Ment of Erich Fried As a Political Poet

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FROM SOLIPSISM TO ENGAGEMENT. THE DEVELOP- MENT OF ERICH FRIED AS A POLITICAL POET

A consciously provocative half-truth is embedded in the claim Erich Fried Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 once made that writing is a political not a literary activity.1 In his poems and prose it is not the forbidding spectacle of political reality as such which makes the blood pound in the ears, but the way in which it is fashioned and presented. Fables, parables, aphorisms, satires, fantasies, dreams, stories and personal account and comment — to scan the range of literary expression embraced in his poems and prose pieces is to recognise the false naivete1 of Fried's remark, and to see that one is in the presence of a politically committed writer of considerable artfulness. "Politically committed" is, of course, not a particularly persuasive descrip- tive term. In reference to Fried it needs to be redefined in relation to successive stages in his development. If his earliest poetry was comprised largely of Zeitgedichtt which sprang from his reaction to die Second World War and National Socialism,2 much of what he wrote in the forties and fifties retreated into solipsism, and whatever political dimension it may have had was swamped by its heavily coded form of expression. Reich der Steine,3 for instance, published in 1963 but made up of cyclical poems on which Fried had been working in some cases as far back as 1947, is characterised by a mood of despairing rootlessness which may be traced back to the fact diat in 1938, at the age of seventeen, he had to leave Vienna and setde in London in an essentially inhospitable environment.4 There is in these poems, however, no specific indication of the political and historical circumstances which forced him to flee Austria, and it is not in fact until the volume Anfechtungen, published in 1967 almost thirty years after the event, that these events are tackled head on.5 If the psychological situation of exile and the sense of helpless disorientation which the break with home and language bring with diem are an un- mistakable, even dominant aspect of Reich der Steine, they are dramatised indirectly. The poem "Landlos", for instance, with its opening lines- "Von der Welt umbrannt/vom Brand uberwaltigt/zieh ich wahllos" - its successive motifs of loss — "wasserlos", "waldlos" — and finally, its grotesque image of helpless alienation, of belonging nowhere, conveys Fried's sense of expatria- tion by projecting it into a cosmic and ahistorical dimension: Das geht auf Flossen und schwimmt mit Froschhand und FuBen zwischen den Wurzeln wo Wald und Wasser einander gruBen und muB vertrocknen an Land und im Wasser versinken im Hochwald ertrinken (RdS, p.33) 152 From these few examples it is clear that cause and effect of a hostile world are not seen here in terms of the readily identifiable political realities which would form the backbone of the later und Vittnam und volume,8 or figure even more unambiguously in So kam ich unUr die Deutschen,7 but are rendered in oblique fashion. In "Wanderung", for instance, the recollection of a book read as a

child provides the images of a dried-up, poisoned well and of bones and desert Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 sand scorched by a remorseless sun, which mirror the poet's anguished sense of disorientation: Wenn der Brunnen vertrocknet ist fiihrt jeder Weg ans Ende Wenn der Brunnen vermauert ist fiihrt jeder Weg ans Ende Wenn der Brunnen vergiftet ist fiihrt jeder Weg ans Ende in schwarzer Zungen und weifler Rippen Gelande (RdS, p. 10) Fried's treatment here of his state of mind is evasive and melodramatic, as if he is attempting to fend off the shock of a cruel environment by banishing it to an exotic and distant setting. The result is that mood of "Flucht und Hoffnung- slosigkeit" which Fried later was to castigate as a feature of his early poetry.8 These weaknesses are compounded by the excessive use of punning and word play, techniques which, in their archness, seriously undermine the sincerity of what he is attempting to convey: Nun will ich Abschied nehmen nach alien vier Winden Abschied nehmen von alien Wundem und alien Wunden Abschied von alien Winkeln und alien WSnden (RdS, p.8) It is clear from these examples that Fried, unlike so many other German poets of the immediate post-war period, remained uninfluenced by the tone and vocabulary of Benn and Brecht. Being domiciled in a non-German speaking environment, remote from the language in constant daily use, seems to have ensured that his poetry remained untouched by the colloquial, consciously non-lyrical language of the public world. As the Nachwort to the Gtdichte of 1958 makes clear, Fried himself at this time in no way regarded this as a particular defect. Indeed he claims to have positively benefited from the danger that his first language might atrophy in exile; the very hostility of the English speaking environment was turned to productive advantage: Ich hatte das Gluck in eine Zivilisation verschlagen zu werden, die den Fremden kaum heimisch werden liflt. So blieb mir meine Sprache erhalten, bereichert und zugleich bedroht und fruchtbarin Frage gestellt durch die MOglichkeit des Abstandes vom Gebrauch und MiBbrauch des Alltags .. /» One notes in passing the marked difference with Peter Weiss for whom exile and confrontation with a new language and culture precipitated a crisis which 153 for several years effectively paralysed his ability to write.10 In Fried's case the isolation in London from his first language seems to have been compensated for by easy access to what he describes as "avant-gardistische und experi- mentelle Literatur" (G.,p. 108). The influence of writers such as Joyce, Cummings, Owen, and Gerard Manley Hopkins - each in his different way an important innovator - can clearly be detected in Fried's own liking for experi- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 mentation. In the Nachwort to his novel Ein Soldat und tin Madchen he explains how seriously he regards the use of experimental techniques ("Aussage durch Montage von Wortklangsassoziationen", "emsthaften Wortspiels") particularly in the rendering of highly personal and subjective responses to reality: DaB eine ernstgemeinte Nachricht nur in konventioneller Form gegeben werden darf, ist ein in Mitteleuropa immer noch ha"ufiger Irrtum. Wenn das, was der Schreibende zu berichten hat, gerade seine Vereinsamung ist, seine Ratlosigkeit gegenuber den Gedanken und Gefuhlen, die auf ihm eindringen oder aus ihm ausbrechen, dann wird davon die Form seines Bericntes, seines eigenen Zeugnisses, ebenso bestimmt wie der Inhalt.11 The novel itself deals with the experience of an American soldier of German origin who falls in love with a female Nazi concentration camp officer who is about to be executed. The central part of the work is the soldier's own account, written to unburden himself of this deeply traumatic experience. His brief and psychologically disastrous love affair is related by a technique of echoing word patterns and associations of sound and meaning: Nagt denn die Sorge noch an denen, die nackt sind? Und was morgen wurgt, wirkt es schon in dieser Nacht; schont es sie nicht? Ist nicht die Todeszelle die letzte Zelle des Lebens, eine Stelle der Stille im Wirbel- wind des Verwehens, an der sich das Entzweite wieder vereint und das Verwaiste und das Verrohte weiB und rot wird? (SM,p.45) The soldier explains this mode of writing in the following terms: "Ich glaube, diese sogenannte Wortspielerei verschafft eine Art Gegengewicht, wenn alles rund um einen her einsturzt", sagte er einmal dariiber. (SM.p.44) The passage has innumerable parallels in Fried's own poetry. Just as the soldier uses language as a barrier to distance himself from a passage of profoundly unsettling events, so we may see Fried's use of elaborate word games in his early poems as the attempt to soften the blows of an inhospitable environment and to come to terms with his situation as a refugee. In the poem "Die ersten Schritte" of 1950 for instance he writes: "Wort sei mein Wirt / Du mein einziger Wert / und all meine Wurde / Du das manchmal aus Wunden / wachsen laBt Wunder / hilf mir tragen die Biirde" (RdS,p.98). A magical power is here attributed to language and it is seen as a source of strength in an oppressive world. In a much later poem, "Die letzte Hand" written in 1957, his attitude to the support which language can offer has been very much modified: "Weil aber das Wort mir zu leicht war / muB es mir schwer werden / Weil aber 154 das Wort mir ein Spiel war/ muB es mein Ernst werden .. . (RdS,p. 135). The suggestion here is that word play is an irresponsible and facile way of facing die world and clearly anticipates Fried's criticism in the"Vorwort" to Befrnung von derFluchl of the escapist treatment of reality in his early poems. This collection, published in 1968, is essentially a reissue of the GedichU of 1958, but is

