behagt mir nicht. Alles Routine, Klischee und Schematismus, wie es mir vorkommt, ohne das durchaus Gelungene wahrzunehmen. Man kann nicht Dichter der Nation und Kulturfunktionär in Personalunion sein. Ostberlin ist nicht Weimar und Walter Ulbricht kein Karl August. Eine beklagenswerte Gestalt, ein Schicksal, wie es deutscher wohl nicht sein kann, zerrieben zwischen ideellem Anspruch und machthungrigem Ehrgeiz. (E, 134)

Kunert was an unwitting pawn in Becher’s ‘kulturpolitische Fehde innerhalb des Parteiapparates’ (E, 135), becoming embroiled in a row with the literary editor of Neues Deutschland about formalism at his patron’s behest. By the same token, Kunert admits that he was protected on more than one occasion by Becher’s support of him, and signalled his gratitude by writing the screenplay for the dead poet’s autobiographical novel, Abschied, at the request of Becher’s widow. Kunert’s ‘lockere Bekanntschft’ (E, 169) with Brecht is similarly depicted. Despite not having been especially influenced by Brecht either, the usually brash Kunert was sufficiently terrified of meeting him that he drank a small bottle of vodka beforehand ‘zur psychischen Stärkung’ (E, 138). Kunert’s portrait of Brecht verges on caricature, illustrating his ‘verzwickten Familienverhältnisse’ (E, 138), his tendency to throw himself into activities ‘deren Scheitern vorauszusehen gewesen wäre’ (E, 165) and his cavalier driving: Brecht löst die Hände vom Lenkrad und knotet sich den Schal fester um den Hals, mich aus den Augenwinkeln aufmerksam musternd. Der Wagen läuft ungelenkt schnurgeradeaus. Ich muß wohl die erwartete Miene machen, denn ich höre die von Stolz getragene Äußerung: ‘Ja, Autofahren ist das einzige, was ich wirklich kann!’ (E, 163)

Such irreverence is underpinned by a clear appreciation of the man’s literary talent. Kunert is excited by Brecht’s original documents of the ‘Kriegsfibel’, comprising newspaper photographs with four-line poems appended, and happily allows himself to be used as go-between in the resultant publication negotiations. Brecht also shows him a sonnet cycle, with each poem dedicated ironically to Thomas Mann, who had sought to prevent Brecht’s immigration into the United States, ‘indem er eine Warnung ans State Department sandte: Den

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Kommunisten Brecht nicht einreisen lassen!’ (E, 167). Kunert laments that ‘diese zotigen Vergnüglichkeiten unter Verschluß bleiben’ (E, 167), but concedes that no publisher would ever have dared touch them. Kunert also expresses his gratitude for the advice he received. Brecht proves himself a valuable critic of Kunert’s poetry, advocating ever greater concision: ‘[Er] streicht, kritzelt kaum Leserliches an den Rand. “Hier – das ist zu lang. Kürzer, kürzer, alles Überflüssige muß weg”’ (E, 165). Yet, in many respects, Brecht’s most significant contribution to Kunert’s career was to support the latter’s acquisition of a typewriter, that at that time was ‘keineswegs umstandlos erwerbbar’ (E, 164). Kunert’s debt of gratitude to Brecht permeates the moving description of their last meeting: Zum letzten Mal vor seinem Tode besuche ich ihn in Buckow bei Berlin. Er zeigt ein verändertes, fremdes Gesicht, leicht gedunsen von den verordneten Medikamenten. Da sitzt er an einem Gartentisch, ein Kind auf dem Schoß, ein kleines Mädchen […]. Hohe Bäume ringsum, leichter Wind, Rascheln und Rauschen in den Zweigen, eine Idylle zum Schluß, ein Genrebildchen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert und für Brecht völlig unpassend. Er beugt sich zu dem Kind und weist mit ausgestrecktem Finger hinaus in die Wipfel: ‘Siehst du, wie der Wind mit den Bäumen arbeitet?’ Das ist, jedenfalls für mich, sein letztes Wort, sein Abschiedssatz. (E, 169)

Having been slightly critical of Brecht’s predilection for ‘Zitierfähiges, Prägnantes, Spruchartiges’ (E, 165), Kunert rather poignantly chooses to set just such a poetic epitaph to his memory. It is at the inaugural ‘Schriftstellerlehrgang’ (E, 139) that we see Kunert at his most mischievous in the GDR, although the acrimonious conclusion of that experience anticipates the problems he would later encounter. Kunert and his partner in crime, Erich Loest, seek to alleviate the tedium of the course ‘mit infantilem Unfug’: ‘Wir geistern nachts durch die Gänge, leuchten mit einer Taschenlampe aufschreckenden Referenten ins Gesicht und können uns vor Übermut kaum lassen’ (E, 141). They delight in ruffling the feathers of the ‘Thüringer Mafia’, a group comprising the conformist authors Armin Müller, Walter Stranka und Harry Thürk, ‘strenge Dogmatiker und ganz gewiß mit der Parteileitung des Unternehmens im Bruderbunde’ (E, 140). In particular, they tease one participant, a girl ‘deren primäres und eindeutig einziges Talent darin besteht, die Mehrheit der männlichen Tagungsteilnehmer in ihr Bett zu locken’ (E, 141). When the girl complains about their antics, the miscreants are compelled to explain themselves in front of a tribunal – an early example of what

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was to become a recurrent feature of Kunert’s career – at which the accuser is ‘würdig gekleidet: im Blauhemd der FDJ’ (E, 142). Barely able to stomach such hypocrisy, Kunert nevertheless plays along with the whole performance: ‘Ich, der Gestrauchelte, zeige überzeugend Reue und Einsicht. Dabei würde ich lieber vor versammelter Mannschaft kotzen’ (E, 142). Significantly, it is the first and last time that Kunert conforms to the ritualistic self-criticism demanded on such occasions in the GDR. Inevitably, the author lands in more hot water as a result of a caricature he draws of Kuba (Kurt Barthel), whom he finds particularly odious, as well as the revue he composes with his like-minded colleagues, which represents ‘die Gelegenheit für uns, die Thüringer aufs Korn zu nehmen’ (E, 144). However, the vehemence of the response stuns everyone: Heiligste Güter sind angetastet worden, an Tabus gerührt – wir haben den Bogen überspannt. Armin Müller erhebt sich und erklärt, nein, verlautbart, sich an mich wendend: ‘Du gehörst ins Lager!’ Habe ich das richtig gehört? (E, 144)

Kunert protests furiously at this over-reaction, but is more angered ‘über das Schweigen der Gesamtheit, das ich nur als Zustimmung werten kann’ (E, 144). The episode foreshadows the tribunal nearly thirty years later at which Kunert is expelled from the SED – the inevitability of which is inherent in the description of the writers’ course – where the author again remarks with disdain: ‘Die Majorität, wie vorherzusehen, folgte willig ihren Hirten’ (E, 400). Thus the experience of the course, on the one hand, was a salutary one for the young author, providing his first exposure to the dogmatic attitudes with which he would have to contend from that point forward. Conversely, and more worryingly, it also gave an indication of how disobedience might be dealt with: ‘Daß man Gegensätze und Gegnerschaften mittels simpler Gewalt aus der Welt schafft, haben sie von Hitler gelernt, den Lehrmeister vergessen, doch die Lehre behalten’ (E, 144). Such sober punctuations of the hitherto predominantly impish narrative become increasingly prevalent in Erwachsenenspiele as Kunert becomes mired in the pettiness, inflexibility and mundanity of the GDR. He employs an array of euphemistic expressions and epithets to underline the suffocating atmosphere that prevails and is in his opinion redolent of the ‘Mittelalter’ (E, 408). Thus the GDR is

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described variously as ‘das sozialistische Narrenparadies’ (E, 356) and as an ‘armes sächsisches Preußen’ (E, 405), where an ‘Eiszeit herrscht’ (E, 298). The State’s doctrinaire servants, and the various organisations they serve, naturally do not escape ridicule. The Politbüro is dubbed ‘der Rat der Unsterblichen’ (E, 373), its chairman is ‘der kleine saarländische Trompete’ (E, 439), and the Party as a whole is referred to as the ‘Club der toten Seele’ (E, 370). In the cultural sphere, Kunert’s contempt for the leading figures in the Schriftstellerverband is inherent in his dismissal of the likes of Roland Bauer and Hermann Kant as belonging to the ‘Clan der Cosa Nostra’ (E, 396). In truth, these euphemisms no longer appear impish, but mirthless and bitter, for the general tone of the narrative by this stage lacks the coruscating moments of the earlier sections as the experience of GDR life increasingly wears Kunert down. Any wit has been tempered by the cold chill of the socio-political context, with the result that these epithets simply point up how Kunert’s erstwhile carefree demeanour has been steadily eroded by growing frustration and despair at the pettiness and dogmatic nature of his surroundings. The turning-point in the narrative, the point at which the more carefree elements become fewer and farther between, is the repression of the supposed counter-revolutionaries in 1956. While critics such as Hieber object to the author’s use of his Stasi files in Erwachsenenspiele, they serve an important structural purpose over and above any documentary import. By dislocating the hitherto easy flow of the text and introducing a less accessible literary register into the narrative, these interpolations increasingly overwhelm Kunert’s natural idiom. Moreover, the intrusion of the overwrought bureaucratic language of surveillance into the text reflects the unrelenting violation of Kunert’s private sphere by the Stasi from 1956 onwards. As a result, one acquires a sense of Kunert’s genuine dismay and disbelief on learning just how extensively the State endeavoured to monitor his activities, and the lengths to which it would go to secure information. That bitterness should become an increasing feature of the text is only to be expected. But what does this say about the depiction of totalitarianism in Erwachsenenspiele? Can Kunert be accused of having trivialised the Holocaust and the oppression of National Socialism, while demonising the GDR disproportionately? In truth, by illustrating the different nature of the persecution he was subjected to Kunert is careful not to equate the two regimes that victimised him. What does emerge is his deep disenchantment that the socialist GDR with its

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antifascist legitimacy succeeded only in replacing one system of oppression with another, as the incident at the writers’ course appeared to confirm at a relatively early stage. The picaresque dimension of Kunert’s description of life as a young boy in Berlin does nothing to undermine the very real danger that faced his family. If anything, the precariousness of their existence is brought out much more by the narrative tone, which simultaneously evinces the incredible spirit of resistance that existed. It is ironic that Kunert should harbour severe reservations about Anna Seghers’s Das siebte Kreuz, when his own account displays the self-same indomitable spirit that the novel suggested would ultimately defeat the Nazis: Was für wackere Deutsche, die dem KZ-Flüchtling in die Freiheit jenseits der Reichsgrenze verhelfen! Diese selbstlosen und mutigen Menschen hätten mir doch vor Kriegsende unbedingt auffallen müssen. Meine Erfahrungen widersprechen der Segherschen Fiktion, und in meinem Ohren hallt die x-mal vernommene, larmoyante Frage nach: ‘Was hätten wir denn tun sollen?’ Der Erfolg des Romans beruht ja gerade auf der Konstruktion eines Märchens. Man bebt mit dem gejagten Helden und ist sich von Anfang an sicher, daß ihm ein 16 glückliches Ende, eben die Freiheit, vorbestimmt ist. (E, 120)

When one considers the threat that Kunert experienced in Berlin, it is easy to appreciate why he should be somewhat sceptical of the inevitability of the protagonist’s escape in Segher’s novel. Many of Kunert’s family were not so lucky; the only inevitability was that they were doomed. His grandfather was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942: Das Unternehmen, wie jedes seiner Art, trägt die heuchlerische Bezeichnung ‘Evakuierung’. Die Endstation Theresienstadt gilt als Gnadenerweis für ‘arisch’ Versippte, für ‘Geltungsjuden’, für ‘Priviligierte’ – das Todesurteil mit Verzögerungseffekt. (E, 49)

Despite the euphemisms that shrouded the process, his grandfather was under no illusions as to his fate, giving his grandson his beard comb as a present: ‘Daß der alte gepflegte Mann, er ist zweiundsiebzig, darauf verzichtet, signalisiert seine Hoffnungslosigkeit’ (E, 48). By contrast, and as an indication of the ignorance of many Jews, Kunert’s uncle reports voluntarily to the Gestapo, confident that his American roots would protect him:

16

It is interesting to note Ruth Klüger’s similarly dismissive attitude to the novel. See Chapter 3.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Mein Onkel glaubt, als Abkömmling von Amerikanern eine Sonderbehandlung verlangen zu können, ahnungslos, daß dieser Begriff bereits zum Euphemismus für Mord geworden ist. Als er von der Gestapo nicht wiederkommt, gibt es keine Zweifel mehr. Und weil Cilly eine getreue Ehefrau ist, meldet sie sich freiwillig bei der Gestapoleitselle. Und weil in Deutschland Ordnung herrscht, erhält sie – nachem mein Onkel zu Nummer 1282 geworden ist – die anschließende: 1283. Beide verschwinden mit ‘Welle 47, 33. Osttransport v. 3.3.43’ aus meinem und ihrem Leben. Sie lassen ein zartes Abbild im Kopf eins [sic] Knaben zurück, der drei Tage nach ihrem Abtransport seinen vierzehnten Geburtstag begehen soll – zwangsläufig im engsten Familienkreis. (E, 48)

Kunert achieves a poignant depiction of the way in which the circle of family and friends dwindles, and how as a consequence his family endeavoured to remain ‘auffällig unauffällig’ (E, 51). Although Kunert and his mother were technically protected by his father’s Aryan status, there was always the danger that this special dispensation could be revoked at any time, and the narrative conveys to great effect the anxiety and fragility of existence in a climate governed by chance and unpredictability. A small and ever decreasing network of friends was formed to provide sanctuary for those threatened by ‘Judenaktionen’ (E, 52). Mysterious telephone calls with coded warnings would signal the onset of deportations, and the Kunerts kept a small suitcase packed ready for just such an eventuality. Kunert wonders who the ‘geheimnisvoller Anrufer’ (E, 52) might be, and concludes that it was possibly a good acquaintance, ‘Sohn einer ebenfalls “gemischten” Familie’ (E, 52). But the source of his information remains unclear, although Kunert speculates that it may have come from the man’s girlfriend. Stella only visited the Kunerts once, but she made a lasting impression on the author. However, Kunert now suspects that her ‘strahlende Schönheit, bei deren Anblick es mir die Worte verschlägt’ (E, 53) concealed a potentially more deadly truth, which would explain why she would have had access to information about Nazi raids: Die Person und ihr Vorname decken sich hundertprozentig: Stella. Doch der Stern ist, wie ich nach Kriegsende erfahre, Greiferin der Gestapo, spürt untergetauchte Juden auf, um sie den Deporteuren auszuliefern. Gefoltert und mit dem nicht eingehaltenen Versprechen geködert, ihre Eltern zu verschonen, versorgt sie Auschwitz mit einigen hundert Opfern. […] Daß Stella vielleicht einige Leute zu schützen suchte, paßt ins Psychogramm von Untätern. Im defekten Gewissen soll eine gute Tat die zahllosen üblen aufwiegen. Und mit einiger Verdrängungskunst gelingt das fast jedem. (E, 53)

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That danger lurked even within such a tight-knit private circle, and from such an apparently incongruous source, merely underlines how precariously the Kunerts lived through the Third Reich. Without doubt, it also explains why Kunert should consider the role of Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter so morally reprehensible. Although the consequences of such deceptive infiltration in the GDR were in no way as deadly, the violation of the private sphere was no less malicious in its intent. How does one deal with such a personal tragedy? Kunert portrays, with considerable pathos, his mother’s daily vigil on the balcony in the immediate postwar period, gazing for hours on end at the street: Sie wartet auf Angehörige. Auf ihren Vater, ob er, den Rucksack auf dem Rücken, den Homburger auf dem weißen Haar, nicht von seinem Aufenthalt in Theresienstadt zurückkommt. Der Bruder, die Schwägerin, die Cousinen und Cousins, Verwandte und Bekannte, ach, irgendwer, so glaubt sie, muß doch auftauchen. Ein Glaube, trotz der Zeitungsfotos von den Leichenbergen, trotz der Berichte und Aussagen Überlebender im Funk, trotz der Dokumente, trotz des ‘Nürnberger Prozesses’, trotz der Wochenschaubilder in den Kinos. Aber wir reden nie davon. (E, 97)

Where once his family had deliberately avoided confronting the reality, and ramifications, of the Holocaust as much as possible, Kunert illustrates in Erwachsenenspiele his retrospective sense of responsibility to commemorate those who died: Ich will ja, daß unvergessen sei, was an den Schandplätzen Menschen von Menschen angetan worden ist. So werde ich über den Spielberg in Brünn schreiben, das k.u.k. Völkergefängnis, später Gestapo-Kerker. Über das Anne-Frank-Haus in Amsterdam, über Westerbork, das Sammellager holländischer Juden vor ihrer Deportation. Über Dachau. Über Buchenwald. Über Theresienstadt. Über Plötzensee. […] (E, 299)

On account of these visits to sites of former concentration camps such as Mauthausen and Stutthof, Kunert becomes a ‘literarische[r] Denkmalspfleger, da ich über das Gesehene schreibe’ (E, 244). Readers familiar with Kunert’s work will doubtless be unsurprised to learn of the personal motivation behind the writer’s commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. His visits to the sites of Nazi horror confront him with his good fortune at having survived National Socialism unscathed. Recalling the pile of thousands of decaying childrens’ shoes at Stutthof, he remarks: ‘Daß nicht auch meine eigenen Schuhe hier oder an gleichartigem Ort verrotten, war

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Zufall und ist mein Schicksal geworden’ (E, 282). In his Nachwort to Schatten entziffern, Jochen Richter describes the personal impact of the Holocaust on Kunert as ‘ein Grunderlebnis’ that recurs in his work, especially in his use of ‘die in der Lyrik heraufbeschworenen Metaphern von Rauch und Asche’ which ‘halten uns Diesseits des Erinnerns, wenden sich gegen unsere Vergeßlichkeit, unser Vergessen-Wollen’.17 The self-imposed moral obligation to bear witness to the Holocaust, to write ‘“Gegen das Vergessen”, wie eine Phrase die deutsche Verdrängungskunst aufzuheben meint’ (E, 244), is one he shares with Grete Weil and Ruth Klüger, key aspects of whose own accounts tally with Erwachsenenspiele. Weil has been described as a ‘Zeugin des Schmerzes’, a term which holds equally true of Klüger, the only one of the three to have been interned by the Nazis.18 It is surely no coincidence that in contemplating their imperative to record their varied experiences of persecution, all three of these authors should allude to the tragic fate of authors such as Primo Levi, Paul Celan and Jean Améry, who survived concentration camps only to commit suicide much later.19 Kunert maintained a correspondence with Améry, the titles of some of whose publications seem to intimate all too clearly now the insufferable burden of the Holocaust survivor, and he was devastated by news of the Austrian’s suicide in Salzburg in 1978: Es ist der Selbstmord eines überlebenden Opfers, wie der Selbstmord Peter Szondis und Primo Levis und Paul Celans. Auch wenn sie Auschwitz und ähnliche Stätten überstanden hatten – was sie gesehen, erlitten und verloren, ließ sich nicht mehr ausgleichen. Sie zogen sich zurück in die Finsternis. Ein Tag, an dem man nicht schreiben kann. (E, 352)

He may not have been able to write on that day, but there seems little doubt that Améry’s death merely steeled Kunert’s resolve to combat any tendency towards amnesia. That the GDR had, at best, an ambivalent attitude to the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich imbued Kunert’s personal motivation to tackle the past with a public dimension. His stance was in no way unique, as Wolfgang Emmerich points out, citing Jurek 17

Jochen Richter, ‘Nachwort’ in Schatten entziffern, pp. 238-47 (p. 238). Exner, p. 110. Interestingly, Exner also defines Weil’s work as the attempt to write ‘gegen das Vergessen’. See p. 68. 19 As we have seen in Chapter 3, Klüger argues vigorously that Levi’s death was, in fact, a tragic accident. 18

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Becker’s work - not least his début novel, Jakob der Lügner (1969) as a prime example of attempts to reactivate the debate about the Nazi past.20 Emmerich quotes an interview with Stephan Hermlin – another prominent figure in Kunert’s autobiography – in which he laments the elevation of all GDR citiziens to the status of ‘Sieger der Geschichte’, which duly obviated the need for a self-critical appraisal of the past: Diesem eingebürgerten Sachverhalt der Abkehr von der NS-Epoche setzte Hermlin die Forderung entgegen, ‘daß man […] sich nie zur Ruhe setzen darf. Weil die Vergangenheit ununterbrochen täglich weitergelebt werden muß. Weil die Vergangenheit auch immer eine Gegenwart ist. Ich glaube, daß dieser Fehler, die Vergangenheit für überwunden zu erklären, bei uns sehr deutlich begangen wird. Leider auch von vielen Genossen, die mit einer gewissen Selbstzufriedenheit sagen, wir haben die Vergangenheit bewältigt, die da drüben nicht, die 21 sind sozusagen noch mittendrin’.

Although many of the SED’s leading figures, such as Erich Honecker, had indeed fought against and suffered under National Socialism, any commemoration of the victims concentrated primarily on political prisoners and thus distorted the historical detail. Even the celebrated GDR novel of resistance, Bruno Apitz’s Nackt unter Wölfen, cannot be absolved from this attitude in its depiction of the resistance of Communist prisoners in Buchenwald, who not only smuggle weapons into the camp but also hide a Jewish girl from the camp guards. However, as J. H. Reid observes: ‘Regretfully, the narrator of Jakob der Lügner has to admit there was no resistance of the kind described in Apitz’s novel at all’.22 In his recent analysis of the collapse of East Germany, David Childs illustrates that it was not until April 1990 that the GDR’s distorted view of the Nazi period was corrected, when the Volkskammer finally acknowledged ‘joint responsibility for the humiliation, expulsion and murder’ of Jews. The tenor of the new Volkskammer’s statement was unequivocally contrite: ‘We feel sadness and shame and recognise this burden of German history. We ask Jews all over the world for pardon. We ask the people of Israel for forgiveness for the hypocrisy and hostility of official GDR policy towards the state of Israel and for the persecution and 23 degradation of Jewish fellow-citizens in our country since 1945.’

20

Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, p. 318. Ibid., pp. 318-19. 22 J. H. Reid, Writing Without Taboos: The New East German Literature (Oxford: Berg, 1990), p. 145. See too Klüger’s rejection of Apitz’s novel in Chapter 3. 23 David Childs, The Fall of the GDR: Germany’s Road to Unity (Harlow: Longman, 2001), p. 137. 21

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The extent of the apology, together with its tone, indicates just how much the old regime had washed its hands of any involvement in the Nazi past. Most telling of all in the statement is the inherent suggestion that the GDR’s attitude to the Jews represented a degree of continuity with the Nazi regime. It is a topic that the latter sections of Erwachsenenspiele reflect, which in turn adds more definition to Kunert’s disllusion with the self-proclaimed antifascist state. As Kunert’s account begins to tackle the postwar period and the foundation of the GDR, any notion that his family belonged to the ‘Sieger der Geschichte’ is presented as profoundly ironic. For in addition to the absurdity of suggesting that those who narrowly escaped deportation could feel any true sense of elation or triumph – one need only consider Kunert’s mother’s poignant balcony vigil – it swiftly becomes evident that the antifascist regime itself possesses a vindictive side from which the Kunerts are not spared. When his father refuses to insert anti-Western leaflets in the stationery he produces, justifiably fearing that he will lose customers in West Berlin as result, he is accused of ‘Verweigerung der Teilnahme am Friedenskampf’ (E, 158) and must suffer the consequences: Aufgrund seiner fehlenden Einsicht in die Erfordernisse der global sich verschärfenden Auseinandersetzung zwischen Kriegstreibern und Friedensfreunden muß er seinen OdF-Ausweis (Opfer des Faschismus) abgeben. Bei der nächsten Lebensmittelkartenzuteilung – Opfer bekommen die Schwerarbeiterkarte – ist er schon heruntergestuft auf Karte fünf, auf die Hungerration, der dumme Goi, dem seine Kunden wichtiger sind als der Freidenskampf. Wer es ablehnt, zu den ‘Siegern der Geschichte’ zu gehören, wird unter die Verlierer eingereiht. Und zwar rigoros. (E, 158)

It is difficult to ignore the bitterness that begins to creep into the narrative at this point, as the gap between the theory and practice of socialism in the new state yawns ever wider. As a boy, Kunert had felt protected on account of his status as an outsider, convinced that he was somehow ‘bombensicher’ (E, 46). In particular, he had been captivated by the word ‘Moskau’, which in adversity seemed to possess special properties: Mit ungewöhnlich ernster Miene sagt [meine Mutter] eindringlich und fast feierlich: ‘Sprich nie das Wort ‘Moskau’ aus. Sonst werden wir abgeholt!’ Die gute Frau ahnt nicht, was sie damit anrichtet. Mit dem Tabu, das sich aufs verbotene Radiohören bezieht, implantiert sie mir ein Ideal. Das Wort gilt mir fortan als hoher, allein mir (und meinen Eltern) gehörender Wert. Das Wort bezeichnet den Heiligen Gral, von dem

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aus die Erlösung von Hitler sich vollziehen würde. Dessen ist man sicher. Mit dem volltönenden Zweisilber ist dem Kind eine Gefühlsrichtung vorgegeben, die später in ideologischer Verblendung kulminieren soll. (E, 22)

Mindful of Kunert’s criticism of Das siebte Kreuz, one might be tempted to comment on the fairy-tale character of this description, were it not for the inherent qualification. Just as Seghers’s idealistic portrait of resistance to the regime was deemed to be at odds with the reality of life under the Nazis, so Kunert anticipates in this passage the same dichotomy between his expectations and the subsequent experience of Communism by referring to his ‘Verblendung’. Thus, in the wake of his father’s victimisation, Kunert remarks with heavy irony: ‘Es war eben doch nicht alles schlecht in der DDR. Es konnte einem nur schlecht werden’ (E, 158). The subsequent description of his literary career illustrates what he means and defines the parameters of his disillusion with the GDR. A number of reviews of Erwachsenenspiele felt that the author was rather too evasive in his depiction of intellectual life in the GDR, and for some commentators, such as Konrad Franke ‘die langen Zitate aus Stasi-Akten und Zeitungsartikeln bringen Zeilen, aber kaum vermehrte Erkenntnis’.24 One might debate the amount of insight the reader gains into the author from such documents – and Kunert himself underlines how wide of the mark most reports on him were – but their undeniable value resides in bringing to light, in more detail than many previous accounts, the mechanisms of cultural life in East Germany. In particular, the fact that Kunert was a Party member and active in the Schriftstellerverband, with which he appears to have been in regular conflict by virtue of his outspoken views, gives rise to fascinating pictures of the arcane bureaucratic nature of the GDR’s cultural sphere. Although Günter de Bruyn throws light on his dealings with publishers and censorship in Vierzig Jahre, as a less abrasively critical author his experiences were in essence less confrontational than his contemporary’s. As Erwachsenenspiele reveals, Kunert was forced to face a series of public tribunals, at which he was expected to retract statements or recant his seemingly pessimistic attitude towards the GDR. The most extensive example of the State’s punitive response to his work relates to the three aphoristic poems published in Weltbühne in 1962 and reprinted in Erwachsenenspiele, and the 24 Konrad Franke, ‘Günter Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele’, Die Woche, 10 October 1997, p. 14.

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subversive nature of which unleashed a backlash in the press. The text includes in their entirety four reader responses from various press sources, all of which underline what they consider to be the poems’ lack of socialist commitment. In particular, the reviewers censure Kunert for producing work that serves no useful purpose, and the similarity of their criticisms would seem to corroborate the author’s contention that the response was orchestrated at a higher level. One asks, for example: ‘Für wen oder gegen wen nimmt Kunert Partei?’ (E, 249). Another amplifies this point: Für wen eigentlich schreibt Günter Kunert? Für die Arbeiter und Bauern? Für unsere Intelligenz? Die werden sich dafür bedanken! Für wen aber, wenn nicht fürs Volk, schreibt ein Schriftsteller? Wem nützen Kunerts Produkte? Wem dienen diese lebensfremden, snobistischen (neuen!!) Gedichte? (E, 251)

Together with Peter Hacks, Peter Huchel and Stephan Hermlin, Kunert is summoned to appear before a disciplinary hearing at the VI. Parteitag of the SED in January 1963. Kunert is unmoved by the process designed to bring him back into line, seeing it merely as a clear example of what the State envisaged the new socialist person to be: Viele von den Anwesenden hatten selber Ähnliches durchstehen müssen und waren aus dem Mahlwerk zerbrochen hervorgegangen. Deswegen gönnten sie mir den Prozeß von Herzen. Denn die Erzeugung des Neuen Menschen besteht darin, ihn zum wirbellosen Säuger und Säufer zurückzubilden, damit er verfügbar und gefügig sei. (E, 257)

As the extracts from Kunert’s Stasi files reveal at this point, the poet was very much at the eye of an ideological storm because of his stubborn, provocative refusal to toe the Party line. As a result, as he remarks rather tersely, ‘die Pogromstimmung dauert an’ (E, 263). Summoned before the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED, the author was expected to demonstrate a self-critical appraisal of his actions: Ich bestreite, zur raunenden Unzufriedenheit meiner Zuhörer, hinterhältige Absichten. […] Unruhe im Saal, Zwischenrufe, ich solle zur Sache kommen. Zur kritischen Einschätzung meiner Fehler. Ich stelle mich an, als begriffe ich gar nicht, was man von mir wolle. Ich hätte ein Gedicht über ein Grundmotiv des Kafkaschen Werkes geschrieben und ein anderes über die Problematik des Dichterseins. Wenn man mich mißverstehe, tue mir das leid. Ich rede um den merklich heißen Brei herum, zur Empörung einiger Henker, die meinen Kopf gefordert, diesen jedoch nicht von mir untertänigst überreicht bekommen. (E, 265)

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The whole process collapses when the Communist author Jan Petersen leaps to Kunert’s defence, citing both Johannes R. Becher’s patronage of the young man and the Party’s professed commitment to a ‘Vielfalt der Schreibweisen’: ‘Wer Vielfalt wolle, müsse auch die Konsequenzen akzeptieren’ (E, 265). This key segment of Erwachsenenspiele depicts in fascinating detail the obvious pressure exerted on writers in the GDR, even those who were Communists, to comply with the State-sanctioned approach to work, which represented another instance of the gulf between theory and practice. In spite of Kunert’s apparently wilful nature, he does not attempt to assume an heroic pose; on the contrary, he indicates at length how anxious he was about the consequences of his actions, reflected in burning ‘im Ofen als mögliche Beweisstücke gegen mich dienliche Texte’ (E, 270). Seen by many in authority as a persona non grata after the Party proceedings against him, Kunert finds himself increasingly marginalized in the GDR. With much of his work falling prey to censorship, the Kunerts are plagued by material concerns, which would eventually cease with the West German Hanser Verlag publishing his first volume of poems: ‘Jan Petersen hat recht. Nur durch zunehmende Bekanntheit sichert man sich bis zu einem gewissen Grade ab’ (E, 274). Kunert was by no means alone amongst GDR authors in enjoying the protection afforded by a good reputation in the West as a critical intellectual, but his descriptions of the various tribunals he had to face, as well as the ramifications of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the Biermann affair, emphasise how that protection could only ever be relative, and never absolute. Summoned before the Parteileitung of the Schriftstellerverband after threatening to leave the organisation when it withheld permission for a foreign visit, Kunert’s position was made clear to him, off the record, in chillingly unequivocal terms by Roland Bauer: ‘“Biermann kann die DDR nicht kaputtmachen. Stefan Heym kann die DDR nicht kaputtmachen. Auch Kunert kann die DDR nicht kaputtmachen. Aber die DDR kann Kunert kaputtmachen”’ (E, 305). Kunert can look back at such intimidation with the benefit of hindsight and observe wryly: ‘Die Ironie der Geschichte will, daß die DDR von Roland Bauer und seinesgleichen “kaputtgemacht” worden ist’ (E, 305). Nevertheless, such menacing behaviour from those in authority made him susceptible to genuine fears for his safety, as evidenced by his anxiety surrounding the planned publication in the West of his collection Unterwegs nach Utopia in 1977:

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The aftermath of the Biermann affair and the intimidation he had experienced throughout his career, make such caution wholly understandable. In this particular instance, Erwachsenenspiele makes it clear just how much pressure was exerted on critical authors like Kunert. The machinations of the Stasi exposed in Kunert’s account indicate the extent to which it was possible to have genuine fears about one’s capacity to act and speak for oneself. Erwachsenenspiele thus reveals the considerable courage of those critical intellectuals in the GDR. Kunert’s disappointment at the widespread social conformity in the GDR is manifest at various points in the narrative, but he tends only to censure such attitudes when they pertain to leading intellectual and political figures. It is clear that he believed it incumbent upon certain individuals to display a more critically differentiated response on certain issues, by virtue of their privileged position within the socio-political hierarchy. Christa Wolf is one such figure whom he singles out for criticism. Described as ‘entnervt’ (E, 375) at the drafting of the Biermann petition, Wolf is portrayed more unfavourably still at the SED Central Committee meeting called to censure the petitioners: ‘Christa Wolf wird ans Pult gerufen und redet lange und unkonkret. Ein Satz bleibt haften: So etwas wie diese Protestaktion mache man nur einmal…Deutlicher kann der Wink mit dem Zaunpfahl kaum sein’ (E, 400). Whilst Wolf escaped with a reprimand, her husband, Gerhard, was expelled from the Party, and Kunert is dismayed that she does not resign in solidarity. That she is the only abstention when Kunert’s expulsion is put to a vote does little to mollify him either: Christa, dachtest du denn, deine Stimme würde etwas verhindern oder befördern; angesichts der massenhaften Gegenstimmen? Du hast mir den letzten Rest geringfügiger Solidarität verweigert. Du warst feige, und ich war nicht mutig. Macht das einen Unterschied? Manchmal schon. (E, 400)

Whereas Wolf’s nervousness about the consequences of the petition is wholly excusable and Kunert’s picture of her on this occasion arguably a little unkind – ‘Christa Wolf äußert Zukunftsvisionen, die insgesamt um Bautzen oder sonstige Zuchthäuser kreisen. Das hebt

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nicht gerade die Stimmung.’ (E, 376) – her apparent faint-heartedness later is presented as less forgivable. Erwachsenenspiele contains a number of small portraits of literary figures, who are described in an altogether less sympathetic light than Christa Wolf, however. With access to his Stasi files, Kunert stumbled across an array of colleagues who consistently fed information on him to their security masters, and it is upon these people that Kunert pours unalloyed opprobrium. Inevitably, Kunert’s generally equitable narrative approach hitherto crumbles in his description of the likes of Hermann Kant, Paul Wiens and Uwe Berger, all of whom all acted as IMs. By means of their extensive contributions to the fabric of Erwachsenenspiele, these figures emerge as the personification of all that Kunert deemed to be wrong with the GDR: the mediocrity, pettiness, and moral bankruptcy. Kunert is unable to approach these people with anything other than sarcasm and contempt, an aspect of the text that Karin Hirdina found rather unpalatable.25 It would be harsh to criticise Kunert for his bitterness in this regard, though, for it is hard to appreciate how deeply upsetting it must have been for the author to read the reports compiled by the IMs. Indeed, the intensity of Kunert’s reaction to them suggests that, in spite of the intimidation he suffered from functionaries such as Roland Bauer, the infringement of his private sphere affected him more deeply. Kunert is not the first GDR intellectual to have heavily reproached Hermann Kant for his slavish adherence to the Party line, but it seems clear that Kunert held a deep antipathy towards the last chairman of the Schriftstellerverband that predated Kant’s exposure as IM ‘Martin’. Kant had visited Kunert shortly before the Central Committee proceedings against him, which did little to alleviate the defendant’s mood: ‘Daß auch noch der sich mir widmet, ist zuviel des Schlechten’ (E, 262). His dislike of Kant is underlined by the latter’s response to the statement Kunert makes prior to his expulsion from the SED, during which he quotes Roland Bauer’s intimidatory remarks in 1970 and concludes: ‘Mir scheint, das hat weder etwas mit den Normen des Leninschen Parteilebens zu tun noch mit den Normen menschlichen Zusammenlebens überhaupt. Das ist nicht anderes als die Erzeugung von Furcht und Angst’ (E, 398). Kant accuses Kunert of slander, but as Kunert reiterates contemptuously in the narrative: ‘Dabei hat Hermännchen damals selber dabeigesessen, als mich der 25

Karin Hirdina, ‘Suchanzeige: Ironisches in der Autobiografie’, in Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 189-206 (pp. 193-5).

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bösartigste Bauer meines Lebens verwarnte’ (E, 398). Thus Kant, disparagingly referred to elsewhere in Erwachsenenspiele as ‘der Präsident aller Bleistifthalter’ (E, 421), is presented as the epitome of the conformist writer, motivated by ambition rather than conviction and who willingly becomes part of the corrupt machinery. It is a picture totally at odds with Kant’s own rendition of the cultural life of the GDR, and his role therein, in his autobiography, Der Abspann (1991), which has been heavily censured for its self-justificatory tone, not least by former colleagues.26 Summarising Kant’s book, Wolfgang Emmerich remarks: Kant hält sich viel darauf zugute, gerade als Vorsitzender des Schriftstellerverbandes immer souverän gehandelt und das Rechte getan zu haben, so z.B. den Druck von Strittmatters Der Wundertäter III, Loests Es geht seinen Gang und Heins Horns Ende ermöglicht zu haben. Selbst wenn das so ist, bleibt auf Kants Konto ein viel zu großer Gegenposten der Beihilfe zu Zensur und Schickanierung. Unter dem Strich entsteht der Eindruck, daß der Autor sein Tun nachträglich 27 schönredet […].

Karl Corino has compiled essays analysing Kant’s Stasi activities, thereby producing a detailed picture of the writer’s involvement in the cultural sphere.28 Needless to say, Erwachsenenspiele is also able to provide documentary evidence of Kant’s deployment as an informer, reporting to his control officer that Kunert had given ‘keine klare und konkrete Stellungnahme’ (E, 421) to support his decision to leave the GDR. Kunert’s response to this disparaging remark is telling: Nun – unter Repressalien die Kraft zur Kreativität einzubüßen, scheint so unkonkret nicht. Als hätte Schreibtischtäter Kant nicht genau gewußt, an welcher Suppe er mitgekocht hat. Vor der kleinen Ewigkeit von drei Jahren hat er verlauten lassen, er selber hätte den Liedermacher [Biermann] ganz gut ertragen können. Meine Verlautbarung, würde ich sie artikuliert haben, klänge anders. Daß ich nämlich Kant und Konsorten nicht länger ertragen könne und mich daher selber ausbürgern müsse. (E, 421)

The irony intrinsic to this passage cannot disguise the enduring bitterness that the insidious behaviour of such people still causes him in hindsight. 26

See, for example, Günter de Bruyn, ‘Scharfmaul und Prahlhans’, Die Zeit, 19 September 1991, pp. 65-p6. 27 Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, p. 482. 28 Karl Corino, ed., Die Akte Kant – IM ‘Martin’: Die Stasi und die Literatur in Ost und West (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1995).

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If Kant is targeted on account of his synonymity with the repression of cultural freedom, two other literary IMs appear regularly in Erwachsenenspiele. With hindsight, that their paths crossed so frequently with Kunert’s seems to have had little to do with coincidence and appears far more sinister. For instance, Paul Wiens, the poet and IM ‘Dichter’, belonged to Harich’s ‘Donnerstag-Club’ and made the need for ‘eine teure Abhöranlage’ (E, 195) redundant. That Wiens, by implication, contributed to the imprisonment of the leading figures of this group illustrates the dangers critical authors such as Kunert were unknowingly exposed to. On holiday in Jugoslavia, sunbathing naked on a remote beach on the Adriatic, the Kunerts are stunned by an apparently chance encounter with Wiens and his wife: Wie sind die hergekommen, woher haben sie unsere Adresse, was ist da eigentlich los? Wiens […] will mit einer haarsträubenden Lüge sein Auftauchen legitimieren. Er und seine Frau seien zu einer Tagung von Autoren im Süden Jugoslawiens unterwegs, und da hätten sie gedacht, da haben sie eben gedacht, sie sagen mal guten Tag… Dabei mustern sie unsere intimsten Details, als sei das der eigentliche Grund ihrer Reise gewesen. (E, 299)

Whilst Wiens’s curiosity about Kunert’s physical attributes is portrayed as comic, there is an altogether less savoury reality underpinning an apparently innocuous scene. It not only makes a mockery of Kunert’s original joy at his ‘Unerreichbarkeit’ (E, 298), but more disturbingly the scene possesses an implicit allegorical force, underscoring the extent to which the most private of spheres is in no way inviolate or beyond the prying eyes of the totalitarian State and their agents. The second IM, Uwe Berger, is presented initially as a kind of literary rival, whose dreadful poetry collections – ‘jedesmal eine geballte Ladung ideologischer Plattheiten’ (E, 367) – are published at regular intervals by Aufbau, whilst Kunert’s material is generally blocked at every turn. The Cheflektor’s justification that Berger’s work is being published in recognition of his allegedly terminal illness provokes a typically acerbic response from Kunert: Das Jahr vergeht, im Gegensatz zu Uwe Berger. Das Spiel widerholt sich. Berger stirbt einmal jährlich mit erwarteter Regelmäßigkeit. Und lebt selbstverständlich noch heute. Aber es ist nicht der imaginäre Sarg, auf den pochend der Autor um Mitleid heischt und die Druckgenehmigung erhält. […] Es handelt sich nicht einmal darum, den allgemeinen literarischen Geschmack zu verderben. Berger besitzt

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Those of his reports on Kunert that are reproduced here are assiduously detailed and highlight how conscientiously certain IMs embraced their role by trying to elicit compromising information from their targets. Also included in its entirety is Berger’s assessment of Unterwegs nach Utopia for the Stasi, in effect a denuciation maskerading as academic analysis, which reveals his willing immersion in the mechanisms of repression. Kunert’s volume is compared ‘mit Reiner Kunzes letztem Machwerk’ – presumably Die wunderbaren Jahre (1976) – in that the perspective of both texts is ‘rechtsreaktionär, ohne roten oder rosa Anstrich’ (E, 387). He identifies in Kunert’s poetry ‘eine kompakte Feindseligkeit’ (E, 387), and proceeds to deliver a damning indictment of the work with the very faintest of praise: Gefahr besteht also. Objektiv ist bei Kunert ein künstlerischer Niedergang zu verzeichnen, eine Perversion seines Talents. Die wirkliche literarische Qualität des Bändchens ist mittelmäßig oder noch darunter. […] Kunert scheint hierbleiben und ‘Maulwurf’ spielen zu wollen. Viel wäre schon gewonnen, wenn es gelänge, ihn zu veranlassen, seinen Weltschmerz in sich, in den Kosmos oder sonstwohin, nur nicht gegen uns zu kehren. Aber er ist schon zu weit gegangen, hat sich fixiert, ist eine seelische und charakterliche Ruine. (E, 388)

Berger’s enthusiasm as an informant is well documented in Joachim Walther’s monumental study of the Stasi’s extensive interaction with the cultural sphere. Walther reports that IM ‘Uwe’ was ‘einer der eifrigsten Informanten unter den Schriftsteller-IM’, producing ‘sechs wohlgefüllte Berichtsbände (2 255 Blatt), davon allein 432 handschriftliche IM-Berichte’ (SL, 373)29. By virtue of his diligence, Berger was commissioned to assess literary texts for the Stasi, and these, Walther opines, were characterised by ‘eine besondere Schärfe’: Über Günter Kunerts Kurzgeschichten schrieb er beispielsweise folgendes Resümee: ‘In den vorliegenden Arbeiten nimmt Kunerts 29

Joachim Walter, Sicherungsbereich Literatur: Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Ullstein, 1999). All references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (SL, 373).

