eJournals

Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? JENNIFER REDMANN K ALAMAZOO C OLLEGE When the anonymous diary Eine Frau in Berlin. Tagebuch-Aufzeichnungen vom 20. April bis 22. Juni 1945 (2003) was published by the Eichborn publishing house as part of Hans-Magnus Enzensberger’s series «Die Andere Bibliothek,» it met with immediate critical acclaim. «Eine Frau in Berlin ist ein unglaubliches Buch,» writes Renée Zucker in Die Tageszeitung. «Wer das Alphabet gelernt hat, darf und muss es jetzt lesen! » («Es klingt»). A critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung agrees: «Es ist müßig, dieses ungeheuerliche Buch mit anderen Aufzeichnungen jener Zeit […] zu vergleichen: Es ist einzigartig» (Lovenberg, «Wenn weiter»). A quote from Der Spiegel reprinted on the cover of the paperback edition of the book pronounces it «ein menschlich berührendes und literarisch gewichtiges Dokument» (Kronsbein 182). The book held a spot on the Spiegel bestseller list for a number of months, and the film version of the diary, directed by Max Färberböck and starring Nina Hoss, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2008, followed by an October 2008 release in Germany. In spite of glowing reviews, however, Eine Frau in Berlin has sparked controversy since its publication in 2003. In this essay, I will begin by tracing the lines of debate over the authorship and authenticity of the diary. The questions of when, why, and by whom the diary was written have a bearing on the politics of memory in Germany today, given that a major theme of the book is the rape of German women by Russian soldiers. However, as I will discuss in the second half of the essay, regardless of the status of Eine Frau in Berlin as a historical document, when read as an autobiographical text, the diary reveals much about the power of language to create selves in response and in resistance to violence, chaos, and trauma. The anonymous author of the diary, a well-educated woman in her thirties who had worked as a journalist, recorded her experiences in three notebooks and on various bits of paper during and after the 1945 Battle of Berlin. The first entry, dated April 20, 1945, describes the diarist’s living situation just prior to the Battle of Berlin. She has taken up residence in the attic apartment of a former colleague. Her days consist of scraping together her meals and her evenings of waiting out bombing raids with other residents in the cellar of 194 Jennifer Redmann her building. Eventually, Berlin falls to the Russians, and on April 27, 1945, a day she terms «Tag der Katastrophe» (53), 1 enemy soldiers arrive in the cellar. The diarist, who knows a little Russian, convinces the soldiers to leave, but when she goes out into the corridor to check whether they have indeed gone, two of them grab her. «Ich schreie, schreie…» she writes in the diary. «Hinter mir klappt dumpf die Kellertür zu» (62). Abandoned by her neighbors, she is raped by both soldiers. This event marks the beginning of a horrific period for all female residents of Berlin, as thousands are raped repeatedly, anywhere, at any time. Realizing that she needs a protector, the diarist sets out to tame one of the «wolves,» as she calls them, «damit er mir den Rest des Rudels fernhalte» (96). She takes up with a Russian major who is educated and gentle. More important, he provides the whole building with luxury food items and, to a certain degree, keeps the other soldiers at bay. Over the course of the next weeks, the diarist struggles to bring normalcy to her life in ruined and occupied Berlin. The last entry of the diary, dated Saturday, June 16 to Friday, June 22, 1945, opens with the lines «Nichts mehr notiert. Und ich werde nichts mehr aufschreiben, die Zeit ist vorbei» (278). The diarist recounts the return of her fiancé Gerd from the Eastern front, including her disappointment over the fact that he is so alien to her. After she is unable to summon any passion for him, she notes laconically, «Bin erst mal für den Mann verdorben» (279). She however does give him her diary to read in the hope that he might understand what she has suffered. He asks her what the abbreviation «Schdg.» in the diary stands for. «Ich mußte lachen,» she writes. «‹Na, doch natürlich Schändung.› Er sah mich an, als ob ich verrückt sei, sagte nichts mehr» (281). The next day he is gone. On the final page of the diary, the author wonders whether he will come back, but in any case, she is determined to carry on, declaring: «Ich weiß nur, dass ich überleben will - ganz gegen Sinn und Verstand, einfach wie ein Tier» (283). Immediately after concluding the diary, which was initially written mostly in shorthand and her own personal code, the diarist typed the entries for «einen Menschen, der ihr nahestand» (5), probably revising and adding to them as she did so. A few years later, her friend Kurt W. Marek read the 121-page typescript and convinced her to publish it. Marek wrote the afterword to the first edition, which appeared in English translation in the United States in 1954. A British edition followed in 1955, and the diary was soon translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Finnish. In 1959, the Swiss publisher Kossodo finally released the book in German, but it received little notice. After photocopies of the 1959 edition circulated among feminist circles in the 1980s, the author agreed to allow Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 195 publication of a new German edition - but only after her death and on condition that her anonymity be maintained. She died in 2001, which led to the 2003 publication of the diary in a new edition. In 2005, a new English translation of the diary by Philip Boehm, titled A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City, generated a great deal of positive critical attention in the English-speaking world. Joseph Kanon, writing in the New York Times, echoes German critics in declaring the diary «one of the most important documents to emerge from World War II.» Ursula Hegi, in a Washington Post review, agrees. «A Woman in Berlin is an amazing and essential book,» she asserts. «[I]t is so deeply personal that it becomes universal, evoking not only the rapes of countless German women in 1945 but also the rape of every anonymous woman throughout war history - the notion of women as booty.» Although Hegi remarks positively on the diarist’s desire for anonymity, certainly many might wonder why she refused to be named, even decades after the end of the war. In response, the 2003 edition opens with an anonymous foreword that reads, in part, [d]aß die Schreiberin anonym zu bleiben wünscht, ist wohl jedem Leser begreiflich. Ihre Person ist ohnehin belanglos, da hier kein interessanter Einzelfall geschildert wird, sondern ein graues Massenschicksal ungezählter Frauen. Ohne ihre Aussage wäre die Chronik unserer Zeit, die bisher fast ausschließlich von Männern geschrieben wurde, einseitig und unvollständig. (5-6) This statement on the author’s choice to remain anonymous prompts a number of key questions that arise when a personal diary becomes a public record of a historic moment. Who is authorized to speak for all? Can a diarist represent the experience of anyone beyond herself? Does a diary count as history when the «facts» it contains cannot be verified because the diarist’s identity is unknown? These questions become even more pressing - and more complicated - when the diary’s subject matter is rape and the diarist is a rape victim. Today, the trauma suffered by rape victims is often considered shameful and kept hidden from the world, but the massive scale of the rapes committed by Russian soldiers in the weeks following the fall of Berlin in April 1945 transformed rape into an experience shared by thousands of women. 2 In a time of crisis, rape became a new kind of public event, as the diarist herself notes when discussing the rape of a young acquaintance: Eines ist klar: Wäre an dem Mädel irgendwann in Friedenszeiten durch einen herumstreunenden Kerl die Notzucht verübt worden, wäre hinterher das übliche Friedensbrimborium von Anzeige, Protokoll, Vernehmung, ja von Verhaftung und Gegenüberstellung, Zeitungsbericht und Nachbarngetue gewesen - das Mädel hät- 196 Jennifer Redmann te anders reagiert, hätte einen anderen Schock davongetragen. Hier aber handelt es sich um ein Kollektiv-Erlebnis vorausgewußt, viele Male vorausbefürchtet, um etwas, das den Frauen links und rechts und nebenan zustieß, das gewissermaßen dazugehörte. Diese kollektive Massenform der Vergewaltigung wird auch kollektiv überwunden werden. Jede hilft jeder, indem sie darüber spricht, sich Luft macht, der anderen Gelegenheit gibt, sich Luft zu machen, das Erlittene auszuspeien. (164-65) As in the above passage, the diarist traces over the course of her journal entries a process in which old attitudes about rape were transformed once Berlin fell. «Was heißt Schändung? » she writes on May 1, four days after the Russians’ arrival in her neighborhood. «Als ich das Wort zum ersten Mal laut aussprach, Freitag abend im Keller, lief es mir eisig den Rücken herunter. Jetzt kann ich es schon denken, schon hinschreiben mit kalter Hand, ich spreche es vor mich hin, um mich an die Laute zu gewöhnen» (73). Rape carries no shame for women; instead, it becomes the first question they ask, even when meeting for the first time - it is not if, but how often they had been raped (153, 178). The stress endured by women in occupied Berlin leads to new topics of conversation in the once-proper «Damenkränzchen.» «Bloß Kaffee und Kuchen fehlten, ich hatte nichts anzubieten,» writes the diarist. «Trotzdem waren wir alle drei recht lustig, übertrafen einander in puncto Schändungshumor» (258). The idea that women could joke about being raped is certainly disorienting for contemporary readers; given today’s view of rape, we would assume that talking about the rapes was taboo for German women in 1945. The diary, however, reveals that not only did women discuss the rapes, they helped and protected each other from the aggressors. Historian Atina Grossman confirms this, noting that in the months following the fall of Berlin, rape was part of the public discourse, as were the means of dealing with any resulting pregnancies. «Rape was experienced as a collective event in a situation of general crisis,» Grossman explains. «While frightful and horrific, it seemed to provoke no guilt; if anything it confirmed their expectations and reinforced preexisting convictions of cultural superiority» (53). Indeed, there are a number of instances in the diary where the author echoes Nazi propaganda in referring to the Russians as «Primitivlinge» (77), a people «auf einer niedrigeren Entwicklungsstufe, als Volk jünger, noch näher ihren Ursprüngen als wir» (90). 3 Only in the 1950s, with the return of German men from prison camps, did rape become a shameful subject, reminding men of their own fall from the heights of racist pride to the depths of defeat. The diarist herself views the few men on the streets of Berlin in 1945 as poor, demasculinized creatures, «so gar keine Männer mehr. Man kann sie nur bemitleiden. Man erhofft oder er- Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 197 wartet auch gar nichts mehr von ihnen. Schon jetzt wirken sie geschlagen und gefangen» (27). It is no wonder, then, that the first German-language edition of the diary received so little attention; at that time, Germans did not want to think about the dark past, only their bright future fueled by the economic miracle. In his foreword to the new English translation of the diary, Enzensberger notes that in 1959, German readers were obviously not ready to face some uncomfortable truths, and the book was met with either hostility or silence. One of the few critics who reviewed it complained about the author’s «shameless immortality.» German women were not supposed to talk about the reality of rape; and German men preferred not to be seen as impotent onlookers when the Russians claimed their spoils of war. (Foreword xi) Because it thematizes the rapes of German women in the aftermath of the Second World War, any critical discussion of Eine Frau in Berlin necessarily invokes debates among historians over the status of Germans as victims of National Socialism. As Grossman explains, when dealing with historical discussions of the mass rapes, one finds two highly developed discourses that continually intersect and block each other. […] On the one hand, the feminist discourse on rape, its representation and construction, while not trusting every single story, validates and publicizes the voices of women who speak of sexual violation, and tries to integrate rape into its analysis of «normal» heterosexual relations. On the other hand, the historical discourse on Germany’s confrontation with its Nazi past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) tends to distrust any narrative that might support postwar Germans’ self-perception as victims insofar as it might participate in a dangerous revival of German nationalism, whitewash the Nazi past, and normalize a genocidal war. (45) Here Grossmann describes the feminist discourse on which the positive critical attention bestowed on Eine Frau in Berlin in Germany and abroad frequently draws. In contrast, controversy over the diary’s authorship and authenticity clearly stems from the historical discourse that takes a skeptical view of any account of German victimhood. Thus in a sense, the negative reception of Eine Frau in Berlin is but one more entry in the series of recent public debates over works that portray Germans as victims, foremost among them Jörg Friedrich’s Der Brand (2002) and Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film Der Untergang (2004). In addition, I would argue that one reason for the discomfort experienced by some readers of Eine Frau in Berlin lies in the shifting boundaries between public and private that govern both the diary as a text and the context of its reception. The diarist records numerous public acts of rape, and yet because she also describes her own very private experiences as a rape victim, readers are 198 Jennifer Redmann told that her identity must be shielded from the public, as would be the case in the press coverage of any rape committed today. «Selbst die ‹Bild›-Zeitung,» asserts Enzensberger in an interview with Der Spiegel, «würde vermutlich das Gesicht einer vergewaltigten Frau unkenntlich machen» (147). Yet, this presents the question whether readers of a historical account should not be allowed to interpret two months of an author’s life within the context of her entire biography. Enzensberger’s interview with Der Spiegel came in response to an article published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in September 2003 following the release of the Eichborn edition of the diary in the spring of that year. In a piece titled «Wenn Männer Weltgeschichte spielen, haben Frauen stumme Rollen,» journalist Jens Bisky reveals the name and biography of the diary’s author and uses that information to call the diary’s authorship and its historical authenticity into question. According to Bisky, the probable author of the diary was an educated woman in her thirties named Marta Hillers. Hillers was born in 1911 in Krefeld. After completing her education in 1930 (which included five years at a Realgymnasium), Hillers worked for a short time as a secretary. In the early 1930s, she traveled extensively through eastern and southern Europe as a photographer and spent a year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. In the summer of 1934, Hillers moved to Berlin, where she worked as a freelance journalist, living for a time with her cousin Hans Wolfgang Hillers, the author of several screenplays for Nazi propaganda films. Marta Hillers was friends with Kurt Marek, who wrote the afterword to the original English edition of A Woman in Berlin, and both were members of the Reichsverband Deutscher Schriftsteller. In summarizing Hillers’ career during the Third Reich, Bisky describes her as a «Kleinpropagandistin» for the Nazis. In 1935, Hillers celebrated National Socialist ideals in a piece she co-wrote for the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger called «Heimat Landstraße. Zwei Mädel mit Fernfahren unterwegs.» During the war she wrote brochures and pamphlets for the Verlag der Deutschen Arbeiterfront and the NS-Lehrerbund. She was a member of the youth group connected to the NS-Frauenschaft but was never a party member. After the war, she wrote for youth magazines, including the Illustrierte Jugendzeitschrift, whose goal was the reeducation of German youth. In the 1950s, Hillers married a Swiss man and moved to Switzerland, where she lived until her death in 2001. In describing the education and career of the diary’s probable author, Bisky questions the role played by Kurt Marek in bringing Eine Frau in Berlin to a public readership. In Marek’s afterword to the first edition of the diary (which is reprinted in the new version of the text), Marek admits that it took him over Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 199 five years to convince the author to allow it to be published. In his article, however, Bisky questions whether Marek might have played a more active role in preparing the manuscript for publication, or perhaps even written it himself. «Wer hat eine ‹Frau in Berlin› geschrieben, dieses Buch, das Marta Hillers offenkundig viel verdankt? Es handelt sich um ein literarisches Sachbuch, herausgegeben von dem Autor, der das Genre des literarischen Sachbuchs in Deutschland durchgesetzt hat.» Here Bisky is referring to Marek’s fictionalized account of the heroic deeds of the Wehrmacht, Wir hielten Narvik (1941), which was based on actual soldiers’ diaries. Bisky sees further evidence for the fictionalized nature of Eine Frau in Berlin in its language, such as the opening lines of the text, which he describes as «drehbuchreif»: «Ja, der Krieg rollt auf Berlin zu. Was gestern noch fernes Murren war, ist heute Dauergetrommel. Man atmet Geschützlärm ein» (9). 4 In casting doubt on the authorship and origins of the diary, Bisky criticizes the editorial practices of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, who, citing a desire to maintain the diarist’s anonymity, has not allowed public access to the original diary or the typed manuscript, making it impossible for scholars to verify the diary’s authenticity. In his article, Bisky points to a number of minor differences between the 1959 and 2003 editions of the diary which lead him to a provocative series of questions: «Wo ist das Typoskript? Wer hat in ihm rumgestrichen? Marta Hillers vor ihrem Tod? Ein Eichborn-Mitarbeiter? Was ist dokumentarisch belegt an diesem Dokument? » The mere fact that these questions are open leads Bisky to reject the diary completely, claiming it has no value as a record of the past. «‹Eine Frau in Berlin,›» he writes, «will als zeithistorisches Dokument gelesen werden, zwingt uns, dies auf Treu und Glauben zu tun, verlangt, dass wird [sic] die Aura des Authentischen für den Beweis der Echtheit nehmen. Verlag und Herausgeber tun alles, uns in dieser Lesehaltung zu belassen. Dabei ist das Buch als zeithistorisches Dokument wertlos.» 5 In his interview with Der Spiegel, Enzensberger dismisses Jens Bisky’s attempts to call the diary into question, stating: «Ich glaube kaum, dass es Bisky gelingen wird, mit seinen Enthüllungen und Verdächtigungen einer Autorin zu schaden, deren Mut ich ebenso bewundere wie ihren Stil» (147). Nevertheless, extensive press coverage of the controversy led Kurt Marek’s widow Hannelore Marek (who holds the rights to the diary) to invite the late Walter Kempowski, author and noted expert on the diary genre, to view the original diary and verify its status as an historical document. In a two-page report (published in the FAZ in January, 2004), Kempowski confirmed the diary’s authenticity. «Die von mir eingesehenen drei Originalhefte,» Kempowski writes, «tragen alle Merkmale des Authentischen: verschiedenartiges Schreib- 200 Jennifer Redmann gerät - zum überwiegenden Teil Tinte, zum Teil Bleistift, zum Teil Rotstift - und die immer wieder vom Ordentlichen ins Flüchtige übergehende Schrift zeigen alle Anzeichen von Spontaneität.» After comparing the handwritten notebooks to the diarist’s 121-page typed manuscript, however, Kempowski noted that not only did the diarist change some names and places, «der Text [wurde] aus dem gerade zu Ende gegangenen Erleben heraus ‹erfüllt.›» Kempowski defends this «filling out» of the original text by quoting Ernst Jünger: «Der Tee muß aufgegossen werden, sonst kann man ihn nicht trinken.» Still, Kempowski admits that it may have been preferable had «der Verlag sich mit der Veröffentlichung des Schreibhefttagebuchs begnügt,» although he acknowledges that the diarist’s desire to maintain her anonymity had precluded that possibility. The press reaction to Kempowski’s letter proved mixed. The FAZ saw in Kempowski’s analysis clear, unequivocal answers to Bisky’s questions: «Wer hat darin herumgestrichen? » Niemand hat in den Aufzeichnungen herumgestrichen. Die Verfasserin hat ihre Korrekturen in einem Exemplar der deutschsprachigen Ausgabe von 1959 vermerkt. Es handelt sich dabei zumeist um Verbesserungen von Orthographie und Grammatik sowie minimale stilistische Korrekturen. Das beantwortet auch Biskys nächste Frage: ‹Drei Schulhefte, 121 Schreibmaschinenseiten, die Druckvorlage der Erstausgabe wie viele Fassungen gibt es noch? › Nur eine: das jetzige Buch, an dessen Rang als Dokument von eminentem historischem und literarischem Wert kein Zweifel besteht. (Lovenberg, «Kein Zweifel») Not surprisingly, the Süddeutsche Zeitung expressed continued scepticism regarding the provenance of the typed version of the diary, although previous insinuations that Marek fabricated the diary were withdrawn (Seibt). According to critic Gustav Seibt, because Kempowski did not have an opportunity to compare the typed manuscript to the published diary, the extent to which the diarist (or someone else, possibly Marek) revised, edited, and expanded upon her original handwritten diary entries remains unresolved. Clearly, this controversy will not be laid to rest until a critical edition of Eine Frau in Berlin is published; until then, we cannot know for certain the status of the published diary as a historical document. Nevertheless, literary and historical analyses of diaries written over the past centuries reveal that it is not uncommon for diarists to revise their diary entries retrospectively. In fact, Anne Frank, arguably the most famous diarist of all time, did just that. 6 After having kept a diary for nearly two years, Frank heard a radio report on March 28, 1944 in which the Dutch Minister of Education, Art, and Science called on ordinary citizens to record their wartime experiences. Inspired by thoughts of becoming a published author, Frank began rewriting her diary on loose sheets of paper; in addition to assigning pseudonyms to the occupants Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 201 of the secret annex, «she changed, rearranged, sometimes combined entries of various dates, expanded and abbreviated» (van der Stroom 61). Following the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl in 1947 and the tremendous public response it received, the existence of different versions of the diary (including her father Otto Frank’s edited version), caused some to question its authenticity. In particular, right-wing extremists and Holocaust deniers sought to discredit the diary; only in the 1980s - following exhaustive research by forensic scientists and handwriting experts and the publication of a 712-page critical edition - were persistent rumors that the diary was a hoax finally silenced (see Lipstadt). Debates over the authenticity of a revised or, to use Kempowski’s term, a «filled out» diary reveal a persistent belief that a «true» diary is a spontaneous outpouring of one’s innermost thoughts and feelings - feelings never to be shared, much less published. Prior to the nineteenth century, however, diaries frequently functioned as semi-public documents in which a diarist recorded significant life events for family members and future generations. Even after the diary came to be seen as a feminine arena for secret reflection, many diarists continued to write for an audience, if only an imaginary one (Culley 3-4). Lynn Z. Bloom draws a distinction between the standard «private» diary and a «public» one, explaining that [c]ontrary to popular perception, not all diaries are written - ultimately or exclusively - for private consumption. […] Indeed, it is the audience hovering at the edge of the page that for the sophisticated diarist facilitates the work’s ultimate focus, providing the impetus either for the initial writing or for transforming what might have been casual, fragmented jottings into a more carefully crafted, contextually coherent work. (23) An entirely private diary, Bloom explains, usually lacks development and detail and is impossible for an outside reader to make sense of without a great deal of contextual information. Information about the original diary on which Eine Frau in Berlin is based indicates that the diarist initially used her diary as a private outlet but later revised her entries for public consumption. Although we cannot know for certain, it is possible that because the diarist was a journalist (as she herself indicates in the text), she always intended to make the diary public, since, to quote Bloom once again, «for a professional writer there are no private writings» (24). In one of the first entries of her diary, the author reflects on her mixed feelings about participating in the public conversations of the women standing in line for rations: «Zwiespalt zwischen der hochmütigen Vereinzelung, in der mein Privatleben für gewöhnlich abläuft, und dem Trieb, wie die anderen zu sein, zum Volk zu gehören, Geschichte zu erleiden» (26). This 202 Jennifer Redmann telling ambivalence characterizes the entire diary, a place where the author records her private traumas and fears alongside coolly ironic observations on the maelstrom of historic events in which she finds herself. The controversy surrounding the reception of Eine Frau in Berlin demonstrates the extent to which scholars and readers have relied on diaries for historical information about the life and times of a private individual. It is on this score that Bisky and other critics have objected to the diary: the anonymity of the author and the fact that she may have revised her original entries after the fact call the status of the diary as a source of factual information into question. But that point of view fails to acknowledge that the transformation of lived experience into text always involves a subjective interpretation of past experience. As Margo Culley explains, «The reader’s instinctive suspicion of the process [of revising a diary] is grounded in the sense of the immediacy and verisimilitude claimed by the genre. But the reader should remember that the original record is itself a reconstruction of reality and not ‹truth› in any absolute sense» (16-17). Ironically, among the many reviewers of Eine Frau in Berlin, it is a historian, Constanze Jaiser, who speculates that «dieses Unbehagen auf der Rezeptionsebene» may simply be rooted in the nature of the diary itself, «da selbstverständlich auch die Gattung Tagebuch niemals unmittelbares Abbild von Realität und das Schreiben in der Situation immer ein individueller Bewältigungsversuch ist.» Eine Frau in Berlin certainly provides a wealth of historical information about the situation of ordinary German women during the fall of Berlin in the spring of 1945. But apart from its status as a historical document, the diary also offers insight into how language can be used to construct and reconstruct a self in times of crisis. Those readers who reject Eine Frau in Berlin on historical grounds do the text an injustice by failing to acknowledge the rhetorical skill with which the diarist shores up her own identity in the face of violence and loss. 7 As Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson explain, [w]hen life narrators write to chronicle an event, to explore a certain time period, they are making «history» in a sense. But they are also performing several rhetorical acts: justifying their own perceptions, upholding their reputations, disputing the accounts of others, settling scores, conveying cultural information, and inventing desirable futures, among others. The complexity of autobiographical texts requires reading practices that reflect on the narrative tropes, sociocultural contexts, rhetorical aims, and narrative shifts within the historical or chronological trajectory of the text. (10) Although doing justice to all of this diarist’s «rhetorical acts» would require a book-length study, in the remainder of this essay I will focus on how she transforms her material experience of life in conquered Berlin into language. Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 203 As I will show, the linguistic construction of an embodied identity is the diarist’s central preoccupation; multiple, often contradictory bodies emerge in the text, including a hungry (and satiated) body, a fearful (and fearless) body, a hunted body, and a dirty, fragmented body. These various embodied selves do not exist separately from the diarist’s intact interior (writing) self, but rather, the ever-changing embodied selves are the diarist - in all of their heterogeneity, fragmentation and chaos. In an essay on the performative nature of autobiographical practice, Sidonie Smith writes, «[i]nteriority became an effect, and not a cause, of the cultural regulation of always already identified bodies, bodies that were sexed and gendered, bodies that were racialized, bodies that were located in specific socioeconomic spaces, bodies that were deemed unruly or grotesque» (109). As I discuss below, it is through a language of the body that the diarist describes the destructive effects of hunger, fear, and repeated sexual violations, and it is through a language of the body that she projects a strong, linguistically reintegrated self into an unknown future. The hungry (and satiated) body. In her first diary entry, the author sets the stage for the story of her life. After being bombed out of her own apartment, she is living in the unoccupied attic flat once rented by one of her colleagues. Rather than bemoan the loss of her own possessions, however, she views the situation positively, as a physical freedom from the weight of ownership: «Jetzt, wo alles weg ist und mir nur ein Handkoffer mit Kleiderkram bleibt, fühle ich mich nackt und leicht. Weil ich nichts mehr habe, gehört mir alles» (10). The diarist spends most of her time scraping together meals and her stomach dominates her thoughts. After finding a love letter addressed to the former occupant of the apartment, she reflects on the now seemingly distant past when such «finer» feelings had a place in life: «Herz, Schmerz, Liebe, Triebe. Was für ferne, fremde Wörter. Offenbar setzt ein verfeinertes, wählerisches Liebesleben regelmäßige, ausreichende Mahlzeiten voraus. Mein Zentrum ist, während ich dies schreibe, der Bauch. Alles Denken, Fühlen, Wünschen und Hoffen beginnt beim Essen» (11). Understandably, this preoccupation with meals leads the diarist to write extensively about food, as in the following passage in which she writes of her body as if it were an object, a vessel to be filled: «Füllte mir daheim den Magen mit Griesbrei und schickte einen Brotkanten nach. Theoretisch bin ich so satt wie lange nicht. Praktisch quält mich tierischer Hunger. Vom Essen bin ich erst richtig hungrig geworden» (11-12). The narrative trajectory of the diary begins and ends with the hungry body. In between, however, two Russian officers (first Andrej, then the major) provide a plentiful supply of food and drink in exchange for sex. Since the diarist’s 204 Jennifer Redmann body functions as a form of currency in these relationships, it is not surprising that the body itself receives generous payment. Hab soeben eine Pfanne voll Speckgrieben vertilgt, streiche mir die Butter fingerdick, während die Witwe finstere Prophezeiungen auf mich häuft. Ich höre nicht darauf. Was morgen sein wird, ist mir egal. Jetzt will ich so gut leben, wie ich irgend kann, sonst falle ich bei so viel Lebenswandel wie ein nasser Lappen zusammen. Das Gesicht schaut mir wieder rund aus dem Spiegel. (145) The satiated body demands that the diarist live in the moment, not thinking of the future; the diarist marvels at the sight of her own round face looking back at her in the mirror. In fact, it is only the satiated body that can withstand «so viel Lebenswandel» - a life in which a woman sells her body to the enemy in exchange for food and protection. After the Russians leave the city, however, the days of meat and butter come to an end. Once again, the diarist must struggle to find enough to eat and her body begins to fail her: «Unterwegs zupfte ich mein Brennesselquantum. Ich war sehr matt, das Fett fehlt. Immer wogende Schleier vor den Augen und ein Gefühl des Schwebens und Leichterwerdens» (272). Here the diarist draws on metaphors of death to give shape to her description of the hungry body. The fearful (fearless) body. Fearful anticipation fills the days before the arrival of the Russians. After a night waiting out an air raid in the cellar, the diarist describes in precise physical terms her experience of fear: Seit ich ausgebombt bin und in der gleichen Nacht beim Bergen Verschütteter half, laboriere ich an meiner Todesangst. Es sind immer die gleichen Symptome. Zuerst Schweiß ums Haar, Bohren im Rückenmark, im Hals sticht es, der Gaumen dörrt aus, und das Herz klopft Synkopen. Die Augen stieren auf das Stuhlbein gegenüber und prägen sich seine gedrechselten Wulste und Knorpel ein. Jetzt beten können. (18-19) The body’s fear of impending death drives out all thought, even of God or the afterlife. The diarist’s choice of verb and prepositional object («ich laboriere an meiner Todesangst»), however, indicates that she will not let fear consume her. By describing the «symptoms» of fear, the diarist uses her writing as a form of therapy; in naming and describing the illness «fear,» she actively seeks a cure. Fear often arises from a sense of powerlessness, and throughout Eine Frau in Berlin we find examples of how the diarist seeks to overcome fear by seizing control of her circumstances. Before the arrival of the Russians, she joins a marauding crowd of plunderers at an army barracks and snatches bread, bottles of wine, and cans of food. Unfazed by the collapse of civil order in the city, the diarist finds the experience exhilarating, in spite of the toll it takes on her body: Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 205 Gleich will ich schlafen. Ich freue mich darauf. Randvoller Tag. Bilanz: bin gesund, frisch und frech, die Angst ist im Augenblick so ziemlich fort. Im Hirn heftige Eindrücke von Gier und Wut. Lahmer Rücken, müde Füße, ein Daumennagel abgebrochen, die zerscherbte Lippe brennt. Es stimmt doch: «Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.» (53) The diarist’s survival instinct emerges in images of a greedy, enraged, masculinized body, a body freed of moral niceties, beyond good and evil. Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Russians, the diarist’s body is transformed from subject to object of plunder. The hunted body. The second time the diarist is raped, the aggressor breaks into her apartment in search of «Beute» (which can be translated as both «booty» and «prey») and hunts her down. She describes the scene in the present tense and her own self (initially) in the third person. Er scheint die Beute gar nicht zu sehen. Um so erschreckender sein Stoß, der sie zum Lager treibt. Augen zu, Zähne fest zusammengebissen. Kein Laut. Bloß als das Unterzeug krachend zerreißt, knirschen unwillkürlich die Zähne. Die letzten heilen Sachen. Auf einmal Finger an meinem Mund. Gestank von Gaul und Tabak. Ich reiße die Augen auf. Geschickt klemmen die fremden Hände mir die Kiefer auseinander. Aug in Auge. Dann läßt der über mir aus seinem Mund bedächtig den angesammelten Speichel in meinen Mund fallen. Erstarrung. Nicht Ekel, bloß Kälte. Das Rückgrat gefriert, eisige Schwindel kreisen um den Hinterkopf. Ich fühle mich gleiten und fallen, tief, durch die Kissen und die Dielen hindurch. In den Boden versinken - so ist das also. (74) This experience marks a moment of destructive interruption in the story of the diarist’s life. In using the third person, the diarist as narrator indicates an emotional distance from the aggressor, until he recalls her to herself through the horrific insult of spitting into her mouth. By naming this act, the diarist puts into words a transformation: once a self-confident, educated, independent German career woman, she has become an object of disdain, a member of a defeated and humiliated race, a mere nothing to be spit upon. This dramatic shift in the author’s self-image is written on the body; as «Beute,» she is cold, frozen, emotionless. She later extends this metaphor in describing herself as «eine fühllose Puppe» with no will of its own, «geschüttelt, herumgeschoben, ein Ding aus Holz» (82). Yet, once she has decided to take hold of the situation by choosing an officer to sleep with, the diarist recovers a degree of agency, which has an immediate effect on her physical condition: «Fühlte mich körperlich wieder besser, nun, da ich etwas tat, plante und wollte, nicht mehr nur stumme Beute war» (75). Eventually, the diarist is even able to find a place for these experiences in the continuing story of her own sexuality: 206 Jennifer Redmann Hab darüber nachdenken müssen, wie gut ich es bisher gehabt, daß mir in meinem Leben die Liebe niemals zur Last und immer zur Lust war. Bin nie gezwungen worden, hab mich niemals zwingen müssen. So wie es war, war es gut. Es ist nicht das Allzuviel, was mich jetzt so elend gemacht hat. Es ist der mißbrauchte, wider seinen Willen genommene Körper, der mit Schmerzen antwortet. […] Ich will tot und gefühllos bleiben, solange ich Beute bin. (104) In writing «solange ich Beute bin,» the diarist shows that she can imagine a future body which will once again take pleasure in sex. The dirty, fragmented body. Although the diarist tries to make the best of an untenable situation, the emotional damage wrought by rape finds expression in descriptions of her own body as broken and unclean. In the account of one rape, she writes of the «half» of her body that remains as an object: «Mir ist taumelig, ich bin nur noch halb da, und diese Hälfte wehrt sich nicht mehr, sie fällt gegen den harten, nach Kernseife riechenden Leib» (68). The aggressor’s body smells like soap, but she feels «so klebrig, ich mag gar nichts mehr anfassen, mag die eigene Haut nicht anrühren» (71). This sense of her own dirtiness is both physical, given the lack of soap and water, and emotional as she struggles to come to terms with her situation. 88 In response, the diarist imagines a pure, clean self that can escape the dirty body and float away: Es war mir, als läge ich flach auf meinem Bett und sähe mich gleichzeitig selber daliegen, während sich aus meinem Leib ein leuchtendweißes Wesen erhob; eine Art Engel, doch ohne Flügel, der steil aufwärts schwebte. Ich spüre noch, während ich dies schreibe, das hochziehende, schwebende Gefühl. Natürlich ein Wunschtraum und Fluchttraum. Mein Ich läßt den Leib, den armen, verdreckten, mißbrauchten, einfach liegen. Es entfernt sich von ihm und entschwebt rein in weiße Fernen. Es soll nicht mein «Ich» sein, dem dies geschieht. Ich schiebe all das aus mir hinaus. (71-72) Here the self stands apart to view the self, and the act of writing serves as an act of self-recovery, an attempt to salvage what seems lost, destroyed. In a later entry, the diarist reiterates this sense of alienation from her dirty body, even reflecting on how she was once a beautiful, clean baby: «Muß daran denken, was mir die Mutter so oft erzählt hat von dem kleinen Kind, das ich einmal war. Ein Baby so weiß und rosa, wie es stolze Eltern freut. […] So viel Liebe, so viel Aufwand mit Häubchen, Badethermometern und Abendgebet für den Unflat, der ich jetzt bin» (87). In spite of the desperation and selfhatred in these words, they serve to connect the diarist to her past. In this context, Margo Culley’s description of the importance of the diary as a life record seems particularly valid: «I was that, now I am this; I was there, now I am here. Keeping a life record can be an attempt to preserve continuity seemingly broken or lost» (8). Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 207 Regardless of when the published diary was composed, we find evidence throughout of how it may have served its author in coping with traumatic events. Confronted everywhere with destruction and the violation of her own body, it makes sense that the author should turn to the diary as a form of «scriptotherapy.» In defining this term, Smith and Watson describe how «speaking or writing about trauma becomes a process through which the narrator finds words to give voice to what was previously unspeakable. And that process can be, though it is not necessarily, cathartic» (22). In an early entry, the diarist describes her writing as a way to pass the time: «Es hat keinen Wert. Bloß privates Gekritzel, damit ich etwas zu tun habe» (19). Later on, however, she takes pen in hand in an effort to write «allen Wirrsinn aus dem Kopf und Herz» (71). In between, as she puts words to the experience of being raped, her writing helps her survive the most desperate of situations, even under circumstances that would seem to preclude quiet reflection. In the end, the diarist herself testifies to the importance of writing in dealing with trauma. «Schon dies Aufschreiben jetzt ist eine Anstrengung, ist mir aber ein Trost in meiner Einsamkeit, eine Art Gespräch, ein Herzausschütten. Die Witwe hat mir von wilden Russenträumen erzählt, die sie jetzt noch träumt. Bei mir nichts dergleichen, wohl weil ich alles aufs Papier gespien habe» (272). Through her journal entries, the diarist attempts to shape her reality, to hold on to her past, to cope with her present, and to shape her future. This is part and parcel of the diary-writing process, as Kagel and Gramegna explain in their study of fictionalization in early American women’s diaries: Not only does the very process of writing a diary, the conversion of experience into language, alter events as they are recorded; it alters memory and with it behaviors based on that memory. Each entry, colored by the subjective impressions and conception of the moment, becomes «fact» as it is fixed on paper. In this way diarists become mythmakers, creating enduring records that will affect not only interpretations of past and present situations, but also future decisions. (39) The diarist creates a world in which she is the main actor, and in spite of the fact that she is a conquered woman in a conquered city, she is able to use the diary to project an image of her future life. Sometimes she appears supremely confident: «Immerhin hab ich allerlei gelernt; ich werde schon irgendwo unterkommen. Bange ist mir nicht. Ich vertraue mein Schifflein blindlings den Zeitläuften an. Mich trug es bisher stets an grüne Ufer» (146). At other times, however, a sense of uncertainty reveals itself, as in this entry, recorded at a time when the diarist had returned to a kind of normalcy in her life: Zu Hause wohlige Körperwäsche, nettes Kleid, stiller Abend. Ich muß nachdenken. Groß ist unsere geistige Not. Wir warten auf ein Herzenswort, das uns anspricht und uns zurückholt ins Leben. Unsere Herzen sind leer gelaufen, es hungert uns 208 Jennifer Redmann nach Speise, nach dem, was die katholische Kirche «Manna Seelenbrot» nennt. […] Die Zukunft liegt bleiern auf uns. Ich stemme mich dagegen, versuche, die Flamme in mir brennend zu erhalten. Wozu? Wofür? Was ist mir aufgegeben? Bin so hoffnungslos allein mit alldem. (246) Here again the diarist uses bodily metaphors to describe herself and her place in history: she intends to use all of her physical power to push her way forward through a «leaden» future. We do not have a first-person record of the diarist’s life after June 22, 1945, but given the power of her account of eight weeks in war-torn Berlin, there could be little doubt that she survived whatever life could bring. Notes 1 All quotes from Eine Frau in Berlin refer to the 2003 edition published by Eichborn. 2 Statistics documenting exactly how many women were raped during this time are unavailable. Historian Atina Grossman writes that «[t]he numbers cited for Berlin vary wildly; from 20,000 to 100,000, to almost one million, with the actual number of rapes higher because many women were attacked repeatedly» (46). 3 The diarist also mentions a number of instances where the great works of German music and literature comfort her, as in this passage: «Besinnlicher Vormittag bei Sonne und Musik. Ich las in Rilke, Goethe, Hauptmann. Tröstlich, daß auch die zu uns gehören und von unserer Art sind» (264). 4 A letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to Joseph Kanon’s positive review of A Woman in Berlin brings Bisky’s argument to an American readership; its author, Christoph Gottesmann of Vienna, points to the improbability that the first diary entry, written on April 20, 1945, would make no mention of Hitler’s birthday. In a published response to Gottesmann’s letter which also appeared in the New York Times, Antony Beevor comments: «[T]he single concrete detail with which Gottesmann finds fault is the diarist’s failure, as he sees it, to mention Hitler’s birthday. Yet it is clearly there in the April 21 entry, along with the diarist’s observation that the date had slipped everyone’s mind.» The diary entry in question reads: «Fräulein Behn trat mit dem Zeitungsblatt vor und las die Goebbelsrede zum Geburtstag des Führers (ein Datum, an das die meisten überhaupt nicht mehr gedacht hatten)» (19). 5 It appears, however, that scholars disagree with him on this point. British historian Antony Beevor quotes the diary extensively in his book The Fall of Berlin 1945, as does Atina Grossman in an article on the mass rapes of German woman by Russian soldiers. Although Grossman admits to «uncertainty about authorship and authenticity» of the diary, «the language used and the experiences reported are consistent with other reports» (55). 6 There are a number of striking similarities between the anonymous diary Eine Frau in Berlin and Anne Frank’s work. Writing in a diary initially served the diarists as a private emotional outlet during times of great crisis and stress, but both women later came to consider public audiences for their diaries. Interestingly, in the case of both diaries, attempts to dismiss their authenticity were rooted in the tremendous commercial success they enjoyed, although the political motivations behind the accusations could hardly Eine Frau in Berlin: Diary as History or Fiction of the Self? 209 be more different. One of the right-wing extremists who in the 1950s claimed that the Anne Frank diary was a hoax railed against the fact that the diary had earned «millions for the profiteers from Germany’s defeat» (qtd. in Lipstadt 193). Bisky sees a profit motive behind the Eichborn publishing company’s supposedly sloppy editorial practices: «Solange das Buch in so nachlässiger Edition verkauft und als historisches Zeugnis vermarktet wird, profitieren Verlag und Herausgeber schamlos von der gutwilligen Leichtgläubigkeit der Leser.» 7 Some reviewers of Eine Frau in Berlin questioned the diarist’s seemingly remarkable ability to write coherently about the experience of being raped, and her laconic tone has been taken as evidence that the diary must have been written, or at least significantly revised, after the fact. For example, Ina Hartwig, in a critical response to Kempowski’s letter, asks: «Kann eine Frau überhaupt so kühl und zugleich so einfühlsam über die Triebdurchbrüche der Soldaten, über die erlittene Vergewaltigung berichten? » Another reviewer, however, comments that the diarist’s voice reminds her of that of her own mother: Es ist der Ton, den ich von meiner eigenen Mutter kenne und von Frauen ihrer Generation - und war und ist diese Generation nicht auch kühl und anästhesiert? Dieses ständige Aussparen, das angebliche Nichtwissen oder Nichterinnern. Diese betonte Unsentimentalität. Das Grobe und Abrupte. […] Insofern würde ich «Eine Frau in Berlin», von wem auch immer sie unter welchen Umständen geschrieben wurde, immer wieder verteidigen wollen: als einen Text, der mich erschüttert und beeindruckt hat über das hinaus, was er beschreibt - und der mir die Erfahrung einer Generation sehr deutlich gezeigt hat, die ich in dieser Klarheit vorher nicht gesehen habe. (Zucker, «Erfahrung») 8 The diarist also uses metaphors of «dirt» to describe the situation of the Germans as a defeated people, for example: «Wir sind im Dreck, tief, tief» (71) and «Rechtlos sind wir. Beute. Dreck. Unsere Wut entlädt sich auf Adolf. Bange Fragen: Wo steht die Front? Wann wird Friede? » (90). Works Cited Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin. Dir. Max Färberböck. Perf. Nina Hoss, Yevgeni Sidikhin and Juliane Köhler. Constantin, 2008. Barnouw, David, and Gerrold van der Stroom, ed. The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Beevor, Antony. Letter. New York Times 25 Sep. 2005, late ed., sec. 7: 6. -. The Fall of Berlin 1945. New York: Viking, 2002. Bisky, Jens. «Wenn Jungen Weltgeschichte spielen, haben Mädchen stumme Rollen.» Süddeutsche Zeitung [Munich] 24 Sep. 2003. Web. 9 Sep. 2008. Bloom, Lynn Z. «‹I Write for Myself and Strangers›: Private Diaries as Public Documents.» Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Ed. Suzanne L. Bunkers and Cynthia A. Huff. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1996. 23-37. Culley, Margo. Introduction. A Day at a Time: The Diary Literature of American Women from 1764 to the Present. Ed. Margo Culley. New York: Feminist P, 1985. 3-26. Eine Frau in Berlin. Tagebuch-Aufzeichnungen vom 20. April bis 22. Juni 1945. Frankfurt: Eichborn, 2003. 210 Jennifer Redmann Eine Frau in Berlin. Tagebuch-Aufzeichnungen vom 20. April bis 22. Juni 1945. Munich: btb, 2005. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. Foreword. A Woman in Berlin ix-xii. -. Interview. Der Spiegel 29 Sep. 2003: 147. Friedrich, Jörg. Der Brand. Munich: Ullstein Heyne, 2002. Gottesmann, Christian. Letter. New York Times 11 Sep. 2005, late ed., sec. 7: 6. Grossman, Atina. «A Question of Silence: The Rape of German Women by Occupation Soldiers.» October 72 (1995): 42-63. JSTOR. Web. 2 July 2007. Hartwig, Ina. «Kempowski über Anonyma.» Frankfurter Rundschau 20 Jan. 2004: 17. LexisNexis. Web. 3. Aug. 2008. Hegi, Ursula. «After the Fall.» Washington Post 4 Sep. 2005: T10. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. Jaiser, Constanze. «Eine Frau in Berlin.» Review. H-Soz-U-Kult. Humboldt University, 12. Dec. 2003. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. Kagel, Steven E. and Lorenza Gramegna. «Rewriting Her Life: Fictionalization and the Use of Fictional Models in American Women’s Diaries.» Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Ed. Suzanne L. Bunkers and Cynthia A. Huff. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1996. 38-55. Kanon, Joseph. «My City of Ruins.» New York Times 14 Aug. 2005, late ed., sec. 7: 12. Kempowski, Walter. «Gutachten zur Authentizität des Tagebuchs der Anonyma.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 20 Jan. 2004: 35. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. Kronsbein, Joachim. «Die Frau als Kriegsbeute.» Der Spiegel 14 Apr. 2003: 182-85. Lipstadt, Deborah. «Twisting the Truth: The Diary of Anne Frank.» Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy. Ed. Hyman A. Enzer and Sandra Solotaroff- Enzer. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2000. 192-97. Lovenberg, Felicitas von. «Eine Frau in Berlin: Kein Zweifel an dem Tagebuch der Anonyma.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25 Sep. 2003: 42. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. -. «Wenn weiter gelebt werden muß, geht es auch in der Erstarrung.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 21 June 2003: 44. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. Seibt, Gustav. «Kieselsteine zählen.» Süddeutsche Zeitung [Munich] 21 Jan. 2004. Web. 9 Sep. 2008. Smith, Sidonie. «Performativity, Autobiographical Practice, Resistance.» Women, Autobiography, Theory. Ed. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1998. 108-15. Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2001. Der Untergang. Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel. Perf. Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara. Constantin, 2004. van der Stroom, Gerrold. «The Diaries, Het Achterhuis and the Translations.» Barnouw and van der Stroom. 59-77. A Woman in Berlin. Eight Weeks in the Conquered City. Trans. Philip Boehm. New York: Holt, 2005. Zucker, Renée. «Erfahrung einer Generation.» Die Tageszeitung 30 Sep. 2003: 14. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. -. «Es klingt wie das Letzte, ist es aber nicht.» Die Tageszeitung 13 May 2003: 14. LexisNexis. Web. 3 Aug. 2008. Hermann Kant’s Abspann: Shifting Paradigms and the Fiction of Facts RACHEL HALVERSON W ASHINGTON S TATE U NIVERSITY , P ULLMAN Hermann Kant’s Abspann: Erinnerungen an meine Gegenwart, published in 1991, disappointed and frustrated literary critics and fellow East German authors. 1 Lacking apologies and regrets for decisions and actions that had dire consequences for others in the East German literary community, Abspann delivered neither the longed for admissions of guilt nor confessions of complicity with a corrupt regime. The revolutionary events of 1989 leading to the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic toppled Kant, vice-president of the East German Schriftstellerverband from 1969 to1978 and president from 1978 to 1989, from his prominent position in the East German literary community and turned him overnight into a persona non grata. The peaceful revolution however did not shake his confidence in the country to which he had committed much of his life. Left with only his tarnished image and contested career achievements, Kant hastily published Abspann at a time when there was great interest in publications by former East German authors. As Dennis Tate points out in Shifting Perspectives: East German Autobiographical Narratives before and after the End of the GDR, The evidence of most of the post-Wende writing by what might now be more accurately called «eastern» German authors is that it was driven by shorter-term needs across a spectrum extending from the often shocking «victim discourses» of those who suffered most at the hands of the Stasi (Reiner Kunze, Erich Loest) to the unconvincing acts of self-defense by SED establishment figures such as Hermann Kant. (9) Tate’s assessment, published almost twenty years after the fall of the Wall, reflects the clarity and insight that the passage of time brings. 2 Freed from years of censorship and attempting to find firm footing in the rapidly evolving landscape of postunification Germany, literature, albeit quickly written, remained the one constant medium with which authors could tell their life stories for whatever reason was most pressing at that time. Tate’s placement of Kant’s Abspann as anchor on the negative end of the spectrum, however, resonates with the critical reception of Abspann and its author at the time of publication and entices one to return once again to the stories and experiences Kant recounted in Abspann and the variety of forums in which he has chosen 212 Rachel Halverson to address the shift in paradigms that transformed the reception of his career in the intervening twenty years. Removing the negatively biased lens through which Abspann heretofore has been read and analyzing its packaging, contents, and narrative structure in tandem with key interviews with Kant published since the fall of the Wall reveals a different man and message than the one damned by colleagues and critics. At issue is whether this negative lens has prevented Kant’s own assessment of his life and work from being heard and objectively evaluated. At the height of his career Hermann Kant was one of the poster children for East German literature with his picture featured prominently on the cover of the 1981 paperback edition of Wolfgang Emmerich’s seminal Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR. 3 For Emmerich at that time, these authors «haben damit der DDR-Literatur ein Darstellungsmittel zurückerobert, das zu Zeiten einer verhärteten Doktrin vom sozialistischen Realismus tabuiert war» (143). How ironic that Kant’s novel Die Aula was noted for its narrative which linked the present to the author’s past - or as Emmerich states, «das gelebte mit dem zu lebenden Leben assoziativ-reflexiv verknüpft» (143), while the autobiographical underpinnings in Abspann, written with no concern for the fickle judgment of state censorship, prompted a critical response that was immediate and damning. Among those who reviewed Abspann are representative and former East German authors. Günter de Bruyn, Günter Kunert, and Erich Loest each published statements in the press on the book and are unanimous in their condemnation of Kant’s wordy, evasive writing style and his account of the Biermann Affair in 1976 and the expulsion of nine authors from the writers’ union in 1979. They also articulate succinct and damning final verdicts on Kant’s attempt to tell his life story. De Bruyn, for example, concludes, «Den Vorwurf der Wendehalsigkeit kann man Kant also wirklich nicht machen. Er trauert der Vergangenheit nach, bleibt sonst aber der alte» (66). While Kunert states simply, «Es ist sein letzter Versuch, sich selber aus der Verantwortung zu stehlen» (L9), Erich Loest sees Kant’s intentions in the much broader post- Wende political landscape and postulates, «Kant will wieder oben und vorne sein, diesmal als Wegbereiter der PDS-Legendenbildung: Es ließ sich gar nicht schlecht leben in der DDR» (XV). This uniformly negative response to Abspann by Kant’s peers is not surprising. The complicity with the SED and the Stasi that he practiced as president of the Schriftstellerverband damned him in the eyes of other East German writers, many of whom suffered severe consequences as a result of their critical view of their homeland. In a brief article in the newspaper Neue Zeit announcing the forthcoming publication of Abspann, the announcement is prefaced by the statement that not a single Hermann Kant’s Abspann 213 author responded positively to the invitation issued to fellow authors by the East German magazine Wochenpost to submit a laudation on the occasion of Hermann Kant’s sixty-fifth birthday in the summer of 1991. 4 Not surprisingly, the sentiments articulated by de Bruyn, Kunert, and Loest reflect the general tenor of reviews published in the German press; the book itself garners criticism of its convoluted style, excessive verbiage, and misrepresentation of events, as well as of the author’s portrayal of himself. Konrad Franke, well-known expert on East German literature and author of Kindler’s Die Literatur der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, terms Kant an «Opportunist aus Überzeugung» (VI) in his review for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, while Jürgen Grambow cynically reduces Kant to an «anekdotenliebender (sic) Geschichtenerzähler» (13). The gap between Kant in the flesh and his self-portrait in Abspann prompts the Spiegel reviewer to surmise, «Der Mann mit der Kerbe des Machtmenschen am Kinn muß einen Doppelgänger gehabt haben» («Laotse» 240). In the Berliner Zeitung, Waldtraut Lewin feigns shock that Kant has not included the nickname for him widely used by fellow East German authors, «Meisterschlangenzunge» (17). Horst Haase’s review for Neues Deutschland distinguishes itself as the only positive reception of Abspann and it assures readers that they will find everything in the book that they have grown to cherish in Kant’s writing: «sprachliche Originalität, lockere, teils heitere, teils ernste, vergnügliche und polemischaufklärerische Schilderungen von Erfahrungen und Erlebnissen, die sie selbst berühren oder an denen sie sich reiben können, nicht zuletzt auch jüngster, uns alle betreffender Geschehnisse» (5). A positive review in this venue is not surprising, given the position Neues Deutschland held as the SED-sanctioned newspaper in the GDR. Literary scholars do not advance the discussion of Abspann much beyond that provided by the reviewers in the press. Fritz Rudolf Fries, 5 critic and fellow East German author who was forced to publish his first novel Der Weg nach Oobliadooh (1966) in West Germany with Suhrkamp after publication was refused in the GDR (Emmerich 1981: 32), concludes, «Den Romanen Hermann Kants bescheinigte Hans Mayer ‹hemmungslose Plaudertechnik und kurzatmige Anekdoktik›. Der heutige Leser, von der freien Sensationspresse entmündigt, aber kann sich hier [Abspann] seitenweise an kauzig und gekonnt erzählten Kalendergeschichten laben» (135). In other words, Kant has not evolved beyond being simply a good story teller. Reinhard Andress frames his analysis with the literary theories of de Man and Lejeune and demonstrates that Kant has indeed broken the «autobiographical pact» with his readers with his intentional digressions and misrepresentations (145). Although there are differing innuendoes in the response to Kant’s Abspann, 214 Rachel Halverson critics and literary scholars across the board read it as an autobiography and as a result expect Kant’s full disclosure of his complicity with the corrupt SED regime. In contrast, Frank Thomas Grub takes issue with the overwhelmingly negative response itself: «An diesem Umgang mit Kants Autobiografie zeigt sich, dass oft weniger der Text als die Person des Autors im Mittelpunkt des Interesses steht. Reaktionen dieser Art mögen im Falle Hermann Kants nachvollziehbar sein, akzeptabel sind sie trotzdem nicht» (314). Beginning with the book’s jacket and title page, Abspann confronts readers with the paradox of Kant’s endeavor. His choice of title conjures up images of a rolling list of credits at the end of a film. Indeed, he includes an appended index of names (Namenregister). Its eight-page length and the names included verify its intended significance. Among the chosen are actors (Humphrey Bogart and Ernest Borgnine), politicians (Willy Brandt, Michail Gorbatschow, Erich Honnecker), authors (Bertolt Brecht, Christoph Hein, Anna Seghers, Christa Wolf), and family members (his father Paul Kant, his son Myron Kant). When one reads Abspann, however, it quickly becomes apparent that Kant did not know all the people in this index personally, a fact pointing to two possible purposes this index serves. It can be read as a reinforcement of the book’s focus heralded by its title. Specifically, these are the individuals whom Kant credits with playing a role in his life. Yet it also functions in an additional, less-than-subtle way. With this roster, Kant creates a version of himself as an individual who values relationships and whose identity is tied to that of others. This interpretation reflects his current need to anchor his identity within a constellation of mostly still respected people, a situation which reflects his reliance on connections, given his prominent role in the East German literary community, rather than solely on his own, now refuted laurels. The reasons for selecting this title appear later in the text when Kant confesses that «mit diesem Abspann nichts anderes als eine Auto- Enquete versucht wird» (364). The book’s subtitle, Erinnerung an meine Gegenwart, points to an intersection of the past (Erinnerung/ recollection) and the present (Gegenwart/ present) which is still very immediate to Kant; his life as a leading figure in the East German literary community has now been relegated to the past by everyone but Kant himself. The subtitle he has chosen thus foreshadows that Kant intends through his writing to reconstruct or essentially make present that time before unification. It is also noteworthy that the subtitle does not appear on the book’s jacket. There the name of the author and his picture dwarf the words «Abspann,» his publisher «Aufbau,» and «Erinnerungen.» In the picture, Kant appears to have just autographed one of his books and is returning it presumably to an avid reader, implying that the copy of Abspann Hermann Kant’s Abspann 215 buyers hold in their hands was personally signed and written for them. Although book titles and covers can be dismissed as simple marketing devices, in this case they accurately foreshadow the text that follows. Kant has expressed unequivocally that he is writing about his life in East Germany as he sees it, not the life others wished he had