supplemented by nineteen "Gegengedichte" which mark a clear rejection of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 the whimsicality of the earlier volume and are a product of the radicalisation of his political views in the sixties and of the attempt to engage his poetry in the arena of political discussion. They submit his earlier poetry to a severe re- appraisal. "Die Wirklichkeit", he writes in the Gegengedicht "Niederlage", "tritt das Marchen mit Hufen ..." (BF,p40). This image is typical of the technique of the "Gegengedichte", crushing as it does the self-indulgence of the preceding poem "Siege", with its succession of romantic, wilfully disparate images: "Zu Gast sein / aufder Hochzeit von Hengst und Schlange", or "Und Richter sein / zwischen Lfiwen und Drachen / teilen die Luft / zwischen Adler und Fledermaus". The explanatory "Vorwort" to Befrnung von der Fluent makes it clear that Fried intended these additions to modify, supplement, and even contradict poems in the GedichU of 1958. Unlike VV. H. Auden, however, whom Fried cites in this context, the wish is not to suppress poems with which he has fallen out, aesthetically or ideologically, but to add a rider, or a postscript, or even to provide a counter argument to the standpoint they represent This gloss on the Gegengedichte throws interesting light on Fried's view of the connection between poetry and its social context, and also illuminates the development in the sixties of his political and literary philosophy: Beim VViederlesen wurde mir klar, wie sehr ich mich seither geandert habe, aber auch, daB ich nicht nur deshalb und nicht nur aus asthetischen Griinden anders schreibe, sondern mehr noch weil die Zeit, die sich auch in Gedichten spiegelt, nicht mehrdieselbe ist. Als ich die alten Gedichte schneb, war in der Sowjetunion Stalin noch am Leben oder wurde noch verehrt. Auch die Kampfe und Unruhen in Vietnam waren damals noch nicht der Krieg, der sie heute sind. Den damaligen Zustanden entsprachen andere Stimmungen. Die Zeit seither zwang zu neuen Gedanken, zu neuem Formulieren. (BF,p.5)

The new title he has given the volume demonstrates that the Gegengedichte are intended as a more direct confrontation with political realities and are a rejection of the escapist, private imagery of the GedichU ot 1958. In "Erwachen im Erwachen", for instance, he rebukes himself for the soporific quality of certain early poems: "VVelche Lieder / habe ich gesungen / mich ein- zuschlafern?" (BF,p. 10). While in the poem "Ruckblick" he sees his earlier self in the mould of diose poets whom Hans Magnus Enzensberger once dismissed as writers of "... verses about snails and butterflies, quivering grasses and silvery thistles".12 155 Als Menschen starben sprach ich von Ameisen Spinnen und Schlangen VVie groB muB mein Verzweiflung

