Mark W. Clark. Beyond Catastrophe: German Intellectuals and Cultural Renewal after World War II, 1945-1955. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. 208 pp. $72.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-1231-1; $27.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7391-1506-0.
Reviewed by Deborah Vietor-Englaender (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
Published on H-German (October, 2006)
"Alas poor Herbert! I knew him, Horatio."
The intention of this book, which took its author ten years to write, is to describe the response of a historian, a philosopher, a novelist and a playwright, all of whom were from widely diverse areas of activity but part of the same social and cultural world, to the immediate postwar crisis in Germany. The author wishes to examine them together as initiators of cultural renewal in Germany and the conclusion he draws is that they failed to create a collective expiation in the immediate postwar period. The question raised but not substantiated is: did they really expect to?
The first chapter is concerned with Friedrich Meinecke, a true guardian of the past. He was 84 in 1945 and used his enormous prestige and authority to help rebuild German culture and, most importantly, on a practical level, through his role as the first rector of the Free University of Berlin (pp. 17, 31). Clark evaluates his role accurately as among the most progressive of his class, one who began the process of coming to terms with the past. The second chapter on Karl Jaspers, "a prophet without honor," deals with Jaspers's problems with the apathy of the German response to the guilt question and his decision to leave Germany for Switzerland in 1948 (p. 67). Many in Germany unjustly accused him of simply seeking a comfortable life (p. 72). Unfortunately, Clark does not mention that Jaspers took Swiss nationality in 1967 as a form of protest against the former NSDAP member Kurt Kiesinger, who became chancellor of West Germany in 1966, a fact that might have influenced his interpretation if it had been considered.
The reader will also encounter problems of detail in the third chapter on Thomas Mann. Mann was asked to return to Germany by Walter von Molo as early as August 1945 (p. 93). This request was followed by a controversy between members of the "inner emigration," particularly Frank Thieß, and Mann (p. 95). Clark underestimates, however, Thieß's defense of those participations in the inner emigration who had stayed with their sick mother Germany and as a result were richer in knowledge and experience than those who had observed the German tragedy from what he calls the "ground" of a foreign continent. However, a crucial point in Thieß's text is destroyed by Clark´s inaccurate translation. Thieß speaks of "den Logen- und Parterreplätzen des Auslands ... Ich glaube, es war schwerer, sich hier eine Persönlichkeit zu bewahren als von drüben Botschaften an das deutsche Volk zu senden, welche die Tauben im Volke ohnehin nicht vernahmen, während wir Wissenden uns ihnen stets um einige Längen voraus fühlten."[1] Thieß is not merely referring to the ground of a foreign continent but uses theatre terms, stalls and a luxury box; that is, a deliberate mockery of Mann's comfortable life in exile. Nor does Clark mention Mann's tactless comment, in his explanation he did not intend to return to Germany, that any books printed in Germany between 1933 and 1945 were less than worthless, smelled of blood and shame and should be pulped.[2]
In the fourth chapter on Bertolt Brecht, Clark is somewhat idealistic about Brecht's motives for returning to the GDR although he does admit that Brecht hedged his bets by retaining an Austrian passport, a Swiss bank account and a West German publisher (p. 141). The treatment of the Faust theme in this chapter is also not altogether satisfactory: as far as the Urfaust production was concerned, Brecht's pupil Egon Monk, who was mainly responsible, is not even mentioned and the production took place in 1952, not 1953 (p. 146f). Brecht's friend, the composer Hanns Eisler, author of the libretto of Johann Faustus, also published in book form in 1952, faced censure but certainly not possible imprisonment, as Clark claims (p. 148). In this libretto, not performed until 1982, Faust was not portrayed as the epitome of the Renaissance man nor as a supreme progressive but as a renegade questioning the humanist ideal--the "dark twin" of Goethe's Faust. Deeds are not this Faust's greatest joy; on the contrary, he is a charlatan who laments his own laziness and lack of productive energy. He has betrayed his own class during the Peasants' War. His pact with the devil is concluded so that he can forget his own betrayal and as a warning to other intellectuals. The new GDR emphatically and officially rejected this version of the legend. Brecht supported his friend on this issue, and however contradictory some of his actions in 1953 seem to be, Clark's evaluation of what he actually accomplished in the fifties before his death in 1956 is accurate (pp. 152-153).
German archival sources and German secondary literature have been used to some extent, as well as English-language secondary literature. A quibble for the editor: surely misprints like "Brect" (p. v) in the table of contents, "deutshce" (p.162) and surname missing in that footnote, and "Deutstchland" (p. 163) could have been avoided before the book went to press? And one serious factual error, "alas poor Herbert," that one finds hard to forgive, is the listing of the extremely well-known and influential journalist and theatre critic Herbert Ihering (1888-1977) as a playwright (p. 138). Ihering was one of Brecht's staunchest and most influential supporters in his early years in the Weimar Republic and in the GDR after the war.
Notes
[1]. Frank Thieß, "Die innere Emigration," Münchner Zeitung, August 18, 1945, reprinted in Klaus Schröter, ed., Thomas Mann im Urteil seiner Zeit. Dokumente 1891-1955 (Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann, 2000), pp. 337-8.
[2]. J.F.G. Großer, Die große Kontroverse (Hamburg: Nagel-Verlag, 1963), p. 31; and Jost Hermand and Wigand Lange, eds., "Wollt Ihr Thomas Mann wiederhaben?" Deutschland und die Emigranten (Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1999), p. 25.
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Citation:
Deborah Vietor-Englaender. Review of Clark, Mark W., Beyond Catastrophe: German Intellectuals and Cultural Renewal after World War II, 1945-1955.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12396
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