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German writers and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces debate in the 1980s

Stokes, Anne Marie, Ph.D.

The Ohio State University, 1991

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

GERMAN WRITERS AND THE INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR

FORCES DEBATE IN THE 1980S

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Anne Marie Stokes, BA., M.A.

The Ohio State University

1991

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Leslie Adelson

Alan Beyerchen ---- Adviser Bernd Fischer Department of German Copyright by Anne Marie Stokes 1991 To my children, Jonathan and Nikolas

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation originated at the suggestion and under the supervision of Henry Schmidt, who, unfortunately, lived to see only the first half of the study. Henry provided excellent criticism of the first

two chapters and of some segments of the literary analysis contained in chapters three and four. German studies, and, in particular, the German department at the Ohio State University, lost one of its kindest and ablest practitioners when he died. I miss him very much, both as a colleague and a friend.

I would like to thank Leslie Adelson for her willingness to replace

Henry as my adviser. Her consistently speedy return of draft chapters, replete with insightful remarks, and her gentle prodding, made it possible

for me to complete the manuscript sooner than I had thought possible. I am also grateful to her for several visits she conducted in my stead to the graduate school in the final stages of my experience as an out-of-state research student. Thanks also to the other members of my advisory committee, Bernd Fischer and Alan Beyerchen, for their comments and

suggestions, and to Max Schmidt-Schilling for introducing me to the work of West German children's author Gudrun Pausewang. And, thank you, Ray, for your practical assistance, intellectual advice, and, above all, your encouragement, throughout the entire dissertation process.

iii VITA

February 13, 1962 ...... Born - Glasgow, Scotland

1980-1985 ...... Scottish Education Department Grant for study at University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

1982-1984 ...... Study at the University of Mainz, Mainz, Federal Republic of

1985 ...... B.A., M.A., Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland

1985-1987 ...... Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1988-1989 ...... Dissertation research in West , Federal Republic of Germany

1989-1991 ...... Instructor, School of Albany, Albany, New York

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: German TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

VITA ...... iv

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Endn o t e s ...... 15

CHAPTER PAGE

I. NUCLEAR PROTEST MOVEMENTS IN WEST AND . . . 17

Endn o t e s...... 41

II. ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISM OF WRITERS IN THE EIGHTIES.... 47

E ndn o t e s...... 89

III. "0, COME ALL YE FEARFUL!": AGITATIONAL LITERATURE OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES ...... 97

E ndn o t e s...... 147

IV. BOOKS ABOUT THE B O M B ...... 151

E n d n o t e s...... 198

CONCLUSION...... 202

Endn o t e s...... 210

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 211

Primary Works ...... 211

Articles, Essays, Interviews, Documents ...... 213

Secondary Works...... 216

v INTRODUCTION

In the minds of many Germans, the terms "Geist" (intellect) and

"Macht" (power), epitomized respectively by writers and politicians, are considered opposites, and for good reason. In contrast to France, where writers and politicians have traditionally respected one another, German writers have held themselves aloof from practical politics, regarding the latter with mistrust and scorn, or they have considered it their function to question the authority of those in power. This study addresses a recent example of oppositional political engagement by West and East German writers: opposition in the 1980's to NATO deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in .

Evidence of withdrawal from political activism abounds in modern

German literature up to and throughout the Weimar era. Obvious examples include the retreat of German Classicists and Romantics to the aesthetic realm following the French Revolution and the concern with the individual extant in works of German Expressionist poets and Modernists.

During the same periods, however, there were individual authors and groups of writers who employed their literary production in an effort to undermine the prevailing order: the Jacobine poets, the Jung Deutschland

Liberals, , Georg Buchner, and the "Arbeiterdichter" in

1 the nineteenth centrury, and , and Erich

Kastner in the first half of the twentieth century.

The experience of Weimar, the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and

World War II, however, made many writers aware both of the fundamental need for writers' involvement in social and political matters and of the modest results that could be attained through the literary medium. In a concise and informative monograph that presents an overview of the extensive political writing produced during that period, C.E. Williams sums up the limitations. Political literature, he writes "could hope only for oblique and indirect results. The ultimate measure of political writing lay less in the extent to which it inspired political action than in the extent to which it shaped human consciousness."1 In exile, writers of all political persuasions who had recognized the need for the

German populace to be warned of the dangers inherent in the National

Socialist philosophy reached not only for their pens, but issued speeches and petitions.

Already in 1947, writers' determination to concern themselves with the social and political affairs of their state found expression during the first writers' conference held in Berlin. At the end of the meeting, writers of a variety of political persuasions resolved to help Germany emerge from its political and intellectual isolation by keeping Germans morally conscious of the suffering they inflicted on other peoples under the Hitler regime; to combat all remnants of fascism and anti-semitism; to help preserve Germany from nuclear annihilation by working to establish peace within Germany and between the superpowers that had occupied and divided it; to strive to preserve cultural and linguistic 3 identity for as long as Germany remained divided; and to work for the establishment of a liberal and humanistic state.2 In the post-war era, writers in both German states sought to achieve these and other political goals through their literary production and political engagement as prominent public figures. The latter has been especially important since the sixties, when the influence of literature, especially high-brow literature, began to become increasingly limited due to the growing predominance of the electronic media, particularly in the West.3 Vaterland. Muttersnrache. Deutsche Schriftsteller und ihr

Staat von 1945 bis heute'1. a collection published in 1979 of political essays, speeches, manifests, open letters, poems and polemics, bears witness to the extensive political engagement of writers in West Germany through the seventies. Included are documents testifying to their opposition to the division of Germany and rearmament in the fifties, and constrictions on personal freedom or threats to democracy such as the

Spiegel Affair of fall 1962, the introduction of emergency laws following the assassination of Rudi Dutschke in May 1968, and the

Springer press monopoly. And from the early 1960's, Peter Ruhmkorf points out in his introduction to the volume, their political concerns were also reflected in their literary work. Examples include Heinrich

Boll's 1974 novel Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, the documentary dramas of , and Rolf Hochhuth, and the political lyric of and .

As Vaterland. Muttersprache documents, East German writers also criticized and protested the division of Germany and German rearmament, attributing both developments to the Western allies. Their attitude toward their own society was, however, expected to be, and with few exceptions, was affirmative. According to the prevailing cultural policy, Socialist Realism, writers in the new socialist society were to assist East Germany in its evolution toward Communism by depicting, in an objective manner, the happy conversion of individuals to .

Their models were the "Bildungsroman" of German Classicism and the novels of nineteenth-century Realism. In the mid-sixties, however, young writers came to the conclusion that it would perhaps be more constructive to criticize negative conditions in the socialist state than to seek to uphold them, and, considering the prescribed literary models inadequate for depicting the problems they had located, they began to search for new aesthetic forms. They derived confidence for their departure from cultural policy from the critical writings of

Brecht, which were gradually becoming available to them at that time.

For Brecht, was a constant process of adaptation and experimentation as the author sought to clarify the nature of social progress according to the principle of "neue Formen fur die neuen

Inhalte" (new forms for new content). The new content East German authors identified and addressed in the late sixties consisted of the problems associated with the increased rationalization of East Germany's industry and social structures and the subsequent alienation of individuals in East German society. In confronting these problems, they developed new forms. They adopted a subjective critical stance, which in turn necessitated a subjective form of discourse. There was a shift from

"objective" omniscience and the pursuit of extensive totality to what has come to be known in literary parlance as "subjective authenticity" 5

(), an epic prose in which experience is the key to

"typicality." The authors' focus was on sensitive individuals who could not find a place in a purely rational society (as in Christa Wolf’s

Nachdenken uber Christa T.. or Brigitta Reimann's Franziska Linkerhand)

and suffered emotionally, psychologically, and even physically as a

result. They portrayed such fates in an effort to encourage their

readers -- and leaders --to create a social and political climate in which their protagonists could function as healthy individuals.

Hence, by the late sixties, the literary medium in East Germany

had evolved from an instrument of uncritical affirmation and promotion

of socialist ideals to a forum for portrayal and discussion of

contradictions and conflicts that were officially tabu. Like their West

German counterparts, East German writers were beginning to assume the

role of constructive critic and moral conscience of their state.

Given the unenviable position of both German states as the

frontline between the East and West blocs, the question of rearmament,

and in particular nuclear armament, was one of the most important

political issues since 1945 for writers in both German states. As

Vaterland. Muttersprache documents, a number of renowned West and East

German writers spoke out against the remilitarization of the Federal

Republic and its entry into the NATO alliance. In the late fifties, many

West German writers lent their names and reputations to the antinuclear

movement known as "Kampf dem Atomtod" (KdA), and helped determine the

agenda of that movement through their political activism and

journalistic engagement. Some also produced literature in which they

warned of the catastrophic effects of nuclear war and agitated on behalf of the KdA. Their contribution to the movement has been outlined and evaluated by Raimund Kurscheid in a monograph entitled Kampf dem

Atomtod! Schriftsteller im Kamnf eeeen eine deutsche Atombewaffnune.5

The impetus for Kurscheid's study was the revival of antinuclear opposition in West Germany in the early eighties following the decision by the NATO allies in 1979 to deploy American medium-range cruise and

Pershing II missiles in West Germany (as well as France, Britain and

Belgium) commencing in the fall of 1983. This decision, which also provided for negotiations with the Soviets, was the U.S. response to

European anxiety, particularly in Bonn, caused by the Soviet deployment of comparable weapons throughout Eastern Europe in 1975, but was also an unwelcome gesture to many Europeans, particularly those living in the two German states. Beginning in 1980, fear of nuclear war, with the two

Germanies serving as the likeliest battlefield, mobilized the largest peace movement that the Federal Republic had witnessed since the fifties, occasioned a massive increase in peace propaganda in the GDR, and brought to public notice the first ever unofficial peace movement

East Germany had known.

From 1981, when peace movement activity was getting underway, until 1987, when the historic INF treaty signed by U.S. President Ronald

Reagan and the First Secretary of the , Mikhail Gorbachev, provided for the removal of intermediate-range missiles from Central

Europe, writers in both German states actively opposed the missile deployment and sought to promote superpower understanding and disarmament. In August 1981, for the first time in over thirty years, writers from both Germanies issued a joint appeal ("Appell der Schriftsteller Europas"), and they came together on several occasions

throughout the eighties to discuss the obstacles to and the possibilities for peace and disarmament, and to define the role they

could play in helping to effect it.

The roles they played were extensive and multiple. Indeed, in an

ambitious study of war and peace in since the Baroque period, Irmtraud Eisner Hunt had the following to say about the

eighties:

Kaum ein deutscher Schriftsteller, der heute nicht zum Frieden oder zur Friedensbewegung Stellung nimmt, sich also politisch engagiert und aktiviert, oder zumindest sein politisches Bewuiltsein definiert. Das geht soweit, dafl DDR Schriftstellerin Christa Wolf 1983 die Literatur neu definiert: Literatur mufl heute Friedensforschung sein.6

This conclusion is born out by the research that informs this study. The

issue of nuclear weapons motivated writers of all political persuasions

and aesthetic beliefs and, as in the fifties, their engagement took the

form of direct political activities, journalism, and literary endeavors.

The literary works examined in the course of my research can be

categorized as follows:

1) Works that make passing reference to the threat of nuclear war in

Central Europe, such as the novels Finale (: Albrecht Knaus

Verlag,1984) by West German Karin Struck and In Annas Namen (East

Berlin: Aufbau, 1986) by Helga Schiitz;

2) works that convey a sense of imminent planetary doom such as poetry

and prose pieces by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Die Furie des

Verschwindens [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980]) Gunter Kunert (Stilleben 8

[: Carl Hanser, 1983]), and (Erdreich [Stuttgart:

Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982] and Katzenleben [Stuttgart: Deutsche

Verlags-Anstalt, 1984]);

3) works concerned (as had been Brecht's Leben des Galilei (1943),

Friedrich Durrenmatt's Die Phvsiker (1962) and Heinar Kipphardt's In der

Sache J. Robert Qppenheimer (1964)) with the question of the scientist's responsibility in the nuclear age, such as the novels Respektloser

Umgang (, Aufbau Verlag, 1980) by East German author Helga

Konigsdorf and Eingeschlossen (Diisseldorf, Claasen Verlag, 1986) by West

German Ingeborg Drewitz, and the 1986 drama Probe auf Exemoel (Sinn und

Form 3 (1986): 628-40) by the popular East German playwright Rudi

Strahl. As a variation on this theme, dramatists Rolf Hochhuth and

Friedrich Durrenmatt deal with the responsibility of politicians in the nuclear age. The protagonist of Hochhuth's 1984 drama Judith (Hamburg:

Rowohlt, 1984) condemns and assassinates the U.S. president for his immoral decision to allow the production of chemical and nuclear weapons and for his consideration of limited nuclear war in Europe, while the main character of Durrenmatt's 1983 drama Achterloo (: Diogenes,

1983) demonstrates the impossibility of absolute moral standards since the advent of nuclear weapons;7

4) works that characterize nuclear weapons as an outgrowth of a warped

(Western) civilization that is inherently destructive and ultimately self-destructive. Examples of the latter include the prose pieces Paare.

Passanten (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1981) by Botho Straufl, Der

Winterkrieg in Tibet (Zurich: Diogenes Verlag, 1981) by Friedrich

Durrenmatt, Christa Wolf's Kassandra (East Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1983) 9 and 's Amanda (East Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1983), the novels Julius oder der schwarze Sommer (Tubingen: Konkursbuch Verlag,

1983) by Udo Rabsch and Die Rattin (: Luchterhand, 1986) by

Gunter Grass, the dramas Verkommenes Ufer Medeamaterial Landschaft mit

Areonauten (Theater Heute 6 [1983] 36-38) and Bildbeschreibunp

(Shakespeare Faktorv 1 [Berlin: Rotbuch, 1985]) by East German playwright Heiner Muller, and Totenfloss (Theater Heute 7 [1986] 35-46) by West German playwright Harald Mueller;

5) agitational works produced in the early eighties that warn of the danger of nuclear war posed by the NATO double-track decision of 1979 and seek to increase support for the West German peace movement, or for official or unofficial peace forces in the GDR. West German examples include a series of peace anthologies published by West German publishing houses in the early eighties, poetry by

(Verdrehte Welt - das seh' ich gerne [: Kiepenheuer Witsch,

1982]), Erich Fried (Lebensschatten [Berlin: Wagenbach, 1981]), and

Peter Schutt ( Entriistet euch! Gedichte fur den Frieden [Dortmund:

Weltkreis Verlag, 1982]), the drama Der Untergang (Munich: Kindler

Verlag, 1982) by Walter Jens, the novels Ende. Tagebuch aus dem dritten

Weltkrieg (Munich: Athenaum, 1983) by Anton-Andreas Guha and Der Bunker

(Munich, Schneekluth, 1983) by . East German texts aimed at increasing support for official peace policy include a 1982 peace anthology for children titled Ich leb' so g e m , published by the

Kinderbuch Verlag in East Berlin, the 1983 novel Eiszeit. Eine unwirkliche Geschichte (: Mitteldeutscher Verlag) by Eberhard

Panitz, and the 1984 drama Das Blaue vom Himmel (Theater der Zeit 2 10

[1984] 52-64) by Rudi Strahl. According to organizers of a

"Friedensbibliothek" (peace library) located in East Berlin's

Zionskirche, a large body of literature that aimed at increasing support for East Germany's unofficial peace movement also existed. But due to the harsh penalties imposed upon unofficial peace activists in that country, this was not readily available;

6) analytical works that appeared from the beginning of missile deployment in 1983 until 1987, when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF treaty, and address and seek to explain the reasons for the presence and lack of mass opposition in West and East Germany to nuclear weapons and to promote individual resistance to the latter. Examples include the

1983 novels Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn (Ravensvurg: Ravensburger

Junge Reihe) by West German children's author Gudrun Pausewang,

Kassandra by East German Christa Wolf, Amanda by East German Irmtraud

Morgner, the 1984 novel Verlegune eines mittleren Reiches (East Berlin:

Aufbau Verlag) by East German Fritz Rudolf Fries, and Gunter Grass's Die

Rattin (Hamburg: Rowohlt) of 1986.

The examples in each of the categories mentioned above are far from exhaustive, although I tried in my research to look at every example of writing on nuclear weapons and nuclear war produced by West and East German authors in the eighties. This effort was facilitated by detailed responses from an overwhelming number of contributors to peace anthologies and participants of writers' peace conferences whom I contacted while residing in in 1988-9.

Obviously it will not be possible to deal with all of the authors mentioned so far at any length. The present study constitutes instead a 11 detailed examination of the role of writers and literature in the antinuclear protest movements of the eighties. It also investigates the implications of the political engagement of selected authors for their aesthetic production. As such, the literary focus is on works whose authors were engaged in the West or East German peace movements or actively sought to incite resistance to the proposed NATO intermediate- range nuclear missile deployment or to motivate their readers to help bring about peace and nuclear disarmament. I therefore address only two subcategories of literature of the eighties critical of nuclear weapons:

(1) agitational works produced in the early eighties that warned of the

increased danger and possible catastrophic consequence of nuclear war in

Central Europe posed by the NATO decision and aimed at increasing support for the West German peace movement, or for official or unofficial peace forces in the GDR; (2) analytical works that appeared in the mid-eighties and sought to explain the reasons for the presence and lack of mass opposition in West and East Germany to nuclear weapons and to promote individual contributions to the cause of peace and disarmament.

My selection of literary texts is based on their potential political significance, as attested to by debate or controversy in the popular press or literary journals, or by a large printing. Owing to

their popularity among peace activists in West Germany, I examine briefly agitational anthologies published in West Germany in the early eighties, as well as some agitational lyric by Peter Schutt. On account of their wider circulation and appeal, I look in more detail at agitational lyric by Wolf Biermann, the drama Der Untereang (1982) by 12

Walter Jens, and the science fiction novels Ende. Tagebuch aus dem

dritten Weltkrieg (1983) by Anton-Andreas Guha, and Der Bunker (1983) by

GDR emigre Gerhard Zwerenz. As examples of East German texts aimed at

increasing support for official peace policy I examine the peace

anthology Ich leb' so g e m (1982) and the novel Eiszeit. Eine unwirkliche Geschichte (1983) by Eberhard Panitz. As already indicated,

agitational literature produced by members of the unofficial peace movement was not available to me. In addition, the unofficial peace movement in East Germany also had a strong oral dimension that cannot be

addressed in a study of this nature. As an example of a text that sought

to increase support, or, at least understanding, for the unofficial peace movement in the GDR, I have, however, included an analysis of

Stefan Heym's 1981 novel Ahasver. As examples of more analytical

literature produced in the mid-eighties I examine the novels Die letzten

Kinder von Schewenborn (1983) by West German children's author Gudrun

Pausewang, Verlegung eines mittleren Reiches (1984) by East German Fritz

Rudolf Fries, Kassandra (1983) by East German Christa Wolf, and Die

Rattin (1986) by Gunter Grass.

The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first provides background information on the history of antinuclear protest in West and

East Germany and outlines and compares the aims and achievements of the protest movements of the fifties and eighties. Chapter two addresses in

detail the direct political engagement of East and West German writers

in the eighties, as public speakers, demonstrators, or in the form of public statements issued during a series of writers' peace conferences

and in articles that appeared in the popular press. Chapters three and 13 four constitute analysis of fictional literature. Chapter Three presents literary analyses of agitational texts of the early eighties. Chapter four examines analytical works that appeared in the mid-eighties.

In each chapter of literary analysis I provide a sense of political context and give a general impression of the literature in the category under discussion before proceeding to a closer look at representative examples. In my analysis of literary texts, I ouline the political ideas expressed in the works as well as the manner in which they are expressed. Numerous historical examples in the history of

German literature indicate that political engagement by authors has often led them to reassess and reevaluate their aesthetic position and approach. Brecht's epic theater and Christa Wolf's "subjective authenticity" are obvious examples. The major questions I address in the literary analysis include: What aesthetic forms did writers employ, or consciously reject, in order to underscore the political message of their texts? What did the authors aim for and what did they achieve with literature produced for the benefit of the antinuclear protest movements of the eighties?

In the conclusion I present some theses as to the viability of the literary medium in the context of the West and East German peace movements, or, more generally, in an age threatened with nuclear extinction. I also outline what I believe to be the merits and shortcomings of writers' participation in the movements and those of the movements themselves. As such the study complements and embellishes current debates in literary studies concerning the relationship of literature and politics, writers and war and peace, and the viability of 14 literature in the nuclear age. It also contributes to an understanding of oppositional peace activism in West and East Germany.8 15

ENDNOTES

1. C. E. Williams, Writers and Politics in Modern Germany (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977) 10.

2. From "Drei Manifeste des Ersten Deutschen Schriftstellerkongresses, 1947," cited in Klaus Wagenbach, Winfried Stephan, and Michael Kruger, eds., Vaterland. Muttersnrache. Deutsche Schriftsteller und ihr Staat von 1945 bis heute (West Berlin: Wagenbach, 1979) 73-75.