Günter Kunert nihilistische, zynische, doppelbödige Haltung konterrevolutionäre Qualität an’. (SL, 373)

215 zweifellos

eine

After the fallout of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, for a trusted informant to describe Kunert’s work in such negative terms, and especially to call it ‘counter-revolutionary’, could have unleashed the most serious repercussions for the author. Kunert can surely be forgiven his bitterness towards such individuals, and his portrayal of the writers who willingly spied upon their colleagues reveals how such activity cannot but be seen as a betrayal in a totalitarian context, where literature has a duty ‘sich zu wehren, um wieder frei zu werden’ (SL, 15). Walther argues forcefully that the moral demands on literature are necessarily much higher in a dictatorship, so it is axiomatic that his view of collaboration from within the ranks of the intellectual élite concurs with Kunert’s: Das Thema DDR-Literatur und Staatssicherheit hat zu Recht etwas fundamental Irritierendes. Sowohl das Ethos als auch die emanzipatorische Funktion der Literatur sollten ein konspiratives Mitwirken an repressiver staatlicher Macht ausschließen. Die Akten der mit der DDR-Literatur beschäftigten Diensteinheiten des MfS lassen die Illusion verwehen, die Literatur in der DDR sei ein Ort und Hort der heilen Seelen gewesen. Wiewohl die Literaturgeschichte zeigt, daß das Geist sich mal mehr, mal weniger von Macht korrumpieren läßt, muß am Schriftsteller als Spitzel etwas Kontradiktorisches sein. Der Dichter als Denunziant, petzende Poeten: ein Widerspruch. Mielke und die Musen: ein Paradoxon. (SL, 14-5)

Walther concedes that the sense of dismay one feels about such collaboration stems from the picture of the writer, who as paradigm of ‘höchste moralische Integrität und Immunität’ can fulfil the role of the ‘Gewissen der Nation, allein der Freiheit des Wortes und dem Ethos seiner Kunst verpflichtet’ (SL, 15). But it was precisely because of this perceived moral authority of writers, which was especially important under Communism, that the State endeavoured to bring them under its control. As Walther’s study reveals, many succumbed to the State’s overtures for myriad reasons; as Erwachsenenspiele suggests, none of these reasons were excusable. Despite the bitterness that marks Kunert’s depiction of the collaborators and conformists amonst his intellectual colleagues, it is a notable, and perhaps surprising, feature of his autobiography that he shows himself to be quite sympathetic towards some leading representatives of the State. One of these is Klaus Höpcke: ‘Alle Autoren hassen den “Buchminister”. Ich nicht’ (E, 385). Kunert paints a picture of a relationship marked by constant jousting, for they would

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never be of one mind, and yet both men respected the other. Even though it was clear at the time that a man in Höpcke’s position – chief of the Hauptverwaltung für Verlage und Buchhandel, the main censorship authority, in other words – would have been an important conduit for the Stasi, Kunert appears to respect his opponent’s sincerity and conviction, which did not preclude a more critical appreciation of the socio-political and cultural situation of the GDR and an apparent understanding of the important role that critical intellectuals such as Kunert could play. Whereas Hermann Kant is relatively ambivalent about Kunert’s decision to leave the GDR, Höpcke, the man in charge of GDR censorship, is almost in tears. It is a striking, almost paradoxical, image, and Kunert, who talks of them having had a ‘“dialektische[s]” Verhältnis’ (E, 385), emerges as an unexpected apologist for Höpcke: Ach, Klaus, du warst nicht sehr überzeugend als Vertreter der Macht. Wie unwohl dir bei diesem scheiternden Versuch war, merkten wir sofort. So dumm wie dein Generalsekretär bist du ja nie gewesen, um nicht zu wissen, daß die Partei, weil sie meinte, Biermann eine Grube gegraben zu haben, selber hereinfiel. (E, 386)

Of all the representatives of the State, Höpcke appears to have been one of the few in Kunert’s experience who tried to preserve a dialectical approach in cultural matters, by engaging in debate and listening to criticism. He therefore epitomised an approach whereby theory and practice almost elided. Even more remarkable in the pages of Erwachsenenspiele is the description of Kurt Hager, the leading ideologue of the SED and a notorious hardline Stalinist. Summoned to Hager’s office to explain his reasons for wanting to leave the GDR, Kunert is genuinely amazed to discover that the fearsome politician is exceedingly knowledgeable about the author’s work. It transpires that Hager is especially fond of Kunert’s ‘Englisches Tagebuch’ (E, 432), having been in exile there during the war. Much later, Kunert learns that from the beginning the Stasi had ‘eine Ausreisesperre über mich verhängt, die Hager, wenn eine Auslandsreise für mich anstand, immer wieder aufheben ließ’ (E, 431). Thus, Hager, like Höpcke, emerges as having been far less dogmatic in certain ways than one might have imagined, and is admired for having maintained the courage of his convictions. This unexpectedly differentiated picture of Hager gains even more definition by Kunert’s sympathetic judgement of the ideologue as ‘ein lebenslänglich Gefangener seiner Biographie’ (E, 431). Kunert is alarmed that Hager justifies the tight literary controls in the GDR on

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the basis of the tense political situation and is genuinely convinced of the West’s wish ‘“uns aufzuhängen”’: ‘Das meint er ernst. Hier spricht das Trauma von 1933. Jude, Kommunist und Emigrant – das ergibt ein Syndrom, das kein Psychiater aufzulösen imstande wäre’ (E, 430). Once more, as with the picture of Höpcke, there is significantly no trace of irony in Kunert’s description. Even Hager’s apparent ignorance that Kunert would have been able to send certain items of bric-à-brac from England to the GDR by post elicits amazement rather than a disparagement, although the implications of such unworldliness are both clear and disturbing: Während unserer Heimfahrt bewegt mich am meisten diese seine letzte Frage. Wandlitz hätte ebensogut in ‘Wolkenkuckucksheim’ umbenannt werden können. Was wissen die Wandlitzianer schon von ihrer Umwelt, von der sie nur gefilterte, manipulierte, verfälschte Informationen erhalten? Sind doch sogar unsere eigenen Kenntnisse fragwürdig. Ohne meine fast tägliche Ausflüge zum Schlachter, zur Kaufhalle, zur Reparaturwerkstatt, zum Friseur, zu Klempnern und Tischlern wäre mein Wissensstand mittelmäßig gewesen. (E, 432-3)

Despite the inherent criticism of the SED élite’s remoteness from quotidian matters, a measure of sympathy for Hager abides in that in Kunert’s description he appears truly to have been a prisoner of his past, which had created political certainties but also given rise to personal insecurities. The inclusion of these nuanced portraits of Hager and Höpcke enhance Erwachsenenspiele’s value as an objective account of Kunert’s experiences. He has not produced a wholesale rejection of the GDR, even if the enduring impression of the text is of a repressive climate that became ever more oppressive and unendurable. Critics have complained about the lengthy, self-indulgent descriptions of trips to America, Britain and France, as well as behind the Iron Curtain. Despite the validity of some of these criticisms, the travelogue sections do set the GDR in a broader social context with illuminating contrasts emerging. Although Kunert naturally views his Western experiences positively in terms of the freedom he was able to enjoy, so that each return home was difficult – on the way home from Austria, Kunert remarks: ‘Das Vacuum nimmt uns auf’ (E, 300) – it is largely the contrasts in cultural climate, rather than material comfort, which occupy him. But even here, he does not find everything better in the West. He is disappointed with the Gruppe 47 meeting he is invited to attend in Wannsee with two other East German authors, for the group appears to be too much like a clique: ‘Wir sind nur zur Dekoration anwesend’ (E, 289). In contrast, however, he marvels at

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the friendly treatment he receives at the French border, once the guard discovers him to be an author: ‘In der DDR darf man getrost mit einer konträren Reaktion rechnen: Gleich wird der Kofferraum noch gründlicher nach “Druckerzeugnissen” durchsucht’ (E, 404-5). The fact that de Gaulle was so tolerant of Sartre’s Maoist activities whilst the GDR had displayed no compunction in expelling Wolf Biermann simply reinforces Kunert’s irrevocable disaffection with his country: Mein Motiv, mich gegen die Ausbürgerung Biermanns zu wenden, ist ganz simple: Grundlage meines eigenen Werkes, und das ist allen bekannt, ist meine konsequente antifaschistische Haltung. Für mich stellt die DDR einen wirklich antifaschistischen Staaten dar – um so stärker der Schock über eine Maßnahme, die in der Welt das Bild unserer Republik, das immerhin auch ich vermittelt und mitgeprägt habe, verfärben muß. (E, 397)

To underline how intolerable ‘dieses anachronistische Staatsgebilde’ (E, 434) had become, the word ‘Moskau’ which had so captivated the young Kunert no longer possessed its erstwhile force: ‘Bei dem einst magischen Wort “Moskau” regt sich nur noch Widerwille’ (E, 402). The depressing discovery that he was the victim of a KGB ‘Legende’, shortly before his departure for West Germany, merely reinforces the discrepancy between the theory and practice of GDR socialism depicted in Erwachsenenspiele. Inevitably, the State intensified its pressure on Kunert after his support of the petition in an appreciably less surreptitious manner than hitherto. Even if one had suspicions or was aware that the State had spread its tentacles throughout society, as Kunert himself admits, he was shocked to learn from his Stasi files just how many people had spied upon him. However, as Kunert’s account of his last years in the GDR attests, the Stasi was not averse to a more visible profile when greater intimidation was demanded: Unsere ungebetenen Besucher haben es sich drunten gemütlich gemacht. In drei Autos lümmeln sich acht oder zehn junge Männer, der Hitze halber haben sie die Jacketts abgelegt, alle tragen weiße Nylon-Oberhemden und dezente Krawatten. […] Nun steigt einer aus und knallt die Tür zu: Aufwachen! soll das wohl heißen. Er lehnt sich an die Karosserie und ruht sich vom Klassenkampf aus. Beim zweiten Wagen läßt ein Insasse den Motor an und gibt probeweise Gas und stellt die Maschine wieder ab. […] Türenklappen, Motorengeheul. Wir sind da! Wir sind bei dir! signalisiert das akustische Treiben. Marianne wird übel. Der Aufmarsch ist sowohl lächerlich als auch zum Kotzen. (E, 414)

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The protagonist of Was bleibt is subjected to the same coercion, to such an extent that it begins to affect her behaviour. Wolf’s narrator anticipates the formation of an ‘andere Sprache, die in mir zu wachsen begonnen hatte, zu ihrer vollen Ausbildung aber noch nicht gekommen war’, but which ‘mehr und mehr, das unsichtbare Wesentliche aufscheinen lassen [würde]’.30 The narrator appears to derive comfort from her belief that this new language will eventually emerge, so that she will one day be able to speak ‘ganz leicht und frei’.31 As Erwachsenenspiele indicates, subjected to the same coercion, Kunert shares none of this optimism: Im Zustand des Ausgeliefertseins kreisen alle Überlegungen um nichts anderes als ebendiesen Zustand. Ich habe über diesen Zustand geschrieben, ich schreibe über diesen Zustand und begehe ‘Staatsverleumdung’ und die ‘Herabwürdigung führender Repräsentanten’. Täglich neue Verordnungen, Gummiparagraphen, denen zufolge ein politischer Witz ins Zuchthaus führt. (E, 416)

Whereas Wolf’s narrator feels she need only be patient, Kunert finds the potentially terrifying consequences of producing critical work unpalatable and the enduring totalitarian atmosphere in the GDR intolerable. After tearful goodbyes to family and friends, Kunert and his wife are relieved to leave the GDR with a three-year exit visa on 10 October 1979: ‘Wir schütteln den besagten Staub von unseren Füßen’ (E, 445). Unlike other authors in the present survey, Kunert professes to have felt little genuine attachment to his Heimat. In contrast to Günter de Bruyn, whose ties to his Heimat were strong and a major factor in his decision to stay in the GDR, Kunert reiterates throughout Erwachsenenspiele how the very concept of Heimat, or a ‘Fatherland’, is anathema to him: ‘Aus. Vorbei. Heimat – was ist das?’ (E, 416). And yet, in an apparent contradiction, he did not wish to lose his GDR nationality. Does this suggest that national identity did have some influence on Kunert’s sense of self after all? Initially, as we have seen, the nascent GDR’s antifascist credentials were important for the young Kunert since they tallied with his own and appeared to promise a fruitful interaction. Despite his attempts to contribute productively and critically to the evolution of the GDR, the scale of his eventual disllusion with the State’s adoption and refinement of a totalitarian ethos erodes any attempt to assert that Kunert’s own sense of identity was in some way influenced by or linked with that of the GDR. One 30 31

Was bleibt, p. 13. Ibid., p. 108.

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need only consider his reluctance to return to the GDR after his periods abroad. If Kunert displays any affinity to an area then it is solely on a regional level. A proportion of Kunert’s work deals with Berlin, his birthplace; the clearest example is the poetry collection Berlin beizeiten (1986), which includes a series of melancholic snapshots of the city.32 In his essay ‘Ich – Berlin’ (1994), Kunert concedes: ‘Die Wahrheit, wir gewönnen erst im Moment des Verlusts das Verlorene ganz für uns, indem es sich unauslöschlich einprägt, gilt auch für mich und meinen Geburtsort’ (SE, 25). To lose his citizenship would necessarily have distanced him from Berlin, and his family there, which would explain why a three-year exit visa was preferable. But of far greater significance than any spatial factor in Kunert’s sense of identity was the freedom, or rather the lack of it, he had to pursue a literary career. As he states in ‘Selbstporträt im Gegenlicht’: ‘Schreiben ist Rettung vorm Tode, solange es anhält’ (SE, 13). Erwachsenenspiele reveals the extent to which the State’s attempts to block Kunert’s work had serious existential, as well as material, ramifications. His precociousness in reading books in his childhood is presented as a vital means by which he was able to keep body and soul together throughout the terror of the Third Reich: ‘Wie mit der Wells’schen “Zeitmaschine” reise ich aus dem Dritten Reich in die Weimarer Republik. Lesend entschwinde ich aus der verhaßten Realität und werde Teilnehmer leidlosen, weil imaginären Geschehens’ (E, 35). But his reading amounts to more than mere escapism, for it is telling that Kunert was especially drawn to art and literature that had been banned: ‘Alles Verbotene gewinnt an Wert, wenn auch nur einen symbolischen’ (E, 35). His affinity for such works connotes a level of nonconformity and resistance to dogmatic models that crucially would continue to underpin his attitude in later life. After his experiences of the Nazi dictatorship, it is easy to appreciate the scale of Kunert’s disappointment with the regime that replaced it in the East, imposing its own brand of dogmatism on the people. It is equally apparent that Kunert should have railed against the new conditions. By virtue of the indissoluble link established in Erwachsenenspiele between Kunert’s writing and his life, allied to his political convictions, the clash between the author and the system was inevitable. It is this inevitability that gives Erwachsenenspiele its 32

Günter Kunert, Berlin beizeiten (Munich: Hanser, 1986).

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value as a document, casting fascinating light on the GDR’s cultural scene. Although, in this regard, their accounts are mutually corroborative, the autobiographies of de Bruyn and Kunert also reveal the contrasting ramifications of being a critical author in a totalitarian climate. De Bruyn was largely able to maintain a relatively withdrawn, low-key existence, despite suffering a breakdown in the wake of the difficulties that accompanied the publication of Buridans Esel. For Kunert, however, the strident critic who was constantly writing against the grain and whose work was consistently blocked by the authorities, the illness and anxiety he suffered as a result were seemingly more damaging. His description of turning in desperation to Klaus Höpcke for help in warding off the cold in his flat initially appears rather humorous, since ‘ein erfrorener Dichter, selbst wenn er nur Ärger und Irritation hervorriefe, wohl keine gute Reklame für die “sozialistische Menschengemeinschaft” gewesen [wäre]’ (E, 363). In truth, it highlights the serious existential and material corollaries of his consistently provocative stance, which at times created a situation whereby the Kunerts’ cats were better fed than they were themselves: ‘Unser Haushaltsetat beträgt wöchentlich fünfzig Ostmark, gespeist aus den Resten des Heinrich-Mann-Presies und vor allem aus meinem Sündenlohn, den Honoraren für meine filmischen Verfehlungen’ (E, 269). In order to secure a steady income, Kunert indicates at several points that he had been prepared to adopt a more pragmatic attitude to his work, initially finding solace in the fact that William Faulkner had also produced film screenplays ‘um leben (und schreiben) zu können’ (E, 271). In Kunert’s case, however, the censors had still raised objections: Schreib, was du denkst. Aber was auch immer ich der DEFA […] anbiete, wird prompt abgelehnt. Irgend etwas haftet den Stoffen und Themen an, was den Verantwortlichen in die Nase sticht. Dabei haben wir uns darauf eingerichtet, in der Misere auszuharren. Es muß doch möglich sein, sein Dasein ohne permanente Besorgnisse hinzubringen. Ich bin jetzt zweiundvierzig, kein ‘Jungtürke’ mehr, und kann nicht begreifen, daß ich auch da Verdacht errege, wo ich mich selber für kompromißbereit halte. Über die vielen Anläufe, den Lebensunterhalt zu sichern, staune ich im nachhinein. Was habe ich an Zeit und Kraft verpulvert, damit irgendein amtliches Arschloch sein ‘Njet!’ unter das jeweilige Manuskript setzen konnte. (E, 358)

Inevitably, the point was reached where remaining in the East was no longer an option. Success in the West, prompted by his critical attitude towards the State and unwittingly fostered by the State’s criticism of

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him, brought with it opportunities to travel – a privilege he readily acknowledges – together with greater financial security, but the Biermann affair proved the decisive watershed. In response to Kurt Hager’s enquiry as to why he wanted to leave the GDR, Kunert had underlined the existential condition of being an author for whom ‘Leben und Schreiben eine Einheit bilden’: Man habe keine Wahl, weil man in einem schmerzlichen Abhängigkeitsverhältnis zu sich selber stehe. Man könne nicht freischweifend zwischen Stoffen und Themen pendeln. Das durchaus Zwangsneurotische, von dem alle literarische Selbstbekundung angestachelt werde, ließe sich nicht wegtherapieren. Oder doch nur mit dem Ergebnis des seelischen Absterbens. Darum wollen wir uns eine Weile absentieren. (E, 430)

The definition of writing as ‘literarische Selbstbekundung’ – interestingly recalling Wolf’s ‘Sehnsucht nach Selbstverständigung’ that was explored in Chapter 2 – reinforces the synonymity of life and work for Kunert. The production of literature is not simply a material concern; more crucially it underpins his sense of self, and to be denied the freedom of self-expression would consequently lead to a ‘seelisches Absterben’. By the time of their departure to West Germany, Kunert presents himself as something of a disembodied entity, whom people treat as normal, yet ‘niemand merkt, daß er es mit einer mir täuschend ähnlichen Hülle zu tun hat, in der ich gar nicht mehr stecke’ (E, 443). It is an alarming image, especially in the GDR context where life was marked by a schizophrenic daily existence of balancing conformity and dissent.33 Dieter Noll is quoted as referring to the troublemakers amongst the writers as the ‘kaputten Typen’ (E, 440), which, in Kunert’s case, seems ironically appropriate. It is interesting to note that Kurt Hager of all people alludes to the implications for Kunert’s mental well-being of being denied an exit visa in his letter to Honecker: ‘Es zeigte sich jedoch, daß Kunert in einem Zustand völliger Depression ist. Er erklärte, daß er gegenwärtig außerstande sei, in der DDR auch nur eine Zeile zu schreiben und daß er dringend eine Luftveränderung brauche, um wieder zu sich selbst zu kommen. Seine Frau, die sehr besorgt um ihn ist, bat eindringlich, dem Antrag zuzustimmen, damit Kunert nicht zugrunde gehe.’ (E, 439)

Apparently even one of the hardliners in the Politbüro could recognise how essential Kunert’s departure was for the preservation of his sense of self. 33

See, Fulbrook, pp. 129-50 (esp. p. 139).

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For all that writing appears to be an existential necessity for Kunert, Erwachsenenspiele uncovers an apparent ambivalence in the author about his role in GDR society. Responding to questions in Italy about his motivation for writing, Kunert irritates his audience of Germanists by rejecting their utilitarian understanding of and approach to literature that entails ‘die Verbesserung des Menschengeschlechts, die Aufklärung seiner Mitbürger, die Veredelung des Homo sapiens, die Bewußtseinserweiterung seiner Zeitgenossen’ (E, 327). In this respect, his position can thus be compared to Uwe Saeger’s. Kunert professes not to write for an audience ‘denn das Publikum, der einzelne Leser, lebt in dem Wahn, allein seinetwegen sei der Autor geschaffen worden’ (E, 327). And yet, paradoxically, his earlier description of the ‘Schriftsteller-Basar’ both confirms that a furtive solidarity exists between the people and ‘their’ authors and acknowledges furthermore the importance of literature in a repressive climate: Mit dem Signieren des verkauften Buches bestätigt man ‘seinem’ Leser, daß man mit ihm in jeder Hinsicht, insbesondere in politischer, übereinstimme. Schließlich sind die Bücher nicht zum Lesen da, geschweige denn zur Unterhaltung. Das Buch ersetzt, was sonst unsagbar und unhörbar zu sein hat. Zwischen Autor und Leser meldet sich für Minuten augenzwinkerndes Einverständnis. (E, 288)

In particular, Kunert stresses how important a medium poetry is in a system marked by its ‘Sklavensprache’, which necessarily transforms every poem into a ‘Kassiber an Gleichgestimmte’, a ‘Rebus für Rätselfreunde’ and a ‘Botschaft für zur Dekodierung willige Empfänger’: […] Man schreibt als Sklave des Zwangs, Worte in Bilder umzuwandeln. Dieses der Lyrik eingeborene Gebot der Transfiguration ist in Diktaturen ein schätzenswerter Vorzug. Nicht zufällig hat sich in Unterdrückungssystemen die Lyrik als die einzige 34 gegen geistige Korruption resistente Gattung erwiesen. (E, 350)

How then do we explain this apparent contradiction in Kunert’s stance? Clearly Kunert is not seeking to play down the importance of critical literature in a totalitarian context, having professed to have benefited himself from access to subversive works in the Third Reich. Nonetheless, it would appear that he rejects the assessment of literature predicated solely on utilitarian criteria, a perception which by definition casts writers themselves in a similarly 34

It is interesting that Kunert should hold to this belief, in view of the Stasi penetration of the Prenzlauer Berg scene that came to light after 1989.

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functional role. For a writer who perceives his craft in existential terms, it is axiomatic that he should abhor a dogmatic interpretation of literature. In ‘Warum schreiben’ (1972), Kunert spoke of writing as ‘ein wellenartiges Sichausbreiten nach allen Seiten, das Grenzen ignoriert und immer mehr und immer Unbekannteres einbezieht und erhellt’ (SE, 143). Writing thus possesses an intrinsic dynamic which militates against a precise categorisation of its nature and function ‘weil Schreiben nichts Endgültiges konstituiert, sondern nur Impulse gibt’ (SE, 143). He is not attempting to denigrate the way in which literature can operate in a totalitarian context; on the contrary, he is arguing how its importance derives from the capacity to transcend borders, doctrines and categories, which is a necessarily subversive attribute in such an environment. In this respect, Kunert is a clear disciple of Brecht, who insisted in his theoretical writings that literature should be fluid and that Socialist Realism should be ‘synonymous with the uncompromising pursuit of truth’.35 What is more, if his life and work are synonymous, then Kunert demands the same freedom both for himself and for the way he is perceived. In this way, it is clear why he should dismiss those of his colleagues who revelled in their perceived public importance: Ein Schriftsteller ist kein Arzt, ein Leser kein Patient, dem das gebrochene Rückgrat mittels eines Romans geheilt wird. Alibihafte Beruhigungen des eigenen schlechten Gewissens. Und mangelnder Mut vor den Konsequenzen, vor die man sich unabweislich gestellt sah. Verleugnung jeder Alternative. (E, 434)

Kunert does not seek to play down his responsibility as a writer, he merely qualifies it, and it is a qualification that intimates a slight unease with the role he played. Christoph Hein expressed himself equally uncomfortable with the public role he had been expected to fulfil in the GDR, and spoke of the reservations he had harboured about the impact of this pressure on literature per se: Ich hatte in meiner Zensur-Rede von 1987 über die falschen Gewichte gesprochen, die unsere Literatur scheinbar gewichtig machen. Das waren damals politische Gewichte. Weil es keine Presse gab, waren die Bücher dieser DDR-Autoren […] besonders wichtig. In den 36 Büchern stand immer mehr als in der Zeitung.

35

Tate, ‘“Breadth and Diversity”’, p. 68. Bill Niven and David Clarke, ‘“Ich arbeite nicht in der Abteilung Prophet”: Gespräch mit Christoph Hein am 4. März 1998’, in Christoph Hein, ed. by Bill Niven and David Clarke (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999), pp. 14-24 (p. 24).

36

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Hein’s concern about this burden on literature and authors would appear to tally with Kunert’s position. For Hein, the more relaxed environment after the Wende, with an attendant release of this pressure, was an ‘Erleichterung’.37 For Kunert, this relief would come only by leaving the GDR, once his refusal to conform had created an intolerable pressure of an infinitely different character. Thus, Kunert explores the inherent dilemmas of the writer’s role in the GDR that Uwe Saeger and Günter de Bruyn tackle in their accounts, although he is writing from the perspective of one who ultimately felt compelled to leave. Far from presenting his persistent refusal to compromise with the State in any heroic light, Kunert reiterates how his conflict with the authorities had psychological repercussions: ‘Die Angst, die mich überfällt, lähmt das Denken und die Zunge und bringt die elende Vergangenheit zurück’ (E, 255). In view of his critical stance towards the State and the pressure exerted upon him as a result, it is clear from Erwachsenenspiele just how important a role Marianne Kunert plays in his life. On the one hand she is portrayed as immensely protective: ‘Ich werde von einer Löwin beschützt’ (E, 256). But time and again he marvels at his wife’s dogged support of his unwillingness to compromise. Prior to the most important public reprimands, Marianne urges him resolutely to maintain his position; indeed, the Stasi identify her as an obstreperous influence on the author: ‘Die Ehefrau des Kunert habe sich aber immer in günstigen Situationen in das Gespräch eingemischt, und sie vertritt eine aggressive und harte Haltung; dadurch bestärkt sie Kunert ständig in seiner falschen Haltung’ (E, 384). Marianne Kunert cannot really be seen as her husand’s ‘proximate other’, in the strictest sense of Eakin’s application of the term, for Kunert’s sense of self was already well formed when they met. Nevertheless, his growing dependence upon her as a source of strength is testament to the immense pressure he had to withstand as a critical intellectual in the GDR. In his prose piece ‘Eins plus eins gleich eins’ (1972), Kunert acknowledges his debt to his wife for the support she provides: ‘Sobald den einen, mich eigentlich, die Lebenskraft verläßt, als wäre man schwer verwundet, was man ja auch ist, nur nicht äußerlich sichtbar, dann vollzieht sich eine Art VitalitätsTransfusion, derer kein Arzt, kein Seelenklempner, fähig wäre’ (SE, 9). Viewed now in the context of the picture painted in Erwachsenenspiele, one can understand just why Kunert would have 37

Ibid., p. 24.

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needed such moral, and spiritual, support. That Marianne should ultimately have recognised the need for her husband to leave the GDR is significant, where once she had urged him to be resolute in the face of his critics. It seems that a point had been reached where she was no longer able to heal his wounds, so choked had his spirit become by the State’s refusal to publish his work, thereby preventing him from expressing his sense of self. Is Kunert’s apparent fragility not at odds with the generally robust nature of the narrative in Erwachsenenspiele? Is the text able to convey effectively any impression of the pressure to which Kunert was subjected? In the opinion of Jan Faktor, Kunert’s ‘spaßiger Dauerton […] ist den jeweiligen Begebenheiten oft so wenig angemessen, daß man sich bald nur noch ärgert’.38 In addition, Faktor is irritated by what he perceives to be a lack of composure on the part of the author in recounting his experiences with the benefit of almost twenty years of hindsight. In truth, Erwachsenenspiele illustrates how and why Kunert is wholly unable to preserve the detached, and at times mercurial, tone throughout. His efforts so to do appear increasingly desperate as the voice of the Stasi begins to punctuate the account with ever greater regularity, not only breaking the flow of the main narrative, but also distorting the register. Kunert juxtaposes his own ironic euphemisms alongside the jargon of the Stasi, but they appear laboured, even bitter, rather than light-hearted, and there is an impression that the author is trying too hard to retain his idiosyncratic style. Whereas the earlier sections are a picaresque delight, with the narrative ironically appearing freer despite the nature of the Nazi threat, those segments describing the GDR become less free, reflecting the more focused, and insidious, nature of the persection to which he was subjected. In effect, Kunert’s voice is increasingly stifled by these linguistic infringements. The shift in the narrative tone reveals the effects of this repression and the State’s increasingly regular encroachment on his private sphere, especially in the wake of Wolf Biermann’s expulsion. The greater inhibition to self-expression that Kunert felt in the GDR is therefore manifest in the style and register of his recollection of those experiences in Erwachsenenspiele. Moreover, by deliberately recounting his autobiography in the present tense, which creates the impression of greater immediacy rather than composed detachment, Kunert might be seen to be attempting to reconstruct the mood of the time and render more directly the damage 38

Faktor.

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done to his sense of identity. The disruption to the flow of the narrative, which some critics perceive as a weakness, does in fact enhance the authenticity of Kunert’s account. Although he eschews the more objective approach demanded of more traditional autobiographies, which the texts by Harig and de Bruyn embody in the present study, Kunert does still carefully select materials for inclusion, such as the extracts he chooses from his Stasi files, which are designed to provide a more differentiated picture. In this regard, the construction of Erwachsenenspiele as a whole has more in common, perhaps, with Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, in which the variegated structure reflects the perceived limitations of the subjective perspective, but strives to objectify the material as much as possible. Both Kunert and Saeger therefore achieve a highly selfconscious interweaving of Wahrheit and Dichtung. Critic Andrea Köhler wonders why Kunert has rescinded his apparent belief in the impossibility of rendering the self on the page by penning his autobiography. One credible explanation relates to the fact that the Stasi effectively transformed Günter Kunert, an intellectual for whom writing and life are synonymous, into a long document entitled ‘Operativer Vorgang “Zyniker”’. It is evident from Erwachsenenspiele that the author believes the Stasi created in the process a distorted picture of the man in question. As Kunert comments: ‘Der mir diesen Decknamen verpaßt hat, weiß nichts von mir’ (E, 416). As a result, it seems entirely plausible that Kunert would feel obliged to correct this picture with his own more ‘authoritative’ account. Moreover, one can only imagine what effect the discovery of an ‘Aktenberg’ in the Normannenstraße devoted solely to him would have unleashed. In Erwachsenenspiele, Kunert can be seen to be digesting the details of his GDR past, charting how the erstwhile ‘Opfer des Faschismus’ fell foul of the supposedly progressive Communist regime that replaced the Nazis. The author’s motives for his unapologetically personal account thus appear to be therapeutic in nature. When one considers his abhorrence of a programmatic approach to literature, especially in a totalitarian context, it seems inappropriate to ascribe to Erwachsenenspiele a didactic purpose. The author is too unsure of his facts to make any definitive interpretation of certain events, and the text itself is too subjective, too partial to be suited to the delivery of any lesson. That the Stasi should be allowed with such regularity to interrupt the text with their interpretation of Kunert and their record of events – which seldom, if ever, tally with Kunert’s – does little to dispel the notion

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that Erwachsenenspiele is highly subjective; their interjections simply indicate the existence of a multiplicity of interpretations that militate against Erwachsenenspiele being seen as a definitive chronicle. And yet Erwachsenenspiele is a chronicle of sorts, amounting to a personal intellectual history of fifty years of German dictatorships. The fact that both the present tense and very few precise dates are employed throughout enhances the impression of this being a history told from below, sufficiently lacking in objectivity and detachment to become ‘History’, but no less valuable as an eyewitness account for all that. The Stasi documentation used is of undoubted historical interest, as it is in Deckname Lyrik, although paradoxically the veracity of its content is constantly questioned throughout Erwachsenenspiele. For Manfred Wolter, in his enthusiastic, even grateful, review of Erwachsenenspiele, Kunert shows himself to be ‘ein Chronist persönlichster Art’, which neatly defines the conflation of perspectives contained therein.39 Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler provides an equally apposite summation, describing Kunert’s text as an ‘explosive[s] Gemisch aus Dokumentation und “Oral history”’, which points to the book’s idiosyncratic blend of Dichtung and Wahrheit.40 With its very style and form, Erwachsenenspiele embodies the problems Kunert faced in dealing with his experiences and underlines the inherent irony of the title. Although the text is playful at times – Kunert’s entertainingly irreverent portraits of the likes of Brecht and Marcuse being prime examples – one is left nevertheless with the abiding impression of how the adult ‘games’ of the title were far from playful in the totalitarian climates depicted. As we learn nothing of how easy or not the Kunerts found it to acclimatise in the West, we can only speculate on whether the reality of Western life matched their expectations. But it is clear to Kunert himself from the smooth running of his car engine as they drive into West Germany, that things will be different from now on in any event: Eigentümlicherweise hat sich der Motor besonnen, mir keine Sorgen mehr zu bereiten. Er ist daheim. Und läuft brav. Außer ihm würde nichts mehr so wie immer laufen. Dessen bin ich sicher. (E, 447)

It is arguably the most optimistic passage in the whole text, without actually suggesting that things will necessarily be better in the West. 39

Manfred Wolter, ‘ “Lüge nicht. Schreibe”: Günter Kunert ist in seinem neuen Buch ein Chronist persönlichster Art’, Neues Deutschland, 13 October 1997, p. 11. 40 Wendelin Schmidt-Debgler, ‘Sprich nie das Wort “Moskau” aus! Kunerts Autobiographie: Dokumentation und “Oral history”’, Die Presse, 31 January 1998.

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When one considers the dogmatic nature of Socialist Realist writing with its mandatory happy ending, it is fitting, perhaps, that the ending to Erwachsenenspiele should be rather ambiguous. This deviation from expectations is, in fact, an expression of freedom in itself and wholly in keeping with the author’s highly idiosyncratic literary ethos.

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Six

‘“Man soll nie lügen. Oder nur, wenn es nicht anders geht”’ – Christoph Hein, Von allem Anfang an (1997) Das ist nicht meine Geschichte, von dem Jungen. Ich habe wie bei jedem Buch meine Biographie genutzt, wie einen Steinbruch, und dann ist alles mögliche dazugekommen, aber letztlich ist es ein Roman, der nur damit spielt, mit Versatzstücken, wie in jeder anderen Geschichte. Es gibt eine große Nähe zur Biographie, aber eine Identität gibt es nicht. Aber es half natürlich, dass man ein bisschen in 1 einer vergleichbaren Situation drinsteckte.

The inclusion of Christoph Hein’s successful Von allem Anfang an (1997) in the present survey might seem slightly anomalous in view of his comments in an interview in 1998, in which he maintained that the text in question was no more autobiographical than his previous publications. Having described Von allem Anfang an in an interview as a ‘fiktive Autobiographie’, Hein is asked to elaborate on this particular definition: Jeder Autor arbeitet mit seiner Biographie, und wenn wir die Gesamtheit seiner Arbeit vorliegen haben, dann haben wir auch ein ziemlich gutes Bild vom Autor. Das einzelne Werk ist nicht identisch mit ihm, es ist nicht Autobiographie, aber wenn ich die Gesamtheit der Schriften von Hemingway oder Franz Kafka kenne, dann kenne ich genau den Burschen auch, der es geschrieben hat. Das ist es, was ich mit fiktiver Autobiographie meinte. Das Napoleon-Spiel ist genauso nah. Das schließt sich direkt nach Von allem Anfang an an. […] Die äußeren Punkte sind wahrscheinlich schwieriger erkennbar, aber von der inneren, fiktiven Autobiographie ist das nicht anders. (CH, 15)

As seasoned observers of Christoph Hein are aware, there is a playful evasiveness in many of his pronouncements upon his own work, and one should approach his comments above with due caution. As one of 1 Bill Niven and David Clarke, ‘“Ich arbeite nicht in der Abteilung Prophet”: Gespräch mit Christoph Hein am 4. März 1998’, in Christoph Hein, ed. by Bill Niven and David Clarke (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999), pp. 14-24 (p. 15). Further references to this volume will appear in the text in the form (CH, 15).

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the most successful of GDR authors, especially in the post-Wende period which has seen him hold office as the first president of the reunified German PEN organisation, Hein might well have expected intense scrutiny of his biography following revelations about the nefarious activities of some of his high-profile colleagues in the East. Although it might be tempting to interpret the observation that his oeuvre as a whole provides autobiographical insights as a wry attempt to stimulate further interest in his creative output, it is doubtless true that in works such as Der fremde Freund (Drachenblut) (1982) and Der Tangospieler (1989) one can see glimpses of the author in the text, even if the various protagonists or the external facts of their lives bear little, if any, direct resemblance to their creator. Yet that in itself is not unusual, as Hein has made abundantly clear. In his work on Theodor Fontane, for example, Günter de Bruyn has examined what he calls the former’s technique of ‘Versteckspielen und Verfremden’, a process that he himself has employed to great effect in his own fiction.2 De Bruyn’s description of Fontane’s playfulness can easily be applied in this instance to Von allem Anfang an. Should Von allem Anfang an be included in the present study, if its autobiographical dimension is as tenuous as its author suggests? The answer lies in the form, rather than the content, of the text, which may well stem from what Dennis Tate has called Hein’s ‘modernist “game” with an autonomous reader’ (CH, 119).3 Despite being a fiction, Von allem Anfang an bears a number of the features – thematic, structural and theoretical – we have previously identified in other texts in the present study. Klaus Hammer convincingly locates Hein’s text in a tradition of ‘abgebrochene Autobiographien’ that embraces recent work by the likes of Canetti, Koeppen, Bernhard and de Bruyn, which he defines as follows: Dabei geht es durchweg um eine bewußte Distanzierung von der beschriebenen erinnerten Zeit – nur das soll berichtet werden, was der Protagonist damals empfand, nicht, was er heute denkt. Die zerschnittenen Bande zwischen dem Kind von damals und den Erwachsenen bewirken an sich schon eine Fiktionalisierung. Die ironische Brechung des Erzählten wird oft bis ins Groteske weitergeführt. Die Autoren wollen nicht Memoiren schreiben, suchen nicht das zu Erzählzwecken in sich Abgerundete, sondern das

2 Günter de Bruyn, ‘Das Oderbruch literarisch’, in Mein Brandenburg (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993), pp. 138-59 (p. 146). 3 Dennis Tate, ‘“Mehr Freiheit zur Wahrheit”: The Fictionalization of Adolescent Experience in Christoph Hein’s Von allem Anfang an’, in Christoph Hein, pp. 117-34.

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Fragmentarische und Prozessuale, den erhellenden Augenblick und 4 die besondere Begebenheit.

A brief analysis of Von allem Anfang an therefore provides a fascinating contrast with the seven other texts under scrutiny here. That it should play with the autobiographical form justifies its inclusion, even if one must continually refrain from seeking too much of the author in the text. As Graham Jackman has suggested, it is perhaps better to view Von allem Anfang an as the autobiography of a generation, even of the GDR itself: ‘The personal and psychological elements [in Von allem Anfang an] simultaneously open up […] perspectives on GDR reality in the 1950s, making this “fictional autobiography” also a kind of “gesellschaftliche Autobiographie”’.5 Daniel’s formative experiences are thus juxtaposed with those of the state he lives in. Helmut Böttiger contends that Hein’s text underlines the symbiotic nature of this relationship: Durch das assoziative Zusammenbringen eines Jugendlichen mit einem heranwachsenden Staat wird auch dieser Staat zu etwas Persönlichem, zum Strukturprinzip des Gemüts. Er ist ein selbstverständlicher Bestandteil von Identität, von Heimat; es gibt wenig Berührungen mit etwas Fremdem. Dadurch gelingt diesem Buch die inventarisierende Beschreibung dessen, was eine bestimmte DDR-Generation geprägt hat – und es war wohl die tonangebende 6 DDR-Generation.

As Tate’s close reading of Von allem Anfang an reveals, in spite of the freedom fiction affords the author to craft a compelling tale of adolescence unfettered by the expectations, and confines, of the traditional autobiography format, Hein ‘also appears to be providing more scope […] for readers with a general awareness of his family background and upbringing to read it as if it were also a work of autobiography’ (CH, 120). With particular reference to Horns Ende, Tate painstakingly uncovers links between the protagonist of that novel, Thomas, and Daniel, the narrator of Von allem Anfang an, and Hein himself, but these connections stem largely from the geography 4

Klaus Hammer, ‘Wahrheit nicht ohne Lüge’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 45.5 (1997), 168-70 (p. 168). 5 Graham Jackman, ‘Von allem Anfang an: A “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”?’, in Christoph Hein in Perspective, ed. by Graham Jackman (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 187-210 (p. 196). All further references to this article will appear in the form (CIP, 196). 6 Helmut Böttiger, ‘Die Aktualität der fünfziger Jahre: Christoph Heins Miniaturen aus einer vergangenen Gemütslandschaft’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 20 December 1997.

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of their respective home towns.7 Tate’s detective work recalls de Bruyn’s discovery in Fontane’s fiction of the ‘topographische Mischtechnik […], die sich soweit wie möglich der Realität annähert, diese aber, wenn der Roman es verlangt, auch verläßt’.8 Tate is quick to emphasise how tenuous a basis this is for an autobiographical reading of Von allem Anfang an, citing the significant differences in the biographical details of the young boys. By way of contrast, critic Peter von Matt provides an unequivocally autobiographical reading – ‘Der Stoff ist die eigene Kindheit’ – revealing how tantalising such an approach to the text is because of the close correlation that appears to exist.9 Indeed, the temptation is all the more seductive by virtue of the author’s refusal to furnish Von allem Anfang an with a definitive genre designation. In this regard, Hein’s text proves as slippery, and as compelling, as Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen. It is the manner in which Von allem Anfang an mimics the autobiographical form that is most significant and will form the focus of this chapter. Which features of the genre does Hein employ and to what end? Why does he not simply categorise his text as a novel, as he has in interviews, and curb some of the speculation surrounding it? One can attribute the latter ‘oversight’ doubtless to Hein’s predilection for game-playing, a view apparently shared by the author’s Verlagslektorin, Angela Drescher: ‘Über die Genrebezeichnung können sich nun die Germanisten den Kopf zerbrechen’ (CH, 32).10 In matters pertaining to the text’s construction, Drescher is a little more forthcoming. Invoking Uwe Johnson, she underlines how some authors have sought to produce a simulation, but not necessarily a reflection, of reality, thus enabling them greater freedom to play with different forms: Eine dieser Spielformen ist es, Autobiographie vorzutäuschen. Von allem Anfang an arbeitet mit Mitteln des Biographischen, ist aber 7 Graham Jackman has also isolated the similarities between the same two texts, but he is ultimately more interested in the comparative ‘formal strategies’ (CIP, 189) employed, specifically the way invention is used to supplement historical fact. Once again, this technique echoes that adopted by Virginia Woolf, as we have seen in the introduction. 8 ‘Das Oderbruch literarisch’, p. 142. 9 Peter von Matt, ‘Fort mit der Taschenguillotine: Christoph Hein schreibt ein Meisterwerk nicht nur der Tantenkunde’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 October 1997. 10 Drescher offers a fascinating, and at times wry, insight into the process of producing Von allem Anfang an, including discussion of how best to define it. See ‘Unvollständige Rekonstruktion: Über das Lektorat des Buches Von allem Anfang an von Christoph Hein’, in Christoph Hein, pp. 25-40.

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keinesfalls eine Autobiographie. Selbst wenn Elemente aus Christoph Heins Biographie zu erkennen sind (er erklärt, 10 Prozent des Erzählten seien Rudimente eigenen Erlebens, 90 Prozent erfunden – aber wer sollte wiederum diese Aussage nachprüfen können?), sind sie untrennbar in Erfundenes verwoben: eine erfolgreiche Strategie, um – wie er sagt – Lügen glaubhaft machen zu können. Eines seiner Lieblingszitate lautet denn auch sehr frei nach Platon: ‘Alle Schriftsteller sind Lügner’. (CH, 39)

The obvious trap to avoid as a consequence – which should perhaps go without saying in these postmodern days of ours – is any attempt to see in the use of the first-person narrator any autobiographical intent. Daniel is not automatically a conduit for the author; indeed, the experiences he relates are, in fact, broadly applicable to all adolescent boys as they become aware of their sexuality.11 The best of several good examples of sexual awakening can be found in the touching chapter ‘Die schlummernde Venus und die Hausordnung’, in which the thirteen-year-old Daniel has his first directly erotic encounter, with Mareike, a girl from one of the other schools at a drama festival in Dresden. In some respects, therefore, as Tate explains, the text is more akin to a Bildungsroman, although without the same panoramic sweep of that particular genre. Tate draws compelling comparisons between Von allem Anfang an and works such as Frühlings Erwachen and Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless, as fine examples of literary studies of adolescence. By way of contrast, Jackman evokes James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Given the text’s focus on Daniel’s formative teenage years, the narrative perspective does imbue Von allem Anfang an with the texture of autobiography, without necessarily inviting an explicitly autobiographical reading. As Drescher observes, the moment in the opening chapter where the narrator first addresses the reader directly – one of very few occasions where this occurs – has seduced several commentators into assuming that we are dealing here with a thinly veiled autobiography.12 The narrator ponders at length the problems he has had in reconstructing his memories of this long-distant period and concedes that there are significant lacunae in his account: […] Jedesmal, wenn ich versuchte, darüber zu sprechen, musste ich feststellen, dass die Geschichten in meiner Erinnerung merkwürdige Lücken hatten, ein regelrechter Mottenfraß. Tante Magdalena kann ich 11

Tate quotes an interview with Hein in which the author explains how he was surprised by the number of men who identified with Daniel (CH, 128). 12 See Tate (CH, 124-5) and Jackman (CIP, 188-91) for further details of the narrator’s incursions into the text.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression nicht mehr fragen. Ich glaube auch nicht, dass sie meine Fragen beantwortet hätte, wenn ich sie früher gestellt hätte. (VA, 10)

Each of the texts in the present survey contains just such a caveat, qualifying expectations of absolute accuracy, whilst underlining the will to provide as authentic a record as is possible. In order to produce a reconstruction of the past, the narrator of Von allem Anfang an adopts the same process of blending Wahrheit and Dichtung to realise his project as in Pawels Briefe, for example, where gaps have been plugged by imaginative reconstructions: Ich versuche, die Geschichten zu vervollständigen, sie mit Bruchstücken der Erinnerung anzufüllen, mit Bildern, die sich mir einprägten, mit Sätzen, die aus dem dunkel schimmernden Meer des Vergessenseins dann und wann aufsteigen und ins Bewusstsein dringen. Manche dieser Bruchstücke haben schartige Kanten, die in mir etwas aufreißen. Kleine Schnitte in der Haut, aus denen etwas hervorquillt. (VA, 11)

As Chapter 8 reveals, the passage echoes the introductory section of Monika Maron’s reconstruction, although the narrator of Von allem Anfang an has no apparent recourse to extant documentary material or any other eye witness, with whom he can corroborate his memories.13 Is it possible to establish why Hein should go to so much trouble to mimic autobiographical devices? For Drescher, the passage ‘gehört zum Spiel des Autors mit Fiktion und Realität, oder der Fiktion von Realität und Autobiographischem’ (CH, 33). It would seem telling in this respect that the section, which has been the focus of much critical attention, was considerably shortened prior to publication, rendering its purpose in the text more playfully ambiguous, in order perhaps to tease the critics and Germanists, of whom Drescher claims to be mightily suspicious. A longer excursus at this early juncture in Von allem Anfang an may well have weighed down the text with excessive, and misplaced, expectations of its autobiographical import, ultimately distracting readers from its true purpose. In truth, the passage seems to have generated enough debate as it is. If the mimicry of autobiography in Von allem Anfang an were limited solely to exiguous narrative quirks, then it would be easy to dismiss the whole enterprise as a linguistic game and view it without distraction as a successor to Törless, as Tate proposes. And yet, in another significant regard Von allem Anfang an sits comfortably alongside the other works in the present study, inviting further consideration of its form and the author’s motives for producing this 13

See Jackman (CIP, 189-90).