gewesen scin? Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 Jetzt sprech ich wieder gegen den Tod von Menschen 1st meine Verzweiflung groBer odergeringer? (BF,p.42) This poem is much more complex than it may at first appear; it amounts to far more than an attack on his earlier work for its defeatist tone and flight into the whimsicalities of nature. The third stanza, while being applicable to all of Fried's poetry in which man's brutality is the theme, embraces more specifically the vigorous polemical standpoint of the collection und Vietnam und. But also it prepares the way for a concluding question which moves in its impli- cations far beyond the initial note of self-approach to raise the issue of the validity of the political poem of protest per se. The poem poses in its final three lines problems which recall those raised by Gunter Grass in "In Ohnmacht gefallen" or "Irgendwas machen".13 In the despair of this question - "1st meine Verzweiflung / groBer / oder geringer?" — aesthetically controlled by the retarding action of the line division - is framed the poet's own sense of helplessness as well as the impotence of the poem as a force for political change. It must also be noted however that Fried, at this period, is not alwavs so despondent about the function of poetry. In an article written for Die Zeit at the beginning of 1969 we see the remarks in the foreword to Befreiung von der Flucht hardening into the affirmation of a revolutionary credo. What Fried olfcrs us here is an optimistic definition of the social function of art: Wcr mcint, daB die Menschheit nur durch Revolution vor zunehmender Entfremdung und Barbarisierung zu rctten ist - dies ist auch meine Meinung —, der wird oft dazu neigen, Kunst danach zu beurteilcn, welchen Beitrag sie zur Rc\olution leistcn kann. Abcr geradc hicr muB man sich \or undialektischcm Utilitansmus mit zu cngem Horizont hutcn. Die Bekampfung unscrcr Entfremdung, abcr auch, unsalleda\or zu bewahrcn, in der Zeit bis zur Revolution entweder \erhartct und stumpf zu werden oder zusammenzubrechen, ist die wichtigste, oft ubcrsehene Aufgabe von Kunstwcrkcn, angefangen vom Kindermarchen und Kinderbuch. Durch Bekampfung und Darstcllung von Entfrcm- dungsmechanismen kann Kunst auch nachrc\olutionare Entfremdung vorhcugend bekampfen und verhindcrn, oder \erringcrn helfcn. Dies ist kein Argument gcgen agitatorischc Kunst, auch dann nicht, wenn diese (zumBeispiel Protestdichtung) als Ware zunachst oft nur die ohnehin schon Oberzeugtcn crreicht. Auch dicsc haben cin Rccht auf 156 Formulierungshilfe, auf S'elbstbestatigung und gelegentliche Erfrischung durch Aufzeigen ungewohnter Gesichtspunkte.14 While clearly at pains to allocate a place to agitprop and to the poem of political protest in his scheme of things, Fried seems to favour the humanising aspects of art more than its agitatory function. Although, therefore, his political philosophy has become much more radical by the end of the sixties, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 his view of the social role of art is still relatively traditional. Despite their strong Marxist flavour, these remarks do not differ in essence from the views pro- pounded by Karl Krolow on the nature of the "offentliches Gedicht" in his Frankfurter Vorlesungen of 1961. With the excursion on Befreiung von dtr Flucht and Fried's comments on the nature of the political poem we have jumped ahead somewhat in our argument. Note should also be taken of a much earlier turning point in Fried's development - the publication in 1964 of Wamgedichtt,1* and also, of course, the Vietnam poems of two years later. "Es geht beim Grotesken nicht urn Todesfurcht, sondern um Leben- sangst".16 Wolfgang Kayser's comment provides the perfect description of the motivation and poetic method for the Wamgedicht*. While self-scrutiny is still in evidence in these poems, what is new in them is that Fried's emotions and reactions are observed in relation to wider, more public sources of anxiety. It is "An die Schrecken der Zeit" that he addresses himself when, in the poem with this title, he writes: "Ich sehe euch in die Augen / ich h6re euch in die Ohren / ich rede euch in den Mund / euer Wort ist mein Echo". (WG,p.77). The adoption of a less introverted stance is also indicated in the designation of these poems. Despite the portentous ring to the title of the volume, however, the consciousness of the poet never vanishes behind polemical declamation. "... Lyrik mit gehobenem Zeigefinger", he writes on the dustcover of Wamgedichtt, "wSre mir ein abschreckender Gedanke . . . Nicht der erhobene Zeigefinger stand bei diesen Gedichten Pate, sondern das dumpfe Gefuhl beim Erwachen und beim Nichteinschlafenkdnnen, die nicht genau lokalisierbare Beklemmung, das Kopfschutteln, die Furcht und das Mitleid oder die Erbitterung beim pldtzlichen Erfassen der Zusammenhange zwischen verschiedenen Zeitungsmeldungen." From this it is clear that personal anxieties still provide much of the impetus for the Wamgtdichtt, but their origin is now to be found much more in the political world. The committed tendency of these new poems, however, does not come from vocabulary, imagery and motifs drawn from the particular sphere under scrutiny. Their political element does not spring from the use of what Fried once called "Zeitgebundene Bilder",17 but from increased use of the absurd, of paradox, offorms such as the "Spruch" or epigram and, perhaps most notably, of grotesque fables or parables centring on plants and animals. If, however, we look at a poem such as "Usurpation" it is immediately apparent that Fried is not using these forms in the traditional sense: 157 Eine fleischfressendc Pflanzc hatte sich uberfrcssen an cincm ganzen Schwein sic war nicht groB genug Ihrc Bluten quickten Ihr Stiel bcgann sich zu bauchen

