The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt Martin P. Sheehan Tennessee Tech University Abstract: This article examines the final scene of group portraiture in Marieluise Fleißer’s Pioniere in Ingolstadt (1968). Despite their initial defiance, the title soldiers eventually allow a local photographer to take their collective portrait, which the Pioneers seem to automatically sit for and then purchase for themselves even though they are eager to forget the crimes they perpetrated in the community. This essay applies Pierre Bourdieu’s work on group photography to explore the conflict between the soldiers, the citizens of Ingolstadt, and the photographer’s camera while illuminating how photography can both damage and (re)build social groups. Two characters exploit photography’s reflexive rituals for differing reasons: the Pioneer Rosskopf seeks excitement by sabotaging the soldiers’ cyclical existence while the photographer seeks to eternally connect the Pioneers to the community they have damaged as a form of justice. In this manner, group photography, its attending rituals, and its meaning to social groups demonstrate how Fleißer’s work promises a delayed “happy end,” thereby justifying its generic distinction as a comedy. Keywords: photography, Bourdieu, comedy, Fleißer, reflexivity As the 1968 version of Marieluise Fleißer’s comedy Pioniere in Ingolstadt closes, one thing is clear: none of the army engineers want a souvenir of their time in Ingolstadt, a small community in provincial Bavaria. With their construction project finished - a wooden bridge over the Danube - the Pioneers have reasons to move on: They leave behind civilians like Fabian, an innocent seventeen-year-old whom they have terrorized and attacked; Alma, a servant girl whom they have enticed into a life of prostitution; the female protagonist Berta, Alma’s friend, seduced and abandoned by Korl, a Pioneer and the 82 Martin P. Sheehan male protagonist of the drama; and, lastly, the Pioneers’ sergeant, whom the soldiers intentionally watch drown in the strong current of the Danube after being caught and pulled overboard by a swiftly moving anchor line. While the group is waiting for their bridge to pass final inspection in the last scene, one Pioneer notes, “Ich vergesse schon, daß wir hier waren” - a line delivered with more detachment than regret (180). Understandably, the Pioneers want to leave behind the assaults, thefts, sexual exploitations, and involuntary manslaughter that the group has perpetrated during their time in Ingolstadt. They anticipate the next town, the next construction project, and the next group of “Mädchen” they will seduce, conquer, and abandon (181). Given this urge to press on, we can understand why, when a photographer arrives during the bridge’s inspection and hawks his services, promising “ein kleines Souvenir an den Aufenthalt der Pioniere in Ingolstadt,” one soldier dismissively remarks, “Denkste” (183). With a physical bridge built and so many metaphoric bridges burnt, the Pioneers have no desire to look back. Yet, this closing scene finds members of the Pioneer corps posing for the photographer not once, but twice. Despite their prior sarcasm, the Pioneers comply when the photographer calls out to the collective, “stellen Sie sich auf” (183). They do not merely assemble themselves and follow the photographer’s instructions for how to pose. After the picture has been taken, eight Pioneers also step up to the photographer, one by one, to supply their names, submit their payments, and then collect their receipts to insure that they receive their individual copies of the portrait in the next town. Moreover, Münsterer, the Pioneer who most clearly expressed the corps’ detachment and most vehemently declined the idea of a souvenir portrait, actually advocates for the medium. The photographer thanks and then entrusts Münsterer with the “Durchschlag der Sammelquittung,” transforming the once reluctant soldier into the group photo’s guarantor (184). That the platoon would devote so much time and attention to these photographs, though, seems puzzling. It is unclear why they sit for, purchase, and then assist these instances of portraiture when the images will forever connect the Pioneers with the city, crimes, and people they wish to forget. Exploring the conflict between the Pioneers and the camera, though, illuminates photography’s often overlooked socially integrative methods and effects. The rituals surrounding group photography compel individuals to integrate themselves into collectives by forcing them to capitulate to the camera that will mechanically capture and eternalize their social connection. While this integration ritual is usually automatic, sometimes a struggle ensues when individuals realize unconsciously that submitting themselves to the medium is not in their best interest. Because the Pioneers initially demur and eventually yield to the medium, the play reveals the normally invisible manner in which photography The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 83 forges, visualizes, and memorializes the connections between a social collective and a specific geographic and temporal location. As close readings of the dialog and stage directions demonstrate, in pushing back against photography, the soldiers in Pioniere in Ingolstadt reify the struggle between the individual and society, that is, between explicit individual desires to break social bonds and the inherent communal obligation to (re)build them. To illustrate how and why the medium performs this work, I first outline Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of group photography to establish how group portraits traditionally serve a positive function by evincing and reinforcing social connection. By breaking down what Bourdieu ambiguously calls “photographic practice” into a threepart heuristic, I demonstrate how group photography generally serves a socially constructive function by compelling individuals to submit themselves to a larger collective and to link themselves to a specific time and place. When we apply this heuristic to the sequence of portraiture in the comedy’s final scene, we can more easily discern why the subjects find themselves struggling with the reflexive ritual of photography, a practice so common that its motivations, products, and consequences are easy to overlook. Moreover, by using Bourdieu to interpret photography in the work, I hope to clarify how Fleißer’s text functions as a comedy. 