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‘fiktive Autobiographie’. Although Daniel is clearly the focal point of the narrative, it is impossible to overlook the significance of Tante Magdalena therein, not only to the boy and his sister, in particular, but to the text as a whole. Her importance was signalled by the author’s original title for the text: ‘Anna Magdalena Birke und Ich. Kleines Buch’.14 More so than anyone else in Von allem Anfang an, Tante Magdalena emerges as a ‘proximate other’ for Daniel and the working title recalls Eakin’s theory of the relational forces that shape the self. Although the publishing house understandably objected to this working title, an intimation of the character’s important role is preserved in the final title, derived as it is from her seemingly platitudinous adage: Als Dorle sich einmal weinend bei Tante Magdalena beklagte und ihr erzählte, dass Mutter und Großmutter ständig miteinander stritten und alles nicht mehr so wie früher sei, sagte Tante Magdalena: ‘Dem Leben muss man von allem Anfang an ins Gesicht sehen. Ihr seid jetzt alle zusammen, das ganze Jahr über. Ihr müsst euch nicht mehr trennen, ihr könnt euch jeden Tag sehen. Das ist einfach so schön, dass man sich manchmal streiten muss’. (VA, 140)

Irrespective of how one should interpret this rather puzzling statement – and it has certainly bothered critics and academics alike – it is nonetheless telling that Tante Magdalena should be the one to utter it.15 Despite not being related to Daniel, Tante Magdalena is both confidante and surrogate parent, and although only the opening chapter is devoted exclusively to her, she features in almost every other chapter, albeit at times merely fleetingly. It reflects just how substantial a part she plays in Daniel’s life. Ultimately, the personal ramifications of Daniel’s attendance of the boarding school in West Berlin – prompted by being barred from the local Oberschule in East Germany because his father is a priest – are etched most strongly upon him by his inability to attend Tante Magdalena’s funeral. Thus she is the focal point of arguably the most bitter critique of GDR society to be found in Von allem Anfang an, depicting how the private sphere is adversely affected by the political: Auch zu ihrer Beerdigung konnte ich nicht fahren. An dem Tag machten wir das kleine Latinum und keiner bekam frei. Doch ich wäre

14

See Drescher for details of the publishing house’s discussions surrounding the title (CH, 31-2). 15 For an analysis of the title of Von allem Anfang an see Tate (CH, 131-2) and Jackman (CIP, 187).

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression ohnehin nicht gefahren. Der Schuldirektor und Pfarrer Sybelius hatten mich dringend ermahnt. Es sei zu gefährlich, sagten sie, weil ich heimlich nach Westberlin gegangen sei. Ich hatte die Republik verraten und stand auf der Liste. (VA, 16)

It is undoubtedly this particular memory that possesses the ‘schartige Kanten’ that rip the ‘kleine Schnitte in der Haut’ (VA, 11), and the narrative can be seen as an attempt to heal these wounds. This motivation instils in the text the ‘Aura des Notwendigen’ that Anna Mitgutsch believes can seduce the reader into viewing a fictional text as autobiographical ‘weil er spürt, daß hier der Autor, die Autorin mit einer Erfahrung ringt, mit der er bzw. sie auch im Schreiben nicht fertig geworden ist’.16 That Daniel’s sense of loss appears so genuine signals how cleverly Hein has simulated autobiography, for the death of a ‘proximate other’ – especially in the circumstances described in Von allem Anfang an – would naturally form a focal point of any such text. Daniel particularly treasures Tante Magdalena for she is someone with whom he can talk openly about most things. On a number of occasions, Daniel and his siblings are kept in the dark by their parents and grandparents about various matters, or are given clumsy explanations, all of which echoes Claudia’s experiences of the same period of the GDR’s history in Der fremde Freund, most notably when the Russian tank appears in her home town: Ich begriff nicht, warum [über den Panzer] nicht gesprochen werden durfte. Aber da tatsächlich keiner der Erwachsenen über den Panzer sprach, spürte ich, daß auch ein Gespräch etwas Bedrohliches sein konnte. Ich fühlte die Angst der Erwachsenen, miteinander zu reden. Und ich schwieg, damit sie nicht reden mußten. […] Ich lernte zu 17 schweigen.

Just like Claudia, Daniel is old enough to sense that something is wrong, if not able to grasp fully the significance of certain events. In some cases, such as his mother’s refusal to talk to his father during her pregnancy, the situation may ultimately be relatively trivial, but in others, such as his grandfather’s dismissal as foreman of the farm for refusing to join the SED – which to a large extent anticipates his own exclusion from the Oberschule – the consequences are more grave. Daniel’s reaction at these moments betrays a mixture of frustration and anxiety. As nobody explains the implications to him, his response tends to be inappropriate. He is mistakenly terrified that his parents 16 17

Mitgutsch, p. 12. Christoph Hein, Der fremde Freund (Berlin: Aufbau, 1997), pp. 145-46.

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are on the brink of divorce on account of his mother’s uncharacteristic behaviour, whereas in spite of his grandmother’s obvious distress at his grandfather’s dismissal, Daniel clearly has no concept of what joining the Party really means. The full extent of his incomprehension is evident when Pille, whom he has tantalisingly just seen bathing naked in the Russensee, indicates her intention to join the SED: Ich war fassungslos. Die schöne Pille will in die Partei eintreten, das Mädchen, das ich eben ganz nackt gesehen habe, das Jochen rangelassen hatte, diese Pille wollte in die Partei eintreten. Das war unmöglich. Ich wusste doch, was Großvater von diesen Leuten hielt und was mein Vater über sie sagte, er konnte richtig grob und unflätig werden, wenn er im Familienkreis über die Parteibonzen sprach. […] ‘Und warum gehst du in die Partei?’ ‘Warum nicht? Wer was ändern will, muss da eintreten. Und ich will was erreichen. Ich will was aus meinem Leben machen, etwas Richtiges.’ ‘Ach so’, sagte ich und nickte. Das schien mir vernünftig zu sein. Vielleicht hatte sie Recht, und man musste wirklich in die Partei gehen, wenn man etwas erreichen wollte. Wenn Großvater in der Partei wäre, könnte er Inspektor bleiben. Es war einleuchtend, was Pille sagte. Andererseits erinnerte ich mich an die Erzählungen meines Vaters, der mit der Partei viel Ärger hatte und häufig vom Bürgermeister vorgeladen wurde, der ihn dann beschimpfte. Aber wenn Pille in die Partei eintrat, war das vielleicht doch nicht so schlecht, wie Vater und Großvater sagten. Ich hatte ihre Brüste gesehen, die großen roten Brustwarzen, das feuchte Schamhaar, von dem die Wassertropfen herabrollten. Diese Bilder mischten sich in meinem Kopf mit der Partei, und ich war verwirrt. (VA, 98-9)

The long passage, with its repetition of conflicting information to reflect Daniel’s confusion, ends with the apparently positive, and attractive, association of Pille’s naked wet body with the SED. It is an effective representation of Daniel’s adolescent confusion, all the more potent where the worlds of childhood and adulthood collide at such an early stage in a totalitarian context, and compounded still further by the narrator’s sexual arousal. Daniel knows that his family do not support the Party, but nobody has explained the implications of membership. All he does know is that his father, the priest, grows uncharacteristically, and therefore disturbingly, ‘grob und unflätig’ on the subject. Crucially, it is this void that Tante Magdalena fills. Although he is reticent about discussing some topics, such as his sexuality, Daniel turns to Tante Magdalena in the wake of most of his experiences in order to make sense of it all. Even on the one occasion

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when he cannot talk to her – having accidentally ejaculated over Pille’s bicycle saddle, he is terrified on learning of her pregnancy that he may be responsible – Daniel suggests it is very much an exception: ‘Aber darüber konnte ich mit keinem sprechen, nicht einmal mit Tante Magdalena’ (VA, 142) [my emphasis]. On all other occasions, Tante Magdalena provides a vital outlet for his teenage tribulations. Enquiring about his time at the theatre festival in Dresden, Tante Magdalena divines Daniel’s ‘Liebeskummer’ (VA, 166), following his coy sexual encounter with Mareike. Instead of pressing him about what happened, she sensitively affirms the need to keep secrets sometimes before revealing her secret wishes to own a black satin dress and to travel to London by boat. This subtle change of subject, and Tante Magdalena’s general demeanour of unconcern, seems to ease Daniel’s worries – he has been criticised at school ‘wegen ungebührlichem Betragen’ (VA, 165) in Dresden – so that Mareike’s failure to reply to his letters does not appear to leave any lasting damage. For all her jollity, it soon emerges that Tante Magdalena’s life has not been especially happy or blessed with good fortune. Her good humour and mild eccentricity, which is reflected by her quaint flat above the bakery and her possession of both the musical Spieluhr and the politically incorrect Krieg zur See board-game, appear to mask a more complex personality. Daniel’s description of her decidedly theatrical laugh indicates that he too suspects her dissembling nature: Tante Magdalena lachte viel. Ihr Lachen begann stets mit einem lauten Juchzer und verlief sich in einem abschwellenden Gekicher. Den Juchzer stieß sie mit geöffnetem Mund hervor, sie hielt rasch die rechte Hand über die Lippen und nahm sie erst weg, wenn sie sich ausgelacht hatte. Sie lachte über die Scherze der Erwachsenen ebenso herzlich wie über die Späße der Kinder. Sie lachte auch, wenn es eigentlich überhaupt nichts gab, worüber man lachen konnte. Ich glaube, sie lachte, weil sie verlegen war. Sie lachte, weil sie nicht mehr weiter wusste und nichts mehr sagen konnte. Aber sogar wenn sie traurig und verzweifelt war, klang ihr Lachen unbeschwert und fröhlich. Auch der laute Juchzer, mit dem sie selbst dann zu lachen begann. (VA, 13)

Her tendency of placing her right hand over her mouth reinforces the impression of concealment. However, it is the way in which she jealously guards the privacy of her bedroom that bespeaks her intrinsically secretive nature: ‘Wenn [Tante Magdalena] etwas aus der Kammer benötigte, vergewisserte sie sich zuvor, dass wir beschäftigt waren. Sie huschte hinein und verschloss die Tür hinter sich, um dann, sorgsam um sich blickend, mit dem Gesuchten herauszukommen’

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(VA, 8). When she catches his sister, Dorle, in her room, Daniel remarks with surprise how agitated Tante Magdalena becomes: ‘[Tante Magdalena] konnte sich gar nicht beruhigen’ (VA, 8). Dorle later describes the room as being untidy and full of boxes, but could not establish what they contained. At the very end of the text Tante Magdalena reveals to Daniel that she has a suitcase in her bedroom full of letters, but gives no other indication of what she has stored away there and why she should have been so disconcerted by Dorle’s incursion into this private space. Her predilection for long skirts and keeping her hair in a bun might be seen as further reflections of her secretive nature; when Daniel arrives early one evening and catches her putting her hair up, Tante Magdalena’s rather sharp admonition of him seems curiously out of character, so too her embarrassment. The narrator does not dwell on the incident, which simply adds to her enduring mystique in the text, whilst intimating a deep-rooted unease that she is generally able to mask. The two idiosyncratic, yet contradictory, objects with which Tante Magdalena is most commonly associated in Von allem Anfang an are the Spieluhr and the board-game, which together point up the seemingly complex nature of her personality. Krieg zur See, a game akin to battleships, originates from the Kaiserreich, so Tante Magdalena is quick to warn the children that they ought not talk about playing it at school. Naturally enough, the children have no problem with that: ‘Es war also ein verbotenes Spiel, was seinen Reiz erhöhte’ (VA, 13). But it seems somewhat out of character for Tante Magdalena, an otherwise law-abiding and deferential person, to possess such an inherently militaristic – and in the context politically incorrect – game, let alone to relish playing it: ‘Auch bei diesem Spiel lachte sie vergnügt und herzlich’ (VA, 13). Although it hardly amounts to outright subversion, in the totalitarian context of the GDR possession of such an ideologically unwholesome game is nevertheless of certain significance, especially as the old woman is clearly well aware of how it would be perceived by the powers that be. If the game hints at a mischievous, even subversive, quality to Tante Magdalena’s character, the intricate musical box, with its twenty different tunes, points to a more melancholy side. Although she possesses a variety of different ‘Musikplatten’ for the contraption, Tante Magdalena loves two songs in particular, namely ‘Das Gebet einer Jungfrau’ and ‘Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe’, both of which evoke great sadness in the old woman as their titles imply. She tells the children about her fiancé’s death three weeks before their

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wedding, which surely explains why the songs affect her so profoundly. Yet, we later learn that her fiancé was terribly jealous and violent, destroying all her shoes in the bath because she was not at home when he returned on leave. She was unable to salvage any of them, least of all her beloved dancing shoes: ‘Und ich habe gespart, um mir neue Schuhe zu kaufen. Viel verdient hat man ja damals nicht. Aber neue Ballschuhe habe ich mir nie mehr gekauft. Bernhard bekam noch einmal Urlaub, im März, mitten in der Passionszeit, da wurde nicht getanzt. Und drei Monate später wurde er vermisst und ich brauchte in meinem Leben keine Tanzschuhe mehr.’ (VA, 27)

Even though there appears to be some poignancy in this final statement, her earlier observation appears of greater significance: ‘Nein, war das ein verrückter Kerl’ (VA, 25). It is difficult to imagine this sweet old woman being happily married to such a bully, although the narrator makes no judgement on this matter, and nor does Tante Magdalena for that matter. It simply adds to her mystique, generating the impression that appearances can indeed be deceptive. Tante Magdalena appears as difficult to fathom as the machinery at the heart of her Spieluhr, and it comes as no surprise that she should make a similar association herself: ‘[Die Spieluhr] ist ein kostbares altes Stück, fast so alt und kostbar wie ich’ (VA, 141). Although it is a tongue-in-cheek comment, there is little doubt that the association remains a strong one for the narrator, as the conclusion of Von allem Anfang an attests: Als [Tante Magdalena] starb, schrieb mir Vater einen langen Brief, um mich zu trösten. Er berichtete, dass sehr viele zur Beerdigung gekommen seien, viel mehr, als er erwartet hatte, und dass eine Verwandte ihren Haushalt aufgelöst habe und inzwischen ein neuer Mieter im ersten Stock bei Bäcker Theuring eingezogen sei, ein älterer Herr von den Adventisten. Darüber, was in den vielen Kartons in ihrer Schlafkammer war, schrieb er nichts. Und auch nichts über die alte Spieluhr. Tante Magdalena hatte versprochen, dass ich sie erben werde, doch ich habe sie nicht erhalten. Ich besitze nichts von ihr, nicht einmal ein Foto. (VA, 196-7)

The mystery of the boxes died with her, but Daniel is more upset about the musical box, clearly as he now has nothing by which to remember her, all except for his memories which provide the frame for Von allem Anfang an. It is in the poignant closing line – ‘Ich besitze nichts von ihr, nicht einmal ein Foto’ – that the clue to Hein’s view of the role of autobiography behind Von allem Anfang an resides: it is a celebration

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of individuality that should not be moulded to fit a template. If the book had borne the title originally planned, this concluding line might have seemed self-evident. As it is, it appears simply poignant, the true significance of Tante Magdalena having been masked by the altered title. For Von allem Anfang an is the narrator’s epitaph to this remarkable woman, who helped nurse him through the troubled waters of his adolescence, and ensures that he does possess something of her. Her presence throughout, albeit in differing ways, should not be underestimated, neither should the fact that her presence frames the narrative itself, in the opening and closing lines. Although Daniel appears to have a stable relationship with his parents, it is Tante Magdalena alone who talks candidly to him, whether about his mother’s moods during pregnancy or the worrying events in Hungary in the autumn of 1956, which cast a shadow over Daniel’s life, and the latter of which undoubtedly heralds the beginning of the end of his childhood.18 She gradually reveals more about her own life, which contrasts with the coyness of his parents and grandparents when discussing their personal and political problems. Tate argues persuasively that Tante Magdalena’s willingness to share these more intimate details with Daniel signal not only his growing understanding of ‘the ways in which adults can suffer and change behind their façade of authority and control’, but also ‘the speed at which Daniel is growing up’ (CH, 126). That is not to say that Tante Magdalena surrenders all her secrets, as we have seen, but then neither does Daniel tell her everything. He keeps the Pille episode to himself, as well as the precise details of Mareike’s erotically charged naked dance. But even here, Daniel can be seen to be adhering to Tante Magdalena’s more pragmatic approach to the truth, rather than to his father’s insistence: ‘Bleib du nur bei der Wahrheit, Junge, damit kommt man in der Welt immer zurecht’ (VA, 166). In contrast, the old woman suggests: ‘Man soll nie lügen. Oder nur, wenn es nicht anders geht’ (VA, 166). While travelling to West Berlin, Daniel’s father is forced to lie to a border guard, thereby confirming the practicality of Tante Magdalena’s advice and reinforcing the important role she plays in Daniel’s life. At times, therefore, she appears better equipped to prepare the narrator for the vicissitudes of adult life, as well as helping 18

One can find other instances of the way in which key historical events cast disturbing and significant shadows over the main narrative in other works of Hein. In Der fremde Freund, for example, the presence of the Russian tank in Claudia’s town evokes the panic of the June 1953 uprising in the GDR, whilst the action of Der Tangospieler is set against events in Prague in 1968.

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him to make sense of adolescence. One might argue, moreover, that she better appreciates the problematic nature of these vicissitudes in the totalitarian world of the GDR, and thus offers more cogent advice on how to survive the GDR than Daniel’s own family. By virtue of the inherent contradictions in her character, Tante Magdalena stands out amidst the slightly restrictive, prejudiced, and repressed background of Daniel’s family, but also the dullness of his home town. Fritz Raddatz praises Hein’s depiction of the ‘Atmosphäre einer gemütlichen Verlogenheit, des sanften Mitmachens und gelegentlichen Spiels der Aufmüpfigkeit’ and ‘die verklebte Normalität’.19 Daniel becomes increasingly conscious of, and frustrated by, the monotony of everyday life, not least after having visited his brother at his boarding school in West Berlin: Es lebte sich leichter, wenn der nächste Tag sich nicht allzusehr vom vorhergehenden unterschied, wenn die Veränderungen und Überraschungen, die mich erwarteten, einen winzigen gemeinsamen Nenner mit all jenen Erlebnissen und Katastrophen hatten, die ich bereits überstanden hatte. Andererseits hasste ich Langweile, und was mich an der Kleinstadt und meiner Familie aufs Äußerste verbitterte, war der sich stets gleichende Ablauf des alltäglichen Geschehens, die vollkommene Ereignislosigkeit. Doch die nun fast greifbar nahe vollständige Veränderung meines Lebens schüchterte mich. (VA, 188)

The narrative is punctuated by Daniel’s dream of emulating his brother, but it is being barred from attending the local Oberschule that prompts the ultimate realisation of his wish. But leaving Tante Magdalena behind, the one person who enlivened his daily life during his regular visits to her flat to do his homework, is clearly hard, for both of them. ‘Mir wirst du fehlen, Daniel’ (VA, 16), she says, and despite his insistence that he would see her again soon, he never managed it: ‘Ich habe Tante Magdalena nie wieder gesehen’ (VA, 16). In this regard, the narrative can be interpreted not only as an epitaph to Tante Magdalena, but also an attempt to alleviate the sadness Daniel feels at not having seen her again. It is both the acknowledgment of the debt he feels he owes her for preparing him for life with her worldly advice, as well as his way of salvaging a picture of this remarkable woman to compensate for his lack of an actual photograph. In itself, it is a motivation one might find in a ‘true’ autobiography.

19

Fritz J. Raddatz, ‘Besonnte Vergangenheit: Christoph Heins wenig nette Märchen’, Die Zeit, 19 September 1997, p. 66.

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By having Daniel relate details of his formative teenage years, and simultaneously offer significant insights into the life of Tante Magdalena, Hein has with Von allem Anfang an created a ‘fictional autobiography’ in two senses. Firstly, if the author is to be believed, then aspects of his own life are secreted within the fictional narrative; as Tate and Jackman have shown, these details can be extrapolated from a creative tension with details from Hein’s earlier work. But Hein has also adopted an unequivocally autobiographical format, employing many of the devices evident in other texts in the present study, in order to produce a convincing simulation of autobiography. Tate detects playfulness in this approach by the author: ‘Rather than seeing the writing of autobiography as a guarantee of authenticity, Hein had relished the freedom fiction gave him to go beyond the limits of autobiographical fact in a modernist “game” with an autonomous reader’ (CH, 119). Hein is not the first writer to be sceptical of the authenticity of the form. The widely held modern view, as we have seen, is that conventional autobiography can only ever deliver an approximation of the self. But irrespective of whether one can believe absolutely what one reads in a particular autobiography or not – and there are myriad examples of suspect personal accounts, and one might again cite Hermann Kant’s Der Abspann as a prime post-Wende example – the form possesses an intrinsically subjective texture. It is still an expression of self, albeit perhaps merely an approximation thereof, and it is precisely this subjective quality which has drawn each of the eight authors under discussion to this form in a bid to map the contours of oppression and rescue a sense of self from the identities imposed upon them by the totalitarian systems they lived under. Even as dishonest an account as Kant’s can provide insights into the self and what motivated him to act as he did, even if the veracity of his own explanations for those actions is questionable. In the case of Von allem Anfang an, despite its fictional nature, we do have an ‘autobiography’; it is just that it is not necessarily the author’s, as Klaus Hammer neatly outlines: Mag es auch viele biographische Übereinstimmungen oder Bezüglichkeiten geben, der Ich-Erzähler ist nicht mit dem Autor zu verwechseln. Schreiben als authentische Praxis hat neben einer direkt therapeutischen Funktion auch die, sinndefizitäre Lebenswirklichkeit 20 in die ästhetische Simulation des Als-Ob zu übertragen.

20

Hammer, ‘Wahrheit nicht ohne Lüge’, p. 168.

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Just like Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster – which is categorised as a novel – Von allem Anfang an repudiates Lejeune’s autobiographical pact, and it is no less a celebration of subjectivity and the forces that shape the self than its illustrious forerunner. In documenting the key coordinates in his early adolescent years, Hein’s narrator produces an authentic account of what it was like to grow up in the GDR of the mid-1950s, but does not adhere to a strictly chronological treatment of the material.21 Hein’s experiences were undoubtedly similar to Daniel’s, but were doubtless shared by many others too. That the Tante Magdalena figure is unique to Daniel’s account is axiomatic, but then other individuals would certainly have had their own ‘proximate other’. In Daniel’s case, his narrative is truly a celebration of subjectivity. Motivated by the desire to preserve an impression of Tante Magdalena’s life, he necessarily has to tell his own life story so as to articulate the old woman’s importance for him; it is a story he has ‘schon immer erzählen wollen’ (VA, 10). Thus Von allem Anfang an fulfils, or rather simulates, an important criterion of Eakin’s understanding of what constitutes autobiographical writing, namely the exposition of the relational forces that shape the self. A simulacrum of autobiography it may be, but Von allem Anfang an deserves to be considered alongside the more conventional accounts of GDR life produced after the fall of the Wall. In spite of being a fictional autobiography, it is no less convincing an expression of self for all that. Indeed, the title of Eakin’s study – How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves – is particularly apt in this context, with its apparent conflation of fact and fiction in depicting individual experience. It is understandable, as a consequence, why Von allem Anfang an is usually included in post-Wende lists of personal treatments of East German society, and why it deserves consideration in the context of this study. Tate argues that the form of Von allem Anfang an can be explained to some extent by Hein’s propensity to flout expectations, mingled with the recognition that many of his colleagues from the former GDR were engaging in autobiography.22 Thus his own text might be seen to go both with, and tellingly against, the grain. Although Von allem Anfang an might appear at first glance to satirise the spate of autobiographical accounts of the 1990s – or at least the expectations that ex-GDR authors should be producing such texts – 21

For a more detailed analysis of the chronology of the episodes, see Jackman (CIP, 192-3). 22 See Tate (CH, 118-20).

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the measured tone of the text would tend to invite a less confrontational reading. With its touching depiction of Daniel’s emotional turmoil, the narrative emits far more warmth than Der fremde Freund or Der Tangospieler, for example, with their bleakness and protagonists who do not invite identification. In contrast with most of Hein’s canon, Von allem Anfang an appears almost idyllic, although it would be an exaggeration to press this particular point too far. As Raddatz observes: ‘Das schmale Buch ist zu lesen als Märchen von der Wirklichkeit, versunken und doch so sehr vorhanden. Nett sind Märchen bekanntlich nicht’.23 Not everything runs smoothly in Daniel’s life, and the poignancy of the conclusion, stemming as it does from his exclusion from school in East Germany, illustrates how the political impinges directly and decisively on the individual only once a particular stage of his life has been reached, a fact which is significant for the interpretation of Von allem Anfang an. Although the narrator’s childhood might not be presented as idyllic, it is nevertheless generally normal and relatively free from overt state interference. Despite being the son of a priest, Daniel is not especially victimised, until the key moment of his exclusion from the Oberschule. From his perspective, the only negative consequence of his religious background is his inability to watch football on Sundays with his friends.24 Although Daniel’s experiences are, for the most part, typical of boys of his age and there are relatively few moments when the narrative appears specific to the GDR, there lurks a sense of threat beneath the surface to which the narrator is mostly oblivious. As Jackman indicates, the narrative is consistently anchored in the naïve perspective of the child, with the exception of the adult Daniel’s interventions at the beginning and end of the text. As a result, it is the reader who must interpet and draw out the implications of what is described: ‘The reader understands things incomprehensible to the child, or recognises in them, thanks to his or her knowledge of adult life or of GDR society, “Allegorien kultureller Erfahrung”’ (CIP, 195). Thus, Daniel is disturbed more by his mother’s strange behaviour or the strange humming that emanates from a box in the bedroom at his grandparents’ house, than by the potential dangers of visiting West Berlin or the arrest of the scientist on account of his alleged homosexuality. Even his grandfather’s dismissal by the 23

Raddatz, p. 66. Jackman argues that the scheduling of football on Sundays was a deliberate State ploy to undermine church attendances (CIP, 198).

24

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ominous sounding ‘Bestimmer’ (VA, 59) is not experienced as a threat, as signalled by the fact that Daniel’s sister cries at the news simply because she will not be able to see the animals again. Nevertheless, the opening chapter, which is chronologically the last and forms a closed narrative frame with the final one, reveals a less naïve narrator who is far more aware of the world he inhabits. When he encounters the beautiful Lucie before leaving to attend school in West Berlin, Daniel is decidedly wary about explaining what he is up to: ‘Ich hätte [Lucie] beinahe erzählt, dass ich mich bei der Tante verabschieden müsse, weil ich die Stadt verlasse und für immer nach West Berlin ziehe, aber dann erinnerte ich mich noch rechtzeitig daran, wie sie mich bei Fräulein Kaczmarek verraten hatte’ (VA, 5). As we learn later, it was Lucie, a zealous ‘Thälmannpionier’, who denounced him to the teacher for disseminating ‘feindliche Propaganda’ (VA, 190) about the Hungarian uprising following his first visit to West Berlin. It seems that Daniel has finally absorbed the lessons in pragmatism from Tante Magdalena that facilitate survival in the GDR. Writing about the mood in Berlin at the turn of the twentyfirst century, Jonathan Steele remarked upon the continuing problems that face Germans on both sides of the old ideological divide, underlining how the commemoration of victims of the Berlin Wall, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its erection, descended into unfortunate factional squabbles. Steele detected signs not only that the psychological divide was growing, but that it was continuing to exacerbate attitudes towards the old GDR, even more than a decade after its demise: The demonisation of the old German Democratic Republic seems to be getting more, not less, extreme as time passes, with its former citizens either patronised as helpless children of a bastard state or condemned as collaborators. Opinion polls reflect the apparent anomaly that those who lived there and felt the weight of the GDR on 25 their own skins condemn it less than do westerners.

It is tempting to view Von allem Anfang an as an earlier attempt to counter the demonisation that Steele identified as a worsening problem, in that it provides a more differentiated picture of life in the GDR, in common with many other texts produced by former GDR authors in the post-Wende period. In his positive reappraisal of Hein’s 25

Jonathan Steele, ‘Berlin Needs Bridges, Not Walls, to End its Cold War’, The Guardian, 17 August 2001, p.14. Four years on from Steele’s article, one could assert that little has changed.

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much-maligned play, Randow (1994), Bill Niven found evidence that the author had now brought his critical gaze to bear on life in the new Federal Republic: ‘For years he measured socialism by its own standards and found it wanting; now he does the same with Western liberalism, and finds it equally wanting’ (CH, 103).26 If Randow contains a critique of the West, which Niven plausibly suggests accounted in part for the negativity of its reception, then it is not unreasonable to view the author’s next major publication, Von allem Anfang an, as a corrective to the blanket rejection of the GDR and its legacy by Western commentators. If one were to view these two works as complementary, then the author’s message appears to be that both West and East had strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, East Germany certainly did not deserve to be consigned to the historical scrap heap altogether, while the Federal Republic was no flawless paradigm. That is not to say that Hein had suddenly grown nostalgic for the old days; one need only consider the bleakness of Der Tangospieler, published in the spring of 1989, to grasp how flawed he considered the GDR to have been: various characters’ suggestions to Dallow, the protagonist, that the GDR is ‘ein Stück weiter gekommen’ are highly ironic in light of both his recent prison sentence for having played the piano during a satirical cabaret performance and contemporary events in Prague.27 By the same token, Von allem Anfang an is far from being a document of Ostalgie. Yet it can certainly be seen to purvey a more objective, less forthrightly polemical, analysis of the GDR’s legacy, where it was possible for somebody from Hein’s generation to spend their formative years relatively unaffected by the ideological pressures. These forces naturally impinge at certain times on Daniel’s family life, as commentators such as Tate and Jackman have uncovered in detail, but they are less of a destructive influence than a western reader might expect. On many occasions Daniel is simply bewildered by situations that are not necessarily specific to the GDR – it is surely debatable how often parents in any society ever talk to their children about their marital difficulties, for example, while the depiction of puberty is equally universal. In effect then, Hein is here defending the private realm, or at least part thereof, from the partial, and political, distortions so often a feature of post-Wende approaches to the GDR, 26

Bill Niven, ‘On Private Utopia and the Possessive Mentality: Christoph Hein’s Randow’, in Christoph Hein, pp. 100-16. 27 Der Tangospieler (Leipzig: Aufbau, 1999), pp. 36-37.

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and which, as Steele underlined, were still prevalent more than a decade after that country’s demise.28 One finds the same attitude underpinning the work, both fictional and essayistic, of many former GDR authors, such as Christa Wolf, Günter de Bruyn and Monika Maron, who advocate a much more differentiated appraisal of the GDR and its people in the new Germany. Like Hein, none of these authors was any great friend of the SED regime, but in the wake of its collapse they sought to temper the expectations placed upon the GDR’s former citizens in the new Germany, which appeared to tar them all with the same brush and thereby created an East German stereotype, both psychological and socio-political. As Maron remarked in an essay from 1999: ‘Es ist Zeit, in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung nachzuholen, was in der Wirklichkeit schon vor zehn Jahren passiert ist: die Ostdeutschen aus ihrem Kollektivstatus endlich in die Individualität zu entlassen’.29 The array of autobiographies produced during the same period by former GDR authors must be seen as an attempt to realise this precise aim of reclaiming their individuality from the collective identity that had been thrust upon them, no matter that some of these accounts possessed a distinctly self-justificatory air. Günter Erbe has spoken of former GDR authors being ‘auf der Suche nach einem neuen Selbstverständnis’.30 In his sensitive examination of the problems of coming to terms with the GDR past and the different modes of analysis that have been applied, Roger Woods underlines that the key element of any such project is an appreciation of the complex texture of GDR life.31 28

But Von allem Anfang an is also not a purely aesthetic text either, akin to those that Schirrmacher wished to see. See David W. Robinson, Deconstructing East Germany: Christoph Hein’s Literature of Dissent (Rochester: Camden House, 1999), p. 206. 29 Monika Maron, ‘Penkun hinter der Mauer’, in quer über die Gleise: Essays, Artikel, Zwischenrufe (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2000), pp. 139-47 (p. 147). Günter de Bruyn has devoted many essays to the situation in Germany since 1989 in collections with self-explanatory titles such as Jubelschreie, Trauergesänge: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (1992) and Deutsche Zustände (1999). See too Christa Wolf, ‘Abschied von Phantomen – Zur Sache: Deutschland’, in Auf dem Weg nach Tabou: Texte 1990-1994 (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994), pp. 313-39. 30 Günter Erbe, ‘Die ostdeutschen Schriftsteller auf der Suche nach einem neuen Selbstverständnis’, in Changing Identities in East Germany: Studies in GDR Culture and Society 14/15. Selected Papers from the Nineteenth and Twentieth New Hampshire Symposia, ed. by Roger Woods and Margy Gerber (Lanham: University Press of America, 1996), pp. 51-61. 31 Roger Woods, ‘“Nuancen und Zwischentöne” versus “muskelprotzende Prosa”: Autobiography and the Project of Explaining “How it Was” in the GDR’, in Changing Identities in East Germany, pp. 37-49.

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In particular, any categorisation of the people into Täter and Opfer is to be rejected as unacceptably simplistic, for the lines between complicity and compromise were very difficult to ascertain. After summarising the various officially-sanctioned and informal attempts at reassessing the GDR, such as the Enquete-Kommission that was established in 1992, Woods comments on the salient number of projects ‘based on reconstructing biography – “Biographie- und Lebenslaufforschung”’.32 Equally telling is Woods’s contention that ‘literature will turn out to be a particularly appropriate vehicle for probing the complex and ambiguous reality of living in the GDR’, and that GDR authors will be required to shoulder this responsibility.33 In his insightful summary of autobiographical treatments of GDR society, which includes accounts by intellectuals as well as leading SED politicians, Julian Preece likewise feels that ‘it will be left to literature to depict the variegated nuances of biographical experience’.34 Implicit in both articles is that autobiography per se might not necessarily constitute the ideal form for this survey; by literature, both academics appear to be referring specifically to creative fiction. Woods cites the distortions and suppressions of memory that can afflict autobiography as the reason that fiction might emerge as a more suitable mode of enquiry, and concludes his piece with an exploration of Olaf Georg Klein’s intriguing collection of fictional autobiographies, Plötzlich war alles ganz anders (1994): In its format the book takes the tradition of GDR documentary literature one experimental step further: the characters who tell their life stories are invented, yet they interact with real figures from the GDR. By inventing a wide range of characters, Klein is able to touch 35 upon many of the key questions about how to assess the GDR.

Although Von allem Anfang an clearly does not share the scope of Klein’s project, which supplies a much broader and more differentiated panorama of GDR society, the creation of seemingly authentic biographies betrays a commonality of purpose. Unfettered by the expectation of absolute truthfulness that naturally forms a key criterion in the general reception of autobiography, fiction enjoys ‘mehr Freiheit zur Wahrheit’.36 The fictional autobiographies 32

Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 41. 34 Preece, p. 364. 35 Woods, p. 45. 36 Marlies Menge, ‘Nur die Masken erlauben Freiheit’, Die Zeit, 29 August 1997. Tate adopts this quotation for the title of his article in Christoph Hein. 33

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produced by Hein and Klein do not in any way signify an evasion of reality; on the contrary, they are tailor-made to enable a more sensitive, accurate depiction of ‘the variegated nuances of biographical experience’ Preece describes, that is essential if the GDR is to be assessed in a suitably objective manner, whilst taking into account the individual’s experience of that socio-political phenomenon. Hein may well be sceptical of autobiography as a vehicle for truth, but as Von allem Anfang an reveals, he accepts the articulation of individuality, the expression of subjectivity intrinsic to the form. With its focus primarily on loosely connected events in and around 1956, Von allem Anfang an by no means represents the comprehensive survey of East German society that many commentators impatiently demanded of former GDR authors. Indeed, as Hammer remarks: ‘Bei Hein aber bleiben Anfang und Ende offen, auch wenn die erklärte Absicht des Jungen, nach West Berlin zu gehen, die eigentliche Klammer bilden soll’.37 The cyclical nature of the text would appear to militate against any definitive judgement of the events depicted, and Daniel certainly does not draw any conclusions, being more concerned it seems with salvaging a picture of his beloved ‘aunt’. In common with authors such as de Bruyn, Hein is suggesting, perhaps, that it is still too soon for the GDR’s legacy to be resolved satisfactorily. Although a series of novels have appeared in recent times – by relatively new authors such as Thomas Brussig, Ingo Schulze and Kerstin Jentzsch – which deal with the Wende and its aftermath, the GDR equivalent of Die Blechtrommel has still to be produced. In that respect, perhaps, Hein was deliberately flouting such expectations by producing merely a ‘Kleines Buch’. Instead, the author was more concerned with resisting an outright rejection of the GDR and its legacy, which explains why he should choose to entrust the material to a naïve narrator who is not fully in tune with the world around him. The political is not excluded, and as Daniel matures he becomes ever more aware of the implications of living in a totalitarian society. Nevertheless, Von allem Anfang an quite deliberately avoids distorting the picture of GDR life. The political is not shown to be a constant irritant in the private sphere; when it does have an impact, however, the consequences are significant and damaging. In this way, Von allem Anfang an is neither a study in nostalgia nor a eulogy of life in a Nischengesellschaft. It is the rendition of a period in the life of a 37

Hammer, ‘Wahrheit nicht ohne Lüge’, p. 169.

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young boy who, to some extent, is the embodiment ‘von nicht besonders belasteten, nicht besonders heldenhaften “normalen” Leuten, die […] durch eine nüchterne Durchmusterung der eigenen Biographie mehr Freiheit gewinnen könnten und mehr Wirklichkeitssinn’.38 Thus, when Woods talks of East Germany’s quest for ‘a distinctive voice which transcends nostalgia and bitterness’, Hein’s Von allem Anfang an would appear to fit that bill.39 Ultimately, as with Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, it matters little whether Von allem Anfang an is truly an autobiography. It is impossible to ascertain how much of the text is derived from the author’s own life, and one ought to heed his assertion that we are dealing here with fiction and listen to the caveats expressed by his Verlagslektorin on the subject of an unequivocally autobiographical reading. What does count is the form and style Hein adopts. Fabricating an autobiography might well have been a playful whim, in part, but the decision to work ‘mit den Mitteln des Biographischen’ (CH, 39), thereby imbuing Von allem Anfang an with an individualistic perspective, with ‘subjective authenticity’, means that the text has made an important contribution to the more differentiated appraisal of East Germany’s legacy that diverse commentators such as Monika Maron, Christa Wolf and Roger Woods have advocated.

38 39

Wolf, ‘Abschied von Phantomen’, p. 336. Woods, p. 37.

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Seven

‘Es gab nur noch die eine Aufgabe: Gegen das Vergessen anzuschreiben’ – Grete Weil, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (1998) Warum, in drei Teufels Namen, will ich ein Buch schreiben? Weil 1 ich schreiben muß, ohne schreiben nicht leben kann?

The anguished narrator of Grete Weil’s novel Meine Schwester Antigone (1980), herself a novelist, explains how her experiences of National Socialist terror as a Jewish exile in Amsterdam during the Second World War have necessarily remained a sole source of creative inspiration: ‘Nach dem Krieg schreibe ich schließlich ein paar Bücher. Sie handeln von Krieg und Deportation. Ich kann von nichts anderem erzählen. Der Angelpunkt meines Lebens’ (A, 93). In her study of Weil’s work prior to Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (1998), Carmen Giese expends much time in underscoring the extent to which Weil’s narrator is to all intents and purposes synonymous with the author herself.2 Exploiting verifiable information – in particular an interview with the late author – Giese traces the similarities between Weil and her narrator, and despite having earlier executed a thorough comparative survey of autobiography and novel as discrete genres and their contrasting relationship with Wahrheit and Dichtung, she concludes that Meine Schwester Antigone is an autobiography in all but name. Although it is evident that the novel makes use of autobiographical elements, Giese’s argument for an unequivocally autobiographical reading of Meine Schwester Antigone is rather unconvincing; for she appears to disregard the implications of Weil’s choice of genre definition and the freedom it affords the author to manipulate her material. Giese speaks of a ‘Quasi-Transparenz’ 1

Grete Weil, Meine Schwester Antigone (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2000), p. 25. All further page references will appear in the text in the form (A, 93). 2 Carmen Giese, Das Ich im literarischen Werk von Grete Weil und Klaus Mann: Zwei autobiographische Gesamtkonzepte (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997).

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between the author and her narrators, which she then upgrades to a ‘Deckungsgleichheit’ on account of the biographical similarities.3 The weakness of the argument, however, resides in the apparent structural congruence perceived between Weil’s novels and autobiographical paradigm that Giese adopts in her study. Yet Weil is not bound by any obligation to the reader, contractual or otherwise, in Meine Schwester Antigone to tell the whole truth. In reality, Giese’s suggestion that Meine Schwester Antigone bears similarities to the exploration of identity formation redolent of ‘Neue Subjektivität’ is much more convincing than her explicitly autobiographical reading of the text.4 The publication of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben in 1998 reveals precisely how much of Meine Schwester Antigone had a basis in autobiographical fact; so much so, in fact, that one might be tempted to moderate criticism of Giese’s reading of the novel.5 In her fine study of the author, Lisbeth Exner illustrates how Weil herself advocated that her novels be used as sources of biographical detail, and so in truth we might attribute the confusion that has arisen, in part at least, to Weil herself.6 Exner proposes therefore that all of Weil’s texts can be seen as ‘autobiographisch geprägt’, but without suggesting, as Giese appears to, that fiction and autobiographical fact are necessarily one and the same.7 Moreover, to support her argument she cites Uwe Meyer’s assessment of Weil’s fiction: Es handelt sich dabei um die literarische Transposition biographischen Materials, das die Schriftstellerin um der Sinnstruktur ihrer Texte willen sortiert und vorstellt und nicht in Bezug auf Kriterien der Selbstbiographie (wie z.B. die Vollständigkeit, Wahrhaftigkeit, 8 Verifizierbarkeit der geschilderten Ereignisse und Personen).