3. According to a poll conducted in West German in 1961, only one to two percent of the population read high-brow literature (Hochliteratur); and although a great deal more people read in East Germany than in the West - on account of the promotion of literature in workplaces (and also the limited offerings on tv?) - the majority of readers in East and West Germany read trivial literature. See Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literatureeschichte der DDR (Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1981;1989) 27-29.

4. Vaterland. Muttersprache. Deutsche Schriftsteller und ihr Staat von 1945 bis heute. eds. Klaus Wagenbach, Winfried Stephan, and Michael Kruger (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1979).

5. Raimund Kurscheid, Kamof dem Atomtod! Schriftsteller im Kampf gegen eine deutsche Atombewaffnung (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981).

6. Irmtraud Eisner Hunt, Kriee und Frieden in der deutschen Literatur: Vom Barock bis heute (Frankfurt: Lang, 1985) 1.

7. For a comparison of both these works see Joseph Federico, "Political Thinking in a Nuclear Age: Hochhuth's Judith and Durrenmatt's Achterloo." German Quarterly 62.3 (1989): 335-44.

8. Recent studies concerned with the the relation between writers/literature and politics include: C.E. Williams, Writers and Politics in Modern Germany: Frederic Jamieson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1981); Alan Bance, ed., Weimar Germany. Writers and Politics (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1982; K. Stuart Parkes, Writers and Politics in West Germany (London: Croom Helm, 1986); In addition to the above-mentioned works by Kurscheid, Hunt and Frederico, recent studies that address the relationship between literature and The Bomb, or war and peace, include: Leslie A. Adelson, " Pays Tribute to the Bomb: On Paare. Passanten and Collective Survival," German Quarterly 15.2 (1984) 250-68. "The Bomb and I: Peter Sloterdijk, Botho Straufi, and Christa Wolf," Monatshefte 78 (1986): 500-13; Paul Boyer, Bv the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought 16 and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985) ; Paul Brians, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction. 1895-1984 (Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 1987). CHAPTER I

NUCLEAR PROTEST MOVEMENTS IN WEST AND EAST GERMANY

On August 6, 1945, a Saturday Review columnist predicted that the

"new age" ushered in by the bombing of Hiroshima would alter "every aspect of man's activities, from machines to morals, from physics to philosophy, from politics to poetry."1 Paul Boyer's 1985 monograph, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the

Atomic Age, attests to the legitimacy of this claim with regard to cultural and political life in the United States as early as the late forties. By the late fifties, Boyer's observations could have applied not only to the United States, but also to West and East Germany; in the decade after the war, however, fascism and war in Europe had more immediate effects than the advent of the nuclear age upon political and cultural life in the German successor states.

After its defeat, Germany lay prostrate and divided, its population hungry and war-weary. For Germans in each of the four zones

(British, French, American, and Russian) of occupation, the atomic bombs that fell on Japan three months after the German surrender were hardly of immediate concern. Instead, the revelations of the true proportions of Nazi atrocities at such places as Auschwitz brought to the fore questions about the moral impact of fascism on European--and especially

German--society. Moreover, destroyed cities, housing shortages, damaged 18 factories, and the slowly emerging division of Germany into two separate states turned the thoughts of many Germans to economic and political reconstruction. Later, when the economies of the two Germanies had begun to rebound and the new political relationships solidified somewhat, integration into the U.S. and Soviet spheres of influence constituted a pressing concern for West and East German politicians.

While economic integration met with little opposition, moves toward military integration into either the U.S.-dominated West or the

Soviet-dominated East soon provoked a reaction from the German population, especially in the West. In West Germany in the early fifties, three extraparliamentary campaigns opposed the rearmament proposals of the Adenauer government. Supporters of the first group, the

"Ohne-mich-Bewegung" of 1950, consisting of upperclass bourgeois, left­ wingers and former soldiers, opposed quite generally all apects of militarism. The second group, the "Volksbefragung Bewegung" of 1951-2, was composed of pacifist and anti-conscription groups, left- and right- wing neutralists, Communists and SPD members. Supporters of this group were more specific than the first in their demand for a peace treaty for the two German states, reunification and military neutrality instead of rearmament and integration into the West. And the third campaign, the

"Paulskirchen Bewegung," directed by representatives of the SPD, opposed the military treaties of 1955 that were to bring the armed forces of the

Federal Republic into the NATO alliance, on the grounds that such a move would endanger .2 Prominent individuals, including the West and East German writers Rolf Schneider, , Anna

Seghers and Bertolt Brecht also issued declarations and appeals opposing 19

German rearmament and West Germany's plans for integration into NATO.3

Still, despite the widespread "count-me-out" attitude among the West

German populace*, the (1950) and the Soviet Union's

intervention in the East German general strike (June 1953) seemed to

legitimate Adenauer's claims that West Germany needed a strong defense and resulted in ratification of the European Defense Community

in 1952 and an election sweep for the Chancellor in September 1953.5

During the process of West German integration into the Western alliance, however, American plans to deploy nuclear cannons on European

soil, the so-called "New Look," quickly incited a passionate debate over

NATO's nuclear policy -- both inside and outside parliament -- that would continue for the remainder of the decade.6 Opposition to nuclear weapons motivated a larger number of groups and individuals than the anti-militarist campaigns of the early fifties and soon gave rise to an antinuclear campaign that had wide significance for West German political and cultural life. In East Germany, opposition to conventional

and nuclear rearmament was directed against the West, but was

spearheaded by the East German government. East German state officials -

-at least until the eighties when the government monopoly in national

security matters was challenged by a small but significant unofficial peace movement -- were able to fend off opposition to the arms build-up

in the Eastern bloc by presenting it as a defensive reaction to developments in the West. Given the fact that opposition to nuclear policy in East and West Germany had little in common until the eighties,

the following sections deal separately with the two German states. 20

The Federal Republic

While Germans had seemed oblivious to the advent of nuclear weaponry, the prospect of having nuclear-capable artillery deployed on

West German territory triggered awareness of and opposition to their existence. In the immediate aftermath of the 1953 election, most of the resistance to Adenauer's policies was restricted to the Bundestag -- where the SPD became unified in opposition to the Treaties that provided for West Germany's membership in NATO7 -- and to elements of the West German political and military elite.8 But, as the September

1957 Bundestag election approached, nuclear strategy became an important domestic political issue. Already in June 1955, only one month after

West Germany's entry into NATO, Germans had been shocked and terrified to learn the results of a simulated NATO tactical nuclear weapon attack over Western Europe that would kill 1.7 million Germans, wound 3.5 million, and call forth an incalculable number of fallout victims. The maneuver, which, appropriately enough, was called "Carte Blanche," was criticized publicly by pacifist groups and opposed by the SPD in the

Bundestag.9 Then, in 1957, the government's revelation on April 2 of plans to equip the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons provoked widespread anxiety and unrest among the West German population and gradually channeled the "count-me-out" sentiment into an anti-nuclear crusade.10

Impetus for the popular protest did not, however, derive from the political opposition, the SPD, but rather from eighteen of Germany's most prominent nuclear physicists, including the Nobel Prize winners Max

Born, Otto Hahn and Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker. Their Gdttinger

Manifesto, issued on April 12, 1957, as a response to the government's 21 announcement, underscored the massive destructive power of nuclear weapons and determined that the system of mutual deterrents was

"lethal." After outlining the role of science in nuclear technology, the signatories pledged to aid efforts toward disarmament, and called for an "explicit" and "voluntary" rejection of atomic weapons by the

Federal Republic.11 Party press organs immediately pounced upon the appeal and in the following month linked the controversy surrounding nuclear weaponry to the upcoming parliamentary debate in May 1957 and to the Federal election campaign.12 The SPD press fully supported the

Gottingen scientists and demanded a prohibition on the deployment of nuclear weapons in Central Europe, a nonproliferation treaty and a test ban. The CDU/CSU criticized the scientists for "wading into political waters which were out of their depth"13 and, in an effort to defuse the appeal, denied the existence of any final plans to nuclearize the

Bundeswehr.14

In the months preceding the election, the nuclear question was not just a matter for the party press. West Germans debated the nuclear issue in cafes, theaters, on the radio and on the street. A great variety of individuals and organizations previously indifferent or even hostile toward the former protest movements spontaneously took up the issue of atomic weapons, including groups such as municipal councils, student bodies, womens'leagues and church groups.15 German writers, who had previously opposed rearmament on an individual basis, also came together to voice their disavowal of government plans. On September 4,

1957, eleven days prior to the Bundestag election, some twenty writers, acting, as they themselves stated, out of a sense of moral 22 responsibility, issued an appeal in which they pointed to the dangers inherent for West Germany in the CDU government's plans to procure atomic arms and urged "alle Deutschen, am 15. September im BewuBtsein der Entscheidung uber Sein oder Nichtsein zu wahlen."16 But the writers' appeal and that of others proved ineffective: West Germany's economic success and the chancellor's strategy of denying the actuality of the nuclear issue and arguing that a weak defense would expose Western

Europe to the threat of Communism earned Adenauer and his party an absolute majority in the September election.17

The controversy surrounding nuclear weapons, however, was not yet over. Shortly after the election victory, the defense debate was refueled by the Rapacki Plan, which declared 's willingness to prohibit nuclear weapons on its own soil on the condition that both

Germanies do the same. The plan, named after Poland's foreign minister

Adam Rapacki, who believed that a nuclearized NATO would turn Europe into a powder keg, soon demanded nonnuclear pledges from Holland,

Belgium, and Hungary as well as U.S. and Soviet troop withdrawals from the continent. In West Germany, the SPD and the FDP supported the plan as a means of achieving a reunified, denuclearized nation and requested that the Bundestag debate the proposal. Their wish was granted, but their hopes were shattered when, in March 1958, the government officially announced its intention to acquire nuclear weapons for the Bundeswehr, albeit in conjunction with proposals for arms reduction negotiations between the superpowers.18 23

For the time being, this defeat marked an end to the nuclear debate in parliament. But the opposition parties did not yet abandon the nuclear issue. As Marc Cioc writes:

Unable to exert influence over NATO policy at the parliamentary level, they explored extraparliamentary channels, and gave sustenance and leadership to the burgeoning antinuclear movement. From 1958 to 1960, the nuclear debate took place outside the corridors of government, in the scientific community, in church synods, in trade union congresses and on the streets.19

In March 1958 the antinuclear movement, which had begun to gather momentum during the Bundestag debate on the Rapacki Plan, became institutionalized in the form of the "Kampf dem Atomtod" (KdA) movement.

Its leadership comprised representatives from the SPD, the FDP,20 the

German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) and the Protestant churches, as well as professors, scientists and prominent literary figures such as

Heinrich Boll and Stefan Andres.21 Indeed, as a recent monograph demonstrates, virtually all writers spoke out in some form or other in opposition to the Bundeswehr being equipped with nuclear weapons, and prominent writers such as Boll, Andres, Gunter Anders, Alfred Andersch,

Hans Henny Jahnn, Erich Kastner, Gunter Weisenborn and Wolfgang

Weyrauch, to name but a few, remained politically active in the movement throughout its existence, signing petitions, marching, speaking out directly and writing articles on the subject of nuclear war. In addition, some authors produced works of fiction in which they protested against the superpowers' arms race, warned of the possibility of nuclear war, informed of the consequences of radiation sickness and described the devastating effect of the bomb on the lives of its creators.22 24

Despite the fact that the KdA could claim the support of a sizeable portion of the population,23 the antinuclear movement, which was financially and organizationally dependent on the SPD and the DGB

(The German Federation of Trade Unions), began to collapse after 1958.

The DGB, representing the German labor movement, came to resent pressure from some of the KdA's more radical members, from East Germans and from the SPD for a general strike against the goverment's defense policy.

While the DGB did not mind providing funds and speakers for the demonstrations, it shrank from an action that could cause legal and financial problems for both the unions and their members24. SPD support for the movement began to dissipate after July 1958 when the German

Supreme Court declared the movement's demand to organize a referendum unconstitutional, and after the CDU, on the basis of their economic policies, won an absolute majority over an SPD-FDP coalition in the state elections in North-Rhine Westphalia, a traditional SPD-stronghold.

After this defeat, the FDP simply dropped out of antinuclear politics. The SPD, which had actually picked up new voters, on the other hand, decided to persevere and to run the next several state elections under the antinuclear banner. But it, too, began to lose faith when it became obvious that the antinuclear platform was not a "vote-getter".

Despite highly touted opinion polls showing nearly eighty percent of

West Germans opposed to nuclear weapons, defense policy was of secondary importance to economic considerations at the ballot box25 and nuclear annihilation remained an abstract threat; the spread of Communism in

Central Europe, on the other hand, was not.26 While the economic miracle 25 assured support for Adenauer’s economic policies, political threats from the East such as Khrushchev's ultimatum of November 1958 that West

Berlin be turned into a "demilitarized free city,"27 seemed to legitimate Adenauer's advocacy of military might.

All responsibility for the demise of the antinuclear movement did not, however, rest with Adenauer and the course of superpower politics.

The movement, as Marc Cioc explains, bore the seeds of its own destruction:

The nuclear opposition in West Germany was deeply divided internally, particularly between its Communist and socialist wings... Rather than presenting a united front against nuclear weapons, the competing groups mirrored cold war divisions. They stood in opposing camps, and they represented different political and economic values. While the Social Democrats ... were devoted to parliamentary life and democratic politics ... the Standing Congress and its affiliates ... were proponents of the East German political system, and their solutions to East-West tensions were fully consistent with those of Khrushchev.28

This weakness was demonstrated irreversibly at the Berlin Student

Congress in January, 1959. When Communist Standing Congress students pushed through a resolution in support of Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum,29 the movement dealt itself the final blow: the SPD leadership, which had been wavering over whether to continue backing the movement, realized it could not purge the KdA from the stigma of

Communist infiltration and withdrew its support.30 Just one year later, with the electoral defeats of 1957-8 in mind,the party, in an attempt to attract new voters, adopted the Bad Godesberg program, which meant, among other things, that the SPD embraced many aspects of Adenauer's pro-west security policy.31 26

By early 1959 various pacifist and anti-militarist groups as well as student groups had become the initiators of the anti-atomic arms campaign.32 In the first half of the sixties, the comparatively small

"Ostermarschbewegung" constituted the sole protest against official security policy. During the late sixties and most of the seventies, the period of detente and "", even this outlet disappeared as protestors turned their attention to the war in Vietnam, the colonized

Third World, and aspects of West German society other than its 7000 or so nuclear warheads, (e.g. its authoritarian educational system, the formation of the Grand Coalition, emergency laws, concentration of the press, and abortion legislation). Certainly, peace petitions and demonstrations continued to occur and discussions on peace and disarmament continued in churches, but public resonance remained relatively modest. The nuclear debate was limited almost exclusively to the parliamentary level and the theme of peace and disarmament restricted to the newly established academic field of peace research.33

German literature during this period reflected these developments: few writers continued to participate in the Easter Marches34 and the nuclear theme barely figured in fiction and essays.35 Political literature dealt instead with such issues as the Spiegel Affair, the introduction of emergency laws, and the Springer press monopoly.36

This situation changed dramatically in the late seventies. In 1977 and 1978, peace movements throughout Europe experienced a brief but spectacular revival when President Carter announced, and then rescinded, plans to produce the Enhanced Radiation Weapon, or, as it is more commonly known, the "neutron bomb." In 1979, a second wave of protest 27

swept Europe after NATO responded to the Soviet deployment of

intermediate range SS-20s, begun in 1975,37 by announcing its "double­

track" decision to deploy intermediate range Cruise and Pershing II

missiles in Western Europe, beginning in the fall of 1983, unless the

Soviet Union entered negotiations and withdrew its SS-20s.38 The NATO

decision constituted an attempt to appease European concerns about "the

declining value of U.S. nuclear protection and to maintain the

credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent and the NATO strategy of

flexible response"39 But the effort backfired. Many Western Europeans

feared that INF deployment would instead increase the probability of a

U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation in Europe.40 One year later, fear of

nuclear war provoked by this decision was further exacerbated by the

advent of the Reagan administration. Its increased emphasis on greater

defense spending and public remarks that nuclear war was winnable and

could conceivably be limited to Europe undermined the INF talks and gave

impetus to antinuclear proponents and peace activists in Western and

Eastern Europe.41 It also put an end to the European defense consensus

that had enjoyed the support of all major political parties in each NATO

state since the late fifties.42

In West Germany, the SPD chancellor , while

interested in maintaining the relations with the East that had resulted

from 's Ostpolitik, had urged vehemently for increased U.S.

NATO commitment, considering a strengthening of national security necessary in face of the Soviet threat. But he soon discovered that a

large portion of the populace, including key members of his own party, opposed the installment aspect of the decision on the grounds that it 28 increased the likelihood of a superpower confrontation in Europe. Within the SPD, Schmidt's decision to back the installment of the new missiles, together with his failure to honor a campaign promise to raise senior citizens' government pensions, alienated the left wing and divided the party.43 The West German peace movement then grew rapidly from this internal SPD split over the NATO-INF decision into the broadbased campaign of the Krefeld Appeal of November 1980, which approximately

800,000 Germans signed within six months.44 Signatories included leftists, scientists, SPD and trade union members, Christian organizations and pacifists (who take the Fifth Commandment and the

Sermon on the Mount literally), and representatives of various citizens' initiatives, Greens, and the so-called "alternative movement" that sprang up in the seventies and included, among others, feminists, ecologists, and Marxists disaffected with the SPD and the KPD. For the feminists, pacifists and ecologists who had protested West Germany's development of indigenous nuclear energy capabiities throughout the seventies, the campaign against NATO nuclear updating was a logical follow-up to the battle against atomic power.45 Equipped with this experience as well as the results of research carried out by peace researchers, the arguments of the wide spectrum of forces that came together to form the peace movement in the eighties, unlike those of the anti-nuclear activists in the fifties, were not primarily morally based but of a technical and political nature.46

In the early part of 1981, various professional groups followed the Krefeld model by issuing petitions against the government's defense decision. Then, in June 1981, antinuclear activists embarked upon a series of demonstrations, beginning with the Hamburger Kirchentag of

June 1981 and culminating in the Bonn rallies of October 1981 and June

1982, which attracted over 300,000 participants each.47 As a reaction to these developments, Helmut Schmidt, struggling to maintain control of the SPD and worried about the increasing appeal of the anti-nuclear

Greens, shifted his position to stress the importance of talks over missile deployment. But Schmidt, who had been returned to power in the federal elections of 1980 largely on account of the unpopularity of his

Conservative opponent , was removed from power in

1982 when his coalition partner, the FDP leader Hans-Dietrich Genscher, considering him unable to deal with the economic recession and rising unemployment following an oil shock, orchestrated a "constructive vote of no confidence" against the chancellor in the Bundestag.*8 The parliament subsequently elected the CDU leader as chancellor. Kohl, a proponent of the NATO nuclear policy, called for a federal election in March 1983 and "campaigning on a Thatcheresque promise to open the German economic system to more free-market enterprise and individual initiative"*9 was returned to power with a broader mandate than before and reaffirmed West Germany's NATO commitment.50 In the so-called "Hot-Autumn action week" (mid-October

1983), protestors made a final massive effort to persuade the Kohl government to alter its attitude toward the NATO policy. But their parades, blockades, fasting sessions and other forms of non-violent disobedience proved unsuccessful. On November 22, the government chose to go ahead with the deployment and the antinuclear campaign soon lost momentum.51The peace movement's anti-nuclear program was, however, 30 institutionalized shortly afterwards by the SPD. At their party conference in May 1984, the SPD leadership called for the removal of

"U.S. INF missiles and most tactical nuclear weapons, along with U.S. stocks of chemical weapons" from West Germany. And they also requested subsequently "a German right of co-decision for the use of nuclear weapons.1,52

Despite the massive scale of some of the peace demonstrations, antinuclear campaigners of the eighties, it appears, found themselves as isolated and impotent as they were in the fifties, and for similar reasons. As in the fifties, the peace movement was burdened from the outset by serious political and ideological differences among the various groups that composed it. Protestors could reach a consensus on opposition to the deployment of intermediate-range missiles, rejection of the neutron bomb and chemical weapons, disarmament, and the creation of an atomic-free zone in Central Europe; they disagreed strongly, however, on the question of long-term goals and strategies. Whereas traditional forces such as SPD members, Christian organizations, pacifists, and members of the DKP (the West German Communist Party) focused on the issue of INF weapons and supported disarmament negotiations to be realized within the framework of the bloc system, the

"new spectrum" consisting of Greens, Eurocentrists, the women's movement, and the so-called autonomous and antimilitarist groups criticized the weapons as a symptom of advanced industrial society and the bloc system. Some of these groups therefore advocated not only disarmament but a dismantling of the bloc system, renunciation of the use of all types of nuclear power and solidarity with Third world and 31

Eastern bloc countries. The concept of solidarity or social justice for the Third World was advocated also by Christian and pacifist elements within the peace movement. Their stragey for achieving these goals and for bringing about nuclear disarmament, however, differed from that advocated by members of some of the groups belonging to the "new spectrum" . While the Christian and pacifist groups aimed at bringing about the moral conversion of individuals and favored non-violent resistance, elements of the "new spectrum" who were distrustful of politicians and bureaucrats who, in their view, confuse the increasing technologization of civilization with the idea of progress, were skeptical toward negotiations and advocated, in some instances, violent resistance.53

In addition to these differences the peace movement was also dogged by a deep-seated ideological division between Communist and non-

Communist sympathizers. Solidarity of some of the peace movement's most prominent personalities with the Polish trade union, for instance, caused conflict with DKP peace activists and almost split the peace movement on the eve of the largest peace demonstration ever in Bonn in

October, 1982.5A

Perhaps more significantly, however, as a return of the CDU-CSU/

FDP Coalition in the 1983 federal election indicates, the German public in the early eighties voted as in the fifties on the basis of economic rather than defense issues. Neither increased fear of nuclear war nor the efforts of peace activists were able to alter this aspect of electoral behaviour.55 32

While an economic downturn in West Germany in the early eighties appears to have limited support for the peace movement's goal of prohibiting the deployment of intermediate range nuclear forces in

Western Europe, economic problems in the Soviet Union provided an incentive for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to seek a bilateral removal of these forces following his ascendancy to power in 1985. And the economic prosperity West Germans were experiencing by the mid­ eighties56 rendered the West German population more susceptible to the arguments of Gorbachev, the peace movement, and the German opposition parties (SPD, Greens, and FDP), as indicated at the ballot box.

