The Margins of

Dictatorship: Assent and

Dissent in the Work
of Günter Eich and
Bertolt Brecht

Matthew Philpotts

PETER LANG
The Margins of Dictatorship
Britische und Irische Studien
zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur
British and Irish Studies
in German Language and Literature
Etudes britanniques et irlandaises
sur la langue et la littérature allemandes

Edited by H.S. Reiss and W.E. Yates

Band 34

PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt/M. • New York • Wien
 The Margins of Dictatorship
Assent and Dissent in the Work
of Günter Eich and Bertolt Brecht
Untertitel

Matthew Philpotts

PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt/M. • New York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek
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Contents

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... 7
Abbreviations ............................................................................................. 9
Introduction............................................................................................... 11

Part One
Chapter 1
‘Totalitarianism’: The organisation and dynamics of
cultural policy ........................................................................................... 21
Chapter 2
‘Ideology’: Towards a comparative paradigm ...................................... 85
Chapter 3
‘Resistance’: Configuring literary assent and dissent in the
German dictatorships ............................................................................ 133

Part Two
Chapter 4
Forms of literary assent and dissent under National
Socialism: Günter Eich ......................................................................... 169
Chapter 5
Forms of literary assent and dissent in the GDR:
Bertolt Brecht ......................................................................................... 261

Conclusion .............................................................................................. 347

Bibliography ........................................................................................... 355
Index......................................................................................................... 373
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgements

This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis which was sub-

mitted at the University of Manchester in 2001. Research for the
thesis was undertaken with the support of a three-year studentship
awarded by the British Academy Humanities Research Board, and
archive research in Berlin supported through a short-term research
grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Publication has
been funded through a publication scholarship awarded by the
Conference of University Teachers of German.
Those who have helped in the completion of this book are too
numerous to mention individually, but I would like to thank in
particular the staff at the Bertolt Brecht Archive in Berlin for their
willingness to answer my many questions and their kindness in
making material available to me, and also Adrian Philpotts, Katie
Tonkinson, and Vivienne Wright for their help with illustrations. I
also wish to acknowledge the generous and unstinting support,
academic and otherwise, provided by colleagues in the Department
of German Studies at the University of Manchester, in particular by
Professor Stephen Parker, to whose rigorous, engaged, and very
human supervision this book largely owes its existence.
Above all, I would like to thank Victoria, without whose support
this work could not have been completed and to whom this book is
dedicated.

7
This page intentionally left blank
Abbreviations

The following abbreviated forms of reference are used throughout in

the body of the text:

BBA Bertolt Brecht Archive, Berlin

BFA Bertolt Brecht, Werke: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frank-

furter Ausgabe, ed. by Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner
Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller, 30 vols (Berlin: Aufbau;
Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988-1998)

GW Günter Eich, Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Karl Karst and Axel

Vieregg, 4 vols (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1991)

9
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

Geschichtswissenschaftliche Vergleiche sind dadurch gekennzeichnet, daß sie

zwei oder mehrere historische Phänomene systematisch nach Ähnlichkeiten
und Unterschieden untersuchen, um auf dieser Grundlage zu ihrer möglichst
zuverlässigen Beschreibung und Erklärung wie zu weiterreichenden Aussagen
über geschichtliche Handlungen, Erfahrungen, Prozesse und Strukturen zu
gelangen. […] Es geht beim Vergleich um Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede.
Vergleichen heißt mithin nicht Gleichsetzen.1

The discovery in 1993 in a former monastery near Prague of a

recording of Günter Eich’s 1940 radio play, Rebellion in der Goldstadt,
provoked a predictably intense exchange of views amongst Eich
scholars and beyond.2 For some, the discovery of this work, long
thought lost, offered an unexpected opportunity to absolve Eich of
his involvement in the Nazi propaganda machinery. For others, the
discovery only served to confirm the full extent of Eich’s overtly pro-
Nazi, racist writing in the Third Reich. As the latest rounds in the
long-running Eich-Debatte, neither the treatment of this particular
work as a source of some fundamental moral truth about Eich’s guilt
or innocence, nor the often vitriolic polemics against an essay
published in the same year which dealt with Eich’s writing career
under National Socialism could be considered entirely surprising.3
Indeed, the fact that much of what opponents found so objection-

1 Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka, ‘Historischer Vergleich: Methoden,

Aufgaben, Probleme. Eine Einleitung’, in Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen
Kocka (eds), Geschichte und Vergleich: Ansätze und Ergebnisse international verglei-
chender Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 1996), pp. 9–45 (p. 9),
emphasis in the original.
2 For contributions to the debate, see Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind
Maulwürfe’: Die Günter-Eich-Debatte (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 109–54.
3 See Axel Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet: Günter Eichs Realitäten 1933–
1945 (Eggingen: Edition Isele, 1993).

11
able in that essay had already been known for over ten years, and
even the admission from one of its harshest critics that he had
neglected to read the essay concerned, provokes little more than a
sense of weary inevitability. More profoundly disturbing are attempts
by that same critic to equate those revealing the true extent of Eich’s
literary output under National Socialism with those responsible for
the atrocities of the Third Reich.4 And yet, such are the entrenched
binarisms of debates concerning writing within the Third Reich -
perpetrator or victim; collaboration or resistance; condemnation or
absolution - that it is no longer easy to be shocked even by this kind
of fruitless vitriol. Such polarised debates, where equivocation and a
measured response have no place, are only too strikingly reminiscent
of the immediate post-Wende treatment of a generation of East
German writers who, having previously been held up as examples of
heroic dissidence, now found themselves condemned as Mitläufer for
their continued participation in the public sphere of the GDR.5
Another writer to be the object of such treatment is Bertolt Brecht,
the complexities of his relationship to the SED regime, characterised
by both complicity and dissidence, all too often being subsumed
under polarised and often politicised judgements. In Manfed Jäger’s
words: ‘Je nach der politischen Position des Chronisten wird jeweils
eine Seite absolut gesetzt.’6
The echoes in the Eich-Debatte of the controversies surrounding
GDR writers raise a number of methodological questions, not only
about approaches to writing which was officially sanctioned in either
the Third Reich or the GDR, but also about the comparability of
literary output within these two twentieth-century German dictator-

4 For an overview, see Justus Fetscher, ‘Das Empire bläst zum Angriff
Saxophon: Text und Kontext von Günter Eichs Rebellion in der Goldstadt’,
Weimarer Beiträge, 45 (1999), 584–97.
5 Most notably perhaps Christa Wolf. See Thomas Anz (ed.), Es geht nicht um
Christa Wolf: Der Literaturstreit im vereinten Deutschland (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer,
1995).
6 Manfred Jäger, Kultur und Politik in der DDR: 1945–1990 (Cologne: Edition
Deutschland Archiv, 1995), p. 67.

12
ships. In both respects, the recent social historiography of the Third
Reich and the GDR provides a wealth of theoretical approaches
which start to move beyond such polarised positions, but which have
yet to be applied systematically to the sphere of literary production.
In particular, the historiography of the Third Reich over the last
thirty years and that of the GDR since 1990 have developed
increasingly sophisticated analyses of the power structures of the
German dictatorships and the roles of individuals at an everyday level
within them. Within these analyses, fixed binary categories have been
substantially eroded, so that the focus has shifted away from
concepts of monolithic total control and towards the more frag-
mentary reality of life under the conditions of dictatorship. Nowhere
has this tendency been more apparent than in attempts to re-
configure notions of ‘resistance’, where more nuanced typologies of
behaviour have superseded the kind of moralising categorisations,
both approving and condemnatory, which have been applied to
writers publishing within the dictatorships. These approaches to non-
conformist behaviour have also provided some of the most fertile
ground for comparative approaches to the German dictatorships, and
this comparative perspective is one which has itself proved increas-
ingly viable in the last ten years.7 Both in terms of comparisons
between the Hitler and Stalin regimes and between the Third Reich
and the GDR, the comparative method has generated a number of
highly productive analyses in diverse areas.8

7 See, for instance, Rainer Eckert, ‘Die Vergleichbarkeit des Unvergleichbaren:

Die Widerstandsforschung über die NS-Zeit als methodisches Beispiel’, in
Ulrike Poppe, Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (eds), Zwischen Selbst-
behauptung und Anpassung: Formen des Widerstands und der Opposition in der DDR
(Berlin: Links, 1995), pp. 68–84 and Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Zwei Diktaturen
in Deutschland: Was kann die künftige DDR-Forschung aus der Geschichts-
schreibung zum Nationalsozialismus lernen?’, Deutschland Archiv, 25 (1992),
601–06.
8 See, for instance, Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds), Stalinism and Nazism:
Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: CUP, 1997); Wolfgang Emmerich und
Carl Wege (eds), Der Technikdiskurs in der Hitler-Stalin-Ära (Stuttgart: Metzler,
1995); Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Historische DDR-Forschung: Aufsätze und Studien

13
 This study takes as its starting-point these apparently contra-
dictory tendencies - on the one hand the persistence of unreflected,
moralising approaches to writing in the Third Reich and the GDR,
on the other the consistent move away from such analyses in the
social historiography of the two periods. In particular, it seeks to
identify an approach which is better able to cope with writing which,
while not unequivocally supportive of the regime, was nonetheless
officially sanctioned through its publication, cultural output which
occupied the margins of dictatorship, as it were. Such output occupies
a profoundly ambiguous position in relation to the regime concerned
and, as such, invites the kind of polarised and contradictory inter-
pretations outlined above. Through the approach developed in this
study, it is hoped to facilitate a more objective and measured assess-
ment of the relationship between writers and their texts and the
regimes of the Third Reich and the GDR, above all in terms of the
assent or dissent which was expressed through these texts. To this
end, an explicitly comparative method will be employed, understood
in the terms outlined by Haupt and Kocka above. This method seeks
not to elide differences between writing under National Socialism
and the GDR, but rather to locate initial points of contact against
which can be set the substantial contrasts which existed between the
conditions of literary practice under the two regimes. It is in the first
half of the study that this theoretical and methodological framework
for analysing literary production within the German dictatorships will
be elaborated. This framework will be constructed around three
central terms - ‘totalitarianism’, ‘ideology’, and ‘resistance’ - which
will act as headings and as broad analytical categories for the first
three chapters of the study. As objects of lengthy and involved
historiographical debate, these terms are ideally suited to act as
crystallisation points for a comparative analysis of the two dictator-
ships which stretches from the broader socio-political sphere, down
to the cultural-political domain, and on to cultural production itself.
(Berlin: Akademie, 1993); Ludger Kühnhardt, Gerd Leutenecker, Martin
Rupps (eds), Die doppelte Diktaturerfahrung: Drittes Reich und DDR - ein historisch-
politikwissenschaftlicher Vergleich (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1996).

14
In the second part, the work of Günter Eich under National
Socialism and Bertolt Brecht within the GDR will act as case studies
in an empirical analysis conducted within the framework elaborated
in part one.
In chapter one, analysis will centre on one of the most problem-
atic of comparative categories, namely ‘totalitarianism’, under which
the regimes of the Third Reich and the GDR have often been
pushed into a relatively superficial equivalence. While acknowledging
important organisational and aesthetic similarities and highlighting
the central point of contact between the two regimes, that is, the
‘total claim’ made on society, the fundamentally divergent structures
and dynamics which influenced cultural politics and cultural practice
within the two societies will be explored. The notion of ‘totalitarian-
ism’ will neither be accepted in an unreflected manner, nor rejected
out of hand. Instead it is hoped to employ the term as a tool to
describe and explain both convergent and divergent elements in the
organisation and dynamics of cultural policy in the Third Reich and
the GDR. In chapter two, this comparative method is reversed,
insofar as ‘ideology’ is a heading under which National Socialism and
the SED are conventionally pushed apart, or even deemed non-
comparable. The aim in this chapter will be to make progress
towards a comparative paradigm of ideology, stressing convergent
structural elements in the official ideologies on behalf of which the
total claim was made. This in turn will facilitate a comparative, or
contrastive, analysis highlighting the divergent elements in the two
ideologies. This process will help to construct a more differentiated
model of ideology capable of configuring the notions of literary
assent and dissent which will emerge from the discussion in chapter
three surrounding the problematic concept of ‘resistance’. This term
too has acted as a significant site for contested interpretations of the
Third Reich, and the shift in the historiography of the Third Reich
away from Widerstand towards Resistenz, that is away from funda-
mental acts of resistance and towards more everyday obstructions of
the total claim of the regime, opens up the analysis of precisely that
literary output whose oppositional function is ambiguous or partial

15
in nature. The common total claim of the Nazi and SED regimes,
elaborated in chapter one, also generates comparable patterns of
politicised dissenting behaviour in the two dictatorships, so that a
comparative method is particularly applicable in this area. Hence,
by synthesising existing attempts to classify this range of non-
conformist behaviour, by establishing criteria to measure both the
effect and intention of an action, and by constructing a mirror scale
of assenting behaviour, it will be possible to arrive at a novel and
methodologically rewarding means of conceptualising the nature of
literary output in the two German dictatorships.
Part two of the study moves away from these theoretical and
methodological considerations, seeking to test out the framework
developed in part one through two detailed case studies. In chapter
four, forms of literary assent and dissent under National Socialism
are given concrete form in the writing of Günter Eich. The method-
ology of this study generates a measured and objective consideration
of that output, free of the exaggerated judgements characteristic of
the controversies outlined above. In this respect, the aim is not to
defend Eich’s reputation, nor to expose the extent of his involve-
ment in the cultural policies of the Third Reich. Both have already
been attempted at length. Instead, the careful examination of both
textual and contextual evidence within the framework of assent and
dissent will offer a fresh insight into the nature of Eich’s output in
the Third Reich and his relationship to the National Socialist regime.
What were the relative levels of assent and dissent expressed by Eich
through the texts written in this period? What were the mechanisms
by which that assent and dissent were expressed and what was the
motivational background behind it? Likewise in chapter five, the
same questions will be posed of Bertolt Brecht’s cultural activities in
the GDR. Even more so than with Eich, making an assessment of
the relative weighting of Brecht’s assent and dissent in the GDR
requires the careful sifting of a vast array of primary and secondary
material. In this sense, the primary value of the analysis lies not in the
presentation of unknown sources, but in its capacity to examine
existing, well-documented material from a novel perspective.

16
 The outcomes of this empirical study are twofold. Firstly, fresh
light will be shed on the cultural output of Günter Eich under
National Socialism and that of Bertolt Brecht in the GDR in and of
themselves. Making an assessment of the assenting and/or dissenting
function of a text will involve a judgement as to both the effect of
that text and, as far as possible, the intention behind it. In this
respect, the analysis will go to the heart of issues relating to both the
reception of the texts produced by Eich and Brecht during these two
periods and the motivating factors, aesthetic or political, personal or
professional, which influenced their production in the first place.
Secondly, the specific examples of Günter Eich and Bertolt Brecht
start to be of a more generalised applicability, both specifically in
terms of writing within the Third Reich and within the GDR, and
comparatively in terms of writing under the conditions of dicta-
torship. Here again, the comparative method will search for both
convergent and divergent strands, considering how far the nature of
the assent and dissent expressed by Brecht and Eich was a product of
their individual circumstances, how far it was shaped by the particular
structures and dynamics of the Third Reich and GDR respectively,
and how far by the common experience of dictatorship. Perhaps
paradoxically given the overt socio-political approach of the first part
of the study, at least as important as identifying parallels in the nature
of literary production tied to the political conditions of the twentieth-
century German dictatorships will be uncovering those determining
factors in the output of these writers which have validity outside
dictatorship. Eich’s writing under National Socialism and Brecht’s
within the GDR were clearly not solely products of the conditions of
dictatorship within which the two writers found themselves. This
cultural output was also a product of individual continuities in
professional, aesthetic, and political development which extend
beyond the margins of dictatorship which restrict so many existing
approaches. While Eich experienced dictatorship as a young, virtually
unknown writer, Brecht returned to the Soviet occupied zone as one
of the best known and most respected writers of his time. Hence, the
common conditions of dictatorship, such as they exist, do not play

17
the sole, or even necessarily the most significant, determining role in
shaping the literary production of these two figures. Too many
fundamental differences exist in terms of both the individual regimes
and individual writers concerned. Where the shared conditions of
dictatorship may adopt a far more telling role is in their capacity to
shape critical reactions to these texts, both at the time when they
were written and thereafter. This study seeks to make a claim for
the comparability of the writing experiences of Günter Eich under
National Socialism and Bertolt Brecht in the GDR. It does not aim
to make a case for equivalence or identity.

18
Part One
This page intentionally left blank
Chapter 1

‘Totalitarianism’: The organisation

and dynamics of cultural policy

The lengthy and often highly polemical historiographical debates sur-

rounding the term ‘totalitarianism’, from its original non-comparative
application to the Italian Fascist regime to its highly influential post-
war application to both fascist and communist regimes, from its
revision and loss of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s to its resur-
gence in the 1990s following the collapse of Soviet bloc, are already
well documented.1 The aim here is not to re-analyse and re-evaluate
such debates in and of themselves. Rather, the aim is to explore how
the evolution of models of political ‘totalitarianism’ over the past
half-century might furnish us with tools to apply to the comparative
analysis of the cultural politics and cultural production of the Third
Reich and the GDR. After all, for all the doubts and caveats which
must continue to be applied to what is a highly problematic concept,
‘totalitarianism’ remains the single most significant comparative para-
digm for analysing the structures of rule in communist and fascist
regimes. Furthermore, the evolution of the concept over the past
fifty years can offer important insights into the comparative method
and the difficulties involved in maintaining an appropriate balance
between similarity and difference. As such, existing research relating
to ‘totalitarianism’ provides an obvious point of departure for an
attempt to elaborate a comparative framework for analysing literary
production in the two twentieth-century German dictatorships. In
particular, analysis in this chapter of the mechanisms of cultural

1 See, for instance, the contributions spanning over sixty years in Eckhard Jesse
(ed.), Totalitarismus im 20. Jahrhundert: Eine Bilanz der internationalen Forschung
(Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999).

21
policy in the Third Reich and the GDR will arrive at a more
sophisticated model of totalitarianism which retains the central
shared feature of the two regimes - their ‘total claim’ on culture -
while stressing their divergent structures and dynamics. Instead of
acting as a blunt tool which privileges similarity over difference,
forcing two fundamentally different entities into a single constraining
paradigm, it is hoped that this revised notion of ‘totalitarianism’,
conceived in terms of ‘charismatic’ and ‘bureaucratic’ varieties, offers
a more sensitive and refined framework capable of illuminating
points of contrast under a common heading.

Conventional assumptions:
‘totalitarian art’ and the ‘megamachine’

The fullest attempt to consider cultural policy and practice within a

‘totalitarianism’ paradigm is that of Igor Golomstock.2 Although
writing in the mid-1980s, Golomstock draws his theoretical basis
from the ‘conventional’ totalitarianism models of Hannah Arendt
and Carl Joachim Friedrich, both of which first appeared in the
1950s.3 As such, Golomstock presents a model based on an
‘intentionalist’, top-down view of political history which assumes
(near) identity between the political systems of the Third Reich and
the Soviet Union, and by extension the GDR. Above all, this
theoretical position is founded on striking similarities noted by
Golomstock in the official art of such culturally and ideologically
divergent regimes as the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, National Social-

2 Igor Golomstock, Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy
and the People’s Republic of China, trans. by Robert Chandler (London: Collins
Harvill, 1990).
3 See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt and
Brace, 1951) and Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniev Brzezinsky, Totalitarian
Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956).

22
ist Germany, and the People’s Republic of China. In particular,
Golomstock locates significant stylistic and thematic parallels in the
works of officially recognised artists, that is those who were awarded
state prizes, in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union during the
1930s and 1940s. For Golomstock, neither simple coincidence nor
shared cultural traditions can explain the striking similarities between
such officially valued works of art. Nor does any shared personal
taste between Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin account for such similar-
ity. Indeed, given the sharply differing attitudes of the three dictators
in respect to artistic and cultural matters, Golomstock attributes the
origins of their shared artistic policy-orientation to political, rather
than personal, factors. To be more specific, Golomstock attributes
these similarities to the near identical political systems which the
three dictators oversaw. ‘Total realism’, as Golomstock terms the
common style, ‘was not the invention of any single one of them; it
was a natural product of totalitarianism, as much so as the vast
apparatuses of propaganda, organization and terror’.4
Although not explicitly stated, Golomstock’s debt to Friedrich
and Brzezinsky’s six basic characteristics of totalitarian rule – an
official ideology; a single mass party; terroristic police control; mon-
opoly control over the media; monopoly of arms; central control of
the economy – seems clear enough.5 The common process by which
‘totalitarian art’ develops, for instance, is seen to consist of the
following steps:

1. The State declares art (and culture as a whole) to be an ideological weapon

and a means of struggle for power.
2. The State acquires a monopoly over all manifestations of the country’s
artistic life.
3. The State constructs an all-embracing apparatus for the control and
direction of art.

4 Golomstock, p. xiii.
5 See Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniev Brzezinsky, ‘Die allgemeinen Merk-
male der totalitären Diktatur’, in Jesse (ed.), pp. 225–36 (pp. 230–31).

23
 4. From the multiplicity of artistic movements then in existence, the State
selects one movement, always the most conservative, which most nearly
answers its needs and declares it to be official and obligatory.
5. Finally, the State declares war to the death against all styles and move-
ments other than the official ones, declaring them to be reactionary and
hostile to class, race, people, Party or State, to humanity, to social or
artistic progress etc.6

Elsewhere, in describing the decisive stages in the establishment of

‘totalitarian art’ in Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union,
Golomstock makes explicit his deployment of Hannah Arendt’s
model of political totalitarianism in relation to the cultural sphere:

Firstly, the dogma of totalitarian art was given a definitive formulation: in the
USSR it went under the name of ‘Socialist Realism’, in Germany under that of
‘the Principles of the Führer’. Secondly, a similar apparatus for the control of
art was finally perfected in both countries. Thirdly, war to the death was
declared against all artistic styles, forms and movements differing from the
official norm. The artistic life of these countries, therefore, was now entirely
determined by Hannah Arendt’s three main characteristics of totalitarianism:
ideology, organization and terror.

Perhaps most significantly for the present study, Golomstock con-

firms that the cultural sphere of the GDR can also be subsumed
under the paradigm of ‘totalitarian art’: ‘there was not one country in
the Soviet bloc where the ideology of totalitarian art was inculcated
with such rigid consistency, where its language attained such a purity
of form as in the German Democratic Republic.’ Hence, the
similarities in the cultural policies of the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany outlined above must also be deemed to have been present
in the GDR.
As such, both the Third Reich and GDR are perceived to be
monolithic entities fundamentally different from democratic soci-
eties. In Golomstock’s words, ‘an ideal totalitarian state, if such a
thing existed, would turn into an inorganic monolith – a congealed

6 Golomstock, p. xiii. Subsequent references, p. 82 and p. xiv.

24
slab of historical time incorporating millions of frozen human inten-
tions’.7 The primary image which Golomstock employs to describe
totalitarianism is that of the ‘megamachine’. The functioning of this
megamachine is utterly efficient and unyielding, ‘with no parts that
are not strictly functional, with a rigid programme and a universal
aim. Anything that hinders its work is ruthlessly eliminated’. In this
conventional totalitarianism approach, little or no space is left for
divergence from the centrally imposed norm or for evolution within
the system. Although Friedrich and Brzezinsky do explicitly allow for
the incomplete outcome of the regimes’ attempts at total control and
do claim to offer a dynamic model,8 the focus on monocratic struc-
tures and mechanisms of control almost inevitably leads to a static
model where the emphasis is on completion, rigidity, and totality.
Hence, it is noticeable in the passages quoted above that Golomstock
writes of the apparatus of control being ‘finally perfected’ and artistic
life being ‘entirely determined’ by the principles of totalitarianism.9 In
both Germany and the USSR in the 1930s, Golomstock identifies
smoothly functioning and harmonious pyramid systems of cultural
policy, directed by Hitler and Stalin at their apex and efficiently
transmitting dogmatic certainties from above. Similarly in the GDR,
it is the ‘rigid consistency’ of cultural dogmas which Golomstock
highlights.

Organisational and aesthetic similarities

For all the acknowledged difficulties associated with such an ortho-

dox, conventional model of totalitarianism, such an approach is not
entirely without value. Even Ian Kershaw, a consistent sceptic of this
approach, concedes as much:

7 Golomstock, p. xi. Subsequent reference, p. xiii.

8 Friedrich and Brzezinsky, ‘Die allgemeinen Merkmale’, pp. 226–27.
9 Golomostock, p. 95. Subsequent reference, p. 305.

25
 The totalitarianism concept allows comparative analysis of a number of
techniques and instruments of domination, and this, too, must be seen as
legitimate in itself. The underlying assumption that both regimes made total
claims upon society, based on a monopolistic set of ideological imperatives,
resulting in unprecedented levels of repression and of attempted indoctrin-
ation – giving these regimes a dynamic missing from more conventional
authoritarian regimes – again seems largely incontestable.10

In a similar vein, Mary Fulbrook acknowledges the value of com-

paring the Third Reich and the GDR in this way: ‘[The SED] made
similar total claims on individuals; they employed comparable organ-
isational means to try and incorporate people into some wider sense
of “national community”.’11 Likewise Jürgen Kocka: ‘Beide Herr-
schaftssysteme zielten auf die Umgestaltung der Gesellschaft und die
Erziehung eines neuen Menschentyps.’12 Above all, it is here, ‘als ein
Herrschaftssystem zur Realisierung totalistischer Absichten unter
modernen politischen und technischen Bedingungen’,13 as a term to
denote regimes making comparable total(itarian) claims on society,
that the notion of totalitarianism acquires its legitimacy as a com-
parative concept.
This legitimacy as a comparative framework in the broader polit-
ical sphere can also be applied to the cultural sphere. Hence, just as
the Friedrich and Arendt models of totalitarianism have value in
pointing to certain shared features of communist and fascist regimes,
particularly in terms of their organisational structures, so Golom-
stock highlights undeniable similarities in the approaches of the
regimes to art and culture. In terms of organisational similarities, the
10 Ian Kershaw, ‘“Working towards the Führer”: Reflections on the Nature of
the Hitler Dictatorship’, in Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds), Stalinism and
Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), pp. 88–106 (pp.
88–89).
11 Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949–1989 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 285.
12 Jürgen Kocka, ‘Die Geschichte der DDR als Forschungsproblem: Einleitung’,
in Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Historische DDR-Forschung: Aufsätze und Studien (Berlin:
Akademie, 1993), pp. 9–26 (pp. 22–23).
13 Friedrich and Brzezinsky, ‘Die allgemeinen Mermale’, p. 227.

26
way in which the Hitler, Stalin, and SED regimes sought to exercise
total control over the cultural sphere, making it serve their own
ideological requirements through a network of institutional sur-
veillance and exclusion, clearly invites comparison. The foundation
and operation of institutions of control in the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany echo one another intimately, even down to the timings of
some of the key developments. In particular, Golomstock highlights
the significance of artists’ unions in the two systems, a parallel also
taken up by Dietrich Beyrau in his comparative analysis of Stalinist
and National Socialist rule where he draws an explicit comparison
between the institutional control of culture by these two regimes.14
Even Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will, who operate outside
the totalitarianism framework, concede that striking parallels exist:
‘the Soviet Union, during the 1930s, provides a particularly signifi-
cant example of shared similarities with developments in culture and
art under National Socialism, despite the ostensibly unbridgeable
ideological gulf between the two regimes.’15
More striking still are the areas of aesthetic similarity which exist
between the official fascist and communist art. While in political
terms the totalitarian regimes appear to share only external, surface
characteristics, mainly to do with organisational elements, in artistic
and cultural terms the regimes seem to share much deeper features
which extend to the actual content of aesthetic policy. The many
examples provided by Golomstock from the visual arts illustrate only
too clearly how fascist and communist art seem to exhibit a genuinely
shared tendency towards a particular type of aesthetic which we
might variously term ‘conservative’, ‘realist’, ‘neo-classicist’, ‘hero-
icising’, or ‘monumental’. Parallels are to be found in the way both

14 See Dietrich Beyrau, ‘Bildungsschichten unter totalitären Bedingungen: Über-

legungen zu einem Vergleich zwischen NS-Deutschland und der Sowjetunion
unter Stalin’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 34 (1994), 35–54 (pp. 51–54).
15 Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will, ‘Aesthetics and National Social-
ism’, in Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will (eds), The Nazification of Art:
Art, Design, Music, Architecture and Film in the Third Reich (Winchester: Win-
chester Press, 1991), pp. 1–13 (p.7).

27
regimes sought to promote art which was accessible to, and represen-
tative of, the entire population, rather than only an educated elite.
Both regimes condemned the individualism of ‘capitalist’ art, prefer-
ring instead to foster a mass, collectivist culture. As Taylor and van
der Will acknowledge, the artistic doctrine of Socialist Realism,
advanced in the GDR as throughout the Soviet bloc, ‘is to be placed
inevitably alongside the technical and conceptual axioms of National
Socialist art’.16 Above all, though, it is in the virulent rejection of the
Modernist culture of the first thirty years of the twentieth century
that the official artistic policies of each regime seem to mirror one
another so closely. Where Nazi cultural policy reacted against the
artistic decadence of Weimar, its Stalinist equivalent sought to op-
pose the Soviet avant-gardism of the 1920s. As Beyrau points out, ‘in
beiden Fällen […] war die Stoßrichtung die gleiche: In der Kultur galt
alles als verwerflich, was der Moderne seit der Jahrhundertwende
zugerechnet wurde und was den Massen oder dem Volk angeblich
unverständlich sei’.17 In both cases, purges of Modernist art took
place, a policy-orientation which seems to have been taken up again
in the Formalism Campaign in the GDR almost twenty years later.
Indeed, as Golomstock indicates, one of the most striking features of
SED cultural policy was the way in which it sought out many of the
same individuals for exclusion, such as Ernst Barlach or Käthe Koll-
witz, as Nazi cultural policy had before it.18

Inefficiencies in the megamachine

And yet, for all these undoubted similarities, such a model simply
does not match the wide-ranging consensus which has been estab-
lished in the social history of the Third Reich over the last thirty
years. Here, the shift in focus to the everyday reality of life in the
Third Reich and structures of rule at a lived level has exposed the
16 Taylor and van der Will, ‘Aesthetics and National Socialism’, p. 7.
17 Beyrau, p. 52.
18 Golomstock, p. 302.

28
shortfalls and inefficiencies in the totalitarian system with a parallel
shift in focus from monocratic to polycratic mechanisms. The
‘governmental chaos’ of the Third Reich has long been acknow-
ledged,19 but even if the SED regime resists the application of such a
term, the historicisation of the GDR in the last ten years has brought
about a comparable change of approach in accounts of its history,
with a similar change in emphasis to the patterns of popular
complicity and dissent which both aided and hindered its efficient
functioning. As Richard Bessel and Ralph Jessen suggest, historians
are turning increasingly away from examining the SED’s exercise of
total control and towards an exploration of the limitations of
dictatorial rule:

Anders als bei den politikwissenschaftlichen Forschungen zur Entwicklung

der DDR, die bis 1989 erschienen sind und deren Verfasser keinen Zugang
zu ungedruckten Quellen hatten, wurden in den letzten Jahren durch
Archivquellen fundierte historische Studien möglich. Und in der Regel sieht
eine Gesellschaft weniger ‘durchherrscht’ und ein politisches System weniger
effizient aus, wenn man Zugang zu seinen internen Akten hat, deren
Hauptgegenstand oft die Probleme der Herrschaftsorganisation sind. Die
Widersprüche und Ambivalenzen des Alltags und der tagtäglichen Praxis von
Herrschaft treten hierdurch scharf vor Augen. Fast unvermeidlich ergibt dies
einen schärferen Fokus auf die Grenzen der Diktatur.20

It is in this context that Jürgen Kocka is able to assert of the Third

Reich and the GDR: ‘in beiden Systemen wurde der Anspruch auf
Steuerung der Gesellschaft nur begrenzt eingelöst, nicht zuletzt
aufgrund eingebauter Ineffizienzen, Rivalitäten und Widersprüche’.21
Or in the words of Mary Fulbrook: ‘in general, the attempt at total

19 Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, third
edition (London: Edward Arnold, 1993), p. 68.
20 Richard Bessel and Ralph Jessen, ‘Einleitung: Die Grenzen der Diktatur’, in
Richard Bessel and Ralph Jessen (eds), Die Grenzen der Diktatur: Staat und
Gesellschaft in der DDR (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), pp. 7–23
(p. 17).
21 Kocka, ‘Die Geschichte der DDR als Forschungsproblem’, p. 23.

29
influence on people, and the total transformation of attitudes, was
not a realizable goal in either the Third Reich or the GDR.’22
To take one very specific example from the cultural sphere,
architectural construction in the Third Reich amply demonstrates the
inadequacies of Golomstock’s conventional model of totalitarian
culture and illustrates the way in which cultural continuities extend
across the boundaries of totalitarian systems. Barbara Miller Lane, for
instance, refutes any suggestion that actual building under Nazism
differed substantially from the rest of Western Europe or the US.
Greater ideological claims may have been made on behalf of
architecture, but the ‘extraordinary variety of styles’ which were
employed reflected building elsewhere, with a mixture of monu-
mental, modified neo-classicism; folk, rustic styles; and functional,
industrial designs.23 Nazi architecture, it seems, was no more
monolithicly conservative or monumental than was Weimar archi-
tecture monolithicly Modernist. This is a point made by Elaine
Hochman:

For whatever reasons then - Hitler’s basic disregard of architecture outside

buildings of state; the disparity of impulses within Nazism; or the inability of
any governing power, no matter how authoritarian to totally control every
aspect of building activity - the architectural production of the Third Reich
exhibited much of the stylistic diversity of the Weimar period, despite the
massive attempts of Nazi propaganda to make it seem otherwise. Much as the
worldwide attention paid to the German modernists made their actual
production within the overall building picture of the Weimar period appear
larger than it was, so too did Nazi propaganda distort the actual building
output of the Third Reich.24

In the diversity of Nazi architecture, and in this shortfall between

propaganda and practice, we find an expression of the inefficiencies

22 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 284.

23 Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918–1945 (Cambridge
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 185.
24 Elaine S. Hochman, Architects of Fortune: Mies van der Rohe and the Third Reich
(New York: Fromm, 1990), pp. 236–37.

30
of the megamachine and its inability to exert total control. As Lane
asserts: ‘the inconclusiveness of the measures taken to purge the
architectural profession and control its output was in part the
product of rivalries among the Nazi leadership’; ‘the Nazi regime [did
not] go very far along the road toward establishing “totalitarian”
control of architectural style [...]. Thus style in Germany remained to
a large extent a product of the taste of those who paid for it, as in the
rest of western Europe.’25

Similarity and difference

The corollary of conventional assumptions concerning the innate

differences between totalitarian and democratic societies is the elision
of distinctions between totalitarian states. Not only does Golomstock
begin from Friedrich and Brzezinsky’s basic assumption, that totali-
tarian regimes are ‘im Sinne von Organisation und Verfahrensweise –
das heißt, im Sinne von Struktur, Institutionen und Herrschafts-
prozessen – im Grunde gleichartig’,26 he goes as far as to almost entirely
dismiss the significance of ideological differences between regimes:

In a totalitarian system art performs the function of transforming the raw

material of dry ideology into the fuel of images and myths intended for
general consumption. The precise nature of the raw material – whether it is
the cult of the Führer or of the leader, dogmas of race or of class, laws of
nature or of history – is of no more importance than whether one uses beet
or wheat when distilling alcohol: the raw material lends a specific flavour to a
final product which is in essence identical. And it is not only the final product
that is identical; the means of preparation (totalitarian aesthetics) and the
technology of production (totalitarian organization) turn out to be equally
similar.27

25 Lane, p. 170 and p. 216.

26 Friedrich and Brzezinsky, ‘Die allgemeinen Merkmale’, p. 228, emphasis in
the original.
27 Golomstock, p. xii. Subsequent reference, p. xiv.

31
Indeed, given that the mechanisms of totalitarian art are seen to
operate ‘with the regularity of a physical law’, Golomstock leaves no
room in his model for the substantial differences which exist be-
tween particular regimes.
Even restricting the analysis to the more readily comparable
examples of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, significant
and deep-seated differences in the structures and methods of rule
exist. Both regimes were governed by a system of one-party rule
overseen by a single dictator, but the organisation and function of the
party, the approach and role of the dictator, and, above all, the
ideology of both differed starkly. It is primarily for these reasons that
Kershaw judges a comparison based on ‘totalitarianism’ as ‘doomed
from the outset to be superficial and unsatisfactory’.28 For Kershaw,
as a scholar of the Third Reich and a biographer of Hitler, totali-
tarianism fails to acknowledge sufficiently the uniqueness of the
Third Reich, so that his fundamental assumption is one of difference
between the Hitler dictatorship and that of Stalin: ‘my starting point
[...] is the presumption that despite superficial similarities in forms of
domination the two regimes were in essence more unlike than like each
other.’29 In particular, Kershaw stresses that ‘the character of [...]
Stalin’s and Hitler’s leadership positions within their respective
regimes was fundamentally different’. Stalin was the product of a
bureaucratic system and continued to employ this system in a highly
interventionist manner. That system, together with its ideology, both
pre-dated Stalin and proved itself capable of stabilisation and self-
reproduction after his death. Hitler, by contrast, remained aloof from
state bureaucracy, his power transmitted not through day-to-day
interventions but through his personal charismatic authority. He
embodied both the ideology and governmental ‘system’ of Nazism in
person: ‘The Nazi movement, to put the point bluntly, was a classic
“charismatic” leadership movement; the Soviet Communist Party

28 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 32.

29 Kershaw, ‘Working towards the Führer’, p. 89, emphasis in the original.
Subsequent reference, p. 97.

32
was not.’30 Such differences, allied to more obvious differences in
ideology, aims, economic structures, and, not least, chronologies,
become all the more acute when attempts are made to draw post-
Stalinist regimes, such as the GDR, into the analysis. The ability of
the GDR to survive for forty years compared to the twelve years of
Nazi rule, the relative absence of a leadership cult, and the relatively
lower level of terror are all factors which cause Kershaw ‘to exclude
the application of the comparative totalitarianism concept to post-
Stalinist communist systems, where it rapidly approaches futility if
not outright absurdity’.31
Perhaps not surprisingly in this light, those same scholars who
have highlighted similarities between cultural policies in the Soviet
Union and Nazi Germany also point to a number of significant
differences. Of particular significance is Beyrau’s observation ‘daß es
im Nationalsozialismus eine so markante Kunstdoktrin wie in der
UdSSR nicht gegeben hat. Denn das Mythische, das Völkische und
Heldische, der Bezug auf Heimat, Blut und Boden boten noch
weniger Orientierung als der Sozialistische Realismus’.32 A central
plank of Golomstock’s model is an equation between the artistic
doctrines of Socialist Realism and what he refers to as ‘the Principles
of the Führer’, the two of which are held up as equally coherent and
consistent aesthetic programmes. And yet, while the former rested on
relatively clearly defined, institutionally prescribed norms, the latter is
reconstructed ‘somehow or other’ from Hitler’s speeches between
1933 and 1937.33 Indeed, Brandon Taylor openly questions the
existence of any coherent Nazi aesthetic: ‘strictly speaking, there is
no such thing as a National Socialist aesthetic. Too many phases

30 Kershaw, ‘Working towards the Führer’, p. 97. Kershaw’s notion of ‘charis-

matic authority’ draws explicitly on Max Weber’s typology of charismatic rule
which is seen to be inherently revolutionary and unstable. See Ian Kershaw,
Hitler (London: Longman, 1991), p. 10 and Max Weber, Grundriß der Sozial-
ökonomik: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tübingen: Mohr, 1947), pp. 140–42.
31 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 39.
32 Beyrau, p. 52.
33 Golomstock, p. 82.

33
were passed through on the tortuous road to 1937.’34 Even as late as
1937, when Golomstock considers ‘totalitarian art’ to be fixed in the
Third Reich, the state is seen by Taylor to be ‘still lacking a clear
conception of the style of National Socialist art’. Any contrast on this
issue between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin only
becomes more marked when the cultural policies of the GDR are
taken into account. Factional disputes notwithstanding, the SED
enjoyed a considerable advantage over the Nazi regime, being able to
call upon the pre-established norms of the Soviet cultural orthodoxy.
In contrast to the rather amorphous norms of Nazi cultural policy,
Lukács’s literary theories and Stanislavsky’s dramatic method consti-
tuted a codified aesthetic programme with a readily identifiable
textual basis. The greater coherence of GDR aesthetic norms may
also rest on what was a relatively more smoothly functioning appar-
atus of control, a function of the substantial differences in structures
of rule which undermine conventional totalitarianism assumptions.
To return to the example of architecture, Golomstock concedes
that not all construction proceeded according to the tenets of
‘totalitarian art’ and that Modernist styles did indeed flourish in
certain contexts, in particular where a distinction was drawn between
‘utilitarian’ and ‘ideological’ construction.35 Golomstock further con-
cedes that ‘art under totalitarian regimes’ is a very different theme
from ‘totalitarian art’ and that ‘not all art created in Stalin’s Russia or
Hitler’s Germany can be defined in this way’. However, such a
position is entirely inconsistent with the theoretical model of
‘totalitarian art’ maintained so rigidly elsewhere in his text. In a
system where ‘war to the death’ is declared ‘against all styles and
movements other than the official ones’, where all non-official
culture is ‘ruthlessly eliminated’, it is not at all clear how the kind of
exceptions noticeable in the sphere of architecture could be allowed
to prosper. How is a distinction possible, for instance, between
‘utilitarian’ and ‘ideological’ architecture in a society where all art and
34 Brandon Taylor, ‘Post-Modernism in the Third Reich’, in Taylor and van der
Will (eds), pp. 128–43 (p. 128). Subsequent reference, p. 133.
35 Golomstock, pp. 283–85. Subsequent references, p. xv and p. xiii.

34
culture is by definition ideologically determined? It is this kind of
evidence which begins to suggest that the very rigid boundaries of
conventional totalitarianism need to be broken down. The starkly
drawn distinctions between fascism and Modernism, between ‘totali-
tarian art’ and ‘non-totalitarian art’, ‘totalitarian’ societies and ‘non-
totalitarian’ societies, are clearly in need of some revision. Nonethe-
less Golomstock’s model provides, if nothing else, a striking example
of the force of what is the defining characteristic of ‘totalitarian’
regimes, namely the total claim made on society on behalf of their
ideology. It is the politicising power of this claim which tends to
obscure differences between regimes and which tends to render any
similarities the product of the political system and nothing else. As
we shall see, exposing the nature of this claim and non-political
elements hidden by it will be a consistent theme of this book.

Totalitarianism in the Third Reich:

charismatic, dynamic, and self-destructive

Although the shortcomings of the totalitarianism paradigm employed

by Golomstock may seem to point to an outright rejection of the
totalitarianism concept, Ian Kershaw accepts that the renaissance of
the term in the 1990s may force us to work with it and revise it rather
than reject it altogether. It is this observation which provides the
impetus for his 1994 article ‘Totalitarianism Revisited’, where the
conventional totalitarianism paradigm is reconfigured so as to take
account of the more recent traditions of Third Reich social histori-
ography.36 The central presumption here is not one of identity
between totalitarian regimes, but one of difference.

36 Ian Kershaw, ‘Totalitarianism Revisited: Nazism and Stalinism in Compara-

tive Perspective’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte, 23 (1994), 23–40.

35
Revised totalitarianism

The elaboration of this revised totalitarianism paradigm rests on two

principal theoretical and methodological steps. Firstly, Kershaw
restricts the concept of totalitarianism so that it no longer applies to a
system or state as a whole. Instead, totalitarianism is seen as ‘a
dynamic, but transitional, phase in certain modern authoritarian
systems of rule. “Totalitarianism” can give way either to complete
collapse, or to systematization. But it is not in itself a “system”’.37
Indeed, revised totalitarianism is characterised primarily by its
‘systemlessness’. Secondly, in this restricted usage, totalitarianism can
be applied only to Nazism and ‘Stalinism’, where the latter term is
itself restricted to the Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule and not to
post-Stalin ‘Stalinist’ regimes, such as the GDR. As such, Kershaw
identifies two main characteristics of the totalitarian phase of rule: (i)
‘the “total claim” of each regime on its subjects’; (ii) ‘the deformation
of existing structures of rule’. What regimes share in their totalitarian
phase is an attempt to achieve total ideological penetration through-
out society, lending the regime a revolutionary dynamic at the
expense of existing structures of ‘rational’ political rule. However, in
contrast to conventional totalitarianism models it is only the claim
which is total, not the outcome. At the same time, even given these
common features, the differences in leadership function outlined
above have significant consequences for the extent to which existing
structures of rule were deformed under Nazism and Stalinism. While
Stalin’s leadership cult was not entirely incompatible with existing
bureaucratic structures, Hitler’s leadership role produced ‘an ir-
reconcilable conflict between charismatic and bureaucratic authority’.
As bureaucracy was increasingly ‘corroded and distorted’ in favour of
‘quasi-feudal bonds of personal loyalty’, and in the absence of direct
everyday intervention from Hitler, the driving force of his ‘charis-
matic authority’ generated a ‘cumulative radicalisation’ of policy with

37 Kershaw, ‘Totalitarianism Revisited’, p. 32. Subsequent references in this

paragraph, pp. 37–40.

36
ever more limitless aims. It is this charismatic policy dynamic which
Kershaw views as the unique feature of National Socialism.

Key features of rule: incomplete outcomes, polycractic structures,

and cumulative radicalisation

Research into the cultural sphere over the past twenty-five years
seems to have gradually come to match the consensus within the
social and political historiography of the Third Reich, that structures
of rule were chaotic and polycratic, that control was not monolithic
and total. One of the first scholars to take on board the methodo-
logical approach of the Bavaria Project and to apply an Alltags-
geschichte approach to the cultural sphere, in the process undermining
a conventional totalitarian view of Nazi culture, was Hans Dieter
Schäfer. Schäfer exposes, for instance, ‘vier charakteristische Ele-
mente der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft [...], die – neben der
pluralistischen Machtauffächerung – für die uneinheitliche Lebens-
wirklichkeit verantwortlich zu machen sind: 1. Personalisierte Zensur;
2. Anpassungsfähigkeit an die privatwirtschaftliche Eigendynamik; 3.
Sicherung der Macht durch Duldung einer politikfreien Sphäre; 4.
Begrenztheit der bürokratischen Kontrolle bei Interessen von
Mehrheitsgruppen’.38 In particular, Schäfer is able to cite a wide array
of examples which lend support to the existence in the cultural
sphere of significant continuities across the historical and geo-
graphical boundaries of the Third Reich. In this sense, Schäfer’s
approach anticipates that of Bessel and Jessen who see such
continuities as one of the primary limitations on the exercise of
dictatorial rule.39 In exposing such continuities, Schäfer further
refutes the assumptions of Golomstock’s conventional model, that a

38 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Das gespaltene Bewußtsein: Über deutsche Kultur und
Lebenswirklichkeit 1933–1945’, in Hans Dieter Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewußt-
sein: Über deutsche Kultur und Lebenswirklichkeit 1933–1945 (Munich: Hanser,
1981), pp. 114–62 (p. 133).
39 Bessel and Jessen, p. 9.

37
total Gleichschaltung was achieved within the Third Reich and that any
cultural phenomena deviating from the official norm were com-
pletely eradicated.
Just how significant Schäfer’s work is in this field is underlined
by Wolfram Wessels in the introduction to his study of radio drama
in the Third Reich, published in 1985.40 Surveying the critical writing
on literature under Nazism, Wessels sees Schäfer as the honourable
exception to a tradition which has failed to challenge ‘die Vorstellung
eines monolothischen NS-Kultursystems’ and which has only too
infrequently tackled the long-established historiographical debate
between ‘intentionalist’ and ‘structuralist’ explanations of the Nazi
regime. Schäfer is the first scholar to start to reveal the true extent of
‘non-fascist’ cultural production, and in this respect he provides an
opportunity to place research into culture in the Third Reich on a
new footing. Schäfer has begun the process of eroding the myth of a
monolithic Nazi culture, and this process has now been taken up by
an ever increasing number of scholars. In his introduction to a
collection of essays on National Socialist cultural policy, for instance,
Glenn Cuomo recognises Schäfer’s ‘pioneering study’ which has
‘demonstrated that the everyday reality of cultural life under Hitler
not only was quite diverse and remarkably “liberal” in some areas,
but also often at odds with the values promoted by National Socialist
ideology’.41 In the same volume, Erhard Bahr confirms that the
cultural sphere conforms to the broader model of overlapping
governmental structures: ‘Nazi rule was a polycratic system and its
cultural policies were no exception. On the contrary, the interagency
rivalry was perhaps more evident here than in any other area.’42
Similarly, Jonathan Petropoulos draws explicitly on Martin Broszat’s
work in order to apply the notion of polycracy to the cultural-

40 Wolfram Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich: Zur Institutionen-, Theorie- und

Literaturgeschichte (Bonn: Bouvier, 1985), p. 12.
41 Glenn R. Cuomo, ‘Introduction’, in Glenn R. Cuomo (ed.), National Socialist
Cultural Policy (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 1–4 (pp. 1–2).
42 Erhard Bahr, ‘Nazi Cultural Politics: Intentionalism vs. Functionalism’, in
Cuomo (ed.), pp. 5–22 (p. 13).

38
political sphere to describe ‘the web of multiple and intertwined
offices that characterized the governmental structure’.43 In this con-
text, it is striking that in his examination of polycratic Nazi power
structures, the political historian Peter Hüttenberger cites Reinhard
Bollmus’s account of the power struggle between Goebbels and
Rosenberg over cultural policy as an archetypal instance of that same
polycracy.44
Norbert Frei is another historian of the Third Reich who has
drawn on Schäfer’s work to highlight ‘die Grenzen der Reglemen-
tierung des Kulturbetriebs’, a product of ‘Kalkül, Notwendigkeit und
Unabänderlichem zugleich’.45 We have already noted the shortfall
between Nazi propaganda and practice in the realm of architecture
and this is one of the areas highlighted by Frei: ‘doch bei der Be-
trachtung des im Dritten Reich tatsächlich Gebauten fällt es schwer,
einen spezifischen NS-Stil auszumachen.’ But it is perhaps in the
sphere of music where the reality of life in the Third Reich most
clearly exposes the myth of a monolithic regime: ‘[es] bestand
zwischen dem offiziell erwünschten und dem privat möglichen
Musikgenuß ein erheblicher Unterschied. Im Laufe einiger Jahre
durchzog diese Spaltung das gesamte Kulturleben.’ In particular, it is
the fate of jazz and swing music in the Third Reich which plays an
exemplary role in this re-appraisal of Nazi culture, and in this respect
the work of Michael Kater has been fundamental, both in under-
mining conventional assumptions about the incompatibility of
Nazism and jazz and in demonstrating the wider significance of jazz
for an analysis of the power structures of the Third Reich. Consider,
for instance, the following:

43 Jonathan Petropoulos, ‘A Guide through the Visual Arts Administration’, in

Cuomo (ed.), pp. 121–53 (p. 140).
44 Peter Hüttenberger, ‘Nationalsozialistische Polykratie’, Geschichte und Gesell-
schaft, 2 (1976), 417–42 (p. 417, note 1). See Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt
Rosenberg und seine Gegner: Zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschafts-
system (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970).
45 Norbert Frei, Der Führerstaat: Nationalsozialistische Herrschaft 1933–1945
(Munich: dtv, 1987), p. 109. Subsequent references, pp. 116–17 and p. 114.

39
 The Nazis had early on decreed that ‘Nigger-Jew jazz’ and National Socialist
dogma were unalterable opposites – this ruling was carved in stone. Yet,
despite categorical condemnation of the music, not only was there, from 1933
to 1945, no clearly enunciated and therefore nationally binding prohibition of
jazz, but there existed, throughout, a confusing mix of tolerance, acqui-
escence, indictment, and policy reversal that today allows for fundamental
doubts about the consistency of the Nazi regime both in its theory and
practice.46

Despite the apparent mutual exclusivity of Nazi ideology and jazz,

this form of music clearly survived and, in places, thrived. This ably
demonstrates the shortfall between propaganda-influenced per-
ceptions of the Third Reich and the everyday reality and, in Kater’s
words, provides a looking glass ‘to focus on the polycratic and often
contradictory structures of the Third Reich’.
In terms of literary production, an approach which questions the
conventional totalitarianism thesis seems to hold equal validity. Roger
Griffin, for example, writes as follows:

The fate of literature and poetry under the Third Reich can be seen as a
microcosm of the regime as a whole: the facts in no way bear out the
stereotype of a coherent policy being adopted towards aesthetic issues or of
all writers being coerced into serving as docile propagandists for Nazi
values.47

This suggestion is taken up in the work of Martin Travers who

maintains that the conventional ‘assumption – that the state was able
to exert total control over individual writers – hinders rather than
promotes a recognition of the true relationship between literary
production and state control in Nazi Germany’.48 More specifically,
he identifies three dimensions of literary activity in the Third Reich

46 Michael Kater, ‘Forbidden Fruit? Jazz in the Third Reich’, American Historical
Review, 94 (1989), 11–43 (p. 43). Subsequent reference, also p. 43.
47 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 107–08.
48 Martin Travers, ‘Politics and Canonicity: Constructing Literature in the Third
Reich’, in J. Milfull (ed.), The Attractions of Fascism (New York: Berg, 1990), pp.
253–72 (pp. 256–57). Subsequent references, p. 257.

40
obscured by the assumptions of the conventional totalitarianism
model: (i) ‘contradictions, tensions, dysfunctions within the apparatus
of Nazi cultural control’; (ii) ‘lapses in the control and surveillance
exercised over individual writers and certain literary institutions and
journals’; (iii) ‘overlaps and continuities that exist between the
literature produced under the aegis of the Third Reich and literature
produced in literary communities generally typified as “liberal” or
“democratic”’.
Empirical evidence to confirm Travers’s observations is not
difficult to locate. The latter two points lie at the heart of Schäfer’s
research outlined above, while even as early as 1960, Dietrich
Strothmann was able to expose the internal power-struggles and
overlapping spheres of authority within the National Socialist literary
apparatus.49 Twenty years later, Volker Dahm’s study of Jewish
publishers in the Third Reich exposed what he termed ‘die autoritäre
Anarchie’ of literary policy.50 Dahm was able to demonstrate, in
Cuomo’s words, ‘daß das NS System für Schrifttumsüberwachung
keine einheitlichen Richtlinien hatte und unter administrativer In-
kompetenz sowie interner Rivalität zwischen Ämtern mit sich
überlagernden Kompetenzen litt’.51 In a similar vein, Jörg Thunecke
draws on research which indicates ‘wie durchlässig in letzter Instanz
das angeblich perfekt organisierte System des NS-Schrifttumswesens
in der Praxis doch war’, pragmatic and financial considerations often
taking precedence over ideological concerns.52 Most recently of all,

49 Dietrich Strothmann, Nationalsozialistische Literaturpolitik: Ein Beitrag zur Publi-

zistik im Dritten Reich (Bonn: Bouvier, 1960), pp. 56–61.
50 Volker Dahm, Das jüdische Buch im Dritten Reich, 2 vols (Frankfurt a.M.:
Buchhändler-Vereinigung, 1979–1982), I: Die Ausschaltung der jüdischen Autoren,
Verleger und Buchhändler (1979), p. 6.
51 Glenn R. Cuomo, ‘Hanns Johst und die Reichsschrifttumskammer: Ihr Ein-
fluß auf die Situation des Schriftstellers im Dritten Reich’, in Jörg Thunecke
(ed.), Leid der Worte: Panorama des literarischen Nationalsozialismus (Bonn:
Bouvier, 1987), pp. 108–32 (p. 108).
52 Jörg Thunecke, ‘NS-Schrifttumspolitik: Am Beispiel der vertraulichen Mit-
teilungen der Fachschaft Verlag (1933–1945)’, in Thunecke (ed.), pp. 133–52 (p.
143).

41
Jan-Pieter Barbian has undertaken a detailed examination of literary
policy in the Third Reich using a wide range of archival sources.53
While the impressive weight of detail often tends to somewhat
obscure broader interpretative issues concerning the structures of
rule in the Third Reich, Barbian makes it clear that a multiplicity of
agencies, resting on rival, personalised power bases, characterised the
organisation of the literary sphere. Elsewhere, Barbian has explicitly
characterised cultural policy in the Third Reich as ‘rule by bureau-
cracies in competition with one another’.54 Highlighting friction
generated by inter-agency rivalries, Barbian asserts that ‘such friction
is especially clear concerning the agencies responsible for state liter-
ary policy’.
There can be little doubt then that outcomes in National Social-
ist cultural policy fell short of the total claim of the regime, as
research across a broad spectrum of cultural phenomena has increas-
ingly revealed the discrepancy between propaganda and practice.
Research into the cultural sphere has also confirmed that it was
characterised by polycratic, chaotic even, structures of rule. As such,
the evidence presented above seems to argue strongly in favour of
the kind of governmental model which underlies Kershaw’s revised
totalitarianism paradigm where existing structures of rule are de-
formed and distorted. Furthermore, the contrast between the
cultural-political climate of 1933–1934 - when a liberal wing of the
NS-Studentenbund, supported by Joseph Goebbels, sought to promote
German Expressionism as the basis for a new Nazi art and when the
Expressionist poet Gottfried Benn enthusiastically backed the new
regime - and that of 1937–1938 - when Modernist art was vilified at
the Entartete Kunst exhibition and Benn was banned as a ‘porn-
ographer’ - suggests the presence in cultural politics of a radicalising
dynamic to match that present elsewhere in the regime. As Erhard
Bahr indicates, ‘a process of “cumulative radicalization”, as it has

53 Jan-Pieter Barbian, Literaturpolitik im ‘Dritten Reich’: Institutionen, Kompetenzen,

Betätigungsfelder (Munich: dtv, 1995).
54 Jan-Pieter Barbian, ‘Literary Policy in the Third Reich’, trans. by Glenn R.
Cuomo, in Cuomo (ed.), pp. 155–96 (p. 168). Subsequent reference, p. 168.

42
been called by Hanns Mommsen, also can be observed in the realm
of cultural politics’.55 The presence of this radicalising dynamic, to-
gether with polycratic governmental structures, suggests strongly that
Kershaw’s revised, charismatic model of totalitarianism may also be
applied to Nazi cultural policy.

Explaining cultural policy: intentionalism or structuralism?

And yet, even the raft of evidence outlined in this section, pointing
to the significant inefficiencies and limitations of direct rule from
above, does not automatically rule out a more conventional, in-
tentionalist interpretation of Nazi cultural policy. In an echo of
historiographical debates concerning the Nazi regime as a whole,
disagreement remains as to how to interpret this cultural-political
‘chaos’ and Hitler’s role within it.56 For some, polycracy constitutes
not a symptom of the deformation of existing structures of rule, but
is rather part of a conscious divide-and-rule strategy employed by
Hitler. Similarly, the breakdown of the monolithic image of National
Socialist cultural policy is explained not by fundamental inefficiencies
and failures in the mechanisms of control. Rather, any relatively
‘open’, contested areas of cultural policy are perceived either as
temporary and illusory, generated during an initial implementation
phase, or as deliberate and non-political spaces, part of a calculated
policy on Hitler’s part to secure conformity.57 As Bracher comments
in relation to the multiplicity of agencies in foreign policy: ‘Gewiß lag
bei Hitler die absolute, unkontrollierbare Entscheidungsgewalt. Alle
inneren Konflikte und Rivalitäten stärkten letztlich nur diese Stellung

55 Bahr, p. 14.
56 For a summary and evaluation of the broader debates, see Kershaw, Nazi
Dictatorship, pp. 59–79.
57 See, for instance, Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Verführung und Gewalt: Deutschland
1933–1945 (Berlin: Siedler, 1986), p. 511.

43
des “Führers”.’58 In terms of cultural policy, any such intentionalist
interpretation rests on three unresolved issues: firstly, the extent to
which strands of Modernism, specifically German Expressionism,
could ever have functioned within the mature, official Nazi aesthetic;
secondly, the duration of the initial, contested phase of cultural policy
and the approximate date at which policy radicalised into a virulent
anti-Modernism from which there was no turning back; and finally,
and most importantly, the mechanism by which this policy radical-
ised and Hitler’s role within it.
Bahr’s essay, ‘Nazi Cultural Politics: Intentionalism vs Function-
alism’ provides the clearest and most complete statement of the
intentionalist view of Nazi cultural policy.59 As the title suggests, the
intentionalist view is not proposed in isolation, but rather explicitly
within the historiographical framework of ‘intentionalism’ and
‘functionalism’ (that is, ‘structuralism’). In terms of the specifics of
the argument, let us take in turn each of the issues outlined above.
Firstly, in Bahr’s own words, ‘modernist art, such as expressionism,
could never have functioned within Hitler’s cultural policies as some
revolutionary factions within the Nazi Party had suggested in
1933/34’. For Bahr, this unequivocal position rests on Hitler’s own
consistent and equally unequivocal rejection of Modernist aesthetics,
an antipathy as strong and unerring as his anti-Semitism. It is the
consistency of this anti-Modernist stance - from the first manifesto
of the German Workers’ Party of 1920 to Mein Kampf in 1924, from
the Frick administration in Thuringia in 1930 to the rapid implemen-
tation of restrictive and exclusionary polices after 1933 - which for
Bahr rules out the possibility of Modernism ever operating within
official Nazi culture. Secondly, Bahr concedes an initial period of
relative ambiguity in relation to Modernist culture, but ‘by September
1934 Hitler defined and set the course of the cultural policies for the
years to come’. As a result, ‘in 1935, a phase of generally increasing
radicalization set in’, while ‘by August 1937, the definitive Nazi
58 Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die deutsche Diktatur: Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des
Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: Kiepenheuer, 1969), p. 348.
59 For material in this paragraph, see Bahr, pp. 14–17.

44
cultural politics were in place and enforced in all areas’. The initial
‘openness’ of cultural policy in 1933–1934 is then illusory, gradually
and inevitably closed down through 1935–1937. Finally, while con-
ceding the polycracy, chaos even, of governmental structures within
the cultural sphere, Bahr sees evidence of Hitler’s firm control at
every point. So, for instance: ‘the balance of power between
Goebbels and Rosenberg was controlled by Hitler’s firm leadership
in matters of cultural politics between 1933 and 1939.’ Hitler’s own
personal interest in the arts ensured a high degree of day-to-day
intervention, so that ‘nothing was done without Hitler’s approval.
The appropriate legislation was issued in the name of the Führer and
chancellor of the Reich. [...] Hitler’s signature can be found on the
major documents relating to the cultural policies’. Just as a direct
path can be traced from the death camps back to Hitler’s earliest
speeches condemning the Jews, so the purges of Modernist art
symbolised by Entartete Kunst can be traced back to Hitler’s earliest
statements on cultural policy. The mechanism of radicalisation is
then an intentionalist one: ‘the “cumulative radicalization” of the
cultural politics was mainly due to Hitler’s intervention and not the
result of the interaction of various agencies.’
There is an obvious intuitive appeal in an analysis of cultural
policy which ties Hitler’s world-view so firmly to the implementation
of policy. Substantial evidence exists of Hitler’s firm and long-
standing rejection of the Modernist cultural direction of the first
three decades of the twentieth century. In his recent biography of
Hitler, for example, Ian Kershaw describes Hitler’s reactions to the
experimental Modernism of Munich before World War I as follows:
‘his cultural taste remained locked in the nineteenth century, closed
to modern art forms, hostile to the works of all those for whom
Munich before the First World war is renowned.’60 Elaine Hochman,
meanwhile, attributes the eventual anti-Modernist direction of Nazi
cultural policy almost entirely to Hitler’s own personal tastes and

60 Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 2 vols (London: Penguin, 1998–2000), I: Hubris: 1889–

1936 (1998), p. 82.

45
interventions.61 As far as the actual workings of policy and Hitler’s
day-to-day role are concerned, Jonathan Petropoulos lends weight to
an intentionalist view of the Rosenberg/Goebbels rivalry, where
Hitler is seen to intervene against the Modernist faction around
Goebbels: ‘the appointment [of Rosenberg] appeared to be an effort
to counterbalance the growing power of Goebbels: Hitler’s divide-
and-rule philosophy could not brook the monopoly then held by the
propaganda minister in the cultural sphere. Hitler’s views on modern
art also ran contrary to those of Goebbels.’62 As regards literary
policy, Jan-Pieter Barbian also notes a highly interventionist style on
Hitler’s part: ‘nicht nur beim institutionellen Aufbau und der
Kompetenzverteilung auf literaturpolitischem Gebiet, sondern auch
bei einer Reihe von Einzelentscheidungen ist eine unmittelbare
Beteiligung Hitlers nachweisbar.’63 It seems then that cultural policy
may well constitute something of an exception to the broader model
of Nazi rule, where Hitler’s keen personal interest entails at least
some significant role for an intentionalist mechanism of policy
development.
Nonetheless, an intentionalist explanation alone attributes a level
of coherence to the cultural sphere which seems incompatible with
the sheer weight of evidence presented above. As Frei indicates, the
cultivation of a non-political literary sphere was not just a matter of
deliberate policy:

Keineswegs alles, was an nicht-nationalsozialistischen Zeitschriften und

literarischen Werken weiter erscheinen konnte, verdankte sich rationalem
Kalkül. Es gab auch unfreiwillige Machtbegrenzung, resultierend aus der
Dürftigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Kulturproduktion, der Ambivalenz der
Weltanschauung und widerstreitenden Auffassungen innerhalb der Kultur-
bürokratie selbst.64

61 See Hochman, pp. 311–12.

62 Petropoulos, p. 124.
63 Barbian, Literaturpolitik im Dritten Reich, p. 845.
64 Frei, p. 110.

46
In particular, although the strong evidence of Hitler’s special per-
sonal interest, and therefore interventions, cannot be ignored, the
view of Rosenberg’s appointment as evidence of a conscious divide-
and-rule strategy and as a firm resolution to his dispute with
Goebbels is contradicted on three counts by Reinhard Bollmus’s
detailed study of the Rosenberg Office.65 Firstly, Bollmus refutes the
suggestion that Rosenberg’s promotion in 1934 came as a conscious
rebuff to the Modernist faction, placing Hitler’s decision instead
within the very different context of school curriculum development.
Secondly, Goebbels is seen to have continued to manoeuvre in
favour of the pro-Modernists and against Rosenberg well into 1935,
against the backdrop of a series of cultural-political controversies
surrounding the musicians Strauss and Hindemith and the presidents
of Kulturkammer. Thirdly, the inter-agency rivalry generated by Rosen-
berg’s appointment comes about not through a calculated policy, but
is rather the ‘Ausdruck tatsächlicher Planlosigkeit’.66
This conclusion fits much more closely with what is now known
about Hitler’s style of rule:

The chaotic nature of government in the Third Reich was also markedly
enhanced by Hitler’s non-bureaucratic and idiosyncratic style of rule. His
eccentric ‘working’ hours, his aversion to putting anything on paper, his
lengthy absences from Berlin, his inaccessibility even for important ministers,
his impatience with the complexities of intricate problems, and his tendency
to seize impulsively upon random strands of information or half-baked
judgements from cronies or court favourites – all meant that ordered
government in any conventional understanding of the term was a complete
impossibility.67

It is difficult then to see the fate of German Expressionism under

Nazism settled by Hitler’s firm intervention in 1934, not least
because Hitler’s Kulturtag address in September of that year rebuffed

65 See Bollmus, pp. 71–84.

66 Bollmus, p. 250.
67 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 72.

47
both Modernist and traditionalist factions.68 If it did set the course of
cultural policy, it is not clear what that course was. Similarly,
Schäfer’s assessment of the genesis of National Socialism’s anti-
Modernist policy offers little support for Bahr: ‘die Versuche von
Gottfried Benn und Teilen des Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen
Studentenbundes um Otto Andreas Schreiber, den Futurismus mit
der “neuen Macht” zu versöhnen, wurden erst endgültig and
demonstrativ durch die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” (1937) und
das Publikationsverbot Benns (18.3.1938) zugunsten der traditiona-
listischen Kunstströmung entschieden.’69

Working towards the Führer

So, what is the mechanism which best explains the radicalising

dynamic of Nazi cultural policy? Here, it is worth returning to the
social and political historiography of the Third Reich where the most
recent and sophisticated models of Nazi rule have been developed.
More specifically, the outcome of Ian Kershaw’s reflections on the
nature of Hitler’s charismatic leadership function has been the
development of a model which synthesises both intentionalist and
functionalist approaches. In this model, it is both the chaotic,
overlapping structures of the regime and the indispensable motor of
Hitler’s ideological leadership which explain the cumulative radical-
isation of Nazi policy. The ‘decisive component’ of Kershaw’s
synthesised model is the notion of ‘working towards the Führer’,
whereby subordinates competed with one another, either through
ideological conviction or careerist self-interest, to carry out what they
perceived to be the Führer’s will:

68 Hitler’s speech was made on 5 September 1934 at Nuremberg and appeared

in the Völkischer Beobachter, 7 September 1934. See Bahr, p. 15; Taylor, p. 132;
Hochman, pp. 229–30.
69 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnationalsozialistische Literatur der jungen
Generation im Dritten Reich’, in Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewußtsein, pp. 7–54
(p. 18).

48
 Hitler’s personalized form of rule invited radical initiatives from below and
offered such initiatives backing, so long as they were in line with his broadly
defined goals. This promoted ferocious competition at all levels of the
regime, among competing agencies, and among individuals within those
agencies. In the Darwinist jungle of the Third Reich, the way to power and
advancement was through anticipating the Führer will, and, without waiting
for directives, taking initiatives to promote what were perceived to be Hitler’s
aims and wishes.70

Significantly, the evidence presented thus far seems to suggest

strongly that both of the key pre-conditions necessary for the
operation of this mechanism existed within the cultural sphere:
firstly, a strong but vague anti-Modernist policy orientation expressed
through Hitler’s charismatic authority at the top; and secondly,
multiple, overlapping and competing spheres of authority below. As
Petropoulos indicates, ‘in a broader sense, the Nazi leaders’ adminis-
tration of the arts expressed fundamental characteristics of the
regime. Its bureaucratic organisation was dynamic to the point of
appearing improvisational; hierarchical and yet at the same time
uncoordinated; responsive to Hitler’s policies, while still subject to
the whims of subleaders’.71
The theoretical attraction of Kershaw’s synthesised model,
particularly in its ability to resolve the ‘tension between a “Führer
absolutism” and the “departmental polycracy”’, is clear enough.72
Furthermore, a number of significant events in the development of
Nazi cultural policy, such as the book-burnings of May 1933, the
Rosenberg/Goebbels rivalry, and the purges of Modernist art, all
appear to provide compelling evidence of the operation of this
mechanism within the cultural sphere. It is now widely accepted, for
instance, that the book-burnings of 10 May 1933 were not initiated
by Hitler himself or indeed by any of the highest-ranking officials in

70 Kershaw, Hitler, I, p. 530.

71 Petropoulos, p. 122.
72 Petropoulos, p. 140.

49
the Nazi Party.73 Instead, they were prompted by a non-Nazi student
organisation, the Deutsche Studentenschaft, in an attempt to outdo its
official National Socialist rival. As Bahr himself points out: ‘it is
important to note that non-Nazi organizations, such as the German
Students’ Association, were eager to preempt the policies of rival
Nazi organizations. [...] In this particular case, the competition be-
tween the German Students’ Association and the Nazi Students’
Association may have resulted in a more radical policy than originally
planned.’74 Far from being part of a premeditated, centrally-planned
implementation of policy, the book-burnings, so symbolic of the
Nazis’ cultural barbarism, provide an archetypal instance of a policy
radicalisation as a result of rival agencies ‘working towards the
Führer’. Indeed, although Bahr finally settles for an intentionalist
interpretation of Nazi cultural policy, his analysis of the rivalry
between Goebbels and Rosenberg seems to argue against that
conclusion and to anticipate Kershaw’s model:

The inter-office infighting did not neutralize the negative effects of Nazi
cultural politics but radicalized them. [...] This kind of infighting was typical
for the evolvement of many Nazi institutions and policies, and the cultural
policies were no exception. [...] This radicalization occurred whenever the
various competing Nazi agencies fought for positions of power within the
system.

That, as a result of his rivalry with Rosenberg, Goebbels eventually

abandoned Expressionism and instead embraced a radicalisation of
Hitler’s anti-modernistic policy direction again seems to support this
approach. Still more significant is Russell Berman’s suggestion that
no definitive list of Modernist works to be seized from galleries and
museums was ever actually drawn up, leaving officials to act on their
own initiative: ‘As was typical of the bureaucratic confusion that
characterized the National Socialist dictatorship, there appears to
have been no precise administrative guideline as to which works or
73 See, for instance, J. M. Ritchie, ‘The Nazi Book-Burning’, Modern Language
Review, 83 (1988), 627–43.
74 Bahr, p. 12. Subsequent reference, pp. 13–14.

50
artists were to be judged contraband.’75 It is precisely this lack of
concrete guidelines which would have encouraged subordinate
officials to ‘work towards the Führer’, attempting to anticipate which
works should be purged.
In this context, Erhard Bahr seems entirely justified in drawing a
parallel between the development of racial and cultural policies in the
Third Reich. In both cases Hitler consistently enunciated a world-
view aimed at the exclusion of an undesirable other, and in both
cases this dogmatic world-view drove policy to radicalise over the
course of the 1930s. However, to locate these patterns of policy
development, as Bahr does, in a monocausal, intentionalist frame-
work is surely inadequate. Consider, for instance, Ian Kershaw’s
discussion of the historiography of the Holocaust:

Relating [...] the genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ to the polarized ‘Hitlerist’ and
‘structuralist’ interpretations – the one emphasizing a Hitler order as the
culmination of a planned long-term programme directed towards extermin-
ation, the other stressing a process of permanent improvisation as a way out
of self-made administrative difficulties – one would have to conclude that
neither model offers a wholly satisfactory explanation, and that some room
for compromise is obvious.76

As superficially appealing as it might be, the teleological path from

Auschwitz back to Hitler’s earliest statements of anti-Semitism does
not do justice to the winding path by which National Socialist racial
policies arrived at the ‘Final Solution’. Similarly, the path to Entartete
Kunst was not direct and unerring. At the same time, the significance
of Hitler’s role in the development of racial and cultural policy
cannot be downplayed. Instead, only a model of Nazi government
which acknowledges both the chaotic, overlapping structures of the
regime and the indispensable motor of Hitler’s ideological leadership
can explain the radicalisation of anti-Modernist policies in the Third

75 Russell Berman, ‘German Primitivism / Primitive Germany: The Case of

Emil Nolde’, in Richard Golsan (ed.), Fascism, Aesthetics and Culture (Hanover
NH: University of New England Press, 1992), pp. 56–66 (p. 56).
76 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 105.

51
Reich. Cultural politics can then be placed convincingly within the
wider model of National Socialist rule elaborated by Ian Kershaw,
drawing on decades of the most involved historiographical debate.
Cultural policies in the Third Reich were totalitarian in the sense that
a total claim was made on culture on behalf of Nazi ideology, but
that total claim could not be, and was not, ever fully realised. The key
structural determinants of policy were Hitler’s charismatic leadership
and the governmental polycracy which sough to implement his
wishes. Existing structures of rule were deformed and policy acquired
an increasingly unstoppable, radicalising dynamic.

(Post)totalitarianism in the GDR:

bureaucratic, static, and self-reproductive?

Ian Kershaw identifies five main features of a post-Stalinist regime,

such as the GDR, which set it apart from, in his ‘revised’ terms, an
archetypal totalitarian regime, such as the Third Reich: (i) a capacity
for self-reproduction in the system; (ii) a loss of revolutionary dyna-
mism; (iii) the absence of any leadership cult; (iv) a sharp reduction in
the extent of terror; (v) widespread adjustment and cooperation
amongst the population.77 Just as the central features of the National
Socialist dictatorship, governmental chaos and radical dynamism, are
seen to be products of the charismatic nature of Hitler’s rule, so the
absence of this charisma is seen to be the key structural determinant
of the SED regime. The essentially bureaucratic, rather than
charismatic, nature of the regime explains its ability to reproduce
itself. The GDR is post-Stalinist, and post-totalitarian, in the sense
that the regime is systematised. Revolutionary dynamism is replaced
by ‘“conservative” authoritarianism’. Arbitrary terror is replaced by

77 See Kershaw, ‘Totalitarianism Revisited’, pp. 29–32. Material in this para-

graph from that source.

52
‘largely predictable’ ‘bureaucratic control’ and even by ‘a limited
degree of institutional tolerance’. Active popular support and
opposition are replaced by an unenthusiastic acceptance of the
settled system and by related patterns of adjustment and conformity.
To conclude, ‘the relative stability and the self-reproductive capacity
of firm structures of domination in the post-Stalinist era contrast
with the upheaval, revolutionary violence, absence of clear norms,
and destruction – not stopping short of the pillars of the regime
themselves – under Stalin [and Hitler]’.

Return of the megamachine?

Many post-Wende accounts of East German history seem to provide

confirmation of these differences within the GDR system as a whole.
Mary Fulbrook, for instance, makes it clear that ‘the notion of
charismatic leadership can [...] scarcely be applied to the GDR’.78
The GDR was ‘a system which was capable of reproducing itself: it
was not inherently expansionist and ultimately destructive and
self-destructive as was the Third Reich’. For Fulbrook, this self-
reproductive capacity was a feature of ‘a far more streamlined machine
than that of the infinitely more chaotic Nazi state’:

There was not an increasingly chaotic, hydra-headed monster in which the

only ultimate source of authority and arbitration was the final word of the
Führer. The East German state was ordered along far more rational lines,
without the overlapping spheres of competence that increasingly character-
ised the brief history of the Third Reich.79

In a similar vein, Jürgen Kocka perceives ‘auf der Ebene des Herr-
schaftssytems gravierende Unterschiede’:80

78 Mary Fulbrook, ‘A German Dictatorship: Power Structures and Political

Culture in the GDR’, German Life and Letters, 45 (1992), 376–92, p. 391.
Subsequent references, p. 390.
79 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, pp. 43–44.
80 Kocka, ‘Die Geschichte der DDR als Forschungsproblem’, p 23.

53
 Je genauer man hinblickt, je gründlicher man das Herrschaftssystem, die
Sozial- und Rechtspolitik, die Minderheitenpolitik, die Sozialgeschichte, das
Wirtschaftssystem, den Alltag, die Kultur der beiden Diktaturen untersucht,
desto mehr treten ihre tiefgreifenden und vielfältigen Unterschiede hervor.81

Above all, ‘das Charisma Hitlers [blieb] dem Ersten Sekretären der
SED grundsätzlich fremd’.82 This fundamental difference in leader-
ship style and function is developed by Monika Kaiser in her analysis
of organisational structures and competencies in the SED. Here, she
contrasts the pure charisma of Hitler’s rule with the ‘routinised
charisma’ of the SED, the latter being founded on ‘Charisma, das
nicht an eine Person als solche, sondern an den Inhaber eines Amtes
oder an ein institutionelles Gebilde ohne Ansehen der Person
geknüpft ist’.83 In Weberian terms, the revolutionary and unstable
nature of pure charisma in the Third Reich contrasts with its
institutionalised equivalent in the GDR.84 As Kaiser indicates, and in
contrast to the Third Reich, ‘die Omnipotenz der SED-Führung ließ
keine institutionelle Anarchie zu’.
In addition to this ‘wesentlich stärker formalisierte Herrschafts-
struktur’,85 the most recent social historiography of the GDR is
increasingly highlighting the nature of the East German dictatorship
as ‘eine durchherrschte Gesellschaft’, ‘weil die Institutionalisierung
der Parteien und Massenorganisationen immer mehr Menschen in
neue Strukturen hineinzog’.86 This shift from a top-down Repressions-
81 Jürgen Kocka, Vereinigungskrise: Zur Geschichte der Gegenwart (Göttingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), p. 95.
82 Kocka, ‘Die Geschichte der DDR als Forschungsproblem’, p 23.
83 Monika Kaiser, ‘Die Zentrale der Diktatur: Organisatorische Weichen-
stellungen, Strukturen und Kompetenzen der SED-Führung in der SBZ/
DDR 1946–1952’, in Kocka (ed.), pp. 57–86 (p. 59). Subsequent reference, p.
58.
84 On the ‘Veralltäglichung des Charisma’ and particularly the notion of ‘Amts-
charisma’, see Max Weber, pp. 142–48.
85 Kaiser, p. 58.
86 Mary Fulbrook, ‘Politik, Wissenschaft und Moral: Zur neueren Geschichte
der DDR’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 22 (1996), 458–71 (p. 460). See Jürgen
Kocka, ‘Eine durchherrschte Gesellschaft’, in Hartmut Kaelble, Jürgen

54
these towards notions of penetration at an everyday level, with the
emphasis on the majority of the population integrated into mass
organisations and institutions and conforming to patterns of be-
haviour determined by the Party, starts to suggest that the SED
regime may have come closer to realising its total claim than did the
Hitler regime. Bessel and Jessen, for instance, write of the SED’s
totalitarian aims as follows:

Und die tatsächliche Entwicklung ist diesen Zielen ja in vielem nahe-

gekommen. [...] Wirtschaft, Recht, Verwaltung und Kultur folgten nicht oder
nur sehr begrenzt ihren eigenen Regeln, sondern standen unter dem
dauernden Entscheidungsvorbehalt der Partei. Abstrakter gesprochen: Die
relative Autonomie der gesellschaftlichen Subsysteme war einer fort-
schreitenden institutionellen Fusionierung und Zentralisierung zum Opfer
gefallen; weit mehr übrigens, als dies die Nationalsozialisten in den zwölf
Jahren ihrer Herrschaft je geschafft hatten.87

Similarly, Kocka is clear that the SED regime must be considered

more ‘totalitarian’ than the Third Reich, if that term describes the
extent of influence exercised on society.88 Indeed, when Mary
Fulbrook is able to employ the ‘Kraken’ as a metaphor to describe
the SED regime, ‘dessen Tentakel sich noch in den letzten Winkel
sozialer Existenz erstreckten’,89 it seems we are close to reinstating
some form of conventional totalitarianism model to describe the
reality of life under the SED regime. The emphasis may have shifted
to penetration, rather than repression, to the limitations of dictatorial

Kocka, Hartmut Zwahr (eds), Sozialgeschichte der DDR (Stuttgart: Klett–Cotta,

1994), pp. 547–53. See also the notion of ‘Entdifferenzierung’, developed by
M. Rainer Lepsius, ‘Die Institutionenordnung als Rahmenbedingung der
Sozialgeschichte der DDR’, in Kaelble, Kocka, Zwahr (eds), pp. 17–30 (p.
18).
87 Bessel and Jessen, p. 8, emphasis in the original.
88 Kocka, Vereinigungskrise, p. 187, note 8. See also Sigrid Meuschel, Legitimation
und Parteiherrschaft: Zum Paradox von Stabilität und Revolution in der DDR 1945–
1989 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1992).
89 Mary Fulbrook, ‘Methodologische Überlegungen zu einer Gesellschafts-
geschichte der DDR’, in Bessel and Jessen (eds), pp. 274–97 (p. 291).

55
rule, rather than total control, but the similarity to Golomstock’s
‘megamachine’ which efficiently transmits the coherent cultural
dogma is clear. The apparent existence of clearer cultural norms in
the GDR, more efficiently transmitted through the institutions of
cultural policy, may then be a reflection of the SED’s more smoothly
functioning, more ‘conventionally’ totalitarian structures. A funda-
mental contrast may be drawn to the chaotic, inefficient, revised
totalitarian structures of the Third Reich.
Certainly, Wolfgang Emmerich’s presentation of literary policy
in the GDR appears to confirm such a view:

Die Literatur der DDR war ‘Planungsliteratur’ par excellence. Das heißt, daß
ausnahmslos alle Etappen im Leben eines Literaturwerks gelenkt und
kontrolliert wurden (oder werden sollten): Entstehung, Drucklegung und
Veröffentlichung, Vertrieb, Literaturkritik, endlich Lektüre und also Wirkung.
Für diesen Zweck wurde eine lückenlose Kette von Institutionen geschaffen,
deren Kernstück zweifellos das sogennante ‘Druckgenehmigungsverfahren’
war.90

Here, literary policy conforms to Fulbrook’s characterisation of the

wider governmental system as a ‘highly organised, smoothly func-
tioning apparatus of power and control’.91 Points of contrast with the
Third Reich are only too obvious. Writing of the operation of the
censorship office in the mid-1970s, Emmerich makes it clear that the
system was characterised by close co-operation between agencies:
‘dabei arbeitete dieses Amt in allen kritischen Fällen mit der
Kulturabteilung beim Zentralkommitee der SED oder auch dem für
Kultur zuständigen Politbüromitglied Kurt Hager zusammen.’92
Furthermore, the proliferation of Stasi informers, centrally organised
and co-ordinated, was a fundamental feature of the literary sphere
from the 1960s onwards and offers a marked a contrast to the largely

90 Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR (Leipzig: Kiepenheuer,

1996), p. 48.
91 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 286.
92 Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, p. 52. Subsequent references, p.
54 and p. 53.

56
ad hoc workings of the Gestapo. Drawing on Kershaw’s points of
contrast between totalitarian and post-totalitarian regimes, it is also
clear that the control of authors did indeed rely on essentially
predictable, ‘legal’ and bureaucratic means: ‘diese umfassenden
Zensurmaßnahmen wurden durch gesetzliche Sanktionsmöglich-
keiten abgesichert.’ Finally, the efficient functioning of censorship
mechanisms in the GDR relied not just on straightforward repression
but also on the adjustment and cooperation of authors themselves
through Selbstzensur: ‘Freilich ist zu berücksichtigen, daß die von den
Parteiinstanzen initiierten “Literaturentwicklungsprozesse”, [...] auf
Kooperation [...] der Autoren abzielten und sie in sehr vielen, ja: den
meisten Fällen auch erreichten.’