Those similarities that do exist between Meine Schwester Antigone and Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben are partly of a factual nature, but in some cases extend as far as direct linguistic appropriation of passages from the earlier text. Giese may therefore feel vindicated in her argument of ‘Deckungsgleichheit’, but in truth the two texts are fundamentally different in tone and texture, illustrating the divergence between fact and its fictional rendition that Exner’s citation of Meyer 3

Giese, pp. 146-58 (p. 148). Ibid., p. 161. 5 Grete Weil, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2001). All further page references will appear in the text in the form (L, 93). 6 Exner, p. 7. 7 Ibid., p. 22. 8 Ibid., p. 93. 4

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suggests is a feature of Weil’s work. Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben eschews the introspection of Meine Schwester Antigone – which manifests itself in a distinctly non-linear, fragmentary narrative – and strives instead for a more sober and objective approach to its material, strongly reminiscent of the author’s autobiographical contribution to a collection of essays published in 1981.9 Her essay, ‘Nicht dazu erzogen, Widerstand zu leisten’, is explicitly autobiographical and anticipates Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben by virtue of its detached tone; indeed, one might view it as an early synopsis of the autobiography. It may well be that at the time of writing Meine Schwester Antigone Weil shared the anguish of her earlier narrator, but in the interim had managed to overcome, ot at least moderate, the distress, thus enabling her to adopt the more balanced and reflective mode of writing evident in the essay of the following year. One must simply remember that Meine Schwester Antigone is a fiction, albeit shot through with autobiographical elements, and there are many more incidences of authorial invention therein than biographical fact. As such, any juxtaposition of the narrator and the author should be treated with caution, as was the case with Hein’s Von allem Anfang an. By way of contrast, with Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben we are dealing explicitly with a conventional autobiography, which traces the author’s life chronologically from childhood to the immediate postwar period, and concludes with an explanation of her decision to return to Germany after 1945. Weil devotes the second part of her autobiography exclusively to the depiction of her experiences of persecution in occupied Amsterdam, and the extent to which this period has become the ‘Angelpunkt’ for her own life emerges strongly. In this respect at least, then, she does share with the narrator of Meine Schwester Antigone a moral imperative to tackle the Nazi legacy in literature. As she observed: ‘Es gab nur noch die eine Aufgabe: Gegen das Vergessen anzuschreiben. Mit aller Liebe, allem Vermögen, in zäher Verbissenheit’.10 It was this motivation that prompted her first novel, Ans Ende der Welt, which proved too provocative a text for German audiences in the immediate postwar period, not being published until 1949, and then only in the GDR.11 9

Grete Weil, ‘Nicht dazu erzogen, Widerstand zu leisten’, in Weil ich das Leben liebe…: Persönliches und Politisches aus dem Leben engagierter Frauen, ed. by Dorlies Pollmann and Edith Laudowicz (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981), pp. 17180. Subsequent references to the essay will appear in the text in the form (NDE, 171). 10 Quoted in Exner, p. 68. One might compare Weil’s determination to counter forgetfulness with the Erinnerungsarbeit of Heinrich Böll. 11 Grete Weil, Ans Ende der Welt (Berlin: Volk und Welt, 1949).

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By abandoning the refractive devices of fiction but adhering to the same rationale of writing against forgetfulness, Grete Weil has produced with Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben a moving, and authentic, testimony of individual suffering which far surpasses Meine Schwester Antigone. It tells a remarkable story which manages to celebrate the resilience of human spirit in the face of terrifying adversity, but simultaneously reveals Weil to be a ‘Zeugin des Schmerzes’, haunted by a pain unimaginable to those who did not experience the Holocaust.12 In formal terms, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben conforms closely to the pattern of a traditional autobiography. In order to confirm this impression, one need only consider Weil’s foreword, which invokes the Goethean paradigm by way of both credo and qualification: Wie hält es die Autorin mit der Wahrheit? Ich bin eine äußerst unwillige und deshalb wohl auch schlechte Lügnerin. Was ich sage, soll stimmen. Doch inwieweit trügt die Erinnerung? Und so sollte man dem Lesenden wie sich selbst zugestehen, dass zu einer Autobiographie auch Dichtung gehört. (L, 8)

There is nothing new or unusual about such a declaration, echoing as it does Günter de Bruyn’s opening remarks in Zwischenbilanz. Weil raises the usual caveats concerning a possibly deficient memory, but avers that she will endeavour only to tell the truth, the facts she can substantiate. But naturally, any attempt to tell the story of one’s life can only ever be a construct. The selection of key episodes in one’s life and portraits of the people who have played an influential role in it lends coherence to the account that could not have existed at the time. Herein lies the Dichtung, the structural device intrinsic to any autobiography, just as it is in any fiction: in order that the material is accessible to the reader, the author must sort the wheat from the chaff. ‘Ich bin mir der Gefahren einer Autobiographie bewusst’ (L, 8), says Weil, and consequently the reader is well-disposed towards the author and prepared to accept that her account will be authentic at the very least, even if absolute accuracy cannot always be vouched for. Once these caveats have been issued at the outset, the narrative of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben proceeds without undue concern about the potential dangers that infest autobiographies. In this respect, the text is the most conventional of those analysed in the present study, quite possibly on account of having been compiled by the oldest author who

12

Quoted in Exner, p. 109.

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devoted her literary career to the issues which find expression in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben. There is an inherent authenticity to Weil’s account which recalls Primo Levi’s remark in the preface to If This is a Man: ‘It seems to me unnecessary to add that none of the facts are invented’ (ITM, 16). On a general level, as a Holocaust testimony the subject matter of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben is one with which we are now all too painfully familiar, and Weil’s depiction of occupied Amsterdam and the plight of the Jews there in particular is entirely credible. It is little surprise then that Weil should mention meeting a certain Herr Frank, whose daughters died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen: ‘Eines der beiden an Typhus gestorbenen Mädchen hieß Anne’ (L, 240). The fleeting episode, with its evocation of the famous diarist, reinforces the fact that her story is part of a broader network of stories, although at one juncture during the second half of the text, she is at pains to point out the individual nature of her own account: Dieses Buch ist die Geschichte meines Lebens und nicht die Geschichte der Vernichtung von über 100, 000 holländischen Juden und der zahllosen, in die Niederlande geflüchteten Emigranten. Denn diese Geschichte gibt es bereits, leider noch immer nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt; das Buch Ondergang (Untergang) von Professor J. Presser. Ich schreibe also nur das auf, was mich unmittelbar angeht, was ich selbst erlebt habe. (L, 171)

With her citation of this Dutch study, Weil provides an external, objective frame of reference that will allow readers to corroborate the veracity of her account and place it within its historical context. At the time, as Weil observes, she could not possibly have conceived of the full scale of the horror, and therefore concentrates principally on recounting her personal experiences of what happened as accurately as possible. It is axiomatic, however, that the harrowing historical events should invade and threaten the private sphere throughout Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, a feature of every text under analysis here. Nowhere is this invasion more keenly felt than in the passage in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben describing the arrest of her husband, Edgar, and his subsequent internment in the concentration camp at Mauthausen in 1941: ‘Kaum einer hat bis jetzt diesen Namen gehört, der bald in allen Entsetzen auslösen wird’ (L, 160-61). Only much later would the author learn the details of her husband’s death, but her recollection of his arrest conveys most effectively the genuine sense of fear she must have felt, being so entirely ignorant of his fate at the time. On account of the knowledge both Weil and we as readers now possess, thanks to documentary works such as Ondergang and the

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testimonies of authors such as Jean Améry and Primo Levi, the tension in this section of the text is dramatically enhanced, but without ever appearing inauthentic. It represents a convincing example of Weil’s effective conflation of Dichtung and Wahrheit. The careful selection of material enhances the authenticity of Weil’s account. She provides a series of mini-portraits of family members and friends who have played a role in her life, but without diluting the main thread of her narrative and turning it into an ‘Aneinanderreihung von Namen, die wirkt, als würde dem Leser der Who is Who zur Lektüre vorgesetzt’ (L, 8), one of the inherent dangers of autobiography she speaks of. Each portrait has been carefully chosen to throw light either on the author herself or on the times she lived through, and as befits the account of a former professional photographer, the descriptions of these influential individuals are accompanied seamlessly by photographs. As a result, Weil brings the historical period to life for the reader, but without overstretching herself in pursuit of a panoramic sweep of society. Although we catch glimpses of many people and learn of events at that time, the dimensions of Weil’s life appear to have been quite small, centring on those few people who were most important to her. This was the result of choice before 1933, and of necessity thereafter, especially during the darkest days of her exile in Amsterdam, when she was ultimately forced into hiding: ‘Alle Lebensempfindungen, alle Bedürfnisse waren gedämpft, alle Wünsche, alle Triebe. Ich habe mich eingeigelt’ (NDE, 178). The tight focus of her narrative is complemented by a style both sober and uncluttered. In the main Weil employs relatively concise sentences, where the syntax is direct and without embellishment. Although the linguistic structure is not dissimilar to Meine Schwester Antigone, the more unemotional tone is a significant difference. Where the narrator of the earlier novel appears overwrought, as she wrestles with her guilt at having survived the Holocaust, Weil simply recounts her experiences without an excess of introspection and allows the facts to speak for themselves.13 As a result, there is little incidence in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben of the brooding passages which punctuate Meine Schwester Antigone. Weil’s approach in her autobiography recalls Anna Mitgutsch’s perception that the credibility of a literary text is enhanced by ‘eine Simplizität und eine Genauigkeit, eine ungeschminkte Direktheit’: 13

One can contrast Weil’s approach with that adopted by Ruth Klüger. See Chapter 3.

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Es gibt eine Intensität der Sprache und der Darstellung, eine Überzeugungskraft, die anders nicht zu erreichen ist. Diese Intensität läßt sich schwer simulieren. Sie kommt aus der Verletzung, aus dem 14 Schmerz, der nicht rückgängig zu machenden Beschädigung.

Although the description of the tone of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben generally holds true in contrast to that employed in Meine Schwester Antigone, it is important to underscore the difference in tone between the first and second parts of the autobiography. The opening section comprises many short vignettes, focusing on the author’s family members and friends, as well as some of the places that were important to her before the onset of National Socialism. An anecdotal quality underpins the vast majority, and in the context of Weil’s life, one or two seem inconsequential, if not downright frivolous.15 One could cite the chapter ‘Spielsachen’ as a prime example, recounting as it does the author’s dislike of dolls and her preference for playing ‘mit zwei leeren Fadenspulen, die ich an einer Schnur hinter mir herzog und die ich Fips und Fops nannte’ (L, 43). Far from being an irrelevance, chapters such as this one establish the idyllic and uncomplicated atmosphere of Weil’s childhood in Bavaria. She was able to grow up in a secure, close-knit and loving family environment, the influence of which would ultimately protect her through the ravages that were to follow, having instilled in her a sense of stability and strength of character. Generally carefree though her early years may have been, Weil manages to convey the growing unease and sense of threat that increasingly pervaded her family’s life during the Weimar Republic, such as the direct threat to her father following the Bierkeller Putsch in 1923 and, more ominously, the first arrest of her husband in 1933. In hindsight, the author identifies in her account the warning signs that existed at the time, but indicates too how it was possible to shield oneself from them. As she observes in her autobiographical essay: Nürnberger Gesetze, Berufsverbote, Juden durften nicht mehr in Kino, Theater, Schwimmbäder, Anlagen, aber die eigentlichen Verfolgungen kamen erst nach der Kristallnacht. Sehr, sehr viele Juden begriffen nicht, was gespielt wurde, und im Grunde war es auch gar nicht zu begreifen, an Genozid hat keiner gedacht. Es ist heute fast unmöglich, sich in die Zeit des Nichtwissens zurückzuversetzen, in

14

Mitgutsch, p. 12. One is reminded in places of Ernst Toller’s anecdotal approach in Jugend in Deutschland, albeit that Toller’s focus is much more directed at political, rather than private, matters. 15

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression die Zeit, in der Betroffene und Nichtbetroffene sagten: Es wird nichts so heiß gegessen wie gekocht. (NDE, 175)

By means of such evasion, the happiness of her childhood and early adulthood were not compromised, at least initially. In the context of her autobiography, the preservation of the idyll is reflected by the inclusion of occasionally twee chapters such as ‘Spielsachen’. Yet such sections also serve to instil in the narrative a tension, since the reader is only too well aware of the incipient danger facing the author and her family. Weil’s subtle exploitation of Dichtung can be adduced once more, as the relatively untroubled atmosphere of part one serves as a strikingly dramatic contrast to the mood of the second half of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben with its unremitting terror and despair. The chapters in the second half of the text, which commence with the logistical and existential problems of emigration, retain an anecdotal quality at times, but tend to be longer and a more reflective. The immediacy of the description is enhanced by Weil’s adoption of the present tense from the opening chapter of this section, the ominous sounding ‘Verhängnis Amsterdam’, as the focus of the narrative shifts to the reality of emigration for the author and he family. Gone is the frivolity of part one, to be replaced by passages which chart the contours of Nazi repression in occupied Amsterdam. Even the short, anecdotal chapters have nothing inconsequential about them any longer. In ‘Der Pelzmantel’, for instance, Weil describes her encounter with a young German woman, who has been arrested on the street and is distraught when she arrives at the Jewish deportation centre in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg: Im Gegensatz zu allen Menschen, denen ich hier begegnet bin, strömen ihr die Tränen über das Gesicht, sie kann vor Schluchzen kaum sprechen. Da sie mir Leid tut, versuche ich, mit ihr zu reden. Dabei erfahre ich ziemlich schnell, sie weint nicht um sich, um keinen geliebten Menschen, sie weint um ihren Pelzmantel. ‘So ein Pech, dass ich den gerade anhatte, als ich festgenommen wurde. Wenn er mit in den Osten geht, habe ich doch bei der Rückkehr nichts anzuziehen.’ Mir bleibt bei so viel Dummheit die Sprache weg, ich kann ihr doch nicht sagen: Sind Sie so sicher, dass Sie überhaupt zurückkommen? (L, 173)

Taking pity on the woman, whose complete inability to appreciate the danger is alarming, Weil agrees to rescue the coat for her, only narrowly avoiding problems herself in the process. What might have been an amusing little tale of vanity in any other context, simply

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underlines the inherent dangers of life under National Socialism, where even seemingly trivial situations could prove fatal. Despite the tragedy that befell the author during her exile, the narrative in part two retains its detached quality. A comparison of Weil’s description of her reaction to Edgar’s arrest in Amsterdam with the equivalent rendition in Meine Schwester Antigone depicting the arrest of the narrator’s husband, Waiki, illustrates the markedly more dispassionate tone of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben. When it dawns upon the narrator of Meine Schwester Antigone that her husband must have fallen into the hands of the Gestapo on his way to a safe house, her despair overwhelms her and is conveyed clearly in the text: Der Schmerz fängt an mich zu zerreißen, er, der mich nie mehr verlassen wird, mit dem ich leben muß, und als spräche ein anderer Mensch, sage ich vor mich hin: ‘Ich wollte, es wäre schon alles vorbei.’ Sage es zu meiner Mutter, die klein und unglücklich im Zimmer sitzt, aufsteht, zu mir kommt, mich zu streicheln versucht, worauf ich anfange zu schreien, als habe sie mich geschlagen. Ich muß ihr irr vorkommen in diesem Moment. Ich bin irr, flehe sie mit den Augen an, gib mir eine Fackel, damit ich die Welt in Brand setzen kann, die ganze Welt, keiner soll überleben. Ich will zerstören, zerstören, aber ich kippe nicht, es ist mir nicht gegeben, noch im Wahnsinn behalte ich das bißchen Vernunft, mit dem ich mich weitertaste von Stütze zu Stütze. (A, 159)

It is a convincing depiction of inconsolable grief, exacerbated by the narrator’s certainty as to the fate of her husband: ‘Es hat mir an jenem Abend niemand ein Foto der Todestreppe [im KZ Mauthausen] gezeigt, aber ich brauchte kein Bild, um mir das, was geschehen würde, vorzustellen’ (A, 160). The images of violence and destruction – ‘zerreißen’, ‘zerstören’, ‘geschlagen’ – are especially prevalent in the passage, together with the suggestion of the narrator’s incipient madness and desire for violent revenge. She appears to be on the edge of a nervous collapse. Although there are some similarities in the equivalent passage in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, the explicitly autobiographical rendition is striking, and rather disturbing, for its greater composure, whilst sacrificing none of the tension of the novel. Weil concentrates on the external events of Edgar’s departure, which more effectively accentuates the poignancy of their final farewell, all the more heart-rending for neither knew it was to be the last: Dann kommt der Augenblick, in dem er fortgeht. Er sagt noch, dass er anrufen wird, wenn er an einer der beiden Adressen angekommen ist. Wir umarmen uns kurz.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Das Warten beginnt. Kein Anruf kommt. Nur eine Freundin will mir am Telefon erzählen, dass sie Edgar, gleich an der Ecke bei uns, mit zwei merkwürdig aussehenden Männern hat stehen sehen. Doch ich lasse sie nicht ausreden, weil ich ja auf seinen Anruf warte. Hätte ich sie ausreden lassen, bräuchte ich nicht mehr zu warten. Nach einer halben Stunde ist mir klar, dass Edgar der Gestapo in die Hände gelaufen sein muss. (L, 157)

Like her narrator in the novel, Weil expresses the desire to set the world alight with a flaming torch, has the impression that her voice belongs to somebody else and flinches at her mother’s touch. Despite these similarities, and a small degree of direct linguistic correlation, the passage in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben reads as a more objective account of the author’s reaction. The emotions are held on a much tighter rein than in Meine Schwester Antigone. One can picture how Weil must have shared the despair of her narrator at the time of Edgar’s disappearance – she admits, for example, that following his arrest she had obtained enough sleeping pills ‘um mich davonmachen zu können’ (L, 161) – but her intentions are clearly different in her autobiography. By curbing long poetic descriptions of her own feelings, akin to those in the above passage from Meine Schwester Antigone, she is striving to maintain her emotional detachment from the material, in order to provide an authentic, yet objective, personal record of the time in question. In particular, she achieves this by favouring aphoristic sentences throughout the second half of the text, such as: ‘Wir umarmen uns kurz’ (L, 157) or ‘Ende September ist keiner mehr am Leben’ (L, 161). It is difficult to overlook the emotional resonance intrinsic to such concise statements, which say so much more to us than they appear to. Indeed, the impression is very much of a writer endeavouring to curb strong emotions which might otherwise threaten to overwhelm her narrative and thus undermine the impact upon the reader. In this respect, less is definitely more, and it is underlines the considerable force of Weil’s autobiography, which surpasses the novel’s coverage of similar ground. In Meine Schwester Antigone, the narrative is driven by the heightened emotional state of the narrator; with Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, it is up to the reader to respond to Weil’s account, and that engagement is much more effective at rendering the horror. It is a remarkable feature of Weil’s autobiography that her sense of self appears so stable, in spite of the personal tragedy and deprivations she had to endure at the hands of the Nazis. By way of contrast, in Meine Schwester Antigone the damage inflicted on the

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narrator’s identity by National Socialism lies at the root of her soulsearching in the narrative present of the late 1970s. Indeed, the novel can be seen as an impressionistic rendition of an ongoing crisis. The narrator’s guilt at not having resisted the Nazis effectively, resulting in her feelings of complicity in the fate of her husband, underpins her obsession with Antigone, who according to the myth as dramatised by Sophocles and Aeschylus defied her uncle’s decree that her brother’s body should not receive a proper burial and therefore emerges as a potential figure of identification for the narrator.16 Starting on the ‘Tag des Entsetzens, der 30. Januar 33’, the Nazis gradually eroded ‘fast alles, was zu uns gehört’: ‘Land, Sprache, Sicherheit und schließlich die eigene Identität’ (A, 181). The novel explores very effectively the disorientating effects of emigration, described not as ‘der Sturz aus der eigenen Klasse in eine tiefere’, but more dramatically as a ‘Fallen ins Bodenlose’ (A, 182). The choice of a country to escape to is likened to a game of roulette: ‘Ich bin die Kugel auf der Scheibe, im Kreis herumgeschleudert’ (A, 183). By describing the experience in such physically unsettling terms, she has already formulated an answer to the question she poses moments later: ‘Ist Identitätsverlust wirklich ein Unglück?’ (A, 183). It is evident that Weil herself suffered a comparable disorientation, and so the sensation of being ‘bodenlos’ in exile naturally pervades the second half of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben as well: Alles ist fremd, sobald ich die Straße betrete. Ich weine jeden Tag. Die andere Sprache, die fremden Menschen, das flache Land. Sogar die Kühe haben eine andere Farbe als in Bayern. (L, 136)

In Amsterdam, Weil is forced to realise ‘dass man nicht mitzureden hat, ein Ausgestoßener ist, ein Niemand, unwichtig für die Umgebung. Unwichtig für sich selbst’ (L, 136). Yet the author displays considerable personal resilience in the face of adversity, and two factors may be adduced in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben to account for not only her ability ultimately to withstand the pressure exerted on her sense of self – the success of which Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben embodies –, but also her determination to return to Germany after the war. The first is her Jewish background, which was far from typical. The second factor was her strong attachment to her Heimat, which as the text reveals comprises different elements. These 16

It is interesting to note that Jean Anouilh also adapted the myth, producing a highly successful play in 1944 as an allegorical picture of the situation in Occupied France.

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two factors combined to form an individuation framework stable enough to protect the author’s identity, despite undergoing the most terrible stress. To describe Weil’s Jewish upbringing as unconventional is not to exaggerate. In the tellingly titled chapter ‘Lebensgefährlich, Jüdin zu sein’, the author details how insignificant Judaism was in her family life prior to 1933, although it was subsequently to have such a devastating impact upon them all, as it was for Ruth Klüger and Jean Améry, both of whom had similiarly loose attachments to Judaism. The author makes it abundantly clear that the family’s Jewishness could not be ascribed to any religious conviction: ‘Wir gingen weder zur Kirche noch zur Synagoge, sprachen keine Gebete, redeten nicht über Gott, ganz sicher nicht über Jahwe’ (L, 73). Indeed, they celebrated Christmas and Easter, and shared a pattern of existence with those people around them in a community in which they were fully assimilated: ‘In diesen [großbürgerlich-intellektuellen] Kreisen hat man in der Weimarer Republik nur wenig Antisemitismus gespürt’ (NDE, 171). Even in the narrative present, the author is still hardpressed therefore to define what it is to be Jewish: ‘Jude, was ist das? Ich habe es als Mädchen nicht gewusst und weiß es heute auch nicht genau’ (L, 74). It is telling that Weil only retained her Jewish identity as a young woman on account of her father’s persuasive influence. As a successful lawyer, her father was a member of the Jewish council in Munich, despite never having been in a synagogue in his life. Nevertheless, he rejected his daughter’s argument that belonging to the Jewish community was ‘verlogen’, countering that it would be ‘feige, aus seinem Jüdischsein davonzulaufen zu wollen und man müsse aus vielen Gründen die Tradition aufrechterhalten’ (L, 21). That the precise nature of the tradition remained nebulous is selfevident in Weil’s inability to locate a stable definition: […] Dann bin ich geneigt, gewisse positive Eigenschaften wie hohe Sensibilität oder auch Gerechtigkeitssinn für jüdisch zu halten, obwohl ich genau weiß, dass es überall Sensibilität und Gerechtigkeitssinn gibt, so gut wie unsensible und ungerechte Juden. Auch mit diesem Unterscheidungsmerkmal ist es also nichts. Was ist das: ‘Jude’? (L, 77)

Only much later did it become clear to the author that to be Jewish was a ‘Todesurteil’ (L, 77). It is no surprise to find that Jean Améry proposes an identical definition in Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: ‘Wenn das von der Gesellschaft über mich verhängte Urteil einen greifbaren Sinn hatte, konnte es nur bedeuten, ich sei fürderhin dem Tode ausgesetzt’ (JSS, 134).

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If the full implications of her Jewish background initially remained beyond her grasp, rooted in an indefinable concept of family tradition, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben explains how the exact contours of this heritage were ultimately to be shaped by forces external to the family. In reality, Weil’s Jewish identity was effectively imposed from the outside, by means of official documents such as school registration forms and burgeoning anti-Semitism in Bavaria. The family suffered several incidences of prejudice: she and her brother were excluded from the Munich branch of the Alpenverein ‘ohne Angabe von Gründen’ (L, 76); she and other Jews were not invited to the party of a girl whose father was a doctor ‘mit zahlreichen jüdischen Patienten’ (L, 75); and her father, despite encouragement from some colleagues, never became chairman of the Munich Anwaltskammer, discovering ‘lange vor Hitler, dass es nicht gut sei, wenn ein Jude einen so einflussreichen Posten innehabe’ (L, 20). Weil describes these events simply as ‘Ablehnungen’ (L, 75), thereby playing down their significance and revealing how it was possible at the time to underestimate the incipient threat. Weil cites a letter her father wrote to the local mayor of Egern complaining about anti-Semitic graffiti on the road outside their house: Der Brief meines Vaters, der sich beschwerte und meinte, es schade dem Ansehen des Ortes, und der Bürgermeister könne etwas dagegen tun, ist naiv, aber im Mai 1935 war man eben noch naiv und ahnte auch nach zwei Jahren der Nazi-Herrschaft nicht, was kommen würde. (L, 51)

Weil is relieved that her dying father never knew that a doctor refused to treat him in hospital because he was Jewish. Following the arrest of Edgar Weil in the wave of measures that followed the Reichstag fire in 1933, the author and her husband knew that emigration was inevitable. Where once the family had been able to remain relatively oblivious to the scale of anti-Semitism, apart from the few occasions when it impinged upon them, the inherent dangers of persecution now the Nazis were in power could be ignored no longer. Weil’s reaction to the release of Edgar underlines her greater appreciation of the threat now posed: ‘Es war einer der schönsten Momente, wenn nicht überhaupt der allerschönste Augenblick meines Lebens’ (L, 109). Even though Judaism had played a negligible role in the lives of both hitherto, they were confronted after the advent of Hitler by the ramifications of their Jewishness as never before, in an environment that others were

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moulding around them. In this way, Weil’s experience tallies once more with Améry’s: Ich brauchte [die Nürnberger Gesetze] nur zu überfliegen und konnte schon gewahr werden, daß sie auf mich zutrafen. Die Gesellschaft, sinnfällig im nationalsozialistischen deutschen Staat, den durchaus die Welt als legitimen Vertreter des deutschen Volkes anerkannte, hatte mich soeben in aller Form und mit aller Deutlichkeit zum Juden gemacht, beziehungsweise sie hatte meinem früher schon vorhandenen, aber damals nicht folgenschweren Wissen, daß ich Jude sei, eine neue Dimension gegeben. (JSS, 134)

In exile in Amsterdam, following the German invasion and the installation of Seyß-Inquart as Reichskommissar in 1940, the implementation of the first anti-Jewish laws in the Netherlands effectively set the seal on this process. As Weil observes in the preamble to the second part of the autobiography: ‘Die Zeiten der Verfolgung, des Gejagtwerdens haben sich mir tief eingeprägt, wie die Nummern im Arm der Auschwitzhäftlinge’ (L, 127). It is not simply the experiences of persecution per se which have become imprinted in her. One can adduce from Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, and the second half of the text in particular, the extent to which her Jewish identity as a whole was scored into her sense of self by these experiences, which were initiated by the Nazis and reached their most terrifying manifestation in exile. Is it not inappropriate then to assert that Weil’s Jewish identity, imposed from outside and bearing such a terrible personal price, can still be interpreted as a contributory factor to her personal resilience? Weil herself corroborates the validity of this assertion, when she ponders how to define Jewishness: Eines ist zu der unklaren Definition hinzugekommen; Ich bin Teil einer Gemeinschaft des Leidens, der Schmerzen. Kann ich davon wegkommen? Offensichtlich nicht. (L, 74)

However reluctantly, the author concedes that the suffering appears indeed to have given her a means by which to relate to her background, to understand what it means to be Jewish. What emerges in her account in the wake of Edgar’s death and during the period of the deportations of Jews from the Netherlands, is the manner in which she channelled her grief and the experience of persecution into resistance, albeit with great difficulty: Ich lebe noch, obwohl es mehr ein Vegetieren ist. Sich auflösen in Schmerz. Noch immer hält man es für ein schreckliches Einzelschicksal. Ich muss es hinnehmen, die Tränen zurückdrängen,

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wenn ich einem jungen Paar begegne. Und aufpassen, dass ich selbst am Leben bleibe. Der Widerstand, die große Aufgabe. (L, 163)

The determination to fight on, ‘ihnen auf keinen Fall freiwillig in die Hände [zu] laufen’ (L, 165) underpins the remainder of the text, and in many respects is reminiscent of one of the most famous of German exile novels, Das siebte Kreuz (1942). In the novel, Anna Seghers, herself a Jewish exile who was forced to flee to Paris in 1933 and thence to Mexico in 1941, depicts the successful escape from Westhofen concentration camp of one man, Georg Heisler, who is aided by the kindness and courage of friends and strangers. It is a remarkable story, which uncovers the author’s inherent optimism, deriving from her unshakeable faith in human spirit, that National Socialism would ultimately fall because it would never fully extinguish the essence of humanity. The concluding words of the novel are significant in this regard: ‘Wir fühlten alle, wie tief und furchtbar die äußeren Mächte in den Menschen hineingreifen können, bis in sein Innerstes, aber wir fühlten auch, daß es im Innersten etwas gab, was unangreifbar war und unverletzbar’.17 The same indomitable spirit pervades the second half of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, as exemplified by the author and those around her, and corroborates the authenticity of Seghers’s fictional manifestation of her conviction, which may well have appeared hopelessly idealistic in 1942.18 Despite strong reservations about the morality of her decision, Weil was able to secure employment with the Jüdischer Rat in Amsterdam, initially as a photographer and then ultimately as a secretary. The realisation that work for the council in some capacity would facilitate the rescue of some Jews eased her doubts considerably: ‘Ich wäre wohler, ich wäre nicht dabei gewesen, wenn ich mir nichts vorzuwerfen habe, im Gegenteil, es ist mir gelungen, ein paar Erwachsene (durch Überreden, doch noch unterzutauchen) und viele Kinder (durch Überreden der Eltern, sie in christliche Familien zu geben) zu retten’ (L, 166). In addition, Weil also derived personal benefits from her position, ‘denn die Mitglieder des Jüdischen Rats erhalten einen Stempel in den Personalausweis mit dem großen roten “J”, dass sie bis auf weiteres vom Arbeitseinsatz in Deutschland freigestellt sind’ (L, 166). In this way, Weil’s mother, who had joined her daughter in Amsterdam by this time, was also protected, albeit protection of a temporary, and exceedingly tenuous, 17

Seghers, p. 453. By way of contrast, as we have seen in Chapter 3, Ruth Klüger expresses reservations about Seghers’s novel.

18

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nature: ‘Länger als bis “auf weiteres” kann und will ohnehin niemand denken’ (L, 166). Thus, the author made sure she always worked at night, as most arrests were made in the evening ‘und solange ich da bin, besteht eine Möglichkeit, Mutter frei zu bekommen, sollte sie geholt werden’ (L, 167). Through her work for the Jewish Council, Weil was able to develop a network of contacts similar to the one depicted in Das siebte Kreuz that manages to spirit Heisler away to the Netherlands. Potential hiding-places for friends and family were established and, where possible, advance warnings of police raids could be relied upon with a little good fortune to provide enough time for escape. Weil celebrates the courage of the Dutch who risked their lives to help the Jews, and while the picture of such solidarity is heartwarming, the author does not conceal the tension that nevertheless marked relationships between Dutch and German Jews: ‘Wir sind für die holländischen Juden, was einst die Ostjuden für uns waren, fremd, abzulehnen. Außerdem glauben manche, dass ihr Land ohne uns deutsch-jüdische Emigranten nie von den Nazis erobert worden wäre’ (L, 169).19 In a letter from 1947, written by Weil to the Jewish author Margarete Susman and which forms the basis of the concluding chapter of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, the author endeavours to explain what her Jewish background means to her. It seems clear that this identity, thrust upon her by those who made her wear a yellow star, was predicated on a rationale for survival and the will to fight against the persecutors: […] In diesen langen Jahren habe ich versucht zu lernen, Ja zum Leben zu sagen. Wenn ich es jetzt kann (trotz vieler Stunden der Anfechtung), so ist es wohl nur aus meinem Jüdischsein heraus erklärbar, und ich nehme es dankbar hin als Wunder, das unser stets auf das Äußerste gerichtete und der Vernichtung preisgegebene Leben bewahrt und trägt. (L, 251)

The will to resist that Weil derived from her Jewishness helped her tackle the senselessness and despair. Yet, with the liberation, the enforced nature of this identity became problematic once more. If individuation is truly a relational process, as Eakin convincingly argues, where the self is shaped by external forces, attitudes or values, then National Socialism can be seen to have crystallised Weil’s Jewishness more fundamentally than her own family. Her determination not to submit, not to be exterminated for being a Jew, 19

Jonathan Glover eulogises the willingness of the Dutch to harbour Jews and defy the Germans during the occupation in his study (H, 385).

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derived from her experience of the univers concentrationnaire: ‘Die Nazis wollten mich umbringen, also hatte ich die Pflicht, dafür zu sorgen, daß sie es nicht tun konnten’ (NDE, 178). With the fall of National Socialism, however, and the disappearance of this imperative, it ironically appears that Weil’s Jewish sense of self lost definition. An identity formed in extremis clearly lacks a genuinely wholesome foundation to enable it to endure once that threat no longer exists. After the war the author did not join the newly formed Jewish community, ‘weil ich es für ausreichend fand, dass ich mich vor aller Welt in meinen Büchern als Jüdin bekannte’ (L, 21). Tellingly, Weil confesses to Susman how, despite the strength she derived from Judaism, she has failed ‘das Volkshafte des Judentums für mich zu akzeptieren’ (L, 251). Her admission is not simply a reaction to the tension she witnessed between Dutch and German Jews, although it did have an impact upon her, but primarily an acknowledgement that her true sense of self has been shaped by stronger, more fully-rounded and organic influences: ‘Ich habe die Heimat Deutschland verloren und keine andere dafür gefunden’ (L, 252). Important though Judaism undoubtedly became for Weil in adversity, it is her attachment to what she perceives as her Heimat that appears the more potent formative influence. In this respect, then, Weil’s situation stands in direct contrast to Ruth Klüger’s, for whom it is her Jewishness – also imposed upon her by the Nazis – that becomes the fundamental touchstone of identity, rather than her Heimat. Precisely how one defines the elements that constitute Heimat – a concept peculiar to debates on the nature of German identity – has remained a vexed issue on account of its variegated application in cultural and political discourse over recent centuries. In their very engaging study of the concept, Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman have teased out the connotations contained within the term, finding cultural examples that reflect its multifaceted nature. It is the revelation by Boa and Palfreyman of the oppositional forces intrinsic to the concept of Heimat that is of especial pertinence to our exploration of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben. The constellations of town versus country or reaction versus progression in themselves are not uncommon, and one need only look at recent debates in the United Kingdom concerning attitudes to the countryside, asylum seekers, Islam, Celtic nationalism or Europe for evidence of how these are not merely German concerns. What is fundamentally German, however, is the relationship between regional and national affiliations, and the issue of where one’s Heimat is located. Boa and Palfreyman illustrate

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how these different forces remained, and remain, in a state of flux ‘as individuals struggled to find stable ground from which to cope with rapid change, to forge a liveable identity’.20 But are these affiliations geographical, political, cultural, linguistic, ethnic? Boa and Palfreyman examine the definitions coined by Eduard Spranger in the 1920s, and point up how his initially organic concept of one’s subjective attachment to an area, with its decidedly socialist flavour, was infiltrated by a more racist strain with the onset of National Socialism. By adding ‘the collective concept of the Volk to his original definition which had been couched in individual psychological terms’, Spranger introduced terminology with exclusively racial connotations.21 As Boa and Palfreyman observe, anti-Semitism was to become useful, and potent, in any definition of German identity: Anti-Semitism served at once to sustain German identity by providing the antagonistic figure of the alien, non-German other, but also to fuel anxiety of dilution of identity through infiltration: if the eastern Jew in caricature represented a radically different, alien being, almost more laden with hatred was the stereotype of the assimilated western Jew who was identified with international capitalism and portrayed as a mimic who could never become a true German but who, without roots in a Heimat or national identity of his own, might infiltrate and undermine German identity. These two figures fulfilled different roles in the reactionary version of Heimat discourse in that Jews could be portrayed both as an archaically demonic threat and as the very acme of a rootlessly cosmopolitan modernity which threatened to destroy 22 traditional community values.

The case of Grete Weil, however, simply underlines the fallacy of this racist notion of identity. According to the above definition, the author technically belonged to the more insidious type of Jew. Yet, as she remarks, a ‘beliebtes Thema’ in her family was: ‘Wer steht einem näher, ein bayerischer Bauer oder ein Jude aus Polen?’: Für Mutter, Fritz und mich […] war es der bayerische Bauer, schon weil wir nichts, aber auch gar nichts über den Juden aus Polen wussten. An welche Gebräuche hielt er sich? In welcher Sprache redete er mit seinem Gott? Hebräisch? Polnisch? Jiddisch? (L, 74)

Even if the Weil family did not subscribe to the disparaging stereotype of the eastern Jew, he was certainly an ‘alien being’ with whom they 20

Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman, Heimat – A German Dream: Regional Loyalties and National Identity in German Culture 1890-1990 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), p. 2. 21 Ibid., p. 6. 22 Ibid., p. 7.

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had nothing in common. The Nazis saw it differently, and Judaism was ultimately to become a vital Notgemeinschaft for Weil and her family. In contrast to the provisional nature of her Jewish identity, and despite everything she experienced at the hands of the Nazis, Grete Weil had been raised a German, and remained a German. That sense of identity was unshakeable, withstanding the disorientation and terror of exile and persecution because Weil’s attachment to her Heimat ultimately proved to be so strong and well-defined. By way of contrast and to underline the highly individual way in which victims of the Holocaust have worked through their experiences, it is interesting to note that for Jean Améry the loss of his Heimat was irrevocable and had severe ramifications on his sense of self: ‘Die Heimat ist das Kindheits- und Jugendland. Wer sie verloren hat, bleibt ein Verlorener’ (JSS, 84). His adoption of a French pseudonym emphatically underlined his feeling that his homeland had now become a ‘Feindheimat’ (JSS, 85) with which he no longer wanted contact. And yet he concedes that he was trapped in a paradox, for ‘es nicht gut [ist], keine Heimat zu haben’ (JSS, 101). Although Améry was no longer able to view his own Heimat as inviolate, which had consequences for his sense of self, his observations nonetheless illustrate the importance of Heimat to identity formation. Thus Boa and Palfreyman’s thesis that the concept of Heimat has endured in German debates because it ‘connote[s] a deep-seated psychological need, which may even be intrinsic to identity formation’ finds a degree of corroboration in both Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben and Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne, albeit in contrasting ways.23 The formative forces which shaped Weil, as outlined in the first part of her narrative, stemmed from what Boa and Palfreyman call the ‘spatio-temporal Heimat’, defined as ‘the notion of a linking or connecting of the self with something larger through a process of identification signified by a spatial metaphor’ (H, 23). In Weil’s case, this connection was achieved through her personal relationships, as well as a deep-rooted affection for the areas she grew up in. The manner and conditions of her return to Germany from exile in 1947 reveal just how potent these ties were. The importance of Weil’s relationships to her notion of self is axiomatic from the title of her autobiography, and its implications are reinforced by the myriad mini-portraits of family and friends that 23

Ibid., p. 23.

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comprise the opening section of the narrative. The picture is formed of a happy, secure and supportive family environment, in which all relationships were of immense value to the author. The one exception proving the rule in this regard was her grandmother, on the subject of whom Weil displays a decidedly atypical vehemence: ‘Ich hasste sie, hasste sie wirklich […]. In unzähligen Schulstunden beschäftigte ich mich mit dem Gedanken, wie ich sie am besten beseitigen könnte, ohne mir dadurch allzu sehr zu schaden’ (L, 36). Weil readily acknowledges the benefits she derived from her very privileged background, all the more so for the privations she subsequently suffered during the Third Reich. Just how essential her relationships were to Weil emerges in the wake of Edgar’s death, when she sobs: ‘Ich kann nicht allein leben’ (L, 162). The potted biographies of those close to her are fleshed out lovingly with accompanying photographs allowing the readers to form a more substantial picture of these influential figures. The important stability provided by her parents underpins the first section of the text. It is clear that Weil was closer to her gentle father, whose looks and temperament she inherited and whose love of his daughter was so deep that it imbued her with ‘Kraft für mein langes, wahrhaft nicht immer einfaches Leben’ (L, 15). Conversely, her relationship with her more robust mother was more vexed: ‘Ich dachte oft, wie sehr könnte ich sie lieben, wenn sie bloß nicht meine Mutter wäre’ (L, 22). But for all the conflict generated by her mother’s attempts to shape her along more traditional gender lines, Weil acknowledges that her dependability was to prove invaluable, especially when their experiences of persecution brought them closer together. In a short anecdotal chapter entitled ‘Die Eltern’, the author eulogises the warmth that radiated from her parents, with an idyllic picture of marital, and indeed familial, bliss. The chapter appears almost trivial alongside the more disturbing sections that follow it, yet its significance as a celebration of humanity and affection should not be overlooked for this very reason. The importance of Weil’s relationships can be seen most clearly in the chapters devoted to her brother, Fritz, and her two husbands, Edgar and Walter. Weil is very candid about how close she was to Fritz, making no effort to conceal the vaguely incestuous overtones: ‘Sollten Sie uns nur für ein Liebespaar halten, in gewisser Weise waren wir es’ (L, 33). In truth, the siblings were kindred spirits who shared many passions and Fritz’s death opens an ‘unendliche Leere’ in the author: ‘Jetzt war auch der nächste Mensch von mir

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gegangen’ (L, 35). The physical expression of Weil’s grief at this point in the text prefigures her reaction to Edgar’s arrest and subsequent death, and illustrates the intimacy of these relationships. These people appear to have been quite literally a part of Weil, so that when she writes of falling in love with Edgar ‘dass wir uns an diesem Tag ineinander verliebten, so sehr, dass wir nie mehr voneinander loskamen’ (L, 58), it is hard to resist a literal interpretation of her statement. In this respect, we have arguably the most fully-rounded embodiment of Eakin’s thesis of the relational self in the present study. As Exner remarks: […] Die Erfahrung, daß sie nur aufgrund der jüdischen Abstammung von einem bürokratischen Apparat verfolgt wurde und für die Vernichtung vorgesehen war, hatte ihr Selbstwertgefühl beeinträchtigt und verändert. Die Tatsache, daß sie den gewaltsamen Tod Edgar Weils überlebt hatte, obwohl sie davon ausgegangen war, eine untrennbare Einheit mit ihm zu bilden, hatte diese Erfahrung noch 24 verstärkt.

Weil’s autobiography lends considerable weight to Eakin’s contention that when approaching the genre one must consider ‘the extent to which the self is defined by – and lives in terms of – its relations with others’ (HOL, 43). Edgar is described as ‘die ganz große Liebe meines Lebens’ (L, 58), and his importance to the author underpins the whole autobiography. Their love is depicted as being utterly unconditional, intense and sensuous. For example, the author admits that she cannot travel past Heidelberg without being moved by the memory of their first kiss after a day trip there as youngsters. By way of contrast, his release from custody in 1933 is described as ‘einer der schönsten Momente, wenn nicht überhaupt der allerschönste Augenblick meines Lebens’ (L, 109). Weil’s world revolved around her first husband. She derived stability from him to such an extent that when his life was under threat in Holland, her actions were governed solely by the desire to protect him, to the exclusion of all others, including her mother. With the outbreak of war, Weil suffered severe migraines for the first, and last, time in her life on account of her ‘rasende Angst um Edgar’ (L, 146). As the German invasion of the Netherlands began, Weil and Edgar cocooned themselves in their apartment for four days making love and immersing themselves in Goethe’s poetry. Although it appears on one level to be quite an idyllic period ‘weitab von der Realität’ (L, 148), devoting themselves to each other, in truth it is 24

Exner, p. 56.

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simply a desperate, and ultimately futile, attempt to combat fear: ‘Wir sind allein. Allein in unserer Not und lieben uns’ (L, 148). By juxtaposing the intense sensuality of these ‘Tage der größten Nähe zwischen Edgar und mir’ (L, 148) with the fate of the Netherlands, Weil intensifies that sense of desperation. One intuits from the scene that the couple subconsciously realised their days together were numbered. Presented with a fleeting opportunity to escape with Edgar, at the expense of leaving her mother behind, Weil did not hesitate: ‘Ich muss Edgar retten’ (L, 150). Only later was she plagued by doubts as to how her brother would react to this decision: Was aber sage ich, wenn er mich nach Mutter fragt? Wird er mir Vorwürfe machen, mich für hartherzig und egoistisch halten? Ich tröste mich damit, dass Fritz optimischer ist als ich, er wird bestimmt finden, dass einer alten Frau schon nichts geschehen wird. So schlecht kennen wir noch immer den Faschismus. (L, 150-51)

But the escape bid was in vain, and the following month Weil experienced directly the terror of fascism with Edgar’s incarceration and death. In view of Weil’s close relationship with her husband, Exner argues that this event has remained central to her work: ‘Die Verhaftung, Deportation und Ermordung Edgar Weils waren für Grete Weil eine traumatische Erfahrung. In ihren literarischen Texte berichtete sie nicht nur von der Verfolgung der niederländischen Juden, sondern immer auch vom gewaltsamen Tod ihres ersten Mannes’.25 By the time news of Edgar’s death reached the author, she had already abandoned her plan to commit suicide on account of her mother: ‘Ich kann Mutter nicht das antun, was mir gerade angetan worden ist’ (L, 161). Despite the severity of her grief, Weil fights against wallowing in it – ‘Ich kann auch nicht Romeo und Julia spielen’ (L, 161) – and affirms her faith in community and in trying to preserve human ideals. Naturally, her mother is a key figure in this regard, but so too the young couple’s friend, Walter, arguably the most interesting figure in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben. Despite the intensity of Weil’s love for Edgar, she makes no secret of her strong affinity with his friend. That he is by her side shortly after Edgar’s death is indicative of their feelings for one another, as she acknowledges: ‘Wenn ich nach Edgars Tod völlig verzweifelt war und nicht mehr leben wollte, war ja immer noch Walter da, der einzige Mensch, mit dem ich mir ein gemeinsames Leben vorstellen konnte’ 25

Exner, p.46.