die Wurzcl ringelte sich Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 zulctzt lief sie grunzend davon (WG,p.7) "Usurpation" is not a political allegory which can be read off with the aid of a ground plan to a set of particular events and figures, but is an open parable whose outward form proceeds through a developing sequence of highly bizarre images. As political comment its effect rests not on illumination of specific social or political problems, but on releasing a wave of suggestive associations. The influence of Kafka may be discerned in this use of an image which is not susceptible to a single interpretation but embraces a complex of ideas and has its validity on a higher poetic level. The metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa into an enormous bug is not something which is literally and physically possible, and yet as poetic metaphor it incorporates important truths about Samsa's view of himself and his relationship with his family. Similarly, although the firm, tangible image of a poem such as "Ein Brunnenlowe" has no point of contact with an empirical reality, its nightmarish contours outline very per- suasively the poet's insecurities in an environment heavy with threat: Als ich voruberfuhr sah ich uns beide stehen vor dem groBen Maul Wir versuchten es zuzuhalten Auf der Ruckfahrt am Abend sah ich nur noch das Maul offen und rot Von dir und mir keine Spur mehr (WG,p.6) Just as Kafka's image of the enormous bug is a far more compact and striking adumbration of the situation of Gregor Samsa than could have been conveyed by a more discursive account, so does the gruesome image of the bloody maw of the stone lion very succinctly represent the precariousness of the social and political situation as it is filtered through a single human response. Fried has created an image which incorporates his observations, his fears and a grim warning, and yet, as a poetic vision of chilling astringency, transcends the sum total of all these things. The Warngedichte mark an important station in Fried's development. While personal fears provide the seminal impulses for the often paradoxical logic of lyrical epigrams and macabre parables which loom large in this volume, it is no longer a neurotically introspective Angst which informs them but orie which is more clearly traceable to the impact on Fried of broader political issues and phenomena. If however the WamgedichU may be said to demonstrate the increased responsiveness of Fried's political antennae, they do not anticipate the 158 directness with which the message received would be given literary form in und Vietnam und published two years later in 1966. Erich Fried had regarded his Deutschland. Gedichte of 1944 as a contribution to a political debate. These poems were written "... urn mitzuhelfen, den Krieg gegen Hitlerdeutschland von einem Kampf gegen alle Deutschen als solche zu unterscheiden".I8 The Vietnam poems of some two decades later may also be said to constitute, collectively, an argument and one which also derives its Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 unity of theme from a war: "... und Vietnam und (Berlin 1966) widmete ich dem Kampf gegen den Vietnamkrieg und gegen die Entfremdungen, die ihn fordern".19 With this collection Fried achieves a mode of communication which Hans Magnus Enzensberger had aimed for with the poems ofverteidigung der wol/e when wishing them to be understood as "Inschriften, Plakate, Flugblatter, in eine Mauer geritzt, auf eine Mauer geklebt, vor einer Mauer verteilt . . . "M Many of the poems in und Vietnam und were written and performed as Agitprop texts and "... wurden als Flugblatter, in Schuler- zeitungen, Veranstaltungsprogrammen nachgedruckt oder als Liedertexte verwendet. Auch auf Transparente wurden kurzere Gedichte oder Verse aus langeren geschrieben. Ich selbst habe sie als Einlage zwischen Ansprachen, als Unterbrechung, und Erganzung eigener Ansprachen, als Teile akustischer oder visueller Montagen, die ansonsten aus Fotos oder Zitaten aus Zeitungen bestanden, benutzt". With these techniques and methods, Fried may be said to have given the political poem a new mode of existence, to have liberated it from the privacy of the printed page and given it a public forum. und Vietnam und represents then a radically new development in Fried's poetry. The fresh perspective he brings to bear is made clear by Harald Hartung's perceptive comment on the close connection between Fried's work for the BBC overseas service and his activity as a poet: "Eine Diskrepanz zwischen Kommentator und Poet existiert nicht; in seinen Kommentaren hat Fried zum Thema Vietnam nichts anderes gesagt als in seinen Gedichten. Er hat sogar eine Reihe seiner Vietnam-Gedichte in diesen Sendungen vorgelesen".*1 What we are then presented with in und Vietnam und is poetry as unequivocal political comment. We are left in no doubt where the author stands on Vietnam. The position maintained in the poems is bolstered by the factual documentation, statistics and quotations assembled by Klaus Wagenbach and appended in a historical chronicle specifically designed to demonstrate the iniquity of American involvement. In the entries for 1956 and 1957, for instance, facts about arms distribution, non-implementation of international agreements on elections and social repression are juxtaposed to give a picture of a capitalist oligarchy reinforcing its control over South Vietnam by totalitarian methods, while the entries for 1966 compare the rising wave of international protest with increasing U.S. expenditure on the war. The most striking new feature of the poems themselves is the abrupt change in their language. As has already been indicated, Fried's earlier work had remained 159 largely cut ofTfrom the influences so seminal for other post-war German poets. It had favoured the distancing techniques of the grotesque; political realities were rendered obliquely. Now, for the first time in his poetry, image and reality coincide. We no longer have to fathom the resonances of fable or parable; the politics and day-to-day happenings of the Vietnam war speak to us directly. In the first poem in und Vietnam und we read: Das Land liegt sieben FuBtritte Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 und einen SchuB weit seine sudliche Halfte heiBt Demokratie In ihrer Hauptstadt Sodom regiert ein Soldat der Man Kamp/\emt Die Monche sind buddhistisch oder katholisch Die Buddhistischen Monche werden oft Rote genannt In Wirklichkeit sind sie gelb aber nicht wenn sie brennen . .. (uVu,p.7) Poems which are so overtly partisan as these create their own kind of problem for the reader. The dangers inherent in approaching them are amply illustrated by Peter Ruhmkorfs review in Der Spiegel. Die Qalitaten solcher Verse und ahnlicher zu ermessen, bedarf es gewiB keiner neuen Asthetik, sondern allenfalls des Kehrbildes der alten romantischen. Haben wir uns aber einmal frei gemacht von einer Urteilsweise, die schon und faszinierend nennt, was "dem Gewohn- lichen ein geheimnisvolles Aussehen verleiht", und sind wir zaglos genug, unser Interesse statt auf die "VVurde des Unbekannten" auf den Verrat nichtswurdiger Geheimnisse" zu lenken, dann bietet einem der Gedichtband von Erich Fried sogar Verwunderungsmomente die Fulle.22 Ruhmkorf seems here to have erected a fake Aunt Sally since he dodges the question of an evaluative judgment of the poems by mounting an attack on an aesthetic which has long since been discredited. The political line of the Vietnam poems finds Ruhmkorfs approval, therefore their value is beyond dispute. The standards applied here are largely ideological and extra-literary. If more stringent criteria are used, however, some of the poems in the volume seem slight in the extreme, resting on a sense of outrage and indignation which has not yet been mastered in any poetic sense. This applies above all to poems in section three where particular individuals are singled out for attack Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his essay "Poesie und Politik" argued that poetry resists any attempt to utilise it for the abuse or praise of individual political figures. If we test his thesis against those of Fried's Vietnam poems which single out individual politicians, then it seems to be confirmed. To merely "hitch a ride",23 to use a phrase of Al Alvarez, from a potentially resonant theme or a convenient hate figure is not of itself sufficient to guarantee the poem. This is well demonstrated by "Neue Rangordnung": 160 Vordem Trcffcn mit Prisidenten Johnson kam Hitler an erster Stelle dann kam lange nichts und dann erst Prisidcnt Johnson Aber seit Honolulu

