Germany's Rubble Texts: Writing History in the Present, 1943-1951
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Germany’s Rubble Texts: Writing History in the Present, 1943-1951 by Kathryn A. Sederberg A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Germanic Languages and Literatures) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Professor Julia C. Hell, Chair Associate Professor Kerstin Barndt Associate Professor Andreas Gailus Associate Professor Johannes von Moltke © Kathryn A. Sederberg 2014 DEDICATION To my parents. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is such a pleasure to take a step back from my work and thank all of those who have helped me along the way. I would first like to thank my committee members, who have supported me and my project throughout my years as a graduate student at Michigan: Julia Hell, Andreas Gailus, Johannes von Moltke and Kerstin Barndt. They have all been wonderfully supportive and constructive readers of my work. I am especially grateful to Julia Hell, who offered patient and thoughtful guidance every step of the way, and has consistently challenged me to be a better reader, writer, and thinker. At the University of Michigan, I was lucky to study with a great group of graduate students. Jennie Cain and Ariana Orozco were with me from the beginning, and have always been supportive friends and colleagues. Sara Jackson, Solveig Heinz, Alan Itkin, Nick Block, and Simon Walsh were wonderful mentors and I benefited greatly from our conversations and exchange of work. I am particularly thankful to Seth Howes for his feedback on drafts of my work and for our many helpful conversations. Abby Anderton, Andy Cavin, Candice Hamelin, Nic Heckner, Andrea Rottmann, Emma Thomas, and Naomi Vaughan also deserve special thanks for their friendship and for reading my work. Naomi and Ariana, thanks for your encouragement during the final weeks. Thanks to Hartmut Rastalsky, who was more than just a teaching mentor, but also an infinite source of support and advice. I have learned so much from him and cannot thank him enough for all he has done for me as a graduate student and instructor. iii Likewise, I owe thanks to Kalli Federhofer for always keeping his door open and providing encouragement. Among my friends in Ann Arbor, I would also like to thank Jessica von Hertsenberg, Rachel Yang Antoun, Peter Halquist and Katie Asher Halquist. In Providence, thanks to my writing group: Eric Foster, Silja Maehl, and Philipp Maurer. On the other side of the Atlantic, I would like to thank Klara von Carlsburg, Karin and Rolf Binder, and the Brombas family, who all gave me endless support during my first year abroad as a wide-eyed exchange student, and ever since. I would also like to acknowledge professors Dolores Peters and Karen Achberger at St. Olaf College for their support and mentorship and for encouraging me to pursue graduate study, as well as Ulrike Weckel, who has been a generous and supportive mentor. This project and my graduate studies would not have been possible without the support of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the International Institute, Rackham Graduate School, the Center for Research on Women and Gender, and Fulbright. I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given to study here and abroad. I also indebted to the work of Hatcher Library, especially Beau Case but also Inter- Library Loan for their work behind the scenes/screens. Additionally, I thank Jennifer White, Kevin Calhoun, and Sheri Systema Geiger for their support. Finally, the more personal thanks go to my family, who has given me unconditional encouragement—even when it meant that I spent more time in Germany than in Duluth. I owe a great deal to my grandparents, Kenneth and Kathryn Johnson and Robert and Jeanne Sederberg, and I am grateful that they have always been so involved in the lives of their grandchildren. Thanks to Elisabeth and Anna, my wonderful sisters who never stop reminding me what matters and how to have more fun. I dedicate this iv dissertation to my parents, Bruce and Brenda Sederberg, who have given me so much love and support, and who always encouraged me to pursue the work I love. Together they taught me how to be a curious and open-minded explorer of the world. And finally, Michael Powers, thank you for your sense of humor and your patience, for all our conversations, for reading so many drafts of my work, and for being at my side every step of the way. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures vii Abstract ix Introduction: “Brüchigkeit der Form” in Germany’s “Rubble Years” 1943-1951 1 Chapter 1: Writing the Present: The Diary in Retreat and Defeat 30 Chapter 2: Writing from within History: Victor Klemperer’s Wartime Diaries and 91 LTI Chapter 3: “Zeitgeschichte im Präsens”: Wolfgang Koeppen’s Tauben im Gras 123 Chapter 4: A Future History: The Rubble Film Berliner Ballade 170 Chapter 5: “Bloß gut, daß alles zu Ende war”: Arno Schmidt’s Schwarze Spiegel 203 Chapter 6: “Finding Language for the Germans”: Communication, Transformation, 251 and Reeducation in Essays of Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt Conclusion 302 Appendix: Annotated Bibliography of Published Diaries 309 Bibliography 318 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. Erich Andres (Hamburg, 1943) 31 Figure 1.2. Richard Peter, sen., “Suchmeldungen am Wohnhaus 31 Winckelmannstraße,” (Dresden, 1945) Figure 1.3. Anonymous photo of “ruin graffiti” 31 Figure 1.4. Viktor in postwar Berlin (Unsere Mütter unsere Väter, 2013) 32 Figure 1.5. Still from Liebe 47 (1949) 32 Figure 1.6. Still from Liebe 47 (1949) 32 Figure 1.7. A preprinted diary with day-by-day pages for five years 55 Figure 1.8. A notebook made into a diary, with pages divided by hand 55 Figure 1.9. Diary of Iri M. 58 Figure 1.10. Feldpostbriefe, returned to sender 66 Figure 1.11. Diary of Ise T. 70 Figure 2.1. Reich Chancellery, Berlin 100 Figure 2.2. Detail from Klemperer’s Diary, “LTI. HISTORISCH” 101 Figure 2.3. Montaigne, in Klemperer’s Die romanischen Literaturen 110 Figure 3.1. American representatives tour the ruins of Berlin (Billy 148 Wilder, A Foreign Affair, 1948) Figure 3.2. Gertrude Stein sees the Rhine from the air (1945) 154 Figure 3.3. Richard Peter, sen.,“Blick vom Dresdner Rathausturm nach 163 Süden,” Dresden, 1945 vii Figure 3.4. Munich, photographer unknown 163 Figure 4.1. Berlin building, photographer unknown, 1946 171 Figure 4.2. Photo by Hildegard Dreyer, Berlin, 1947 171 Figure 4.3. From the opening sequence of Berliner Ballade (1948) 180 Figure 4.4. From the opening sequence of Berliner Ballade (1948) 180 Figure 4.5. From the 1947 performance in Cabaret Ulenspiegel, Berlin 185 Figure 4.6. Otto Normalverbraucher returns to Berlin (Berliner Ballade) 188 Figure 4.7. Otto Normalverbraucher returns to Berlin (Berliner Ballade) 188 Figure 4.8. Otto walks through the Tiergarten 189 Figure 4.9. Otto walks through the Tiergarten 189 Figure 4.10. From Germania Anno Zero (Roberto Rossellini 1948) 190 Figure 4.11. From Germania Anno Zero (Roberto Rossellini 1948) 190 Figure 4.12. Otto “in seinen drei Wänden” (Berliner Ballade) 193 Figure 4.13. Former officer in train (Berliner Ballade) 199 Figure 5.1. Excerpt from Schwarze Spiegel 212 Figure 5.2. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Roman ruins (1774) 235 Figure 5.3. Hubert Robert, “Vue de la Grande Galerie du Louvre en 239 ruines” (1796) Figure 5.4. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, “St. Christopher House, 240 ex-Public Library” Figure 5.5. A. Paul Weber, “Das Ende” 247 Figure 7.1 First edition, Jakob Littners Aufzeichnungen (1948) 304 viii ABSTRACT With the decline and defeat of National Socialism, German society experienced a period of radical semantic openness in which historical narratives broke down, creating a heightened uncertainty as to what it meant to live in the present. This dissertation examines the literary and visual culture as well as political theory of the period that engaged with the notion of “rubble” at metaphoric, tropological, and structural levels. Looking beyond the canon of Trümmerliteratur (rubble literature), the concept of “rubble texts” allows for an analysis of cultural forms that bear witness to wartime and postwar Germany as a landscape of both ruin—which points to legible layers of the past—and rubble—a disorientating state of destruction. Close readings of texts address the telling conflation of rubble and ruin in contemporary discourse, which reflects both the desire to create something new and the persistent presence of the old. Additionally, this project expands the traditional focus on 1945 as the Stunde Null (Zero Hour) to the period 1943- 1951, looking both backward and forward to Germany’s periods of rubble and rebuilding (Trümmer- and Aufbaujahre). This dissertation highlights the diary as a crucial yet often overlooked form that offers evidence of the historiographic and temporal crisis in texts of this moment in German history. Formally, the diary contains several forms paradigmatic of “rubble texts”: presentist temporality, stuttering forward movement, lack of narrative arc, and reflections on the act of writing. Rubble film, photography, and modernist literature of ix this period provide other examples of an aesthetics of fragmentation, self-consciously engaging with the concept of “rubble” and attempting to stake out new space for postwar German culture. Primary materials include unpublished diaries of German civilians, the wartime diaries of Victor Klemperer, literary works by Wolfgang Koeppen and Arno Schmidt, the rubble film Berliner Ballade (Robert Stemmle), and essays by Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt. Incorporating archival research, this dissertation considers questions of temporality and the writing of history, the pragmatics of writing in times of crisis, and the politics of rubble texts in the context of postwar projects of Umerziehung (reeducation) and Entnazifizierung (denazification).