In 1985 and 1986, Gorbachev met with President Ronald Reagan to discuss first a freeze on and then elimination of intermediate nuclear forces in Western and Eastern Europe. On both occasions, however, talks broke down due to Soviet insistence that the U.S. SDI program be included in the negotiations.57 Then in February 1987, the Soviets agreed to negotiate intermediate range nuclear weapons without awaiting progress in other arms talks and subsequent negotiations between the superpowers resulted in the historic INF Treaty that provided for the removal of those missiles.

In West Germany peace activists pounced upon Gorbachev's offer and as a result the peace movement experienced a brief resurgence. In March

1987, several organizations appealed to Chancellor Helmut Kohl to accept

Gorbachev's proposal58; in April, Easter marchers praised Gorbachev's

"new thinking"59; in June, over 100,000 peace activists accompanied by prominent SPD politicians such as Willy Brandt, Hans-Jochen Vogel, Oskar

Lafontaine and Bjorn Engholm demonstrated in Bonn in favor of the 33

government revising its 1983 decision60; and in September, when peace

activists from Western and Eastern Europe participated in an

international Olaf-Palme-Peace-March for a nuclear-free Europe, speakers paid tribute to Gorbachev's initiative: "Wir werden Zeugen und Teilhaber

einer grofien und endlichen Umkehr," stated the Chairman of the East

German Writers' Organization, Hermann Kant. "Der Frieden geht." he

continued, "Wenn wir ihn wollen, ist er zu haben."61

As Easter marchers praised Gorbachev's "new thinking,"

Conservative critics mocked their efforts in citing the superpower

negotiations as evidence that "Abriistung nicht mit 'moralischen

Appellen' herbeizufuhren ist, sondern nur durch hartes Verhandeln und nuchterne Abwagung von Sicherheits- interessen.1,62 Peace activists

throughout the country, on the other hand, while cautioning that the

elimination of the intermediate forces was only a first step in the process of stabilizing Europe militarily, claimed victory in bringing

about the INF negotiations and held countrywide celebrations. During a peace movement conference convened in Bonn at the end of November 1987,

a spokesman for the movement stated: "Die Bundesregierung hat sich von

der Friedensbewegung Stuck fur Stuck korrigieren lassen mussen."63

The truth most probably lies somewhere between these two assessments: Economic problems in the Soviet Union led Gorbachev to pursue negotiations for arms reductions, but peace activists in West

Germany were instrumental in creating a political climate receptive to his ideas. This was demonstrated not only in the West German public's acceptance of Gorbachev's proposals with regard to medium-range nuclear weapons but also in its response to the Soviet proposal of April 1987 34 for the mutual abolition of shorter-range missiles in Western Europe.

This issue divided the Western alliance and the coalition partners in

Bonn. While the CDU defense minister, Manfred Worner, rejected the offer, claiming that any further arms talks should be contingent upon cuts in the Pact's conventional forces that threatened West

Germany, foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, head of the CDU's coalition partner, the FDP, told the newspaper Die Welt that Gorbachev's offer should be seriously considered. As the results of local elections in Hamburg and the Rhine-Palatinate in the following month made clear,

German public opinion was on Genscher's side. After the CDU's poor election results in these states were attributed to Genscher's line on the short-range nuclear missile issue, Kohl announced the following week that West Germany would accept the Soviet proposal.64 Furthermore, in

1988 when the NATO military leadership proposed replacing aging Lance short-range missiles with longer-range ones in an effort to compensate the loss of intermediate range missiles due to the INF Treaty, chancellor Kohl, aware of West German antipathy towards the Lance modernization, insisted on a postponement of the program.65 As one critic commented: "The peace movement may have lost the battle of the medium-range deployment in 1983, but may have won the war in making it inconceivable for a West German government to contemplate further missile deployments."66

The German Democratic Republic

As Peter Wensierski has pointed out, in the GDR 35

terms such as 'peace movement' and 'peace' have been monopolized by the GDR state since its founding in 1949; the mandate to 'serve the cause of peace' is anchored in its constitution. For decades, virtually on a daily basis, the mass media have appealed to the individual to make his personal contribution. One means of supporting peace is the "all-round strengthening of socialism," which implies primarily that the population work ever more productively in order to develop an economically strong state. (...) Another method is much more direct: long-term military service in the National People's Army (NVA). Here the motto is "Peace must be armed."67

Indeed, opposition to Western rearmament and support for Eastern Bloc disarmament proposals was, until the late seventies, expressed exclusively by the state's official peace organization, the "Friedensrat der DDR" (Peace Council of the GDR) by means of publications and official mass demonstrations.68 But at the beginning of the eighties, the monopoly of this government body was challenged by a small but significant unofficial peace movement that began to emerge at the end of the seventies as a reaction to the increased militarization of East

German society. This domestic factor, coupled with broader fears of a military confrontation in Europe, provoked a small number of mostly young East Germans to organize a number of initiatives to promote peace and disarmament.69

In a society in which almost all social and political activity was controlled by the state, these groups acting outside the realm of the official peace council owed their survival to the protection of the East

German church, which, as the sole institution in the GDR not subject to party control, was able to provide facilities for meetings, publications and even minimal employment. In addition, church activists were 36 permitted to engage in fairly open debate, publish their work and were often allowed to meet with Westerners and travel to the West.70

Impetus for the peace work of this grassroots movement, or what

Stefan Heym has called a "ground swell" of popular feeling,71 was spurred in 1978 by the extension of military education from the final two years of high school to the final four and the introduction of a program that provided for the purchase of military toys for Kindergarten children. This increased militarization alarmed young and old alike who looked to the church for support in their demand for an alternative civil peace service that went far beyond the concept of "Bausoldaten", a militarized alternative to military service.72 The demand made in 1981 was subsequently rejected by the government as unconstitutional, but became one of the most important issues for the fledgling peace movement which made its first public appearance in mid-February 1982 when some

5000 people gathered in 's Church of the Cross on the occasion of the commemoration of the Dresden bombing to attend a peace forum sponsored by the East German church. After the forum demonstrators proceeded to the Frauenkirche where they lit candles and sang ballads.73

As well as criticizing militaristic aspects of East German society, peace work in and around the East German Evangelical church also embraced the question of European and world security. In the Fall of 1981, a church synod in Halle protested the idea of securing peace by military means and proposed that the Warsaw Pact governments take unilateral steps to encourage the process of disarmament by, for instance, withdrawing SS-20s and reducing their tank superiority.74 The church also engaged in discussions with West German churches on themes 37 such as the causes of East-West conflict, security, and various disarmament proposals.75 The Evangelical Church, however, had no uniform stance on nuclear weapons until July 1982 when the "Conference of Church

Directorates proclaimed the production, development, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons 'a moral evil'" and "held that nuclear deployments 'regardless of where and by whom' ought to be abjured by all religions, thereby calling for a complete freeze and a moratorium on inimical rhetoric."76

At the beginning of 1982, the Protestant pastor, , acting without the support of the East Berlin church hierarchy, initiated an appeal titled the "Berliner appell - Frieden schaffen ohne

Waffen," which called for a nuclear free zone in Europe, a peace treaty for both German states, as well as withdrawal of all foreign troops from

Germany. The appeal also requested that the GDR government tolerate peace demonstrations, do away with war toys, replace military instruction with peace lessons, introduce a peace service as an alternative to military service, keep the military out of official celebrations and renounce civil defense exercises that would, in any case, be useless in the case of atomic war. It suggested further that the government spend money on the starving Third World populace rather than on defense. The appeal gathered c. 200 signatures within the first week including those of other ministers, workers, school children, the prominent academic Robert Havemann and the writer, Lutz Rathenow.77 The initiative, however, was unsanctioned by the Berlin church hierarchy, which objected to its style and content, and the state lost no time in reacting: 38

Within hours of its publication in the Western press and a subsequent meeting in the Politburo, security police arrested Eppelmann and numerous other signatories. All were, however, released after having been interrogated for two days, and the legal proceedings were halted.78

As this incident indicates, the unofficial peace movement represented since its genesis an enormous challenge to the East German regime, not least due to the SED's initial unbounded praise for the

Western peace movements.79 Interested in strengthening rather than weakening the "progressive" peace forces in the West in their campaign against the NATO decision, the East German government adopted a two- prong strategy for dealing with peace activists within its own borders.

On the one hand it sought to limit the domestic appeal of the Christian activists by tempering its praise of the West German peace movement and attempting to absorb and integrate as many young people as possible into its official movement. The Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) attempted to attract young people into the movement and to spread the message that peace must be armed by organizing rock concerts and mass demonstrations for peace.80 In a further attempt to limit support for the church groups, the government also added some of the unofficial peace movement's stated goals to its own agenda, e.g. the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Europe and renunciation of first-strike nuclear arms by NATO and the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, the government pursued a policy of harassing peace activists and isolating its more radical members. In addition to the Eppelmann incident, police frequently arrested and interrogated people bearing badges with the peace movement slogan "Schwerte zu Pflugscharen" and in March, 1982 the 39

state authorities banned the emblem.81 In the summer of 1982 the authorities adopted more stringent tactics when they began arresting and deporting peace activists82 and limiting contact between peace activists and the Western press by occasionally denying visas to Western

correspondents or requiring state-issued permits for interviews with church officials.83

At the end of 1983, after the Bonn government decided to go ahead with the NATO plans and all hope of influencing the decision was consequently removed, the policy of harassment took precedence over that of appeasement. A demonstration arranged in East Berlin by the

independent peace forces and the Greens was prohibited; thirty people were arrested and others placed under house-arrest.84 Protestors at silent or candlelit demonstrations were arraigned and in some instances received prison sentences of several years.85 Travel restrictions were also placed upon peace activists. A group of seventeen was refused a flight to and a number were arrested on the way to the airport, where they intended to protest.86 In September 1987, unofficial peace activists were permitted to demonstrate on the occasion of the Olaf-

Palme-Peace-March for an atomic-free Europe and to bear banners calling

for a reduction of atomic arms, the introduction of a civil as an alternative to military service, the eradication of enemy stereotypes and greater contact between East and West. It is widely assumed, however, that the imminent visit of Honecker to the Federal Republic was the reason for such tolerance on the part of the authorities.87

The 1983 Bonn decision to accept the deployment of Cruise and

Pershing II missiles in the Federal Republic and the harassment of peace 40 protestors by the East German government had serious repercussions for the fledgling peace movement in that country. From 1984 the number of protestors and the number of spontaneous peace initiatives and petitions drastically declined. Those who remained active addressed other problems in GDR society such as environmental hazards,80 the dissatisfaction of young people with the materialism of their parents' generation and, ever increasingly, the issue of civil rights.89 In short, the peace movement evolved into a civil rights campaign, which, unlike the East German government, welcomed not only Gorbachev's disarmament proposals but all aspects of Glasnost. This was demonstrated during Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to East Berlin in summer 1987. While Gorbachev's proposals for social and economic reform were being coldly received by the East German authorities, a Soviet diplomat in the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin accepted a letter from six members of the independent peace movement expressing support for Gorbachev's reforms and condemning the reluctance on the part of the East German government to do the same.90 As little as two years later, subsequent to Gorbachev's remarks during a visit to

East Berlin in October 1989 that East Germany was free to find its own way to Socialism, members of the peace movement in the GDR spearheaded the massive demonstrations that quickly toppled the government and helped destroy the Wall between East and West Germany. ENDNOTES

1. Cited by Paul Boyer, Bv the Bomb's Earlv Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985) 29.

2. Wilfried von Bredow, "The Peace Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany: Composition and Objectives," Armed Forces and Society 9.1 (1982): 35- 36

3. See documentation in Klaus Wagenbach, Winfried Stephan, and Michael Kruger, eds., Vaterland. Muttersprache. Deutsche Schriftsteller und ihr Staat von 1945 bis heute (West Berlin: Wagenbach, 1979) 103-04, 115-16, 122-23, 130- 31.

4. According to Christiane Rajewsky, six million people signed the "Volksbefragung zur Remilitarisierung." See her introductory essay to part II of Wider den Krieg: Grofie Pazifisten von Immanuel Kant bis Heinrich Boll, vol. 2, eds. Christiane Rajewsky and Dieter Riesenberger, 2 vols. (Munich: Beck Verlag, 1987) 419.

5. See Marc Cioc, Pax Atomica. The Nuclear Defense Debate in West Germany during the Adenauer Era (New York: Columbia UP, 1988) 20. Below I rely heavily on Cioc's account of popular opposition to nuclear weapons in West Germany in the late fifties. For a more detailed account than Cioc's of the nuclear policy decisions of the West German government and its Western allies see Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia, 1975).

6. Cioc, 21. See also below in this chapter.

7. Cioc, 28.

8. Cioc points out that the proposals were also opposed by military leaders such as Bogislav von Bonin, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of All-German Affairs. Cioc, 26.

9. Kelleher, 36. For more detailed discussion of this maneuver and its political consequences, see Hans Speier, German Rearmament and Atomic War (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1957) chapter 10.

10. Cioc, 38-39.

11. W.D. Graf, The German Left since 1945 (Cambridge, England: Oleander Press, 1976) 177-78.

12. Cioc, 44.

13. Cioc, 47. 42

14. Cioc, 44-45.

15. Graf, 178.

16. Raimund Kurscheid, Kampf dem Atomtod! Schriftsteller im Kampf gegen eine deutsche Atombewaffnung (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981) 4.

17. Cioc, 45.

18. Cioc, 46-49.

19. Cioc, 65.

20. Cioc points out that the movement was not fully endorsed by the Liberals who, as "parlementarians to the core," "savored election campaigns, not protest rallies; Bundestag debates, not extraparliamentary agitation." Cioc, 122-23.

21. Graf, 180.

22. I am referring here to Kurscheid. For examples of their literary work see Peter Brollik, and Hermann Wvindrich, eds., Phantasie eegen Atomkraft: "Kampf dem Atomtod" in den fiinfziger Jahren. Ein Lesebuch (Cologne: Prometh Verlag, 1981).

23. As evidence of this Graf cites that in March 1958, 83% of respondents to a representative poll, including a majority of CDU/CSU supporters, rejected the governments' armaments proposals. See Graf, 180.

24. Cioc, 127-29.

25. Graf, 182. Here Graf is citing the analysis by Hans-Karl Rupp in: Hans-Karl Rupp, Auflerparlamentarische Opposition in der Ara Adenauer. Per Kampf geeen Atombewaffnung in den fiinfziger Jahren (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1970).

26. Cioc, 140.

27. Cioc, 133. Cioc also points out that West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt used the Berlin ultimatum to his advantage too in local Berlin elecions of December 1958. Brandt, Cioc writes, "turned the ... elections ... into a virtual referendum against the Khrushchev ultimatum ... Adopting the chancellor's campaign style and message, he promised Berlin voters 'no experiments,' and highlighted the SPD's affinity to the West. Through Brandt's eloquence, the Berlin SPD received an absolute majority - its second-best election victory in postwar history." Cioc, 134.

28. Cioc, 141.

29. Cioc, 133. 43

30. Cioc, 135-38.

31. Jeffrey Boutwell, "Politics and the Peace Movement in West Germany," International Security 7.4 (1983): 75.

32. Graf, 182.

33. See Karl Werner Brand et al., Aufbruch in eine andere Gesellschaft. Neue soziale Bewepunpen in der Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1983) 215.

34. Kurscheid, 383.

35. Hiltrud Gnug, "Warnutopien in unserer Gegenwartsliteratur," Kiirbiskern 2 (1984): 152.

36. It would be interesting to document what fictional writers were writing about the consensus in defense matters at this time. Such an endeavor, however, is outwith the scope of the present study.

37. Joyce Marie Mushaben, "Cycles of Peace Protest in West Germany. Experiences from Three Decades," West European Politics 8.1 (1985): 31.

38. Derek W. Urwin, Western Europe since 1945. A Political History. 4th ed. (London and New York: Longmann, 1989) 295.

39. Jonathan Dean, Watershed in Europe. Dismatlinp the East-West Military Confrontation (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1987) 18.

40. Dean, 18-19.

41. See "Pazifismus '81: Selig sind die Friedfertigen," Spiegel 15 June 1981: 27-28.

42. Dean, 19.

43. See Felix Gilbert with Clay Large, The End of the European Era. 1890 to the Present. 4th ed.(New York, London: W.W. Norton and Co.: 1991) 496.

44. Brand et al., 215.

45. John Dornberg, "West Germany: A Pacifist Resurgence," Herald Tribune 23 June 1981.

46. Brand et al., 213-446.

47. Brand et al., 215.

48. See Gilbert and Large, 496-97.

49. Gilbert and Large, 498. 44

50. Urwin, 353.

51. See Josef Janning, "Die neue Friedensbewegung 1980-1986," Friedensbewegungen. Entwicklung und Folpen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Europa und den U.S.A. . eds. Josef Janning, Hans Josef Legrand and Helmut Zander (Cologne: Bibliothek Wissenschaft und Politik, 1987) 36.

52. Dean, 20.

53. Brand et al., 219-22.

54. The peace movement was initially silent about the institution of martial law in Poland. However, in the "Friedensmanifest '82," a statement drawn up at the end of 1981 by prominent people in the movement such as Albertz, Eppler, Gollwitzer, Horst Eberhard Richter and others as a guideline for peace activists, the authors expressed sympathy for events in Poland and expressed hope that the peace movement would help Poles attain freedom since they considered the freedom of a people to be a necessary prerequisite for its capacity for peace. In response, DKP activists demanded that Poland be left out of the discussion. See Karl-Heinz Janfien, "Ein klares Wort zu Polen," Die Zeit 2 Feb. 1982.

55. See statement by Carola Stern made at the "Offentliche Podiumsdiskussion Abend in der Akademie der Kunste" following the second Berlin peace meeting of European writers contained in the following protocol: Zweite Berliner Begegnung. Den Frieden erklaren. Protokolle des zweiten Berliner Schriftstellertreffens am 22.Z23. April 1983 (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1983) 193.

56. Gilbert and Large, 498.

57. Gilbert and Large, 513-14.

58. "Auf Gorbachev eingehen," 18 Mar. 1987.

59. James M. Markham, "Marchers stay nimble in shifting times," The Herald Tribune 21 Apr. 1987.

60. Martin Winter, "Auch die SPD-Spitze demonstrierte mit," Frankfurter Rundschau 15 June 1987.

61. Cited by Peter Henkel, "Zeugen einer groBen Umkehr," Frankfurter Rundschau 12 Sept. 1987.

62. See, for example, a front-page editorial in the Frankfurter Allpemeine Zeitung 21 April 1987.

63. See Charlotte Wiedemann, "Friedenskongrefl fehlt Orientierung," Die Tapeszeitung 30 Nov. 1987.

64. See Joseph Fitchett, "Europe sees Lesson in INF Diplomacy," The Herald Tribune 2 Feb. 1988. 45

65. See Gilbert and Large, 514-15.

66. Markman.

67. Peter Wensierski, "The New Politics of Detente starts at the Botton. The Unofficial Peace Movement in the GDR," GDR Culture and Society 4: Selected Papers from the Ninth New Hampshire Symposium on the German Democratic Republic. ed. Margy Gerber (Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1984) 80.

68. See Ronald D. Asmus, "Is there a Peace Movement in the GDR?" Orb is 27.2 (1983): 303-04.

69. See Asmus, 301-04. As Asmus points out, it is difficult to know the numbers involved in the movement due to the lack of official membership in a strict sense, but estimates range between 2000 and 5000, and the movement is believed to have been composed of pacifists, dissident Marxists, Christians and other opponenets of the regime. According to Peter Wensierski, "the participants are [were] predominately members of the intelligentsia and people engaged in social professions: but many young workers also take [took] part."