kommt Johnson an erster Stelle Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 dann kommt ein kleiner Abstand und dann erst Hitler Der President wirkt langsam wie Gottes Miihlen durch Umtausch der Reihenfolge fur Demokratie (uVu,p.5O) The proper names Hitler and Johnson are clearly intended to carry sufficient associations to function on their own as symbols of political tyranny. They are, however, inadequate substitutes for the poetic image, totally lacking its resonances and in consequence quite unable to sustain the desired effect. "Neue Rangordnung" has all the interest of dated newsreel, and falls flat even given familiarity with the personalities involved. Without having recourse to an "eternal verities" aesthetic one is tempted to ask what will be the impact of such a poem when memory of the figures and events involved has been blurred by the passage of time. This is admittedly one of the worst poems in the collection, formulating its tendentious point in a brash and unsubtle way. The isolation and treatment of the ephemeral actualities of the Vietnam war are not always so poetically and politically ingenuous. Fried is frequently able to highlight the deliberately obfuscated facets of a particular passage of events by an artful reshuffling into sharper perspective of the military's own information, or as in "Verhinderter Liebesdienst", by using a technique of mock justification to argue a position through to a self-destructive absurdity. Here he adopts the falsely naive persona of a hypothetical military spokesman to deliver an ethnocentric apologia for the hamlet pacification programme: Man griff nicht wahllos an man versuchte sogar vor dem Abwurf von Napalm und Bomben auf feindverseuchte Gebiete Heifer zu schicken urn kleine und groBere Kinder herauszuholen in die Stadt und in die Sicherheit Die groBeren Madchen hatten in Saigon fur sich selbst sorgen konnen und so auch das Lebenbleiben der Kinder sichergestellt 161 Doch dieser Liebesdienst muBte eingestcllt werden weil die verhetzten Bauern die Kindereintreiber erschlugen und ihren eigenen Kindem nicht Leben und Sicherheit gonnten

So blieb den Bombenfliegern Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 zuletzt keine Wahl (uVu,p. 18) This poem is typical of many in the volume where the effect is achieved not through metaphor or image, but by cryptic, ironical use of facts, information and analysis delivered by the government or military machine. The poems of und Vietnam und were Fried's most political to date. They were the literary confirmation of the radicalisation of his political ideas which had led to the abandonment of a secure position with the BBC, and to his increasing identification with sections of the New Left in the Federal Republic. Since und Vietnam und he has written prolifically and at a rate which mocks Gottfried Benn's remarks about the "sechs bis acht vollendete Gedichte" as the most which the lyric poet could hope to wring from thirty to forty years of "Askese, Leiden und Kampf".*4 What, however, is broadly apparenty in the seven volumes of poems published after und Vietnam und of 1966 and before the similarly polemical So kam ich unter die Deutschen of 1977 is that the "Zeit- gedicht" — if we mean by the term a poem which addresses itself aggressively and directly to specific political events — is, apart from these two volumes, used sparingly. What I would therefore propose to do is to make —out of sequence — some comments on the poems of So kam ich unter die Deutschen before returning to a discussion of the intervening volumes of the seventies and attempting to establish some common characteristics from amidst all their diversity. So kam ich unter die Deutschen takes its title from the opening sentence of Holderlin's penultimate Hyperion letter of 1798 which is also printed in full on the cover of the book. Fried justifies his use of the letter by its topicality. He writes in his foreword "... daB Holderlins emporte Worte nach hundertachtzig Jahren noch gultig sind wie am ersten Tag" (SkD,p.7) and goes on to explain that he had not always shared the pessimism of those who were sceptical about the possibilities for a humane bourgeois democracy in Germany in the postwar period, but that the developments of the past two decades in the Federal Republic had crushed his earlier hopes: . . . ich kann nie aufhoren, an die Menschen zu denken, die in diesen letzten zwei Jahrzehnten an der deutschen Demokratie verzweifelten und die unter Polizistenkugeln oder hinter Kerkermauern an den deutschen Verhaltnissen gestorben sind oder jetzt langsam sterben. Ich kann nie aufhoren, an die Menschen in Deutschland und in aller Welt zu denken, die jetzt anfangen, die Entwicklung dieses Staates, in dem man sagt "Wir sind wieder wer" mit wachsender Angst zu sehen, Angst urn Leben und Freiheit der Menschen in Deirtschland, aber auch Angst vor dem, was dieser Staat vielleicht eines Tages Menschen in anderen Landern antun konnte, nicht nur in Europa, uber das er wieder einmal die Vorherrschaft anstrebt... (SkD,p.8) 162 This is an uncompromising introduction to poems which set out to document the view of a "Eine Demokratie / gekentert / bedeckt mit Blut / und Papier /. ." (SkD,p. 12) which is expressed very early on in this the most politically partisan volume he had written up to that point. We are not accustomed to the political poet establishing the ideological presuppositions of his work with quite such a degree of bleak analysis and prognosis as this. The forthrightness is mirrored in the poems themselves. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 There is in them a notable absence of the delicate subtleties of form and language which we had come to associate with Fried's work; word play and the elegantly turned, politically and poetically resonant fable or parable. It is as if what is at stake here is too serious to be articulated in forms which could be appreciated for their poetic artistry alone. What is to be appealed to in the reader is his state of political consciousness, not the level of his aesthetic sensibilities. The effects in these poems are wrought not so much through die resourcefulness of image and metaphor, as through laconic directness of language and naming things for what they are. Or at least naming them for what Fried considers them to be, since the positions he adopts, the conclusions he comes to, the analyses he offers, are controversial. In "Die Anfrage", for instance, he has compressed into twenty-seven laconic and bitter lines die sad chain of political idealism, frustration, violence and ultimate suppression by the state which make up the short history of the extreme wing of the New Left in the Federal Republic and has succeeded in setting it against die lamentable failure to pursue ex-Nazis widi the same ferocity: Mit Verleumdung und Unterdriickung und Kommunistenverbot und Todesschussen in Notwehr auf unbewaffnete Linke gelang es den Herrschenden eine Handvoll emporter Emporer Ulrike Meinhof Horst Mahler und einige mehr so weit zu treiben daB sie den Sinn verloren fur das was in dieser Gesellschaft verwirklichbar ist Was weiter geschah war eigentlich zu erwarten: Wieder Menschenjagd Wieder Todesschusse in Notwehr die bekannten Justizmethoden die bekannten Zeitungsartikel und die Urteile gegen Horst Mahler und gegen Ulrike Meinhof Aber Anfrage an die Justiz betreffend die Lange der Strafen: Wieviel Tausend Juden 163