1 Extending Helmut Arntzen’s definition of dramatic comedy as a genre that deals with “menschlichen Konflikten und ihrer möglichen und notwendigen Lösung,” I understand that any valid “Lösung” within the genre must necessarily be a social solution, one that affirms, normalizes, or otherwise stabilizes a community in resolving a plot’s conflicts (18). In Fleißer’s text, group photography represents the only viable, social solution to the human problems precipitated by the Pioneers’ stay in Ingolstadt, though these photographs are produced via an unlikely partnership between the nameless photographer character and Rosskopf, the most disaffected and destructive Pioneer. Although each of these characters represents opposing sides of the work’s central conflict, both want the photograph to be taken, albeit for different reasons: The photographer figure, an unlikely agent of social justice, connects the soldiers eternally with the community that they have damaged. In this way, the soldiers’ group photograph becomes an artifact of their anti-social behavior, an incriminating document that, once captured, printed, and distributed, has the potential to destroy the Pioneers’ own social and familial connections. For Rosskopf, the portraits are long-term pranks on the Pioneers, jokes with delayed punchlines aimed at destabilizing his group’s connections. With their fallout, he can vent his persistent ennui and envy caused by the Pioneers’ cyclical existence. Thus, while both Rosskopf and the photographer demonstrate a Bourdieusian understanding of how group photography functions, they both wish to subvert the traditionally constructive document of a group portrait into 84 Martin P. Sheehan a destructive tool albeit for differing purposes. For Rosskopf, the portrait is a delayed explosion of harmful amusement. For the photographer, the portrait is a tool of recovery and justice. In this manner, photography helps Fleißer’s comedy achieve its “happy end” by impacting the Ingolstadt and Pioneer communities in a contradictory manner. Photography’s significance in Pioniere in Ingolstadt has yet to receive the sustained scholarly attention that it deserves. 2 Most investigations of the text focus on Brecht’s relationship with Fleißer, how Fassbinder and Kroetz “rediscovered” her and her work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and how these relationships with Brecht, Fassbinder, and Kroetz demonstrated in differing ways an “apparent lack of control over or ownership of her own work” (Colvin 158). 3 Beyond such biographical and authorial concerns, critics have explored themes of gender relations, sexual violence, and the commodification of sexuality in Pioniere in Ingolstadt specifically, as well as how the text critiques social hierarchies (see McGowan, Fleißer 58; McGowan, “Kette und Schuß” 19-21). These studies offer insights, to be sure, but none attempts to make sense of photography in Pioniere in Ingolstadt even though each of the play’s three versions ends with portraits being taken. Group photographs connect people, according to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In his 1965 sociological study of the medium, Photography: A Middle-brow Art, Bourdieu argues that photographic portraits taken of groups or families are eternally positive objects that “[capture] festive events, [give] expression to a collective memory, [consecrate] social identity, and [celebrate] leisure” (Vromen 157). At times, though, it is challenging to see the photographic products and the rituals that produce them as distinct. If we wish to investigate photography’s socially constructive effect more clearly, it is vital that we explore Bourdieu’s understanding of group photography and its effects by studying photographs as objects and also the processes that produce them. We can do this most effectively, I believe, by dividing the photographic practice as Bourdieu defines it into three discrete phases: a photograph’s socially determined motivation, its visual composition, and its eventual distribution and analysis. Doing so demonstrates how the phases of the photographic process (i.e., the moments before, during, and after the group portrait is taken) all illustrate and reciprocally strengthen an overall sense of social cohesion. Before the group members pose together for a camera, they share a reflexive impulse in Phase 1. The desire, the drive, the motivation that inspires the members of a group to either produce a camera of their own or to submit themselves to an outsider’s camera is often so deeply internalized that it arises automatically (that is, as a reflex). The portrait ceremony, according to Bourdieu, “expresses the celebratory sense in which the family group gives to itself, and which it The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 85 reinforces by giving it expression, the need for photographs, and the need to take photographs” (19). Therefore, the group portrait is also reflexive in that the recipient of the photograph (i.e., the group) is also the photographed object. The other reflexive impulse comes from the desire for the collective to commemorate and later observe themselves and their connection. Once the camera appears in Phase 2, the subjects assemble themselves or are assembled by others to create a display of social cohesion. In such a display, the group attempts to maximize signs that visualize connection and intimacy between the members in various ways, or as Bourdieu writes: subjects are shown pressed against one another (always in the centre of the picture), often with their arms around one another. People’s eyes converge towards the camera so that the whole picture points to its own absent centre. (81) By immortalizing these gestures of social cohesion, the camera marks the high points of collective celebration, thereby optimizing the utility of the gift that the group gives itself. After the shutter closes, Phase 3 begins. The group members develop, print, and present the photographs to themselves. Accordingly, these shared images exhibit and strengthen bonds within the group. When members possess their own picture of the larger group, a network is created that connects recipients through their common possession. Moreover, once these group portraits are distributed and collected by the group, members will often place the image in an album, a compendium of visual documents that similarly commemorate highpoints of social integration. The album’s many pages of images create even larger, stronger networks, as the accretion of images demonstrates an individual’s diverse group affiliations, which can in turn connect the most disparate members of each group. Along with possession, document analysis also plays a role in this third phase of photographic practice. Once the physical connection of the collective pose has ended, the group might easily disintegrate, but group portraits prevent the bonds between members from dissolving. In reading the photos, the group can remind itself of the highpoint of social connection, and in this way, photographic practice’s final phase reminds the group of all the prior stages: in analyzing a group photograph either passively or actively, the group reminds itself of phase 1, the shared desire to commemorate the collective; phase 2, the perhaps tacit way in which the group members organized themselves in front of the camera; and phase 3, the network of shared possession. The group photo is therefore, according to Bourdieu, always a constructive document that arises unconsciously from the group’s need to express, document, and stabilize itself as well as the connection between its members. 