70. Suzanne Jordan, "Prom the other Shore: Movements for Nuclear Disarmament in Eastern Europe," Working Papers Magazine 2 (1983): 39.

71. Asmus, 304. He is citing an interview with Stefan Heym which appeared in 31 May 1982: 94-100.

72. The Bausoldat was required to complete two months of military training. After that time, however, he was not required to carry weapons but to perform nonmilitary duties such as building bridges and working on construction sites in uniform. See Suzanne Jordan, 39.

73. Asmus, 312.

74. Wensierski, 20.

7 5 . Asmus, 335.

76. Joyce Marie Mushaben, "Swords to Plowshares: the Church, the State and the East German Peace Movement," Studies in Comparative Communism 17.2 (1984): 129-30.

77. For the wording of the petition, see "Was fiihrt zum Frieden?," Frankfurter Rundschau 2 Feb. 1982. For a report on the event, see "Ost- Berliner Pfarrer Eppelmann war vorubergehend festgenommen," Tagesspieeel 2 Feb. 1982.

78. Wensierski, 85.

79. See "Propaganda-Kampagne der DDR-Zeitungen fur die 'Friedensbewegung' in Westeuropa," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitune 11 July 1981. 46

80. In October 1983, Udo Lindenberg's desire to play in the GDR, expressed earlier by him in the hit-song "Sonderzug nach ," was granted when he was invited to perform in a festival entitled "Fur den Frieden der Welt" at the East Berlin Palast der Republik. This happening was interpreted in West and East alike as an attempt to lure young East Germans away from church circles. See Marlies Menge, "Das ist schon verdammt souveran: Ob Nachgeben oder nur ein geschickter Schachzug - die Bevolkerung ist begeistert," Die Zeit 21 Oct. 1983.

81. Asmus, 316.

82. Thirteen of fourteen members of the Friedensgemeinschaft were arrested in January and February of 1983 for trying to hold a minute's silence for peace on the preceding Christmas Eve at the Jena market place and they were forced to leave for the West. See "Mitglied der Friedensgemeinschaft Jena ausgebtirgert und gewaltsam abgeschoben," Frankfurter Allpemeine 7.eitung 9 June 1983.

83. Asmus, 317.

84. Karl-Heinz Baum, "DDR stoppt Friedensaktion," Frankfurter Rundschau 5 Nov. 1983.

85. Helmut Zander, "Die Folgen des Nachrustungsbeschlusses det Bundesrepublik Deutschland fur die Friedensarbeit der evangelischen Kirche in der DDR," in Janning et al, 238.

86. "DDR-Friedensgruppen behindert," Frankfurter Allgemeine zeitung 4 Apr. 1987.

87. "Inoffizielle Kundgebung in Ostberlin," Neue Zuricher 7.e-i tune 8 Sept. 1987.

88. Many of those involved in the peace movement also participated in church-sponsered ecological campaigns due to the logical connection between the two: both threaten our future. See Wensierski, 89.

89. See Zander, 237, and Wensierski, 88-91. For essay on youth counterculture in the GDR see Joyce Marie Mushaben, "Anti-Politics and Successor Generations: The Role of Youth in the West and East German Peace Movements," Journal of Political and Military Sociology 12 (Spring, 1984): 171-90.

90. "Gebremster Beifall fur Gorbatschows Reform," Der Spiegel 1 June 1987: 111-2. CHAPTER II

ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISM OF WRITERS IN THE EIGHTIES

With the revival in the early eighties of the West German peace movement and the explosion of official and unofficial peace activities in the GDR as a response to NATO's double-track resolution of 1979, a great many West and East German writers sought to promote peace and disarmament in a variety of ways: via the written word or through direct political action, both alone and in conjunction with others.

As in the fifties, renowned authors used their celebrity to draw attention to protestors' grievances and goals. They composed letters, signed and issued petitions and gave speeches and readings at protest rallies and demonstrations. In addition, they participated with rock stars and other artists in peace concerts and acts of civil disobedience. The eighties also witnessed an unprecedented flood of literature - ranging from prose to drama, from poetry to essays and journalistic treatises - warning of the danger of war and seeking to promote peace. As Irmgard Eisner Hunt stated in the introduction to her ambitious study of war and peace in German literature from the Baroque period to 1984:

Kaum ein deutscher Schriftsteller, der heute nicht zum Frieden oder zur Friedensbewegung Stellung nimmt, sich also politisch engagiert und aktiviert, oder zumindest sein politisches BewuJltsein definiert. Das geht so weit, dafl DDR

47 48

Schriftstellerin Christa Wolf 1983 die Literatur neu definiert: Literatur mufi heute Friedensforschung sein.1

Later in this chapter, I will outline in greater detail the political engagement of writers in the peace movements in West and East

Germany. I will address fiction in the subsequent chapters of literary analysis. Before turning to either of these aspects, however, I would like to focus on the cooperative effort of members of the West German writers' union (Der Verband deutscher Schriftsteller, or VS) and members of the East German writers union (Der Schriftstellerverband der DDR) to voice their concern about the threat of nuclear war, to lend publicity to peace movement disarmament goals and to provide a symbolic gesture of openness by issuing a joint petition and by coming together on several occasions throughout the decade to discuss peace. Given the fact that writers from the two German states had not met officially and in public since the early fifties, such cooperation was at once a result of and testimony to the threat of possible nuclear annihilation perceived by writers and individuals in both German states subsequent to the Nato double-track decision. Furthermore, the talks themselves provided a public forum for the enunciation of the demands of the West and East

German peace protestors and discussion of writers' views on the reasons for the nuclear threat and of the possible role of writers and literature in the peace movements.

Werden Deutsche auf Deutsche schieBen? Die Antwort: Wenn sie nicht miteinander sprechen, werden sie aufeinander schieflen. [Bertolt Brecht, 1951]2 49

At the start of the eighties, this statement was taken to heart by writers in East and West Germany alike. The prospect of the deployment of additional nuclear warheads on German soil, coupled with callous remarks by members of the Reagan administration about the possibility of limited nuclear war in Europe, brought not only a large number of

Germans out onto the streets in opposition to NATO nuclear policy, but also effected the first meeting between the heads of the East and West

German writers' unions in over thirty years.

In February, 1981, Bernt Engelmann, the chairperson of the West

German writers' union, approached Hermann Kant, the president of the

East German writers' organization, about meeting to discuss a common concern: that no further wars begin on German soil.3 Kant, who was conducting readings in Munich, agreed and the two men met in the small

Bavarian town of Braustiibl von Aying, halfway between Munich and

Engelmann's home in Upper . The fruit of their discussions was the "Appell der Schriftsteller Europas," drawn up and written by Kant and Engelmann but issued on August 20 of the same year on the private initiative of Engelmann.4 When first presented to the public, the appeal bore the signatures of 150 prominent writers representing various nationalities and diverse political beliefs and literary genres. As

Engelmann pointed out, the appeal was signed by doctrinaire Communists as well as conservatives in the West, party-liners and dissidents in the

German Democratic Republic as well as writers of both "highly esteemed and trivial literature" in both blocs.5 As the text of the appeal makes clear, such widely diverse and influential personalities were able to reach a consensus on the need to end the arms race and begin disarmament 50 negotiations. To this end, they appealed to the European public to join peace activists in the effort to prevent Europe from becoming the battlefield of a future and final war, and they hoped their own unity would serve as an example for this, because, the appeal concluded:

"Nichts ist so wichtig wie die Erhaltung des Friedens."6

The petition soon met with resonance: within two months, the petition already bore 2500 signatures, including those of the chairman of the SPD, Willy Brandt and fifty-two SPD delegates to the Bundestag.

The latter, as one of them explained in a letter to Engelmann, felt encouraged in their struggle against the NATO decision by the alliance of such a wide variety of writers on the question of peace and disarmament. The SPD delegates felt strengthened in their struggle through the hope that the solidarity expressed by Gunter Grass and Golo

Mann, Stefan Heym and Hermann Kant, and Walter Kempowski,

Heinz Piontek and Gunter Wallraff, Sarah Kirsch and Johannes Mario

Simmel could perhaps be replicated in the "official" political arena.7

By June 1982, the appeal had become an international initiative and bore the signatures of around 4000 writers from European countries (with the exception of Albania and Czechoslovakia), as well as Japan, the United

States, Canada and the Third World.8 But despite this resonance,

Engelmann had a hard time making the appeal known to the German public at large. Left-wing and liberal publications published it, or at least mentioned it. However, the conservative media, reluctant to lend the peace movement positive publicity, passed over the event in silence.9

One month later, the VS delegates' conference in Hannover, which was dominated by the peace discussion, received similar treatment from 51 the media. Representatives from several European writers' unions attended the meeting to declare their solidarity with the "Appell der

Schriftsteller Europas", including, for the first time since the division of Germany, the two highest literary officials of East Germany,

Hermann Kant and First Secretary Gerhard Henniger. Engelmann opened the proceedings with a speech denouncing the government's decision to accept

NATO nuclear modernization and criticizing opponents of the peace movement for calling peace activists "overly emotional" and "anti-

American".10 The conference also featured a public debate between West and East European writers under the motto "Hochste Zeit fur

Friedenshetze! ," which like the writers' appeal once again revealed a broad spectrum of European writers united against the proposed missile deployment.11

The joint peace efforts between writers in East and West Germany, however, received the media attention they were seeking as little as one month later. At the beginning of October 1981, the East German poet

Stephan Hermlin extended a private invitation to the first signatories of the writers' appeal to a peace conference to be held at the Akademie der Wissenschaften in East Berlin in the middle of November.12 The motivation for the conference, as Hermlin stated in his invitation, was similar to that of Engelmann when he had approached Kant some months earlier: a desire that intellectuals talk about the concern for peace they shared with their countrymen. As Hermlin put it:

Die Verfinsterung der militarischen und politischen Situation drangt mich, Ihnen die Frage vorzulegen, ob nicht Schriftsteller, Wissenschaftler, Friedensforscher miteinander iiber das reden sollten, was alien - und keinesfalls nur Intellektuellen - Sorge bereitet. Ich glaube 52

nicht, dafl wir dieses Miteinanderreden den Politikern iiberlassen sollten oder daB auf ihre Bereitschaft gewartet werden sollte.13

This unusual invitation, which constituted no less than a proposal for

the first significant public debate between East and West German writers

since 1952, when the "KongreB fur kulturelle Freiheit” held in East

Berlin ended in mutual recrimination,14 met with mistrust, skepticism

and astonishment in the Western media, especially after Hermlin gave

assurance that Western journalists accredited in the GDR could report

freely on the conference proceedings.15 As a notable exception, the

literary critic of the liberal weekly Die Zeit. Fritz J. Raddatz, praised Hermlin for his civil courage in having extended a private

invitation to a public event.16 His counterpart at the conservative

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, however, denounced

Hermlin for helping to conceal an East German government attempt to

restore its reputation with intellectuals it had formerly disregarded

and abused, but now wished to employ for its anti-nuclear crusade.17

Reich-Ranicki's colleague at the FAZ. Claus Genrich, was equally

skeptical. He denounced the meeting as a forum offered by the East

German government, one week prior to Brezhnev's visit to Bonn, for writers to criticize NATO nuclear policy and in so doing distance the

Federal Republic and other European states from NATO and the United

States.18

As Reich-Ranicki pointed out, however, not only journalists were skeptical. Some of the left-wing writers Hermlin approached turned down the invitation, considering the GDR an inappropriate site for such a 53 meeting. The proposed dates of the conference also caused some uneasiness: November 17 to 19 corresponded with the fifth anniversary of

Wolf Biermann's expatriation, an event that had altered the GDR literary landscape considerably. Hermlin, eager for the conference to take place, worked nonetheless to remove this as well as other concerns: the conference was postponed till mid-December.19 Fears by writers that they were being misused for propaganda purposes in the East, or that they would be regarded as "bloBe Garnitur zur Verschonung der seit dem

Biermann-Protest ziemlich ramponierten DDR-Kulturlandschaft" were allegedly dismissed in conversations during the Frankfurt Bookfair in

October 1981.20 In an interview with "Deutschlandfunk", Hermlin sought to dispel rumors that the invitation had not been extended to GDR emigres by stating that he had invited well-known writers from Eastern and Western Europe, including emigres such as Jurek Becker and Thomas

Brasch.21 In the end, most writers went along with his idea, feeling, like Engelmann, that the meeting offered the opportunity "... einmal ohne Reserven miteinander zu sprechen, Denkspiele zu machen und Utopien zu diskutieren.1,22

From December 13 to 14, 1981, in the wake of the Honecker-Schmidt summit and the imposition of martial law in Poland, over 100 writers, artists and scholars from the GDR, FRG, the Soviet Union, Austria,

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, , Denmark and Great Britain met in the Hotel Stadt Berlin in East Berlin for a meeting entitled "Die

Berliner Begegnung zur Friedensforderung."23 Despite the fact that the majority present were writers, the discussion did not focus on the role 54 of literature in promoting peace, but rather on political viewpoints and strategic proposals.

By and large, participants cooperated with Hermlin's call in his opening speech for "offene Aussprache" to enable the establishment of mutual understanding and trust(8) and the result was a heated debate that did not turn, as some critics had predicted, on criticism of NATO policy alone. Rather, the two-day discussion was dominated by a recurring argument over which of the two superpowers posed the greater threat for world peace. The argument was ignited by the East German nuclear physicist, Klaus Fuchs, who attempted to place sole responsibility with the United States (10-17), an argument fueled by the comments of East German and Soviet representatives such as writers Erik

Neutsch (49), Helmut Baierl (83), Heiner Muller (107) and Helmut

Sakowski (113-4); they characterized the United States as initiator of the arms race from which it alone stood to profit as a capitalist state.

They refused, to the annoyance of most participants, to accept the argument of joint responsibility or to drop the subject altogether, as requested in particular by the West Germans Gunter Grass (48, 59) and

Peter Schneider (74, 141).

While the "wer bedroht wen?" discussion, as GDR film-maker Konrad

Wolf labelled it (56), dominated the talks, it was not the only point of contention. Interjections seeking to widen the discussion made further divisions apparent: between young and old; male and female; the aims of the peace movements in the West versus the official peace policy of the

GDR. Perhaps most significant were the differences among East German 55 writers with regard to the defense policy of the GDR and the unofficial peace movement in that country.

Writers such as Hermann Kant, Erik Neutsch and Stefan Heym, who had gathered firsthand experience of World War II at the front, may have been at loggerheads on the question of responsibility for the arms race, but there was one issue on which they all agreed: they were now experiencing a state of peace that had, at all costs, to be preserved.

This consensus was not shared, however, by some of the younger writers present. The East German Thomas Brasch, for instance, held that the

"peace" the older generation cherished constituted a "state of paralysis", which hampered productivity and creativity. What is more, lack of war in Europe, he contended, was upheld only at the price of war elsewhere (74-7). (159) and Peter Hartling (92) also described peace as something unknown to the younger generation because it was "wrapped up in weapons" (Braun) and "preserved by threats"

(Hartling). The generation gap, furthermore, was replicated outside the conference hall when East German writers in their twenties chided

Stephan Hermlin for not inviting them. They disregarded the meeting with the following remark:

Das war ein Tisch voller alter Opas. Wo waren die jungen Leute, haben die keine Meinung? Warum hat Hermlin uns nicht eingeladen? Wir konnen diese Sprache nicht mehr horen, die ihr spricht.2i|

As the near lack of response to a further contribution made clear, however, it was not only young voices that were underrepresented at the meeting: women also were few and far between. As one observer noted: 56

Die Manner saflen beim Ostberliner Friedensgesprach so gut wie unter sich zu Tisch - eine weitgehend jugendlose und frauenlose Runde.25

It was not surprising therefore that Christa Wolf's assertion that the problem of war was one brought about by men (116) provoked almost no reaction; in support of her remark, the Austrian nuclear physicist,

Engelbert Broda, commented briefly that in his many years of studying the arms race and atomic war he had never come across a female producer of nuclear weapons (161-2).

The breadth of interests of peace activists in Western Europe versus the narrow focus of the peace efforts of the East German government manifested itself in the contrast between the proposals proferred by West and East German writers. While East German party- liners such as Kant, Neutsch, Baierl and Sakowski endeavored to restrict the discussions to the deployment of Pershing II and Cruise missiles, suggestions by West Germans addressed the broad range of goals pursued by peace activists in the West: Bernt Engelmann pleaded for the removal of all offensive weapons (30); Grass pointed to war on the ecological system as a problem stemming from the same root as that of nuclear weapons, namely, our enslavement to a false idea of progress (44). He also drew attention to Third World starvation as a consequence of the arms race (44-6); Carl Amery, sharing Grass's concern for the war being launched against the environment, spoke out against all use of nuclear energy, including so-called "peaceful" employment in nuclear reactors and called for a nuclear-free zone from Poland to Portugal (53); Peter

Schneider proposed that each side disarm unilaterally (74); and Heinar 57

Kippardt suggested that Germans seek greater influence within their respective alliances, or renounce them altogether (69-71).

The participants, most of whom had experienced the Second World

War, could agree, like Schmidt and Honecker shortly before them, that no war should ever again be initiated from German soil, but the idea of an atomic-free-zone in Central Europe, a unilateral reduction of weapons by both sides, as well as an elimination of the bloc system did not appeal to the dogmatic Communists among them. Favoring the status quo and believing that peace had to be armed, the latter rejected such proposals as unrealistic and dangerous. These allegations, however, were contested by East as well as West German participants. Stefan Hermlin abandoned the party-line early in the meeting. Citing Lenin's call for unilateral disarmament as the only way for disarmament to be achieved, he opposed the idea that peace had to be armed. He claimed instead, citing a maxim previously heard in the GDR only among the youth in Protestant church circles, that the seed for peace in the nuclear age lay in the maxim

"Frieden schaffen ohne Waffen"(37-39).

The peace work of young Christians in East Germany was addressed more directly in further contributions by both West and East Germans. In one of the opening speeches, the West German science journalist Robert

Jungk pleaded for Communist countries to permit spontaneous, grass-roots demonstrations (22); Gunter Grass lent his support by adding that this constituted a necessary prerequisite for the success of the European peace movements (46). A little later, GDR emigre Jurek Becker warned that it would be dangerous to believe that the East did not need spontaneous peace movements (55). Toward the end of the meeting, he protested the oppression of young peace activists in the GDR (155-6).

Criticism from East German writers came from the ranks of both dissident and officially sanctioned authors. Most outspoken was the dissident Rolf

Schneider, who suggested that the GDR catch up on peace initiatives; he reiterated criticisms voiced by independent peace activists: he challenged the idea that peace must be armed, criticized the presence of war toys in kindergarten, military instruction in schools and the lack of an alternative to military service. He also derided civil defense exercises that teach that "duck and cover" would offer adequate protection during an atomic attack (107-9). Another dissident, Stefan

Heym, also overtly challenged official policy by pointing out that the

Soviet SS 20s were just as dangerous as the Western missiles (66). He suggested that the conference participants demonstrate together with

Erich Honecker at the to promote the removal of all nuclear weaponry from German soil (142). Finally, the quick brushing aside of this motion called forth more fundamental criticism from Volker

Braun. Characterizing the grassroots peace movement as a Communist impulse, Braun inquired if this was why grassroots protest was not permitted by the GDR authorities (159-61). By contrast, the criticism voiced by Gunter de Bruyn and Franz Fiihmann was much more tactful. De

Bruyn pointed out that the East German government's contradictory policy of welcoming the development of a grassroots peace movement in the West while countering independent peace forces at home who sought to emulate and join forces with their Western counterparts lacked credibility and, ultimately, would reduce support for the GDR government. He suggested instead that it would be a show of strength for the government to 59 support rather than to condemn such activities (80-82). Fuhmann for his part characterized the independent peace movements as humane, suggesting they were phenomena from which both German states could learn (102).

None of the controversies outlined above featured in the East

German media's coverage of the event. The official party newspaper,

Neues Deutschland, and the cultural forum, Sonntag. focused instead on the basic consensus voiced at the beginning and end of the meeting, that the arms race should end and disarmament begin, as well as on criticism of U.S. foreign policy.26 even went so far as to congratulate an East German participant on having supplied the answer to the overarching debate as to which of the superpowers posed the greater threat: the U.S., of course.27

Coverage by the Western media was equally one-sided. While Neues

Deutschland evoked a false picture of harmony, right-wing publications in the West focused almost exclusively on the notes of discord.28 Two

FAZ critics did admit that the meeting was worthwhile: simply because it had initiated a dialogue between East and West German writers.29 But the

Berliner Begegnung had achieved more than this, as was pointed out by the liberal press: the participants had not only spoken to each other but had aired their differences openly and in so doing gained a greater understanding of each other, and that in the GDR to boot.30 In short, the event had conformed to the expectations Hermlin expressed in his opening speech:

Das Ziel dieser Begegnung, liegt (...) in ihr selbst, in ihrem Stattfinden, in der Herstellung von Vertrauen, das zu weiteren Begegnungen fiihren sollte. Manchen mag das zu wenig 60

sein. Ich glaube, fur einen Anfang sollte es geniigen; denn der Anfang ist schwer genug (8).