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(L, 143). Walter, who was not Jewish, remained in Germany and was eventually conscripted into the army, albeit in a non-aggressive capacity. Weil attributes her relatively swift return to Germany to her feelings for Walter, who thereby acquires a symbolic quality for the author as the sole tie with her homeland to survive the war. Her decision to return offers further evidence, if any were needed, that her perception of Heimat was to a large degree predicated on associations of an intensely personal, and relational, nature. Although friendships are integral to Weil’s perception of Heimat, one should not ignore the geographical dimension that anchors it. An entire chapter is devoted to ‘Orte der Handlung’, which makes this spatial foundation explicit. Munich remained important to Weil throughout her life, and it was where she spent her last years. In the context of Weil’s experiences under National Socialism, however, the most striking association is with the village of Egern, near the Tegernsee. The Weils’ domestic idyll dovetails seamlessly with the warm descriptions of ‘ein stilles, verträumtes Dorf’ (L, 47), where the family owned a house. The recollections are sensuous and vivid, evoking the sights, sounds and smells of life before National Socialism, and thus enshrine an idealised mode of existence that was to endure for the author. Even when confronted with the desolation left after the war, Weil is moved to emphasise: ‘Es ist Heimat wie eh und je’ (L, 245). She confirms, therefore, that her attachment to the place, and its importance to her, transcends the purely superficial. In physical terms, things may have changed, but at a deeper, one might say more spiritual, level, these ties are inviolate, transcending the purely socio-political and historical. Weil had intimated as much earlier in the narrative while describing how anti-Semitism had begun to permeate life in the village: Ein Ort, in dem man zu Hause ist, wirklich zu Hause, auch dann noch, als über dem Ortsschild ein Transparent mit der Aufschrift hängt: ‘Juden betreten den Ort auf eigene Gefahr.’ Das Transparent macht die Menschen hässlicher, nicht den Ort. Der Ort wird erst hässlich, als der Massentourismus einsetzt. (L, 50)

That the idyll embodied by Egern could not be tarnished for Weil, tallies with Boa and Palfreyman’s assertion that ‘Heimat is an intrinsically conservative value connoting originary or primary factors in identity, or at least it expresses the longing, perhaps illusory, for such an absolute foundation or unchanging essence’.26 The author 26

Boa and Palfreyman, p. 23.

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speaks of her ‘Verbundenheit’ (L, 47) with the area, citing how it shaped her lasting love of mountains in particular, and thereby pointing up its formative influence upon her in general. In her case at least, the affiliation with these locations was certainly not illusory. Indeed, one might employ Améry’s term ‘Heimatverwurzelung’ (JSS, 81) to underline more strongly the sense of rootedness that Weil seeks to describe in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben. Just how fundamental these locations were to her sense of identity is brought home to her by her forcible exclusion from them, as it was with Améry who experienced a comparable disorientation in Belgium. The shock of having to relocate to Amsterdam proved hard to bear for Weil, who hated Holland at first sight: ‘Zu flach für mich, zu fremd, die Menschen zu unattraktiv, zu farblos in ihren ewigen Regenmänteln’ (L, 128). Her eventual appreciation of ‘die Schönheit des weiten Himmels mit den hochgetürmten Wolken, das intensive Licht, die Zuverlässigkeit der Menschen’ (L, 129) is mitigated starkly by the fact that her relationship to Amsterdam will forever bear the scars of her wartime experiences there: Ich gehe durch eine schöne, eine besetzte Stadt und wäre nicht erstaunt, wenn mir deutsche Soldaten über den Weg liefen, mich nach meinen Papieren fragten. Die Zeiten der Verfolgung, des Gejagtwerdens haben sich mir tief eingeprägt […] Für mich bleibt Amsterdam besetzt. Die arme Stadt kann nichts dagegen tun. Ich kann auch nichts dagegen tun. Es ist so. (L, 127)

The extent to which these experiences have made a lasting impression on Weil’s identity is axiomatic, but they stand in stark contrast to the positive and ultimately protective influence of her Heimat upon her. For Amsterdam connotes terror and loss, rather than warmth and support. Although Weil’s mother had no desire to return to Egern, remaining in Holland after the war, the author herself longed to leave Amsterdam: ‘Bei mir war es anders, ich wollte unbedingt wieder hin. Es war meine Heimat, nach der ich mich zurücksehnte’ (L, 142). Irrespective of the fact that a return home at the time of the Third Reich would have signified a death sentence, and that she justified her work at the Jewish Council as a way to avoid deportation back to Germany and to certain death, the author cannot still her longing for the essential security – the ‘unchanging essence’ – of familiar surroundings. Exile did not just make Weil miss friends and home; crucially she missed her native language too. ‘Die andere Sprache’ (L, 136) on

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the streets of Amsterdam underlines her detachment from all that she holds dear. Just how damaging this dislocation had been is evinced by the author’s reaction to being back in Germany for the first time after the war: ‘Ich befinde mich in einem Glücksrausch, weil alle Menschen Deutsch sprechen’ (L, 244). That the sound of her native tongue can evoke such a delighted response reveals how fundamental to her sense of identity it is, and yet, despite having always wanted to write since she was a child, Weil suggests that it was only in exile that her love of the German language, and crucially a true appreciation of its importance, became clear to her: ‘Habe ich vor der Emigration und dem erzwungenen Holländisch-Reden gewusst, wie sehr ich die deutsche Sprache liebe?’ (L, 78). Her appreciation of the value of literature was similarly enhanced by her horrific experiences, as reading sustained her through the dark days of hiding in Amsterdam: ‘Die erste Zeit des Untertauchens hätte ich wohl nicht überstanden, wenn an meinem Untertauchort nicht eine große Bibliothek gewesen wäre’ (L, 80). That she should wish to record her experiences in writing comes as no surprise either. Whilst in hiding, she produced a sombre drama, the ‘Weihnachtslegende 1943’, reproduced in its entirety in Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben and the allegorical nature of which might be compared with Borchert’s Draußen vor der Tür. Then, shortly after the end of the war she began work on her ‘Deportationsgeshichte’ (L, 239), Ans Ende der Welt, that was to become her first publication in 1949. In the later chapters of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, one senses the extent to which she felt it morally incumbent upon her to produce a personal testimony, which could only be realised through the medium of German: ‘Ich will schreiben, deutsch schreiben, in einer anderen Sprache ist es mir unmöglich, und dazu brauche ich eine Umgebung, in der die Menschen Deutsch sprechen’ (L, 236). As a result of the persecution she was subjected to, the impression abides at the conclusion of the text that it was the forcible suppression of her language that ultimately represented the greatest threat to her sense of self, as if a loss of the means of expressing herself in German would forever obstruct her reckoning with this painfully difficult past. Whereas her family and locational ties remained stable, enshrined safely within her as a source of strength to fight on, her linguistic capacities were desperately fragile as long as she was in exile. For this reason, it was imperative that Weil return home: Ich will nach Hause, auch wenn ich weiß, dass alles, was ich früher geliebt habe, nicht mehr existiert. Ich will dorthin, wo ich

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Weil’s position has much in common with Jean Améry, who similarly points out how a loss of Heimat essentially robs one of one’s native language: Dem Verhältnis zur Heimat verwandt war in den Jahren des Exils die Beziehung zur Muttersprache. In einem ganz bestimmten Sinn haben wir auch sie verloren und können kein Rückerstattungsverfahren einleiten. […] Statt von einem ‘Abbröckeln’ der Muttersprache würde ich lieber von ihrer Schrumpfung sprechen. Wir bewegten uns nämlich nicht nur in der fremden Sprache, sondern auch, wenn wir uns des Deutschen bedienten, im enger zusammenrückenden Raum eines sich ständig wiederholenden Vokabulars. […] Wir drehten uns allemal im Kreis der gleichen Themen, gleichen Wörter, gleichen Phrasen, und höchstens bereicherten wir unsere Rede aufs häßlichste durch die nachlässige Einführung von Formeln aus der Sprache des Gastlandes. (JSS, 88-9)

Although Weil had to suppress her native tongue in Amsterdam, she was at least able to return to Germany and reclaim it; for Améry, who was unable to contemplate a return home, the atrophy was irrevocable. For Hilde Domin, another exile, the opportunity to return home represented an essential liberation of language in much the same way that Weil experienced it: Es war […] nicht nur das Glück, die eigene Sprache sprechen zu dürfen und sprechen zu hören. (Besonders regte es und regt es mich auf, den rheinischen Tonfall zu hören, als täten es die Leute mir zuliebe.) Es ist vor allem die Souveränität, die einer im Umgang mit der eigenen Sprache hat. […] Die Freude, frei sagen zu können, was ich will, wie ich es will, frei zu atmen und den Sprachduktus in Übereinstimmung mit der eigenen Atemführung zu spüren, das ist 27 eine der Hauptfreuden beim Wieder-Zuhause-Sein, für einen Autor.

Although she is speaking explicitly of the liberation she feels as an author, the existential connotations of Domin’s remarks – juxtaposing the freedom to speak with the process of breathing – and the way she reinforces the direct link between language and native Heimat – in her case in the Rhineland – have a universal application. In the case of Améry, through whose work a deep sense of despair percolates, the chance to regain one’s language cannot compensate for the violent persecution he has suffered. His work displays none of the euphoria

27 Hilde Domin, ‘Leben als Sprachodyssee’, in Gesammelte autobiographische Schriften: Fast ein Lebenslauf (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998), pp. 32-40 (p. 40).

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one witnesses in Domin; the reader gets instead an inescapable, disturbing sense of the inevitability of Améry’s eventual suicide. If not unequivocally euphoric, Weil was certainly relieved to find the essence of her Heimat had survived when she finally returned home. Even though she briefly considered settling somewhere else, it appeared a foregone conclusion that she would return to Germany; the precise timing, though, was contingent upon her relationship with Walter. The couple eventually meet in the postwar period with an understandable degree of trepidation, but any fears of estrangement between them are unfounded: ‘Die Nähe von früher ist wieder da, durch nichts zerstört’ (L, 244). Just as Weil’s affinity with Egern survived, so too her friendship with Walter. Exile and the ravages of National Socialism had not eroded the key foundations of her identity. That Weil was in possession of Dutch citizenship following 1945, by virtue of her work for the resistance, did not signal any attachment to her adopted country; it was purely a bureaucratic convenience allowing her to travel, and quickly became an irrelevance when she received a German passport soon thereafter.28 The concluding chapter of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben is the most telling with regard to the resilience of Weil’s sense of self. Structured around a large extract from a letter written in 1947 to the author Margarete Susman, it outlines the author’s reasons for returning so quickly after the collapse of the Third Reich.29 Weil herself underlines the letter’s inherent value as a contemporary document detailing her motives. At the time, many were incredulous about her decision, the addressee of the letter in particular, but the letter is an eloquent, and potent, expression of the author’s capacity to forgive. Weil admits that her decision is purely subjective and guided in part by her feelings for Walter, yet the capacity for forgiveness she displays is quite overwhelming, when one considers the suffering she had endured. Whereas Améry entertains ideas of retribution – ‘Ich hegte meine Ressentiments’ (JSS, 109) – Weil rejects any notion of exacting revenge from Germany. Instead, she proposes that the German nation be helped to help itself: Sicherlich muss ‘die deutsche Erde sich selbst reinigen’, aber wie der ausgetrocknete Boden des guten Regens bedarf, um wieder tragfähig zu werden, so warten die deutschen Menschen – nicht die Nazis, aber 28

See Giese, p. 221. See too Exner, p. 67. The letter, which Weil had forgotten about, was located in the Susman Nachlaß at the German National Literary Archive in Marbach and was printed in its entirety in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16-17 June 1994, p. 5.

29

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression die unzähligen, aus Trägheit des Herzens Schuldiggewordenen – auf den Bruder von draußen. Solange im Kern von Europa eine verdorrte Wüste ist, wird kein Leben in Frieden möglich sein. (L, 252-53)

In this way, Weil’s burgeoning relationship with Walter assumes symbolic importance that far exceeds their personal happiness: [Die wahrhaftige Verbindung eines Juden und eines deutschen Menschen] ist die einzig reale Überwindung des Satanischen, nach den Jahren des Unausdenkbaren inmitten des Chaos Freunde zurückzufinden und auch neuen Menschen zu begegnen, die, ohne Schaden an ihrer Seele zu nehmen, durch das Grauen hindurchgegangen sind. Ihre Zahl ist nicht klein, man muss nur den richtigen Ton anschlagen (und der richtige ist der selbstverständliche, der nicht richtende und nicht mitleidige), um wieder gemeinsamen Grund, den Grund des Nur-Menschlichen unter den Füßen zu haben. Es ist vor allem die Gemeinschaft mit einem Menschen, die mich zurückführt, und es ist wie ein ewiges Strömen des Lebens selbst, dass es gerade ein Deutscher ist, der mir heute am nächsten steht. (L, 25330 54)

On account of Weil’s personal suffering, one cannot impugn the sincerity of her letter, even if her rationale is articulated in rather ostentatious terms. But how do we account for the humanity and the faith in the German people that pervade this section? Weil confesses in the concluding paragraph that she has suffered like Heine from the binary constellation of being a German and a Jew – friends once defined her more specifically as a ‘Jüdin in bayrischer Landschaft’.31 Nevertheless, she maintains that the realisation of this duality was responsible for sustaining her optimism. If Heimat is, as Boa and Palfreyman propose, founded on ‘an antithetical mode of thinking in terms of identity and difference’, then nowhere was this constellation more damaging than during the Third Reich, which demonised the racially impure Other and utilised it to justify genocide.32 Who better then to facilitate reconciliation in the aftermath of National Socialism than a German Jew, whose Jewishness had been thrust upon her, but whose bond to her home had crucially not been severed and whose very identity, like Heine before her, was built on this supposed paradox? Her experiences had done nothing to diminish her German identity, unshakeably encapsulated in those qualities that both formed 30

Weil reinforces these views in her reception speech for the Geschwister-SchollPreis in 1988. See Grete Weil, ‘Nicht das ganze deutsche Volk’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 November 1988, p. 10. 31 Quoted in Exner, p. 9. 32 Boa and Palfreyman, p. 27.

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her attachment to her Heimat and inevitably drew her back where she knew she belonged: Deutschland ist mein Land. Ich bin eine Deutsche, eine deutsche Jüdin. Ich stamme aus dem deutschen Kulturkreis, deutsch ist meine Sprache. Hitler hat mich nicht zu seiner Schülerin gemacht, daß ich nun sage, eigentlich bin ich keine Deutsche. Ob ich es mag oder nicht – und sehr oft mag ich es nicht –, ich bin eine Deutsche. (NDE, 179)

That the essence of her identity as a German was intact inspired optimism that the past could be overcome, the wounds healed. In this respect, one can understand why Antigone might have been such an inspirational figure for the author: ‘Nicht mitzuhassen, mitzulieben bin ich da’ (A, 18). Weil’s contribution to the process of reconciliation is to be seen in essentially private terms, although it clearly has import on a broader level. When considering her motivation for writing in the earlier part of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, Weil makes her moral duty explicit: ‘Nach der Verfolgungszeit das Bedürfnis, davon zu erzählen. Zeuge zu sein. Weil so etwas nie mehr geschehen durfte’ (L, 78). The desire to make sense of such experiences in literature is by no means unique, of course, but anyone familiar with Weil’s work can attest to the consistency with which she has pursued this aim and fulfilled her self-imposed duty.33 The problems she faced in getting her début novel published merely strengthened her resolve to persevere in her task. Whilst it is no surprise that Ans Ende der Welt should have found a relatively contemporary audience in the GDR, it is more of a concern that it should have been largely ignored in the Federal Republic until 1987. Weil herself observed that the reception of her novel was ‘ein Indiz dafür, daß es erst späteren Generationen möglich wurde, sich mit der Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus offen auseinanderzusetzen’.34 And yet, her interpolation into Meine Schwester Antigone of a Wehrmacht officer’s eye-witness account of the liquidation of the Petrikau ghetto in Poland, which covers roughly one-seventh of the text, was completely ignored by critics, much to her dismay: ‘Die Kritik schweigt diese Aufzeichnungen tot. […] Für mich ist das ein Symptom dafür, wie wenig man wirklich bereit ist, 33

Günter de Bruyn has described his motivation in terms strikingly similar to Grete Weil: ‘Erst die Kriegserlebnisse, die mich schockierten, änderten meine Schreibmotivationen. Sie bereicherten sie um Aufklärerisches, ohne dabei von mir wegzuführen; denn der Stoff, der sich mir anbot, war Selbsterlebtes, und die Aufgabe war selbstgestellt. Das Glück, überlebt zu haben, verpflichtete mich, wie mir schien, auch wahrheitsgetreu Bericht darüber zu geben, wie es gewesen war’ (EI, 15). 34 Quoted in Exner, p. 71.

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sich ehrlich mit der eigenen Geschichte auseinanderzusetzen’ (NDE, 180). It seemed that still in 1980 there was a reluctance to confront the past, even in the wake of the broadcast of the American television film, Holocaust, which as Ernestine Schlant has indicated, provided a ‘jolt […] to German awareness of the Holocaust’.35 In this way, Weil’s canon can be viewed as the necessary continuation of the confrontation with the past that authors such as Heinrich Böll began. She prefers the term ‘Trauerarbeit’ over ‘Bewältigung’; ‘Trauerarbeit kann man leisten, der Begriff “Bewältigung” verlangt, daß etwas zu bewältigen ist, was niemals bewältigt werden kann, weder von Tätern noch von den Opfern’ (NDE, 180). Weil’s choice of the word ‘Bedürfnis’ to describe her motivation to bear witness to what occurred hints at an emotional imperative, a therapeutic need to exorcise her demons in her writing which remains deeply personal rather than public. For the narrator of Meine Schwester Antigone, the emotional scars are deep indeed, exacerbated by ‘dem entsetzlich schlechten Gewissen des Überlebenden’ (A, 19), and she even ponders whether her compulsion to write might not be an existential concern: ‘Warum, in drei Teufels Namen, will ich ein Buch schreiben? Weil ich schreiben muß, ohne schreiben nicht leben kann?’ (A, 25). For Anna Mitgutsch, the key to a text’s authenticity resides in just such a need: Ein Text muß den Eindruck der Notwendigkeit vermitteln, als hätte er geschrieben werden müssen, als sei die Schöpfung nicht vollständig ohne diesen Text. Die Hybris des Schöpferischen muß legitimiert werden durch diese Notwendigkeit. […] Es ist unerheblich, ob die Autorin schlaflose Nächte verbrachte, bis sie dieses Buch schrieb, aber es mag etwas mit den Erinnerungen zu tun haben, die sich nicht unterdrücken lassen, mit einer Erkenntnis, die sich nur in literarischen Bildern ausdrücken läßt. Denn es ist ja selten eine abstrakte Überlegung, die Erinnerungen in Gang setzt und sie zu tragfähigen 36 Bildern verdichtet, sondern viel öfter eine Art seelischen Notstands.

The argument is a compelling one which can sensibly be applied to each of the texts in the present study: the authors’ need to tackle a psychological crisis might be seen to imbue the texts with the ‘subjective authenticity’ one demands of autobiographical accounts. In the case of Grete Weil, however, one must reiterate the need to separate her from her narrator in Meine Schwester Antigone, even if the biographical parallels are conspicuous, as Giese and Exner 35 36

Schlant, p. 239. Mitgutsch, p. 25.

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emphasise. That Weil’s work has revolved around the ‘Verfolgungszeit’ doubtless bespeaks the necessity to which Mitgutsch refers, but no matter that Meine Schwester Antigone in particular may have been produced as a therapeutic release, we cannot equate the author’s emotional state directly with that of her narrator. The validity of such caution is evidenced by Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, in which the tone of the narrative is appreciably more calm and controlled than in the novel. It provides evidence, in fact, that the ‘Hoffnungsschimmer, der […] nicht wieder ausgelöscht werden konnte’ (L, 255) and which underpinned her letter to Margarete Susman, really did endure. In the opening chapter of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, Weil explains that her decision to write an explicit autobiography was inspired by an interview with Gräfin Dönhoff, in which the grande dame of German media life outlined how her publisher convinced her to commit her memories to paper. He suggested people today ‘wüssten kaum mehr, wie es damals gewesen sei, und die wenigen, die noch lebten und es wüssten, könnten nicht schreiben’ (L, 7). Weil took these words as a challenge too, not only as she was still in a position to record her experiences, but especially because she felt they were more typical than those of her eminent aristocratic contemporary: [Unsere] Wohnung und unser Landhaus am Tegernsee waren sicher typischer für ihre Zeit als Schloss Friedrichstein und den Menschen von heute viel näher. So nahm ich die Herausforderung an, setzte mich hin und begann zu schreiben. (L, 7)

Weil indicates not only that she is still driven by the need ‘Zeuge zu sein’, but that her narrative, on account of her personal background, will have greater relevance as a picture of life under National Socialism, its authenticity no doubt deriving from the ‘Art des seelischen Notstands’ Mitgutsch speaks of. Although Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben indicates that Weil has largely reconciled herself to the tragedy of her young life and that her pain has grown less acute with age, one cannot but be struck by the photographs of the author which accompany the text. In all but one of the portraits, one cannot overlook the melancholy that seeps from them, especially the one taken in 1939.37 Weil, who worked as a photographer in Amsterdam, doubtless carefully selected these photographs for inclusion, and they speak volumes. 37

This is a self-portrait and is reproduced on p. 176. Exner’s study also incorporates many of Weil’s own photographs of herself and others.

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Weil’s depiction of a life under National Socialism overshadowed by fear is familiar to us from a plethora of eyewitness accounts and Holocaust testimonies. That mention should be made of Anne Frank is apposite in this regard, as the latter’s celebrated chronicle of hiding from persecution naturally intersects to a degree with Weil’s own account. We have already referred to similarities of Weil’s text with Das siebte Kreuz, but with its description of the coming storm during the Weimar Republic, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben might also be compared to Klaus Mann’s Mephisto. Just as in the latter text, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben reveals time and again how it was possible to misread the warning signs until it was too late. No effort is made to be wise after the fact, and Weil’s candour enhances the impact of the text. Despite being aware of the dangers of possessing letters, documents and journals produced by authors deemed politically undesirable by the Nazis, Weil believed that simply burning these was enough, ‘noch immer im Glauben, es genüge den Nazis nicht, dass jemand Jude ist, um ihn festzunehmen und umzubringen, es müssten auch noch andere, belastende Dinge hinzukommen’ (L, 153). The device of the first-person narrator commenting in the present upon her actions in the past, thereby introducing two narrative planes into the text, not only reminds contemporary readers of the privilege afforded us by hindsight, but generates tension in the narrative.38 As a consequence, one begins to appreciate from the text how it was possible for the Weil family, whose Judaism played no fundamental part in their lives, to be so naïve. The reader might not be able to imagine now how the danger could have been overlooked then, and Weil can offer no explanation. Even after Edgar’s arrest in 1933, she was still incapable of grasping the full implications of the incipient threat: In diesen Tagen begann ich zu verstehen, was Faschismus wirklich bedeutete. Ich begriff, dass, wenn man einen Menschen vierzehn Tage ohne Anklage, ohne Verhör grundlos festhielt, es auch vierzehn Wochen, vierzehn Monate oder auch vierzehn Jahre sein konnten. Trotz meiner Verzweiflung hatte ich in diesen Tagen nie das Gefühl einer wirklichen Gefahr, das kam erst später. (L, 108)

The generally serene mood of the first part of the account, where realisation still does not dawn upon the family, is irrevocably overshadowed by the terror of life in Amsterdam, which comprises the 38

In truth, the heute/damals configuration is common to most of the texts in the present study.

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second part and the immediacy of which is rendered all the more effectively by the adoption of the present tense. In particular, Weil makes it clear how deciding which country to emigrate to was not at all straightforward. That fleeing to Amsterdam was a mistake only struck the author much later: ‘Die Falle ist weit geöffnet, und wir laufen blind und dumm hinein’ (L, 132). Part two of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben details the precarious nature of an existence under a totalitarian regime. The random and ruthless manner in which fear was exerted upon individuals is evident, for example, in the chapter documenting how Weil’s photographic studio was closed ‘auf Befehl der Gestapo’ (L, 175), shortly after all its contents had been inventoried by the authorities. When the author, with impetuous defiance, professes not to know the whereabouts of a missing pair of scissors, she is threatened with deportation to Poland – the implications are clear – if they do not turn up. The sadism underpinning this particular incident, with its obvious and chilling disregard for basic human dignity, is offset by the way in which good fortune intervenes at crucial junctures in the narrative. Whereas Edgar had the misfortune to encounter a Gestapo control, Weil was the beneficiary of remarkably good fortune, in the same way that the likes of Ruth Klüger and Primo Levi owed their survival at key moments to luck. Weil happened to be out when the police came looking for her at her flat shortly after Edgar’s arrest, in order to deport her to Germany. Moreover, the police were looking for a woman with the maiden name Diopeker, a misspelling of her actual name, Dispeker, which she had never corrected with the authorities. As she readily admits, she was fortunate in more ways than one: Wie eine geschlossene Phalanx sagen […] die braven holländischen Hausbewohner, als die Polizisten zurückkommen: Wir kennen niemanden, der Diopeker heißt. Hätte ich den Aufruf an diesem Tage bekommen, wäre ich vielleicht gegangen. Ich will ja, dass jemand mir hilft zu sterben, und ich habe das (richtige) Gefühl, dass mir dieser sogenannte Arbeitseinsatz dazu verhelfen würde. (L, 164-65)

In ‘Meine sterntragende Mutter’, Weil provides a harrowing description of the danger posed daily by the threat of police raids or ‘citizen’s arrests’: ‘Man stelle sich eine Stadt vor, in der regelrecht Jagd auf Menschen mit gelbem Stern und erst recht auf solche, die ihn tragen, gemacht wird. Für jeden, der eingeliefert wird, bekommt der Jäger Geld’ (L, 183). Unsurprisingly in such an atmosphere of hatred,

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Weil was constantly fearful for her mother, especially as she refused to wear the star. During the last major raid in 1943, two SS soldiers woke Weil’s mother. After asking her if she knew of any Jews living in the vicinity, they apologised for disturbing her and left: Ich habe jahrelang darüber nachgedacht, wie dieses Wunder zu Stande kam. Vielleicht hat einer an seine eigene Mutter gedacht, aber beide? Die einfachste Erklärung: Sie hielten sie […] nicht für eine Jüdin (der fehlende Stern, sie war so blond und blauäugig), sie hielten sie einfach für eine Deutsche. Und das war sie ja auch. (L, 188)

Not only does Weil celebrate the good fortune that spared her mother’s life, but the incident exposes the fallacy of the Nazi’s ethos on racial purity. Although such a rejection of National Socialism is in itself by no means unique to Weil’s text, it still manages anew to provoke in the reader a deep sense of outrage at what occurred during the Third Reich. With its depiction of an environment where one’s life was so precarious, where one was facing an uncertain fate on a daily basis, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben is truly a remarkable testament to the resilience of human spirit. One can only admire how Weil did not buckle under the pressure exerted upon her by a system that forcibly suppressed individuality and sought to dehumanise various groups. As we have seen, the strong relational forces that underpinned her identity – the bonds with family, friends and Heimat – were fundamental to her ability to overcome the personal tragedy that took her to the edge of suicide. By opting to stay alive, her defence of the private realm became an act of defiance that sustained her through the nightmare. That Weil decided to return home after the war is even more laudable, when set alongside the number of exiles who refused to set foot in Germany again. The idealistic tenor of her letter to Margarete Susman, doubtless fuelled by her feelings for Walter as she readily admits, is tempered by her acceptance that reconciliation between Germans and Jews will not be easy. After all, the intrinsic duality of her own identity, which only became a problem with the arrival of the Nazis, cannot but remind her of the difficulties ahead. Indeed, her own inner tensions mirror the paradox at the conclusion of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, as the author appears to call into question her own belief in ‘die Bewältigung dessen, was nie und nimmer zu bewältigen ist’ (L, 255), before crucially reaffirming her optimism in the final sentence. That Grete Weil could still have faith in humanity after the trauma she had endured is truly uplifting, and one can only endorse wholeheartedly her assertion that postwar

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reconciliation was ‘kein Verrat an den Toten, sondern der tastende Versuch, ihr geliebtes und geheiligtes Leben nicht ganz verwehen zu lassen, solange man selbst dauert’ (L, 255).

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Eight

‘Mutmaßungen über Pawel’ – Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe: Eine Familiengeschichte (1999) Was entscheidet darüber, ob wir uns eher an die glücklichen Momente unseres Lebens erinnern oder an die unglücklichen; ob uns unsere Triumphe vor den Demütigungen einfallen oder 1 umgekehrt?

In the summer of 1995, the Spiegel broke news of the collaboration of Monika Maron with the Stasi, which dismayed many of those who had previously perceived the author to be an influential critic during the Wende.2 In the wake of revelations about the Stasi liaisons of eminent literary figures such as Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller, the ‘outing’ of another prominent GDR author did seem to lend further weight to Karl Corino’s contention that East German literature had lost credibility with the collapse of the country.3 As for the author herself, the revelations appeared to undermine the force of her own critique of certain leading GDR intellectuals during the Wende period, and in particular their idealistic notion that socialism could be reformed now that the old Stalinist regime had been swept from power. If they believed GDR socialism could be reformed, she argued, then they were out of touch with the ordinary people, who saw in them another privileged élite as reprehensible as the SED had been: ‘Auf Leipzigs Straßen vollzog sich im politischen Alltag, was die Dichter in ihren Proklamationen offenbarten: der Zwiespalt zwischen den Arbeitern

1 Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe: Eine Familiengeschichte (Frankfurt a.M: Fischer, 1999), p. 69. Further references to this edition will appear in the text in the form (PB, 69). 2 For a thorough examination of Maron’s role in the Wende debates, see Karoline von Oppen, The Role of the Writer and the Press in the Unification of Germany, 19891990 (New York: Lang, 2000), pp. 105-22. 3 Karl Corino, ‘Vor und nach der Wende: Die Rezeption der DDR-Literatur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und das Problem einer einheitlichen deutschen Literatur’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 39.8 (1991), 146-64.

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und den Intellektuellen’.4 News of her own apparent complicity confirmed, albeit inadvertently, the validity of her assertion, that the two sides had become alienated from one another. The dismay that greeted Maron’s exposure was inevitable, as she was another addition to an already long list of discredited authors. Yet the reaction does overlook certain crucial details of her contact with the Stasi. Most importantly, Maron was designated a Kontaktperson (KP) rather than the Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (IM) Wolfgang Emmerich suggests she was.5 Although it might simply appear to be a case of splitting hairs, as many of Maron’s critics have argued, Joachim Walther’s survey of the Stasi’s interference in the literary scene reveals how its own definition of a KP underlines the significant difference between the two categories: [Kontaktpersonen] waren nach der Funktionsbeschreibung der Richtlinie 1/58 keine Kategorie inoffizieller Mitarbeiter, sondern lediglich vertrauenswürdige Bürger, die für die Lösung bestimmter sicherheitspolitischer Aufgaben eingesetzt wurden. Ihre Bezeichnung im MfS war variabel: Neben ‘Auskunftsperson’ wurde auch ‘Kontaktperson’ (KP) verwandt sowie ‘offizielle Quelle’ und ‘offizielle Kontaktpeson’. Sie wurden in der Regel weder förmlich geworben noch im MfS registriert. Allerdings gab es auch hier zwei Formen der praktischen Handhabung. Bei den einen wurde eine Akte geführt, meist in Form einer Allgemeinen Personenablage […]. Bei den anderen wurde nach gegenwärtigen Kenntnisstand keinerlei personenbezogene Akte geführt, sondern die Informationsergebnisse der offiziellen Quelle wurden in verschiedenen Sachakten abgelegt […]. Nur in Ausnahmefällen wurden Schweigeverpflichtungen unterschrieben. […] Die Kontaktpersonen sollten in klar definierten Bereichen, die zumeist identisch mit ihren Arbeitsstellen waren, dem MfS zum wechselseitigen Informationsaustausch zur Verfügung stehen. (SL, 747)

The definition hints at a more passive, informal, even unwitting, role, although scope doubtless existed for the KP to operate in a more active capacity. The Stasi’s classification per se may not be sufficient to exonerate Maron completely, but when one considers that she produced two reports only, and then scrutinises the content of those reports, the scale of the outcry unleashed by the Spiegel article seems rather inappropriate, even if the disappointment is understandable. In her review of Pawels Briefe, Iris Radisch for one finds Maron’s treatment of the episode exemplary: ‘Diese Ästhetik der Aufrichtigkeit 4

Monika Maron, ‘Das neue Elend der Intellektuellen’, in Nach Maßgabe meiner Begreifungskraft (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995), pp. 80-90 (p. 84). 5 Emmerich, p. 476.

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ist es auch, die ihren Lebensbericht so eindrücklich und überzeugend macht. Sagen, wie es war, nichts weglassen, nichts dazuerfinden’.6 Unsurprisingly, the author issued a vigorous defence of her position, originally published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in October 1995, in which she asserted unrepentantly that she had nothing to be ashamed of: ‘Jetzt […] sollte ich wieder eine Schuld bekennen, die ich nicht empfinde, eine Tat zugeben, die ich nicht begangen habe’ (Q, 35).7 While it was no doubt naïve of her not to expect such a response to the discovery of her Stasi contact, not least following the earlier revelations of collusion between authors and the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), the critique of GDR society that permeates her reports of visits to West Berlin cannot be ignored. Her observations range from a categorical rejection of spying on people to stark descriptions of the ‘Starre und Unbewohnbarkeit’ (Q, 26) that strike her about life in East Berlin after visits across the Wall: Eine Schlange an der Taxihaltestelle, aber kein Taxi. Leute an der Straßenbahnhaltestelle, aber keine Straßenbahn. Sonst wenig Menschen, wenig Geschäfte, Kneipen überfüllt oder schon geschlossen. Am Alex rundum, außer Rathauspassagen, alles weitläufig und windig. […] Ich beschränke mich auf die Gedanken, die einen in Mangelwirtschaft erfahrenen DDR-Bürger heimsuchen, wenn er in dieses Sündenbabel des Imperialismus gerät. Die Frage, warum bei uns alles hässlicher ist, wird er nicht los. Sie quält ihn, solange er durch die Stadt geht. Die Stoffe werden gewebt, die Bäume gefällt, das Leder wird gegerbt. Warum werden die Kleider langweilig, die Möbel hässlich, die Schuhe plump? (Q, 26-7)

Should one condemn Maron for the last vestiges of her idealistic socialism, which finds the material shabbiness of the GDR so distressing? Can one interpret the use of SED jargon such as ‘Sündenbabel des Imperialismus’ as anything other than ironic in this context? Indeed, one can detect striking parallels between the desolate pictures conjured up of East Berlin in the reports and those of Bitterfeld that would pervade Maron’s début novel, Flugasche (1981), and gave rise to a critical appraisal of that manuscript by a Stasi officer in 1980 that identified passages where ‘“die staatliche Ordnung der DDR sowie die Tätigkeit staatlicher Einrichtungen und gesellschaftlicher Organisationen sowie deren Maßnahmen 6

Iris Radisch, ‘Tausendmeterlauf des Lebens: Monika Maron schuldet ihrem Großvater etwas und reist in die Vergangenheit’, Die Zeit, 31 March 1999, p. 48. 7 The article is reprinted in the collection quer über die Gleise: Artikel, Essays, Zwischenrufe (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2000) as ‘Heuchelei und Niedertracht’, pp. 3443. All further references to the collection will appear in the text in the form (Q, 35).

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herabgewürdigt werden”’ (SL, 368). In the light of her reports, Maron’s Führungsoffizier adjudged her ‘“ideologisch […] unzuverlässig und in vielen Fragen, besonders zur Politik der Parteiführung, feindlich eingestellt”’ (SL, 624). On account of her persistently critical stance, Maron’s role as a KP was terminated and her status reclassified as the Operativer Vorgang (OV) ‘Wildsau’ – a deliberately derogatory codename, it would appear. As a dissident, her movements were subsequently monitored in considerable detail until the collapse of the GDR, where none of her books were ever published. To her considerable credit, Maron has made no reference in self-defence to the extent of her victimisation by the Stasi, a stance one might contrast with Günter Kunert’s in Erwachsenenspiele, in which he not only appears to settle scores with those who spied on him, but also objects to his Deckname – the decidedly less unflattering ‘Zyniker’. In many ways, it is easy to see how some commentators might have construed Pawels Briefe as a form of response to the Stasi revelations, in that it endeavours to reconstruct aspects of Maron’s family history, whilst revealing at the same time the problems inherent in such a process of reconstructing the past. The author’s nemesis in this regard is critic Corina Caduff, who believes the text can only be understood ‘als Antwort [auf ihre Stasi-Mitarbeit]’.8 However, as Maron herself points out, such an interpretation suggests that the author has something to hide, whereas the documentary evidence would seem to corroborate her protestations of innocence. In truth, the section dealing with the Stasi contacts in the late 1970s forms a very small part of the overall text. Although it cannot be ignored, to suggest it contains the key to understanding Pawels Briefe is stretching the point too far and is redolent of the partial interpretation of her links to the Stasi that Maron found so distasteful in 1995. Moreover, it denigrates an intensely private undertaking as something altogether more self-serving and cynical. Having already defended her Stasi contacts in her essay ‘Heuchelei und Niedertracht’, Maron did not need, or wish, to protest her innocence at any great length in Pawels Briefe. Despite referring to the incident as ‘meine etwas absurde Geschichte’ (Q, 43), Maron is conscious nevertheless that it is anything but trivial. In an otherwise positive review, Hermann Kurzke comments on the paradox the author faced pertaining to any reference to the Stasi in her text: 8

Corina Caduff, ‘Missbrauchte Geschichte’, Die Weltwoche, 25 February 1999, p. 43.

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Das Buch endet mit Erklärungen, wie es zu dieser Stasi-Episode kam. Daß Monika Maron darauf zu sprechen kam, war unvermeidlich, denn sonst hätte man ihr absichtliches Verschweigen vorgeworfen. Dennoch ist es schade, daß diese apologetischen Teile am Ende stehen, so daß alles andere auf sie hin geschrieben wirkt. Denn sie sind der schwächste und künstlerisch überflüssigste Teil eines sonst 9 starken Buches.

How one confronts the past, and the nature of remembering and forgetting have been thematic concerns in Maron’s fiction, especially in Stille Zeile Sechs (1991), and the furore in 1995 merely demonstrated how in the post-Wende period, as the GDR’s legacy was being dissected, these concerns were as pertinent as ever. Thus the episode, while not the specific focus of Pawels Briefe, imbued her private text with a more general, public relevance as a piece of GDR Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which doubtless contributed to her motivation for publishing it. Moreover, the interface of private and public concerns – typical of GDR literature, and indeed of East German society as a whole – was a significant factor in its, essentially positive, reception by critics. As Susanne Schaber observed: ‘Diese kritische Distanz, die kaum je kokett erscheint, tut wohl’.10 The very title of the text reveals the intensely personal nature of Maron’s account, in that it is founded upon the correspondence between her grandfather and his children. As the author herself concedes at the outset, however, she is not entirely certain what inspired her to put pen to paper: ‘Seit ich beschlossen habe, dieses Buch zu schreiben, frage ich mich, warum jetzt, warum erst jetzt, warum jetzt noch’ (PB, 7). To a large extent, she attributes the timing to serendipity: while looking for some old photographs for use in a Dutch television documentary, Maron’s mother came across a box of letters, the existence of which, much to her incredulity, she had forgotten. Thus Maron accompanies her mother on the ‘Spur ihres Vergessens’ (PB, 11), of which Pawels Briefe is the embodiment. She returns time and again to the very nature of memory throughout the text, and how it refuses to offer definite pictures and details. Even when there are photographs available, they uncover discrepancies, as Kurzke has noted: ‘Aus den Briefen und aus den erschütternden Fotos des Buches spricht stumm und anklagend das authentische Damals,

9

Hermann Kurzke, ‘Eine geborene Iglarz: Monika Maron erinnert sich’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 April 1999. 10 Susanne Schaber, Zeigt niemals dem Kinde: Marons Rekonstruktion der Familienchronik’, Die Presse, 27 February 1999, p. viii.

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das sich im Gedächtnis nicht mehr wiedererkennt’.11 As for the story of Pawel and Josefa Iglarz itself, the author admits that it is one with which she has long been familiar in its general outline, but which is by no means unique: ‘Zeitgenossen und Leidensgenossen meiner Großeltern haben berichtet, den Unglauben darüber, daß das geschehen konnte und daß man das überleben konnte, noch in der Stimme’ (PB, 7). As a result, Maron appears to feel that she must justify an apparently self-indulgent project. But how could it be otherwise, for at the very core of the text is Maron’s quest for her own sense of self? She constantly appears to be at odds with her mother, railing against the formative ideological influences to which she was subjected, to such an extent that many will doubtless see in Pawels Briefe another contribution to the wealth of literature published since 1945 dealing with problematic mother/daughter relationships, of which Klüger’s weiter leben is another example. In the midst of her battles with her mother, Maron looks to the figure of Pawel to provide her with guidance and inspiration: Ich wollte anders sein, als meine Abstammung mir zugestand. Und weil die Fotografie meiner Großmutter, die schmal gerahmt in meinem Zimmer hing, sie allzu deutlich als die Mutter meiner Mutter auswies, fiel meine Wahl als einzigen Ahnen, von dem abzustammen ich bereit war, auf meinen Großvater. (PB, 9)

The desire to identify with her grandfather would seem to have intensified considerably by virtue of the antipathy that characterised her relationship with her stepfather, Karl Maron, a leading SED figure, close ally of Ulbricht and the GDR’s Interior Minister (195563). That she was seen by many as a privileged ‘Bonzentochter’ (Q, 34) was clearly a source of irritation to her, not least when it proved a significant factor in the reception accorded her début novel in the West: ‘[…] Vor allem schien an mir zu interessieren, was ich mein Leben lang am wenigsten sein wollte: Karl Marons Stieftochter’ (PB, 202).12 Consequently, one might approach Pawels Briefe primarily as the author’s attempt to resolve a deep-rooted identity crisis and step out from under his problematic shadow. 11

Kurzke. The reception of Flugasche appears symptomatic of a fundamental problem in the way Western critics received GDR literature as a whole. Was good GDR literature simply that which was politically subversive? Were Christa Wolf and her colleagues truly admired for the aesthetic qualities of their work? In light of this, one can understand Maron’s dismay, although her particular case was unique amongst GDR literati. 12

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Yet such a personal reckoning with one’s GDR identity has acquired broader significance in the context of post-unification German society and the difficulties the East German legacy continues to pose. Since 1989 Maron has been unremittingly outspoken in her observations on how to deal with the GDR’s past, and not just on account of the Stasi files. Nevertheless, that she has been obliged to justify that particular aspect of her own past reinforces the extent to which her biography has gained a representative status for many others. In particular, Maron has criticised the tendency of the Western media to tar all former East Germans with the same brush, perpetuating a stereotype both inaccurate and obstructive to any meaningful engagement with the GDR’s legacy. As essays from 1995 and 1999 reveal, Maron has been consistent in her demand for a more differentiated understanding of the social and psychological profile of her fellow eastern Germans.13 Yet she has also been unstinting in her criticism of the phenomenon of Ostalgie and the tendency of, what she stresses is, a minority of former GDR citizens still to see themselves as second-class citizens. The root of the problem lies in a general lack of self-confidence amongst eastern Germans, which Maron reiterates is a natural ramification of forty years of dictatorship; the propensity in the old Bundesländer to see former East Germans as ‘nostalgisch, larmoyant und undemokratisch’ (Q, 147) does little to inspire greater assertiveness. Maron argues forcefully, and eloquently, for this trend to be arrested in two ways. Firstly, it is of paramount importance ‘die Ostdeutschen aus ihrem Kollektivstatus endlich in die Individualität zu entlassen’ (Q, 147). Only then might it be possible for them to overcome the inhibiting influence of still apparently being told what to do and how to behave: Die Ostdeutschen haben Deutsche werden wollen und sind es auch geworden, aber eben Deutsche mit einer schmuddeligen Vergangenheit im Gegensatz zu den anderen Deutschen mit einer sauberen Vergangenheit. Die Forderung, alle Schuld und Verstrickung schonungslos offen zu legen, mag hochmoralisch sein, aber möglicherweise bringt sie gerade das hervor, wogegen sie gedacht ist: das Fortleben, sogar die Wiederbelebung eines alten, diesmal positiven Identitätsgefühls mit der untergegangenen DDR. Vielleicht hätten die Ostdeutschen die Chance gebraucht, ihre Irrtümer und falschen Entscheidungen selbst zu erkennen, ihre Bereitschaft zur Korrektur zu beweisen, ehe sie gezwungen waren, ihre Biografien bloßzulegen. […] 13

See ‘Vortrag in Japan’, pp. 44-51, and ‘Penkun hinter der Mauer’, pp. 139-47 in quer über die Gleise.