led. This overt articulation of narrative intent predominates in the first chapter, which opens with Kant’s reference to his mother who called him her «regierbarstes Kind» (5) in a television interview: «Die Mitteilung löste Gegensätzliches aus: Sie hielt mir den Atem an und setzte diesen Bericht in Gang» (5). Key here is Kant’s use of the term «Bericht.» This statement immediately creates tension between Kant’s reputation for complicity with the now discredited SED and his reputation for not conceding the error of his ways. Certainly quoting his mother is an endearing gesture, but the words «regierbarstes Kind» in the context of East Germany and his position as president of the Schriftstellerverband set in motion thoughts of his willingness to comply with the regime, regardless of how corrupt its demands may have been. This is followed on the next page by his statement that «Von den Konflikten, durch die man kam, darf keiner als ausgedacht und ertüfelt geschmäht werden; man schreibt im Schutze von Tatsachen, wenn man von seinem Leben schreibt. Denke ich jetzt, wo ich damit beginne» (6). When coupled with his statement on the factual dimension of writing one’s life story, these comments in the opening pages of his autobiography essentially read like a contrived prophylactic against anticipated attacks on his version of what happened in East Germany. In fact, the reviewers’ numerous criticisms of the details Kant presents in Abspann readily call the validity of these statements into question. Furthermore, Kant’s frequent narrative interruptions imply that even he does not trust the facts he is presenting to speak for themselves and therefore must steer the reception of the life story he has chosen to present to his readers. Kant himself concedes at a later point how flawed this opening statement actually is and acknowledges his role in selecting the information to be presented (156). In the pages that follow, it quickly becomes apparent that Kant’s need to control how his story is read extends from the book’s title and jacket to the body of the text where over eighty parenthetical asides ranging in length from a few words to over a page interrupt the narrative flow throughout the book’s 528 pages. As he explains, «Da bleibt dann, um die Angst zu dämpfen, man könne an einer besonders wichtigen Stelle nicht verstanden worden sein, oft nur der verklammerte Einschub» (493). Kant is clearly cognizant of the fact that his life story, particularly his version of it, will be highly contested. A relatively small number of these asides provide definitions to avoid possible 216 Rachel Halverson misunderstandings or corrections to clarify what Kant views as misinformation. For instance, his description of how his father became involved in a barroom brawl between the Republican Reichsbanner and the Monarchist Stahlhelmer exemplifies his definitional usage of parenthetical asides: «Er war in seiner Wirtschaft (in Berlin hätte sie Kneipe geheißen) gemeinsam mit Fritz Ritter, der gleich ihm als feuriger Parteiloser galt, in eine Schlägerei zwischen Reichsbanner und Stahlhelmern geraten» (14). Here Kant is interested primarily in clarifying subtle semantic differences that exist between regions in Germany, between historical periods, or between political systems. Kant’s parenthetical aside on Alfred Kantorowicz’ depiction of him in his diary as a student at the ABF in Greifswald more readily typifies the correctional function they play in the book. Kant points out that Kantorowicz portrays him as «ein fragwürdiger Dumpfnickel» (248) and cites two slightly negative quotes from Kantorowicz’ diaries. In a parenthetical aside, Kant addresses him directly: «(Verdammt noch mal, Professor, ich war mit einem Abitur, das die einsame Note ‹Mit Auszeichnung› trug, in das von Ihnen geleitete Haus gekommen und verließ es mit einem Einser-Diplom, das Ihre Unterschrift zierte.)» (248). As demonstrated by this example, the length of this aside and the shift from a first-person narrative to a direct address can result in a dramatic disruption of the text’s narrative line, reflecting Kant’s urgent need to set the record straight at the cost of narrative integrity. A number of the parenthetical asides serve to establish a tangential connection between the recounted event and another event, person, place, or time. The content of these asides ranges from the personal to the literary and professional. When Kant recounts his father’s call to report for military service in World War II, he describes how his parents took their savings, went with the family to Hamburg, bought two bicycles, and stopped at an ice cream parlor in the area that Kant knew from the days when he was taking a stenography course at the technical school in the neighborhood. The ice cream that once had been naturally fresh and fruity tasting now tasted horrible and artificial due to the shortage of fresh fruits and dairy products imposed by war rationing. In a parenthetical aside, Kant draws the line between this childhood memory and a visit to an ice cream parlor fifty years later. On their first family trip to Hamburg, Kant, his wife, and their three children enjoyed a scoop of ice cream from Mövenpick while Kant shared his memories of a family outing to get ice cream during times of war (92). In a similar manner, Kant uses a parenthetical aside to alert readers to the connection between his hospitalization in 1944, during which he shared a room with a young soldier who had been strafed during a bombing raid, and a similar episode in Die Aula, personally acknowledging and emphasizing the highly autobiographical na- Hermann Kant’s Abspann 217 ture of his fictional writing (207). Both examples cited here establish connections between the event recounted in the text and information that may not be known to the reader, underscoring one of the organizational threads interwoven throughout a complex text that critics have dismissed as excessively convoluted. As Kant notes on several occasions in Abspann, «Alles hatte mit allem zu tun» (466). This recurring theme of the interrelated events in Kant’s life figures prominently in the final and largest category of parenthetical asides which expand on the initial information provided in the text, furnish essential background information, or offer commentary on what has transpired. In a passage detailing his various and assorted physical ailments, Kant recalls speculating about where he would be in the fall of 1990, to which his doctor responded there would be moss growing on his grave by then if he did not get the recommended heart surgery. This prompted Kant to respond that the doctor clearly is unaware of the current availability of cemetery plots. Kant was fully aware of this and recalls how long it took to find an appropriate grave site for Erich Arendt. This shortage also explains why Walter Victor, first secretary of the Writers Union, secured his own grave site in a timely manner. This spiraling digression leads to a parenthetical aside in which Kant remembers when he was Kantorowicz’ assistant. Victor had engaged him and Frank Wagner to present papers at a Writers Union conference on the literature of war, and for this service, he offered them each a 700-mark honorarium (203). Such a recollection furnishes Kant with the opportunity to note that this was the only time he ever received payment from the Writers Union. Given the criticism of the privileged life Kant led in East Germany due to his position in that organization, this short imbedded statement is far more significant than the issue of cemetery plot availability; it transforms the recounted chain of events into packaging for Kant’s veiled self-defense. Closing the parenthesis at the conclusion of this aside, Kant continues with his narrative of the events leading up to his heart surgery. Kant’s defensive stance also is evident in his statements on Wolf Biermann and the events leading to Biermann’s expulsion in 1976. Tandem to his account of the difficulties he encountered in publishing Das Impressum, for example, he expands on a clash with Hermann Axen, chief editor of Neues Deutschland at the time: «der Verriß betraf die ‹Drahtharfe› eines gewissen Wolf Biermann, in dem ich freilich nicht die gewinnendste aller Persönlichkeiten sah. Oder sehe» (314). Kant’s actions during the Biermann affair complicated relationships in the past, and their legacy continues to have an impact on how Kant is perceived to this day. Yet with this clearly stated position on Biermann’s person, Kant leaves no room for misinterpretation of his feelings 218 Rachel Halverson towards Biermann; he did not think highly of him in the 1970s and he did not think highly of him 15 years later. As demonstrated by the examples cited here, the parenthetical asides enrich Abspann in terms of the sheer number of added details and insights they offer into Kant’s stance on significant events and personages. Undoubtedly though, they contribute to the disjointedness of Kant’s life story which he has chosen not to recount chronologically from his birth to the present. As he notes following a parenthetical aside of almost a page in length, Mit der umfänglichen Klammerbemerkung wollte der Verfasser eine der formalen Schwierigkeiten, die ihm beim Ordnen von Erinnertem zusetzten, im Beispiel vorführen. Wenn er schon riskierte, über sich selbst zu schreiben, was laut Urteil des Weisen ohnehin eine große Dummheit ist, muß er, und sei es nur in Grenzen, beim gewählten Gegenstand bleiben, kann nicht beliebig, wie etwas beim Roman, Einfälle darbieten, sondern ist auf die Vorfälle verwiesen, aus denen sein Leben bestand und das Leben besteht. (492-93) Here Kant positions himself as an omniscient narrator intentionally cultivating a sense of objective distance between himself and the stylistic decisions he has made in compiling the information he shares in this volume. Although the parenthetical asides at times create an almost impenetrable text, Kant embraces this interweaving of information to best reproduce the interconnectedness of experiences he maintains is inherent in remembering his past. In fact he sees it as an inevitable component of writing his life story, referring to the resulting text at several points as the «Geflecht» (171). Abspann has set the stage for Kant’s recent work, and the blurred lines between autobiography and fiction continue to figure prominently in the novels he has published following the Wende as well. The first - Kormoran (1994) - opens with a one-page statement identifying Kant as the source and writer of the story which will unfold over the remaining 264 pages. For uninformed readers, Kant sarcastically recommends a quick glance at the book cover or title page. The starting point for the novel is the sixty-sixth birthday of Paul- Martin Kormoran, an influential East German literary critic who, as Kant writes, «schon deshalb eine Erfindung sein muß, weil es, soweit meine Erhebungen verläßlich sind, keinen lebenden Menschen dieses Namens gibt» (6). On the heels of Kormoran, Kant published Escape. Ein Word-Spiel in 1995. In this book, Kant details his experiences learning to use the software program Microsoft Word, an undertaking that eventually becomes a game and discloses insights into being a writer and the writing process itself. His next novel Okarina, published in 2002, is narrated by Mark Niebuhr, a figure familiar to readers from Kant’s novel Der Aufenthalt (1977). Among other adventures extending into the 1990s, this novel tells of Stalin’s invitation to Hermann Kant’s Abspann 219 Niebuhr to join him for tea in Moscow, where he teaches him to play the «Okarina,» an ancient Roman instrument. Not surprisingly, Okarina is highly autobiographical. In his most recent novel, Kino (2005), Kant’s aging narrator literally takes to the streets of Hamburg, a city familiar to readers of Abspann as the place of Kant’s birth and of his mother’s home. He borrows his great nephew’s sleeping bag and space sheet and camps out in the Spitalerstraße pedestrian zone, a position which affords him a bird’s eye view of the city’s comings and goings. «Es ist Kunst,» he explains to those who do not believe what he has written on his sign: «Sinnstudie! - Nicht stören und nichts spenden! » (5). The meditative prone posture and location in the city he has chosen also affords him ample opportunity to contemplate the past and the present. Although these fictional works offer glimpses into the life of their author, it is the published interviews Kant has given that reveal the most candid information on his life and times. For example, Leonore Krenzlin’s early interview with Kant, conducted in the summer of 1976 and included in her 1979 study of the author, contains succinct chronological statements on significant events that are interwoven in the dense textual fabric of Abspann: his childhood, including places the family lived, schools, jobs that his father held, his and his family’s position in the social order, the Jungvolk, and his electrician apprenticeship (7-12); imprisonment in Poland (16-17); studies at the ABF in Greifswald (20-21); Kantorowicz’ description of Kant in his memoirs with which Kant took issue (23); his work as chief editor for Tua res (23); his difficulties publishing Das Impressum (27-29); background information on writing Der Aufenthalt (29-30); and even his second car accident and the resulting continuous pain he experienced (30-31). In response to Krenzlin’s question about his contact to his readers, Kant replies, «Ich kriege nämlich immer gern Post, aber ich beantworte sie höchst ungern. Ich schreibe meine Antworten in Form von Büchern» (31). Thirty-two years later this confession sheds light on Kant’s prolificness since unification; his novels continue to be his main avenue of communication with his readers. An interview with Günter Gaus eight years after the fall of the Wall on November 19, 1997 contains similar straightforward statements by Kant. A large-font, capitalized title - «IHN ZU BEKEHREN WIRD KEINER SCHAFFEN» (86) - heads the interview, forewarning the reader that Kant does not apologize for or concede any guilt about his complicity with a corrupt regime. The interview is prefaced by a brief descriptive statement in which Gaus sums up Kant’s current position: «Es gibt wenige Menschen, die so viel Feindseligkeit auf sich ziehen und an denen sich die Geister so sehr scheiden» (86). Living between these two contradictory legacies, Kant de- 220 Rachel Halverson scribes his life since unification: «Es ist das Leben eines Mannes, der weiß, daß seine Sache verloren hat, und sie nicht zuletzt auch deshalb verloren hat, weil er Teil dieser Sache war» (97). He undoubtedly still holds fast to the dream of a socialist Germany but concedes his role in its failure. Yet when Gaus asks him whether he was an East German Gustav Gründgens, Kant states unequivocally, «Ich fand dieses Regime in Ordnung. Mit all seinen Lücken und Fehlern war es in Ordnung» (96). In other words, he did not comply with or exploit the system in East Germany simply to promote himself and realize personal achievements, but rather he was committed to life in the country regardless of its shortcomings. The first significant collection of interviews with Kant appears ten years later with the publication of Irmtraud Gutschke’s Hermann Kant. Die Sache und die Sachen, a 250-page volume containing interviews with Kant that Gutschke conducted over a nine-month period. Reminiscent of Abspann, the seven chapters of materials are followed by a twelve-page index of names. Gutschke and Kant’s exchange also touches frequently on major personal, professional and historical events Kant included in Abspann, a point underscored when Gutschke cites the book frequently in her questions as she probes Kant for confirmation of details or for additional information and when Kant himself references comments he made in Abspann. Gutschke’s references to Abspann reinforce the impression that she has read extensively in preparation for her conversation with Kant as well as frame the interviews as a dialogue that will go beyond information Kant already has shared with the public. A quote from one of Kant’s novels heads each chapter, symbolically linking the author’s life and work, a symbiotic connection Kant has professed openly on numerous occasions. Similar to the 1976 interview with Krenzlin, Kant’s interviews with Gutschke touch on major events in his personal and professional life, and she has compiled the material gleaned from her conversations with Kant in a chronological manner. In a discussion with Gutschke about the filming of Der Aufenthalt, Kant expands on the strategic function of the autobiographical dimension of his fiction: «Die Ahnung, ich würde mit dem Buch [Der Aufenthalt] Schwierigkeiten kriegen, hat da eine Rolle gespielt. Deswegen habe ich auch immer von einem Roman gesprochen. Allerdings gibt es nur wenige Szenen, die hinzugedacht worden sind» (22). With this disclosure, Kant reveals that the interweaving of experience and fiction in his novels was simultaneously a literary device as well as a technique for publishing successfully within a system where political relationships influenced a book’s reception, specifically in the case of Der Aufenthalt East Germany’s relationship to Poland. Hermann Kant’s Abspann 221 Over the course of almost fifty hours of interviews with Gutschke, Kant repeatedly presents himself as a Realpolitiker, consciously working within the parameters of the system. This is seen most clearly in Kant’s statements on the workers’ uprising in 1953 and on the building of the Wall. Reflecting on the aftermath of the events on June 17, 1953, he concludes, «Zudem war mir klar: Umsturzversuche in der DDR hätten zuallererst dem Gegner genutzt» (50). Although he concedes that the long-term impact the Wall had was negative for East Germans, he recalls, «So verband sich mit dem 13. August 1961 für mich erst einmal eine positive Erwartung: die Herstellung ordentlicher Verhältnisse. Dagegen lag mir mit Deutschland als Einheit nicht so sehr am Herzen. Ich war Soldat im Zeichen des großdeutschen Reiches gewesen» (60). Opposition did not present itself as an option to Kant because he believed strongly in SED ideology. On a certain level, he remained to the end committed to the belief that presenting a united front to both external and internal attacks and criticism, regardless of the cost, was the best defense against the «Klassenfeind.» The reality of being an author in East Germany, however, did temper any naiveté Kant may have had. Just one year after the Wall was built, he recalls: «Ich habe >>Die Aula<< am 13. August 1962, also am ersten Jahrestag der Mauer, zu schreiben begonnen - im Vollgefühl, daß ich jetzt richtig loslegen kann. Das hat sich freilich später als Irrtum herausgestellt» (60-61). Time and experience have shown him the parameters of his creative existence in East Germany. As evidenced by the above statements, this was true for Kant in the early years of the GDR, but it remained true until the dissolution of the country. When approached by Heidrun Hegewald shortly before the dramatic events of 1989, Kant remembers his response: Ich habe ihr gesagt: Die Argumente leuchten mir ein, aber wenn es euch recht ist, gehe ich damit zu Kurt Hager und trage ihm das vor. Hinterm Rücken mache ich nichts. Da war sie nun wieder dagegen. Ich war kein Oppositioneller. Ich war ein - oft mehr als andere - kritischer Genosse, der dabei seine Prinzipien von Disziplin hatte. (Gutschke 50-51) This position exemplifies with excruciating clarity the chasm between Kant’s self-perception as a leader of the East German literary community and how he was perceived by his fellow authors. He sees himself as an open and direct leader while others view his compliant stance as an accommodation and facilitation of a corrupt regime at the cost of other authors’ creative voice. The sheer number of novels Kant has penned since the Wende creates the impression that he is doing his best to reclaim his position in society as a productive, respected author, while ultimately providing ample, albeit perhaps one-sided, documentation for his place in literary history and in posterity. 222 Rachel Halverson Although only the test of time will tell what his legacy truly will be, early verdicts do not look promising. In the revised edition of his Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR published in 1996, Wolfgang Emmerich sets the tone for future evaluations of Kant’s career. On the one hand he mentions Kant as one of the authors contributing to the growing popularity of East German literature in the 1980s on both sides of the border: «Gewiß konnten schon Stefan Heym oder Hermann Kant mit einzelnen Büchern Auflagen von über 100 000 Exemplaren erzielen» (521). On the other hand, Emmerich dismisses Kant’s two novels that had appeared by the time of the reissue of his literary history - Kormoran and Escape. Ein Wordspiel - as typical of the «ressentimentgeladenen Bücher der strammen Realsozialisten wie Neutsch oder auch Kant» (502). Even the webpage devoted to him on the Aufbau Verlag website is resignedly unexpansive; his one-paragraph bio statement closes: «Er lebt seit 1962 als freier Schriftsteller in Berlin. Von 1978 bis 1989 war er Präsident des Schriftstellerverbandes der DDR.» Escape. Ein Wortspiel is not even listed among his publications. In the television interview «Zur Person: Günter Gaus im Gespräch mit Hermann Kant» broadcast on July 21, 1999, Kant appears as an aging shell of his former self and a victim of horrifyingly poor dental hygiene. Even ten years after the Wende, he remained committed to East Germany and his efforts to put into practice a political ideology different from that of the Federal Republic. For many, his decades of successful work within the East German system and his collaboration with the Stasi have eliminated the possibility for the positive reception of his work. His signature blurring of genre lines between fiction and autobiography, what has essentially become his literary modus operandi, renders it impossible to separate Kant’s life, the compromises he has made, and his collaboration with the SED and the Stasi from the books he publishes. In the opening pages of Abspann, Kant proclaims, «man schreibt im Schutze von Tatsachen, wenn man von seinem Leben schreibt» (6). The reception of his autobiography and recurring themes he speaks to in interviews refute the validity of this statement on numerous counts, confirming that Kant must accept that the parameters in which he functioned successfully in East Germany no longer exist. As evidenced by interviews he has given, Kant’s now sees his task as not defending his actions as president of the Schriftstellerverband but rather educating others about East Germany in order to render those actions comprehensible. Viewed retrospectively, Kant’s autobiography, subsequent novels, and post-Wende interviews cannot be simply dismissed as futile justifications for his success in East Germany. In Kant’s new role as eyewitness to a singular phase in German history, he leaves behind his self-defensive stance and dis- Hermann Kant’s Abspann 223 closes information in interviews and his novels that unlocks Abspann to reveal insights into a country that existed for a brief forty years, yet transformed the lives of many. The fury in response to Kant’s exposure as a Stasi-IM in 1992 confirmed that this will not be an easy task. As Karl Corino notes with respect to one glaring gap between events portrayed in Abspann and evidence from Kant’s Stasi files, Kant’s version of reality is often «[o]ffenbar ein frommes Märchen, das nur haltbar war, solange Kants IM-Akte und die Dossiers der Opfer nicht gefunden waren» (21). 6 Kant’s fairy tale, however, is one with a preface that he wishes no one will forget. In a debate between Kant and Gerhard Zwerenz, who left East Germany in 1957 (Emmerich, [1981] 224), Kant confirms that his strong commitment to East Germany stems from his four years as a prisoner of war in Poland (12). As he explains in the exchange with Zwerenz, his commitment to the literary profession remains in the realm of fairy tales: «Das Schöne, das wirklich ganz Hervorragende, das ungeheuer Ermutigende an dem Schriftstellerberuf ist, daß er zu den wenigen gehört, dessen Angehörige sich wirklich à la Münchhausen an dem Zopfe selber aus dem Sumpf ziehen können. […] Da sitzt du nun drin in der Tunke, nun sieh mal zu, was kannst’n, du kannst nicht viel, du kannst ’ne Geschichte schreiben, nun sieh mal zu, daß es ’ne gute Geschichte wird; dann versucht man’s, und wenn’s klappt, zieht man sich ein bißchen raus.» (67) These sentiments explain Abspann and the numerous other novels that have followed in the intervening years. It is Kant’s devotion to the literary profession and the act of writing a good story that now more than ever not only sustain him but serve him as a buffer between his past deeds and demands for accountability. Notes 1 I would like to thank Carol Anne Costabile-Heming and Jennifer Redmann for the thoughtful feedback and suggestions they provided in the final preparation of this manuscript. 2 In his Mapping the Contours of Oppression: Subjectivity, Truth and Fiction in Recent German Autobiographical Treatments of Totalitarianism, Owen Evans offers a contrasting view on this publishing phenomenon: «The truth is that the reasons for this autobiographical trend cannot easily be pinned down, and to do so would extend beyond the scope of the present study [i.e.Owen’s examination of autobiographical texts by Ludwig Harig, Uwe Saeger, Ruth Klüger, Günter de Bruyn, Günter Kunert, Christoph Hein, Grete Weil, and Monika Maron]» (2). 3 Tate in fact references Emmerich’s evaluation of the significance of the semi-autobiographical fiction by Strittmatter, Kant, Wolf, de Bruyn and Plenzdorf (Tate 4) 224 Rachel Halverson 4 The Wochenpost was the first publication to print advanced copies of individual chapters from Abspann. («Hermann Kant erinnert sich» 13) 5 For a critical analysis of the interplay between Fritz Rudolf Fries’ biography and his novels, including his exposure in 1996 as an IM and the resulting condemnation in the media, see Nause. 6 For an initial report of Kant’s complicity with the Stasi in Der Spiegel, see «Vermisse das Wort Pinscher.» Works Cited Andress, Reinhard. «Hermann Kants Erinnerungsbuch Abspann: ein Beispiel von Legendenbau.» Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 34.2 (1998): 137-48. de Bruyn, Günter. «Scharfmaul und Prahlhans. Der ‹Abspann› des Hermann Kant: der ehemalige Präsident des DDR-Schriftstellerverbandes hat seine Erinnerungen geschrieben.» Die Zeit 19 Sept. 1991, natl. ed.: 65+. Corino, Karl. «Zuverlässig, verschwiegen, einsatzbereit. IM Martin alias Hermann Kant als Mitarbeiter der Stasi.» Introduction. Die Akte Kant. IM <<Martin>>, die Stasi und die Literatur in Ost und West. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1995. 9-53. Emmerich, Wolfgang. Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR. Darmstadt: Luchterhand Verlag, 1981. -. Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR. Erweiterte Neuausgabe. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1996. Evans, Owen. Mapping the Contours of Oppression: Subjectivity, Truth and Fiction in Recent German Autobiographical Treatments of Totalitarianism. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006. Franke, Konrad. Die Literatur der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. München: Kindler, 1971. -. «Selbstporträt eines Regierbaren. Hermann Kants Rückblick auf sein ‹halb vertanes Leben›.» Süddeutsche Zeitung 2/ 3 Oct. 1991: VI. Fries, Fritz Rudolf. «Von der Einsamkeit des Langstreckenläufers. Hermann Kants Autobiografie.» Neue deutsche Literatur 39.11 (1991): 131-37. Gaus, Günter. Zur Person: Jurek Becker, Daniela Dahn, Walter Jens, Hermann Kant, Helga Königsdorf, Christa Wolf. 2nd ed. Berlin: edition ost, 1998. Grambow, Jürgen. «Bericht vom Hofe. Hermann Kants Erinnerungen ‹Abspann›.» Frankfurter Rundschau 17 Sept. 1991: 13. Grub, Frank Thomas. >Wende< und >Einheit< im Spiegel der deutschsprachigen Literatur: Ein Handbuch. Vol. 1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Gutschke, Irmtraud. Hermann Kant. Die Sache und die Sachen. 2. verbesserte Ausgabe. Berlin: Das neue Berlin, 2007. Haase, Horst. «‹Abspann› von Hermann Kant. Bittere Bilanz.» Neues Deutschland 9-14 Oct. 1991: 5. Hermann Kant. Aufbau Verlag Website. 22 Sept. 2008 <http: / / www.aufbau-verlag. de/ index.php4? page=32&&show=908275>. «Hermann Kant erinnert sich.» Neue Zeit 4 Sept. 1991: 13. Kant, Hermann. Abspann: Erinnerung an meine Gegenwart. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1991. Hermann Kant’s Abspann 225 -. Escape: ein Word-Spiel. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1995. -. Kino. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 2005. -. Kormoran. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1994. -. Okarina. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 2002. Kant, Hermann, and Gerhard Zwerenz. Unendliche Wende. Ein Streitgespräch. Ed. Joachim Jahns. Querfurt: Dingsda-Verlag, 1998. Krenzlin, Leonore. Hermann Kant. Leben und Werk. 1979. Westberlin: Verlag das europäische Buch; Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1979. Kunert, Günter. «Ein Präsident blickt zurück. Hermann Kants Geschichtsfälschungen.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 8 Oct. 1991: L9. «Laotse geht von Bord.» Der Spiegel 16 Sept. 1991: 240-44. Lewin, Waldtraut. «Wut auf silbernem Tablett. Überlegungen zu Hermann Kants ‹Abspann›.» Berliner Zeitung 16 Oct. 1991: 17. Loest, Erich. «Immer oben, immer vorne.» Die Welt 8 Oct. 1991: XV. Nause, Tanja. «How Life Becomes Literature: Uncovering the Principle of Writing in Three Novels by Fritz Rudolf Fries.» German Life and Letters 58.3 (2005): 326- 43. Tate, Dennis. Shifting Perspectives: East German Autobiographical Narratives before and after the End of the GDR. Rochester: Camden House, 2007. «‹Vermisse das Wort Pinscher.› Ein Staatsschriftsteller im Stasi-Dienst: Die Spitzel- Karriere des Genossen Hermann Kant alias IM ‹Martin›.» Der Spiegel 5 Oct. 1992: 323-36. 037708 Auslieferung Mai 2008.ind11 11 26.05.2008 9: 58: 58 Uhr Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Postfach 25 60 · D-72015 Tübingen · Fax (0 7071) 97 97-11 Internet: www.narr.de · E-Mail: info@narr.de Wie erleben mehrsprachige Menschen ihre Sprachen? Wie erleben sie sich selbst, wenn sie sich in unterschiedlichen Sprachen ausdrücken? Welche Bedeutungen und Funktionen messen Mehrsprachige ihren Sprachen im Laufe ihres Lebens bei? Welche ihrer Lebenserfahrungen sind von Relevanz für ihren Selbstbezug zu Sprachen? Mit Hilfe der Methode der biographischen Fallrekonstruktion von Gabriele Rosenthal und der Metapher n analyse nach Michael B. Buchholz untersucht die Arbeit das Wechselverhältnis zwischen Spracherfahrungen und Biographie bei den mehrsprachigen Schriftstellern Peter Weiss und Georges- Arthur Goldschmidt. Simone Hein-Khatib Mehrsprachigkeit und Biographie Zum Sprach-Erleben der Schriftsteller Peter Weiss und Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt 2007, 323 Seiten, €[D] 68,00/ Sfr 107,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-6344-6 Auslieferung Juli 2007.indd 11 18.07.2007 17: 54: 01 Uhr Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography in the Œuvre of Wladimir Kaminer: A Twenty-First Century Model KATHLEEN CONDRAY U NIVERSITY OF A RKANSAS AT F AYETTEVILLE In a cover story for The New York Times Magazine, Jason DeParle investigated a recent and growing trend for immigration in the modern era. Workers from countries with struggling economies, in this case the Philippines, leave behind families and friends to go abroad in order to seek higher paying positions and earn money to be sent back home. Yet, it is obviously a story that contains tropes recognizable to those who read immigrant autobiography: families are divided and children grow up without knowing their parents, dire economic conditions force the immigrant to leave, and the new land is portrayed in shining terms, a place that lures immigrants with the promise of astronomical wages but which also holds loneliness and possible abuse. It is largely a story of human tragedy; migrant workers leave their homelands to do what they must in order for their families to survive (50-57, 72, 122-23). This familiar yet contemporary trend is perhaps not the only new model for immigration in the twenty-first century. By comparison, the immigrant autobiography presented by Russian-German author Wladimir Kaminer presents a journey so fantastically easy as to have originated in a fairy tale; Kaminer claims in his early books that his immigration took place largely via a drunken road trip for no more compelling reason than curiosity. The mythical aspect of Kaminer’s life story is further strengthened by his overnight and best-selling success as a writer publishing in German when he knew only Russian upon his arrival. This article will investigate to what extent Kaminer’s work portrays a unique and light-hearted version of the more traditional immigrant’s tale, as well as another aspect of Kaminer’s work that renders him controversial: whether his autobiographical writing can be considered autobiographical at all. Born in Moscow in 1967, Kaminer immigrated to Germany in 1990 as a Kontingentflüchtling (quota refugee), where he was trained as a sound engineer for theater and radio. He quickly became popular in a wide range of media venues, through publishing ironic commentaries on Berlin life in various periodicals, including die tageszeitung, Die Zeit, and Stern, broadcasting a weekly radio show entitled «Wladimir’s World», serving as a DJ for his fa- 228 Kathleen Condray mous «Russendisko» events in the Kaffee Burger, and working for a year as a television correspondent for ZDF’s morning program. Although unfamiliar with his adopted country’s language upon arrival, he is also a prolific bestselling German author who within eight years has published eleven books, contributed to a number of anthologies, and released three compilations of Russian music for the German market. The one venture that did not enjoy overwhelming success was a 2006 foray into operating his own bar for the Russendisko along with two business partners; the establishment remained open only four and a half months. According to Kaminer, the failure was due to the fact that they did not have the time needed to invest in running the enterprise, which seems reasonable given his myriad other activities (Mösken). 