muB ein Nazi ermordet haben um heute verurteilt zu werden zu so langer Haft? (SkD,p. 19) This is, of course, not so much a poem as a point of view which is open to debate, at least as regards large sections of West German public opinion, the

press and media. It is also an interpretation of the activities of the Baader- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 Meinhof group which takes Fried out of the category of the "willkommener Querulant"23 and places him amongst that large and indeterminate group of so-called terrorist "Sympathisanten". It leads one also to speculate about the nature of the assumptions, emotional and intellectual, which Fried makes for his readers, setting the tone for the whole of the second section of the volume, "Vor und Nach Ulrike Meinhofs Tod", in which sympathy for the origins and validity of the philosophy which had led Ulrike Meinhof and her companions to acts of violence and eventually death in a prison cell is taken for granted. The poetic voice in these poems does not consciously cajole or provoke the reader, it assumes shared beliefs and shared sorrow. It is, however, just this element of personal grief- the poet's private sympathy for the fate of Ulrike Meinhof and her companions at the hands of a judiciary which had arguably violated various legal and human procedures —which blurs his judgment and leads him to fanciful comparisons and connections. As, for instance, the accusation in "Die Unschuldigen im Lande" that Ulrike Meinhof was murdered; a charge contradicted not only by medical evidence, but also by the logic of her political life, an escalating sequence of frustrations and despair for which suicide was the only way out. Or the too easy comparisons in the same poem of the present West German legal system with Roland Freisler's notorious Volksgericht: Die Unschuldigen im Lande Die Ulrike Meinhof nicht den Tod gebracht haben sind die die Benno Ohnesorg nicht ermordet haben und sie sind dieselben die keine Gefangenen foltern und nichts wissen von Gunter Routhier und von Iain MacLeod Sie sind die, die nicht wie im Dritten Reich Roland Freisler die Rechte der Angeklagten und Anwalte brechen und sie sind die, die Andersdenkende verstoBen wollen von der Arbeit in ih'ren Berufen Die Ulrike Meinhof nicht den Tod gebracht haben sind die die nicht burokratisch und nicht erbarmungslos sind und sie sind die von denen Demokratie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland keine Gefahr droht In der ursprunglichen Fassung des Gedichtes, knapp nach Ulrike Meinhofs Tod, als ich noch an die Selbstmordversion glaubte, hieB es in der l.Zeile der 1. und 3. Strophe: "... nicht in den Tod getrieben haben." Die medizinischen Einzelheiten des Falls nahmen mir dann den Glauben an einen S*lbstmord. Erich Fried (SkD,p.32) We do not expect literal truth, strictly factual account from any political poem. This is not the currency in which the poet deals. Two of the most celebrated 164 post-war German political poems, Christoph Meckel's "Dcr Pfau", or Hans Magnus Enzensberger's "landessprache" do not give mirror images of the Germany of the economic miracle; their terms are deliberate distortion, grotesque magnification for polemical and poetic effect. They undoubtedly mediate certain essential truths about the nature of post-war German

development, but they do not embody literal truths; these are excluded by the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 nature of the rhetoric, and a conscious extravagance of language and imagery in both poems. What are we to do here, however, with the poems of So kam ich unter die Deutschen, which consciously adopt a sombre poetic voice of self- acknowledged partiality? We can only answer them in their own terms, refuting or agreeing in accordance with the state of our political knowledge or the particular disposition of our political inclinations. We are drawn, in other words, not into the poetic experience of a world created from language, but into a political debate. This impression is reinforced when we note that certain of the pieces in So kam ich unter die Deutschen are refurbished versions of earlier poems. Fried wrote "Zeitnahes Traumbild", for instance, in the late sixties and published it as part of an anthology of Agitprop texts.*8 It is a long poem which telescopes past and present into a bitterly ironic comment on the re-emergence of fascist attitudes in German political life. It begins: Alles ist wieder da aber nicht wie damals Kiesinger ist nicht Hitler Kai Uwe von Hassel nicht Goring und Ziesel und Jaeger zusammen sind nicht Julius Streicher Und die Haken an manchem Kreuz sind hochstens winzige Stumpfe als hatte es vor der Geburt Contergan geschluckt What is essentially the same poem resurfaces in So kam ich unter die Deutschen with a number of minor reformulations and some important changes and additions. The CDU politicians of the sixties, Kiesinger, Kai Uwe von Hassel, Ziesel und Jaeger have been replaced by the most outspoken right-wing parliamentarians of the seventies: Alles ist wieder da aber nicht wie damals Filbinger ist nicht Hitler und StrauB ist nicht Goring und Kohl und Dregger zusammen sind nicht Julius Streicher und die Haken an manchem Kreuz sind hochstens winzige Stumpfe als hatte es vor der Geburt Contergan gekriegt. (SkD,pp.84-85) 165 Later on in the updated version a stanza has been added which incorporates the increasingly drastic measures used against political dissidents in the Federal Republic: Und unsere Polizei schieBt nur noch in Notwehr und unsere Razzien haben nicht mehr die alten Namen Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 "Kristallnacht" und "Barbarossa" und "Nachtund Nebel" nein, "Winterreise", das hort sich nach Schubert an und Existenzvernichtung heiBt schlicht "RadikalenerlaQ" Und auch den gibt es angeblich gar nicht, nur Richtlmien sagt man. A similar procedure has been applied to "Wahlergesprach",*7 which reappears in So kam ich unter die Deutschen as "Politisches Gesprach" (SkD,p.57). In the revised version minor alterations of punctuation and formulation have been made - Lenin becomes Bebel; Willy Brandt and Wehner have become Helmut Schmidt and Vogel, to take into account changes in the SPD leadership:

Wahlergesprdch Politisches Gesprach "Erklare mir den Sozialismus" "Erklare rrur den Sozialismus" "Sozialismus das ist "Sozialismus das ist was Marx und Engcls wollten, was Marx und Engels wollten, Lenin Luxemburg Liebknecht" Bebel, Luxemburg, Lenin" "Nicht auch Stalin?" "Nicht auch Stalin?" "Nein Stalin hochstens am Anfang "Nein, Stalin hochstens am Anfang doch dann vergaB er die doch dann vergaB er die sozialistische Demokratie sozialistische Demokratie" "Genau! Desto mehr Wert legt heute "Ach ja. Desto mehr Wert legt heute unsere SPD unsere SPD auf Demokratie auf Demokratie, Willy Brandt zum Beispiel und Wehner Helmut Schmidt zum Beispiel und Vogel oder Neubauer und Klaus Schutz oder Neubauer und Klaus Schutz "Dadurch sehen wir jetzt auch schon "Genau, dadurch siehst du auch klarer klarer was Marx und Engels wollten was Marx und Engels wollten und was Sozialismus ist." und was Sozialismus ist." What we have here are "Gelegenheitsgedichte" with interchangeable components. They are poems written to argue a point of view which can be altered to suit the change in political circumstances. In both "Zeitnahes Traumbild" and "Wahlergesprach" (and their later versions), clear political perspectives are presented: the renaissance of neo-fascist attitudes in the one, the relation of present-day social democracy to Marxism in the odier. Fried's basic view of these phenomena has not changed in the ten or so years which have elapsed between the writing of the two versions, but the specifics of individuals or circumstances have had to be updated. What this process of revision demonstrates is the utilitarian nature of a poem such as this —its "Gcbrauchswert" as part of an ongoing political discussion. The poem, then, in this manifestation is not a sacred sequence of right words in die right order, but a series of disposable 166 and interchangeable components which can be dismantled and reassembled to suit a particular polemical purpose. It is a technique which, in So kam ich unter die Deutschen with its catalogue of West German neo-fascism, judicial chicanery, police brutality and political repression, invites judgment not by aesthetic criteria, but by the political and moral standpoint of those who read it. These poems are not however representative of Erich Fried's total output in the seventies. What is much more to the fore in the great diversity of voice, tone Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 and form of the seven volumes published in this period is a view of the potential of the language of poetry to sharpen, humanise and ultimately revolutionise man's consciousness. It is also, for Fried, a highly intellectual process, as is demonstrated by the complex thought process at the heart of many of these poems (the section "Historisch-kritisch", for instance, of Die Bane der grofieren Lugen),28 and by his contribution to a volume of essays on intellectuals and Socialism published in 1968, in which the role of the artist and the intellectual are made virtually interchangeable: Zur eigenlichen Aufgabe des Intellektuellen gehort immer der Kampf gegen Entfremdung, das Zusammendenken lebenswichtiger Informa- tionen, das Herstellen von Querverbindungen zwischen verschiedenen Schaffens- und Erfahrungsbereichen, immer anteilnehmend, immer an der groBen Veranderung arbeitend ... Revolutionise arbeiten nicht um der Revolution willen fur die Revo- lution, sondern um der Zukunft der Menschen willen So dient auch Kunst nicht nur der Revolution, sondern der Entfaltung des Menschen, dem Kampf gegen Entfremdung und Abstumpfung und auch der In- standhaltung, Ermutigung, ja Provokation der Menschen bis zur Revolution . . .29 Fried restated these principles, with more specific reference to the writing of poetry when, in the preface to an English translation of a selection of his poems published in 1969 he wrote "... even committed poetry in the narrower sense is in my view always justified when it really fights alienation, which must of necessity include avoiding alienation in one's own use of language and imagery unless as a deliberate means: quotation, parody, allusion, 'montage' . . . '>3° One way in which one may focus discussion of Fried's prolific output of poetry since und Vietnam und more clearly is to return yet again to one of the constants of his style hinted at here, verbal experimentation, and observe the extent to which it serves two of Fried's main criteria for successful art- the combatting of alienation and the sharpening of awareness. He has never taken language on trust. Words (often the most familiar) are held up, scrutinised, jostled into new and illuminating contexts, so that on each reading the verbal ingenuities of Fried poems reveal fresh perceptions and organisation of perceptions. This is especially manifest in the technique he frequently employs of turning the language of politics against itself. Over the last decades Fried has often used his poems to cast a vigilant eye on the political terminology of the Federal Republic, and has ventilated his anxiety about the state of democracy in that country by juggling with its slogans and legends. 167 Good examples of this would be "Bekenntnis zur Verwurzelung in der freiheitlich-demokratischen Gesellschaft" (BgL,p.32) and the following poem "Das Regelrecht" where verbal pun and allusion are used to expose the darker aspects of the "Notstand" legislation of the late sixties and early seventies: Das Regelrecht

I Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 Nicht die Ausnahme sondern der Ausnahmezustand bestatigt die Regel Welche Regel? ZurUnterdriickungder Antwort auf diese Frage wind der Ausnahmezustand erklart II Das Notstandsrecht hegt in Schufiweite des Standrechts das heiBt nicht weiter als die Lange des Korpers einer zur Strecke gebrachten Demokratie (BgL,p.36) When comparing the use of wordplay in his earlier with his later poems it is clear that over the years Fried has disciplined his fondness for wordplay into a technique which discloses the pitfalls language, and especially political language, may hold in store. This finds its apotheosis in the volume Gegengtft31 published in 1974 which saw Fried embattled more than ever with the potential treacheries of language. In the cycle of twelve poems, "Zweifel an der Sprache" which rounds oft"the volume, it becomes clear that the "anti-toxins" of the title are linguistic ones. The prefacing of the cycle with two brief quotations prepares us for the nature of the dilemma with which Fried is here preoccupied: one a line from Brecht's poem "An die Nachgeborenen": "Die Sprache verriet mich dem Schlachter"; the other from T. S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes: "But I've gotta use words when I talk to you." Behind Brecht's laconic statement we see made explicit the genuinely and most importandy political element of engaged poetry. It is not the reordering into lyrical shape of slabs of actuality which makes poetry political but its language which, if marshalled resourcefully, can serve •as an antidote to the polluted currency of public transaction. But for Fried the problem is clearly not so simple as this. The echo of despair in the line from Sweeney Agonistes would seem to add a complication and to contradict the simple formula (die integrity of the poem opposed to the toxic corruption of the language of power) embraced in Brecht's 168 line. Words, whatever their provenance, whoever coins them, are open to suspicion. It is then the awkward lack of overlap in these two quotations which provides Fried with the problems posed and explored in this concluding cycle: Zweifel an der Sprache