86 Martin P. Sheehan But not all photographic portraits operate as Bourdieu suggests. Indeed, when analyzed, the group photo at the end of Pioniere in Ingolstadt reveals that it is constructed differently and for different reasons. As argued below, the soldiers do not wish to express their connection, they do not wish to document their connection, nor do they wish to stabilize their connection. To be sure, it is the photographer not the group itself that activates the Pioneers’ desire for the portrait; it is the camera’s operator that appeals to the group’s unconscious desire. Although the soldiers initially oppose him and his camera, the photographer is able to convince the group with a rhetorical approach that simultaneously individuates members of the collective while speaking to the collective as a whole. In contrast to the group portrait that will visually unite them with the community of Ingolstadt, the Pioneers are emotionally removed from their surroundings as the final scene of Fleißer’s comedy begins. As they put the finishing touches on the bridge, with equal parts alacrity and nihilism they observe how they will soon be moving on: after one Pioneer remarks that they will already be gone tomorrow when the bridge is officially opened, others observe with aloofness “eine Stadt ist wie die andere,” and how it seems “[…] es sind immer die gleichen Flüße. Am frühen Morgen ist die Luft immer rauh” (181). Ingolstadt represents nothing novel or special to them; it is simply another place to build a bridge in an eternal and interchangeable cycle of arrival, construction, depravity, decadence, inspection, and departure. The Pioneers exhibit no extraordinary desire to document their time in Ingolstadt. Indeed, as one Pioneer remarks, even though they are physically present in the town, psychically they are “schon nicht mehr da” (180). Given this shared sense of removal or disassociation and the effect of social integration that Bourdieu claims photographs have, it seems difficult to understand why and how the photographer convinces the soldiers to submit to his camera. Although the soldiers initially deride the idea of a group portrait, the photographer nevertheless entices the group to assent to the portrait by using a variety of gestures and linguistic constructions that activates, leverages, and at times negates the sense of social obligation that motivates group photographs. To be fair, the photographer’s method could be seen as jumbled or haphazard. With so many different parts and approaches, his pitch might seem to lack any defining features. His patter, though, is more than just an unfocused advertisement. When analyzed and considered in sum, everything that the photographer says and does is motivated by one drive: to get the Pioneers to sit for and then purchase a group portrait. In the pursuit The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 87 of this goal, the photographer’s approach is ambivalent, simultaneously direct and indirect, active and passive, planned and extemporaneous, personalized and depersonalizing, Even before he appears on the scene, the photographer works to gain the group’s united attention. The stage directions note the photographer arrives with a cacophony - “Fotograf nähert sich mit klappendem Werbegeräusch” - and in noting the camera’s noise, the text demonstrates how the photographer, perhaps involuntarily, unites the Pioneers (183). The clatter causes the entire group to glance over at him in one unified movement; all their heads turn to look at the same thing at the same time. This shared gesture implicitly brings them together. As a group, they become a unified viewing subject, taking in the same events around them, moving their heads as one, and observing as a collective. Similarly, the photographer’s language unites the Pioneers. 4 After lumping the soldiers together with the greeting “meine Herren,” the photographer consolidates the collective further through pronouns: “Sie haben uns diese feste Brücke gebaut, damit uns an Sie ein dauerndes Andenken bleibt. Sicher werden auch Sie den Wunsch verspüren, daß Sie ein kleines Souvenir an den Aufenthalt der Pioniere in Ingolstadt mitnehmen.” (183). An antimetabole stresses the reciprocal nature of this transaction’s first part. In addressing the Pioneers, the photographer speaks as a representative of his own social collective, the people of Ingolstadt, and thereby gives voice to social expectation, which in turn taps the internal social motivation of the group photograph. The Pioneers, he announces, have given the community the bridge so that the community will remember the Pioneers. What is implied next (but not articulated) is a parallel antimetabole: the community will give the Pioneers a photograph so that the Pioneers can remember the community. Yet, this second construction is avoided completely. The photographer, instead, focuses solely on the Pioneers: “Sicher werden auch Sie den Wunsch verspüren, daß Sie ein kleines Souvenir an den Aufenthalt der Pioniere in Ingolstadt mitnehmen” (183). He elides any mention of his fellow citizens as objects or agents, which makes sense when viewed through a Bourdieusian lens: The photographer’s goal here is to activate the reflexive drive inherent in the photographic ritual. Since the impulse to document the group must arise within the group itself, he will best accomplish this by avoiding any further mention of his own community. The repeated mention of the first person pronoun “uns” falls away, leaving behind only the focus on “Sie,” the soldiers. The Pioneers, as the dialog suggests, become the sole focus for good reason: by intimating and then circumventing the Pioneers’ obligation to Ingolstadt, the photographer triggers the reflexive behavior. This focus, though, is indeterminate, simultaneously engaging the group as a whole