The construction phase

All the same, we would be mistaken to use the evidence presented

above as the impetus to reinstate a conventional, static and mono-
lithic totalitarianism model, such as that of Golomstock. As Fulbrook
points out, the conventional totalitarianism model crucially ‘fails to
account for the dynamics of change’,93 and over its forty-year history,
evolution was a central feature of the GDR system: ‘Das Herr-
schaftssystem in der DDR war keinesfalls statisch. [...] Während
einige Entwicklungen dazu beitrugen, die Diktatur tiefer in der
Gesellschaft zu verankern, drohten andere das System zu destabili-
sieren.’94 Perhaps of greatest interest here is Fulbrook’s distinction
between the ‘established phase’ of the GDR (1961−1981), when
stability was a central factor, and a ‘period of crystallisation’ (1949−
1961), when greater instability existed:95

93 Fulbrook, ‘Power Structures and Political Culture in the GDR’, p. 377.

94 Fulbrook, ‘Zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR’, p. 283.
95 Fulbrook divides the history of the GDR into four periods: 1) the ‘period of
crystallisation’ (1949–1961); 2) the ‘established phase’ (1961–80); 3) ‘destabil-
isation’ (1980–89); and 4) the ‘gentle revolution’ (1989). See Fulbrook, ‘Power
Structures and Political Culture in the GDR’, p. 377.

57
 Der Krake brauchte einige Zeit, um seine Fangarme zu entwickeln. Jede
Untersuchung der fünfziger Jahre wird den brüchigen Charakter der
politischen Herrschaft aufdecken: Oft mangelte es sogar den Funk-
tionsträgern des Regimes, den SED-Funktionären, den Blockparteien, den
Massenorganisationen und den Unterdrückungsapparten an politischer Zu-
verlässigkeit. [...] Probleme der Parteidisziplin und der Kaderpolitik waren
während dieser frühen Jahre ständig Themen.96

Above all, the relative lack of cohesion amongst the ruling elites in
the 1950s is evinced in the circumstances which generated the
workers’ uprising of June 1953 and in the necessity of significant
purges of anti-Ulbricht factions in late-1953, 1956, and 1958. Here,
the situation clearly differed from the relative cohesion and stability
of the 1960s and 1970s, and it is for this reason that some form of
periodisation must be central to any analysis of SED rule. More
pertinently for the present study, the existence of factional and
polycratic elements during this earliest phase of rule, together with a
level of revolutionary dynamism arguably absent in later decades,
suggests that this period of crystallisation, or ‘construction phase’,
may well be more readily comparable to the unstable, revised totali-
tarianism of the Third Reich.
In the cultural sphere, two recent studies argue in favour of such
a view. In the first of these, Peter Davies explores SMAD and early
SED cultural policies in the light of Soviet policy on the German
question where conflicts between proponents of ‘integrationist’ and
‘all-German’ lines competed to gain advantage against a background
of rapidly shifting policy orientations. Rejecting an intentionalist view
of Stalin’s power, Davies draws on evidence which suggests that
Stalin preferred an all-German resolution to the German question,
but was paradoxically reliant on the integrationist SED faction for
the implementation of his policy.97 Within this context, Davies is able
to show ‘how certain intellectuals were able, within the institutional
framework of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste, to create spaces for

96 Fulbrook, ‘Zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR’, pp. 291–92.

97 See Wilfried Loth, Stalins ungeliebtes Kind: Warum Moskau die DDR nicht wollte
(Berlin: Rowohlt, 1994).

58
resistance to the imposition of power structures which accelerated
the division of German culture’.98 In Fulbrook’s terms, factional
conflict within the initial phase of policy implementation seems to
have provided ‘the political space, the “opportunity structure” for
exploitation by dissent from below’.99 In this light, further studies
which have revealed the East Berlin Academy of Arts as a site of
contested cultural policy and significant dissent against the hard-line
Ulbricht faction are worthy of note. In particular, both Parker, and
Davies and Parker, have explored the disputes in the Academy
surrounding the Faustus-Debatte and the reform of the Academy
periodical Sinn und Form against the background of policy shifts
initiated by Stalin’s problematic succession in the Soviet Union and
the workers’ uprising in East Berlin on 17 June 1953.100 Here, in the
crystallisation period, outcomes in the cultural sphere demonstrate a
degree of incompleteness reminiscent of the Third Reich.
The second cultural-political study which highlights a less
smoothly functioning governmental apparatus in this early period of
SED rule is Siegfried Lokatis’s examination of the publishing sector
of the GDR. In its attempt both to make a partisan contribution to
the development of socialist and anti-fascist GDR literature and at
the same time to contribute to the international standing of the
regime, publishing policy is seen to be split by the same central
contradiction which characterised the development of cultural policy
elsewhere. Although Lokatis identifies a high degree of stability

98 Peter Davies, Divided Loyalties: East German Writers and the Politics of German
Division 1945–1953 (Leeds: Maney, 2000), p. 8.
99 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 31.
100 See Stephen Parker, ‘Sinn und Form, Peter Huchel und der 17. Juni 1953:
Bertolt Brechts Rettungsaktion’, Sinn und Form, 46 (1994), 738–51; Peter
Davies and Stephen Parker, ‘Brecht, SED Cultural Policy and the Issue of
Authority in the Arts: The Struggle for Control of the German Academy of
Arts’, in Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone (eds), Bertolt Brecht: Centenary
Essays (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 181–95. See also Ulrich Dietzel and
Gudrun Geißler (eds), Zwischen Diskussion und Disziplin: Dokumente zur
Geschichte der Akademie der Künste (Ost), 1945/1950 bis 1993 (Berlin: Stiftung
Archiv der Akademie der Künste, 1997).

59
within publishing policy between 1963 and 1989, policy-development
in the pre-1963 phase is revealed to be surprisingly slow and
characterised by considerable contradictions and difficulties. ‘Die
schwere Geburt des Literaturapparates’ was played out ‘vor dem
Hintergrund [eines] durch die Unberechenbarkeit des ZK noch
zusätzlich desorganisierten Szenarios’.101 Hence, while Emmerich’s
presentation of literary policy, concentrating primarily on develop-
ments in the 1960s and 1970s, seems to confirm a stable, established
phase, Lokatis’s findings in this initial period seem much more
compatible with developments in Nazi literary policy: ‘Auf der
Grundlage der Resultate werden Möglichkeiten erörtert, den in den
fünfziger Jahren entstehenden Literaturapparat der DDR mit der
ähnlich chaotisch funktionierenden nationalsozialistischen Literatur-
politik zu vergleichen.’ In Lokatis’s concluding comments, this
comparison is again made explicit:

Das Verhältnis zwischen Verlag und ALV in den fünfziger Jahren entwickelte
sich der Tendenz nach so, daß das ALV zunächst, etwa bis Anfang 1954, mit
vergleichsweise präzisen kulturpolitischen Vorgaben arbeitete, die zwar für
alle Verlage galten, aber angesichts der Schwankungen im ZK außerordentlich
variierten. Ich vermute, daß ein Verleger, um unter diesen Umständen
überhaupt noch kalkulierbar produzieren zu können, sich in vorauseilenden
Gehorsam flüchtete, seine Autoren strenger anleitete, als es an sich nötig
gewesen wäre, eher politsch anerkannte als literarisch qualifizierte Autoren
suchte, Texte mit plakativen ideologischen Versatzstücken garnieren ließ
usw., was auf das Niveau der frühen DDR-Literatur nicht ohne Einfluß
geblieben sein kann: auf ganz ähnliche Weise vollzog sich auch im ‘Dritten
Reich’, in dem Zensur auf vergleichbare Weise chaotisch funktionierte, ein
Zusammenbruch des literarischen Formniveaus.

In the similarly chaotic functioning of censorship apparatus, and

above all in the manner in which publishers responded to changing
SED policy directives by imposing stricter controls on their authors,

101 Siegfried Lokatis, ‘Verlagspolitik zwischen Plan und Zensur: Das “Amt für
Literatur und Verlagswesen” oder die schwere Geburt des Literaturapparates
der DDR’, in Kocka (ed.), pp. 303–25 (p. 305). Subsequent references, p. 305
and p. 323.

60
it seems that early GDR literary policy may even have functioned by
virtue of a mechanism analogous to that which radicalised cultural
policy in the Third Reich.
Indeed, a radicalising dynamic in SED cultural policy, potentially
comparable to the cumulative radicalisation in Nazi policy, does seem
to be apparent in this initial phase. The relatively liberal policies of
the SMAD soon gave way to a policy from 1949 based on the
Zhdanov conception of ‘Formalism’. In March 1951, the 5th Plenary
officially ratified the ‘Kampf gegen Formalismus’, while the declar-
ation of the ‘Aufbau der Grundlagen des Sozialismus’ at the 2nd
Party Congress in July 1952 added additional impetus to a cultural
policy where norms were being increasingly rigidly enforced. Indeed,
the hard-line crack-downs of 1956 and 1958 make it clear that
cultural policy in the crystallisation period rested on a level of
repression, even terror, which bears comparison to the Third Reich.
Further similarities exist in the way that genuine theoretical and
artistic considerations gave way to the arbitrary and abstract
condemnation of an undesirable other. Much as in the Third Reich,
the constructive and potentially ambiguous discourse of art criticism
was replaced by the deployment of the ‘monosemic’ official discourse
of the ruling party which sought to uphold binary oppositions
between ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ art.102 In this friend/foe
schema, broad sections of Modernist art had the role of the ‘other’
imposed upon them, much as they had in the Third Reich. Again in
the GDR, as in the Third Reich, a politically and ideologically
justifiable opposition to abstract and experimental Modernism came
to embrace a considerably wider range of artistic and cultural
phenomena, to the point where the merest hint of formal experi-
mentation brought heavy censure.

102 See Peter Zima, ‘Der Mythos der Monosemie: Parteilichkeit und künstleri-
scher Standpunkt’, in Literaturwissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaften, 10 vols
(Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971–1979), VI: Einführung in Theorie, Geschichte und Funk-
tion der DDR-Literatur, ed. by Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (1975), pp. 77–108.

61
GDR dynamics: shocks and lulls

Much as this cultural development might appear to resemble the

cumulative radicalisation inherent in the Nazi system, the absence of
charismatic leadership in the GDR precludes a mechanism analogous
to the Nazi tendency to ‘work towards the Führer’. Without the force
of the Führer’s will, or indeed the prospect of war, to provide a
unifying direction, no mechanism existed to drive factional rivalries
in the GDR into the radicalisation of a single policy orientation. As
Fulbrook indicates, ‘there was no equivalent to these structural and
popular functions of a leadership cult in the GDR’.103 Factional
rivalry in the crystallisation period of GDR was structurally different
from that in the Third Reich, in that factions sought to oppose not
one another but the ruling elite itself. Under National Socialism
agencies competed with one another, but did not by and large seek to
oppose Hitler himself. In fact, it was in their attempts to gain Hitler’s
approval that policy radicalised. Furthermore, as Fulbrook suggests,
periods of instability in the GDR, such as June 1953, served only to
provide the opportunity to eliminate dissenting factions and hence, in
the medium-term, strengthen Ulbricht’s grip on power. In this sense,
the dynamics of factional conflict actually served as a stabilising
influence on Ulbricht’s regime. Hence, despite superficial similarities
which encourage some degree of comparability, the unstable initial
phase of SED rule is fundamentally different from the instability of
Nazi rule. While the instability of the GDR was a temporary and
ultimately constructive phase in the implementation of its bureau-
cratic system, the instability of the Third Reich was an inherent,
destructive feature of its charismatic systemlessness.
In a further contrast to National Socialist rule, the radicalising
dynamic identified above represents only one half of the dynamics of
SED cultural policy. Moments of policy-hardening in the GDR seem
to alternate with other moments of relative softening, and this
alternating dynamic of shocks and lulls seems to be a constant

103 Fulbrook, ‘Power Structures and Political Culture in the GDR’, p. 391.

62
throughout the state’s existence. Hence, moments of liberalisation,
such as in the immediate aftermath of 17 June 1953, in response to
Krushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956, or following Honecker’s
accession in May 1971, pull in a different direction to the moments
of hardening, such as early 1953 and late 1956, or 1968 and 1976. As
Fulbrook writes of the situation in which prominent intellectuals
found themselves: ‘in an almost regular cycle, waves of hope and
quasi-liberalisation were repeatedly followed by periods of clamp-
down and censorship.’104 Here, the relative fragility of the GDR’s
existence and its lack of popular, national legitimacy mark it out from
the Third Reich. This fragility rendered SED cultural policy respon-
sive to both internal and external political events in a way that Nazi
policy did not have to be. Hardening of policy in 1956 and 1968, for
instance, came about not through fundamental structural factors
within the regime, but in response to the political unrest in Hungary
and Czechoslovakia respectively. These fluctuations in policy can also
be connected to a further policy determinant peculiar to the GDR,
namely the conflicting ‘paternalism and paranoia’ of its leaders,
identified by Fulbrook as the decisive ‘mentalities of power’ within
the SED regime. Paternalism to encourage loyal comrades to con-
tribute to the construction of socialism alternated with paranoia over
the fragile existence of the state itself. The increasingly dogmatic
attacks of 1952/1953 reflect in large measure the paranoia of a
regime which saw its very existence threatened by the possible
jettisoning of the East German state by its political masters in
Moscow. In Fulbrook’s words, ‘the insecurity of the East German
regime both informed and exacerbated the inculcation of a friend/
foe mentality’.105 It was this insecurity which informed the eradication
of liberal factions within the SED and the hardening of policy
announced at the second Party Congress in July 1952, and it is this
insecurity which explains the way in which even committed, loyal
artists could fall victim to repression.

104 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, pp. 78–79. Subsequent reference, p. 22.

105 See Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 26.

63
Loss of ideological dynamism

If these mechanisms were constants throughout the state’s history,

two longer-term developments mark out the ‘established phase’ of
the 1960s and 1970s from the crystallisation period of the 1950s. The
first of these is the growth and development of mechanisms of
control and institutional bureaucracy, the second, the gradual loss of
ideological dynamism both within the regime and amongst the
population at large.106 As Kershaw writes of post-Stalinist regimes:

Gradually, in the 1950s and 1960s, these regimes settled down into repressive
and corrupt ‘conservative’ authoritarianism. The revolutionary goals subsided
into rhetoric. The main driving-force largely evaporated from a system ideo-
logically held together by the Cold War but bereft of real élan and possessing
only limited goals of containment.107

On the SED’s part, ‘the regime to a notable extent gave up the

attempts at indoctrination characteristic of the early Ulbricht years.
In the 1970s, outward conformity without inner commitment be-
came sufficient’.108 On the part of the people, ‘most East Germans
seemed relatively content to grumble and make do’. Perhaps the
most notable feature of this settled phase of rule was the dynamic
which the bureaucratic apparatus itself developed, as, in an apparent
confirmation of Weber’s analysis of bureaucratic rule, a new gener-
ation of functionaries sought to maintain the smooth functioning of
the system, irrespective of ideological beliefs.109 The result was ‘a
smoothly operating system, with functionaries socialized into the
rules of the game, focusing primarily on technical efficiency and
accepting the price of ideological conformity’.110 Increasingly, the

106 See Kocka, Vereinigungskrise, pp. 111–16.

107 Kershaw, ‘Totalitarianism Revisited’, p. 30.
108 Fulbrook, ‘Power Structures and Political Culture in the GDR’, p. 385.
Subsequent reference, p. 386.
109 On the ‘Dauercharakter des Bürokratischen Apparates’, see Max Weber, pp.
668–70.
110 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 76.

64
maintenance of power had become the overriding concern of the
governmental apparatus, ahead of the furthering of the original
utopian founding goals of the state: ‘wichtige Gruppen, insbesondere
die Funktionäre, waren immer mehr bereit, das System funktions-
fähig zu halten.’111 Initial ideological dynamism then increasingly gave
way to pragmatic coercion.
The rapid growth in the cultural bureaucracy in the 1960s and
1970s has already emerged from Emmerich’s analysis of the appar-
atus of literary control. In particular, the Stasi infiltration of the
cultural sphere multiplied spectacularly in these decades, as 1969, for
instance, saw the founding of Hauptabteilung XX/7, with around 40
permanent staff and 350−500 IMs, dedicated to the surveillance of
culture.112 Lokatis, too, demonstrates how 1963 constituted a turning-
point in the development of policy in the publishing sector. Above
all, though, it is in the way that the officially unshakeable aesthetic
doctrine of Socialist Realism increasingly became an empty rhetorical
formula, subject to substantial modification, that the loss of dyna-
mism of the 1960s and 1970s makes itself apparent in the literary and
cultural sphere. Manfred Jäger, for instance, writes of the modifi-
cation of the norms of Socialist Realism as follows:

Die vagen, abstrakten, schlagwortartigen und in sich widersprüchlichen

Beschreibungen, die sich als fiktive Kontinuität fortschleppten, erwiesen sich
als ungeeignet sowohl für die künstlerische Praxis wie für die kritische
Rezeption. Sozialistischer Realismus wurde zur Leerformel.113

Indeed, in the re-negotiation of the stringent aesthetic norms of the

1950s and the re-emergence of more experimental aesthetics through
the 1960s and 1970s, it is possible to see evidence both of acceptance
and adjustment on the part of artists and of a certain degree of toler-
111 Fulbrook, ‘Zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR’, p. 283.
112 See Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, p. 63. For a comprehensive
study, see also Joachim Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur: Schriftsteller und
Staatssicherheit in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: Links, 1996).
113 Manfred Jäger, Kultur und Politik in der DDR: 1945–1990 (Cologne: Edition
Deutschland Archiv, 1995), p. 50.

65
ation on the part of the regime. In this respect, cultural policy seems
to demonstrate the same loss of dynamism and stabilisation identi-
fied by Kershaw as a central feature of the post-Stalinist regime. We
might even, as Kershaw does, go as far as to suggest that the SED
regime became ‘post-totalitarian’ in the sense that it dropped, at least
to some degree, its total claim.114

Pragmatische Willkür: re-asserting the total claim on culture

This loss of dynamism notwithstanding, there is little evidence of

toleration and acceptance in the relationship between intellectuals
and the SED regime in the 1960s and 1970s and even less evidence
that the SED had dropped its ‘total’ claim. In the 1960s, tensions
between artists and politicians reached unprecedentedly high levels,
as figures such as Stefan Heym, Christa Wolf, and Stephan Hermlin
publicly protested against the cultural-political dogmatism of the
SED.115 In fact, Fulbrook explicitly contrasts much more widespread
patterns of acceptance and low-level grumbling amongst the popu-
lation at large with the active dissent of ‘isolated intellectuals’ in the
1960s and 1970s.116 Furthermore, the SED did not react to the
problematic cultural situation through the kind of change or liberal-
isation which might have signalled a willingness to tolerate dissent.
Instead, their response was a clear intensification of repression and a
re-statement of their total claim, symbolised by the 11th Plenary of
December 1965. Certainly, the early 1970s did offer some easing of
the pressure through the replacement of Ulbricht with Honecker and
his public declaration of the lifting of taboos. Any liberalisation,
however, was largely illusory and temporary, as ‘die vorsichtigen
Lockerungen beantwortete ein Teil des Parteiapparates mit ideo-

114 Kershaw, ‘Totalitarianism Revisited’, p. 32: ‘In contrast to post-Stalinist

regimes [...] both the Hitler and the Stalin regimes tried (however unsuccess-
fully) to win soul as well as body.’
115 See Jäger, pp. 111–17.
116 Fulbrook, ‘Power Structures and Political Culture in the GDR’, pp. 386–87.

66
logisch oder auch sicherheitspolitisch motiviertem Gegendruck’.117 In
particular, Biermann’s expatriation in 1976 dealt a huge shock to the
expectations of artists. This both provoked further public dissent and
signified a further re-imposition of the regime’s total claim. The
imposition of a total claim had not then changed, but what may have
altered significantly was the nature of that claim. The developing
instruments of control and penetration fostered an increasingly prag-
matic attitude amongst cultural functionaries, above all the newer
wave who had gained positions under Honecker. In the 1970s, the
total claim was increasingly being made on behalf of the system itself,
not its founding ideology. In this sense, Manfred Jäger’s term is
perhaps most fitting. The late 1970s were not so much characterised
by predictable, post-totalitarianism as by a ‘pragmatische Willkür’.

Charismatic vs bureaucratic totalitarianism

To return to Kershaw’s revised totalitarianism model, it is clear that

SED cultural policy demonstrates fundamental points of contrast to
the charismatic, dynamic, and inherently radicalising nature of cul-
tural politics in the Third Reich. As with the regime as a whole, the
cultural sphere in the GDR offers evidence of a substantially more
efficient and stable system, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, in contrast to the population at large, patterns of
cooperation and toleration amongst prominent artists and intel-
lectuals do not seem to match those expected in a settled ‘post-
totalitarian’ phase. The 1960s and 1970s continued to see relatively
high levels of dissent and, most significantly, the re-statement of the
regime’s total claim. In this most fundamental sense, the GDR does
remain comparable with the Third Reich, in that both regimes made
a comparable total claim on the cultural sphere, even if that claim
could not be realised. In this respect, a distinction between the
‘totalitarian’ Third Reich and the ‘post-totalitarian’ GDR does not

117 Jäger, p 139. Subsequent reference, also p. 139.

67
seem to be justified. Beyond this, the bare notion of totalitarianism
has very limited value in highlighting similarities between cultural
policies under the SED and Nazi regimes, since, in terms of their
organisation and dynamics, differences preponderated. Instead, some
form of differentiation within the ‘totalitarianism’ paradigm is re-
quired, and it is here that Jürgen Kocka’s comparative analysis of the
two German dictatorships is of particular interest:

Ich bezeichne Diktaturen in dem Ausmaß als totalitär, in dem es ihnen

gelingt, einen tendenziell totalen Zugriff auf die Individuen und die
gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse zu realisieren, also Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft
und Kultur zu steuern und zu kontrollieren, u. a. mit Hilfe von Manipulation
und Gewalt. [...] Nach diesen Kriterien kommt [man] zu dem berechtigten
Schluß, daß die DDR totalitärer war als die Nazi-Diktatur. - Anders in
Anlehnung an Hannah Arendt und Emil Lederer: Diktaturen wird man dann
in dem Ausmaß als totalitär bezeichnen, in dem der staatliche Zugriff auf
Individuen und gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse mit massenhaftem Terror und
permanenter Dynamik, mit Bewegung als Herrschaftsprinzip und letztlich mit
Tendenzen zur Dauermobilisierung und Selbstzerstörung verbunden ist.
Definiert man so, ist die NS-Diktatur als bei weitem totalitärer als die SED-
Diktatur zu beurteilen.118

In terms of revolutionary dynamism, it is the National Socialist

regime which must be adjudged to be more ‘totalitarian’. In terms of
the extent of control achieved, it is the SED regime which is the
more ‘totalitarian’. For these reasons, I would propose to draw a
conceptual distinction between the ‘charismatic totalitarianism’ of the
Third Reich and the ‘bureaucratic totalitarianism’ of the GDR.119 This
distinction retains the single most significant shared feature of the
regimes, namely their total(itarian) claim, while at the same time
stressing the central and inherent contrasts in their organisation and
dynamics. Where the ‘charismatic totalitarianism’ of the Third Reich
tended towards instability and radical dynamism, the more ‘bureau-

118 Kocka, Vereinigungskrise, p. 187, note 8.

119 The allusion to Weber’s distinction between charismatic and bureaucratic rule
is conscious, if loosely conceived. See Max Weber, p. 141.

68
cratic totalitarianism’ of the GDR tended towards stability and loss of
dynamism.
However, even to describe the GDR as a system of ‘bureaucratic
totalitarianism’ fails to do justice to its own evolutionary dynamics.
Instead, if this notion is to be employed productively it requires the
application of a limited number of modifying variables which might
provide a basis for differentiation within this broad category. From
the analysis above, two such parameters present themselves: (i) the
varying degree of stability and cohesion within the regime; (ii) the
changing level of ideological dynamism within the system. On the
former parameter, the relative stability of the middle two decades of
the GDR, equivalent to Fulbrook’s ‘established phase’ (1961−1981),
contrasts with the relative instability of the first and last decades,
Fulbrook’s ‘crystallisation period’ (1949−1961) and ‘destabilisation
phase’ (1981−1989). On the latter parameter, the gradual process of
ideological atrophy over the course of the GDR’s existence invites a
division around the early 1970s when, even allowing for the initial
renewal of dynamism engendered by Ulbricht’s replacement through
Honecker, the regime’s total claim may be said to have become
predominantly pragmatic rather than ideological in nature - equi-
valent to Jäger’s distinction between ‘pragmatische Willkür’ and
‘ideologische Eindeutigkeit’. Hence, deployed in conjunction with
one another, and necessarily employing somewhat simplified cut-off
dates, these variables suggest the following periodisation of the
GDR’s (bureaucratic) totalitarian rule: (i) 1949−1961 ‘construction
phase’: relative instability/ dynamic, ideological claim; (ii) 1961−1971
‘consolidation phase’: growing stability/ gradual loss of ideological
dynamism; (iii) 1971−1981 ‘established phase’: relative stability/ in-
creasingly pragmatic claim; (iv) 1981−1989 ‘destabilisation phase’:
growing instability/ decaying pragmatism. Of these four phases it is
the first which, substantial structural contrasts notwithstanding,
perhaps resembles most closely the charismatic totalitarianism of the
Third Reich, since it was only in this period that a relatively
‘polycratic’ governmental apparatus existed at the same time as a
relatively high degree of genuine ideological dynamism.

69
Totalitarianism and artistic Modernism

For all our attempts to position cultural politics in the German

dictatorships within the context of the historicisation of the GDR
and the Third Reich, and to elaborate a framework which stresses
difference between the two systems, two elements of a conventional
model of ‘totalitarian art’ seem to remain stubbornly persistent. The
first of these is the total(itarian) claim made by the regimes on the
cultural sphere. The second is the shared, broadly anti-Modernist
orientation of the cultural dogma on behalf of which that claim was
made. The questions to be addressed in this section relate to the
connection between these two elements. How did the cultural policy
of two non-contemporary regimes with different ideological and
governmental structures come to embrace some form of classicist/
realist aesthetic while excluding artistic Modernism? Above all, is the
rejection of artistic Modernism primarily a political or aesthetic
development? Before proposing answers to these questions, it is
worthwhile briefly re-considering the presumed antipathy between
National Socialism and artistic Modernism.

A double attitude of Modernist anti-Modernism

As we have already observed, architectural style provides an example

of an area where Modernist aesthetics prospered within the Third
Reich. In large part, this can be attributed to non-official production,
either in tolerated spaces or as a result of inefficiencies in mech-
anisms of control. At the same time, the nature of official Nazi
aesthetic policy suggests that the assumed antithesis between totali-
tarianism and artistic Modernism is liable to some re-interpretation.
Significant in this context, for example, is Elaine Hochman’s
acknowledgement that Hitler did approve of some Modernist styles:
‘According to Speer, Hitler not only expected and approved – but

70
actually enjoyed – modern architecture in industrial construction.’120
Brandon Taylor goes further, proposing a fundamental re-appraisal
of the presumed dysfunction between Modernism and the official art
of the Third Reich:

We prefer to regard the events of 1937 as definitive because only there was
the contrast between Modernism and ‘true German art’ drawn with extreme
simplicity. But, I repeat once more, not only was this antithesis drawn by
National Socialist ideologists, whose judgements we do not accept elsewhere,
but the very simplicity of the antithesis inevitably disguises a far more
complex pattern of relationships between the two aesthetic camps.121

Similarly:

Any full account of Modernism shows it to consist of many forms which the
Reich itself, at various points, employed [...] The converse also appears to be
true - that the art of the Third Reich in its ‘mature’ form of 1936 or 1937
came to employ a host of formal and aesthetic devices which Modernism
itself had invented.

The survival of Modernism within the Third Reich was not just a
question of unofficial and non-political spaces, whether deliberately
cultivated or not. Strands of Modernist aesthetics were also willingly
incorporated into the official, mature Nazi aesthetic. Rather than a
straightforward anti-Modernism, Hitler’s cultural policy seems to be
more accurately characterised by what Taylor and van der Will
paradoxically refer to as a ‘double attitude of Modernist anti-Modern-
ism’.122

120 Hochman, p. 236.

121 Taylor, p. 128. Subsequent reference, p. 128.
122 See Brandon Taylor and Wilfried van der Will, ‘Preface and Acknowledge-
ments’, in Taylor and van der Will (eds), pp. vi–viii (p. vii).

71
What is Modernism?

In fact, the confusion and apparent inconsistencies here stem in no

small part from a definitional problem. In none of the accounts of
National Socialism’s ‘anti-Modernist’ cultural policies is any attempt
made to clarify the definition of ‘Modernism’, so that it is not at all
clear precisely which forms of culture the Nazi regime is supposed to
have rejected. Indeed, so heterogeneous are the phenomena con-
ventionally subsumed under the term that we should not be at all
surprised that the anti-Modernism of Hitler and his regime should
reveal inconsistencies. It is only by rendering explicit some of the
different elements implied within these ‘Modernism’ definitions that
we can begin to clarify the attitude of the regime toward it. In the
context of National Socialist cultural policy, three such elements are
of particular importance. Firstly, we can distinguish between ‘Mod-
ernism’ used as a proper noun – that is, as an umbrella term to
denote a broad sweep of historically-specific artistic movements
located between around 1890 and 1930 – and ‘modernism’ used
more generally to describe a non-historically-specific artistic attitude,
typified by the development and deployment of innovative and
experimental modes of expression. To distinguish these two elements
of ‘modernism’ we might usefully formalise the distinction between
upper-case ‘Modernism’ and lower-case ‘modernism’, between
‘Modernist’ cultural output (the high Modernism of 1890–1930) and
‘modernistic’ cultural output (aggressively experimental, avant-gardist
art).123 In its third important usage, the term is employed to describe
cultural output, typically in architecture or design, which embraces

123 This distinction is already widely implied. See Tony Pinkney, ‘Editor’s
Introduction: Modernism and Cultural Theory’, in Raymond Williams, The
Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists, ed. by Tony Pinkney (London:
Verso, 1989), pp. 1–30 (p. 28, note 3). See also Malcom Bradbury and James
McFarlane, ‘The Name and Nature of Modernism’, in Malcom Bradbury and
James McFarlane (eds), Modernism: 1890–1930 (Hassock: Harvester, 1978), pp.
19–55. Note the term is restricted here to artistic and cultural phenomena and
does not encompass any notion of social ‘modernisation’.

72
technological modernisation often by employing technologically-
advanced materials with an expressly functional purpose. This usage
we might further distinguish by referring to ‘modernising’ cultural
output.
In this way, the terms of the debate are re-aligned into three
distinct questions. Instead of the regime’s attitude to a vaguely
defined notion of artistic modernism, we are concerned, very
specifically, with the attitude to ‘Modernist’ art, to ‘modernistic’ art
and to ‘modernising’ art. Posing these three questions, it becomes
clear that what Hitler consistently condemned, from his earliest time
in Munich through to the early 1930s, was not Modernism as a
whole, but rather the most modernistic strands of Modernism. In
condemning the ‘Kubisten, Futuristen, Dadaisten u.s.w.’ as ‘Kunst-
verderber’ in his Kulturtag address in September 1934,124 Hitler was
singling out three strands of Modernism which were among the most
extreme, experimental, and non-representational trends in Weimar
culture. These more modernistic trends offended both his personal
tastes and the political need for a turn away from the individualistic
decadence of Weimar towards a more collective ‘national’ culture.
Importantly, Hitler’s condemnation of these particular artists left
room in Nazi culture for more ‘acceptable’ forms of Modernist art, in
the shape of the more mature Modernist strands of the mid-to-late
1920s, where Modernist art tended towards the smoothness and
universality of ‘classical’ aesthetics and away from fragmentation and
subjectivity of a more modernistic posture. In the appropriate
context, space was also left for the more functional, modernising
strands of architecture and design.125 Hence, this definitional move
allows us to describe more accurately the nature of Nazi anti-
Modernism and also the nature of the cumulative radicalisation of
cultural policy. In effect, that radicalisation consisted of a shift from
an anti-modernistic policy to a much broader anti-Modernist policy.

124 See Hugh Ridley, Gottfried Benn: Ein Schriftsteller zwischen Erneuerung und Reaktion
(Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990), p. 28.
125 See Taylor, pp. 136–41.

73
The rejection of Modernism:
totalitarian policy or semi-autonomous cultural development?

For Igor Golomstock the apparent rejection of artistic Modernism by

different totalitarian regimes is easily explained: ‘From the multi-
plicity of artistic movements then in existence, the [totalitarian] State
selects one movement, always the most conservative, which most
nearly answers its needs and declares it to be official and obliga-
tory.’126 In the German dictatorships that movement was a variety of
realism; modernistic, and increasingly Modernist, aesthetics were the
excluded other. It would be tempting then in this context to posit
some kind of fundamental incompatibility between experimental
modernism and ‘totalitarianism’, be it of a charismatic or bureaucratic
form. After all, we have consistently stressed that, for all their
differences, both regimes ‘made similar total claims on individuals;
they employed comparable organisational means to try and incorpor-
ate people into some wider sense of “national community”’.127 The
experimentalism, subjectivity, and abstraction associated with the
modernistic posture do not seem to cohere well with the peculiar
demands made on art by the modern German dictatorships. The
need to produce a collective art, readily accessible to the Volks-
gemeinschaft, art which might help to (re)educate the masses, does not
seem to be best served by the kind of ‘difficult’ works of art
produced by a modernistic avant-garde. There is then a certain logical
appeal in the thesis which establishes a direct, causal linkage between
totalitarian rule and conservative, realist aesthetics.
The great danger of such a thesis is that it threatens to rob
cultural development in the German dictatorships of all autonomy.
This tendency is already only too apparent in conventional accounts
of German literary development in the twentieth-century, where
periodisation attempts rest largely on the force of key political date-
brackets. Hence, literary developments in the Third Reich and in the

126 Golomstock, p. xiii.

127 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 285.

74
GDR tend to be perceived as discrete entities, dependent on narrow,
internal political factors and constrained by political boundaries
(1933−1945; 1949−1989). And yet, we have already considered a
great deal of evidence which points, for instance, to Modernist
continuities running into the Third Reich. Above all in architectural
production, significant continuities, both historically from the
Modernist culture of the Weimar Republic and geographically to
contemporary Western cultures, undermine any attempt to draw
stark boundaries around German cultural development between 1933
and 1945. In this context, Norbert Frei’s analysis of cultural
production under National Socialist rule is of particular significance:

Das noch heute anzutreffende Mißverständnis, das deutsche kulturelle Leben

und die zeitgenössischen Strömungen der Populärkultur seien im Dritten
Reich Gegenstand radikaler Umformung gewesen, ist allenfalls ein Indiz für
das hartnäckige Fortwirken nationalsozialistischer Selbststilisierung. Entgegen
dem Eindruck, den eine breit angelegte Kontroll- und Lenkungsbürokratie zu
erwecken versuchte, entfaltete das Regime auf kulturellem Gebiet nur
vehältnismäßig geringe Prägekraft. [...] Weder in der Literatur, noch in der
Musik oder in den bildenden Künsten markiert das Jahr 1933 einen völligen
Bruch der Entwicklung. Der politisch erzwungene mannigfache Abbruch
personeller und institutioneller Kontinuität, der insoweit auch das Ende einer
Epoche bedeutete, fällt nicht zusammen mit einer entsprechenden kunst-
historischen Periodisierung.128

In the cultural sphere as elsewhere, the methodological principles

increasingly established through the historicisation of the Third Reich
and the GDR must be applied. In this instance, that involves
acknowledging the limitations of totalitarian rule as elaborated by
Bessel and Jessen: ‘eine erste Grenze […] lag in dem, was man als
historische Kontinuität bezeichnen kann.’129 No regime is able to
simply select and impose an aesthetic. Rather, as Christoph Kleß-
mann writes of the cultural situation at the moment of political

128 Frei, p. 109.

129 Bessel and Jessen, p. 9.

75
change in 1945, ‘das Haus wurde gebaut aus den Steinen, die
vorhanden waren’.130
As far as GDR cultural policy is concerned, two sets of historical
continuity exist. Firstly, as Kocka points out, continuities exist with
the preceding Nazi dictatorship, particularly in terms of the ‘anti-
modernistischen Instrumentalisierung von Kunst und Kultur’.131
Secondly, in the regime’s dependence on factions exiled in Moscow,
obvious continuities also exist with the cultural policies pursued in
the Soviet Union during the period 1933−1945. In both cases, these
continuities point to the early-to-mid 1930s as the key period in the
determination, not only of Nazi aesthetic policies, but also of those
of the SED. As the findings of Golomstock, Beyrau, and Taylor and
van der Will all indicate, there are striking parallels in the develop-
ment of Soviet and Nazi anti-modernist policies in this period, and
these similarities seem to point to a common factor beyond mere
coincidence. A shared total claim is certainly one such common
factor, but the timing of these common developments in cultural
policy argues strongly against, rather than in favour of, a political
explanation. After all, while the imposition of anti-modernistic
policies in the Third Reich in the mid-1930s is suggestive of a causal
link to the Nazi seizure of power, the official endorsement of
Socialist Realism at the Soviet Writers’ Congress in 1934, seventeen
years after the Bolshevik revolution, is much more difficult to
account for in this way. Golomstock, for one, is unable to explain
why the process of aesthetic selection should have proceeded so
differently under German and Soviet totalitarianism - almost imme-
diately in the former case, over a period of nearly twenty years in the
latter case. This lag in implementation of an anti-modernistic policy
in the Soviet Union, allied to the Italian Fascist example where the
regime enjoyed a positive and long-lived relationship with the Futur-
ist movement, suggests strongly that cultural development under

130 Christoph Kleßmann, ‘“Das Haus wurde gebaut aus den Steinen, die
vorhanden waren”: Zur kulturgeschichtlichen Kontinuitätsdiskussion nach
1945’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte, 19 (1990), 159–77.
131 Kocka, ‘Die Geschichte der DDR als Forschungsproblem’, p. 21.

76
totalitarianism is not merely a function of a political selection
process.

Cultural turning-point: 1930 or 1933?

Instead, there is a need to acknowledge the significance of literary

and cultural continuities across moments of political rupture, and the
most explicit attempt to return autonomy to cultural development in
this way is to be found in Hans Dieter Schäfer’s essay ‘Zur Periodi-
sierung der deutschen Literatur seit 1930’.132 Across the political
spectrum, Schäfer sees political uncertainty and economic crisis
around 1930 spawning a conservative shift away from experimental
and innovative art forms. At the political extremes of communism
and National Socialism this shift was programmatic and explicit.
Among individual artists and the politically non-aligned, the shift
against modernism was more spontaneous. However, regardless of
whether it found its expression in the founding of the Kampfbund für
deutsche Kultur, in Lukács’s theoretical attacks on Epic Theatre in
Linkskurve, or in the nature poetry of the Kolonne circle, two points of
the utmost importance emerge about this cultural shift. Firstly, it was
not just confined to Nazi Germany. It had parallels in Western, non-
totalitarian societies. Secondly, it originated not after the Nazi seizure
of power in 1933, but rather manifested itself between 1928 and 1932
at the latest. Here, National Socialism appears to have confirmed or
radicalised the shift, but not to have initiated it. Indeed, Nazism itself
can even be seen as a symptom of the same social and cultural crisis:

Zweifellos verstärkten die Schrecken der Diktatur […] den Rückzug auf alte
Ordnungen, doch die Krise von 1930 ist - übrigens auch international – das
entscheidende Ereignis, das der neuen Epoche die Bahn öffnete. […] Unsere
Zeit vergißt meistens, daß eines der Hauptargumente Hitlers, nämlich die
Identifikation der extremen Formzertrümmerung mit der Krise der Gesell-

132 See Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Zur Periodisierung der deutschen Literatur seit
1930’, in Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewußtsein, pp. 55–71.

77
 schaft, damals in zahlreichen nichtnationalsozialistischen Kreisen erstaunlich
populär war. Die historischen Stile wie Romantik und Biedermeier, der
Realismus des 19. Jahrhunderts und vor allem Klassizismus gewannen als
Ordnungsfaktoren überall an Boden, denn die Tendenz, in der Kunst Altes
und Bewährtes wiederherzustellen, ist kein Ergebnis der Kulturpolitik Hitlers,
sondern Produkt ein und derselben geschichtlichen Krise, die auch den
Nationalsozialismus zum Sieg geführt hatte.133

The challenge offered by Schäfer’s statement to a narrow, politically

determined view of culture in the Third Reich is clear to see, and
although Schäfer’s hypothesis is only now being subjected to rigor-
ous, empirical scrutiny, it does find support in the work of other
scholars, most notably Frank Trommler.134 In positing a period of
cultural restoration between 1930 and 1960 and, hence, allowing for
continuities across the boundaries of totalitarian rule, Schäfer’s essay
clearly complements the methodological approach elaborated thus
far in the present study. Furthermore, in returning some degree of
autonomy to art and culture, and in divorcing its development in the
1930s from a rigid dependence on political factors, Schäfer may
provide a compelling explanation for the simultaneous marginal-
isation of M/modernist(ic) culture in Nazi Germany, the Soviet
Union, and Fascist Italy.
Furthermore, there is a host of empirical evidence which seems
to support the validity of this posited cultural shift around 1930.
Accounts of Weimar culture have long identified the rise of con-
servative cultural trends, what Peter Gay terms the ‘Revenge of the

133 Schäfer, ‘Zur Perodisierung’, pp. 57–58.

134 See Frank Trommler, ‘Der “Nullpunkt 1945” und seine Verbindlichkeit für
die Literaturgeschichte’, Basis: Jahrbuch für deutsche Gegenwartsliteratur, 1 (1970),
9–25, and Frank Trommler, ‘Emigration und Nachkriegsliteratur: Zum
Problem der geschichtlichen Kontinuität’, in Reinhold Grimm and Jost
Hermand (eds), Exil und innere Emigration: Third Wisconsin Workshop (Frankfurt
a.M.: Athenäum, 1972), pp. 173–97. Schäfer’s thesis is being tested as part of
the on-going research project ‘The Modern Restoration: Discourses of style
in German literature 1930–1960’, Department of German, University of
Manchester.

78
Father’, in advance of the Nazi seizure of power.135 John Willett’s
notion of a new cultural sobriety in the late 1920s, for example,
stresses 1929−1932 as a turning-point, at the same time suggesting
that already in the 1920s Modernism no longer fits ‘into the accepted
picture of the movement as a series of overlapping, but continually
innovatory avant-gardes’.136 In the specific area of lyric poetry,
Hermann Korte too points to a paradigm shift towards traditional
forms before 1933: ‘Um 1930, also vor der politischen Zäsur des
Jahres 1933, [werden] allenthalben bereits Konturen einer rasch um
sich greifenden traditionalistischen Gegentendenz sichtbar.’137 Simi-
larly, Anton Kaes writes of the final years of the Weimar Republic as
follows: ‘Im Literarischen setzte sich um 1930 ein im Formalen wie
Thematischen rückwärtsgewandter Traditionalismus durch, der vor
allem der Lyrik zugute kam.’138 Wolfram Wessels is another who
identifies this growth in aesthetic conservatism in the final years of
the Weimar Republic, viewing new radio guidelines introduced in
1932, for instance, as the expression ‘eines Denkens jener Zeit […],
das zudem die gesamte Reform bestimmte. In ihnen spiegelten sich
jene deutschnationalen, teilweise völkischen Vorstellungen, die es
den Nationalsozialisten so leicht machten, sich des Rundfunks zu
bedienen’.139 It is in this context, that Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen asserts

135 Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Insider as Outsider (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1969), pp. 125–52.
136 John Willett, The New Sobriety: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period 1917–1933
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), p. 12.
137 Hermann Korte, ‘Lyrik am Ende der Weimarer Republik’, in Hansers
Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, ed. by
Rolf Grimminger, 12 vols (Munich: Hanser, 1979– ) VIII: Literatur der
Weimarer Republik 1918–1933, ed. by Bernhard Weyergraf (1995), pp. 601–35
(p. 618).
138 Anton Kaes (ed.), Weimarer Republik: Manifeste und Dokumente zur deutschen
Literatur 1918–1933 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1983), p. xlv.
139 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 74.

79
categorically ‘daß unter solchen Vorzeichen das Jahr 1933 keine
einschneidende Zäsur mehr setzt’.140

Towards a model of cultural change

If this evidence argues persuasively for an uncoupling of the direct

causal linkage between political and cultural change, then it must also
be unrealistic to ascribe complete autonomy to aesthetic develop-
ments. As Bernd Hüppauf writes of Schäfer’s privileging of aesthetic
criteria to the exclusion of significant political factors:

Der Faschismus wäre dann nicht nur 1945 gestorben, er hätte auch keinen
Anteil an der Konstitution einer literarischen Epoche in Deutschland gehabt,
die von ca. 1930 bis 1960 reicht, also die ‘klassische’ Zeit des europäischen
Faschismus einschließt.141

Instead, Hüppauf seeks to construct a more complex model, where

social, political, and cultural change exist in a reciprocal, multi-causal
relationship. This model highlights not only perceived moments of
cultural rupture, but also threshold moments of potential cultural
change. As such, the crises around 1930, the Nazi seizure of power in
1933, and the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 all acquire an
equivalent status as periods of potential cultural change, where
existing cultural norms are thrown into question and cultural activity
and debate intensify. The net result of Hüppauf’s analysis is to
strengthen Schäfer’s thesis, since of these periods of potential
cultural change, it is only the period around 1930 at which cultural
change is seen to be effected. Here, in the initiation of a period of
cultural conservatism, Hüppauf stresses the significance of con-
140 Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen, Völkisch-nationale und nationalsozialistische Literatur in
Deutschland 1890–1945 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976), p. 22.
141 Bernd Hüppauf, ‘Krise ohne Wandel: Die kulturelle Situation 1945–1949’, in
Bernd Hüppauf (ed.), ‘Die Mühen der Ebenen’: Kontinuität und Wandel in der
deutschen Literatur und Gesellschaft 1945–1949 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981), pp.
47–112 (p. 57).

80
temporary periodicals as a site where cultural change is contested and
determined, and in this context it is significant that Trommler and
Kaes are able to locate a host of programmatic statements in literary
journals which offer a synchronic snapshot of this moment of
cultural change around 1930.142 Willy Haas, for instance, writes as
follows in Die literarische Welt in May 1930: ‘Man spricht überall in
Literatenkreisen von der kulturellen und literarischen Reaktion in der
letzten Saison. Die radikale Berliner Literatur fühlt den Boden unter
den Füßen schwinden.’143 For Hüppauf, as for Schäfer and others,
the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 only confirms or radicalises an
existing conservative cultural direction.
In this respect, there is substantial evidence to posit a period of
fundamental cultural and social change around 1930, triggered by the
Western economic crises of the late 1920s, and any such cultural shift
has significant implications for the study of literary production in the
German dictatorships. If we accept that a broad-ranging sense of
crisis encouraged a conservative and restorative shift in culture
around 1930, then what are conventionally perceived to be the
totalitarian, anti-modernistic cultural policies of the Third Reich can
no longer be ascribed solely to National Socialist cultural policy. This
is not to say that this aesthetic conservatism is entirely unrelated to
the Nazi seizure of power. The two phenomena can be viewed as
parallel developments, cultural and political manifestations of a
reaction to crisis, attempts to engender cultural and political re-birth
from that crisis. However, if National Socialism did not solely initiate
a conservative shift in culture, but rather plugged into and radicalised
a pre-existing cultural trend, and if ‘conservative’ aesthetic pro-
duction within the Third Reich need not then be seen as a direct
product of Nazi rule, a recognition of this cultural shift around 1930
allows us to illuminate the shadow cast by the total claim of the
National Socialist regime and reveal previously obscured aesthetic
developments. In particular, it may be that the causal relationship
142 See Trommler, ‘Emigration und Nachkriegsliteratur’, and Kaes, pp. 653–89.
143 Willy Haas, ‘Restauration’, Die literarische Welt, 6 (16 May 1930), 1. See Kaes,
p. 659.

81
between the literary attitude of ‘inner emigration’ and National
Socialism can be weakened somewhat. Joseph Dolan for one views
the lyric inwardness of the Kolonne circle of young writers in the early
1930s not as an immediate reaction to Nazi rule, but as a (semi)
autonomous aesthetic development of the late 1920s.144 This
suggestion will clearly be of direct relevance when considering the
writing of Günter Eich, a member of that literary grouping and
frequent contributor to the journal of the same name, and dis-
entangling, where appropriate, pre-existing aesthetics of a broadly
anti-modernistic nature from the aesthetic conservatism of National
Socialism will be one of the principal tasks of chapter four of this
study.
As far as the GDR is concerned, the connection to this period
of cultural change around 1930 is less direct. Nonetheless, Lukács’s
‘conservative’ aesthetic doctrine can likewise be seen as a product the
crisis of 1930. As Trommler suggests:

Diese Wende [um 1930] - das sei hier vorweggenommen - blieb angesichts
der kommunistischen Politik unter Stalin keineswegs ein bürgerliches
Phänomen. Die literarischen Wandlungen sozialistisch orientierter Autoren
zwischen 1936 und 1941 trugen manche verwandte Züge.145

The subsequent dominance of Lukács’s aesthetic programme within

the cultural policies of the SED in the 1950s argues strongly that, in
East Germany at least, 1945 represents only a period of potential, not
realised, cultural change, and therefore that the restorative, anti-
modernistic cultural orthodoxy initiated in 1930 persists into the
GDR. A change in the trajectory of cultural development did not
proceed until the 1960s, and again here this development can be seen
to have been largely independent of the political control of German
totalitarianism. As Jäger indicates, SED policies sought to catch up
with cultural developments which had passed them by: ‘In die steril

144 See Joseph P. Dolan, ‘The Theory and Practice of Apolitical Literature: Die
Kolonne 1929–1932’, Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1 (1977), 157–71.
145 Trommler, ‘Emigration und Nachkriegsliteratur’, p. 183.

82
gewordene Kulturpolitik der sechziger Jahre, an der die tatsächliche
Entwicklung der Künste vorbeigegangen war, kam erst wieder
Bewegung, als Walter Ulbricht von der politischen Bühne abtrat.’146
As with the restorative shift around 1930, the re-emergence of a
more modernistic posture amongst artists in the GDR in the 1960s
was not the direct product of political decision-making, but was part
of a semi-autonomous cultural development. Hence, a significant
shared feature of culture in the German dictatorships is not only its
subordination to the total claim of the respective regimes, but also
paradoxically its autonomy from that claim. The shared anti-
modernism of the two regimes may arise in no small measure from
their common location in a mid-twentieth-century period of cultural
and literary ‘restoration’. Only retrospectively is that anti-modernism
subsumed under the total claims of the regimes and its own cultural
origins obscured.

146 Jäger, p. 139.

83
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Chapter Two

‘Ideology’: Towards a comparative paradigm

Fascism may be limited in time and place, it may have a clear beginning and a
clear end in public history, it may seem easily defined; but this unity, this
definition, was artificially imposed upon it. […] By comparison, communism,
its ideological antithesis, […] is clear and definite. Communism leads us back,
past all its heresies and deviations, to a single intellectual source. It has a
doctrine, or a dogma, which can be stated and whose identity is proclaimed
by all its adherents throughout the world. Fascism has no such intellectual
rigour, no agreed prophets. Its origins are plural, divergent, imprecise.1

Where conventional organisational paradigms, such as totalitarianism,

can be seen to force the two German dictatorships together, con-
ventional ideological paradigms tend to pull the Third Reich and the
GDR apart. Notwithstanding the common role played in each of the
German dictatorships by a single official ideology, on behalf of which
the total claim was made, it is precisely in their ideological dimension,
arguably more than any other, that the regimes of the Third Reich
and the GDR demonstrate fundamental, unbridgeable points of di-
vergence. As a ‘communist’ or ‘Marxist-Leninist’ regime, the GDR is
grouped together with the Soviet Union and its satellites; as a ‘fascist’
regime, the Third Reich is grouped together with a further discrete, if
slightly more diverse, set of movements, most notable of which was
Mussolini’s Italian Fascist regime. Indeed, such is the opposition
between the two ideologies that while German fascism has been

1 Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘The Phenomenon of Fascism’, in S. J. Woolf (ed.),

Fascism in Europe (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 19–38 (p. 20).

85
analysed as a form of anti-Marxism,2 the Marxist regime of the GDR
proudly proclaimed its anti-fascism. While the former sought to
construct a national community founded on the timeless laws of race
and biology, the utopian vision of the latter was based on the
‘objective’ laws of historical materialism. Furthermore, while the
communist paradigm seems to constitute an archetypal example of
ideology,3 many scholars go as far as to deny any place for Nazi
ideology within existing ideological frameworks. Instead, National
Socialism is regarded either as a unique aberration of German
irrationalism or as the specific product of its leader, that is, as
‘Hitlerism’.4 On these terms, lacking both a coherent doctrinal system
and any positive, utopian vision, Nazi ideology must be seen to
contrast so starkly with communist ideology as to fall outside the
Friedrich and Brzezinsky definition of totalitarian ideology:

Die totalitären Diktaturen besitzen alle folgendes:

1. Eine ausgearbeitete Ideologie, bestehend aus einem offiziellen Lehr-
gebäude, das alle lebenswichtigen Aspekte der menschlichen Existenz umfaßt
und an die sich alle in dieser Gesellschaft Lebenden zumindest passiv zu
halten haben; diese Ideologie ist charakteristisch auf einen idealen End-
zustand der Menschheit ausgerichtet und projiziert – das heißt, sie enthält

2 See, for instance, Ernst Nolte, The Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian
Fascism, National Socialism, trans. by Leila Vennewitz (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1965), p. 20.
3 Consider a simple dictionary definition: ‘the system of ideas at the basis of an
economic or political theory (Marxist ideology).’ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Current English, ed. by R.E. Allen, eighth edition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990), p. 586.
4 On Nazism as an outgrowth of German irrationalism, see Hugh Trevor-
Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, fourth edition (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp.
3–5; Georg Lukacs, Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1962);
George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966). On Nazism as Hitlerism, see Karl
Dietrich Bracher, ‘The Role of Hitler: Perspectives of Interpretation’, in
Walter Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A Reader’s Guide (London: Wildwood House,
1976), pp. 211–25 (p. 215).

86
 eine chiliastische Forderung, gegründet auf eine radikale Ablehnung der
bestehenden Gesellschaft mit der Eroberung der Welt für die neue.5

Even where it is deemed comparable with the ideology of other

movements, as a variety of fascism, this perceived distinction with
communism persists. As ‘an ill-sorted hodge-podge of ideas’,6 at best
incoherent, irrational, and nihilistic, the perceived ‘anti-ideology’ of
National Socialism seems scarcely comparable with the ideological
basis of the GDR. In this instance, the conventional totalitarianism
model seems not so much to obscure significant differences in con-
tent as to seek to compare two essentially non-comparable entities.
In the sense that we begin from this underlying assumption of
non-comparability, the comparative method in this chapter must
proceed in the opposite direction to that of the previous chapter,
where the original assumption was one of (near) identity between the
organisational features of the regimes. The aim is not to obliterate
what genuine differences existed between the two ideologies, but
rather to seek points of contact which might place these differences
in a more measured context of comparability. This comparative
analysis of National Socialist and SED ideologies is structured
around three central issues: firstly the extent of convergence and
divergence in terms of common structural features and contrasting
core political myths; secondly the comparability of the ideologies in
terms of their relationship to social and technological modernisation;
and thirdly the striking structural similarities in the dominant, ideo-
logically conditioned variety of discourse attached to each of the
ideologies.

5 Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniev Brzezinsky, ‘Die allgemeinen Merkmale

der totalitären Diktatur’, in Eckhard Jesse (ed.), Totalitarismus im 20. Jahr-
hundert: Eine Bilanz der internationalen Forschung (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999),
pp. 225–36 (p. 230).
6 Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘The Phenomenon of Fascism’, p. 20.

87
Political ideologies in comparative perspective

National Socialism as a species of generic fascism

In its attempts to locate Nazi ideology within a framework of schol-

arly comparability, the historiography of generic fascism offers an
obvious point of departure for our attempts to subject National
Socialism to rigorous comparative analysis. And yet, as the comments
of Hugh Trevor-Roper suggest only too clearly, far from locating the
ideology of National Socialism within this comparative framework,
much of the historiography of generic fascism has served only to
reinforce its apparent lack of comparability to other ideological
systems. Indeed, the study of generic fascism has been characterised
above all by a lack of consensus as to precisely what that entity might
be. On the one hand, many scholars have sought the common basis
of generic fascism in shared organisational, rather than ideological,
elements, not least because the perception remains that fascism has
no genuine ideological basis. As Zeev Sternhell summarises:

For many years, after all, it was common form to see fascism either as
completely wanting in ideological concepts or as having gotten itself up for
the sake of the cause in a few rags of doctrine, which therefore need not be
taken seriously, nor allowed even the minimal importance that is attached as a
rule to the ideas professed by a political movement.7

It is in this context that Roger Scruton’s Dictionary of Political Thought

continues to define fascism as ‘an amalgam of disparate conceptions,
often ill-understood, often bizarre’, as ‘the form of an ideology, but
without specific content’.8 On the other hand, even where the ideo-
logical basis of fascism has been granted importance in its own right,
the focus has often remained on the negative elements of fascist

7 Zeev Sternhell, ‘Fascist Ideology’, in Laqueur (ed.), pp. 315–76 (p. 316).
8 Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (London: Macmillan, 1982), p.
169.

88
ideology, on what it sought to oppose and destroy, rather than on the
positive vision it sought to promote. Both of these tendencies, that is
to define fascism primarily in terms of its organisation or in terms of
its negations, are readily apparent in what is normally considered to
be the foundation of post-war fascist studies, namely Ernst Nolte’s
original six-point ‘fascist minimum’: (i) anti-marxism; (ii) anti-liberal-
ism; (iii) anti-conservatism; (iv) the leadership principle; (v) a party
army; (vi) the aim of totalitarianism.9 Similarly, Stanley Payne’s 1980
formulation of his influential ‘typographical description of fascism’
attributes a primary role to the ‘fascist negations’, from which a
detailed inventory of features concerning ‘ideology and aims’ and
‘style and organization’ then follows.10
At the same time, the work of academics such as Nolte and
Payne in seeking to develop a notion of generic fascism has done
much to start to establish fascism as a recognisable ideological entity.
Against this background, it is possible to locate a number of accounts
which lend fascism both a positive ideological content and a degree
of cohesion comparable to other ideologies. Hence, Juan J. Linz
considers that ‘fascism was much more than an anti-this or anti-that
movement’.11 Similarly for A. James Gregor, ‘Fascism was a far more
complex and systematic intellectual product than many of its an-
tagonists […] have been prepared to admit’.12 Nonetheless, granting
fascism this degree of ideological rigour has often been at the
expense of National Socialism, so that Nazi ideology has tended to
be excluded from any emerging fascist paradigm. Gregor’s com-
ments, for instance, relate overwhelmingly to Italian Fascist ideology,
while in Sternhell’s opinion, ‘nazism cannot […] be treated as a mere

9 Ernst Nolte, Die Krise des liberalen Systems und die faschistischen Bewegungen
(Munich: Piper, 1968), p. 385.
10 Stanley Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wis-
consin, 1980), p. 7.
11 Juan J. Linz, ‘Some Notes toward a Comparative Study of Fascism in Socio-
logical, Historical Perspective’, in Laqueur (ed.), pp. 3–121 (p. 5).
12 A. James Gregor, The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism
(Toronto: Collier–Macmillan, 1969), pp. 26–27.

89
variant of fascism: its emphasis on biological determinism rules out
all efforts to deal with it as such’.13 Hence, even within the frame-
work of generic fascism, Nazism has often remained an aberration.

The mythic core of fascism

A fruitful recent approach to this problematic issue of the generic

fascist minimum, and with it a potential step forward in terms of
establishing the comparability of National Socialist ideology, has
been pioneered by Roger Griffin. Rather than setting out to con-
struct a lengthy definition of generic fascism which explicitly includes
all the organisational and ideological forms which specific fascist
movements have adopted, Griffin seeks to abstract from those
various concrete manifestations of the fascist phenomenon a con-
cisely defined ideal-type, predicated on a ‘generic ideological core’.14
Fascism is then defined not in terms of its admittedly ‘plural, diverse,
imprecise’ historical forms,15 but in terms of a single core political
myth which provided these diverse movements with their revolution-
ary dynamism and which can be distilled from the programmatic
statements of fascism’s own ideologues. As such, Griffin defines
‘fascism’ as ‘a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its
various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-national-
ism’.16 As we shall see, this admirably concise, if somewhat cryptic,
formulation has three principal strengths. Firstly, it successfully
identifies an ideological core common to all fascist movements, but
from which their divergent organisational and stylistic forms can be
extrapolated. Secondly, and more importantly for the present study,
this definition has both descriptive and explanatory potential when
applied to the particular organisational and ideological dynamics of
the National Socialist regime. Thirdly, and of greatest significance

13 Sternhell, p. 317.
14 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 13.
15 Trevor-Roper, ‘The Phenomenon of Fascism’, p. 20.
16 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, p. 26. Subsequent reference, p. 13.

90
within the current context, the definition of fascism as a ‘genus of
political ideology’ assumes ‘that fascism is broadly on a par with such
concepts as “liberalism”, “socialism”, “conservatism” or “national-
ism”’. That is to say, fascism acquires a status as a modern political
ideology, distinct from, but eminently comparable with, other ideol-
ogies such as Marxism-Leninism.

Fascism as rebirth

It is Griffin’s contention that, despite marked surface differences in

style, organisation, and even some ideological features, fascist move-
ments share a common political myth which constitutes their
ideological core, namely ‘the conviction that a process of national
rebirth (palingenesis) has become essential to bring to an end a
protracted period of social and cultural decadence’, this rebirth being
achieved through ‘a revolutionary form of integral nationalism (ultra-
nationalism)’.17 This core is both sufficiently specific to exclude other
more ‘conservative’ authoritarian and nationalist movements, and
sufficiently abstract to allow for considerable national variation in its
concrete manifestation, thereby encompassing the diverse phenom-
ena conventionally labelled ‘fascist’. Griffin’s definition builds on the
existing historiography of fascism, where scholars such as Nolte,
Payne, Sternhell, and Gregor have all identified this palingenetic
drive, albeit peripherally, as a common feature of fascism.18 It also
stands up to empirical comparison with the programmatic statements
of fascist movements stretching from 1920s Italy to the present day.19
More remarkably, the notion of fascism as, at its core, ‘palingentic
ultra-nationalism’ seems to have succeeded in generating a previously

17 Roger Griffin, ‘Fascism’, in Roger Griffin (ed.), International Fascism: Theories,

Causes and the New Consensus (London: Edward Arnold, 1998), pp. 35–39 (p. 35
and p. 36).
18 See Griffin, International Fascism, p. 14.
19 See the collection of texts in Roger Griffin (ed.), Fascism (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995).

91
unthinkable, if still rather embryonic, consensus amongst scholars of
fascism. Certainly, by 1998 Griffin was able to claim that ‘without
any formal association between them, several academics concerned
with the theory of generic fascism have published analyses over the
last few years which are broadly congruent with my approach’.20 In
particular, Payne’s 1996 re-formulation of his typology of fascism
seems to demonstrate a strong influence from Griffin’s work.21 The
positive ideology and aims of fascism now replace its negations at the
head of his typological description. More significantly, despite insist-
ing on the need for a lengthy descriptive inventory of features, Payne
delivers a single-sentence definition of generic fascism, the initial
elements of which should by now be familiar: ‘a form of revo-
lutionary ultra-nationalism for national rebirth that is based on a
primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass
mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, positively values violence as end
as well as means and tends to normalize war and/or the military
virtues.’
Significantly for our analysis of National Socialist ideology,
Griffin does not deny a place for the Nazi regime in the new para-
digm of generic fascism. As a species of fascism, Nazi ideology
shares the core fascist myth of ultra-nationalist rebirth. Of course, a
number of specific features, such as the particular personality of
Hitler and the acute virulence of his anti-Semitism, tend to mark
National Socialist ideology out from other fascist movements. In this
sense, an emphasis on the generic fascist myth risks failing to give
sufficient weight to the specific core of Nazi ideology, namely its
‘racial, eugenic, and social Darwinist values’.22 However, justification

20 Griffin, International Fascism, p. 14. See, for instance, R. Eatwell, Fascism: A

History (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995); Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past,
Present, Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 9; Mark Neo-
cleous, Fascism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997), pp. 72–73.
21 Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism: 1919–1945 (Madison: University of Wis-
consin, 1995), pp. 3–14. Subsequent reference, p. 14.
22 Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, third
edition (London: Edward Arnold, 1993), p. 145.

92
for retaining National Socialism within the generic fascist paradigm
can be found in the recurrent presence of the core fascist myth of
rebirth in the public rhetoric of figures such as Hitler, Goebbels, and
Rosenberg.23 The utopian promise of national rebirth from the cor-
rupt decadence of Weimar, from the political and economic crises of
the late 1920s, and from the Dolchstoß of 1918, can be seen to be a
central element in the genuine popular appeal of Nazi ideology.
Furthermore, Griffin describes convincingly how this central myth is
a determining factor in the particular dynamics of Nazi policy,
considered at length in chapter one. The radicalisation, charismatic
systemlessness, and self-destruction of the regime are all shown to
follow on from this myth and the difficulties of translating the myth
into reality.24 The inherent revolutionary dynamic in the myth of
rebirth is not readily liable to stabilisation, but rather rests on the
maintenance of a near-constant crisis mentality from which the fas-
cist movement can deliver the nation. In Griffin’s words:

Fascism is in its element as an oppositional ideology only as long as the

climate of national crisis prevails […]. Since fascism’s mythic power is auto-
matically sapped […] once political stability and relative social harmony are
restored, it can only maintain its momentum and cohesion by continually
precipitating events which seemed to fulfil the promise of permanent revo-
lution, of continuing palingenesis.

The radical dynamism inherent in the core fascist myth is then a

central driving element in the ‘permanent revolution’ of Nazi policy
and its almost infinitely radicalising dynamic. In this way, Nazi ideo-
logy may be viewed as a specifically racist permutation of the ideal-type of
generic fascism, its core myth a biologically determinist form of ultra-
nationalist palingenesis.

23 See, for instance, Adolf Hitler, ‘The Place of Art in Germany’s Political
Reawakening’; Joseph Goebbels, ‘The Total Revolution of National Social-
ism’; Alfred Rosenberg, ‘German Rebirth’, in Griffin (ed.), Fascism, pp. 139–
40; pp. 133–35; pp. 131–32.
24 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, pp. 106–10 and pp. 39–44. Subsequent reference, p.
39.

93
Shared features of political ideologies

Although compelling, this ready applicability of Griffin’s model to

the specific case of National Socialism, and its particular political
dynamics, is arguably not the most significant aspect of Griffin’s
approach. Of even greater value within the context of a comparative
analysis of ideology in the Third Reich and the GDR is that part of
Griffin’s definition of generic fascism which characterises it as a
‘genus of political ideology’. As Griffin himself writes:

A convergence of opinion or ‘common sense’ is beginning to develop among

both theorists of generic fascism and specialists working on specific aspects
of it, that it is to be treated on a par with other major political ideologies
rather than as a special case defined primarily in terms of its negations,
organizational forms, and style. In other words, […] fascism is definable as an
ideology with a specific ‘positive’, utopian vision of the ideal state of society.25

The broader significance of Griffin’s work, and the consensus which

is emerging around it, is that it is able to reinstate fascist ideology,
with its own positive, utopian vision for the future, within the kind of
conventional definition of ideology employed by Friedrich and
Brzezinsky. National Socialist ideology, as a specific manifestation of
generic fascism, is also brought within this ideological framework and
hence rendered comparable with SED ideology. Indeed, implicit in
Griffin’s analysis is a taxonomy of ‘political ideology’, where specific
ideological permutations, such as National Socialism, occupy a
species position beneath generic ideal-types, such as fascism. Both
ideological species and genus are in turn subordinate to the super-
ordinate category of political ideology, and it is this implicit
taxonomy which opens up the possibility of genuine comparative
analysis between the official ideologies of the Third Reich and the
GDR. Just as National Socialist ideology can be analysed as a species
of generic fascism, which is in turn a genus of political ideology, so
SED ideology can be regarded as a species of generic Marxism-

25 Roger Griffin, ‘Preface’, in Griffin (ed.), International Fascism, pp. i–xii (p. x).

94
Leninism, itself likewise a genus of the broader class of political
ideology. As distinct species of a broader ideological class, both are
liable to abstraction ideal-typically in terms of a core political myth,
and this facilitates a comparative analysis of Nazi and SED ideology
in terms of their common structural elements and divergent core
myths. Before examining the contrasting ideological dynamics of the
regimes - dynamic radicalisation in the Third Reich, loss of radical-
ism and atrophy in the GDR - which arise from those divergent core
myths, let us consider the ten generalised assumptions which
underpin Griffin’s conception of ‘political ideology’.26 These assump-
tions offer points of contact between the structure and functioning
of the two ideological systems which start to break down many of
the long-standing barriers to a comparison of National Socialist and
SED ideology. From this comparative foundation, a contrastive
analysis can then be developed around the different nature of their
respective core myths, considering above all the implications of these
differences for the organisation and dynamics of cultural policy.

1. Rational or irrational?

As we have seen, one of the most persistent of these barriers has

been the perception that National Socialism was an aberrant ideo-
logical phenomenon. With its absence of recognised ideologues and
appeal to cultic Germanic traditions, it has been written off as in
essence inconsistent, self-contradictory irrationalism, or in Trevor-
Roper’s words, ‘bestial Nordic nonsense’.27 By comparison, Marxism-
Leninism appears to be a relatively coherent, rational system of
thought founded on an intellectually respectable, theoretical tradition.
Point five of Griffin’s model immediately starts to undermine any
such distinction:

26 See Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, pp. 15–17. References in subsequent para-
graphs from this source, unless otherwise stated.
27 Trevor-Roper, Last Days of Hitler, p. 3.

95
 An ideology is intrinsically irrational, for even if it claims to be rational in its self-
legitimation and is articulated by some of its carriers or reconstructed by
those studying it with a high degree of theoretical coherence, it owes its
power to inspire action and provide a sense of reality to the fact that it is
rooted in pre-verbal, subconscious feelings and affective drives.

The levelling of this apparent contrast between the two ideologies is

buttressed by a further complementary assumption:

Ideologies are lived out as truths, being perceived as ideologies only when
observed with critical detachment from outside. Their carriers experience
them ‘from within’ as an integral part of their world-view and associate them
with normality, common sense, reasonableness, convictions, self-evident
facts.

Here, judgements concerning the rationality, coherence, or truth-

value of particular ideologies are seen to rest not on the nature and
content of the ideas themselves, but on the standpoint from which
they are perceived. Clearly, to committed followers of Nazism the
ideological principles and core myths expounded charismatically in
Hitler’s oratory appeared as reasonable, rational, and true as do the
more intellectually expressed writings of Karl Marx to carriers of that
particular ideology. In a contrastive analysis of the two ideologies, we
may seek to make distinctions concerning the modes of transmission
of the two sets of beliefs or the types of intellectual tradition which
the regimes sought to draw on, and on these terms clear differences
emerge. Where National Socialism made claims for itself as the
expression of an instinctive, organic German Geist, Marxism-
Leninism made claims for its own scientific validity, as an expression
of universal reason and Intellekt. The former may be said to have had
‘anti-rational’ dynamics, the latter ‘pro-rational’ dynamics. National
Socialism may have been more eclectic in its sources, Marxism-
Leninism more consistent. However, we are not dealing with one
inherently inconsistent and irrational ideological entity and another
which is consistent and rational. In the official ideologies of the
German dictatorships, we are faced with two intrinsically and

96
comparably irrational constructs, perceived differences between them
being often a product of the intellectual and moral standpoint of
those analysing them.

2. Inherent heterogeneity

If German fascism was indeed a relatively more eclectic, diverse

ideological movement in its concrete form, Griffin’s model does not
suggest that this relative heterogeneity should disqualify National
Socialism as a political ideology. Indeed, for Griffin a feature of
ideology is not the consistency of its realisation, but rather the di-
versity of individual interpretations of what is an abstract, ideal-
typical core:

Ideologies are not homogeneous at a lived level, for every individual will rationalize
them in a unique way, emphasize different aspects of the cluster of values and
policies which they propound and have a personal elective affinity with them.
This leads to the existence of highly nuanced and even conflicting intuitions
and conceptions as to what an ideology’s salient principles are and how best
to implement them.

Similarly, individuals exhibit varying degrees of attachment to that

core and varying motivations for that attachment:

There are many levels of commitment to an ideology, ranging from the intensity of
activists, leadership and ideologues of a movement at the heart of its propa-
gation to the more passive or pragmatic ‘fellow-travellers’ at the periphery
with no deep or lasting involvement with it. The contents of an ideology will
become more nuanced and sophisticated towards a movement’s activist core
and more simplistic and crudely propagandistic towards the periphery.

Ideology is no longer conceived of as a rigid, monolithic entity, but

as a more fluid, fragmentary concept. A consistency of vision oper-
ates only at the level of abstraction. At a lived level, ideologies reveal
a much messier, heterogeneous reality. As such, National Socialism
appears to be less an aberration, and more a prototypical example of
this ideological tendency.

97
 As well as rescuing Nazism as a comparable ideological entity,
perceiving the official ideologies of the Third Reich and the GDR in
this way, that is as essentially heterogeneous and fragmented outside
their ideal-type abstraction, clearly complements the theoretical and
methodological principles elaborated in chapter one of this study.
There, the principal methodological procedure was the attempt to
submit monolithic, propaganda-induced perceptions of totalitarian-
ism to a process of historicisation. The Alltagsgeschichte approach of
historians of the Third Reich, with its emphasis on the shortfall
between propaganda and practice and the uneven reality of everyday
life under National Socialism, clearly complements assumptions
which undermine a monolithic view of the regime’s official ideology.
Likewise, the emerging popularity of notions of ideological pene-
tration in the GDR, instead of top-down repression, is much more
compatible with a conceptualisation of ideology which rests on
individually motivated and individually realised responses to a basic
core myth. Above all, the significance within the present study of this
more ‘indvidualised’ model of ideology lies in its application to
patterns of assent and dissent. As we shall see in the following
chapter, the historiography of resistance in the German dictatorships
has shifted over the past twenty years away from monumental
divisions between victims and perpetrators, conformity and non-
conformity, collaboration and resistance, and towards more fluid
categories. The application of these fluid categories to the literary
sphere is one of the principal aims of this project, and central to this
exploration of more ambivalent and individual modes of assenting
and dissenting behaviour must be a model of the official ideology
which stresses not its monolithic, ‘either/or’ nature, but the nuanced
and fluid character of individual responses to it.

98
3. Conservative or revolutionary?

Scope for divergence in the ideological dynamics of the Third Reich

and the GDR starts to emerge in point two of Griffin’s model. Here,
he builds on existing theoretical distinctions between the ‘conserva-
tive’ and ‘revolutionary’ action of an ideology:

Ideology can assume a reactionary, progressive or revolutionary aspect, according to

whether it acts in a given situation as (a) a conformist, conservative, hege-
monic force, (b) an idealistic, reforming, but ‘systemic’ force or (c) a utopian,
subversive, ‘extra-systemic’ one.

At the heart of the distinction drawn in the previous chapter between

the ‘charismatic totalitarianism’ of the Third Reich and the ‘bureau-
cratic totalitarianism’ of the GDR was a perceived difference in the
ideological dynamism of the two regimes. While over the course of
the Third Reich, the Nazi regime seems to have been able to
maintain what Griffin terms a ‘revolutionary aspect’, outside or even
at the expense of governmental institutions, the official ideology of
the GDR seems to have acted as an increasingly ‘conservative’ or
‘reactionary’ force, the initial revolutionary, utopian vision replaced
by the more pragmatic and defensive aim of maintaining the system.
These contrasting ideological dynamics – the revolutionary radical-
isation of Nazi ideology, on the one hand, and the ideological
atrophy of SED doctrine, on the other – are without doubt the most
significant points of divergence between the functioning of the
ideological systems in the German dictatorships. The question we
must address now is the extent to which this contrast can in some
sense be predicted by the different nature of the core myths of the
two ideologies.

99
Core myths of SED ideology

If National Socialism is to be defined as a specifically racist,

biologically determinist permutation of the core fascist myth of
palingenetic ultra-nationalism, then the first step in constructing a
contrastive analysis of ideology in the German dictatorships must be
to identify the parallel ideological core of SED ideology. In general-
ised terms, Griffin formulates the nature of this core as follows:

Each ideology can be defined ideal-typically in terms of a core of values and perceptions of
history. This core underlies its vision of the ideal society, its evaluation of the
present one and, if the perceived discrepancy is too great, its strategy for
improving or transforming it. […] A generic ideology is one in which a
number of distinct political movements or regimes can be shown to share the
same (ideally-typically constructed) ideological core.28

For SED ideology, the relevant generic ideology is Marxism-

Leninism, and, as far as seeking the ideological core of Marxism-
Leninism is concerned (that is, its ‘core of values and perceptions of
history’, ‘its vision of the ideal society’, and ‘its strategy for improving
or transforming’ existing society), we are not faced with anything like
the lack of consensus which has characterised the study of fascism.
Firstly, Karl Marx’s recognisable body of intellectual work provides a
number of central political myths concerning the class struggle, the
inherent instability of capitalism, and the inevitable progression to-
wards a working-class revolution, the redistribution of the means of
production, and the establishment of a communist society. Secondly,
in the Leninist variant of the ideology, Marx’s laws of historical
materialism are supplemented most importantly by the notion of the
proletariat’s ‘false consciousness’ and the need for a vanguard elite to
promote communism through the principles of democratic central-
ism, rather than working-class revolution. Here, Marxist ideology
acquires a form where distinct organisational features are pro-
grammed into the ideological core. If we define generic Marxism-

28 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, p. 17, emphasis in the original.

100
Leninism, then, as ‘a democratic centralist form of Marxist historical
materialism’, we are able to point towards a recognised body of core
ideological principles. What remains is to identify the specific fea-
tures of the SED variety of this generic ideology.
What was unique about the SED variant of Marxism-Leninism
was the historical and political situation in which this generic ideol-
ogy was implemented. That is to say, SED ideology was a particularly
German, post-fascist permutation of Marxism-Leninism, and this
post-fascist location had fundamental implications for the way in
which the generic ideological core of Marxism-Leninism was inter-
preted in the GDR. Above all, one of the lasting legacies of National
Socialism was the highly effective exclusion and destruction of
German communism at grass-roots level. As Mary Fulbrook points
out, the theoretical considerations of Marxism-Leninism, in particular
as they relate to the notion of false consciousness, ‘were given added
weight by the experiences of German communists in the turbulent
conditions of early and mid-twentieth-century Germany’.29 This
served only to heighten the perceived need for the party to play a
vanguard role in the construction of Marxism-Leninism in the GDR,
and as such SED ideology became a relatively elitist variant, depend-
ent, at least initially, on relatively small groups of exiles to implement
communist theories. Furthermore, the immediate German fascist
legacy, together with fears of its resurgence, was a central factor in
the ‘paranoia [which] lay at the root of many of the measures taken
by the state’. It was this post-fascist paranoia which partly informed
the hard-line, neo-Stalinist nature of the regime. It was the fascist
legacy which ensured that the SED variant of Marxist-Leninist ideol-
ogy was ‘in practice more centralist than democratic’.
On the other side, it was also the post-fascist location of the
GDR which gave the official ideology its principal unifying, utopian
vision. As Mary Fulbrook points out, the GDR acquired its basic

29 Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949–1989 (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 23. Subsequent references, p. 23 and p. 8.

101
legitimation from ‘its status as the truly “anti-fascist” state’.30 Or in
Kershaw’s words: ‘anti-fascism was from the beginning an indispens-
able cornerstone of the state’s ideology and legitimacy.’31 Likewise,
Jürgen Kocka stresses the genuine ideological attraction of anti-
fascism in the immediate post-war situation and beyond: ‘die Absicht,
das Erbe des Faschismus zu überwinden und ein neues, besseres
Deutschland zu errichten, diente auch als ehrliche Motivation für
viele in SBZ und DDR, sehr lange auch als Kraftquelle der
entstehenden DDR.’32 Much of the regime’s initial revolutionary
dynamism derived from the central goal of anti-fascism, and at the
heart of this ideological core lay a further official political myth.
According to Comintern’s official definition, fascism was itself only
‘the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most
chauvinist, and most imperialist elements of finance capital’.33 As
such, the ideology of the SED opposed fascism not only in its
historical form of National Socialism, but also in the capitalist
reconstruction of West Germany, where the de-nazification process
was perceived to be entirely inadequate. It was this founding goal, in
addition to the principles of Marxism, which provided the utopian
vision of the East German zone which attracted so many returning
intellectuals. The core of SED ideology might then be summarised as
a relatively elite and, above all, anti-fascist permutation of Marxism-
Leninism.

30 Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, p. 24.

31 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 10. See also Eric D. Weitz, Creating German
Communism 1890–1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 369.
32 Jürgen Kocka, Vereinigungskrise: Zur Geschichte der Gegenwart (Göttingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), p. 100.
33 Comintern, ‘The Terrorist Dictatorship of Finance Capital’, in Griffin (ed.),
International Fascism, pp. 59–66 (p. 59).

102
Divergent myths, divergent dynamics

At a generic level, clear differences begin to emerge from this analysis

of the respective core myths of fascism and Marxism-Leninism. In
particular, the core myths of Marxism-Leninism can be seen to be
much more rigorously codified and founded on a much more clearly
defined theoretical basis than the core myths of fascism, and in this
sense SED ideology seems to come much closer to the cohesive
body of political theory conventionally demanded of ‘ideology’. As a
result of this rigorous codification, the ideological core of Marxism-
Leninism is elaborated in a significantly more detailed manner, with
specific prescriptions as to how its utopian vision might be put into
practice and how its ideal society should be structured, both
politically and socio-economically. By contrast, the fascist core lacks
these prescribed elements, the vagueness of its mythic promise of
cultural and organic renewal providing much of its appeal and
potency. As Griffin comments in relation to the heterogeneity of
fascism’s social support, ‘there is nothing in principle which pre-
cludes an employed or unemployed member of the working classes
or an aristocrat, a city-dweller or a peasant, a graduate, or someone
“educationally challenged” from being susceptible to fascist myth’.34
At the same time, this absence of prescription generates the eclecti-
cism of fascism’s concrete manifestations which is often perceived as
a symptom of its ideological inconsistency. In Griffin’s words:

The core myth of palingenetic ultra-nationalism is susceptible to so many

nuances of interpretation in terms of specific ‘surface’ ideas and policies that,
more so even than socialism before Marx, it tends to generate a wide range of
competing currents and factions even within the same political culture.35

For Griffin, fascism is ‘inherently syncretic, bringing heterogeneous

currents of ideas into a loose alliance united only by the common

34 Roger Griffin, ‘General Introduction’, in Griffin (ed.), Fascism, pp. 1–12 (p. 7).
35 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. 40.

103
struggle for a new order’,36 and so, although both generic ideologies
are heterogeneous at a lived level, it may be that generic fascism
tends towards greater diversity, both in terms of the social make-up
of its support and the concrete manifestations of its core myth.
Furthermore, the relative heterogeneity of generic fascism may
also start to suggest that its concrete manifestations tend towards
greater instability than their Marxist-Leninist counterparts. Equally,
the more theoretically rigorous, ‘pro-rational’ dynamics of generic
Marxism-Leninism, in particular as they relate to prescribed organ-
isational discipline, seem to suggest more stable, bureaucratic forms
of rule. These distinctions are allied to a further observation which
Griffin makes about the ideological core of fascism:

Fascism radically diverges from liberalism, socialism, conservatism and most

religious ideologies by making the revolutionary process central to its core
myth to the exclusion of a fully thought-through ‘orthodox’ stage when the
dynamics of society settle down.37

The strength of the fascist core myth lies in its potent utopian vision
which is able to attract relatively large-scale and diverse populist
support. However, this appeal relies in large measure on the vague
formulation and concentrated revolutionary promise of the myth of
rebirth, and these, at least for Griffin, are structural weaknesses
which seem to undermine its ability to stabilise and systematise itself.
As a rejection of conventional modes of liberal politics, fascist ideol-
ogy is, according to Griffin, pre-disposed to charismatic forms of
rule. It is pre-disposed to adopt an inherently ‘revolutionary’ aspect,
and this starts to point to a profound divergence between the two
generic ideologies. The more formal codification of Marxist-Leninist
myths, together with the removal of the revolutionary necessity from
the Leninist variety of Marxism and its emphasis on party discipline
and organisational elements, suggest strongly that Marxist-Leninist
ideology is more compatible with stabilisation and systematisation

36 Griffin, ‘General Introduction’, p. 8.

37 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. 40.