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Maron’s second request, that patience is required, is not unusual. Many former GDR commentators, such as Günter de Bruyn, have similarly pleaded for time to be granted those in the new Bundesländer, whilst being equally alarmed at the sharp rise in those now peddling a nostalgically distorted picture of life in GDR.14 What Maron’s essays reveal is how much still needs to be done to normalise, if not harmonise, relationships between the eastern and western Bundesländer since the fall of the Wall. A striking feature of Maron’s call for patience is her attitude to memory, or more specifically her suggestion that it is acceptable, even beneficial, to forget. A more cynical interpretation of this view might point to Maron’s failure to declare her Stasi contacts, which in itself echoes the criticisms aimed at Christa Wolf, an author who thematised the problems of memory in her work and then professed not to be able to recall her links with the MfS in the late 1950s. Yet Maron’s argument is compelling. Citing Jorge Semprun, she speaks ‘von seinem Vergessen, ohne das er, nach seinen Erlebnissen als Häftling im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, nicht hätte weiterleben können’ (Q, 47). She ponders whether her mother’s inability to remember her correspondence with Maron’s grandfather stems from the same existential requirement: Vielleicht müssen die Menschen, ehe sie den Erinnerungen standhalten können, sich der Möglichkeit weiterzuleben vergewissert haben. […] Wenn unseren Körper ein unerträglicher Schmerz zugemutet wird, verweigert er das Bewusstsein. Wir fallen in Ohnmacht, bis der Körper den Schock reguliert hat. Vielleicht ist das Vergessen die Ohnmacht der Seele; vielleicht müssen wir eine gewisse Zeit abwarten, ehe wir uns gefahrlos erinnern können. (Q, 47)

It is axiomatic that Maron should return to this issue in Pawels Briefe, as traditional autobiography is dependent on the autobiographer’s capacity to remember and judged on the accuracy and authenticity of what is recalled. In the post-Wende period in Germany, however, the credibility of one’s private recollections was subjected to even more intense public scrutiny, as Maron was only too acutely aware:

14 See, for example, Günter de Bruyn, ‘Deutsche Befindlichkeiten’, in Jubelschreie, Trauergesänge: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991), pp. 27-45.

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Das Vergessen steht unter Verdacht, dem Bösen und Schlechten in uns dienstbar zu sein. Vergessen bedeutet Schuld oder körperliches Versagen. Die Willkür, mit der etwas über unser Wollen hinweg entscheidet, ob eine Erinnerung in uns auffindbar oder in den Kellern unseres Gedächtnisses für eine Zeit oder sogar für immer verschlossen bleibt, erscheint uns unergründlich und ist darum unheimlich. Als meine Mutter sich an einen Briefwechsel, in dem es um ihr Leben ging, nicht erinnern konnte, war das Vergessen in der öffentlichen Meinung gerade zu einem Synonym für Verdrängung und Lüge geschrumpft. (PB, 11)

She makes no attempt to conceal the problems of dealing with the past, and makes allowances for the contradictions and different interpretations that emerge in the narrative. That is not to say that she is uncritical or unreflective, but Maron successfully eschews an overly moralistic standpoint. She simply indicates the eclectic nature of memory and suggests that no black-and-white picture of the past can ever truly emerge as a consequence, which is a key theme in her novel Stille Zeile Sechs.15 In view of her own travails in the summer of 1995 and the pressure exerted on many former East Germans to confront their pasts, Pawels Briefe would appear to provide a useful model for a more differentiated, impartial approach to one’s biography. By factoring in the problematic nature of memory, Maron reveals how the process of reconstructing the past can never be entirely seamless or authoritative, and declares, in common with other authors in the present study, that one must accept that some aspects of the search will remain tantalisingly out of reach. That inability to recall everything is not a failure in itself, but certainly becomes problematic, and complex, when one is subjected to an external moral assessment, as the experience of many former East Germans in the post-Wende period indicates. As Paul John Eakin reveals, recent research suggests that ‘memories share the constructed nature of all brain events’ and for scientist Israel Rosenfeld, whose work Eakin quotes, ‘“recollection is a kind of perception, […] and every context will alter the nature of what is recalled”’ (HOL, 106). It follows that if memory is a kind of perception, then perceptions may well change, not least as the individual changes or if the circumstances in which one finds oneself should change. As Maron remarks: ‘Ich kann oft nicht unterscheiden, ob ich mich wirklich erinnere oder ob ich mich an eine meinem Alter 15

For a perceptive analysis of this issue in the novel, see Brigitte Rossbacher, ‘(Re)visions of the Past: Memory and Historiography in Monika Maron’s Stille Zeile Sechs’, Colloquia Germanica, 27 (1994), 13-24.

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und Verständnis angepaßte Neuinszenierung meiner Erinnerung erinnere’ (PB, 167). If this is true – and the arguments as presented by Eakin are compelling indeed – then Maron’s objections to the pressure exerted on her fellow eastern Germans to tackle their pasts are valid. In the context of post-unification explorations of the GDR, in an atmosphere especially fraught with suspicion and accusations of collusion with the Stasi, it should not be a surprise that distortions, inaccuracies or gaps in what is remembered might occur. That is not necessarily to say that all memories of the GDR are false or unreliable, but it does acknowledge the ramifications of having one’s recollection scrutinised by external agencies or of being pressurised into some kind of personal reckoning with history. Moreover, if the identity of former East Germans has been reduced to a stereotype, an identity imposed from without by the media or public bodies, then that too will inevitably alter the context and therefore ‘the nature of what is recalled’. Having flagged up these problems in her essays and been subjected herself to the pressure described above, Maron recentres the debate with Pawels Briefe back on the individual, freeing herself from this ‘collective status’ that should no longer pertain and reasserting the first person, the subjective dimension. She champions her own quest to locate, and confront, her own sense of self with all its complexities, ambiguities and contradictions, and by implication rejects all existing external interpretative models as inadequate. Irrespective of whether it was Maron’s true intention, her private account thereby acquires a universal relevance. By pursuing her own individual process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Maron employs an interpretative model that allows her to examine her past whilst acknowledging the inherent limitations. For the reconstruction can only ever be just that, a constructed form, an approximation. Like the other authors in the present survey, Maron clearly does not believe in what Eakin terms an ‘invariant memory that preserves the past intact, allowing the original experience to be repeated in present consciousness’ (HOL, 107). But by recognising memories as fluid, dynamic and essentially constructed, Maron is not seeking to hide something, as some of her critics have maintained, nor is she endeavouring to appropriate a past more suited to her present. Instead, Maron draws attention to the constructed nature of the autobiographical text, but without seeking to question its inherent authenticity. So what precise form does the reconstruction take in Pawels Briefe? It is unique amongst the more conventional autobiographical

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texts we have already examined inasmuch as it extends far beyond the limited scope of traditional autobiography, by simultaneously embracing three narrative strands, which recalls the structure of Kindheitsmuster. Described specifically as a ‘Familiengeschichte’, the text in fact embraces five generations of the author’s family, although the principal focus is on three of them: Pawel and Josefa Iglarz, Maron’s grandparents; Hella Maron née Iglarz, Maron’s mother; and Maron herself. These represent the trio of narrative planes in the text. Pawels Briefe naturally has the texture of an autobiography, as the author is self-consciously writing about her family, drawing from various sources including her own memories, but crucially makes no attempt to conceal her identity in the manner of Christa Wolf. Where the latter seeks universality through fiction in Kindheitsmuster whilst simultaneously problematising the attempt to reconstruct the past, Maron wishes first and foremost to achieve the intensely personal aim of constructing a relationship with her grandparents, about whom she knew only that they had existed and were no longer alive: Erinnern ist für das, was ich mit meinen Großeltern vorhatte, eigentlich das falsche Wort, denn in meinem Innern gab es kein versunkenes Wissen über sie, das ich hätte zutage fördern können. Ich kannte die Umrisse der Geschichte, der das Innenleben und erst recht meine innere Kenntnis fehlten. Das Wesen meiner Großeltern bestand für mich in ihrer Abwesenheit. Fest stand nur, daß es sie gegeben hatte. Sie hatten der Welt vier Kinder beschert, von denen drei noch lebten. Es gab Fotos und ein paar Briefe. Vor allem aber gab es ihren Tod, der sie immer mehr sein ließ als meine Großeltern. (PB, 8)

The material at the heart of Pawels Briefe is thus extracted from extant documents, a fact underlined by regular, and at times extensive, quotation from letters and the frequent deployment of photographs. The photographs are of particular interest. They offer us a pictorial representation of the key characters in Maron’s family, complementing the author’s own mental picture of the grandparents she never met: Das Bild, das ich mir von meinen Großeltern mache, ist schwarzweiß wie die Fotografien, von denen ich sie kenne. Selbst wenn ich mich anstrenge und versuche, mir meine Großmutter und meinen Großvater als durchblutete farbige Menschen mit einer Gesichts-, Augen- und Haarfarbe vorzustellen, gelingt es mir nicht, die farbigen Bilder zu fixieren. Immer schieben sich in Sekunden die schwarzweißen Fotogesichter über die farbigen Fragmente. (PB, 18)

In addition, Maron employs a device whereby each new photograph is followed a turn of a page later by an enlarged detail of the same

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photograph, often focusing on a face or a particular person. In effect, the author is drawing the readers into her text, making them party to her reconstruction as she often remarks upon the impressions stimulated in her by the photographs and how she interprets what they depict. This investigative, deconstructive approach is evidenced most clearly in her analysis of her great-grandfather’s photograph, reproduced on page 26. She comments on the visual paradox intrinsic to the image, for the man who could not read is posing with a book and most closely resembles a librarian. For Jörg Magenau, the photographs ‘dienen dazu, alle Zweifel am authentischen Charakter der Reportage zu beseitigen’, but in actual fact the author herself is often compelled to question their documentary value as this example reveals.16 As the title implies, the authenticity of the text derives principally from the correspondence recovered along with the photographs, which allows Maron to trace the way in which the Nazis broke up her family, with Pawel’s presumed death at Kulmhof/Chelmno preceded by Josefa’s death from cancer. The poignancy of the reconstruction is underscored by her mother’s inability to remember the letters, which upsets Hella Maron deeply. In order to fill this void in Hella’s memory, Maron talks to her mother at length, asking myriad questions in order to ascertain not only how her grandparents lived, but also to try and understand how it is possible to forget so many significant details from one’s life. Mother and daughter resolve to return to the villages in Poland where Pawel and Josefa were born, ‘um dort nichts Bestimmtes zu finden, nur hinzufahren, mir vorzustellen, wie sie dort gelebt hatten, und den Faden zu suchen, der mein Leben mit dem ihren verbindet’ (PB, 12).17 But the trip proves to be fruitless, if not actually counterproductive. Maron’s initial optimism that her mother, who spoke only Polish as a child, would remember ‘einen Satz, vielleicht nur einen halben Satz ihres Vaters, ein zufällig gehörtes und sorglos vergessenes Wort’ (PB, 108) by visiting Pawel and Josefa’s homeland, is dashed. Her mother enjoys no ‘epiphanies of recall’ (HOL, 107) as Eakin calls it, and suffers from the strain of trying to fulfil the function expected of her 16 Jörg Magenau, ‘Nichts mehr schuldig bleiben’, die tageszeitung, 20/21 February 1999, p. 13. 17 Helena Janeczek documents a similar journey back to Poland, and especially Auschwitz, with her mother in Lektionen des Verborgenen. In Kindheitsmuster too, the narrator returns to her home town in Poland in an attempt to recreate the past and stir her memories.

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by her daughter: ‘Sie wußte, daß wir etwas von ihr erwarteten, und manchmal war ihr Gesicht ganz leer von der Anstrengung, die ihr die Suche nach dem verlorenen, vielleicht nie besessenen Wissen bereitete’ (PB, 109). The author herself appears to concede that the pressure she places on her mother mirrors that placed upon former East Germans after the collapse of the GDR. Standing before her grandmother’s grave she is then moved to ponder ‘ob mich all diese Bilder nicht eher störten, ob die Festlegungen mir meinen Weg der Annäherung nicht verstellten’ (PB, 94). The most disturbing aspect of this visit, however, is the way in which all signs of Jewish life in Poland appear to have been systematically eradicated: ‘Unter dem Wort Jüdisch findet sich im Telefonbuch nichts, keine Gemeinde, kein Museum, kein Büro, nichts’ (PB, 100). Where Ruth Klüger issues a biting critique in weiter leben of the Polish failure to commemorate the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Maron simply records the impressions gleaned from their trip. They find the authorities particularly obstructive, so that a residual anti-Semitism can be detected – ‘Jüdische Nachkommen, die nach den Häusern ihrer Vorfahren fragten, erweckten Argwohn’ (PB, 108) – but any criticism is implied in a tone more redolent of pathos than censure: Die geschriebene Geschichte von Ostrow-Mazowiecka ist polnische Geschichte. Die sechzig Prozent Juden der Stadt werden nicht verschwiegen; es gab sie einmal, und dann gab es sie nicht mehr. (PB, 103)

Pawels Briefe reveals how the quest for causality in any analysis of the past can only ever be approximate, and in no way authoritative. It is merely one potential model, as Maron is at pains to point out, of imbuing the past with a structure it does not possess: ‘Weil man das Chaos der Vergangenheit nicht erträgt, korrigiert man es ins Sinnhafte, indem man ihm nachträglich ein Ziel schafft, wie jemand, der versehentlich eine Straße ins Leere gepflastert hat und erst dann, weil es die Straße nun gibt, an ihr beliebiges Ende ein Haus baut’ (PB, 13). In truth, although Pawels Briefe is obviously one such construction – and it could not be otherwise as an autobiographical text – Maron makes no effort to conceal its constructed nature, in keeping with the other authors in the present survey. The varied devices employed in her account in trying to trace the contours of her grandparents’ life underline how the extant documentation needs to be supplemented in order for the lacunae to be filled. As the journey to Poland failed to resurrect any possibly dormant memories in her mother, the author resorts to her own imagination to flesh out the

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picture of Pawel and Josefa, to breathe life into the characters derived from black-and-white photographs. As a result, Maron often signals the presence of conjecture in the text with the linguistic formula ‘ich nehme an, daß’, alerting the reader to the extrapolated nature of what follows but without reducing in any way the impression of authenticity. There are many examples of this device throughout Pawels Briefe. For instance, Maron speculates on her grandfather’s departure from his hometown: Ich nehme an, daß er Ostrow gern verlassen hat. Auf einem Foto aus dem Atelier Wereschtschagin in Lodz blickt ein sehr junger zarter Mann mit flaumigen Bart auf einen imaginären Punkt links neben der Kamera, als erwarte er etwas aus der Richtung, in die er schaut. Ein bißchen verträumt wirkt der junge Mann und sehr gefaßt. (PB, 29)

Having reproduced the photograph earlier on page 18, Maron invites us to assess her interpretation for ourselves, and thereby we can appreciate how she is not making it up as such, but merely using the material at her disposal to fill in the gaps. Similarly Maron speculates about why both Pawel and Josefa rejected the religious backgrounds of their families, opting instead to join the Baptist community: ‘Ich nehme an, daß Josefa und Pawel unter der orthodoxen Religiosität ihrer Elternhäuser gelitten haben’ (PB, 30). By the same token, there are aspects of Pawel’s life in particular that Maron wishes had been quite different, namely his membership of the Communist Party: Was immer ihn bewogen hat, er wurde Kommunist, und ich kann ihn mir in einer kommunistischen Parteiversammlung einfach nicht vorstellen. Oder will ich nicht? Will ich mir nicht vorstellen, wie er in einer kommunistischen Parteiversammlung redete, sich mit den anderen gemeinsam erregte, abstimmte, weil es ihm das Geheimnis, mit dem ich ihn seit meiner Kindheit umgeben habe, rauben könnte? (PB, 60-1)

Maron cannot dispute the fact of his membership, but is unable to harmonise it with her image of him and his beliefs. In order to compensate for this apparent anomaly, Maron constructs scenes with Pawel in the GDR, in which she imagines his opposition to the SED, despite, or rather because of, his political beliefs: Ich glaube nicht, daß Pawel mit uns in den Osten gezogen wäre; ich glaube, er wäre in Neukölln geblieben bei seinem Sohn Paul und Erika und Sylvia. […] Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, mir als Kind je meinen gegenwärtigen Großvater vorgestellt zu haben. Und jetzt gelingt es mir nicht, einen Platz für ihn zu finden in dem Haus in Pankow neben

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dem Mann in der Generalsuniform, der sein Schwiegersohn gewesen wäre. (PB, 182)

In her excellent study of five post-1945 novels, Chloe Paver explores the device she dubs ‘overt fictionalization’, where the first-person narrators in question continually draw attention to the fictions they are creating.18 In particular, by virtue of painstaking textual analysis, Paver uncovers the way in which provisional sections of narrative are altered or erased altogether by the narrator, usually with a signalling phrase similar to those used by Maron in Pawels Briefe. Although this is not to impugn the authenticity of Maron’s account, the similarity of the device employed in Pawels Briefe to ‘overt fictionalization’ is nonetheless striking. It arguably draws more attention to the hypothetical quality of the text at certain moments than any of the more conventional autobiographical texts in the present study, in which it is the way the material has been selected, or carefully divided into rounded anecdotes or chapters, as with Harig, de Bruyn or Weil for example, which connotes the use of Dichtung.19 Most interestingly of all in this regard, however, is Paver’s analysis of Wolf’s use of this device in Nachdenken über Christa T. Paver posits the convincing, and highly original, thesis that the fictions employed by Wolf’s narrator are not intended to blur our image of the eponymous figure as many critics believe; on the contrary, ‘at the time of writing the narrator is working towards a definite image of Christa T., and that she is trying to bring this image into focus (not to blur it) by inventing episodes in Christa’s life’.20 Maron’s intentions are surely identical in Pawels Briefe, even though the text as a whole is patently not a fiction per se. Maron’s efforts to create a coherent family chronicle, whilst acknowledging the inherently constructed nature of such a project, is also complemented by the form of Pawels Briefe. A comparison with the structure of Grete Weil’s autobiography, which one might similarly call a ‘family history’ to a certain extent, sheds light on Maron’s approach. Whereas Weil’s narrative is divided neatly into 18

Chloe E. M. Paver, Narrative and Fantasy in the Post War German Novel: A Study of Novels by Johnson, Frisch, Wolf, Becker, and Grass (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. xii. 19 In view of Paver’s analysis of Uwe Johnson’s use of ‘overt fictionalization’, it is interesting to observe how influential he was for Maron, and especially his novel Mutmaßungen über Jakob. See ‘Ein Schicksalsbuch’ in quer über die Gleise, pp. 723. Note too that the title of the essay collection is a quotation from the first line of the novel. 20 Paver, p. 114.

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discrete chapters, which themselves fall into two sections calibrated along historical lines, Maron’s text interweaves parallel, nonchronological investigations of three generations of her family. The greater fluidity both reflects the intermingling of the influences upon the author, as we shall see, but is also redolent of a stream of consciousness narrative, mimicking the mental processes of memory that are often random and non-sequential. In this respect, the parallels between Pawels Briefe and Kindheitsmuster are compelling, but it is also a feature of Stille Zeile Sechs, where the narrative fractures into three voices. In her analysis of this rhetorical device in the novel, Brigitte Rossbacher believes that the ‘multiple voices create an overwhelming prism of recollections in which each angle sheds light on the other’, which neatly anticipates what Maron is trying to achieve in Pawels Briefe.21 It is in those sections dealing with Maron’s own childhood memories, which glide into the text alongside her deliberations upon her mother and her grandparents, where this device is especially prevalent. It takes the form of snatched memories, recalling Kunert’s free-flowing approach in Erwachsenenspiele. Maron confesses to a healthy mistrust of her earliest memories, finding only very few, apparently inconsequential, moments that she can vouch for: Ein paar gerettete Minuten, an deren Echtheit ich nicht zweifle. Das meiste hat sich aufgelöst in einem allgemeinen zusammenfassenden Wissen, in atmosphärischen Szenen, deren genauer Hergang zu erfinden wäre, vielleicht nicht unwahrer als die wirkliche Erinnerung, aber doch erfunden. (PB, 168)

Thus Maron provides a neat formulation of the way in which her text treads that fine line between Dichtung and Wahrheit. In both its form and the devices employed in its creation, Pawels Briefe reminds the reader of its constructed nature, but without its personal authenticity being undermined. Critics such as Corina Caduff, who saw in Pawels Briefe Maron’s attempt to construct ‘eine biologisch-familiäre Opfertradition’ with which she could justify her apparent complicity with the GDR state, had clearly ignored or been unaware of Maron’s earlier treatments of the lives of Pawel and Josefa.22 For the opening chapter of Flugasche is devoted to them both, albeit in a fictional setting, and the novel was followed later by the essay ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’, first published in 1989. Significant for our 21 22

Rossbacher, p. 21. Caduff, p. 43.

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understanding of Pawels Briefe is the obvious affinity Maron displays in both texts towards her grandfather in particular. In the novel, the narrator, Josefa Nadler, is deeply affected by the fear she can detect in photographs of her grandfather, Pawel, which later serves as the basis of her ‘Verwandschaft’ with him.23 Whereas one should treat the autobiographical import of such observations with a degree of caution, deriving as they do from a fiction, the validity of the essay is less ambiguous in this regard. Indeed, as Maron herself notes, ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’ can be read ‘wie ein Exposé zu Pawels Briefe’ (Q, 101). Fundamental to both pieces is the question of identity. Whereas the essay approaches the topic primarily from a national perspective, with Maron pondering ‘ob ich wirklich von Deutschland spreche, wenn ich von Deutschland spreche’, it is axiomatic that Pawels Briefe should adopt a more personal approach.24 Yet both texts underline how the two perspectives are inseparably linked in the process of individuation, albeit in an antagonistic configuration in Maron’s case. If we are prepared to accept Eakin’s persuasive thesis that all identity formation is relational, then it is hard to refute his contention that autobiography will naturally reflect this process: ‘The myth of autonomy dies hard, and autobiography criticism has not yet fully addressed the extent to which the self is defined by – and lives in terms of – its relations with others’ (HOL, 43). Eakin is effectively arguing for a broadening of the definition of autobiography ‘to reflect the kinds of self-writing in which relational identity is characteristically displayed’ (HOL, 43-4). It is interesting to note, therefore, that he includes an analysis of Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster in his study, which as we have seen in the introduction might be proposed as a modern paradigm of autobiographical writing to replace Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit as the standard model. With Pawels Briefe, Maron presents us with yet another variation of the ‘selfwriting’ Eakin speaks of. Although the author is ostensibly concerned with the lives of her grandparents and her mother – the ‘Familiengeschichte’ as revealed in the correspondence – her telling of that particular story is simultaneously the telling of her own story. For Maron is seeking ultimately to define her own sense of self, and in 23

Flugasche (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1981), p. 12. In the opening paragraph of Pawels Briefe, Maron emphasises the significance of the character names in the novel. 24 ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’, in ‘Die Geschichte ist offen’: DDR 1990 Hoffnung auf eine neue Republik, ed. by Michael Naumann (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1990), pp. 117-35 (p. 117).

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this way Pawels Briefe can be seen primarily as the articulation of a deep personal need. The root of Maron’s problem – indeed the very core of Pawels Briefe – is not her link to the Stasi, but rather her relationship with her mother, who embodies what Eakin calls in this context the ‘proximate other’ (HOL, 86), the individual through whose life the self’s story emerges. Thus, although the figure of her grandfather is the overarching component, the author’s reconstruction of his life actually sheds light upon her difficulties with Hella, causing some commentators to lament the way in which Pawel becomes increasingly marginalized in the text.25 In particular, it is the bitter political differences between mother and daughter that most trouble the author. This issue is alluded to in ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’, but at this juncture the problem appears to be essentially of a public nature: Vor einem Jahr hat Martin Walser gesagt, er müßte sich, um von seinen Kindheitserinnerungen der frühen vierziger Jahre erzählen zu können, in ein antifaschistisches Kind zu verwandeln. Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind. Müßte ich mich, um von meinen Erinnerungen der fünfziger Jahre zu 26 erzählen, in ein antikommunistisches Kind verwandeln?

In Pawels Briefe, however, Maron relocates the problem to the private sphere. Her natural, and affectionate, bond to her mother is shown to have been placed under considerable strain by Hella’s dutiful adherence to Communism as propagated by the SED. The resultant ambivalence she feels towards her mother is a key leitmotif of the text, as well as being a principal factor in the relational dimension of Maron’s sense of self. In outlining what he understands to be essential to identity formation, Eakin emphasises that ‘the key environment in the individual’s formation is the family, which serves as the community’s primary conduit for the transmission of its cultural values’ (HOL, 85). Although on the face of it a commonsense assertion, one must not overlook the especial pertinence of this ‘transmission of values’ in any totalitarian system. In Nazi Germany and East Germany, individuality was to be subjugated to the needs and the will of the community at large; in the GDR, it was the express aim of the SED to create ‘den 25

See, for example, Beatrice von Matt, ‘Die Toten drängen ans Licht’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 4 March 1999, p. 35. 26 ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’, p. 125.

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neuen Menschen’.27 Even if the family sphere in the GDR were to operate as a niche beyond the orbit of the state, and thus resisted becoming a repository of the state’s ideology, family members could not eradicate totally the influence of external forces. In Maron’s case, however, the family circle was unequivocal in its support of the prevailing ideology and its influence all-encompassing: Alle Menschen, die wir, Hella, [Tante] Marta und ich, in den Jahren nach dem Krieg kennenlernten und gern hatten, waren Kommunisten. Von manchen sagten Hella und Marta, sie seien Kommunisten ohne Parteibuch, was nachsichtig klang. Ich glaube auch, von jemandem gehört zu haben, der gar nicht wußte, daß er Kommunist war. […] Kommunistisch sein war gut; und gut sein war kommunistisch. (PB, 61-2)

Maron cannot recall when the word ‘Kommunismus’ first entered her vocabulary, but assumes it was at the end of the war, when she was just four. Most important were the associations it generated in the little girl: ‘Das Wort Kommunismus wird für mich bedeutet haben: Mama, Marta, Trockenkartoffeln, keine Fliegerangriffe, Lucie und “Später, wenn alles gut geworden sein wird”’ (PB, 61). One might compare the associative power of the word ‘Kommunismus’ for Maron with Kunert’s feelings towards ‘Moskau’ in Erwachsenenspiele, in that the positive connotations in each case gradually became inverted as the authors grew increasingly aware of the discrepancy between theory and practice in the GDR. In particular, it is the repeated, and potent, equation of Communism with goodness that makes an impression on the young Maron. She recalls her pleasure at receiving her Jungpionier uniform, not least because she was ‘der einzige Junge Pionier in meiner Klasse, vielleicht sogar in der ganzen Schule’ (PB, 165). Moreover, as an indication of the efficacy of her family as an ideological conduit, the young girl even defends her atheism in the playground with apparent pride, although in hindsight the author concedes to being uncertain ‘ob ich meine Religionslosigkeit als Mangel empfunden habe, oder ob ich mich, was möglich ist, nur für aufgeklärter und fortgeschrittener hielt als alle anderen, wir waren Kommunisten, und Kommunisten glauben nicht an Gott’ (PB, 40). The author sees in a photograph of herself with her mother in a crowd, possibly at a May Day demonstration, the apotheosis of her political conditioning. Despite some scepticism about the accuracy of the memories she associates with this particular photograph, Maron is certain that she did take part in such a rally: 27

Fulbrook, p. 130.

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression Meiner wirklichen oder unwirklichen Erinnerung haftet etwas Feierliches an, den Menschen und dem Tag, der auf dem Foto ein sonniger ist. Die Menschen waren Genossen, und wir gehörten dazu. Die Gewißheit, daß Genossen bessere und klügere Menschen sind als andere, war Teil meines kindlichen Denkens, das mir später, als ich es längst besser wußte, zuweilen die Reflexe verwirrte und aus den Denkwegen geräumt werden mußte wie lästiges Gestrüpp. (PB, 164-5)

On account of her mother’s deep commitment to the cause, it is only to be expected that Maron would be so susceptible to the notion of the apparent integrity and moral superiority of the Communists conveyed to her at such an intimate level. Yet, as she indicates at this point, her own engagement was set to unravel once the discrepancies between theory and practice became evident, but it still required a concerted effort to free herself completely from these formative experiences. Although the tension between mother and daughter depicted in Pawels Briefe is in essence a political one, the stimulus appears to have been personal, embodied in the figure of Karl Maron, Maron’s stepfather. It is noticeable how the author seems barely able to refer to him by name, preferring rather elliptical and impersonal references to ‘Hellas neuer Mann’ (PB, 63; 58; 83), and only very grudgingly accepts that he was her stepfather. But her antipathy towards her stepfather, and the concomitant disappointment in her mother, is made explicit in the text: Eltern sind Schicksal; sie sind unser genetisches Schicksal und, solange wir Kinder sind, auch unser biographisches. Hellas neuer Mann war nur mein biographisches Schicksal. Es gab Jahre, in denen ich ihr das Recht bestritt, mir dieses Schicksal zugemutet zu haben. (PB, 83)

The details of her relationship with her stepfather remain under wraps; Maron affords us no glimpses into the Marons’ family life, as if to exclude his presence in her life as much as possible, and accordingly she includes no photograph of him. She concedes simply that following Hella’s marriage in 1955, she spent ‘die ersten zwei Jahre unseres gemeinsamen Lebens […] im Internat’ (PB, 189). The ironic reference to this new ‘communal life’ appears to speak volumes. More revealing still is Maron’s reaction to Karl Maron’s death in 1975. She collapsed the day after his funeral, and spent almost four months in hospital as a result: ‘Nicht der Schmerz, sondern daß ich keinen Schmerz empfinden konnte, daß ich diesen Tod wirklich als Befreiung erlebte, hat mein verwirrtes Hirn dem ihm untergebenen Körper offenbar so viele falsche oder einander widersprechende Befehle erteilen lassen, bis er kollabierte’ (PB, 193).

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From the severity of Maron’s nervous breakdown one can adduce the damage that must have been inflicted upon the author’s sense of self by her life in the GDR up to that point. Her collapse seems suggestive of a long suppressed internal conflict, between increasing political disllusionment and filial loyalty, which could not be reconciled much longer. It is telling indeed that she should view the death as a ‘Befreiung’. On a personal level, it obviated the need ‘Hella einer familiären Zerreißprobe auszusetzen und zu riskieren, daß sie sich für Karl und gegen mich entscheiden würde’ (PB, 195). Being aware of how her family had been forcibly broken up by the Nazis, Maron would naturally have been terrified at the thought of a similar eventuality occurring in the GDR. But equally importantly, her stepfather’s death was to allow Maron to assert her own identity unfettered by compromise and concession: Ich weiß bis heute nicht genau, warum mir, solange Hellas Mann lebte, alles unmöglich erschien, was ich, als er gestorben war, nach und nach einfach tat, wie ein umgeleiteter Fluß, der sein natürliches Bett wiederfindet, nachdem das künstliche Hindernis aus dem Weg geräumt wurde. (PB, 194-5)

By a strange coincidence, Maron’s acquisition of a sense of freedom, symbolised by her decision to start work on her début novel, was followed soon afterwards by the Biermann expulsion, which allowed her to express more forcibly still an incipient rebellion against the orthodoxy of her upbringing: Ich schrieb, ich trat aus der SED aus und veröffentlichte mein erstes Buch, nachdem man es in der DDR nicht drucken wollte, entgegen allen früheren Beteuerungen doch im Westen. (PB, 195)

But the appearance of Flugasche in West Germany in 1981 did carry a personal cost, as mother and daughter did not speak for a year as a direct consequence. The author’s distress at being used in some cultural circles as a pawn in German-German relations, by virtue of her stepfather, is genuine. Thus the private ramifications inevitably marred the satisfaction of finally venting her political disillusion. One can ascribe the damage done to Maron’s sense of self – ultimately necessitating her departure from the GDR in 1988 – to the interweaving of the private and the public at such an intimate level. On account of her marriage to the powerful politician Karl Maron, Hella came to personify the State as well. Had the State adhered to the tenets of Marxism that enshrined equality and freedom – the very concerns that had inspired Hella to join the Communists in her young life – then, it is is implied, Maron would have understood her mother’s

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unswerving dedication to the cause. But that Hella should be so oblivious to the discrepancy between the theory and the practice of ideology in the GDR was, and remains, a source of deep frustration and amazement: Wovon war Hella denn überzeugt? Daß der neue Staat gerecht war? Er war nicht gerecht. Daß die Menschen frei und glücklich werden? Sie waren nicht frei und glücklich und wurden es auch nicht. Daß die Bildung für alle war? Sie war nicht für alle. Aber eine gerechte Welt mit freien, glücklichen Menschen und gleichen Chancen für alle hat Hella sich bestimmt vorgestellt, als sie mit ihrer Agit-Prop-Gruppe durch die Neuköllner Hinterhöfe zog. Ihre Überzeugung, diese ersehnte Welt könne nur eine kommunistische sein, hat sie weder den Millionen Toten noch den Millionen Gefangenen des Stalinismus noch der Realität des sozialistischen Alltags geopfert. Ich glaube, Hella sieht in ihrer Treue eine Tugend; ich empfinde sie als Unbelehrbarkeit und, angesichts der Willkür und des Unglücks, das Kommunisten über einen halben Kontinent gebracht haben, als Herzlosigkeit. (PB, 179)

On account of her mother’s support of the GDR, cemented by her marriage to one of its leading apparatchiks, Maron was effectively condemned by duty and fear to speechlessness of both a literal and figurative nature. Karl Maron’s death freed her from this condition to some extent, but Pawels Briefe itself allows her to voice the frustration and disorientation her mother caused her and to set about healing this wound. If her fictional work can be seen as a critique of the GDR, Pawels Briefe redirects much of that same critique at her mother, who became synonymous with a totalitarian state that Maron categorically rejects. Even if her essays since 1989 have sought to foster harmony between western and eastern Germans, whilst simultaneously highlighting the fallacy of stereotyping former GDR citizens, Maron has consistently criticised, and been appalled by, any concept of Ostalgie. In her eyes the GDR and its legacy are ‘absurd und unverständlich’ (Q, 146), and Pawels Briefe reinforces the point, all the more poignantly in that the public criticism is set in the context of a mother/daughter relationship. In particular, Maron attacks the dogmatic foundations of her mother’s convictions, which, she feels, contributed to her inability to appreciate the GDR’s faults. Thus Maron underlines her mother’s hypocritical application of terms such as ‘Klasseninstinkt’ and ‘Klassenbewußtsein’, which did not preclude her enjoying her privileged status as a ‘Bonzenfrau’ (PB, 129) in the

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Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat.28 Similarly, the author cannot understand how her mother could support a system that advocated the benefits of the process of Kritik und Selbstkritik. Both mother and daughter had terrible experiences of the procedure – Hella at the Parteihochschule and Monika at school – and the harrowing descriptions suggest that the benefits of this arbitrary, artificial and intensely confrontational practice were dubious at best, predicated as it was on denunciation. It is unsurprising that Maron should invoke her painful memories of this procedure in the essay in which she defended herself against the Stasi accusations.29 It is Hella’s refusal either to abandon the official interpretation of key events in the GDR’s history or to accept the State’s crimes, that infuriates her daughter the most, revealing unequivocally the incongruity between Hella as a good mother and loyal Communist, and thereby explaining Maron’s resultant ambivalence: Nichts in [Hellas] Leben vor diesem Mai 1945 – weder ihre Herkunft noch ihre Erziehung, weder ihr Sinn für Gerechtigkeit noch ihre Freiheitsliebe – kann mir erklären, warum sie für die nächsten Jahrzehnte zu denen gehörten, die ihre politischen Gegner in Gefängnisse sperrten, Christen drangsalierten, Bücher verboten, die ein ganzes Volk einmauerten und durch einen kolossalen Geheimdienst bespitzeln ließen. Was hatten Pawels Töchter Hella und Marta unter solchen Leuten zu suchen? (PB, 154)

It is the question that pervades Pawels Briefe, but for which there does not appear to be an answer. Freed from her inhibitions by Karl Maron’s death, Maron begins to challenge her mother. Coincidentally, the Biermann expulsion was the first incident to expose the tension between mother and daughter. Maron is unable to recall how they were reconciled on that occasion, but attributes it to their love for one another, whilst simultaneously admitting quite candidly: ‘Ich habe Hella damals auch gehaßt’ (PB, 202). The tension is not eased by her infuriation at her mother’s selective, or partial, memory of the GDR’s history. She casts doubt, for instance, on Hella’s description of the emotional unification of the Communists and Social Democrats to form the SED in 1946, and is struck by her mother’s simple omission of other historical coordinates in her own personal chronicle:

28

Beerenbaum, a high-level SED functionary, refers to his ‘Klasseninstinkt’ in Stille Zeile Sechs (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993), p. 58. 29 See ‘Heuchelei und Niedertracht’ (Q, 34-5).

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Mapping the Contours of Oppression In ihren Aufzeichnungen erwähnt Hella weder das Jahr 1953 noch das Jahr 1956, kein Wort über den Mauerbau 1961. Und 1968, ‘das verfluchte Jahr 1968’, wie Hella schreibt, ist nicht das Jahr des Einmarchs in Prag, sondern das Jahr ihrer Sorgen um Karl, der nach dem Ausscheiden aus seinen Ämtern in Depressionen gefallen war. 30 (PB, 191-2)

She can find no explanation for her mother’s apparently staunch conviction in Communism, which remains intact at the end of Pawels Briefe with her affiliation to the PDS, much to her daughter’s continued incredulity. The author harbours the suspicion – ‘der eher eine nachgetragene Hoffnung ist’ (PB, 157) – that her mother’s love for Karl Maron is largely responsible for her loyalty to the Party, and thereby for distorting her view, although it is a thesis rejected by Hella herself, forcing Maron to conclude: ‘Ihre Überzeugung […] ist Hella implantiert wie ein lebenswichtiges Organ, und jeder Versuch, sich ein Leben ohne sie zu denken, ist lebensgefährlich’ (PB, 157-8). Maron’s choice of corporeal metaphor here reveals how much Hella herself must have been shaped by relational forces and hints at the disorientating repercussions of a sudden change in circumstances. So what of the effect on Maron herself? That her mother’s support of a corrupt regime dismayed the author is clear. Indeed, Maron places her own ideological rebellion in the broader context of other children of prominent Party functionaries, who became ‘Ruhestörer und Dissidenten’: Es lag wohl an der ruinierten moralischen Integrität ihrer Eltern, daß kaum jemand auf die Idee kam, ihre Revolte könnte das Ergebnis ihrer Erziehung sein, weil die Kinder das Pathos des antifaschistischen Widerstands Ernst genommen haben, während ihre Eltern schon dabei waren, sich aus Widerstandskämpfern in Machthaber zu verwandeln. (PB, 170)

Although this perspective accounts for Maron’s disllusionment with her own mother in political terms, there is little doubt that the author’s sense of self suffered more insidious damage at a deeper private level because of her mother’s synonymity with the GDR apparatus that came to see in Maron a ‘Staatsfeind’ (PB, 62). The interweaving of the public and the private is a topos of critical GDR literature. With its 30

It should be pointed out that Maron herself makes no direct reference to these key dates either. Although we can attribute this omission, in part, to her having been a young girl during the earlier events, we might have expected some comment on the erection of the Berlin Wall, for example, when she would have been twenty years old. As her principal concern was clearly to focus on Pawel and Hella, her reactions to 1961 or 1968 might perhaps have appeared as a distraction.

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depiction of ideology impinging upon the intimate bond between mother and daughter Pawels Briefe is reminiscent of Volker Braun’s Unvollendete Geschichte, in which the protagonist, the daughter of Party members, is compelled to abandon her boyfriend, whom the State erroneously perceives as an undesirable.31 Under pressure to conform to the Party line and pregnant by her boyfriend, the girl begins to call into question her commitment to an ideology that can ride roughshod over private concerns, and ultimately defies both the State and her parents by having the baby and moving in with her boyfriend and his family. As the title of Braun’s piece implies, however, the ending is far too open to be unequivocally optimistic. Although it would be an exaggeration to assert that Pawels Briefe contains any of the bleakness of Braun’s tale, its portrayal of the way in which a supposedly natural relationship is distorted by fundamental political differences in East Germany does echo the fictional case, lending it further credence.32 That Maron suspected her mother would choose her husband over her daughter in any conflict must have been painful, and perhaps explains the severity of her nervous breakdown. As a result, it is conceivable indeed that the author should perceive the Wende as her final release from an inevitably repressed childhood: ‘Manchmal denke ich, daß ich erst in diesem Herbst erwachsen geworden bin; ich war achtundvierzig Jahre alt’ (PB, 131). At long last, she could begin to see her mother just as her mother, rather than a representative of the GDR, with whom her relationship was necessarily founded on a barely sustainable compromise. Thus she greets her mother’s disorientation at the collapse of the GDR not with schadenfreude, but rather with a sense of relief: Für einen kurzen Moment ihres Lebens, für eine Sekunde in der Geschichte, gehörte Hella zu keiner Partei, zu keinem Staat, zu keiner Idee und keiner Klasse. […] Dieser Augenblick gehört für sie wahrscheinlich zu den schwersten in ihrem Leben. Ich wünschte, er hätte länger gedauert. (PB, 131)

It seems natural that Maron should have wished this moment could have lasted longer, when their relationship hitherto had been incessantly entangled in, and penetrated by, politics. Irrespective of Hella’s subsequent support of the PDS and her unwillingness to accept the truth of the worst excesses of Stalinism, however, we are given the impression that their relationship has happily evolved along far more organic and wholesome lines since 1989: ‘Eigentlich haben wir uns 31 32

Volker Braun, Unvollendete Geschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1977). Braun has since revealed that his cautionary tale was based on a real situation.

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schon vor fünfzehn Jahren versprochen, über Politik nicht mehr zu streiten, was, wie Hella behauptet, dazu geführt hat, daß ich alles sagen darf und sie nichts’ (PB, 65). In view of the generational conflict that marked Maron’s adult life, it appears axiomatic that she should have cast around for some other means of coping with this private/public dilemma. Her stepfather compounded, rather than eased the problem, whereas her natural father, who died early, remained a peripheral figure in her life, reflected in his brief appearance in the text. Already well-versed in her family’s history before the discovery of Pawel’s letters, one can understand why Maron should be so drawn to her grandfather, especially as a child. As we have already seen, families play an important role in a child’s individuation and, as Eakin suggests, that influence is especially prevalent in the stories told within the family: ‘We can think of the child’s sense of self as emerging within a crucible of family stories and cultural scripts’ (HOL, 117). The opening chapter of Flugasche indicates the validity of this assertion with regard to Monika Maron, wrought as it is in the form of familial anecdotes, the autobiographical elements of which are now evident. Yet Pawel’s significance for the author went far beyond his suffering at the hands of the Nazis, which Caduff rather unkindly contends was the author’s primary interest in her grandfather.33 If the family stories reinforced the strong values her grandfather embodied and his steadfast commitment to them, then they also revealed, in the context of her mother’s support of the Stalinist regime in the GDR, the dichotomy between Hella’s idealistic belief in Communism and the reality of its application in East Germany. The belated discovery of the letters, and the better defined picture of her grandfather that emerges in the correspondence, confirms Maron’s long-held conviction that Pawel would have shared her strong reservations about Hella’s political views: Ich wünschte, es hätte ihn [Pawel] in meinem Leben gegeben. Ich kann mir einfach nicht vorstellen, daß unser Leben mit Pawel ebenso verlaufen wäre, wie es ohne ihn verlaufen ist. Alles, was ich inzwischen über ihn weiß, läßt mich vermuten, daß Hellas fragloses Bekenntnis zu ihrer Partei und zu der neuen Macht in Pawel wenigstens Zwiespalt geweckt hätte. (PB, 181)

Thus she identifies less with her grandfather’s victim status than with his principles, which she is convinced would reaffirm her own, and 33

Caduff, p. 43.