and each individual Pioneer. Every “Sie” that the photographer utters 88 Martin P. Sheehan here functions ambivalently as a direct address to the group (second person, plural, formal) and to each individual group member (second person, singular, formal). In intimating the Pioneers’ “Wunsch” for a memento, the photographer again evokes the reflexive nature of the photographic process. Not only would the photograph be a gift that the group gives itself, it would be a gift that each individual Pioneer gives to the other Pioneers. The external social pressure the photographer applies here is too great to ignore, which explains on one level why the Pioneers yield. While he might hail the group collectively when he arrives, his subsequent pitch can simultaneously address each individual Pioneer. The pitch then begins to depersonalize the Pioneers. Although he could easily pitch the souvenir to the group as a reminder “an Ihren Aufenthalt in Ingolstadt,” the photographer instead distances the group from itself with the construction “an den Aufenthalt der Pioniere in Ingolstadt” (emphasis added, 183). This construction allows the Pioneers to view the photo opportunity more objectively. Instead of the portrait being proposed directly to the Pioneers, this phrasing suggests the Pioneers are some distant group. The more formal, impersonal construction looks past the personal resistance that the Pioneers have expressed. “An den Aufenthalt der Pioniere in Ingolstadt” offers a distant vantage point: there is no talk of you, your, us, our, or even “here.” The wording presents the image as a souvenir of someone’s stay somewhere, not “your stay here.” When viewed in this manner, the ritual aspect of the current photograph becomes paradoxically clearer: given that a group of Pioneers are leaving a place after having built a community a bridge, it is normal to expect that the group take a memorial photograph. Depersonalizing the terms of the portrait counter intuitively increases the personal desire. By avoiding a reflexive construction here, the photographer paradoxically makes a stronger case for the portrait’s reflexive motivation. The photograph, he makes clear, is not something that the city will give to the Pioneers - that would imply a reciprocal transaction that connotes an amicable acceptance that in turn would cement a connection. Likewise, the portrait is not something the group gives or awards itself - both positive and constructive ways to frame the photographic ritual. The souvenir is instead presented as an extraction, a final bit of plunder taken along - as the verb “mitnehmen” denotes - as they leave Ingolstadt behind. Speaking to the group’s shared desire to leave, the verb “mitnehmen” itself implies movement, an immanent departure with a token, in this case less a memento than a trophy. Instead of receiving a memento from the community, the Pioneers will withdraw it and withdraw with it; in this manner, the photographer conceals, redefines, and presents the ritual’s nature. A constant shift of agency marks this phase. As their active, vocal mockery suggests, the soldiers oppose the group portrait; rhetoric and reason alone can- The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 89 not convince them. The only way, it seems, the portrait can be made is if the photographer can continue to transform them into an unthinking mass, a group governed by reflex instead of reason. Multiple elements of the photographer’s dialog blur the lines between agencies, making it unclear who is in control and who is being controlled: FOTOGRAF. So, stellen Sie sich auf, meine Herren, Sie gruppieren sich zwanglos, die großen Herren nach hinten - Pioniere stellen sich auf. Die hinteren stehen, die mittleren knien, die vorderen liegen, damit ich alle ins Bild bringe, damit jeder Charakterkopf draufkommt. Schauen Sie nicht in den Apparat. Er knipst. (183) The dialog here separates the Pioneers from themselves, as nearly everything the photographer says seems designed to split their conscious and unconscious mind so that they will submit. It is within this composition phase that we observe the reflexive nature of photographic practice and the tension between external and internal agency at the root of photography. First, the photographer moves between obvious imperative and implied indicative moods as well as between the second person and third person. While his first line in this phase is a clear imperative - “So, stellen Sie sich auf, meine Herren” - he delivers the rest of his directions as veiled commands that carry the semantic intent of an imperative while lacking the mood’s grammatical structure. His direct address and command are followed by a phrase (“Sie gruppieren sich zwanglos”) that functions indistinctly as a command and a description. He is both telling the Pioneers what to do and telling them what they are doing in the same way a hypnotist might control an entranced subject through suggestion. In narrating the Pioneers’ actions, the photographer simultaneously dictates these actions so that no one knows where the photographer’s agency ends and the Pioneers’ begins. In this manner, the repeated use of “Sie” also blurs a line. Previously while delivering his patter, the photographer used “Sie” to address the Pioneers collectively and individually, thereby activating the reflexive ritual so that the group members would award the group with a portrait. Here, in phase 2 of the ritual, “Sie” takes on a third denotation: the third person plural. When the pronoun is heard and not read, “Sie” in the phrase “Sie gruppieren sich zwanglos” can also become “sie,” further transforming this indirect imperative into an observation from a removed observer. This would speak to the further and more complete dissolution of the conscious and unconscious minds of the Pioneers. In this ambiguous movement from second person to third person, the Pioneers become even more disassociated from their thinking minds. This trend continues as the 90 Martin P. Sheehan next phrase completely abandons the simultaneously second person and third person “Sie”/ ”sie” for a fully impersonal subject instead: “die großen Herren nach hinten” (183). It is as if they are already watching or recalling the actions that lead to the portrait being taken. To be sure, there are other ways to explain this trend in the scene. This verbal phenomenon could be an attempt to avoid stylistic repetition. Alternatively, in organizing the portrait through indirect commands, the photographer could simply be adopting a more polite tone during this social transaction. While this could be true, multiple imperatives would suggest that the