104
than is fascism. It seems more liable to adopt a ‘reactionary’ aspect,
and in this sense we might wish to posit a causal relationship between
the more stable, systematic Marxist-Leninist ideology and the more
stable GDR regime, between the more unstable, dynamic fascist
ideology and the more unstable, charismatic Nazi regime.
Of course, we should remain wary of assuming some form of
teleological pre-programming in the respective generic ideologies of
which the Nazi and SED regimes were specific manifestations. After
all, the Stalinist manifestation of Marxism-Leninism demonstrates
that this generic ideology was equally capable of generating a more
charismatic, dynamic, and systemless regime. Similarly, it would be
incorrect to deny the powerful revolutionary potential of Marxist
myths, so clearly demonstrated by the popular appeal of communism
in Germany during the crisis periods of 1918 and 1930. Marxism-
Leninism need not necessarily generate stable regimes; individual
fascist ideologies need not be entirely incompatible with stabilisation.
At the same time, the Stalinist regime was able to stabilise and
reproduce itself in a way in which the Nazi regime was not, and this
does seem to point to, at the very least, differing dynamic tendencies
within the two generic ideological systems. In particular, the post-
fascist location of the SED variant of Marxism-Leninism seems to
generate a heightened tendency towards stabilisation, away from its
revolutionary aspect. In general in the Soviet and European context
of post-1945, Marxism-Leninism was a more mature ideology, lack-
ing much of its original revolutionary dynamic. Above all in the
German context, the Marxist core myths no longer held the potent
popular and dynamic appeal of 1918 or 1930. Instead, their revo-
lutionary dynamism was restricted to a relatively intellectual elite, so
that the SED variety of Marxism-Leninism derived what dynamism it
had from the core founding myth of anti-fascism. However, after the
defeat of German fascism, the revolutionary dynamism of this myth
was much less readily sustainable. The strong anti-fascist imperative
of the immediate post-war years waned as memories of Nazism
faded, as the generation which had suffered at their hands was
replaced, and as it became increasingly difficult to brand the capitalist

105
West as a variety of cloaked fascism. This loss of ideological dyna-
mism, tied to the relatively intellectual nature of the SED core myth,
must go some way to explaining the loss of dynamism in the GDR
system. National Socialism, on the other hand, possessed the in-
herent radicalising dynamic of the fascist core myth, together with
the fascist tendency towards increased heterogeneity at a lived level
and charismatic forms of rule. These contrasting dynamics provide at
least a partial explanation for the way in which Nazi ideology retained
its ‘revolutionary aspect’, spiralling into self-destruction, while SED
ideology settled into a more conservative mode. These outcomes
may not have been the inevitable products of the contrasting nature
of the two regimes’ core ideological myths, but these starkly differing
ideological dynamics remain one the most significant contrasts
between them.

Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne

In our attempt to clarify the ideological nature of National Socialism

and to identify elements of comparability with SED ideology, one
further aspect which warrants particular investigation is the attitude
of these ideologies to the on-going process of social modernisation.
This attitude not only acts as a further point of comparison between
the two ideologies, it is also a central category for the analysis of
much literature and culture produced under the two regimes.

What is modernisation?

Above all, the relationship of National Socialism and/or fascism to

the modernisation process has spawned a vast literature of its own,
and even the briefest of considerations of this research makes clear
just how problematic an area this has proved to be. The ideological

106
basis of Nazism has been variously characterised as ‘a utopian form
of anti-modernism’, as ‘an alternative form of modernism’, or as
‘reactionary modernism’.38 Similarly, while Stanley Payne maintains
that ‘fascism was nothing if not modernist’, Russell Berman writes of
‘both a flaunted irrational anti-modernism and an aggressively forced
modernization’, and Wolfgang Emmerich and Carl Wege refer to
‘den für das NS-System charakteristischen Durchmischungen von
modernen und antimodernen Elementen’.39 In part, this apparently
contradictory picture is a product of the characteristic heterogeneity
of Nazi ideology at a lived level, so that the picture we are presented
with is ‘eine Gemengelage aus fundamentalistisch-regressiven und
technisch-avancierten, modernistischen Tendenzen’.40 At the same
time, this confusion must also be seen as a terminological issue,
deriving from starkly differing conceptions of just what constitutes
modernisation, from the absence of an ‘allgemein verbindlichen Be-
griff der Moderne’.41
One set of criteria for the definition of modernisation is to be
found in a tradition of mainly American sociology concerned with
‘modernisation theory’. Here, modernisation typically includes: eco-
nomic growth with an accompanying increase in the diversity of
available goods and services and a specialisation of labour; increased

38 Henry Ashby Turner, ‘Fascism and Modernization’, in Henry Ashby Turner

(ed.), Reappraisals of Fascism (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), pp. 117–39
(p. 120); Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. 47; Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism:
Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP,
1984).
39 Payne, History of Fascism, p. 485; Russell Berman, ‘German Primitivism/
Primitive Germany: The Case of Emil Nolde’, in Richard Goslan (ed.),
Fascism, Aesthetics and Culture (London: University of New England, 1992), pp.
56–66 (p. 66); Wolfgang Emmerich and Carl Wege, ‘Einleitung’, in Wolfgang
Emmerich und Carl Wege (eds), Der Technikdiskurs in der Hitler-Stalin-Ära
(Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995), pp. 1–14 (p. 8).
40 Emmerich and Wege, ‘Einleitung’, p. 3.
41 Anson Rabinbach, ‘Nationalsozialismus und Moderne: Zur Technik-
Interpretation im Dritten Reich’, in Emmerich und Wege (eds), pp. 94–113
(p. 97).

107
social differentiation and social mobility; increased participation in
decision-making; and increasing institutional regulation of conflicts.42
However, these modernisation theories have proved to be largely
unsatisfactory. As Kershaw suggests, even recent theories ‘remain
eclectic, imprecise, and open to widely differing subjective weightings
attached to some of the fundamental premises and concepts used’.43
Specifically, most of these theories assume, implicitly or explicitly,
that there is an ideal type of ‘modern’ society, and predominantly this
ideal type is based on liberal, Western democracy. Hence, political
liberalisation and democratisation become enshrined as necessary
features of a modernised society. As such, modernisation can clearly
be of little value in an analysis of ideology under the conditions of
dictatorship, since all such regimes must inherently oppose a process
of modernisation conceived in these terms. Instead, any productive
modernisation category needs to be stripped down to its core as a
technological process, and shorn of the peripheral political processes
which put a given state on the path towards what is perceived to
be a ‘better’ society. As Hans Dieter Schäfer suggests: ‘Aus der
Geschichte der Stalin-Diktatur oder aus den jüngsten Ereignissen in
China wird deutlich, daß “Parlamentarisierung” und “Emanzipation”
nicht als notwendige Begleiterschienungen der Modernisierung zu
begreifen sind.’44 In their comparative analysis of the Nazi and Stalin
dictatorships, Kershaw and Lewin tread similar ground:

The concept of ‘modernisation’ is, of course, highly problematic [...]. But

however problematic the concept, it is difficult to avoid it and better to face
up to its limitations, but also take into account its advantages, than to dismiss
it altogether. ‘Modernisation’ need not have connotations of ‘improving’
society, let alone of democratising it. In sociological, political, and historical
writing, it has implied the process of long-term change that transforms a

42 See Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Modernisierungstheorie und Geschichte (Göttingen: Van-

denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), pp. 16–17.
43 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 133.
44 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Amerikanismus im Dritten Reich’, in Michael Prinz and
Rainer Zitelmann (eds), Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), pp. 199–215 (p. 200).

108
 society resting on agriculture and its related political and social structures and
cultures into an industrial society based on technological advancement,
secularised culture, bureaucratic administration, and extensive (however shal-
low) forms of political participation. These changes were compatible with the
emergence of quite different political systems – with varying forms of au-
thoritarianism as well as with democracy.45

Within the context of the German dictatorships, modernisation must

be defined as a less discriminating process, driven primarily by the
relentless motor of technological and scientific innovation, and one
which brings with it a number of closely associated core social
processes. Both Turner and Payne identify four such core processes,
namely industrialisation, urbanisation, rationalisation, and secular-
isation, and it is these processes which will form the core of a
modernisation definition for the purposes of the present study.46
For the cultural historian, these terminological issues are further
complicated by the need to apply the terms ‘modernism’ and
‘modernist’ to refer to aesthetic styles and modes of expression, as
well as to describe attitudes to modernisation. Here, we run the risk
of conflating socio-political ‘modernism’ with artistic ‘modernism’, so
that the cultural ‘anti-modernism’ of the Nazi regime, that is, its
opposition to the modernistic artistic posture, may be run together
with its perceived political and social ‘anti-modernism’, that is, an
opposition to modernisation. Alternatively, the application of the
term ‘modernist’ to describe both a social policy stance and a cultural
phenomenon risks generating the most opaque and paradoxical of
designations, as is apparent when Robert Soucy writes of the
‘modernist anti-modernism’ of French fascism.47 Here, there seems
to be little choice other than to restrict the usage of the terms
‘modernist’ and ‘modernism’ to purely artistic and cultural contexts,

45 Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, ‘Afterthoughts’, in Ian Kershaw and Moshe
Lewin (eds), Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: CUP,
1997), pp. 343–58 (pp. 344–45).
46 See Turner, p. 118 and Payne, History of Fascism, p. 472.
47 Robert Soucy, ‘Drieu La Rochelle and the Modernist Anti-Modernism in
French fascism’, Modern Language Notes, 95 (1980), 922–37.

109
and to introduce a fresh terminology to describe relationships to
modernisation. Any such terminology must cover two distinct
elements. Firstly, the perceived ‘(anti)modernism’ of National Social-
ism in relation to social modernisation describes the effect of the
regime on the on-going modernisation process, whether it contrib-
uted to it or arrested it. Secondly, this ‘(anti)modernism’ also
describes the aims and intentions of the regime with respect to
modernisation, whether it sought to actively promote modernisation
or sought to slow it down. In terms of the former, it should be
possible to determine whether a regime was ‘modernising’ (added to
the long-term rate of modernisation), ‘non-modernising’ (did not
significantly alter the long-term rate of modernisation), or ‘de-
modernising’ (slowed or even turned back the long-term process of
modernisation). In terms of the latter, we can assess the extent to
which a regime was, at an ideological level, ‘pro-modern’ or ‘anti-
modern’. A ‘pro-modern’ ideology is open to the embrace of
technology and aims to be in harmony with on-going modernisation,
while an ‘anti-modern’ ideology looks to embrace the past and rejects
the core processes of modernisation. In the context of this analysis
of ideology in the German dictatorships, it is this latter judgement as
to the pro/anti-modern nature of ideologies, rather than the modern-
ising effect of regimes, which will be of primary concern.

Soviet power plus electrification

This lengthy but necessary terminological preamble finally enables us

to make an assessment of the relationship between the regimes of the
German dictatorships and modernisation, to ascertain whether the
regimes were ideologically pro- or anti-modern and whether there
exist points of contact in this area between the two regimes. As far as
SED ideology is concerned, it is clear that at the level of generic
ideology, Marxism-Leninism was strongly pro-modern. Hans Jonas,
for instance, sees in the early Soviet Union ‘ein fast religiöser Glaube
an die Allmacht der Technik’, while Frank Trommler identifies ‘jene

110
Fixierung auf die Technik als Machtvorgabe, die seit der Revolution
das sowjetische Herrschaftsdenken mindestens so stark geprägt hat
wie der Marxismus’.48 Significantly for any analysis of the GDR, the
Stalinist embrace of modernity is not seen just as a tactical, pragmatic
policy orientation. Rather, ‘der technologische Impuls [ist] in das
Grundwesen des Marxismus eingebaut’.49 In this context, Jonas
makes particular reference to Lenin’s much-quoted definition of
communism as ‘Soviet power plus electrification’, a statement which
Zygmunt Bauman also chooses to emphasise in his assessment of the
‘modernity’ of communism:

Communism, Lenin would say, is Soviet power together with the ‘electrifi-
cation of the whole country’: that is, modern technology and modern industry
under a power conscious of its purpose in advance and leaving nothing to
chance. Communism was modernity in its most determined mood and most
decisive posture.50

Although the actual modernising effect of the SED regime must be

open to doubt – Emmerich and Wege, for instance, write of ‘ein
beispielloser Technikkult, der in keiner Weise dem tatsächlichen
Stand der Produktkraftentfaltung entsprach’, reminding us that ‘die
DDR (und mit ihr das Sowjetimperium) bis in die sechziger Jahre
hinein ein vormodernes Land blieb, dessen Lebenswelt weit weniger
durchrationalisiert war als die der westeuropäischen Länder’51 – at the
level of ideological intention, the unequivocally pro-modern stance of
the generic ideology fed into the specific ideological variant of the
GDR regime.

48 Hans Jonas, Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische
Zivilisation (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1984), p. 276, quoted by Emmerich
and Wege, ‘Einleitung’, p 1; Frank Trommler, ‘Amerikas Rolle in Technik-
verständnis der Diktaturen’, in Emmerich und Wege (eds), pp. 159–74 (p.
167).
49 Jonas, p. 277, quoted by Emmerich and Wege, ‘Einleitung’, p 1.
50 Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Oxford: Polity, 1991), p. 267.
51 Emmerich and Wege, ‘Einleitung’, p. 2.

111
National Socialism: pro-modern or anti-modern?

By contrast, any assessment of the relationship of National Socialist

ideology to modernisation is necessarily more equivocal. On the one
hand, few historians question that National Socialism achieved some
low-level modernising effects, at least in terms of the core processes
such as industrialisation.52 On the other hand, in their anti-modern
rhetoric, their emphasis on agrarian, Blut-und-Boden culture, and on
combating the modern decadence of Weimar culture by reinstating
traditional German values, there is substantial evidence that the aims
and intentions of National Socialism are best characterised as anti-
modern. In particular in the world-view of figures such as Rosenberg
and Darré, National Socialism appears to have advocated a reversal
of modernisation. This is the position maintained by Henry Ashby
Turner, for whom Nazism was a fundamentally anti-modern, if
admittedly modernising, movement. That is to say, the short-term
modernising effects of National Socialism did not match their long-
term ideological goals: ‘The Nazis [...] practiced modernization out of
necessity in order to pursue their fundamentally anti-modern aims.’53

52 In this particular debate, the full range of opinions, from Nazism as modern-
ising to Nazism as de-modernising, find their expression. Many of the
differences here stem from differing interpretations of what constitutes
modernisation. See David Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (New York:
Anchor, 1967); Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968); Horst Matzerath and Heinrich Volkmann,
‘Modernisierungstheorie und Nationalsozialismus’, in Jürgen Kocka (ed.),
Theorien in der Praxis des Historikers: Forschungsbeispiele und ihre Diskussion
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 82–102; Jens Alber,
‘Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und
Sozialpsychologie, 41 (1989), 346–65; Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann (eds),
Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buch-
gesellschaft, 1991); Hans Mommsen, ‘Nationalsozialismus als vorgetäuschte
Modernisierung’, in Hans Mommsen (ed.), Der Nationalsozialismus und die
deutsche Gesellschaft: Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991), pp. 405–27;
Norbert Frei, ‘Wie modern war der Nationalsozialismus?’, Geschichte und
Gesellschaft, 19 (1993), 367–83.
53 Turner, p. 126. Subsequent references, p. 120 and p. 122.

112
Despite a pragmatic need to industrialise and remilitarise, the genuine
ideological intentions of National Socialism were ‘an escape from the
modern world by means of a desperate backward leap toward a
romanticized vision […] of a world long lost’. For Turner, Nazi
Lebensraum policies sought to make possible in the long-term ‘a
significant degree of de-urbanization and de-industrialization’.
And yet by the same token, much of the rhetoric of National
Socialism was strongly pro-modern, so that ‘emphasizing these [anti-
modern] aspects alone considerably distorts the general per-
spective’.54 Against the anti-modern ideological visions of figures
such as Darré and Rosenberg must be set the pro-modern position
of figures such as Goebbels, Ley, Todt, and Speer. Indeed, for Roger
Griffin, the anti-modern rhetoric of National Socialism is precisely
that, convenient conservative propaganda rather than an expression
of genuine ideological intentions. At what Griffin terms ‘the level of
ideological intent’, Nazism, as a species of fascism, was ‘genuinely
looking for an alternative to liberalism, communism, conservatism
and capitalism as the formula for resolving the problems of the
modern age’.55 While ‘some forms of fascist myths are radically anti-
urban, anti-secular and/or draw on cultural idioms of nostalgia for a
pre-industrial idyll of heroism, moral virtue or racial purity’, when
fascism invokes these myths, it is not, Griffin asserts, as ‘socio-
political models to be duplicated in a literal-minded restoration of the

54 Payne, History of Fascism, p. 473. For a critique of Turner’s thesis, see A. James
Gregor, ‘Fascism and Modernization: Some Addenda’, World Politics, 26
(1974), 370–84. Axel Schildt, otherwise strongly sceptical of attempts to
characterise Nazism as pro-modern and modernising, points to ‘die ([von
Turner] fälschlich angenommene) Großstadtfeindlichkeit Hitlers oder die ver-
fehlte Analogisierung des “Dritten Reichs” mit feudaler Herrschaftspraxis’.
Axel Schildt, ‘NS-Regime, Modernisierung und Moderne: Anmerkungen zur
Hochkonjunktur einer andauernden Diskussion’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche
Geschichte, 23 (1994), 3–22 (p. 7). On Goebbels’s pro-modern rhetoric, see
Herf, Reactionary Modernism, pp. 195–97, or his more recent article, ‘Der
Nationalsozialistische Technikdiskurs: Die deutschen Eigenheiten des re-
aktionären Modernismus’, in Emmerich und Wege (eds), pp. 72–93.
55 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. 48. Subsequent references, p. 47.

113
past’. Instead, fascism seeks to build rhetorically on the past achieve-
ments of more ‘glorious’ periods in the national history only as a
strategy ‘to invoke the regenerative ethos which is a pre-requisite for
national rebirth’.
Here, in a sense, is a reversal of Turner’s position. Where he sees
the core of Nazism as essentially anti-modern, yet willing to make use
of technology and modernity for those ends, Griffin sees it as
essentially pro-modern, yet willing to make propagandistic use of the
anti-modern rhetoric of völkisch traditionalism and Germanic tribal-
ism. In this view, Griffin seems to find support from a range of
scholars. Detlev Peukert, for instance, writes as follows:

Erstens läßt sich der Nationalsozialismus keinesfalls pauschal als ‘antimodern’

charakterisieren. Vielmehr erhöhten oftmals gerade die reichlich verwendeten
antiquierten utpoisch-reaktionären oder traditionalistischen Formeln der
NS-Ideologie die praktische soziale Akzeptanz der durch sie verbrämten
modernen Techniken und Strukturen.56

In a similar vein, Ian Kershaw maintains that ‘the emphasis on anti-

modernization as the secret of Nazism’s appeal can easily be greatly
exaggerated. On the contrary: though Nazism contained obvious
archaic and atavistic elements, they often served as propagandistic
symbols or ideological cover for wholly “modern” types of appeal’.57
For Payne too, who refutes that the Lebensraum policy involved a
planned de-industrialisation of Germany, ‘fascism was nothing if not
[pro-modern], despite its high quotient of archaic or anachronistic
warrior culture’.58
Clearly, the heterogeneity of Nazi ideology makes it difficult to
distinguish between the relative weighting of these pro-modern and
anti-modern elements, between core and peripheral features, between
genuine intentions and rhetorical dressing. Nonetheless, given the

56 Detlev Peukert, Volksgenossen und Gemeinschaftsfremde: Anpassung, Ausmerze und

Aufbegehren unter dem Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: Bund, 1982), p. 216.
57 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 148.
58 Payne, History of Fascism, p. 485.

114
centrality of Hitler’s role as ideological motor in the Third Reich, it is
significant that many scholars consider these pro-modern values and
attitudes to lie at the very heart of Hitler’s world-view. As Payne
suggests, ‘it would be absurd to label the Hitlerian revolution as
traditional, reactionary, “feudal”, or premodern’.59 Contrary to much
received wisdom, ‘Hitler himself was a stern derider of premodern
“superstition”’, and while some of his ideas were indeed influenced
by late nineteenth-century German nationalism, ‘none of this in-
volved a reversion to traditional, premodern thought’. Likewise,
Rainer Zitelmann stresses the admiration of Hitler and other leading
National Socialist figures for the modern, technological society of the
United States:

Hitler ließ sich keineswegs von rückwärtsgewandten Visionen einer mittel-

alterlichen Gesellschaftsordnung leiten. Sein Vorbild waren in vieler Hinsicht
die Vereinigten Staaten. Obwohl er […] die demokratische Ordnung der USA
ablehnte, bewunderte er doch den dortigen Stand der technisch-industriellen
Entwicklung, die er häufig als vorbildlich auch für Deutschland darstellte.60

In general, the attempts of Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann to

portray Hitler as a pro-modern social revolutionary remain highly
controversial.61 However, in highlighting the fascination of Hitler and
other leading National Socialists for American technology, Zitelmann
receives support from scholars such as Detlev Peukert, Hans Dieter
Schäfer, and Frank Trommler.62 As Jeffrey Herf asserts with con-
fidence, ‘Hitler was an enthusiast of technical advance’.63

59 Payne, History of Fascism, p. 483. Subsequent reference, p. 484.

60 Rainer Zitelmann, ‘Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’, in Prinz and Zitelmann
(eds), pp. 1–20 (p. 16).
61 See Prinz and Zitelmann (eds), and Rainer Zitelmann, Hitler: Selbstverständis
eines Revolutionärs (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1987). For a critique of these
accounts, see Hans Mommsen, ‘Noch einmal: Nationalsozialismus und
Modernisierung’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 21 (1995), 391–402.
62 See Peukert, p. 43; Trommler, ‘Amerikas Rolle im Technikverständnis der
Diktaturen’; Schäfer, ‘Amerikanismus im Dritten Reich’.
63 Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 197.

115
Pro-modern but anti-liberal

Above all, it is its biologically determinist racism which constitutes

the ideological core of Nazism, and here too we find a telling
example of what may be a pro-modern ideological stance. While Nazi
racial policy clearly offends against definitions of modernness centred
on Western liberalism, Payne suggests by contrast that ‘Nazi racism
was only conceivable in the twentieth century. [...] The naturalistic
racial anthropology of Hitler was purely a modern concept without
any premodern parallels’.64 Similarly, Zygmunt Bauman maintains
that ‘in this conception of social engineering as a scientifically
founded work aimed at the institution of a new, and better, order [...],
racism was indeed resonant with the world-view and practice of
modernity’.65 As part of a broader project of eugenics and euthanasia
and, above all, in the efficient, industrialised, production-line method
of their final execution, the racial policies of National Socialism are
arguably only an illiberal extension of widespread pro-modern
impulses at work in a range of Western societies throughout the
twentieth century:

There is more than a wholly fortuitous connection between the applied

technology of the mass production line, with its vision of universal material
abundance, and the applied technology of the concentration camp, with its
vision of a profusion of death. We may wish to deny the connection, but
Buchenwald was of our West as much as Detroit’s River Rouge.66

Detlev Peukert also sees the racial policies of National Socialism as

‘eine der pathologischen Entwicklungsformen der Moderne’.67 He
summarises matters as follows:

64 Payne, History of Fascism, p. 484.

65 Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity, 1989), p. 68.
66 Edmund Stillman and William Pfaff, The Politics of Hysteria (New York: Harper
& Row, 1964), pp. 30–31, quoted by Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, p. 9.
67 Peukert, p. 296. Subsequent reference, pp. 295–96.

116
 Der Nationalsozialismus entwarf in konsequenter ideologischer Wendung
gegen das Erbe von 1789 eine in ihren Mitteln moderne Gesellschaft ohne
die Leitbilder der staatsbürgerlichen Gleichheit, der Emanzipation und
Selbstbestimmung und der Mitmenschlichkeit. Er führte den utopischen
Glauben an die Allfälligkeit ‘wissenschaftlicher’ Total-Lösungen für gesell-
schaftliche Probleme bis zu ihrer radikalsten Konsequenz der rassebiologisch
begründeten bürokratischen Erfassung.

Nazism, it seems, was not seeking to reverse modernisation, but

rather selecting its own inhumane and amoral path towards it.
There is then substantial evidence to suggest that at its core
National Socialist ideology was essentially pro-modern, both in its
racial policies and in the personal philosophy of high-ranking figures
within the movement, most notably Hitler himself. This evidence
also suggests that anti-modern elements of National Socialism can be
judged to some extent peripheral, a product of the heterogeneous
interpretations of the core German fascist myths and of attempts to
make propagandistic capital out of widespread conservative, anti-
modern sentiment. If the core of Nazi ideology was in any sense anti-
modern, then it was not so in terms of an opposition to the narrowly
defined technological processes of modernisation, but rather in terms
of a rejection of notions of modernisation which rest on a Western
norm of democratisation and political liberalisation. This consistently
anti-democratic and illiberal, but avowedly pro-modern, ideological
position forms the basis of what Zitelman terms ‘die totalitäre
Möglichkeit der Moderne’:

Die Forschung hat jedoch zu recht hervorgehoben, daß Hitlers eigene

Programmatik die wichtigste Rolle in dem Gestrüpp unterschiedlicher
ideologischer Visionen spielte. In seiner Weltanschauung verbinden sich
höchst moderne Elemente mit einer entschiedenen Ablehnung des
demokratisch-pluralistischen Gesellschaftsystems. Beide Komponenten, die
modernistische und anti-demokratische, stehen dabei keineswegs zusammen-
hanglos nebeneinander, sondern verbinden sich in einem Gedankensystem,
das ein erstaunlich hohes Maß an innerer Geschlossenheit aufweist. Moderne
Visionen müssen also durchaus nicht human orientiert und keineswegs einem

117
 demokratischen Gesellschaftsverständnis verpflichtet sein. Hitlers Entwurf
demonstriert vielmehr die totalitäre Möglichkeit der Moderne.68

Similarly, Herf’s apparently paradoxical notion of ‘reactionary

modernism’ seeks to describe ‘the embrace of modern technology by
German thinkers who rejected Enlightenment reason’, a causal factor
in ‘Germany’s illiberal path toward modernity’.69 As a ‘coherent and
compelling ideology’, this anti-rational, anti-liberal, anti-democratic,
but determinedly pro-modern, impetus is seen to consistently under-
lie Hitler’s vision and policies:

The paradoxical combination of irrationalism and technics was fundamental

to Hitler’s ideology and practices and to National Socialism. [...] This tradition
[...] became a constituent component of Nazi ideology from the early 1920s
up to 1945. This synthesis of political reaction with an affirmative stance
toward technological progress emerged well before 1933 and contributed to
the ongoing ideological dynamism of the regime after 1933.

The common factor in what Zitelmann terms ‘die totalitäre Seite der
Moderne’, in what Herf terms ‘reactionary modernism’, and Peukert
a ‘pathology of modernity’ is the recognition of a consistent ideo-
logical position which is illiberal and anti-rational, but determinedly
pro-modern.
The value of this examination of the pro-modern impulses of
National Socialist ideology is twofold. Firstly, it helps to further
clarify the precise nature of National Socialist ideology. As the co-
existence of both pro-modern and anti-modern elements confirms,
Nazi ideology must be conceived of as a fundamentally hetero-
geneous entity, where competing, often contradictory, elements exist
side by side. An acknowledgement of the significance of these pro-
modern elements proves particularly significant in the analysis of
Günter Eich’s literary output in the Third Reich, where critics
continue to employ a more narrow, anti-modern definition of the

68 Zitelmann, ‘Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’, pp. 18–19.

69 Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 1 and p. 10. Subsequent references, p. 226 and
p. 220.

118
official ideology of the regime. Secondly, the relationship to modern-
isation provides a further comparative category for the analysis of
ideology in the German dictatorships. Zitelmann, for instance, clearly
conceives of the modernisation process in this way, perceiving both
the Hitler and Stalin regimes as pursuing a ‘totalitarian’, anti-
democratic path towards modernisation. Herf, too, introduces a
comparative element to his analysis drawing parallels between the
Russian and German experiences of technical advancement sub-
ordinated to ideological and political demands.70 Most explicitly of all,
Zygmunt Bauman draws parallels between the Hitler and Stalin
dictatorships in terms of their genocidal modernisation:

The most extreme and well-documented cases of global ‘social engineering’ in

modern history (those presided over by Hitler and Stalin), all their attendant
atrocities notwithstanding, were neither outbursts of barbarism not yet fully
extinguished by the new rational order of civilization, nor the price paid for
utopias alien to the spirit of modernity. On the contrary, they were legitimate
offspring of the modern spirit.71

Clearly, the GDR regime did not pursue the same policies of ex-
termination or social engineering and distinguishes itself starkly from
both Stalinism and National Socialism in this respect. Equally, we
must remain wary of any re-instatement by the back door of
conventional totalitarianism, as is implicit in Zitelmann’s notion of
‘die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’. In this area, very substantial
differences existed between the SED and the National Socialists both
in practice and in their ideological intentions. In particular, the
uniqueness of the extreme amoral and anti-rational nature of the
Nazi path of modernisation cannot be downplayed. Nonetheless, in
their illiberal pursuit of pro-modern policies, SED and Nazi ideology
display a further point of contact which undermines ‘common-sense’
assumptions concerning their fundamental non-comparability.

70 Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 225–26.

71 Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 29. See also Bauman, Modernity and the
Holocaust, pp. 90–93.

119
Ideologically conditioned discourse in the German
dictatorships

Discourse, ideology, and the will to truth

Michel Foucault’s inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, sub-

sequently published in English as ‘The Order of Discourse’, presents
the most explicit exposition of his theory of the structure and
function of discourse and, in particular, of how discourse can be put
to work in the maintenance and furthering of institutional power. His
central hypothesis reads as follows:

In every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected,

organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is
to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to
evade its ponderous, formidable materiality.72

Foucault identifies three sets of procedures which combine to

control the production of discourse: external procedures of ex-
clusion; internal procedures of classification; and the rarefaction of
the speaking subject. Within the first of these categories, Foucault
identifies three distinct systems of exclusion: prohibition; the division
of madness and reason; and the will to truth. Of these three ex-
clusionary procedures, it is what Foucault terms the ‘will to truth’ of
a particular discourse, that is, the claim of that discourse for its own
inherent truth value, and conversely for the inherent falseness of
other discourses, which he treats at greatest length:

Certainly when viewed from the level of a proposition, on the inside of a

discourse, the division between true and false is neither arbitrary nor modi-
fiable nor institutional nor violent. But when we view things on a different
scale, when we ask the question of what this will to truth has been and

72 Michel Foucault, ‘The Order of Discourse’, trans. by Ian Mcleod, in R. Young

(ed.), Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1981), pp. 48–78 (p. 52). Subsequent references, p. 54 and p. 56.

120
 constantly is, across our discourses, this will to truth which has crossed so
many centuries of history [...], then what we see taking shape is perhaps
something like a system of exclusion, a historical, modifiable, and insti-
tutionally constraining system.

For Foucault, the opposition between ‘true’ and ‘false’ operates as a

largely unspoken system of exclusion, one which ‘constantly grows
stronger, deeper, and more implacable’. ‘False’ discourses are ex-
cluded at the expense of the ‘true’, but here truth is no longer an
absolute. Rather, it is an arbitrary, institutional, and modifiable con-
cept, the product of an individual’s standpoint within the will to truth
of a particular discourse.
In this context, Griffin’s assumption concerning the perspective
of those located at the core of any political ideology takes on added
significance:

Ideologies are lived out as truths [...]. Their carriers experience them ‘from
within’ as an integral part of their world-view and associate them with
normality, common sense, reasonableness, convictions, self-evident facts.73

Although Griffin himself does not make this connection, it is clear

that one of the principal features of political ideology is what Fou-
cault refers to as the ‘will to truth’. Ideologies can be understood to
possess their own will to truth, so that followers of that ideology
believe in the inherent truth of that ideology and, by extension, the
falseness of other competing ideologies. Indeed, belief in the truth
value of an ideology, or in other words the location of an individual
within its will to truth, comes to represent a definition of commit-
ment to that particular ideology. If we take the analysis one step
further, each political ideology can be seen to be associated with its
own variety of discourse which, in Foucault’s terms, possesses, and at
the same time is legitimised and underpinned by, a will to truth. It is
this will to truth which plays a central role in the power exercised by
that political ideology. As far as the German dictatorships are con-

73 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, p. 16.

121
cerned, power is exercised on behalf of a single official ideology
which is associated with a single official variety of discourse.
Through the discursive procedures outlined by Foucault, and in
particular through the will to truth of this official discourse, the
single official ideology seeks to exclude competing ideologies. In this
way, any analysis of the ideologies on behalf of which the regimes of
the German dictatorships made their total claim must go hand in
hand with an analysis of the variety of discourse through which that
claim was made, for that total claim was a claim for the truth of both
ideology and discourse.

Discourse and power in the German dictatorships

Against this background, it is particularly significant that three

separate studies of cultural politics and cultural production in the
GDR have sought to employ a version of Foucault’s discourse
model. Peter Zima, in the mid-1970s, together with David Bathrick
and Wolfgang Emmerich, each in the early 1990s, have drawn ex-
plicitly on ‘The Order of Discourse’ in order to identify a dominant,
official variety of SED discourse.74 This dominant discourse operates
a system of inclusion and exclusion, reinforced and propagated by
Foucaultian discursive procedures. Wolfgang Emmerich, for in-
stance, summarises his analysis as follows:

74 See Peter Zima, ‘Der Mythos der Monosemie: Parteilichkeit und künstleri-
scher Standpunkt’, in Literaturwissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaften, 10 vols
(Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971–1978), VI: Einführung in Theorie, Geschichte und
Funktion der DDR-Literatur, ed. by Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (1975), pp. 77–108;
David Bathrick, ‘The End of the Wall before the End of the Wall’, German
Studies Review, 14 (1991), 297–312; David Bathrick, The Powers of Speech: The
Politics of Culture in the GDR (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995);
Wolfgang Emmerich, ‘Affirmation – Utopie – Melancholie: Versuch einer Bilanz
von vierzig Jahren DDR Literatur’, German Studies Review, 14 (1991), 325–44.

122
 Der Offizial- oder Leitdiskurs der SED [...] erfüllt alle Kriterien, die Michel
Foucault in seiner Diskurstheorie für den Herrschaftsdiskurs benannt hat: Er
ist ein Diskurs der Monosemie, der unbefragbaren Eindeutigkeit unterworfen,
dem Wahrheitszwang, der mittels unmittelbare Verbote oder Grenzziehungen
das Unerwünschte für pathologisch bzw. für ‘Wahnsinn’ (als Gegensatz zur
‘Vernunft’ als Inbegriff von ‘Wahrheit’) erklärt.75

In these analyses, the GDR is revealed to be the archetypal instance

of a society where ‘the production of discourse is at once controlled,
selected, organised and redistributed by a certain number of pro-
cedures’.76 These procedures, co-ordinated through state institutions,
combined to perpetuate and propagate a particular form of official
discourse, a form of discourse legitimated and underpinned by the
will to truth of Marxism-Leninism and through which power was
exercised. This official discourse was inherently ‘true’, while anything
outside this discourse was inherently ‘false’. The official discourse
was inherently rational, competing discourses excluded as the ir-
rational other.
Zima, in particular, describes the distinctive features of this
dominant SED discourse. It is a rhetorical, abstract form of
discourse, and this tendency to argue at an abstract level allows for
the operation of a distinct type of lexical term:

Es ermöglicht den Gebrauch von elastischen Sammelbegriffen, die nahezu

allen Erscheinungen, Individuen und Theorien dogmatisch aufgepfropft
werden können, wodurch deren spezifischen Charakter in schematischen
Einteilungen oder Aufzählungen und in willkürlichen Benennungen unter-
geht. Der DIAMAT macht alles allem kommensurabel: Nietzsche dem
Nationalsozialismus, den Imperialismus dem ‘Formalismus’, ebenso wie dem
Surrealismus, dem ‘Modernismus’ und der ‘Dekadenz’. [...] Die Ideologen
scheren alles über einen Kamm, indem sie positive bzw. negative
Konnotationsketten (U. Eco) bilden, auf die das Publikum affektiv reagieren
soll (z.B.: Produktivität/ Sozialismus/ Frieden/ Humanität – oder: imperia-
listisch/ parasitär/ formalistisch/ dekadent).77

75 Emmerich, ‘Affirmation – Utopie – Melancholie’, p. 332–33.

76 Foucault, ‘Order of Discourse’, p. 52.
77 Zima, p 85.

123
David Bathrick, too, highlights the maintenance of the Marxist-
Leninist ‘will to truth’ through ‘a system of binarisms articulated
within a framework that juxtaposed “enlightenment” and “anti-
enlightenment” values’.78 Again, ideologically loaded cover-terms are
deployed:

Antienlightenment modes of thinking were considered the negative side of

the equation and coded variously as ‘irrational’, ‘bourgeois-individualist’,
‘antisocialist’, ‘antihumanist’, ‘objectively reactionary’, or even ‘fascist’ in polit-
ical orientation.

In this way, official SED discourse is characterised by a series of

virtually interchangeable positively loaded terms which oppose a
series of equally interchangeable negative terms. In the cultural
sphere, the terms ‘realistisch’ and ‘formalistisch’ do not indicate then
whether a particular work is realist or formalist in its structure or
content, according to fixed and objective criteria. Rather, they
operate as elastic cover-terms, approving and including the desirable,
condemning and excluding the undesirable.79
The same kind of explicitly Foucaultian analysis has not been
systematically applied to the discourse of National Socialism.
However, the findings of the extensive linguistic research which has
been conducted into the discourse of National Socialism do suggest
that it operated using a similar system of evaluatively loaded binaries,
and hence that, just like the political ideologies themselves, the two
discourses of the German dictatorships share certain structural
features. In his account of the impact of National Socialism on the
German lexicon, for instance, R. E. Keller points to ‘deliberate
semantic shifts in a positive or negative direction’, and this seems to
amount to the construction of a comparable binary system involving

78 Bathrick, Powers of Speech, p. 16. Subsequent reference, also p. 16.

79 See Chris Weedon, ‘The Politics of Literature in the GDR: A Post-
Structuralist Approach’, in Richard Sheppard (ed.), New Ways in Germanistik
(Oxford: Berg, 1990), pp. 145–63 (p. 153).

124
positively and negatively weighted equivalents.80 Likewise, in his
account of the discourse of German fascism, Michael Townson
views the positive and negative oppositions inherent in the imagery
of Nazism as a reflection of the division and rejection of the Nazi
world-view, resting ‘on an oppositional (or antagonistic) “friend-foe”
schema’.81 In a similar vein, C. J. Wells observes in Nazi discourse the
characteristic linguistic effects of political ideology, ‘where words and
expressions are used as slogans or catchwords […], their referential
or denotative meaning is subordinated to their political function as a
rallying cry or focus of abuse’.82 Wells goes on to highlight
‘contrasting pairs of words’ – such as ‘national (+) vs. international (–),
Gemeinschaft (+) vs. Gesellschaft (–), geistig (+) vs. intellektuell (–)’ – as
well as ‘purely denunciatory terms’, such as ‘Bolschewismus, liberal,
Marxismus’. Of particular significance in the light of the elastic cover
terms present in SED discourse is the fact that Wells sees negative
adjectives such as demoplutokratisch, jüdisch-amerikanisch, kapitalistisch-
bolschewistisch, amerikanisch-bolschewistisch, jüdisch-freimauerisch as ‘often
interchangeable’.
The replacement of referential denotation by strong evaluative
connotation allows these lexical items to function within the kind of
negative or positive Konnotationsketten identified by Zima, to act as
interchangeable, abstract cover terms within a discursive system of
exclusion and inclusion. Indeed, Zima himself draws a parallel be-
tween the dominant discourses of the two dictatorships when he
cites, as an example of discursive exclusion in the GDR, the
attribution of the ‘disqualifying epithet’ bürgerlich to the sociologist
Lucien Goldmann:

Das negative Adjektiv ‘bürgerlich’ disqualifiziert Goldmann als einen

Marxisten und schiebt einer unvoreingenommenen Analyse seines Werkes

80 R.E. Keller, The German Language (London: Faber, 1978), p. 604.

81 Michael Townson, Mother-Tongue and Fatherland: Language and Politics in German
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 135.
82 C. J. Wells, German: A Linguistic History to 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), p.
406. Subsequent references, p. 406.

125
 einen Riegel vor. [...] ‘Bürgerlich’ kann als ein auf die Gegenwart bezogenes
Signifikans nur eine negative Konnotationskette einleiten (z.B bürgerlich/
modernistisch/ dekadent). In einem bis 1945 herrschenden Diskurs hätte es
geheißen: der jüdische Soziologe Lucien Goldmann. Das negative Beiwort hat
in beiden Fällen die gleiche stigmatisierende Funktion.83

As with the official SED discourse, language in the Third Reich acts
a means of selecting the ‘true’ and rejecting the ‘false’.84 In both
German dictatorships, official discourse seems to rest on the same
binary structures and the same abstract and elastic cover-terms. Ideo-
logical power is exercised through the will to truth of the official
discourse.

Official SED discourse

This analysis allows us to identify two comparable varieties of

dominant, ideologically conditioned discourse in the German dictator-
ships. Both ‘SED discourse’ and ‘National Socialist discourse’ share
certain structural features. At the same time, as reflections of their
respective ideological cores, these two varieties of discourse display
considerable lexical distinctiveness. As a manifestation of the SED
ideological core, official discourse in the GDR draws on a relatively
discrete and readily recognisable tradition of Marxist vocabulary. As
Keller suggests, ideological discourse in the GDR constitutes a
specialist Fachsprache, resting on the technical vocabulary of Marxism-
Leninism, such as ‘Demokratie, Fortschritt, Formalismus, Freiheit,
Gesellschaft, Imperialismus, Kapital(ismus), Klasse, Kommunismus’ and so
on.85 This discourse is also characterised by a high level of loan
transfers and semantic transfers from Russian to describe specific
features of communist society, such as Kader or Agrostadt, and by

83 Zima, p. 85.
84 See Gerhard Bauer, Sprache und Sprachlosigkeit im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Cologne: Bund,
1988), p. 59.
85 Keller, p. 608.

126
specific positively loaded terms, such as Aufbau, Errungenschaften, frei,
Friede, Kampf, national, neu, Volk, or Wissenschaft.86 In addition to the
terminology of Marxism-Leninism, these positively weighted terms
also demonstrate the influence of the founding anti-fascist myth of
the GDR. In a German state where fascism had been officially
overcome, characteristically National Socialist terms, such as Kampf
or Volk, could still be employed positively. At the same time, the
positive loading of terms such as Friede or Wissenschaft, negatively
weighted in National Socialist discourse, evinces the determined
effort to oppose the perceived irrationalism of German fascism. In
the positive coding of enlightenment values and the negative evalu-
ation of anti-enlightenment terms, SED discourse demonstrates the
pro-rational dynamics of its ideology.
These distinctive features offer a template for the production of
discourse under the total claim of the SED, and what is remarkable is
just how close to this template much of the language of cultural
politics and cultural criticism came. The following passage, taken
from the piece of SED artistic criticism which marked the onset of
the Formalism Campaign in January 1951, illustrates the point:

Der Kampf gegen jeglichen Einfluß der westlichen Dekadenz und des Kultes
des Häßlichen in der Kunst der DDR ist eine wichtige gesellschaftliche
Aufgabe. Man darf die Arbeiteraktivisten oder die Menschen, die von der
Arbeiterklasse und dem Volk zur Führung des neuen demokratischen Staates
berufen worden sind, nicht als mißgestaltet und primitiv darstellen. Man darf
sich nicht darauf verlassen, daß die Arbeiter und Bauern ‘alles schlucken’, daß
für sie ‘alles gut genug ist’, zumal doch die entartete ‘Kunst’ von den
‘Autoritäten’ der zerfallenden bürgerlichen Gesellschaft sanktioniert ist. Weit
richtiger ist die Annahme, daß die Arbeiterklasse und die Werktätigen der
DDR vor keinen ‘Autoritäten’ haltmachen und in sich selbst Kraft genug

86 See Keller, pp. 607–08 and Michael Clyne, Language and Society in the German-
speaking Countries (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 31–39.

127
 finden werden, um eine derartige volksfeindliche ‘Kunst’ aus dem Wege zu
räumen.87

The abstract argumentation, the deployment of the characteristic

terminology of Marxism-Leninism (‘Kampf’, ‘gesellschaftliche Auf-
gabe’, ‘Arbeiterklasse’), and the use of evaluatively loaded elastic
cover-terms (‘westliche Dekadenz’, ‘primitiv’, ‘bürgerlich’) all mark
this text out as an archetypal instance of the official SED discourse.

Official National Socialist discourse

By comparison, it is much more difficult to establish the distinctive

features of official National Socialist discourse. At the level of
discourse, as at the level of ideology, National Socialism does not
draw on a single, relatively discrete source. In the words of C. J.
Wells, ‘since the National Socialists lacked any coherent political
philosophy they failed to develop a consistent ideological language
either, and borrowed from a hodge-podge of sources’.88 Or in the
terms of the present study, the eclecticism of Nazi ideology is
reflected in the eclecticism of its discourse, so that peripheral
rhetorical elements combine with core ideological features, rendering
the task of identifying precisely what constituted the official dis-
course of National Socialism considerably more difficult than is the
case for SED discourse. Wells, for instance, identifies the following
diverse strands of National Socialist language: dynamic, martial, and
heroicising terms; religious terms; pseudo-mystical, mythological, and
archaicising language; biological and medical expressions; sporting
imagery; technological vocabulary and metaphors; and foreign
expressions. Similarly, Keller points to the use of archaisms; the
terminology of violence; militarism; emotionalism and idealism;

87 N. Orlov, ‘Wege und Irrwege der modernen Kunst’, Tägliche Rundschau, 20

and 21 January 1951. See Manfred Jäger, Kultur und Politik in der DDR: 1945–
1990 (Cologne: Edition Deutschland Archiv, 1995), p. 35.
88 Wells, p. 409. Subsequent reference, p. 414.

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religious terms; and metaphors from biology and medicine.89 While
Wells and Keller do at least agree on many of the lexical sources of
National Socialism, the diversity of these sources means that any
definition of Nazi discourse risks being over-inclusive, encompassing
a range of non-Nazi discourses.
One possible strategy is to return to what we have identified as
the ideological core of National Socialism, namely racial rebirth, and
define the discursive core of National Socialism in the same terms.
The terminology of race and biology, typically involving productive
compound formations on Blut-, Rasse-, or Volk-, clearly is a defining
feature of Nazi discourse, but such a definition risks being over-
exclusive, excluding many of the characteristic rhetorical strategies
for propagating these core ideological features. A complementary
strategy is provided by Jeffrey Herf’s notion of ‘reactionary modern-
ism’, for this term relates not only to a particular ideological strand
but also to ‘a coherent and meaningful set of metaphors, familiar
words, and emotionally laden expressions’.90 As a hybrid discourse
where pro-modern technological elements are combined with the
traditional anti-rational discourse of German Volk and Kultur, the
discourse of ‘reactionary modernism’ highlights two central features
of Nazi discourse. Firstly, as the opposition between the positively
evaluated Geist and Gemeinschaft and the negative Intellekt and Gesell-
schaft makes clear, Nazi discourse inverts the Marxist-Leninist coding
of enlightenment values. Rhetorically, instinct is favoured over
reason, experience over analysis, soul over mind, feeling over
intellect.91 Secondly, it is precisely in this fusion of diverse, often self-
contradictory elements that the distinctiveness of National Socialist
discourse lies. In isolation, technological metaphors and images taken
from biology and medicine are common discursive elements in a
range of societies and ideologies, but in the context of the Third
Reich and in combination with the aggressively chauvinistic language

89 Keller, pp. 605–06.

90 Herf, Reactionary Modernism, p. 1.
91 See Herf, Reactionary Modernism, pp. 226–27.

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of militarism and violence (Kampf, Schlacht, Sturm, brutal), the discourse
of race (Art, Blut, Rasse, Volk), and archaic tribalist vocabulary (Gau,
Sippe, Mark), these features form a distinct entity which we can term
National Socialist discourse.

Discourse and resistance

In this way, the dominant ideologies of the German dictatorships

generate two lexically distinct, but structurally comparable, discursive
entities. In both cases referential denotation becomes subordinate to
strong evaluative connotation, so that a wide array of lexical items,
conditioned ideologically as positively or negatively charged terms,
come to participate in Foucaultian procedures of inclusion and
exclusion, propagating the will to truth of both ideology and
discourse. At the same time, Foucault’s discourse theory does not
only concern itself with the controlling and constraining nature of
discourse.

We must conceive discourse as a series of discontinuous segments whose

tactical function is neither uniform nor stable. [...] We must not imagine a
world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded dis-
course, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a
multiplicity of discursive elements. [...] Discourses are not once and for all
subservient to power or raised up against it [...] discourse can be both an
instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a
point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy.92

Here, in his later work, Foucault also develops the notion of

discourse as a site of micro-level power struggles and resistances, and
it is this theoretical step which is of particular interest to an attempt
to analyse forms of assent and dissent in literature produced in the
German dictatorships.

92 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 3 vols (London: Allen Lane, 1979–
88), I: An Introduction, trans. by Robert Hurley (1979), pp. 100–01.

130
 Indeed, it is precisely this aspect of Foucault’s work, where
discourse acts as a site of multiple small-scale resistances, which
Emmerich and Bathrick employ to recuperate a generation of GDR
writers otherwise condemned for their inability to actively reject
Marxist-Leninist ideology. Although within the broad will to truth of
the SED regime, such figures as Christa Wolf, Heiner Müller, and
Ulrich Plenzdorf were, for both Emmerich and Bathrick, ‘auf den
beiden Seiten’,93 insofar as they expressed literary dissent from within
the dominant official discourse of the GDR. Here, there is an
important distinction to be made between the unity of meaning
which the SED regime sought to impose on discourse and the
plurality of meaning exploited by these writers in their literary texts.
In Bathrick’s words:

As an articulation of power, the ‘will to truth’ basic to the official Marxist-

Leninist binarisms sought above all to prohibit any form of equivocation. [...]
Literary dissidence in the GDR often began not as a philosophical or political
challenge to the ideological principles of Marxist-Leninism but as a some-
times unintended fall into ‘polysemic’ modes of address that, by virtue of
their multiplicity of meaning, were perforce understood and evaluated as
negative, that is, as subversive of the official, ‘monosemic’ mode of dis-
course.94

Given the existence of comparable binarisms within Nazi discourse

and comparable attempts to impose monosemic modes of address,
the Foucaultian notion of discourse offers a sophisticated methodo-
logical tool in the assessment of the assenting and dissenting
functions of literary texts in both dictatorships. The two distinctive,
yet structurally comparable, varieties of official discourse identified in
the Third Reich and GDR are able act as benchmarks for the
production of discourse under the two regimes. As a marker of
ideological conformity or non-conformity, the degree of participation

93 The phrase is Heiner Müller’s. See Heiner Müller, ‘Jetzt ist da eine Einheits-
soße’, Der Spiegel, 30 July 1990, p. 141, quoted by Bathrick, ‘The End of the
Wall’, p. 305.
94 Bathrick, Powers of Speech, p. 16.

131
in these ideologically conditioned discourses, that is the extent to
which these prototypical features of National Socialist or SED dis-
course are reproduced in literary production, is able to act as a tool
for configuring notions of literary assent and dissent in the GDR and
the Third Reich. Within this Foucaultian framework, ideological and
discursive conformity or non-conformity becomes not an either/or
proposition, but a matter of complex and inter-related patterns of
simultaneous participation and challenge.

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Chapter Three
‘Resistance’: Configuring literary assent and dissent
in the German dictatorships

In the same way that the terms ‘totalitarianism’, ‘fascism’, and

‘modernisation’ have acted as catalysts for long-running historio-
graphical debate, so the historiography of the term ‘resistance’ has
been characterised by much of the dispute and terminological con-
fusion which seems to lie at the heart of the academic study of the
German dictatorships. The central aim throughout the first part of
this study has been to elaborate a comparative framework in which
to analyse literary production within these dictatorships. More
specifically, a theoretical and methodological framework is being
constructed in which to describe and analyse the position of indi-
vidual writers in relation to the regimes of the Third Reich and the
GDR, the ideology of those regimes, their cultural policies, and the
total claim made on their behalf. Above all, the aim is to configure a
model which satisfactorily measures the extent to which opposition
to, or indeed support for, the respective regimes was expressed by
these writers. In this respect, the historiography of resistance offers a
substantial body of existing research which has sought to describe
the relationship of individuals and their actions to these regimes in an
increasingly sophisticated fashion. Furthermore, it is one aspect of
research into the German dictatorships which has proved a particu-
larly fruitful area of cross-fertilisation between the study of the Third
Reich and the GDR, and it is in this body of research that new tools
will be identified to act as the framework for a comparative analysis
of literary assent and dissent in the German dictatorships. Elabor-
ation of this framework will consist of three steps: the exposition and
evaluation of existing approaches to ‘literary resistance’; an examin-

133
ation of new approaches to social and political resistance initiated in
the 1970s; and finally the application to the literary sphere of the
methodological insights offered by these approaches.

Literary approaches: Widerstandsliteratur and innere Emigration

The most concerted attempts to construct a theoretical framework to

describe and differentiate the legally produced, non-official literature
of the Third Reich have been those developed primarily during the
1970s which employ in tandem the terms innere Emigration and
Widerstandsliteratur. These existing approaches to ‘literary resistance’
are outlined and evaluated below.

Inner emigration and resistance literature

Writing originally in 1970, the GDR scholar Wolfgang Brekle deploys

the term ‘inner emigration’ as an umbrella term for all legally-
produced, non-Nazi writing in the Third Reich:

Zur Literatur der inneren Emigration wird die Literatur gezählt, deren
Autoren wie die Schriftsteller des Exils von der Nazi-Ideologie nicht be-
einflußt waren, humanistische Werke schrieben und sich von der faschisti-
schen Politik nicht gleichschalten ließen.1

Within this broad band of writing Brekle identifies two distinct

entities: (i) what he terms ‘innerdeutsche antifaschistische Literatur’
or ‘Widerstandsliteratur’, that is, all those works written ‘als Mittel
des antifaschistischen Widerstandes oder als Ausdruck antifaschisti-
scher Haltung’; (ii) what he terms ‘nichtfaschistische Literatur’, that

1 Wolfgang Brekle, ‘Die antifaschistische Literatur in Deutschland’, Weimarer

Beiträge, 16.6 (1970), 67–128 (p. 71). Subsequent references, p. 71.

134
is, literature which neither actively supported nor opposed National
Socialist ideology. In this respect, Brekle’s GDR perspective makes
its presence felt, since it is the former category, ‘anti-fascist’ writing
as opposed to the merely ‘non-fascist’, which constitutes for him
both the ‘aktivster’ and the ‘wertvollster’ component part of inner
emigration. This tendency to heroicise anti-fascist resistance literature
at the expense of works adjudged to be merely non-fascist clearly
hinders any objective analysis of the full range of non-Nazi literary
production in the Third Reich. At the same time, this significant
distinction, between that which is deemed worthy of analysis and that
which is not, is not drawn with any certainty. Brekle fails to elaborate
on the precise criteria which distinguish anti-fascist from non-fascist
writing, relying on the inherently problematic assessment of authorial
intention. As Brekle himself concedes, ‘die Grenze zwischen anti-
faschistischer und nichtfaschistischer Literatur kann nicht immer
eindeutig gezogen werden’.2 A work of ‘inner emigration’ which
treats historical themes may, for example, be categorised as an active
counterpoint to fascist ideology, in which case it merits the label
antifaschistische Widerstandsliteratur. Alternatively, it may be dismissed as
‘ein Ausweichen vor Zeitproblemen’, that is, nichtfaschistische Literatur.3
A direct response to Brekle’s analytical model is provided by
Reinhold Grimm, a West German scholar working in the United
States. Grimm strongly rejects any attempt to pigeonhole works as
‘anti-fascist’ or ‘non-fascist’. Instead, he advocates treating the non-
Nazi literary production of the Third Reich in terms of a sliding scale
of behaviour:

Ebensowenig bewährt sich der an sich sehr einleuchtende Vorschlag, ‘innere

Emigration’ als Oberbegriff zu verwenden und durch die zwei Unterbegriffe
‘innerdeutsche antifaschistische Literatur’ (für den literarischen Widerstand)
und ‘innerdeutsche nichtfaschistische Literatur’ (für das Schrifttum, das sich

2 Wolfgang Brekle, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand 1933–1945 in

Deutschland (Berlin: Aufbau, 1985), p. 18; Brekle, ‘Die antifaschistische Litera-
tur’, p. 72.
3 Brekle, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand, pp. 18–19.

135
 dezidiert abseits hielt) zu gliedern. […] Mir scheint daraus zwingend
hervorzugehen, daß demnach das Phänomen als solches keine scharfe be-
griffliche Trennung erlaubt. Wenn irgendwo, so hat man sich bei der
Betrachtung der ‘inneren Emigration’ von jeglichem Schubladendenken frei-
zumachen und stets eine gleitende Skala im Auge zu behalten, die vom
aktiven Widerstand bis zur passiven Verweigerung reicht. Jener gipfelt in der
Tat, während diese im gänzlichen Verstummen endet.4

Grimm’s continuum of inner emigration behaviour, extending from

aktiver Widerstand to passive Verweigerung, seems to offer a more
appropriate analytical tool than do Brekle’s binary categories,
particularly given Brekle’s own scepticism concerning the fuzziness
of boundaries between anti-fascist and non-fascist literary pro-
duction. As Michael Philipp rightly observes, ‘die Problematik des
Lebens und Schreibens unter einem diktatorisch-repressiven Regime
ist zu vielschichtig, als daß sie in einem Schwarz-Weiß-Raster erfaßt
werden könnte’.5 At the same time, the erasure of distinct categories
within ‘inner emigration’ leaves only this single imprecise term to
cover a very broad spectrum of behaviour. It is not clear which
intermediate positions might lie between Grimm’s two poles, nor
which precise criteria might be employed for positioning a work on
this sliding scale. Still more problematic is the type of behaviour
which Grimm excludes from his scale. For Grimm, ‘nur eine
Gegenhaltung, die erkennbar war, verdient den Namen “innere
Emigration”’.6 Mirroring Brekle’s distinction between ‘anti-fascist’

4 Reinhold Grimm, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, in Reinhold Grimm

and Jost Hermand (eds), Exil und innere Emigration (Frankfurt am Main:
Athenäum, 1972), pp. 31–73 (pp. 48–49), and Reinhold Grimm, ‘Im Dickicht
der inneren Emigration’, in Horst Denkler and Karl Prümm (eds), Die deutsche
Literatur im Dritten Reich: Themen, Traditionen, Wirkungen (Stuttgart: Metzler,
1976), pp. 406–26 (p. 411).
5 Michael Philipp, ‘Distanz und Anpassung: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der
Inneren Emigration’, in Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Aspekte der künstlerischen
inneren Emgration 1933–1945 (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1994), pp. 11–30 (p.
13).
6 Grimm, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, p. 49. See also Herbert Wiesner,
‘“Innere Emigration”: Die innerdeutsche Literatur im Widerstand 1933–

136
and ‘non-fascist’ literature, Grimm distinguishes between ‘oppos-
itional’ and ‘non-oppositional’ behaviour, excluding the latter from
any anlysis of ‘inner emigration’. To further cloud the issue, Grimm
seeks to make a distinction between writing which was ‘nichtfaschis-
tisch’ (oppositional) and that which was ‘nicht faschistisch’ (non-
oppositional), between those writers who exhibited an oppositional
silence and those who engaged in a non-oppositional silence.7 Need-
less to say, such a distinction seems neither clearly drawn nor
analytically practicable, and again raises the question of which
objective criteria might be employed to distinguish different types of
non-Nazi writing.
Synthesis of the Brekle and Grimm models comes from Wolf-
gang Emmerich.8 On the one hand, Emmerich follows Brekle in
seeking to differentiate between actively anti-fascist literature and
merely non-fascist literature. He also employs a comparable defin-
ition of ‘resistance literature’:

Als im Wortsinne antifaschistische oder Widerstandsliteratur wird solche

Literatur verstanden, die ihrer erklärten Absicht und/oder realen Wirkung
nach als Mittel im antinazistischen Widerstand fungiert hat und die von ihrem
gesellschaftlich-politisch Gehalt her als eindeutig antifaschistisch (also nicht
nur: nichtfaschistisch) zu qualifizieren ist.9

On the other hand, Emmerich shows his awareness of the value of

Grimm’s sliding scale of non-Nazi literary production:

Grimm hat zum Teil recht: Das Spektrum der nichtfaschistischen, legal er-
schienenen Literatur ist durch mannigfache Schattierungen und Übergänge
gekennzeichnet, die vom eindeutigen Widerstand bis nahe an den Faschismus

1945’, in Hermann Kunisch (ed.), Handbuch der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur, 3

vols (Munich: Nymphenburg, 1970), II, pp. 383–408 (p. 386).
7 Grimm, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, p. 49.
8 Wolfgang Emmerich, ‘Die Literatur des antifaschistischen Widerstandes in
Deutschland’, in Denkler and Prümm (eds), pp. 427–58.
9 Emmerich, ‘Die Literatur des antifaschistischen Widerstandes’, p. 429.
Subsequent references, p. 450 and p. 431.

137
 heranreichen; dies kann jedoch kein Grund dafür sein, von den Mühen der
Differenzierung zwischen antifaschistischer Widerstandsliteratur und der-
jenigen, der dieses Etikett zu Unrecht aufgeklebt wurde, Abstand zu nehmen.

Emmerich presents a composite model where ‘inner emigration’ is

viewed as a continuum of behaviour, within which the significant
distinction between the actively anti-fascist and the passively non-
fascist is retained. Where Emmerich significantly develops Brekle’s
model is in his explicit attempt to employ detailed textual analysis in
order to differentiate between the two entities and, importantly, in
his acknowledgement of the equal role played in this task by the
‘erklärte Absicht und/oder reale Wirkung’ of the text. In pointing to
this need for detailed textual analysis of individual works and the
requirement to consider both the effect of the work and its author’s
intentions, Emmerich starts to hint at an escape from the uncritical
categorisation of texts from this period, towards a more workable
analytical method.
And yet, difficulties remain in Emmerich’s composite model.
Emmerich does not fully escape the binary categories of Brekle’s
model, nor the implied assumption that anti-fascist literature is more
valuable than its non-fascist counterpart. In particular, in continuing
to define this legal anti-fascist literature as Widerstandsliteratur Em-
merich perpetuates two misleading assumptions of the Brekle model.
Firstly, by excluding non-fascist literature from the scope of
Widerstandliteratur it is implied that this substantial body of literary
work possessed no oppositional function within the Third Reich.
Secondly, the legally produced anti-fascist literature of inner emi-
gration is put on a par with very different, illegal and organised types
of oppositional literary activity. Indeed, Emmerich and Brekle both
identify five sub-types of Widerstandsliteratur which differ funda-
mentally in terms of the conditions under which they were produced
and distributed: (i) literature both illegally written and distributed in
Germany; (ii) literature written in Germany, then published abroad;
(iii) literature written abroad, then illegally distributed in Germany;
(iv) literature written in Germany, but not distributed; (v) literature

138
both legally written and distributed in Germany.10 Of these, only the
final two types belong amongst the literature of inner emigration, and
in remaining in the private sphere or being published legally, these
inner emigration categories of Widerstandsliteratur must have expressed
a very different form of ‘resistance’ than did the other three illegal
and inherently dangerous forms of literary activity. As Philipp em-
phasises:

Die Betonung des demonstrativen und oppositionellen Aspektes [...] ver-

kennt, daß die Gegnerschaft der Inneren Emigration oft genug nur partiell
war und bisweilen nur mit einer bis zur Unkenntlichkeit reichenden Subtilität
geäußert wurde bzw. werden konnte. Darüber hinaus sind vielfach ideo-
logische Übereinstimmungen mit Teilen der NS-Ideologie zu verzeichnen
und schließlich gilt, daß alle geduldete Literatur eine Funktion innerhalb der
nationalsozialistischen Gesellschaft ausübte.11

Any literature which was suitable for publishing under the prevailing
conditions of institutional control is likely to have been subject to
compromise of some nature. Even a disguised attack on the Nazi
regime must be shaped by the conditions of dictatorship and must, in
the very act of publication, offer some element of support to that
regime. It is in the inflexibility of a terminology which levels out
these differences and in an inability to deal with the equivocation of a
simultaneous position of opposition and support, that the principal
weaknesses of these models lie.
Some of the inflexibility of the binary anti-fascist/non-fascist
model is resolved by what is the most sophisticated of the models
based on Widerstandsliteratur and innere Emigration, namely that of the
West German academic Ralf Schnell.12 For Schnell, ‘inner emigration’

10 Brekle, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand, p. 19; Emmerich, ‘Die

Literatur des antifaschistischen Widerstandes’.
11 Philipp, p. 13.
12 Ralf Schnell, ‘Innere Emigration und kulturelle Dissidenz’, in Richard
Löwenthal and Patrick von zur Mühlen (eds), Widerstand und Verweigerung in
Deutschland 1933 bis 1945 (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), pp. 211–25. Subsequent
reference, p. 222.

139
does not operate as a cover term for all legally produced anti-fascist
and non-fascist writing within the Third Reich. Instead, the term
denotes a particular stance of ‘kulturelle Dissidenz’, a label which
only acquires its value ‘sowohl im Verhältnis zur gleichzeitig er-
scheinenden nicht-faschistischen – aber auch nicht dissidenten –
Literatur als auch zur Widerstandsliteratur im engeren Sinne’. In this
way, Schnell’s model rests on a tri-partite categorisation consisting of:
resistance literature in the strict sense; inner emigration (cultural
dissidence); and non-fascist, non-dissident literature. In delimiting
Widerstandsliteratur from innere Emigration in terms of its illegality,
inherent risk, and well-developed organisational basis, Schnell draws
a fundamental distinction absent in the binary distinction between
anti-fascist and non-fascist literature. However, although the dis-
tinction between resistance literature proper and inner emigration is
drawn relatively clearly here through these functional criteria (legality,
risk, organisation), the distinction within legally produced literature
between that which was dissident and that which was non-dissident
raises difficulties common to all these models concerning the absence
of clearly defined criteria for classification. Even accepting the
principle of Emmerich’s detailed analysis of individual texts, much is
left to the subjective interpretation of the reader, and, as Eberhard
Lämmert points out, with that reader there will always remain doubt,
‘ob er [oder sie] in solche Texte zu viel hineinhört oder am Ende
überhört, was zwischen den Zeilen liegt’.13 Indeed, what the reader
interprets from a text may openly contradict authorial intention. In
the case of Werner Bergengruen’s Der Großtyrann und das Gericht, for
example, Schnell himself highlights the divergence between the
author’s oppositional intent and the enthusiastic reception of the text
in the official Party press.14 What is clear is that both of these factors,
authorial intention and textual effect, must be taken into account in
the analysis of such texts, but what is less clear is the precise way in
which these factors might interact with one another.

13 Eberhard Lämmert, ‘Beherrschte Prosa: Poetische Lizenzen in Deutschland

zwischen 1933 und 1945’, Neue Rundschau, 86 (1975), 404–21 (p. 407).
14 Schnell, ‘Innere Emigration und kulturelle Dissidenz’, pp. 218–19.

140
How useful is the notion of ‘inner emigration’?

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to clarity in these approaches to the

literary production of the Third Reich is the retention, even in
Schnell’s tri-partite scheme, of the term ‘inner emigration’. As Brekle
points out, the term has at least four overlapping and potentially self-
contradictory ‘Bedeutungsvarianten’: (i) ‘innere Emigration als geisti-
ge Distanzierung von faschistischer Politik bzw. Kulturpolitik durch
Schreiben nichtfaschistischer Werke’; (ii) ‘als passiver Widerstand, als
geistige Opposition’; (iii) ‘als Flucht nach innen, in die Innerlichkeit’;
(iv) ‘als Oberbegriff für alle Schattierungen nichtfaschistischer Werke,
einschließlich der aktiven Widerstandsliteratur’.15 It is not at all clear
whether the term is an aesthetic one, denoting the tendency towards
Innerlichkeit within a text, or a socio-political one, denoting the
oppositional function of that text. Indeed, with evidence from
scholars such as Hans Dieter Schäfer pointing to a conservative
aesthetic reaction to the prevailing mood of crisis within Germany
around 1930, many of the common aesthetic markers of inner
emigration may be attributable not to humanist opposition to Na-
tional Socialism but to a pre-existing cultural movement.16 Similarly,
Joseph Dolan’s analysis of this pre-1933 tendency towards lyric
inwardness suggests strongly that inner emigration should be con-
sidered an aesthetic rather than a political term.17 Even if employed
to describe its socio-political function, the term attracts two self-
contradictory interpretations. As Lämmert summarises:

Die Autoren der sogenannten inneren Emigration hätten mit dem bloßen
Weiterschreiben unwillentlich das Prestige des NS-Staates vermehrt und oben
drein ihre Leser zum Selbstbetrug über die Verhältnisse verführt – oder diese

15 Brekle, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand, p. 37.

16 See also Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Zur Periodiserung der deutschen Literatur seit
1930’, in Hans Dieter Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewußtsein: Über deutsche Kultur und
Lebenswirklichkeit 1933–1945 (Munich: Hanser, 1981), pp. 55–71.
17 Joseph P. Dolan, ‘The Theory and Practice of Apolitical Literature: Die
Kolonne 1929–1932’, Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1 (1977), 157–71.

141
 Autoren hätten es vermocht, dem NS-Staat mutigen, ja heroischen
Widerstand mit dem ‘Wort’ entgegenzusetzen.18

Although it may retain some usefulness in denoting an aesthetic

stance of Innerlichkeit, the ambiguity of the term ‘inner emigration’
argues strongly against its retention as a term to denote the socio-
political function of literature written in the Third Reich.
If the term ‘inner emigration’ is largely unsuitable to describe the
function of writing in the Third Reich, then this is doubly so for the
literary production of the GDR. Any comparative terminology for
describing the attitudes of individual works and writers to the
regimes of the Third Reich and the GDR clearly needs to break away
from historically specific aesthetic and political labels towards a more
generally applicable vocabulary. Schnell’s labels, Widerstandsliteratur
and kulturelle Dissidenz, may offer this kind of terminology. However,
any attempt to parallel the analysis of Third Reich literature, by
applying labels such as ‘anti-Marxist’ or ‘non-Marxist’ to legal oppos-
itional writing in the GDR, illuminates a fundamental blindspot in
these conceptualisations of ‘resistance’ literature. The majority of
oppositional writing in the GDR arose not from an anti-Marxist or
even non-Marxist perspective. Many writers were able to maintain
their commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideology, while at the same
time expressing dissidence against individual aspects of the SED
regime. Similarly, opposition to National Socialism need not have
originated from an anti-Nazi, or even a non-Nazi, position, but
rather was possible from a more generically pro-fascist standpoint.
Indeed, partial rejection of individual Nazi policies is conceivable
even from a pro-Nazi position. The existing terminology of ‘literary
resistance’, particularly as it relates to the inherently paradoxical
nature of legal ‘resistance’, is insufficiently fluid to deal with these
examples of partial and ambivalent opposition. For this reason, our
search for an appropriate terminology of literary opposition must
take us to the recent historiography of ‘resistance’ in the social and
political spheres of the Third Reich and the GDR, for it is here that

18 Lämmert, p. 407.

142
these issues of partial and ambivalent ‘resistance’ have already been
subject to rigorous academic scrutiny.

Social and political approaches: Widerstand and Resistenz

Notable in the existing approaches to Widerstandsliteratur outlined

above is the unreflected nature of the definition of Widerstand. For
both Emmerich and Brekle, ‘resistance literature’ is that literature
which contributed to ‘resistance’, the term being assumed to be
sufficiently transparent as not to warrant any further elaboration.
And yet, the term Widerstand is far from being unproblematic and
universally accepted, having undergone a radical transformation in
the last thirty years. In this time, the Alltagsgeschichte approach towards
the history of the Third Reich has seized the term and shifted its
application away from elite, organised, and heroic attempts to bring
down the regime and towards more everyday, individual, and often
entirely non-heroic actions which in some sense obstructed the
enforcement of the regime’s total claim. Academic interest has
shifted away from 20 July 1944 and towards individuals’ refusal to
make the Hitler salute or their continuing enjoyment of proscribed
jazz music. This broadening of the field of enquiry to encompass a
host of everyday actions has brought with it increasingly sophisti-
cated typologies of ‘resistance’ behaviour, in relation to both the
Third Reich and the GDR.

The Bavaria Project

The primary role in the re-definition of concepts of ‘resistance’ has

been played by researchers at the so-called ‘Bavaria Project’, founded
in 1973, and directed through the 1970s and 1980s by Martin Broszat
at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich. Conceptually, the attempts of

143
Broszat and his colleagues to shift the emphasis away from heroic,
monumental concepts of resistance towards more minor, everyday
acts of opposition involved two important moves. Firstly the scope
of the term Widerstand was broadened so that it encompassed ‘jedes
aktive oder passive Verhalten [...], das die Ablehnung des NS-
Regimes oder eines Teilbereichs der NS-Ideologie erkennen läßt und
mit gewissen Risiken verbunden war’.19 As this definition makes
clear, both active and passive forms of behaviour which fully or only
partially rejected the regime or its ideology were brought under the
heading of resistance. Furthermore, definition as resistance can be
seen to rest not on whether a particular action could be proved to
have been intended as a rejection of National Socialist norms, but
only on whether it could be construed as such. The second con-
ceptual move made by Broszat was to complement the existing term
Widerstand with a new term, Resistenz, an item of medical terminology
denoting ‘immunity to infection’. The notion of Resistenz – ‘wirksame
Abwehr, Begrenzung, Eindämmung der NS-Herrschaft oder ihres
Anspruches, gleichgültig von welchen Motiven, Gründen und
Kräften her’20 – further shifted the emphasis towards minor and
passive forms of behaviour which proved themselves to be effect-
ively ‘resistant to infection’ by Nazi ideology. The focus in the Third
Reich was no longer on organised, elite attempts to combat the Nazi
regime and bring it down, but on the way individuals engaged in their
own, sometimes very personal and apparently insignificant, conflict
with the dominant Nazi ideology. Instead of emphasising the inten-
tions of oppositional groups, the Bavaria Project sought only to

19 Harald Jaeger and Hermann Rumschöttel, ‘Das Forschungsprojekt “Wider-

stand und Verfolgung in Bayern 1933–1945”: Ein Modell für die
Zusammenarbeit von Archivaren und Historikern’, Archivalische Zeitschrift, 73
(1977), 209–20 (p. 214).
20 Martin Broszat, ‘Resistenz und Widerstand: Eine Zwischenbilanz des
Forschungsprojekts’, in Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich, A. Grossmann (eds),
Bayern in der NS-Zeit, 6 vols (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1977–1983), IV: Herrschaft
und Gesellschaft im Konflikt: Teil C (1981), pp. 691–711 (p. 697).

144
measure the effect and function of behaviour in a morally neutral
way.
Such a radical shift in emphasis has been far from un-
controversial.21 In particular, the notion of Resistenz has attracted
criticism for relativising the nature and significance of resistance
activity.22 Nonetheless, the undoubted value of this broadening of the
scope of resistance can be read from Broszat’s own words:

The long-standing, exclusive definition of resistance focusing only upon

exceptional cases of fundamental and active opposition has produced an
idealized and undifferentiated picture of German resistance. […] As a con-
sequence, scholars have largely ignored the primacy of change within
resistance and the interdependence between it and the Nazi regime, and the
relationship between the two has been falsely presented as both static and
clearly antagonistic. A revised definition that includes the less heroic cases of
partial, passive, ambivalent, and broken opposition – one that accounts for
the fragility of resistance and the inconsistency of human bravery – may in
the end inspire a greater intellectual and moral sensitivity toward the subject
than a definition that includes only the exceptional greatness of heroic
martyrdom.23

The broadening of the scope of Widerstand, together with the focus

on Resistenz, highlights the fluid and often highly ambivalent nature
of much opposition to the Nazi regime. Furthermore, this new
configuration of the territory of resistance has been taken on board
by a number of historians who have further increased the scope and

21 For a summary and evaluation of the historiography of ‘resistance’, see Ian

Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, third
edition (London: Edward Arnold, 1993), pp. 150–79.
22 See, for instance, the comments of Walter Hofer in Jürgen Schmädeke and
Peter Steinbach, ‘Diskussionen zur Geschichte des Widerstands: Ein Ta-
gungsresumee’, in Jürgen Schmädeke and Peter Steinbach (eds), Der Wider-
stand gegen den Nationalsozialismus: Die deutsche Gesellschaft und der Widerstand gegen
Hitler (Munich: Piper, 1994), pp. 1118–58 (pp. 1122–23).
23 Martin Broszat, ‘A Social and Historical Typology of the German Opposition
to Hitler’, in David Clay Large (ed.), Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German
Resistance in the Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), pp. 25–33 (p. 25).

145
flexibility of the terminology. Hans Mommsen and Peter Steinbach,
in particular, have focused on what Broszat terms ‘the primacy of
change within resistance’, introducing the idea of ‘resistance as
process’ in order to describe how oppositional positions could
develop over time.24 What culminated in acts of fundamental resist-
ance often originated in more minor oppositional behaviour or even
in initial support for the regime. Furthermore, oppositional be-
haviour did not necessarily involve a rejection of the core myths of
German fascism, only a rejection of one specific policy or ideological
element. In this case, any definition of ‘resistance’, or indeed ‘ideol-
ogy’, needs to be sufficiently fluid to deal with these individual, often
paradoxical relationships to the regime and its ideological claim.

‘Resistance’ and the total claim

The most significant element to emerge from the Bavaria Project’s

re-definition of resistance is to be found in Peter Hüttenberger’s
somewhat opaque definition of the term as ‘jede Form der Auf-
lehnung im Rahmen asymmetrischer Herrschaftsbeziehungen gegen
eine zumindest tendenzielle Gesamtherrschaft’.25 For Hüttenberger,
resistance is a feature of society only where an asymmetry of rule
applies, that is, where the balance between the rulers and the ruled is
weighted heavily in favour of the former. As Kershaw explains:

Die Art der Herrschaft bestimmt die Art des Widerstands; und je umfas-
sender der Herrschaftsanspruch, desto mehr, nicht weniger Widerstand ist die
Folge, denn das Regime selbst verwandelt Verhalten und Aktionen in
Widerstand, die unter ‘normalen’ Bedingungen [...] häufig überhaupt keine
politische Bedeutung beanspruchen könnten.26

24 See Steinbach, ‘Diskussionen zur Geschichte des Widerstands’, pp. 1122–23.

25 Peter Hüttenberger, ‘Vorüberlegungen zum “Widerstandsbegriff”’, in Jürgen
Kocka (ed.), Theorien in der Praxis des Historikers: Forschungsbeispiele und ihre
Diskussion (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 117–34 (p. 126).
26 Ian Kershaw, ‘Widerstand ohne Volk: Dissens und Widerstand im Dritten
Reich’, in Schmädeke and Steinbach (eds), pp. 779–98 (p. 781).

146
Within the Third Reich, where the claim of the regime was total and
the asymmetry of rule extreme, resistance became much more wide-
spread, since that total claim politicised minor acts of passive, even
unintentional, non-conformity into acts of low-level resistance. To
thwart that total claim, in no matter how minor or unintentional a
way, was to oppose in some sense the regime. In the GDR, too, a
comparable asymmetry of rule existed and the nature of resistance
reflected this system of rule:

Wie für den Nationalsozialismus gilt deshalb auch für die DDR, daß Wider-
stand Produkt und Reflexion des Herrschaftssytems zugleich war [...] Ein
politisches oder ideologisches Postulat konnte eine Haltung oder Handlung,
die für sich genommen gar nicht gegen das System gerichtet waren (zum
Beispiel der Besuch eines Gottesdienstes oder das Tragen langer Haare), als
Widerspruch erscheinen lassen.27

As Hubertus Knabe indicates, there is a striking parallel between the

way in which minor acts could be politicised into oppositional be-
haviour in both the Third Reich and in the GDR.
In this respect, the absolute centrality of retaining some form of
totalitarianism paradigm makes itself clear. For all their organisational
differences, both the National Socialist and SED regimes made a
comparable total claim on society, and it was this total claim which
shaped the nature of resistance in the two societies. As Ian Kershaw
suggests, the ‘notion of the “total claim” of a regime on its subjects
could prove heuristically useful in a comparative analysis of be-
havioural patterns – acclamatory and oppositional – in quite
differently structured societies and political systems’.28 Resistance in
this form, characterised by the politicisation of non-conformist be-
haviour, becomes an inherent structural feature of a society where an
extreme asymmetry of rule exists in the form of a total claim. In this
way, this notion of ‘resistance’ functions as a further comparative

27 Hubertus Knabe, ‘Was war die “DDR-Opposition”? Zur Typologie des

politischen Widerspruchs in Ostdeutschland’, Deutschland Archiv, 29 (1996),
184–98 (pp. 186–87).
28 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 33.

147
category for the analysis of the German dictatorships. Indeed, in the
post-Wende historicisation of the GDR, the sophisticated analyses of
resistance behaviour in its full range of forms in the Third Reich have
been increasingly exploited as a fruitful point of departure for the
study of forms of behaviour under the SED.29 As Rainer Eckert
indicates: ‘Die Ergebnisse der Erforschung des Widerstandes gegen
Hitler und sein Reich könnten als heuristisches Modell für die
Analyse von Widerstand, Opposition und kollektiven Verhaltens-
weisen der Bevölkerung in der DDR angewandt werden.’30

Scales and typologies of resistance

Above all, this comparability of dissident behaviour within the two

German dictatorships has manifested itself in attempts to configure
systematic typologies of resistance or opposition, where a range of
different types and degrees of ‘resistance’ can be classified. The work
of figures such as Gerhard Botz, Richard Löwenthal, and Detlev
Peukert in classifying resistance phenomena in the Third Reich has
been used as a methodological model by a host of scholars of the
GDR.31 Hence, while Botz seeks to differentiate between three types

29 See Rainer Eckert, ‘Die Vergleichbarkeit des Unvergleichbaren: Die Wider-

standsforschung über die NS-Zeit als methodisches Beispiel’, in Ulrike
Poppe, Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (eds), Zwischen Selbstbehauptung
und Anpassung: Formen des Widerstands und der Opposition in der DDR (Berlin:
Links, 1995), pp. 68–84; Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Zwei Diktaturen in Deutsch-
land: Was kann die künftige DDR-Forschung aus der Geschichtsschreibung
zum Nationalsozialismus lernen?’, Deutschland Archiv, 25 (1992), 601–06;
Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Opposition und Resistenz in zwei Diktaturen in
Deutschland’, Historische Zeitschrift, 262 (1996), 453–79; Peter Steinbach,
‘Widerstand: aus sozialphilosophischer und historisch-politologischer Per-
spektive’, in Poppe, Eckert, Kowalczuk (eds), pp. 27–67.
30 Eckert, p. 69.
31 Gerhard Botz, ‘Methoden und Theorien der historischen Widerstands-
forschung’, in Helmuth Konrad and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds), Arbeiter-
bewegung-Faschismus-Nationalbewußtsein (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1983), pp. 137–

148
of activity in the Third Reich – ‘abweichendes Verhalten’ (such as
workers’ absenteeism); ‘sozialer Protest’ (spreading anti-Hitler
rumours or jokes, listening to foreign broadcasters); and ‘politischer
Widerstand’ (sabotage, conspiracy against the regime) – Ilko-Sascha
Kowalczuk identifies four basic forms of ‘resistance’ in the GDR:
‘gesellschaftliche Verweigerung’; ‘sozialer Protest’; ‘politischer Dissi-
denz’; and ‘Massenprotest’.32 While Löwenthal distinguishes between
‘politsche Opposition’, ‘gesellschaftliche Verweigerung’, and ‘welt-
anschauliche Dissidenz’, Erhart Neubert draws distinctions between
‘Opposition, Widerstand, und Widerspruch’ (based primarily on the
legality of means and extent of intentions involved), and Christoph
Kleßmann between ‘Opposition’ (organised), ‘Dissidenz’ (conscious,
but partial), and ‘Widerstand’ (fundamental).33 While Peukert draws
up a scale which extends across four sub-categories – ‘Non-
Konformität, Verweigerung, Protest, Widerstand’ – Eckhard Jesse
employs ‘Opposition’ as a cover term for the sub-terms ‘Widerstand,
Resistenz und Dissidenz’.34 Hubertus Knabe, meanwhile, goes as far
as to draw up a ten-point scale to classify forms of oppositional

51; Richard Löwenthal, ‘Widerstand in totalen Staat’, in Löwenthal and von

zur Mühlen (eds), pp. 11–24; Detlev Peukert, Volksgenossen und Gemeinschafts-
fremde: Anpassung, Ausmerze, Aufbegehren unter dem Nationalsozialismus (Cologne:
Bund, 1982).
32 Botz, pp. 145–47; Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, ‘Von der Freiheit, Ich zu sagen:
Widerständiges Verhalten in der DDR’, in Poppe, Eckert, Kowalczuk (eds),
pp. 85–115 (p. 97).
33 Löwenthal, p. 14; Erhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–
1989 (Berlin: Links, 1998), p. 29; Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Opposition und
Dissidenz in der Geschichte der DDR’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 41 (1991),
52–62 (pp. 52–53).
34 Peukert, p. 97; Eckhard Jesse, ‘Artikulationsformen und Zielsetzungen von
widerständigem Verhalten in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik’, in
Deutscher Bundestag (ed.), Materialien der Enquete-Kommission: ‘Aufbearbeitung
von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland’, 9 vols (Frankfurt a.
M.: Suhrkamp, 1995), VII: Möglichkeiten und Formen abweichenden und wider-
ständigen Verhaltens und oppositionellen Handelns, die friedliche Revolution im Herbst
1989, die Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands und Fortwirken von Strukturen und
Mechanismen der Diktatur, pp. 987–1030 (p. 997 and p. 1000).