The success of the meeting, as the following statement attests, was already clear to Hermlin at the close of the meeting:

Ich habe mir, wenn ich das ganz personlich sagen soil, einen Traum erftillt, der mich in den letzten Monaten beschaftigt hat und aus dem ich eigentlich auch nicht aufwachen mochte. Das heifit, ich mochte, dafl das weitergeht, was wir angefangen haben (172).

That discussion was to continue was clear already at the beginning of the meeting. Bernt Engelmann had invited his colleagues to meet again in a Western European city destroyed by air-raids in World War II (29).

Indeed the Berliner Begegnung would be followed by a series of such peace talks, none of which, however, made serious advances upon the first. But two of them did have significant spin-offs. During the second meeting in the Hague in May 1982, the willingness of some VS members to compromise on the issue of human rights in the Eastern bloc for the sake of continued dialogue with East German party liners offended GDR emigres who were looking for a home in the VS while in Western exile. It also angered some other members who viewed the union not only as a protector of their financial interests but as a moral institution. Turmoil subsequently wracked the union and continued for the remainder of the decade. At the end of the fourth conference, which took place in West

Berlin in April 1983, one of the organizers, Gunter Grass, declared that they had reached an impasse in their discussions and urged that they move their protest from the conference hall to one of the proposed missile bases. 61

The venue of the second conference, which took place from May 24-

26 1982, was originally intended to be Rotterdamm. The Hague was chosen over Rotterdamm for practical as well as symbolic reasons. As Engelmann pointed out in his introduction to published extracts from the protocol of the meeting, the discussion took place in the Kurhaus in "S-

Gravenhage-Schevingen," where representatives of twenty-six nations had gathered in 1899 for the first international peace and disarmament conference and had resolved that there should be an international ban on

"Geschosse und Sprengkorper aus Luftballons oder auf andere, ahnliche neue Arten zu schleudern" .31 The fact that the ban was ignored constituted the reason why sixty writers from fifteen European countries, one third of them German, now assembled to discuss the threat of nuclear war and to outline what they could do to help avert it.

While the Berliner Begegnung had been significant as a first tentative step to reduce mistrust on both sides, the "Haager Treffen" was a second step in that direction and the expectations of those involved, in particular its organizers, West German and Dutch writers, were naturally greater. For one thing, discussions were to be more concrete and more broadly based, with regard to both geography and content, as underscored by the choice of a non-German setting as well as the meeting's four-point agenda:

I. Zwischen Emotion und Rationalitat - Schriftsteller und ihre Stellung zu Krieg und Frieden;

II. Wie ansteckend ist Hollanditis? Realitatsferne Utopie oder reale Moglichkeit: Ein angriffswaffenfreies Europa als Modell fur die Welt?;

III. Europa riistet zur Katastrophe: Wettriisten, okologischer Zusammenbruch, Zuspitzung des Nord-Sud-Konflikts, 62

Souveranitatsverlust, wachsende Abhangigkeit, drohender atomarer Untergang;

IV. Was ist die Alternative? Wie schafft man Vertrauen im Ost-West-Konflikt? Was konnen Schriftsteller dazu tun? (66)

As this list of discussion topics indicates, the "Haager Treffen" constituted an attempt not only to establish trust between those present, but to look for solutions and to help the peace movement by

articulating and publicizing its views. But perhaps the most significant

difference between the "Berliner Begegnung" and the "Haager Treffen" in

the eyes of its organizers was the intent to increase pressure on the

European governments to reduce atomic weapons by producing and publishing a written resolution.

That the participants did reach a consensus after two days of

often heated debate was the factor that most distinguished it from the

"Berliner Begegnung" in the eyes of the participants as well as their

critics.32 And rightly so, for in major points remarkable progress had been made since the first meeting. Participants agreed unanimously to propose a freeze on all weapons, in particular nuclear ones, as well as

dissolution of the bloc system. They pledged their support for all political solutions aimed in this direction. In addition, they vowed to

support all disarmament attempts, whether or not they enjoyed government

support, and to help combat persecution of peace activists, including verbal abuse. Finally, they pledged to oppose all misuse of language

that aimed at covering up or glorifying militaristic intentions.

Conference participants also supported concrete suggestions by Peter

Hartling and Ingeborg Drewitz providing for the establishment of an 63 international peace library for children aged ten to fourteen and for promotion of an international peace project that would elicit and bring together depictions of war and peace by female authors throughout the world. The results of the latter, it was hoped, would be published internationally by UNESCO (135-6).

In short, the writers appeared to have reached a consensus involving criticism of the policies and verbal strategies of governments, the military and the media and on the role of the writer as a guardian of language, peace and human rights. But viewed against the backdrop of the meeting itself, the resolution contained at least one empty promise. While the resolution asserted that all conference participants were willing to support all those persecuted for peace activities, East German party-liners had during the course of the meeting refused to support proposals for practical steps in this direction that involved criticism of the Eastern bloc. Gunter Grass's proposal that those present establish a bureau that would guarantee legal protection to those persecuted in East Germany on account of their affiliation with the inofficial peace movement there (116) and who, in

Stefan Heym's opinion, had been encouraged to come out into the open by the support they received from himself and others at the Berliner

Begegnung (88), was rejected outright by Hermann Kant (117-8) who, like

Stephan Hermlin (89-90) and Benito Wogatzki (109-10) before him, argued that an inofficial peace movement did not exist because it was not necessary in a country that in and of itself constituted one large peace movement. East bloc party-liners also opposed Grass's proposal that the assembly intervene not only, as had already been agreed, on behalf of 64

four recently interned Turkish writers who had belonged to the Turkish

peace council, but on behalf of writers interned in Poland (127). These

issues were hotly debated for some time and threatened to split the

meeting. Finally, however, supporters of Grass's motions agreed to

comply with Ingeborg Drewitz's suggestion that they abandon discussion

of the independent peace forces in the GDR (118) and to honor Bernt

Engelmann's request that they ignore the question of human rights in

Turkey, Poland or anywhere else and unite in opposition to the threat of

nuclear war that could potentially remove all human life and hence all

rights. They did so, however, only after they received reassurances that

the PEN Center and the VS would appeal for the release of the Turkish

and Polish writers (131). Ironically, then, the Hague resolution that

contained the stipulation that its signatories would help combat persecution required a temporary compromise by some of the signatories

on the issue of human rights abuses in order that it could come about at

all. The manner, however, in which the VS later conducted its protest

finally exhausted the patience of Grass and others.

Long before the controversy surrounding the Polish appeal flared up, however, the patience of other members of the West German writer's union had worn out. As early as one month after the "Haager Treffen", on

the eve of a VS-sponsored international writers' peace conference held

in Cologne, West Germany, in June of 1982 ("Interlit '82),33 Engelmann

and other leading figures within the VS received strong criticism from

East German emigres who felt that the union was making undue concessions

to GDR functionaries such as Kant and Hermlin. Kant, after all, had

offered to serve as head of the East German writers' organization at a 65 time when many of them and hundreds of other writers were signing petitions protesting the expatriation of Wolf Biermann, and Hermlin had recently offended GDR emigres in West Germany by turning down an invitation to attend a meeting in Marburg on the grounds that he did not consort with criminals.3'1 The emigres' criticism, however, did not result from a feeling of personal betrayal alone. In addition to protesting the style and tone of the peace conferences conducted in East

Berlin, The Hague and Cologne, the emigres also took issue with the failure of the VS to address human rights abuses within East German and with the one-sided reporting in favor of East bloc representatives that was taking place in the VS journal hi e Feder. The latter, they claimed, infringed upon the right to free speech within the union itself.

Quite rapidly, the protest of this group assumed more than verbal form. In August 1982, emigre poet left the VS. A few days later, emigre novelist Gerhard Zwerenz followed his example with a declaration that summed up his own feelings and those of other emigres:

Kompromisse mit Diktaturen, mit ihren Freunden in Ost und West und der von ihnen verordneten Skiavensprache lehne ich a b . Die Aufierungsfreiheit bedarf der Verteidigung gegen jeden, die sie einzuschranken sucht.35

At this point, the list of members who withdrew their membership might have ended with Zwerenz, had the manner in which the VS board of directors responded to these losses not angered other union members. At a press conference summoned by the board at its headquarters in

Stuttgart to deny publicly press allegations that the VS was in a state of crisis, Engelmann declared that the alleged crisis had been produced by the journalists themselves and accused Kunze and Zwerenz of acting in an uncollegial manner in filing their complaints with the press and not the board itself. This allegation along with the failure of the board to respond publicly to Hermlin's defamation of GDR emigres36 and its refusal to convene a special congress to discuss the emigres' problems as proposed by Grass and others who were sympathetic to the peculiar situation of the emigres37 brought about not only the resignation of other GDR emigres such as Gerald Zschorsch and Horst Bienek, but that of left- and right-wing West German writers, including Herbert Achternbusch and Franz Xaver Kroetz. The latter claimed they were offended by the arrogance of the "functionaries" who controlled the union.38 Over and above these withdrawals, the "Bundesvorstand" also came under fire from members of its Berlin branch. Owing to its geographical situation, this branch had a large number of emigres among its members and was sympathetic to their situation. Werner Stierl, for instance, resigned as chairman of the branch because he did not want to sign a solidarity address for Engelmann out of consideration for his East German friends.

But many of the writers in the Berlin branch not only sympathized with the feelings of the emigres, they shared them too. The Berliners Gunter

Grass, Yaak Karsunke, Jurgen Fuchs, , Hans Christoph Buch and Hannes Schwenger were equally concerned about the compromises being made in peace talks with the East Germans, particularly with regard to civil rights abuses, and they too were worried that the right to free speech within the VS was being violated by the reporting of Die Feder.39

In addition, as became clear at the VS delegates' conference in late

March 1983 in Mainz and in the so-called "VS-Streit" that took place in 67 the national newspapers before and after that meeting, the expectations many of the emigres and their sympathizers in and beyond Berlin placed in the VS far exceeded those of most union members. The majority of VS members, consisting of "Sachbuchautoren", authors for radio and television and translators (in need of union benefits and protection), looked to the union to represent and protect their social, legal and economic interests and were prepared to this end to function like members of any other union by accepting the majority vote and compromising if need be on political issues that they held to be of secondary importance to them as union members. A minority, however, composed principally of well-known poets and belletristic authors, placed moral concerns over economic considerations and were not able to reconcile the need to compromise with their understanding of their role as writers. Conceiving of their function as moral authority, conscience of the nation, social critic and defender of humanism, human rights and the freedom of speech, they were unable to compromise on political issues, for compromise often involved surrendering a major part of their strength and identities as writers. As Berlin author Yaak Karsunke put it:

"Politisch" kann sich jeder Schriftsteller selber artikulieren, wobei sein beruflicher Ehrgeiz darin bestehen sollte, Dinge beim Namen zu nennen und nicht mit Politikern in nichtssagenden KompromiBformeln zu wetteifern. Anders als Funktionare in Partei- und Gewerkschafts-Apparaten besitzt der Schriftsteller keine Macht; sein Kapital auf dem Feld der Politik kann nur aus unbestechlicher Genauigkeit und personlicher Integritat bestehen. Kein Verband und keine Gewerkschaft besitzt das Recht, dieses unser Kapital leichtfertig zu verspielen.40 68

This schism, which had existed within the union at its founding in

1969, became increasingly apparent following the merger of the VS in

1973 with the larger union of printers and paper-workers, the IG Druck

und Papier, in an attempt to give the VS more political clout through

alliance with a work force that could strike. Consistently reproached

and overridden by the majority of VS members, who put their own economic

interest before all other union business, --as was demonstrated at

Mainz in 1983 with the reelection of Bernt Engelmann because of the

economic benefits he had secured for union members since he first took

office in 1977 -- the moralists' only recourse was to turn their backs

on the union. This accounted for the lack of attendance of prominent

literary talents at most meetings, including the 1983 delegates'

conference, and for the failure of these figures to become involved in

union work.41 This was also the reason for the exodus of GDR emigres and

others from the union in 1982.

In the early eighties, press speculations of a VS crisis could

still be and were denied by the VS Vorstand.42 However, from late 1983

onwards, the unwillingness of the moral minority to compromise within

the union, particularly on the question of civil rights abuses and the

right to free speech, called forth a series of resignations and

reelections that rendered undeniable a crisis from which the union at

the end of the decade, on the eve of its planned entry into the even

larger union of media workers, the IG Medien, had still not recovered.

In late November 1983, Bernt Engelmann and the VS-Bundesvorstand

stepped down after fifty VS members called for Engelmann's resignation.

The signatories of the declaration, poets and authors of fiction for the 69 most part, (including Gunter Grass, Ulla Hahn, Sarah Kirsch, Siegfried

Lenz, Karin Reschke, Peter Schneider, Karin Struck, Jurgen Fuchs, Edgar

Hilsenrath, Klaus Stiller and Guntram Vesper), accused Engelmann in broad terms of having subordinated the intererst of union members to a

"false diplomacy" and reproached him specifically on three counts: (1)

For having refused solidarity to GDR emigres and driving them from the union (2) For leaving members of the Polish writers' union in the lurch by sending a telegram to General Jaruzelski requesting the establishment

of "a" Polish writers' union rather than insisting upon the

reinstatement of "the" former union (3) For requesting, in the name of

the German writers he represented, that the 1983 recipient of the

"Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels," Manes Sperber, return the prize on the grounds that he had decried the activities of peace activists as chimeras in an acceptance speech promoting the idea of

Europe as a third nuclear power independent of the U.S. and the Soviet

U nion/3 In the eyes of Engelmann's critics, this demand constituted an unauthorized and impermissible attempt on Engelmann's part to censor a man who did not share his own views. The statement concluded:

Bernt Engelmann hat von uns kein Mandat, als Vorsitzender des VS Kollegen Zensuren zu erteilen und Denkverbote auszusprechen. Der VS ist keine Gesinnungsgemeinschaft, sondern eine gewerkschaftliche Interessenvertretung. Es verstoiit gegen die elementaren Interessen der Schriftsteller, wenn unabdingbare Voraussetzungen ihrer Arbeit wie das Recht auf freie Meinungsaufierung, unzensierte Publikation und Selbstorganisation einer dubiosen Realpolitik geopfert werden.44

Not surprisingly, after the election of Hans Peter Bleuel, an Engelmann supporter, in the wake of a mud-slinging delegates' conference in 70

Saarbrucken in the spring of 1984, the union remained divided.

Immediately after the election, the heads of the Berlin branch denounced

Bleuel's victory over Ingeborg Drewitz from Berlin as the "Racheakt einer Riege von Kanalarbeitern. "45 Moreover, speaking in an interview on behalf of the Berlin group and many other critics of the VS, including

Heinrich Boll, Grass explained that the only reason he had agreed to remain in the union was to support Erich Loest, a GDR emigre who had been elected as assistent director to Bleuel. Loest was entrusted with the task of respresenting the interests of former GDR writers.46 Two years later in 1986, the re-election of Bleuel following a monetary scandal47 led to the withdrawal of Hans Christoph Buch.48 More recently,

Gunter Grass and the poet Anna Jonas from Berlin, both of whom assumed major positions in the Bundesvorstand following Bleuel's resignation in

July of 1987,49 declared their resignations after their demand for the guarantee of autonomy for the VS within the IG Medien was overridden by the majority of VS members. For the "Literati", further compromise with an even larger union was out of the question. As Gunter Grass put it:

"Die Tradition der deutschen Literatur sollte nicht zerredet werden."

After the withdrawals of Jonas, Grass and others in their wake, VS business was attended to provisionally by delegates from the

"Landesverbanden" until elections could be held in summer 1990.50

In addition to explaining the schism within the VS, the moral rigor and sense of social responsibility that characterized the emigres and the group around Grass also explain why the latter continued to participate in peace talks with the East German writers' organization while they criticized Engelmann. As Boll pointed out at the 1984 meeting 71 of VS delegates in Saarbrucken, they were not opposed to negotiations with their Eastern counterparts on such an urgent socio-political issue as disarmament. They just wanted the true nature of the results of such negotiations to be quite clear.51 indeed, in April 1983, in the wake of the mud-slinging and disappointment of the Saarbrucken conference,

Gunter Grass together with Peter Hartling, Walter Hollerer, , and the East German Stephan Hermlin summoned some forty European writers, academics and politicians to attend a peace conference at the

Akademie der Kunste in West Berlin. Held in the shadow of the missile deployment, the meeting, like the "Berliner j$egegnung" in 1981, was intended simply for the participants to declare peace to one another.

But as the old controversies concerning responsibility for the arms race, the question of human rights for peace activists in the East resurfaced (especially in the wake of arrests it1 Jena) and the assembly failed to reach a resolution as they had done at The Hague and Cologne, it became clear to all that they had reached an impasse. As Grass stated in his closing comments: "Wir [die Schriftsteller] [sind] 1m Verlauf dieser Gesprache an die Grenze unserer Moglichkeiten gestoRen. "52 This was not intended, however, as a cry of resignation. Rather, Grass was seeking to encourage those present to look f0r new ways in which they could help the peace movement. As a body, they could perhaps join demonstrators at missile bases in the fall, as Robert Jungle (82) and the peace researcher, (149) had suggested in the the course of the meeting.

Individual writers had, of course, been politically active since the first announcement of the NATO update. in April 1980, Gtinter Grass, 72

Peter Schneider and two ex-GDR writers, Sarah Kirsch and Thomas Brasch, wrote an open letter to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt protesting the missile deployment.53 Well-known writers such as Carl Amery, Heinrich

Boll., Ingeborg Drewitz, Bernt Engelmann, Peter Hartling,

Gunter Herburger, Heinar Kippardt, Sarah Kirsch, Franz Xaver Kroetz,

Luise Rinser and Gunter Wallraff had also been among the first signatories of the Krefelder Appell of November 1980.5A Amery, together with Wolf Biermann, Christine Bruckner, Rolf Hochhuth, Walter Jens,

Robert Jungk, Dieter Lattmann, Luise Rinser, Peter Ruhmkorf and Dorothee

Solle also signed an open letter penned by the East German emigre Robert

Havemann to Leonid Brezhnev shortly before the latter visited Chancellor

Schmidt in the fall of 1981 to request a peace treaty for Germany and neutrality for both German states and to offer to reduce the Soviet

Union's number of medium range missiles.55

In addition to signing petitions and penning open letters, writers also participated in live performances with artists from other disciplines united in the initiative "Kiinstler fur den Frieden". At its height, the West German peace movement of the eighties, unlike that of the fifties, enjoyed the support not only of German left-wing writers and "Liedermacher", but of opera singers, actors, composers, sculptors and rock groups worldwide with mixed political allegiance. A great many artists participated in the "Festival der Jugend" in Dortmund in June,

1981 and issued an appeal rejecting the new weapons. In November 1981, artists of all kinds participated in the Second Forum of the Krefelder

Initiative in Dortmund. There the rock group "bots" sang "Das weiche

Wasser bricht den Stein" and "Entrustung", which featured texts by 73

Gunter Wallraff, Dieter Hildebrandt, Hans Dieter Hiisch and Lerryn. Udo

Lindenberg performed "Wozu sind Kriege da." The Liedermacher Knut

Kniesenwetter and Klaus Hoffmann sang "Soldaten" and "Wo die Angst ist."

Actor Curt Bois recited Brecht's poem "An meine Landsleute." Franz Josef

Degenhardt performed "Es denken die Leute von gestern wieder an morgen" and Hannes Wader sang "Sag, bist Du bereit" and "Es ist an der Zeit."

Peter Franke recited Roman Ritter's poem "Die Atombombe" and Hanna

Schygulla turned the soldier-song "Lilli Marleen" into an anti-atomic- bomb song. The appearance of Letta Mbula and Harry Belafonte demonstrated the international spectrum of the artists' initiative.56

The gala performance in Dortmund was followed in May 1981 by a mass performance at the Waldbvihne in West Berlin that featured among other artists the writers Ingeborg Drewitz and Erika Runge.57 In

November 1982, Drewitz, Runge, Carl Amery, Irmela Brender, Peter 0.