Pioneers are being forced into having their picture taken. Too many commands might make the Pioneers lash out, thereby scuttling the portrait. Thus, by avoiding direct commands, the photographer entices the Pioneers to comply; he draws attention away from himself and makes it appear as if the Pioneers themselves are fully in control, as if they are coming together “zwanglos” (183). This necessarily implies that there are reasons why they would not or should not comply. Coupled with this movement away from direct commands, the photographer’s agency is further minimized and obscured here. In continuing his line of indirect, alternative commands, the photographer guides the Pioneers as they compose their picture: “Die hinteren stehen, die mittleren knien, die vorderen liegen” (183). This string of indirect commands then leads to an explanation, “damit ich alle ins Bild bringe,” that the photographer quickly rephrases as “damit jeder Charakterkopf draufkommt” (183). This restatement downplays the photographer’s role. The Pioneers alone are optimizing the image while the camera’s operator appears to be only a bystander to the ritual. The soldiers, it would seem, are creating the image for themselves. Thus, the photographer’s single use and immediate correction of “ich” here is significant. Since his arrival, the character has avoided the first-person singular pronoun. To be sure, his pitch did feature “uns,” however even that usage was tied directly to the Pioneers; he was stressing how great the Pioneers were for building the bridge for the citizens of Ingolstadt. “Uns” in this latter occurrence remains an indirect object in the transaction, located firmly in the background; that is, until the camera shutter opens. Immediately after the stage direction “er knipst,” the photographer asserts his individual identity and agency. Not only is the first word he utters “ich,” each of the three phrases he says begin with the first person singular pronoun: “Ich bitte um Angabe der werten Adressen, ich kassiere sofort, ich entwickle noch heut” (183) Before they submit themselves to the photographic ritual, the photographer continues to convince the Pioneers by describing the group photograph as an indeterminate object, something that is simultaneously quotidian yet magical, concrete yet metaphysical: “Das Bild beschwert Sie nicht, es findet in jeder The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 91 Brieftasche Platz und es kostet fast gar nichts, in der Gruppe pro Mann nur drei Mark. Sie können das Bild hervorholen in jedem freien Augenblick” (183). Continuing the pattern of ambiguity, “jeder” denotes here either “every” or “each” - there is room for the image in each wallet or in every wallet. “Jed-” refers to every individual Pioneer together with the others in the group or each individual Pioneer for himself. The photographer thus creates a web of possession that is more intimate than expected. While Bourdieu notes that recipients often place their group photographs in albums that are stored within the intimate sphere of the home, the Pioneers will carry their portrait around with them. When placed in wallets, these images accompany the Pioneers in the public sphere. This portrait, it seems, is not one to be stashed at home, brought out only to display or recall highpoints of social integration. The group photograph should become a facet of each Pioneer’s public identity, just as the other photographs in their wallet - of family, friends etc. - might define each Pioneer’s public identity. Again, “jed-” is used to collapse and expand the network of possession. In explaining how the soldiers might take out and look at the image “jedem freien Augenblick,” the photographer is also creating a timeless cycle of analysis and recollection (183). Whereas Bourdieu asserts that group photographs are usually only displayed or viewed when individuals want to demonstrate or recall the highpoints of social interaction, the photographer here suggests that the Pioneers will be able to (and will want) to view their portrait during each and every free moment. The Pioneers, as suggested, can view the photo during single free moments and during every free moment. This web of possession will be eternal, inescapable. Though perhaps intended to suggest the comfort even the most fleeting of glances at the portrait might provide, this assertion has pessimistic undertones. While never fully articulated, the Pioneers nevertheless seem to suspect the consequences of carrying, owning, and analyzing their Ingolstadt portrait. If the Pioneers are meant to view the image during each and every free moment, they will never be able to leave Ingolstadt behind. They will be forever connected to the city even though they are so eager to move on. Thus, it makes sense that when the photographer suggests that the Pioneers will be able to take out their portrait and admire it “in jedem freien Augenblick - ,” Münsterer interrupts with a curt “Denkste - ” (183). By denoting individual nodes and larger arrays of these nodes, the use of “jed-” creates inescapable networks of shared possession and time, and the cynical, disconnected Pioneers justifiably push back against these networks. Because this strategy of stressing how the photograph will connect the Pioneers to Ingolstadt has no traction with his potential clients, the photographer evokes the Pioneers’ other social connections: “Sie können es Ihren diversen 92 Martin P. Sheehan Bräuten und Ihren treusorgenden Eltern zeigen” (183). This part of the pitch should be rejected most vehemently. If the Pioneers were to share this image that connects them to Ingolstadt, they would risk also sharing what they have done in (and done to) the community - the physical assaults, the carousing, in short, all the socially destructive exploits they have enjoyed. The photograph represents a threatening trace of the Pioneers’ time in Ingolstadt and all their transgressions. As such, it functions also as an index of their immorality and would have the power to destroy their social and familial connections, not build them up from the Pioneers’ perspective. Why, then, do the Pioneers yield? The answer consists of equal parts ambiguity and reflexivity: After the photographer makes his case that the image can be shown to brides and parents - the most repulsive part of the photographer’s pitch from the Pioneers’ perspective, the Pioneer Rosskopf replies “Das nehmen wir auch noch mit, Mann. Das lassen wir uns nicht entgehen” (183). Viewed from one angle, Rosskopf’s statements represent a final, ironic dismissal in keeping with Münsterer’s previous “Denkste” (182). It is difficult to read