149
behaviour in the GDR: ‘Resistenz, partielle Kritik, sozialer Protest,
passiver Widerstand, neue soziale Bewegeungen, politischer Protest,
Dissidenz, politische Opposition, aktiver Widerstand, Aufstand’.35
The sheer proliferation of these typological models of resistance
renders the terminological apparatus somewhat bewildering. The
term Widerstand itself may be used variously as a cover term for all
the forms of behaviour included (Kowalczuk), as a specific term for
the most active and fundamental form of oppositional behaviour
(Kleßmann, Neubert), or even in both of these senses simultaneously
(Peukert). Kleßmann has even shifted his own usage, so that else-
where he employs Widerstand as a synonymous co-term to Opposition,
both of which contrast with Resistenz.36 Across the typologies, there
exists a confusion of different types of term, some of them de-
scribing the relationship between the individual and the regime
(Widerstand, Opposition), others the type of behaviour under consider-
ation (Non-Konformität, Verweigerung, Aufstand). Knabe, in particular,
mixes a range of different kinds of term which have no clear or
necessary relation to one another. Again, the question of just how to
draw boundaries between categories of behaviour is a vexed one. In
some cases differentiating criteria are vague, so that even where
examples of the type of behaviour included under certain headings
are provided, as in Botz’s model, the boundaries seem far from clear-
cut. In particular, the relationship between intention and effect in
determining the function of an action remains unclear. Nonetheless,
some of the models do provide a number of objective functional
criteria for distinguishing between, on the one hand, those acts of
opposition which were more serious and less widespread and, on the
other, those which were less serious and more widespread. Above all,
Detlev Peukert’s model rests on two clearly defined, complementary
criteria: (i) the scope of the criticism (from ‘partiell’ to ‘generell’); (ii)
the sphere in which the behaviour took place (from ‘privat’ to
‘staatsbezogen’).37 Similarly, Neubert differentiates between Opposition

35 Knabe, p. 197.
36 See Kleßmann, ‘Opposition und Resistenz in zwei Diktaturen’, p. 45.
37 Peukert, p. 97.

150
and Widerstand in terms of the legality of means employed, while
Knabe defines his scale as extending from those acts which are
‘relativ risikoarm, partiell, privat, und passiv’ to those which are
‘relativ risikointensiv, global, öffentlich, und aktiv’.38 Whichever
specific terminology is employed, actions are positioned on a scale of
behaviour according to their scope, their sphere of influence, their
legality, their inherent risk, and their active or passive nature.
Hence, while the principle of a typological model which employs
these differentiating criteria to distinguish within the broad spectrum
of oppositional behaviour offers a step forward, if we are to gain any
practical analytical benefit from these methodological advances, some
rationalisation of this conceptual and terminological confusion is
required. In this respect, a distilled, three-point model developed by
Ian Kershaw for application to the Third Reich – extending from the
broadest band of ‘dissent’, down to the narrower band of
‘opposition’, and finally down to a hard core of ‘resistance’ – may
offer a ready-made solution.39 Within this model, conceptualised
below in the form of three concentric circles, a ‘broad gulf’ separates
the core of ‘resistance’ from the wider band of ‘opposition’, while a
rather fuzzier boundary exists between ‘opposition’ and the broadest
band of all, ‘dissent’. While ‘resistance’ is defined as ‘organised
attempts to work against the regime with the conscious aim of under-
mining it or planning for the moment of its demise’, ‘opposition’ also
includes ‘many forms of actions with limited aims, not directed
against Nazism as a system and at times deriving from individuals or
groups at least partially sympathetic towards the regime and its
ideology’, and ‘dissent’ extends to encompass ‘passive “oppositional”
feeling which did not necessarily result in any action, and the voicing
of attitudes often spontaneous, at all critical of any aspect of
Nazism’.

38 Knabe, p. 197.
39 See Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, pp. 170–71. All references from this source.

151
Figure 1: Bands of dissent (derived from Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, pp. 170–71)

Here Kershaw resolves the ambiguity of the term ‘resistance’ by

returning to it its original, narrow and exclusive sense of active,
political resistance. Instead, ‘dissent’, as the broadest band of
behaviour, also becomes the umbrella term for all oppositional
behaviour, roughly equivalent in scope to Broszat’s extended
conception of resistance, and defined as ‘all forms of behaviour
which deviated from the norms demanded by the regime and
opposed – perhaps even restricted – its total claim’. Each of the three
terms in Kershaw’s model – ‘resistance’, ‘opposition’, and ‘dissent’ –
describes the relationship and attitude of the individual to the regime,
as expressed through his or her behaviour, and each has an intuitive
relationship to one another. The great attraction of this model is the
way in which it concentrates the variables from other models, such as
Peukert’s, and integrates them into a rationalised typology. Both
intention and effect, for instance, are used as criteria, but in relatively
strictly delimited terms. Only a dissenting effect, often entirely un-
intentional and generated only by the claim of the regime, is
necessary to define an act of ‘dissent’, whereas both intention and effect
are required for acts of ‘opposition’ or ‘resistance’. In ‘opposition’,
the intention may be only partial or may be held back by some degree

152
of ideological sympathy. In ‘resistance’, that intention is of an
altogether different magnitude and, significantly, is qualitatively
different, consciously seeking to undermine the whole regime.

Patterns of literary assent and dissent

Literary dissent

The implications of this re-appraisal of notions of ‘resistance’ for

analysing the literary production of the Third Reich and the GDR are
considerable. Above all, the extreme asymmetry of rule and the
politicising total claim within the two dictatorships lend literary
production, in common with all other forms of behaviour, a highly
politicised social function absent under more symmetrical conditions
of rule. In the literary sphere, as in the social sphere, the boundaries
of what constitutes resistance in the broad sense must be extended to
encompass more ambivalent and partial instances of oppositional
writing. Indeed, it is proposed to establish and employ the notion of
‘literary dissent’, a category applicable to both the Third Reich and
the GDR by virtue of the regimes’ common total claim on culture. In
keeping with Kershaw’s definition of ‘dissent’, this category is a
broadly conceived one and encompasses ‘all forms of [literary]
behaviour which deviated from the norms demanded by the regime
and opposed – perhaps even restricted – its total claim’.40 The em-
phasis is shifted here away from only a judgement of the author’s
oppositional intent, to embrace also the objective functional effect of
a text, to assess whether it blocked, intentionally or non-intentionally,
the attempts of the regimes to enforce their total claim. This notion
of literary dissent broadens the scope of what is conventionally
termed ‘resistance literature’, allowing for the study of literary output

40 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 170.

153
which demonstrates what Broszat terms ‘die Prozeßhaftigkeit,
Phasenveränderung und Interdependenz von Herrschaft und Wider-
stand’.41 The conventional perception of a ‘static and clearly
antagonistic’ relationship between oppositional writing and the two
regimes is swept away, replaced by ‘a revised definition that includes
the less heroic cases of partial, passive, ambivalent, and broken
[literary] opposition’.42 Above all, the comparable conditions of rule
in the two dictatorships allow this functional category to be applied
to the literary production both of the Third Reich and of the GDR.
Having set the parameters of any comparative study of literary
dissent in the Third Reich and the GDR, we can draw further on the
social historiography of resistance in order to locate more precise
analytical tools to apply within those broad boundaries. In particular,
the typologies of resistance behaviour developed in the social history
of both the Third and Reich and the GDR supply tools to
differentiate different types of literary dissent. More specifically, a
framework within which to explore literary production in the Third
Reich and in the GDR can be established by means of a sliding scale
of behaviour which employs the categories developed within Ian
Kershaw’s configuration of dissent. This revised model consists of a
scale split not into ‘anti-fascist’ and ‘non-fascist’ (or ‘anti-Marxist’ and
‘non-Marxist’), but into ‘literary dissent’, ‘literary opposition’, and
‘literary resistance’, employing as closely as possible the definitions
and distinctions outlined by Kershaw. This scale carries with it the
advantage of having a more subtle and differentiated means of
classification, three categories compared to two, which seeks not to
divine the fundamental intention of a work, but rather to describe
more objectively its relationship to the norms of the regime. The
literary activity included on this scale extends from the broadest band
of dissent (low-level dissenting effect, often passive, spontaneous,
and sometimes even unintentional in origin), across a fuzzy boundary
to a narrower band of opposition (intentional oppositional writing

41 Martin Broszat, ‘Zur Sozialgeschichte des deutschen Widerstands’, Viertel-

jahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 34 (1986), 293–309 (p. 295).
42 Broszat, ‘Social and Historical Typology of Opposition’, p. 25.

154
with limited aims or tempered by some degree of ideological
sympathy), and then over a broad gulf to a hard core of resistance
proper (writing which consciously, and in an organised fashion,
sought to bring down the regime). Valuable in helping to place
individuals and their works on this fluid continuum of dissenting
literary activity will be those functional differentiating criteria de-
veloped by historians such as Peukert and Knabe. Towards the
dissent end of the scale lie those works which are legal, private, low-
risk, passive in intent, and partial in scope; at the resistance end of
the scale lie those works which are illegal, public, high-risk, active in
intent, and global in scope.43 Furthermore, the notion of ‘resistance
as process’ suggests that individual writers would not necessarily
occupy a fixed, static position on the continuum, but would rather be
liable to move along it over time.
How this model might start to work in practice and how it might
offer a more flexible terminological and conceptual framework than
existing approaches to the literary production of the dictatorships can
be illustrated through a brief consideration of the five categories of
work analysed as Widerstandsliteratur by Brekle.44 While that desig-
nation levels out any differences between these types of literary
production, the proposed scale of literary dissent allows for a more
differentiated analysis, where different types of work will occupy
different positions on the scale. Only the first three types - literature
illegally written and distributed in Germany or abroad - could
possibly occupy a position of resistance (used here in the narrow,
fundamental sense). Applying our criteria, it is the illegal, high-risk
nature of the activity and the degree of organisation required which
position this behaviour towards the resistance or opposition end of
the scale, although the precise classification of any work would
clearly depend on the precise aims and ideological position of the
writers concerned and the extent of organisation involved. These
primarily illegal activities could not be categorised merely as dissent.

43 Schnell’s analysis partially anticipates these criteria. See Schnell, ‘Innere Emi-
gration und kulturelle Dissidenz’, p. 223.
44 Brekle, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand, p. 19.

155
More likely to occupy such a position is Brekle’s fourth category of
writing, those works written privately and not intended for
publication. Being restricted to the private sphere and being of an
individual, passive nature, such works must be positioned further
down the scale, some distance from a position of resistance, or even
opposition. Again, the precise circumstances of the work involved
are liable to shift it along the continuum, but in general terms this
category of literary production would tend to occupy a position
somewhere within the broadest band of dissent.

Resistenzliteratur?

Above all, it is the study of the fifth category of ‘resistance literature’,

the legally published literature of the Third Reich, which is trans-
formed by the notion of literary dissent. Here, the non-fascist, non-
dissident writing, excluded by Brekle, Grimm, Emmerich, and also
Schnell from conventional frameworks of Widerstandsliteratur and
innere Emigration, is re-evaluated as a legitimate object of analysis.
Under the heading of literary dissent, the boundaries of analysis are
extended from the conventionally narrow scope of actively oppos-
itional Widerstandsliteratur to encompass also what we might term
Resistenzliteratur, that is, that writing which passively, and often
ambivalently, resisted infection by Nazi ideology. Indeed, the kind of
approach advocated here is not without precedent. Brekle himself
unwittingly provides a justification for viewing non-fascist writing in
this way: ‘so bewahrten sie doch die deutschen Menschen vor der
Infizierung durch die faschistische Ideologie.’45 More conscious in
this approach are Jan-Pieter Barbian, who has applied the term
Resistenz to writing in the Third Reich, although without any overt
methodological reflection, and Michael Philipp, who draws an
explicit parallel between Broszat’s definition of Resistenz and the

45 Brekle, ‘Die antifaschistische Literatur’, p. 117.

156
literature of so-called inner emigration.46 Resistenz, like inner emi-
gration, is a form of opposition which ‘keineswegs immer politisch
motiviert war und häufig allein [...] der Aufrechterhaltung der Auto-
nomie im [...] geistig-kulturellen, [...] oder im sonstigen beruflichen
oder privatlichen Lebensbereich diente’.47 Also notable in this
context is Philipp’s acknowledgement of the importance of the total
claim of the Nazi regime in politicising literary activity: ‘Die Be-
rechtigung für die Ausdehnung des Begriffs Innere Emigration zur
Beschreibung einer Haltung der Resistenz ergibt sich aus den
umfassenden totalitären Ansprüchen des NS-Regimes. Wer sich der
staatlichen Indienstnahme der Literatur verweigerte, behauptete eine
Differenz zum NS-Regime.’48 As Philipp concludes:

Die Innere Emigration ist in erster Linie ein sozialgeschichtliches Phänomen,

das eine Reaktion auf die totalitären Ansprüche des NS-Regimes darstellt. Sie
ist eine nicht-nationalsozialistische Haltung im Sinne der von Martin Broszat
beschriebenen Resistenz, die sich bei fließenden Grenzen und mancherlei
Übergängen zwischen Widerstand und Kooperation bewegt.

As such, the historiography of resistance in the social sphere points

to a fundamental paradigm shift in the analysis of ‘resistance litera-
ture’. The focus switches from active oppositional intent to embrace
writing which occupies a much more ambivalent position between
the regimes of the German dictatorships and fundamental opposition
to them.
Whereas the illegally produced and distributed works of literary
dissent can be unproblematically positioned towards the resistance
end of the scale, and the privately written and non-disseminated texts
towards the dissent end, this final category of works legally produced
and published within Germany is much more difficult to locate.

46 Jan-Pieter Barbian, ‘Die vollendete Ohnmacht? Das Verhältnis der Schrift-

steller zu den staatlichen und parteiamtlichen “Schrifttumsstellen” im
“Dritten Reich”’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur,
20.1 (1995), 137–60 (pp. 155–59). See also chapter 3, note 5 above.
47 Broszat, ‘Sozialgeschichte des Widerstands’, p. 300, quoted by Philipp, p. 14.
48 Philipp, p. 15. Subsequent reference, p. 27.

157
Indeed, it is conceivable that such works might occupy a position
within any one of the three available categories. If a published work
could be shown to have actively sought to undermine the regime and,
further, could be shown to have had a demonstrable effect towards
that end, then it could justifiably be adjudged a work of resistance,
particularly given the very public and high-risk nature of any dissent
expressed. However, much more likely is that these published texts
would possess only a partial dissenting intent, perhaps because they
originate from a position of ideological proximity to the regime, and
that they would therefore occupy a position lower down the scale.
This type of work is particularly important in the GDR, where much
literary dissent came from writers who were firmly attached to the
core myths of the GDR and its regime. Indeed, in both dictatorships
it may be that access to the public sphere is dependent on at least
some degree of ideological conformity, so that the vast majority of
legally published works will only express at most a low-level and
partial form of dissent. Also included amongst this category of very
low-level dissent may be many legally published works which
expressed dissent without any discernible intent. In contrast to ‘anti-
fascist/non-fascist’ models, no such proof of intention is necessary
for works to be categorised as literary dissent. Instead, any di-
vergence from prescribed aesthetic norms is sufficient to constitute
dissent under the politicising total claim of the regime. At the same
time, if a dissenting intention can be demonstrated then the
combination of both dissenting effect and dissenting intention
necessitates a categorisation within opposition. What this demon-
strates above all is that judgements cannot be generalised across
texts, but must be made on an individualised basis, according to the
available textual and contextual evidence, concerning both intention and
effect. This complements both the approach outlined by Detlev
Peukert in the social sphere and that of Michael Philipp in the literary
sphere. As Peukert indicates, ‘es wird jeweils im Einzelfall zu prüfen
sein, auf welcher Seite innerhalb der Felder abweichenden Verhaltens

158
eine bestimmte Aktivität anzusiedeln ist’.49 For Philipp, meanwhile,
the fluidity of boundaries between dissent and conformity within
inner emigration suggests that, ‘die Abgrenzungen nach beiden
Richtungen müssen im Einzelfall mit Untersuchungen der jeweiligen
individuellen Lebens- und Werkgeschichte ermittelt werden’.50

Assent and dissent

These works of literary dissent which were published legally raise one
highly significant criticism which was levelled at earlier models, and
which has yet to be addressed within the framework proposed here.
The extent to which a work of literature might dissent against the
regime represents only one half of the picture. We need also to
account for the possibility that a text, or an individual writer, may
also give assent to the regime, or indeed assent and dissent simul-
taneously. As Neubert suggests, such an ambiguous position is not
unusual, but rather is the norm for opponents of the German
dictatorships: ‘Dabei haben in beiden Diktaturen die Gegner stets
auch bestimmte und unterschiedliche Teile der Voraussetzungen des
politischen Systems akzeptiert.’51 This is particularly the case for that
literature legally published under the dictatorships, where simply
being published implies some form of assent, be that in the form of
conscious compromise, the unintentional adoption of ideologically
loaded discourse, or bolstering the prestige of the regime through the
act of publication itself. Gerhard Bauer, for example, is clear about
the necessary simultaneity of discursive assent and dissent:

Selbst die mutigsten, selbst die listigsten und beweglichsten Gegner des NS
mußten sich dem gängigen Sprachgebrauch anpassen, mußten Mittel, Vor-
stellungen, Worte gebrauchen, die von der Übermacht ihres Gegners geprägt

49 Peukert, p. 98.
50 Philipp, p. 27.
51 Neubert, p. 27.

159
 waren und die durch ihren massenhaften Gebrauch diese Dominanz
verstärkten.52

What is vital in the study of this production is, in Philipp’s words,

‘die Betonung des ambivalenten Grundcharakters dieser Literatur mit
ihrer paradoxen Gleichzeitigkeit von Dissens und Konsens, von
Distanz und Anpassung, die eine Alternative von Apologie und
Verurteilung überwindet’.53 In the cultural and literary sphere, as
elsewhere, ‘the story of dissent, opposition, and resistance in the
Third Reich is indistinguishable from the story of consent, approval,
and collaboration’.54
In some sense an awareness of these assenting functions is built
into the model of literary dissent as it has already been outlined. The
oppositional potential of a work is often tempered by a degree of
assent which positions it lower down the scale, as dissent rather than
opposition. But it remains open to question whether this implicit
recognition, simply moving a work lower down the scale of dissent,
places sufficient emphasis on the potential assenting function of
apparently dissenting works. To categorise a work simply as dis-
senting, no matter how careful and nuanced that judgement might
be, is to be in danger of slipping, at least superficially, into a one-
sided analysis which overstates and even perhaps falsely heroicises
the behaviour of artists and intellectuals. To fully appreciate and
recognise the potential ambivalence of the position of many writers,
it is necessary to make a more explicit recognition of these
supportive functions, to construct a scale of ‘assent’ to mirror that of
dissent already drawn up. Such a scale would comprise three
positions – ‘assent’, ‘support’, and ‘collaboration’ – which, applied in
combination with the dissent scale, would provide six basic positions
to describe the full range of literary activity in the Third Reich and
the GDR in terms of the relationship of an individual or a literary

52 Gerhard Bauer, Sprache und Sprachlosigkeit im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Cologne: Bund,

1988), p. 10.
53 Philipp, p. 28.
54 Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, p. 179.

160
work to the regime: resistance, opposition, dissent; assent, support,
collaboration.
Broadly the same defining criteria can be applied to the assent
side of the scale as have been applied to the dissent side. The scope
of ‘assent’, like that of ‘dissent’, is broad and covers non-intentional
acts of assent which arise from the politicising claim of the regime
concerned. Just as unintended, ‘non-oppositional’ divergence from
the norms of the regime can be politicised into an act of dissent, so
conformity with those norms can be politicised into an act of assent,
whether or not this carries a supportive intent. It is in this way that
the very act of publishing as a writer under the conditions of
‘totalitarianism’, or a largely unintentional coincidence of aesthetic
procedures between a writer and the prescribed norms of the regime,
can come to automatically constitute an act of assent towards that
regime. The literary activity described within this broad category
would range from a very wide band of ‘assent’ (passive and/or
unintentional voicing of approval), down across a fuzzy boundary to
‘support’ (intentional, but partial in scope), and then across a broad
gulf to a hard core of ‘collaboration’ (organised, public, and global in
its support for the aims of the regime). Hence, the scale of assent is
in general terms a mirror-image of the scale of dissent, although a
number of salient differences may apply. Principal among these is the
assumption that assent encompasses a larger number of acts, every-
day and otherwise, than does dissent. Indeed, under conditions of
political repression, it seems reasonable to work from the assumption
that assent is the norm, dissent the exception. As Mary Fulbrook
maintains with reference to the GDR, ‘the capacity to conform,
without enquiring too closely, the capacity to live within apparently
immutable parameters, is less difficult to explain than the emergence
of a willingness to think differently, […] and to dare to mount an
active challenge to the rules of the game’.55 This seems to have been
particularly the case for the professional classes where ‘professional-

55 Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949–1989 (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 85. Subsequent reference, p. 84.

161
ism took precedence over risk-taking’. In simply fulfilling their
professional duties, many individuals gave passive assent to the
regime. In pursuing a literary career under the conditions of dictator-
ship, professional writers likewise granted assent, willingly or not, to
the respective ‘totalitarian’ regimes.
Finally, we are left with the issue of how these two scales might
interact with one another and how we might best conceptualise that
interaction. In addition to the six basic positions already outlined, we
must also allow for the possibility of more complex composite
positions, where texts or individuals occupy a position on both scales
simultaneously. Hence, it cannot be a matter of simply placing the
two scales end to end. Instead, the overlapping of the scales of assent
and dissent may be conceptualised in the form of the diagram below,
where only the respective fundamental cores of ‘collaboration’ and
‘resistance’ are not capable of generating a composite position.

Figure 2: Overlapping scales of assent and dissent

As the diagram indicates, assent is assumed to be more commonplace

than dissent, while dissent is assumed to be frequently accompanied
by some measure of assent. A position of simultaneous assent and
dissent is extremely likely (above all in writing which is not overtly
political), but so too is the expression of assent from a basic position

162
of opposition and the expression of dissent from a basic position of
support (for example for the exile generation in GDR). In theory,
this schematic representation provides nine possible positions to
assist in the analysis of individual texts and their authors under the
German dictatorships: collaboration, support, support with dissent,
assent, assent and dissent, dissent, opposition with assent, oppos-
ition, resistance.
This figure is not intended to act as a rigid model, claiming to
reveal in itself a hidden truth about the nature of an individual text.
Rather, it is designed to act as a conceptual tool which might help to
configure more detailed analyses of individual texts and the nature of
their relationship to the regimes of the German dictatorships. Of
importance will not be the individual location of a particular work
within this model, something which will remain a largely subjective
exercise, but the relative location of a number of works or a number
of writers in relation to one another. In particular, this model offers a
means of conceptualising the progression of a single writer over a
period of time, where a number of works might show a shift from
one side of the scale to another.

Some methodological principles

In summary, the following present themselves as methodological

principles which inform an assessment of the extent and nature of
assent and/or dissent expressed by a text in the Third Reich or
GDR:

1. Textual conformity/non-conformity

The starting-point for any such assessment is an analysis of the text

itself, and more specifically, the extent of textual conformity and/or
non-conformity to the norms of the official varieties of ideology,
aesthetics, and discourse propagated by the Nazi or SED regimes.
Particularly important here is the location of the text in relation to

163
the will to truth of Nazi or SED ideology, defined in terms of core
political myths and historical narratives and propagated through the
dominant ideologically-conditioned variety of discourse. Clearly this
is not an either/or proposition. Rather, we would expect discursive
conformity and non-conformity, conceived in Foucaultian terms, to
be realised in more complex patterns of confirmation and partial
challenge. Dissent need not be expressed only in the outright
rejection of official discourse but also in a tendency towards textual
polysemia which undermines and exposes official attempts to impose
a unity of meaning.

2. Functional criteria

To this initial assessment of textual conformity or non-confomity can

then be applied the kind of functional criteria which emerge from the
more recent socio-political scales of ‘resistance’ behaviour. Five
principal sets of criteria present themselves: publicness (private -
public); scope (partial - general); attitude (active – passive); risk (low
risk - high risk); and legality (legal - illegal). The nature of the literary
act described in terms of these criteria is a central factor in deter-
mining the extent of assent or dissent expressed by any given level of
textual conformity or non-conformity. Non-conformity which is
public, general in scope, active, high-risk, and illegal expresses a
greater degree of dissent than that which is private, partial in scope,
passive, low-risk and legal. Likewise, conformity which is public,
active, and general in scope expresses a greater degree of assent than
that which is private, passive, and partial in scope.

3. Intention and effect

Applying the Bavaria Project methodology to literary texts would

remove entirely the sphere of intention from any assessment of
assent or dissent. This methodological move has a strong initial
attraction, not least because it provides a seemingly objective reso-
lution to the often intractable issues surrounding the interpretation of

164
authorial intention. Indeed, this social-historical approach offers a
striking parallel to the widespread literary-critical move away from
author-centred criticism which has tended to bracket out, or even kill
off, the author and the importance of his/her intentions. Textual
analysis founded on a strict Foucaultian notion of discourse would
also have little or no interest in the intention of the author, con-
straining discursive procedures being granted the principal role in
shaping the production of discourse. All this points to a very
significant function being assigned to the assenting or dissenting
effects of a text, effects which are often achieved independent of, or
contrary to, authorial intention. And yet, in the study of social and
political resistance, the notion of intention retains a central role, both
in the functional criteria of ‘attitude’ and ‘scope’ and in the dis-
tinctions between ‘dissent’, ‘opposition’, and ‘resistance’ outlined by
Kershaw. There is a significant and necessary distinction to be drawn
between non-intentional literary dissent generated solely by the
politicising effect of the total claim acting on textual non-conformity
and literary dissent which arises from a deliberate undertaking to
oppose the regime through the contravention of aesthetic and
ideological norms. At the same time, further important distinctions
exist in the nature of these intentions. Assent and dissent may be
motivated by ideological or pragmatic factors, and this motivational
context adds a significant extra level of analysis. Thus, in assessing
the behaviour of individual writers in dictatorship, this study will
employ a methodology which combines an analysis of textual effect
and discursive function, where the author is provisionally bracketed
out, with an analysis of all available evidence which may illuminate
the intentions and motivations which lie behind that activity.

4. Text and context

The text itself stands at the centre of this analytical procedure, not
only offering evidence of potential contemporary effect through the
available readings of the relationship between text and regime, but
also allowing for inferences concerning the intentional or non-

165
intentional nature of that conformity and non-conformity. At the
same time, contextual evidence must also have a very significant role
to play in any assessment of the assenting and/or dissenting function
of the text. Central in terms of effect must be any available evidence
of the contemporary reception of the text, in particular by the regime
itself. As far as intention is concerned, available contextual evidence
may be able to illuminate the circumstances of composition of the
text and also the preceding and subsequent aesthetic and ideological
trajectory of the author. Positioning any text in such a trajectory,
which may extend across the boundaries of dictatorship, and above
all identifying continuities or discontinuities is a significant element
of the analytical method. As such, detailed textual analysis must be
allied to an examination of such sources as contemporary reviews,
correspondence, and diary-material. Only through this rigorous in-
vestigation of the full range of available sources will a balanced
assessment of the relative levels of assent and dissent expressed by
writers under the conditions of dictatorship be made possible.

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Part Two
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Chapter 4

Forms of literary assent and dissent under National

Socialism: Günter Eich

In the first part of this study, the analysis of literary assent and
dissent in the German dictatorships has operated primarily at a
macro level. Broad theoretical categories have acted as focal points
for a discussion which has embraced the political, social, and cultural
spheres throughout the existence of both the Third Reich and the
GDR. In this second part, the focus shifts to an examination of
specific literary phenomena within the context of the theoretical and
methodological framework elaborated in part one. Specifically the
writing of Günter Eich under National Socialism and Bertolt Brecht’s
cultural activities in the GDR act as case studies for an investigation
of the nature of assent and dissent expressed by writers under the
conditions of dictatorship. Individually, new light will be shed on the
output of these two writers in the Third Reich and GDR respectively,
the nature of their relationship to the National Socialist and SED
regimes, their motivations for their writing, and not least the extent
of assent and/or dissent expressed by them. Comparatively, common
and divergent elements in these expressions of assent and dissent will
be drawn out in an attempt to come closer to a judgement as to the
comparability of writing experiences at, and within, the margins of
the German dictatorships.
As far as Günter Eich is concerned, attention rests above all on
his prodigious radio output during the Third Reich and the extent to
which the majority of this output, originally dismissed as harmless,
can be seen to express assent towards central elements of Nazi
ideology and aesthetic policy. In terms of dissent, the years 1936–
1938 stand out as a crisis period when Eich’s work seems to be
shaped by a tone of melancholy and negativity, centred on a sense of
poetic self-prostitution. Important questions here relate above all to
the nature of the crisis undergone by Eich in these years - moral or
artistic - and the extent to which any such crisis is directly related to
National Socialism. The essential starting-point for this examination
of Eich’s writing under National Socialism paradoxically lies outside
dictatorship, in the contributions made by Eich to Die Kolonne, the
literary journal edited by Martin Raschke and Artur Kuhnert and
published in Dresden between 1929 and 1932. This material is central
to the subsequent analysis, because it offers insight into Eich’s
literary theory and practice in the immediate pre-history of the Third
Reich, thereby allowing for the investigation of continuities and dis-
continuities into his later work under National Socialism. The story
of Eich’s assent and dissent to the Nazi regime - at once the story of
the enforced betrayal of the autonomous and idealistic Kolonne poet
by the dependent and pragmatic radio author - is one where the
precise extent of the determining role played by the conditions of
dictatorship requires very careful questioning.

Die Kolonne: aesthetics and ideology before 1933

In his study of Eich’s writing career under National Socialism, Glenn

Cuomo highlights the significance of the Dresden literary periodical
Die Kolonne, and Eich’s contributions to it, for an understanding of
the poetological and ideological stance which informed Eich’s early
writing:

Eich wrote numerous essays and reviews as a Kolonne member. These com-
ments on contemporary works and tendencies are invaluable for the study of
his early period since they make it possible to ascertain Eich’s poetological
and ideological stance during the declining years of the Weimar Republic. His
views are consistent with the editorial thrust of Die Kolonne on all major issues,

170
 and at times he even appears in the role of a spokesman for the journal’s
policy.1

It is above all in the nature of Eich’s Kolonne output, where essays and
reviews outnumbered purely literary pieces, and its historical location,
in the final years of the Weimar Republic, that the significance of
these contributions for the study of Eich’s subsequent writing in the
Third Reich lies. These review articles and poetological statements
offer unmediated access to Eich’s voice and hence direct insight into
his poetological and ideological stance. The opportunity to identify
this stance in advance of 30 January 1933 allows for the investigation
of continuities and discontinuities across that moment of political
rupture, and this may in turn have a profound bearing on any analysis
of the forms of assent or dissent expressed by Eich under National
Socialism. Any conformity to the norms of National Socialist ideol-
ogy and policy which can be shon to have arisen out of the pursuit of
pre-existing aesthetic and/or ideological principles must be evaluated
differently from that which comes about through the adjustment of
those principles in the light of the experiences of Nazi rule itself. The
same must also apply to divergence from those norms. Here, two
principal sets of questions arise in relation to Eich’s involvement
with the Kolonne Circle. Firstly, what was the ideological and aesthetic
position defined in the Kolonne programme and how far were Eich’s
own contributions representative of that position? And secondly,
how closely can this position be associated, both aesthetically and
politically, with that of National Socialism?

1 Glenn R. Cuomo, Career at the Cost of Compromise: Günter Eich’s Life and Work in
the Years 1933–1945 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989), p. 14.

171
Aesthetic conservatism

Just what constituted the ‘editorial thrust’ of Die Kolonne can be read
from two statements made by one of the journal’s co-editors, Martin
Raschke. The first of these statements opened the inaugural issue of
the journal in December 1929:

Allein der Angst, den Anschluß an eine Wirklichkeit zu verlieren, die aus sich
einer gelobten Zukunft zuzustreben scheint, ist das Entstehen einer Sachlich-
keit zuzuschreiben, die den Dichter zum Reporter erniedrigte und die
Umgebung des proletarischen Menschen als Gefühlsstandard modernen
Dichtens propagierte. Und es fanden genügend Stimmen, die überall das
Dichten als leicht erlernbaren Beruf ausschrieen, spottend über Intuitionen
und Gnade [...]. Aber noch immer leben wir von Acker und Meer, und die
Himmel, sie reichen aber auch über die Stadt. Noch immer lebt ein großer
Teil der Menschheit in ländlichen Verhältnissen, und es entspringt nicht
müßiger Traditionsfreude, wenn ihm Regen und Kälte wichtiger sind als ein
Dynamo, der nie das Korn reifte.2

The second is an essay entitled ‘Über die Aufgabe der Kolonne’ which
appeared in 1932:

Die Kolonne wird polemisieren gegen Schreibende, die sich an Stimmungen der
Massen und die Moden ihrer Zeit verschenken, weil sie nicht mehr im
schöpferischen Grunde des Lebens verankert genug sind und die sich ängst-
lich mit Auge und Ohr anstatt nach dem Herzen orientieren.3

As these pieces make clear, the Kolonne project is to be understood as

a reaction against contemporary Modernist literary trends, such as
Neue Sachlichkeit, which tended to focus on urban life and the
proletariat, increasingly in the mode of a reporter rather than as a
poet. The search for renewed relevance away from journalistic
objectivity took the Kolonne contributors back to the perceived high-

2 Die Kolonne, 1 (1929–1930), 1. Anton Kaes attributes this anonymous piece to

Martin Raschke. See Anton Kaes (ed.), Weimarer Republik: Manifeste und Doku-
mente zur deutschen Literatur 1918–1933 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1983), p. 675.
3 Martin Raschke, ‘Über die Aufgabe der Kolonne’, Die Kolonne, 3 (1932), 32.

172
points of German lyricism from the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. In other words, this is an aesthetically conservative move
back towards what Joseph Dolan terms an aesthetic posture of ‘lyric
inwardness’.4 As such, the timeless nature symbolism of Die Kolonne
can be seen to rest on three central principles: ‘the essential timeless-
ness of the inner life, the notion of the genius as representative of his
age, and the religious function of art.’
How Eich’s own approach to writing related to this editorial
position becomes clear in two programmatic statements of his own.
Invited in the second issue of Die Kolonne in 1930, ‘in möglichst
aphoristischer Form über die Tendenzen ihres Schaffens Auskunft
zu geben’, Eich defended his conception of poetry as ‘innere
Dialoge’, divorced from the contemporary world around him:

Ich finde es gänzlich unter meiner Würde, mich für meine Gedichte zu
entschuldigen und mich vor Leitartikeln zu verbeugen, und werde immer
darauf verzichten, auf mein ‘soziales Empfinden’ hinzuweisen, selbst auf die
Gefahr hin, die Sympathie von Linksblättern nicht zu erringen und selbst auf
die noch furchtbarere Gefahr hin, nicht für ‘heutig’ gehalten zu werden.
(GW, 4, p. 457)

With a pointed reference to Left-wing journals, Eich ‘sets out in

embryonic form [his] theory of romantic aestheticism in opposition
to the utilitarian art forms characteristic of the committed poets of
the Weimar Republic’.5 In his own words in the same piece: ‘Und
Verantwortung vor der Zeit? Nicht im geringsten. Nur vor mir
selber.’ Eich’s belief in a fundamental incompatibility between poetry
and politics and his view of lyric production as an act free of utility
and free of the poet’s own will are further confirmed in an
impassioned defence of the lyric approach which he represented,
entitled ‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’ and published in Die Kolonne in

4 See Joseph P. Dolan, ‘The Theory and Practice of Apolitical Literature: Die
Kolonne 1929–1932’, Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1 (1977), 157–71.
Subsequent reference, p. 158.
5 Larry L. Richardson, Committed Aestheticism: The Poetic Theory and Practice of
Günter Eich (New York: Lang, 1983), p. 20.

173
1932. In this essay, ‘Eich’s most definitive prewar essay on poetic
theory’,6 Eich responds as follows to an essay by Bernhard Diebold
which had taken the young generation of poets to task for their
failure to address contemporary issues:

Eine Entscheidung für die Zeit, d.h. also für eine Teilerscheinung der Zeit,
interessiert den Lyriker als Lyriker überhaupt nicht. [...] Der Lyriker ent-
scheidet sich für nichts, ihn interessiert nur sein Ich [...], für ihn existiert nur
das gemeinschaftslose vereinzelte Ich. Und gerade weil er sich für nichts
entscheidet, fängt er die Zeit als Ganzes in sich auf und läßt sie im un-
getrübten Spiegel seines Ichs wieder sichtbar werden. (GW, 4, p. 459)

Here, Eich strongly echoes Raschke’s own programmatic editorial

statements, steadfastly placing the creative subjectivity of the poet
above more popular, politicised literary trends. Eich clearly acts ‘in
the role of spokesman for the journal’s policy’, defending not only
his own poetological position but also that of the Kolonne Circle as a
whole.7
What is remarkable about Eich’s poetological stance in Die
Kolonne is its sheer consistency. Indeed, it is this consistency of
approach and language which makes it possible, with a relatively high
degree of certainty, to attribute to Eich the pieces of literary criticism
which appear in the journal under the pseudonym Georg Winter.
Winter’s 1932 review of an anthology of Großstadtdichtung, entitled Um
uns die Stadt, for instance, takes up themes familiar from Eich’s
‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’. The former’s criticism of the superficiality
of this modern poetry, which fails to treat the city ‘als selbst-
verständliches Phänomen’ (GW, 4, p. 555) and which mistakes the
simple use of modern vocabulary for genuine poetic creativity
(‘Gestaltung’), echoes Eich’s following response to Diebold:

Die Wandlungen des Ichs sind das Problem des Lyrikers. Das wird im
formalen die Folge haben, daß er im allgemein Vokabeln vermeidet, die ein
zeitgebundenes, also ein ihn nicht direkt interessierendes Problem in sich

6 Richardson, p. 25.
7 Cuomo, p. 14.

174
 schließen. Ja, ich meine, der Lyriker muß ‘alte’ Vokabeln gebrauchen, die,
selbst problemlos geworden, ihre neue Bedeutung erst durch das Ich
gewinnen. An Vokabeln wie ‘Dynamo’ oder ‘Telefonkabel’ hängen soviele
zeitlich bedingte Assoziationen, daß sie die reine Ichproblematik des Ge-
dichtes durch ihre eigene Problematik zumeist verfälschen. Wenn solche
Vokabeln überhaupt in Gedichten verwendet werden können, so höchstens
als reine Gegebenheiten, als ein schlichtes räumliches Dasein, als selbst-
verständlich und problemlos, also ohne ‘zeitliche’ Beziehung und Bedeutung.
(GW, 4, p. 459)

The superficiality of more prosaic and historically specific writing is

consistently contrasted in Eich’s Kolonne reviews with the universal
applicability of the experiences of genius poets, such as Villon,
Eichendorff, Rimbaud, Mörike, Rilke, Flaubert, and even the young
Brecht. Such is the power of Villon’s poetry, for instance, ‘daß wir
uns fragen, ob es heute überhaupt noch möglich ist, solche Dichtung
ohne Ressentiment, nur aus der Kraft des gelebten Lebens heraus zu
schaffen. Noch vor einigen Jahrzehnten konnte es Rimbaud. Ob es
heute noch Brecht kann ist zweifelhaft, denn die Lockung der
Zivilisation scheint stärker zu sein, als die Stimme des Blutes’ (GW, 4,
p. 546).

Ideological conservatism?

This final comment, with its striking opposition between ‘Blut’ and
‘Zivilisation’, forces us to address the issue of whether an ideo-
logically ‘conservative’ position can be inferred from Eich’s anti-
modern, zivilisationskritisch poetological stance. That is to say, how far
was this conservative aesthetic position compatible with the political
conservatism which in part fed into National Socialist ideology? As
the pointed reference to ‘Linksblätter’ in Eich’s ‘[Innere Dialoge]’
suggests, Left-wing committed literature played a fundamental role as
a catalyst and counterpoint for Eich and Die Kolonne in the very early
1930s. Indeed, Eich published his own strongly critical review of
Johannes R. Becher’s epic poem ‘Der große Plan’ in Die Kolonne in

175
1931 (GW, 4, p. 551–52). Referring to the last-minute decision to
publish this review under Eich’s own name, Cuomo concludes that
‘given the harshness of his attack on the tendency Becher repre-
sented, the decision to be publicly associated with this review
indicates Eich’s conservative ideology’.8 While Cuomo does not
expand upon his understanding of the term ‘conservative’, the
implication seems clear. This implication is made explicit when
Cuomo discusses the hypothetical survival prospects of the journal
after 1933:

Were it not for its financial problems there is every reason to believe that Die
Kolonne would have weathered the transition from the Weimar Republic to the
Third Reich as smoothly as Eich, its former editors Raschke and Kuhnert,
and most of its contributors were able to do. For as Joseph Dolan points out
in an insightful analysis of the apolitical views expressed in Die Kolonne, the
most fitting overall characterisation of the journal would not be liberal or
progressive, but conservative. The test of conservatism Dolan utilizes in sup-
port of his contention is convincing. Not only did the journal vehemently
reject the radical Left, but it also never demonstrated overt support for the
Weimar Republic.

Not just aesthetically, but also politically, Cuomo views Die Kolonne
and its contributors as ‘conservative’. For Cuomo, Eich’s reaction
against Becher is not just a poetological one, but also an ideological
one.
This is a central plank in an argument which starts to establish
the conservative political credentials of both Eich, individually, and
the Kolonne Circle, collectively.9 Cuomo not only refutes Schafroth’s
misplaced suggestions that the failure of Die Kolonne to survive past
1933 was attributable to political opposition to National Socialism,
but, more importantly, he also re-assesses the opinions of Marion
Mallmann and Fritz Schlawe that the journal was as critical of Right-
wing influences on literature as it was of the Left-wing influences

8 Cuomo, p. 15. Subsequent reference, p. 19.

9 See Cuomo, pp. 16–18.

176
represented by Becher.10 Here, Raschke’s 1931 essay ‘Man trägt
wieder Erde’ is re-read by Cuomo as a less clear-cut criticism of
‘conservative’ literary trends, while the fact that ‘the possibility of
literature’s abuse by the political Right is never mentioned directly in
Raschke’s and Eich’s essays’ is contrasted with their readiness to
openly criticise the Left.11 Finally, Otto Merz’s direct criticism of
National Socialism in his essay, ‘Die verratene Dichtung’, is dis-
missed by Cuomo as follows: ‘Significantly, the Merz essay remains
an isolated occurrence in Die Kolonne. The issues he raised are not
taken up in any form by the editors, nor do similar criticisms of
National Socialism ever appear again.’12 The value to Cuomo of
establishing Eich’s political conservatism within a thesis which for
the first time reveals the true extent of his compromises in the Third
Reich is obvious enough, even more so when Eich’s application to
join the Nazi Party in 1933 and his use of the compromised figure of
Gottfried Benn as a referee in his application to join the Reichsverband
Deutscher Schriftsteller start to imply a genuine ideological trajectory for
Eich’s subsequent involvement in the Nazi propaganda machinery.
Indeed, the status of Gottfried Benn as an intellectual authority
for Eich and the Kolonne circle cannot be in doubt. As Cuomo and
Dolan indicate, despite a very peripheral role in the journal itself,
Benn was a pivotal figure for the Kolonne circle.13 Raschke, for in-
stance, openly identified the journal and its contributors with Benn:
‘Gottfried Benn sind auch wir.’14 As far as Eich himself is concerned,
‘Benn’s influence can be traced to his earliest poetry, and as Eich
recounted towards the end of his life to Peter Horst Neumann,

10 See Heinz Schafroth, Günter Eich (Munich: Beck, 1976), p. 16; Fritz Schlawe,
Literarische Zeitschriften, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1961–62), II: 1910–1933
(1962), p. 20; and Marion Mallmann, ‘Das Innere Reich’: Analyse einer konservati-
ven Kulturzeitschrift im Dritten Reich (Bonn: Bouvier, 1978), p. 92.
11 See Martin Raschke, ‘Man trägt wieder Erde’, Die literarische Welt, 7 (1931), 5
and Martin Raschke, ‘Man trägt wieder Erde’, Die Kolonne, 2 (1931), 47–48.
12 See Otto Merz, ‘Die verratene Dichtung’, Die Kolonne, 2 (1931), 61.
13 See Cuomo, p. 19 and Dolan, p. 160.
14 Martin Raschke, ‘Gottfried Benn’, Die Kolonne, 1 (1929–1930), 35–36 (p. 35).

177
during the 1930s Gottfried Benn possessed a very “special, personal
authority for him”’.15 The poetological stance expressed in ‘Be-
merkungen über Lyrik’ also carries strong echoes of the poetological
position of Gottfried Benn, a figure who for Dolan constitutes ‘the
prime exponent of timeless lyric inwardness’.16 Richardson, too, sets
Eich firmly within the context of Benn’s poetics:

Paralleling Benn’s poetological stance, Günter Eich defended an anti-

utilitarian concept of absolute art against left-wing criticism. In so doing, he
developed his own theory of poetry, a romantic aestheticism emphasising the
primacy of aesthetics over politics, the individual over society, intuition over
ratio, nature over civilization.17

Both these parallels to Benn and this poetological stance of ‘aesthetic

romanticism’ tend to be confirmed by Eich’s early poetic practice in
Die Kolonne and elsewhere. Richardson, for example, draws an explicit
parallel between Benn’s 1913 poem ‘Gesang I’ and the desire for
human re-integration with nature expressed in Eich’s ‘Verse an vielen
Abenden’, while Joachim Storck notes Benn’s influence in the poem
‘Among my souvenirs’.18 Further poems from Eich’s first collection,
such as ‘Tango’ and ‘Der Mann im Monde’, share a yearning for
mystical re-integration with organic nature, while ‘Verse an vielen
Abenden’ can also be seen to introduce the central Kolonne theme of
timelessness.19 As Richardson summarises in relation to Eich’s early
poetry: ‘his theory of lyric poetry – timeless, inner dialogues using
traditional poetic diction – and its function – aesthetic entities with-
out purpose, without message – does not deviate substantially from
his poetic expression.’

15 Cuomo, p. 19, quoting Peter Horst Neumann, Die Rettung der Poesie im Unsinn:
Der Anarchist Günter Eich (Stuttgart: Klett–Cotta, 1981), p. 38.
16 Dolan, p. 160.
17 Richardson, p. 18.
18 Richardson, pp. 35–36; Joachim W. Storck, Günter Eich, Marbacher Magazin
45 (Marbach: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, 1988), p. 16.
19 See Richardson, pp. 36–39. Subsequent reference, p. 34.

178
 At the same time, the conflation of poetological proximity to
Benn with ideological proximity is a dangerous one. In this context,
we must reconsider the test of political conservatism applied to Die
Kolonne which Cuomo finds so convincing. According to Dolan:

The specifically political conservatism of this apparently apolitical journal is

implicit in at least two ways. The first is the lack of overt support for the
Weimar Republic, opposition to the forms of liberal democracy being one of
the key elements of German conservatism. [...] Raschke voices this view in his
argument with Thomas Mann about the spirit of liberalism. [...] The second
implicit indication of political conservatism is the conspicuous lack of Jewish
contributors to the journal.20

The Raschke essay to which Dolan refers here is ‘Eine kleine Chro-
nik, einige Zitate und eine Antwort an Thomas Mann’, published
under the pseudonym Otto Merz in 1930.21 At first sight, the fact
that Raschke can be identified as the author of this piece appears to
lend even more weight to Cuomo’s argument concerning the political
conservatism of the journal, since this politically conservative stand-
point now becomes an editorial view, not just the view of an isolated
contributor. Unfortunately, at the same time, the identification of
Merz as Raschke rather undermines Cuomo’s earlier dismissal of
Merz’s attack on National Socialism in the essay, ‘Die verratene
Dichtung’.22 Clearly the suggestion that this essay expressed views
‘not taken up in any form by the editors’ is no longer a tenable one.23
Similarly, Cuomo’s re-assessment of Mallmann’s and Schlawe’s analy-
sis is also largely undermined. Raschke’s views expressed as Merz in

20 Dolan, p. 167.
21 Otto Merz, ‘Eine kleine Chronik, einige Zitate und eine Antwort an Thomas
Mann’, Die Kolonne, 1 (1929–1930), 47–48.
22 Anton Kaes attributes the essay to Raschke. See Kaes, p. 680. It is unclear
why Cuomo fails to attribute Merz’s contributions to Raschke. With reference
to ‘Antwort an Thomas Mann’, Cuomo (himself mistakenly) notes that
‘Dolan mistakenly attributes this piece to Raschke’. See Cuomo, p. 143, note
53.
23 Cuomo, p. 18.

179
‘Die verratene Dichtung’, in conjunction with the criticism of con-
servative approaches to literature contained in ‘Man trägt wieder
Erde’ and generalised criticism of the use of literature by mass
movements in ‘Über die Aufgabe der Kolonne’, start to suggest that Die
Kolonne was consistent in defending literature against both Right-wing
and Left-wing influences.24 If attacks on the committed political
approach to literature favoured by the Left far outweighed attacks on
the Right, the very preponderance of that approach in Left-wing
literature seems a more likely cause than any necessary ideological
sympathy with the Right.
Indeed, it seems to make little sense to identify ‘lack of overt
support for the Weimar Republic’ as an indicator of the political
conservatism evinced by Die Kolonne.25 After all, in Dolan’s words, Die
Kolonne was ‘a strictly literary journal, and there were no references to
current political or social events in it whatever’. As we have seen, the
overriding principle of the journal was the defence of the apolitical
sphere of literature, and so to infer a political stance from its failure
to intervene in a contemporary political controversy seems rather
perverse. In any case, lack of overt support does not necessarily
imply opposition, and, even if it did, opposition to the Weimar
Republic was not just the prerogative of conservatives, or even of the
politically committed. It may be that a number of contributors to Die
Kolonne can be placed somewhere within the broad sweep of political
conservatism, and it may be that the absence of Jewish contributors
is circumstantial evidence to support this contention. However, this
falls a long way short of establishing links between the ideological
position of the Kolonne Circle and that of the radical Right and völkisch
movements, and it is here that the label ‘politically conservative’ is
apt to confuse the issue. Indeed a characterisation of the journal’s

24 The same point is made by Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Naturdichtung und Neue
Sachlichkeit’, in Wolfgang Rothe (ed.), Die deutsche Literatur in der Weimarer
Republik (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1974), pp. 359–81 (p. 367).
25 Dolan, p. 167. Subsequent reference, pp. 158–59.

180
political stance as ‘liberal’ or ‘bourgeois’ may be equally tenable.26
Above all, what emerges from a reading of Die Kolonne is not the
defence of a particular political position but the consistent and un-
shakeable defence of literature from all political influences. Here,
Schäfer’s analysis seems particularly apposite:

Auch diejenigen Schriftsteller, die weder in der marxistischen noch in der

völkischen Heilslehre eine Alternative zur gesellschaftlichen Misere sahen,
taten wenig zur Verteidigung der demokratischen Traditionen und kapselten
sich enttäuscht von den politischen und künstlerischen Strömungen des
Weimarer Staates ab. Ein programmatisches Dokument für diese [...] Gruppe
ist die Dresdner Zeitschrift die Kolonne.27

Although the journal may be labelled broadly ideologically or aes-

thetically ‘conservative’, the label ‘politically conservative’ implies an
engagement with contemporary political issues which simply was not
present within the journal.
A closer examination of Eich’s own contributions to the journal
suggests strongly that the public position he maintained within Die
Kolonne complements the overall characterisation of the journal as
‘non-political’ rather than ‘conservative’. In particular, Eich’s ob-
jections to Becher’s ‘Der große Plan’ are resolutely poetological, not
ideological:

Es ist schwer, über Bechers ‘Großen Plan’ zu sprechen ohne zwecklose

politische Auseinandersetzungen. Aber diese Schwierigkeit deutet auch den
entscheidenden Mangel des Buches an: [...] Die Forderung der Einheit von
Dichtung und politischer Propaganda ist auch hier nicht Wirklichkeit ge-
worden, und sie wird es auch anderswo nie werden. Propaganda [...] wirkt
durch die vorgebrachten Tatsachen. Dichtung aber ist ihrem Wesen nach

26 The term ‘bürgerlich’ is employed by Frank Trommler, ‘Emigration und

Nachkriegsliteratur: Zum Problem der geschichtlichen Kontinuität’, in Rein-
hold Grimm and Jost Hermand (eds), Exil und innere Emigration (Frankfurt
a.M.: Athenäum, 1972), pp. 173–97 (p. 179).
27 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Zur Periodisierung der deutschen Literatur seit 1930’,
in Hans Dieter Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewußtsein: Deutsche Kultur und Lebens-
wirklichkeit 1933–1945 (Munich: Hanser, 1981), pp. 55–71 (p. 58).

181
 indirekt, nie kann ein ‘Gedicht’ über den Fünfjahresplan konkurrieren mit der
Wirkung von Statistiken und kühlen Feststellungen. [...] Wer glaubt, daß nur
das auf der Welt Wert habe, was als Waffe im Kampf für eine Idee gebraucht
werden kann, der sei konsequenterweise ein Gegner der Kunst überhaupt und
überlasse das Verseschreiben denen, für die es kein Wollen ist.
(GW, 4, p. 551–52)

Eich’s interest in Marxism is not so much as a political opponent, but

as a poet seeking universal modes of representation. This poeto-
logical objection to Marxism becomes still clearer in his response to
Bernhard Diebold:

Wer von uns aber weiß schon heute, wohin wir uns verändern; wer erkennt
schon heute, in welchen Gedanken, in welchen Dingen sich unsere Zeit am
deutlichsten ausdrückt? Wenn man verlangt, die Lyrik solle sich zu ihrer Zeit
bekennen, so verlangt man damit höchstens, sie solle sich zum Marxismus
oder zur Anthroposophie oder zur Psychoanalyse bekennen, denn wir wissen
gar nicht, welche Denk- oder Lebenssysteme unsere Zeit universal repräsen-
tieren, wir wissen nur, daß jede Richtung und jede Bewegung von sich
behauptet. (GW, 4, p. 458)

Marxism is not categorised by Eich as a political ideology, but merely

a system of thought, like psychoanalysis, which has yet to prove itself
timeless and universal. As Schafroth observes: ‘Eich hat allerdings
auf die linke Literatur seiner Zeit mit Mißtrauen reagiert. Nicht aus
politischen, sondern ästhetischen Gründen.’28
Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that Eich’s attacks on the
Left were poetologically, and not politically, motivated is provided by
his review of Gottfried Benn’s Fazit der Perspektiven, entitled ‘Die
Vermischung der Formen’ (GW, 4, p. 549–50) and published under
the pseudonym Georg Winter in 1931. The poetological stance
expressed here is again remarkably consistent with Eich’s other
contributions to the journal. Eich again criticises Tendenzdichtung
which fails to maintain the essential indirectness of poetry, but on
this occasion his target is not the committed literature of the Left.

28 Schafroth, p. 14.

182
Instead Eich criticises Benn, a figure whose political conservatism is
not in doubt and whose considerable influence on the Kolonne Circle,
as we have noted, is repeatedly highlighted by Cuomo and Dolan.29
The specific details of the criticism in this review are strongly
reminiscent of the criticism of Becher for attempting to reconcile
poetry with more didactic writing:

So scheint mir beispielsweise Gottfried Benns wichtiges Buch Fazit der

Perspektiven im Formalen einen solchen Mangel zu haben: Die Vermischung
der Formen von Aufsatz und Dichtung. Benn will überzeugen, bald mit
Logik, bald mit Musik der Sprache. [...] So hat er sich halb zum Gedicht, halb
zur logischen Darstellung entschieden, zu einer Mischform, in der die beiden
Elemente sich nicht zur doppelten Wirkung addieren, sondern sich aufheben.
[...] die Aussage eines Gedankens in der Dichtung ist anderer Art, ist indirekt
[...] Tendenzdichtung mit ihrer direkten Ideenaussage beraubt sich selbst der
Wirkung. [...] Geworben wird in diesem Fall nur durch Statistiken und durch
kühle Überlegungen. [...] Auch ein Buch wie Fazit der Perspektiven ist Tendenz-
dichtung, auch wenn es Ideen propagiert, die nicht populär sind. (GW, 4, p.
549–50)

Cuomo himself acknowledges the obvious similarities between the

Becher review and the Benn review, but what he fails to recognise is
the significance of these similarities for an assessment of Eich’s
overall stance in his Kolonne contributions.30 Cuomo’s analysis relies
on Eich’s objections to Becher being ideological, but those to Benn
being strictly aesthetic. That Eich is prepared to criticise Benn, given
their own poetological proximity and given that Benn was promoting
ideas complementary to those of Die Kolonne as a whole, certainly
demonstrates the strength of Eich’s poetological principles, but it
also indicates strongly that Eich is not concerned with the ideological
content of Becher’s or Benn’s work, but purely with the literary
approach which they represent. Hence, these reviews do not so much
indicate Eich’s ‘conservative ideology’ as his politically uncommitted

29 See Dolan, p. 160 and Cuomo, p. 19.

30 Cuomo, p. 16. Cuomo cites the similarities as proof of the authorship of the
Winter pieces.

183
approach to literature. They do not indicate political conservatism
but rather only aesthetic conservatism.

Public poet vs private individual

What emerges from Eich’s contributions to Die Kolonne is a remark-

ably consistent, steadfast defence of the autonomy of lyric
production from the more superficial elements of contemporary
society, politics included. In Schafroth’s words, ‘die apolitische
Position Eichs war programmatisch’.31 In terms of Eich’s subsequent
relationship with National Socialism, and in particular the patterns of
assent and dissent demonstrated by his behaviour in the Third Reich,
the implications of this apolitical position are considerable. It has
been widely assumed, for instance, that this public poetological
stance allows us to directly infer Eich’s private political stance, that is,
that Eich was by nature a romantic aesthete who preferred to stand
aloof from contemporary politics. In this case, Eich’s position
outlined in ‘[Innere Dialoge]’ would not only be a poetological one
but also an ideological one: ‘Und Verantwortung vor der Zeit? Nicht
im geringsten. Nur vor mir selber’ (GW, 4, p. 457). Or in the words
of Axel Vieregg: ‘Die Angst vor der heillosen Unordnung der
Moderne, die Suche nach romantischen Inseln der Flucht und
Zuflucht und die Angst um deren Zerstörung – das waren Eichs
eigentliche Zentralthemen gewesen, sei es im Konkreten von Natur
und Ländlichkeit oder im Absoluten des Seins.’32 On the one hand,
this assumption has been central to attempts to deny any involve-
ment on Eich’s part in the Nazi propaganda machinery, as is clear
from Hermann Kasack’s statement to the Allied authorities, made on
30 August 1946 and quoted by both Cuomo and Vieregg:

31 Schafroth, p. 16.
32 Axel Vieregg, ‘“Mein Raum und meine Zeit”: Antimodernismus und Idylle
beim frühen Günter Eich’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maul-
würfe’: Die Günter-Eich-Debatte (Amsterdam; Rodopi, 1996), pp. 3–27 (p. 24).

184
 [Eich] hat die nationalsozialistische Ideologie stets abgelehnt. Er ist seinem
Wesen nach ein Mensch, der auf Grund seiner lyrischen Weltanschauung
allen politischen Fragen naiv und uninteressiert gegenüber steht. Mir ist
weder in seinen Gedichten noch seinen Dramen und Hörspielen für den
Rundfunk irgendeine Zeile bekannt geworden, die politisch oder gar nazis-
tisch gewesen ist. Es handelt bei ihm um reine Dichtung.33

On the other hand, the perception of Eich as a naive young nature

poet with no experience of political issues has more recently been
employed not to deny Eich’s involvement in the Nazi radio industry,
but to reconstruct the motivations behind it.34 Indeed, this naivety
does nothing to rule out some form of conformity, or assent, to
National Socialism. It may rather render it more easily explicable.
At the same time, an alternative thesis regarding Eich’s private
ideological position also presents itself. The following distinction
made by Eich in his ‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’, between the poet ‘als
Lyriker’ and the poet ‘als Privatmann’, suggests that he does not rule
out active political engagement as a private individual, as long as it
does not encroach into the apolitical sphere of his lyric persona:
‘Eine Entscheidung für die Zeit [...] interessiert den Lyriker als
Lyriker überhaupt nicht. (Was nicht ausschließt, daß er als Privat-
mann sich z.B. zu einer politischen Partei bekennt)’ (GW, 4, p. 459).
Such a statement tends to undermine an analysis of Eich’s behaviour
in the Third Reich which automatically identifies his lyric persona of
apolitical inwardness with his private persona, hinting instead at a
distinction between the politically disinterested nature poet and the
more politically and historically aware student of economics. For
Richardson too, there is more to Eich than apolitical nature poetry:

Despite the essentially romantic character of his theory and poetry, it would
be a distortion merely to classify the prewar Eich as a romantic aesthete, a
nature poet who always stood aloof from the realities of this world. There is
another side to his thought and art which his poetological essays and poetry

33 Cuomo, p. 136; Axel Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet: Günter Eichs
Realitäten 1933–1945 (Eggingen: Edition Isele, 1993), p 9.
34 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet.

185
 do not directly reveal. From the very beginning, Günter Eich’s life and art
were shaped by his determination to take his own path, to seek truth through
art, to oppose dehumanizing forces in modern society.35

Richardson stops short of positing any kind of radical disjunction

between Eich the poet and Eich the private individual, but he does at
least suggest a degree of engagement with modern society on Eich’s
part. More specifically, Richardson identifies in Eich a socially crit-
ical, anti-modern stance.
Axel Vieregg has also pointed to Eich’s maintenance of an
emphatically anti-modern stance. Significantly, in addition to Eich’s
public criticism of modern, urban life in his statements and reviews
in Die Kolonne and the rejection of pro-modern values in his poetry,
Vieregg is also able to draw on evidence from correspondence and
from contemporaries which seems to attest to these anti-modern
attitudes on the part of Eich ‘als Privatmann’:

Mit seiner Zurückweisung des Heute und Moderne, der Ablehnung von
Bewußtsein, Vernunft und Fortschrittsgedanken, der Ablehung von linken,
gesellschaftlich engagierten Positionen und der Ablehnung [...] auch des
Urbanen, in einem Wort: mit seiner Rückwärtsgewandtheit, stand Eich jenen
kulturkonservativen und zivilisationskritischen Strömungen in Deutschland
nahe, die man später [...] als ‘konservative Revolution’ bezeichnete.36

Hence, even if Dolan and Cuomo fail to prove conclusively the

political conservatism of the journal, it may be that outside the
apolitical lyricism of the Kolonne contributors, ‘it is still possible to
group them all together under that amalgamation of political,
cultural, and philosophical views known as conservatism’.37 For
Dolan, drawing on Martin Greiffenhagen, ‘conservatism’ can be
defined in terms of the following set of values: ‘Religion, authority,
morality, homeland, family, the people, the soil; and: tradition,
continuity, becoming, growth, nature, history; and finally: being,

35 Richardson, pp. 44–45.

36 Vieregg, ‘Mein Raum und meine Zeit’, p. 24.
37 Dolan, p. 167.

186
organism, life, eternity.’38 In this sense, there can be little doubt that
that the members of the Kolonne Circle do belong within such a broad
range of conservative values. The importance of values such as
‘tradition, continuity, becoming, growth, nature, history’ and ‘being,
organism, life, eternity’ within the literary project of Die Kolonne is
clear. Indeed, in the anti-modern attitude of Eich and Die Kolonne, in
the focus on nature and the land, and in the belief in cultural renewal
through tradition, Die Kolonne does seem to share many conservative
values often associated with the tenets of National Socialism. Eich,
for example, is rich in his praise for Georg von der Vring’s ‘Volks-
lieder’ and for his closeness to Mörike ‘in seinem Hang zum
Idyllischen, in seiner Liebe zu den kleinen Dingen, zum Ländlichen,
zum Garten, den er mit Gladiolen, mit Rittersporn, mit Akelei und
Fuschia besingt’ (GW, 4, p. 556). This is precisely the kind of nature
idyll which Cuomo later identifies in Eich’s radio work and prose
texts as evidence of the influence of Nazi Blut-und-Boden ideology.39
Similarly, the poetic desire for mystical re-integration with nature and
for a reversal of the modernisation process might be read as further
evidence of ideological parallels to National Socialism. Even if he did
not commit himself politically in public, there is plenty of evidence
which may point towards areas of broader cultural and ideological
affinity between Eich and Nazism.
And yet, we must surely maintain a broad gulf between the
cultural conservatism of Die Kolonne and that of National Socialism,
both before 1933 and even after that date. Two important points
need to be made in this context. Firstly, Eich’s anti-modern position,
apparently expressed through his poetry and literary criticism in Die
Kolonne need not be read as an ideological position. Rather, this can
again be read as primarily a poetological position. Dolan, for in-
stance, convincingly highlights ‘one of the reasons for peculiar
resonance between the apolitical attitude and nature: the non-urban

38 Dolan, p. 167. Martin Greiffenhagen, Das Dilemma des Konservatismus in

Deutschland (Munich: Piper, 1971), p. 66.
39 See Cuomo, pp. 80–88.

187
setting does not force social issues on the poet’.40 Furthermore, the
scant biographical details available concerning Eich seem to confirm
that the anti-modern aesthetic stance of Eich the poet may not have
been entirely shared by Eich the private individual. His decision to
live in Berlin and Paris and his decision to study economics do not
seem to complement the image of an anti-modern aesthete. Even in
terms of his literary persona, Eich’s keen embrace of the new techno-
logical medium of radio does not cohere well with a position which
opposes ‘the dehumanizing forces of modern society’.41 If anything, it
seems that a more radical distinction may have to be drawn between
Eich’s public lyric persona in Die Kolonne and his actions as a private
individual. Secondly, there was considerably more to Nazi ideology
than the kind of conventional conservative values identifiable in Die
Kolonne. Indeed, as as has already argued in the present study, the core
of Nazi ideology can be identified as racial rebirth with a strongly
pro-modern, yet illiberal, impulse. This was entirely absent from Die
Kolonne. Undoubtedly the cultural conservatism of Die Kolonne was
one possible manifestation of some of the strands of conservative
thought which fed into, and were fed on by, National Socialism, and
both were reactions to the political and economic crises of the 1920s,
but there existed no necessary connections between the two.

Cultural restoration at 1930

The same can be said for the relatively conservative aesthetic stance
maintained by Eich and Die Kolonne. The Kolonne Circle clearly looked
back to existing literary forms for their inspiration and rejected
modernistic and modernising experimentation. We have already
noted, for instance, their direct rejection of Neue Sachlichkeit. Eich
seems to make his own position clear in his review of Benn’s Fazit der
Perspektiven: ‘Ich glaube, daß die Wirksamkeit aller Kunst am größten

40 Dolan, p. 163.
41 Richardson, p. 45.

188
ist innerhalb der Grenzen ihrer Form und daß die Versuche zu neuen
Formen, wenn sie den Kreis aller Möglichkeiten durchlaufen haben,
wieder münden in die reine ursprüngliche Beschränkung’ (GW, 4, p.
550). Eich’s poetry too shows a strong turn towards traditional and
conventional form around 1930. However, this aesthetic conserva-
tism should not be allowed to be submerged under the aesthetic
conservatism of a figure like Alfred Rosenberg. In contrast to a
genuinely völkisch attitude to culture, the Kolonne writers maintained a
relatively elitist attitude to art. According to Dolan, for example,
Raschke and Eich believed ‘that poetry is a matter only for the select
few and that the genius [...] is not doing his job if he strives for
popular success’.42 Eich himself consistently warned against under-
estimating the reader’s intelligence, as, for example, in his review of
Emil Belzner’s, Marschieren: nicht träumen: ‘Es ist nicht nur Belzners
Fehler, daß er seine Leser für dümmer hält als sie sind und ihnen auf
jeder zweiten Seite erklärt, was er eigentlich will. Das tun heute fast
alle Romanschriftsteller’ (GW, 4, p. 553). The Kolonne writers were
not afraid of providing difficult literature and steadfastly argued
against literature for the masses. Their rejection of a modernistic
approach was not then borne out of an attempt to appeal to the
collective.
Instead, the aesthetic position of Die Kolonne must be seen within
the context of the kind of cultural shift identified by Hans Dieter
Schäfer and Frank Trommler around 1930. Trommler, for instance,
quotes both Eich’s ‘[Innere Dialoge]’ and ‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’,
while Schäfer is unequivocal in his assessment of the part played by
Kolonne in this posited period of cultural change: ‘die Rolle der Kolonne
dabei nicht hoch genug eingeschätzt werden.’43 The programmatic
statements made by Raschke and Eich must be seen as an attempt to
participate in and influence the future direction of literary culture in
Germany, and as evidence of the role played by Die Kolonne in this

42 Dolan, p. 163.
43 Trommler, ‘Emigration und Nachkriegsliteratur’, p. 178; Schäfer, ‘Zur Perio-
disierung’, p. 59.

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aesthetically conservative cultural shift away from modernism and
towards more traditional forms.44 Both the Kolonne circle and the
völkisch nationalists of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur gained impetus
from the economic and political crises around 1930. Both sought
order and renewal in broadly conservative aesthetic phenomena.
However, the existence of a parallel turn amongst writers of the
extreme Left, exemplified in literary practice by Johannes R. Becher
and in literary theory by Georg Lukács, breaks any necessary con-
junction between aesthetic and political conservatism. Indeed, the
debt of the Kolonne writers to German Expressionism clearly indicates
how their aesthetic conservatism needs to be retained distinct from
that of the völkisch groupings.
In this way, aesthetic similarities between Die Kolonne and
subsequent Nazi cultural policies are neither surprising nor entirely
coincidental. Both Die Kolonne and National Socialism can be viewed
as products of, and participants in, a fundamental shift in culture.
Both were reactions to the same economic and political crisis. And
yet, despite occasional points of contact, the trajectory of the non-
political group of young writers was entirely divorced from the
trajectory of German fascism up to 1933. After 1933, however, their
paths coincided, and the public actions of figures such as Gottfried
Benn and Horst Lange ably demonstrate how an alignment between
the Kolonne stance and that of the National Socialist ‘revolution’ was
possible.45 Just what Eich’s reaction to the Nazi seizure of power
was, and how he aligned himself with Nazi cultural policy through

44 See also Kaes, pp. 674–89 and Hermann Korte, ‘Lyrik am Ende der Weima-
rer Republik’, in Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur vom 16. Jahrhundert
bis zur Gegenwart, ed. by Rolf Grimminger, 12 vols (Munich: Hanser, 1979– ),
VIII: Literatur der Weimarer Republik 1918–1933, ed. by Bernhard Weyergraf
(1995), pp. 601–35 (pp. 615–35).
45 See, for instance, Gottfried Benn, ‘Die neue Staat und die Intellektuellen’, in
Gottfried Benn, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Gerhard Schuster, 6 vols (Stuttgart:
Klett–Cotta, 1986–1991), IV: Prosa 2: 1933–1945 (1989), pp. 12–22 and Horst
Lange, ‘Landschaftliche Dichtung’, Der weiße Rabe, 2 (1933), 21–26.

190
his literary production, will form the subject matter of the following
sections.

Forms of assent

Dissenting inner emigré?

Wo die Dokumente fehlten, konnten sich die Leerräume mit Vermutungen

und Behauptungen füllen, die von dem einen Extrem von Beiträgen Eichs an
die SS bis zu dem anderen Extrem einer antifaschistischen Widerstands-
haltung reichten. In ihrer Mehrheit neigte sich die Diskussion der zweiten, als
der von Eich einzig zu erwartenden Position zu und verdichtete sich zu
folgenden, manchmal qualifizierten, aber in ihrer Essenz doch stets
wiederholten Grundaussagen: 1. Eich habe aus Opposition gegen den
Nationalsozialismus nach 1933 die Zahl seiner Veröffentlichungen stark
eingeschränkt. 2. Seine Rundfunkarbeiten seien in keiner Weise vom Geist
der Zeit infiziert [...] und als harmlose Unterhaltung zu vergessen. 3. Eich
habe [...] zu einem exemplarischen Vertreter der ‘Inneren Emigration’ werden
können.46

Following the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Günter Eich

did not join the wave of German intellectuals expressing their dissent
by leaving Germany. As a largely unknown writer, who was both
racially and politically non-controversial, Eich had neither the need
nor the means to go into exile. Having chosen to remain in the Third
Reich, the primary form of literary dissent available to him was the
adoption of a position of so-called ‘inner emigration’. He could either
withdraw from the public sphere and cease writing and/or publi-
cation altogether, or he could restrict himself to writing and
publishing only ‘harmless’, non-political texts which did not deal with
external political realities. As Vieregg suggests, in the absence of clear
documentary evidence relating to Eich’s Third Reich biography, and

46 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 9.

191
no doubt influenced by Eich’s iconic status as a post-war non-
conformist, critics have in the past attributed both of these dissenting
‘inner emigration’ positions to Eich.
Within the terms developed in the present study, Eich’s dissent
would take two forms. Firstly, conventional accounts of Eich’s work
identify a virtual abandonment of lyric poetry during the Third Reich.
Writing in 1972, for instance, Susanne Müller-Hanpft draws an
explicit connection between Eich’s presumed inability to write poetry
and the ‘totalitarian’ conditions under the Nazi regime: ‘Das
Schreiben von Gedichten aber war Eich nicht mehr möglich. Offen-
bar waren ihm die eigenen Prämissen der frühen Gedichte selbst
untauglich und suspekt erchienen, so daß er in einer Zeit der
totalitären Herrschaft seine individualistischen Naturgedichte nicht
mehr schreiben konnte.’47 More unequivocal is Egbert Krispyn who
writes of the ‘poet’s supreme sacrifice of self-imposed silence’.48
Although relatively insignificant in terms of effect, given Eich’s un-
known status, any conscious reduction in output acquires a low-level
dissenting function as an intentional reaction to the onset of Nazi
rule. Important in tracing the dynamic of this dissent is the timing of
any such reduction in output. Müller-Hanpft identifies a reduction in
lyric output immediately after the Nazi seizure of power: ‘1932
wurden noch einmal vier Gedichte in dem Sammelband Neue lyrische
Anthologie veröffentlicht. Als Lyriker verstummte Eich dann bis zum
Kriegsende.’49 Krispyn on the other hand locates a lyric silence
between 1935 and 1945.50 This view seems to find encouragement in
Eich’s own testimony, where he contrasts an enforced ten-year
silence with renewed optimism in the immediate post-war situation:
‘Der dumpfe Druck ist vorbei. Nachdem ich zehn Jahre lang kaum
einen Vers geschrieben habe, ist es mir, als sei ich noch einmal acht-

47 Susanne Müller-Hanpft, Lyrik und Rezeption: Das Beispiel Günter Eich (Munich:
Hanser, 1972), p. 31.
48 Egbert Krispyn, Günter Eich (New York: Twayne, 1971), p. 41.
49 Müller-Hanpft, p. 20.
50 Krispyn, p. 40.

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zehn Jahre alt und voller Mut, Lust und Erwartung.’51 In the former
view Eich’s dissent is immediate. In the latter it emerges as part of a
more gradual dissenting dynamic, mirroring, by chance or intention,
the radicalisation in Nazi policies in the late 1930s.
Secondly, those texts which Eich did produce and which did
make their way into the public sphere during the Third Reich have
often been viewed as harmless and trivial, untouched by Nazi ideol-
ogy. Of these texts, broadcast through the National Socialist radio
apparatus, Müller-Hanpft writes: ‘Sie zeichneten sich durch extreme
Harmlosigkeit aus, beschäftigten sich mit den Tieren und Vögeln des
Waldes, mit den Jahreszeiten, wie die im Buch erhaltenen “Monats-
bilder des Königswusterhäuser Landboten” und waren, wie Eich
heute aussagt, reine Routinearbeiten ohne persönliches Engage-
ment.’52 Such a view has proved remarkably resilient, not least
because of Eich’s own claims that his radio plays ‘sind damals kaum
beachtet worden’.53 Kasack’s 1946 statement, for instance, ‘mir ist
weder in seinen Gedichten noch seinen Dramen und Hörspielen für
den Rundfunk irgendeine Zeile bekannt geworden, die politisch oder
gar nazistisch gewesen ist’, differs little from Wulf Segebrecht’s
assessment of the revised 1991 edition of Eich’s works, that not a
single line of Eich’s Third Reich output could be read ‘als Zu-
geständnis oder gar Einverständnis mit der damals herrschenden
Ideologie’.54 Within the terms of the present study any such texts can
be ascribed a passive Resistenz quality, having proved themselves
‘resistant’ to infection by Nazi ideology. Hence, in terms of both a

51 Letter to Kurt Georg Schauer, 26 June 1946, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen
Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 7.
52 Müller-Hanpft, p. 31.
53 Letter to H.G. Funke, 28 June 1961, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit
begegnet, p. 23.
54 Hermann Kasack, statement to Allied military authorities 30 August 1946,
quoted by Cuomo, p. 136; Wulf Segebrecht, ‘Kann man noch mehr sein als
Stein: Günter Eichs Gesammelte Werke in revidierter Ausgabe’, Frankfurter All-
gemeine Zeitung, 8 October 1991, pp. 21–22, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen
Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 23.

193
reduction in output and the production of harmless, apolitical texts,
conventional approaches to Eich’s literary output under National
Socialism suggest it is best characterised in terms of dissent, albeit
low-level and largely passive.

Or eager conformist?

In the last twenty years, however, the image of Eich as a dissenting

‘inner emigré’ has been piece-by-piece dismantled by the recognition
of the true nature of his output under National Socialism. In
particular, the first thesis, that Eich reduced his literary output as a
reaction to National Socialist rule, is refuted by all available empirical
evidence. If anything, as Cuomo points out, the opposite holds true:
‘In Eich’s case the fact of the matter remains that the onset of
Germany’s fascist regime coincided with the start of the most
lucrative phase thus far in his writing career, thanks to his involve-
ment with the production of texts for the National Socialist radio
system.’55 Vieregg too highlights the fact that ‘die Anfänge von Eichs
Rundfunkkarriere und die Anfänge des Dritten Reiches auf fatale
Weise zusammenfallen’.56 Not only was Eich’s productivity for the
radio system higher than previously estimated, but the decline in
Eich’s lyric output was also not nearly as great as had been thought.
In fact, Eich published both poetry and prose works in a number of
literary periodicals in the Third Reich, including Die literarische Welt,
Die neue Rundschau, Das innere Reich, Der weiße Rabe, Der Bücherwurm,
and Die Dame. Furthermore, Eich’s letters seem to confirm that any
decline in lyric output can be attributed to the demands of his radio
work rather than to any conscious dissent.57 The fact that Cuomo
estimates the number of broadcast radio texts written or co-written
by Eich at one hundred and sixty and that Vieregg identifies thirty-

55 Cuomo, p. 23.
56 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 18.
57 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 22.

194
three poems and eight prose texts published or broadcast between
1933 and 1945 ‘proves that contrary to many claims Eich was just as
active – if not more active – as an author during the Nazi era as he
was during the Weimar Republic or the postwar years’.58 In this
instance, Eich’s own post-war statement to Willi Fehse is more
reliable than most: ‘In den Aufsatz “Das heimliche Deutschland”
passe ich nicht recht herein. Ich habe dem Nationalsozialismus kei-
nen aktiven Widerstand entgegengesetzt.’59
Eich’s response to the Nazi takeover not only seems to betray an
absence of dissent, but it also appears to provide evidence of active
support for the new regime. Vieregg’s analysis of Eich’s correspon-
dence from the early years of the Third Reich reveals for the first
time just how active and enthusiastic his courting of the new regime’s
radio system was. In a series of letters to the former Kolonne editor,
and his soon-to-be radio co-writer, Martin Raschke, Eich writes of
the growing importance of the, in Vieregg’s words, ‘zum Haupt-
propagandainstrument gleichgeschalteten Deutschlandsender’.60 He
met there with Gerd Fricke and Ottoheinz Jahn, the Party officials
charged with putting Nazi radio programming guidelines into prac-
tice, and on 2 May 1933 in a letter to Raschke Eich recorded the
enthusiastic reception he had been given: ‘Der Deutschlandsender ist
von unheimlicher Liebenswürdigkeit. Herr Jahn empfing mich als
hätte er seit Monaten auf mich gewartet.’61 Eich was deliberately
seeking out Nazi activists within the radio system, and in this context
it is hardly surprising that both Vieregg and Cuomo draw a con-
nection to the actions of Gottfried Benn who had made his now
infamous radio broadcast, ‘Die neue Staat und die Intellektuellen’, in
which he appealed to German intellectuals to assist the National
Socialist revolution, just a few days earlier on 24 April 1933.62 A

58 Cuomo, p. 25.
59 Letter to Willi Fehse, 1 November 1947, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehl-
barkeit begegnet, p. 10.
60 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 19.
61 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 19.
62 See Cuomo, pp. 21–22 and Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, pp. 21–22.

195
variety of factors - the timing of Eich’s first visit to the Deutschland-
sender on the day following Benn’s broadcast; Eich’s own visit to
Benn in early 1933 to discuss the new political situation; Benn’s
presence as a referee on Eich’s application to join the Reichsverband
Deutscher Schriftsteller in July 1933; and, not least, Benn’s status as an
intellectual authority for Eich and the Kolonne Circle before 1933 -
render parallels between Benn’s active support for the new regime
and Eich’s own response to the Nazi seizure of power very alluring.
As Cuomo and Vieregg indicate, there seems to be no evidence to
confirm Neumann’s suggestion of a split in early 1933 between Eich
and Benn over the latter’s involvement with the Nazi regime.63
Indeed, given the existence in the Berlin Document Centre of an
NSDAP application card in the name of Günter Eich, dated 1 May
1933, the available evidence ‘suggest[s], on the contrary, that in some
ways Eich emulated Benn’s awkward accommodation to the Hitler
regime’.64
Thus, the bare facts of Eich’s publication record in the Third
Reich largely undermine an image of dissenting non-conformity. It
will remain to be seen what, if anything, of that dissenting reputation
can be saved, whether initial enthusiasm turned to disillusionment,
whether Eich pursued a trajectory of rising dissent. In the meantime,
the focus here is primarily on the nature of Eich’s initial assent to the
Nazi regime. In particular, how far did Eich’s position really emulate
that of Benn? While the facts of Eich’s literary output are not open
to doubt, the interpretation of the texts themselves, in terms of the
extent of their conformity to National Socialist ideology and the
extent to which they furthered the total claim of the regime, leaves
greater room for critical debate. Central here must be the monthly
radio serial co-written with Martin Raschke, ‘Deutscher Kalender:
Monatsbilder vom Königswusterhäuser Landboten’ (‘KWL’), which
ran from October 1933 to May 1940, and which provides for Cuomo

63 See Neumann, p. 38.

64 Cuomo, p. 20. The date and Eich’s membership number are crossed out and
the card stamped ‘Aufn[ahme] nicht ausg[eführt.] Sch[ei]n z[u]r[ü]ck’.

196
and Vieregg persuasive evidence of Eich’s conformity to the expect-
ations of Nazi cultural policy. If it can be shown that this output
provides evidence of assent to the National Socialist regime, then key
questions surround the manner in which this assent was coloured by
Eich’s intentions and motivations. Was Eich’s a passive assent,
politicised by the conditions of dictatorship? Or was it a more active
attempt to support or even collaborate with the new regime? In this
respect, it will be important to distinguish between continuities and
discontinuities with Eich’s pre-1933 poetological stance, as outlined
in the previous section, and to seek to account for the ideological
and/or pragmatic motivations behind any such discontinuities. A
final important area of analysis surrounds the extent to which Eich’s
assent might shed light on the mechanisms by which writers granted
assent to the National Socialist regime.

The country postman and the promotion of Nazi ideology

Gottfried Benn’s public expressions of support for the National

Socialist regime, broadcast on the radio and published in the press in
the spring of 1933, were largely unequivocal. His propagation of the
generic core myth of fascism, namely nationalist rebirth, and his
consistent participation in the National Socialist discourse of race can
be read relatively easily from his direct, unmediated voice:

Verstehen Sie doch endlich dort an Ihrem lateinsichen Meer, daß es sich bei
den Vorgängen in Deutschland gar nicht um politische Kniffe handelt, die
man in der bekannten dialektischen Manier verdrehen und zerreden könnte,
sondern es handelt sich um das Hervortreten eines neuen biologischen Typs,
die Geschichte mutiert und ein Volk will sich züchten.65

65 See Gottfried Benn, ‘Antwort an die literarischen Emigranten’, in Gottfried

Benn, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Gerhard Schuster, 6 vols (Stuttgart: Klett–Cotta,
1986–1991), IV: Prosa 2: 1933–1945 (1989), pp. 24–32 (p. 27).

197
The same does not hold true for Eich’s radio broadcasts. He made
no such direct, public statement of support on the radio, or else-
where. Indeed, Eich made no political or cultural-political statements
of any kind during the Third Reich. His cultural output between 1933
and 1945 was almost entirely restricted to mediated, literary texts.
Not only that, but these literary texts, at least up until 1937, did not
deal with any contemporary political issues. Instead, this output
tended towards the kind of apolitical and ahistorical material which
made up the ‘KWL’ serial. Identifying support for the regime in this
kind of literary text, conventionally dismissed as ‘harmlos-hübsch’,66
is clearly a more problematic task than establishing Benn’s position as
expressed in overtly political statements. In Eich’s case, an assenting
political function needs to be ascribed to what are superficially
apolitical texts. It must be shown that these texts make an active
contribution to furthering the ideological claim of the regime. First of
all, let us consider how Cuomo and Vieregg have succeeded in
ascribing just such an assenting function to the ‘KWL’ serial.
The first step in establishing the assenting political role of the
apparently harmless country scenes depicted in the ‘KWL’ serial is an
acknowledgement of the political function acquired by even the most
resolutely apolitical literary production under the conditions of
dictatorship. In the sense that the total claim of the Nazi regime
rendered all published, or in this case broadcast, material political, the
‘KWL’ serial assented to that claim, irrespective of the authors’
intentions. Cuomo goes one step further. He identifies for ‘harmless’
entertainment such as the ‘KWL’ an active supportive function
within the aims of Nazi radio policy.67 ‘Non-political’ entertainment
played an important role in the attempt to forge a Volksgemeinschaft,
drawing listeners from around Germany, and indeed beyond, into a
collective experience. This same entertainment served as bait in
encouraging the widespread dispersal of cheap radio sets and in

66 Heinz Schwitzke, Das Hörspiel: Dramaturgie und Geschichte (Cologne: Kiepen-

heuer, 1963), p. 182.
67 See Cuomo, pp. 54–58.