1 As an author, Kaminer’s autobiographical style has proven controversial, for while it is clearly based on his own experiences as an immigrant, it contains fantastical elements which simply cannot be factual. For example, he declares that one of his wife’s talents is the ability to see in infrared (Schönhauser Allee 131) 2 , says his mother-in-law disarmed children on a train who were using a found automatic weapon to make the female conductor undress (SA 159-60), and relates the story of fish suddenly springing back to life in order to attack him and his father at the end of a fishing trip (Helden des Alltags 17). While these are rather obvious examples, Kaminer possesses a unique ability to move from the actual to the fantastic in a subtle way so that the reader is not aware of it until something truly astonishing is revealed; it is the written equivalent to a jazz musician improvising on a theme until the original melody is obscured or lost. 3 In Militärmusik, he describes how as a child he creates news reports to entertain his fellow students: «Ungefähr zu diesem Zeitpunkt wurde mir klar, wie dünn manchmal die Grenze zwischen Realität und Fiction ist» (17). While Kaminer seems amused by the interplay between truth and fiction in his writing, the ambiguity vexes critics. In their frustration over an inability to distinguish concretely between fiction and reality, they make vague allusions to «curious cases» (Lubrich, «Russian Jews» 46) and «die (quasi) autobiographischen Texte» (Wienroeder-Skinner) and «autobiografisch konzipierten Geschichten» (Fischer-Kania 257). Adrian Wanner questions whether Kaminer is even telling the truth in interviews (603), although Wanner does argue that Kaminer is writing his life, even if credibility is strained in some stories (597-98). Sander Gilman also asserts that it is Kaminer’s factual autobiography that serves as his source material «and is therefore a window into the multiculturalism of the Berlin Republic, or at least into its fantasies» (23). 4 Kaminer himself offers a different account of whether his writing is factual with every interview, and he speaks with critics contantly about his work. Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 229 Sometimes, he admits to writing about his own life: «Eigentlich ist alles, was ich schreibe, autobiographisch […] Manchmal überspitze ich die Situation, die ich beschreibe, manchmal verlege ich sie an andere Orte, aber ich denke sie nie aus» (Bergamini and Buhre). At other times, he treats the question regarding autobiography as an accusation: «I wouldn’t say my prose is autobiographical. It isn’t about Wladimir Kaminer, it’s about others. The narrator is transparent, a cipher. The reader doesn’t learn any intimate details about the narrator’s life; the focus is on the surrounding world, the past, the future, encounters» (Fishman). 5 This defensiveness, however, is to some extent a reaction to the fact that people assume he simply writes down everything he experiences without acknowledging the necessary artistry in constructing these streamlined anecdotes: «There isn’t much fiction in it. But if, say, I like observing cats, and write constantly about cats, that can’t be journalism either. For an animal-lovers magazine, maybe» (Fishman). Ultimately, however, Kaminer regards his own writing as a blend of truth and fiction, a style I term creative reality: «Man kann ja nie ein vollständiges Bild erzeugen, sondern immer nur ein Bruchteil der Realität und das ist dann nie hundertprozentig die Wahrheit» (Bergamini and Buhre). This is a logical explanation for some inconsistencies in his storytelling. In Russendisko, Kaminer writes that his mother immigrated with him in 1990 (30) and then several pages later (33) that it was 1991; similarly in RD he writes that his father tried four times to join the Communist party (10) but then later (186) that it was three times; in MM he states that he considered immigrating in July of 1990 (209), the month after he had actually immigrated (date given as June 22 [213]). Fischer-Kania points out that the rumor Kaminer claims to have heard in the summer of 1990 regarding Erich Honecker taking in Russian Jews (MM 261) cannot have been true since Honecker left the government in 1989. However, these small details do not detract from the stories themselves, and since Kaminer’s objective is to comment and reminisce rather than to document, they are inconsequential. Clearly, the major facts of his life as presented in his stories are verifiable, and my objective in this essay is to explore how Kaminer portrays his own immigration journey, a story that has been immensely popular with the German reading public that obviously chooses to believe it. As Folkenflik notes, «Autobiography may be truthful or mendacious, for factuality is not crucial to its autobiographical interest, despite some critics’ neo-Romantic insistence on sincerity» (13). In point of fact, Kaminer acknowledges the fact that drawing from his own life experiences causes him some measure of trouble. In the ironically titled story «Kein Wort mehr über meine Tante» (Ich mache mir Sorgen, Mama 153-55), Kaminer describes how his aunt does not appreciate being included 230 Kathleen Condray in his anecdotes, and he promises not to write about her anymore (in the story in which he writes about her). In 2001, he promises compensation for all of his friends and neighbors who appear in Schönhauser Allee (191), but then he immediately tells others who think they recognize themselves in his anecdotes, «Sie sind es nicht» (italics in original, 191). A year later in Helden des Alltags, he laments that he would like to publish a story but cannot in the Berlin newspapers, «denn viele Personen könnten sich in der Geschichte wieder erkennen und böse werden» (69). Just as ambiguity is a central feature of Kaminer’s writing, it is part of his persona as well. Whether by his own definition or that of critics, he is presented as both Russian and German, Jewish and atheist, hipster and bourgeois family father, outsider immigrant and resident Berlin expert. 6 Kaminer’s image in the media is complicated, as he both markets the commonly accepted stereotypes regarding Russians and asserts that he was an outsider in Russian society during his childhood in the Cold War. Similarly, Kaminer claims duality for his status in German culture: he is the outsider Russian, but he is also the traditional «Biedermann» of German literary tradition (for good and ill). 7 Every aspect of his life is dualistic, and Kaminer exhibits neither difficulty nor compunction in moving back and forth between his perceived roles. He clearly functions as an expert on Russian culture (and markets his Russian cookbook Küche Totalitär based on this premise), but he plays the typical gardening German in Mein Leben im Schrebergarten. With Ich bin kein Berliner, he again positions himself as the outsider. In terms of marketing, it is convenient for Kaminer to inhabit many roles at once, which is why, as Lubrich notes, he refuses to let an interviewer categorize him as a Russian writer («Russian Jews» 48). In examining Kaminer’s oeuvre as an immigrant autobiography, one should consider to what extent he is a typical autobiographer. He is certainly not a deliberate autobiographer per se, but his work would be unthinkable without autobiographical elements; in chronicling his daily life as an immigrant at the beginning of his career, he inevitably had to relate details from his own life. His narrative tone is seldom the reflective one of more traditional autobiography but rather that of more factual reportage. What is especially unusual for this genre is that he is not afraid to depict himself in an unflattering light. He admits to stealing things during his early life in the Soviet Union (MM 82, 88), shares the gory details of his battle with a lice infestation during his adolescence (MM 132), and allegedly acquiesces to selling a woman into slavery, but justifies the action by saying that she became the most favored member of the harem and was quite happy (MM 74-76). While most autobiographies celebrate successes (Folkenflik 224), Kaminer is not afraid to portray fail- Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 231 ures to comic effect: his oeuvre represents life - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Kaminer’s autobiography is also not told in the traditional overarching chronological narrative structure (i.e., birth, childhood, young adulthood, etc.). Rather, anecdotes tumble out haphazardly. This is partly due to the path he traveled to become a successful writer. His initial book, Russendisko, begins in medias res, with his life as an immigrant in Berlin. Only because there was so much interest in his current life circumstances did a market emerge in which it was possible for Kaminer to publish further details from his life (albeit out of order) to explain how he came to Berlin. 8 While Militärmusik is to a large extent a more traditional autobiography relating details from his birth through early adulthood (even if it is subtitled «Roman»), it only covers his life to the point of his departure for Germany. Vital aspects of his immigration story are divided among other publications, specifically his first days as an immigrant and the process of his integration. 9 In Karaoke, Kaminer excuses his general lack of conventional narrative structure with a comparison to his work as a DJ laying records on a player: the excitement lies in not knowing what comes next (10-11). Finally, unlike most autobiographers writing from the perspective of old age and a completed life (Folkenflik 14), Kaminer is a young man. The details of his immigrant story are also still being published; he tends to go back and reveal incrementally more about the subject matter time and again, seemingly returning to the same source as he needs new material. 10 Also, those writing autobiographies are generally already public figures with success in a given field which makes reading their life stories desirable (Sturrock 23), but Kaminer became famous through his autobiography. In terms of immigrant autobiography, too, Kaminer is unusual in many aspects of both form and content. Unlike some immigrant autobiographers who have to rely on a translator who inevitably filters the work to some degree (Padilla 126), Kaminer is in control of his narrative. He is frequently asked why he made the conscious choice to write in German rather than in his native language, and he explains that he wishes to reach German rather than Russian readers. Thus, his works focus on highlighting what is unique in the culture of his market audience, rather than educating potential future immigrants from his home country as to what they might find should they follow his path. 11 It also means that he is free to utilize continuously the stereotypes of Russian behavior and culture, such as heavy drinking, that the German audience expects. Sau-ling Wong notes, however, that immigrant autobiographies generally play to the expectation of the description of the exotic that Western readers crave. For example, if Chinese-American autobiographies 232 Kathleen Condray were published in Chinese, there would be no need to describe customs such as weddings (306-07). The difference with Kaminer is that he is in control of casting himself as the exotic. Wanner does mention that editors perhaps cleaned up Kaminer’s German, but this begs the question as to whether they are marketing his Russianness. Wanner notes, however, that on a basic linguistic level, Kaminer’s writing is inherently German: «There are practically no Russianisms in his language. Kaminer’s assumed linguistic persona is that of the ‹average German› with no outward literary pretensions» (595). Thus, his oeuvre does not apparently exhibit a frequent problem of the genre, namely well-meaning editors who subjugate the authentic voice of immigrant autobiography when editing according to the rules of standard language (Boelhower 111, Karpinski 121). If Kaminer is being heavily edited, there is little textual evidence for the practice. Only on one occasion does Kaminer himself relate an anecdote in which he is taken to task by an editor for using the word «Scheisse» too often; she wants him to change it to «Mist.» However, he interprets the linguistic admonishment as a geographical (she is in Munich, he in Berlin) preference rather than that of an editor who is a native speaker (Sorgen 225). The story Kaminer tells about his immigration to Germany, then, is indeed his own, and when one examines the typical individual stages of the immigrant’s path, such as the decision to immigrate, the choice of country, the journey itself, and the period of adjustment to the new country, Kaminer’s life has been unique in many ways. What is most unusual is the relentlessly positive tone in which Kaminer’s contribution to the genre is written, even when later works reveal that his initial depiction of the ease of his immigration was perhaps exaggerated. Immigrants choose to leave their home countries for any number of reasons: to improve their own economic situation and that of their families, to pursue political and religious freedom, or to escape persecution and/ or violence based on race, creed, or myriad other reasons. Because Kaminer was allowed to enter Germany as a Kontingentflüchtling 12 with Jewish parents, many critics assume that he is a Jewish writer and discuss him as such. Before the real reasons for his departure are discussed, this false assumption must be addressed. As reflected in his writings, he himself is far more an atheist than a practicing Jew, and there are very few references to Judaism and Jewish life in his stories, despite the persistent need of critics to refer to him as the «Russian-Jewish» author. This is not to say that one does not find references to anti-Semitism in Russia in Kaminer’s work. Early in his first book, he claims that his father experienced anti-Jewish discrimination; his application to become a member of the Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 233 Communist party was continually rejected because he might immigrate to Israel at any time as a Jew (RD 9-10). Ironically, while classification as a Jew hindered the father’s success in the USSR during the Cold War, it is the very thing that ultimately allows for his son’s immigration as the Soviet Union is disintegrating; this detail is made more incongruous by the fact that Kaminer does not take religion particularly seriously. In this regard, Kaminer is fairly typical of quota refugees, most of whom have no knowledge of Jewish culture or religious practices (Fischer-Kania 262). Of the six definitions of Jewishness outlined by Oliver Lubrich, Kaminer belongs to only one, the «civilian definition,» meaning his father’s passport under the Soviet system listed his nationality as Jewish («Russian Jews» 36-37). This national definition of Jewishness has an interesting parallel in one of Kaminer’s stories in Militärmusik about a Russian psychiatric ward nurse who speaks in Italian: «‹Die arme Frau bildet sich ein, sie wäre Italienerin, nur weil in ihrem Pass unter Nationalität ‹Italienisch› steht›» (200). Historically, this national identity of Jewishness was cause for concern in Soviet Russia, even if the quota refugees did not consider themselves Jewish in personal faith. Lubrich («Russian Jews» 39) comments that Russian immigrants so associated their homeland with anti-Semitism that they were not dissuaded in choosing Germany as a destination by either its history of the Holocaust or by modern-day right-wing activity. Schoeps et al found that Russian Jews generally came to Germany primarily because of fears of anti- Semitism and civil wars at home, not for economic reasons; they also outline the acute danger faced by Russian Jews after the collapse of the USSR (10-12). Kaminer, though, does not seem to take the peril seriously in two anecdotes related in Militärmusik. While Kaminer reports the wild allegations that the group «Gedächtnis» makes in a public rally, such as Jews poisoning the water supply or sabotaging public transit, his laconic response («Gut, dass sie meinen Nachnamen nicht wissen» [103]) is hardly indicative of an alarm that would compel him to migrate (99-107). He also maintains that he is made the scapegoat for the misdeeds of a politically well-protected Jewish choreographer when the culture ministry asserts a Zionist conspiracy, but he makes light of a resulting two-hour KGB interrogation regarding the incident in question: «Anschließend wollten sie von mir unbedingt wissen, ob ich eher dem Faschismus zugeneigt sei oder der Homosexualität» (57). Presumably because of these few stories and Kaminer’s emigration status as a Kontingentflüchtling, some critics are determined to read him as a Jewish author. Gortinskaya makes the puzzling statement: «First and foremost Kaminer is a Jew, who grew up in Russia […]» (20). Sander Gilman declares: «And yet the question of his ‹Jewish› perspective in the Federal Republic of 234 Kathleen Condray Germany remains part of his public persona» (27), but as much as Gilman implies that Kaminer neglects his Jewishness in his literary oeuvre, it simply does not seem to be an issue with Kaminer. I agree with Lubrich (49) and Wanner (591-92) that it is a mistake to consider Kaminer a Jewish writer since he does not cast himself as such, especially not in the vein of a Heinrich Heine or Karl Emil Franzos. Kaminer does not claim serious religious persecution, and Kaminer’s given reason for immigrating is initially flippant. In his first book, he notes of his emigration, «Es war eine spontane Entscheidung» (RD 12). When he is later asked on a government form, he is uncertain what to write: «Ich bin 1990 absolut grundlos nach Deutschland eingereist» (RD 190). His wife corrects him and reminds him that he came to Germany «aus Spaß» (RD 190). He eventually settles on «Neugierde» as the official reason for the bureaucrats (RD 191). The true impetus for his departure from the Soviet Union was his father’s admonition: «Doch die Freiheit ist nur ein Gast hier. Sie kann sich in Russland nicht lange halten. Sohn, nutze die Chance. Sitz nicht herum und trink Bier. Die größte Freiheit ist die Möglichkeit abzuhauen» (RD 23). He also asserts that he was not the only one who left without a real plan for emigration: «Die meisten hatten kein besonderes Reiseziel, sie wollten einfach nur weg. Die Freiheit, die Gorbatchows Perestroika mit sich brachte, wurde vom Volk einfältig aufgenommen als Freiheit, einfach abzuhauen» (MM 189). Kaminer continues to display a lighthearted attitude towards the monumental decision to leave his homeland in his later work Militärmusik. When he notices that co-workers on his theater project were steadily disappearing, he dryly comments, «Ich wurde auch langsam reif für eine Reise» (209) and later asks himself, «Warum bin ich eigentlich noch hier? » (209). Also telling for Kaminer’s general attitude that emigration is not terribly burdensome is his frequent use of words such as «Umzug» (RD 23) or «Reise» (MM 209) to describe his experience; in the work Mein Leben im Schrebergarten, he begins an anecdote with the phrase «Bevor ich hierherzog» (43). While Kaminer often jests about his emigration, he also reveals more serious political considerations in his decision to leave. Already in his grandparents’ generation, the Kaminer family experienced human rights abuses in the early days of the Soviet Union (Sorgen 77-78). He divulges that he and his friends dreamed of emigrating as kids and closely followed the stories of those who were able to escape (RD 50-53). As a young man, he and his business partner worry about KGB traps when organizing illegal underground concerts (MM 122-23); when eventually caught, he is forced to serve a term of two years in the army as a punishment (MM 151). In civilian life, the Soviet planned economy was not always able to meet basic needs. Regarding his father’s obsession Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 235 with Birkensaft, Kaminer notes: «Viele sowjetische Bürger gingen damals auf die Suche nach ausgefallenen Lebensmitteln und Getränken. Sie vertrauten der Natur mehr als den staatlichen Versorgungseinrichtungen» (Helden 45). In Russendisko, there is also a brief hint about emigration not being as carefree as he otherwise portrays it, when he discusses his father’s joy that Kaminer and his mother were able to leave Russia in 1990: «Es war mit einer gewissen Aufopferung verbunden und alles in allem nicht leicht gewesen. Nicht jeder schaffte es» (30). Immediately thereafter, though, he divulges that the fairy tale ease of his own immigration was hard on his father, who is used to existential battles (31). Additionally, with the departure of many of his colleagues, he admits that many felt that this was a small window of opportunity (and in some ways it was, both in gaining admittance as a quota refugee and in his finding housing): «‹At that time, the GDR still existed, legally, but in reality, no longer. The Wall had come down, and a lot of Easterners were rushing West because they were afraid the wall would go up again›» (Fishman). Generally, however, the tone of all of Kaminer’s writing is upbeat and does not make the imperative to leave his homeland seem urgent, which leads Dagmar Wienroeder-Skinner to comment that the collection reflects «eine glückliche Kindheit und Jugend - trotz oder wegen Diktatur, Planwirtschaft und Abschottung nach innen» («Alle Fantasie»). At the time of Kaminer’s emigration, the Soviet system was, of course, on the verge of collapse, and one critic chastizes him for leaving. Diana Gortinskaya believes neither the political nor jocular justifications that Kaminer offers for his departure and asserts he immigrated for economic reasons (15), basing her claim on Elena Tichomirova’s conclusions regarding Russian emigration during the 1990s. Indirectly, Gortinskaya reproaches him for not staying and attempting to create a stable democracy: «Shortly before and right after the colossal events of 1991 the Soviet population drew apart: some stayed to put enormous effort into dealing with the consequences of the new geopolitical reality, while others, like Kaminer and some of his protagonists, left Russia for a new life abroad. […] those who chose to leave tended to be more resentful and did not demonstrate the expected loyalty to the culture in which they were brought up» (34-35). 13 Kaminer himself addresses this topic in a later work, in which he talks about his Russian school class and how fully half had emigrated by the early 1990s - he maintains that those who stayed were more successful than those who left (Schrebergarten 184). Kaminer’s choice of Germany as immigration destination also seems to be a matter of happenstance rather than planning. In immigrant autobiography, immigrants often choose a country as their destination because they have existing family or jobs waiting for them; while he notes that essentially his entire 236 Kathleen Condray family had immigrated to countries where they saw a better hope for the future (Australia, America, Canada, Israel) by the time he was in kindergarten, he did not know most of them and heard about their immigration only later, so the family contacts in this case were not particularly close (Schrebergarten 116). Ultimately, Kaminer asserts that he and his friend Mischa chose Germany because it was a cheap and politically easy destination. 14 According to rumor, Honecker was accepting Jews into the German Democratic Republic, a tip that Kaminer alleges came from the uncle of a friend who was immigrating to America, where his assets were already located: «‹Doch ihr seid jung, habt nichts, für euch ist Deutschland genau das Richtige, da wimmelt es nur so von Pennern›» (12). Additionally, a friend of his mother’s was able to procure an «offizielle Einladung» (MM 211) for the GDR. Even when on the train during the immigration trip, Mischa still has difficulty explaining to a German and an American whom they encounter why they have chosen Germany over Russia (MM 214-18). After arriving in Germany, Kaminer states that they were astonished that the Germans of all people were helping them, but it is unclear if the help is unexpected because they emigrated as Jewish quota refugees or because they are Russian, given the Russian army’s occupying status after World War II (RD 16-17). A familiar trope in immigrant autobiography is the belief before departure that the destination country is a utopia, the proverbial shining city on a hill (Boelhower 6). This is not the case with Kaminer, who maintains that his youthful dreams of the West had already been dashed «als sich der sozialistische Käfig langsam öffnete» (Die Reise nach Trulala 90) during the end of the 1980s. More products from the United States appeared on the Soviet market, but the youth were disappointed by capitalist products that looked appealing initially but then fell apart quickly: «Amerika brach quasi vor unseren Augen zusammen» (Reise 90). Kaminer even quotes a song about this disappointment, in which the Russian singer bemoans, «Ein Lied über das Land meiner Träume, das mich verarschte, du! » (91). Even in his most recent book many years after his arrival, Kaminer reports how an immigrant who calls Germany a paradise is looked at with suspicion (Berliner 9-16). The new world in Kaminer’s immigrant autobiography is not longed for as place of opportunity, political freedom, or equality, but is rather simply the backdrop for an adventure. 15 The actual journey to the new homeland often serves as a dividing point for the narrative in immigrant autobiography (Boelhower 13). This is definitely not the case for Kaminer’s writings, in which the topic appears unexpectedly and frequently in collections of his short stories, with Kaminer revealing Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 237 greater or fewer details, and even changing his initial accounts, as it suits his purposes. Kaminer’s journey is also not the solitary quest undertaken by the lone immigrant, but occurs essentially in a caravan of others as part of the fifth wave of Russian emigration to Germany. Kaminer himself is aware that he is part of this particular immigrant group as well as of a larger immigrant tradition and details the other waves of immigration in his first book (RD 12-13). 16 The ease of Kaminer’s eventual migration is highlighted in contrast to an earlier attempt to leave the USSR to visit his mother’s friend in Berlin in 1986. Kaminer endures a physical exam that includes urine and blood specimen exams, successfully bribes the director of his theater school to write him a supporting letter of recommendation, and studies earnestly for his appearance before the «Komitee für Internationale Freundschaft» (Reise 8). He tells this august board that his reason for travel to Germany is to learn about the socialist everyday of East German brothers: «In Wirklichkeit hatte ich vor, so viele Nazareth- und AC/ DC-Platten in Ostberlin zu kaufen wie nur möglich und sie dann in Moskau für das Vierfache wieder zu verkaufen» (Reise 11). His first attempt to travel to Germany ends in failure, but not due to his own shortcomings; permission is rejected because another theater student traveling abroad attempted to apply for political asylum, and all other applications were summarily dismissed (13). In the same book, the anecdotes that Kaminer shares regarding difficulties in traveling during his youth also make his immigration journey seem simple by comparison. While many immigrants undergo an arduous journey to arrive in their new country, Kaminer’s emigration can be summarized in one phrase: drunken train trip. There was no need for a passport, since he was traveling to what was still part of the German Democratic Republic, and Kaminer states that the train tickets were so inexpensive that he only needed to sell his walkman and some cassettes to finance the journey (RD 24). Traveling lightly both metaphorically and physically, Kaminer’s description of the items he brings to remind him of his old country and help him adjust to the new is reminiscent of Günter Eich’s poem «Inventur»: a blue suit, cigarettes, photos from his army tour, and a few obligatory souvenirs of Russia: a Matrjoshka and vodka (RD 24) - less than what most contemporaries pack for most weekend getaways. Kaminer’s description of the journey itself is equally short: Die zwei Tage auf Reisen vergingen wie im Flug. Der Wodka […] wurde ausgetrunken, die Zigaretten aufgeraucht, und die Matrjoschka verschwand unter mysteriösen Umständen. Als wir am Bahnhof Lichtenberg ausstiegen, brauchten wir erst einmal einige Stunden, um uns in der neuen Umgebung zu orientieren. Ich war 238 Kathleen Condray verkatert, mein blauer Anzug verknittert und befleckt. […] Unser Plan war einfach: Leute kennen lernen, Verbindungen schaffen, in Berlin eine Unterkunft finden. (RD 24-25) The whole episode has the effect of an adolescent lark or a quest for adventure, and indeed, Kaminer uses the word adventure to describe the trip: «der halbe Zug bestand aus solchen Romantikern wie uns, die auf Abenteuer aus waren» (RD 24). In Militärmusik, published a year after this initial account, Kaminer discloses more details about his emigration yet still essentially supports his initial version of events. He reveals that he purchased a volume of Solzhenitsyn and science-fiction books for «geistige Unterhaltung» during the journey (214), says that he wanted to learn some German on the train but did not (217), and actually admits to some fear: «Zum ersten Mal stand ich kurz davor, die Grenzen meiner Heimat zu überschreiten. Der Weisheit des alten Gefangenen [Solzhenitsyn] konnte ich beim besten Willen nicht folgen: Ich hatte große Erwartungen, viele Fragen und auch ein wenig Angst. Ich fühlte mich dabei aber großartig» (221-22). Then, he comments on the general conversation turning into a «Besäufnis» (222), in spite of the intellectual accompaniment of Solzhenitsyn. With the publication of Karaoke, which occurred four years later, Kaminer slightly alters some of the facts surrounding the circumstances of his move to Germany. He declares he did not actually intend to immigrate in 1990, but rather just to look around, or he would not have left his entire Russian rock music collection at home (53). He claims Mischa arranged for them to stay with his aunt for a few days (thereby making the need to find immediate housing in a foreigner’s home unnecessary). In a rare justification for the drinking done by Russians that is ever present in Kaminer’s work, he maintains that they had to drink on the train to congratulate a fellow traveler on his birthday, to celebrate his sudden engagement to a woman on the train, and to lament the subsequent hasty break-up of the couple (54-55). Finally, Kaminer asserts in this account that they left in July instead of June as originally stated, apparently in order to be able to relate an anecdote that their arrival occurred the day that Germany won the soccer Weltmeisterschaft. In spite of their low expectations for Germany, the new homeland really does seem to be the utopia that new immigrants anticipate, due to the bonhomie resulting from the victory. The next day, however, they find that the free alcohol and welcoming spirit have evaporated (55-60). Historical facts aside, it is very much in keeping with Kaminer’s general overall positive tone to depict his immigration as coinciding with a national celebration, which he again mentions in his newest work, Ich bin kein Berliner (90-92). Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 239 Once an immigrant has arrived in his adopted homeland, the most difficult part of the process is integration. It is telling, then, that the title chosen for Kaminer’s literary debut, Russendisko, is a word which, according to its Wikipedia entry, initially implied a meeting place for immigrants from Russia who were failing at adapting to German society, and thus congregated only with their fellow countrymen. More telling is that the entry gives Kaminer the credit for rehabilitating the word into a designation that implies a successful immigrant, along the lines of the word «Kanake» by writer Feridun Zaimog ˘ lu («Russendisko»). Karl Esselborn notes that this reclaiming of the term through Kanak Sprak came into its current usage through public readings, interviews, and the Internet (18), which is analogous to Kaminer’s own path on the German public stage. Kaminer did initially experience the frustration of the immigrant experience in not being able to communicate because of linguistic limitations. Of his time in the Ausländerheim, he writes, «Von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten und ohne Sprachkenntnisse lebten wir damals ziemlich isoliert» (RD 15). In a later book, he also acknowledges that learning the language was not as easy as it first appeared, as even when they made progress, «Einige Einheimische wollten uns nicht verstehen, sie boykottierten unsere Sprachkenntnisse» (Reise 75-76). Nevertheless, Kaminer presents his time of unemployment in the foreigner’s home before he had mastered the language as a kind of youthful nirvana, when he and his friends did nothing but play guitar and drink for days on end. In one anecdote, he and Mischa try their hand at pursuing the immigrant dream of instant wealth by selling beverages and snacks in a local train station. However, neither wants to put in the hard work necessary for the enterprise; they quit early, drink their profits, and return to the foreigner’s home. A third friend, who embodies the stereotypical immigrant engaging in hard work and sacrifice to realize the dream of self-sufficiency, is ridiculed by Kaminer for his ultimate success. When the successful immigrant names his first son Mark, it is pondered if the second will be named Dollar, since the family has decided to move on to America (RD 131-35). During this initial time of isolation in Germany, it is the local Jewish community that reaches out to Kaminer and his fellow quota refugees. Much has been written in the secondary literature about Kaminer’s interactions with the local Jews, so there is no need to discuss the matter further here; essentially, Kaminer views the group’s generosity with wariness, expecting that something will be required of him in return. It could be added, however, that Kaminer portrays the community’s Jews not as a welcoming group helping fellow co-religionists, but rather as a group preying on those at a cultural disadvantage; he is proud that he does not fall for their machinations (RD 15). 240 Kathleen Condray In fact, in a later story, he portrays scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses preying on newly arrived Eastern European immigrants in the same way he talks about the local Jews (RD 133). When he ultimately decides «das mit dem Judentum sein zu lassen» (RD 16), he is making his decision as a Russian immigrant. In Russia, interfaith families could choose to be listed as Jewish or not, and adults could also later choose to change the designation their parents made for them. Although a quota refugee based on his status as a Jew, Kaminer follows the Russian practice of viewing Jewishness as a nationality rather than a religion and chooses to ignore it (Schoeps et al 15-16). As a new immigrant, Kaminer is able to work in his field of theater as part of a government program: «für die unteren Schichten des Volkes, die sonst kaum Chancen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt gehabt hätten: ältere Menschen, Behinderte und Ausländer» (43). In addition to this work that he is accustomed to, he reveals in Karaoke that he also had to work at an Altkleidersammelstelle in 1990, getting up at 5: 00 am every day (80); so, his initial life as an immigrant might perhaps not have been as easy as he initially portrayed it. Kaminer does, though, ultimately live the immigrant’s dream: in his adopted country, he has created a career from nothing, working in a field in which he has no experience or formal training. He is aware that his fairy-tale ending is not shared by all immigrants, and his good fortune is highlighted by his narration of friends’ more traditional immigrant experiences, such as difficulties with illegal immigration, forged papers, escaping deportation, and marriages to obtain an Aufenthaltserlaubnis (RD 54-57, 64, 67, 87-89): «Das Asylrecht in Deutschland ist launisch wie eine Frau, deren Vorlieben und Zurückweisungen nicht nachvollziehbar sind. In den einen Asylbewerber verliebt sich das Asylrecht auf den ersten Blick und lässt ihn nicht mehr gehen. Den anderen tritt es in den Arsch» (87). The other immigrants in Germany who appear in Kaminer’s oeuvre still have an easier experience than the legal and illegal Chinese immigrants he encounters in South Russia, who work abandoned fields: «Zwanzig Stunden am Tag, fleißig, alles per Hand ohne jegliche Technik» (Küche 189). Fischer-Kania argues that the ease with which Kaminer settles into Berlin is possible only because of the chaos present in the divided city at the end of the cold war (261). Kaminer himself acknowledges that the opportunity to claim one of the unoccupied apartments in East Berlin would not have been present two months later (RD 28-29). Just as with other aspects of his immigrant narrative, he later divulges that finding an abandoned apartment was not as easy as he first portrayed it, since so many West Germans were already squatting in all the livable apartments - he and his friend were forced to chose between one with a damaged floor or one with a damaged roof until another group of Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 241 immigrants took them in (Reise 51-52). Nevertheless, the fact that Kaminer was able to benefit from the historical situation came about only through his initiative to move out of the Ausländerheim on his own; here, the stereotypical aspect of an immigrant thriving due to his own resourcefulness is typical of the genre. Kaminer realizes as well that his very stay in the country was due to a brief window of opportunity, noting that the time in which immigration was a relatively easy process for quota refugees was a short six months (RD 16-17). Poole also comments that Kaminer’s status as a Kontingentflüchtling made his experiences as an immigrant easier once he arrived in Germany: «not only an unlimited resident’s permit, but also an unlimited work permit and the right to social benefits such as health care, child benefits, student grants and scores of integration programmes […] In this sense, the ‹Jewish Russians› are a very privileged group of refugees» (150). As a modern immigrant, Kaminer additionally does not suffer the traditional immigrant’s fate of being cut off from contact with his native language and home country. 17 He soon encounters Russians everywhere; some of those he has contact with were already acquaintances in the Soviet Union (RD 18, 158-60, 175). Russian-language media are available to him and others (RD 164, SA 116, Sorgen 64-66), and he is also free to return to his homeland (Fischer-Kania 267, Wanner 598). In an interview, he admits that he travels to Moscow once a year, has relatives who visit him, and keeps up with those from Russia via the internet (Bergamini and Buhre). He also symbolically returns to Russia and Russian cultural material whenever he needs story ideas, such as with the Küche Totalitär essay collection/ cookbook. 18 Boelhower speaks of a «traumatized structure of immigrant life» (114) in immigrant autobiography given the questionable legal status of many immigrants, yet Kaminer seems secure in his status as Kontingentflüchtling. The end piece to his first published volume is an essay entitled «Warum ich immer noch keinen Antrag auf Einbürgerung gestellt habe,» which is a farcical look at his attempts to turn in the massive paperwork necessary to apply for citizenship (RD 189-92). He appears equally unconcerned about government officials investigating the citizenship status of his children, creating a witty facsimile of a government letter addressed to his then three-year old son in the story «Sebastian und die Ausländerbehörde»: «Sehr geehrter Herr Sebastian, […] seit beinahe drei Jahren befinden Sie sich illegal in Deutschland. Das geht so nicht, rufen Sie uns so schnell wie möglich an. Hochachtungsvoll, Spende» (29). While Kaminer later publishes a much more serious essay about how difficult it is to obtain citizenship and the problems he and his family have had, he ends on a typical positive note: «Und ich wusste: Früher oder später 242 Kathleen Condray würden wir und die meisten anderen es schaffen» (Sorgen 126). Indeed, Kaminer has successfully become a German citizen in the interim. While a best-selling favorite of the general public, Kaminer’s unorthodox descriptions of the ease with which he became an immigrant to Germany have not been universally hailed by critics, who seem to expect heavy cultural commentary from migrant literature, as they anticipate discussions of the difficulty of the journey and of adapting to life in the Federal Republic. Both Wienroeder-Skinner and Rastegar are irritated by Kaminer’s breezy style; they anticipate a detailed description of the real life of immigrants, which Kaminer does not claim to offer. Mecklenburg is also critical of Kaminer’s tone: «Zehrten seine [Kaminers] Bücher zuerst noch von konkreter Erfahrung, von den Realgrotesken der späten Sowjetunion, so bereiten sie inzwischen billige Witze zu ebenso billigen Kurzhumoresken auf, in denen die Stereotype nicht mehr ironisiert, sondern bloß reproduziert werden» (27). Sander Gilman adds, «His German audience wants happy memories of the Russian past that are just primitive enough to warrant an exaltation of the Berlin present» (24). Perhaps the message of Kaminer’s writing is that immigration and integration are easier in a global age. Nora Fitzgerald alludes to this, noting that in Kaminer’s portrayal, «the happiest, least-burdened Berliners are its newest immigrants, whose lives are eccentric, extraordinary and rarely dull» (E1). Karl Esselborn notes, «[Migration] ist im Zeitalter der Mobilität, der Globalisierung und des Tourismus eine Form moderner Existenz geworden» (17). Brian Poole sees Kaminer as a modern-day Diogenes in his blithe descriptions: «His [Diogenes] humour is an entirely logical manifestation of moral conduct that refuses to take seriously what is not» (145), and he argues that Kaminer’s approach is indicative of current Russian Jewish immigrant culture in general: «They prefer irony to anger, anecdote to attack, and they are familiar with the popular generic traditions of satire because these form part of their national tradition» (161). Ultimately, Kaminer will continue to be successful in spite of critics who deem his controversial immigrant autobiography to be too superficial; it is a rare perspective on migrant life that is marketable because it is full of amusement and humor rather than hardship. He ostensibly hopes to expand on his existing success in the publishing and media worlds by perhaps following in the footsteps of a fellow immigrant, one from Austria who has made a political life for himself in America after enjoying commercial success. The last essay in his 2007 guidebook on Berlin is entitled: «Eine Vision für Berlin: Meine erste Rede als Bürgermeisterkandidat» (211), in which he argues to privatize the capital city and sell off five districts which voted for the NPD during the last election. The essay is typical Kaminer jest, yet his intention to run for of- Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 243 fice was picked up as a serious intention by the press («Wladimir Kaminer»), so yet another fairy tale chapter might be possible for this unorthodox immigrant. Notes 1 With this and all Internet publications cited in my essay, I am unable to give page or paragraph numbers, as they are lacking in the original manuscripts. 2 After the initial reference to a primary source, the title will be abbreviated for the purposes of parenthetical citation, i.e., Schönhauser Allee will hence be cited as SA. 3 This style, a seamless blending of reality and fantasy, is also found in Mufti’s Islamic travelogue style of immigrant autobiography, as described by Barbara Metcalf, who claims it is rooted in Persian tradition (150). 4 Julia Watson raises the question about whether it is the critic of autobiography’s duty to verify factual details (247). I argue that it is not for the purposes of this essay, as the focus is on how Kaminer chooses to relate his own immigration narrative. 5 Quotes from this interview appeared in English, as they were translated by Fishman from the original Russian. 6 Wienroeder-Skinner notes that he, although an immigrant, is portrayed as a typical city resident encountering the provinces in Mein deutsches Dschungelbuch. 7 Adrian Wanner also comments on this role, in his excellent and thorough article in which he discusses the use of the picaro tradition in Kaminer’s writing. 8 Kaminer’s haphazard autobiography is not unique in this respect. According to Jerome Bruner, Mary McCarthy’s volume Memories of a Catholic Girlhood was only later offered as a chronological autobiography after initially being published individually as short stories (42). 9 While I will mention aspects of Kaminer’s experiences with integration during his early life as an immigrant, there is in no way space within the confines of this essay to detail exhaustively all that Kaminer has to say about integration and Leitkultur, whether in his own personal case or generally in society. 10 Kaminer also frequently recycles stories themselves, and not just material, when stories are included in multiple collections or in both CD versions of stories and then later incorporated into books. For example, «Militärmusik» was initially a short story in the collection Frische Goldjungs. Obviously, many of his anecdotes were also originally published as newspaper columns. 11 According to Diana Gortinskaya, Kaminer is not featured in the Russian media as he is in Germany; she goes so far as to claim that «none of the main ‹Russian-Russian› newspapers has published articles about Kaminer neither in their printed versions nor posted any articles or references on their internet sites so far» (25). While I will reference Gortinskaya, I consider the source (an MA thesis) problematic: she often misspells the names of major researchers in the field and without comment neglects Kaminer’s Mein deutsches Dschungelbuch entirely, even though it clearly fits into the scope of her thesis. 12 There are already many excellent sources that detail the historical circumstances of the Kontingentflüchtlinge and their arrival and integration into German culture, and I will not, therefore, broach the topic here. Lubrich and Gilman offer especially good explanations, and Schoeps et al provide a solid political background. 244 Kathleen Condray 13 Interestingly, Gortinskaya is herself a young Russian, born in 1980 in Moscow, as was Kaminer. She makes these comments in an MA thesis that she completed as part of a program not in Russia, but rather in the United States. 14 Fischer-Kania asserts that Berlin as the end destination was even more random than a conscious decision: «Berlin ist in diesem Kontext weder eine Wahl noch ein Bekenntnis, sondern ein rasch, primär aus ökonomischen Gründen gewählter Ankunftsort» (261). 15 Gortinskaya makes a very interesting point that the German capital underwent its own migration from Bonn to Berlin around the time of Kaminer’s arrival, which sparked national interest in the city and provided by happy coincidence a market for Kaminer’s reports of life in Berlin in newspapers (17). Another geographical note is that Kaminer also moved from the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany without changing his residence, due to historical circumstance. 16 For a critical summary of the nine separate groups that make up Russians living in Germany today, see Oliver Lubrich (37). For more on the questing nature of travel in Kaminer’s works, see Adrian Wanner’s excellent article on the author as a modern-day picaro figure. 17 Obviously, this privilege of Russian immigrants is not different from the Turkish «Gastarbeiter» who have frequently returned home for visits for decades, but as the term implies, German policy initially assumed that Turks would be returning home permanently after brief work sojourns in the Federal Republic and did not regard them as immigrants as such. 18 Although discussions of food in no way comprise a majority of Kaminer’s musings, he engages with this volume in a food nostalgia common in immigrant writing, a theme which is also found in Fatih Akin’s cinematic offering about Italian migrants in Germany, Solino. Works Cited Bergamini, Julia and Jakob Buhre. «‹Fiction gibt es für mich nicht.›» Planet Interview. 6 July 2001. Web. 21 July 2008. <http: / / www.planetinterview.de/ interviews/ pi.php? interview=kaminer-wladimir> Boelhower, William. «The Brave New World of Immigrant Autobiography.» Melus 9.2 (1982): 5-23. Bruner, Jerome. «The Autobiographical Process.» Folkenflik, Culture 38-56. DeParle, Jason. «A Good Provider is One Who Leaves.» The New York Times Magazine. 22 April 2007: 50-57, 72, 122-23. Esselborn, Karl. «Deutschsprachige Minderheitenliteraturen als Gegenstand einer kulturwissenschaftlich orientierten ‹interkulturellen› Literaturwissenschaft.» Die ‹andere› Deutsche Literatur. Ed. Manfred Durzak, Nilüfer Kuruyazici, and Canan Senöz Ayata. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004. 11-22. Fischer-Kania, Sabine. «Berlin, von Moskau und anderswo aus betrachtet: Stadtwahrnehmungen in Wladimir Kaminers Russendisko und Schönhauser Allee.» Weltfabrik Berlin: Eine Metropole als Sujet der Literatur. Ed. Matthias Harder and Almut Hille. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006. 257-72. Fishman, Boris. «An Interview with Wladimir Kaminr.» Trans. Boris Fishman. Words without Borders: The Online Magazine for International Literature. 3 Sept. 2003. Unorthodox Immigrant Autobiography 245 Web. 21 July 2008. <http: / / www.wordswithoutborders.org/ article.php? lab=Fishman> Fitzgerald, Nora. «For Young German Writers, All is Ich.» New York Times 24 July 2003, late ed.: E1. Folkenflik, Robert, ed. The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation. Stanford: Standford UP, 1993. -. «Introduction: The Institution of Autobiography.» Folkenflik, Culture 1-20. -. «The Self as Other.» Folkenflik, Culture 215-34. Gilman, Sander. «Becoming a Jew by Becoming a German: The Newest Jewish Writing from the ‹East.›» Shofar 25.1 (2006): 16-32. Gortinskaya, Diana. «Wladimir Kaminer’s Public Persona and Writings within the Discourse on German National Identity.» M.A.Thesis. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2005. Kaminer, Wladimir. Ich bin kein Berliner: ein Reiseführer für faule Touristen. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2007. -. Ich mache mir Sorgen, Mama. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2004. -. Karaoke. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2005. -. Mein Leben im Schrebergarten. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2007. -. «Militärmusik.» Frische Goldjungs: Storys. Ed. Wladimir Kaminer. Manhattan (Goldmann), 2001. 148-51. -. Militärmusik: Roman. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2001. -. Die Reise nach Trulala. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2002. -. Russendisko. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2000. -. Schönhauser Allee. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2001. Kaminer, Wladimir and Helmut Höge. Helden des Alltags. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2002. Kaminer, Wladimir and Olga Kaminer. Küche totalitär: Das Kochbuch des Sozialismus. Munich: Manhattan (Goldmann), 2006. Karpinski, Eva C. «Multicultural ‹Gift(s)›: Immigrant Women’s Life Writing and the Politics of Anthologizing Difference.» Literary Pluralities. Ed. Christl Verduyn. Petersborough, Ont.: Broadview, 1998. Lubrich, Oliver. «Are Russian Jews Post-Colonial? Wladimir Kaminer and Identity Politics.» East European Jewish Affairs 33.2 (2003): 35-53. Mecklenburg, Norbert. «Eingrenzung, Ausgrenzung, Grenzüberschreitung. Grundprobleme deutscher Literatur von Minderheiten.» Die «andere» Deutsche Literatur: Istanbuler Vorträge. Ed. Manfred Durzak, Nilüfer Kuruyazici, and Canan Senöz Ayata. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004. 23-30. Metcalf, Barbara. «What Happened in Mecca: Mumtaz Mufti’s ‹Labbaik.›» Folkenflik, Culture 149-67. Mösken, Anne Lena. «Kaminer macht die Heimat dicht.» Berliner Zeitung. 27 April 2007. Web. 5 June 2008. <http: / / www.berlinonline.de/ berlinerzeitung/ archiv/ .bin/ dump.fcgi/ 2007/ 0427/ berlin/ 0145/ index.html> Poole, Brian. «Adiaphora: The New Culture of Russians and Eastern Jews in Berlin.» Public 22/ 23 (2001): 139-66. Rastegar, Homa. Rev. of Russendisko, by Wladimir Kaminer. «Russian Disco by Wladimir Kaminer.» Munichfound City Magazine. 6 July 2006. Web. 5 June 2008. <http: / / www.munichfound.de/ new.cfm? News_ID=1598> 246 Kathleen Condray «Russendisko.» Wikipedia. 29 Juli 2008. Web. 1 Aug. 2008. <http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Russendisko> Schoeps, Julius, Willi Jasper and Bernhard Vogt. «Einleitung.» Russische Juden in Deutschland: Integration und Selbstbehauptung in einem fremden Land. Ed. Julius Schoeps et al. Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum, 1996. 7-23. Sturrock, John. «Theory Versus Autobiography.» Folkenflik, Culture 21-37. Wanner, Adrian. «Wladimir Kaminer: A Russian Picaro Conquers Germany.» Russian Review 64 (2005): 590-604. Watson, Julia. «Toward an Anti-Metaphysics of Autobiography.» Folkenflik, Culture 57-79. Wienroeder-Skinner, Dagmar. «‹Alle Fantasie ernährt sich von der Realität› - Wladimir Kaminer und die interkulturelle deutsche Ethno-Szene.» Glossen 20 (2004): n.p. «Wladimir Kaminer will Bürgermeister werden.» 23 Oct. 2006. Web. 1. Aug. 2008. <http: / / www.tagesspiegel.de/ berlin/ Berlin-Kaminer-Buergermeister-Berlin; art114,1870257> Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia. «Immigrant Autobiography: Some Questions of Definition and Approach.» Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Ed. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1998. 299-315. Overcoming the Silence: Narrative Strategies in Günter Grass’s Beim Häuten der Zwiebel CAROL ANNE COSTABILE-HEMING N ORTHERN K ENTUCKY U NIVERSITY Autobiographical writings have figured prominently in German literature for the last two decades, a trend that can be attributed most readily to the passing of the «eye witness generation,» those who still have memories of National Socialism. 1 Combined with the demise of communism in the East, the desire to tell one’s side of the story is now stronger than ever, 2 often generating considerable controversy (Tate). Such feverishly debated memoirs often include revelations about the involvement of noted authors, such as Christa Wolf, with the East German secret police, the Stasi. Yet just when no one expected any more surprising revelations about past transgressions, Günter Grass admitted publicly in a 2006 interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he briefly had been a member of the Waffen SS. This interview prepared readers for the publication of Grass’s problematic disclosures in his autobiographical narrative, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, bringing once again a controversial autobiography into the limelight. 3 This belated confession unleashed vehement attacks not only on Grass’s literary prowess but even more disconcerting, on his moral character, essentially a double edged assault distinguishing the controversy surrounding his autobiography from the responses to other literary confessions. Grass had exploded onto the literary scene in 1959 with the publication of Die Blechtrommel, his best selling and critically acclaimed novel that probingly posed questions about the destruction of his home city of Danzig, pondered the Nazi past, and accusingly pointed out the remnants of Hitler’s Germany rampant in the Federal Republic. To this day, Grass has maintained his questioning and probing in his literary texts and essays. Politically, he allied himself closely with the Social Democratic party, and spoke publicly and critically about German politics. Such constant questioning and political positioning thrust him into the limelight and earned him unparalleled acclaim in Germany and abroad. 4 For decades, Grass was celebrated unapologetically as the conscience of West and then later of united Germany. The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, though a global recognition of his life work, championed his first novel, Die Blechtrommel. Crowning him «the great prober of the history of the twentieth century,» the press release accom- 248 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming panying the prize announcement claimed that Grass’s excavations of the past go «deeper than most and he unearths the intertwined roots of good and evil.» Indeed, in Die Blechtrommel, «he comes to grips with the enormous task of reviewing contemporary history by recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them.» Grass’s delayed revelation about his own complicity falls squarely within this framework of lying, forgetting and suppressing. In fact, it was precisely the more than sixty year delay, which garnered the most intense critiques. As Frank Schirrmacher wrote «Und er, der in Fragen der historischen Schuld zum womöglich wichtigsten Auskunftgeber der Deutschen wurde, hat darüber bis heute geschwiegen. Niemand wußte davon, nicht einmal seine Kinder; nur seine Frau» (qtd in Kölbel 26). This statement is not quite true, for Grass did reveal his secret in an interview with Klaus Wagenbach in 1963, but Wagenbach neglected to print the information (Schade 298). The fact however remains that Grass withheld what many would view as a very important detail of his biography for more than sixty years. Indeed, it was widely believed that Grass was merely a Flakhelfer at the end of the war. Even his Nobel biography makes only passing reference to «military service and captivity by American forces 1944-46.» Consequently, critics, scholars, and readers felt betrayed, and this emotional response has colored all attempts by these very different constituencies to come to terms with Grass’s past. Grass’s critics fall into two camps: the one side damns Grass for his silence, the other pleads for understanding. Both sides feel compelled to pass judgment, a circumstance guided as much by Grass’s entire biography as this one small detail. From the moment Grass burst onto the literary scene in the late 1950s, he was a sensation. His subsequent penchant for engaging in political discourse has made him ripe for polemics on either side of the political spectrum. Moreover, it has become commonplace for reviewers and critics to equate Grass with his protagonists. Rebecca Braun argues that «Grass’s works […] place the relationship between the author and the public sphere very squarely at their centre» (5), a fact that makes the public and critical outcry over Beim Häuten der Zwiebel not only understandable but even wholly unremarkable. As is to be expected, literary critics and scholars have already devoted considerable attention first to the controversy and secondarily to Grass’s text (Kölbel). The accusatory tone of the headlines cannot be overlooked, ranging from calling him a «gefallener Engel» (qtd. in Kölbel 50), and «fehlbar und verstrickt» (qtd. in Kölbel 52) to suggestions that he return his Nobel Prize (Wolfgang Borsen) and his honorary Gdansk citizenship (Lech Walesa). Overcoming the Silence 249 Noted Grass scholar, Siegfried Mews views the impassioned debate following the book’s publication as «a continuation of those [heated discussions] in which the author has been engulfed for […] decades» (3). Indeed, the heated exchange between his contemporaries, critiques and scholars in response to Grass’s disclosure has diverted attention from the autobiographical text itself. Therefore, I choose to focus here on a nuanced reading of Beim Häuten der Zwiebel that teases out the ways in which Grass grapples with memory through the metaphors of the onion and amber. Rather than make a personal and therefore moral judgment about Grass’s revelation, I choose to highlight how Grass himself recognized the moral conundrum that his lie of omission created. As scholarly engagement with the text has demonstrated, Grass’s autobiography fits precisely within the thematic and narrative strategies previously developed in his oeuvre. Within the broader context of autobiographical writing in Germany in the twenty-first century, I thus demonstrate that Grass’s autobiography is both a logical next step within his own oeuvre and a concomitant part of the current memory culture propagated in Germany. Though Grass’s narrative follows a linear trajectory, the work itself is a collection of highly stylized episodic accounts. Whereas most critics have opted to read the book as autobiography, this stylization blurs the line between pure fiction and pure autobiography. This tendency heretofore has been ignored by many critics, who are insistent on reading the text as a confessional autobiography. Within the scope of autobiographical writing, the distinction between fictional autobiographical accounts (I would include Christa Wolf’s Was bleibt in this category) and real autobiography is essential. As the distinguished theorist of narratology, Franz K. Stanzel has pointed out, despite the fictionality often inherent in autobiographical writing, the genre itself causes readers to have a heightened expectation that the text promises historical authenticity, an expectation that Stanzel doubts is possible to fulfill (326). He points out, for instance, that Grass previously had incorporated elements of his biography into his Danzig Trilogy, albeit totally in fictional form (and even with the omission of the SS affiliation). For Stanzel, Grass’s reflection on his early years in Beim Häuten der Zwiebel is problematic, for the narrated events are colored by the lens of the fiction through which Grass had previously narrated them (329). As is well established, Grass always has infused himself and his life into his literary works. Rebecca Braun, for instance, has argued that Grass has been «present as a clearly recognizable self-image» predominantly in works since the late 1960s (3). She claims that by «directly thematizing the problems of writing about himself» Beim Häuten der Zwiebel «draws attention to issues of authorship that have […] informed all his writing to date» (4). Similarly, 250 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming Anne Fuchs suggests that «the notion of life writing emphasizes the performance of identity through storytelling» (Phantoms 162). She labels Grass’s book «a confessional narrative that combines the admission of personal guilt and shame with an exploration of the imagination in coming to terms with the past» (197). Yet, she insists that confessional autobiographies such as Beim Häuten der Zwiebel should not be viewed through the lens of historical analysis, for «our understanding of National Socialism and its legacy is no longer premised on the structural analysis of power but more on the workingthrough of the screen memories that we fabricate to cover over an unpalatable past» («Ehrlich» 264). For Fuchs, the controversy following Grass’s admission resides solely in the public’s perceived desire for transparency from the author («Ehrlich» 267). In his essay, «Günter Grass and the Cold War,» Frank Brunssen portrays Grass as a politically active writer for whom the NS period was pivotal for an understanding of his entire oeuvre. While conceding that Grass’s late confession makes scholars and critics alike uncomfortable, Brunssen suggests that «Grass has used the example of his own life story again and again to illustrate how it could come about that young people like himself could, until 1945, be staunch supporters of National Socialism» (160). Christoph König proposes that Grass dokumentiert eine objektive Falschheit, sich selbst eingeschlossen, ob absichtlich oder nicht. Diese Form der Enthüllung verträgt - nach seinen Maßstäben - das Authentische nicht, und so setzt er dazu, den Jungen, der er war, zu verleugnen. Insofern geschieht nichts Neues: Grass enthüllt wie seit jeher (und wie es heute alle machen) und er leugnet weiterhin, performativ, indem er von dem Jungen nichts wissen will oder ihn verachtet. Das ist dem Werk aufgetragen und prägt seine Form. Sein Autor verträgt keine Schwächung der eigenen politischen «persona.» (8) In other words, König suggests that Grass distances himself and his publicpolitical persona from the «character» in the book. The text corroborates this, for Grass draws a very decisive line between his life before and after the end of the war. Thus, despite the controversy, it is fitting to read Beim Häuten der Zwiebel as a literary (i.e. fictional text) wherein the young Nazi is not Grass himself, but rather a character manifestation, a protagonist not unlike Grass, but a fictional character nonetheless. This argument is somewhat undercut, when one reads subsequent chapters, for the correspondence between the literary accounting and the details of Grass’s biography are too close to be coincidental. While Richard Schade has pointed out that Grass intentionally avoided the term autobiography, there is nonetheless a palpable tension between the author’s biography and the narrative retelling of that biography (282). Of the scholars who have chosen to comment on the text, Schade maintains it rounds out the picture of Grass that readers have held to date, pro- Overcoming the Silence 251 posing that the delayed confession «[…] does not absolve the author of his guilt - nor is it meant to; it does, however, allow for a fuller understanding of Grass the person» (289). Indeed, the confession does call into question the assumptions that readers, critics and scholars have had about Grass the man, Grass the artist, Grass the writer. Contrary to Schade, Stuart Taberner calls the book an apologia (145). Taberner maintains that a complete understanding of Grass’s narrative can only occur if one also considers the historical, cultural and political contexts at the time of its publication. He argues that the text «responds to a contemporary fascination with the ‹lived experience› of ‹ordinary Germans› under National Socialism,» which shifted in the early 2000s to portrayals of «Germans as victims» (146-147). 