Rosskopf’s remark here as anything but sarcastic. After all, as the scene opens, it is Rosskopf who notes with nihilism how cyclic the life of a Pioneer is: “Eine Stadt is wie die andere. Die Feldwebel sind überall gleich” (180). As one of the most disillusioned Pioneers, he would be the least likely member to push for the group portrait. Yet, viewed from a different perspective, it is precisely because he is disillusioned that he might honestly support the photograph if for destructive reasons. As the scene opens, it is Rosskopf who observes how, between arriving in and leaving behind a new town, the Pioneers always find new “Mädchen” - the only joy the Pioneers can experience since they have no hope of improving their rank; he reminds his fellow soldiers “Ein Gemeiner bleibt ein Gemeiner, und ein Offizier bleibt Trumpf” (181). There is no way to break this cycle; there is no escape. If any Pioneer is equipped to disrupt this loop, though, it is Rosskopf. He exhibits the most agency of all the Pioneers in scene 12, if only to ruffle others. When he sees a chance to embarrass the other Pioneers to address his envy, he proves keen to exploit outsiders. When Berta arrives asking after Korl when the scene opens, Rosskopf alerts Korl of her presence, thereby bringing the two together, only to literally spotlight the couple later as they get intimate in bushes: ROSSKOPF schadenfroh: Scheinwerfer nach links. Berta und Korl kommen durch den Busch ins Licht. Die Pioniere johlen und pfeifen. KORL. Nehmt euer kindisches Licht weg, verdammt. ROSSKOPF. Was willst du, es ist bloß der Neid. MÜNSTERER. Ach wo, das machen doch wir jeden Tag. (182) The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 93 This action, its attendant stage direction of “schadenfroh,” and the admission of envy reveal what motivates Rosskopf in the comedy, especially why he pushes for the group portrait: given his confession of jealousy, his latent Schadenfreude, and his existential ennui, Rosskopf is inclined to humiliate the members of his collective at the expense of his connection with them. He acts out to satisfy his essential envy and to excite himself. As his drunken dialog with a fellow soldier in scene 11 suggests, Rosskopf seeks out opportunities to break from or inject joy into his Sisyphean existence. “Jeder Zivilist hat es besser als ich,” he growls, as he and Münsterer roll a barrel that they have stolen back to camp, even though, as Rosskopf admits, disillusioned, “Die Kaserne hängt mir zum Hals heraus” (172). The only way that he can tolerate his soldier’s life is to lash out against his regiment and how they regiment his existence: ROSSKOPF. […] Ich verlange meine per—sönliche Freiheit. MÜNSTERER. Du verlangst deine persönliche Freiheit. ROSSKOPF. Ich will meinen Spaß haben, verdammt, jetzt werde ich wild. (172) “Persönliche Freiheit,” it must be noted, is an abstract concept that, for Rosskopf, means the ability to act against rules, norms, and expectations in the pursuit of “Spaß.” He longs to become “wild” to cast off the rules that determine and limit his actions if only momentarily. More important, while these episodes of “Spaß” might not seem amusing or humorous in the moment, their comic effect will become clear after the fact - a point that Rosskopf must clarify after he asks whether Münsterer wants to join in: ROSSKOPF. […] machst du mit bei einem Spaß? MÜNSTERER. Dann will ich auch lachen. ROSSKOPF. Du wirst lachen. Du wirst vielleicht nicht gleich lachen, später im Bett wirst du lachen. (172) As suggested, the “Spaß” that is to come certainly lacks humor in the moment. Rosskopf coaxes Fabian, the first passerby he sees, into his barrel, only to terrorize their trapped victim by kicking, rolling, and buffeting the barrel. Rosskopf is happy just to torment his victim and thereby immediately vent his frustrations. For Rosskopf, the group portrait offers another chance for “Spaß” albeit with a delayed payoff. As in previous scenes, the soldier is looking for accomplices to share in a joke, though unlike the dialog quoted above, he decides to conscript others instead of proposing they participate. Instead of asking his fellow soldiers “macht ihr mit? ,” he informs them “ihr macht mit,” or as he says in the portrait sequence “Das nehmen wir auch noch mit” (183). Only Rosskopf is aware of the plan for deferred “Spaß” that he has set in motion. 94 Martin P. Sheehan In this manner, we see why Rosskopf urges his collective to pose for the photographer. Even though the text lacks a clear indication, we can imagine Rosskopf relishing the imminent fallout that the portraits will unleash on the group. The photographs will be a way to exert his “persönliche Freiheit” on the other Pioneers, unwitting victims of a protracted prank. With its ability to call attention to the group’s actions, identity, and connections, the camera and the fixed image it produces represent a permanent spotlight thrown on the Pioneers. They might not understand the joke as they pose, but after the photographs arrive and the Pioneers follow the photographer’s advice of showing the portrait to their “diversen Bräuten” and “treusorgenden Eltern,” Rosskopf will have his “Spaß.” No matter what the impending reaction will eventually be, it will not be positive, which means that Rosskopf’s joke will have succeeded eventually. He seems aware that when discussing the image and analyzing it surrounded by intimate family members, the Pioneers will recall and perhaps reveal their transgressions - their drowned Feldwebel, their carousing, in short, all the behavior that Rosskopf might label “wild.” Of course, others might come across the portrait later, investigate its origin, and then seek out the justice denied Ingolstadt at the time. If the Pioneers fail to admit their culpability and iniquities directly, the image can serve as an indirect witness of their crimes for future viewers. To be sure, a photograph is not always an immediate witness. As history shows, it might take more than half a century for photographic evidence of past crimes and criminals to come to light. In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received an unexpected donation - a scrapbook containing photographs taken in 1944 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. 