198
attracting listeners who could then be delivered more overtly
propagandistic programming. Wessels too stresses the fundamental
importance of entertainment within the propagandistic aims of the
Nazi radio industry.68 In all these senses, the contemporary reception
of the ‘KWL’ serial suggests that it served these purposes well. As
Cuomo suggests, the longevity of the serial, its special anniversary
celebrations, a separate publication, Das festliche Jahr, to mark the
serial’s third year, and even personal appearances by the country
postman and his dog all attest to a high degree of popularity: ‘As
quaint as the “KWL” was, it had great success on the Nazi radio
scene. The constant praise the series received from contemporary
observers proves the broadcasts were by no means merely “toler-
ated” as innocuous. On the contrary, the “KWL” was singled out as
the model radio program in the Third Reich.’69
This positive reception was by no means restricted to the
listening audience at large. There is considerable evidence to suggest
that its popularity extended to official Party sources and that such
popularity derived from some degree of ideological proximity to
National Socialism. On 23 February 1935, the official Party organ,
the Völkischer Beobachter, published an article praising the first
eighteen months of the serial for its representation of idyllic, rural
life. Vieregg makes clear how such a reception undermines con-
ventional accounts of Eich’s Third Reich radio output:

Ein ähnliches Lob erschien gleichzeitig in dem von Goebbels persönlich

herausgegebenen NSDAP-Hetzblatt Der Angriff. Der ‘Deutsche Kalender’
hatte also den im Sinne der Machthaber rechten Ton getroffen: Volks-
gemeinschaft, Idylle, Blut und Boden. Der Artikel belegt noch einmal, daß
zweierlei nicht zutrifft: daß Eichs Hörspiele ‘damals kaum beachtet’ wurden
und daß er mit keiner Zeile Zugeständnisse an die herrschende Ideologie
gemacht habe. ‘Bäuerliches Brauchtum’, die Bindung an den ‘bäurischen

68 See Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich: Zur Institutionen-, Theorie- und Literatur-
geschichte (Bonn: Bouvier, 1985), pp. 146–76.
69 Cuomo, p. 80, emphasis in the original. See Martin Raschke and Günter Eich,
Das festliche Jahr: Lesebüchlein vom Königswusterhäuder Landboten (Berlin: Stalling,
1936).

199
 Boden’, der Volkstumsgedanke und das Verlogene des idyllischen Giebel-
stübchens, das Technik- und Zivilisationsfeindlichkeit impliziert, sind die
immer wiederkehrenden Versatzstücke des ‘Königswusterhäuser Landboten’.
Sie verbinden sich in zahlreichen Sendungen mit anderen ebenfalls
vorgegebenen Ideologemen zu exemplarischen Illustrationen einer rückwärts-
gewandten ‘Deutschen Ideologie’, wie sie von den Nazis auf die Spitze
getrieben wurde.70

In a similar vein, Cuomo stresses the ideological affinities between

the country postman serial and statements made by Rosenberg and
Darré concerning the importance of promoting the agrarian and rural
sphere within the Third Reich:

All these various aspects of the Blut-und-Boden ideology are reflected in ex-
cerpts from the ‘KWL’. In their portrayal of country life, Eich and Raschke
give German peasants precisely that ‘respectable image’ which Rosenberg
promised would come in the Third Reich.

True to Darré’s ideal of Nazi agrarian culture, the ‘KWL’ scenes present
homogenously Germanic farm communities. Eich and Raschke’s figures exist
in a harmonious society where modern technology and industry have not yet
created a ‘disinherited class’ of proletarians. Since the majority of the ‘KWL’
scenes treat holiday celebrations and pleasant tavern gatherings after the day’s
work has been accomplished, the actual drudgery in the fields and a host of
related hardships that marked life in the pre-industrial age are not there to
cloud the joys of gaining one’s sustenance from the soil. In short, the
essential aspects of the Blut-und-Boden utopia are represented in the available
excerpts from the ‘KWL’.71

Cuomo is in no doubt as to where the ‘KWL’ texts stand in relation

to National Socialist cultural and social policies. He points to the
start-date of the serial, just three days after the newly instituted
Erntedankfest, and to the serial’s pre-occupation with pagan and folk
customs and rituals. He draws parallels to Grimm’s Volk ohne Raum,
explaining how Nazi propagandists drew on myths concerning the

70 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 31.

71 Cuomo, p. 81 and p. 83. Subsequent references, pp. 80–87.

200
German agrarian past to support militaristic and expansionist pol-
icies, and he ties the idyllic and anachronistic representation of the
countryside in ‘KWL’ to the kind of visual art promoted by the
authorities and exhibited in the Haus der deutschen Kunst as a counter-
point to Entartete Kunst. Finally, Cuomo refutes suggestions made by
Krispyn that ‘barbs hidden deep’ in ‘KWL’ constitute ‘a constant
element of subdued encouragement to hope patiently for better times
to come’, or in Richardson’s words, ‘passive resistance’.72 Instead,
passages from Das festliche Jahr, such as ‘Die Mithochzeiter’, with their
emphasis on ‘Ahnen’, ‘Sippen’, and ‘Sitten’, clearly betray a partici-
pation in and propagation of National Socialist discourse.73 In a
similar vein, Vieregg is able to analyse the fiftieth episode of the serial
as a secular völkisch parable, as ‘ein Musterstück nationalsozialistischer
Erbauungsliteratur’.74 These analyses, tied to the contemporary recep-
tion of the work, leave no doubt that the ‘KWL’ serial actively
furthered the aims and goals of the National Socialist regime.

Blut-und-Boden prose?

In this way, there seems to be little question that the ‘KWL’ serial
possessed an objective supportive effect vis-à-vis the Nazi regime.
However, important questions remain concerning the precise
relationship between the serial and Nazi cultural policies and Eich’s
role within it. One suggestion, immediately rebutted by Cuomo, is
that the more overtly pro-National Socialist elements in the ‘KWL’
serial are attributable to Raschke’s authorship alone.75 Cuomo’s
rebuttal hinges on two extant short stories written by Eich in the
mid-1930s – Katharina, originally published in Das innere Reich in 1935,

72 Krispyn, p. 37; Richardson, p. 47.

73 Raschke and Eich, Das festliche Jahr, pp. 63–64.
74 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 34.
75 Cuomo, p. 87.

201
and ‘Die Schattenschlacht’, published in Die Dame in 1936.76 Cuomo’s
analysis of Katharina is particularly worthy of note here, since this
analysis seeks to establish an identity between the central themes and
concerns of that text and those of the ‘KWL’ serial. Firstly Cuomo
draws attention to Mallmann’s presentation of the characteristic
features which the text shares with other prose texts published in Das
innere Reich: ‘Bezeichnend ist, daß das Leben in der Stadt, in der
Industrie oder in den intellektuellen Kreisen nirgends berücksichtigt
wird.’77 For Cuomo, in this failure to deal ‘with any relevant social,
intellectual, or political issues’ and absence of metropolitan or indus-
trial setting, Katharina ‘has features that are characteristic of Blut-und-
Boden literature’.78 Just like the country postman scenes, the
anachronistic description in Katharina of the rural village where the
narrator has come to spend time with his grandparents ‘contains
many of the of the Blut-und-Boden motifs that were prevalent else-
where in artworks promoted under the Hitler regime. [...] Eich’s
reader is thus transferred – just as the “KWL” listener was – to a
world far removed from the reality of the Third Reich’.
Katharina is particularly significant, since it is also prominent in
Axel Vieregg’s thesis concerning Eich’s retreat into a timeless, anti-
modern realm. Indeed, Vieregg quotes in his essay exactly the same
description of the rural village, identified as Eich’s grandparents’
home in Oettingen, as does Cuomo.79 For Vieregg, this is evidence of
a deep-seated attitude on Eich’s part which helps to explain the
affinities between the ‘KWL’ serial and Nazi cultural policies.
Katharina is one manifestation of the timeless, inward approach
perceptible in Die Kolonne, but Vieregg considers this approach to be
more than just a literary stance. Eich’s fundamental nature is seen to

76 See Günter Eich, Katharina, GW, 4, pp. 226–74, first published, Das innere
Reich: Literarische Monatsschrift, 2 (1935), 934–80; and Günter Eich, ‘Die
Schattenschlacht’, GW, 4, pp. 276–86, first published, Die Dame: Illustrierte
Modenzeitschrift, 63 (1936), 10 and 56–61.
77 Mallmann, p. 102.
78 Cuomo, p. 87. Subsequent reference, p. 88.
79 Vieregg, ‘Mein Raum und meine Zeit’, pp. 20–21.

202
carry with it a desire to turn inwards from rationality, technology and,
crucially, contemporary political events. This ‘philosophisch be-
gründete (und den “Deutschen Kalender” durchweg prägende)
Innerlichkeit, die ihm den Blick auf die ihn umgebende politische
und gesellschaftliche Realität verstellte’, this ‘Gleichgültigkeit, ja
Verantwortungslosigkeit gegenüber allem Gesellschaftlichen und
Politischen’, becomes for Vieregg a key factor in explaining Eich’s
susceptibility to conformity within the Third Reich, as does the now
familiar parallel to Gottfried Benn:

‘Einen Ausweg aus Rationalismus, Funktionalismus, zivilisatorischer Erstar-

rung’ habe er in der nationalsozialistischer Erhebung gesehen, bekannte Benn
später in Doppelleben. [...] Eich lag also mit seiner Ablehnung der Vernunft,
dem Wunsch nach einer Verschmelzung mit dem Ganzen im Tod, seinem
antizivilisatorischen Affekt und seiner, zumindest im ‘Deutschen Kalender’
bekundeten Vorliebe für eine hierarchisch strukturierte Volksgemeinschaft
gegenüber einer demokratischen Gesellschaft ‘voll im Trend’ der anti-
westlichen, anti-rationalistischen und anti-republikanischen Strömung im
Deutschland der dreißiger Jahre.80

What both these analyses of Katharina achieve is an identification of

Eich with the ideological position expressed in the ‘KWL’ serial.
Hence, the apparent ideological proximity between ‘KWL’ and Na-
tional Socialism ultimately becomes a proximity between Eich and
National Socialism. Further, the serial’s support for National Social-
ism becomes Eich’s support for National Socialism, so that through
his literary production Eich is seen to mirror in some sense Benn’s
public support for the regime.

80 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, pp. 38–39 and p. 42.

203
Literary continuities: Eich’s éducation sentimentale

As our analysis of Eich’s Kolonne output might suggest, this reading of

Katharina demands a degree of modification. In particular, Cuomo’s
application of the term Blut-und-Boden is somewhat suspect, in that he
seeks to apply it to any broadly positive, backward-looking depiction
of rural culture. In this way, the description of the narrator’s arrival in
Oettingen apparently ‘contains many [...] Blut-und-Boden motifs’,81 but,
while there can be no doubt that this is an anachronistic, idyllic even,
description, what it lacks is any reference, no matter how indirect, to
Nazi racial theory, any reference to Blut. The same holds true for the
remainder of the text which is pre-occupied not even with an idyllic
return to a pre-industrial mode of living, but rather with a painful,
intensely personal experience. In this respect, Katharina seems out of
place in the Blut-und-Boden tradition, at the core of aggressive,
chauvinistic Nazi ideology. Instead, the text fits much more comfort-
ably within Eich’s own poetological stance outlined in Die Kolonne.
Katharina observes a key feature of the Kolonne approach to literature
by, in Dolan’s words, ‘using the frame of reference of childhood
experience, an archetypal, ritualised event’ in order to avoid making
an historically engaged social comment.82 Indeed, in the child nar-
rator’s unrequited love for the older Katharina and in the negative
outcome of the story, Katharina seems to owe much to a text
reviewed by Eich in Die Kolonne in 1932, namely Flaubert’s Éducation
Sentimentale. Katharina must be seen less as an attempt to promote
themes compatible with National Socialism and more as an attempt
to emulate Flaubert’s representation of a powerful individual fate
grown out of the poet’s own experience, or according to Eich in that
review, ‘die Gestaltung und Deutung des großen und in seiner
Strenge beispielhaften Lebens ihres Schöpfers selbst’ (GW, 4, p. 562).
The continuing resonance of Flaubert’s text for Eich is
demonstrated by a book review of Stifter’s Witiko, published by Eich

81 Cuomo, p. 88.
82 Dolan, p. 164.

204
in the Neue Leipziger Zeitung in January 1935, at the time Eich was
composing Katharina. Eich’s chosen title for this review, ‘Erziehung
des Herzens’, matches his own preferred translation of the title of
Flaubert’s novel, and as Eich wrote of Stifter’s text so he could also
have written of his own semi-autobiographical text:

Wir haben heute keinen Mangel an wertvollen unterhaltenden Büchern und

auch nicht an solchen, die uns zu politisch brauchbaren Menschen erziehen
können. Hier aber ist eines, dessen wir bedürfen [...], eines, das die zeitlose
Erziehung des Herzens nicht vergißt.83

Katharina presents Eich’s own childhood ‘Erziehung des Herzens’,

and as such it has its genesis not in Nazi rule but in Eich’s own
literary pretensions and aspirations pre-dating 1933. In this sense,
Cuomo’s reading of Katharina is an over-politicised one. Certainly the
story’s contemporary popularity and its subsequent publication in a
war-time Feldpostausgabe indicate that it matched to some extent
National Socialist concerns and that it achieved an assenting effect.
But its roots in Eich’s pre-1933 poetological stance suggest strongly
that this assent is restricted to these politicised effects, rather than
being supplemented by an active supporting intention on the part of
the author.

The Kolonne consciousness: soil without blood

To a certain extent this must also be true of the ‘KWL’ serial. While
the Blut-und-Boden label can be more appropriately applied to the
country postman scenes than to Katharina, it would be misleading to
analyse the ‘KWL’ texts solely from this perspective. As with

83 Eich, ‘Erziehung des Herzens’, GW, 4, p. 566, emphasis in the original. See
also Eich, ‘Zu Flauberts Education Sentimentale’, GW, 4, p. 563: ‘Daß dieser
große Roman in Deutschland viel weniger bekannt ist als Madame Bovary, mag
zum Teil an den abschreckenden Titeln liegen, die man ihm im Deutschen
gegeben hat […]. Als gute Übertragung sei die […] genannt, die unter dem
Titel Die Erziehung des Herzens […] erschienen ist.’

205
Katharina, continuities with the apolitical Kolonne stance also emerge.
Wessels, for one, points out the importance of the shared 1930
Kolonne consciousness, as distinct from a Blut-und-Boden position, for
an analysis of the country postman scenes:

An ihnen läßt sich sehr genau jenes Krisenbewußtsein nachweisen, das

geprägt war von Zivilisationskritik und Sehnsucht nach unverfälschtem,
natürlichem und ganzheitlichem Leben. Sie verherrlichten eine harmonische,
idealisierte, bäuerliche Gesellschaft, die es zwar längst nicht mehr gab, die
aber dennoch oder gerade deswegen der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie
entgegenkam.84

Similarly, Schäfer ties the four-line rhyme which normally concluded

episodes of the serial - ‘Verachtet, liebe Freunde, nicht,/ Der Bauern
Herz und Hand!/ Er nährt, was euer Stolz auch spricht,/ euch und
das ganze Land’ - not to Nazi ideology, as do Cuomo and Vieregg,
but to the foreword to the first edition of Die Kolonne: ‘noch immer
leben wir von Acker und Meer, und die Himmel, sie reichen auch
über die Stadt.’85
Cuomo too shows an awareness of the continuities between
Eich’s Kolonne stance and that maintained in ‘KWL’, drawing parallels
to Eich’s 1930 poem ‘Verse an vielen Abenden’. In this instance,
Cuomo seems to maintain the kind of distance between Eich’s own
literary themes and concerns and those of the Blut-und-Boden move-
ment which is lacking elsewhere in his analysis:

The longing to return to the soil and to an uncomplicated life on the land has
a direct relationship to the central topos in Eich’s lyrics and radio plays:
mankind’s alienation from nature and the attempt to re-establish a ‘paradisiac’
unity with all existence. In his treatment of this topos, Eich builds upon a

84 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 450.

85 Die Kolonne, 1 (1929–1930), 1. See Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnational-
sozialistische Literatur der jungen Generation im Dritten Reich’, in Schäfer,
Das gespaltene Bewußtsein, pp. 7–54 (p. 40); Cuomo, pp. 81–82; Vieregg, Der
eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 27.

206
 tradition which goes back to German Romanticism and earlier, and out of
which the Blut-und-Boden movement also originated.86

Just as it was necessary in the previous section to maintain a careful

distinction between a conservative political stance and Kolonne’s
‘conservatism’, despite common origins, so it is necessary here to
maintain a distinction between the National Socialist Blut-und-Boden
aesthetic and Kolonne’s own conservative aesthetic, even though both
trends gained common impetus from the prevailing mood of crisis
around 1930. The fundamental difference between Eich’s Kolonne
nature aesthetic and that developed in ‘KWL’ is not so much an
intrinsic one, as one which relates to their external political context.
After 1933 the National Socialist regime was making a ‘total’ cultural
claim which swept up this type of anti-modern aesthetic and politi-
cised it into assent to its own cultural policies. In this respect, Eich’s
assent in ‘KWL’ stems in large part from a National Socialist
appropriation of non-political, non-Nazi literary concerns, and not
from a deliberate conformity on Eich’s part with National Socialism.
This same analysis can be applied to the range of literary
adaptations which Eich undertook during the Third Reich. While
Cuomo is right to be wary of attributing profound motives to what
may well have been pragmatically determined choices, some of the
source material for Eich’s literary adaptations can be shown to
complement his own literary and aesthetic tastes as expressed in his
literary reviews for Die Kolonne.87 Here, Cuomo himself acknowledges
the affinities between Eich’s own literary stance and the themes
prominent in Eichendorff’s Die Glücksritter which Eich adapted for
both the stage and radio. Similarly, one of Eich’s most successful
radio adaptations, ‘Lustiges Lumpenpack’, based on Hebel’s Schatz-
kästlein, complements the tradition pursued by Eich in Die Kolonne,
while critics have noted in Katharina echoes of both Eichendorff and
Keller.88 Here, the Nazi appropriation of this same literary tradition is

86 Cuomo, p. 88.
87 See Cuomo, p. 68–70.
88 See respectively Storck, Günter Eich, p. 24 and Cuomo, pp. 87–88.

207
liable to heighten the degree of perceived assent expressed in Eich’s
literary production. In Cuomo’s words: ‘When Eich’s sources in
German literature are examined from the perspective of National
Socialist cultural politics, his selections appear to have been anything
but arbitrary. He adapted works by authors who were not merely
tolerated due to their lack of political relevance, but actively exploited
by proponents of ethnic/racial chauvinism.’89 Contemporary recep-
tion of Eich’s ‘Lustiges Lumpenpack’ - as ‘ein wahrhaft ideales
Werk’, ‘einen absoluten Höhepunkt’ - attests to its assenting effect
within the norms of Nazi cultural policy.90 However, in terms of
Eich’s intentions in selecting this material, there is a significant
distinction to be maintained between the appropriation by National
Socialism of Eich’s own literary traditions, on the one hand, and any
appropriation by Eich of the emerging Nazi ‘tradition’, on the other.

Discontinuities: populism and the radio

At the same time, significant areas do exist where Eich’s Third Reich
radio output, exemplified by the ‘KWL’ serial and his literary
adaptations, demonstrates substantial points of divergence from his
pre-1933 Kolonne stance. As we were able to establish in the previous
section, the Kolonne poetological stance was an elitist one, founded on
the notion of the poet-genius. As Dolan suggests, the Kolonne poets
believed ‘that poetry is a matter only for the select few and that the
genius [...] is not doing his job if he strives for popular success’.91
Similarly, Eich had himself argued in his Becher review for poetry to
be left to those ‘für die es kein Wollen ist’ (GW, 4, p. 552). Such a
view seems difficult to reconcile both with the demands of the
popular, mass-market radio industry in general, and with the particu-
lar expectations of Nazi radio policy outlined by Cuomo below:

89 Cuomo, p. 67.
90 ‘Lustiges Lumpenpack’, Die Sendung, 10 (1933), 1139, quoted by Cuomo, p.
67.
91 Dolan, p. 163.

208
 When it came to broadcast material of a less universal appeal than music,
such as the radio play, writers were expected to cater to the tastes of the
largest listener group, the unsophisticated masses, for whom the radio played
a prominent role in leisure-time activities. That is, the new trend was
characterized by anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism. Plebeian entertainment
and popular ‘enlightenment’ were given priority over the more cultured
interests of the middle and upper classes.92

Difficult to reconcile too is the actual nature of many of Eich’s

broadcasts. As Cuomo writes of Eich’s radio output: ‘The most
striking feature is the banality of these broadcasts, which is not
restricted to the children’s radio plays, where it would be expected.’
In the ‘KWL’ serial and many of Eich’s adaptations, he was clearly
willing to sacrifice the literary principles so resolutely maintained in
Die Kolonne. In terms of Eich’s Third Reich output, it is this stark
discontinuity, and not the areas of philosophical continuity em-
phasised by Cuomo and Vieregg, which is perhaps of greatest
significance. In this respect, it is no longer possible to talk of a
coincidence between Eich’s pre-existing literary concerns and Nazi
cultural policy, nor of an appropriation by National Socialism of the
Kolonne stance. Instead, Eich can be seen to be actively adjusting his
output in an apparent attempt to meet the requirements of Nazi
cultural policy.
One further area of divergence with Eich’s pre-1933 literary
position is in the broadcast medium of the ‘KWL’ serial and the
majority of his other Third Reich output. The functionalist, prag-
matic view of literary production implied by Eich’s own discussion of
the difficulty of finding a form for Hebel’s Schatzkästlein which is
‘funkgemäß’ (GW, 4, p. 463) illustrates a considerable divergence
from the standpoint of the anti-modern Kolonne aesthete who
resolutely defended his right to write timeless lyric poetry. It is in this
respect, in the simple fact of its broadcast on the radio, that the
‘KWL’ serial differs strongly from Katharina and that analysis of the
serial proposed by both Cuomo and Vieregg is liable to further

92 Cuomo, p. 55. Subsequent reference, p. 45.

209
modification. In identifying the ‘KWL’ serial so closely with Nazi
ideology, Cuomo and Vieregg present a somewhat unreflected view
of that same ideology. Certainly, the idyllic, anachronistic represen-
tation of German agrarian culture complemented one part of
National Socialist ideology, and this kind of rhetoric was a significant
aspect of Nazi cultural policy. However, in concentrating on Rosen-
berg and Darré and on ‘einer rückwärtsgewandten “Deutschen
Ideologie”, wie sie von den Nazis auf die Spitze getrieben wurde’,93
both Cuomo and Vieregg fail to take into account the important
technocratic elements within the Nazi hierarchy of values and the
extent to which the core of Nazi ideology constituted not a simple
backward-looking, zivilisationskritisch yearning, but a fusion of both
Zivilisation and Kultur, of a mythic Germanic past with a modern
technological future. If the ‘KWL’ scenes are exemplary illustrations
of Nazi ideology, then it is not in the folksy nature idyll alone.
Rather, it is in the way the backward-looking elements of the
Rosenberg faction of the Party are fused with the technocratic
impulses embodied by a figure like Goebbels, in the way the anti-
modern rhetoric is employed on the most modern of media, to
further the development and reach of the Nazi radio project. Here,
Eich’s radio work, and in particular the ‘KWL’ serial, coheres with
the core of National Socialist ideology in a manner that has not been
appreciated to date. It is this active divergence from Eich’s Kolonne
stance, together with the very public, long-lived, and widespread
effect of the broadcasts, which grants these texts an assenting
function significantly greater than Katharina. In this case, Eich’s texts
betray active support, rather than politicised assent.

93 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 31.

210
Pragmatic or ideological motivations?

At this point we must return to the question of whether this active

literary support, as with Eich’s application to join the Party, was
primarily ideologically or pragmatically motivated. In any analysis of
literary production in the Third Reich, it is difficult to escape the
powerful politicising effect of the events of 30 January 1933. In
particular, it is difficult not to view discontinuities in output around
this date within the context of Hitler’s seizure of power, and this
holds true for the discontinuities in Eich’s literary production which
seem to hinge on this pivotal political date. There is no doubt that
the most productive phase in Eich’s writing career coincided with the
Nazi seizure of power in January 1933 and that, as Vieregg points
out, his output for the radio between February and December 1933
far exceeded that for the years 1930, 1931, and 1932 put together.94
And yet, as we have already seen, there are also significant con-
tinuities in Eich’s output which run across and beyond that moment
of political change. In this context, it is important not to allow the
shadow cast by Hitler’s seizure of power to obscure the origins of
that rapid rise in productivity in the final months of the Weimar
Republic. Eich had taken the decision to earn his living as a
professional writer in 1932.95 Indeed, his correspondence now
confirms that, even before 1933, he intended to exploit the
opportunities provided by the radio industry, so that by December of
that year he was confident enough to write to the Kuhnerts as
follows: ‘Wenn alles klappt, saniert mich die Funkstunde für das
ganze Jahr 33.’96 It is not clear how much of this work survived the
political upheaval of early 1933, but the demonstrable continuity with
his Kolonne work exhibited by Eich’s early texts for the Nazi radio
system suggest that much of this early output had been arranged
before the National Socialists came to power. February 1933, for

94 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 18.

95 Letter to Erhard Göpel, 26 March 1932, quoted by Storck, Günter Eich, p. 19.
96 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 18.

211
instance, saw Eich reading from his own prose fragments, previously
published in Die Kolonne, as well as the rebroadcast of his first radio-
play, ‘Das Leben und Sterben des großen Sängers Enrico Caruso’,
co-written with Raschke in 1929 and first broadcast as early as
1931.97
This is not to say that the political events of January 1933 had no
bearing on Eich’s literary output. As we have seen, his cor-
respondence with Raschke during April 1933 makes it clear that Eich
went out of his way to approach Party officials in the new radio
system. However, what emerges from this correspondence is not an
ideological imperative to help further the National Socialist revo-
lution, but a professional imperative to secure his burgeoning career.
As he wrote to Raschke: ‘Im Augenblick ist es wohl das Sicherste,
mit Hoffmann zu arbeiten, der fest im Sattel sitzt.’98 In fact, as
Vieregg’s research reveals, the most significant event for Eich in
January 1933 was arguably not the Nazi seizure of power, but his
own decision to purchase a plot of land in Poberow on credit. This
debt heightened the pragmatic imperative to overcome any threat
posed by political change and to find a regular source of work. The
link between the house he had built on that land and his radio writing
in the Third Reich, the financial dependence which motivated that
writing, and the first signs of privately expressed dissent all emerge in
a letter of 25 November 1933 to Artur Kuhnert: ‘Den “Königs-
wusterhäuser Landboten” mache ich übrigens mit Martin. […] Ich
habe es so satt und will für mich arbeiten. O diese verfluchte Villa an
der Ostsee!’99 Of course, the political upheaval of 1933 did not only
pose a threat to the radio career he had already started to build. The
exclusion of many Left-wing and Jewish writers also provided an
opportunity for Eich. A letter to Raschke, dated 26 April 1933,
suggests that Eich was enthusiastically seizing that opportunity, and
not only to cover existing financial liabilities: ‘Wenn all die Aus-

97 See GW, 2, pp. 780–85.

98 Letter, Günter Eich to Martin Raschke, 24 April 1933, quoted by Vieregg, Der
eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 19 and p. 20.
99 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 24.

212
sichten, die ich jetzt habe, sich realisieren, kaufe ich mir im Sommer
einen Mercedes.’100 To a large extent the coincidence of the Nazi
Machtergreifung and Eich’s success as a radio author was just that, a
coincidence. He had already made the decision to embrace the radio
as a source of income, and in all likelihood had already conceded the
necessity of adjusting his output accordingly. In this sense, the post-
1933 discontinuities with his Kolonne output owe as much to personal
and professional circumstances as they do to political events.
The same pragmatic motivation seems to apply to Eich’s abort-
ive application to join the NSDAP. In Eich’s extant writings, there
exists no private expression of enthusiasm for Hitler’s seizure of
power, no sense that Eich shared an optimism for cultural rebirth, let
alone a public expression of support in the mould of Benn. Indeed,
Eich’s scarce private references to the Nazi Party and to Hitler are
characterised by a matter-of-fact, detached, sceptical and, ultimately,
ironic tone. Two letters to the Kuhnerts, written a year apart on 2
May 1933 and 1 May 1934 respectively, illustrate the point: ‘Sonst
nichts Neues, außer daß ich in die NSDAP eingetreten bin. Heil
Hitler! Günter’; ‘Eigentlich sollte ich nun heute mit dem RDS
marschieren. Tja… Heil Hitler und viele Grüße.’101 There is simply
no contextual evidence pre- or post-1933 to suggest that Eich’s
motivations for joining the Nazi party were ideological and political
in nature. Equally, there is no evidence to indicate that the sub-
sequent halting of that application in November 1933 may have
arisen, as Vieregg at least suggests, as an intentional act of dissent in
protest at Nazi book-burnings and the prohibition of the volume
which contained his first publications, Anthologie jüngster Lyrik. More
likely is either that Eich’s application fell victim to the Party’s own
block on new applicants in the autumn of 1933 or that Eich himself
had realised that joining the Party would not after all be necessary to
secure his career.102 In any case, significant here is not the fact that

100 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 19.

101 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 15. Subsequent reference, p. 17.
102 See Cuomo, p. 22.

213
the application was terminated, and that Eich’s defenders can with
no little relief place him officially in the binary category ‘non-Nazi’,
but rather the fact that Eich made the application in the first place,
that he seems to have been prepared to actively support the Nazi
regime if it was necessary to advance his career.

Mechanisms of assent

A considerable weight of evidence then points to Eich’s active assent

to the Nazi regime being motivated by pragmatic opportunism rather
than ideological conviction. The final aspect of this assent which
warrants investigation is the extent to which it can illustrate the
mechanisms of National Socialist cultural policy which operated on
writers and the mechanisms by which these writers assented. Some of
the harmony between Eich’s radio texts and the norms of Nazi
cultural policy can be attributed to continuities in Eich’s literary
development. However, where we are dealing with active discontinu-
ities and the deliberate adjustment of output to match those norms,
the question remains as to the extent to which these originated from
Eich himself and the extent to which direct interventions from the
Nazi officials are responsible. For Vieregg, there is little doubt that
Eich’s output was guided from above. He points, for instance, to
evidence in Eich’s correspondence from 1935 which demonstrates
‘wie sehr Eich und Raschke nach den Direktiven der Rundfunk-
verantwortlichen zu arbeiten hatten’.103 In particular, Vieregg sees
figures such as Helmut Hansen prescribing the content of the ‘KWL’
scenes. This view complements Cuomo’s original assumption that
Hansen, a long-time Party and SA member, ‘saw to it that the
broadcasts adhered to party principles’.104 Vieregg cites the following
letter from Eich to Raschke, dated 17 April 1939:

103 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 26.

104 Cuomo, p. 80.

214
 also: Der Landbote soll im Mai einer KdF Wandertruppe begegnen. Da an
der Besprechung auch zwei Herren vom Amt für Reisen, Wandern und
Urlaub teilnehmen, vermute ich, daß es sich um einen Wunsch von höherer
Stelle handelt. Folgende Hinweise wurden mir gegeben: [...]
Folgende Punkte wären besonders zu berücksichtigen: 1. Der Gegensatz
Stadt-Land soll durch die KdF-Wanderungen gemildert werden. 2. Dis-
zipliniertes Wandern im Gegensatz zum ‘Horden-Wandervogel’. 3. Gemein-
schaftsbildende Kraft der KdF-Wanderbewegung. 4. Vielseitigkeit des Wanderns
und des KdF-Wanderwartes: Heimatkunde, Naturkunde, Geschichte, Kunst,
Brauchtum usw. usw.105

In this passage, Vieregg sees clearly illustrated the mechanisms by

which Eich’s contributions to the ‘KWL’ serial were determined. He
draws an explicit connection between production on the ground and
the ideological pronouncements of figures such as Goebbels: ‘Ganz
deutlich werden Einflußnahme und detaillierte Vorgaben der Partei –
speziell auch im Sinne des Goebbels-Zitats.’106

Rebellion in der Goldstadt

It is in this context that Eich’s most notorious act of potential assent,

the war-time radio play Rebellion in der Goldstadt, is of particular
interest.107 First broadcast on 8 May 1940, the play’s significance is
unquestioned in Vieregg’s eyes: ‘Die Umstände des Zustande-
kommens und der Inhalt von der Rebellion in der Goldstadt lassen
keinen Zweifel mehr daran, daß Eich sich als Teil der NS-

105 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, pp. 28–29.

106 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, pp. 27–28. Vieregg refers here to
Goebbels’s presentation of his aims for the Nazi radio system made on 23
March 1933: ‘Damit ist der Rundfunk wirklicher Diener am Volk, ein Mittel
zum Zweck, und zwar einem sehr hohen und idealen Zweck, ein Mittel zur
Vereinheitlichung des deutschen Volkes in Nord und West, in Süd und Ost,
zwischen Katholikern und Protestanten, zwischen Proletariern und Bürgern
und Bauern’, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 26.
107 Günter Eich, Rebellion in der Goldstadt: Tonkassette, Text und Materialien, ed. by
Karl Karst (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997).

215
Propagandamaschinerie sah und daß er als solcher von offizieller
Seite sehr geschätzt wurde.’108 Since its remarkable discovery in 1993,
however, critical interpretations of Eich’s final Third Reich radio play
have, to say the least, differed widely. For some critics, most notably
Karl Karst, editor both of the radio plays in the revised Eich edition
and the subsequent published transcription of Rebellion in der Gold-
stadt, three principal factors temper its assenting function.109 Firstly,
the pragmatic motivations behind Eich’s writing of the play, both as
a necessary source of income and as a temporary escape route from
military service, weaken the intentional element of the play’s assent.
Secondly, the ordering of scenes and Eich’s return to the army
almost three weeks before the play’s broadcast suggest that the most
propagandistic elements of the work, specifically scene 1a, were
added after Eich’s involvement had ended:

Die Veränderung des Hörspiels erfolgte nach Fertigstellung der Produktion

und damit zu einem Zeitpunkt, an dem Günter Eich aller Wahrscheinlichkeit
nach wieder unter Aufsicht der Wehrmacht stand. Das Hörspiel Rebellion in
der Goldstadt ist demnach nicht in jener Form gesendet worden, in der Eich es
ursprünglich geschrieben hat. 110

Finally, the entire nature of the play is seen to be altered by the

bracketing out of this supplementary scene: ‘ohne diesen Zusatz hat
Eichs Stück eine verhalten sozialkritische, antikapitalistische, aber
nicht unbedingt antibritische Stoßrichtung.’111 This element of social
criticism, reminiscent of Eich’s dissenting radio plays from 1936 and

108 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 53.

109 See Karl Karst, ‘Einführung’, in Eich, Rebellion in der Goldstadt, pp. 7–12. For a
considered response to such arguments, see Justus Fetscher, ‘Das Empire
bläst zum Angriff Saxophon: Text und Kontext von Günter Eichs Rebellion
in der Goldstadt’, Weimarer Beiträge, 45 (1999), 584–97.
110 Karl Karst, introductory essay to Rebellion in der Goldstadt, Norddeutsche
Rundkunk, quoted by Wolfram Wessels, ‘Zum Beispiel Günter Eich: Von der
schuldlosen Schuld der Literatur’, in Vieregg (ed.), pp. 137–54 (pp. 139–40).
111 Christof Siemes, ‘Ein kleiner Stachel: Nach 53 Jahren ist ein Hörspiel Günter
Eichs wieder aufgetaucht’, in Vieregg (ed.), pp. 109–11 (p. 110).

216
1937, can then be tied to Eich’s own statement, made in correspond-
ence with Artur Kuhnert, that the play deals with themes which ‘ich
mit entsetzt gerungenen Händen ablehnte, wär ich Propaganda-
ministerium’.112 As such, the assenting function of Rebellion in der
Goldstadt is not only seen to be weakened, but is reversed, so that
remarkably the play acquires ‘generell subversive Züge’: ‘Selbst eine
Auftragsarbeit wie die Rebellion in der Goldstadt kann die Forderungen
der Geldgeber und die (Vor-) Urteile der Interpreten unterlaufen.’113
Given the existence of entirely opposing assessments of the text,
that it embodied, for instance, ‘die antidemokratische und rassistische
Hetze der Nazis in Hörspielform’,114 Rebellion in der Goldstadt clearly
illustrates the difficulties presented by what remains an essentially
subjective exercise of textual interpretation, particularly where a text
is employed as a retrospective justification of pre-formed, polarised
positions. Certainly the issues of race, imperial capitalism, and
workers’ protest which surround the 1922 miners’ uprising in South
Africa do not necessarily allow themselves to be brought into simple
conformity with Nazi ideology and policy, and it is this which in part
makes such opposing interpretations of Eich’s treatment of this
material conceivable. However, there exists no means of determining
the authorship of individual scenes. By contrast, if we return to the
first principles of assent and dissent, what is rather less ambiguous is
the objectively identifiable function of the play in terms of its
contemporary reception and the context in which it was broadcast.
Both Wessels and Fetscher tellingly outline the organised campaign
of anti-English material within which Rebellion in der Goldstadt was
broadcast.115 Similarly, preview and review articles of this play carry

112 Letter to Artur Kuhnert, 13 March 1940, quoted by Karl Karst, ‘“Honoraris
causa”: Materialien zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Hörspiels Rebellion in der
Goldstadt’, in Eich, Rebellion in der Goldstadt, pp. 51–79 (p. 60).
113 Siemes, p. 109 and p. 111.
114 Frank Olbert, ‘Strammstehen für Goebbels, Geld und Urlaub: Mit Gustav
Knuth gegen England - Günter Eichs wiederentdecktes rassistisches Hör-
spiel Rebellion in der Goldstadt’, in Vieregg (ed.), pp. 117–19 (p. 117).
115 See Wessels, ‘Zum Beispiel Günter Eich’, p. 145 and Fetscher, pp. 588–90.

217
none of the equivocation implied in Eich’s own comment to
Kuhnert nor that which was applied to his 1936 radio plays,
‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in der Prärie’. These contemporary
review articles make clear both the function ascribed to Rebellion in der
Goldstadt and Eich’s own status within the propaganda machinery:

In jedem Fall hat Eich nicht nur die politischen Hintergründe klar und
eindringlich gezeichnet, sondern er verband sie mit Menschen von Fleisch
und Blut, deren Erlebnisse der Hörer mitempfindet.116

Welche furchtbaren Methoden britische Plutokraten anwendeten, um aus den

südafrikanischen Goldminen höhere Erträge zu pressen, das schildert Günter
Eich in seinem groß angelegten Hörspiel, das der Deutschlandsender am
Mittwoch, dem 8. Mai, um 21 Uhr sendet.117

Die Reihe zeitbezogener Hörspiele, die wir im Laufe der letzten Zeit hören,
wird durch Eichs neues Werk wesentlich bereichert.118

Even if these reviews are distortions of Eich’s text, that can do

nothing to negate their significance as markers of the play’s
contemporary reception. Indeed, given the transitory nature of the
listening experience, it is this strongly supportive effect, rather than
any textual ambivalences, which are likely to have remained with
listeners. This strongly supportive, even collaborative, effect can only
be mildly weakened by the intentional background behind the text.
Eich’s correspondence makes clear that his motivations were mun-
danely pragmatic, and so there can be no question of generalised,
ideological collaboration. Nonetheless, Rebellion in der Goldstadt clearly
indicates that Eich, like many of his contemporaries, was drawn into

116 ‘Rebellion in der Goldstadt’, Nationalsozialistische Rundfunk-Korrespondenz, 24 April

1940, 8–9, quoted by Karst, ‘Honororis causa’, p. 67.
117 ‘Was die Sende-Woche bringt: Rebellion in der Goldstadt Mittwoch, 8. Mai, 21
Uhr, Deutschlandsender’, Berlin hört und sieht, 8 May 1940, quoted by Karst,
‘Honororis causa’, p. 66.
118 ‘Rebellion in der Goldstadt’, Nationalsozialistische Rundfunk-Korrespondenz, 24 April
1940, 8–9, quoted by Cuomo, p. 77.

218
active, if pragmatic, assent within an institutional, directly steered
programme of propaganda.
In this respect, the original verdicts of Cuomo, Wessels, and
Vieregg as to the assenting nature of Rebellion in der Goldstadt, made
only on the basis of contextual evidence, require little revision.
Further, once divorced from the often fruitless debates about the text
itself, these analyses can be seen to shed additional light on the
mechanisms of Eich’s literary assent. Cuomo, for instance, pieces
together the circumstances of the play’s composition and broadcast,
tying it to a two-day conference of radio authors held in Berlin in
January 1940.119 Here, ‘the direct solicitation of anti-English themes’
was initiated ‘as part of Goebbels’ move to employ the radio play in
the war effort’. Hence, ‘there is no longer any question that Eich’s
Rebellion in der Goldstadt had been conceived for the 1940 propaganda
campaign’. Similarly, drawing on the contemporary reception of the
play Wessels stresses its ‘eindeutige antienglische Tendenz’: ‘Mit
Sicherheit muß [Rebellion in der Goldstadt] auch im Zusammenhang mit
der antienglischen Propaganda-Kampagne von 1940 gesehen werden.
Daß es sich dabei um eine Auftragsproduktion handelte, ist nicht
auszuschließen.’120 The circumstances of the play’s composition
within the context of this campaign are further illuminated by Eich’s
correspondence with Kuhnert, first presented by Vieregg. In a letter
of 13 March 1940, Eich refers explicitly to the list of suitable material
drawn up at the Berlin conference and reports on his failed attempts
to have broadcast treatments of material relating to Lord Nelson and
Lady Hamilton.121 Instead, and in return for much-needed leave from
the army organised by Gerd Fricke, Eich opted to work on the 1922
miners’ uprising in South Africa. In Vieregg’s words: ‘Es ist Eichs
Beitrag zu der von Goebbels auf der am 22./23. Januar 1940 im
Berliner Funkhaus abgehaltenen Konferenz von den Rundfunk-
autoren geforderten Anti-England-Kampagne, Eichs letztes Hörspiel

119 Cuomo, p. 75. Subsequent references, p. 75.

120 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 448.
121 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 51. Subsequent reference, p. 51.

219
unter Hitler, die Rebellion in der Goldstadt.’ As such, Rebellion in der
Goldstadt provides the clearest manifestation of the kind of direct,
intentionalist mechanism of assent also visible in sections of the
‘KWL’ serial.

Working towards the Führer: ‘Die Schattenschlacht’

If this provides substantial evidence to support an interventionist

view of Eich’s literary assent, danger exists in employing such an
analysis as the sole mechanism of assent, particularly in the early
stages of Nazi rule before any immediate pre-war and war-time
radicalisation of policy. Such a view tends to offer an unreflected
‘totalitarian’ view of the structures of Nazi cultural policy: Nazi
officials exercised total control over radio production; Eich produced
texts for the Nazi radio system; therefore Eich’s texts must have
been subject to direct control from above. Such a view is at least
implicit in Cuomo’s presentation of radio policy, where he stresses
Goebbels’s ‘complete authority over the radio system’ already at a
very early stage in 1933, claiming that Goebbels ‘demanded ideo-
logical homogeneity within the rank and file of all persons working
for the industry’.122 In both Vieregg’s and Cuomo’s analyses, their
insistence on citing statements by high-ranking cultural officials such
as Goebbels and Rosenberg, and Eich’s conformity to them, risks
establishing an overly simplistic intentionalist mechanism for Eich’s
assent, not least because it fails to take account of the significant
factional dispute between these two senior cultural-political figures.
As the present study has sought to demonstrate, such a model does
not match the realities of Nazi cultural policy, and, as Wessels’s
account suggests, radio policy seems to have been no different to
other areas of the Nazi regime in conforming to a charismatic model
of totalitarian rule, where policy objectives failed to be efficiently
transmitted from above:

122 Cuomo, p. 48.

220
 Zu bedenken ist, daß die ‘Richtlinien’ […] sich keineswegs immer in Form
von Erlassen, Verordnungen o.ä. ausdrückten, vielmehr mußten die Rund-
funkmitarbeiter vom Reichsendeleiter bis zum Intendanten ein großes
Geschick beweisen, um aus den Reden und Äußerungen des Propaganda-
ministers seine jeweiligen Absichten zu entnehmen. […] Es scheint aber
ebenso einleuchtend, daß es unmöglich war, alle Sendungen gleichermaßen
auf die Einhaltung dieser ‘Richtlinien’ zu überwachen. Also kann an-
genommen werden, daß den Sendern durchaus weniger kontrollierte
‘Freiräume’ blieben.123

Apolitical spaces within the radio system need not necessarily be seen
as a deliberately propagated element of radio policy ‘which reflected
the National Socialists’ cunning as propagandists’.124 Instead, they can
also be seen to derive from lapses in ‘total’ control. As such, these
spaces and the absence of specific output guidelines on the ground
have profound implications for Eich’s Third Reich radio output. On
the one hand, they leave open the possibility of dissent and this is an
area which will be tackled in the following section. On the other, they
suggest that assent was not always carefully orchestrated from above
and that it may well have originated in part from the writer’s own
initiative.
That we need to look beyond a simple intentionalist and inter-
ventionist model of assent is supported by another of Eich’s prose
texts from the mid-1930s, namely ‘Die Schattenschlacht’ (GW, 4, pp.
276–86). For Cuomo, writing before the discovery of the recording
of Rebellion in der Goldstadt, this is the most extreme extant example of
Eich’s conformity to Nazi ideology. However, it comes not in a radio
broadcast but in a short story written for a Berlin women’s magazine,
Die Dame. Cuomo’s analysis of the text is unequivocal:

Eich achieves a unique synthesis of his nature symbolism and Prussian

chauvinism. [...] Eich describes what amounts to a mystical revelation with a
nationalistic fervor that is not found in any other of his extant works. Indeed

123 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 132.

124 Cuomo, p. 56.

221
 the use of archaic forms [..] and the chorus crescendo evoke a pathos
reminiscent of National Socialist choral pieces and SA poetry.125

While Cuomo might again be said to be a little heavy-handed in his

reading of the text, which lacks the immediate violence and primacy
of biological determinism at the heart of National Socialist ideology
and discourse, there can be no doubt that the text possesses an edge
absent from much of the ‘KWL’ serial and entirely absent from
Katharina. Cuomo rightly identifies both ‘the irrational appeal and
nationalistic thrust’, as well as ‘the necessary didactic function’,
expected by Nazi cultural policy.
Cuomo draws significant conclusions from both the text’s
existence and its publication in Die Dame:

To say the least, ‘Die Schattenschlacht’ has important ramifications for the
study of Eich’s prewar writing. If Eich wrote like this for Die Dame, a journal
which managed to stay relatively aloof from Nazism, what were his
broadcasts like for the Berlin and Deutschlandsender stations, which were part
of a radio system with the declared programming principle to promote the
ruling ideology? Eich’s nonextant historical broadcasts might very well have
been blatant examples of his conformity to party doctrine. Moreover, the
passages from ‘Die Schattenschlacht’ [...] lend strong support to the thesis
that there were affinities between Eich’s personal philosophy and aspects of
National Socialist ideology. If his theme of nature alienation could coalesce
with obvious tenets of the Blut-und-Boden cult in this short story, it probably
did so elsewhere too.126

Publication of the text in Die Dame rules out any possibility of direct
steering by National Socialist officials, and for Cuomo this leads to
the speculative assumption that other non-extant texts written for the
Nazi radio system – for Cuomo ‘probably the most tightly controlled
medium of artistic expression under the Hitler regime’ and therefore
subject to this direct intervention – may well have lent even more
explicit support to Nazi ideology. While this may be true, if entirely

125 Cuomo, pp. 72–73. Subsequent reference, p. 74.

126 Cuomo, p. 74. Subsequent reference, p. 47.

222
unverifiable, a more pressing question in the context of the current
study is how this text, outside the direct mechanisms of Nazi control,
came to express its assent with the norms of Nazi cultural policy.
The first possibility, and the one proposed by Cuomo, is that the
text’s affinities with National Socialist cultural policies stem from
genuine affinities between Eich’s own philosophical beliefs and Nazi
ideology, or at least the particular backward-looking strands of that
ideology. Certainly, Eich’s broadly conservative, anti-modern phil-
osophy may be a starting-point for the text’s conformity, but, given
the absence of nationalistic, political elements elsewhere in Eich’s
work, this seems to be at best only a partial explanation. What is
needed in this instance, in the absence of the interventionist mech-
anism which Vieregg is able to invoke in relation to the ‘KWL’ serial,
is an alternative mechanism which accounts for the coalescence of
Eich’s own nature aesthetic with the Blut-und-Boden aesthetic. Two
further possibilities present themselves. Firstly, the text’s similarities
with the dominant discourse of National Socialism could be attrib-
uted to Foucaultian discursive mechanisms at work in the public
sphere controlling cultural production. In this case, Eich’s assent
would be largely non-intentional, the product not of physical,
institutional mechanisms of control, but rather of the kind of indirect
discursive procedures identified by Foucault to be at work even
outside the conditions of dictatorship. The second possibility is to
view Eich’s participation in National Socialist discourse not as the
result of external mechanisms acting upon him, but as the result of
his own conscious choice to adopt a tactical position of assent. In
this case, Eich’s assent is active and intentional.
It is impossible to identify and therefore to quantify the precise
role played by unconscious and intangible discursive procedures in
determining literary output. Nonetheless, it does not seem implaus-
ible in this instance to ascribe some role for such a mechanism in
determining the assent expressed in ‘Die Schattenschlacht’, particu-
larly given Eich’s initial discursive proximity to the Blut-und-Boden
aesthetic. The shift from Katharina to ‘Die Schattenschlacht’ is after
all a relatively small one. At the same time, the financial opportunism

223
which drove Eich’s initial enthusiasm to work with Party figures such
as Fricke, Jahn, and Hansen suggests it would be perverse to rule out
a similar consciously motivated background on this occasion. In this
case, it may well be significant that one of the strongest examples of
Eich’s assent is to be found in a text where Eich was actually free of
specific guidelines. Here, Eich’s literary production may well serve to
illustrate one of the central mechanisms of Nazi rule, namely that
mechanism which Ian Kershaw has identified as ‘working towards
the Führer’:

The notion of ‘working towards the Führer’ could be interpreted, too, in a

more indirect sense where ideological motivation was secondary, or perhaps
even absent altogether, but where the objective function of the actions was
nevertheless to further the potential for implementation of the goals which
Hitler embodied. Individuals seeking material gain through career advance-
ment […] were all, in a way, ‘working towards the Führer’.127

Eich was one such individual, not ideologically committed to the

National Socialist cause, but undoubtedly seeking to build a career
within the framework of National Socialist cultural policy. In writing
‘Die Schattenschlacht’, Eich was not working according to specific
guidelines but was aiming to produce a text which could be published
and which would, presumably, find some resonance in the prevailing
social and political conditions. In this way, the importance of ‘Die
Schattenschlacht’ may lie not in any hint it offers of potentially
greater assent elsewhere, but in its illustration of the mechanism by
which writers, like individuals in any other sector of society, assented
on their own initiative by striving to match vague policy orientations,
rather than by means of specific, carefully laid-down guidelines
imposed from above. Furthermore, Wessels’s presentation of the
structures of the Nazi radio system suggests strongly that this

127 Ian Kershaw, ‘“Working towards the Führer”: Reflections on the Nature of
the Hitler Dictatorship’, in Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds), Stalinism and
Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), pp. 88–106 (pp.
104–05).

224
mechanism was also at work within the radio industry, operating
both on individual authors such as Eich and also on producers such
as Pleister and Hansen.

Günter Eich: Forms of assent

Hence, Eich’s literary assent to the National Socialist regime can be

seen to have taken three principal forms. Firstly, in its weakest form,
Eich’s assent originated in continuities with his pre-1933 Kolonne
output. In Katharina, in many of his literary adaptations for the radio,
and even in parts of the ‘KWL’ serial, Eich’s literary output under
National Socialism followed a trajectory which did not differ
significantly from that already underway in the final years of the
Weimar Republic. As such, the assenting function of this output is
largely restricted to the politicising effects of the ‘total’ claim of the
Nazi regime which swept up the conservative aesthetic elements of
the Kolonne approach. To read these continuities differently is to
provide an over-politicised interpretation. Secondly, in its strongest
form, Eich’s assent also came about through the direct intervention
of figures within the Nazi radio industry, both to determine the
content of ‘KWL’ episodes and, most overtly, in the commission to
write Rebellion in der Goldstadt as part of an institutionalised propa-
ganda campaign. In these instances, Eich’s assent acquires an active
supporting intention. At the same time, the pragmatic motivational
background for this active support, and hence the absence of a
generalised, ideological intention, prevents Eich from crossing the
gulf into collaboration. Between these two extremes, much of Eich’s
assent was neither entirely passive and coincidental, the result of
literary continuities, nor active and conscious, the result of inter-
vention from above. Instead, we must leave room for a third form of
assent, consisting of discontinuities from the Kolonne stance which
were not directly steered from above. In much of his banal radio
work and in a story such as ‘Die Schattenschlacht’, Eich was not true
to the position he had so resolutely maintained in Die Kolonne.

225
Consciously or unconsciously, Eich ‘worked towards the Führer’, so
that his literary output was undoubtedly more palatable within the
Third Reich than it otherwise might have been. In this respect, Eich’s
behaviour differed little from that of many Germans. In his
pragmatic, yet often active assent he took advantage of an opportun-
ity to protect, secure, and advance his career in the wake of the Nazi
seizure of power, both conforming to specific interventions from
above and working towards the perceived norms of Nazi policy on
his own initiative. Where Eich differed significantly was that he was a
writer. His professional assent occurred in the public sphere, and,
hence, he lent public support to the regime where other professionals
merely assented in private.

Forms of Dissent?

Wenn unsere Arbeit nicht als Kritik verstanden werden kann, als Gegner-
schaft und Widerstand, als unbequeme Frage und als Herausforderung der
Macht, dann schreiben wir umsonst, dann sind wir positiv und schmücken
das Schlachthaus mit Geranien.128

Given the political function of much of Eich’s writing under

National Socialism and, in particular, that of the ‘KWL’ radio serial,
there can be little question of Eich’s public literary output as a whole
in the Third Reich meeting the dissenting requirements which he
subsequently attributed to his work in the 1950s. Rather than offer-
ing any challenge or opposition to the National Socialist regime, this
output was generally characterised by assent, and often even by active
support, in relation to Nazi cultural policies. In his own terms, Eich
was doing little more than decorating the slaughter-house with
flowers. Nonetheless, while this output did not provide evidence of

128 Günter Eich, ‘Rede zur Verleihung des Georg-Büchner-Preises’, GW, 4, pp.
615–27 (p. 627).

226
publicly expressed dissent, it was possible to identify in Eich’s private
correspondence a certain amount of unwillingness to continue to
write such texts for the National Socialist radio system. Now, the
terms of enquiry shift to the potential for dissent in Eich’s work
between 1933 and 1945 and the extent to which that private
unwillingness may have made its way into the public sphere in the
years following Eich’s initial assent to the regime. In particular, the
focus shifts to the mid-to-late 1930s when Nazi policy started to
radicalise in all areas, closing off many of the previously available
apolitical spaces. Much has been made already of parallels between
Eich’s initial assent and that of Gottfried Benn. In this section, we
shall consider the extent to which Eich’s relationship to the Nazi
regime may have mirrored that of Benn in a very different sense,
namely in the way that Benn’s initial support was tempered by a
realisation of the excesses of Nazism, giving way to a form of passive
dissent and even active opposition.
Eich himself did not reduce the extent of his output in the
second half of the 1930s. If anything, the years 1936–1938 con-
stituted his most productive of all the Third Reich, and so his dissent
cannot be said to have taken the form of a conscious reduction in
public output.129 Nonetheless, a significant empirical basis does exist
for identifying dissent in Eich’s output in this period. In particular,
research to date has focused on three radio plays first broadcast in
1936 and 1937 which have been grouped together because of a
common tone of negativity and resignation. Analysis in this section
will centre on these three texts, ‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der
Prärie’, and ‘Radium’, together with a small number of nature poems
from the 1930s which seem to share this sense of negativity.130

129 For a listing of Eich’s radio output in this period, see GW, 2, pp. 790–94.
130 See Günter Eich, ‘Weizenkantate: Fragment’, GW, 2, pp. 121–26, first
broadcast 11 May 1936; Günter Eich, ‘Fährten in der Prärie: Ein Spiel aus der
untergehenden Welt Old Shatterhands und Winnetous’, GW, 2, pp. 127–56,
first broadcast 11 July 1936; Günter Eich, ‘Radium: Nach Motiven des
Romans von Rudolf Brunngraber’, GW, 2, pp. 157–94, first broadcast 22
September 1937.

227
Particular attention will be paid to the presence in two of these plays
of prostituted poet figures, widely read as Eich’s self-portraits, one of
which has been seen by Vieregg as evidence of a profound moral and
artistic crisis which Eich underwent in this period.131 Here, the textual
basis for these claims must be investigated in an attempt to
determine the nature and extent, if any, of the dissent expressed by
Eich in these texts. The dissenting function of the texts within the
context of the Third Reich can be seen to depend on two elements:
firstly, the extent to which the texts can be seen to have achieved a
genuine dissenting effect; and secondly, the extent to which the texts
provide evidence of an active dissenting intention on Eich’s part. All
the time, any such dissenting function must be related to the on-
going assent of Eich’s work within the framework of National
Socialist cultural policy.

Socially critical radio-plays (1936-37)

A number of factors, such as their recording on to disk at the time of

broadcast and their survival and rebroadcast after 1945, have set
‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der Prärie’, and ‘Radium’ apart from the
remainder of Eich’s radio output from the years 1933-1940. Above
all, it is common thematic and stylistic features that have caused a
succession of critics to group these three plays together. According
to Cuomo, the three plays prove to be ‘atypical for the overwhelming
majority of his broadcasts in this period’.132 They stand out as ‘Eich’s
most artistically pretentious prewar radio plays’, ‘with a common
message and stylistic features that separate them from the rest of his
prewar writing’. Wessels, too, notes Eich’s divergence in these plays,
‘seine drei beachtenswertesten’, from the majority of his Third Reich
output exemplified by ‘KWL’.133 Where those texts failed to engage

131 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 49.

132 Cuomo, p. 45. Subsequent references, p. 45 and p. 95.
133 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 451. Subsequent reference, p. 451.

228
in any explicit way with contemporary, social issues, Wessels sees in
these three plays ‘eine herbe Zivilisations- und Fortschrittskritik’.
Schafroth also identifies a stark discontinuity in Eich’s approach in
‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and ‘Radium’: ‘Mit der
Sprache ist auch die Thematik neu. Eich befaßt sich […] zentral oder
am Rande mit wirtschaftlichen und zivilisatorischen Fragen. Er
könnte Brecht kennengelernt haben.’134 Schafroth’s allusion to
Brechtian, socially engaged writing clearly suggests a significant move
away from Eich’s pre-1933 poetological tenets, and, for Richardson,
such a discontinuity in approach seems to constitute some form of
dissenting response to the horrors of Nazism:

It is clear that, during the prewar years of the Third Reich, Günter Eich no
longer insisted only on art for art’s sake. Still eschewing political art, Eich
began dealing broadly with social issues such as poverty, capitalism, and
technological change. It appears that his aloofness toward contemporary
society had been shattered by the Nazi experience.135

Similarly, Cuomo suggests that there may be some element of dissent

in this turn away from ahistorical themes. The idyllic tone of ‘KWL’
has been replaced by ‘misery and social injustice’, by ‘an omnipresent
tone of negativism which does not harmonize with National Socialist
ideology’.136

Ideological conformity: ‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in der Prärie’

At the same time, it would be misleading to characterise this shift

towards more contemporary material as entirely incompatible with
National Socialist ideology. Eich’s approach to this more socially
aware subject-matter can be placed comfortably within the amalgam
of conservative philosophical themes which Cuomo and Vieregg

134 Schafroth, p. 25.

135 Richardson, pp. 47–48.
136 Cuomo, p. 95.

229
identify in the ‘KWL’ serial. In that analysis, such themes, a product
of Eich’s own personal intellectual development and stemming from
his reading of Benn and Hamsun, are seen as harmonious with the
Nazi world-view. In this context, the origins of ‘Weizenkantate’ in
Gottfried Benn’s 1932 essay, ‘Gebührt Carleton ein Denkmal?’,
which outlined the negative social consequences of the pioneering
work of American cerealist Mark Alfred Carleton, suggest a con-
tinuity of thought with that same ‘in der Kolonne formulierten
Fortschrittsfeindlichkeit’ which is liable to coalescence with Nazi
ideology.137 Indeed, as early as 1975, Christian Hörburger had identi-
fied in ‘Weizenkantate’ ‘jene antizivilisatorischen Affekte, die sich
objektiv durchaus mit den Ideologemen der nationalsozialistischen
Propaganda in Einklang bringen ließen’.138 Stefan Bodo Würffel
develops these affinities in his own essay published three years later,
seeing Eich programmatically asserting a specifically German,
conservative opposition towards industrialisation and urbanisation
and integrating in the self-sacrificing figure of Carleton central
elements of the National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft ideology.139
In this context, the fourth of the play’s opening ‘Sprüche’ seems
to carry particular resonance:

Unserm Fortschritt fehlt es an Religion. Er löst die Materie aus ihrer innigen
Verbindung mit dem Ganzen des Lebens und ahnt nicht, daß diese Ab-
trennung alle seine Segnungen zum Fluche machen kann. (GW, 2, p. 123)

137 Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnationalsozialistische Literatur der jungen Generation’, p.

39. Schäfer was the first to point out the connection to Benn’s essay, p. 210,
note 227. See also Gottfried Benn, ‘Gebührt Carleton ein Denkmal?’, in
Gottfried Benn, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Gerhard Schuster, 6 vols (Stuttgart:
Klett–Cotta, 1986–1991), III: Prosa 1: 1910–1932 (1987), pp. 404–12.
138 Christian Hörburger, Das Hörspiel der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Heinz,
1975), p. 108.
139 Stefan Bodo Würffel, ‘“Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland”: Anmerkungen
zum Hörspiel im Dritten Reich’, in Ralf Schnell (ed.), Kunst und Kultur im
deutschen Faschismus (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), pp. 129–55 (pp. 144–45).

230
In Wessels’s words: ‘Mit dieser Feststellung befand sich Eich noch in
völligem Einklang mit den Grundlagen auch der nationalsozialisti-
schen Ideologie.’140 In a similar vein, Cuomo is able to build on
Würffel’s analysis, highlighting militaristic metaphors and ‘a pro-
fusion of Blut-und-Boden motifs’ in Carleton’s statements of his
goals.141 In fact, this passage seems to constitute a notable fusion of
the Kolonne nature topos with the aggressive discourse of National
Socialism:

CARLETON: Es ist nicht um ihretwegen, sondern weil ich im Geheimen einen

großen Krieg führe. Verstehst du es? Mein Herz hängt an den Schollen der
Erde in wunderlicher Lust, an dem schwarzen Grunde voll Fruchtbarkeit. Es
ist Haß, was mich erfüllt gegen Wind und Frost und Dürre, gegen alles, was
dem Acker und dem Menschen das Leben schwer macht. Mein Kampf geht
um das Glück, und mein Sieg über alle Unbill der Erde ist jene Ähre, die die
Felder von Kansas fruchtbar macht. (GW, 2, p. 124)

The same discursive elements are present in a choral piece which

follows Carleton’s statement. Again, nature imagery appears to
coalesce with the militaristic, but this time in a form typical of the
National Socialist radio play. With massed voices ‘elevat[ing] the
researcher into the realm of myth’, Cuomo is able to draw parallels
between Eich’s presentation of his hero Carleton and what he terms
the ‘Führer topos’ in Third Reich visual art. 142
In a similar fashion, the subject-matter of Eich’s ‘Fährten in der
Prärie’, loosely based on Karl May’s work, is also liable to harmon-
isation with strands of National Socialist ideology. Würffel suggests
of the play, ‘daß ihre primäre Aussage gegen die vorrückende Zivili-
sation gerichtet ist, als deren Charakteristika moderne Technik,
inhumane Produktionsmethoden und Pervertierung menschlichen
Verhaltens erschienen. Dem verlorenen Paradies wird in krasser
Schwarz-Weiß-Technik die Natur und Menschen mordende Zivili-

140 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 451.

141 Cuomo, p. 98.
142 Cuomo, p. 99

231
sationsbewegung gegenübergestellt’.143 He points to the heroic
martyrdom of Winnetou, who had nobly opposed the inhuman
modernising forces of the railway, with its mythic Germanic over-
tones. Würffel goes on to identify conscious conformity on Eich’s
part to the norms of National Socialist discourse in the following
passage which expresses ‘die darwinistisch fundierte Geschichts-
philosophie der Faschisten, wobei der zeitgemäße Sprachstil wohl
bewußt gewählt worden ist’:

PATT Die Indianer verkommen und dezimiert, eine vergangene Rasse,

museumsreif. Die Zeit der Maschinen ist rasch über sie hinwegegangen. [...]
Sie halten die Geschichte für ein junges Mädchen [...]. Irrtum, Mister
Shatterhand, – es ist eine Barbarin, tückisch und grausam, vielleicht auch
gütig bisweilen und zärtlich. [...] Aber ich ahne in den bittersten Stunden die
Ankunft harter und fordernder Götter. Die Tiefen der Welt, Mister Shatter-
hand, hören nicht auf zu rauschen und zu gebären; Liebe und Haß steigt auf,
die Triebe zum Leben und die Triebe zum Tod. Die Welt bleibt nicht stehen
und ist doch immer dieselbe. Horchen Sie auf den Klang von Schienen und
Rädern: Wenn Sie wollen, hören Sie das Ende darin; wenn Sie wollen: die
Zukunft. (GW, 2, p. 156)

Cuomo, too, points to a number of speeches in an earlier 1946

manuscript version of the play which seem to propagate chauvinistic
and racial ideology.144 Shirwood, for instance, invokes the rights of
the ‘weissen Rasse’ to seize land from the native American
population, while Winnetou presents the following arguments redo-
lent of Nazi discourse: ‘Wir werden kämpfen bis zum Untergang.
[…] Immer wird die Sache siegen, die gerecht ist. […] Wir kämpfen
für unsere Jagdgründe, für unsere Wälder, unsere Steppen.’ For the
first time in ‘Fährten in der Prärie’, Eich’s literary output can be seen

143 Würffel, p. 147. Subsequent reference, p. 149.

144 Cuomo, p. 105, quoting from Günter Eich, ‘Fährten in der Prärie’, typescript
version, 1946, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach, p. 18. The latest Eich
edition uses the 1959 re-broadcast version of the text and makes no reference
to the earlier typescript version. See GW, 2, p. 792.

232
to propagate the very core myths of National Socialist ideology,
namely those concerning race.

Heroes and endings: resignantion and ambiguity

In ‘Radium’ Eich also presents an idealistic pioneer, George Purvis,

who seeks to nobly battle the inhuman forces of capitalism in the
form of Belgian radium tycoon, Pierre Cynac. Thematically this text
seems to pick up the anti-modern, anti-capitalist concerns first raised
in ‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and may again be
linked to the anti-modern strands of National Socialist ideology. At
the same time, the ending of the play, where Cynac is seen to
triumph and Purvis dies, defeated, does not provide the expected
positive outcome. Würffel makes the same point in relation to
‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in der Prärie’:

Die Schlüsse der beiden Eichschen Hörspiele relativieren die Propaganda-

funktion einiger Passagen dieser Stücke, indem sie mit dem Gestus der
Melancholie auf das verweisen, was, unwiederbringlich, anders war. Das
subversive Moment, das ihnen dadurch innerhalb der NS-Literaturszene
zweifellos eigen ist, wird allerdings wesentlich gemildert durch die Fülle
antizivilisatorischer und volksmythologischer Ideologeme, die ihnen voraus-
gehen und beide Rundfunkarbeiten genau in den zeitgenössischen Erwar-
tungshorizont eingepaßt haben.145

Within the thematic assent of the two plays, Würffel identifies a

‘subversive moment’ in their outcomes. In particular, Würffel
suggests that the final non-extant section of ‘Weizenkantate’, where
Eich seems to have had Carleton pronouncing his own guilt for the
social problems triggered by his work, may very well have under-
mined his earlier presentation as a noble, heroic figure. According to
this analysis, the outcomes of the plays provide a low-level dissenting

145 Würffel, p. 150. Subsequent reference, p. 146.

233
function, constrained all the time within a broad framework of ideo-
logical support.
Cuomo again builds on Würffel’s work to draw out the
potentially problematic and paradoxical elements of these plays. In
addition to the dissenting implications of any negative representation
of Carleton, Cuomo also highlights the problematic characterisation
of the principal figures in ‘Fährten in der Prärie’.146 Here, the
potential for dissent lies in the fact that Shirwood, the ultimately
victorious representative of the white race and prime exponent of
racial Darwinism, is presented as ‘a despicable figure with no
redeeming qualities. The white race seems to win out for all the
wrong reasons’. The counterpoint to the victorious, yet ‘despicable’,
Shirwood is the defeated, yet ‘flawless’, native American chief,
Winnetou. We have already noted Würffel’s integration of the heroic
martyrdom of Winnetou into National Socialist ideology and Cuomo
expands upon this to suggest that ‘Eich went so far as to make
Winnetou into a type of Führer figure by having this Indian chief
exhibit many of the leadership qualities the Nazis admired’. For
Cuomo, the paradoxical representation of Shirwood and Winnetou
has significant dissenting implications:

On the one hand, it was not appropriate that a member of an ‘inferior’ race
should prove to be such an impeccable hero. On the other, it was just as
inappropriate that a cause espoused by anyone as noble and valorous as
Winnetou should be defeated by such an unworthy opponent as the
treacherous Shirwood, even though the concept of racial Darwinism dictates
that the Indians be vanquished by the wave of European emigration.

Wessels, too, draws out the ambivalent relationship between the

themes and outcomes of these two plays and National Socialist
ideology. Significantly, he also draws a parallel to ‘Radium’, com-
menting of the play, ‘daß es sich ähnlich zwiespältig zu den
nationalsozialistischen Ideologemen verhielt, und ebenfalls in Resig-

146 Cuomo, pp. 106–07. Subsequent references to this source.

234
nation gegenüber dem Voranschreiten des technischen Fortschritts
endete’.147

Contemporary effects

In all three of these texts there exists then some form of dissenting
potential. However, any assessment of the plays’ actual dissenting
effect must take into account the philological problems associated
with them. As far as ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and ‘Radium’ are con-
cerned, the earliest extant texts have post-1945 origins, so that
potential dissent expressed in them cannot be conclusively attributed
to their first broadcast in the Third Reich. Meanwhile, although
existing textual fragments of ‘Weizenkantate’ do date from the 1930s,
the final section of the text, ‘Von der Schuld’, where the potential for
dissent lies in Carleton’s pronouncement of guilt, has not been
retained. Again, any assessment of dissent within the text is reliant on
a certain amount of supposition. However, in this case, the con-
temporary reception of Eich’s radio play is able to provide
confirmation of the dissenting potential of the text. A review of
‘Weizenkantate’ published in Hör mit mir makes it clear that the play’s
ending did pose problems:

Dieser Schluß ist inhaltlich leider durchaus unbefriedigend. Ein Mensch, der
wie Carleton uneigennützig das Beste für seine Mitmenschen gewollt hat,
kann auch dann nicht schuldig gesprochen werden, wenn sein Schaffen zum
Unsegen ausschlägt, und zwar infolge der Unvollkommenheit eines Wirt-
schaftssystems, das in seiner großkapitalistischen Einseitigkeit der Lage nicht
gewachsen ist. Und Gott werden wir in diesem Fall auf der Seite dessen
suchen, der sich strebend bemüht hat!148

147 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, p. 453.

148 ‘Segen wurde zum Fluche! “Die Weizenkantate”: Ein neuartiger Hörspiel-
versuch des Deutschlandsenders’, Hör mit mir, 7.21 (1936), 9, quoted by
Cuomo, p. 161, note 15. Würffel quotes the same review but dates it to 1935.
This is implausible given the date of the play’s first broadcast in May 1936.
See Würffel, p. 146 and p. 155, note 44.

235
A further review article in the Völkischer Beobachter provides additional
evidence of a dissenting effect attributable to ‘Weizenkantate’. Of
Eich’s re-telling of Carleton’s biography, the reviewer clearly states:
‘Wir mußten sein letztes Hörspiel (“Weizenkantate”, Deutschland-
sender), das dichterisch hevorragend war, wegen der Problematik
ablehnen.’149 The same review, meanwhile, raises similar objections to
‘Fährten in der Prärie’:

Obgleich die Problematik in der neuesten Sendung von Gunther Eich [sic]
einleuchtet und die tieferen Gründe des Untergangs der roten Rasse aufzeigt,
hört man doch, allerdings nach sehr kritischen Erwägungen, daß hier die
Schwäche des Dichters liegt.

No such review of ‘Radium’ exists, but this play did share with
‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ a surprising absence of
repeat broadcasts. Cuomo attributes this absence of repeats at least in
part to the problematic status in the Third Reich of Karl May and
Rudolf Brunngraber on whose work ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and
‘Radium’ were based, and it seems likely that this was a further
source of the plays’ low-level dissenting effect.150 In any case, the
plays’ reception provides significant evidence that the potential for
dissent identified by Würffel and Cuomo in these two plays was
indeed translated into a genuine, objectively identifiable dissenting
effect.
At the same time, it is clear that any genuine dissent generated
by Eich in ‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and ‘Radium’ does
not effect a shift from what is a fundamentally assenting position.
The same review which takes issue with the ‘Problematik’ of Eich’s
plays is in no doubt as to his talents as a writer for the Nazi radio
industry: ‘Gunther [sic] Eich ist ein guter Dichter, der zugleich mit
den Voraussetzungen eines funkgerechten Hörspiels vertraut ist.
Seine Sendungen sind kleine Funkereignisse, die sich aus dem üb-

149 Leu, ‘Funk in der Kritik: “Fährten in der Prärie”’, Völkischer Beobachter, 18 July
1936, p. 11, quoted by Cuomo, pp. 102–03.
150 See Cuomo, p. 95, p. 104, and pp. 114–15.

236
lichen Tagesprogramm herausheben.’151 Similarly, reviews of Eich’s
1940 radio play Rebellion in der Goldstadt make specific reference to
these supposedly dissenting texts: ‘Denken wir an die “Weizen-
kantate”, und “Radium” […]. Eich beherrscht die Vielfältigkeit der
funklichen Formen besonders vollkommen, und so ist es erfreulich,
daß er […] die Möglichkeit fand, ein neues Hörspiel zu schreiben.’152
As further evidence of Eich’s on-going assent, Cuomo is also able to
point to the contract drawn up for ‘Weizenkantate’ at the manuscript
stage where official appreciation of Eich’s text is readily apparent:
‘Günther [sic] Eich hat eine der bedeutendsten Dichtungen ge-
schrieben, die bisher im Rundfunk vorgelegt wurden. Da dieses Werk
nur für den Rundfunk gestaltet wurde, und nirgends sonst eine
Verwendungsmöglichkeit finden kann, schlagen wir ein Honorar von
mindestens RM 900 vor.’153 Not only did Eich receive this ‘unusually
high’ fee of RM 900 for ‘Weizenkantate’, but both that play and
‘Radium’ received official recognition in the Völkischer Beobachter and
Nationalsozialistische Rundfunk-Korrespondenz as two of the best radio
plays broadcast between 1933 and 1939.154 This level of official
approval for Eich’s work substantially relativises the dissenting effect
of the plays, their contemporary reception indicating that any dis-
senting effect was accompanied by a considerable degree of assent.

Revising interpetations: Nazi ideology and modernisation

The contradictory nature of the plays’ reception may be attributable

in large measure to the often contradictory nature of Nazi ideology
itself. Both Cuomo and Würffel use as their benchmark for National
Socialist ideology an essentially anti-modern, backward-looking

151 Leu, p. 11, quoted by Cuomo, p. 103 and Würffel, pp. 146–47.
152 ‘“Aufstand in der Goldstadt”: Das neue Hörspiel von Günter Eich im
Deutschlandsender am Mittwoch, 8. Mai, 21.00 Uhr’, Funk-Wacht. Mein Funk.
Nordfunk, 5–11 May 1940, quoted by Karst, ‘Honororis causa’, p. 64.
153 Cuomo, p. 160, note 2.
154 Cuomo, pp. 95–96.

237
entity, and as such, measuring the ‘acceptability’ of Eich’s texts
becomes a relatively simple task. Eich’s overt criticism of the
modernisation process and his exposition of its adverse social effects
must be characterised as broadly assenting. And yet, as has been
consistently argued in the course of this study, there is substantial
evidence to suggest that aggressively pro-modern elements occupied
a significant position in the Nazi hierarchy of values and that the
extent to which National Socialism sought to harness the modern-
isation process in order to further the core myths of National
Socialism should not be underestimated. Of particular significance in
relation to Eich’s socially aware, anti-modern radio plays of 1936–37
is Hans Dieter Schäfer’s 1994 essay, ‘Amerikanismus im Dritten
Reich’, in which he seeks to move away from more conventional
‘Blut-und-Boden-Bilder’ of the regime.155 Instead, Schäfer emphasises
the importance of American Taylorist rationalisation and Hitler’s
own attempts ‘die Modernisierung ungehemmt voranzutreiben’.
Indeed, in the same year in which ‘Weizenkantate’ and ‘Fährten in
der Prärie’ were broadcast, Schäfer identifies the following policy
initiatives: ‘1936 […] polemisierte [das Regime] gegen “Maschinen-
feindlichkeit” und propagierte neue Rationalisierungsmaßnahmen,
“um möglichst alle Kenntnisse des wirtschaftlichen Fortschritts zur
Hebung des Lebenstandards […] zu verwerten”.’ These pro-modern,
and even pro-American, policy impulses must then be taken into
consideration alongside the regime’s anti-modern Blut-und-Boden
rhetoric.
In this light, any attempt to measure the ideological acceptability
of Eich’s texts becomes rather more problematic than Cuomo’s
analysis suggests, since Nazi ideology itself can be seen to constitute
such a problematic mix of both pro-modern and anti-modern
elements. Nonetheless, the identification of a pro-modern policy
orientation in the mid-to-late 1930s may lend weight to an un-

155 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Amerikanismus im Dritten Reich’, in Michael Prinz and
Rainer Zitelmann (eds), Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), pp. 199–215 (p. 200). Subsequent
references, p. 200.

238
developed suggestion contained within Würffel’s analysis, namely
that in the opening two mottos of ‘Weizenkantate’ Eich was
expressing ‘Kritik am nationalsozialistischen Arbeitsbeschaffungs-
und Wirtschaftsprogramm’.156 In this way, Eich’s Zivilisationskritik is
liable to become criticism of the pro-modern policies of the National
Socialist regime itself. Würffel sees any potential criticism nullified in
the last two mottos which reflect too closely ‘das zyklisch-organo-
logische Weltbild, in dem die Konservative Revolution befangen war
und das im Rahmen einer kritisch angelegten Hörspielkonzeption
fehl am Platze wäre’. However, this apparent harmony with Nazi
ideology is also liable to re-interpretation as a dissenting call, if not to
de-modernise, then at least to integrate modernisation with a greater
degree of humanity and spirituality. In this context, any negative
judgement of Carleton in ‘Weizenkantate’ offends even more starkly
against the norms of National Socialism, since Carleton can be seen
as an archetypal embodiment of technological progress fused with a
more völkisch consciousness. Similarly, the positive depiction of
Winnetou and the negative depiction of Shirwood in ‘Fährten in der
Prärie’ may also acquire a greater dissenting potential, since Shirwood
embodies the very modernising, American forces which strands of
Nazi policy sought to emulate, while Winnetou seeks to oppose
them. In both cases, Eich’s ‘anti-zivilisatorische und speziell anti-
amerikanische Haltung’ no longer coheres so wholeheartedly with
National Socialism.157 Instead, the stance is in danger of contradicting
at least some significant elements of Nazi policy and ideology.
At the same time, Cuomo’s reading of Shirwood as a negative
figure is open to substantial re-appraisal. Cuomo himself acknow-
ledges the support for National Socialist ideology in some of
Shirwood’s statements, such as the following response to Winnetou’s
question, ‘was hat die weißen Männer hergeführt?’:

Die Geschichte, die Macht, die die Tempel von Ninive zerstörte, die tausend-
jährigen. Sie sehen ihren schwarzen Mantel über Karakorum und Babylon –

156 Würffel, p. 146. Subsequent reference, p. 146.

157 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 38.

239
 die Macht, die Völker wegwischt wie Staub. Sie hat, Mister Winnetou, diesmal
den Schatten für sie, für uns aber hellere Fahnen und brausende Musik. Im
Krachen der Gewehre, im Rauschen der Lokomotiven sind schon die Instru-
mente gestimmt für die Feier unseres Sieges! (GW, 2, p. 141)158

However, in Shirwood’s expression of unsentimental, pro-modern

impulses – ‘das einzige Recht, was gilt, ist der Fortschritt. Eine
Eisenbahnschiene ist mehr wert als ein altes Gefühl’ – Cuomo sees ‘a
good indication of the play’s problematical side, because Shirwood’s
racism is now coupled with a materialistic attitude devoid of all
sentiment, which could only have been interpreted negatively by the
listeners’.159 To a certain extent this may be true, but, when Cuomo
refers to Shirwood as ‘a despicable figure with no redeeming
qualities’, he does so from a liberal democratic standpoint, not from
within the National Socialist will to truth. In fact, the aggressive
fusion of racial chauvinism and technological progress embodied by
Shirwood and by the unstoppable march of the railway tracks is easily
brought into harmony with the illiberal but pro-modern impulses of
Nazi policy which Rainer Zitelmann has termed ‘die totalitäre Seite
der Moderne’: ‘Moderne Visionen müssen also durchaus nicht
human orientiert und keineswegs einem demokratischen Gesell-
schaftsverständnis verpflichtet sein. Hitlers Entwurf demonstriert
vielmehr die andere, die totalitäre Möglichkeit der Moderne.’160
Cuomo’s reading of the characterisation of Shirwood may well
cohere closely with Eich’s intentions, insofar as they can be read
from his consistently anti-modern standpoint. However, within the
framework of National Socialist ideology, Shirwood represents a
positive modernising figure, colonising and civilising the West on
behalf of the white race, much as the National Socialist regime
sought to colonise and civilise the Slavic East. Intentionally or not,

158 See Cuomo, p. 105.

159 Cuomo, p. 105. Subsequent reference, p. 106.
160 Rainer Zitelmann, ‘Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’, in Prinz and Zitelmann
(eds), pp. 1–20 (p. 19).

240
Eich propagates in the figure of Shirwood core elements of Nazi
ideology.

The prostituted poet

Any dissent expressed in these three plays must then be tempered by

the strongly assenting discursive and ideological framework in which
Eich continues to operate. In particular, regardless of the nuances of
plot and characterisation, Eich furthers a world-view predicated on
racial determinism allied to technological progress, and in this sense
grants support to the National Socialist regime which goes beyond
that expressed in ‘KWL’ or indeed ‘Die Schattenschlacht’. In this
context, it is of particular interest that ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and
‘Radium’ appear to offer evidence of Eich’s own awareness of the
compromising nature of his literary assent. In one of Shirwood’s
employees, the drunken poet Patt, critics have long identified a form
of authorial self-inscription, not least because of his expression of an
anti-modern stance, compatible with Eich’s own point of view.161
Patt’s reluctant assent to Shirwood can be seen to mirror Eich’s
reluctant assent to Nazism. Patt’s resigned despair can be seen to
match the dominant tone of Eich’s three socially engaged radio plays.
Above all, it is in the lament sung by the prostitute Kitty, and omitted
from later versions of the play, that Cuomo sees an expression of the
poet’s guilt and an apology for his role in furthering the brutality of
Shirwood and, by extension, National Socialism:

It is tempting to see a correspondence here between Patt’s and Kitty’s

resignation in the face of an evil greater than themselves and Eich’s own
compromising role during the Nazi era. [...] Eich’s association of Patt’s role,
and by extension of his own, with Kitty’s profession seems to be a quite
deliberate allusion to the poet’s ‘prostitution’.162

161 See Schafroth, p. 20 and Cuomo, pp. 107–08.

162 Cuomo, p. 109. See GW, 1, pp. 245–46.

241
These allusions become more explicit in ‘Radium’ where the pro-
fessional poet Chabanais is prepared to write ‘Propaganda’ slogans in
praise of radium in an attempt to pay for medicine for his dying wife.
As Cuomo suggests, in light of the ‘not so subtle parallel between
Chabanais’s compromising situation and the role of authors under
National Socialism’, together with possible parallels between Elisa,
Chabanais’s wife, and Else Burk, Eich’s future wife, it is difficult not
to read the poet in ‘Radium’ as a meditation on Eich’s own pro-
fessional compromises in the Third Reich.163
Not only do the figures of Patt and Chabanais emerge here as
authorial self-inscriptions, but this reading also attributes a significant
dissenting potential to the two texts, since the poet figures involve a
negative assessment of the author’s relationship with National
Socialism. In particular, the figure of Chabanais forces us to address
the question of how far Eich himself, in writing ‘Radium’, was
mirroring the actions of his own character who, in writing an overtly
critical, but unpublished, text and in fleeing to the African jungle, was
making a deliberate, but ultimately ineffectual, gesture of dissent. The
issue of Eich’s intentions is a matter we shall tackle shortly. In the
meantime, we must consider how far the dissenting potential identi-
fied by Cuomo in the figures of Patt and Chabanais could reasonably
be presumed to have been translated into a dissenting effect readily
apparent to the plays’ listeners. In an academic study of this nature,
biographical knowledge of Eich’s career is able to draw out of the
texts parallels to his own ‘prostitution’, while close textual study is
able to identify Patt and Chabanais as positive figures, and Shirwood
and Cynac not only as negative figures but also, crucially, as in some
sense representative of National Socialism. By contrast, ignorance of
the identity, let alone the biography, of the plays’ author, together
with the transitory nature of the listening experience, suggests that
contemporary listeners would not be likely to have identified the
dissenting potential of the poet figures Patt and Chabanais in
‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and ‘Radium’. This, combined with the

163 Cuomo, p. 112.

242
philological problems associated with the extant texts, argues against
attributing the characterisation of Patt and Chabanais any significant
dissenting effect. In this case, it is the consistent, assenting propa-
gation of the Nazi discourse of race, for which no extra-textual
knowledge or interpretative analysis were necessary, which is likely to
have had the more significant and widespread effect on con-
temporary listeners.