5 Taberner proposes that Grass’s stature as a writer in Germany elevates him above the ordinary - he is exceptional rather than representational. The confession, Taberner suggests, makes him more ordinary, makes him more like his readers, and thus the text «prompts its reader to develop a degree of understanding for ‹ordinary Germans› while also insisting on their generalized answerability for German crimes» (152). This interpretation focuses squarely on the book’s content, pushing the controversy aside. Despite or perhaps because of the controversy surrounding Grass’s autobiography, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel occupies a special place among contemporary narratives focusing on the current fascination with memory culture in Germany. For Helena Gonçalves da Silva, Grass’s book demonstrates the author’s «process of grappling not only with his country’s historical legacy, but also with his own past» (168). Indeed, Da Silva accuses Grass of «pass[ing] on his moral trauma to the next generations» (156). In Beim Häuten der Zwiebel Grass painstakingly tries to recreate a twenty year span of his life, from the outbreak of war in 1939 to the publication of Die Blechtrommel in 1959. As previously noted, critics jumped at the chance to equate Grass with the book’s protagonist. Yet despite the relative familiarity of many episodes in the book, it is a highly stylized piece of literature, and Grass confounds readers by subverting the first person accounting through references to the same protagonist in the third person, resulting in a blurring of the line between fiction and autobiography. 6 It is a compilation of personal and social history into a Kunstwerk. The narrative can be divided into three distinct periods: the period from Grass’s youth through his capture as a prisoner of war (the confessional part of the book), an adventurous account of the immediate postwar years, and the liberation of both Germany and the author from the intellectual strictures of the Nazi period (Fuchs, «Ehrlich» 267). The controversial confessional passage can almost be overlooked, taking up a mere two pages of the 479-page tome. As the book progresses chronologi- 252 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming cally from 1939 to the publication of Die Blechtrommel, Grass conflates time. Interspersed with his memories are attempts to corroborate those memories, specifically the recollection of trips taken to Poland and the re-acquaintance with people/ characters from his past. Grass clearly outlines his motivation for dredging up his own past immediately: «Weil ich das letzte Wort haben will» (8). Less clear, however, is the division between reality and fiction, between truth and falsehood: «Schon ist widerlegt, was jeweils auf Wahrheit bestehen will, denn oft gibt die Lüge oder […] die Schummelei, den haltbarsten Teil der Erinnerung ab; niedergeschrieben klingt sie glaubhaft und prahlt mit Einzelheiten, die als fotogenau zu gelten haben.» (9) This passage makes it obvious that Grass desires clarity from the process of putting pen to paper: that which is written must be true. The controversy, however, actually succeeds in subverting this message, for it is the revelation of a previously hidden truth that ignites the uproar. Subsequently, Grass dances around the notion of clarity: «Was vor und nach dem Ende meiner Kindheit geschah, klopft mit Tatsachen an und verlief schlimmer als gewollt, will mal so, mal so erzählt werden und verführt zu Lügengeschichten» (10). Repeatedly in the text, Grass plays with the word Lüge, combining it here with Geschichte, setting readers up for the complexity of the tale at hand: as the pages progress, a mixture of stories, history, and lies confront readers. Grass utilizes the metaphor of peeling an onion to convey his quest to peel back the layers of memory as he struggles to tell his life’s story, particularly the story of his younger years. As the narrator slowly strips back the layers of his memory, unanswered questions plague him. This portion of the narrative underscores the author’s attempt to assuage his guilt at being the one who left too many questions unanswered. Immediately in the first chapter readers learn of the disappearance of his uncle, a fact that the elder Grass views as questionable. The passage of time and maturity that comes with age leads Grass to ask «wagte ich nicht zu fragen, weil kein Kind mehr? » (16). Additional disappearances occur: his classmate Wolfgang Heinrichs, a Latin teacher, a fellow recruit who refuses to take up arms. The narrator recalls that each disappearance transpired without question or commentary, prompting him to wonder in hindsight: «wieder einmal keine Fragen gestellt» (22). Other troubling events occur: synagogues set afire, glass windows broken (26). From the perspective of old age Grass bemoans his lack of engagement: «So beflissen ich im Laub meiner Erinnerungen stochere, nichts findet sich, das mir günstig wäre. Offenbar haben keine Zweifel meine Kinderjahre getrübt. Vielmehr machte ich, leicht zu gewinnen, bei allem mit, was der Alltag, der sich aufgeregt aufregend als ‹Neue Zeit› ausgab, zu bieten hatte.» (26). Because of his age, Grass could not really be considered a fellow Overcoming the Silence 253 traveler, one who blindly accepted the Nazi doctrines as they were handed down, for he was not even old enough to think about them critically. At the same time, however, Grass readily admits that he did get caught up in the trappings quite readily: «Noch während der letzten Jahre der Freistaatzeit - ich zählte zehn - wurde der Junge meines Names durchaus freiwillig Mitglied des Jungvolks, einer Aufbauorganisation der Hitlerjugend.» (27) This passage is telling, for although the reader realizes that the narrator is referring to himself, the author purposefully creates a distance between his beliefs and his actions by referring to himself in the third person. This passage underscores the conundrum Grass was in, caught between his present as moral conscience of the country and his compromised past. Grass is unable to identify with the child that he once was; this passage thus emphasizes the chasm between what he was and what he has become This distance also allows feelings of guilt to plague Grass. 7 Through the process of exploring his memory, of peeling his onion, Grass seeks the source of these guilt feelings. Guilt is something ever present: «[Die Schuld] steht dann doch, sobald die Zwiebel Pelle nach Pelle geschrumpft ist, dauerhaft den jüngsten Häuten eingeschrieben: mal in Großbuchstaben, mal als Nebensatz oder Fußnote, mal deutlich lesbar, dann wieder in Hieroglyphen, die, wenn überhaupt, nur mühsam zu entziffern sind. Mir gilt leserlich die knappe Inschrift: Ich schwieg.» (36) The source of Grass’s guilt: his silence. More than either the onion or the amber, it is the trope of silence that binds the mature Grass to his younger self. We can interpret this reference to silence in two ways: Grass’s initial silence as a child and youth regarding the curious disappearances surrounding him, but more importantly, his later silence about his own past. This autobiographical account clearly lays bare the sense of anguish that the author has carried all these years. Readily, Grass admits to his fascination with National Socialism and his willingness to serve that cause: «Fest steht, ich habe mich freiwillig zum Dienst mit der Waffe gemeldet.» (75) The tone turns confessional 8 as the narrator admits that he enjoyed the way a uniform drew attention to him. Adding to the touch of innocence with which Grass recalls his past, his hometown did not suffer under Allied bombings in the same fashion as Cologne, Hamburg or Berlin. In fact, he refers to the bombings as «feierlich schön.» (76). Set in this context, Grass’s actions are almost commonplace; he is no different from other fifteen year olds who seek adventure, wishing to make their mark as heroes: Nichts gibt Auskunft darüber, was in einem fünfzehnjährigen Jungen vorgeht, der aus freien Stücken unbedingt dorthin will, wo gekämpft wird und - was er ahnen könnte, sogar aus Büchern weiß - der Tod seine Abstriche macht. Vermutungen 254 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming lösen einander ab: Ist es der Andrang überbordender Gefühlsströme gewesen, die Lust, eigenmächtig zu handeln, der Wille, übereilt erwachsen, ein Mann unter Männern zu sein? (82) This passage is a perfect example of the lack of reflection in the book, for Grass does not view this as an indictment of masculinity, and narrates from a perspective that ignores all feminist discourses of gender that have advanced as Grass has matured. 9 There are times when the onion fails him and he turns to amber to prod his memory. Found predominantly on the Baltic Sea, amber is tied closely to place, an element that always has been important to Grass and his oeuvre. At first glance, the amber presents a sense of permanence for it fixes things in both time and place. Neither of these objects, however, can provide absolute clarity. A peeled onion often provokes tears, which serve to blur vision. Amber filters the light that passes through it. Even though Grass turns to the amber for clarity, it does not provide the transparency that Grass seeks. Following the assassination attempt on Hitler, for instance, Grass recalls his faith in Hitler as unwavering: sobald auf der Zwiebelhaut kleingeschriebene Randnotizen allzu beredsam mit Anekdoten und milieugesätigten Vertälljens von dem ablenken wollen, was vergessen sein will und dennoch querliegt. Dann muß ich mir aus dem Fach über Stehpult den durchsichtigsten Bernstein greifen, um herauszufinden, wie unbeschadet sich mein Glaube an den Führer trotz überprüfbarer Fassadenrisse, zunehmender Flüsterparolen und des überall, nun auch in Frankreich rückgängigen Frontverlaufs konserviert hatte. (106) Less than two months before Germany capitulated, Grass received his Einberufungsbefehl. Grass reveals his assignment to the SS in a chapter entitled «Wie ich das fürchten lernte,» in which the narrator toys with the gravity of this memory: «Zu fragen ist: Erschreckte mich, was damals im Rekrutierungsbüro unübersehbar war, wie mir noch jetzt, nach über sechzig Jahren, das doppelte S im Augenblick der Niederschrift schrecklich ist» (126). Twice in this sentence Grass uses a form of the word «Schreck,» a term weighed down with horror in this instance, a circumstance that makes it all the harder to believe that Grass was able to suppress this memory for 60 years. This section is fundamental to decoding Grass’s relationship to the past. It is also a passage laden with temporal overlays. The «Schreck» to which Grass refers is an emotion that is clearly associated with hindsight. Given what Grass knows about the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, most specifically the SS, he can only react with horror at this memory. Yet, readers must recall that Grass is attempting to write an autobiographical text here: to the extent that he tries to relay the Overcoming the Silence 255 past, he also interprets that past. The passage continues with just such an interpretation: Der Zwiebelhaut steht nichts eingeritzt, dem ein Anzeichen für Schreck oder gar Entsetzen abzulesen wäre. Eher werde ich die Waffen-SS als Eliteeinheit gesehen haben, […]. Die doppelte Rune am Uniformkragen war mir nicht anstößig. Dem Jungen, der sich als Mann sah, wird vor allem die Waffengattung wichtig gewesen sein: wenn nicht zu den U-Booten, […], dann als Panzerschütze in einer Division, die […] neu aufgestellt werden sollte, und zwar unter dem Namen «Jörg von Frundsberg.» (126) Grass attempts to recollect the feelings and emotions he had as a fifteen year old, and this description portrays the teenage Grass as a product of his generation, a generation of young men fascinated by war, desirous of action, and seeking to be heroes, if for no other reason than that seems to be what was expected of them. At this juncture, one should not criticize the memoirist/ author for including this passage. However, it does not excuse nor lessen the impact of the revelation about Grass’s past, a revelation that based on his political convictions and stature as conscientious admonisher of all things remotely smacking of Nazism, one would have expected many years prior. 10 It is not that Grass does not attempt to address the fact that he was silent. He simply is unable to find closure: Also Ausreden genug. Und doch habe ich mich über Jahrzehnte hinweg geweigert, mir das Wort und den Doppelbuchstaben einzugestehen. Was ich mit dem dummen Stolz meiner jungen Jahre hingenommen hatte, wollte ich mir nach dem Krieg aus nachwachsender Scham verschweigen. Doch die Last blieb, und niemand konnte sie erleichtern. […] Selbst wenn mir tätige Mitschuld auszureden war, blieb ein bis heute nicht abgetragener Rest, der allzu geläufig Mitverantwortung genannt wird. Damit zu leben ist für die restlichen Jahre gewiß. (127) Remorse accompanies this sense of responsibility, but does not erase the naiveté of his younger years. Grass was an obedient soldier; during training: «[…] habe alles, was mir befohlen wurde, ohne Hintersinn ausgeführt» (131). His stint with the Waffen SS was short-lived; an injury on April 20 ended his conscription. Following his release from military hospitals, he was held as a prisoner of war. It seems that Grass was able to surrender his steadfast belief in National Socialism quite readily. Reflecting on Hitler’s death, he remarks that the great «Führer» was no longer even missed: «Er war weg, als hätte es ihn nie gegeben, als wäre er nie ganz wirklich gewesen und dürfe vergessen werden, als könne man ganz gut ohne den Führer leben» (181). Such a passage leads the reader to question the sincerity of Grass’s earlier professed convictions. Even more tellingly 256 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming however, this passage suggests an overwhelming ease with which Grass (and the German people) were able to forget about Hitler. Put into the context of this delayed confession, Grass’s «amnesia» seems almost commonplace - an attitude of «moving on» or «moving forward» pervaded in the immediate postwar years. Here Grass points out that he was just like everyone else, an attitude that belies his later position as the country’s moral compass. Indeed, Grass did not view Germany’s capitulation as a big deal: weil ich die bedingungslose Kapitulation des Großdeutschen Reiches oder den «Zusammenbruch», wie bald gesagt wurde, zwar als Leichtverwundeter in der Lazarettstadt Marienbad erlebt hatte, dort aber eher beiläufig zur Kenntnis genommen oder in meinem Unverstand wie etwas Vorübergehendes, eine Gefechtspause registriert haben mag. Hinzu kam, daß dem der Kapitulation vorgesetzten Beiwort ‹bedingungslos› vorerst nichts Endgültiges abzuhören war. (185) It is unclear whether this passage reflects Grass’s true feelings at the time or whether they have become clouded with the passage of time, a circumstance that Grass admits is possible: «Sobald ich, wie mittlerweile geübt, über alle Bedenken hinweg Ich sage, also meinen Zustand vor rund sechzig Jahren nachzuzeichnen versuche, ist mir mein damaliges Ich zwar nicht ganz und gar fremd, doch abhanden gekommen und entrückt wie ein entfernter Verwandter.» (184) Admittedly, a significant amount of time had passed before Grass was able to fully understand his own ignorance during the Third Reich: «Es verging Zeit, bis ich in Schüben begriff und mir zögerlich eingestand, daß ich unwissend oder, genauer, nicht wissen wollend Anteil an einem Verbrechen hatte, das mit den Jahren nicht kleiner wurde, das nicht verjähren will, an dem ich immer noch kranke.» (221) Shame, however, remains: «Wie dem Hunger kann der Schuld und der ihr folgsamen Scham nachgesagt werden, daß sie nagt, unablässig nagt, aber gehungert habe ich nur zeitweilig, die Scham jedoch….» (221). The narrative ultimately spells out the process behind Grass’s recognition and acceptance of the reality of the Nazi atrocities, a process that lasted approximately one year: Vielmehr fiel die Sperre erst ein Jahr später, als ich die Stimme meines ehemaligen Reichsjugendführers Baldur von Schirach - weißnichtwo - aus dem Radio hörte. Kurz vor der Urteilsverskündung kamen die in Nürnberg als Kriegsverbrecher Angeklagten noch einmal zu Wort. Um die Hitlerjugend zu entlasten, beteuerte Schirach deren Unwissenheit und sagte, er, nur er habe Kenntnis von der geplanten und vollzogenenn Massenvernichtung als Endlösung der Judenfrage gehabt. Ihm mußte ich glauben. Ihm glaubte ich immer noch. Solange ich aber im Küchenkommando als Abwäscher und Dolmetscher tätig war, blieb ich verstockt. Klar, wir hatten den Krieg verloren. Die Sieger waren uns an Zahl, Panzern, Flugzeugen überlegen gewesen, zudem an Kalorien. Aber die Fotos? (221-222) Overcoming the Silence 257 Even when confronted with photographic evidence of the atrocities committed in the concentration camps, Grass was unable to comprehend the enormity of the Nazi crimes. While the passage of time was necessary for Grass and others like him to comprehend their most recent history, he also takes advantage of the gap this passage of time allows, enabling him to dissociate himself from his own actions. Grass likens his process of remembering to the viewing of a film, a further manifestation of this distancing effect, a technique that renders the ultimate confession less impactful. 11 It is the fragility of memory that predominates in this book: Grass endeavors to hold on to distant memories, either by uncovering them (as in the peeling of the onion) or by fixing them in time and space (the amber), yet still colored by a filter that alters the narrator’s perception of them. Grass seeks clarity from both metaphors: Was auf ersten Blick täuscht: beim Häuten der Zwiebel beginnen die Augen zu schwimmen. So trübt sich ein, was bei klarer Sicht lesbar war. Deutlicher hält mein Bernstein fest, was als Einschluß zu erkennen ist: vorerst als Mücke oder Spinne. Dann aber könnte ein anderer Entschluß, der Granatsplitter, sich in Erinnerung bringen, der in meiner linken Schulter verkapselt ist, als Andenken sozusagen.» (225) Grass’s use of the onion as a metaphor helps to convey the lack of transparency of memory, for when the onion juices cause tears, the vision of the peeler becomes clouded. As Nicole Thesz argues, Grass’s works have moved from the depiction of childhood in the Nazi period to the «fading of memory through generational change.» (2) The text portrays a decisive break in Grass’s biography occurring when he is released from his prisoner of war status. At that point, he begins his life anew: «Das mir in frühen Jahren entschwundene Ich muß ein leeres Gefäß gewesen sein» (226). Whereas his youth emphasized war games followed by his eventual draft, the period ushered in by Germany’s capitulation erased this «Ich,» his ego. It was the very moment in which Grass confronted the concept of freedom that made a blank slate possible: «Erinnerungsschnipsel, mal so, mal so sortiert, fügen sich lückenhaft. Ich zeichne den Schattenriß einer Person, die zufällig überlebte, nein, sehe ein fleckiges, sonst aber unbeschriebenes Blatt, das ich bin, sein könnte oder werden möchte, der ungenaue Entwurf späterer Existenz» (228). Whereas the reference to a «fleckiges Blatt» serves as a veiled reference to Grass’s portion of the collective German guilt, he quite easily allowed his Nazi past to slide into obscurity: «Mein einstiges Jungnazitum schien gründlich ausgeschwitzt zu sein. Mit dieser sich zänkisch hinschleppenden Vergangenheit wollte ich nichts zu tun haben» (264). His departure for Berlin marks the final erasure of his youthful transgressions: 258 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming «Ich war angekommen [in Berlin]. Kaum da, fiel alles ab, was von Düsseldorf her anhing. Oder war es schon immer so, daß es mir leichtfiel, Ballast abzuwerfen, nicht hinter mich zu schauen, sogleich anzukommen und dazusein? » (400). Indeed, Grass was able to «throw off» his past with the Waffen- SS for more than sixty years and play the role of the almost irreproachable intellectual. It is the trope of silence that binds the elder Grass to his younger self. He found it difficult to accept his mother’s silence about the repeated rapes she endured at the hands of the Red army. Yet, it was also her firm belief that «Was schlimm war, das soll man vergessen alles…» (443). Ever the obedient son, Grass tried his hardest to forget his past. It is the process of writing about all that was forgotten, however, which forces him to acknowledge his own silence: Aber auch mir kam nichts über die Lippen, was rücklings angestaut auf Lauer lag: Meine unterlassenen Fragen… Der verhärtete Glaube… Die Lagerfeuer der Hitlerjugend… Mein Wünsch, wie der U-Boot-Held Kapitänleutnant Prien zu sterben… Und zwar freiwillig… Der Arbeitsdienstmann, den wir «Wirtunsowasnicht» genannt hatten… Wie dann der Führer dank der Vorsehung überlebte… Der Fahneneid der Waffen-SS bei klirrender Kälte: «Wenn alle untreu werden, so bleiben wir doch treu…» Und als die Stalinorgel über uns kam: die vielen Toten, jung die meisten und unfertig wie ich… Als ich dann Hänschen klein aus Angst im Wald gesungen habe, bis Antwort kam… Der rettende Obergefreite, dem beide Beine, während für mich noch rechtzeitig die russische Panzergranate… Doch bis zum Schluß an den Endsieg geglaubt…Bis in die Fieberträume des Leichtverwundeten fingerte schwarzhaarig bezopft ein Mädchen… Der nagende Hunger… Das Spiel mit den Würfeln… Und als dann auf Fotos unglaublich: Bergen-Belsen, die gestapelten Leichen - hinsehen, los, hinsehen, nicht abwenden, nur weil das schnellgesagt unbeschreiblich ist…. (321-322) This passage reads as a brief resume of all the regrets that Grass has accumulated, and summarizes Beim Häuten der Zwiebel to this point in the narrative. He admits: «Nein, ich sah nicht zurück oder nur kurz schreckhaft über die Schulter» (322). It seems it is the ease with which Grass hid his past that has made it so difficult for scholars, critics and readers to accept the silence. Moreover, it is uncharacteristic when viewed in the context of his Frankfurter Vorlesungen (1990), wherein he explicitly instructed the students: «Ein Schriftsteller […] ist jemand, der gegen die verstreichende Zeit schreibt. […] Eine so akzeptierte Schreibhaltung setzt voraus, daß sich der Autor nicht als abgehoben oder in Zeitlosigkeit verkapselt, sondern als Zeitgenosse sieht, mehr noch, daß er sich den Wechselfällen verstreichender Zeit aussetzt, sich einmischt und Partei ergreift» («Nobelvorlesung»). Beim Häuten der Zwiebel casts the role of the author in a decidedly different light than Grass had Overcoming the Silence 259 once proposed. Indeed, it seems Grass the author now admits to his own fallibility. As scholars such as Braun, Fuchs, Brunssen and Schade have shown, Grass’s literary works are tied intricately to the author’s biography. Indeed, this fact contributed widely to the controversy, for Grass’s outspokenness and notoriety prompted readers (and critics) to hold Grass to a higher moral standard. What kind of obligation does an outspoken author and statesman, such as Günter Grass really have to reveal those hidden (perhaps even suppressed) memories/ secrets to the wider public? Does the fact that Grass has chosen to speak out publicly in political forums require him to be «holier than thou»? In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Grass refers often to the act of writing as a creation of lies: «Die Fähigkeit zur anhaltenden Tagträumerei, die Lust am Wortwitz und am Spiel mit Wörtern, die Sucht, nur deshalb und ohne Vorteil für sich zu lügen, weil das Schildern der Wahrheit zu langweilig gewesen wäre, kurz, was man vage genug Begabung nennt, war gewiß vorgegeben […]» («Nobelvorlesung»). Yet through his autobiography, Grass tries to exonerate himself. In the present day he firmly believes that he has mastered his Nazi past and left it behind him. Indeed, he assures his readers that this mastery occurred as early as the 1950s, when, during a trip to Italy, he and Anna encountered a group of young Italian fascists. As Grass describes them: «Sie waren so unbelehrbar, wie ich es einst im braunen Jungvolkhemd gewesen bin; gleich dem Giersch wächst das Unkraut nach, blüht immer aufs neue, verbreitet sich, und nicht nur Italien bietet das Klima für Nachwuchs.» (431). It is passages such as this that make it so difficult for readers to overcome their emotional response to Grass’s confession. The book is rife with contradictions: on the one hand readers know that Grass has indeed mastered his past and has served as an ardent critic; on the other hand, however, the passage implies that the young Italians (and all others implied by the word «Nachwuchs») cannot change. So where does that leave us? To find the answer, we must return to the very beginning of Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, wherein Grass very clearly stated that he wants to have the last word. From Die Blechtrommel forward, Grass drew the fodder for his literary texts from his own experiences. In Im Krebsgang, his last fictional work before Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, Grass touched upon the sufferings of the Germans during World War II. In portraying the Germans as victims in that work, Grass paved the way for his own confession, making this very personal examination of his own past a logical progression in Grass’s œuvre. 12 260 Carol Anne Costabile-Heming Notes 1 I would like to thank Dr. Rachel Halverson and Dr. Andrea Fieler for their insightful reading of drafts of this manuscript. 2 See Rachel Halverson’s essay on Hermann Kant in this volume. 3 The interview was published four days before the book’s release. Having originally scheduled its publication in September, Steidl moved up the production following the interview. Despite or perhaps because of the controversy, the book became an immediate bestseller; the first edition printing of 150,000 copies sold out within days (Mews 337). 4 John Leonard surmises that critics viewed his confession so harshly precisely because we have learned «to judge him from his own bench» (35). 5 Similarly, Andreas Huyssen proposes that Grass’s story is not exceptional, but rather tells the tale of a German «everyman» (26). 6 Andreas Huyssen suggests that «the fact that he describes his youthful self alternately in the first and third person is not evidence of evasion, or of some mendacious effort to blur the line between memoir and fiction […]. Rather this oscillation in perspective marks the distance between memoirist and his teenage self» (26). 7 Schuld can be translated as both guilt and shame. Anne Fuchs, for instance, focuses on shame in her interpretation («Ehrlich»). 8 Schade refers to the «autobiography as confession» (289). 9 See also Finch 189. 10 Grass had numerous opportunities to reveal his past, the most commonly cited being the visit by Ronald Reagan and Helmut Kohl to the Bitburg cemetery (1985), where not only victims of the Nazis, but also members of the SS are buried. Richard Schade also points to the public suicide of a former SS officer in 1969, as well as various speeches commemorating the end of the war (298). 11 Grass continues the metaphor of photos and film in the second installment of his autobiography, Die Box. 12 Da Silva views this as «a move from experiential and survivor memory to postmemory […] thus clos[ing] a circle in Günter Grass’s work» (156). Grass continues to put his personal spin on the past, using his children’s voices and snapshot photos in Die Box (2008) and his own diary musings in Unterwegs von Deutschland nach Deutschland (2009). Works Cited Braun, Rebecca and Frank Brunssen. Eds. Changing the Nation: Günter Grass in International Perspective. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008. Braun, Rebecca. Constructing Authorship in the Work of Günter Grass. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008. Brunssen, Frank. «Günter Grass and the Cold War,» Journal of Contemporary European Studies 15.2 (2007): 149-162. Print. Finch, Helen. «Günter Grass’s Account of German Wartime Suffering in Beim Häuten der Zwiebel: Mind in Mourning or Boy Adventurer? » in Taberner and Berger. 177-190. Fuchs, Anne. «‹Ehrlich, du lügst wie gedruckt›: Günter Grass’s Autobiographical Confession and the Changing Territory of Germany’s Memory Culture,» German Life and Letters 60.2 (2007) 261-275. Print. Overcoming the Silence 261 -. Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse. The Politics of Memory. London: Palgrave, 2008. 162. Gon ç alves da Silva, Helena. «Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass: From Survivor Memory to Postmemory, and the Issue of a Responsible European Culture of Memory.» Braun and Brunssen. 156-169. Grass, Günter. Beim Häuten der Zwiebel. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. -. Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. -. Unterwegs von Deutschland nach Deutschland. Tagebuch 1990. Göttingen: Steidl, 2009. Huyssen, Andreas. «I’m not the Man I used to be,» The Nation August 13/ 20 (2007): 25-28. Print. Kölbel, Martin. Ed. Ein Buch, ein Bekenntnis. Die Debatte um Günter Grass’ ‹Beim Häuten der Zwiebel›. Göttingen: Steidl, 2007. König, Christoph. Häme als literarisches Verfahren. Günter Grass, Walter Jens und die Mühen des Erinnerns. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008. Leonard, John. «Grass Roots,» New York 39.31 (September 2006): 34-35. Print. Mews, Siegfried. Günter Grass and his Critics: From The Tin Drum to Crabwalk, Rochester: Camden House, 2008. The Nobel Foundation. «Günter Grass. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1999. Biography.» Web. 12 Dec. 2008. The Nobel Foundation. «Nobelvorlesung.» Web. 12 Dec. 2008. Schade, Richard. «Layers of Meaning, War, Art: Grass’s Beim Häuten der Zwiebel,» The German Quarterly 80.3 (2007): 279-301. Print. Schirrmacher, Frank. «Das Geständnis,» FAZ 12.8.2006. Kölbel 26. Stanzel, Franz K. «Autobiographie: Wo ein Ich erzählt, is immer Fiktion,» Sprachkunst 37.2 (2006): 325-340. Print. The Swedish Academy. «Nobel Prize for Literature 1999. Günter Grass.» September 1999. Web. 12 Dec. 2008. Taberner, Stuart and Karina Berger, Eds. Germans as Victims in the Literary Fiction of the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Camden House, 2009. Taberner, Stuart. «Private Failings and Public Virtues: Günter Grass’s Beim Häuten der Zwiebel and the Exemplary Use of Authorial Biography,» Modern Language Review 103 (2008): 143-154. Print. Tate, Dennis. Shifting Perspectives. East German Autobiographical Narratives before and after the End of the GDR. Rochester: Camden House, 2007. Thesz, Nicole. «Dangerous Monuments: Günter Grass and German Memory Culture.» German Studies Review 31.1 (2008): 1-22. Print. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Postfach 25 60 · D-72015 Tübingen · Fax (0 7071) 97 97-11 Internet: www.francke.de · E-Mail: info@francke.de Peter C. Pfeiffer entstaubt in diesem Buch die berühmteste österreichische Autorin des 19. Jahrhunder ts und macht das überraschend Unkonventionelle und noch heute Provozierende in einem Querschnitt ihrer Werke deutlich. Neben selten behandelten Werken wie der historischen Tragödie Marie Roland und der Erzählung Agave werden hier auch bekanntere Werke wie Das Gemeindekind und „Die Freiherren von Gemperlein“ behandelt. Die trivialisierende Aufnahme Ebner-Eschenbachs in der Nachkriegszeit wird anhand der bildlichen Darstellungen der Autorin ebenso deutlich gemacht wie die Nachwirkung in verschiedenen Heimatfilmen der 50er, 60er und 70er Jahre. Das Buch verbindet in textnahen Interpretationen bewusst Ergebnisse der anglo-amerikanischen Ebner-Forschung mit der des deutschsprachigen Raums, wobei die Lesefreude, die man mit Ebners Schriften haben kann, im Mittelpunkt steht. Peter C. Pfeiffer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Tragödie, Erzählung, Heimatfilm 2008, 189 Seiten, 7 Abb., €[D] 39,90/ Sfr 67,00 ISBN 978-3-7720-8268-9 037708 Auslieferung Mai 2008.ind11 11 26.05.2008 9: 58: 58 Uhr Besprechungen / Reviews P ETER C. P FEIFFER : Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Tragödie. Erzählung. Heimatfilm. Tübingen: Francke, 2008. 189 pp. € 39,90. C LAUDIA S EELING : Zur Interdependenz von Gender- und Nationaldiskurs bei Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2008. 318 pp. € 32. M ARIE L UISE W ANDRUSZKA : Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Erzählerin aus politischer Leidenschaft. Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2008. € 16,90. Three new monographs focusing on Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) span the interpretive range from a «bewußt altmodisches» book (Pfeiffer 175) to analyses anchored in the social, cultural, and political discourses of the second half of the nineteenth century (Seeling; to a lesser extent Wandruszka). These monographs taken together discern thematic and formal complexities that were all too often ignored during earlier phases of Ebner’s reception as rising, then fallen icon of Austrian Habsburg literature. Citing Martha Nussbaum, Wandruszka emphasizes the ability of literature to help the reader understand, imagine, and empathize with others, all of which are basic requirements of a modern democracy (11). Although Wandruszka’s use of the term «politics» is somewhat vague, her stated goal is to present the «Ästhetik und politische Ethik Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachs […] in ihrer Verschränkung» (13). Of the three monographs under review, Wandruszka’s is the most uneven, primarily due to significant gaps in the secondary literature, shortcomings which lead her to repeat or simply be out of touch with already-established scholarship. The bibliography lists almost no Ebner scholarship from the twenty-first century and is quite spotty with respect to older literature. Although Wandruszka states that Ebner scholarship «wächst ins Uferlose» (11), the field has not grown so large as to be unmanageable. Thus, the first section, «Die Werkstatt,» retells Ebner’s early literary biography, relying heavily on quotes from her diary. Wandruszka seems unaware that this era of Ebner’s life has received a good bit of attention (Rose 1998; Klostermeier 1994; Kord 2005; etc.) and that the diary entries must be read with a critical eye (Gabriel 1997). The second section, «Die Weite der Welt,» focuses on Ebner’s literary constructions of male and female characters, particularly members of the aristocracy, in such key texts as «Er lasst die Hand küssen,» Unsühnbar, and Božena. It is here that the scholarly gaps are most detrimental. For example, Wandruszka posits that the noble woman in «Er lasst die Hand küssen» only wants to do good. This statement is highly suspect after the analyses of Dormer (1976) and subsequent scholars. Gaps such as these are lamentable because when Wandruszka does engage with extant scholarship, she often advances intriguing hypotheses. One example is her contention that Ebner’s turn from drama to fiction is not to be read purely as a sign of defeat and resignation after numerous failures in the theatrical realm, but can be understood as Ebner’s choosing realist prose as a form which allowed her a greater realm of aesthetic and political freedom. This is an insight that has the potential to 264 Besprechungen / Reviews change the way scholars look at Ebner. At the very least, it should stimulate discussion. Wandruszka’s final section, «Eine politische Ästhetik,» posits that Ebner’s experiments with realist literary techniques allowed her to show highly nuanced relationships among characters and to underscore a political «Miteinander-Handeln der Erzählfiguren» (118). Of particular interest in this regard are Wandruszka’s efforts to show similarities between the political world views of Hannah Arendt and Ebner. In Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Tragödie. Erzählung. Heimatfilm Peter C. Pfeiffer explores how themes central to Ebner’s work - history, gender, and creativity - thread throughout Ebner’s varied oeuvre and her long creative life. In addition, Pfeiffer proposes to investigate how Ebner pushed established literary forms «um die Spezifik weiblicher Wahrnehmungsweisen und Erlebniswelten fassen zu können» (83). Pfeiffer is at his best in close readings of the stories Agave (1903), «Die Freiherren von Gemperlein» (1881), «Das Schädliche» (1894) as well as Das Gemeindekind (1887). In each chapter, he underscores how Ebner, by combining and re-combining her core themes, succeeded in writing alternatives to extant power constructs in the realms of gender relationships, social hierarchies and aesthetics. Pfeiffer posits that Ebner modified the traditional historical tragedy in «Marie Roland» (1867) in order to create a heroine who interacts with the monumental historical processes of the French Revolution. Pfeiffer’s intelligent discussion of Ebner’s autobiography Meine Kinderjahre (1905) would have benefitted from placing Ebner’s autobiography within the context of other autobiographies written by nineteenth-century women authors. Pfeiffer’s monograph is framed by chapters looking at Ebner’s reception in nontext media. The thoughtful chapter on the iconic image of Ebner ruminates on the prevalent image of Ebner as older, androgynous writer and ties in well with other research examining the probable needs, wishes, and desires of the various reading publics and editors who have chosen the image of Ebner as old woman. The book ends with a chapter looking at three Heimat films directed by Franz Antel loosely based on Ebner’s story «Krambambuli.» Pfeiffer’s considerations add to our understanding of Ebner’s reception, but suffer at times from a preponderance of plot details which tend to obscure his argument. Pfeiffer explicitly states that he intended «die Einsichten zu Ebners Werk, die in der englischsprachigen Auslandsgermanistik entwickelt worden sind, aufzugreifen, mit den Ergebnissen weiter zu arbeiten und die Resultate einem deutschen Publikum nahe zu bringen» (177). Given his intent, the marked absence of or lack of true engagement with scholarship which explores the same or similar texts and general topics (cf., for example, Goodman 1986; C. Steiner 1994; Toegel 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997; Bramkamp 1990; Riehl 2000; Harriman 1985; Worley 1996, 2004, 2008) is a serious flaw and diminishes his achievements. Claudia Seeling’s monograph, Zur Interdependenz von Gender- und Nationaldiskurs bei Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, based on her 2006 dissertation, on the other hand, presents a thorough catalogue and summary of the extant scholarship, although here, too, more spirited engagement with existing scholarship would have been helpful. By reading with a nuanced eye towards gender and national discourses, Seeling leads the reader to a deeper understanding of the complexities in Ebner’s texts. After Besprechungen / Reviews 265 two substantive chapters provide the historical background needed to grasp the interactions of the Habsburg monarchy’s ethnic populations in Bohemia and Moravia, Seeling provides thought-provoking readings of Meine Kinderjahre (1906), Božena (1876), «Bertram Vogelweid» (1896), and «Mašlans Frau» (1901). By consciously integrating the heteroand autostereotypes held by both «Czech» and «German» characters into her analyses of plot, gender and nationality discourses, Seeling creates a highly nuanced picture of Ebner’s multi-layered texts. The reader is invited to rethink commonly held views of Ebner and her writing regarding, for example, the role Ebner’s Czech heritage played in her life and art. Analyses which reveal previously overlooked subtleties are exciting, but they also demand a very high burden of proof. In most cases in Seeling’s monograph this burden is met. Seeling studies Ebner’s varied narrators in terms of their gendered and ethnic subject positions and by so doing can probe possible auctorial criticism of these positions. For example, she makes a solid case for seeing the third-person narrator («Erzählinstanz») of Božena as one who inhabits a male, «conservative German» subject position. Her further contention that the author («Textsubjekt») does not share this position and subtly creates a distance to the narrator in order to reveal the narrator’s deep-seated stereotypes is intriguing, but needs further proof to be entirely convincing. This reservation notwithstanding, Seeling’s work provides a stimulating basis for further studies. All three of the recent books are based on the fundamental assumption that Ebner’s entire oeuvre, created over the span of her long life, needs scholarly illumination. The authors’ conclusions, whether guided by recent theories regarding history, nation, gender, the public sphere, and/ or creativity, are valuable in and of themselves, but also because they will most certainly stimulate new scholarship. University of Kentucky Linda Kraus Worley R ANDALL H ALLE and R EINHILD S TEINGRÖVER (E DS .): After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and Austrian Experimental Film. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2008. 352 pp. $ 80. After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and Austrian Experimental Film is a timely and well-conceived introduction to an often overlooked area in the field of German Studies, particularly here in North America. Though German-language film has rightfully received increased attention from scholars over the past twenty-five years, as well as a place in most German Studies curricula, little attention has been paid to those artists who toil, often in obscurity, on the fringes of experimental cinema. Artists who, for the most part, remain unknown in the North American context, but whose works both influence and challenge the mainstream cinema in Europe and thus, eventually, in the United States. Randall Halle and Reinhild Steingröver aim to correct this oversight with a timely collection of essays by film scholars and art critics. An informative introduction discussing the avant-garde by Halle and Steingröver is followed by fifteen essays on topics ranging from the works of Birgit Hein, Mi- 266 Besprechungen / Reviews chael Brynntrup, and Christoph Schlingensief on the better-known end of the spectrum (relatively speaking) to the work of Elke Krystufek and Kirsten Winter on the lesser-known end of the spectrum. As Halle and Steingröver point out, «contributors […] range from some of the most established and respected scholars in the field to young emerging scholars, from critics to practitioners, and the contributions represent scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic.» (1) Halle and Steingröver structure their excellent introduction around the concept and history of the avant-garde as they relate it to experimental media practices that emerged in Germany in the 1980s. They go to great pains to link the experimentation and innovative impulses in the visual arts of the 1980s and 90s to the dynamic of the Central European avant-garde from Expressionism to Surrealism and Dada. Their approach is twofold: to situate the works and practitioners in question after the historical avant-garde, as defined by Peter Bürger, while attempting to recuperate the critical engagement with society that defined the historical avant-garde in the first place. It is the attempt to recuperate the original impulse of the avant-garde, its critical potential that is their primary interest, but also the most tenuous aspect of their project. To bolster their argument for a new understanding of the term avant-garde as something that is both historical past and dynamically ongoing they enlist a structural approach to the question of what it means to be avant-garde. This structural approach allows them to define avant-garde as an ongoing aspect of modern cultural production that overlaps with movements and concepts like experimental, underground, feminist, queer, and visionary (terms they themselves use). Following this line of argumentation it becomes possible to speak of avant-garde video, avant-garde comics, avant-garde rock and the like; forms that for historical reasons would have been impossible in the days of the historical avant-garde. The obvious danger inherent in this line of argument is a dissolution of the term avant-garde to the point of meaninglessness or, perhaps even worse, aligning it with the standards of affirmative culture as one begins to speak of avant-garde advertising and avant-garde business practices. While the authors fully acknowledge these dangers, they are also unwilling to fully forgo them as they seek to revitalize the critical impulse of forms of cultural production once embodied by the avant-garde movements. Whether the practitioners and works written about in the individual chapters truly embody something of the original critical impulse of the avant-garde is for readers to decide, but the arguments put forth are formidable and undermine any notion that critical, self-reflective cultural production has ceased completely. There seems to be life, at least on the fringes. The essays in the collection fall into two groups. The first consists of eight essays loosely grouped under the heading «Contexts.» These essays give introductions and overviews of local and regional developments in image production and filmmaking. The second set of seven essays is grouped under the rubric «Case Studies» and highlights significant practitioners and their works. These essays focus on Bjørn Melhus, Christoph Schlingensief, Michael Brynntrup, Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller, Kirsten Winter, Heinz Emigholz, Elke Krystufek, and their respective works. Of particular interest in the «Context» section are essays by Thomas Elsaesser and Randall Halle. Elsaesser, a longtime proponent of engaged, critical filmmaking, uses Besprechungen / Reviews 267 the work of Harun Farocki to reflect on the status of film and the image in contemporary society. In the process, he documents a process whereby radical filmmaking migrates from the cinema to the modern museum. Halle builds on a similar problematic, but focuses on the web and the resulting dematerialization of what he calls «expanded cinema’s» interventions in cyberspace. A must read for any young critics hoping to do scholarship on web-based art forms. Three essays in the «Case Studies» section also stand out: Alice Kuzniar’s essay on Bjørn Melhus, Robin Curtis’s contribution on Michael Brynntrup, and Larson Powell’s essay on Kirsten Winter. Kuzniar provides an excellent introduction to the work of Bjørn Melhus, an artist whose entire oeuvre is infused with images from American mass media - film and TV in particular. Though Melhus has been well received in the United States, with extended stays as well as exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles, he has yet to find a place on syllabi in American universities. Yet his work is an ongoing reflection upon his confrontations with American popular culture as a foreigner and the role it plays in identity formation. Robin Curtis’s essay «From the Diary to the Webcam: Michael Brynntrup and the Medial Self» provides another much needed introduction to a German artist who deserves more recognition in the United States. Through a discussion of the autobiographical form, Curtis discusses Brynntrup’s self-conscious construction of self as a medial entity. Larson Powell focuses on the work of Kirsten Winter and traces an interesting phenomenon typical of the trajectory of many experimental filmmakers: a move away from the broad, global problematic of attacking the institution of art and mainstream image making to a more local focus on the operation of perception and visual perception in particular. On the whole, the essays in this collection offer important contributions to an often-overlooked area of scholarship in German Studies and provide excellent introductions to artists and media practitioners whose works deserve more critical attention. After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and Austrian and Experimental Film is an indispensible acquisition for those working in the area of contemporary visual arts and film in the Central European and German-speaking context. University of Kentucky Jeff Rogers T ILLMANN K REUZER : König Kind? Literarische Figuren zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts in Werken der realistischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009. 231 pp. € 22. The question Tillmann Kreuzer poses in the title König Kind? refers to his observation that in contemporary German juvenile novels, spanning in the present study the period from the 1970s to 2003, the child protagonist contends with all the harsh realities that beset adults. Thus, «problem-oriented» realistic novels abandon fantasies of children’s sovereign abilities to overcome tragedy, injustice, and abuse. Authentic themes of personal, familial, and social conflicts, such as divorce, economic hardship, and death in the family would contrast with the former trend of the «anti-authoritarian» movement in German children’s literature, which invested the child protagonists 268 Besprechungen / Reviews with unrealistic powers to overcome all adversities. Kreuzer follows in this regard other critics who reject the ’68 generation’s perceived penchant for constructing a fictional «heile Welt» in which the child is «king.» One could presume that this critique would also apply to contemporary popular fantasy stories, such as the immensely popular book series Der kleine Vampir or Paul Maar’s make-believe animal stories, although Kreuzer never mentions these. In contrast to this alleged imaginary wholesome world, psychological realism in novels by German children’s authors Kirsten Boie, Peter Härtling, Christine Nöstlinger, Miriam Pressler and others delivers, in Kreuzer’s view, practical pedagogical tools for today’s «post-modern» children to cope with their troubles. According to Kreuzer, contemporary realistic German juvenile literature reflects a «post-modern» childhood, which he defines as presenting new familial constellations and non-traditional gender roles so that new forms of social interaction arise. Realistic children’s literature at its best also integrates narrative complexities approaching or equaling the standards of sophisticated adult literature. Although Kreuzer values primarily the representational relevance of these novels to the experience of their intended readers, literary quality also augments their pedagogical import. The bulk of König Kind? describes depictions of familial relations and the psyches of the child protagonists. Kreuzer refers to Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, C.G. Jung as well as numerous others from the psychoanalytic tradition in order to substantiate his assertions regarding the behavior of young characters in the novels, but he never applies a cohesive analytical framework to his interpretations. One promising assessment of childhood aggression, citing primarily Fromm and Alexander Mitscherlich, traces children’s hostility to their alienation from nurturers. (161-168) Analyses of similar depth and reflection would have improved the book immensely. Instead, superficiality tarnishes the credibility of König Kind? Sweeping unfounded generalizations, such as «Zentrale Figur im Leben jedes Menschen ist die Mutter» (92) or «Wir wissen, dass die Vater-Tochter-Beziehung von dem Wunsch der Tochter, den Vater für sich zu haben, geprägt ist» (122) exhibit a greater dependence on platitudes than on scholarship. Kreuzer makes several such pronouncements without substantiating his assumptions through supporting research and thoughtful interpretation. At least part of the problem stems from haphazard argumentation. For one, Kreuzer too often relegates theoretical references and support from empirical studies to footnotes, rather than integrating theory consistently into the analyses and conclusions. Moreover, the author appears unclear about his method of interpretation. For example, the abstract on the back cover suggests an anthropological approach, when in fact the author depends overwhelmingly on educational psychology and classic psychoanalysis; Kreuzer clearly reflects on mental and behavioral characteristics of characters in these children’s novels, and far less on culture. Poor transitions between paragraphs and sections further demonstrate that any coherence in the book depends more on lists under headings than on development of ideas. Stylistically this book reads like a preliminary draft. The author appears to have constructed a set of rubrics, organized characters and situations as if cross-referencing them from a catalogue of note cards, and then roughly knitted together his notes with sentences. As a result, ideas remain undeveloped. As a case in point, a paragraph Besprechungen / Reviews 269 on page 143 begins with an observation that animals contribute to the development of children. A list of such instances from several novels follows, and then the section just breaks off. Kreuzer neither reflects analytically on the relevance to the section’s overall theme of «Katalysatoren der kinderliterarischen Figuren» nor investigates any further the insights from empirical or theoretical research on such «catalysts» in childhood development, such as pets. Numerous awkward transitions between paragraphs and the persistent recourse to paraphrasing without critical examination indicate a promising idea for a monograph that emerged prematurely. One finds here neither the incisive scholarly interpretations of contemporary German children’s fiction exemplified in Gundel Mattenklott’s Zauberkreide (1989) nor the erudite polemics of the numerous essays by Hans-Heino Ewers of the past two decades. To be fair, Kreuzer’s book does not appear to be intended for literary scholars, but more likely for grade-school teachers who would use recent children’s literature in their classes. After all, he is writing from his perspective as a Diplom- Pädagoge. Even so, the lack of a well-structured theoretical base diminishes the book’s analytical integrity. Despite objections, König Kind? should interest teachers or future teachers who might read such realistic novels with their students, or university students beginning a study of Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. The table in the appendix provides a useful quick overview of the thematic family relations featured in the realistic novels under discussion; the bibliography includes an appropriate list of secondary literature, despite some glaring omissions, such as the recent series of studies on reading didactics edited by Norbert Groeben und Bettina Hurrelmann. So much has been published recently on fantasy literature for children, at least in part due to the phenomenal popularity in Germany of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, that Kreuzer’s emphasis on realism offers a timely contrasting parallel, even with the shortcomings of this book. Bloomsburg University Luke Springman S ABINE H AKE : Topographies of Class. Modern Architecture and Mass Society in Weimar Berlin. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2008. 323 pp. $ 85.00. Taking its inspiration from the «spatial turn» in cultural studies, this monograph focuses on the interplay between architecture, modernity, and mass society in Weimar Berlin. Drawing on a rich interdisciplinary inventory of literary, philosophical, photographic, and filmic texts to reconstruct Berlin’s urban realities and imaginaries, the author subdivides her investigations into the following seven thematic chapters. Chapter 1 «Setting the Scene: Weimar Berlin, circa 1920» gives an overview of the city’s development from the Wilhelmine to the Weimar years, telescoping its urban planning through Martin Wagner’s bold proposals for modern traffic squares and exemplifying it in the case study of Potsdamer Platz. Chapter 2 «Mapping Weimar Society: On Masses, Classes, and White-Collar Workers» and chapter 3 «Organizing the Modern Masses: New Building in Weimar Berlin» examine the rise of a white-collar class and its culture of «New Objectivity» and exemplify it through Erich Mendel- 270 Besprechungen / Reviews sohn’s «functionalist aesthetics» and Ludwig Hilberseimer’s urban vision of a highrise city. Chapter 4 «Walking in the Metropolis: The City Texts of Franz Hessel and Siegfried Kracauer» explores the city with a special focus on the Kurfürstendamm and further traces its multiple significations in the urban flaneries and hieroglyphics of Hessel and Kracauer, two of the most astute explorers and interpreters of modern cityscapes at that time. Chapter 5 «Picturing the New Berlin: Photography, Architecture, and Modern Mass Society» illustrates the connection between photography and architecture in the photographic works of Sasha Stone, Mario von Bucovich, and Laszlo Willinger and exemplifies it in the case study of the Mossehaus. Chapter 6 «Deconstructing Modern Subjectivity: On Berlin Alexanderplatz» and chapter 7 «Reconstructing Modern Subjectivity: On Berlin, Symphony of the Big City» highlight the dramatic changes and spectacular synergies of the Weimar metropolis in the novel by Alfred Döblin and the film by Walter Ruttmann, the two arguably most exemplary works of art representing and reflecting the Berlin of the Weimar Republic. Without exception, all chapters unfold as a rich tapestry of texts and theories exploring and interpreting the modern maze of urban realities and utopian imaginaries. Their dense narratives, always closely correlating description with abstraction, shed light on a wide variety of themes and leitmotivs, such as massification, proletarization and «Proletkult» (114), the containing and unleashing of crowds, social engineering, mechanization, Fordism, Taylorism, standardization and commodification, labor and leisure, the competing ideologies of Bolshevism and Americanization, Bauhaus, Neues Bauen and «Lichtarchitektur,» New Man and New Woman, life reform movement, garden city movement and de-urbanization, traffic as the central trope of the modern city, as well as aspects of allegorization, urban consciousness, the feminization of modern mass culture and its messianic mystique, architecture as a metropolitan «Gesamtkunstwerk,» and the «transcendental beauty of glass and steel» (113). Given the abundance of city stimulations, including the rising surface culture, commodity fetishism, photo journalism, the cinematic characteristics of the metropolis, and the spectacularization of its modern technologies, it is not surprising that the city’s most perceptive flaneurs like Hessel, Kracauer, and Walter Benjamin experience a kind of «Straßenrausch» (157) which in turn inspires their spirited descriptions of Weimar Berlin. Throughout this study, the hermeneutic principles of Benjamin’s «optical unconscious» and Edward Soja’s «socio-spatial dialectics» permeate and illuminate the multi-layered, multi-perspectival, and multi-voiced manifestations of the modern metropolis as well as their competing iconographies of the city as organism and machine. What is somewhat striking, given the tightly woven tapestries of the various chapters, is the fact that several thematic strands are not fully developed. As a first example one could quote the phenomenon of «absorption of the individual into a collective body, a process accompanied by experiences of regression, incorporation, and ecstatic surrender» (90). A reference to the party rallies of the Third Reich, culminating in the collective scream and delirious demand for total war could have helped to flesh out the pathological psychodynamics of such massification. A second example of suggestive ends not pursued might be the proliferation of the concept of «cult» such as «cult of movement,» «cult of flanerie,» «cult of distraction,» etc. One could Besprechungen / Reviews 271 reasonably make the case that these «cults» coalesce into a kind of surrogate religion, compensating for the «transcendental homelessness» which Georg Lukács had famously identified as the spiritual condition of modern man. When Bruno Taut, one of the leading theorists of urban utopias, wrote of the «cosmic character of architecture» (100), he pointed into that same elusive direction of a home lost and found. The other side of this utopian trajectory is not surprisingly the dystopian reality of modern mass housing. Its disastrous potential becomes most evident in Ludwig Hilberseimer’s proposal for a high-rise city which in his later exile he would denounce as a «necropolis» (131). Again, drawing parallels for example to post-World War II housing projects in New York City could have further corroborated his horror vision. By systematic extension, repeated references to cities comparable to Weimar Berlin, such as Paris, London, and New York, could have served to further accentuate the commonalities and differences in the evolution of modern megacities. Most strikingly, the architecture of glass and light which in Weimar city planning symbolized community and spirituality literally exploded in post-unification Berlin into a multitude of glass constructions ranging from Helmut Jahn’s translucent tent at Potsdamer Platz and the glass addition to the German Historical Museum by I.M. Pei, the celebrated «Magician of Light,» to Sir Norman Foster’s crystal cupola on the Reichstag and the gigantic glass palace of Berlin’s new central train station, to name but a few. Including these recent architectural constructions could have helped to crystallize the architectural reality of unified Berlin as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of Weimar’s urban imaginary. Last but not least, Berlin’s dialectics of utopian construction, apocalyptic deconstruction, and contemporary reconstruction as well as the artistic concepts of montage, citation, and collage, which inform and inspire especially Döblin’s and Ruttmann’s works of art, clearly substantiate Weimar’s architectural concept of «tabula rasa» and anticipate postmodern aesthetics, whose conceptual strategies could have easily been teased out in the study’s concluding summation. On the other hand, tying these various loose ends cohesively together into comprehensive conclusions might already be the proposal for a new and explicitly comparative and transnational study of the (post)modern metropolis and its international (post)metropolitan future. Accompanying the various chapters are circa sixty visual samples including drawings, photos, and magazine covers as well as an apparatus of extensive endnotes which cite and reference the rich body of secondary literature and pertinent theories. The study concludes with three indices of names, places, and titles, thus rounding out a well written, thoroughly researched, and all in all very convincingly argued exposition of one of the most complex and fascinating cultural periods in German history. Thus, Topographies of Class can stand as an illustrative model for the «spatial turn» in cultural studies and be highly recommended for students and scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. Old Dominion University Frederick A. Lubich 272 Besprechungen / Reviews R ICHARD T. G RAY : Money Matters: Economics and the German Cultural Imagination, 1770-1850. Seattle and London: U of Washington P, 2008. 