5 Believed to belong to Karl Höcker, an SS officer featured in many of the images, the album’s 114 photographs display Nazi officials of the camp at work and at play. Some images capture members of the SS lined up at attention for a ceremony while others show the SS hierarchy (including notorious figures like Rudolf Höss and Josef Mengele) being led in a “sing-along” by an accordion player at a nature retreat. As Daniel Magilow rightly argues, the Höcker Album is unsettling “because the violence that was being perpetrated beyond the frames contrasts so starkly with the banalities we see inside them” (Makela 270). It seems unnerving to see images of history’s worst criminals as they smile, laugh, and sing. Though not documented in the album, the cruelty and brutality that one associates with Auschwitz-Birkenau accompanies the scrapbook’s images if only invisibly. Now that their barbarity has come to light, viewing images of the perpetrators as they are taking a break from their crimes is all the more disturbing. Most disturbing of all, though, remains the motivations behind the album. The historian Elissa Mailänder has explored how group portraits of soldiers that The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 95 feature, imply, or obscure acts of violence are created to serve as trophies - commemorations, or even celebrations, of unspeakable crimes against humanity. The informal portraits of SS officials assembled together in their uniforms document and commemorate the group - their unity, their masculinity, and their assumed superiority. Although Mailänder’s arguments center on the highly disturbing image of “fifteen young German soldiers standing in a semicircle, carousing and laughing as one of their comrades emulates a sex act with an unidentified woman who may or may not be dead,” her conclusions are as connected to the Höcker Album as they are to Pioniere in Ingolstadt (489). Similar in principle - but not in scope - to those of the Holocaust, the crimes committed against Ingolstadt remain outside the frame of the Pioneer’s group portrait, yet in a way, those crimes are also present. The portraits in the Höcker album and those of the Pioneers document how the soldiers perceive themselves in relation to the local population, as well as how they have dominated the local population. This lopsided power dynamic at the expense of others is what the soldiers want to subconsciously memorialize. The images were taken so that the memories of the group could be represented, revisited, and perhaps shared over the years. Yet, in securing a visual memory of their time in the small Bavarian city, the Pioneers are also securing a visual memory of their culpability, something Rosskopf and the photographer seem to know very well. As a stock character, the photographer represents a common social type. He appears as a familiar accessory, so quotidian and flat that he barely registers as character, which makes his role in the drama both easy to overlook and all the more imperative to understand. At times, he seems like the least remarkable character: though it would have been simple to supply him with a name to use to individualize him, the photographer lacks one. While this lack of specificity might seem to flatten his character, without a name he represents interests beyond his own. The photographer becomes a figure of social documentation. With his camera he creates the community’s collective memory; his images represent individual nodes on a shared time continuum. His photographs, when later reflected upon, accrete and connect to form the community’s history. Thus, the photographer is uniquely qualified to restore the Ingolstadt community, a goal that the group portraits will eventually achieve. After their arrival in scene one, the myriad problems that the Pioneers create for the Ingolstadt community and for its individual citizens seem as obvious to see as they are impossible to resolve. Multiple acts of physical assault, intimidation, deception, philandering, and coerced prostitution perpetrated by the Pioneers have destabilized the community and have left it no clear way to repair itself. The photographer is not driven by the pursuit of profits for his nameless studio. In his enterprise, his objective is clearly not financial gain, given the discount he 96 Martin P. Sheehan offers to entice the Pioneers; he is more interested in having the Pioneers sit for his camera. By capturing the soldiers, the bridge they have built, and the community that they have destroyed within a single frame, he captures evidence. While the Pioneers sing their marching song, perhaps believing that they are finally leaving the damage that they caused behind them, the wheels of justice have already been set in motion by two characters, Rosskopf and the photographer. It is a coincidence, though, that Rosskopf’s desire to prank the platoon is aligned with and the photographer’s drive to restore the social balance by linking the Pioneers with his community. Neither could succeed without the other. Without the photographer, Rosskopf could not vent his existential frustration. Without Rosskopf, the photographer’s pitch would have fallen flat, as it would have been impossible for him to convince the Pioneers’ to submit themselves to the camera. As Bourdieu observes, a group photograph is a reward a collective bestows upon itself. Absent Rosskopf, the group portrait would not have happened, since no individual member of the group would have pushed for the picture. As an agent of social justice, the photographer seeks to restore a balance that the Pioneers have upset. With concerns larger than mere financial gain, the nameless figure connects the soldiers with the community that they have damaged. Their group photograph records their presence eternally, and after the photographer prints and distributes the image, the Pioneers will carry their Ingolstadt portrait with them. Just as the bridge connects geographic locations that would otherwise be separate, the photo links two temporal locations and two groups of people. No matter when the portrait reaches the Pioneers, no matter when the Pioneers reach for the portrait, the image will transport them back to the place and time when the photograph was made. In so doing, the image chains the Pioneers to the community that they victimized, and, by carrying the photo around with them, the Pioneers also carry around the guilt. In this manner, just as the bridge becomes “ein dauerndes Andenken” of the Pioneers’ impact on the town, so too will their group portrait serve as “ein dauerndes Andenken” (184). Similarly, the portrait serves Rosskopf’s purpose precisely because it will exist as a perpetual reminder. By connecting the soldiers with the community that they have destabilized through their actions, the photo is guaranteed to remain an eternally potent threat to the Pioneers. Like the photographer suggests, the Pioneers could share their Ingolstadt portraits with their closest family members - their parents and their brides. Those