Problems of interpretation

In this way, these texts illustrate the difficulties inherent in seeking to

retrospectively infer dissenting potential into a text. Any such infer-
ence rests on subjective critical interpretation which need not
necessarily match that of contemporary readers or listeners. Indeed,
there is often substantial disagreement amongst scholars as to the
disenting potential of a text. Hans Dieter Schäfer, for instance, reads
Patt not as a dissenting authorial self-inscription, but as a veiled
tribute to Gottfried Benn.164 Such interpretational problems are
exacerbated when we consider Eich’s lyric output from this same
period and its potential for dissent. Of particular significance in this
context is the poem ‘Der Tag im März’ which was published in
Philobiblon in 1938, since it seems to by characterised by the same
tone of negativity present in the three radio plays discussed above.
Consider, for example, the final stanza:

So geht der Tag im März zu seinem Ende.

Ein Rinnsal Glück reicht für ein ganzes Leben aus.
Das Wasser dunkelt, dunkeln Aug und Hände.
Ist es genug? Es führt kein Wort hinaus. (GW, 1, p. 200)

Making particular reference to the final three stanzas of the poem,

Vieregg classifies the poem as ‘eines der pessimistischen der dreißiger

164 Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnationalsozialistische Literatur der jungen Generation’, pp.

39–40.

243
Jahre – ein dunkler Abgesang auf das, was für ihn einmal die Lyrik
und die Existenz als Lyriker bedeutet hatte’.165 In a similar vein,
Stephen Parker draws an direct parallel between this poem and Peter
Huchel’s 1935 radio play ‘Die Herbstkantate’ with its ‘profound
sense of melancholy and inner conflict’ and its demonstration of ‘the
poet’s torment and guilt at the compromises he was entering into’.166
In this same category of lyric we might also place two of Eich’s
earlier Nazi-era poems, ‘Schlaflied am frühen Abend’, first published
in Die literarische Welt in 1933, and ‘Weg durch die Dünen’, published
in 1935 in a poetry supplement to Die Dame.167 Both poems are
analysed by Schäfer, and in both cases he identifies a notable pessim-
istic tone.168 ‘Schlaflied am frühen Abend’ is read as a consoling
meditation on themes of nature and the ‘Verlorenheit der Menschen’.
Of ‘Weg durch die Dünen’, meanwhile, Schäfer writes as follows:

Das Gedicht zeigt, daß nicht das Kriegserlebnis, sondern vielmehr die
Krisenphilosophie für die Umwertung der Naturzeichen zur negativen
Signatur verantwortlich zu machen ist. In den Kreisen des Strandhafens und
den Spuren der Vögel im Sand entziffert das Ich die ‘tödliche Unendlich-
keit’.169

165 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 48.

166 Stephen Parker, Peter Huchel: A Literary Life in Twentieth-Century Germany (Bern:
Lang, 1998), p. 194.
167 See Günter Eich, ‘Schlaflied am frühen Abend’, GW, 1, p. 192, first pub-
lished, Die literarische Welt, 9 (1933), 4; and Günter Eich, ‘Weg durch die
Dünen’, GW, 1, p. 60, first published in Almanach der Dame: Fünfzig auserwählte
Gedichte (Berlin: Ullstein, 1935), pp. 26–27.
168 Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnationalsozialistische Literatur der jungen Generation’, pp.
46–47. Subsequent reference, p. 47.
169 Hans Dieter Schäfer, ‘Die nichtfaschistische Literatur der jungen Generation
im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland’, in Horst Denkler and Karl Prümm
(eds), Die deutsche Literatur in Dritten Reich: Themen, Traditionen, Wirkungen (Stutt-
gart: Reclam, 1976), pp. 459–503 (p. 486). In the later version of the essay
published in the collection Das gespaltene Bewußtsein, Schäfer replaces ‘die
Krisenphilosophie’ with ‘ein nicht näher bestimmbares Angstgefühl’. See
Schäfer, ‘Die nichtnationalsozialistische Literatur der jungen Generation’, p.
47.

244
Placed in their historical context, the negativity of all three poems is
liable to be read as a dissenting response to National Socialism, and
this is certainly Cuomo’s reading of Schäfer’s analysis: ‘Schäfer claims
there is a correspondence between Eich’s imagery and the historical
context. He considers the poem typical for a category of Nazi-era
lyrics in which Günter Eich […] integrated into the natural realm the
“problems of existential guilt and of the terrors of the time” as a
reaction to developments under the Hitler regime.’170
While Cuomo’s reading of Schäfer’s analysis of ‘Weg durch die
Dünen’ – that it expresses terror at ‘developments under the Hitler
regime’ and therefore intentional dissent – is one valid reading of the
text, not only do further possible readings of the poem emerge, but
further readings of Schäfer’s analysis are also possible. Indeed,
Cuomo presents what amounts to a substantial misreading of
Schäfer’s analysis, when he identifies the ‘Krisenphilosphie’ to which
Schäfer refers as a product of Nazi rule. Much more consistent with
Schäfer’s overall thesis, and with the dating of the poems in the early
years of the Third Reich, would be to equate this mood with a pre-
existing sense of crisis which can be traced back to the political and
economic crisis of 1929–1930. It is this ‘Krisenphilosophie’, and not
terror inspired by the Nazi regime, which Schäfer sees as the most
important shaping factor in German literary production in the 1930s,
and it is this sense of crisis which Schäfer sees expressed in Eich’s
poetry. Read in this way, the poem no longer possesses a deliberate
dissenting intention against the Nazi regime, although potential exists
for a low-level dissenting effect. By contrast, Cuomo’s own analysis
of the poem actually attributes to it an overt assenting function.
Pointing to an absence of negativity and terror elsewhere in the
poem, Cuomo ascribes to ‘die tödliche Unendlichkeit’ ‘a positive role
as the moment when an individual human being is re-integrated into
the totality of all existence’.171 Furthermore, if this poem and other
ahistorical lyrics composed by Eich during the Third Reich are to be

170 Cuomo, p. 123.

171 Cuomo, p. 124. Subsequent reference, p. 124.

245
related directly to their historical context, it is their ‘lack of criticism
and their lack of historical relevance’, rather than any pessimism,
which Cuomo views as their defining features: ‘That [Eich] continued
to present such poetry to the public at a time when even the most
naive Germans could no longer close their eyes to the abuses of the
Hitler regime demonstrates a disturbing indifference to the events
around him.’

Author or text?

In this way, ‘Weg durch die Dünen’ demonstrates how the pro-
duction of seemingly ahistorical nature poetry can be interpreted as
either an assenting or dissenting act, depending on the attitude of the
critic concerned. Where Eich apologists are able to invoke the
essential autonomy of poetic discourse and thus its opposition to
National Socialist power, a ‘revisionist’ agenda, such as that of
Cuomo, stresses the assenting nature of the poet’s failure to engage
critically with the times. One possible response to this kind of
interpretative uncertainty, and the often fruitless critical disputes
inspired by it, is to bracket out the biography of the author altogether
and concentrate instead on the discursive function of the text. This is
the approach taken by Holger Pausch and Marianne Herzog in their
1995 essay, ‘Vergessene Texte, Schrift und Sprache: Beobachtungen
zur Günter-Eich-Kontroverse’, in which they seek to release Eich’s
Third Reich texts from the constraining influence of both his
authorial biography and the ideological standpoint of the critic.172
Adopting Barthes’s ‘death of the author’ and a Foucaultian view of
history as a network of discourses, Pausch and Herzog explain the
implications of their approach for a study of Eich’s output in the
1930s.

172 Holger A. Pausch and Marianne Herzog, ‘Vergessene Texte, Schrift und
Sprache: Beobachtungen zur Günter-Eich-Kontroverse’, Wirkendes Wort, 46
(1995), 133–50. Subsequent references, p. 142 and p. 144.

246
 Denn für die Eich-Kontroverse [...] bedeutet [diese Perspektive], daß alle
äußeren Motive, die ihn zur Niederschrift der Hörspiele veranlaßt haben,
Opportunismus, Geldsorgen oder der Wunsch nach einer Karriere, außerhalb
des Diskurses seiner Biographie belanglos sind. Über die Sprache der in den
Hörspielen enthaltenen Vielfalt von Diskursformen, -abhängigkeiten und
intertextuellen Kontakten in der Vernetzung des umfassenden Diskurses der
Macht zur Zeit der Niederschrift sagen sie nichts aus.

Using the example of ‘Weg durch die Dünen’, Pausch and Herzog
illustrate how Eich’s nature symbolism is subordinate to the
dominant political discourse of National Socialism, thereby refuting
what they refer to as an unchallenged axiom of post-War poeto-
logical debate, ‘daß die Sprache der Dichtung der politischen
Verwaltung widersetzt. Der herrschenden Macht diene sie nicht und
lasse sich auch nicht von ihr vereinnahmen’.
The following conclusions reached by Pausch and Herzog have
significant implications for the present study, both in terms of Eich’s
work in particular and in terms of literary production under the
conditions of dictatorship in general:

Es ist [...] anzunehmen, daß der Mythos der naturmystischen Sprache Eichs
durch den herrschenden Diskurs der Macht (im Sinne Foucaults), der in den
Jahren zwischen 1933 und 1945 in den die gesamte Gesellschaft durch-
wuchernden vielfältigen Vernetzungen herrschte, insofern ermöglicht und
initiiert wurde, indem der Mythos Eichs ein systemstabilisierendes Bild der
Macht entwarf, das dem Machtdiskurs entsprach und von ihm gefördert
wurde. In diesem diskurstheoretischen Blickwinkel ist dann auch das Verhält-
nis zwischen Macht und Kunst zu sehen, wo in der Dynamik herrschender
Diskurse die Vorstellung einer unabhängigen Kunst nur noch als Illusion zu
entlarven ist. Die Frage nach Eichs persönlicher Verwicklung im National-
sozialismus ist damit nur noch für den Biographen interessant. Die Mythe
seiner Texte hingegen zeigen, daß es nicht möglich ist, den herrschenden
Diskursen einer Zeit inmitten des Flusses ihrer Tätigkeiten zu entkommen,
die niemals ‘Sand’ in ihrem ‘Getriebe’ dulden, der mit einem Katalog
möglicher Strategien immer zu neutralisieren oder bestenfalls zu isolieren
ist.173

173 Pausch and Herzog, pp. 147–48.

247
Such an analysis makes a useful contribution in overcoming un-
productive generalisations regarding the essential dissenting nature of
poetic discourse. Furthermore, Pausch and Herzog highlight the
need to divorce, at least temporarily, a text from its author and his/
her intentions in order to assess the nature of its relationship to the
discursive norms of the regime. Such an approach corresponds to the
emphasis in the present study on the assenting and/or dissenting
effect of a text, irrespective of authorial intention. Since any author
loses control of the meaning of his/her text once it has entered the
public sphere, the author’s intentions are largely irrelevant to an
assessment of its effect. This is particularly the case for Eich’s nature
lyrics, where the ambiguity of their poetic discourse leaves them free
to operate independent of the author. In a dictatorship, once the text
has been released into a public sphere on which a total claim is being
made, the meaning of that text is subordinate to the politicising
nature of that claim, and in this sense, Pausch and Herzog are correct
to see autonomous art under the conditions of dictatorship as an
illusion. All legally published texts are, in some sense, essentially
assenting, and given the appropriation of a conservative literary
discourse by National Socialism, Eich’s nature poetry grants a passive
form of assent to the regime irrespective of his intentions.
However, the approach adopted by Pausch and Herzog has two
significant blind-spots. Firstly, they fail to leave any room for
discursive dissent in Eich’s output during the Third Reich. While it
may be impossible in Foucaultian terms to escape the generalised
flow of the dominant discourse, this does not mean to say that this
flow cannot be blocked or diverted at individual, localised points.
This is arguably what occurs in ‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der
Prärie’, and ‘Radium’ where, even bracketing out authorial intention,
the overall discursive harmony of the texts is undermined by their
resigned tone and ambivalent outcomes. Secondly, in allowing the
author to be killed off outright, Pausch and Herzog deny themselves
the additional dimension which may be provided by authorial
intention. Just as an entirely author-centred approach excludes the
network of discursive influences which act on a text, so an entirely

248
discourse-based model excludes what must be a highly significant
element of a text’s assenting or dissenting function. Clearly, dif-
ficulties in establishing authorial intention contribute in large part to
the appeal of a text-centred approach. Contextual evidence may not
be available, and where it is available, it is not necessarily any less
ambiguous than the texts themselves. At the same time, the essen-
tially assenting nature of public literary production under the
conditions of dictatorship renders authorial intention all the more
significant. Where little or no objective dissenting effect can been
attributed to a text, that same text may still acquire a dissenting
function from its author’s intentions. Equally, its discursive assent
may be reinforced by evidence pointing to an active assenting
intention on the part of the author. In both cases, the author’s
biography is of more than passing importance.

Eich in crisis: 1936-38

As far as the texts under discussion in this section are concerned, and
their potential for dissent, biographical information is able to make a
significant contribution. Where correspondence highlighted in the
previous section was able to indicate a certain amount of private
dissent on Eich’s part in the very early years of the Third Reich,
letters written by Eich in the mid-to-late 1930s demonstrate that this
private dissatisfaction with his radio work had not evaporated. If
anything, this dissatisfaction seems to have broadened into a more
fundamental questioning of his writing as a whole in the Third Reich.
On 18 June 1936, for instance, Eich wrote to Artur Kuhnert as
follows:

Ich sehe ein, daß meine Bemühungen ein Schriftsteller zu sein, d.h. ein
brauchbares Glied der menschlichen Gemeinschaft, vergeblich sind. Ich
meine nicht des Geldes oder des Erfolges wegen, – das habe ich ja beides bis
zu einem gewissen Grade gehabt und kann es weiter haben. Aber ich werde
nie und nimmer glücklich sein in dieser Rolle, das Verbogene in diesem
Lebenszustand hält mich ewig in schlechtem Gewissen, jegliche undichteri-

249
 sche Betätigung nehme ich mehr oder weniger nicht ernst. Also werde ich mit
blauem Augenaufschlag und leicht flatterndem Haar auf den Parnaß meiner
Jugend zurückkehren.174

Two months later, Eich seemed to have carried out his promise to
turn his back on the success of his radio career when he asserted to
Raschke: ‘ich will mich nun an den Landboten-Sendungen nicht
weiter beteiligen.’175 However, by the time ‘Radium’ was broadcast,
one year later, the purchase of a flat in Berlin had tied Eich once
more to the income he derived from the country postman serial. He
was, like his literary creation Chabanais, prostituting his poetic
talents, and significantly Vieregg is able to point to Eich’s own use of
the word ‘Chabanais’, a French slang term for ‘brothel’, in cor-
respondence dating from the July 1936, the time of the first
broadcast of ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and its prostitute-poet Patt. In
this way, biographical evidence appears to confirm Cuomo’s reading
of the prostituted poet figures in ‘Fährten in der Prärie’ and
‘Radium’. In Vieregg’s words: ‘Eichs Selbstporträt in “Radium”, der
Dichter Chabanais [...], der sich prostituiert hat, entspricht exakt der
tatsächlichen Situation, in der Eich zu dieser Zeit befand, nämlich
Werbung zu schreiben für ein verbrecherisches Regime.’176
Vieregg goes further, seeing in Chabanais evidence of a double
crisis into which Eich falls between 1936 and 1938:

Die Krise, die Eich ab 1936 geriet, war also eine doppelte: eine moralische, das
Bewußtsein, sich des Gelderwerbs wegen an eine Macht verkauft zu haben,
die das Böse war. Für dieses Bewußtsein steht wohl am ehesten die Figur des
Chabanais mit ihrem Satz: ‘die Kälte kriecht mir ins Herz, der eisige Zweifel,
ob es das Göttliche war, wofür ich schrieb.’ Und es ist eine künstlerische Krise,
das verlorene ‘Glück des Schöpferischen’ – nicht nur als Folge des durch die

174 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 46.

175 Letter to Martin Raschke, 17 August 1936, quoted by Vieregg, Der eigenen
Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 24.
176 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 25.

250
 verhaßten Rundfunkarbeiten bedingten Zeitmangels, sondern als innere Be-
schädigung.177

Where Chabanais provides evidence of Eich’s ‘moral’ crisis, it is the

poem ‘Der Tag im März’ which for Vieregg exemplifies Eich’s
‘artistic’ crisis, a realisation of the betrayal ‘durch den Rundfunkautor
Eich, der er eigentlich gar nicht sein wollte, an dem Lyriker Eich, als
der er sich allererst verstand’. Early manifestations of the crisis to
come can be seen in Eich’s early dissatisfaction with the ‘KWL’
serial, expressed ironically in his correspondence with Raschke and
quoted in the previous section. By 1938, the Eich who wrote texts
for the Nazi radio industry was no longer compatible with the elitist
nature aesthete who had established such an unshakeable poeto-
logical stance in Die Kolonne. As Vieregg summarises:

[1938] hat die ‘zweckhafte’ Welt des Faktischen, von Eich lange Zeit als
uneigentliche Scheinwelt der eigentlichen Welt des ‘Seins’ nachgeordnet, ein
erdrückendes Übergewicht gewonnen. Für den Bereich des Faktischen jedoch
hatte Eich zu diesem Zeitpunkt weder ein lyrisches Sensorium noch sprach-
liche Ausdrucksmittel entwickelt. […] Für Eich gibt es keine ‘Fluchten’: er
findet sich von der Macht des Faktischen so heftig bedrängt, daß seine innere
Welt und damit seine lyrische Ausdrucksfähigkeit, so wie er sie bis dahin
verstanden hatte, ersticken. So trauert ‘Der Tag im März’ einem verlorenen
lyrischen Territorium nach, ohne schon ein neues besetzen zu können.

The significance of this double crisis lies in its potential to provide

evidence of an active, deliberate dissenting intention on Eich’s part,
expressed publicly through his literary production, both in the
prostituted poet figures Patt and Chabanais and in the pessimism of
his nature lyrics. Regardless of the broadly assenting effect achieved
by the texts and the absence of any significant dissenting effect, this
intention would lend the texts an important dissenting function.

177 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 49. Subsequent references, p. 43 and
p. 49.

251
Moral or artistic crisis?

However, the nature and extent of this dissenting function depend

largely on the extent to which this twin crisis can, on the one hand,
be attributed unambiguously to National Socialism or the extent to
which it is, on the other hand, conceivable even outside the con-
ditions of the Nazi dictatorship. A considerable weight of critical
opinion certainly perceives the crisis to be a specific product of Nazi
rule. After all, so unshakeable and consistent was the poetological
stance maintained by Eich in Die Kolonne that its betrayal by Eich’s
radio output in the Third Reich seems more than just a coincidence
of timing. As Larry Richardson asserts, Eich’s ‘aloofness towards
contemporary society had been shattered by the Nazi experience’.178
This is Vieregg’s view, too, when he makes a direct connection
between the rising political pressures of the mid-to-late 1930s and
Eich’s ‘crisis’:

Wegen des zunehmenden politischen Drucks war Eich nicht mehr in der
Lage, das sorgsam austarierte Gleichgewicht zwischen der ‘Welt der anderen’
und seiner eigenen aufrechtzuerhalten, die Selbstentfremdung wird ihm
schmerzlichst bewußt.179

If Eich seems here to be following the trajectory of Benn, that is one

of rising dissent to match the radicalisation of Nazi policy, further
corroboration of this thesis seems to be provided by the example of
another Kolonne nature poet employed in the Nazi radio industry,
Peter Huchel. Parker identifies in Huchel a similar ‘moral and artistic
crisis in late 1935’ from which he draws an explicit parallel to Eich
and ‘Der Tag im März’: ‘Like Huchel, Eich can no longer maintain an
identity as a poet founded on an essentially Romantic idiom of nature
poetry whose magic had been stripped of its integrity and credibility
by the rapacious demands of the Nazi radio system.’180 In this

178 Richardson, p. 48.

179 Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 45.
180 Parker, Peter Huchel, p. 195.

252
analysis, there can be no doubt that it is National Socialist cultural
policy which is the decisive factor in triggering a crisis in the two
poets. In Vieregg’s terms, it is the specific context of the Third Reich
which has brought about the decisive split in Eich’s persona between
‘das Glück des Schöpferischen’ and ‘die Welt des Faktischen’, be-
tween the nature poet and the radio author. It is National Socialism
against which Eich expresses his dissent.
However, there is an important distinction to be made here
between the moral and artistic dimensions of Eich’s ‘crisis’. While the
former implies a broad rejection of Nazi ideology and policy, and
therefore a generalised dissenting intention, the latter implies a
considerably more partial dissenting intent. At most, an artistic crisis
would involve only a rejection of the National Socialist cultural
policies which forced Eich to produce banal radio texts and which
closed off his realm of lyric expression by appropriating conservative
poetic discourse. In this context, it is noticeable that in all the private
correspondence quoted by Vieregg there is no statement which
indicates an active rejection of National Socialism. Eich makes no
reference to the extreme ideology and policies of the National
Socialist regime which would be expected to have driven his moral
crisis. Indeed, Eich’s complaints in his private correspondence relate
almost exclusively to artistic and professional concerns, rather than
moral and political matters. This holds true both for early statements
from 1933–1934 and those made around the time of the crisis in
1936–1938. To Raschke on 1 May 1934, for instance, Eich wrote as
follows:

Das ist der dümmste Auftrag, den ich je bekommen habe. [...] Wenn man
doch von Gedichten leben könnte! Dieser elende Funk, bis hierher verfolgt er
einen. Meine Sendung am Sonnabend habe ich nicht gehört, da glücklicher-
weise das Radio kaputt war.181

More tellingly, in the letter to Kuhnert 3 June 1936 in which Eich

mentions the Parisian bordello ‘Chabanais’, it is not in connection

181 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 45.

253
with moral reservations relating to the Nazi regime, but rather with
financial and literary concerns: ‘Nicht aber beglücken mich die Dinge
des Lebens, die mir nur erreichbar sind, wenn ich Operettensongs
schreibe. Man muß alles bezahlen.’182 There is little evidence, then, of
a moral dimension to Eich’s crisis. The poet Chabanais who sells
himself to a corrupt organisation seems to be more a symbol of the
prostitution of Eich’s literary principles than of his moral principles.
In terms of Eich’s dissent, it is not possible to identify a generalised
oppositional intention against the policies and ideology of National
Socialism.
If Eich was dissenting against Nazi rule, then this dissent seems
to have been restricted to the cultural-political sphere and, more
specifically, to the radio industry alone. And yet, while it would be
perverse to deny any role for National Socialism in generating Eich’s
crisis, particularly when the total claim of the regime made very
particular demands on individuals working in the radio system, it
would be unwise to allow the shadow cast by the dictatorship to
obscure other factors which were at work. At this point, we must
take issue with Vieregg’s central thesis concerning Eich and his
relationship to National Socialism. As we have already noted, Vieregg
sees Eich’s Kolonne stance as an expression of Eich’s fundamental
personal beliefs. The lyric persona is indivisible from the wider self:

Die Angst vor der heillosen Unordnung der Moderne, die Suche nach
romantischen Inseln der Flucht und Zuflucht und die Angst um deren
Zerstörung – das waren Eichs eigentliche Zentralthemen gewesen, sei es im
Konkreten von Natur und Ländlichkeit oder im Absoluten des Seins.183

Hence, continuity in Eich’s output with the anti-modern aestheticism

of the Kolonne circle is ‘schon von seinem Wesen her prädisponiert’.
The divergence from this path from 1933 onwards and the split in
Eich’s personality which it caused must therefore be products of
Nazi rule. However, what this analysis fails to acknowledge is that

182 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, p. 47.

183 Vieregg, ‘Mein Raum und Meine Zeit’, p. 24. Subsequent reference, p. 3.

254
such a split can clearly be seen to pre-date the Nazi seizure of power.
It was in 1932 that Eich took the decision to become a professional
writer and to seek work in the Weimar radio industry, relying on
adaptations of existing work and commissions, rather than his own
spontaneously produced, original pieces. Already outside the con-
ditions of dictatorship, the demands of making a living from writing
generated a tension with the Kolonne poet for whom literary pro-
duction should have been a spontaneous action, free of any will.
Indeed as we have already noted, Eich himself had highlighted in
his 1932 essay ‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’ the need to draw a dis-
tinction between the poet ‘als Lyriker’ and the poet ‘als Privatmann’
(GW, 4, p. 459). In Eich, this distinction manifested itself in the
consistent pragmatism and materialism which informed his pro-
fessional choices both before and during the Nazi period and which
runs counter to the principles and aspirations of the Neuromantiker
identified by Vieregg. The Eich who studied economics in Paris in
1929, who was the only one of his circle to run a car, who chose to
work in the modern medium of radio, and who bought a holiday
home on credit, was not the same Eich who outlined his poetological
stance in Die Kolonne, and this distinction was not generated by the
onset of Nazi rule, but rather pre-dated it. How the pragmatic
materialism of Eich ‘als Privatmann’ increasingly threatened the
autonomy of Eich ‘als Lyriker’ from 1933 onwards is most clearly
demonstrated in a letter from Eich to Artur Kuhnert of 21 April
1937. Here, having gone back on his vow to no longer contribute to
the ‘KWL’ serial, Eich explains his reasons:

Mein alter Wunsch, eine eigene Wohnung, ließ sich bei der Gelegenheit auch
verwirklichen und ich bin sehr froh darüber. Ich habe nun zwei Zimmer mit
Küche, mit Zentralheizung und warmem Wasser, im alten Westen, nahe dem
Lützowplatz, ein paar Schritte von meinem innig geliebten Landwehrkanal.
Leider Gottes hat mich die ganze Sache völlig bankrott gemacht und obwohl
ich schon horrende Schulden habe, fehlen mir immer noch einige Möbel, die
Vorhänge und viele Kleinigkeiten, die zusammen eine Menge Geld kosten. So

255
 werde ich mich die nächsten Monate intensiv dem Rundfunk widmen
müssen.184

What emerges from this passage is not a neo-Romantic wrestling

with moral objections to National Socialism in order to make a
necessary living. Instead, Eich reveals the materialistic streak which
sits so uncomfortably with the image of an unworldly lyric poet.
Undoubtedly the peculiar pressures of National Socialism acted as a
constraining influence which exacerbated Eich’s existing internal
conflict. However, the split which generated a personal crisis was not
primarily a product of Nazi rule and, for this reason, there is strong
evidence to ascribe to the crisis expressed in the figure of Chabanais
and the poem ‘Der Tag im März’ a much more personal motivational
background. Rather than an intentional expression of dissent against
National Socialism as a whole, or even its cultural policies, these texts
can be read as an expression of regret at the pragmatic motives which
shaped Eich’s career path independent of Nazism, at his own
inability to match his poetic aspirations and pretensions.185 Here, the
betrayal of the lyric poet by the radio author may indeed be con-
ceivable outside the specific conditions of dictatorship.

Conclusion

By way of a conclusion, both to this discussion of Eich’s possible

dissent and to the assessment of Eich’s writing as a whole under
National Socialism, the following comments made by Wolfram
Wessels in relation to the three ‘dissenting’ radio plays act as a useful
focus:

184 See Vieregg, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet, pp. 24–25.

185 These frustrated literary aspirations are expressed in a letter to Ursula
Kuhnert, dated 18 April 1935, in which he writes of ‘Weizenkantate’: ‘Damit
will ich meinen Ruhm als Dichter endlich befestigen’. See GW, 2, p. 790.

256
 Diesen Arbeiten entnehmen zu wollen, daß Eich sich auf dem Weg in die
Innere Emigration befunden habe, halte ich trotz deren teilweiser Distanz zur
herrschenden Ideologie für nicht gerechtfertigt. Dagegen sprechen die
kontinuerliche Arbeit am ‘Königswusterhäuser Landboten’ und seiner Ver-
herrlichung einer verflossenen vorindustriellen Idylle […]. Es wäre aber
ebenso unrichtig, von einem Kompromiß Eichs mit dem Nationalsozialismus
zu sprechen, oder vom Opportunismus. Die Kontinuität seines Denkens, das
sich bereits in der Kolonne zeigte, bis zu den oben besprochenen Hörspielen,
offenbarte ein Krisenbewußtsein, das dem der Zeit, und dem auf das sich die
nationalsozialistische Ideologie berufen konnte, in weiten Teilen entsprach,
das aber andererseits nicht so weit ging, die Zivilisationskritik, die rückwärts-
gewandte Sehnsucht nach Einheit und verfälschtem Leben um den Preis ihrer
Erfüllung in der traumhaften Wirklichkeit, aufzugeben.186

Given the nature of Eich’s on-going assent, Wessels must be correct

to deny the application of the term ‘inner emigration’ to Eich’s
writing under National Socialism, at least if that term is taken to
signify the expression of dissent. Significant here is not only Eich’s
on-going participation in the ‘KWL’ serial highlighted by Wessels,
but also the relative levels of assent and dissent generated by
‘Weizenkantate’, ‘Fährten in der Prärie’, and ‘Radium’ themselves. In
terms of contemporary effect, the philological problems associated
with the three socially aware radio texts considerably hamper any
definitive assessment of their dissent, so that their dissenting
potential must remain largely that, unconfirmed potential. What does
exist is evidence of some degree of official disapproval of all three
radio plays in their reviews and a surprising absence of repeat
broadcasts. At the same time, the evidence which exists of a positive
official reception of the plays largely counteracts any objectively
identifiable dissenting effect. Indeed, in all cases the level of assent
achieved by these radio plays and by Eich’s nature poetry is
substantially greater than their dissent. These assenting effects do not
only derive from the total claim of the regime which politicised all
officially tolerated literary production. The texts are also character-
ised by considerable discursive assent to the norms of National

186 Wessels, Hörspiele im Dritten Reich, pp. 453–54.

257
Socialist policy and ideology, and in the propagation of the discourse
of race and ‘illiberal modernisation’, the radio plays occupy a position
at the core of Nazi ideology. Given the publicness of the medium,
these plays, along with ‘KWL’ and Rebellion in der Goldstadt, lend
significant support to the regime. By contrast, the potential for
dissent in their ambivalent outcomes is unlikely to have achieved any
significant effect.
In terms of intention, Cuomo and Vieregg make a convincing
case for reading Chabanais as a dissenting self-portrait, which,
together with the mournful tone of ‘Der Tag im März’ and Eich’s
private expressions of dissatisfaction, constructs a picture of a writer
in crisis in the mid-to-late 1930s. Here, there must be some element
of active dissent against National Socialism. However, what is notice-
able is that this ‘crisis’ period of 1936–1938 did not act as a stepping-
stone in the development of an increasingly dissenting position.
Eich’s ‘crisis’ was not sufficient to prevent him from continuing his
work for the Nazi radio industry. Indeed, Eich’s radio writing under
National Socialism was brought to an end not on his own initiative,
but only by the cessation of radio-play production in the Third Reich
in 1940, and this year saw his most active expression of support for
the regime in Rebellion in der Goldstadt. Eich may not have emulated
Benn’s unmediated, public expression of ideological support, but
equally he did not emulate Benn’s subsequent withdrawal of that
assent. Also highly significant in terms of intention are those
continuities in Eich’s literary output across 1933 which are liable to
be obscured by the shadow cast by the Third Reich. As Wessels
suggests, the ‘crisis consciousness’ stemming from 1930, and first
expressed by Eich in Die Kolonne, has a significant role to play here.
Continuities with the Kolonne stance help to relativise both the levels
of assent and dissent expressed by Eich under National Socialism,
since the perceived assent of a text like Katharina and the perceived
dissent of Eich’s nature poetry arise largely from a pursuit of pre-
existing aesthetic and cultural concerns, rather than from a conscious
re-adjustment towards either conformity or non-conformity with
National Socialism. The same analysis is also applicable to what

258
appear to be stark discontinuities from Eich’s Kolonne position lo-
cated at 1933. Eich’s active courting of the National Socialist radio
apparatus and his abandonment of the Kolonne principles of the poet-
genius in return for material gain undermine Wessels’s rejection of
the charges of opportunism and compromise. However, this need
not be seen as a direct response to National Socialism. The politi-
cising force of ‘totalitarianism’ invites a reading of Eich’s literary
prostitution as a direct product of those same ‘totalitarian’ con-
ditions. And yet, Eich the pragmatic materialist had already begun to
betray Eich the lyric poet before 1933. Dictatorship only exacerbated
another on-going trend in Eich’s literary development. In this sense,
a recognition of the limitations of the conditions of dictatorship in
shaping literary production is perhaps the most significant methodo-
logical principle to emerge from this analysis. Paradoxically, an
overtly political, socio-functional approach to this writing has served
to expose previously over-politicised approaches and to re-instate
personal and artistic continuities independent of dictatorship.

259
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Chapter Five

Forms of literary assent and dissent in the GDR:

Bertolt Brecht

Even if consensus is otherwise difficult to locate, many scholars

treating Bertolt Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR are at least in
agreement that this area offers a contradictory mixture of what must
be described, in the terms of the present study, as assenting and
dissenting impulses. In the afterword to the most recent version of
his Brecht biography, for instance, Werner Mittenzwei expands upon
his presentation of Brecht’s time in the GDR: ‘Ich hatte die DDR-
Phase bewußt sehr ausführlich dargestellt, um die Widersprüche im
Leben Brechts herauszuarbeiten: seine Verteidigung der DDR und
die rigorose Ablehnung ihrer Kulturpolitik.’1 Referring also to
Brecht’s relationship with the SED regime, James K. Lyon similarly
highlights what he terms ‘this tension between dissent and con-
formity’.2 What is rather less clear is what the relative weighting
between these assenting and dissenting impulses might be. As Man-
fred Jäger points out, any attempt to assess the balance between these
contradictory tendencies is often eschewed in favour of a heavily
politicised analysis: ‘Diese widersprüchliche Einheit von Zustimmung
und scharfer Kritik ist offenbar schwer zu beschreiben. Je nach der

1 Werner Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht: Oder der Umgang mit den Welträtseln, 2
vols (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1997), II, p. 745.
2 James K. Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany: Dissident Conformist, Cultural
Icon, Literary Dictator’, in James K. Lyon and Hans-Peter Breuer (eds), Brecht
Unbound: Presented at the International Bertolt Brecht Symposium held at the University
of Delaware February 1992 (London: Associated University Press, 1995), pp.
76–88 (p. 78).

261
politischen Position des Chronisten wird jeweils eine Seite absolut
gesetzt.’3
Presenting these same contradictory assenting and dissenting
impulses, evaluating the precise function and nature of them, and
attempting to assess their relative weighting, will be the principal
tasks of the analysis in this chapter. An attempt will be made to
assess the assenting and/or dissenting function of Brecht’s cultural
output in the GDR, based on both the intention and effect attached
to this output and drawing on both textual and contextual evidence.
Clearly the sheer extent of Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR
precludes an examination of this work in its entirety. Instead, focus
will rest in turn on three individual areas of Brecht’s activity – namely
at the Berliner Ensemble, in cultural-political interventions, and as a
poet. In each instance, individual case studies of a broader applic-
ability will act as the object of analysis, rather than the full extent of
Brecht’s activity in these areas between 1949 and 1956. For the
Berliner Ensemble, Brecht’s 1953 production of Erwin Strittmatter’s
Katzgraben acts as this case study. The significance of this production
lies in the combination of its partisan nature with its timing at the
height of the pressure being applied to Brecht in 1953. Despite its
relative neglect in Brecht scholarship outside the GDR, its capacity to
illustrate the nature of Brecht’s relationship to the SED regime and
the motivations behind his assent lends the production an exemplary
value within Brecht’s cultural output in the GDR. As far as Brecht’s
cultural-political interventions are concerned, the focus will rest on
direct statements published in the literary periodical of the East
Berlin Academy of Arts, Sinn und Form. In particular, the role played
by Brecht’s ‘Notizen zur Barlach Ausstellung’ as a dissenting re-
sponse to the 1951 Formalism Campaign and his contributions,
including the ‘Thesen zur Faustus-Diskussion’, to the double issue of
Sinn und Form which appeared in the wake of the workers’ uprising of
17 June 1953 will be subject to detailed analysis. The consideration of

3 Manfred Jäger, Kultur und Politik in der DDR 1945–1990 (Cologne: Edition
Deutschland Archiv, 1995), p. 67.

262
Brecht’s poetic output in the GDR will be confined primarily to the
cycle of poems known as the ‘Buckower Elegien’, written in the
summer of 1953. In both these analyses, the examination will focus
on the nature and extent of assent and dissent expressed by Brecht
around the pivotal events of 17 June. The dynamics of Brecht’s
assent and dissent will be charted all the time against the dynamics of
SED cultural policy.

Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble

For James K. Lyon, the contradictory impulses in Brecht’s cultural

activities in the GDR do not exist in equilibrium. Rather, assenting
tendencies are seen to outweigh the dissenting. In Lyon’s own words:

In contrast to the oppositional stance of earlier years, [Brecht] now sought

the acceptance and approbation of authority figures in the East German state.
Further, he went to previously unthinkable lengths to conform his works and
activities to prevailing political and aesthetic norms. While he never com-
pletely sublimated his inclination to dissent, this professional contrarian of
the past became what one might call a dissident conformist, with the
emphasis on the ‘conformist’.4

Significantly for any analysis of Brecht’s work at the Berliner

Ensemble, as examples of Brecht’s ‘uncharacteristic propensity to
conform’ Lyon cites almost exclusively Berliner Ensemble pro-
ductions, not instances from other spheres of activity. Hence, the
choice of Puntila over Die Tage der Kommune for the Ensemble’s
opening night in November 1949, the rapid withdrawal of Urfaust in
1952, the staging of Becher’s Winterschlacht in early 1955, and the
production of Farquar’s Pauken und Trompeten in September of the
same year are seen to exemplify a tendency not just restricted to the

4 Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, p. 76. Subsequent references, pp. 76–79.

263
specific context of the Berliner Ensemble. Instead, they act as
‘examples of conformity or self-censorship’ representative of a
consistent pattern of behaviour throughout Brecht’s work from this
period. In a similar vein, Lyon draws attention to the contributions
made by Brecht to Sinn und Form. These Lyon characterises as
‘noncontroversial “safe” pieces that revealed little about his notions
of “epic theater”’. One particular production at the Berliner En-
semble, overlooked by Lyon, offers a notable fusion of these two
assenting strands. Not only does Erwin Strittmatter’s Katzgraben
constitute, in the words of Carl Weber, one of Brecht’s few attempts
‘to prepare a dish that might please [the SED’s] palate’,5 but Brecht
also published an accompanying essay in Sinn und Form in the late
summer of 1953. This essay stands out not for its dissenting nature,
but for the sheer extent of discursive assent granted by it to the SED
regime.

Brecht and Strittmatter’s Katzgraben6

In his essay, ‘Erwin Strittmatters Katzgraben’ (BFA, 24, pp. 437–41),

Brecht succeeds in producing an article which conforms entirely to
the norms of what we have identified as the dominant partisan
discourse of the SED. From the subject matter of Strittmatter’s play,
which Brecht praises fulsomely, it is already clear that Katzgraben
adheres to the norms of Socialist Realism, as a peasant village is seen
to overcome larger landowners with the help of the Party, its
agricultural science, and its tractors. According to Brecht, it is ‘das
erste Stück, das den modernen Klassenkampf auf dem Dorf auf die

5 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and Communism: Clear-sighted Ambiguity or Blurred

Vision?’, in Lyon and Breuer (eds), pp. 19–28 (p. 22).
6 Material in this section first appeared in Matthew Philpotts, ‘“Aus so
prosaischen Dingen wie Kartoffeln, Straßen, Traktoren, werden poetische
Dinge!”: Brecht, Strittmatter, and Sinn und Form’, German Life and Letters, (56)
2003, 56–71, and is reproduced by kind permission of Basil Blackwell Pub-
lishers.

264
deutsche Bühne bringt. Es zeigt Großbauer, Mittelbauer, Kleinbauer
und Parteisekretär nach der Vertreibung der Junker in der Deutschen
Demokratischen Republik’. Brecht seems to go out of his way to
praise in Katzgraben precisely those aspects which conform to the
cultural dogma of the SED, in the process coming precariously close
to parody: ‘Aus so prosaischen Dingen wie Kartoffeln, Straßen,
Traktoren, werden poetische Dinge!’ Perhaps more significantly,
Brecht does not restrict his support to artistic policy but rather
extends it into social policy. It is one of the notable achievements of
the SED regime that Strittmatter has been given the opportunity to
rise from his position as a farmer’s son to that of a successful writer.
Indeed, ‘ohne die Deutsche Demokratische Republik wäre er nicht
nur nicht der Schriftsteller geworden, der er ist, sondern vermutlich
überhaupt kein Schriftsteller’. In his concluding comments, Brecht
removes any lingering doubts as to the position he is representing:

Das Stück zeigt nicht nur. Es zieht den Zuschauer mächtig in den großen
Prozeß der produktiven Umwandlung des Dorfes, angetrieben durch den
Dynamo der sozialistischen Partei der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik.
Es erfüllt ihn mit dem Geist des kühnen Fortschreitens.

Brecht positions himself here at the heart not only of a generalised

Marxist-Leninist will to truth, but of a specifically GDR will to truth.
The BFA informs us rather matter-of-factly that ‘den Artikel
schreibt Brecht, um Erwin Strittmatter, der bisher nur durch Prosa
bekannt ist, auch als Dramatiker vorzustellen’ (24, p. 591). More
specifically, the origins of the essay are to be found in the minutes of
a meeting of the literary section of the Academy of Arts held on 20
March 1953 (BBA, 1486/55-58). Under item three, ‘Patenschaften
der Sektionsmitglieder für junge Autoren’, members agreed not only
to a programme of supervision for young GDR authors under the
auspices of the Academy, but also to publish a series of articles in
Sinn und Form which would introduce the new literary talent they
were seeking to promote. Abusch would write an introductory article,
followed by individual contributions from Brecht, Hermlin, and
Huchel. Brecht’s contribution would be a piece about Erwin Stritt-

265
matter. However, the significance of the Katzgraben essay reaches far
beyond its immediate context as part of an Academy programme to
promote new GDR writers. Indeed, the fact that Brecht’s article was
the only one of the planned contributions ever to find its way into
the pages of Sinn und Form argues strongly that the motivations for its
publication lie elsewhere.7 In the broader context of Brecht’s work at
the Berliner Ensemble and the cultural-political climate of the early
1950s, and as a reaction to the intense pressure he was under at the
time, such a public statement of support for the policies and object-
ives of the SED regime, so openly couched in the language of the
ruling elite, must have a profound bearing on our understanding of
Brecht’s relationship with the SED regime.
The specific circumstances surrounding the production of Katz-
graben indicate the importance of the play within Brecht’s cultural
output in the GDR. Not only did rehearsals run for four months
from February to May 1953, occupying the majority of Brecht’s time
in this period, but the timing of these rehearsals is also extremely
significant, encompassing a number of key events in GDR cultural
politics. These events, such as the Stanislavsky Conference of April
1953 and the Faustus-Debatte, came to represent a very real threat to
the continued existence of the Berliner Ensemble. In addition to the
timing of this first production of the play, the fact that Brecht staged
a second, revised version, which premiered a year later in May 1954,
is further evidence of the importance the play held for him. A further
indicator of this importance are the ‘Katzgraben-Notate’ (BFA, 25, pp.
399–490), the extensive rehearsal notes which relate to the first
production of the play. According to Carl Weber, ‘the number of
comments [Brecht] wrote during the rehearsal process exceeded
those of any other Ensemble production’, evidence for Weber of the
significance Brecht attached to the play and of the ‘energy and

7 Neither Abusch’s general introductory piece, nor Huchel’s article on Lori

Ludwig, nor Hermlin’s on August Hild appeared. See Elmar Faber and Franz
Greno (eds), Sinn und Form: Die ersten zehn Jahre, reprint edition (E. Berlin:
Rütten und Loening; Nördlingen: Greno, 1988), 10 vols, supplementary
volume: Sonderhefte/Register, pp. 1–76.

266
invention’ which he devoted to it.8 In a similar vein, Hecht, Bunge,
and Rülicke comment of the rehearsal process: ‘Brecht hätte auf die
Inszenierung eines eigenen Stückes nicht mehr Sorgfalt verwenden
können als auf das Strittmatters.’9 Meanwhile, the discovery in
Elisabeth Hauptmann’s estate of a set of rehearsal notes, bound,
paginated, and apparently being prepared for publication, only lends
more weight to the suspicion that Katzgraben was a production of the
utmost importance for Brecht. In Werner Hecht’s words: ‘Mit dieser
Textsammlung erhalten die “Katzgraben-Notate” eine ganz andere
Bedeutung innerhalb der theoretischen Schriften und Theater-
modelle.’10 The notes are unique amongst Brecht’s dramatic models
in that they represent not the end result of the rehearsals, but the
detailed course of that very rehearsal process. Perhaps above all these
factors, though, it is the fact that this was the only contemporary
East German play staged by Brecht, and that this is in turn an area
where Brecht himself is perceived to have failed as a playwright,
which gives this production such an important position within
Brecht’s work in the GDR.

Tactical manoeuvring?

It is surprising then that both the Katzgraben essay, published in the

highly significant dissenting 1953 double issue of Sinn und Form, and
the production itself should have been largely overlooked in the
copious scholarship which Brecht’s activities in the GDR have

8 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble: The Making of a Model’, in
Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Brecht
(Cambridge: CUP, 1994), pp. 167–84 (p. 176).
9 Werner Hecht, Hans-Joachim Bunge, Käthe Rülicke-Weiler, Bertolt Brecht: Sein
Leben und Werk (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1971), p. 251.
10 Werner Hecht, ‘Grund der Empörung über eine “ganz unerträgliche Be-
handlung”: Brechts Stanislawski-Studium 1953’, Maske und Kothurn, 33.3/4
(1987), 75–87 (p. 82).

267
attracted.11 Neither Mittenzwei in his biography of Brecht nor Uwe
Schoor in his account of Peter Huchel’s editorship of Sinn und Form
makes any mention of the Katzgraben essay, although both writers
make much of more dissenting contributions such as the ‘Barlach-
Notizen’ or the ‘Faustus-Thesen’.12 Perhaps the Katzgraben article
simply does not fit their respective presentations of Brecht’s be-
haviour in the GDR where a primary focus is on his dissent against
cultural policy. And yet, even Lyon who seeks to emphasise Brecht’s
conformity fails to include this particular example of Brecht’s ortho-
doxy in his list of examples of Brecht’s ‘propensity to conform’ in the
GDR.13 Elsewhere, following the lead of the original Hecht edition
of Brecht’s Schriften zum Theater, the Katzgraben essay has tended to be
bundled together with the Katzgraben rehearsal notes, obscuring both
the fact of its separate publication in Sinn und Form and the potential
cultural-political significance of that same fact.14 Similarly, many of
the most influential recent biographies of Brecht make little or no
mention of Katzgraben, despite Brecht’s own direction of the pro-
duction and his active part in Strittmatter’s revision of the text.
Martin Esslin, for one, makes no mention of either Strittmatter or
Katzgraben, while John Fuegi’s sole reference to Strittmatter relates to
a conversation with Brecht against the background of Krushchev’s
denunciation of Stalin in 1956.15 Werner Mittenzwei restricts himself
to a number of indirect anecdotal references and Klaus Völker to

11 For discussion of the genesis and content of this issue of Sinn und Form, see
Stephen Parker, ‘Sinn und Form, Peter Huchel und der 17. Juni 1953: Bertolt
Brechts Rettungsaktion’, Sinn und Form, 46 (1994), 738–51.
12 Uwe Schoor, Das geheime Journal einer Nation: Die Zeitschrift ‘Sinn und Form’
Chefredakteur Peter Huchel 1949–1962 (Berlin: Lang, 1992), pp. 99–105; Mitten-
zwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 440–43 and pp. 465–81.
13 Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, pp. 76–78.
14 Bertolt Brecht, ‘Katzgraben-Notate’, in Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater, ed.
by Werner Hecht, 7 vols (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1963–1964), VII (1964),
pp. 69–186 (pp. 71–77).
15 Martin Esslin, Brecht: A Choice of Evils (London: Methuen, 1980); John Fuegi,
The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht (London: Harper Collins, 1994), p. 590.

268
only a single paragraph.16 In fact, it is only relatively recently, with the
discovery of the pre-publication version of the ‘Katzgraben-Notate’,
that a small number of articles have begun to deal in any depth with
Brecht’s production of Katzgraben.17 However, it is primarily an
interest in dramatic theory and Brecht’s relationship to the Stanis-
lavskian theatrical method, rather than an explicitly cultural-political
perspective, which informs these articles.
Where the Berliner Ensemble’s production of Katzgraben has
been discussed in relation to GDR cultural policy, it has often been
seen as an example of Brecht’s shrewd tactical manoeuvring in his
dealings with the restrictive cultural policies of the SED, as an
attempt to buy time by staging a play whose Socialist Realist nature
could not fail to please the authorities. The clearest statement of this
kind is to be found in Ronald Hayman’s biography of Brecht:

Brecht still believed that ‘the most infallible sign that something is not art, or
that someone does not understand art is boredom’. Even when directed by
Brecht, Katzgraben was boring, but he understood the art of survival: if the
play about the stove fitter [Garbe] was not going to materialize, he must make
an alternative gesture of support for the regime. Katzgraben presented an
optimistic view of East Germany’s agriculture when it was not easy to be
optimistic. [...] Though Brecht visited a village in Lausitz with Strittmatter and
members of the Ensemble, looking at relevant farms, they both turned their
backs on the prevalent social reality.18

It is clear that Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble were coming under
increasing pressure in the first half of 1953, and in this sense the
timing of Katzgraben is at least suggestive. In his own diary during the

16 See Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 388 and p. 402; and Klaus Völker,
Bertolt Brecht: Eine Biographie (Munich: Hanser, 1976), p. 390.
17 See Hecht, ‘Grund der Empörung’; Meg Mumford, ‘Brecht Studies Stanis-
lavsky: Just a Tactical Move?’, New Theatre Quarterly, 11 (1995), 241–58; and
Werner Hecht, ‘“Der Pudding bewährt sich beim Essen”: Brechts “Prüfung”
Stanislawskis 1953’, in Ingrid Hentschel, Klaus Hoffmann, Florian Vaßen
(eds), Brecht und Stanislawski und die Folgen: Anregungen bei der Theaterarbeit
(Berlin: Henschel, 1997), pp. 57–71.
18 Ronald Hayman, Brecht: A Biography (New York: OUP, 1983), p. 362.

269
Katzgraben rehearsals, for instance, Brecht had struck the following
distinctly beleagured note: ‘unsere Aufführungen in Berlin haben fast
kein Echo mehr’ (BFA, 27, p. 346). Similarly, a hand-written letter
from Rülicke to Brecht describing the atmosphere in the audience at
the Katzgraben premiere, where no-one dared to laugh, offers ample
evidence of the precarious position of the Ensemble at this time:
‘Schlimm war, daß keiner mit der Absicht gekommen war, sich zu
unterhalten, sondern man wollte dabei sein bei einem Skandal’ (BBA
635/46-47). There was clearly good reason for Brecht to make a
tactical gesture of support for the regime at this time by staging
Katzgraben.
In a more subtle variant of this argument, it is less the staging of
Katzgraben itself which represents this tactical gesture of support than
Brecht’s decision to use the production as an opportunity to test out
some of Stanislavsky’s dramatic methods. As Mumford points out,
‘the Katzgraben production notes, taken by an entire crew of directors’
assistants, seem to reflect a Stanislavskian influence’.19 For Jäger, this
is undoubtedly a tactical concession to win time amid continued
attempts to impose the Stanislavskian system on Brecht, and again
the timing of the production, which coincided with the Stanislavsky
Conference, is suggestive. Jäger views this latter event as an attempt
‘Brecht zu isolieren und zur Zurücknahme einiger seiner “theoreti-
schen Marotten” zu bewegen’.20 In response, ‘Brecht setzte, [...] mit
gutem Erfolg, auf Zeitgewinn’. This is a view shared by Hecht who
sees already in Brecht’s 1952 essay, ‘Was unter anderem vom Theater
Stanislawskis gelernt werden kann’ (BFA, 23, pp. 167–68), ‘ein [...]
taktisch bemerkenswertes Zugeständnis gegenüber früher geäußerten
Meinungen’.21 Brecht’s renewed Stanislavsky study, applied in
February 1953 to the Katzgraben rehearsals, it seems, is to be viewed
in a similar light, ‘as an act of tactical self-defence’ in response to the
State Art Commission’s decision in January 1953 to call a Stanis-

19 Mumford, p. 243.
20 Jäger, p. 62. Subsequent reference, p. 62.
21 Hecht, ‘Der Pudding bewährt sich beim Essen’, p. 59.

270
lavsky Conference.22 In this context, John Willett is undoubtedly
correct when he maintains in relation to Katzgraben that ‘play, pro-
duction and notes are evidence of a considerable effort on Brecht’s
part to meet the requirements of the official aesthetic policy of the
day’.23 The same must also apply to the Katzgraben essay published in
Sinn und Form. What is considerably more open to question is the
motivation which lay behind this effort. Was this a short-term effort
made out of expediency against his genuine beliefs? Or was Brecht in
Katzgraben expressing genuine, ideological support for the SED
regime? Such questions go to the heart of the nature of Brecht’s
relationship to the SED regime.

Longer-term interest

An investigation of the genesis of the Ensemble’s Katzgraben project

starts to suggest that this was not just a matter of short-term
expediency. As well as the rehearsal period which coincided with
increasing pressure on Brecht and the Ensemble, entries in Brecht’s
journal make it clear that he spent a considerable amount of time in
Buckow in the summer of 1952 working with Strittmatter on the
revision of his original text for the play (BFA, 27, p. 333). Indeed,
this work stretched from early June to September of that year.24 That
Brecht had already accepted Katzgraben for production at the
Ensemble by mid-June 1952 is clear from a letter written by Brecht
to Fritz Lange on 17 June 1952 (BFA, 30, p. 129). Unfortunately,
precisely when Brecht first took an interest in Strittmatter’s play is
slightly less clear. According to Hecht, it was Hans Marchwitza who
first drew Brecht’s attention to Strittmatter and his agricultural drama

22 Mumford, p. 242.
23 Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. by
John Willett (London: Methuen, 1974), p. 251.
24 See Werner Hecht, Brecht-Chronik: 1898–1956 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1997), p. 1017.

271
on a trip to Poland in late February 1952.25 This is also the version of
events presented by Martin Reso in his study of Strittmatter, namely
that Brecht heard through Marchwitza of Strittmatter’s original
version, ‘Die neue Straße von Katzgraben’, which had been rejected
by a jury at the third World Youth Festival in 1951.26 While it still
seems likely that Brecht did not hear of the play until February 1952,
this mention of the World Youth Festival held in Berlin in July 1951,
in which Brecht was actively involved, raises the possibility that
Brecht may have come across the play in some capacity during this
event. Certainly Strittmatter himself implies a link between his
submission of the play to the Festival and Brecht’s and Weigel’s
subsequent interest in it, although he provides no timings.27 Carl
Weber adds to this suspicion when he asserts that ‘Brecht had come
upon the text when he was a member of a jury for a playscript
competition. Strittmatter’s comedy did not win, yet Brecht invited
the author to develop it further for the company’.28 Whether this jury
is the 1951 Festival jury is not clear, but what is clear is that Brecht’s
interest in the play stretched back at least a year from the beginning
of the rehearsal process, possibly longer.
This does not in itself rule out Brecht’s interest in the play being
a tactical gesture, since the Formalism Campaign was already well
underway at that stage. Furthermore, the specific decision to move to
the rehearsal and production stage in early 1953 could still be seen in
this light, no matter how long-term Brecht’s interest in the play had

25 Hecht, Brecht-Chronik, p. 1017. This is the version given in the new Brecht
edition too. See BFA, 25, p. 542.
26 Martin Reso, ‘Der Dichter und die wirklichen Dinge: Einführung in Leben
und Werk’, in Erwin Strittmatter, Leben und Werk: Analyse, Erörterungen,
Gespräche (Berlin: Das europäische Buch, 1984), pp. 9–35 (p. 17). See also Jan
Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch: Eine widersprüchliche Ästhetik, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Metzler,
1980–1984), I: Theater (1980), p. 462: ‘Durch die Vermittlung von March-
witzka [sic] wurde Brecht auf das Stück aufmerksam.’
27 See Erwin Strittmatter, ‘Gesellenjahre bei Brecht’, in Walther Victor (ed.),
Brecht: Ein Lesebuch für unsere Zeit (Weimar: Volksverlag, 1958), pp. 20–27 (pp.
20–21).
28 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble’, p. 176.

272
been. Nonetheless, establishing a pre-history for the project beyond
the immediate context of early 1953 starts to hint at a more genuine
commitment to it on Brecht’s part. In this context, Brecht’s letter of
June 1952 to Lange, an official at the Zentrale Kommission für staatliche
Kontrolle, takes on added significance. Brecht’s primary purpose in the
letter is to thank Lange for some documentary material lent to him:
‘die Akten über die Untersuchung einiger Dörfer waren mir sehr
nützlich. Das Berliner Ensemble hat ein Stück von Strittmatter über
den Klassenkampf auf dem Dorf angenommen, und die Kenntnis,
die ich aus den Akten habe, hilft mir sehr viel bei der Bearbeitung des
Stückes’ (BFA, 30, p. 129). No letter exists recording Brecht’s initial
request for this offical material relating to village life in the GDR, so
the date of this request remains uncertain. However, the original
covering letter sent to Brecht with the ‘versprochene Material über
landwirtschaftliche Angelegenheiten’ does exist, along with a receipt
for the material, in the Brecht Archive in Berlin (BBA 972/116
-18).29 The datings of this letter and receipt, 27 December and 19
December 1951 respectively, indicate that, whether or not he already
knew of Katzgraben, Brecht was considering some project concerning
the portrayal of contemporary rural GDR society in the latter months
of 1951 and that this interest was sufficiently serious to warrant an
application for official classified documentation relating to the
matter.
This letter proves that the origins of what was to become the
Katzgraben project extend back into 1951, and this in itself already
argues against a short-term interpretation of the subsequent pro-
duction in 1953. This argument is further strengthened by a proposal
made by Brecht in a meeting of the literary section of the Academy
on 6 November 1951. The minutes of this meeting, whose main
topic of discussion was Sinn und Form, read as follows:

Um die kulturpolitische Wirkung, die durch eine Verbreitung von Sinn und
Form in Westdeutschland erzielt wird, zu vertiefen, schlug Herr Brecht vor,
einigen Schriftstellern [...] den Auftrag zu erteilen, literarische Reportagen

29 See also BFA, 30, p. 531.

273
 über die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Entwicklung in der Deutschen Demo-
kratischen Republik, hauptsächlich auf dem Lande, für die Zeitschrift zu
schreiben. (BBA 1486/24-26)

This call for increased topicality in the journal, and more particularly
for a portrayal of economic development in the countryside, co-
incides pointedly with Brecht’s gathering of the material, on precisely
this topic, which he would later find so useful in the production of
Katzgraben. Still more significantly, this proposal in November 1951
was not a one-off.

‘Darstellung der Errungenschaften’

As Schoor points out in reference to that meeting of 6 November

1951, Brecht made a consistent and prolonged attempt to introduce
more topical and partisan articles into Sinn und Form in order to
demonstrate the achievements of the GDR to a Western readership.30
Particularly important in relation to the Katzgraben essay is criticism
made by Brecht at a meeting of 2 July 1953 regarding the make-up of
Sinn und Form: ‘Wir brauchen Beiträge, die die großen Errungen-
schaften der DDR beschreiben, so daß die Leute in Westdeutschland
und in der DDR sie wirklich als sachlich aufnehmen und verstehen
können. Die Fakten sind überwältigend.’31 This tallies with a hand-
written note from around 1954 under the heading ‘Sinn und Form’,
in which Brecht apparently lists three suggested areas for future Sinn
und Form articles: ‘1 Darstellung der Errungenschaften [...] 2 Die
Sowjetunion [...] 3 Kritik der Bundesrepubli[k] (zunehmende Faschi-
sierung)’ (BBA, 1518/08).32 These proposals in relation to Sinn und
Form are significant for two main reasons. Firstly they demonstrate a
continuity of thought on the part of Brecht and his desire to see what
he perceived as the genuine achievements of the GDR represented in

30 Schoor, p. 133.
31 See Schoor, p. 133 and Parker, ‘Sinn und Form und der 17. Juni’, p. 749.
32 See Schoor, p. 135.

274
the pages of Sinn und Form. This continuity of thought provides a
long-term background for the Katzgraben essay above and beyond the
specific decision of March 1953 to present new literary talent to the
public. Secondly, these proposals made after 17 June demonstrate
that those events only served to increase the urgency in Brecht’s
mind for this kind of article. If the Katzgraben production in general,
and the Sinn und Form essay in particular, had been motivated by the
growing pressure on Brecht to drop his unorthodoxy, then the easing
of this pressure, which came with the new political course from
Moscow in early June and workers’ uprising a week later, would have
removed the need to make this gesture of support. That Brecht went
ahead with the publication of the essay, written at the height of this
pressure on 3 June, in an unamended form after 17 June, is compel-
ling evidence that this pressure was not the motivating factor behind
the article.
It is not difficult to find further evidence in Brecht’s writings
and statements of a continuity of thought with the Katzgraben essay.
In a literary section meeting of 28 May 1953, for instance, it is
decided in accordance with Brecht’s suggestions to recommend
Strittmatter for a National Prize ‘für sein Gesamtwerk, insbesondere
für seine Komödie Katzgraben, die die Entwicklung auf dem Lande in
unserer DDR widerspiegelt.’ (BBA, 1486/72). The echo of Brecht’s
proposal from November 1951 is unmistakable. In the same way, the
full text of Brecht’s recommendation of Strittmatter for the National
Prize, again written after 17 June 1953, and published for the first
time in the new Brecht edition (BFA, 23, pp. 255–56), echoes both
his call for more partisanship in Sinn und Form and the Katzgraben
essay itself: ‘Ich beantrage, Erwin Strittmatter für seine Komödie
Katzgraben einen Nationalpreis zu verleihen. Das Werk zeigt die
Errungenschaften der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik im Dorf
während der Jahre 1947 bis 1950.’ It is a play which ‘nirgends anders-
wo als in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik hätte geschrieben
werden können’.
This weight of evidence points clearly towards this being a
genuine belief on Brecht’s part rather than a tactical position, and yet

275
it could still be argued that in these statements, made within the
institutional framework of GDR cultural policy, Brecht is deliberately
maintaining a safe, orthodox Party line. What seems like final proof
that this is not the case is to be found in Brecht’s contributions to
discussions held at the Berliner Ensemble to debate the events of 17
June 1953 and the lessons to be drawn from those events. Overall,
the discussions are characterised by openness and frankness, with
contributors not afraid to discuss Stasi surveillance or to openly
criticise the regime. Here, if not elsewhere, Brecht was able to
express his own genuine views:

Man sollte erklären, was Sozialismus ist, das hat man überhaupt nicht getan.
Man hat sozialistische Einrichtungen geschaffen, ungeheure Leistungen
vollbracht, die ganz wenigen bewusst sind. Das ist ein grosses Versagen, man
hat die grossen Verdienste zwar ständig in Art von Lobhudeleien und Phrase
zur Sprache gestellt, aber nicht wirklich bekannt gemacht. Da kann die Kunst
sehr viel helfen. Sie muss offen versuchen, die Wurzeln des Nazismus und
Kapitalismus, die in einer spezifischen deutschen Weise da sind, in einer
unglücklichen und schmutzigen Geschichte weit zurückgehend aufdecken,
behandeln, klären und zu gleicher Zeit wirklich erklären, was neu gemacht
wird. Diese grossen Umwälzungen auf dem Lande, Vertreibung der Junker,
Vernichtung des Monopols für Bildung, für eine kleine herrschende Klasse,
Übernahme der Betriebe, Lenkung, Plan neuer Schulung. Das sind alles
grosse Sachen, sie sind aber nicht wirklich ins Bewusstsein gebracht worden.33

In these statements, the significance of the Katzgraben essay becomes

clear. It was not important to Brecht to introduce Strittmatter to a
wider public merely for artistic reasons. To Brecht’s mind, Stritt-
matter’s success as a writer demonstrated one of the genuine
achievements of the GDR, namely the opening up of education and
culture beyond a narrow class, and, above all, his work had a
fundamental role to play in attempting to re-educate the population
of the GDR, to communicate to them achievements in the rural

33 Minutes of discussions held at Berliner Ensemble, 24 June 1953, BBA

1447/08, spelling as in the original. See also Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht,
II, p. 503.

276
economy, whose existence, contrary to Hayman’s analysis, Brecht
genuinely believed in.
Again, a demonstrable continuity of thought exists here. In a
short letter to Günther Strupp, dated 18 January 1952, Brecht refers
four times to the ‘Umwälzung’ taking place in the GDR, praising in
particular ‘die Verjagung der preußischen Junker und die Aufteilung
ihres Grund und Bodens, die Vernichtung des bürgerlichen Bildungs-
monopols und die Schulung der proletarischen Jugend, die Planung
und Produktionssteigerung in der Industrie’ (BFA, 30, p. 107).
Eighteen months later, in his much-quoted letter to Peter Suhrkamp
of 1 July 1953, Brecht writes of the gains made by the workers as a
result of the ‘Vertreibung der Junker, die Vergesellschaftung der
Hitlerischen Kriegsindustrie, die Planung der Produktion und die
Zerschmetterung des bürgerlichen Bildungsmonopols’ (BFA, 30, p.
183). In this respect, Hecht is surely mistaken to assert that the
events of 17 June lessened the importance of the Katzgraben pro-
duction and the rehearsal notes which arose from it.34 The purpose
of supporting the SED regime and re-educating the people did not
lose its urgency with the easing of pressure on Brecht after the 17
June but rather had it re-affirmed, as those events offered proof to
Brecht of the continued presence of a Nazi mindset in the GDR
population at large. As Brecht wrote to Suhrkamp:

Lieber Suhrkamp, machen wir uns nichts vor: Nicht nur im Westen, auch hier
im Osten Deutschlands sind ‘die Kräfte’ wieder am Werk. [...] Die Sozialisti-
sche Einheitspartei Deutschlands hat Fehler begangen [...]. Aber ich
respektiere viele ihrer historischen Errungenschaften, und ich fühlte mich ihr
verbunden, als sie - nicht ihrer Fehler, sondern ihrer Vorzüge wegen - von
faschistischem und kriegstreiberischem Gesindel angegriffen wurde. Im
Kampf gegen Krieg und Faschismus stand und stehe ich an ihrer Seite. (BFA,
30, pp. 184–85)

34 Hecht, ‘Der Pudding bewährt sich beim Essen’, p. 69: ‘Die Veröffentlichung
des Probenreports mußte ihm in dieser neuen Situation völlig unwichtig
erscheinen.’

277
It was for these reasons, and not out of short-term expediency, that
Katzgraben became such an important production for Brecht, and it
was surely for these reasons, and not as part of the Academy’s
programme to promote new talent, that Brecht published his Katz-
graben essay in the post-17-June edition of Sinn und Form.

Conventional methods for new circumstances

Even if the production and the Sinn und Form essay can be shown to
be the product of genuine long-term artistic and political commit-
ment on Brecht’s part, this does little to refute the thesis that
Brecht’s decision to use Katzgraben as a forum to explore Stanislavsky
was motivated by the immediate circumstances and little more.
Indeed, it would be perverse, given the cultural-political climate of
spring 1953 and given Brecht’s polemical anti-Stanislavsky stance of
the 1930s, not to see the intensive Stanislavsky study as, in some
sense, a protective measure against the threat posed to the Berliner
Ensemble. Nonetheless, recent research suggests that we should be
wary of assuming a fundamental opposition between Brecht and
Stanislavsky. Hecht, for instance, acknowledges that the increased
availability of Stanislavskian texts in German translation in the early
1950s, particularly later texts originating after 1917, enabled Brecht to
modify his 1930s stance and to find genuine points of contact be-
tween the two theatrical methods.35 In this context, Hecht points to
the use of fictional dialogues in the Katzgraben rehearsal notes and
finds, when compared to Stanislavsky’s writings: ‘die Ähnlichkeit ist
verblüffend.’ Indeed, Hecht concedes that the discovery of a new
version of the ‘Katzgraben-Notate’ necessitates something of a change
of view: ‘So kann vielleicht erst jetzt mit der ersten Veröffentlichung
des ursprünglichen Textkonvoluts das wirkliche Ausmaß des echten
Interesses an dem System Stanislawski erkannt werden.’

35 See Hecht, ‘Grund der Empörung’. Subsequent references, p. 83 and p. 87.

278
 Meg Mumford goes one step further. Not only does she high-
light a range of Stanislavskian influences in the Katzgraben production,
such as the high level of naturalistic detail, an increased use of
empathy, and increased individualised characterisation, but, signifi-
cantly, she also sees the application of these methods to Katzgraben as
a conscious, artistically motivated choice, rather than a mere coinci-
dence of timing between the conference and the Katzgraben pro-
duction. Mumford’s contention is that here in a contemporary play,
which presented unfamiliar rural characters and sought to make a
contribution to the Socialist development of the nascent GDR
society, Brecht required different tools from those he used in staging
his own plays which mainly concerned themselves with criticising
stereotypes of bourgeois capitalist society, and it was ‘some of
Stanislavsky’s methods [which] could be easily adapted to suit the
new demands’.36 This is a point also made by Mittenzwei drawing on
evidence provided by Käthe Rülicke: ‘Es handelte sich für Brecht
jetzt nicht mehr nur um Kritik der dargestellten Gesellschaft,
sondern auch um die Darstellung des positiven Helden – ein Prob-
lem, das auch Stanislawski bis zuletzt beschäftigte.’37 As Mumford
comments: ‘Given the historical context [...], it is easy to describe the
production as mainly a tactic designed to protect the Ensemble from
the ire of party-line socialist realists. Yet the rehearsal notes also
illuminate affinities between the two practitioners, particularly in the
realm of carefully organized staging and attention to detail. They also
amplify Brecht’s desire to support the new community through the
production of a contemporary play, and how Brecht found many of
Stanislavsky’s methods useful for this task.’38
We should remain wary of unquestioningly accepting Mumford’s
argument. She is perhaps a little too eager to accept the apparent
synthesis between Stanislavsky and Brecht developed in East

36 Mumford, p. 246.
37 Werner Mittenzwei, ‘Der Methodenstreit: Brecht oder Stanislawski’, in
Werner Hecht (ed.), Brechts Theorie des Theaters (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1986), pp. 246–68 (p. 262).
38 Mumford, p. 256.

279
German Brecht criticism. Jan Knopf, for instance, unhesitatingly
dismisses such a synthesis as ‘eine Erfindung der DDR-Brecht-
Forschung’.39 Similarly, Mumford’s contention, based on Käthe
Rülicke’s recollections of the Stanislavsky Conference, that ‘Brecht
was not overly threatened by political pressure and that he was able
to maintain a critical stance’40 is clearly at odds with much existing
evidence relating to Brecht’s position at the time, not least Hecht’s
suggestion about the impending liquidation of the Ensemble to
which Mumford refers earlier in her essay.41 Nonetheless, she is able
to point to evidence that Brecht’s interest in Stanislavsky both pre-
dated the peak of the Stanislavsky wave and continued beyond it,
when the necessity of tactical assent was absent. In this context, the
fact of the publication of the Katzgraben essay in Sinn und Form after
17 June, a fact actually overlooked by Mumford, supports her
concluding comments about Brecht’s Stanislavsky study: ‘Had Katz-
graben been mainly a political tactic, the subsiding of the conference-
year furore would probably have been followed by a rapid waning
and eventual end of Brecht’s experimentation with Stanislavsky’s
system. However, right up until the mid ’fifties Brecht continued his
studies, applying some of the methods even to works that, unlike
Strittmatter’s play, were not in the socialist realist mode.’42
Again, it is from writings after 17 June that we can most clearly
infer the expression of genuine belief on Brecht’s part, and in this
context it is worth noting the emphasis, in the Sinn und Form essay
and in the citation for Strittmatter’s National Prize, on what is a
Stanislavskian use of individualised characterisation in Katzgraben:
‘Die Gestalten des Stücks sind voller Individualität, mit köstlichen

39 Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch, I, p. 466.

40 Mumford, p. 243. See Hecht, ‘Grund der Empörung’, p. 86 and Käthe
Rülicke-Weiler, ‘Brecht and Weigel at the Berliner Ensemble’, trans by Karin
Littau, New Theatre Quarterly, 7 (1991), 3–19 (p. 15).
41 See Werner Hecht, ‘Das Vergnügen an einer ernsten Sache: Ein Leben im
Dienste Brechts – Erinnerungen von und an Käthe Rülicke’, Der Tagespiegel, 3
November 1992, p. 17, cited by Mumford, p. 242.
42 Mumford, p. 256.

280
Einzelzügen’ (BFA, 24, p. 437); ‘Völlig neu für die deutsche Bühne
sind die realistisch und großzügig gezeichneten Bauern, welche die
Merkmale ihrer Klasse tragen und zugleich sehr lebendige und
widerspruchsvolle Einzelpersönlichkeiten sind’ (BFA, 23, pp. 256).
Meanwhile, as late as 1955 and written purely for private con-
sumption, Brecht’s autobiographical notes written on his trip to
Moscow to collect the Stalin prize seem to indicate a genuine, rather
than ironic, admiration for Stanislavsky’s contribution to theatre: ‘Im
Künstlertheater Ostrowskis Heißes Herz mit enormem Vergnügen
gesehen. Die ganze Größe Stanislawskis wurde sichtbar’ (BFA, 27, p.
365). It may indeed be that the later theories of Stanislavsky and his
emphasis on the Überaufgabe made possible some sort of synthesis
between Brechtian and Stanislavskian theory and that the conciliatory
position maintained by Brecht in ‘Nicht gegen Stanislawski’ and
other writings from this period (see BFA, 23, pp. 232–36) was a
genuine one. There may be more than just an element of truth in
Mumford’s view: ‘Brecht capitalized upon the new opportunities
available for exploring the two theatre practitioners’ affinities and
differences, and began to view himself more as Stanislavsky’s pro-
gressive successor than his staunch opponent.’43

Some broader implications

It should be clear by now that Katzgraben occupies a highly significant

position within Brecht’s work in the GDR and that some of the
present approaches to the work are in need of substantial reappraisal.
In particular, it sems misjudged to interpret Brecht’s actions only
within their immediate political context, that is, as short-term, tactical
manoeuvres to appease the SED regime. As is the case for much of
Günter Eich’s writing under National Socialism, there appears to be
evidence here of an over-politicised, over-interpreted approach to
cultural production under the conditions of dictatorship. This is an

43 Mumford, p. 257.

281
approach which allows itself to be coloured by the politicising total
claim made by the SED and National Socialist regimes, so that
cultural activity is always seen in that specific ‘totalitarian’ context
and no other. Direct causal links are established between cultural
production and cultural policy where no such necessary connections
exist. This is not to say that Brecht’s cultural activity, in the Katzgraben
production and elsewhere, is not politically motivated. In contrast to
Eich, where the danger of an over-politicised approach is to attribute
political motivations to what are non-political, artistic and pro-
fessional decisions, Brecht’s avowedly political approach to art does
not allow the artistic and professional to be divorced from the
political. However, what the analysis of Katzgraben indicates is the
danger of over-politicising longer-term political motivations, which
are largely autonomous of SED cultural policy, into shorter-term
political motives, entirely determined by the GDR regime. While
assent in the latter case is only transitory and pragmatic, in the former
case it is consistent and ideological. While in the latter case a position
of dissent may be the norm, in the former any dissent can only
constitute a deviation from the norm. As this analysis has shown, the
Katzgraben project offers ample evidence of Brecht’s long-term, self-
motivated commitment to the East German socialist project. Indeed,
it is Brecht’s position as expressed in the Katzgraben essay which is the
fundamental one for understanding his actions in the GDR, and this
is not a position primarily of dissent but one of support, a consistent,
public, and generalised support for the aims and policies of the SED
regime. The genesis of the Katzgraben project, together with Brecht’s
private and public statements relating to it, also suggest strongly that
this consistent position of support arose from ideological, not tactical
and pragmatic, motives. In this sense, the Katzgraben project proves to
be exemplary for the remainder of Brecht’s activity at the Berliner
Ensemble in three significant respects.

282
1. Longer-term principles rather than short-term tactics

Firstly, the Katzgraben analysis presented above, where longer-term

ideological and artistic principles act as motivating factors beyond the
short-term political context, may be applied to other Berliner En-
semble productions. As we have seen, both the opening Ensemble
production of Puntila in 1949 and the later production of Becher’s
Winterschlacht in 1955 are seen by Lyon as characteristic acts of
conformity on Brecht’s part.44 In identifying a sacrifice of artistic
principles to short-term assent, Lyon’s approach to Winterschlacht
echoes strongly existing approaches to Strittmatter’s Katzgraben. Of
Becher’s play Lyon writes as follows:

[Winterschlacht was] a play that no one, least of all Brecht, would have chosen
on the basis of its artistic qualities. This appears to be one of the several cases
where he overlooked artistic standards in order to demonstrate his theater’s
commitment to supporting and promoting the new socialist state and, in the
process, to ingratiate himself with those in power.

A similar tactical interpretation of the Winterschlacht production

comes from Theo Buck: ‘Immer wieder galt Brecht da geradezu als
mißliebiger Störenfried. Geschickt bemühte er sich, diesen Eindruck
zu korrigieren durch taktische Maßnahmen scheinbaren Entgegen-
kommens wie etwa [...] die Inszenierung von Bechers staubtrocke-
nem Stück Winterschlacht.’45 Likewise, Lyon sees Brecht’s decision to
substitute his preferred opening production, Die Tage der Kommune, for
a comedy, Puntila, as a further tactical concession to the regime, made
because of the controversial subject-matter of the former play.46 In
Ronald Hayman’s biography of Brecht, we again find one of the
most extreme expressions of this argument:

44 Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, pp. 76–77. Subsequent reference, p. 77.

45 Theo Buck, ‘Brecht und Becher’, in Walter Delabar and Jörg Döring (eds),
Bertolt Brecht: 1898–1956 (Berlin: Weidler, 1998), pp. 119–40 (p. 134).
46 See Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, p. 78.

283
 [Brecht] had been underestimating the nervousness of the regime about
revolutionary plays which might have made it look undemocratic, and this
was not the moment for a production [...] He opted for Puntila, which had no
direct bearing on current political issues but drew on folk stories to discredit
the old class system. It was a safe play for the opening production, and Brecht
made it still safer by writing in a servant who is a Party member.47

Klaus Völker proposes a slightly milder version of the same thesis,

describing Die Tage der Kommune as ‘unzeitgemäß’ and ‘ein für die
DDR politisch viel zu brisantes Thema’.48 On the substitution for
Puntila, Völker is clear about Brecht’s motivation: ‘Weil eine Komö-
die viel weniger “controversial” war, erschien ihm dann Herr Puntila
und sein Knecht Matti für den Beginn geeigneter.’ As with Katzgraben,
Brecht is seen to be compromising artistic principles in a short-term
attempt to placate the GDR regime.
And yet, as far as Winterschlacht is concerned, Brecht arguably had
little reason to stage a tactically motivated production in 1955, when
the touring success of the Ensemble had all but assured its position.
Furthermore, it is clear from Brecht’s own statements that Winter-
schlacht, as with Katzgraben, fulfilled a genuinely important role for him
in the post-fascist education of the GDR population. As he wrote in
a private note and continued to stress elsewhere: ‘Bechers Stück hat
eine in unserer Nachkriegsliteratur vernachlässigte und für die
politische Erziehung in der DDR wichtige Funktion: die ideologische
Abrechnung mit der Nazizeit. Sie gehört zum Fundament, auf dem
das neue Haus gebaut werden soll’ (BFA, 24, p. 444).49 In this
instance, Völker seems to summarise matters accurately:

Daß Brecht nach dem Kreidekreis in seinem Theater das Schauspiel Winter-
schlacht von Johannes R. Becher inszenierte, war keine opportunistische

47 Hayman, p. 339.
48 Völker, p. 372 and p. 371. Subsequent reference, p. 371.
49 See also Bertolt Brecht, ‘1968: An Emil Frantisek Burian, Berlin, 20. Septem-
ber 1954’, BFA, 30, p. 270 and ‘Über Auführungen des Berliner Ensemble
(1955)’, in Werner Hecht (ed.), Brecht im Gespräch: Diskussionen und Dialoge
(Berlin: Henschel, 1979), pp. 175–87 (pp. 176–80).

284
 Huldigung an den Kulturminister, sondern Folge politischer Überlegungen:
Wichtig an der Winterschlacht schien ihm die Art und Weise, wie hier ideo-
logisch mit der Nazizeit abgerechnet wird. Das war ein in der DDR bisher
vernachlässigtes Thema, über das zudem von der Partei gerne schweigend
hinweggesehen wurde.50

Similarly, although it would be perverse to deny some importance for

the immediate cultural-political context in the choice of Puntila, it
would be a blinkered view which saw only short-term political
motivations at work in this instance. Brecht’s political approach to
culture notwithstanding, we again need to grant to artistic decisions
some degree of freedom from the politicising conditions of dictator-
ship. Brecht was opening a new artistic project in November 1949
and, regardless of its location, other professional and artistic con-
siderations would always have played an important role. Werner
Mittenzwei suggests, for instance, that it was not political consider-
ations which prompted Brecht to drop Die Tage der Kommune. Rather,
‘im gegenwärtigen Zustand schien es ihm sicher noch zu unfertig, um
es aufzuführen. So entschloß er sich die Saison mit [Puntila] zu
eröffnen’.51 Carl Weber points to a combination of factors, not least
the desire for popular and critical success, which informed Brecht’s
decision: ‘Copyright problems [...] and the predictable ideological
reservations of the party made Brecht opt for Puntila, which also
seemed to be a likelier crowd-pleaser.’52 The problematic political
factors associated with Die Tage der Kommune cannot be entirely
dismissed, but they also need to be placed alongside the practical
issues of copyright and popular success which would have applied
both inside and outside dictatorship. As with many of Eich’s artistic-
ally or personally motivated decisions, we need to be aware here of
the powerful politicising effect of the dictatorship, with its ability to
obscure other non-political factors. In the case of Puntila, as with
Katzgraben and Winterschlacht, a causal relationship is established be-

50 Völker, p. 410.
51 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 365.
52 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble’, p. 170.

285
tween short-term political issues and artistic decisions where no such
necessary relationship exists.
Just how liberating the removal of these politicising blinkers can
be is demonstrated by the remainder of Weber’s analysis, where
Puntila is placed not within its short-term political context, but within
what Weber terms Brecht’s ‘master-plan for his company’.53 Here, he
identifies three specific theatrical traditions which Brecht sought to
pursue with the Ensemble: ‘drama that presented the agenda and
history of social revolution’; ‘plays from the classic and modern
repertory which critically probed class society, to be staged in new
radical readings’; ‘comedies from the German and international
theatre to establish a tradition which, in comparison to other cul-
tures, the German theatre was lacking.’ It is impossible to deny that
Brecht had a political agenda here. To a large extent his aim was to
offer support for the new socialist state and its regime. However, at
the same time Brecht was also pursuing his own artistic agenda,
providing ‘a model for a rebuilding of German theatre culture from
its ruins’. Brecht’s interest in developing a German comic tradition,
already evinced by his decision to stage Puntila in Zurich and
Hamburg the previous year, provides an artistic context for the
Berlin Puntila production, over and above the political considerations
attached to Die Tage der Kommune. This same interest also lends a
broader context to the Katzgraben production, since Strittmatter’s play
offered Brecht a further opportunity to develop a German comic
tradition, as well as to promote new East German talent and to
demonstrate the perceived economic achievements of the regime.
Any consistent, artistically driven programme for the Ensemble only
becomes visible if the productions are freed from the constraints of
dictatorship which encourage a reading as short-term tactical acts. In
any case, in these instances Brecht’s own artistic and political
motivations largely matched those of the SED regime, and thus
tactical considerations are rendered superfluous.