476 pp. $ 30 (paperback); $ 70 (hardcover) Richard Gray’s Money Matters is a fascinating and highly readable study of the interdependence of the economic realm and the intellectual sphere in the years 1770 to 1850. Gray argues that, during this period, the «relative economic and political retardation coincide with a period of phenomenal intellectual, cultural, and literary blossoming» (10) in German-speaking lands. In eight chapters, Gray demonstrates the complicity of intellectual and economic discourse, thereby challenging the ideology of aesthetic autonomy. The first four chapters (Part I: «Economics and Intellectual Culture») consist of general cultural analyses, while the remaining chapters (Part II: «Literary Economies») are readings of specific literary texts. In the introduction, Gray establishes New Economic Criticism, founded on the reading of money as a semiotic system and materialist-historicist approaches, as the theoretical anchoring point for his study. In addition, Gray identifies Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory and its focus on culture and economics as closely interrelated communicative codes as another theoretical framework for Money Matters. The first chapter discusses the language theories of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johann Caspar Lavater, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Johann Georg Hamann. In it, Gray traces the gradual move from an intrinsic/ substantivist to a symbolic/ nominalist conception of linguistic signs, expressed in the authors’ metaphors comparing language to money. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the abstract value of money was increasingly highlighted with the introduction of paper money, which is reflected in these thinkers’ comparison of money and language as symbolic systems of signification. The investigation of the parallels between money and language in eighteenthand nineteenth-century discourse also informs the second and third chapters. The second chapter compares Adam Müller’s economic with Novalis’s semiotic theories. Gray interprets the entrepreneur’s spirit of commerce and the artist’s creative imagination as similar acts, both bartering for meaning in the communicative act. Gray argues that Müller and Novalis both outline protostructuralist semiotic theories despite the difference in their political ideologies. The third chapter compares Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s writings on language as a constitutive element of national identity to Adam Müller’s reflections on paper currency as a similarly important constituent of national identity. The symbolic and consequently local value of paper money contrasts with the intrinsic and therefore more universal value of metallic coin, making paper money an important element in national identity formation, similar to language. The fourth chapter explores the effects of the transition from a feudal/ agrarian to a bourgeois/ industrial economy in the context of the debate over physiocracy, often seen as the beginning of economic theory, by the late eighteenth-century German thinkers Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling and Johann Georg Schlosser. During this time, an increasingly industrial and capitalist economy of excess questioned the economic principles of an agriculture of subsistence. In this chapter, Gray demonstrates how the debate on imaginary economic needs is translated into a discussion of the Besprechungen / Reviews 273 role of the imagination in the realm of art. The discussion of Johann Heinrich Jung- Stilling in this chapter, the last one of Part I, provides the transition to Part II. The first chapter of the second part explores Jung-Stilling’s ambivalence towards an economy of excess in his Lebensgeschichte (1777-1804). Gray reads his autobiography as «a massive attempt to repress the socioeconomic motivations that informed his life decisions by disguising them as adherence to divine will, imposed upon the individual from above» (194). In Jung-Stilling’s life story, which is part of the German Pietistic Revival movement, economic hardship is resolved through a divine plan rather than individual initiative. Gray argues that, even though Jung-Stilling outwardly critiques the new capitalist economy, he implicitly buys into it as demonstrated in the crossovers between religious and economic terminology in his text, between God and «Geld.» The remaining three chapters analyze the intertwinement of economic and literary discourse in three pieces of literary fiction of the period, Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche, and Adalbert Stifter’s Bergkristall. Gray explores the image of the magic purse in Peter Schlemihl (composed 1813) as a critique of excess in the early nineteenth-century capitalist, industrialized, and colonialist economy. His discussion of Droste-Hülshoff’s 1842 novella investigates the debate on the concept of private property raised by the acts of wood poaching committed by the villagers in the story. These acts open the door to other transgressions in search of surplus value, which ultimately lead to the displacement of the villagers’ self-culpability onto an Other in anti-Semitic discourse. The effect of capitalist and industrialist economic realities on remote village life also stands at the center of the chapter on Adalbert Stifter’s novella Bergkristall (1845/ 1852). Gray concludes his study of economics and the German cultural imagination with a discussion of Goethe’s Faust II and its protagonist’s insatiable drive to acquire. He argues that «Faust’s story parallels in rough outlines the (hi)story of Central Europe from antiquity to the time of its consolidation as postaristocratic civil society in the 1830s» (357). Faust’s desire for excessive consumption is reflected in his building of dams to wrestle land from the sea for his utopian society and the introduction of paper money. Faust’s blindness makes him fail and becomes an «admonition to human beings not to pin their hopes for redemption on economic principles» (363). Money Matters is a thought-provoking and dense study of the intersections of intellectual and economic discourse in late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century German culture. Gray presents a highly original approach to some of the most canonical authors and texts of the German literary tradition. Gray’s theoretically-informed close readings shed new light on these texts’ significance for understanding the origins of present-day economic systems. Gray thereby highlights the complicity of intellectual and economic discourse not only in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but also in the early twenty-first century, which makes his book highly relevant reading in the context of the current fluctuations in the stock market and the worldwide economic crisis. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Stephanie M. Hilger 274 Besprechungen / Reviews E RNEST S CHONFIELD : Art and its Uses in Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull. London: Maney, 2008. 212 pp. $ 82. This book is volume 70 of the Modern Humanities Research Association’s Texts and Dissertations series. It is also volume 32 of the Bithell Series of Dissertations that is put out by the University of London’s Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies. The first of these series «promotes important work by younger scholars by making the most accomplished doctoral research available» (ii), while the second «publishes outstanding recent doctoral theses» (ii). The book’s inclusion in these series accordingly leads one to expect a very good dissertation indeed. By and large, it proves to be exactly that. Its preface states that its purpose is to «demonstrate why and how Felix Krull is a great novel,» to show that Krull is at once «entertaining and intellectually challenging - and that it possesses formal and conceptual richness on a grand scale» (vii). Schonfield’s book is also based on «the idea that identity and society are permeated with aesthetics» (vii), and it considers implications that Felix Krull has for understanding Mann’s entire oeuvre. Planned since 1902 but not published in its final form until 1954, the novel is «a unique summation of Mann’s career, revealing the remarkable continuity of his thought about art» (vii-viii). The introduction adds that Mann’s focus on the aesthetics of society and on art’s «involvement in the formation of the self and the community» (4) supplanted his initial theme of crime, deception, and illusion. It also tells how stressing the «highly socialized and sociable nature of Krull’s performances» (4) counters other scholars’ overemphasis on mythological aspects such as his resemblance to Hermes or Narcissus. Among other things, the book would thus show how art and aesthetics in Felix Krull are «constitutive elements of both social life and the life of the mind» (5). Schonfield then gives a preview of his three main chapters: the first treats «the involvement of art in the articulation and cultivation of the self» (5); the second discusses the «interaction and complicity between Bürger and Künstler» (5); the third examines narrative features showing the form of Felix Krull to be a «meta-commentary» on its «thematics» (6). As predicted, chapter 1 tells how Mann’s novel provides «a creatively adaptable model of identity» and «presents art and aesthetics as being central to the development of the individual subject» (9). Krull’s use of theatrical terms, for example, indicates how the novel at once portrays the theater as «a metaphor for human interaction» and offers a «dynamic model of identity» (13). Echoes of Dichtung und Wahrheit reveal how Mann’s own sense of himself as an artist changed as he began to imitate Goethe. In these as well as other ways, Felix Krull experiments with a less pessimistic consciousness, showing us that «building of the self takes place through a process of simulation and copying» (41). By contrast, chapter 2 is about community. Its principal thesis is that Krull is less a con man than a Lebenskünstler. His story may not be directly political, moreover, but it is Mann’s «fullest examination of the role of aesthetics in society» (78). Krull’s pimping for Rozsa suggests that this role is not always benign. The most interesting thing in this chapter is Schonfield’s claim that Mann’s defense of democracy in the Besprechungen / Reviews 275 1920s would not have been possible without the insight, gained during his writing of Felix Krull, that art depends on its audience’s assent. Such assent figures in chapter 3, too. This chapter shows how formal elements of Felix Krull «reinforce its exploration of art’s contribution to both individual identity and community» (131). It is both a Bildungsroman and a Gesellschaftsroman, for example, and its narrator addresses its reader in increasingly intimate terms - though it may be going too far to speak of Krull’s «seduction of the reader» (162). In short, «the narrative mode functions as a correlative of the theme, and as a reflection of it and upon it» (168). Put a different way, the main idea of this chapter is that «in Felix Krull, form mirrors content» (152). The conclusion underscores the importance of the scene in which Felix Krull sees the actor Müller-Rosé backstage, out of costume and out of character. That scene shows art working «not as an imposed illusion, but as a mutually agreed, deliberate pretence,» not as a deception, that is, but as «an imaginative exchange which relies upon an inter-subjective arrangement» (185). Thus implying its reader’s freedom, Mann’s novel harks back to Schiller’s aesthetics. With its emphasis on art, it can also be linked to the «great tradition of German philosophical aesthetics» (186). It lightens or relaxes that tradition; indeed, «its profundity resides in its lightness» (187). In the course of these several chapters, Schonfield draws on various theories and concepts, most notably on Judith Butler’s «performative theory of identity» (44), Walter Benjamin’s description of fascism as «eine Ästhetisierung des politischen Lebens» (121), Susan Sontag’s definition of camp (148), and Roland Barthes’s effet du réel (163). He does so judiciously, noting both the usefulness and the limits of each as it pertains to Mann’s specific case. He is similarly cautious about reading Felix Krull as an example of extreme postmodern notions of the self. Although he often calls the novel ludic, his approach to it is thus admirably eclectic. His study is not perfect, of course. His diction is not always as precise as it could be, his assertions sometimes abut each other rather abruptly, and his quotations are not always sufficiently introduced and interpreted. There are some unnecessary repetitions, moreover, and both art and aesthetics sometimes seem described too broadly. There are also far too many instances of phrases such as «In this section I will argue that […]» or as «What I intend to do here is […].» These phrases may be meant to help readers follow the argument, but when repeated so often they just get in its way. In sum, and despite some minor faults, this book merits its inclusion in both the MHRA and the Bithell dissertation series. Dartmouth College Ellis Shookman K ARIN B AUMGARTNER : Public Voices. Political Discourse in the Writings of Caroline de la Motte Fouqué. North American Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Literature 44. Bern & New York: Peter Lang, 2009. 276 pp. $ 61.95. Karin Baumgartner’s study is a welcome addition to the growing literature on women’s literary and social politics in the early nineteenth century and on Caroline de la 276 Besprechungen / Reviews Motte Fouqué (1773/ 5-1831). Much of the groundwork on Fouqué’s literary works had been laid by Jean Wilde (The Romantic Realist: Caroline de la Motte Fouqué, 1955), Birgit Wägenbaur (Die Pathologie der Liebe: Literarische Weiblichkeitsentwürfe um 1800, 1996), and Elisa Müller-Adams («… daß die Frau zur Frau redete» - Das Werk der Caroline de la Motte Fouqué als Beispiel für weibliche Literaturproduktion der frühen Restaurationszeit, 2003). The Fouqué Gesellschaft e.V. Berlin (promoting the work of both Fouqués) publishes a yearbook, and a reprint edition of Caroline de la Motte Fouqué’s major works appearing between 1811 and 1820 is now available. 1 In her innovative approach Baumgartner goes beyond the confines of a monograph on one woman author and focuses on Public Voices, on «how women writers seized the opportunity for political debate in the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars» (10). Baumgartner considers Fouqué’s and contemporary German women writers’ access to the literary market as an important venue to voice social and political ideas. Baumgartner deftly situates Fouqué into the socio-political life during the decades following the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and foregrounds her contributions to the ideas and ideologies of German nationhood formation. Fouqué was already known as a novelist and story writer when she found a public voice in her early writings such as Briefe über die griechische Mythologie für Frauen (1812) and Briefe über Zweck und Richtung weiblicher Bildung (1811) together with other essays on education, history, and fashion. Baumgartner rightly highlights Fouqué’s concern for the Prussian state and her commitment to political agency and rescues her from the reputation of being merely a conservative Prussian aristocrat, a reputation that self-styled progressive literary critics of the late twentieth century had attached to Fouqué and to all ‹Prussian Junkers.› Baumgartner can show Fouqué’s historical and cultural significance and her arguments for a revision of the prevailing sex-gender system as central to the social imaginary. The chapter on Fouqué’s literary use of and response to the French Revolution contains interesting readings of Magie der Natur (1812), the historical novels Das Heldenmädchen aus der Vendée (1816) and Die beiden Freunde (1824) as political voices. Baumgartner’s critically well-informed and careful analysis of women’s political role in the wake of the Revolution (including works by La Roche, Therese Huber, and Christine Westphalen) brings out the complexity of their arguments in addressing women’s contribution as historical subjects and, most important, the intersection of the public and the private sphere. Of equal interest and importance are the chapters on the role of gender, sociability, and politics and on the historical novel. Baumgartner observes that «Caroline Fouqué’s historical novels illustrate the literary and political tug-of-war between men and women, the state and its citizens, and uncover the many masks author and narratives wore to examine state politics in the public sphere» (198). The use of the term ‹public sphere› as a theoretical frame and the labeling of women’s writings of the era as ‹domestic fiction› are problematic aspects that recall de- 1 Caroline de la Motte Fouqué, Ausgewählte Werke. Nachdruckausgabe, herausgegeben, kommentiert und eingeleitet von Petra Kabus. 3 Bände in 4 Bänden, Hildesheim 2003- 2005. Besprechungen / Reviews 277 bates of the last century. Jürgen Habermas’s paradigm of the ‹public sphere› became popular with literary critics of the generation of ’68 and beyond and enjoyed a short revival in the US with the belated appearance of the English version The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989). In this theoretical framework critics used Habermas’s idea of the public sphere as a distinction between public and private issues thus separating issues that normally affected women around 1800 (aspects of family, reproduction, and nurture). And they continued to assign the label ‹domestic› to women’s fiction, thereby relegating it to the private realm and out of the discussion in the public sphere. This mostly transported, re-inscribed, and reinforced the notions and valuation of separate gender spheres from the 1800s. Replacing the outmoded ‹public sphere› in the twenty-first century with the more open concept of the ‹social imaginary› (as discussed in the wake of Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 2004) has been a step in the direction that Baumgartner’s focus on Public Voices has taken when she concludes that «a new theory of reading such domestic fiction takes these texts as literary and cultural documents involved in complex negotiations regarding the shape their communities needed» (239). Yet vexing questions remain: Why was there such a forceful, dominant tradition to exclude women from the political and the public, and why has this lasted for so long even beyond the rhetoric of the ’68ers? The Ohio State University Barbara Becker-Cantarino M ICHAEL M AREINER (E D .): «Von einer edlen Amme». Eine mittelhochdeutsche Minneallegorie. Wörterbuch und Reimwörterbuch. Mittelhochdeutsche Minnereden und Minneallegorien der Wiener Handschrift 2796 und der Heidelberger Handschrift Pal. germ. 348. Vol. 8. Bern & New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 378 pp. € 64,20. For the past four decades, Michael Mareiner has devoted his energy to preparing for publication the Middle High German Minnereden and Minneallegorien of manuscripts principally in Prague (R VI Fc 26), Vienna (2796), and Heidelberg (Pal. germ. 348). Individual works are presented first in the form of edition and translation, followed by a separate dictionary and rhyme dictionary. The present volume, a dictionary and rhyme dictionary to the allegory «Von einer edlen Amme,» supplements the work’s edition and translation, published in 1993 and based on the Heidelberg manuscript. A brief preface offers minimal context for the present volume’s provenance. Terms are glossed and arranged, with few and so noted exceptions, according to normalized Lexer/ BMZ spelling convention. Entries are followed by the respective Lexer/ BMZ lemmatization and definition, line references, and citations (including variants). The dictionary is supplemented by a rhyme dictionary and index of orphans. A brief bibliography and subsequent listing of Mareiner’s publications concludes the work. A work of this type stands largely on its accuracy and, to a lesser degree, on such aesthetic elements as aid in its ‹user friendliness,› e.g., layout, font type and attributes, formatting, etc. 278 Besprechungen / Reviews With respect to accuracy, Mareiner has on the whole done a thorough job of editing. The entry blœse (42) should read bœse. In view of the manuscript orthography, Mareiner’s decision to use normalized Lexer/ BMZ spelling is justified. On several occasions, however, Mareiner opts for subordinate, context-sensitive meaning(s) in glossing terms, which may mislead an unfamiliar user to infer primary, rather than subsidiary, meaning(s). For example, bilde is glossed only as «Vorbild.» Likewise, name is glossed only as «Stand; Person.» An explanatory reference such as «Hier: […]» would have been helpful to deal with such cases. Layout and font attribute choices generally aid in user friendliness. Several inconsistencies do, however, compromise the impression of a carefully edited text. Foremost among these is Mareiner’s decision to opt for more than a dictionary per se, since most of the entries also include an index and concordance, often for the same entry, albeit not consistently. Fully four pages, for example, are in this way taken up by an index and lemmatized concordance for tuon. Similarly, daz merits more than six pages. Certain ubiquitous and largely self-explanatory glosses, e.g., articles and pronouns, could have been omitted without detriment to the volume’s essential purpose and value. Multiple, nested parenthetical notations further detract from rapid, efficient reference. In some cases, Mareiner cannot escape the impression of arbitrariness in the assignment of meaning(s). The entry for zuht, for example, references six meanings and proceeds in a three-page concordance of all instances in the text to assign one meaning parenthetically to each citation. The context is in most cases simply not specific enough to allow for such restrictive assignments. The decision to include a lemmatized index and concordance with the dictionary expands the work considerably in volume, albeit not necessarily in scope, yet the usefulness of the concordance seems compromised in the absence of widespread familiarity with, or access to, the full text itself. Recourse to the full text itself would, of course, make the concordance largely redundant. The present volume’s stand-alone value is hence a matter of legitimate concern. On the whole, the added concordance, arbitrary indexing, and space-consuming inclusion of common lemma gives a somewhat inconsistent and ‹padded› impression. This does not, however, detract from its essential usefulness with respect to the manuscript’s orthography and documentation of the critical vocabulary of Middle High German Minnereden. The work would have benefitted from some fundamental editorial considerations to focus its scope, remedy inconsistencies, and to review the glosses with respect to primary and subsidiary meanings. Stripped of its excess indexes and concordance, the work may have been considerably shorter, yet no less useful as an entry in Mareiner’s valuable series of editions, translations, and lexica of the manuscripts’ Minnereden and Minneallegorien. Lastly, the present volume, appearing some fourteen years after the original edition and translation of «Von einer edlen Amme,» should have included at least a brief introduction to the work itself, to situate it in the larger context of the manuscript tradition and literary genre. Likewise, the rhyming dictionary deserves a more solicitous introduction than Mareiner’s intertextual reference to a previous work from Besprechungen / Reviews 279 2003: «Über den Sinn und Zweck eines Reimwörterbuches ist alles Nötige bereits früher gesagt worden» (305). University of Wisconsin-Parkside Siegfried Christoph H ILLARY H OPE H ERZOG , T ODD H ERZOG and B ENJAMIN L APP (E DS .): Rebirth of a Culture: Jewish Identity and Jewish Writing in Germany and Austria Today. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008. vi + 193 pp. $ 75. As both Todd Herzog and Dagmar C.G. Lorenz observe, the reception of contemporary Germanand Austrian-Jewish writers has so far been limited to two small and distinct audiences: American and German Germanists. Part of the aim of Rebirth of a Culture is to resolve this problem by introducing these authors to a larger English-speaking audience from both a scholarly and a personal perspective. Rebirth of a Culture is the result of a seminar developed and led by Lorenz who also provides an introduction to the volume that does as marvelous a job of highlighting the critical relevance of such a work as it does of sketching the topography of Germanand Austrian-Jewish writing since 1945. The particular strength of this book as a whole lies in its transatlantic scope, probing «cross-fertilization as well as conflicts, intellectual debates that reach beyond the boundaries of German-speaking countries» (1). The collection demonstrates that «Germanand Austrian-Jewish writing at the turn of the millennium is local and global, aware of the interconnectedness of Jewish concerns and world history» (5). These expanding spheres of relevance make it possible for the authors to introduce new and provocative viewpoints on Jewish identity in Europe and North America, which most of the essays in Rebirth of a Culture in fact do. There is so much of value in this book that it is difficult to do it justice in a short review; it offers both an accessible overview as well as in-depth discussion, and my only quibbles with the book arise from a desire to learn more. Rebirth of a Culture is divided into four sections: the first three consisting of scholarly essays, the fourth of a selection of short, original texts by Barbara Honigmann, Esther Dischereit, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The essays by Cathy S. Gelbin, Petra Fachinger, Richard Bodek, and Hillary Hope Herzog make it clear that the existing historical and geographical categorizations in Germanophone Jewish literary studies need to be reevaluated and new directions to be explored. Particularly vocal in this direction are Gelbin’s article on the trope of the Golem, in which she argues that «it is precisely because of the shared history of the Golem tradition that this trope lends itself to the negotiation of European-Jewish identity on the cusp of a new millennium and political era» (31), and Bodek’s comparison of Stefan Heym’s novels with his obituaries. Bodek’s essay demonstrates that the media attention on Heym’s political affiliation undermined the positions he pursued in his writing and reminds us that the biography and reception of any author are bound to specific moments in history. The impact of the Nazi genocide on the very idea of history prompts Robert Menasse’s layered engagement of historical discourse, as Margy Gerber discusses in her article on Menasse’s Die Vertreibung aus der Hölle. 280 Besprechungen / Reviews Iris Bruce’s historical analysis argues for a global appeal of Kafka while pointing out that transcontinental evocations of Kafka demonstrate clear and important divergences. Her essay makes a strong argument for sustained consideration of the North American reception of German-Jewish authors. Todd Herzog also addresses this issue in his essay, «Literary Encounters between German Jews and Americans.» Arguing, as does Hillary Hope Herzog, that specific urban spaces make certain discussions and questions possible, Herzog moves from the image of America in German-Jewish literature - as both a space of varying degrees of «authentic» Jewishness and a space to argue more freely about what it means to be Jewish after the Holocaust - to German-Jewish literature in America, which enjoys a limited audience but freedom to, as Herzog suggests (and Jeffrey Peck has suggested), assert criticisms and questions that are not possible in Germany. Benjamin Lapp’s introduction to the work and significance of Ruth Klüger and Marcel Reich-Ranicki supports Herzog’s argument. While both writers consciously keep a distance from the land of their native language, their work in literary criticism ultimately preserves a German cultural identity. Challenging Todd Herzog’s argument is Roland Dollinger’s «Anti-Semitism because of Auschwitz,» a portrait of journalist Henryk M. Broder who does pose such questions and criticisms in Germany. The fact that Broder needs an introduction in North America is curious; one would think such a critical voice would have been lionized by a region celebrated for its relative freedom for criticism, and his absence suggests that North America is disturbingly unaware of critical voices abroad. German-Jewish literature may have much to gain from even its limited audience in North America, but North America sorely needs the introduction provided by Rebirth of a Culture. The texts by Honigmann, Dischereit, Lander, and Rabinovici also focus on the significance of estrangement, on multiple and shifting perspectives, and are especially interesting for their stylistic differences. Since the authors themselves were present at the seminar, some discussion of their texts would be welcome, but is, alas, absent. Bettina Brandt’s interview with Barbara Honigmann covers her literary and theatrical history, conventional versus experimental writing, Ostalgie, and being undeniably German in France. Esther Dischereit’s «Behind the Tränenpalast,» an amazingly effective text of disorientation, mixes voices and time frames in a confrontation of divergent viewpoints of objects. Jeanette Lander provides a case study of herself, analyzing the development of her own writing as a Jewish American who came to live in Germany after the war. She critiques her own position of forgiveness and understanding and concludes that her work «hit the wrong note for readers in Germany» (179). The volume ends on an upbeat note in Doron Rabinovici’s short text Mischmasch or Mélange, in which he studies a photograph of his 1976 class in Vienna, observing that «out of the two-sided necessity of not belonging I made a double virtue» (184). Together the four texts galvanize the overall argument of Rebirth of a Culture. The Shoah is still a constant presence, but as historical distance grows and generations with different relationships to the Shoah and its legacy come of age, we must reevaluate and resituate its impact and relevance. This volume, especially in light of its transatlantic scope, is a thrilling step in that direction. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Jennifer M. Hoyer