who purchased the portrait will fall victim to its intended purpose at some point in the future: the photo is primed to explode any number of familial or nuptial connections when shared with others. The group photograph becomes a time bomb and the delayed explosion The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 97 - which Rosskopf would consider his intended “Spaß” - is the only chance for a happy end. In this way, the group photograph becomes what Helmut Arntzen would call the “notwendig[e] Lösung” to the “menschlichen Konflikten” precipitated by the Pioneers (18). For the Ingolstadt community to affirm, normalize, and stabilize itself, it must connect itself eternally with the soldiers through the photographic document of their stay. The damage the group has done to Ingolstadt cannot be undone; there is no way to reverse exploitation, abuse, or manipulation. By eternally connecting the soldiers with the community that they have damaged, the nameless photographer becomes an unlikely agent of social justice. It is only by documenting their presence that the emotional, sexual, and physical conflicts unleashed by the Pioneers can be processed, even if those conflicts are not represented directly within the frame. Much like images of the Höcker album, the group portrait in Ingolstadt records who was present without directly capturing their crimes. The citizens of Ingolstadt can only hope that a fuller understanding can be reached and past crimes can be punished at some point in the future. The crimes against them cannot be undone, but the photograph makes future justice a possibility. For some communities, delayed justice is the only hope they have for justice and some kind of happy end. Notes 1 Critics tend to avoid engaging with this work as a comedy. Instead, Fleißer’s works are lumped together as Volksstücke, tragicomedies (if that label can exist) written “vom Volk, für das Volk und über das Volk” (Schmitz 9). According to Andrea Bartl, dramatists like Zuckmayer, Horvath, Kroetz, and Fleißer “visieren mit ihren Stücken in Bezug auf Stil, dramatis personae und Handlung ein regional bestimmbares, kleinbürgerliches bzw. Proletarisches Publikum an” (212). Bartl’s investigation into German dramatic comedy stumbles slightly when attempting to explain how Volksstücke like Pioniere in Ingolstadt exhibit the spirit of Harlequin, a comic figure of the commedia dell’arte tradition that serves as the red thread throughout her diachronic analysis of the genre. Within the Volksstück, Bartl argues, Harlequin continues to play an “ebenso unterhaltende wie kritisch-entlarvende Funktion,” though instead being manifested on the stage, the Harlequin spirit is present only as a “Produkt der praktischen Theaterarbeit” (212). Because it relies too heavily on authorial intention to explain Harlequin’s “presence,” Bartl’s argument of Volkstücke as comedies is too nebulous to be convincing. In claiming that “Brecht, Kroetz, Fassbinder und Jelinek schreiben nicht nur für die Bühne, sondern ‘auf der Bühne,’” Bartl is forced to locate Harlequin’s 98 Martin P. Sheehan spirit within the playwright, which I argue is a dodgy proposition because it does not engage a comedic text as a text (212). 2 The only study to explore photography in Fleißer’s comedy is Ann Blackler Young’s excellent dissertation. In a chapter dedicated to Fleißer’s play, Young argues that the photography sequences parody “traditional notions of gender, love, and family” by evoking and then undercutting the tableaux most often seen in bürgerlichen Trauerspielen (182). Within this earlier dramatic tradition, Young asserts (with the help of Peter Szondi), that the visual constellation of characters on stage presents “a final image of hope,” a realistic portrait that communicates a “feeling of permanence and stability” (185). By employing scenes of realistic, photographic production across the work’s three versions, Young argues that Fleißer, by contrast, seeks to “expose everything behind [the photographs]” and to “[destroy] illusions behind male-female relationships” (194). In discussing the 1968 version of the play - our current concern - Young could more rigorously support her claims about how this later version seeks to move past male-female relationships to a broader social basis. For example, when discussing the soldiers’ group portrait, Young claims that by “not allowing women to appear in such a final picture, Fleißer is thus showing in the clearest manner possible society’s suppression of the other - in this case the woman” (217). This conclusion assumes that non-military personnel would be included in a portrait of a platoon. 3 For an overview of the Brecht-Fleißer relationship, see Ley and Töteberg. A more specific overview of Brecht’s influence on Pioniere in Ingolstadt, see McGowan, Marieluise Fleißer 51-53. 4 Hoffmeister offers a comparative analysis of dialog and action variations between the 1929 and 1968 versions of Pioniere in Ingolstadt. Adopting a discourse analysis approach, her study “attempts to analyze what happens when characters talk to one another an how they form judgments, signal intentions, make decisions, and take course of action of the basis of verbal exchanges” (3). While Hoffmeister’s work offers many valuable insights into how “two people of the opposite sex come to terms on how each will behave with respect to the other” within Pioniere in Ingolstadt, her investigation is limited only to these negotiations between the sexes (42). The negotiation between the photographer and the soldiers, unfortunately, falls beyond the scope of Hoffmeister’s study. My linguistic analysis seeks to offer similarly valuable insights, though it does not employ Hoffmeister’s rigorously analytic approach. 5 Available at www.ushmm.org/ collections/ the-museums-collections/ collec tions-highlights/ auschwitz-ssalbum/ album. The Reflex: Group Photography and Ritual in Pioniere in Ingolstadt 99 Works Cited Arnold, Heinz Ludwig, ed. Marieluise Fleisser. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 1979. Arntzen, Helmut.-Die ernste Komödie: Das deutsche Lustspiel von Lessing bis Kleist� Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1968. Bartl, Andrea.-Die deutsche Komödie: Metamorphosen des Harlekin. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2009� Bourdieu, Pierre.-Photography: A Middle-Brow Art. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1990. Colvin, Sarah.-Women and German Drama: Playwrights and Their Texts, 1860-1945� Rochester: Camden House, 2003. Fleißer, Marieluise.-Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972. 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