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thereby bolster her sense of self. He personifies a delayed, but no less important, justification of Maron’s political rebellion. Because of the complex interweaving of private and public issues in her relationship with Hella, one senses that the author needed some confirmation that her actions – leaving the SED, publishing her books in the West, leaving the GDR, and maybe even her links with the Stasi – were not impulsive or shallow, or merely a daughter’s rebellion against her mother. In his penultimate letter from the ghetto, a ‘Vermächtnisbrief’ (PB, 112) written shortly before his death and intended for Monika when she was old enough to read it, Pawel had written: ‘“Zeigt niemals dem Kinde [Monika], daß es Haß, Neid und Rache gibt”’ (PB, 112; 181). On these grounds, and even though she may wish her grandfather had not been a Communist, Maron feels certain that he would have been ‘gefeit […] gegen den Unfehlbarkeitsanspruch’ (PB, 181) of the SED. She asks her mother how Pawel would have found life in East Germany and is relieved at Hella’s inability, or unwillingness, to answer, which to her mind merely confirms her own assumption: Hellas bekennende Unzuständigkeit erleichtert mich. Zwar hätte ich der entschiedenen Behauptung, Pawel wäre auf jeden Fall ein Anhänger des neuen Systems gewesen, ohnehin nicht geglaubt, aber indem Hella, die ihn ja besser gekannt hat als ich, sich dessen eben nicht gewiß sein kann, überläßt sie meinen Großvater ganz mir und meinen Mutmaßungen über ihn. (PB, 182)

Although her view may well be based on speculation – ‘Mutmaßungen’ – the importance of the mental picture of Pawel she constructs with the help of his letters is crucial as a belated means of identification for the author. For one has the impression that, as a result of her ambivalent relationship with her mother – ‘die ich für ihre Lebensklugheit liebte und deren politische Ignoranz mich um so mehr empörte’ (PB, 201) – Maron suffered from a lack of selfconfidence throughout her life in the GDR and beyond, to such an extent that she came to define her sense of identity chiefly in her opposition to the State: Vor allem war ich von dem Argwohn befallen, ich könnte meinem Feind ähnlich werden wie ein Hund seinem Herrn, weil ich, um ihm zuvorzukommen, zu oft versuchte, zu denken wie er; weil ich, selbst wenn ich seine Erwartungen an mich mutwillig enttäuschte, ständig damit beschäftigt war, sie zu enttäuschen, und somit doch er, mein Feind, bestimmte, was ich tat und dachte, weil ich meine halbe Phantasie darauf verwendete, mich von ihm nicht besiegen zu lassen. (PB, 163)

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When one considers the tension that already underpinned Maron’s relationship with her mother, it is easy to appreciate how the author’s emigration could only have been a matter of time. Despite the overtly personal dimension of Maron’s investigation in Pawels Briefe, the text does contain a more universal relevance in its quest to reconstruct the past. Herein lies the book’s considerable appeal. For without claiming to offer a definitive interpretation of her family’s past, Maron nevertheless demonstrates how one might effect an approximate, and useful, reconstruction thereof. In the manner of both de Bruyn and Kunert, Maron’s family history also encompasses two totalitarian structures, although her less chronological approach to the material allows her to juxtapose the two systems throughout.34 Without intimating that they were in any way synonymous, Maron does uncover aspects of continuity between the two socio-political regimes, from which she derives her disaffection with her mother’s loyalty to the GDR. Particularly striking are the parallels between the fate of her grandfather and that of Grete Weil’s husband or Ruth Klüger and her family, for in each case Jewish identity was imposed upon them by the Nazis with tragic consequences. The fate of Pawel Iglarz overshadows the whole text, all the more effectively as his suffering is conveyed with harrowing clarity in the moving letters he writes to his family. It is hard, therefore, to substantiate Beatrice von Matt’s assertion that he effectively disappears from the text.35 Maron recounts how Pawel and Josefa left their native Poland for Berlin in 1905, having been ostracised by their families on account of their respective acts of religious apostasy: Pawel abandoned his Jewish background, Josefa her Catholic upbringing, with both becoming Baptists. Faced with her mother’s inability to explain why Pawel and Josefa made this decision, Maron speculates that they must have suffered ‘unter der orthodoxen Religiosität ihrer Elternhäuser’ (PB, 30). But the point is interesting on two counts. Firstly, in the light of what has already been discussed, one can see here why Monika Maron would have been drawn to her grandparents’ rebellion against dogmatic attitudes, but it reveals, in addition, how Pawel and Josefa had kept their own pasts from their children, a fact highlighted by the fruitless trip made by Maron and her mother to Poland: 34

See Rossbacher, p. 15. Rossbacher identifies the same juxtaposition in Stille Zeile Sechs. 35 Von Matt, p. 35.

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Es stimmt, daß Pawel mit dem Vergessen angefangen hat. Er hat seinen Kindern nichts erzählen wollen über die orthodoxe Welt, die er verlassen und die ihn totgesagt hatte. […] Wir wissen nicht, warum Pawel Ostrow verlassen hat und nicht bleiben wollte, als was er geboren war: Jude. Er hat die Erinnerung an seine Herkunft seinen Kindern nicht hinterlassen wollen. (PB, 109-10)

The tragedy for the Iglarz family is that simply suppressing the past did not eradicate it; it merely created a vacuum. One might argue, therefore, that Pawels Briefe is the author’s attempt to atone for her grandfather’s failure to confront his own past, whilst simultaneously ensuring that she does not commit the same mistake. It would certainly explain her preoccupation with the nature of memory and the importance of the past, which in the context of post-unification Germany remains a key concern. In particular, Günter de Bruyn has reflected at length on the legacy of the past in the wake of the GDR’s collapse, and his contention that history is a ‘Lebensbedürfnis’ intersects neatly with Maron’s project, if not all of those in the present survey: Geschichte ist also, so oder so, für die Gegenwart nutzbar. Man sollte deshalb ihre Betrachtung immer mit Vorsicht genießen; doch kommt keine Zeit ohne das Nachdenken über Geschichte und die eigne Geschichtlichkeit aus. Denn wir sind sowohl Gegenstand künftiger Geschichte als auch Produkt der Geschichte. Alles was wir tun oder lassen, denken und sagen ist beeinflußt von Überkommenem. Wir sind, was wir wurden, und wer mehr über sein Werden weiß, weiß 36 mehr über sich.

Berlin had attracted Pawel and Josefa, Maron assumes, on account of Prussia’s famed religious tolerance, but the onset of racist National Socialism was fatefully to drive them back to Poland, and Pawel to his death, probably at Kulmhof, ‘das erste Vernichtungslager für Juden’ (PB, 89). Although she was not Jewish and not obliged to leave Berlin, Josefa opted to remain with her husband until he was interned in the ghetto at Belchatow in 1942, shortly before her death from cancer. If separation from the children was not bad enough, not to have been with Josefa during her painful illness broke Pawel’s heart and, as the letters indicate, sapped his will to live. In particular, Maron is struck by Pawel’s attitude towards his Jewish identity, once rejected and then reimposed. His overwhelming feeling is one of guilt for having encumbered his entire family, and especially Josefa, with the consequences of this fateful identity: ‘Von [seinen Kindern] erbittet er 36

Günter de Bruyn, ‘Deutsche Zustände’, p. 50.

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Verzeihung für seine Abstammung, für das Unglück der Mutter, für seine Ohnmacht vor ihrem Tod’ (PB, 138). Whereas the experiences of Grete Weil, Ruth Klüger and Günter Kunert fostered in them a connection with their heritage from which they derived the strength to resist, Maron’s grandfather could not overcome his resentment: ‘Es muß doch ein zu ungeheuerliches Verbrechen sein, Jüdischer Abstammung zu sein, aber glaubt es mir, liebe Kinder, ich hab es nicht verschuldet. Wenn mir die Eltern zur Wahl gestellt worden wären, ich hätte mir womöglich auch andere Eltern gewählt aber ich mußte es auch so nehmen, wie es mir geboten wurde’. […] Nur dieses eine Mal erwähnt er seine jüdische Familie, und nur als die unfreiwillige Herkunft, die ungewollten Eltern. (PB, 98)

Maron supplements her reconstruction of Pawel’s last days in the ghetto with a series of terse sections conveying the bald facts of the Holocaust as it affected her grandfather, much as Weil does in her autobiography with regard to the fate of the Jews in Holland. A contemporary readership is now well versed in this terrible history and so a more detailed commentary is not required. Yet, for Maron, it is not the fact of Pawel’s death or the Holocaust per se that are so disturbing: ‘Barbarischer und niederträchtiger als Pawels Ermordung war die rohe Mißachtung der Gesetze seines Lebens; ihn zu töten, erscheint nur noch als die kalte Konsequenz seiner moralischen Auslöschung’ (PB, 137). It is in the infringement of an individual’s rights and dignity – ‘die rohe Mißachtung der Gesetze seines Lebens’ – that the true personal cost of existence under a totalitarian system is to be found, and Pawels Briefe maps poignantly the contours of the suffering that results. Although she does not seek to equate the GDR directly with its fascist predecessor in her account, Maron naturally reveals how similar infringements of human rights occurred under German socialism, creating what she has called elsewhere ‘zerstörte Seelen’ (Q, 45). Despite her dismay at her mother’s uncharacteristic insensitivity to the suffering that the system she supported was itself to cause, in view of the Iglarz family’s own experiences under National Socialism, Maron has nevertheless underlined how the GDR’s redirection of responsibility for the crimes of Nazism to its western neighbour was bound to have ramifications in the post-Wende assessment of its own past: Im Osten schlug man die Erbschaft einfach aus und ernannte das gesamte Staatsvolk der DDR zu dem besseren, dem antifaschistischen Teil der Deutschen. Indem die neuen Herrscher ihrer Bevölkerung die

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Auseinandersetzung mit der alten Diktatur ersparten, machten sie sie unempfindlich für die nächste. Seit 1989 liegt auch hinter uns, was in einem Teil Deutschlands seit 1945 im Namen der Zukunft angerichtet wurde: die zweite deutsche Diktatur, die vierzig Jahre lang zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft regierte, und zuweilen scheint es, als hätte erst jetzt, da sie zerbrochen ist und die Ergebnisse ihrer Herrschaft offen zutage liegen – zerstörte Seelen, zerstörte Landschaften, eine zerstörte Wirtschaft –, ihre geistige Gegenwart begonnen. (Q, 45)

Maron is not trying to absolve her fellow eastern Germans from any responsibility, but is merely articulating the problems they may now face when morally compelled to confront the past: Es gehört zum Wesen einer Diktatur, dass sie die öffentliche Diskussion über sich selbst nicht zulässt. Sie unterdrückt den Verständigungs- und Selbstverständigungsprozess einer Gesellschaft nicht nur; sie stellt ihn unter Strafe. Erst wenn die materielle Existenz der Diktatur beendet ist, kann ihre geistige nachgeholt werden. (Q, 45)

As someone subjected to public scrutiny, on account of her Stasi contacts, the author herself is clearly in a position to talk with some authority not only on the invasive nature of dictatorship, but also on the problems of dealing with the ‘geistige Existenz’ in that repressive environment. Time and again she has reiterated the need for this process of ‘Selbstverständigung’ to be effected, as the term would suggest, on an individual basis, in order to liberate the former East Germans from the strictures of their enforced collective identity. In this way, Maron echoes Christa Wolf’s advocation of ‘subjective authenticity’ from the 1960s, which underpinned her novels Nachdenken über Christa T. (1968) and Kindheitsmuster, both of which can be read as explorations of the ‘Versuch, man selbst zu sein’.37 In a climate now unfettered by censorship, with Pawels Briefe Maron has arguably provided an updated model for this private, and public, reckoning with the past and the reassertion of one’s sense of self. Maron is surely correct in her assertion that these two concerns are interdependent, especially in the context of German history: Die Schwierigkeit, mit einer belasteten Vergangenheit umzugehen, liegt in diesem heiklen Gleichgewicht zwischen Selbstbewusstsein und selbstkritischer Einsicht. Ein Volk wie auch der Einzelne braucht Selbstbewusstsein, um seiner Vergangenheit kritisch zu begegnen; und es braucht selbstkritische Einsicht, um selbstbewusst zu werden. (Q, 51)

37

Nachdenken über Christa T., p. 9.

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Throughout Pawels Briefe, Maron makes no effort to conceal the fact that the material conflates documentary evidence with creative and imaginative extrapolations, thereby supplementing Wahrheit with Dichtung. It allows her to develop a picture of her grandparents’ life together, to imagine how they would have found life after the war, had they survived it, and to construct a relationship with people she never knew. Such Dichtung is no more fictional than trying to reconstruct events and situations from memories, the reliability of which is continually questioned in the text. On several occasions, Maron highlights how people recall the same events in different ways, but without being in any way judgemental. Their memories are real to them; it does not necessarily mean that they are lying. In the same way, it does not mean that Pawels Briefe is itself a study in deception, or self-deception, simply because the accuracy of some components cannot be vouched for definitively. In her essay ‘Erinnern und Erfinden’, which criticises the tendency of readers to perceive literary fiction as autobiographical, Anna Mitgutsch posits a compelling thesis on the qualities that imbue texts with authenticity: Es gibt eine Intensität der Sprache und der Darstellung, eine Überzeugungskraft, die anders nicht zu erreichen ist. Diese Intensität läßt sich schwer simulieren. Sie kommt aus der Verletzung, aus dem Schmerz, der nicht rückgängig zu machenden Beschädigung. Sie fordert eine Simplizität und eine Genauigkeit, eine ungeschminkte Direktheit, die im freien Spiel mit Entwürfen und Möglichkeiten gekünstelt wirken würde. Solchen Texten haftet die Aura des Notwendigen an. Sie werden vom Leser als authentisch erlebt, und er wird versucht sein, sie autobiographisch zu verstehen, weil er spurt, daß hier der Autor, die Autorin mit einer Erfahrung ringt, mit der er 38 bzw. sie auch im Schreiben nicht fertig geworden ist.

Although the autobiographical basis of Pawels Briefe is not in doubt, Mitgutsch’s analysis is productive in our assessment of Maron’s text, especially of those sections where Maron has resorted to extrapolation or creative reconstruction (Dichtung/Erfindung) in her quest for the truth (Wahrheit/Erinnerung). For there is an inherent necessity to it, a sense that Maron had to write the story of her grandparents’ life in order to heal a deep-rooted personal ‘Verletzung’. And it is from the very personal nature of her motivation, her quest for her sense of identity, that the text’s credibility derives. In this way, Pawels Briefe fits the pattern of each of the texts in the present study, which all tackle a personal ‘Verletzung’ inflicted by totalitarianism. 38

Mitgutsch, p. 12.

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Paul John Eakin argues that one’s story of the ‘proximate other’ simultaneously stimulates the story of the self: in this way biography can also be autobiography, for there is a thin line separating the two. Thomas Kraft for one though is unhappy about calling Pawels Briefe an autobiography: ‘Es handelt sich vielmehr um ein Dokument persönlicher Selbstvergewisserung in der Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Herkunft und einer sich vage daraus ableitenden Form von Identität’.39 Yet one might argue, in view of the differentiated nature of the genre, that Kraft has in fact delivered a useful definition of autobiographical writing which can be applied to most, if not all, of the texts we have examined. With regard to Pawels Briefe, which is designated a ‘Familiengeschichte’, one cannot overlook the author’s own life story and the quest for self-affirmation that emerge therein. It is a point she acknowledges at the end of the opening section: Ich mußte aufgehört haben, meine Eltern zu bekämpfen, um mich über das Maß der eigenen Legitimation hinaus für meine Großeltern und ihre Geschichte wirklich zu interessieren. Ich mußte bereit sein, den Fortgang der Geschichte, die Verbindung zu mir, das Leben meiner Mutter, einfach nur verstehen zu wollen, als wäre es mein eigenes Leben gewesen. (PB, 13)

The success of Maron’s endeavour to understand her mother is questionable at the end, for her ambivalence towards Hella remains. By reconstructing the family’s past Maron merely reinforces the fundamental difference between them in political terms, which has put a severe strain at times on their relationship as mother and daughter, even precipitating, albeit briefly, a period of estrangement. Thus it seems fitting that the text should conclude with the author’s irritation at her mother’s celebration of the PDS’s election success in 1998. Does this not then undermine Eakin’s notion of the importance of the relational dimension to identity formation? For, despite the strongly Communist nature of her upbringing, Maron ultimately rebelled against the GDR, dismayed by her mother’s loyalty to a regime that did not adhere to its fundamental tenets. A quick glance at many mother/daughter relationships – or indeed any parent/child constellation – would suggest that evidence of the relational influence on the self can often be located as much in reaction to, rather than identification with, the ‘proximate other’. Moreover, as Pawels Briefe reveals, in the context of her family Maron’s revolt against her 39

Thomas Kraft, ‘Geschichte und Photoalbum’, Rheinischer Merkur, 26 March 1999, p. 2.

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mother’s beliefs belongs to a tradition of apostasy initiated by her grandparents. Pawel and Josefa turned their backs on their respective upbringings, but subsequently so did each of their children: ‘Meine Großeltern haben ertragen müssen, daß keines ihrer Kinder sich taufen ließ; Hella hat gelernt zu ertragen, daß ich Antikommunistin wurde; und ich muß ertragen, daß Hella Kommunistin bleibt’ (PB, 205). But the abiding impression of Pawels Briefe is that the author’s reconstructed relationship with her grandparents, and more particularly with her grandfather, has to some extent assuaged a private desire for ‘Selbstverständigung’ unleashed by her own experiences of the totalitarian GDR and exacerbated by her mother’s unquestioning support thereof.

Conclusion In his essay tracing the influence of Cervantes’s Don Quixote on the evolution of the European novel, Julian Evans identifies ‘the steady abandonment, Europe-wide, of solipsistic and theory-driven metafictions in favour of a rediscovered social realism’.1 Although his focus is principally on trends in fiction, his perception of a move away from more postmodern devices towards, what we might call, a more traditional mode of writing might provide a partial explanation for the renewed academic interest in autobiography. The prevalence of autobiographical texts per se in the years since the Wende might be ascribed to a desire to realign the self with its environment and create a more organic sense of wholeness to repair the increasing fragmentation evidenced in modern life as the technologically obsessed twentieth century drew to a close. There seems little doubt that those who have tried to consign autobiography to the rubbish tip have ultimately failed in this endeavour. In truth, of course, the genre never truly went away. It remains as rich, vibrant, diverse and relevant as it has always been, and as the texts we have examined reveal, the form’s inherently subjective nature ensures that each account provides plenty of room for discussion and argument about how best to define it. As Linda Anderson appositely remarks in this respect: ‘While autobiography supplies few certainties or answers, its study leads us to engage with some of the most intractable and important cultural questions of our time’.2 There can be little doubt that for the contemporary German-speaking world, many of those questions continue to revolve around the legacies of Nazi Germany and East Germany, and the autobiographical texts of the eight authors at the core of this study have valuable contributions to make to the ongoing exploration of those regimes. Despite the insights each account provides into life under totalitarianism in general, the motivation of the author in each case was first and foremost a personal one. It is possible to identify a deepseated wound, the ‘Verletzung’ from which Anna Mitgutsch believes the authenticity of a text derives.3 As befits the different experiences 1

Julian Evans, ‘In the Knight’s Footsteps’, The Guardian, 20 July 2002. Anderson, p. 133. 3 Mitgutsch, p. 12. 2

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of the authors, the precise nature of the wound inflicted by totalitarianism differs from person to person. For Ludwig Harig, for example, it stems both from the guilt he feels for his complicity with the Nazi regime and the psychological conditioning he suffered as a young boy. By way of contrast, Ruth Klüger’s harrowing account of anti-Semitism charts the severe damage to her sense of identity that her designation as ‘other’ and exclusion from the German-speaking world resulted in. Although the GDR by no means resorted to the same murderous excesses as its fascist counterpart, it was no less concerned with trying to shape its citizens in its own image and punish those who refused to conform. The accounts of de Bruyn, Saeger, Kunert and Maron all reveal the damaging psychological ramifications of the socialist state’s repression of individuality, which eventually drove the latter two authors from the country. Each text is predicated, therefore, on a therapeutic need to heal the wounds, or at the very least to initiate a curative process, and thereby rescue a sense of self that had been severely conflicted by totalitarianism. The decision of the authors to adopt an autobiographical approach to map the contours of oppression is quite deliberate; even Hein’s fictional account of growing up in the GDR is described significantly as a ‘fictional autobiography’ and closely mirrors in its form more traditional examples of the genre. If one wishes to rescue the self, what better form is there than autobiography, irrespective of the mauling it has suffered from some quarters of the academic and literary communities on account of its inherently subjective nature? The form is especially pertinent to the selected authors for that very reason; it enshrines the individual perspective. That is not to say that they ignore some of the problems intrinsic to autobiography, however. Each text necessarily acknowledges its provisional status as one insight amongst many possible versions; despite the author’s best efforts to corroborate his or her account with documentary material where feasible, a certain doubt must remain due to the unreliability of memory. But the primary concern is to produce as authentic a testimony as possible, and in each case the author makes some use of Dichtung along the way to supplement the Wahrheit. As an overt fiction, Hein’s text is the most obvious example of this approach, but the picture of GDR life in the mid-1950s, together with certain similarities between the author and his protagonist, ensures that the depiction of adolescence rings true; it is as subjective and authentic as any credible autobiography. In Saeger’s text, the boundaries between fact and fiction are equally fluid, despite a stronger indication that it is

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essentially autobiographical in nature. But the truth is that even in the more traditional texts explored here, the authors rely at times on their creative imagination to supplement their chronicles, plugging the memory gaps with ‘fictions’ as Virginia Woolf had intimated was inevitable in any autobiographical account. By giving literary form to their past selves and selecting facts for inclusion, the authors are essentially relying on a form of Dichtung redolent of fiction; their lives effectively become stories, as Eakin has suggested in his engaging study. Yet in each case, the resultant text is ultimately imbued with an authenticity stemming from the author’s need to rescue a sense of self by committing to paper a record of the repression they had endured. Despite the differences both in the authors’ experiences and the way in which they tackle them, it is striking how much the accounts have in common. Aside from the existential imperative they all share and the mutually corroborative pictures of life in Nazi Germany or East Germany that emerge, it is particularly evident how often the role of the family, Heimat and language are cited as significant, if not always positive, relational forces. It might be argued, of course, that these features have always been integral to autobiographies; what is different in the texts under scrutiny here, however, is the authoritarian context recounted. The totalitarian regimes in question actively sought to mould a new consciousness and recast the relationship between the individual and the State. In order to facilitate the individual’s subsumption into the collective – we might usefully borrow the Nazi term, Gleichschaltung, to describe this process – the regimes set about changing the social environment by means of coercion, mass organisations and the hijacking of language. In addition, in their different ways the two regimes invaded the private sphere, and each author sheds light on the damaging effects unleashed by this infiltration. Taken together the texts provide a nuanced picture of the totalitarian legacy in Germany by virtue of the contrasting perspectives of the authors. Although the genre has been pronounced dead, the examples explored above underline just how premature such pronouncements have been. Driven primarily by private concerns to map the contours of oppression and rescue a sense of self, the authors have, however inadvertently, also issued a vigorous defence of autobiography’s inherent value in the modern world. As Eakin has noted, an almost prurient interest in other people’s lives has increasingly become a feature of the modern global village, with the explosion of

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confessional chat shows on television and the curious phenomenon of online diaries on the internet, which continue to grow and grow in number. As a result, he ponders whether life writing has developed into an ‘unseemly profession’ (HOL, 142). It is true indeed that biography and autobiography seem to have acquired ever greater commercial attraction, but it is not always possible to divine the motives for this modern obsession with, often superficial, disclosure. This apparent trivialisation of life writing might well have contributed to the way in which autobiography as a form has been discredited, but in truth it reveals how unstable and elusive the form remains and thus how impossible to define with any authority. Nevertheless, we must surely sort the wheat from the chaff. There are myriad examples of autobiography which demand of us an engagement with ‘some of the most intractable and important cultural questions of our time’, as Anderson suggests. It is hoped that the texts explored in the present study have demonstrated the form’s enduring capacity to provoke and enlighten, and most importantly of all to reveal how selves are made and able to endure even in the worst of times.

Bibliography The following bibliography lists all primary and secondary materials consulted over the course of research for this project. I would direct any readers interested in exploring the field of autobiographical theory in particular to Paul John Eakin’s very useful bibliography in How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 187-202. For those readers who are particularly interested in German studies of autobiography, Barbara Kosta’s bibliography in Recasting Autobiography: Women’s Counterfictions in Contemporary German Literature and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 193-212, would be a good starting-point. The bibliography here has been subdivided into the following sections for ease of reference: 1. Primary Literature 2. Secondary Literature - (i) Studies on Autobiography; (ii) Literary, Historical and Cultural Studies 3. Ludwig Harig 4. Uwe Saeger 5. Ruth Klüger 6. Günter de Bruyn 7. Günter Kunert 8. Christoph Hein 9. Grete Weil 10. Monika Maron The section relating to each author contains discrete listings of general secondary sources and specific studies of the texts in question. Page numbers for newspaper articles have been provided where possible. I should like to record my thanks to staff at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach for their assistance in the collation of materials for this bibliography during October 2001. I should also like to acknowledge the British Academy and the University of Wales Bangor for their financial support of this research trip to Germany. 1. Primary Literature Where the edition cited is not the first, the year of first publication is provided in square brackets. Améry, Jean, Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2000) [1966]

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—— , Weiterleben – aber wie? (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1968) Andersch, Alfred, Die Kirschen der Freiheit (Zurich: Diogenes, 1968) [1952] Anouilh, Jean, Antigone, ed. by W. M. Landers ([n.p]: Nelson, 1986) [First performed, 1944] Apitz, Bruno, Nackt unter Wölfen (Leipzig: Reclam, 1975) [1958] Braun, Volker, Unvollendete Geschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1977) Bruyn, Günter de, Der Hohlweg (Halle: Mitteldeutscher, 1963) ——, Preisverleihung (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1982) [1972] ——, Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (Halle: Mitteldeutscher, 1975) ——, Neue Herrlichkeit (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1984) ——, Lesefreuden: Über Bücher und Menschen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1986) ——, ‘Zur Druckgenehmigungspraxis’, in Günter de Bruyn: Materialien zu Leben und Werk, ed. by Uwe Wittstock (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991), pp. 19-21 ——, Jubelschreie, Trauergesänge: Deutsche Befindlichkeiten (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991) ——, Zwischenbilanz: Eine Jugend in Berlin (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1992) ——, ‘Dieses Mißtrauen gegen mich selbst. Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit: Ein Beitrag zum Umgang mit den Stasi-Akten’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 February 1993. ——, Mein Brandenburg (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993) ——, Das erzählte Ich: Über Wahrheit und Dichtung in der Autobiographie (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995) ——, Vierzig Jahre: Ein Lebensbericht (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996) ——, Deutsche Zustände: Über Erinnerungen und Tatsachen, Heimat und Literatur (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1999) ——, Die Finckensteins: Eine Familie im Dienste Preußens (Berlin: Siedler, 1999) ——, Preussens Luise: Vom Entstehen und Vergehen einer Legende (Berlin: Siedler, 2001) ——, Unter den Linden (Berlin: Siedler, 2002) ——, Abseits: Liebeserklärung an eine Landschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2005) Canetti, Elias, Die gerettete Zunge: Geschichte einer Jugend (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1986) [1977] Domin, Hilde, Gesammelte autobiographische Schriften: Fast ein Lebenslauf (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1998) [1993] Garton Ash, Timothy, The File (London: HarperCollins, 1997) Grass, Günter, Die Blechtrommel (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1988) [1959] ——, Katz und Maus (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986) [1961] Harig, Ludwig, Ordnung ist das ganze Leben: Roman meines Vaters (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996) [1986] ——, Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1994) [1990] ——, Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1999) [1996]

Bibliography

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Hein, Christoph, Der fremde Freund (Leipzig: Aufbau, 1997) [1982] ——, Der Tangospieler (Leipzig: Aufbau, 1999) [1989] ——, Von allem Anfang an (Leipzig: Aufbau, 1997) Hensel, Jana, Zonenkinder (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2002) Horvath, Ödön von, Jugend ohne Gott (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1994) [1938] Janaczek, Helena, Lektionen des Verborgenen (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1999) [Lezioni di tenebra, 1997] Kant, Hermann, Der Abspann (Berlin: Aufbau, 1991) Klein, Olaf Georg, Plötzlich war alles ganz anders: Deutsche Lebenswege im Umbruch (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994) Klemperer, Victor, LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen (Leipzig: Reclam, 1999) [1957] Klüger, Ruth, weiter leben: Eine Jugend (Munich: DTV, 1998) [1992] ——, ‘Die neunten November sprechen’, Freitag, 3 November 1995, p. 2 ——, ‘Kitsch, Kunst und Grauen. Die Hintertüren des Erinnerns: Darf man den Holocaust deuten?’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 December 1995 ——, Frauen lesen anders (Munich: DTV, 1997) [1996] ——, ‘Was ist wahr? Kann man “schöne Literatur” über den Holocaust schreiben? Welchen Anspruch erheben die jüngst erschienenen Romane und Erzählungen über KZ und Verfolgung’, Die Zeit, 12 September 1997, p. 64 ——, ‘Erich Hackl – Von einem, der die Wahrheit dichtet: Literatur und Geschichte in fester Umarmung’, Literatur und Kritik, 32 (1997), 37-42 ——, ‘Die Autorität des Wortes: Marcel Reich-Ranickis Lebensbuch’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 October 1999 ——, ‘Verschüttete Aufklärung: Der Schriftsteller Primo Levi lässt sich nicht von seinem Tod, sondern von seinem Leben her verstehen’, Die Zeit, 9 March 2000, p. 58 Kunert, Günter, Berlin beizeiten (Munich: Hanser, 1986) ——, Schatten entziffern: Lyrik, Prosa 1950-1994, ed. by Jochen Richter (Leipzig: Reclam, 1995) ——, Erwachsenenspiele: Erinnerungen (Munich: DTV, 1999) [1997] ——, Immer wieder am Anfang: Erzählungen und kleine Prosa, ed. by Volker Wehdeking (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000) Kunze, Reiner, Deckname ‘Lyrik’: Eine Dokumentation (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1990) Levi, Primo, If This is a Man and The Truce (London: Abacus, 1999) [Se questo è un uomo, 1958; Le Tregun, 1963] Loest, Erich, Durch die Erde ein Riß: Ein Lebenslauf (Munich: DTV, 1999) [1981] Mann, Klaus, Mephisto: Porträt einer Karriere (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981) [1936] Maron, Monika, Flugasche (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1981)

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——, ‘Ich war ein antifaschistisches Kind’, in ‘Die Geschichte ist offen’: DDR 1990 Hoffnung auf eine neue Republik, ed. by Michael Naumann (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1990), pp. 117-35 ——, Stille Zeile Sechs (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993) [1991] ——, Nach Maßgabe meiner Begreifungskraft (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995) [1993] ——, Pawels Briefe: Eine Familiengeschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1999) ——, quer über die Gleise: Artikel, Essays, Zwischenrufe (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2000) Mitgutsch, Anna, Erinnern und Erfinden (Graz: Droschl, 1999) Müller, Herta, Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1997) Orwell, George, 1984 (London: Penguin, 1989) [1949] Pompidou, Georges, ed., Anthologie de la poésie française (Paris: Hachette, 1961) Queneau, Raymond, Hunderttausend Milliarden Gedichte: Aus dem Französischen übertragen von Ludwig Harig (Frankfurt a.M.: Zweitausendeins, 1984) Saeger, Uwe, ‘Der Problembürger’, Litfass, 45 (1989), 137-43 ——, ‘Neue Taktik für alte Strategie?’, Freie Erde, 28 October 1989. Reprinted in Neue deutsche Literatur, 38.3 (1990), 168-70 ——, ‘Heimat. Vorletzter Versuch. Mein Oktoberlied’, Temperamente (1990), 95-98 ——, Haut von Eisen (Munich: Piper, 1990) ——, Die Nacht danach und der Morgen (Piper: Munich, 1991) Scholl, Inge, Die weiße Rose (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1979) [1953] Seghers, Anna, Das siebte Kreuz (Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1989) [1942] Simon, Jana, Denn wir sind anders: Die Geschichte des Felix S. (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2002) Spiel, Hilde, Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten: Erinnerungen 1911-1946 (Munich: List, 1989) Toller, Ernst, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1998) [1933] Trakl, Georg, Werke, Entwürfe, Briefe, ed. by Hans-Georg Kemper and Frank Rainer Max (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984) Weil, Grete, Ans Ende der Welt (Berlin: Volk und Welt, 1949) ——, Meine Schwester Antigone (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2000) [1980] ——, ‘Nicht dazu erzogen, Widerstand zu leisten’, in Weil ich das Leben liebe...: Persönliches und Politisches aus dem Leben engagierter Frauen, ed. by Dorlies Pollmann and Edith Laudowicz (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981), pp. 171-80. ——, Generationen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1989) [1983] ——, Der Brautpreis (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1998) [1988] ——, ‘Nicht das ganze deutsche Volk’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 November 1988, p. 10 ——, ‘Warum ich trotzdem in Deutschland lebe. Ein Brief aus dem Jahr 1947 an Margarete Susman’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16-17 June 1994, p. 5

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——, Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2001) [1998] Wolf, Christa, Nachdenken über Christa T. (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986) [1968] ——, Lesen und Schreiben: Aufsätze und Prosastücke (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1972) ——, Kindheitsmuster (Berlin: Aufbau, 1976) ——, Was bleibt (Munich: DTV, 1994) [1989] ——, Auf dem Weg nach Tabou: Texte 1990-1994 (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994)

2. Secondary Literature (i) Studies on Autobiography Amann, Klaus, and Karl Wagner, eds., Autobiographien in der österreichischen Literatur: Von Franz Grillparzer bis Thomas Bernhard (Innsbruck: Studien, 1998) Anderson, Linda, Autobiography (London: Routledge, 2001) Eakin, Paul John, Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) ——, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999) Finck, Almut, Autobiographisches Schreiben nach dem Ende der Autobiographie (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1999) Kosta, Barbara, Recasting Autobiography: Women’s Counterfictions in Contemporary German Literature and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) Leeder, Karen, ‘“Vom Unbehagen in der Einheit”: Autobiographical Writing by Women since 1989’, in Puw Davies et al (eds.), pp. 249-71 Lejeune, Philippe, ‘The Autobiographical Pact’, in On Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 3-30 Olney, James, ed., Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) Paulsen, Wolfgang, Das Ich im Spiegel der Sprache: Autobiographisches Schreiben in der deutschen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991) Plowman, Andrew, The Radical Subject: Social Change and the Self in Recent German Autobiography (Bern: Peter Lang, 1998) Preece, Julian, ‘Damaged Lives? (East) German Memoirs and Autobiographies, 19891994’, in The New Germany: Literature and Society after Unification, ed. by Osman Durrani, Colin Good and Kevin Hilliard (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 349-64 Puw Davies, Mererid, Beth Linklater and Gisela Shaw, eds., Autobiography by Women in German (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000)

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Spengemann, William C., The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980) Vansant, Jacqueline, ‘Challenging Austria’s Victim Status: National Socialism and Austrian Personal Narratives’, German Quarterly, 67.1 (1994), 38-57 Wagner-Egelhaaf, Martina, Autobiographie (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000) Woods, Roger, ‘“Nuancen und Zwischentöne” versus “muskelprotzende Prosa”: Autobiography and the Project of Explaining “How it Was” in the GDR’, in Changing Identities in East Germany: Studies in GDR Culture and Society 14/15. Selected Papers from the Nineteenth and Twentieth New Hampshire Symposia, ed. by Roger Woods and Margy Gerber (Lanham: University Press of America, 1996), pp. 37-49 (ii) Literary, Historical and Cultural Studies Anz, Thomas, ed., ‘Es geht nicht um Christa Wolf’: Der Literaturstreit im vereinten Deutschland (Munich: Spangenberg, 1991) Augstein, Rudolf, ed., Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit. Die Spiegel-Serie über den langen Schatten des Dritten Reichs: Spiegel Special – Das Magazin zum Thema, 1 (2001) Bergmann, Christian, ‘Totalitarismus und Sprache’, Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 38 (1999), 18-24 Bessel, Richard, ed., Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Comparisons and Contrasts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) Boa, Elizabeth and Rachel Palfreyman, eds., Heimat – A German Dream: Regional Loyalties and National Identity in German Culture 1890-1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) Braese, Stephan, ed., In der Sprache der Täter: Neue Lektüren deutschsprachiger Nachkriegs- und Gegenwartsliteratur (Opladen: Westdeutscher, 1998) Brockmann, Stephen, Literature and German Reunification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Burleigh, Michael, The Third Reich: A New History (London: Pan, 2001) Childs, David, The Fall of the GDR: Germany’s Road to Unity (Harlow: Longman, 2001) Cooke, Paul and Andrew Plowman (eds.), German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) Corino, Karl, ‘Vor und nach der Wende: Die Rezeption der DDR-Literatur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und das Problem einer einheitlichen deutschen Literatur’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 39.8 (1991), 146-64 ——, ed., Die Akte Kant – IM ‘Martin’: Die Stasi und die Literatur in Ost und West (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1995) Costabile-Heming, Carol Anne, Rachel J. Halverson and Kristie A. Foell, eds., Textual Responses to German Unification (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001)

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Damm, Sigrid, ‘Unruhe’, Sinn und Form, 40 (1988), 244-49 Dennis, Mike, The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic, 1945-1990 (Harlow: Longman, 2000) Dümmel, Karsten, Identitätsprobleme in der DDR-Literatur der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997) Emmerich, Wolfgang, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR (Gustav Kiepenheuer: Leipzig, 1996) Ensikat, Peter, Hat es die DDR überhaupt gegeben? (Munich: Eulenspiegel, 1998) Erbe, Günter, ‘Die ostdeutschen Schriftsteller auf der Suche nach einem neuen Selbstverständnis’, in Changing Identities in East Germany: Studies in GDR Culture and Society 14/15. Selected Papers from the Nineteenth and Twentieth New Hampshire Symposia, ed. by Roger Woods and Margy Gerber (Lanham: University Press of America, 1996), pp. 51-61 Evans, Julian, ‘In the Knight’s Footsteps’, The Guardian, 20 July 2002 Fulbrook, Mary, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Gauck, Joachim, Die Stasi-Akten: Das unheimliche Erbe der DDR (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991) Geyer, Michael, ‘Restorative Elites, German Society and the Nazi Pursuit of War’, in Bessel, pp. 134-64 Glover, Jonathan, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999) Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1996) Gordon, Robert, ‘Real Tanks and Toy Tanks: Playing Games with History in Roberto Benigni’s La vita è bella/Life is Beautiful’, Studies in European Cinema, 2 (2005), 31-44 Krauss, Hannes, ‘Verschwundenes Land? Verschwundene Literatur? Neue Bücher – alte Themen’, in Verrat an der Kunst, ed. by Karl Deiritz and Hannes Krauss (Berlin: Aufbau, 1993), pp. 273-78 Krüger, Hans-Peter, ‘Ohne Versöhnung handeln, nur nicht leben’, Sinn und Form, 44 (1992), 40-50 Lamb-Faffelberger, Margarete, ed., Out from the Shadows: Essays on Contemporary Austrian Women Writers and Filmmakers (Riverside: Ariadne, 1997) Ludz, Peter Christian and Johannes Kuppe, DDR Handbuch (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1979) Mählert, Ulrich, Kleine Geschichte der DDR (Munich: Beck, 1999) McGowan, Moray, ‘Neue Subjektivität’, in After the ‘Death of Literature’: West German Writing of the 1970s, ed. by Keith Bullivant (Oxford: Berg, 1989), pp. 53-68

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Naumann, Michael, ed., ‘Die Geschichte ist offen’: DDR 1990 - Hoffnung auf eine neue Republik (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1990) O’Dochartaigh, Pól, ed., Jews in German Literature since 1945: German-Jewish Literature? (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000) Oppen, Karoline von, The Role of the Writer and the Press in the Unification of Germany, 1989-1990 (New York: Peter Lang, 2000) Paver, Chloe E. M., Narrative and Fantasy in the Post War German Novel: A Study of Novels by Johnson, Frisch, Wolf, Becker, and Grass (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) Pearce, Robert, Fascism and Nazism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997) Reid, J. H., Writing Without Taboos: The New East German Literature (Oxford: Berg, 1990) Rüther, Günter, ed., Literatur in der Diktatur: Schreiben im Nationalsozialismus und DDR-Sozialismus, (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1997) Schlant, Ernestine, The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust (New York: Routledge, 1999) Sebald, W. G., Unheimliche Heimat: Essays zur österreichischen Literatur (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995) Steele, Jonathan, ‘Berlin Needs Bridges, Not Walls, to End its Cold War’, The Guardian, 17 August 2001, p.14 Tate, Dennis, The East German Novel: Identity, Community, Continuity (Bath: Bath University Press, 1984) ——, ‘“Breadth and Diversity”: Socialist Realism in the GDR’, in European Socialist Realism, ed. by Michael Scriven and Dennis Tate (Oxford: Berg, 1988), pp. 60-78 Walter, Joachim and others, eds., Protokoll eines Tribunals: Die Ausschlüsse aus dem DDR-Schriftstellerverband 1979 (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991) ——, ‘“Kosmonauten der stillen Erkundung”: Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit’, in Rüther, pp. 283-302 ——, Sicherungsbereich Literatur: Schriftsteller und Staatssicherheit in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Ullstein, 1999) Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, ed., The Cambridge History of German Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Weber, Hermann, DDR: Grundriß der Geschichte 1945-1990 (Hanover: Fackelträger, 1991) Weedon, Chris, ed., Postwar Women’s Writing in German (Oxford: Berghahn, 1997) Williams, Arthur, Stuart Parkes and Roland Smith, eds., German Literature at a Time of Change: German Unity and German Identity in Literary Perspective (Bern: Peter Lang, 1991)

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3. Ludwig Harig General Secondary Literature Arnold, Heinz Ludwig, ed., Ludwig Harig (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1997) Diwersy, Alfred, ed., Wörterspiel – Lebensspiel: Ein Buch über Ludwig Harig (Homburg: Karlsberg, 1993) Meier-Lenz, Dieter, ‘Erinnern und Schreiben: Zum 70. Geburtstag von Ludwig Harig über seine autobiografische Prosa’, Die Horen, 42 (1997), 39-47 Rech, Benno, ed., Sprache fürs Leben. Wörter gegen den Tod: Ein Buch über Ludwig Harig (Blieskastel: Gollenstein, 1997) Riha, Karl, ‘Ludwig Harig’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ) Studies and Reviews of Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt Anon, ‘Bewusstsein aus zweiter Hand’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20-21 January 1991, p. 38 Bienert, Michael, ‘Beichte ohne Trauer: Ludwig Harigs Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, die tageszeitung, 21 January 1991, pp. 16-17 Braunsei, Hans, ‘Die Erinnerung trügt weniger als das Leben’, Der Morgen, 19-20 January 1991 Campe, Jochen, ‘Von Hosenscheißern und Fahnenschwenkern’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 3 November 1990 Casanova, Nicole, ‘Et ils ne deviennent jamais libres’, La Quinzaine Littéraire, 1-15 December 1993, p. 10 Creutziger, Werner, ‘Schuld der Verweigerung’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 39.7 (1991), 147-49 Drews, Jörg, ‘Als er noch ein Nazilümmel war: Dankbarkeit und Scham’, Badische Zeitung, 11-12 August 1990, p. 8. Reprinted as ‘Einer vom Jahrgang 1927: Ludwig Harig über sich selbst als junges Braunhemd’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29-30 September 1990 Engisch, Helmut, ‘Tecumseh und der kleine Trommler des Führers: Ludwig Harig erzählt seine Kindheit und Jugend im Nazi-Deutschland’, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 2 October 1990 Hajek, Otto Herbert, ‘Kindheitsmuster im Dritten Reich’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 25 August 1994, p. 26 Horst, Eberhard, ‘Sankt Georg, reite du voran!’, Die Welt, 20 October 1990, p. 21 Hüfner, Agnes, ‘Der unerbittliche Beobachter: Untersuchung der Vergangenheit’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 5 October 1990, p. 36 Jung, Werner, ‘Erinnerung, Ordnung, Spiel’, in Rech, pp. 164-81

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Leistenschneider, Peter, ‘Pfade ins Nichts’, Volkszeitung, 5 October 1990, p. 7 Lenz, Hermann, ‘Ludwig Harigs Gewissensprüfung: Über seinen Roman Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, in Arnold, Ludwig Harig, pp. 47-50 Meudal, Gérard, ‘Harig, tambour nazi’, Libération, 30 September 1993, p. 30 Mohr, Peter, ‘In Reih und Glied. Rückblick auf den Ungeist: Ludwig Harigs Biographie’, Rheinischer Merkur, 5 October 1990, p. 4 Rathjen, Friedhelm, ‘Arglose Kindheit, arglos erzählt: Ludwig Harig schildert eine Nazi-Jugend’, Basler Zeitung, 16 November 1990, p. 54 Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, ‘Im Fahnenrausch. Genauigkeit, Gelassenheit – Ludwig Harigs Erinnerungen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 September 1990 Scheller, Wolf, ‘Herbes Bild der frühen Jahre’, Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 10-11 November 1990, p. 47 Schirrmacher, Frank, ‘Halbe Ordnung, ganzes Leben: Ludwig Harig und die Geschichte’, in Diwersy, pp. 7-17 Stamer, Uwe, ‘Starke und Schwache’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 2 October 1990 Uhde, Anne, ‘Ein Junge und die Macht der Propaganda’, Welt am Sonntag, 13 January 1991, p. 35 Winkels, Hubert, ‘Im Namen des Vaters: Ludwig Harigs autobiographischer Roman’, Die Zeit, 5 October 1990 Wissmann, Gerhild, ‘Wider das Vergessen anschreibend’, Die Rheinpfalz, 2 October 1990, p. 5