aussprechen Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 heisst ausgesprochenen Zweifel an der Sprache zur Sprache bringen Das heisst im Zweifelsfall den falligen oder sogar uberfalligen Zweifel zur Sprache bringen die er zuieifelhaft findet weil er sie zweifelhaftjindW und die er selbst noch tiefer in Zweifel zieht... (Gg,p.69) The tortuous logic underlying the elaborate verbal puns is not the product of whimsical self-indulgence, as it so often is in his early poetry, but an integral part of the cycle's larger design. Its playful complexities alert us to the tricks that can be devised with words and prepare us for the multiple facets of Fried's reservations about language. Although the simple expressive strength of words at the personal level is not totally overshadowed by their potential mendacity elsewhere, it is nevertheless the tendency of language to blur and and desensitise the process of human response which reverberates most strongly in these poems. The brutalising obfuscation of the language of the powerful and the hypocrisies of the cultured Verbiage of intellectuals who profess scorn for their medium of communication largely outweigh the poignant truths transmitted by language at its most basic level: "Ich habe Hunger", oder "Ich habe Angst vor dem Altwerden" oder "Ich will noch nicht sterben". The deliberations of "Zweifel an der Sprache" thus may be said to perfectly exemplify what Fried has seen as the main aim of his writing; through verbal experimentation to sharpen awareness and to shrug ofFthe alienation effected by language at its most stale and routine. They also demonstrate the extent to which the work of Erich Fried has, over the years, broken free from solipsism to occupy itself with much more public diemes.

MARTIN KANE University of Kent 169

NOTES 1 In Conversation with the author, Canterbury, May 1976 1 Erich Fried, Deutschland. GedichU (London- Austrian PEN, 1944), Osleneich. GtdidiU (I^ndon and Zurich. Atnum Veriag, 1946). 'Erich Fried, Reich der Steme. Zjklische Gtdichtt (Hamburg Claassen Veriag, 1963) 4See his remarks in "Ein Versuch Farbezu bekennen", in Ich Ubt mcht in dtrBundesrepublik, ed

Hermann Kesten (Munchen: Paul Last Veriag, 1963), p 44 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article/XXI/2/151/533991 by guest on 29 September 2021 "See, for instance, the poems "Heimkehr" and "Verwandlung" in Anfechtungen. Funfug Gtdichtt (Berlin: Klaus Wagenbach Veriag, 1967) 'Ench Fried, und Vietnam und. Einundmerzig Gedichte (Berlin Klaus Wagenbach Veriag, 1966) 'Erich Fried, Sokam ich toilerdit Deulschm (Hamburg. Veriag Association, 1977). 'Foreword to Ench Fried, Befrewng von der Flucht. Gtduhle und Gegengedichte (Hamburg Dussel- dorf Claassen Veriag, 1968), p 6 •Ench Fned, Gedichte (Hamburg- Claassen Veriag, 1958), p 108 10See Peter Weiss, Fluchlfnaikt- Roman (Frankfurt am Main, edition Suhrkamp, 1962), p 61 1' Erich Fned, Em Soldat und em Midchen (Hamburg. Claassen Veriag, 1960), p 236. "Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "In Search of the Lost Language", Encounter, September 1963, p.46. "Gunter Grass, Ausgefragt (Neuwied/Bcrlin, Luchterhand Veriag, 1967), p 58 and 59 "Erich Fned, "Ja, aber . und . . Der Warencharakter der Kunst, ist kcin Grund zur Verzweiflung",£>arZn/, 17January 1969, p 13 "Ench Fned, WamgeduhU (Carl Hanser Veriag Munich, 1964) "Wolfgang Kayser, Das Groteske Seine Gestaltung in der Malerei und Dichtung (Oldenburg und Hamburg. Gerhard Stalling Veriag, 1957), p 199. "Ench Fned, "Rede in der Hand", in- Doppelinterprttatumen, ed Hilde Domin (Athcnaum Veriag, 1966), pp 245-248. "Erich Fned, "Eigene Erfahrungen mit Agitprop-Texten", in agitprop. Lynk, Thesen, Bendite (Hamburg Quer-Verlag, 1979), p.214 19 Ibid, p 214 '""Beiblatt" issued with first edition of certetdigung der wolfe (Frankfurt am Main. 1957). "Harald Hartung, "Poesie und Vietnam- F.ine Entgegnung", Der Monat 19 (July 1967), p 7H "Peter Ruhmkorf, "Die Mord- und Brandsachc", DerSpiegel2\ (1967) pp 166-168 °A. Alvarez, Beyond All This Fiddle Essays 1955-1967^ (London, 1968), p 16 "Gottfried Benn, "Probleme der Lynk", Gtsammelte Werkeinmer Banden,cd Dieter WellershofT (Wiesbaden- Limes Veriag, 1959), vof. 1, pp 505-506 "See Helmut Salzmger, "Ein willkommencrQucrulant". Review ofKnch Fned's Anfechtungen, in: Der Tagesspiegtl (BerPin), 11 February- 1968. p 41 "Op.cit, agitprop Lynk, Thestn, Benchle, pp.36-37 "Ibid.,p 178. a Erich Fried, Dit Betne dergrifieren Lugen. Einundjunfcig Gtdichte (Berlin Veriag Klaus Wagen- bach, 1969). **Erich Fried, "Anmerkungen zu Verhaltensmustem", in- Intellekluelle undSoziaJwnus (Baran. Fried, Salvatore), (Berlin. Veriag Klaus Wagenbach, 1974), p 61 and 67 "Erich Fried, On Pain of Seeing Poems by Ench Fned, translated by George Rapp (Ijjndon. Rapp and Whiting, 1969), p 10. 31 Ench Fried, Gegmgifl. 49 Gedichte und ein Zyklus (Klaus U agenbach Veriag. Berlin, 1974)