Chotjewitz, Gerd Fuchs, Max von der Grun, Peter Hartling, Gunter

Herburger, Hermann-Peter Piwitt, Dorothee Solle, Heinrich Schirmbeck and

Peter Schiitt signed an invitation to another open-air performance at the

Ruhrstadion in Bochum,58 and at the Third Forum of the Krefeld

Initiative in Hamburg in September 1983, East and West German writers, together with other artists and in conjunction with the Hamburg peace initiatives, protested the proposed missile deployment and declared

Hamburg a nuclear-free zone.59 In addition to performing with the initiative "Kiinstler fur den Frieden", individuals and groups of writers also gave public readings promoting peace and disarmament. During the week of "Interlit '82" alone, over thirty readings took place in and around Cologne, where the meeting took place.60 74

West German writers also served as speakers at the large peace demonstrations of the early eighties: Peter Hartling spoke at the first peace rally, the Evangelischer Kirchentag in Hamburg in 1981;61 Boll and

Dorothee Solle held speeches at the Bonn demonstration of October 10

1981;62 and Dorothee Solle, Jurgen Fuchs and Karin Struck held forth at the June 1982 rally in Bonn.63

Finally, West German writers also penned articles for journals and newspapers in which they justified the peace movement64 and tried to increase its membership by pointing out the gravity of the situation.65

Some also criticized what they considered, from their own political vantage point, to be shortcomings of the peace movement. In May 1982, for instance, Peter 0. Chotjewitz accused elements of the peace movement of harboring anti-Communist sentiment and suggested instead that they unite with the socialist countries in their efforts to secure world peace.66 For their part, SPD supporters, Dieter Lattmann, Ingeborg

Drewitz and Gunter Grass sought an alliance of the peace movement with the SPD and the Greens and expressed the hope that these parties would work for disarmament at the parliamentary level.67

In East Germany, many writers along with other artists pledged support for the Soviet Union and the East German governments in their struggle for peace68 and worked to increase popular support for the government's disarmament drive and anti-NATO crusade. In this effort they were aided by the attention paid them by the official party newspaper Neues Deutschland and the cultural weekly Sonntag. In June

1981, Sonntag published a declaration signed by Hermann Kant and the head of the Russian writers' organization, Georgi Markow, in which they 75 pledged literary and political support to their governments. The fact

that well-known writers such as Alexander Abusch, Jurij Brezan, Hanns

Cibulka, Fritz Rudolf Fries, Stephan Hermlin, Irmtraud Morgner, Erik

Neutsch and added their signatures to the list was

frontpage news two weeks later, and the list was further updated the

following week.69 In September 1981 the "Appell der Schriftsteller

Europas" appeared in Sonntag.70 Also receiving extensive coverage were

declarations made by Hermann Kant in the wake of the Seventh Congress of

Soviet Writers71 and the Ninth Congress of GDR Writers72 outlining the

intent of members of the East German writers organization to work for

peace "through word and deed." In addition, writers from East Germany,

as well as Eastern and Western Europe, figured prominently in a media

campaign launched by Sonntag against the "Bedrohungsliige", that is, the

allegation that the Soviet Union posed a military threat to the West.

From early June till late July 1981, European writers, actors, doctors,

physicists and military personnel responded in frequent articles to the

assertion of the NATO allies that a missile update was necessary on

account of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. All published

contributions opposed the NATO decision and perceived no threat from the

Soviet Union.73

In the early eighties, East German writers also took part in a

variety of public discussions and readings. During "Interlit '82" in

Cologne, Hermann Kant indicated that he had held readings promoting

nuclear disarmament at public gatherings, factories and workshops.

Countless others shared the same experience. Stephan Hermlin and

Wolfgang Kohlhaase, for instance, speaking at the Akademie der Kunste on 76 the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the fascist invasion of the

Soviet Union, pointed to the need for all to work to prevent a third world war.74 And Hermlin, Kant and other well-known writers such as

Volker Braun, , Eberhard Panitz, Max Walter Schulz, Rudi

Strahl and Eva Strittmatter participated in a public reading of

"Schriftsteller fur den Frieden" conducted in March 1982 at the

Kongrefihalle am Alexanderplatz in East Berlin.75 In the following year,

East German writers and their guests at the Ninth Writers' Congress gave readings promoting peace and disarmament at the Maxim Gorki theater in

East Berlin.76 Writers were also commissioned to read at official peace demonstrations.77 And some, such as Stefan Heym, Christa Wolf and

Rosemarie Schuder, who were sympathetic to the aims of the unofficial peace movement, gave readings at unofficial gatherings in Protestant church circles.78 Moreover, in an interview with the West German journal

Spiegel • Stefan Heym gave young East German peace activists positive publicity79 and he aired their arguments by criticizing the militarism of the East German government expressed in a speech before the DGB Youth in April 1982.80 Members of the unofficial peace movement also received

Positive publicity within East Germany itself when Stephan Hermlin pleaded in a speech held at the Ninth Writers' Congress (a plea

Published in Sonntag) that they be tolerated.81

During fall 1983 (the so-called "Heifler Herbst"), in the wake of the failed conference in West Berlin, prominent West German writers and other celebrities decided to lend practical support to the peace movement by participating in non-violent blockades and other acts of civil disobedience that characterized this phase of the anti-nuclear 77 protest. Their aim was to encourage others to join in the demonstrations, to set an example of non-violent behaviour for the protestors and to protect them from public disparagement.82 On September

1, Gunter Grass, Heinrich Boll, Bernt Engelmann, Walter Jens, Rolf

Hochhuth and Dorothee Solle, among others, took part in a blockade of the U.S.-airfield at Mutlangen. Although some of their fellow demonstrators suspected that their protest was no more than a form of self-promotion,83 their presence did draw media attention to the event.

What is more, spread strategically throughout the crowd, they kept the police at bay. For while the demonstration at Mutlangen ended without incident, a peaceful demonstration at the airport in Bitburg was brought to an early close by police using water-cannons and dogs and followed by the arraignment of some of the demonstrators.84 Shortly after this event, Grass, Engelmann, Solle and others publicized the arrest of thirty-seven demonstrators and the fact that they were fingerprinted and photographed and denied permission to contact a lawyer when they appealed to the Ministry of the Interior of Rheinland-Pfalz and the

District Attorney's office of Trier to drop the charges immediately and destroy official records.85 Heinrich Boll also presided over the peaceful mass demonstration in Bonn on October 10, 1983, which drew

250,000 to 300,000 people.86

In November, as the Bundestag prepared to debate the missile deployment, Gunter Grass addressed the deputies in an open letter, asking that they not abuse their mandate by choosing a course of action that the majority of voters would oppose and warning them that such opposition could potentially be violent. Instead, he suggested, they 78

should reject the NATO proposals, request a voice in disarmament

discussions between the superpowers, give up the infantile notion of

nuclear deterrence and work instead with their Eastern neighbors to

solve environmental problems.87 However, as the government resolution of

November 22 to proceed with the deployment indicates, Grass's proposals

and the protests of other demonstrators fell on deaf ears.

Nonetheless, the government's decision did not put an end to the

protests of writers and many others. As the "hot autumn" gave way to a

cold winter, Grass together with Peter Hartling, Alfred Mechtersheimer

and Robert Jungk convened a meeting of West German writers and other

intellectuals in front of the U.S. missile base at Heilbronn. The two-

day meeting, which took place in mid-December, was initiated by the

Akademie der Kunste in West Berlin, of which Grass was president, the

Forschungsinstitut fur Friedenspolitik in Starnberg headed by

Mechtersheimer, and the peace initiatives in and around Heilbronn. It was intended as a sequel to the peace conference held earlier in the year at the Akademie der Kunste in West Berlin but East German writers

among the invitees did not show up. Grass summed up the reasons for

their absence at the beginning of the meeting: "einige wollten nicht,

andere durften nicht."88 This two-fold explanation referred to the

decision made by Hermlin at the Berlin meeting earlier in the year, when

the demonstration was first proposed, not to demonstrate in front of an

American missile site on the grounds that it would be inappropriate for

an East German to demonstrate in the West,89 as well as to the case of

Jurek Becker and others who had wished to attend but had been denied a visa for the occasion. The reason for the ban, the Western press 79 speculated, was that the GDR government did not want to run the risk of having West German writers protest in front of Soviet bases in East

Germany. Such speculation was lent credibility by the travel restrictions placed upon members of the West German peace movement in the wake of the Bonn decision.90

But with or without the presence of East German writers, as Grass stated further in his opening speech (32), the demonstration at

Heilbronn would and did go on. On Saturday morning, at the symbolic hour of five to twelve, Grass, Mechtersheimer, Hartling, Jungk, Walter

Hollerer, Heinrich Albertz, , Luise Linser, Dieter

Lattmann, Peter Schneider, Guntram Vesper and many other celebrities attempted to hand a letter over to the U.S. commanding officer of the

Heilbronn base. The letter reminded the Americans that they had come to

Germany to effect the release of victims from one holocaust and urged them not to thrust Germans into a holocaust of a different nature by

threatening the Soviet Union with medium range missiles deployed on

German soil. The guards, however, ignored them. This part of the proceedings was, however, drawn to a close when a policeman, accompanied by some of the participants, posted copies of the letter on the gates.91

More eventful was the remainder of the meeting, a debate entitled

"Den Widerstand lernen", which was concerned with the question of what direction the protest should take in the wake of the government decision to proceed with the deployment. Throughout the discussion, warnings against resignation alternated with appeals that the protestors continue to struggle.92 Both of these aspects dovetailed in the speech of Gunter 80

Grass. As he began his statement, Grass pointed to the lethargy that had set in amongst peace activists, including himself, stating:

...bin nicht auch ich schon der vielen Proteste, der annahernd gleichlautenden Prominenz - darunter immer wieder mein Name - tiberdrussig, mehr und mehr iiberdriissig? (28)

As at the Berlin meeting earlier the same year, this downbeat tone constituted an honest appraisal rather than a cry of resignation. Given the lack of history of resistance in the German people's past, Grass continued, this weariness was predictable from the start and had to be overcome through every German making a conscious decision to resist. His own particular act of protest, he stated further, would be directed against the Bundeswehr, which was to his mind no longer constitutional in the wake of the NATO missile decision. The decision, he claimed, had rendered it incapable of conducting its constitutional duty to protect the lives of German citizens and had reduced the lives of the young men who served in it to fallout victims in the hands of NATO strategists

(30) . For this reason, Grass explained, he would seek to discourage his sons and friends from performing military service and would also try through his writing and through plain speech to inject the soldiers of the Bundeswehr with the will to refuse service to an army and state that abused them. Furthermore, he claimed, when questioned by foreign journalists as to Bonn's capacity for peace, he would indicate that the chance of a third and final war beginning on German soil had been increased by the government's acceptance of the NATO missile decision

(31). Grass then concluded with the declaration that he would continue 81 to resist -- and would demand the same of others -- until all nuclear, chemical and bacterial weapons were removed from German soil (31).

Grass's radical remarks were well received by the majority of protestors and at the end of the meeting some aspects of his personal strategy were incorporated into a resolution. The appeal entitled "Wehrt euch" urged German soldiers and reservists to refuse to perform an unconstitutional military service until the Federal Republic was free of nuclear and other offensive weapons that could not protect the population (34). This resolution, which was accepted by the VS at the delegates' conference at Saarbrucken in April 1984, unlike the resolutions at The Hague and Cologne meetings, called forth a large- scale public controversy. As documentation in the Frankfurter Rundschau indicates, representatives from all major political parties accused

Grass and the other signatories of stirring up animosity toward the

Bundeswehr and defaming the young men serving in its ranks. Some even toyed with the idea of filing criminal charges.93 Conversely, the resolution led the "Immendinger Rekruten" to announce that they would no longer feel bound to their military oath if atomic, biological or chemical weapons were deployed.94

While no charges were in fact filed against Grass and the other signatories of the Heilbronn petition, the arrest and sentencing of writers who had participated in anti-deployment blockades of military bases during 1984 and 1985 soon made it clear that writers were not above the law. In February 1985 Walter Jens was sentenced to twenty days imprisonment, or a fine of 150 DM per day, for his part in the blockade of the entrance to Mutlangen and for having obstructed, along with 82

others, the passage of an army vehicle the previous June.95 One year

later Wolf Biermann and Inge Aicher-Scholl were sentenced to twenty

days, or 150 DM and 40 DM per day respectively, for their involvement in

the Mutlangen blockade during 1985.96 Dorothee Solle was fined 2000 DM

for her part in halting the passage of eight military vehicles on the

road to Mutlangen in August of the same year.97

In mid-December 1985, when the heat of the anti-nuclear battle had

subsided, writers gathered once again at Heilbronn, ironically on the

day that the West German news agency announced the deployment of 108

Pershing II missiles.98 Assembled before what had by now become the

symbol of the peace movement's failure - the monstrous watch-towers and barbed-wire fences of an American missile base - the protestors at the

second Heilbronn gathering were compelled to recognize that even though

their arguments may have stirred a longing for peace and disarmament in many people, they had failed to make their opposition politically

effective. The conclusion that peace researcher Alfred Mechtersheimer

drew from this fact was that the peace movement had to become a campaign

to gain the support of voters for peace, not through supporting any

particular party but, rather, through "die Fdrderung des neuen

friedenspolitischen Denkens als wahlbestimmender Faktor".99 In short,

the writers and many others engaged in the peace movement would have to

overcome their disgust with politics and their fear of becoming

functionaries. This argument was countered by some who believed that

such a campaign would mean the end of the movement, pleading instead

that they continue to exert pressure from the streets.100 But, as the

resolution passed at the end of the meeting demonstrated, the majority 83 shared Mechtersheimer' s views. The closing lines of the "Zweite

Heilbronner Erklarung" read as follows:

Wir rufen die Burgerinnen und Burger der Bundesrepublik auf, bei kommenden Wahlen nur Kandidaten und Kandidatinnen zu wahlen, die eine aktive Friedenspolitik garantieren. Prufsteine dafiir sind: Abbau der Feindbilder, Riicknahme der Stationierung von Massenvernichtungswaffen, Beginn der Abrustung, Verzicht auf deutsche Beteiligung am SDI- Programm.(64)

Mechtersheimer's insight that peace activists needed to actively support politicians who supported their goals was also shared by the

1200-plus European intellectuals and theologians who convened with politicians at the Kremlin in February 1987 for a meeting entitled The

Moscow Forum. Among the participants were a large number of East German writers and the West Germans Bernt Engelmann, Dieter Lattmann and Max von der Grun.101 As Dieter Lattmann subsequently explained, the representatives of the various disciplines were assigned separate meeting places, but writers were often to be found among politicians and economists and vice versa. During and after the meeting, they lent

Gorbachev's disarmament initiative the publicity the Soviet leader was apparently seeking. While the meeting was still taking place, Engelmann had all the writers and artists present send a telegram to President

Reagan informing him of the Moscow event and requesting an opportunity to stage a similar event in Washington.102 One month later, 77 artists, ten of whom had participated in the Moscow Forum, appealed to the governments and peoples of Western Europe and the United States to pay heed to Moscow's willingness to end the arms race and to cooperate with the West in other areas. The so-called "Appell der 77" also requested 84 that Bonn follow East Berlin's lead in accepting the suggestion by the

Olaf-Palme-Commission that both German states establish a 150km nuclear- free corridor on either side of their common border as an example for the reduction of tension on a highly endangered border. The writers Carl

Amery, Jurek Becker, Wolf Biermann, Axel Eggebrecht, Bernt Engelmann,

Walter Fabian, Gerd Fuchs, Martin Gregor-Dellin, Max von der Grun, Peter

Hartling, Walter Jens, Dieter Lattmann, Peter Riihmkorf, Gunter Wallraff and Gerhard Zwerenz, as well as many politicians and academics, numbered among the signatories of this appeal.103

Finally, a few months after the Moscow Forum, from May 5-8, 1987, writers from twenty-six nations assembled in East Berlin at the invitation of the East German writers' organization to discuss ways in which they could help support Gorbachev's disarmament proposals. During the meeting, Gorbachev received praise from Western and Eastern

Europeans alike, often in hyperbole. Kant, who opened the meeting, honored Gorbachev as having fulfilled dreams that he too cherished.104

Benito Wogatzki described him as working like a poet in making the ordinary appear extraordinary (18-20). Erik Neutsch stated that if

Gorbachev's dream of freeing the world from nuclear weapons by the year

2000 were realized, it would constitute a greater redemption for humanity than that attempted 2000 years earlier by Christ (34). The praise Gorbachev received from some of the other East Germans present as well as from West Germans, however, was tempered by reminders that further changes were also necessary in the East, especially in the GDR.

Heiner Muller, who described Gorbachev as heralding a return to Lenin after years of Stalinist rule, pointed to the need for the GDR to do 85 away with all Stalinist relics, not just its missiles (167). Gunter de

Bruyn (53) and Christa Wolf (125) indicated that they too would welcome other aspects of Gorbachev's Glasnost that were not being discussed in official circles as loudly as his disarmament proposals for, as Christa

Wolf put it:

Frieden auf Dauer [ist] nicht die Abwesenheit von Krieg [...], sondern Konfliktfahigkeit, ein langer, muhsamer LernprozeB, der in den Staaten und Gesellschaftsordnungen, im Umgang mit den realen Widerspruchen, mit Andersdenkenden und Minderheiten zu beginnen hat, um nach auBen hin graubwiirdig zu sein, das heiflt: Angst abzubauen und wirksam zu werden. (125-6)

A similar appeal went out from Bernt Engelmann and Walter Hollerer.

Characterizing Gorbachev's proposals as promising great hope, Hollerer pointed boldly and specifically to the need for the to come down before a state of normalcy could be declared. He then appealed to the writers present to continue to "nourish" politicians by articulating the hopes they and their countrymen cherished, both at further meetings and through their literary production (35-8).

With this remark, Hollerer implies that writers may have helped prepare a political climate receptive to Gorbachev's ideas not only through their discussions and other political activities but through their literary production. Although there was no prolonged discussion during the peace conferences on how writers could help promote nuclear disarmament and peace through their written work,105 many of the major literary talents who participated in the conferences, and others besides, made a literary contribution to the cause of peace and disarmament. During the eighties, in contrast to the fifties, the issues 86 of nuclear armament and peace pervaded the realms of "high" and "low" culture in both German states.

In his extensive analysis of writers' participation in the anti- nuclear protest movement of the fifties (the KdA), Raimund Kurscheid points out that although virtually all West German writers were engaged in some form or other in the KdA movement, relatively few of them actually produced literature on the subject of nuclear war or nuclear annihilation. Moreover, he claims, the works that were produced on the subject numbered among their authors' worst and hence least known literary contributions. Kurscheid's examination of a number of the works in question brings him to the conclusion that those who avoided the topic were justified in doing so, since the phenomenon of "nuclear death" (Atomtod) appears to elude the human imagination. Consequently, fiction depicting nuclear holocaust in the fifties either trivialized the threat, or conveyed the author's skepticism, feelings of helplessness and resignation. To Kurscheid, non-fictional treatments of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki such as Robert Jungk's Heller als tausend Sonnen and Strahlen aus der Asche were more effective since they are based on eyewitness accounts, interviews and investigations by scientists and technical personnel.

In the chapters that follow, I will examine some of the fiction that emerged as a reaction (and in opposition) to the NATO double-track decision. Chapter three deals with works written in the early eighties by West German writers who warn of the threat of nuclear destruction posed by the NATO proposal and attempt to incite political opposition to the plan. It also analyzes East German works from the same time that 87 likewise warn of the danger of nuclear annihilation and attempt to elicit understanding and support for the official or unofficial peace movements in the GDR. In chapter four I analyze works by West and East

German authors that appeared in the mid- to late eighties. These authors sought to explain the reasons for the lack of mass support among Germans for peace initiatives and pursued the longterm goal of altering individual attitudes toward war and nuclear weapons to create the preconditions necessary for disarmament and peace.

From the vast numbers of works pertinent to my dissertation topic,

I have selected ones that are concerned primarily, or in large measure, with the nuclear threat, were widely reviewed in the popular press or in literary journals, and/or experienced a large printing. I have approached the works with the following questions: Whom does the text address? To what extent does a particular literary endeavor reflect its author's political opinions and engagement? What is the author trying to communicate? What literary strategy does the author employ to reach his/her political goal? How effective is the text?

For information on the writers' viewpoints and political engagement, I will refer back to this and the preceding chapter. In assessing what the texts strived for and achieved, I will draw on the critical reception, writers' statements, as well as close examination of the content and structure of the texts themselves. I propose to consider these texts in the framework of the aesthetic horizons of expectation, horizons established from previous aesthetic experience of the genre, form, theme, or motif selected by the authors. As reception theorist

Hans Robert JauB remarked in his manifesto "Literatur als Provokation" : 88

Ein literarisches Werk, auch wenn es neu erscheint, prasentiert sich nicht als absolute Neuheit in einem informatorischen Vakuum, sondern pradisponiert sein Publikum durch Ankiindigungen, offene und versteckte Signale, vertraute Merkmale oder implizite Hinweise fur eine ganz bestimmte Weise der Rezeption. Es weckt Erinnerungen an schon Gelesenes, bringt den Leser in eine bestimmte emotionale Einstellung und stiftet schon mit seinem Anfang Erwartungen fur "Mitte und Ende” , die im Fortgang der Lekture nach bestimmten Spielregeln der Gattung oder Textart aufrechterhalten oder abgewandelt, umorientiert oder auch ironisch aufgelost werden konnen. Der psychische Vorgang bei der Aufnahme eines Textes ist im primaren Horizont der asthetischen Erfahrung keineswegs nur eine willkiirliche Folge nur subjektiver Eindriicke, sondern der Vollzug bestimmter Anweisungen in einem Prozefl gelenkter Wahrnehmung, der nach seinen konstituierenden Motivationen und auslosenden Signalen erfagt und auch textlinguistisch beschrieben werden kann.106

From consideration of the historical situation in which a work was produced, its content, the writer's comments, the opinions of reviewers

and the expectations aroused by the particular genre or theme that the

author selects and of the ways in whioh his/her text meets or

disappoints those expectations, it is possible to gauge authorial

intention and, to a lesser extent, audience reaction.107 89

ENDNOTES

1. Irmgard Eisner Hunt, Krleg und Frleden in der deutschen Llteratur: vom Barock bis heute (Frankfurt: Lang, 1985) 1.

2. Cited by Agnes Hiifner "Merkwiirdige Schwierigkeiten im Umgang mit Stephan Hermlin," Deutsche Volkszeitung 3 Dec. 1981.