4. Uwe Saeger General Secondary Literature Gabler, Wolfgang, Erzählen auf Leben und Tod: Uwe Saegers Prosawerk der 80er Jahre (Neubrandenburg: Literaturzentrum, 1990) Hammer, Klaus, ‘Gespräch mit Uwe Saeger’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 39.5 (1991), 51-59 Hampel, Heide, ‘Grenzüberschreitungen’, Börsenblatt, 10 August 1993, pp. 20-23 Hanenberg, Peter, ‘Uwe Saeger’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ) Müller, Willi, ‘Ich fühle mich als Zaungast: Uwe Saeger über Befindlichkeiten von gestern und heute’, Union: Das Magazin der CDU Deutschlands, 4 (1992), 75-76 Studies and Reviews of Die Nacht danach und der Morgen Evans, Owen, ‘“The Most Pain-ridden Poetry I Know”: Uwe Saeger and Georg Trakl’s “Grodek”’, in Experiencing Tradition: Essays of Discovery – For

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Keith Spalding, ed. by Hinrich Siefken and Anthony Bushell (York: Ebor Press, 2003), pp. 214-19 ——, ‘Telling Tales: Moral Responsibility and the Stasi in Uwe Saeger’s Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’, in German Writers and the Politics of Culture: Dealing with the Stasi, ed. by Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 121-38 Franke, Konrad, ‘Zu früh für alles: Ein übereilter Erzählversuch Uwe Saegers’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 31 December 1991, p. 50 Gansel, Carsten, ‘Notiertes Leben als Versuch der Entlügnung’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 41.1 (1993), 135-38 Krauss, Hannes, ‘Geist und Nacht: Nachdenklichkeit und Selbstzweifel in Uwe Saegers neuem Buch’, Freitag, 1 November 1991, p. 20 Kurzke, Hermann, ‘Stasi schreibt gut: Aus der Welt der Mauerschützen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 January 1992, p. 22 Oberembt, Gert, ‘Trojas Pferd hat einen leeren Bauch: Der Mecklenburger Schriftsteller berichtet in seinem Roman über die Mauer und den Mauerfall’, Rheinischer Merkur, 29 May 1992, p. 20 Schulze-Reimpell, Werner, ‘Wie die Berliner Mauer weiterwirkt. Uwe Saegers Selbsterforschung: Die Nacht danach und der Morgen’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 8 November 1991, p. 30

5. Ruth Klüger General Secondary Literature Albrecht, Julia, ‘Mehr Meinungsfreiheit wagen: Deckert, die Deutschen und ihr Trauma’, die tageszeitung, 18 August 1994, p. 10 Finne, Rainer, ‘Im Kopf ging alles drunter und drüber: Ruth Klüger, die beispielhaft eine jüdische Kindheit beschrieben hat, erhält den Marie-Luise-KaschnitzPreis der evangelischen Buchhandlungen’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 25 November 1994, p. 21 Legerer, Anton, ‘Irgendwo muß jeder leben dürfen: Die Staatspreisträgerin Ruth Klüger im Gespräch’, Die Furche, 30 October 1997, p. 7 Leiser, Erwin, ‘Ruth Klüger’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin, 29 December 1995, pp. 9-14 Pfister, Eva, ‘Lernen war Therapie: Porträt einer Frau ohne Furcht vor Tabus’, Börsenblatt, 4 March 1997, pp. 14-16 Pletter, Marita, ‘Der Pazifik hat die richtige Farbe: Ein Gespräch mit der Schriftstellerin Ruth Klüger über Auschwitz, über das Judentum, über das Schreiben’, Die Zeit, 3 March 1995, p. 67

340

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Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, ‘Vom Trotz getrieben, vom Stil beglaubigt: Rede auf Ruth Klüger aus Anlaß der Verleihung des Grimmelshausen-Preises’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 October 1993 Steinfeld, Thomas, ‘Von der Hexenküche. Preis der Frankfurter Anthologie: Lobrede auf Ruth Klüger, die herbe Meisterin des mittleren Maßes’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 May 1999 Thelen, Sibylle, ‘“Die da, Herr Doktor. Immer kaputt. Kann nicht arbeiten”: Literarisch, dokumentarisch, essayistisch – drei Frauen berichten über ihr Überleben in Auschwitz-Birkenau’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 29 March 1997, p. 51 Studies and Reviews of weiter leben Anon, ‘Schlicht und ohne dramatische Effekte: Die Kindheitserinnerungen von Ruth Klüger’, Marbacher Zeitung, 9 September 1994 Finnan, Carmel, ‘Autobiography, Memory and the Shoah: German-Jewish Identity in Autobiographical Writings by Ruth Klüger, Cordelia Edvardson and Laura Waco’, in O’Dochartaigh, pp. 447-61 ——, ‘Gendered Memory?: Cordelia Edvardson’s Gebranntes Kind sucht das Feuer und Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben’, in Puw Davies at al, pp. 273-90 Hessing, Jakob, ‘Spiegelbilder der Zeit – Wolfgang Koeppen und Ruth Klüger’, in Braese, pp. 103-15 Lützeler, Paul Michael, ‘Dichten nach Auschwitz: Lebensbericht von Ruth Klüger’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2 October 1992, p. 31 Pachet, Pierre, ‘Une amertume exigeante’, La Quinzaine Littéraire, 16-31 January 1998 Stein, Hannes, ‘Genauigkeit und Skrupel. weiter leben, ein Debüt: Die Lehr- und Wanderjahre der Ruth Klüger’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 October 1992 Taylor, Jennifer, ‘Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben: Eine Jugend: A Jewish Woman’s “Letter to her Mother”’, in Lamb-Faffelberger, pp. 77-87 Weber, Margot, ‘Auschwitzhäftling A-3537: Ruth Klüger wurde für ihr Buch weiter leben geehrt’, Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung, 1 December 1994, p. 7

6. Günter de Bruyn General Secondary Literature Anon, ‘De Bruyn gibt Kontakte zur Stasi zu’, Die Welt, 19 February 1993 ——, ‘Respekt’, Neue Zeit, 20 February 1993

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Allenstein, Bernd and Michael Töteberg, ‘Günter de Bruyn’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartssliteratur, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ) Arnold, Heinz Ludwig, ed., Günter de Bruyn (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1995) Berger, Christel, ‘Geschichten vom schwachen Menschen: Günter de Bruyn zum 70. Geburtstag’, Neues Deutschland, 1 November 1996 Braun, Michael, ‘Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit: Günter de Bruyns literarische Auseinandersetzung mit der Literatur’, in Rüther, pp. 391-403 Bruyn, Günter de, Was ich noch schreiben will: Gespräch mit Ingo Hermann in der Reihe ‘Zeugen des Jahrhunderts’, ed. by Ingo Hermann (Göttingen: Lamuv, 1995) Evans, Owen, ‘Ein Training im Ich-Sagen’: Personal Authenticity in the Prose Work of Günter de Bruyn (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996) ——, ‘“Für mich ist er früh schon wichtig gewesen”: How Heinrich Böll gave Günter de Bruyn a Helping Hand’, in University of Dayton Review, 24.3 (1997), 125-32 ——, ‘Living in the Past?: Günter de Bruyn, Prussia and the Mark Brandenburg’, in Townscapes and Countryside in Contemporary German Writing, ed. by Osman Durrani and Julian Preece (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 225-41 Mauser, Helmtrud, ‘Blick zurück: Günter de Bruyn im Gespräch’, in Wittstock, pp. 111-20 Mix, York-Gothart, ‘Zwischen den Zeilen und zwischen den Stühlen: Günter de Bruyn und die Literaturpolitik in der DDR’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, 47 (1997), 457-62 Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, ‘Zwei verschiedene Schuhe’, in Wittstock, pp. 165-72 Reid, J. H., ‘“Das unerreichbare Vorbild”: Günter de Bruyn und Heinrich Böll’, in Tate, Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 133-50 Schäuble, Wolfgang, ‘Laudatio auf Günter de Bruyn’, in Verleihung des Preises der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. an Günter de Bruyn: Weimar, 15. Mai 1996, ed. by Günther Rüther (Wesseling: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1996), pp. 7-17 Tate, Dennis, ‘Günter de Bruyn: The “gesamtdeutsche Konsensfigur” of PostUnification Literature?’, German Life and Letters, 50 (1997), 201-13 ——, ed., Günter de Bruyn in Perspective (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999) Töpelmann, Sigrid, ‘Interview mit Günter de Bruyn’, Weimarer Beiträge, 14 (1968), 1171-83 Wittstock, Uwe, ed., Günter de Bruyn: Materialien zu Leben und Werk (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991)

342

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Studies and Reviews of Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre Andress, Reinhard, ‘Mittel der (Selbst-)Erkenntnis in Günter de Bruyns zweiteiliger Autobiographie Zwischenbilanz und Vierzig Jahre’, Glossen, 7 (1999), (accessed 10 August 2002) [ZB/VJ] Bienert, Michael, ‘Eine diskrete Autobiographie’, die tageszeitung, 29 April 1992, p. 16 [ZB] Braun, Michael, ‘Widerstand mit halbem Herzen’, Rheinischer Merkur, 30 August 1996 [VJ] Buckl, Walter, ‘Unangepasster DDR-Literaturstar’, Tages-Anzeiger, 23 August 1996 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Selbstgespräche eines Wahrheitssuchers’, in Neue deutsche Literatur, 44.6 (1996), 121-24 [VJ] Czechowski, Heinz, ‘Ein Ich erzählt’s dem anderen’, Die Welt, 9 April 1992, p. 11 [ZB] Evans, Owen, ‘“Schlimmeres als geschah, hätte immer geschehen können”: Günter de Bruyn and the GDR in Vierzig Jahre’, in Tate, Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 171-88 [VJ] Halverson, Rachel, ‘Unifying the Self: Günter de Bruyn’s Autobiographical Response to Post-Unification Germany’, Glossen, 9 (2000), (accessed 19 July 2001) [ZB/VJ] Harig, Ludwig, ‘Ein Erzähler übt, die Wahrheit zu sagen’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 March 1992 [ZB] Helbling, Hanno, ‘Das Wagnis, exemplarisch zu sein’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 6 March 1992, p. 45 [ZB] Hinck, Walter, ‘Zaudern im Hinterhaus’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 November 1996 Hirdina, Karin, ‘Suchanzeige: Ironisches in der Autobiografie Günter de Bruyns’, in Tate, Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 189-206 [VJ] Krause, Tilman, ‘Ein Zauderer behauptet sich’, Der Tagesspiegel, 14 August 1996 [VJ] Liersch, Werner, ‘Von den Mühen, sich zu erinnern’, Wochenpost, 15 August 1996 [VJ] Michaelis, Rolf, ‘Einer mit Wenn und Aber: Der zweite Band von Günter de Bruyns Lebensbericht: Vierzig Jahre’, Die Zeit, 1 November 1996 [VJ] Opitz, Michael, ‘Ohne zu stören. Zu glatt: Der zweite Teil von Günter de Bruyns Autobiographie Vierzig Jahre’, Freitag, 20 December 1996 [VJ] Rechtien, Renate, ‘Gelebtes, erinnertes, erzähltes und erschriebenes Selbst: Günter de Bruyns Zwischenbilanz und Christa Wolfs Kindheitsmuster’, in Tate, Günter de Bruyn in Perspective, pp. 151-70 [ZB]

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Reece, James R., ‘Remembering the GDR: Memory and Evasion in Autobiographical Writing from the Former GDR’, in Costabile-Heming et al, pp. 59-76 [ZB/VJ] Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, ‘Deutsche Mittellage’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 April 1992 [ZB] Ripkens, Martin, ‘Silbergraue Selberlebensbeschreibung’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 12 October 1996 [VJ] Schütt, Hans-Dieter, ‘Heilsames Gelassenheit’, Neues Deutschland, 7 October 1992, p. 1 [ZB] ——, ‘Fremd daheim: So frei’, Neues Deutschland, 11 October 1996, p. 12 [VJ] Wendland, Johannes, ‘Widerstand ohne Triumph. Günter de Bruyn hat seine Autobiographie geschrieben: Vierzig Jahre in der DDR’, Sonntagsblatt, 9 August 1996 [VJ] Wiedemann, Charlotte, ‘Anpassen, widerstehen’, Die Woche, 30 August 1996 [VJ]

7. Günter Kunert General Secondary Literature Bekes, Peter, ‘Günter Kunert’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartssliteratur, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ) Studies and Reviews of Erwachsenenspiele Anon, ‘Königsberger Klopse für den Denker: Der Autor Günter Kunert erinnert sich in einer Biographie an die DDR, Brecht und Marcuse’, Der Spiegel, 8 September 1997, pp. 206-211 Baron, Ulrich, ‘Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit. Erster Krieg, Drittes Reich und DDR: In zwei Autobiographien und einem Tagebuch spiegeln sich deutsche Traumata unseres Jahrhunderts’, Rheinischer Merkur, 5 December 1997 Bienert, Michael, ‘Operativer Vorgang “Zyniker”’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 7 November 1997, p. 32 Endres, Elisabeth, ‘Das Buch der Enttäuschung: Günter Kunert erinnert sich’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 November 1997 Faktor, Jan, ‘Strapaziöse Affären: Oberflächenironie’, Freitag, 10 October 1997 Franke, Konrad, ‘Günter Kunert: Erwachsenenspiele’, Die Woche, 10 October 1997, p. 14 Hagestedt, Lutz, ‘Ein Lehrstück in Zivilcourage’, Badische Zeitung, 10 February 1998 Hieber, Jochen, ‘Anthrazit und Eierschale’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 October 1997

344

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Karsunke, Yaak, ‘Ein langer Abschied’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 15 October 1997, p. 6 Köhler, Andrea, ‘Selbstporträt im Scheinwerferlicht: Diesseits des Erinnerns’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 October 1997 Krause, Tilman, ‘Rasender Roland der Zeitgeschichte. Unter düsteren Himmeln grimmig komisch: Erinnerungen von Günter Kunert, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 October 1997, p. 2 Meyer-Gosau, Frauke, ‘Johannes R. Bechers Gummikissen. Als “Alien” unter Ariern und in einer bizarren DDR: Günter Kunert verkleidet sich als Taugenichts und Simplicissimus, um seine Autobiographie zu erzählen. Nicht nur deshalb gibt es reichlich zu lachen’, die tageszeitung, 15 October 1997 Michaelis, Rolf, ‘Mutters Großkind: Günter Kunerts Erinnerungen an die Einsamkeit – und an Verfolgung durch Nazis, durch Sozis’, Die Zeit, 2 January 1998, p. 39 Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin, ‘Sprich nie das Wort “Moskau” aus! Kunerts Autobiographie: Dokumentation und “Oral history”’, Die Presse, 31 January 1998 Smith, Peter D., ‘Once a dissident…’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 July 1998, p. 27 Speicher, Stephan, ‘Deutscher Dichter mit ungerührtem Blick: Günter Kunert erinnert sich an sein Leben’, Berliner Zeitung, 14 October 1997 Ueding, Gert, ‘Kutteln bei Grass, Klopse bei Marcuse: Günter Kunert erinnert sich – mit den Augen des Kindes an “Erwachsenenspiele”’, Die Welt, 20 September 1997 Wolter, Manfred, ‘“Lüge nicht. Schreibe”: Günter Kunert ist in seinem neuen Buch ein Chronist persönlichster Art’, Neues Deutschland, 13 October 1997, p. 11

8. Christoph Hein General Secondary Literature Jackman, Graham, ed., Christoph Hein in Perspective (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000) Niven, Bill and David Clarke, eds., Christoph Hein (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999) Robinson, David W., Deconstructing East Germany: Christoph Hein’s Literature of Dissent (Rochester: Camden House, 1999) Studies and Reviews of Von allem Anfang an Anon, ‘Leuchtschrift am Kudamm: Von allem Anfang an heißt das neue Buch des Schriftstellers Christoph Hein – ein gar nicht nostalgischer Rückblick auf die frühe DDR’, Der Spiegel, 25 August 1997, p. 178

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Baier, Lothar, ‘Nackte Brüste und die Partei der Bestimmer. Eine frühe Jugend in der DDR: Christoph Hein erzählt listig und mit doppeltem Boden Von allem Anfang an’, die tageszeitung, 15 October 1997, p. 5 Böttiger, Helmut, ‘Die Aktualität der fünfziger Jahre: Christoph Heins Miniaturen aus einer vergangenen Gemütslandschaft’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 20 December 1997 Bucheli, Roman, ‘Im Gegenlicht der Geschichte: Christoph Heins Kindheit um neunzehnhundertfünfzig’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 October 1997 Drawert, Kurt, ‘Von allem Anfang an – von allem Ende her’, Weltwoche, 27 Novemner 1997 Drescher, Angela, ‘Unvollständige Rekonstruktion: Über das Lektorat des Buches Von allem Anfang an von Christoph Hein’, in Niven and Clarke, pp. 25-40 Görner, Rüdiger, ‘Lukas und die Artisten’, Die Presse, 20 September 1997 Graves, Peter, ‘A Boy’s Soviet Zone Story’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 October 1997, p. 30 Gutschke, Irmtraud, ‘Die grünen Augen des Evangelisten Lukas: Christoph Hein legt alle Masken beiseite und spricht über sich selbst, seine Kindheit’, Neues Deutschland, 2 September 1997, p. 10 Hammer, Klaus, ‘Wahrheit nicht ohne Lüge’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 45.5 (1997), 168-70 Jackman, Graham, ‘Von allem Anfang an: A “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”?’, in Jackman, Christoph Hein in Perspective, pp. 187-210 Jacobs, Peter, ‘Von der Bindungslosigkeit der Artistentruppe: Von allem Anfang an – das neue Buch von Christoph Hein vermischt Fiktion mit Autobiographie’, Die Welt, 2 September 1997, p. 10 Krause, Tilman, ‘Verfechter der Vielfalt: Christoph Hein, Schriftsteller’, Der Tagesspiegel, 9 September 1997, p. 24 Krusche, Friedemann, ‘Meergrüner Erlöserblick: Ein bißchen Wehmut, kein bißchen Nostalgie – Christoph Hein schaut auf die DDR zurück: Von allem Anfang an’, Das Sonntagsblatt, 17 October 1997, p. 22 Langner, Beatrix, ‘Kleine Schnitte in der Haut: Eine ostdeutsche Kindheit in den fünfziger Jahren – neun Geschichten von Christoph Hein’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15 October 1997 Leipprand, Eva, ‘Auf der Schwelle: Christoph Hein erzählt Von allem Anfang an’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 15 October 1997 Matt, Peter von, ‘Fort mit der Taschenguillotine: Christoph Hein schreibt ein Meisterwerk nicht nur der Tantenkunde’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 October 1997 Menge, Marlies, ‘Nur die Masken erlauben Freiheit’, Die Zeit, 29 August 1997

346

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Oberempt, Gert, ‘Die Jahre vor der Mauer: Wie sich Erinnerung in Literatur verwandelt: Nachkriegszeit und Frühlings Erwachen in einer mitteldeutschen Kleinstadt’, Rheinischer Merkur, 5 September 1997, p. 24 Raddatz, Fritz J., ‘Besonnte Vergangenheit: Christoph Heins wenig nette Märchen’, Die Zeit, 19 September 1997, p. 66 Speicher, Stephan, ‘Als man sich auf alles einrichtete, als man sich gegen alles wappnete: Christoph Hein erzählt Von allem Anfang an’, Berliner Zeitung, 20-21 September 1997 Steinert, Hajo, ‘Nachrichten aus der DDR-Provinz. Zwischen Anpassung und Idylle: Christoph Heins sensible Erzählung Von allem Anfang an beschreibt eine Jugend in Mitteldeutschland’, Focus, 10 November 1997, pp. 190-91 Tate, Dennis, ‘“Mehr Freiheit zur Wahrheit”: The Fictionalization of Adolescent Experience in Christoph Hein’s Von allem Anfang an’, in Niven and Clarke, pp. 117-34

9. Grete Weil General Secondary Literature Baureithel, Ulrike, ‘Meine Krankheit heißt Auschwitz. Die vergessenssüchtige Nachkriegsgesellschaft mit ihrer Schuld konfrontieren: Zum Tod der Schriftstellerin Grete Weil’, Der Tagesspiegel, 28 May 1999, p. 27 Bormann, Alexander von, ‘Vom niemals vergehenden Schmerz: Zum Tod von Grete Weil’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28 May 1999, p. 34 Exner, Lisbeth, Land meiner Mörder, Land meiner Sprache: Die Schriftstellerin Grete Weil (Munich: A1, 1998) Filser, Hubert, ‘Weiterleben als Widerstand. “Land meiner Mörder, Land meiner Sprache” – eine Ausstellung über die Autorin Grete Weil’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 March 1998, p. 18 Giese, Carmen, Das Ich im literarischen Werk von Grete Weil und Klaus Mann: Zwei autobiographische Gesamtkonzepte (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997) Meyer, Uwe, ‘Grete Weil’, in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartssliteratur, ed. by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1978- ) Ruge, Uta, ‘Von den Narben des Weiterlebens’, die tageszeitung, 14 February 1987, p. 8-9 Studies and Reviews of Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben Fallend, Karl, ‘“Meine Krankheit ist Auschwitz”. Zäh und verbissen gegen das Vergessen anschreiben: Grete Weil’, Die Presse, 24 October 1998

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Grumbach, Detlef, ‘“Daß Menschen Mörder sind, begriff ich nicht”: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben – nüchtern und authentisch denkt die Schriftstellerin Grete Weil an die Zeit ihrer Emigration zurück’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 8 May 1998, p. 31 Obermüller, Klara, ‘Dem Chaos abgerungen: Grete Weil hält Rückschau auf ihr Leben’, Die Weltwoche, 28 May 1998, p. 56 Schirnding, Albert von, ‘Antigones Schwester: Grete Weil erinnert sich’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11 April 1998 Stromberg, Kyra, ‘Der ungeheure Verlust einer Lebensart’, Badische Zeitung, 3 June 1998 Villain, Jean, ‘Zeugin des schier Unsäglichen’, Neues Deutschland, 26-29 March 1998, p. 5 Zetzsche, Cornelia, ‘Land der Mörder, Land der Sprache: Zeugin des Schmerzes’, Der Tagesspiegel, 10 May 1998

10. Monika Maron General Secondary Literature Boa, Elisabeth, ‘Schwierigkeiten mit der ersten Person: Ingeborg Bachmanns Malina und Monika Marons Flugasche, Die Überläuferin und Stille Zeile Sechs’, in Kritische Wege der Landnahme: Ingeborg Bachmann im Blickfeld der neunziger Jahre. Londoner Symposium 1993 zum 20. Todestag der Dichterin (17.10.73), ed. by Robert Pichl and Alexander Stillmark (Vienna: Hora, 1994), pp. 125-45 Koch, Lennart, Ästhetik der Moral bei Christa Wolf und Monika Maron: Der Literaturstreit von der Wende bis zum Ende der neunziger Jahre (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2001) Oppen, Karoline von, ‘Monika Maron (February 1990)’, in The Role of the Writer and the Press in the Unification of Germany, 1989-1990, pp. 105-22 Rossbacher, Brigitte, ‘(Re)visions of the Past: Memory and Historiography in Monika Maron’s Stille Zeile Sechs’, Colloquia Germanica, 27 (1994), 13-24 Taberner, Stuart, ‘“ob es sich bei diesem Experiment um eine gescheiterte Utopie oder um ein Verbrechen gehandelt hat”: Enlightenment, Utopia, the GDR and National Socialism in Monika Maron’s Work from Flugasche to Pawels Briefe’, in Costabile-Heming et al, pp. 35-57 Studies and Reviews of Pawels Briefe Anon, ‘Küßt Monika!’, Der Spiegel, 19 April 1999, p. 231

348

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Arend, Ingo, ‘Triumph der Überlebenden. Nachgetragene Besserwisserei: Monika Marons zwiespältige Erinnerungsarbeit in ihrer Familiengeschichte’, Freitag, 5 March 1999, p. 16 Caduff, Corina, ‘Missbrauchte Geschichte: Monika Maron macht sich auf die Spurensuche nach ihrem polnisch-jüdischen Grossvater’, Die Weltwoche, 25 February 1999, p. 43 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Der Sprung durch die Zeit und die gerettete Geschichte: Monika Maron beantwortet die wiedergefundenen Briefe ihres Großvaters Pawel Iglarz’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 20 February 1999 Detje, Robin, ‘Ich bin der Sieger der Geschichte: In ihrem neuen Buch nimmt Monika Maron die DDR sehr persönlich’, Berliner Zeitung, 23 February 1999, p. 9 Dotzauer, Gregor, ‘Der Wind des Vergessens’, Der Tagesspiegel, 20 February 1999, p. 25 Geissler, Cornelia, ‘Die Enkelin’, Berliner Zeitung, 18 February 1999 Gutschke, Irmtraud, ‘“Gedenkt unsrer mit Nachsicht”: Monika Maron über ihre Familie und den schwierigen Umgang mit deutscher Vergangenheit’, Neues Deutschland, 20-21 February 1999, p. 12 Kraft, Thomas, ‘Geschichte und Familienalbum: Ein Fund auf dem Dachboden wird zum Ausgangspunkt einer Reise in die Vergangenheit’, Rheinischer Merkur, 26 March 1999 Krause, Tilman, ‘Der kleine vorstellbare Ausschnitt aus der Geschichte. Ein klassisches Jahrhundertend-Buch: Monika Marons vielverschlungene Familiengeschichte’, Die Welt, 27 February 1999, p. 5 Kurzke, Hermann, ‘Eine geborene Iglarz: Monika Maron erinnert sich’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 April 1999 Magenau, Jörg, ‘Nichts mehr schuldig bleiben: Rehabilitierung des Vergessens und penible Erinnerungsarbeit: Monika Maron recherchiert in Pawels Briefe die Geschichte ihrer Familie über drei Generationen, drei Weltanschauungen und ein Jahrhundert – eine Reportage auf den Spuren deutscher Geschichte’, die tageszeitung, 20-21 February 1999, p. 13 Matt, Beatrice von, ‘Die Toten drängen ans Licht’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 4 March 1999, p. 35 Radisch, Iris, ‘Tausendmeterlauf des Lebens: Monika Maron schuldet ihrem Großvater etwas und reist in die Vergangenheit’, Die Zeit, 31 March 1999, p. 48 Schaber, Susanne, ‘Zeigt niemals dem Kinde: Marons Rekonstruktion der Familienchronik’, Die Presse, 27 February 1999 Scheller, Wolf, ‘Das auseinander gerissene Glück: Monika Maron entdeckt “Pawels Briefe”’, Badische Zeitung, 13 April 1999

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Schmitz-Burckhardt, Barbara, ‘Die Unschuld des Vergessens: Monika Maron fragt in Pawels Briefe nach einer verdrängten Vergangenheit’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 24 March 1999, p. 12 Solbrig, Katja, ‘Spurensicherung in Pawels Briefen: Leerstellen in Monika Marons Erinnerungen’, Freie Presse (Chemnitz), 19 March 1999

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Index

Abwicklung, 63, 67 Adorno, Theodor W., 105 Aeschylus, 265 Améry, Jean, 95, 97-98, 100, 103, 108, 118, 121, 125, 128-31, 133, 13536, 204, 260, 266, 268, 273, 278, 280-81 Andersch, Alfred, 27, 30-33, 40, 49, 51-52 Die Kirschen de Freiheit, 27, 30, 32-33, 40, 49, 51-52 Anderson, Linda, 3-5, 18, 29, 52, 5758, 325, 328 Anouilh, Jean, 265 Anschluß, 128, 132 Antigone, 265, 283 anti-Semitism, 21, 36-37, 46, 112, 119, 125, 128-29, 267, 272, 277, 303, 326 Anz, Thomas, 63 Apitz, Bruno, 114-15, 205 Nackt unter Wölfen, 114-16, 205 Arendt, Hannah, 17 Augustine, 3, 52, 60 Auschwitz, 95-99, 102-07, 110-14, 116-18, 120-22, 126, 129, 135, 268, 302 Barbie, Klaus, 48 Bauer, Roland, 200, 209, 211-12 Bautzen, 210 Becher, Johannes R., 11, 196-97, 209 Abschied, 197 Becker, Jurek, 100, 169, 205 Jakob der Lügner, 100, 205 Benigni, Roberto, 100 Bense, Max, 19, 49 Bergen-Belsen, 259 Berger, Uwe, 211, 213-14 Bergmann, Christian, 33-36, 39, 47 Bernhard, Thomas, 232 Bichsel, Peter, 51

Biermann, Wolf, 75, 77, 160, 167-70, 187-88, 209-10, 212, 218, 222, 226, 311, 313 Bildungsroman, 22, 235 Boa, Elizabeth, 128, 173, 271-73, 277, 282 Bohrer, Karl-Heinz, 1, 78 Böll, Heinrich, 147, 153-54, 163, 178, 257, 284 Wo warst du, Adam?, 154 Borchert, Wolfgang, 279 Draußen vor der Tür, 279 Böttiger, Helmut, 233 Brandt, Willy, 80 Braun, Volker, 64, 75, 175, 315 Unvollendete Geschichte, 315 Brecht, Bertolt, 8, 196-98, 224, 228 Brockmann, Stephen, 1, 70, 77-78, 135 Brussig, Thomas, 252 Bruyn, Günter de, 3-4, 6-7, 11, 13, 15, 35, 45, 77, 89-91, 99, 118, 13780, 181-85, 188-89, 193, 207, 212, 219, 221, 225, 227, 232, 234, 250, 252, 258, 283, 298, 305, 318-19, 326 Buridans Esel, 167, 178, 221 Das erzählte Ich, 6, 22-24, 14042, 146, 176-77, 182, 189 Hochzeit in Weltzow, 163 Der Hohlweg, 154, 156, 164, 167, 177-79 Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, 139 Märkische Forschungen, 173 Neue Herrlichkeit, 158, 162, 170, 173 Preisverleihung, 56, 138, 147, 162, 178 Vierzig Jahre, 2, 77, 137-80, 181-83, 189, 193, 207 Wiedersehen an der Spree, 163 Zwischenbilanz, 2, 35, 87, 99100, 122, 137-80, 181-83, 185, 188, 193, 258

352

Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Buchenwald, 115, 203, 205, 298 Burleigh, Michael, 15 Caduff, Corina, 294, 306, 316 Canetti, Elias, 232 Cassandra, 90 Celan, Paul, 95, 105-06, 136, 204 Cervantes, Miguel de, 325 Childs, David, 205 Christianstadt, 99, 104, 111, 119, 121-22 Clarke, David, 224, 231 Cooke, Paul, 82 Corino, Karl, 212, 291 Cramer, Sibylle, 176-77 Dachau, 113 Dahn, Daniela, 62 Damm, Sigrid, 75 Davies, Mererid Puw, 3-4 Dennis, Mike, 15-16, 159, 165-66 Derrida, Jacques, 4-5 Domin, Hilde, 131-32, 280-81 Dönhoff, Marion Gräfin, 285 Drescher, Angela, 234-37 Dümmel, Karsten, 64, 74-75 Eakin, Paul John, 4, 11-14, 44, 46, 52, 54-55, 57, 74, 81, 92, 99, 125, 185, 225, 237, 246, 270, 275, 299, 300, 302, 307-08, 316, 323, 327 Edelweißpiraten, 35 Emmerich, Wolfgang, 59, 74, 92, 190, 204-05, 212, 292 Emil und die Detektive, 118, 142 Endlösung, 39, 46-47, 181 Enquete-Kommision ‘Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SEDDiktatur in Deutschland’, 251 Entwicklungsroman, 8, 11, 87, 164 Erbe, Günter, 250 Evans, Julian, 325 Evans, Owen, 154, 173 Exner, Lisbeth, 133, 204, 256-58, 275-76, 281-83 Faktor, Jan, 187-89, 226 Faulkner, William, 221 Finnan, Carmel, 125 Fontane, Theodor, 3, 44, 173, 232, 234

Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, 173 Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte, 170 Frank, Anne, 259, 286 Franke, Konrad, 207 Frühlings Erwachen, 235 Fulbrook, Mary, 15-16, 159, 169, 222, 309 Gabler, Wolfgang, 71 Gansel, Carsten, 59, 87 Garton Ash, Timothy, 82 Gauck, Joachim, 82 Gaulle, Charles de, 218 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 1, 4, 6-9, 15-16, 18, 34, 53-93, 13780, 181-229, 231-53, 291-327, Geyer, Michael, 17 Giese, Carmen, 255-56, 281, 284 Glover, Jonathan, 38-39, 41, 270 Goebbels, Joseph, 35, 39 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 3-4, 10, 59-60, 140, 275, 307 Dichtung und Wahrheit, 10, 307 Goldhagen, Daniel, 98, 125 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 71 Gordon, Robert, 100 Graf, Willi, 35 Grass, Günter, 27, 135 Die Blechtrommel, 25, 252 Katz und Maus, 22, 25, 29 Gruppe 47, 217 Günter, Hans, 36-37, 41 Gutschke, Irmtraud, 55 Hacks, Peter, 208 Hager, Kurt, 216-17, 222 Hammer, Klaus, 54, 61, 66, 75-76, 232-33, 245, 252 Hanenberg, Peter, 55 Harich, Wolfgang, 171, 190-91 Harich-Gruppe, 160 Harig, Ludwig, 7, 12, 19-52, 56, 66, 117-19, 141, 148-49, 151-52, 181, 183, 227, 305, 326 Ordung ist das ganze Leben, 20, 42 Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt, 2, 19-53, 87, 92, 117, 122, 141, 149, 183

Index Wer mit den Wölfen heult, wird Wolf, 20, 31, 48-50 Heimat, 13, 71, 74, 90, 125, 127-32, 173, 175, 219, 233, 265, 271-73, 27778, 280-83, 288, 327 Hein, Christoph, 7, 11, 13, 70, 75, 212, 224-25, 231-53, 257, 326 Der fremde Freund, 232, 238, 243, 247 Horns Ende, 233 Das Napoleon-Spiel, 231 Randow, 249 Der Tangospieler, 232, 243, 247, 249 Von allem Anfang an, 2, 4, 53, 55, 231-53, 257 Heine, Heinrich, 193, 282 Hemingway, Ernest, 231 Hensel, Jana, 92 Hermlin, Stephan, 187-88, 205, 208 Heym, Stefan, 70, 188, 209 Hieber, Jochen, 192, 196, 200 Himboldt, Karin, 194 Hirdina, Karin, 211 Hitler, Adolf, 22-24, 33, 118, 142, 149, 152, 154, 194, 207, 267 Hitlerjunge Quex, 41-42 Holocaust, 18, 95, 97-100, 105-06, 108-14, 120, 123-25, 133, 135-36, 155-56, 200, 203-05, 258-60, 273, 284, 286, 303, 320 Holocaust (film), 114, 284 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 31, 123 Honecker, Erich, 71, 191, 205, 222 Höpcke, Klaus, 215-17, 221 Horvath, Ödön von, Jugend ohne Gott, 22, 35-36, 40, 149, 152-53 Huchel, Peter, 208 Iglarz, Josefa, 296, 301-02, 304, 306, 318-19, 324 Iglarz, Pawel, 291-324 Inferno, 103 17 June Uprising, 143 Jackman, Graham, 233-37, 245-47, 249 Jakob the Liar (film), 100 Jandl, Ernst, 19, 49 Janeczek, Helena, 108, 302

353 Janka, Walter, 190 Jentzsch, Kerstin, 252 Jewish identity, 109, 132-34, 265-68, 270-71, 273, 286, 318-20 Johnson, Uwe, 59, 234, 305 Joyce, James, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 235 Jüd Suss, 119 Jung, Werner, 20-21, 23 Just, Gustav, 190 Kafka, Franz, 125, 231 Brief an den Vater, 125 Kant, Hermann, 200, 211-13, 216, 245 Der Abspann, 212, 245 Kirsch, Sarah, 169 Klein, Olaf Georg, 251-52 Klemperer, Victor, 12, 36 Klüger, Ruth, 7, 12-13, 95-136, 193, 195, 201, 205, 260, 266, 269, 271, 287, 296, 303, 318, 320, 326 Frauen lesen anders, 109 weiter leben, 2, 14, 95-136, 296 Koeppen, Wolfgang, 232 Kohl, Helmut, 60, 90 Köhler, Andrea, 183-84, 186-87, 227 Kolbe, Uwe, 70-71, 74 konkrete Dichtung, 20, 49 Kosta, Barbara, 10 Kraft, Thomas, 323 Krause, Tilman, 171 Krauss, Hannes, 53, 76, 87 Krenz, Egon, 61 Krüger, Hans-Peter, 56, 89 Kuba (Kurt Barthel), 199 Kulmhof/Chelmno, 302, 319 Kunert, Günter, 1-2, 13, 102, 148-49, 159, 166, 169, 172, 181-229, 294, 306, 309, 318, 320, 326 Berlin beizeiten, 220 Erwachsenenspiele, 1-2, 15, 149, 159, 171, 181-229, 294, 306, 309 Im Namen der Hütter, 183 Schatten entziffern, 184, 204 Unterwegs nach Utopia, 209, 214 Kunert, Marianne, 194, 218, 225-26 Kunze, Reiner, 192, 214

354

Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Deckname Lyrik, 192, 228 Die wunderbaren Jahre, 214 Kurzke, Hermann, 294-96 language, 19, 33-34, 36, 39, 46-50, 66, 70, 105, 127, 129, 131-32, 154, 200, 219, 278-80, 327 Laokoon, 90 La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful), 100 Leeder, Karen, 4, 59, 62, 64 Legerer, Anton, 109, 130, 134 Lejeune, Philippe, 10, 55-57, 59, 246 Lenz, Hermann, 26, 51 Levi, Primo, 95-99, 101, 103-04, 107, 111, 113, 115, 117, 120-22, 124-25, 204, 259-60, 287 If This is a Man, 95-99, 101, 103, 107, 111, 121, 135, 259 Literaturstreit, 63, 76, 146 Loest, Erich, 190-91, 198, 212 Lukács, Georg, 164, 191 Magenau, Jörg, 1, 51, 302 Man, Paul de, 29 Mann, Klaus, Mephisto, 286 Mann, Thomas, 70, 73, 197 Marcuse, Herbert, 228 Maron, Hella, 291-324 Maron, Karl, 296, 310-14 Maron, Monika, 13, 102, 190, 236, 250, 253, 291-324, 326 Flugasche, 293, 296, 306-07, 311, 316 Pawels Briefe, 2, 11, 14, 126, 190, 236, 291-324 Quer über die Gleise, 250, 293, 297 Stille Zeile Sechs, 295, 299, 306, 313, 318 Matt, Beatrice von, 308, 318 Matt, Peter von, 234 Mauser, Helmtrud, 173 Mauthausen, 203, 259, 263 May, Karl, 147 Meier-Lenz, Dieter, 51 Menge, Marlies, 251 Meyer, Uwe, 256 Mielke, Erich, 191, 215 Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS/Stasi), 16, 63, 66, 77, 81-83,

85-86, 92, 143, 145-46, 158, 166, 170-71, 175, 182, 190-92, 196, 200, 207-08, 210-12, 214, 216, 218, 223, 225-28, 291-95, 297-98, 300, 308, 313, 317, 321 Mitgutsch, Anna, 14, 54-55, 58, 74, 238, 260-61, 284-85, 322, 325 Mix, York-Gothart, 163 Müller, Armin, 198-99 Müller, Heiner, 137, 291 Musil, Robert, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless, 235-36 National Volksarmee (NVA), 63-65, 67, 87 Nazi Germany, 2, 15-16, 18, 19-52, 87, 95-136, 137-229, 255-89, 291324, 325, 327 Neue Subjektivität, 256 Neues Forum, 69, 73, 84 New Criticism, 6 Nischengesellschaft, 159, 178, 252 Niven, Bill, 224, 231, 249 Noll, Dieter, 222 Oberembt, Gert, 59 Opitz, Michael, 138, 171-72 Oppen, Karoline von, 291 Orwell, George, 1984, 16, 33 Ostalgie, 90, 161, 249, 297, 312 Palfreyman, Rachel, 128, 173, 27173, 277, 282 Papenfuß-Gorek, Bert, 70 Paver, Chloe, 305 Petersen, Jan, 209 Plavius, Heinz, 162 Pletter, Marita, 105, 130 Plötzensee, 203 Plowman, Andrew, 82 Preece, Julian, 6, 92-93, 251-52 Prenzlauer Berg, 70, 73, 169, 192, 223 Prussia, 42-43, 45, 47, 65, 150, 17374, 179-80, 319 Queneau, Raymond, 19, 49-50 Raddatz, Fritz J., 244, 247

Index Radisch, Iris, 292-93 Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, 20, 96, 101, 146, 148, 151, 162 Reid, J.H., 154, 205 Reimann, Brigitte, Franziska Linkerhand, 9 Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, 3, 139, 169-70, 177 Richter, Jochen, 204 Riefenstahl, Leni, 41 Rimbaud, Arthur, 30-31, 48 Rosenfeld, Israel, 299 Rossbacher, Brigitte, 299, 306, 318 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 3, 29, 60 Sachs, Nelly, 106 Saeger, Uwe, 7, 11, 53-93, 163, 186, 225, 227, 234, 253, 326 Die Nacht danach und der Morgen, 2, 4, 53-93, 102, 169, 186, 227, 234, 253 Nöhr, 61, 85 Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, 49 Schaber, Susanne, 295 Schäuble, Wolfgang, 137 Schiller, Friedrich, 102-03 Wilhelm Tell, 152 Schindlers List, 98 Schirrmacher, Frank, 1, 19-20, 41-42, 78, 250 Schlant, Ernestine, 18, 95, 98-99, 105-06, 114, 124, 136, 284 Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin, 228 Schulze, Ingo, 252 Schriftstellerverband der DDR, 75, 86, 88, 166, 200, 207, 209, 211 Seghers, Anna, 114-15, 201, 207, 269 Das siebte Kreuz, 114-16, 12223, 201, 207, 269-70, 286 Semprun, Jorge, 95, 298 Seyß-Inquart, Artur, 268 Shotter, John, 44, 46 Simon, Jana, 92 Smith, Peter, 192 Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (film), 118 Socialist Realism, 8-9, 78, 115, 156, 162, 164, 177, 224, 229 Sophocles, 265 Spielberg, Steven, 98 Spranger, Eduard, 272

355 Stalin, Josef, 76 Stasi, see Ministerium für Staatssicherheit Steele, Jonathan, 248, 250 Steiner, George, 105 Steinfeld, Thomas, 106-08 Stranka, Walter, 198 Strittmatter, Erwin, 212 Stunde Null, 1 Stutthof, 203 Subjektive Authentizität, 8, 10-11, 57, 63, 68, 90, 178, 284, 321 Susman, Margarete, 270-71, 281, 285, 288 Szondi, Peter, 204 Tate, Dennis, 8, 176, 224, 232-37, 243, 245-46, 249 Taylor, Jennifer, 109, 125-26 Theresienstadt, 99, 111-12, 114, 11920, 201, 203 Thürk, Harry, 198 Tieck, Ludwig, 170 Toller, Ernst, 261 Töpelmann, Sigrid, 176 totalitarianism, 2, 7, 12, 15-17, 33, 45, 47, 49, 52, 81, 92, 105, 117-18, 122, 148, 150, 153, 157, 172, 175-76, 178, 215, 219, 223-24, 227, 244-45, 252, 287, 312, 318, 321-22, 324-27 Trakl, Georg, 72, 81, 103 Trivialliteratur, 162, 167 Ulbricht, Walter, 197, 296 univers concentrationnaire, 97, 98, 100, 104, 106, 110, 271 Vaterbücher, 42 Vercors, Le silence de la mer, 49 Volksgemeinschaft, 45 Wagner-Egelhaaf, Martina, 61 Walser, Martin, 308 Walther, Joachim, 82, 85, 214-15, 292 Wandlitz, 217 Weil, Edgar, 255-89, 318 Weil, Grete, 7, 12-13, 102, 131-33, 190, 204, 255-89, 305, 318, 320,

356

Mapping the Contours of Oppression

Ans Ende der Welt, 257, 279, 283 Generationen, 135 Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben, 2, 4, 190, 255-89 Meine Schwester Antigone, 255-58, 260-61, 263-64, 28385 Weiße Rose, Die, 35 Wende, 4, 60-62, 64, 71, 74, 84-85, 87, 89, 92, 167, 170, 175, 225, 291, 315, 325 Wendland, Johannes, 138 Westerbork, 203 Wiedemann, Charlotte, 138 Wiens, Paul, 211, 213 Williams, Robin, 100 Wolf, Christa, 9, 56-58, 60, 63, 70, 76-77, 79, 88-91, 137-38, 146, 175, 184, 188, 210-11, 219, 222, 246, 250, 253, 291, 296, 298, 301, 305, 307, 321 Kindheitsmuster, 9-12, 57, 63, 87-88, 184, 246, 301-02, 30607, 321 Nachdenken über Christa T., 78, 10-11, 17, 57, 60, 88, 305, 321 Was bleibt, 56, 60, 63, 76, 79, 85, 91, 219 Wolf, Gerhard, 210 Wolle, Stefan, 65 Wolter, Manfred, 228 Woods, Roger, 250-51, 253 Woolf, Virginia, 5-6, 10, 58, 234, 327 Zöger, Heinz, 190 Zweig, Arnold, 171