53 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble’, p. 170. Subsequent refer-
ences, p. 170.

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2. Active, consistent, and genuine ideological support

This active support on Brecht’s part for the founding goals of the
GDR is the second exemplary feature to emerge from our analysis of
the Katzgraben production. If the ideological position expressed in the
Katzgraben essay, far within the will to truth of the core myths of the
SED, is taken to be a genuine and consistent one, then many of the
ambivalences surrounding Brecht’s position in the GDR may at least
partially be resolved. Above all this applies to speculation concerning
the precise nature of Brecht’s relationship to communism and to the
SED and to his decision to return to East Berlin in the first place. As
Manfred Jäger suggests, Brecht was both ‘weit mehr als ein Sympa-
thisant, aber in gewisser Hinsicht weit weniger als ein SED-
Mitglied’.54 In this context, certain actions – such as his apparent
courting of Salzburg and Munich as alternative venues for his
postwar theatre project, his application for an Austrian passport, his
lodging of copyright with Peter Suhrkamp outside the GDR, and his
failure to join the Party – have been read as markers of ideological
uncertainty with regard to East German communism and as indica-
tive of the primacy of pragmatic motivations in Brecht’s deliber-
ations. Esslin, for instance, sees in Brecht’s dealings with Suhrkamp
evidence that Brecht ‘still had some doubts as to the advisability of
moving too far into Soviet orbit’, as an example of Brecht taking
precautions ‘in his characteristically sly and circumspect manner’.55
Carl Weber, meanwhile, embodies the contradictions of critics’ views
on these matters when he claims, on the one hand, that ‘first and last,
[Brecht] wanted to sustain his theater, and he found the philosophical
and political justifications as he needed them’ and, on the other, that
‘the chance to participate in the building of a first socialist state on
German soil must have been irresistible to the Marxist playwright’.56
On this fraught issue, it is Jäger who is perhaps best able to point

54 Jäger, p. 63.
55 Esslin, p. 78 and p. 79.
56 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and Communism’, p. 27 and Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and the
Berliner Ensemble’, p. 168.

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towards resolution: ‘Die Beschreibung, was für eine Art Marxist oder
Leninist Brecht war, muß von den Texten ausgehen und darf nicht
vom Besitz dieses oder jenes Mitgliedsbuchs abgeleitet werden.’57 In
this respect, the texts relating to the Katzgraben production make clear
the nature of Brecht’s consistently partisan GDR position
throughout 1952 and 1953.
As far as the period preceding Brecht’s establishment of his
theatre company in East Berlin is concerned, it is ‘Kleines Organon
für das Theater’ (BFA, 23, pp. 65–97), the programmatic statement
of intent for Brecht’s new project, planned in the United States and
completed in Switzerland in the summer of 1948, which is the central
text which most clearly expresses both Brecht’s artistic and his
ideological position. Just as Carl Weber points to Theaterarbeit,
Brecht’s account of the Berliner Ensemble’s first six productions, as
evidence that Brecht ‘certainly did not have in mind a theater based
on the tenets of socialist realism’ and, by extension, that the GDR
was in no sense the natural home of such a project,58 so a similar
argument might be made out for the ‘Organon’. After all, its
publication in a special issue of the literary journal Sinn und Form in
1949 had, in Mittenzwei’s words, ‘den eklatanten Gegensatz der
Methode Brechts zu der Stanislawskis sichtbar gemacht’,59 and it was
this stark opposition which was subsequently to offer a convenient
target for Brecht’s fiercest critics at the Stanislavsky Conference of
April 1953. As Mittenzwei enquires: ‘wie würde Brecht in eine
Theaterlandschaft passen, die die faschistische Beeinträchtigung
durch Besinnung auf die klassischen Traditionen und die sowjetische
Stanislawski-Schule zu überwinden suchte?’ In this context, the
‘Organon’ can be understood, even at this early stage, as the first of
Brecht’s intentionally dissenting interventions against SED cultural
policy, defending his position against imminent attack from an
orthodox Stanislavskian position. This is certainly the position of

57 Jäger, p. 58.
58 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and Communism’, p. 22.
59 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 446–47. Subsequent reference, p. 218.

288
Uwe Schoor who highlights the following comments made by Hans
Mayer, someone who had worked closely with Brecht on another
contribution to that first special issue of Sinn und Form: ‘Die Arbeit
war wichtig, denn es galt, diese neue Theaterarbeit […] auch gegen
die sowjetische Theaterkonzeption einer Nachfolge des Naturalismus
aus der Schule Stanislawskis abzusichern.’60
However, this form of argument crucially fails to differentiate
between different phases in SED cultural policies and to recognise
that the cultural-political climate of 1948 and 1949 was very different
from that of early 1953.61 Certainly it was already clear that some
important figures had adopted positions opposed to Brecht’s
dramatic theory, but what was not at all clear was that these positions
would crystallise into irreconcilable poles, with one extreme, a
version of the Stanislavskian system, dogmatically imposed and
rigidly applied across East German theatres in opposition to Brecht’s
own theatrical methods. As Mittenzwei himself points out in his
essay on Brecht and Stanislavsky, even as late as 1951, use of the
Stanislavskian method was largely restricted to a small experimental
circle in Weimar.62 Only from 1951–1953 was the method more
intensively and officially propagated. With cultural policy still to
some extent in flux in the Soviet zone in 1949, it is difficult to justify
a reading of the ‘Organon’ which sees it opposing that as yet unfixed
policy. In the context of the late 1940s, it is not the position of the
‘Organon’ within a cultural-political controversy which had yet to
really begin which is of importance, but rather its position within the
broader East/West political climate.
In this context, the ‘Organon’ must be analysed not in terms of
its discourse of literary and dramatic theory, but rather in terms of its

60 Hans Mayer, Ein deutscher auf Widerruf: Erinnerungen, 2 vols (Frankfurt a.M.:
Suhrkamp, 1988), II, p. 147, quoted by Schoor, p. 137.
61 Mittenzwei himself identifies 1951 as the key turning-point away from the
‘großzügigen, anregenden, und fördernden sowjetischen Kulturpolitik des
ersten halben Nachkriegsjahrzehnts’. Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p.
453.
62 Mittenzwei, ‘Brecht oder Stanislawski’, pp. 246–47.

289
political discourse. From this perspective, the ‘Organon’ is revealed
as an unavowedly Marxist-Leninist essay. In his description of the
process of industrialisation in paragraphs 15 to 19, for instance,
Brecht shows himself to be firmly within the Marxist-Leninist will to
truth, clearly demonstrating the stark pro-modern impulses at the
heart of the ideology, while also involving himself in the language of
the class-struggle, condemning the exploitation of one class by
another (BFA, 23, pp. 71–73). His discussion of science in this
section is couched all the time in the discourse of Marxism

So ist die neue Wissenschaft, die sich mit dem Wesen der menschlichen
Gesellschaft befaßt und die vor etwa hundert Jahren begründet wurde, im
Kampf der Beherrschten mit den Herrschenden begründet worden. Seitdem
gibt es etwas vom wissenschaftlichen Geist in der Tiefe, bei der neuen Klasse
der Arbeiter, deren Lebenselement die große Produktion ist.

Similarly in paragraph 55, Brecht makes clear where an actor’s

responsibilities lie: ‘Will der Schauspieler nicht Papagei oder Affe
sein, muß er sich das Wissen der Zeit über das menschliche
Zusammenleben aneignen, indem er die Kämpfe der Klassen mit-
kämpft’ (BFA, 23, p. 86). As such an overt statement of a partisan
Marxist-Leninist position, the ‘Organon’, in combination with the
texts relating to Katzgraben, argues very strongly for a privileging of
genuine ideological motivations, rather than tactical pragmatism, in
the assent granted by Brecht to the SED regime in his activities with
the Berliner Ensemble. As Peter Brooker points out, there is indeed
something in the common-sense view that the natural home of
Brecht the Marxist playwright was in the Marxist zone of Germany.63
Again, in those attempts to attribute less straightforward motives to
Brecht’s return to East Berlin, the conditions of dictatorship can be
seen to encourage an over-interpreted reading of actions which were
not necessarily tactically motivated.

63 Peter Brooker, Bertolt Brecht: Dialectics, Poetry, Politics (London: Croom Helm,
1988), pp. 207–08.

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3. Non-intentional dissent

The final respect in which the Katzgraben production can be shown to

be exemplary is in the way that it illuminates the mechanisms by
which dissent could be generated by Brecht in the GDR. As we have
seen, the Katzgraben project cohered both politically and aesthetically
with the Party line, and, in the West at least, Brecht’s strongly
supportive intention was matched by the effect of the play. That Der
Spiegel wrote the production off as ‘das längst erwartete Brechtsche
Propaganda-Drama, voll von halben Wahrheiten und ganzen Lügen’,
for instance, testifies to the collaborative effect attributed in the West
to Brecht’s work in the GDR.64 And yet, the official Party press in
the East did not share this view. The ideological and aesthetic
orthodoxy of the production did not spare it from a negative critical
reaction.65 Indeed, in his response to the criticism of Katzgraben, the
resigned tone of Brecht’s journal-entry of 4 March 1953 became
rather more aggressive. In a letter of 16 September 1953 written to
the editorial board of Theater der Zeit, and copied to the Academy of
Arts and State Art Commission, Brecht objected to their superficial
and amateurish criticism and questioned the qualifications of their
reviewers (BFA, 30, pp. 204). In this way, what had been an inten-
tional act of support for the regime and a genuine attempt to
contribute to the development of Socialism in the GDR, using many
of the tools prescribed by the SED, actually generated a dissenting
effect. Similarly, the Winterschlacht production, singled out by Lyon as
an act of conformity, elicited a comparably negative reaction, while
even Die Mutter, Brecht’s Gorky adaptation with its partisan finale in
praise of dialectics, attracted the ire of the SED Central Committee
in March 1951 for its aesthetic non-conformity.66 In this sense,

64 See Hecht, ‘Grund der Empörung’, p. 87.

65 See BFA, 25, pp. 559–60. See in particular Lily Leder, ‘Katzgraben von Erwin
Strittmatter am Deutschen Theater: Berliner Ensemble’, Theater der Zeit, 8
(1953), 57–60.
66 The extent of the criticism of Winterschlacht is apparent from a dialogue text
written by Brecht in response to that criticism. See Bertolt Brecht, ‘Einige

291
Katzgraben exemplifies two significant elements of the dissent ex-
pressed by Brecht’s work with the Berliner Ensemble. Firstly, this
dissent can be seen to arise from aesthetic, rather than political, non-
conformity and is as such non-intentional in nature. Secondly, this
dissent is less an internal and intentional feature of a work and more
the external product of critics and politicians. Certainly in the case of
these Ensemble productions, dissenting effects were generated not
by Brecht, but by this latter group of figures, not all of whom need
necessarily have actually seen the source of their objections.
How far dissent is a product of factors external to the work of
art, and how the extent of that dissent exists in a positive and
proportional relationship with the total claim of the regime, can be
further demonstrated by the contrasting reception of two pairs of
Berliner Ensemble productions. Firstly, the dissenting effects gener-
ated by Die Mutter contrast strongly with the Mutter Courage
production with which Brecht marked his return to Berlin. While in
the former case, aesthetic unorthodoxy became a matter worthy of
discussion by the Central Committee, in the latter case objections to
Brecht’s dramatic method remained largely confined to a cultural
context.67 Secondly, the Ensemble’s productions of both Lenz’s
Hofmeister and Goethe’s Urfaust provoked noticeably contrasting re-
actions. In both of these productions, Brecht sought to pursue one
of the central aims of his Ensemble project, namely to develop
radical readings of the German classical tradition. Both were
aesthetically unorthodox in that they failed to pursue the appropriate
strand of the German classical heritage and both raised the vexed

Irrtümer über die Spielweise des Berliner Ensemble’, BFA, 23, pp. 323–38.
For examples of the criticism which Brecht was reacting against, see BFA, 23,
p. 581. For criticism of Die Mutter, see ‘68: 5. Tagung des ZK der SED, 15.–
17. März 1951’, in Joachim Lucchesi (ed.), Das Verhör in der Oper: Die Debatte
um die Aufführung ‘Das Verhör des Lukullus’ von Bertolt Brecht und Paul Dessau
(Berlin: BasisDruck, 1993), pp. 127–77 (p. 173).
67 On reaction to Mutter Courage and the subsequent debate between Fritz
Erpenbeck and Wolfgang Harich, see Hecht, Brecht-Chronik, pp. 848–52 and
Jäger, pp. 52–54.

292
notion of deutsche Misere. Nonetheless, while in the former case recep-
tion of the production was broadly positive with Brecht able to
defend himself in what remained essentially a cultural debate, the
production of Urfaust had to be withdrawn, as Brecht became caught
up in a cultural-political controversy which threatened his very
existence in the GDR.68 The contrasting dissenting function of the
two sets of productions, Die Mutter and Urfaust, on the one hand, as
opposed to Mutter Courage and Hofmeister, on the other, was generated
not by a difference in intention on Brecht’s part, nor by a significant
internal difference in the nature of the productions themselves. What
had changed between Mutter Courage in early 1949 and Die Mutter in
early 1951, and between Hofmeister in April 1950 and Urfaust in the
spring of 1952, was the external cultural-political climate in which
Brecht’s work generated its effect. The onset of the Formalism
Campaign in 1951 and the burgeoning Stalinisation of the Party in
1952/1953, allied to the increasing precariousness of the regime itself
within the context of Soviet policy on the German question, led to
the ever more rigid application of a set of cultural norms which
Brecht’s work at the Berliner Ensemble contravened. In the context
of the growing total claim of the regime, this aesthetic contravention
was increasingly viewed as political dissent. Indeed, that even a
politically and aesthetically orthodox production such as Katzgraben
was able to achieve a dissenting effect by virtue of its mere associ-
ation with Brecht is a powerful indicator of the capacity of the
regime’s claim to generate dissent where none was intended. Partial
and non-intentional it may have been, but there can be no doubt that
Brecht was expressing some form of dissent against the SED regime
in these productions.

68 On reception of Hofmeister, see BFA, 8, pp. 572–76 and Hecht, Brecht-Chronik,

pp. 918–19. On Urfaust, see Hecht, Brecht-Chronik, pp. 1013–14 and pp. 1049–
51, and Deborah Vietor-Engländer, Faust in der DDR (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang,
1987). On Brecht’s role in the subsequent Faustus-Debatte, see Hans Bunge,
Die Debatte um Hanns Eislers ‘Johann Faustus’: Eine Dokumentation (Berlin:
Basisdruck, 1991).

293
 This, above all else, is what emerges from a consideration of
Brecht’s work at the Berliner Ensemble – the generation of non-
intentional dissent from a position of support. Brecht did not put on
plays which sought to undermine the regime politically in any sense.
In this respect, his plays were orthodox and, in terms of intention,
sought to support or even collaborate with the regime. Reaction to
these productions in the West manifests their potential to achieve
this effect. At the same time, the overall supportive function of his
work at the Berliner Ensemble was restricted both by its relatively
indirect nature, at least in comparison to unequivocally political
statements or actions, and by Brecht’s perceived aesthetic un-
orthodoxy. The public statement and increasingly dogmatic, if
inconsistent, enforcement of the regime’s total claim on cultural
production in the years 1951–1953 ensured that this unorthodoxy
was politicised into dissent. The supportive function of Brecht’s
theatrical productions must then be tempered by a recognition of this
dissent. Nonetheless, the Katzgraben productions seem to demon-
strate that Lyon is correct to place Brecht’s assenting impulses ahead
of the dissenting. What they also clearly demonstrate is the orthodox
nature of Brecht’s ideological position in the GDR, tied as he was
through a continuing belief in the threat of fascism to the core
founding myths of the SED. As far as Brecht’s activities with the
Berliner Ensemble are concerned, this ‘straightforward’ motivational
background, rather than any more complex tactical considerations,
seems to have been paramount in determining his actions. Further-
more, in terms of the public expression of Brecht’s attitudes through
the work of the Berliner Ensemble, the events of 17 June, far from
freeing Brecht to express outright opposition to the regime, only
reinforced this attachment to the will to truth of the GDR. Any
dissent in this area of Brecht’s GDR activities remained partial and
non-intentional.

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Cultural-Political Interventions in Sinn und Form

Up to this point in our analysis of Brecht’s cultural activities in the

GDR, we have not been dealing primarily with the direct and open
expression of support and/or opposition to the SED regime.
Although the intention of Brecht’s work may well have been very
strongly assenting, seeking to support the global aims of the SED
regime and thereby coming close to crossing the broad gulf into
collaboration, there is a clear limit to the assenting effect which can
be achieved by a piece of theatre, no matter how politically motiv-
ated. Equally, any dissenting function attached to theatrical pro-
ductions at the Berliner Ensemble has been shown to have been
restricted to non-intentional, politicised effects. At the same time, the
analysis of the Ensemble’s Katzgraben productions points to a further
dimension of Brecht’s activities in the GDR where the expression of
assent or dissent is potentially of a much more direct nature. In
unmediated statements, such as the Katzgraben essay published in Sinn
und Form, Brecht sought to intervene directly in cultural, cultural-
political, and even political, issues of the day. Such interventions are
clearly of great significance in any analysis of Brecht’s assent and
dissent, not least because the unmediated nature of Brecht’s voice in
these statements offers the potential for a higher level of assent or
dissent than that expressed indirectly in specifically literary texts. The
relative absence of ambiguity in such unmediated texts allows for a
clearer reading of Brecht’s intentions. This less ambiguous expression
of intention, and the necessarily more widespread and uniform effect
on readers which accompanies it, generates the heightened potential
for assent or dissent in such statements, and it is in this area of
cultural-political activity that the highpoints of Brecht’s assent and
dissent lie.

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Brecht and Sinn und Form

More specifically, the Katzgraben essay signals the importance of the

literary periodical Sinn und Form as a platform for these kinds of
intervention. That essay appeared in the same issue as two other
cultural-political statements: the ‘Thesen zur Faustus-Diskussion’
(BFA, 23, pp. 246–49), Brecht’s public intervention in the long-
running controversy over Hanns Eisler’s Faustus libretto; and the
‘Erklärung der Deutschen Akademie der Künste’ (BFA, 23, pp. 253–
55), the Academy’s recommendations for cultural reform, in whose
composition Brecht had played a central role. The sheer volume of
contributions Brecht made to Sinn und Form in his lifetime, twenty-
three in all, including first publications such as the ‘Buckower
Elegien’, confirms that Werner Mittenzwei has identified a potentially
fruitful area of research when he describes Sinn und Form as ‘für
Brecht die wichtigste literarische Plattform, von der aus er die
Öffentlichkeit in sorgfältiger Weise mit neuen oder bereits im Exil
entstandenen Arbeiten bekannt machte. Seit 1950 erschien in fast
jedem zweiten Heft Beiträge von ihm. Eine solche kontinuierliche
Veröffentlichungspolitik betrieb in der Zeitschrift kaum ein anderer
Schriftsteller des Landes’.69 And yet, with only ten of those contrib-
utions of a strictly literary nature, it is clear that the Academy
periodical served as much more than just a literary platform for
Brecht. In publishing such a large number of political and cultural-
political statements, it operated as a significant site of both inten-
tional assent and dissent.
Significant in terms of dissent is the thesis developed by Mitten-
zwei that Brecht saw in the East Berlin Academy of Arts a forum in
which he could intervene against what he perceived to be errors in
the nascent cultural policies of the GDR.70 Recent research has built

69 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 379–80. Brecht published six of the
‘Buckower Elegien’ in the final edition of 1953. See Bertolt Brecht,
‘Gedichte’, Sinn und Form, 5.6 (1953), 119–21.
70 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 378 and p. 379: ‘In der Akademie sah er
ein Gremium, das gegen Mißstände und Fehlentwicklungen auf künstleri-

296
on this thesis and exposed the Academy as an important site of
dissent. More specifically, the central role of the academy periodical
Sinn und Form and its editor Peter Huchel as a focus for this dissent
has also emerged.71 Uwe Schoor in particular has sought to apply
Mittenzwei’s thesis to Brecht’s contributions to Sinn und Form:

Wie [Brecht] die Akademie als ein Forum verstand, [...] zu dessen wesent-
lichen Aufgaben er zählte, ‘darüber zu wachen, daß die neuen politischen
Aufgaben nicht dazu führten, das Künstlerische links liegen zu lassen’ so
behandelte er auch Sinn und Form als Organ eines Gremiums, das nach seiner
Auffassung ‘gegen Mißstände und Fehlentwicklungen aufzutreten’ hatte. Aus
diesem Grunde war die Zeitschrift der geeignete Ort, an dem Brecht seine
vom Neuen Deutschland zurückgewiesenen ‘Notizen zur Barlach-Ausstellung’
publizieren konnte .72

As an organ of the Academy, edited by a sympathetic non-Party

figure, Sinn und Form seems to have offered Brecht an invaluable
channel to make dissenting interventions. As Schoor indicates, this
was a channel which remained open to Brecht in early 1952 for his
‘Notizen zur Barlach Ausstellung’ (BFA, 23, pp. 198–202), when
Party-controlled channels were blocked. The same point is made by
Jäger in relation to Brecht’s defence of Hanns Eisler eighteen months
later: ‘Brecht, dem immer die von Peter Huchel geleitete Zeitschrift
der Akademie der Künste, Sinn und Form offenstand – sonst hätte er

schem Gebiet aufzutreten habe’; ‘Die Akademie verstand er als ein Forum,
das Einfluß auf die Geschmacksbildung des Publikums gewinnen mußte. Zu
ihren wesentlichen Aufgaben zählte Brecht, darüber zu wachen, daß die
neuen politischen Aufgaben nicht dazu führten, das Künstlerische links
liegenzulassen’.
71 See Parker, ‘Sinn und Form und der 17. Juni’; Peter Davies, Divided Loyalties:
East German Writers and the Politics of German Division 1945–1953 (Leeds:
Maney, 2000); Peter Davies and Stephen Parker, ‘Brecht, SED Cultural Policy
and the Issue of Authority in the Arts: The Struggle for Control of the
German Academy of Arts’, in Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone (eds),
Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 181–95.
72 Schoor, pp. 136–37, quoting Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 379–80.

297
für seine Interventionen oft kein öffentliches Forum gehabt – ver-
suchte dort im Juli 1953 ein gutes Wort für Eisler einzulegen.’73
Above all, it is these two articles, the ‘Barlach-Notizen’ and the
‘Faustus-Thesen’, both of which intervened against the emerging SED
orthodoxy in cultural matters, which establish the thesis that Brecht
was able to exploit Sinn und Form as an outlet for dissent. Indeed,
these two contributions by Brecht have acquired a pivotal, possibly
even exaggerated, importance within Schoor’s broader analysis of
Huchel’s editorship of the journal. It is Schoor’s central thesis that
Huchel’s editorial technique is best characterised by ‘das Prinzip einer
bewußten Widersprüchlichkeit’ and, further, that in defending this
principle Huchel found an enthusiastic ally in Brecht.74 Similarly:

Widersprüchlichkeit [war] zum Prinzip erhoben. […] Die Kontrastie-

rungsverfahren reichen dabei vom offenen Nach- und Nebeneinander
gegensätzlicher Meinungen, wie etwa in der Faustus-Debatte vorgeführt, über
Beiträge, die ihren Charakter als ‘Gegenrede’ erst im Bezug auf aktuelle
Vorgänge in der Kulturlandschaft offenbaren (Brechts ‘Notizen zur Barlach-
Ausstellung’).75

In this way, the two Brecht interventions come to represent a

justification of Huchel’s entire editorship, as Schoor seeks to appeal
to Brecht’s authority in his defence of Huchel. Unfortunately, this
focus on the dissent expressed in the Barlach and Faustus inter-
ventions is liable to overshadow the assenting function both of these
same interventions and other considerably more partisan statements
made in Sinn und Form. As the genesis of the Katzgraben project
showed and as Schoor himself acknowledges, Brecht made consistent
and prolonged calls for increased partisanship in the journal. The
Katzgraben essay formed part of a broader assenting intention on

73 Jäger, pp. 67–68.

74 Schoor, p. 138: ‘Im Dankbrief für das erste Sonderheft hatte [Brecht] sich
vom “großen Plan” der bis dahin vorgelegten Hefte begeistert gezeigt, das
Prinzip einer bewußten Widersprüchlichkeit entsprach in vielem seinem
eigenen Vorgehen.’ For the letter itself, see BFA, 29, pp. 539–40.
75 Schoor, p. 67.

298
Brecht’s part, and this attempt to use the journal’s international
profile as a propaganda medium, what Schoor refers to as ‘Brechts
Forderung nach Darstellung der neuen Gesellschaft’, clearly stands in
stark contrast to Schoor’s earlier thesis regarding dissenting inter-
ventions.76
In fact, Sinn und Form offers a paradigm for the contradictory
assenting and dissenting impulses which characterise Brecht’s
activities in the GDR. Inside the GDR, the journal’s status as an
organ of the Academy, relatively free from SED control, made it a
suitable outlet for dissenting interventions. At the same time, the
readership and respect which this status won for the journal in the
West made it an equally suitable outlet for more partisan, propagand-
istic even, statements. It is this paradigmatic nature of Brecht
contributions to Sinn und Form which makes an analysis of those
same contributions such a necessary part of this overall assessment
of Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR. Central here must be the
‘Barlach-Notizen’ and the ‘Faustus-Thesen’, not only as the most
obvious instances of dissent, but also in terms of the assent they
simultaneously granted to the regime. In particular, the nature and
relative weighting of assent and dissent expressed by Brecht in these
interventions and others in Sinn und Form acts as a barometer of
Brecht’s responses to the changing cultural-political situation in the
years 1951 to 1953.

‘Notizen zur Barlach Ausstellung’

On 14 December 1951, an exhibition of Ernst Barlach’s sculpture

opened at the Academy of Arts in East Berlin. In the weeks that
followed, the exhibition attracted two particularly notable reviews in
the Party press, the first written by Kurt Magritz in Tägliche Rundschau
on 29 December 1951, the second by Wilhelm Girnus a week later in

76 Schoor, p. 133.

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Neues Deutschland.77 Magritz and Girnus couched their attacks in
precisely the kind of discourse which typified SED artistic criticism.
Theirs was abstract criticism reliant on semantically elastic and empty
cover-terms which attached a string of anti-Enlightenment values to
Barlach’s work in the style typical of SED discourse. According to
Magritz, Barlach’s work was ‘stark beherrscht von antidemokrati-
schen Tendenzen’. It was ‘ihrem Inhalt nach mystisch und ihrer
Form nach antirealistisch’. Above all, ‘die Wahrheit ist die, daß
Barlach sowohl seinen Ideen als auch seinem Schaffen nach im
Wesentlichem zum Formalismus des beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts
gehört’. Similarly, Girnus could see only animalistic primitivism in
Barlach’s sculptures and nothing which pointed to the future of
progressive Socialist art: ‘Die progressive Kraft, die die Bauernklasse
unter der Führung der Arbeiterklasse im Kampf für eine bessere
Gesellschaft entfalten kann, ist in seinen Gestalten nicht andeutungs-
weise spürbar.’ While the nature of the attacks may have been typical,
the nature of their target was not. The criticism of Barlach, essentially
a realist rather than an abstract artist, who had himself fallen victim
to the Nazi art purges of 1937, signalled a significant hardening in the
on-going Formalism Campaign.
For Schoor, Brecht’s response to Magritz and Girnus constitutes
an archetypal instance of ‘Gegenrede’, ‘ein Beitrag, in dem Huchel
die Stimme der Akademie so überzeugend und zur rechten Zeit
artikuliert sah, daß er sie immer wieder als Beispiel zitierte’,78 and a
contextual analysis of this public intervention seems to confirm this
view. The circumstances surrounding the composition of the notes
offer clear evidence that this was a direct and intentional act of
dissent against Magritz and Girnus.79 On 13 January 1952, one
month after the opening of the exhibition, Gustav Seitz visited

77 Kurt Magritz, ‘Ein merkwürdiges Vorwort’, Tägliche Rundschau, 29 December

1951, quoted in BFA, 23, p. 512; Wilhelm Girnus, ‘Ernst-Barlach-Ausstellung
in der Deutschen Akademie der Künste’, Neues Deutschland, 4 January 1952,
quoted in Jäger, p. 36. References in this paragraph taken from these sources.
78 Schoor, p. 136 and p. 137.
79 See BFA, 23, pp. 511–13.

300
Brecht in Berlin and shared with him his concerns over the negative
press reaction. As a direct consequence of Seitz’s visit, Brecht visited
the exhibition, dictated his impressions to Käthe Rülicke, and,
between 27 and 30 January, completed the ‘Notizen zur Barlach-
Ausstellung’. In Mittenzwei’s words: ‘Er empfand diese Artikel als ein
Alarmzeichen. [...] Eine Entgegnung hielt Brecht schon deshalb für
notwendig, weil gegen Barlach mit Forderungen argumentiert wurde,
die die gesamte Kunst betrafen.’80 This sense of a direct and very
deliberate response is mirrored in Brecht’s own comments in his
journal on 1 February 1952:

Die Barlachausstellung der Akademie der Künste wurde in der Täglichen

Rundschau und im Neuen Deutschland heftig angegriffen, so daß die wenigen
verbliebenen Künstler in Lethargie geworfen wurden. Ich machte mir
Notizen dazu, die Werte und das Exemplarische des Werks konkret ins Licht
zu setzen gegen eine völlig abstrakte Vernichtung mit gesellschaftskritischen
Waffen. (BFA, 27, p. 329)

Furthermore, Girnus’s refusal to print the notes in Neues Deutschland

can only be interpreted in this context as at once a recognition and
expression of their dissenting potential. With the publication of the
notes, first of all in the February 1952 issue of Sinn und Form and
subsequently in the form of abridged reprints in the Berliner Zeitung
later in the same month and in the Düsseldorf periodical Heute und
Morgen the following year, the nature of Brecht’s dissenting intention
became twofold. The clear and deliberate intention on his part to
oppose the Party line on Barlach was now allied to a defiance of
Girnus’s decision not to publish his response. This double intention,
and the degree of risk to his position in the GDR associated with it,
marks out this intervention as a potentially oppositional act. In terms
of the effect of the notes, their publication both in the East and the
West and both in the daily and literary press ensured a broad
circulation. Above all, though, it is the negative reaction of the SED
authorities – the ‘Ärger, den sein Eintreten für Ernst Barlach aus-

80 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 441.

301
löste’ and the censure received by Huchel – which provides the most
telling indication of the dissenting effect achieved by Brecht in this
intervention.81
A textual analysis of the article itself (BFA, 23, pp. 198–202)
seems to confirm to some extent the oppositional status conferred
upon the notes by the contextual factors outlined above. It is
noticeable, for instance, that Brecht does not shy away from making
explicit reference to ‘die Diskussionen’ which have provoked the
article. In fact, in the introductory paragraph - ‘mir mißfällt auch der
ungeduldige und eifernde Ton einiger Äußerungen’ - he comes close
to a public expression of the private dissent found in his journal-
entry of 1 February. Clear statements in praise of Barlach’s work
further mark the notes out as a conscious counter-point to the
Magritz and Girnus articles: ‘Ich halte Barlach für einen der größten
Bildhauer, die wir Deutschen gehabt haben. Der Wurf, die Be-
deutung der Aussage, das handwerkliche Ingenium, Schönheit ohne
Beschönigung, Größe ohne Gerecktheit, Harmonie ohne Glätte,
Lebenskraft ohne Brutalität machen Barlachs Plastiken zu Meister-
werken.’ Within the binary system of SED discourse, it is also
significant that Brecht sees in Barlach’s work not ‘formalism’, but
rather ‘das Merkmal des Realismus’. Brecht openly attributes to
Barlach’s work the positively loaded term of the binary discursive
pair.
At the same time, both Brecht’s criticism of the discussion
surrounding the exhibition and his praise for Barlach are tempered
by a degree of equivocation. The ‘discussions’ about Barlach’s work,
as Brecht euphemistically describes the one-sided articles in the Party
press, are not condemned out of hand. Instead, they are seen as a
healthy product of the GDR system: ‘Die Diskussionen darüber
müssen als Zeichen für die Bedeutung gewertet werden, welche der
Kunst in der DDR beigelegt wird. [...] die Diskussion mag noch nicht

81 Buck, p. 134. See also BFA, 23, p. 513. In Huchel’s own words: ‘Also wurde
ich zu Becher zitiert, der mich beschimpfte.’ See Stephen Parker, Peter Huchel:
A Literary Life in Twentieth-Century Germany (Bern: Lang, 1998), p. 312.

302
die Gründlichkeit und Allseitigkeit haben, die anzustreben ist, [...]
aber Barlachs Werk ist noch nie für ein so großes Forum diskutiert
worden.’ Indeed, Brecht goes further and makes significant con-
cessions to Magritz and Girnus. He agrees, for instance, that some of
the sculptures have ‘etwas Mystisches’ about them, and ‘daß unser
künstlerischer Nachwuchs nicht aufgefordert werden sollte, von
solchen Werken zu lernen’. It is even possible to locate what seems
to be an accusation of ‘formalism’: ‘Ich notiere hier nichts über die
Werke, die mir weniger gefallen (wie “Der Rächer”, “Der Zweifler”,
“Die Verlassenen” usw.), da bei ihnen die Formung, wie mir scheint,
eine Deformierung der Wirklichkeit bedeutet.’ Irrespective of
whether we choose to interpret such concessions as a tactical move
to make his criticism more palatable or as a genuine reflection of his
views, such an open expression of agreement with the attacks which
had preceded Brecht’s own intervention clearly neuters to some
extent the dissenting potential of this same intervention.
That Brecht did not launch an all-out polemic against Magritz
and Girnus in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’ is acknowledged by Mittenzwei:

Aufschlußreich wiederum ist, daß er nicht mit einer Polemik auftrat, einer
Form, in der er hätte brillieren können. Vielmehr nutzte er die gesellschafts-
kritischen Waffen, die die Kritiker der Täglichen Rundschau und des Neuen
Deutschland gegen Barlach ausspielten, jetzt für Barlach. Er machte einige
Notizen zu einzelnen Werken des Künstlers, indem er das Exemplarische der
Barlachschen Kunst hervorhob, das, was ein Sozialist und Marxist an Barlach
schätzen mußte.82

Instead of simply rebutting the attacks of Magritz and Girnus

outright, Brecht seeks instead to engage with SED artistic criticism
on its own terms. In this way, not only does he make concessions to
Magritz and Girnus, but he also adheres closely to the orthodox
discourse of Marxism-Leninism, concerning himself with Barlach’s
relationship to central concepts such as Gesellschaft, Klasse, Kampf,
Volk and Humanismus. While this approach does not entirely negate

82 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 441.

303
Brecht’s dissent, it does betray his continuing refusal to in any sense
question the will to truth of the SED’s ideological claim. Any
movement along the scale of dissent remains within the boundaries
of support for the wider aims and goals of the regime. While the
scope of this support remains broad and generalised, any dissent is
apparently narrowly-targeted and partial.
Nonetheless, this role which Brecht plays in affirming and
propagating official SED discourse is not entirely straightforward.
Here, Schoor’s analysis points to significant distinctions between
Brecht’s participation in Marxist-Leninist discourse and that of
Magritz and Girnus: ‘Obwohl sich die Notizen kurz fassen, gelingt
ein differenziertes Urteil. Klar markiert Brecht, wo er im Jahre 1952
Leistungen, Anregendes und weniger Bedeutsames in Barlachs Werk
sieht.’83 Where the SED version of Marxist-Leninist art criticism tries
to suppress a plurality of meaning, Brecht’s offers a differentiated
verdict. In this sense, the very concessions which Brecht makes to
the official line become evidence of his more balanced and sophisti-
cated mode of criticism. Where SED discourse makes a claim for its
own truth, Brecht explicitly undermines any such claim on his behalf.
Indeed he openly invites the reader to correct his assessment of the
‘Melonenschneider’: ‘Habe ich unrecht? Ich bin dankbar für Be-
lehrung.’ Here, Brecht clearly undermines the claim for monosemia
made by SED discourse. Further, where Magritz and Girnus have
recourse to a formulaic and abstract form of discourse, Brecht
presents a specific and concrete artistic analysis. This approach is
expressed in the very form of the article, where individual paragraphs
deal with individual sculptures in the most immediate and detailed
manner. In his analysis of the 1919 work ‘Der Blinde und der
Lahme’, for example, it becomes clear that ‘realism’ is not for Brecht
an abstract elastic category which exists only to oppose its un-
desirable binary other, ‘formalism’. Instead it is a relatively concrete
entity with identifiable and justifiable features. Similarly, and most
significantly, Brecht stops short of attaching the empty label ‘formal-

83 Schoor, p. 101.

304
ist’ to Barlach’s more formally abstract works. When Brecht writes of
‘eine Deformierung der Wirklichkeit’, he is referring to a concrete
reality, not applying an abstract category.
In Brecht’s concluding comments, the true target of his inter-
vention becomes clear: ‘Jedoch geht es nicht an, diese Werke mit den
anderen in einen Topf zu werfen, besonders dann, wenn weder die
einen noch die andern konkret behandelt werden. Eine abstrakte
Kritik führt nicht zu einer realistischen Kunst.’ What Brecht is
dissenting against is not the specific criticism of Barlach but rather
the entire method and style of art criticism in the GDR. He seeks to
undermine the formulaic and unambiguous binarisms of official SED
discourse, making no claim for the unequivocal truth of his own
discourse. Instead, he makes room for plurality of meaning, ex-
pressing the kind of dissent identified by Bathrick and Emmerich
only in later phases of the GDR’s existence.84 In this sense, the
dissent expressed in the notes is less partial and more generalised
than might at first appear the case. It is in this double ‘Wider-
sprüchlichkeit’, contradicting Magritz and Girnus outside the text
while at the same time allowing for contradiction inside his own text,
that the dissenting function of Brecht’s Barlach intervention lies. At
the same time, discursive contrasts to SED artistic criticism
notwithstanding, Brecht’s participation in the discourse of Marxism-
Leninism and continued propagation of its will to truth substantially
vitiates the dissenting function of this intervention. As the Katzgraben
analysis showed and as the following analysis of Brecht’s behaviour
throughout 1951 will further attest, Brecht’s participation in SED
discourse is not the unintentional result of some kind of Foucaultian
discursive procedure. Rather it is a deliberate expression of ideo-
logical support.

84 See David Bathrick, ‘The End of the Wall before the End of the Wall’,
German Studies Review, 14 (1991), 297–312; Wolfgang Emmerich, ‘Affirmation –
Utopie – Melancholie: Versuch einer Bilanz von vierzig Jahren DDR Literatur’,
German Studies Review, 14 (1991), 325–44.

305
The Formalism Campaign (1951): private dissent and public assent

At this point it is worth broadening the analysis to encompass the

wider cultural-political context of 1951 and the SED’s on-going
Formalism Campaign. As Mittenzwei notes: ‘Da zwei so ver-
schiedene Menschen wie Brecht und Barlach kaum denkbar sind,
entsteht die Frage, warum sich Brecht so für Barlach einsetzte.’85
After all, Brecht seems to have shown little interest in, let alone
affection for, Barlach’s work prior to Seitz’s visit.86 The evidence
presented above and the identification of the broader purpose behind
Brecht’s intervention, as a defence of art criticism rather than a
defence of specifically Ernst Barlach, goes a long way to answering
the question of why he intervened here on Barlach’s behalf.
However, what is rather more difficult to answer is not so much why
Brecht intervened in the Barlach controversy, but rather why he did
not intervene earlier in the Formalism Campaign when it touched
him much more directly in the criticism both of the Ensemble’s
production of Die Mutter and of his collaborative project with Paul
Dessau, Das Verhör des Lukullus.87 The apparent contrast between
Brecht’s very public response here in early 1952 and his more
restrained response throughout 1951 is a notable one, and one which
carries a potentially much broader significance for understanding
Brecht’s behaviour in the GDR.
The first point to note about Brecht’s behaviour in the course of
1951 is that the absence of a public intervention did not stem from
indifference as regards the developing course of SED cultural policy.
His unpublished writings from 1951 reveal a pre-occupation with the
notion of ‘formalism’. In this context, we can identify a range of
short notes and longer essays – such as ‘Zur Formalismusdebatte’,
‘Was ist Formalismus?’, ‘Formalismus und neue Formen’, or ‘Der
unkosmopolitische Kosmopolitismus’ (see BFA, 23, pp. 134–47) –

85 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 441.

86 See Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 441–42.
87 See Lucchesi, Das Verhör in der Oper.

306
which respond directly to the key texts of the Formalism Campaign,
namely Orlov’s ‘Wege und Irrwege der modernen Kunst’ and
Lauter’s Der Kampf gegen den Formalismus.88 Of particular note in the
light of his attack on the discourse of SED art criticism in the
‘Barlach-Notizen’ is the short essay ‘Notizen über die Formalismus-
diskussion’ (BFA, 23, pp. 141–42). Here, Brecht takes issue with the
method of art criticism which employs medical metaphors rather
than concrete analysis: ‘Anstatt nachzuweisen, bei dem und dem
Kunstwerk handle es sich um etwas gesellschaftlich Unnützes oder
Schädliches, behauptet man, es handle sich um eine Krankheit.’
Similarly, a short note written in January 1951 after the premiere of
Die Mutter anticipates the critique of the abstract criticism carried out
in the Barlach intervention a year later: ‘Damit die Kunst kritisiert
werden kann, muß die Kunstkritik kritisiert werden. Manche unserer
Kritiker sind so darauf aus, allgemeine und drohende Sätze auf-
zustellen, daß sie jede Berührung mit der Wirklichkeit verlieren’
(BFA, 23, p. 134). These writings have a twin significance. Firstly, the
dissent which is expressed in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’ can already be
seen to be apparent throughout 1951. Secondly, this dissent remains
confined to the private sphere.
Further evidence of this purely private expression of dissent is to
be found both in conversations from 1951, recorded by Käthe
Rülicke, and in unpublished writings reacting to the Lukullus contro-
versy. In a note held in the Brecht Archive, Rülicke reports on a
series of conversations held in early 1951. Brecht’s dissatisfaction
with the Orlov articles and with the SED’s abstract critical discourse
are evident:

Der Orlow-Artikel hat viele Diskussionen ausgelöst, recht dumme meist, wie
der undialektische Artikel von Girnus u.a. [...] recht interessant war das
Gespräch vom Anf. Februar 51 mit Eisler, Fischer, Brecht, Gegenstand neben
dem Orlow-Artikel und Fischers (Wien) Vortrag der Stand der heutigen

88 See N. Orlov, ‘Wege und Irrwege der modernen Kunst’, Tägliche Rundschau, 20
and 21 January 1951 and Hans Lauter, Der Kampf gegen den Formalismus: Für eine
fortschrittliche deutsche Kultur (Berlin: Dietz, 1951).

307
 Malerei überhaupt. [...] Was ist überhaupt Formalismus? Girnus schreibt
darüber 4 Seiten, ohne einmal eine Definition zu geben, nur kämpfen sollen
wir dagegen. (BBA, 1340/45)

As far as the Lukullus controversy is concerned, a number of short

notes exist dealing with the accusation of ‘formalism’ in music which
had been levelled at Paul Dessau (see BFA, 23, p. 137–38). Perhaps
most notable amongst Brecht’s writings dealing with Lukullus is a set
of five numbered theses, written in March/April 1951, directly
addressing the criticism of both Lukullus and Die Mutter (BFA, 23,
pp. 135–37). In its form and content, the article pre-empts the
Faustus contribution. However, significantly, and in contrast to the
‘Faustus-Thesen’, this article remained unpublished at the time. A
short text, drafted as a recommendation of the Academy and dating
from April 1951, also exists, in which the decision to suppress the
Lukullus opera is described as a ‘diktatorisch administrativer Akt’
(BFA, 23, p. 138). Again it is critics who become the focus for
Brecht’s dissatisfaction: ‘Wir müssen unsere Musikfachleute dahin
beeinflussen, daß sie kameradschaftliche Kritik üben. Kamerad-
schaftlichkeit bedeutet [...] konstruktive Kritik, bedeutet Vorschläge,
bedeutet konkrete Mitarbeit, bedeutet also letzthin Fleiß.’ Brecht’s
strong and direct criticism of the Formalism Campaign, again
recorded by Rülicke – ‘Formalismus-Diskussion helfe nicht nur
nichts, sondern grober politischer Fehler, da sie die Spaltung vertieft’
– remains privately expressed dissent, rather than publicly expressed
opposition.89
Instructive in this respect are the statements which Brecht did
choose to have published in Sinn und Form in 1951. In the final two
issues of 1951, Huchel published, respectively, Brecht’s open letter in
support of a government resolution calling for pan-German co-
operation and against West German re-militarisation, ‘Offener Brief
an die deutschen Künstler und Schriftsteller’ (BFA, 23, pp. 155–56),
and his 1938 essay, ‘Über reimlose Lyrik mit unregelmäßigen Rhyth-

89 ‘54: Tagebuchnotiz von Käthe Rülicke, 12. März 1951’, in Lucchesi, Das
Verhör in der Oper, p. 78.

308
men’ (BFA, 22, p. 357–64), which had first appeared in the exile
journal Das Wort in 1939. While it is difficult not to read the
publication of this latter essay, twelve years after it had first appeared
within the context of the Expressionism Debate, as some kind of
dissenting intervention in the Formalism Campaign, albeit a very
indirect and anachronistic one, its dissenting effect is minimal
compared to the effect achieved by the open letter, published in the
previous issue. In addition to its publication in Sinn und Form, the
open letter was reproduced across the entire front page of Neues
Deutschland. It was sent to prominent personalities, distributed in its
thousands as a flyer, and its pithy, epigrammatic concluding sen-
tences read on the radio by Helene Weigel. In Mittenzwei’s words:

Die Wirkung war ungeheuer. Die Schlußsätze sagten sich die Leute auf der
Straße. Die Reden, die in den folgenden Wochen gehalten wurden, endeten
mit dem Zitieren der Brechtschen Sätze von dem großen Carthago [sic], das
drei Kriege führte. So erwies sich der ‘Offene Brief’ als eine Flugschrift vom
stilistischen und politischen Format des Hessischen Landboten, politisch nur
unendlich wirkungsvoller.90

Alongside the laudable Cold War appeal for peace, the open letter
constituted a partisan intervention on behalf of Grotewohl and the
Volkskammer. Its call for freedom of expression in the West conveni-
ently glossed over restrictions in the East and tied Brecht to the core,
founding GDR myth of peace-seeking anti-fascism. Made in the
name of the East German state, the considerable effect of this inter-
vention marks it out as an act of the strongest possible support, even
collaboration.
The following observation made by James K. Lyon does much
to bring this mixture of assent and dissent into focus: ‘Privately or in
closed sessions [Brecht] would sometimes dissent or defend prin-
ciple, but generally he attempted to represent himself as a loyal
supporter of the state.’91 Above all in the Lukullus controversy,

90 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 569.

91 Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, p. 79.

309
Brecht’s preference for private expressions of dissent and behind-
the-scenes manoeuvring contrasts sharply with what Lucchesi refers
to as ‘eher beschönigenden öffentlichen Äußerungen’ and what Lyon
terms his ‘eager conformity’ in making alterations to the text of the
opera.92 While the dissent expressed in the act of addressing a letter
to Ulbricht on 12 March 1951 is not to be underestimated (BFA, 30,
pp. 57–58), it is the public expressions of support which have the
more powerful and long-lasting effect. In this context, the signifi-
cance of the Barlach intervention becomes clear, because here the
firm resolution to confine dissent to the private sphere, which had
survived the difficulties of 1951, was broken. Perhaps the attack on a
more ‘realist’ artist simply proved one attack too many, although
there had already been plenty of attacks on artists Brecht considered
to be realists. Perhaps it compromised the external image of GDR
harmony less to intervene on behalf of a sculptor who had died
thirteen years earlier. Above all, it was surely the fact that Barlach had
also fallen victim to Nazi art purges which so provoked Brecht. After
all, he had earlier in the year been moved to pose himself the
question: ‘was ist der Unterschied zwischen entarteter Kunst und
volksfremder Kunst?’ (BFA, 23, p. 143). And yet, as a discursive
analysis of the Barlach intervention shows, even the repetition by the
self-proclaimed anti-fascist state of the cultural policies of German
fascism was not enough to prevent Brecht from continuing to at-
tempt, in Lyon’s words, ‘to represent himself as a loyal supporter of
the state’. Of course, as the Katzgraben production demonstrates, such
attempts stemmed not least from the fact that Brecht was a loyal
supporter of the state.

92 Joachim Lucchesi, ‘Macht-Spiele: Die Kontroverse um die Lukullus-Oper’, in

Delabar and Döring (eds), pp. 315–23 (p. 317); Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar
Germany’, p. 77.

310
‘Thesen zur Faustus-Diskussion’

Although compromised by its partial and often indirect nature, the

dissent expressed in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’ was for the first time both
intentional and public. Up to then, any intentional dissent expressed
by Brecht had remained private, any public dissent unintentional.
Furthermore, the direct nature of this dissent clearly sets it apart
from that expressed by Eich under National Socialism. The question
to be addressed now is the position occupied by this intervention
within the broader dynamic of Brecht’s dissent. Did the Barlach
notes constitute a one-off, the peak of Brecht’s dissent? Or is it
possible to trace a more consistent, rising trend in this dissent, from
low-level private expressions in 1951, to that first significant public
intervention in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’, and then on to a further
heightening of dissent in the cultural-political controversies of 1953?
At the peak of such a trend, which would mirror the strengthening
claim of the regime, would stand Brecht’s contributions to the
dissenting double issue of Sinn und Form, published in the late
summer of 1953. Here, we need to explore how the nature of the dis-
sent expressed in these contributions, namely the ‘Faustus-Thesen’
and the ‘Erklärung der DAK’, compares to that expressed in the
‘Barlach-Notizen’ and how far this dissent may also have been
softened by an assenting function.
Contextual evidence relating to the dissenting function of the
‘Faustus-Thesen’ pulls in two contradictory directions. On the one
hand, it is clear that Brecht was making a direct intervention in the
long-running and often fierce cultural-political controversy which
had raged since the publication of Eisler’s libretto in the final edition
of Sinn und Form of 1952, along with Ernst Fischer’s controversial
essay, ‘Doktor Faustus und der deutsche Bauernkrieg’.93 As we have
seen, Jäger interprets this intervention as an attempt by Brecht to
exploit the channel offered by Sinn und Form in order to put a good

93 Hanns Eisler, ‘Aus: Doktor Faustus’, and Ernst Fischer, ‘Doktor Faustus und der
deutsche Bauernkrieg’, Sinn und Form, 4.6 (1952), 23-58 and 59–73.

311
word in for his friend Eisler.94 Similarly, for Schoor it is one of the
archetypal instances which justifies his ‘interventionist’ hypothesis
about Brecht’s publication policy in Sinn und Form.95 Just as the
Barlach essay acts as an explicit counterpoint to articles by Magritz
and Girnus, so the Faustus article responds directly to both an article
by Alexander Abusch which appears alongside it and an article by
Girnus which had appeared in Neues Deutschland.96 Indeed, for Schoor
the juxtaposition of Brecht’s theses with Alexander Abusch’s
apparently opposing views heightens the potential for dissent: ‘Daß
Huchel Abuschs Aufsatz dann so brachte, daß Brecht faktisch das
letzte Wort erteilt wurde, dürfte die Auseinandersetzung verschärft
haben.’97 On the other hand, it is vitally important to distinguish
contextually between the publication of the ‘Faustus-Thesen’ in Sinn
und Form and their initial presentation at the Mittwochgesellschaften at the
Academy of Arts on 27 May 1953.98 While their publication took
place after 17 June when the Faustus battle had been all but won by
the Brecht faction, their initial composition and presentation oc-
curred at the height of the pressure on Brecht. Acknowledging this
fact means downplaying the dissenting function of the published
theses in two principal respects. Firstly, in terms of the context in
which the text was published, Schoor is mistaken to point to a
heightening of the controversy, since by then that controversy was
over, the claim of the regime softened, and any dissenting function
lessened. Secondly, the text itself shows the signs of the pressure
Brecht was under at the time of its composition, and this, as we shall
see, constrains its dissenting potential.
Textually, as well as contextually, the Faustus contribution (BFA,
23, pp. 246–49) carries strong similarities to the Barlach intervention.

94 Jäger, p. 67.
95 Schoor, pp. 102–05.
96 Alexander Abusch, ‘Faust: Held oder Renegat in der deutschen National-
literatur?’, Sinn und Form, 5.3/4 (1953), 179–94; Wilhelm Girnus, ‘Die klas-
sische Faust-Konzeption’, Neues Deutschland, 14 May 1953.
97 Schoor, p. 104.
98 For the transcript of the meeting, see Bunge, pp. 137–79.

312
In the opening and closing paragraphs, Brecht defends and praises
Eisler’s work. It is ‘ein bedeutendes literarisches Werk durch sein
großes nationales Thema, durch die Verknüpfung der Faust-Figur
mit dem Bauernkrieg, durch seine großartige Konzeption, durch
seine Sprache, durch seinen Ideenreichtum’. Eisler ‘hat einen posi-
tiven Beitrag zum Großen Faust-Problem geliefert, dessen sich die
deutsche Literatur nicht zu schämen braucht’. In between these
positive assessments of Eisler’s work, Brecht offers what seems to be
a similarly balanced and equivocal analysis to that found in his
interpretation of Barlach’s sculpture. He accepts some of Girnus’s
and Abusch’s views, and refutes others. While point 12, for instance,
considers but ultimately rejects their opinions, Brecht’s concluding
comments give substantial ground to Eisler’s critics:

12. Hat Eisler vesucht, unser klassisches Faustbild völlig zu zerstören (ND)?
Entseelt, verfälscht, vernichtet er eine wunderbare Gestalt des deutschen
Erbes (Abusch)? Nimmt er den Faust zurück (Abusch)? Ich denke nicht. [...]

Mit den Kritikern Eislers stimme ich darin überein, daß die deutsche
Geschichte nicht als Negativum dargestellt werden darf, sowie darin, daß die
deutsche Dichtung, zu deren schönsten Werken Goethes Faust gehört, nicht
preisgegeben werden darf, sondern nunmehr ernstlich zum Eigentum des
Volkes gemacht werden muß.

In this article, as in the Barlach intervention, Brecht again seems to

offer a more concrete and differentiated approach to cultural criti-
cism than do SED officials. Equally, this approach once more
remains firmly rooted within a Marxist-Leninist framework.
And yet, the tone in the theses is noticeably more defensive than
that of the Barlach notes, and this is where the circumstances of their
composition and presentation make themselves felt. Given that
Brecht himself had played a part in writing the Faustus libretto, the
contrast between the restrained praise for Eisler and the outright

313
appreciation of Barlach’s abilities is a significant one.99 Brecht seems
almost over-eager to give ground, unconditionally accepting Girnus’s
assumptions in point 8: ‘Wir müssen unbedingt ausgehen von der
Wahrheit des Satzes: “Eine Konzeption, der die deutsche Geschichte
nichts als Misere ist, und in der das Volk als schöpferische Potenz
fehlt, ist nicht wahr” (ND).’ In point 10, he rejects Fischer’s non-
orthodox interpretation of Eisler’s text, referring not to Fischer’s
essay itself, but rather to the official Neues Deutschland interpretation
of Fischer’s argument. Most significantly of all, given his earlier
private statements, Brecht unquestioningly adopts in point 2 the
abstract, threatening vocabulary of SED artistic criticism: ‘Bei all
diesen Eigenschaften könnte das Werk abgelehnt werden, wenn es
asozial oder antinational wäre.’ Here, there is no concrete definitional
clarity brought to these terms, and Brecht’s failure to question this
terminology, as he had done in earlier writings, is a clear indication of
a more conciliatory tone. The form of the article, too, as a series of
numbered theses, betrays its origins as a discussion piece for the
Mittwoch-Gesellschaften rather than as a polemical essay.100 In this
context, Lyon’s assessment of Brecht’s contributions to those meet-
ings applies also to the ‘Faustus-Thesen’:

Absent in these discussions are the witty sarcasm and mordant polemics at
which he excelled. In uncharacteristically conciliatory language that cites
Marxist writings and consciously uses some of the bureaucratese current in
the GDR, he restrains himself and, for the most part, remains unusually
diplomatic.101

What Lyon notes here is both Brecht’s conciliatory, defensive tone

and his consistent participation in the discourse of Marxism-

99 Bertolt Brecht, Arbeitsjournal, 25 August 1952–30 August 1952, BFA, 27, p.

333: ‘Eisler hier mit seinem Faust. Wir gehen das Ganze durch, straffen,
bringen alles so gut wie möglich in Fokus.’
100 The minutes of a meeting of the Academy’s literary section on 30 January
1951 record Brecht’s call for presentations to be formulated ‘in Thesen [...]
um so zur Diskussion anzureizen’. BBA, 1486/8.
101 Lyon, ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany’, p. 76.

314
Leninism and SED criticism. As Davies and Parker point out, it is
this ‘ideologised view of circumstances’ which sets the limits ‘on his
discourse of opposition’.102 As in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’, Brecht’s
seemingly unshakeable faith in the dialectic convinces him that such
controversies represent constructive discussion, not stage-managed
attempts to force dissenting intellectuals into a recantation of their
unorthodoxy. This equivocation also bears witness to the unfavour-
able pre-17-June context of the article’s composition. Published out
of this context, after 17 June, this conciliatory tone is exposed and
much of the dissenting potential of the contribution lost.

After 17 June 1953: recommendations for change

By contrast, the extent of the dissent which was possible in the post-
17-June context is demonstrated by the ‘Erklärung der DAK’,
published at the back of the summer double-issue as ‘Vorschläge der
Deutschen Akademie der Künste’ (BFA, 23, pp. 253–55). Admit-
tedly, both the introductory paragraph and point 10 represent a clear
statement of support for the regime, couched in archetypal SED
discourse:

In dem Bestreben, die Regierung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik

bei ihrer Aufgabe zu unterstützen, die nationale Einheit Deutschlands her-
zustellen und den Frieden zu sichern, erklärt die Deutsche Akademie der
Künste: [...]

10. Die Ereignisse des 17. Juni haben bewiesen, daß der Kampf gegen den
Faschismus in allen seinen Erscheinungen auch von den Künsten mit
gesteigerter Kraft wieder aufgenommen werden muß.

Nonetheless, the remainder of the statement constitutes a direct

confrontation of the regime, making recommendations to them for
the reform of their cultural policies. Consider point 1, for example,

102 Davies and Parker, p. 190.

315
with its strong and direct modal auxiliary and its characteristic
emphasis on the errors of bureaucratic functionaries: ‘Die staatlichen
Organe sollen [...] sich aber jeder administrativen Maßnahme in
Fragen der künstlerischen Produktion und des Stils enthalten.’ In a
similar vein, points 7, 8, and 9 make direct recommendations
concerning, respectively, the award of National Prizes to non-GDR
citizens, the editorship of cultural journals, and the dissolution of the
Volksbühne. The recommendation in point 3 is particularly striking, as
a previously troublesome institution, which the regime had been
trying to bring fully under its control for eighteen months, now
publicly suggested that it should be consulted on all cultural matters:
‘Die Deutsche Akademie der Künste schlägt der Regierung der
Deutschen Demokratischen Republik vor, sie bei allen die Kunst
betreffenden Verordnungen und Gesetzen als Gutachter und Berater
hinzuzuziehen.’
Just how dissenting these recommendations were perceived to
be is made clear by the reaction of the regime to attempts to publish
them. On 18 June, Brecht had been elected into a commission of
Academy members whose task was to draw up recommendations for
the development of cultural policy in the light of the events of 17
June.103 On 30 June, the ten points were approved in a plenary
meeting of the Academy, and on 2 July it was decided to deliver the
recommendations to the government immediately and have them
published the next day. However, as a number of notes in the Brecht
Archive show, a series of blocking manoeuvres by the regime en-
sured that the recommendations were not published until ten days
later (see BBA, 1493/38-39, 40, 41). In particular, a note dated 9 July
1953 records three telephone calls made on that day. In the first, Paul
Wandel is seen to have objected to several of the Academy’s
recommendations, describing ‘einige Punkte in ihrer Formulierung

103 See BBA, 1493/14–15. See also Hecht, Brecht-Chronik, p. 1065. As Davies and
Parker note, the BFA remarkably, and misleadingly, ascribes the impetus for
the commission to the government’s introduction of the New Course a week
earlier and not to the uprising of 17 June. See Davies and Parker, p. 195, note
32 and BFA, 23, p. 549.

316
als überspitzt’. A second telephone call from the editors of Neue Zeit
reports more direct government intervention: ‘das Presseamt beim
Ministerpräsidenten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik hat die
Redaktion angerufen, dass die von der Akademie zur Veröffent-
lichung gegebenen 10 Punkte nicht zu veröffentlichen seien.’
Above all, it appears to be point 5 of the recommendations,
relating to radio policy and, in particular, the use of the radio on 17
June, which provoked the government’s objections:

Der Rundfunk hat als ein entscheidendes Instrument der öffentlichen

Meinungsbildung versagt. Er hat die Information und Beeinflussung der
Bevölkerung den irreführenden gegnerischen Sendern überlassen. Nur eine
grundlegende Reorganisation - auch auf künstlerischem Gebiet - kann den
Rundfunk in die Lage versetzen, das Interesse und das Vertrauen der Hörer
wiederzugewinnen und den Einfluß der gegnerischen Sender zurückzu-
drängen. (BFA, 23, p. 254)

The third telephone call made on 9 July makes clear that the
government is seeking a twenty-four hour delay to publication
precisely because of objections to point 5. Indeed, eventual
publication in Neues Deutschland on 12 July 1953 only followed
interventions by Becher on behalf of the Academy to Grotewohl,
and in one such letter Becher can be seen to object directly to
requests to make point 5 ‘positiver’ (BBA, 1493/40). More signifi-
cantly for our purposes, a further note exists recording a telephone
conversation between Becher and Grotewohl on 10 July 1953, in
which it is suggested that Brecht had to be dissuaded from resigning
from the Academy over this same issue of radio policy (BBA Z
37/76). This tallies with evidence that Brecht offered the services of
the Berliner Ensemble to broadcast on 17 June, and that the failure
to take up this offer was one of Brecht’s primary concerns in the
wake of the day’s events.104 The significance of the dissent expressed
in point 5 is then twofold. Firstly, it demonstrates that this was an

104 See Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 488–89, and Parker, ‘Sinn und Form
und der 17. Juni’, p. 745.

317
instance when Brecht translated his genuine private concerns into a
public expression of dissent. Secondly, it once again demonstrates
how this dissent could not break free from Brecht’s ideologised view
of events. The radio’s failure had been to allow itself to be defeated
in the propaganda battle by ‘den irreführenden gegnerischen Sen-
dern’ of the West.
What is particularly significant about the ‘Erklärung der DAK’ is
the way that Brecht’s private dissatisfaction is translated in this way
into public dissent, not only on one very specific cultural-political
issue, but across the full range of art and culture. Further, the breadth
of this dissent accurately reflects Brecht’s private comments and
writings. For instance, the specific assertion in point 1, that it is juries
made up of artists which should be responsible for art exhibitions,
can be traced directly to a complaint made by Brecht during the
discussions held at the Berliner Ensemble after 17 June.105 In these
discussions, Brecht’s exasperation with cultural functionaries and
critics, together with his determination to effect change, is evident:

In der Akademie war eine Besprechung mit der Leitung der Staatlich.
Kunstkommission. Dabei wurde festgestellt, dass die Referenten nahezu
keine Fachkenntnis haben auf Gebieten, auf denen sie sehr diktatorisch
handeln. Hier muss etwas geschehen. [...] Wir haben eine Reihe solcher
Eingriffe schärfster Art, die überhaupt nicht mit Künstlern diskutiert wurden.
Diese Angriffe erfolgten gegen Künstler, die vom Staat wegen ihrer künstleri-
schen Tätigkeit in die Akademie berufen worden sind und dadurch vom Staat
anerkannt waren. [...] Niemand kann sich wundern, dass die Künstler einen
enormen Druck empfinden, von dem sie nicht wissen, wo er herkommt.
Diese Dinge müssen abgestellt werden. (BBA, 1447/22)106

105 The minutes of the Ensemble’s discussions on 25 June 1953 read as follows:
‘Man hat z.B. für die Dresdner Kunstausstellung eine Jury von 30 Leuten
gewählt. 29 waren gegen die Annahme eines bestimmten Bildes, der Direktor
war dafür, das Bild wurde ausgehängt. Das ist unerträglich, indiskutabel.’
BBA, 1447/22.
106 Also quoted in Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 504–05.

318
This determination to achieve changes manifested itself in con-
siderable manoeuvrings within the context of the Academy: ‘Nach
dem 17. Juni spielte Brecht eine überragende Rolle in den Akademie-
diskussionen. Er nutzte die Krise, um sich gegen dogmatische
Einengungen zur Wehr zu setzen.’107 In particular, Brecht’s inter-
ventions on 26 June on behalf of Huchel and Eisler attest to a
considerable degree of dissent, overturning the previous decision to
relieve Huchel of the editorship of Sinn und Form.108 In this context,
Brecht’s successful efforts to have the State Art Commission abol-
ished are also of great significance, as is a letter from Wolfgang
Langhoff to Hans Lauter, dated 1 October 1953, which complains
bitterly of the continuing dissent of a sizeable grouping around
Brecht in the Academy:

Felsenstein äußerte, man müsse sofort emigrieren, denn der neue Kurs würde
in keiner Weise durchgeführt. [...] Ernst Busch will Nationalpreis und alle
Ämter niederlegen und Holzhauer wegen Verleumdung verklagen. [...] Die
Palucca will ebenfalls nach Westdeutschland auswandern, wenn ihr Fall nicht
zufriedenstellend gelöst wird. [...] Es ist hohe Zeit, daß hier eine Änderung
eintritt. Die Gruppe um Brecht (Seitz, Ihering, Felsenstein, Busch u.a.) droht
wirklich mit einer offenen Fehde. (BBA, Z 37/82)109

Although these actions were not always public, the changes in policy
which Brecht was able to effect, albeit with the aid of external events,
constitute a highly significant blocking of the regime’s claim and
hence acquire a significant dissenting function.
Further strong evidence of the dissent expressed by Brecht in
this post-17-June period comes in a letter from Girnus to Ulbricht,
dated 27 July 1953. Here, Girnus, in his official role as Brecht’s
shadow, reports a conversation held between himself and Brecht two
days earlier.

107 Parker, ‘Sinn und Form und der 17. Juni’, p. 751.
108 See Davies and Parker, p. 191.
109 Letter, Wolfgang Langhoff to Hans Lauter, 1 October 1953.

319
 [Brecht] überreichte mir einen Artikel zur Veröffentlichung, in dem [...] der
Standpunkt vertreten wird, daß unsere gesamte bisherige Kunstpolitik,
basierend auf den Beschlüssen des V. Plenums falsch war. [...] Bei dieser
Gelegenheit gab es eine ausführliche Auseinandersetzung mit Brecht über
einige Punkte im Zusammenhang mit seiner Kritik des V. Plenums. Brecht
stellte fest, seiner Meinung nach sind die Beschlüsse völlig falsch, von Anfang
bis zum Ende, und zwar unter anderem deshalb weil das, was Genosse
Schdanow seinerzeit zu diesen Fragen in der Sowjetunion gesagt hat, für uns
absolut nicht in Frage kommen kann. [...] Besonders heftige Angriffe richtete
Brecht gegen unsere Auffassung von der Volksverbundenheit der Kunst. [...]
Kampf gegen Formalismus und Dekadenz sei eine nazistische Sache. (BBA,
Z 37/38)110

That the article referred to in this letter, ‘Kulturpolitik und Akademie

der Künste’ (BFA, 23, pp. 256–60), was published in Neues Deutsch-
land on 13 August 1953 indicates not only that Brecht intervened
behind closed doors but also that he ensured that his dissent made its
way into the public sphere. This sustained campaign of dissent in the
wake of 17 June, broad in its scope (directed in Girnus’s words
against ‘unsere gesamte bisherige Kunstpolitik’), often public in its
expression, and also organised in its nature within the institutional
framework of the Academy, marks this period out as one of direct
opposition on Brecht’s part to the SED regime.

The dynamics of dissent

By way of an evaluation of the evidence presented in this section, it

may be worth returning at this point to the broader perspective of
the nature of dissent in the German dictatorships. In this context,
Brecht’s case offers further evidence of the intimate relationship
between the expression of dissent and the nature of the ‘total’ claim
being made by the regime. This relationship operates on two levels.
Firstly, there is clear evidence that Brecht conforms to the kind of
common dissenting dynamic whereby a shift over time away from

110 See also Europäische Ideen, 97 (1996), 22–23.

320
purely assenting forms of behaviour to encompass more dissenting
actions can be seen to correspond in large measure to the strength-
ening of the regime’s claim and its stricter imposition. The analysis of
Brecht’s public interventions and statements, particularly in Sinn und
Form, seems to reveal a pattern which matches these shifts. As the
relatively less restrictive early phase of GDR cultural policy gives way
to the launch of the Formalism Campaign and the public statement
of the government’s claim in 1951 which is in turn superseded by the
radical hardening of policy in 1952–1953, so Brecht’s dissent cam be
seen to become increasingly widespread, direct, intentional, and
public. In Sinn und Form, ‘Über reimlose Lyrik’ gives way to the
‘Barlach-Notizen’ which are superseded by the ‘Faustus-Thesen’ and
the ‘Erklärung der DAK’. This is not a question of the same type of
act being politicised to a greater extent by a more extensive claim, but
of a qualitative shift in the type of behaviour being undertaken, in its
scope, and in its publicness. Here, parallels may well exist to the
behaviour of a small number of intellectuals in the Third Reich, such
as Gottfried Benn, Ernst Jünger, and even to a certain extent Günter
Eich, whose relationship to the regime demonstrates a rising dis-
senting dynamic in parallel to the radicalisation of Nazi policies.
At the same time, in accordance with the theoretical principles
developed by members of the Bavaria Project, Brecht’s interventions
demonstrate how the changing nature of the regime’s claim can
affect the nature of the dissent expressed through the same type of
act. As we have already noted, ‘die Art der Herrschaft bestimmt die
Art des Widerstands; und je umfassender der Herrschaftsanspruch,
desto mehr, nicht weniger Widerstand ist die Folge’.111 However, as
far as Brecht’s dissenting interventions in Sinn und Form are con-
cerned, it is not the rise in the nature of the regime’s claim between
1949 and mid-1953, but rather the relative easing of the claim that
accompanied the upheavals of June 1953 which is the significant

111 Ian Kershaw, ‘Widerstand ohne Volk: Dissens und Widerstand im Dritten
Reich’, in Jürgen Schmädeke and Peter Steinbach (eds), Der Widerstand gegen
den Nationalsozialismus: Die deutsche Gesellschaft und der Widerstand gegen Hitler
(Munich: Piper, 1994), pp. 779–98 (p. 781).

321
factor. Had the ‘Faustus-Thesen’ been published at the time of their
composition and initial presentation in late May 1953, their dissenting
function would have been considerably greater than it was in their
subsequent post-17-June publication, just as the risk associated with
that act would have been greater. This must be an important
consideration in our evaluation of the broad campaign of dissent
initiated by Brecht in the wake of the events of 17 June. The very fact
that such interventions were possible without adversely affecting
Brecht’s position is an indication of the easing of the regime’s claim.
The oppositional function of this campaign is still considerable, but
the relaxation of the regime’s claim is one factor which argues against
a categorisation of this behaviour as ‘resistance’.
Above all though, it is Brecht’s continuing expression of assent
to the regime throughout the period of our analysis which vitiates the
dissenting potential of his interventions. Against the scope, organ-
isation, and, not least, effectiveness of his dissent must be weighed
Brecht’s continued refusal to put into question the core myths of
SED ideology. As much as the reality of SED cultural policy may
have pushed Brecht into dissent, there can be no doubt that in his
public interventions Brecht’s attachment to the broader will to truth
of the regime remains intact. These public dissenting interventions,
significant as they are, remain the exception. In Sinn und Form, the
dissent of mid-1953 is never repeated. Instead, it is assenting state-
ments, such as Brecht’s acceptance speech for the Stalin Peace Prize
(BFA, 23, pp. 345–47) or his protest against the Paris Treaties (BFA,
23, p. 320), which persist. Furthermore, the promotion of these
statements through the institutional machinery of the GDR ensured
an effect which the dissenting statements could never match. The
degree of dissent expressed by Brecht in these statements does not,
for instance, approach the degree of assent expressed in the open
letter of 1951. Indeed, even the ‘dissenting’ interventions betray
assent in their conformity to the norms of SED discourse, so that,
although the scope of the dissent expressed against cultural policy
does become general, it is never extended to encompass the wider
assumptions of SED ideology. As the analysis of the Katzgraben essay

322
demonstrated, this was not merely a tactical granting of assent to
facilitate the public expression of dissent. Rather, this was a consist-
ent position of genuine ideological support, and one which the
events of 17 June only served to strengthen. In his cultural-political
statements and interventions, it was this seemingly unshakeable
attachment to the Marxist-Leninist will to truth which held Brecht
back from crossing the gulf to fundamental ‘resistance’.

The ‘Buckower Elegien’

In terms of the dynamic of Brecht’s dissent in the GDR, it has been

possible to trace a rising trend, characterised by both increasing
scope and publicness, through 1951 and into 1953. The importance
of the events of 17 June 1953 as a catalyst for the expression of
opposition to SED cultural policies was also apparent. Yet, for all the
direct and public dissent expressed in Sinn und Form and elsewhere
and for all the genuine effectiveness of his private interventions in
the Academy of Arts, the constraints of Brecht’s ideological support
for the regime ensured that the scope of his dissent remained within
the parameters of cultural policy. Furthermore, although this dissent
could not have been expressed without the crisis initiated by 17 June
and Brecht’s ability to exploit it, the events of 17 June did not
actually generate that dissent. Rather, they only freed dissatisfaction
with developments in the cultural sphere which far pre-dated 17 June
1953. The questions which are to be addressed now relate to the
capacity of 17 June to generate a new kind of dissent in Brecht’s
behaviour. In particular, how far did the workers’ uprising and its
suppression with Soviet tanks effect a shift in Brecht’s attitude to the
broader issues of SED rule and the construction of Socialism within
the GDR? That is to say, did the events of 17 June succeed in
pushing Brecht’s dissent beyond the partial parameters of cultural
policy and into a more generalised sphere?

323
Response to 17 June 1953

Certainly any such shift is difficult to identify in the public sphere. In

terms of a public reaction to the events of the 17 June, the publi-
cation in Neues Deutschland on 21 June of the final sentence of
Brecht’s letter to Ulbricht, ‘es ist mir ein Bedürfnis, Ihnen in diesem
Augenblick meine Verbundenheit mit der Sozialistischen Einheits-
partei Deutschlands auszudrücken’ (BFA, 30, p. 178), achieved a
powerful collaborative effect. The extent of this effect is readily
discernible from the organised attempts to boycott Brecht’s work in
the West. Although in private Brecht expressed his anger at the
treatment of his letter, he did little in public to correct the impression
of solidarity which had been given.112 In any case, the full text of the
letter and the text Brecht did have published in Neues Deutschland on
23 June, ‘Dringlichkeit einer großen Aussprache’ (BFA, 23, p. 250),
cannot be said to have expressed generalised dissent against the
regime. Indeed, the heading given by Neues Deutschland to this latter
contribution, ‘Für Faschisten darf es keine Gnade geben’, makes it
clear that Brecht’s publicly-represented position was an orthodox
one. Nonetheless, Carl Weber maintains that outside the public
sphere this more generalised dissent did exist: ‘In private conver-
sation he didn’t hide his misgivings; in his journal and his most
private mode of self-expression, the poems not intended for publi-
cation, he clearly stated his disgust with the aberrations he saw.’113 If
the 17 June did initiate a more generalised shift in Brecht’s dissent,
then it is in the private sphere and, in particular, private poetry where
we might expect to locate it.

112 In an internal memo to Walter Ulbricht, dated 7 July 1953, Gustav Just
reports a conversation held with Brecht two days earlier: ‘Dabei äußerte
Bertold [sic] Brecht, er sei empört über die Behandlung seines Briefes, den er
nach den Ereignissen des 17. Juni an den Generalsekretär des ZK der SED,
Genossen Walter Ulbricht, geschickt habe.’ BBA, Z 37/72.
113 Carl Weber, ‘Brecht and Communism’, p. 22.

324
 In this context, the opening statement in Brecht’s journal-entry
of 20 August 1953, the first after 17 June, seems to hint at just such a
fundamental shift:

Buckow. ‘Turandot’. Daneben die ‘Buckower Elegien’. Der 17. Juni hat die
ganze Existenz verfremdet. In aller ihrer Richtungslosigkeit und jämmerlicher
Hilflosigkeit zeigen die Demonstrationen der Arbeiterschaft immer noch, daß
hier die aufsteigende Klasse ist. (BFA, 27, p. 346)

The clear suggestion here, in contrast to his public statements, is that

the events of 17 June did cause Brecht to question his existence in
the GDR in some fundamental way. This suggestion, tied to the
genre designation ‘Elegien’ with its associations of lament, focuses
the attention firmly on the cycle of just over twenty poems written in
Buckow in the late summer of 1953 and collected under the heading
‘Buckower Elegien’.114 Given that only six of the poems which make
up the cycle were published during Brecht’s lifetime and that Brecht
apparently left express intentions to withhold some of the remainder
of the poems, this collection clearly offers itself as a potential site for
the kind of private dissent alluded to by Weber.115

Problems of interpretation

Where Brecht’s cultural-political statements offered access to his

unmediated voice, and therefore high levels of assent and dissent, the
ambiguity of the poetic voice in the ‘Buckower Elegien’ makes any
assessment of the assenting and and dissenting function of these
texts much more problematic. On the one hand, the subjective
nature of readers’ reactions to the texts points to diverse and
inconsistent contemporary effects, both assenting and dissenting. On

114 Bertolt Brecht, ‘Buckower Elegien’, BFA, 12, pp. 305–15. Here twenty-two
poems are collected as ‘Buckower Elegien’. ‘Der Hund’ and ‘Die Kelle’, often
brought under this heading, are excluded. See BFA, 12, pp. 445–46.
115 See BFA, 12, p. 447.

325
the other, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the intentions behind
the composition of the poems. Indeed, this subjectivity of response
finds its expression in the vast range of presumed intentions which
critics have attributed to Brecht in writing the elegies. Jan Knopf
summarises this diversity of interpretations:

Die Forschung hat die Vielschichtigkeit der lyrischen Gebilde dadurch

bestätigt, daß sie inzwischen eine breite Palette von verschiedensten
Deutungen vorgelegt hat. Daß die Gedichte den Rückzug des Dichters zum
Inhalt hätten, läßt sich ebenso plausibel machen, wie der Ausdruck von
Resignation, daß es sich um Naturgedichte handele ebenso wie ihre
prinzipielle Subjektivität. Daß sie privat seien, ist ebenso behauptet worden
wie, daß sie politische Gedichte seien; und die, die sie für politische Gedichte
halten, finden ebenso Gründe dafür, daß sich in den Gedichten heftigste
Kritik an der DDR, am Marxismus formulierte, wie umgekehrt andere
Gründe dafür finden, daß die Kritik lediglich bestimmten Auswüchsen gelte
und die Gedichte ansonsten ganz auf dem Boden des sich entwickelnden
DDR-Sozialismus bewegten.116

As Knopf suggests, the full range of interpretations, from private to

political, from politically assenting to politically dissenting, exists.
This textual ambiguity is compounded by the publication history of
the cycle. In addition to any assent and/or dissent generated by
Brecht in the composition of the texts, a second layer of assent and
dissent derives from Brecht’s decisions to publish or withhold certain
elegies. Making a judgement as to the assenting or dissenting
function of the ‘Buckower Elegien’ requires making a careful dis-
tinction between the elegies published during Brecht’s lifetime and
those withheld, between the function of the texts themselves and the
function of their (non-)publication.
In this way, the only six elegies published during Brecht’s
lifetime, those which appeared under the title ‘Gedichte’ in Sinn und

116 Jan Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch: Eine widersprüchliche Ästhetik, 2 vols (Stuttgart:

Metzler, 1980–1984), II: Lyrik, Prosa, Schriften (1984), p. 200.

326
Form in 1953, offer their own interpretative problem.117 The appar-
ently apolitical representation of nature in, for instance, ‘Der
Blumengarten’ seems to constitute an obvious shift in direction
within Brecht’s lyrical output, away from the overtly political and
towards the private. As such, these six elegies pose questions not
often associated with Brecht’s output in the GDR, but eminently
familiar from the study of literary production in the Third Reich, and
that of Günter Eich in particular. Specifically, we are faced with the
issue of just how to interpret, within the context of the dictatorships,
what appears to be the adoption of a position of lyric inwardness,
what was perceived in the GDR ‘als Rückzug des Dichters in die
Natur’.118 One possibility, and that consistently stressed in the
present study as a corrective to conventional, over-politicised ap-
proaches, is to loosen ties to the narrow political context and stress
the non-politically motivated dimension of the work. In this instance,
the six published elegies can be viewed simply as the expression of a
more mature lyric style, as, in Knopf’s words, ‘typische Alterslyrik’.119
This is also a suggestion put forward by Wolfgang Emmerich, for
whom the shift away from overtly political output need not be
attached irrevocably to the events of 17 June, but rather can be
attributed to a longer term process affecting Brecht’s lyric output
throughout the 1950s:

In den Gedichten der letzten fünf, sechs Lebensjahre Brechts tritt das
Nützlichkeitskalkül immer weiter zurück, die Kategorie der Schönheit
dagegen [...] spielt eine immer größere Rolle. [...] Ist der Zyklus ‘Neue
Kinderlieder’ (1950) noch ein Werk des Übergangs, so sind endgültig die
‘Buckower Elegien’ [...] ein Beispiel der neuen Schreibart.120

117 These six are: ‘Der Blumengarten’; ‘Gewohnheiten, noch immer’; ‘Rudern,
Gespräche’; ‘Der Rauch’; ‘Heisser Tag’; ‘Bei der Lektüre eines Sowjetischen
Buches’. See Bertolt Brecht, ‘Gedichte’, Sinn und Form, 5.6 (1953), 119–21.
118 BFA, 12, p. 447.
119 Jan Knopf, ‘Nachwort zur Edition’, in Bertolt Brecht, Buckower Elegien, ed. by
Jan Knopf (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986), pp. 121–25 (p. 121).
120 Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR (Leipzig, Kiepenheuer,
1996), pp. 164–65.

327
At the same time, it is impossible to divorce the elegies entirely from
their heavily politicised context: ‘[Brecht] flieht die Politik [...]. Natur-
lyrik entsteht; Der Dichter weigert sich angesichts der Ereignisse des
17. Juni, Stellung zu beziehen, und flüchtet ins Gespräch über
Bäume.’121 The proximity of the events of 17 June to the composition
of the poems and above all the direct link in Brecht’s journal between
those events and the elegies invites a politicised reading of what
might appear to be apolitical poems. In this case, as with the output
of ‘inner emigration’ in the Third Reich, two possibilities present
themselves. On the one hand, the retreat from the political sphere
may be viewed as some form of abdication of responsibility which
unintentionally grants assent to the regime, as a withdrawal of dis-
sent. On the other hand, the same retreat can also be perceived as a
form of passive Resistenz, dissent in the form of a withdrawal of overt
assent. Viewed in isolation, as a discrete set of poems, the six pub-
lished elegies are open to either of these politicised readings. The
interpretative problem posed by the published poems is to establish
which of these readings most closely matches their actual function,
that is to say, their effect and intention.

Active dissent: ‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue Mundart’

One obvious starting-point for an interpretation of the published

elegies is the remaining group of unpublished elegies, of which at
least two poems, ‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue Mundart’, seem to
escape much of what Knopf refers to as the ‘interpretatorische
Ergiebigkeit’ of the collection as a whole.122 ‘Die Lösung’ is an
unequivocally political poem which takes as its impetus Kurt
Barthel’s condemnation of the workers’ actions on 17 June which
appeared in Neues Deutschland on 20 June 1953. That Brecht was

121 Jan Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik: Brechts “Buckower Elegien” und der 17. Juni’,
in Jean-Mari Valentin and Theo Buck (eds), Bertolt Brecht (Bern: Lang, 1990),
pp. 53–66 (p. 53).
122 Knopf, ‘Nachwort zur Edition’, p. 121.