3. Bernt Engelmann, telephone interview, June 1989.

4. In our telephone conversation, Engelmann explained that he did not want the appeal to be a VS initiative because he did not want union members to feel compelled to sign it, and it was not a joint Engelmann-Kant initiative because the two men did not want the fact of their meeting to overshadow the appeal itself. Press reports, however, announced the appeal as a VS initiative.

5. Engelmann telephone interview.

6."Appell der Schriftsteller Europas" appears on the cover of "Es peht. es geht...": Zeitgenossische Schriftsteller und ihr Beitrap zum Frieden. Grenzen und Moglichkeiten. eds. Bernt Engelmann, Gerd E. Hoffmann, Angelika Mechtel, and Hans v.d. Waarsenburg (Munich: Goldmann, 1982). See also Deutsche Volkszeitung 27 Aug. 1981.

7. See Ernst Waltemathe, letter to Bernt Engelmann, cited in Frankfurter Rundschau 16 Oct. 1981.

8. Bernt Engelmann, "Europas Schriftsteller mischen sich ein," Vorwarts 2 June 1982.

9. Stated by Engelmann during our interview.

10. Bernt Engelmann, "Einige Friedensworte an die Bundesregierung," Frankfurter Rundschau 29 Sept. 1981.

11. Helmut Schmitz "Die Schriftsteller-Internationale der Friedenshetzer," Frankfurter Rundschau 29 Sept. 1981.

12. "Ubergeordnete Interessen," Spiegel Oct. 26 1981.

13. Extract from Hermlin letter quoted by Fritz J. Raddatz, "Schriftsteller fur den Frieden," Die Zeit 30 Oct. 1981.

14. Alexander von Bornmann, "Jeder Krieg beginnt mit Worten," Rheinische Merkur 4 June 1982. 90

15. See introduction to excerpts from a Hermlin interview with "Deutschlandfunk", "Hartnackig fur gute Nachbarschaft kampfen," Frankfurter Rundschau 27 Nov. 1981.

16. Raddatz.

17. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, "Ein deutsches Treffen," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13 Nov. 1981.

18. Claus Genrich, "Frieden sagen die Dichter," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10 Oct. 1981.

19. Reich-Ranicki.

20. Bernt Engelmann, "Wie es zur Friedensinitiative der Schriftsteller kam," Es geht. es geht .... 12.

21. Hermlin interview.

22. Quoted by Agnes Hiifner, "Merkwiirdige Schwierigkeiten im Umgang mit Stephan Hermlin," Deutsche Volkszeitung 3 Dec. 1981.

23. The published protocol bears the same name Berliner Begegnung zur Friedensforderung: Protokolle des Schriftstellertreffens am 13./14. Dezember 1981 (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1982). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

24. Gunther Ruhle, "Nach dem Treffen," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 21 Dec. 1981.

25. Sibylle Wirsing, "Zwischen Ohnmacht und Aufbruch," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 26 Dec. 1981.

26. See Regina General, "Berliner Begegnung zur Friedensforderung," Sonntag 20 Dec. 20 1981; "Berliner Begegnung zur Friedensforderung," Sonntag 27 Dec. 1981; and "Kunstler und Wissenschaftler ergreifen Partei fur den Frieden," Neues Deutschland 14 Dec. 1981.

27. "Gebot des Tages: Den Frieden festigen und verteidigen," Neues Deutschland 15 Dec. 1981.

28. See for example Gunther Zehm, "... und Mehltau legte sich auf hochgemute Friedensreden," Die Welt 16 Dec. 1981; Helmut Lolhoffel, "Aneinander vorbeigeredet," Suddeutsche Zeitung 16 Dec. 1981; Helmut Lolhoffel, "Manche Leute horen auf uns," Siiddeutsche Zeitung 15 Dec. 1981; Gunther Ruhle; Peter Jochen Winters, "Der Luge den Krieg anzusagen ist das Wesentliche," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 5 Jan. 1982.

29. Wirsing; Marcel Reich-Ranicki, "Gesprach unter einer Glasglocke," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 17 Dec. 1981. 91

30. Fritz J. Raddatz, "Hat Hitler uns eingeholt?," Die Zeit 13 Dec. 1981; Karl-Heinz Baum, "Es gab keine Resolution und kein Kommunique," Frankfurter Rundschau 18 Dec. 1981; Agnes Hufner, "Ubung in Vertrauen," Deutsche Volkszeitung 24 Dec. 1981.

31. See introduction by Engelmann to "Das Haager Treffen," "Es geht. es geht . . .". 65-66. Further references to the protocol itself will appear in parentheses in the text.

32. For statements to this effect by Engelmann, Kant and Hermlin see: Friedrich Hitzer, "Internationale des Wortes fur den Frieden. Schriftstellertreffen '82 - Den Haag und Koln," Ktirbiskern 4(1982): 5-6. For press voices see: Hans-Joachim Noack, "Schriftsteller und Politik," Frankfurter Rundschau 28 Oct. 1982 and Harald Kleinschmid, "Der Frieden der Deutschen: Autoren in Den Haag," Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt 6 June 1982.

33. Extracts from the protocol of this meeting were published in "Es geht. es geht ..." , 142-410.

34. Yaak Karsunke, "Die Gewerkschaft: Neue Heimat fur Schriftsteller?" Frankfurter Rundschau 5 Mar. 1983.

35. "Zwei verlassen den VS," Baverischer Kurier 28 Aug. 1982.

36. Helmut Schmitz, "VS verpflichtet sich zur Unnachsichtigkeit," Frankfurter Rundschau 9 Oct. 1982.

37. "Grass verlangt von uns Harikari," Die Welt 10 Sept. 1981.

38. Dieter E. Zimmer, "Es geht, es geht - aber so nicht," Die Zeit 29 Oct. 1982. See also Christoph Wiedmann, "Dichter oder Funktionare?" Baverischer Kurier 2 Oct. 1982.

39. Wolfgang Michel, "Dagmar Scherfs blutiger Traum," Vorwarts 17 Mar. 1983.

40. Karsunke.

41. Heinrich Boll, "Heinrich Boll: Papstlicher als der Papst. Die groBe Schurkerei in Saarbrucken," interview, Tintenfisch 24(1985): 47-48.

42. Bernt Engelmann, "Keine Krise," Die Zeit 10 Sept. 1983.

43. See "Engelmann bedauert einige zu scharfe Worte," Frankfurter Rundschau 7 Nov. 1983.

44. "Rucktritt," Frankfurter Rundschau 10 Nov. 1983. 92

45. Helmut Schmitz, "Solidarisch im Kampf Kollege gegen Kollege," Frankfurter Rundschau 3 Apr. 1984.

46. Ursula Giessler, "Grass. VS entliterarisiert: Schriftstellerverband wahlte Hans Peter Bleuel," Tagesspiegel 3 Apr. 1984.

47. Bleuel signed a contract for DM 5000 with the IG Druck und Papier to write their history or DM 5000. This money was considered by some members to present a conflict of interests for him as VS chairman entrusted with the task of representing the interests of VS members within the IG Druck und Papier. Like Engelmann before him, however, he was reelected on the strength of the economic benefits he had achieved for union members. See Wolfgang Michel, "Amokhaufer gegen Aussitzer. Ohren zu, Augen zu, Mund auf," Vorwarts 22 Mar. 1986.

48. Hans Christoph Buch, "Die Literatur hat gegen den Stahlbetonblock keine Chance," Vorwarts 29 Mar. 1986.

49. Bleuel, who had not been able to bring the rival factions within the union together, threw in the cloth after two members of the Federal Board began criticizing the manner in which meetings were protocolled. See Helmut Schmitz, "VS-basis-elitar?" Frankfurter Rundschau 15 July 1987.

50. In the election at Harburg in September 1987, Jonas was elected chairperson and Grass was elected to the advisory committee. See Frank J. Heinemann, "In Gefahr groflter Not," Frankfurter Rundschau 28 Sept. 1987.

51. See "Dokumentation aus der VS-Bundesdelegiertenkonferenz, Saarbriicken, 1984," Frankfurter Rundschau 28 Sept. 1987.

52.Zweite Berliner Beeegnung: Den Frieden erklaren (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1983) 159. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

53. See Dieter Ulle and Klaus Ziermann, "Friedensbewegung und Kultur," Weimarer Beitrage 32.8(1986): 1241.

54. A full list of signatories is listed on a document entitled "Der Atomtod bedroht uns alle. Keine Atomraketen in Europa," available at the alternative archive, Der Papier Tiger, in West Berlin. See also Deutsche Volkszeitung 19 May 1981.

55. The letter is cited in Friedensfibel. ed. VS Hessen (Frankfurt: Eichborn, 1982), 175-76. A list of signatories appeared under an application for a copy of the letter in Die Neue 10 Oct. 1981.

56. See Ulle and Ziermann, 1243-44.

57. Listed on advertising flyer entitled "Initiative Kiinstler fur den Frieden," available at the Papier Tiger in West Berlin.

58. "Kiinstler fur den Frieden," Deutsche Volkszeitung 17 June 1982. 93

59. Event mentioned by Ulle and Ziermann, 1244. For a report see Peter H. Gogolin, "Wir haben die Wahl, miteinander oder Untergang," Deutsche Volkszeitung 8 Sept. 1983.

60. "Es geht. es geht ..." , 286.

61. Peter Hartling, "Gesprach zwischen den Generationen: Eine Rede," Und horen voneinander (Stuttgart: Radius, 1984).

62. The speeches are printed in Friedensfibel. 180-3. Their contributions are also discussed in the following reports: Hertmut Palmer, "Statt Steinen flogen Blumen," Siiddeutsche Zeitung 12 Oct. 1981; Horst Zimmermann, "Die Chaoten kamen nicht zum Zuge," Tagesspiegel 13 Oct. 1981; "Die Friedenskundgebung in Bonn," Frankfurter Alleemeine Zeitung 12 Oct. 1981.

63. Their speeches are cited in documentary of the demonstration entitled Aufstehn! fur den Frieden. eds. Jo Leinen and Klaus Mannhardt (Bornheim- Merten: Lamuv, 1982), 49-51, 137-41, 145-48.

64. Dieter Lattmann, "Der Frieden kann nur durch den Frieden verteidigt werden: Thesen zur Friedensbewegung," Monat 1(1982): 98-99.

65. Wolfgang Bittner, "Ein Platz im Atombunker," Vorwarts 25 Feb. 1982 and Gerd Fuchs, "Friedenserklarung," Deutsche Volkszeitung 22 Apr. 1982.

66. Peter 0. Chotjewitz, "Haben Kommunisten ein Recht auf Frieden?" Deutsche Volkszeitung 6 May 1982.

67. Dieter Lattmann, "SPD und Nachrustung," Deutsche Volkszeitung 28 Oct. 1982; Ingeborg Drewitz, " Die Griinen, das sind ja im Grunde alles ausgeschiedene SPD-Leute!" Vorwarts 4 Nov. 1982; Gunter Grass, "Wir mussen lernen zu verzichten," interview, Spiegel 11 Oct. 1982: 254-63.

68. See declaration by artists at the X. Parteitag der SED, "Alle unsere Kraft fur den Sozialismus," Sonntag 26 Apr. 1981.

69. See "Erklarung fur den Frieden und gegen Hochriistung," Sonntag 21 June 1981; "Der Menschheit hochstes Gut der Frieden ist bedroht," Sonntag 5 July 1981; "Zur Bedrohungsliige," Sonntag 7 July 1981.

70. "Appell der Schriftsteller Europas," Sonntag 13 Sept. 1981.

71. See interview with Kant and Gerhard Henniger by Dr. Irmtraud Gutschke, "Eindruck vom VII Schriftstellerkongrefl der UdSSR: Gemeinsames Ziel - Literatur fur den Frieden und Kommunismus," Neues Deutschland 17 July 1981.

72. Kant's opening speech "Von der Kraft einer Literatur, die fur Frieden und Sozialismus eintritt" was published in full in Sonntag 29 May 1983 and in part in "Unsere Literatur - worauf sie sich griindet und was sie uns gibt. Zum IX. Schriftstellerkongrefl der DDR," Neues Deutschland 4 June 1983. 94

73. See "Die Bedrohungslvige: Intellektuelle nehmen Stellung - Antworten auf eine Umfrage. Was sagen namhafte Personlichkeiten zu der NATO-Behauptung man mvisse wegen sowjetischen Bedrohung amerikanische Kernwaffen in Westeuropa stationieren?" Sonntag 7 June 1981 as well as contributions gathered under the heading "Bedrohungsluge" in Sonntag 5 July 1981; 12 July 1981; 19 July 1981; 27 July 1981.

74. "Krieg beginnt nicht mit dem ersten SchuB," Sonntag 5 July 1981.

75. For extracts see "Fur den Frieden," Sonntag 11 Apr. 1981.

76."Internationale Lesung," Sonntag 29 May 1983.

77. Hermann Kant, personal interview, East Berlin, July 1989.

78. Stefan Heym spoke for himself in a Spiegel-interview. See "Plotzlich hebt sich der Boden," Spiegel 31 May 1982: 94-100. Information concerning the activities of Wolf and Schuder was given me during interviews with Hermann Kant, in July 1989, and with Gerhard Henniger, East Berlin, Dec. 1988.

79. Heym, "Plotzlich hebt sich der Boden."

80. Stefan Heym, "Beim atomaren High-noon bietet die Theke keinen Schutz mehr," Frankfurter Rundschau 10 Apr. 1982.

81. An extract of Hermlin's speech appeared in the following: "Vom IX Schriftstellerkongrefi der DDR. Aus der Diskussion," Sonntag 29 May 1983.

82. Stated by peace movement coordinator Klaus Vock in interview with Anton-Andreas Guha, "Prominente planen Blockade," Frankfurter Rundschau 28 Aug. 1983.

83. Albrecht Heller, "Herr Eppler safi im 'Stoppelfeld,'" Rheinische Merkur 9 Sept. 1983.

84. Peter Henkel, "Frieden vor den Friedensfreunden," Frankfurter Rundschau 10 Jan. 1984.

85. See "Erklarungen zu den Bitburger Verhaftungen und Notigungsverfahren," Tageszeitung 18 Oct. 1983.

86. "Friedensdemonstrationen in der Bundsrepublik. Gewaltloser Verlauf in geloster Atmosphare," Neue Zurcher Zeitung 25 Oct. 1983.

87. Gunter Grass, "An die Abgeordneten des deutschen Bundestags," Die Zeit 13 Nov. 1983.

88. Beharrlich erinnern. Texte zur Heilbronner Bepegnung. ed. Friedensrat Heilbronn (Munich: Jungjohann Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987) 32. Henceforth references will appear in text. 95

89. See Zweite Berliner Begegnung. 158.

90. See Hans Jochen Winters, "Der halbierte Protest," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 16 Dec. 1981 and "Raketenprotest der Schriftsteller," Neue Zurcher Zeitung 20 Dec. 1983.

91. Mathias Schreiber, "Die erste Lektion?" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 19 Dec. 1983.

92. Peter Henkel, "Lauter Zaune in und durch Deutschland," Frankfurter Rundschau 19 Dec. 1983.

93. See "Wir sind keine Leute, die irgendwie leichtfertig daherreden," Frankfurter Rundschau Weihnachten 1983.

94. Stated in "Zweite Heilbronner Erklarung," Beharrlich erinnern. 63.

95. "Walter Jens ist eben nicht Martin Luther King," Stiddeutsche Zeitung 3 Feb. 1985.

96. "Wolf Biermann wegen Blockade eines Raketendepots verurteilt," Tagesspjegel 11 Feb. 1986.

97. Wulf Reimer, "Widerstand im Sinne Jeremias," Stiddeutsche Zeitung 26 Apr. 1986.

98. Mathias Schreiber, "Unterwegs zur Politik," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 16 Dec. 1985.

99. Beharrlich erinnern. 46. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

100. See Schreiber.

101. Lattmann and Engelmann are cited in a Lattmann-interview titled "Die Strukturen des Uberlebens erfinden," Deutsche Volkszeitung 27 Feb. 1987. Max von der Griin refers to his presence in Moscow in his speech at the 1987 writers' conference in Berlin titled Berlin- ein Ort fur den Frieden. Internationales Schriftstellergesnrach (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1987) 170-71.

102. From Lattmann, "Die Strukturen des uberlebens erfinden."

103. See "Appell der 77," Frankfurter Rundschau 11 Mar. 1987.

104. Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. Internationales Schriftstellergesnrach (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1987) 13. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

105. Some authors stood up and offered suggestions on the role literature could play. But noone responded directly to these comments. The suggestions made can be summed up as follows: writers could articulate the disarmament goals of the peace movement, inform of the danger of nuclear annihilation and 96 explain the reasons for the threat, attempt to mobilize opposition to missile deployment, provide visions of peace as inspiration, or show that the establishment of peace would not be a simple process and outline the change of consciousness that would be necessary for its attainment. See conference statements by Robert Jungk, Berliner Begegnung. 21; Ingeborg Drewitz, Berliner Begegnung. 26; Erik Neutsch, Berliner Begegnung. 50-1; Thomas Brasch, Berliner Begegnung. 77; Gunter Herburger, Berliner Begegnung. 146; Dieter Lattmann, Berliner Begegnung. 64-65; Peter Hartling, Berliner Begegnung. 92; Helmut Sakowski, Berliner Begegnung. 105; Harry Mulisch, "Es geht. es geht...". 67- 68; Martin Gregor-Dellin, "Es petit, es geht...". 70-71; Hermann Kant, "Es geht. es geht. .". . 90; Bernt Engelmann, "Es geht. es geht..." 170; Walter Hollerer, Zweite Berliner Begegnung. 7-8, and Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. 38; Rainer Kerndl, Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. 27; Christa Wolf, Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. 126; , Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. 126.

106. Hans Robert JauB, "Literaturgeschichte als Provokation, " Literaturpeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970) 175.

107. See Jaufl, 177 and 183. JauB represents just one pillar of reception theory. Other reception theorists have concerned themselves with empirical study of reader response by means of surveys and other statistical sources. See Robert C. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (London/New York: Methuen, 1984). CHAPTER III

"0, COME ALL YE FEARFUL!": AGITATIONAL LITERATURE OF THE EARLY EIGHTIES

Status quo zur Zeit des Wettrtistens

Wer will dafl die Welt so bleibt wie sie ist der will nicht dafl sie bleibt [Erich Fried, 1981]1

Most of the anti-nuclear literature produced in West Germany in the initial stages of the peace movement through the fall of 1983 aimed at alerting readers to the increased danger of nuclear war posed by the

NATO double-track resolution. It also sought to motivate them to join the ranks of the peace protestors. During the same period, writers in

East Germany expressed a similar warning and sought to increase support for official or unofficial peace efforts in that country. Examples abound not only in the appellative literary forms of poetry and drama, but in the novel also.

Since works produced in the two states addressed home audiences, I examine works by West and East German authors in consecutive fashion in this chapter. In the section on West German literature, I look briefly at peace anthologies popular within the peace movement before turning to

97 98 works that had a wider appeal, namely poetry by Wolf Biermann (examples from Verdrehte Welt - das seh' ich eerne. 1982), a 1982 drama entitled

Der Untergang by Walter Jens, and two science-fiction novels that appeared in 1983, Ende. Taeehuch aus dem dritten Weltkriep by Anton-

Andreas Guha, and Der Bunker by Gerhard Zwerenz. In the section on East

German literature I address briefly a children's peace anthology entitled Ich leb* so g e m (1982) before presenting more detailed analyses of the novels Eiszeit (1983) by Eberhard Panitz and Ahasver

(1981) by Stefan Heym. While contributors to the peace anthology and

Eberhard Panitz aim at increasing support for the peace policy of the

East German government, Heym attempts in Ahasver to elicit support, or at the very least understanding, for Christian peace activists in the

GDR.

In my analysis of each of the above-mentioned works, I outline the political ideas presented in the text, the manner in which the political message is conveyed, and the compatibility of these two elements. What literary forms and/or motifs do the writers examined adopt, adapt, or intentionally reject in order to increase the appeal of their texts and/or to underscore their messages, and to what effect?