328
criticising the then Secretary of the Writers’ Union is in no doubt.
More open to question is whether Brecht’s dissent extended to
encompass the regime as a whole. For Knopf, Brecht’s represen-
tation of Kuba in the poem, having flyers distributed rather than
writing in the Party Press, locates the target of the poem’s satire away
from the Party as a whole and towards the specific actions of a single
individual.123 Equally, the distribution of flyers in the Stalinallee, where
the uprising began, could be seen to lend the poem a much more
generalised applicability to the events of 17 June. Furthermore, with
Kuba mentioned only by his institutional position, the striking and
memorable inversion in the final question of the poem is liable to
become a savage satire on the authoritarianism of the GDR state as a
whole: ‘Wäre es da/ Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung/ Löste das
Volk auf und/ Wählte ein anderes?’ (BFA, 12, p. 310). Horst Jesse
for one reads the poem in this way: ‘In diesem Gedicht drückt er
seine Opposition zum DDR-System nach den Gesichtspunkten der
liberalen, parlamentarischen Demokratie aus: Auflösung der Regie-
rung, Neuwahlen. Brecht stellt sich auf die Seite der Arbeiter und
unterstützt ihre Forderung an die Regierung.’124 That this was
Brecht’s intention is, as we shall see, doubtful in the extreme.
Nonetheless, the posthumous effect of the poem, ‘als Aufruf zur
Revolution’,125 cannot be overlooked. In this sense, the poem has
acquired a much broader and more generalised dissenting function in
the years since its composition. Indeed, the much-quoted satirical
solution Brecht offers has acquired a status comparable perhaps only
to the epigrammatic final paragraph of the ‘Offener Brief’ of 1951.
Comparable in dissenting intention, if not in effect, is ‘Die neue
Mundart’. This poem, whose manuscript was specifically marked
‘wollte Brecht nicht veröffentlicht haben’ and which was first
published in 1980, seems to support Carl Weber’s observation
concerning the expression of dissent in poems not intended for

123 Jan Knopf, ‘Zu den Buckower Elegien’, in Brecht, Buckower Elegien, pp. 33–120
(p. 50).
124 Horst Jesse, Brecht in Berlin (Munich: Das freie Buch, 1996), p. 260.
125 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 54.

329
publication.126 Here, Brecht criticises the incomprehensible language
of the ruling elite:

Jetzt
Herrschen sie und sprechen eine neue Mundart
Nur ihnen selber verständlich, das Kaderwelsch
Welche mit drohender und belehrender Stimme gesprochen wird.
(BFA, 12, p. 311)

Brecht’s criticism of the empty and threatening discourse of SED art

criticism is familiar from 1951. However, in establishing a connection
in this poem between the language of the ruling elite and the
conditions of hardship for the population at large - ‘Dem, der
Kaderwelsch hört/ vergeht das Essen’ (BFA, 12, p. 311) - Brecht
extends and sharpens his attack on the functionaries who consist-
ently acted as the focus for his dissatisfaction in the immediate
aftermath of 17 June.
The overt dissenting intent expressed in ‘Die neue Mundart’ and
‘Die Lösung’, together with their direct connection to 17 June, can
now be employed as a key to unlock the meaning of other more open
and symbolic poems from the rest of the cycle. In Jesse’s words:

Die politischen Ereignisse des 17. Juni 1953 haben Brecht in seiner
optimistischen Haltung gegenüber dem Sozialismus tief verletzt. Zeugnis
davon gibt Brechts Gedichtsammlung ‘Buckower Elegien’. […] In weiteren
Gedichten verhandelt er traumatisiert auf symbolische Weise die gesell-
schaftspolitischen Ereignisse und ihre Bedeutung.127

In this way, ‘Eisen’ and ‘Die Kelle’ become coded dream-poems

expressing the trauma caused by 17 June, while ‘Beim Lesen des
Horaz’ and ‘Der Radwechsel’ are seen to express depression,
impatience and impotence.128 Philip Thomson shares this view of

126 BFA, 12, p. 449. The poem was first published along with ‘Lebensmittel zum
Zweck’ by Gerhard Seidel, ‘Vom Kaderwelsch und vom Schmalz der Söhne
McCarthys’, Sinn und Form, 32 (1980), 1087–91.
127 Jesse, p. 260.
128 Jesse, pp. 260–62.

330
‘Der Radwechsel’, seeing it as an expression of ‘the disappointment
and disillusionment that the GDR, and [Brecht’s] public role in it,
engendered’.129 In terms of the cycle as a whole, Thomson sees
Brecht’s public support for the suppression of the uprising and ‘the
conflicts and anguish created by this’ as the shaping factors. In this
analysis, ‘Böser Morgen’ is a key poem: ‘It begins with a series of
images conveying the poet’s depression: the Buckow landscape,
usually a source of pleasure for him, has lost its appeal. […] Brecht’s
torment at being seen by the ordinary people as a traitor who sided
with the Stalinist authorities is clearly expressed here.’
This analysis of the ‘unpublished’ elegies, as the expression of a
strong and generalised dissenting intention, is potentially highly
significant. If such an analysis holds true, then Brecht would be for
the first time extending the scope of his dissent to question his
previously unshakeable support for the SED and its method of
government. This same analysis would also provide an important
clarifying context for the six published, ‘apolitical’ elegies. Within this
context of generalised dissent in the remainder of the cycle, Brecht’s
retreat from the political sphere in the published elegies must surely
be viewed in the same light, that is, as a public expression of that
same dissent in the form of a withdrawal of overt support. However,
the conventional reading of the published elegies, in the West at least,
does not complement the overt dissent of the unpublished elegies,
but rather contradicts it: ‘Entsprechend lautete das Verdikt bei uns
im Westen: Brecht zeigte sich nicht in der Lage, das Unrecht beim
Namen zu nennen.’130 Thomson in particular offers this potentially
self-contradictory view of the published elegies, where the ‘resig-
nation and tiredness’ engendered by dissatisfaction with the GDR
does not preclude an assenting abdication of responsibility:

None of these critical poems was published at the time, and Brecht seems
increasingly to have sought refuge from the turmoil surrounding his public

129 Philip Thomson, ‘Brecht’s Poetry’, in Thomson and Sacks (eds), pp. 201–17
(p. 216). Subsequent references, p. 215.
130 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 53.

331
 role in simple verse of a purely personal and non-controversial nature such as
‘The Flower Garden’. […] This uncharacteristic escape into the private
domain indicates as clearly as anything the resignation and tiredness which
overtook Brecht in the last years of his life. However satisfying these little
poems are with their evocation of quiet beauty and peacefulness, they
nevertheless represent, in the turbulent context of 1953, a kind of withdrawal,
almost an abdication, from the active involvement in the social and political
sphere that had been part of Brecht’s raison d’être.131

In a similar vein, John Fuegi seizes on Brecht’s failure to publish ‘Die

Lösung’: ‘this brilliantly ironic poem was not published in his life-
time. He gave it to friends, enhancing his status as a liberal. But by
not publishing it (as he could easily have done in the West), he again
failed to back the population of the GDR.’132 Here, it is the assenting
function of Brecht’s publication policy, putting forward the ‘apolit-
ical’ elegies but withholding the overtly dissenting, which provides a
puzzling contrast with the apparently global dissenting intention
identified in the composition of the cycle as a whole.

Not meant that way

These contradictions in the assenting and dissenting functions of the

‘Buckower Elegien’ – apparently global and active dissent in their
composition, but assent in their (non-)publication – is all the more
puzzling given Brecht’s willingness to express effective and public
dissent elsewhere in the wake of 17 June. It is difficult to understand
why the dissent expressed in ‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue Mundart’
needed to be withheld in the private sphere while that in, say, the
essay ‘Kulturpolitik und Akademie der Künste’ could be expressed
openly. Indeed, Brecht’s post-17-June dissent was not confined to
the prose interventions discussed in the preceding section. It also
took the form of two satirical, oppositional poems in the mode of

131 Thomson, pp. 215–16.

132 Fuegi, p. 549.

332
‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue Mundart’ which were published in mid-
July 1953 in the Berliner Zeitung and subsequently in the August issue
of Neue Deutsche Literatur. Both ‘Nicht feststellbare Fehler der
Kunstkomission’ (BFA, 15, pp. 267–68) and ‘Das Amt für Literatur’
(BFA, 15, p. 268) fit comfortably into the campaign of dissent against
SED cultural-political institutions which played a significant role in
the abolition of these institutions and the setting-up of the Ministry
for Culture under Johannes R. Becher in January 1954. The editorial
note attached to the publication of ‘Nicht feststellbare Fehler’, for
instance, ties the poem firmly to point one of the ‘Erklärung der
DAK’ and Brecht’s criticism of the treatment of the jury for the
Dresden art exhibition.133 Both the institutions attacked in the poems
had been frequent targets of Brecht’s criticism in plenary meetings of
the Academy of Arts both before and after 17 June. Both institutions
had also been criticised by Brecht in private notes and letters (see
BFA, 23, pp. 260–61; BFA, 30, pp. 201–02). That this dissent found
its way into the public sphere, while that in the ‘Buckower Elegien’
did not, seems to confirm an interpretation of the published elegies
as a somewhat puzzling withdrawal of dissent.
Of pivotal importance in this context is a further poem written
in the summer of 1953, entitled ‘Nicht so gemeint’. As Knopf
indicates, this poem is a direct response to reception in the West of
the actively dissenting ‘Nicht feststellbare Fehler’ and ‘Amt für
Literatur’.134 Brecht strongly resented the ‘Beifallsgeklatsche von jen-
seits der Sektorengrenze’ which accompanied these poems and was
eager to avoid the misinterpretation of his partial dissent against SED
cultural policies as generalised dissent against the regime as a whole.
As the concluding lines of the poem make clear, of his two appar-
ently contradictory positions in the GDR, it was that as a partisan
apologist, rather than that as a dissenting intellectual, which Brecht
wished to present to the West:

133 The note reads: ‘Vor einem Gremium der Akademie der Künste kamen
Fakten wie die Überrennung der Jury bei der Dresdener Kunstausstellung zur
Sprache.’ See, BFA, 15, p. 472.
134 Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch, II, p. 186.

333
 Selbst die schmalsten Stirnen
In denen der Friede wohnt
Sind den Künsten willkommener als jener Kunstfreund
Der auch Freund der Kriegskunst ist. (BFA, 15, pp. 270–71)

What Knopf stops short of pointing out is that this poem, and the
fundamentally partisan GDR position that it represents, surely also
explains the non-publication of ‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue Mund-
art’. Furthermore, ‘Nicht so gemeint’ suggests strongly that the
dissent expresed in these latter two elegies remains partial, con-
strained by on-going support.
In this way, ‘Nicht so gemeint’ has important implications for
any interpretation of the remaining ‘Buckower Elegien’. Brecht’s may
have been a dissenting voice within the context of GDR cultural
policy, but in terms of Cold War ideological positions his was an
orthodox SED stance which clearly equated the regeneration of
capitalism in the West with the rebirth of fascism. As well as being a
publicly expressed position, this was also both a privately and
consistently expressed one, and therefore presumably a genuine one.
It was the same position that he had expressed in relation to
Strittmatter’s play Katzgraben and the same that he had expressed in
the discussions held at the Berliner Ensemble on 24 June 1953.
Brecht’s maintenance of this position, together incidentally with his
own continuing use of ‘Kaderwelsch’, is exemplified in his letter to
Peter Suhrkamp of 1 July 1953:

Die Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands hat Fehler begangen [...]. Aber

ich respektiere viele ihrer historischen Errungenschaften, und ich fühlte mich
ihr verbunden, als sie – nicht ihrer Fehler, sondern ihrer Vorzüge wegen –
von faschistischem und kriegstreiberischem Gesindel angegriffen wurde. Im
Kampf gegen Krieg und Faschismus stand und stehe ich an ihrer Seite. (BFA,
30, pp. 184–85)

In this context, the most significant part of that journal-entry of 20

August 1953 relating to the ‘Buckower Elegien’ comes not at the
beginning but at the end: ‘Deshalb empfand ich den schrecklichen

334
17. Juni als nicht einfach negativ. In dem Augenblick, wo ich das
Proletariat [...] wiederum ausgeliefert dem Klassenfeind sah, dem
wieder erstarkenden Kapitalismus der faschistischen Ära, sah ich die
einzige Kraft, die mit ihr fertig werden konnte’ (BFA, 27, p. 347). It
is Brecht’s position expressed in ‘Nicht so gemeint’, and not that
expressed in the two openly dissenting elegies, which offers the key
to the ‘Buckower Elegien’.
Seen in this light, Jesse’s interpretation of ‘Die Lösung’ as an
expression of Brecht’s opposition to the GDR system from a liberal,
parliamentary-democratic perspective becomes untenable.135 Simi-
larly, it is much more difficult to justify an interpretation of ‘Böser
Morgen’ as a clear expression of ‘Brecht’s torment at being seen by
the ordinary people as a traitor who sided with the Stalinist author-
ities’, as a ‘self-accusation’.136 As Mittenzwei suggests, such a view
simply goes against Brecht’s repeatedly stated position with regard to
17 June:

Eine Interpretation, die das Gedicht als eine Art Selbstkritik Brechts an
seinem Verhalten am 17 Juni deutet, geht am philosophischen Gehalt wie an
der Struktur des Gedichts völlig vorbei. Ganz abgesehen davon, daß eine
solche Aussage allen sonstigen Erklärungen Brechts zum 17. Juni wider-
spräche.137

Within the elegies themselves, the poem ‘Lebensmittel zum Zweck’,

with its reference to the West German authorities as ‘die Söhne Mac
Carthys’ (BFA, 12, p. 312), luring the East German population with
promises of food, seems to further define Brecht’s continued
partisanship. As Knopf writes: ‘Dieses Gedicht macht es endgültig
unmöglich, die “Buckower Elegien” als poetischen Ausdruck der
Verzweiflung über die politische Lage in der DDR und über den

135 Jesse, p. 260. In his journal on 12 September 1953, Brecht reports a

conversation with Klempner. Brecht’s answer to Klempner’s suggestion,
‘Nötig sind freie Wahlen’, is unequivocal: ‘Ich sagte: Dann werden die Nazis
gewählt.’ BFA, 27, p. 347.
136 Thomson, p. 215 and Hayman, p. 372.
137 Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, pp. 535–36.

335
Marxismus sowie Selbstverzweiflung des “ehemalig gläubigen” Mar-
xisten zu deuten.’138 In the same vein, Brecht’s high level of activity
within the Academy of Arts, his prolific letter-writing, and his en-
gaged response to the New Course do not seem to be the actions of
a disillusioned and depressed figure.

The spectre of fascism

This considerable weight of evidence argues persuasively that the

events of 17 June did not then effect a fundamental shift in Brecht’s
position to one of generalised dissent against SED rule and that
Brecht did not ever question the will to truth of the SED regime in
the ‘Buckower Elegien’ or elsewhere. In fact, as Brecht’s letter to
Suhrkamp and the analysis of the Katzgraben project demonstrate, the
events of 17 June re-affirmed the need to make a partisan public
contribution towards the fight against fascism in the West. In large
measure, Brecht adopted an orthodox SED position, that it was
fascist insurgents from the West who sparked the uprising. At the
same time, as Knopf suggests, Brecht’s private attitude to the threat
posed by fascism was also a profoundly unorthodox one, and this is
where the true dissenting significance of the ‘Buckower Elegien’ may
lie.139 In his letter to Suhrkamp, for instance, Brecht made it clear that
it was not just in the West that he saw the threat of rising fascism:
‘Lieber Suhrkamp, machen wir uns nichts vor: Nicht nur im Westen,
auch hier im Osten Deutschlands sind “die Kräfte” wieder am Werk’
(BFA, 30, p. 184). At the discussions held at the Berliner Ensemble
on 24 June 1953, Brecht drew a potentially significant connection
between his criticism of SED cultural policy and this internal fascist
threat:

138 Knopf, Brecht-Handbuch, II, p. 200.

139 Jan Knopf, ‘Elegische Warnungen vor dem “eigenen” Faschismus: Bertolt
Brecht’, in Karl Deiritz and Hannes Krauss (eds), Verrat an der Kunst?: Rück-
blicke auf die DDR-Literatur (Berlin: Aufbau, 1993), pp. 81–88.

336
 Dieses Berlin ist in einem geistigen Zustande, in dem es anscheinend in der
Nazizeit war. Da sind noch ungeheure Rückstände geblieben. Es ist einer der
Hauptfehler der SED – nach meiner Meinung – und der Regierung, dass sie
diese Nazielemente in den Menschen und in den Gehirnen nicht wirklich
beseitigt hat. Es ist ein Fehler, wir wissen das von unserem Kunstgebiet, daß
es ein Tabu war, ein Verbot, von der Nazizeit zu sprechen. Es wurden
Bücher am Herauskommen gehindert, wenn darin davon gesprochen wurde.
(BBA 1447/7)140

Brecht’s pre-occupation with fascism was not a rhetorical position

which deployed ‘fascism’ as another elastic, abstract term in the
discursive battle with the West. Instead, his concern with fascism was
a very real and concrete one. In the process, Brecht was questioning
one of the core founding myths of the GDR, that it was, by defin-
ition, an anti-fascist state.
Of particular significance in relation to the ‘Buckower Elegien’ is
the foreword to Brecht’s play Turandot oder der Kongreß der Weißwäscher,
also written in Buckow in the summer of 1953. Here, Brecht con-
siders the influence the events of 17 June had on him as he worked
on both the elegies and Turandot:

Zu Beginn des Sommers, in dem ich das vorliegende Stück schrieb, hatte ein
schreckliches Ereignis jeden denkenden Menschen in der Republik tief
erschreckt. Seit dem Ende des Hitlerkrieges [...] hatten sozialistische Maß-
nahmen wie die Vertreibung der kriegerischen Junker, die Übernahme vieler
Fabriken in die öffentliche Hand und die Zulassung der Arbeiter- und
Bauernkinder zum Studium eine gewaltige Veränderung der Lebensweise
bewirkt. Eine ebenso große Veränderung der Denkweise zu bewirken, war
freilich nicht gelungen. [...] Überall wurden Fehler gemacht, Menschen
geschädigt oder gekränkt, kostspielige Umwege oder kostspielige kürzeste
Wege begangen, immer wieder wurde verordnet anstatt überzeugt. [...] Es ist,
zumal im Chaos eines verlorenen Krieges, in einem hochzivilisierten Gemein-
wesen mit hochgradiger Arbeitsteilung unmöglich, auf einen Staatsapparat zu
verzichten, aber schwierig, einen völlig neuen aufzubauen. Unter neuen
Befehlshabern setzte sich also der Naziapparat wieder in Bewegung. Ein
solcher Apparat kann durch Kontrolle von oben nicht mit neuem Geist
erfüllt werden; er benötigte Kontrolle von unten. Unüberzeugt, aber feige,

140 See BFA, 23, pp. 546–47. See also Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Brecht, II, p. 502.

337
 feindlich, aber sich duckend, begannen verknöcherte Beamte wieder gegen
die Bevölkerung zu regieren. (BFA, 9, pp. 409–10)

Brecht’s continuing belief in the achievements of Socialism in the

GDR is clear, but it is also clear that Brecht saw the renewed threat
of fascism not only on the streets, but also amongst the govern-
mental apparatus itself. With this realisation, the fact that Knopf is
able to trace the satirical question posed in ‘Die Lösung’ back to the
original 1930s Turandot fragments establishes an uncomfortable con-
nection between Nazism and sections of the SED regime.141 In
Knopf’s words, ‘in diesem Gedicht werden Grundlagen erschüttert
[…]. Das Thema Faschismus ist plötzlich ganz nahe’.142
This connection between state and municipal officials and
Nazism, which was perhaps first noticeable as the impulse for the
Barlach intervention, seems to have crystallised through the events of
17 June and found its expression in many of the unpublished elegies.
Most striking in this context is the elegy ‘Der Einarmige im Gehölz’.
The orthodox GDR reading of the poem, as an optimistic represen-
tation of Nazism now denuded in East Germany, one-armed and
powerless against nature, cannot be sustained in the light of the
Turandot foreword. As Knopf indicates, ‘“Der Einarmige im Gehölz”
läßt sich jedoch ganz anders lesen und es läßt damit zeigen, daß
Brecht […] einer der wenigen war, die die “unerledigte Vergangen-
heit” im eigenen Land sahen und dadurch eine Fehlentwicklung des
Sozialismus in der DDR konstatieren konnten. […] Der Mann
sammelt kein Holz für die Feuerung seines Ofens, er sammelt Holz
für die nächste Brandschatzung’.143 In this way, the Nazi fire-raisers

141 See Bertolt Brecht, Turandot oder der Kongreß der Weißwäscher, BFA, 9, p. 169:
‘Gogher Gogh: Was heißt das: das Volk muß sich doch sein Regime wählen
können? Kann sich etwa das Regime sein Volk wählen? Es kann nicht.
Würden Sie sich etwa gerade dieses Volk gewählt haben, wenn Sie die Wahl
gehabt hätten?’ See Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 56. The editorial apparatus
of the BFA confirms the connection to ‘Die Lösung’. See BFA, 9, p. 414.
142 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 57.
143 Knopf, ‘Elegische Warnungen’, p. 85.

338
present in ‘Nicht so gemeint’ and the letter to Suhrkamp seem to
become a menacing presence in the elegies, even finding their way
into one of the published elegies, ‘Der Rauch’. In the same vein, the
black floods in ‘Beim Lesen des Horaz’ can be seen to indicate the
continuing threat of fascism, while the reference to the ‘Kalb’ in
‘Lebensmittel zum Zweck’ introduces a further Brechtian echo of
Nazism.144 For Knopf, it is the misplaced hope that fascism had been
overcome in East Germany which finds its expression in the
misplaced hope of the Trojans in ‘Bei der Lektüre eines spät-
griechischen Dichters’: ‘gemeint ist der überwunden geglaubte
Faschismus; die Erledigung der Vergangenheit, die Brecht immer
wieder gefordert und für die er seine Kunst gemacht hatte, hat nicht
stattgefunden.’145 The source of Brecht’s elegiac lament, the source of
his Buckow Verfremdung, is not then disillusionment with Marxism,
but a recognition of the threat posed by fascism within the sup-
posedly anti-fascist state. Reading an elegy like ‘Böser Morgen’ in this
way, that is as a realisation of the continuing fascist threat in the
GDR and the need to combat it, clearly complements rather than
contradicts all Brecht’s other statements in relation to 17 June, and it
is in this sense that the unpublished elegies can be justifiably read as
an act of intentional, if partial, dissent against the GDR government
and an element of its core founding myth.
Similarly, it is this dissenting impulse which can be seen to
inform the melancholic depiction of nature in the published elegies.
Indeed, such an interpretation is lent support if the published elegies
are contrasted not with the unpublished poems of the cycle, but with
Brecht’s earlier lyric output in the GDR. Before 17 June 1953, it is
possible to identify a number of instances where Brecht used poetry
as a medium of public, institutionalised partisanship. In October
1949, for instance, Brecht composed ‘An meine Landsleute’ to
commemorate Wilhelm Pieck’s entry into office as the first President
of the GDR, sending the poem personally to Pieck with a letter of

144 See BFA, 12, p. 449.

145 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 61.

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congratulation. Reaction on either side of the German-German
border bears witness to the assenting function of a series of poems
published in the next two years. The BFA, for instance, summarises
the reception of the Soviet-influenced ‘Tschaganak Bersijew oder Die
Erziehung der Hirse’, which appeared both in Neues Deutschland and
Sinn und Form, in the West as ‘Dienst gegenüber den diktatorischen
Machthabern in der DDR’, in the East as ‘ein produktiver Beitrag
zum “Aufbau des Sozialismus”’.146 Likewise, critical reaction in the
West dismissed Brecht’s ‘Kinderlieder’ as ‘propagandistische Partei-
lyrik’, while in the GDR the poems rapidly established themselves in
the education system.147 One of the lyrics, ‘Kinderhymne’, was even
sung to commemorate Wilhelm Pieck’s 75th birthday in January
1951. A similar supportive, even collaborative, function can be
ascribed to the ‘Herrnburger Bericht’. Composed for the FDJ and the
World Youth festival held in Berlin in the summer of 1951, the
Kantate is written off by Esslin as ‘one of the most blatant pieces of
propaganda hack-work of [Brecht’s and Dessau’s] careers’.148 In this
way, it is difficult not to see the shift to apparently harmless nature
poetry in the published elegies as a shift away from Brecht’s earlier
more partisan GDR poetry, with the events of 17 June and an
associated re-appraisal of his position in the GDR, as expressed in
the journal-entry of August 1953, constituting the trigger for such a
shift.

146 BFA, 15, p. 450. Further evidence of the partisan nature of the poem is
provided by Suhrkamp’s decision to leave the poem out of his edition of
Brecht’s collected poems and by Huchel’s use of the poem to defend his
editorship against Hager’s accusations that it was insufficiently committed to
the GDR cause. See Schoor, p. 108.
147 BFA, 12, p. 440.
148 See Esslin, pp. 164–65.

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Brecht and Stalin

More difficult to substantiate with reference to Brecht’s other

writings is Knopf’s suggestion that Brecht was also establishing a link
between fascist rule and Stalinism, that it was Stalin and Stalinism
which Brecht also sought to criticise in the elegies. For Knopf, ‘the
iron one’ in the elegy ‘Eisen’ constitutes a direct reference to Stalin:
‘Angesprochen ist Stalin, der Stählerne, und mit ihm der Stalinismus.
Der Stalinismus, der angeblich Garant war für den Aufbau des
Sozialismus in der DDR, dient diesem Aufbau nicht, sondern ver-
hindert ihn.’149 In the dream of the poem, the storm tears down the
rigid iron scaffolding of Stalinist dogma, while more flexible and
yielding structures endure and continue to support the construction
of Socialism within the GDR. Alongside this apparently generalised
critique of Stalinist policies, Knopf identifies specific criticism of
Stalinist artistic and architectural policies in, respectively, ‘Die Musen’
and ‘Große Zeit, vertan’. Of the former, for instance, Knopf com-
ments as follows:

Prostitution und Zuhälterei sind bekannte Themen aus Brechts Werk, um

Ausbeutung des Menschen und zugleich faschistische Methoden zu brand-
marken. Das Gedicht bezieht sich unmißverständlich auf den Stalinismus der
DDR und die Rolle der Kunstdoktrin des sozialistischen Realismus, der
Brecht seine Verfremdungskunst entgegenzusetzen suchte.

While it is not difficult to find evidence of dissent against dogmatic

‘Stalinist’ cultural policies within Brecht’s cultural activities in the
GDR, there is little contextual evidence from the summer of 1953 to
support Knopf’s reading of ‘Eisen’. Brecht’s most overt ‘anti-Stalin’
texts, a cycle of four poems (BFA, 15, 300–01) and a short prose
text, ‘Über die Kritik an Stalin’ (BFA, 15, pp. 417–18), date from July
1956 and have as their impetus Krushchev’s denunciation of Stalin at

149 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 58. Subsequent reference, p. 60.

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the beginning of that year.150 At the very most, the echo in ‘Über die
Kritik an Stalin’ – ‘Die Liquidierung des Stalinismus kann nur durch
eine gigantische Mobilisierung der Weisheit der Massen durch die
Partei gelingen’ – of the elegy ‘Große Zeit, vertan’ – ‘Was sind schon
Städte, gebaut/ Ohne die Weisheit des Volkes?’ (BFA, 12, p. 311) –
allows us to identify the early emergence of this anti-Stalinist position
around the time of the composition of the elegies.
Whether or not we choose to accept the full extent of the
dissenting intention identified by Knopf, this discussion of potential
anti-Stalinist dissent does point to one of the more consistent
tendencies identifiable in Brecht’s relationship to the Communist
authorities, and one embodied by the ‘Buckower Elegien’. In seeking
a solution to Brecht’s enigmatic relationship to Stalinism, Peter
Borman notes the contrasting nature of Brecht’s published and non-
published ‘Stalin’ texts:

Der auffällige Gegensatz zwischen den veröffentlichten und den unveröffent-

lichten Texten kann uns daher der Lösung vielleicht doch näher bringen.
Angesichts der oft scharfen Kritik an Stalin und dem Stalinismus, die Brecht
gegenüber Benjamin, in seinem Arbeitsjournal und dem ‘Met-ti’ [sic] äußerte,
wirken der Optimismus und die Kritiklosigkeit in den veröffentlichten Texten
fast erschütternd. Man fragt sich, warum Brecht die Stalinistische Politik nicht
in aller Öffentlichkeit kritisiert hat.151

Michael Rohrwasser, too, describes ‘das Doppelbild von einem

privaten Antistalinisten Brecht und einem zurückhaltend öffentlichen
Verteidiger der sowjetischen Politik’,152 while Hecht notes a con-
sistent reluctance on Brecht’s part to criticise the Party line in public:

150 See James K. Lyon, ‘Brecht und Stalin: des Dichters “letztes Wort”’, in
Thomas Koebner, Wulf Köpke, Joachim Radkau (eds), Exilforschung: Ein
internationales Jahrbuch (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1983), pp. 120–29.
151 Peter Borman, ‘Brecht und der Stalinismus’, in John Fuegi, Reinhold Grimm,
Jost Hermand (eds), Brecht-Jahrbuch 1974 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1975),
pp. 53–76 (p. 55).
152 Michael Rohrwasser, Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten: Die Literatur der Ex-
kommunisten (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991), p. 167.

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‘Bereits in den zwanziger Jahren und später im Exil hatte Brecht
häufig Zweifel an politischen Maßnahmen der Kommunisten (und an
deren Bevormundung der Kunst). Er hat daran in Briefen, Schriften
und Gesprächen heftig Kritik geübt, aber schon damals die öffent-
liche Auseinandersetzung gemieden.’153 In this sense, Brecht’s active
decision not to publish the most dissenting of the ‘Buckower
Elegien’ seems to fit within a much broader tendency:

Nicht ohne Grund hat Brecht seine ‘Buckower Elegien’ nur in Auszügen
publiziert, Gedichte, die gemessen an denen, die der Nachlaß enthielt,
harmlos, versöhnlerisch klingen, zumal in dieser Zusammenstellung, die mit
dem ‘Blumengarten’ beginnt und mit ‘Bei der Lektüre eines sowjetischen
Buches’, mit dem in die Sowjetunion verlegten gelingenden Aufbau des
Sozialismus, endet. Die brisanten Gedichte blieben ausdrücklich unveröffent-
licht. Und als sie veröffentlicht wurden, hatten sie ihre Brisanz verloren. Es
gehört zu den Widersprüchen Brechts, daß er einerseits radikal Stellung nahm
– ich erinnere mich an die Auseinandersetzungen mit Lukács 1938 –
andererseits diese Stellungnahmen nicht an die Öffentlichkeit brachte, wo sie
hin gehörten.154

The function of the ‘Buckower Elegien’ is informed by a central

contradiction. In their composition, Brecht’s intention was clearly a
dissenting one. In some cases, such as ‘Die Lösung’ and ‘Die neue
Mundart’ this was more active and more explicit, though never global
in scope. In other cases, such as ‘Der Blumengarten’, this dissent was
expressed through little more than an absence of overt political
support. However, in the (non-)publication of the elegies, Brecht’s
intention was clearly an assenting one, the most actively dissenting
poems being withheld. Most significantly of all, these publication
decisions rob the elegies of all contemporary dissenting effect.
Because of this, and dissenting intentions notwithstanding, in the
overall function of the ‘Buckower Elegien’ assenting tendencies
outweigh the dissenting. In the final analysis, the elegies constitute a

153 Werner Hecht, Am Wasser des Schermützelsees: Bertolt Brecht in Buckow (s.l., 1994),
p. 15.
154 Knopf, ‘Lyrik der Politik’, p. 64.

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failure to express public dissent, since, in terms of their objective
effect in blocking the regime’s total claim, it is simply not possible to
ascribe to them any significant dissenting function.

Conclusion

To return finally to the observations made at the beginning of this

chapter, we are now in a more informed position to assess the
relative weighting of the assenting and dissenting impulses in
Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR. In particular, this tension
between private and public output, exemplified by the ‘Buckower
Elegien’, is a central thread of Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR.
As the elegies demonstrate, Brecht tended to withhold dissent in the
private sphere, so that any unequivocal dissent remained unpub-
lished, and any published dissent remained equivocal. As such, Lyon
seems to be justified in privileging Brecht’s conformity (assent) over
his dissidence (dissent), or as Jäger writes of the politicised interpret-
ations of Brecht’s GDR output: ‘dabei scheint die Tatsache, daß die
radikalsten kritischen Stellungnahmen Brechts zu seinen Lebzeiten
nicht publiziert wurden, den westlichen Autoren recht zu geben.’155
In terms of the objective function of Brecht’s writing in the GDR,
the tendency to withhold dissent in the private sphere while adopting
an assenting position in public makes it impossible to privilege
dissent over assent. At the level of both intention and, above all,
effect, Brecht must have furthered the ideology and policies of the
SED regime to a greater degree than he blocked them. Certainly,
Jäger is correct to go on to highlight the potential for dissent, to
effects which emerge only later, and in this respect ‘Die Lösung’ is
exemplary. Nonetheless, the contemporary effect of Brecht’s public

155 Jäger, p. 67.

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expression of solidarity in the wake of 17 June far outweighs the
function of any such posthumous dissent.
Of course, Brecht did express public dissent during his lifetime,
most notably and most directly in the ‘Barlach-Notizen’, ‘Faustus-
Thesen’, and ‘Erklärung der DAK’. The publicness, effectiveness,
and active intentional nature of the dissent in these statements must
be acknowledged, as must the significant effect achieved by Brecht
after 17 June in blocking the total claim of the regime in the cultural
sphere. Indeed, in this narrow cultural sphere Brecht’s oppositional
contribution is considerable. At the same time, the function of this
dissent must be denuded by the relative relaxation of the regime’s
total claim after 17 June. Further, this dissent never became global in
scope but was directed all the time at the specifics of cultural policy
and the functionaries involved in its implementation. Again, the
events of 17 June and Brecht’s reaction to them are central in this
respect. In the discussions at the Berliner Ensemble, in his letter to
Suhrkamp, and in the poem ‘Nicht so gemeint’, Brecht himself
makes clear which of the two tendencies, assenting and dissenting,
was dominant in his own approach. Whether it was non-intentional
and politicised aesthetic non-conformity at the Berliner Ensemble,
whether it was intentional but resolutely private as in the Lukullus
affair, or even public and intentional as in the summer of 1953,
Brecht’s dissent did not match the extent of his assent, nor was it
ever expressed outside the assenting framework of Marxist-Leninist
ideology and the core founding myth of anti-fascism.
Many critics persist in viewing much of Brecht’s assent as
tactical manouvering, and this is a view which suits both those
wishing to condemn Brecht and those who seek to defend him. The
former are able to point to Brecht’s readiness to sacrifice principle in
return for acclaim and material gain. The latter are able to hold up a
dissenting position as the norm in Brecht’s activities and to maintain
his reputation as a shrewd tactician, a step ahead of the forces of
totalitarianism. Nonetheless, there can be little doubt that Brecht’s
location in this will to truth was not short-term and tactical, but
consistent and ideological. In this respect, the reality of Brecht’s

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cultural activities in the GDR is perhaps more straightforward than is
often supposed. Brecht, like many GDR intellectuals, both of the
exile generation and the second younger generation, sought to
oppose the restrictive cultural policies of the SED. However, this
dissent was restricted by what Günter Kunert has termed the ‘anti-
fascist bonus’, as the GDR system was protected from these figures
by their ‘deeply internalised tie to an anti-fascism defined in Marxist
terms’.156 And yet, for Brecht this ‘bonus’ operated in both directions.
On the one hand, his dissent was unable break free from the genuine
belief in the need to combat resurgent fascism, and this explains why
17 June only served to reinforce his generalised assent to the SED
regime. On the other hand, it was the assent embodied in this
consistently and publicly expressed anti-fascism which gave Brecht
the opportunity to achieve effective dissent from within the insti-
tutional framework of the GDR. Assent may have remained the
norm in Brecht’s cultural activities in the GDR, dissent the
exception, but in the complex inter-relation between these two
tendencies it was precisely the former which to a large degree
facilitated the latter.

156 Bathrick, ‘The End of the Wall’, p. 306.

346
Conclusion

Writing in the margins of dictatorship:

Günter Eich and Bertolt Brecht

This study has sought to adopt an explicitly comparative approach to

culture produced in what one might term the ‘margins of dictator-
ship’. But what precisely is meant by this notion of margins, and how
might it further our understanding of the literature of the Third
Reich and the GDR? On one level, these margins are to be under-
stood simply as literary spaces, but these literary spaces are at the
same time peripheral spaces, spaces of assent and dissent occupied
by those writers neither entirely at the ideological and political centre
of the dictatorships, nor entirely excluded. In this way, both Günter
Eich and Bertolt Brecht are writers who worked in, or perhaps better
at, the margins of dictatorship, and it is hoped that the framework of
literary assent and dissent developed in this study has allowed for a
more measured and balanced assessment of the nature of Eich’s
writing under National Socialism and Brecht’s cultural activities in
the GDR, free from entrenched and highly polarised judgements of
unequivocal condemnation or approbation. Through individual
analyses, we have been able to move closer to an appreciation of the
true nature of Eich’s relationship to National Socialism and Brecht’s
to the SED system, and of the relative levels of assent and dissent
expressed by them. At the same time, these margins can also be
understood as the boundaries – political, geographical, and historical
– which de-limit the periods of rule of the National Socialist and
SED regimes. In this connection, a central question addressed
throughout the course of this study has been the degree of
comparability demonstrated by these regimes and their societies. Put
another way, where do we set the margins of dictatorship? Do these

347
margins mark the specific boundaries of the Third Reich and the
GDR, against one another as well as other states? Or are these
margins shared boundaries, de-limiting these two German states
together against other types of society? Central here is the capacity of
the case studies in part two of the study to illuminate a number of
substantial similarities between the writing experiences of these two
individuals which may be of a broader significance for the analysis of
literary production within the German dictatorships.
Firstly, it is only too clear that in both cases the output of these
writers is best characterised not purely in terms of dissent, nor simply
assent, but rather in terms of a much more complex combination of
these two contradictory tendencies. This observation confirms both
the necessity of a model which is able to cope with both tendencies
simultaneously and the need to subject the precise inter-relationship
between assent and dissent to further detailed scrutiny. As far as this
latter point is concerned, a second similarity to emerge from the
empirical study in this second part of the study is that, in the case of
both Eich and Brecht, the relative weighting of these assenting and
dissenting tendencies is tipped strongly in favour of assent. In Eich’s
radio output in the Third Reich and in Brecht’s work at the Berliner
Ensemble, his cultural-political interventions, and poetry, the grant-
ing of assent is quantitatively more widespread and more consistent
than the expression of dissent. Furthermore, even in those instances
when their dissent was at its height, such as in Eich’s radio plays of
1936 and 1937 and in Brecht’s interventions in Sinn und Form
following 17 June 1953, this dissent was vitiated all the time by on-
going assent. In this respect, the specific examples of Eich and
Brecht may illustrate more general principles concerning the relation-
ship between literary assent and dissent under the conditions of
dictatorship. For writers, as for other professionals, it is assent to the
total claim of the regime, rather than dissent against it, which seems
to be the norm. Furthermore, the consistent presence of assent, as
opposed to the relatively transitory nature of dissent, suggests
strongly that in published literary output the inter-relationship
between assent and dissent is such that the former is a pre-condition

348
for the expression of the latter. Whereas all forms of assent, in-
cluding support and collaboration, can be expressed in the absence
of dissent, any form of literary dissent which is to make its way into
the public sphere appears to be reliant on an accompanying ex-
pression of assent.
Substantial contrasts also exist between the forms of assent and
dissent expressed by Eich and Brecht, but these too may allow us to
make further progress in clarifying the nature of the relationship
between literary assent and literary dissent. In almost all instances,
the assenting function of Brecht’s texts is of a greater magnitude than
is the case for those of Eich. At the level of effect, Brecht’s higher
status and his institutional position within the GDR, considerable
ambiguities notwithstanding, lend any assent greater efficacy than
that of Eich. This effect is buttressed at the level of intention by
Brecht’s active ideological motivation to promote the core founding
myths of the GDR. By contrast, while often active and intentional,
Eich’s assent remained pragmatic in nature. Furthermore, his status
as a young, largely unknown writer denudes the effect of the assent
he was able to express. In the ‘KWL’ series, for instance, a number of
factors point to a high assenting effect, but that support was not
publicly attributed to Eich in the way that Brecht’s theatrical work or
poetry was directly associated with him. Similarly, Brecht’s higher
status put him in a position to make direct, unmediated statements,
such as his open letter of 1951, which were assured of an effect
inconceivable for Eich within the Third Reich.
This contrast in the level of assent expressed by Eich and Brecht
has two principal sources. Firstly, it arises in large measure from the
substantial differences in the biographical circumstances of the two
writers. Both may have been working under ‘totalitarian’ conditions,
but the two were at very different stages in their careers and had very
different ideological starting-points in their relationships to the
respective regimes. Secondly, Brecht’s stronger expression of assent
may also arise in part from differences in the totalitarian systems in
which Eich and Brecht were working. The bureaucratic totali-
tarianism of the SED system allowed Brecht to operate in an

349
institutional context arguably absent in the charismatic totalitarianism
of the Third Reich, and this institutional context supported his
furthering of the regime’s ideological claim. Perhaps more signifi-
cantly, these same factors which heighten the extent of Brecht’s
assent also allow for the generation of a more powerful dissenting
function in Brecht’s actions. As a direct result of his status in the
GDR and through the institutional channels open to him in the
Academy of Arts, Brecht was able to obstruct the total claim of the
regime more effectively and more publicly than was Eich. Indeed it is
difficult to imagine that Eich, or perhaps even any writer in the Third
Reich, could have expressed as direct and effective dissent in the
cultural sphere as Brecht did in the wake of 17 June 1953.
Furthermore, the ideological nature of Brecht’s assent may also have
rendered him more liable to intervene and express dissatisfaction at
cultural and political developments in the GDR, while Eich’s over-
whelmingly pragmatic motivations did not generate the same impetus
to dissent against the cultural policies of National Socialism. Both
Brecht’s assent and his dissent were consistently more public, more
organised, more active, more general in scope, and ultimately more
effective than those of Eich, and this suggests that we need to
conceive of literary assent and dissent in terms of more than just a
relationship of passive co-existence. In the literary sphere, where the
effectiveness of dissent is reliant on its public expression, and under
the conditions of dictatorship, where access to the public sphere is
restricted, dissent exists in a curiously symbiotic relationship with
assent. Paradoxically, a higher level of assent seems to facilitate a
higher level of dissent.
A further significant shared feature to emerge from this study
lies in the dynamic of the dissent expressed through Eich’s and
Brecht’s literary output. Although the peak of Brecht’s dissent was of
a far greater magnitude than that of Eich, it is possible in both cases
to chart a rising dissenting dynamic, as initial private dissatisfaction
grew to find active, public expression. The contrast between Brecht’s
private notes and conversations at the onset of the Formalism
Campaign in 1951 and his direct interventions of 1952 and 1953

350
finds an echo in Eich’s development from low-level grumbling in his
private correspondence of 1933-1934 to the published, if profoundly
ambivalent, dissent of ‘Radium’ and ‘Der Tag im März’ in 1936-
1937. As such, we find confirmation of the validity of the notion of
dissent as process and of the primacy of change within dissent. Also
largely confirmed is the assumption that the dynamics of dissent are
closely dependent on the changing dynamics of the total claim made
by the regime. The methodological principles established in chapter
three predict that the greater and more insistent the claim made by
the regime, the greater the magnitude of dissent expressed. Not only
does the same act acquire a greater dissenting effect, but the more
tightly imposed claim generates a greater pressure to express dissent.
These assumptions are most clearly borne out in Brecht’s cultural
output, where growing private dissent in the context of the Formal-
ism Campaign of 1951 finally finds its active and public expression in
the ‘Barlach-Notizen’ published at the beginning of 1952, while the
peak of Brecht’s dissent follows the peak of the SED’s claim in June
1953. Similarly, the growth in Eich’s dissent between 1933 and 1937
seems to match the radicalising dynamic in Nazi cultural policy. In
both cases too, this dissent does not rise to cross the gulf to
fundamental resistance, but soon gives way to renewed assent in
subsequent years. However, while in this respect Brecht’s dissent
follows the pattern of hardening and softening identified in the
dynamics of SED cultural policy in chapter one, in Eich’s case the
dynamics of his dissent diverge here from those of the National
Socialist regime. While the dynamic of the Nazi regime and its total
claim continued to radicalise, particularly in the build-up to war,
Eich’s dissent fades away, so that his final public contribution to the
literary sphere of the Third Reich is the strongly supportive Rebellion
in der Goldstadt. Here again, the pragmatism of Eich’s dissent may play
a significant role, since his public dissent can be shown to have been
primarily a product of professional and artistic factors rather than
moral and ideological elements. The motivations behind Eich’s
dissent are more readily conceivable outside the conditions of

351
dictatorship, and so that dissent is less closely tied to the total claim
of the regime than is Brecht’s.
This dissent, expressed by Eich largely as a result of an artistic
crisis the origins of which are already discernible before 1933, illus-
trates perhaps the single most significant feature to emerge from the
empirical analysis in the second half of the study. In a number of
contexts, the dissent expressed by Eich and Brecht was not active
and intentional. In many of Brecht’s productions at the Berliner
Ensemble, dissent arose from aesthetic non-conformity, politicised
by the total claim of the regime. In Eich’s case, the pessimistic mood
of his ‘dissenting’ poetry and radio plays may not have been directed
at National Socialism but at his own aesthetic development. In this
sense, dissent lies as much outside a text, in its reception, as within it,
and the contemporary dissenting function of much of Brecht’s work
was determined less by its own nature than by the readiness of his
opponents to read it as such. An acknowledgement of the manner in
which the total claim of the National Socialist and SED regimes was
able to politicise behaviour which would not otherwise have pos-
sessed a political function is essential to an appropriate understanding
of the nature of literary production within the German dictatorships.
Effects, both assenting and dissenting, exist independent of authorial
intention, and it is the role of the total claim in politicising literature
in this way which is the defining feature of writing under the
conditions of dictatorship. It is the common total claim made on the
cultural sphere in the Third Reich and the GDR, together with the
effects which this claim generates, which renders cultural practice in
the two societies comparable.
Furthermore, the capacity of totalitarianism to impose such
politicised effects onto literary production persists far beyond the
immediate reception of these texts and indeed beyond the existence
of the regimes themselves. All too often critical approaches to the
work of Eich and Brecht merely perpetuate over-politicised interpret-
ations, and this is apparent not only in crudely moralising binary
categorisations. Even attempts at more measured analyses can fail to
cast off the politicising claim of the regimes to control all aspects of

352
culture, so that artistic and professional decisions with a personal
motivational background are interpreted only within the narrow
political context. Exemplary in this respect is Eich’s short story
Katharina, where critics are over-eager to identify Blut-und-Boden
motifs at the expense of the strong continuities in the conservative,
but non-Nazi, aesthetic pursued by Eich in Die Kolonne before 1933.
A causal relationship is established between aesthetic conformity to
the norms of Nazi cultural policy and Eich’s location within the
Third Reich. The politicised effects of this conformity are imported
into the sphere of intention, so that political motivations are ascribed
to what are, at the level of intention, non-political actions. Indeed,
Eich’s motivations are often revealed to be mundanely pragmatic and
far removed from the total claim of National Socialism. This
politicisation is particularly apparent in Eich’s predominantly non-
political approach, but can also be identified in Brecht’s much more
overtly political output. Here, the strongest tendency is not to
attribute political motivations to texts which lack that intentional
dimension. Brecht’s output does not allow for the same clear dis-
tinction between personal and political motivation. However, as the
production of Erwin Strittmatter’s Katzgraben demonstrates, short-
term motivations from within the narrow political context are
attributed to artistic decisions whose motivation often lies elsewhere
in longer-term aesthetic and political principles.
The kind of polarised judgements outlined at the very outset of
this study arise from an inability, or unwillingness, to divorce the act
of literary analysis from the political context in which the texts were
produced. By supplying a set of more objective, value-free analytical
tools, the methodology elaborated in this study may go some way to
overcoming the persistence of such approaches. And yet, the act of
analysis remains a profoundly subjective exercise. The assenting or
dissenting function of a text may be assessed relatively objectively in
terms of its identifiable contemporary effects. Much more problem-
atic is the assessment of the intentions and motivations lying behind
those effects, and it is here that the politicising effects of the
National Socialist and SED total claims remain most stubbornly

353
persistent, colouring critics’ views of those intentions. What Eich’s
and Brecht’s writing shares above all is not any internal feature but a
common tendency to attract over-politicised and often simply over-
interpreted approaches. What has been proposed through this study
is to highlight and acknowledge the inherently political function of all
writing under the conditions of dictatorship, but at the same time not
to allow the acknowledgement of that function to obscure the non-
political elements which often lie at the heart of the motivations
behind that writing. In granting a significant role for these con-
tinuities which often cut across the boundaries of dictatorship, it
should be clear that the margins of dictatorship need to be viewed as
porous and flexible, rather than impermeable and unyielding. As
assent may be necessary to generate dissent, so the overtly political
approach of this study may be necessary to free the writing of the
German dictatorships from that same persistent politicisation.

354
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Technikdiskurs in der Hitler-Stalin-Ära (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995), pp. 94–113
Schäfer, Hans Dieter, ‘Amerikanismus im Dritten Reich’, in Michael Prinz and
Rainer Zitelmann (eds), Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), pp. 199–215
Schildt, Axel, ‘NS-Regime, Modernisierung und Moderne: Anmerkungen zur
Hochkonjunktur einer andauernden Diskussion’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche
Geschichte, 23 (1994), 3–22
Sternhell, Zeev, ‘Fascist Ideology’, in Walter Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A Reader’s Guide
(London: Wildwood House, 1976), pp. 315–76
Stillman, Edmund and William Pfaff, The Politics of Hysteria (New York: Harper &
Row, 1964)
Townson, Michael, Mother-Tongue and Fatherland: Language and Politics in German
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992)
Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Last Days of Hitler, fourth edition (London: MacMillan,
1971)
Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ‘The Phenomenon of Fascism’, in S. J. Woolf (ed.), Fascism in
Europe (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 19–38
Trommler, Frank, ‘Amerikas Rolle in Technikverständnis der Diktaturen’, in
Wolfgang Emmerich und Carl Wege (eds), Der Technikdiskurs in der Hitler-Stalin-
Ära (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995), pp. 159–74
Turner, Henry Ashby, ‘Fascism and Modernization’, in Henry Ashby Turner (ed.),
Reappraisals of Fascism (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), pp. 117–39
Weedon, Chris, ‘The Politics of Literature in the GDR: A Post-Structuralist
Approach’, in Richard Sheppard (ed.), New Ways in Germanistik (Oxford: Berg,
1990), pp. 145–63
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Modernisierungstheorie und Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1975)
Weitz, Eric D., Creating German Communism 1890–1990 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997)
Wells, C. J., German: A Linguistic History to 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987)
Woolf, S. J. (ed.), Fascism in Europe (London: Methuen, 1981)

363
Zima, Peter, ‘Der Mythos der Monosemie: Parteilichkeit und künstlerischer Stand-
punkt’, in Literaturwissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaften, 10 vols (Stuttgart: Metzler,
1971–1979), VI: Einführung in Theorie, Geschichte und Funktion der DDR-Literatur,
ed. by Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (1975), pp. 77–108
Zitelmann, Rainer, ‘Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’, in Michael Prinz and Rainer
Zitelmann (eds), Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt: Wissen-
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991), pp. 1–20

3. Social and literary resistance

Broszat, Martin, ‘A Social and Historical Typology of the German Opposition to

Hitler’, in David Clay Large (ed.), Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German
Resistance in the Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), pp. 25–33
Broszat, Martin, ‘Resistenz und Widerstand: Eine Zwischenbilanz des Forschungs-
projekts’, in Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich, A. Grossmann (eds), Bayern in der
NS-Zeit, 6 vols (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1977–1983), IV: Herrschaft und Gesellschaft
im Konflikt: Teil C (1981), pp. 691–711
Broszat, Martin, ‘Zur Sozialgeschichte des deutschen Widerstands’, Vierteljahreshefte
für Zeitgeschichte, 34 (1986), 293–309
Brekle, Wolfgang, ‘Die antifaschistische Literatur in Deutschland’, Weimarer Beiträge,
16.6 (1970), 67–128
Brekle, Wolfgang, Schriftsteller im antifaschistischen Widerstand 1933–1945 in Deutschland
(Berlin: Aufbau, 1985)
Botz, Gerhard, ‘Methoden und Theorien der historischen Widerstandsforschung’,
in Helmuth Konrad and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds), Arbeiterbewegung-Faschis-
mus-Nationalbewußtsein (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1983), pp. 137–51
Eckert, Rainer, ‘Die Vergleichbarkeit des Unvergleichbaren: Die Widerstands-
forschung über die NS-Zeit als methodisches Beispiel’, in Ulrike Poppe, Rainer
Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (eds), Zwischen Selbstbehauptung und Anpassung:
Formen des Widerstands und der Opposition in der DDR (Berlin: Links, 1995), pp. 68–
84
Emmerich, Wolfgang, ‘Die Literatur des antifaschistischen Widerstandes in
Deutschland’, in Horst Denkler and Karl Prümm (eds), Die deutsche Literatur im
Dritten Reich: Themen, Traditionen, Wirkungen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976), pp. 427–
58
Grimm, Reinhold, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, in Reinhold Grimm and
Jost Hermand (eds), Exil und innere Emigration: Third Wisconsin Workshop
(Frankfurt a.M.: Athenäum, 1972), pp. 31–73

364
Grimm, Reinhold, ‘Im Dickicht der inneren Emigration’, in Horst Denkler and
Karl Prümm (eds), Die deutsche Literatur im Dritten Reich: Themen, Traditionen,
Wirkungen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976), pp. 406–26
Grimm, Reinhold and Jost Hermand (eds), Exil und innere Emigration: Third
Wisconsin Workshop (Frankfurt a.M.: Athenäum, 1972)
Hüttenberger, Peter, ‘Vorüberlegungen zum “Widerstandsbegriff”’, in Jürgen
Kocka (ed.), Theorien in der Praxis des Historikers: Forschungsbeispiele und ihre
Diskussion (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 117–34
Jaeger, Harald and Hermann Rumschöttel, ‘Das Forschungsprojekt “Widerstand
und Verfolgung in Bayern 1933–1945”: Ein Modell für die Zusammenarbeit
von Archivaren und Historikern’, Archivalische Zeitschrift, 73 (1977), 209–20
Jäger, Manfred, Kultur und Politik in der DDR: 1945–1990 (Cologne: Edition
Deutschland Archiv, 1995)
Jesse, Eckhard, ‘Artikulationsformen und Zielsetzungen von widerständigem
Verhalten in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik’, in Deutscher Bundes-
tag (ed.), Materialien der Enquete-Kommission: ‘Aufbearbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen
der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland’, 9 vols (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1995), VII:
Möglichkeiten und Formen abweichenden und widerständigen Verhaltens und oppositionellen
Handelns, die friedliche Revolution im Herbst 1989, die Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands
und Fortwirken von Strukturen und Mechanismen der Diktatur, pp. 987–1030
Kleßmann, Christoph, ‘Opposition und Dissidenz in der Geschichte der DDR’,
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 41 (1991), 52–62
Kleßmann, Christoph, ‘Opposition und Resistenz in zwei Diktaturen in Deutsch-
land’, Historische Zeitschrift, 262 (1996), 453–79
Knabe, Hubertus, ‘Was war die “DDR-Opposition”? Zur Typologie des politischen
Widerspruchs in Ostdeutschland’, Deutschland Archiv, 29 (1996), 184–98
Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha, ‘Von der Freiheit, Ich zu sagen: Widerständiges Verhalten
in der DDR’, in Ulrike Poppe, Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (eds),
Zwischen Selbstbehauptung und Anpassung: Formen des Widerstands und der Opposition in
der DDR (Berlin: Links, 1995), pp. 85–115
Krohn, Claus-Dieter (ed.), Aspekte der künstlerischen inneren Emigration 1933–1945
(Munich: Text und Kritik, 1994)
Lämmert, Eberhard, ‘Beherrschte Prosa: Poetische Lizenzen in Deutschland
zwischen 1933 und 1945’, Neue Rundschau, 86 (1975), 404–21
Large, David Clay (ed.), Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German Resistance in the
Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP, 1991)
Löwenthal, Richard, ‘Widerstand im totalen Staat’, in Richard Löwenthal and
Patrick von zur Mühlen (eds), Widerstand und Verweigerung in Deutschland 1933 bis
1945 (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), pp. 11–24
Löwenthal, Richard and Patrick von zur Mühlen (eds), Widerstand und Verweigerung
in Deutschland 1933 bis 1945 (Berlin: Dietz, 1984)

365
Neubert, Erhart, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–1989 (Berlin: Links, 1998)
Philipp, Michael, ‘Distanz und Anpassung: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der
Inneren Emigration’, in Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Aspekte der künstlerischen
inneren Emigration 1933–1945 (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1994), pp. 11–30
Poppe, Ulrike, Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (eds), Zwischen
Selbstbehauptung und Anpassung: Formen des Widerstands und der Opposition in der
DDR (Berlin: Links, 1995)
Schmädeke, Jürgen and Peter Steinbach (eds), Der Widerstand gegen den National-
sozialismus: Die deutsche Gesellschaft und der Widerstand gegen Hitler (Munich: Piper,
1994)
Schnell, Ralf, Literarische Innere Emigration 1933–1945 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976)
Schnell, Ralf, ‘Innere Emigration und kulturelle Dissidenz’, in Richard Löwenthal
and Patrick von zur Mühlen (eds), Widerstand und Verweigerung in Deutschland
1933 bis 1945 (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), pp. 211–25
Steinbach, Peter, ‘Widerstand: aus sozialphilosophischer und historisch-polito-
logischer Perspektive’, in Ulrike Poppe, Rainer Eckert, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk
(eds), Zwischen Selbstbehauptung und Anpassung: Formen des Widerstands und der
Opposition in der DDR (Berlin: Links, 1995), pp. 27–67
Wiesner, Herbert, ‘“Innere Emigration”: Die innerdeutsche Literatur im Wider-
stand 1933–1945’, in Hermann Kunisch (ed.), Handbuch der deutschen Gegenwarts-
literatur, 3 vols (Munich: Nymphenburg, 1970), II, pp. 383–408

4. Günter Eich and National Socialism

Cuomo, Glenn R., ‘Günter Eichs Rundfunkbeiträge in den Jahren 1933–1940: Eine
kommentierte Neuaufstellung’, Rundfunk und Fernsehen, 32 (1984), 83–96
Cuomo, Glenn R., Career at the Cost of Compromise: Günter Eich’s Life and Work in the
Years 1933–1945 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989)
Dolan, Joseph P., ‘Die Rolle der Kolonne in der Entwicklung der modernen
deutschen Naturlyrik’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Penn-
sylvania, 1976)
Dolan, Joseph P., ‘The Theory and Practice of Apolitical Literature: Die Kolonne
1929–1932’, Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1 (1977), 157–71
Eich, Günter, Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Karl Karst and Axel Vieregg, 4 vols
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991)
Eich, Günter, Rebellion in der Goldstadt: Tonkassette, Text und Materialien, ed. by Karl
Karst (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997)

366
Fetscher, Justus, ‘Spuren eines Spurlosen: Trauerarbeit im Schreiben Günter
Eichs’, in Justus Fetscher, Eberhard Lämmert, Jürgen Schutte (eds), Die Gruppe
47 in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann,
1991), pp. 218–38
Fetscher, Justus, ‘Das Empire bläst zum Angriff Saxophon: Text und Kontext von
Günter Eichs Rebellion in der Goldstadt’, Weimarer Beiträge, 45 (1999), 584–97
Greiffenhagen, Martin, Das Dilemma des Konservatismus in Deutschland (Munich: Piper,
1971)
Hörburger, Christian, Das Hörspiel der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1975)
Karst, Karl, ‘Einführung’, in Günter Eich, Rebellion in der Goldstadt: Tonkassette, Text
und Materialien, ed. by Karl Karst (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997), pp. 7–12
Karst, Karl, ‘“Honoraris causa”: Materialien zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Hör-
spiels Rebellion in der Goldstadt’, in Günter Eich, Rebellion in der Goldstadt:
Tonkassette, Text und Materialien, ed. by Karl Karst (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1997), pp. 51–79
Karst, Karl, ‘“Mein Lebensziel war es, Kutscher zu werden”: Günter Eich und die
Anfänge des Rundfunks in Deutschland’, LiLi: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft
und Linguistik, 28 (1998), 44–56
Mallmann, Marion, ‘Das Innere Reich’: Analyse einer konservativen Kulturzeitschrift im
Dritten Reich (Bonn: Bouvier, 1978)
Müller-Hanpft, Susanne, Lyrik und Rezeption: Das Beispiel Günter Eich (Munich:
Hanser, 1972)
Neumann, Peter Horst, Die Rettung der Poesie im Unsinn: Der Anarchist Günter Eich
(Stuttgart: Klett–Cotta, 1981)
Olbert, Frank, ‘Strammstehen für Goebbels, Geld und Urlaub: Mit Gustav Knuth
gegen England - Günter Eichs wiederentdecktes rassistisches Hörspiel Rebellion
in der Goldstadt’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’: Die Günter-
Eich-Debatte (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 117–19
Parker, Stephen, Peter Huchel: A Literary Life in Twentieth-Century Germany (Bern:
Lang, 1998)
Pausch, Holger A. and Marianne Herzog, ‘Vergessene Texte, Schrift und Sprache:
Beobachtungen zur Günter-Eich-Kontroverse’, Wirkendes Wort, 46 (1995), 133–
50
Richardson, Larry L., Committed Aestheticism: The Poetic Theory and Practice of Günter
Eich (New York: Lang, 1983)
Schäfer, Hans Dieter, ‘Naturdichtung und Neue Sachlichkeit’, in Wolfgang Rothe
(ed.), Die deutsche Literatur in der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1974), pp.
359–81
Schafroth, Heinz, Günter Eich (Munich: Beck, 1976)
Schwitzke, Heinz, Das Hörspiel: Dramaturgie und Geschichte (Cologne: Kiepenheuer,
1963)

367
Siemes, Christof, ‘Ein kleiner Stachel: Nach 53 Jahren ist ein Hörspiel Günter
Eichs wieder aufgetaucht’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’:
Die Günter-Eich-Debatte (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 109–11
Storck, Joachim W., Günter Eich, Marbacher Magazin 45 (Marbach: Deutsche
Schillergesellschaft, 1988)
Storck, Joachim W., ‘“Im Grenzbereich von Groteske und Infamie”: Streit um
Günter Eichs Vergangenheit - eine Antwort auf Axel Viereggs Kritik an dem
Dichter’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’: Die Günter-Eich-
Debatte (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 57–58
Vieregg, Axel, Der eigenen Fehlbarkeit begegnet: Günter Eichs Realitäten 1933–1945
(Eggingen: Edition Isele, 1993)
Vieregg, Axel, ‘“Mein Raum und meine Zeit”: Antimodernismus und Idylle beim
frühen Günter Eich’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’: Die
Günter-Eich-Debatte (Amsterdam; Rodopi, 1996), pp. 3–27
Vieregg, Axel (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’: Die Günter-Eich-Debatte (Amster-
dam: Rodopi, 1996)
Wessels, Wolfram, ‘Zum Beispiel Günter Eich: Von der schuldlosen Schuld der
Literatur’, in Axel Vieregg (ed.), ‘Unsere Sünden sind Maulwürfe’: Die Günter-Eich-
Debatte (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 137–54
Würffel, Stefan Bodo, ‘“Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland”: Anmerkungen zum
Hörspiel im Dritten Reich’, in Ralf Schnell (ed.), Kunst und Kultur im deutschen
Faschismus (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), pp. 129–55

5. Bertolt Brecht in the GDR

Borman, Peter, ‘Brecht und der Stalinismus’, in John Fuegi, Reinhold Grimm, Jost
Hermand (eds), Brecht-Jahrbuch 1974 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1975), pp.
53–76
Brecht, Bertolt, Schriften zum Theater, ed. by Werner Hecht, 7 vols (Frankfurt a.M.:
Suhrkamp, 1963–1964)
Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. by
John Willett (London: Methuen, 1974)
Brecht, Bertolt, Buckower Elegien, ed. by Jan Knopf (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1986)
Brecht, Bertolt, Werke: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. by
Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller, 30 vols
(Berlin: Aufbau; Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988–1998)
Brooker, Peter, Bertolt Brecht: Dialectics, Poetry, Politics (London: Croom Helm, 1988)

368
Buck, Theo, ‘Brecht und Becher’, in Walter Delabar and Jörg Döring (eds), Bertolt
Brecht: 1898–1956 (Berlin: Weidler, 1998), pp. 119–40
Bunge, Hans, Die Debatte um Hanns Eislers ‘Johann Faustus’: Eine Dokumentation
(Berlin: Basisdruck, 1991)
Davies, Peter and Stephen Parker, ‘Brecht, SED Cultural Policy and the Issue of
Authority in the Arts: The Struggle for Control of the German Academy of
Arts’, in Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone (eds), Bertolt Brecht: Centenary
Essays (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 181–95
Deiritz, Karl and Hannes Krauss (eds), Verrat an der Kunst?: Rückblicke auf die DDR-
Literatur (Berlin: Aufbau, 1993)
Delabar, Walter and Jörg Döring (eds), Bertolt Brecht: 1898–1956 (Berlin: Weidler,
1998)
Dietzel, Ulrich and Gudrun Geißler (eds), Zwischen Diskussion und Disziplin:
Dokumente zur Geschichte der Akademie der Künste (Ost), 1945/1950 bis 1993
(Berlin: Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Künste, 1997)
Esslin, Martin, Brecht: A Choice of Evils (London: Methuen, 1980)
Faber, Elmar and Franz Greno (eds), Sinn und Form: Die ersten zehn Jahre, reprint
edition, 10 vols (E. Berlin: Rütten und Loening; Nördlingen: Greno, 1988)
Fuegi, John, Reinhold Grimm, Jost Hermand (eds), Brecht-Jahrbuch 1974 (Frankfurt
a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1975)
Fuegi, John, The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht (London: Harper Collins, 1994)
Giles, Steve and Rodney Livingstone (eds), Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays (Amster-
dam: Rodopi, 1998)
Hayman, Ronald, Brecht: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)
Hecht, Werner, ‘Grund der Empörung über eine “ganz unerträgliche Behandlung”:
Brechts Stanislawski-Studium 1953’, Maske und Kothurn, 33.3/4 (1987), 75–87
Hecht, Werner, Am Wasser des Schermützelsees: Bertolt Brecht in Buckow ([s.l.], 1994)
Hecht, Werner, ‘“Der Pudding bewährt sich beim Essen”: Brechts “Prüfung”
Stanislawskis 1953’, in Ingrid Hentschel, Klaus Hoffmann, Florian Vaßen (eds),
Brecht und Stanislawski und die Folgen: Anregungen bei der Theaterarbeit (Berlin:
Henschel, 1997), pp. 57–71
Hecht, Werner, Brecht-Chronik: 1898–1956 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997)
Hecht, Werner (ed.), Brecht im Gespräch: Diskussionen und Dialoge (Berlin: Henschel,
1979)
Hecht, Werner (ed.), Brechts Theorie des Theaters (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986)
Hecht, Werner, Hans-Joachim Bunge, Käthe Rülicke-Weiler, Bertolt Brecht: Sein
Leben und Werk (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1971)
Hentschel, Ingrid, Klaus Hoffmann, Florian Vaßen (eds), Brecht und Stanislawski und
die Folgen: Anregungen bei der Theaterarbeit (Berlin: Henschel, 1997)

369
Hörnigk, Therese and Alexander Stephan (eds), Rot = Braun? Brecht Dialog 2000:
Nationalsozialismus und Stalinismus bei Brecht und Zeitgenossen (Berlin: Theater der
Zeit, 2000)
Jesse, Horst, Brecht in Berlin (Munich: Das freie Buch, 1996)
Knopf, Jan, Brecht-Handbuch: Eine widersprüchliche Ästhetik, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Metzler,
1980–1984)
Knopf, Jan, ‘Nachwort zur Edition’, in Bertolt Brecht, Buckower Elegien, ed. by Jan
Knopf (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986), pp. 121–25
Knopf, Jan, ‘Zu den Buckower Elegien’, in Bertolt Brecht, Buckower Elegien, ed. by Jan
Knopf (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986), pp. 33–120
Knopf, Jan, ‘Lyrik der Politik: Brechts “Buckower Elegien” und der 17 Juni’, in
Jean-Mari Valentin and Theo Buck (eds), Bertolt Brecht (Bern: Lang, 1990), pp.
53–66
Knopf, Jan, ‘Elegische Warnungen vor dem “eigenen” Faschismus: Bertolt Brecht’,
in Karl Deiritz and Hannes Krauss (eds), Verrat an der Kunst?: Rückblicke auf die
DDR-Literatur (Berlin: Aufbau, 1993), pp. 81–88
Leder, Lily, ‘Katzgraben von Erwin Strittmatter am Deutschen Theater: Berliner
Ensemble’, Theater der Zeit, 8 (1953), 57–60
Lucchesi, Joachim, ‘Macht-Spiele: Die Kontroverse um die Lukullus-Oper’, in
Walter Delabar and Jörg Döring (eds), Bertolt Brecht: 1898–1956 (Berlin:
Weidler, 1998), pp. 315–23
Lucchesi, Joachim (ed.), Das Verhör in der Oper: Die Debatte um die Aufführung ‘Das
Verhör des Lukullus’ von Bertolt Brecht und Paul Dessau (Berlin: BasisDruck, 1993)
Lyon, James K., ‘Brecht und Stalin: des Dichters “letztes Wort”’, in Thomas
Koebner, Wulf Köpke, Joachim Radkau (eds), Exilforschung: Ein internationales
Jahrbuch, (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1983), pp. 120–29
Lyon, James K., ‘Brecht in Postwar Germany: Dissident Conformist, Cultural Icon,
Literary Dictator’, in James K. Lyon and Hans-Peter Breuer (eds), Brecht
Unbound: Presented at the International Bertolt Brecht Symposium held at the University of
Delaware February 1992 (London: Associated University Press, 1995), pp. 76–88
Lyon, James K. and Hans-Peter Breuer (eds), Brecht Unbound: Presented at the
International Bertolt Brecht Symposium held at the University of Delaware February 1992
(London: Associated University Press, 1995)
Marsch, Edgar, Brecht: Kommentar zum lyrischen Werk (Munich: Winkler, 1974)
Mayer, Hans, Ein deutscher auf Widerruf: Erinnerungen, 2 vols (Frankfurt a.M.:
Suhrkamp, 1988)
Mayer, Hans, Erinnerung an Brecht (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1996)
Mittenzwei, Werner, Wer war Brecht: Wandlung und Entwicklung der Ansichten über
Brecht im Spiegel von ‘Sinn und Form’ (Berlin: Das europäische Buch, 1977)

370
Mittenzwei, Werner, ‘Der Methodenstreit: Brecht oder Stanislawski’, in Werner
Hecht (ed), Brechts Theorie des Theaters (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986), pp.
246–68
Mittenzwei, Werner, Das Leben des Brecht: Oder der Umgang mit den Welträtseln, 2 vols
(Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1997)
Mumford, Meg, ‘Brecht Studies Stanislavsky: Just a Tactical Move?’, New Theatre
Quarterly, 11 (1995), 241–58
Parker, Stephen, ‘Der Fall von Peter Huchel und Sinn und Form: Dokumente’, Sinn
und Form, 43 (1992), 739–822
Parker, Stephen, ‘Sinn und Form, Peter Huchel und der 17 Juni 1953: Bertolt Brechts
Rettungsaktion’, Sinn und Form, 46 (1994), 738–51
Philpotts, Matthew, ‘“Aus so prosaischen Dingen wie Kartoffeln, Straßen, Trak-
toren, werden poetische Dinge!”: Brecht, Strittmatter, and Sinn und Form’,
German Life and Letters, (56) 2003, 56–71
Reso, Martin, ‘Der Dichter und die wirklichen Dinge: Einführung in Leben und
Werk’, in Erwin Strittmatter, Leben und Werk: Analyse, Erörterungen, Gespräche
(Berlin: Das europäische Buch, 1984), pp. 9–35
Rohrwasser, Michael, Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten: Die Literatur der Ex-
kommunisten (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991)
Rülicke-Weiler, Käthe, ‘Brecht and Weigel at the Berliner Ensemble’, trans by
Karin Littau, New Theatre Quarterly, 7 (1991), 3–19
Schartner, Irmgard, Hanns Eisler, ‘Johann Faustus’: Das Werk und seine Aufführungs-
geschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1998)
Schoor, Uwe, Das geheime Journal einer Nation: Die Zeitschrift ‘Sinn und Form’ Chef-
redakteur Peter Huchel 1949–1962 (Berlin: Lang, 1992)
Seidel, Gerhard, ‘Vom Kaderwelsch und vom Schmalz der Söhne McCarthys’, Sinn
und Form, 32 (1980), 1087–91
Strittmatter, Erwin, ‘Gesellenjahre bei Brecht’, in Walther Victor (ed.), Brecht: Ein
Lesebuch für unsere Zeit (Weimar: Volksverlag, 1958), pp. 20–27
Strittmatter, Erwin, Leben und Werk: Analyse, Erörterungen, Gespräche (Berlin: Das
europäische Buch, 1984)
Thomson, Philip, ‘Brecht’s Poetry’, in Philip Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (eds),
The Cambridge Companion to Brecht (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), pp. 201–17
Uhlmann, Petra and Sabine Wolf (eds), ‘Die Regierung ruft die Künstler’: Dokumente zur
Gründung der Deutschen Akademie der Künste (Berlin: Akadeimie der Künste, 1993)
Valentin, Jean-Mari and Theo Buck (eds), Bertolt Brecht (Bern: Lang, 1990)
Victor, Walther (ed.), Brecht: Ein Lesebuch für unsere Zeit (Weimar: Volksverlag, 1958)
Vietor-Engländer, Deborah, Faust in der DDR (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 1987)
Völker, Klaus, Bertolt Brecht: Eine Biographie (Munich: Hanser, 1976)
Weber, Carl, ‘Brecht and Communism: Clear-sighted Ambiguity or Blurred
Vision?’, in James K. Lyon and Hans-Peter Breuer (eds), Brecht Unbound:

371
 Presented at the International Bertolt Brecht Symposium held at the University of Delaware
February 1992 (London: Associated University Press, 1995), pp. 19–28
Weber, Carl, ‘Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble: The Making of a Model’, in Peter
Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Brecht (Cam-
bridge: CUP, 1994), pp. 167–84
Whitaker, Peter, Brecht’s Poetry: A Critical Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1985)

372
Index
Abusch, Alexander, 265, 312, 313
Academy of Arts, East Berlin
cultural-political institution, 265-66,
273-74, 299, 350
site of dissent, 59, 296-98, 308, 312,
316-17, 319-20, 333, 336
assent and dissent
interaction between, 162–63
methodological principles, 163–66
Arendt, Hannah, 22, 24, 26, 68
Barlach, Ernst, 28, 299-305, 306, 310,
313, 314
Barthel, Kurt, 329
Bavaria Project, 37, 143–45, 146, 164, 312
Becher, Johannes R.
in GDR, 263, 283-84, 317, 333
in Weimar, 175–77, 181, 183, 190, 208
Benn, Gottfried
influence on Eich, 177–78, 182–83,
188, 196, 203, 227, 230, 243
relationship with National Socialism,
42, 48, 190, 195, 197–98, 227, 258,
321
Bergengruen, Werner, 140
Biermann, Wolf, 67
Brecht, Bertolt
Berliner Ensemble
Hofmeister, 292–93
Katzgraben, 262, 264–81, 281-94,
310, 334, 336
Die Mutter, 291, 292–93, 306, 307,
308
Mutter Courage, 292–93
Pauken und Trompeten, 263
Puntila, 263, 283–85, 286
Die Tage der Kommune, 263, 283–85
Urfaust, 263, 292–93
Winterschlacht, 263, 283–85, 291
‘Buckower Elegien’
‘Bei der Lektüre eines spätgriechi-
schen Dichters’, 339
‘Beim Lesen des Horaz’, 330, 339
‘Der Blumengarten’, 327, 332, 343
‘Böser Morgen’, 331, 335
‘Der Einarmige im Gehölz’, 338–39
‘Eisen’, 330, 341
‘Große Zeit, vertan’, 341
‘Die Kelle’, 330
‘Lebensmittel zum Zweck’, 335–36,
339
‘Die Lösung’, 328–29, 330, 332,
333, 334, 335, 338, 343, 344
‘Die Musen’, 341
‘Die neue Mundart’, 328, 329–30,
332, 333, 334, 343
‘Der Radwechsel’, 330–31
‘Der Rauch’, 339
contributions to Sinn und Form
‘Erklärung der Deutschen Akade-
mie der Künste’, 296, 311, 315–
18, 321, 333, 345
‘Erwin Strittmatters Katzgraben’,
264–81, 295, 298, 322, 353
‘Kleines Organon für das Theater’,
288–90
‘Notizen zur Barlach-Ausstellung’,
262, 268, 297-98, 299–305, 307,
310-11, 312-15, 321, 338, 345,
351
373
 ‘Offener Brief an die deutschen
Künstler und Schriftsteller’, 308–
09, 322
‘Thesen zur Faustus-Diskussion’,
262, 268, 296, 298, 299, 308,
311–15, 321, 322, 345
‘Über reimlose Lyrik mit unregel-
mäßigen Rhythmen’, 308–09
GDR poetry
‘Das Amt für Literatur’, 333
‘An meine Landsleute’, 340
‘Herrnburger Bericht’, 340
‘Kinderlieder’, 340
‘Nicht feststellbare Fehler der
Kunstkommision’, 333
‘Nicht so gemeint’, 333–34, 335,
339, 345
‘Tschaganak Bersijew oder Die Er-
ziehung der Hirse’, 340
‘Kulturpolitik und Akademie der
Künste’, 320, 332
Lukullus controversy, 306, 307-08,
309–10, 345
responses to 17 June, 276-78, 294,
324–25, 334, 336–38, 350
responses to Formalism Campaign,
306–10, 350, 351
Stanislavsky study, 266, 269-71, 278-
81, 288-89
‘Vorwort zu Turandot’, 337–38
Broszat, Martin, 38, 143–44, 145, 146,
152, 154, 156, 157
Brzezinsky, Zbigniev, 23, 25, 31, 86,
94
cultural policy, Nazi
architecture, 30-31, 34-35, 39, 70-
71
cumulative radicalisation, 42-43, 44-
45, 48-52
Entartete Kunst, 42, 45, 48, 51, 127
374
inefficiencies and polycracy, 37-42,
43, 45, 46-47, 48-52, 221
intentionalist vs structuralist explan-
ations, 43-48, 48-52
jazz music, 39-40
literary policy, 40-42
working towards the Führer, 48-52,
224, 226
cultural policy, SED
inefficiencies in early phase, 58-61
literary policy, 56-57, 59-61, 65
loss of ideological dynamism, 64-66
periodisation of, 69
re-assertion of total claim, 66-67
shocks and lulls, 62-63
Darré, Walter, 112, 113, 200, 210
Dessau, Paul, 306, 308, 340
discourse
mechanism of power, 121–22
official Nazi variety, 124–25, 128–
30
official SED variety, 122–24, 126–28
site of resistance, 130–32
dissent
definition and scale, 151–53
Eich, Günter
Kolonne essays
‘Bemerkungen über Lyrik’, 173–75,
182, 185, 189, 255
‘Innere Dialoge’, 173, 184, 189
Kolonne reviews
Becher, ‘Der große Plan’, 175–76,
181–82, 183, 208
Belzner, Marschieren – nicht träumen,
189
Benn, Fazit der Perspektiven, 182–83,
188–89
Flaubert, Éducation Sentimentale, 204
Um uns die Stadt, 174
 Villon, 175
von der Vring, Verse, 187
crisis in Third Reich, 249–56
early poems, 178, 206
reluctance to work for Nazi radio,
212, 249–50, 253–54
response to Nazi seizure of power,
177, 191–194, 195–96, 211–14
Third Reich poetry
‘Schlaflied am frühen Abend’, 244–
45
‘Der Tag im März’, 243–44, 251,
252, 256, 258, 351
‘Weg durch die Dünen’, 244–45,
246, 247
Third Reich prose
Katharina, 201, 202–03, 204–05,
207, 209, 222, 223, 258, 353
‘Die Schattenschlacht’, 202, 221–
24, 225, 241
Third Reich radio plays
‘Fährten in der Prärie’, 218, 227,
228–29, 231–33, 234, 235–37,
238–40, 241–43, 248, 250–51, 257
‘Königswusterhäuser Landbote’,
196, 198–203, 205–07, 208–10,
212, 214–15, 222, 223, 225, 226,
229, 241, 257, 349
‘Radium’, 227, 228–29, 233, 234–
35, 235–37, 241–43, 248, 250–51,
257
Rebellion in der Goldstadt, 11, 215–20,
225, 237, 258, 351
‘Weizenkantate’, 218, 227, 228–29,
230–31, 233–34, 235–37, 238–40,
248, 257
Third Reich reviews
Stifter, Witiko, 204–05
Eichendorff, 175, 207
Eisler, Hanns, 296, 298, 308, 312-14,
319
fascism
as anti-ideology, 85-86, 88–89
core myth, 90, 91–92
eclectic appeal, 97, 103–04
generic definitions, 88-90, 94
Fascism, Italian, 21, 22, 76, 78, 85, 89
Foucault, Michel
History of Sexuality, 130
‘Order of Discourse’, 120–21, 122
will to truth, 120–22, 123, 124, 126
Fricke, Gerd, 195, 219, 223
Friedrich, Carl Joachim, 22, 23, 25, 26,
31, 86, 94
Girnus, Wilhelm, 300-05, 308, 312,
313, 314, 319-20
Goebbels, Joseph
dispute with Rosenberg, 39, 45-47,
49, 50, 220
ideology, 93, 113
radio policy, 215, 219, 220
support for Expressionism, 42
Golomstock, Igor,
theory of totalitarian art, 22-25,
31-32, 74
critique of, 30-31, 33-35, 37-38, 74-
75, 76-77
value of, 26-28
Grotewohl, Otto, 309, 317
Haas, Willy, 81
Hager, Kurt, 56, 340
Hermlin, Stephan, 66, 265, 266
Heym, Stefan, 66
Hindemith, Paul, 47
Hitler, Adolf
attitude to Modernism, 43, 44-46,
47-48, 70-71, 73, 77
attitude to modernisation, 115, 116,
117-19, 238, 240
charismatic rule, 32, 36, 52-53, 54
375
 ideology, 86, 92, 93, 96 Kuhnert, A. Artur,
role in Nazi cultural policy, 23, 25, Kolonne editor, 170, 176,
27, 30, 33-34, 38, 43-52, 78 correspondence with Eich, 211, 212,
Honecker, Erich, 63, 67, 69 217, 218, 219, 249, 253, 255
Huchel, Peter,
Sinn und Form editor, 265, 268, 297– Lange, Horst, 190
98, 300, 302, 308, 312, 319 Lenin, 111
Third Reich crisis, 244, 252 Ley, Robert, 113
literary assent
ideology, Nazi scale and definition, 160–62
anti-rational dynamics, 96 literary dissent
attitude to modernisation, 106–07, scale and definition, 153–55
112–18, 238, 240 Lukács, Georg,
core myths, 92–93, 100 cultural authority in GDR, 34, 82
non-comparability of, 86–87, 88 Die Linksurve, 77, 82, 190
radicalising dynamic, 93, 106
as species of fascism, 92–93, 94 Magritz, Kurt, 300-05, 312
tendency to instability, 103–04 Marx, Karl, 96
ideology, political, 94-100 Modernism
ideology, SED definitions of, 72-73
attitude to modernisation, 110-11 relationship to totalitarianism, 70, 74-
core myths, 100–02 77, 82-83
loss of dynamism, 69, 99, 105–06 cultural shift away from, 77-80, 81,
pro-rational dynamics, 96, 104 82, 188-89
tendency to stability, 104–05 survival in Third Reich, 30, 42, 70-
inner emigration 71, 73, 75
as aesthetic phenomenon, 82, 141 modernisation
models and definitions, 134–40 definition of, 107–09
as Resistenz, 156–57 relationship to totalitarianism, 117-
usefulness of term, 141–42 119
Mussolini, 23, 85
Jahn, Ottoheinz, 195, 223
Jünger, Ernst, 321 Pieck, Wilhelm, 340

Kasack, Hermann, 184, 193 Raschke, Martin,

Kollwitz, Käthe, 28 correspondence with Eich, 195, 212,
Die Kolonne 214, 250, 251, 253
editorial programme, 172–73, 177, Kolonne editor, 170, 172, 174, 176,
179–81, 187–88 177, 179
role in 1930 cultural shift, 82, 188– co-writer with Eich, 196, 200, 201,
90 212, 214

376
resistance Strauss, Richard, 47
re-definition of, 144–45, 146 Strittmatter, Erwin,
relationship to total claim, 146–48, see Brecht, Katzgraben
320–21
scales and typologies of, 148–53 Todt, Fritz, 113
Resistenz totalitarianism
advantages/disadvantages, 145 charismatic vs bureaucratic varieties,
application to literature, 156–57 22, 67-69, 99
definition, 144 conventional models
Rosenberg, Alfred applicability to GDR, 53-56
ideology, 93, 112, 113, 189, 200, 210, critique of, 28-30, 32-33, 68
220 theories, 22, 23, 24, 31, 55-56, 86–
see also Goebbels 87
Rülicke, Käthe, 267, 270, 279, 280, value of, 25-26
301, 307-08 see also Golomstock
revised model
Sinn und Form non-applicability to GDR, 52-53,
see Brecht 62
see Huchel theory, 35-37, 42, 52-53, 56
Socialist Realism, 24, 28, 33, 65, 76, Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 88, 95
264, 269, 279, 288
Speer, Albert, 70, 113 Ulbricht, Walter, 58, 59, 62, 64, 66, 69,
Stalin 83, 310, 319, 324
attitude to social modernisation,
108–09, 111, 118-19 Weigel, Helene, 272, 309
style of rule, 32-34, 36, 53, 58, 59, Widerstandsliteratur
82 models and definitions, 134–40
role in cultural policy, 25, 27 Wolf, Christa, 12, 66
Stanislavsky, Constantine, 34
see also Brecht Zhdanov, Andrei, 61

377
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