In the early eighties, contributors to a series of peace anthologies published in part by prominent West German publishing houses

- mostly little known or unknown authors -explained and denounced in essays, short stories, simple functional lyric or rhythmic short prose

Bonn's acceptance of the 1979 NATO double-track decision. They also criticized the defense policies of the U.S. for rendering Europe, and in 99 particular West Germany, vulnerable to nuclear attack by the Soviet

Union, exposed the material and psychological cost of the cold war, and noted that nothing would remain after a nuclear conflict. They recalled in the form of lyrical monologues, first-person narratives, or persona- poems, the horror, devastation and deprivation of World War II. And many, in addition, praised the efforts of West German peace activists, expressed their solidarity with them and urged others to join their ranks before it was too late.2

As Gerhardt Pickerodt has remarked3, a great many of the texts presented in the anthologies are ". ..nur gereimte oder ungereimte

Manifeste bzw. Bekenntnisse," that may well have provided an opportunity for readers to confirm their own viewpoints and strengthened feelings of solidarity among peace protestors. But the obvious relation of the titles of the volumes to the peace movement, the overt didacticism, pathos, and overconfidence evident in many of the lyrical statements is unlikely to have appealled to or convinced the uninitiated - the audience they were allegedly meant to reach4. A prose poem entitled

"Verfassungsschutz warnt: Antiraketenfront wachst," by Peter Schvitt,5 who along with Dorothee Solle, Erich Fried and Otmar Leist was one of the most oft-cited poets at peace movement gatherings,6 exemplifies the overconfidence to which I refer. In the first four stanzas of this five- stanza poem, Schtitt lists around fifty clubs or individuals nationwide who have joined the anti-nuclear protest, including "Griine aus

Oberammergau," "ein Heimatdichter aus Pfingstadt," "die Autonomen Frauen von Frankfurt," "ein miilratener General," and "ein Fuflballverein aus

Iserlohn." Then in the final stanza he declares that continuance of 100 overwhelming support for their appeals will soon render war and weapon production obsolete:

Wenn die so weitermachen und Unterschriften wie Kartoffeln sammeln, wagt bald kein General mehr, an Krieg zu denken, die Leute halten Butter fur herkommlicher als Kanonen, und die ganze Rustung verliert am Ende alien Sinn und Zweck ...

Schutt's supreme confidence regarding the outcome of the peace protest is also evident in the final lines of a rhythmic statement on his own determination to help bring about peace. In the poem "Uber die Toppen geflaggt," contained in a collection of peace poetry by the author entitled Entrustet euch! Gedichte fur den Frieden that appeared in 1982,

Schiitt describes himself as someone swimming against the current, agitating for peace and understanding between the peoples of the world.

In the final lines, his longing for peace is presented as so strong that it enables him to walk across the water like a prophet:

ich gehe nicht auf Tauchstation lieber laB ich mich von meiner Friedenssehnsucht tragen und geh zu Full iibers Wasser, dafl sich die Balken biegen. (107-8)

With the protest in such powerful hands, or feet, there seems to be no need for the reader to join.

More modest, subtle, complex and compelling than the statements contained in any of the above-mentioned volumes are peace poems and songs by GDR exile Wolf Biermann that appeared in his popular 1982 101 anthology Verdrehte Welt - das seh' ich perne.7 In the first stanza of a

lullaby entitled "Schlaflied," for example, Biermann lulls his audience

into believing he is out to banish fears regarding the return of fascism

and a recurrence of World War II. In opening lines he announces that noone as bad as Hitler will return to power, not even Franz-Josef

Straufl, the leader of the Bavarian conservatives (CSU) who vied with

Schmidt for the office of chancellor in 1980, and the last war will not be repeated. But at the end of the first stanza the reassurance abruptly

ends:

so schlimm wie es war wird es nie wieder sein nein es wird schlimmer: (70)

The next war, he continues in the second stanza, will be worse on

account of nuclear weaponry in West Germany, and StrauB, a man desirous

of power and bereft of all scruples, is a thousand times more dangerous

than his predecessor. In the final stanza, the opening lines are then

repeated, but the second time around the effect is disquieting rather

than consolatory as the second stanza likewise echoes in the reader's

mind.

Later in the volume, in a poem entitled "Frieden" (99), Biermann

denounces not only Strauss but all politicians in the East as well as

the West as warmongers. And in another poem entitled "Traumfrau im Traum

mit der Trommel" (96), he indicates the link between the superpowers'

arms race and Third World starvation in portraying the modern version of

Brecht's "Warnerin ... vom 30jahrigen Krieg," " [die] Stumme Kattrin," as 102 an innocent victim of Third World poverty and starvation. Her protest, in contrast to the protests portrayed by Schxitt and others is not strong and does not promise imminent triumph or victory. She has no voice. Her drum, which she beats with white feathers is silent. But her very existence - her physical suffering, deprivation and sheer helplessness, conveyed in particular through her eyes - has penetrated the author's soul and alerted him to the need for change:

durrbeinige friedliche Trommlerin, n a c k t gleich trommelt sie los! barfuii auf kalten Fliesen, die Kuche, kein Herd, kein Topf kein Tisch, kein Garnichts, das Madchen und urn den mageren Hals am Band die Trommel vorm Bauch gleich! trommelt sie los, mit einer schneeweiflen Huhnerfeder in jeder Hand gleich! drischt sie aufs Kalbfell, lautlos die Frau mit der Trommel, kein Hemd uberm Arsch, kein Arsch unterm Hemd, kein Ton unterm Fell, vornenixhintennix, aber die Augen! jetzt trommelt sie los mit diesen Augen trampelt mit diesen FuBen in mein Gemut die auferstandene Warnerin Stumme Kattrin vom 30jahrigen Krieg wie die auf die Trommel schlug! Lauter! Und wenn wir trotzalledem nun verderben - ich hab dich gehort. Und laut genug8

With this poem, Biermann seeks to drum into his audience the need for immediate (gleich!) and loud (lauter!) anti-war protest. The relevance of such actions not only for the pitiful individual he depicts but for himself and his readers is indicated through reference to imminent

"verderben" and use of the third person plural pronoun in the second- last line. His own recognition of the danger of nuclear war, the reality of Third World suffering, and the connection between both, which is 103 conveyed through juxtaposition in the last two lines, is the lesson he wishes to impart.9 A first step toward correcting the threat to human life he depicts in this poem is then outlined in the essay "Abriistung auf eigene Faust!," that immediately follows. The essay, which was first published in the popular weekly magazine Stern, calls for unilateral disarmament by West Germany in the hope that the material and moral strength set free in the West may encourage people in the East to turn on their own worst enemy, i.e. the leaders of their own country (97-

101).

In contrast to peace anthologies by multiple and individual authors such as Peter Schiitt, Biermann's Verdrehte Welt - das seh' ich gerne. which also appeared as an album, had a wide appeal and circulation. The works by Jens, Guha and Zwerenz that I examine below were also well received and widely publicized when they first appeared.

In 1982, West German playwright, professor of rhetoric and peace activist Walter Jens sought to incite opposition to the NATO double­ track decision with an adaptation of Euripides' anti-war drama The

Troian Women entitled Der Untergang.10 The original play, which dates from 415 B.C. and constituted a harsh condemnation of war, a portrayal of its moral and physical horror and its pointlessness, as Euripides'

Athenian compatriots prepared to battle the Sicilians,11 has been adapted by many writers in the course of the twentieth century.12 In

1913 wrote a version of it to warn of the world war that erupted in the following year. West German author Mattias Braun produced 104 a new version of it in 1956 as West Germany embarked upon rearmament.

And in 1965 Jean-Paul Sartre adapted it to portray the absurdity and horror of the recent Algerian war. Jens' version, Der Untergang. clearly seeks to reproduce the sense of outrage and antiwar sentiment that accompanied the performance of Werfel's version in Hamburg in 1947. With reference to that event, Werner Burckhardt writes:

... wer als Primaner das Haus in der HartungsstraBe besucht hat, erinnert sich an dreierlei: An Edda Seippel, die als Helena, damals schon oben fast ohne, einen sehr einleuchtenden Kriegsgrund darbot; an die brennende, bis in die letzte Parkettreihe dringende Leidensgewalt Ida Ehres als Hekuba; und an die erleichterte GewiBheit, daB nun, nach einer solchen Auffiihrung, nie wieder jemand auf den Gedanken kommen konne, der Krieg konne etwas anderes sein als eine verbrecherische Dummheit.13

Der Untergang is dedicated to the Hamburg actress Ida Ehre, who played the role of Hecuba in Hamburg in 1947, and was released free of charge to her theater, where it premiered in 1983 with Ehre again in the leading role. However, in order to stress the all-encompassing nature of the destruction that would be wrought by nuclear war, Jens, in contrast to Werfel and all his other predecessors, intensified and modernized the message of the original. He also heightened the emotional impact of the drama by converting the strict meter of Euripides' verse into passionate free rhythms. And he deviates at times from the plot of the original in order to underscore the possibility and need for protest, if the horror he evokes is to be avoided. The leading women of Der Untergang do not only arouse sympathy and pity, but provide examples of individual resistance. 105

Rather than simply summarizing the effects of conventional war on

Troy, Jens, most notably in the final lines, draws attention to the devastating impact of nuclear war. The description of the flames that envelop Troy closely resembles images of nuclear explosion and fallout familiar to us from reports on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the nuclear testing that has taken place since then:

Hekabe: 0 Troj a, Herz von Asien, noch zuckst du, und bebst! Jedoch: nicht lange mehr - und du bist ausgeloscht, und nur noch Rauch und Schutt wird sein, wo Troja war. Ein Name. Aber keine Stadt. Erste Frau: Oh! Wie das brennt! Und brennt! Und brennt! Zweite Frau: Ein Feuerball, der bis zum Himmel strahlt! Dritte Frau: Schaut doch! Der Wirbelsturm aus roter Glut! Vierte Frau: Und Aschenregen! Erste Frau: Ich sehe nichts mehr! (81)

Poseidon's closing remarks, moreover, conjure up the notion that there can be no victors in a nuclear war and that survivors will envy the dead:

Aufgedunsen, halb verwest, entstellt: So sehn, wenn Krieg ist, Sieger aus! Ihr Narren! Menschen, die ihr glaubt, man konnte Stadte niederbrennen und aus Grabern Wiisten machen, ohne selbst zugrund zu gehn.

Leb wohl, Stadt: du bist tot, und doch beneidenswert fur jene, die am Leben sind. (83) 106

The horror of survival is also expressed earlier in the drama when

Andromache expresses envy for the Trojan princess Polyxena, who was slaughtered at Achilles' grave:

Tod bringt Gewinn, vergleichst du ihn mit einem Leben voll von Not. Wer keinen Schmerz empfindet, leidet nicht: und darum preise ich den Tod, der uns die Sinne raubt und uns zu Dingen macht, die nie gewesen sind. (43)

The fact that no one would survive a nuclear war is the central message of the play. With this argument, Jens clearly hopes to convince his readers of the danger and futility of deploying nuclear weapons for the purpose of defense. Additionally, he seeks to prompt opposition through an emotional and agitational portrayal of the suffering and actions of the Trojan women.

As in The Troian Women, the individual suffering of the women who have lost their husbands, children and their homes and, as captives of the Greeks , are unsure of what the future holds for them is emphasized in monologues throughout the drama. An incoherent Cassandra, deranged after finding out that she has been chosen to serve as Agamemnon's whore, parodies a marriage hymn before prophesizing the downfall of the

House of Atreus. Queen Hecuba, prompted by the sight of her grandson's dead body cradled in her dead son's shield, ushers the soldiers and women to the side and takes center stage to deliver a heartrending lament for her son and grandson. Quietly she recalls how she raised and nurtured the two boys and grieves the fact that her grandson's life has 107 ended before he had a chance to live. Then, with contrasting anger, she condemns the Greeks who "grofi in Waffen" but "klein an Geist" (78) could not allow the baby she is now carefully and lovingly preparing for burial to live.

While Jens, like Euripides, focuses on the suffering of the Trojan women, both writers also draw attention to the plight of the so-called victors. Several of the Greeks, Poseidon indicates, will return home in ashes while those who have survived are "verkruppelt, mude, alt" (10).

The Trojan prophetess Cassandra draws attention to the fact that thousands of Greeks have died far from their homes and families and have been denied a traditional burial (29). Moreover, keen for revenge, she eagerly recites Apollo's curse that she will be responsible for their complete downfall:

A p o l U Apollon! Helenas Bett, hast: du gesagt, brachte den Griechen Verderben, abet Kassandras Lager, hast: du gesagt, bringt ihnen den Tod! (26)

As in Wolf's 1983 story Kassandra that I examine in the next chapter, there is no reference to heroism in either play: war involves only senseless slaughtering and undue suffering.

jn addition to elucidating the devastating consequences of war - conventional and nuclear - for the soldiers on both sides, their families, and the captives, Der Unterpang indicates the attitudes and behaviour responsible for the war and suggests those the audience must adopt if they are to avoid an even worse fate as a result of nuclear 108 war. In a passionate monologue situated at the center of the drama,

Andromache acknowledges personal complicity in her downfall. She reproaches herself for performing the role of "die Gute" and "die Tugend

selbst" after she recognizes that her failure to criticize negative

aspects of her husband's behaviour (because she considered him her

superior) contributed to the destruction of her city, her husband's

death, the imminent death of her son, and her own captivity. Through her

example, Jens appeals to politically passive individuals, in particular women, to play a more active role in political decision-making while the

opportunity still exists to do so. Unfortunately, however, he does not

explore in any depth the reasons why some people may have been uninvolved up to this point:

Sie war, so werden Spotter einmal sagen, ein Opfer ihrer Tugenden. Ich sage es deutlicher: Wer gut ist, bringt sich urn. (44)

As inspiration for the audience, Andromache, in Jens's adaptation, exits with a symbolic act of protest. At this point, it is too late for her to bring about the resurrection of her city or her husband, or to save the

life of her child, but she is able to break the pattern of submission

she had established by refusing to serve as the wife of one of her

captors and choosing to die instead with her son. This scene stands in

sharp contrast to the original in which the child is wrenched from

Andromache's arms by soldiers and dragged off in one direction while she

is dragged off in the other. 109

Other characters, too, function as models for protest in Jens' version of the drama. Andromache's act of protest is made possible only through the protest of another who has come to see the folly of his superiors: the Greek messenger Talthybius. After observing the lust of the Greek leader Agamemnon for Cassandra, who is widely held to be mad,

Talthybius gains the valuable insight that "die grofien klugen Herren"

(30) whom he serves can be just as silly and weak as those they command.

Pained additionally by the task of reporting his leaders' decisions on the fate of the Greek women and their children, Talthybius finally disobeys his leaders' orders by allowing Andromache to accompany her son to his death, washing the boy and digging a grave for him. Moreover, his words as he digs the boy's grave echo the call of peace protestors in

West and East Germany that swords be converted into plowshares:

Mein letzter Dienst vor Troja: Totengraber- nicht der schlechteste: Besser die Schaufel als das Schwert. (76)

The war and its aftermath lead many others to question the opinions and language of their religious, political and military leaders. While Cassandra speaks of revenge and attempts to distinguish between dying at home in defense of one's country and abroad, the grieving women around her, who function merely as a background of suffering and sorrow in The Troian Women, reject the distinction and question the authority of her office:

Erste Frau: Ein Friedhof ist in Griechenland und Troja gleich. Zweite Frau: Sie reden wie ein Pfaffe! Schminkt den Tod! 110

Dritte Frau: Mein Bruder ist krepiert! Du da mit deinen Blumen! Vierte Frau: Heimaterde! Vaterland! Ich will den Mann zuruck! Alle (auf Kassandra eindringend): Mach ihn lebendig, Priesterin, mit deinem klugen Wort! (29)

Queen Hecuba also takes issue with the euphemistic term "gefallen" in speaking of her dead husband and sons:

Ich bin gesturzt ... und stand einmal sehr hoch: Erst Konigstochter, spater Konigin, Mutter von Konigssohnen, wie sie - ach, so schon! so viel! so gut! - nie eine zweite Frau geboren hat. Und keiner lebt jetzt mehr: Im Krieg gefallen. Wie: gefallen? Nur gefallen? So wie ich? Nein, sie sind tot. (33)

In addition to rejecting such euphemistic language, Hecuba exposes

Helen's responsibility for bringing about the war through her seduction of Paris for the sake of personal gain; she angrily rejects Helen's defense that she was serving as an instrument of the gods. Individuals and not gods, she informs Helen and others around her, are responsible for their actions and will be held accountable for them. Such insight is also imparted to us by Andromache as she prays in vain for divine intervention on her son's behalf:

Ihr Gotter! Tut ein Wunder! Got-ter! (Stille) Nein, die kommen nicht. Die schauen zu, wie Mann und Frau und Sklave, Kind und Troer, Grieche fur ein Stuck bepifltes Fleisch verrecken, eine Hure, die sich Kind des hochsten Gottes nennt und ist dabei vom Mord gezeugt, Ill

und von Gemeinheit ausgetragen. (53)

While Hecuba expresses the belief that Helen and not the gods was responsible for the former's misconduct, the sight of her burning city and recollection of the Trojan military buildup and search for glory lead her to assert that if gods do indeed exist, they have most probably justly punished the Trojans. On behalf of future generations she then thanks them for destroying Troy and letting it serve as a warning:

Jetzt weiJ) ich es: Die Gotter - wenn's sie gibt -, die wollen uns vernichten und hassen uns - wie keine zweite Stadt. Und wir! Wir brachten ihnen Opfer dar und waren fromm. (ausbrechend) Danke, Gotter! Dank fur euren Hail! Denn Trojas Ende - euer Werk - beweist: So geht es einer Stadt, die Frieden schaffen sollte - selbst, aus eigner Kraft! - und fur den Sieg gebetet hat. Als ob es Siege gabe, wenn die Menschen sterben. (kniet am Schild nieder, trommelt aufs Eisen) Das hier ist Krieg! (80)

As a final warning and as a reminder to the audience of the need for them to play an active role in determining their fate, or securing their survival, while there is still time to do so, Jens has Hecuba, like Andromache, conduct a symbolic act. In Jens's version of the drama,

Hecuba is not restrained by the Greeks as she tries to throw herself into the flames of her burning city but launches herself triumphantly into the fire. That her death is intended as an act of martyrdom rather 112 than resignation is evident in her final words which she addresses to

Cassandra:

Die Fackeln her! Mein Kind! Und laflt die Scheiterhaufen fur mich brennen! (verschwindet im Feuer) (82)

This self-destructive act, like the one carried out earlier in the drama by Andromache, is clearly the only means of protest available to

Hecuba in her situation. Moreover, in the event of nuclear war, Jens and his audience know from countless reports on the subject, suicide would be chosen by many survivors to the slow and painful death that would result from radiation sickness. As such, Hecuba's death in the flames of the burning city is clearly intended to underscore the self-destructive nature of nuclear war and to impress upon the audience the need to oppose the stockpiling of nuclear weapons before a nuclear holocaust actually occurs. Through the figures of Hecuba and Andromache, Jens appeals to his audience to consider their own welfare and that of future generations and, in the absence of gods, to assume responsibility for both. He asks them to question the decisions of their political and military leaders and to protest on an individual basis, or along with those who, like the Greek messenger Talthybius, have decided that it would be wiser to convert their swords (or nuclear warheads) into shovels (or plowshares), i.e. peace movement protestors in Western (and

Eastern) Europe. When the drama premiered in Hamburg in January 1983, reviewers drew attention to the contemporary relevance and to the 113 emotional impact of the work. The drama was also woil received in the

GDR when it was performed there in 1987.14

In 1983, the year in which the proposed missfle deployment was scheduled to begin, Anton-Andreas Guha, an outspoken critic of nuclear deterrence and the NATO double-track resolution in his capacity as journalist and editor with the Frankfurter Rundg^hau. turned to science fiction as a means of reaching beyond the left-liberal readership of his newspaper. In Ende. Tagebuch aus dem dritten Uoit-i^riee.15 Guha, in contrast to other authors of post-nuclear science fictions that appeared in the eighties, does not employ nuclear war as a literary device for transporting his readers into the future,16 but portrays it in order to warn of the possible catastrophic consequences of nuclear war in Europe.

Such an event, he states in a 1985 foreword to the paperback edition of the work, seemed likely in light of politicians' fnith in nuclear deterrence and feelings of helplessness, lethargy nnd indifference harbored by most West Germans. Ende. he states further in the same source, not only warns of the possibility and outcome of such an event, but seeks to incite opposition to further deployment of nuclear weapons in West Germany.

When the novel appeared in 1983, it, like Def Untergangc. was well received and publicized in the popular press, a c r i ^ 0 with the

Niir-nberger Zeitung. for example, designated it a "Pf lichtlekttire" on account of the information it imparts, reviewers for Stern and the n

Suddeutscher Rundfunk contended it was "ein entsetzliches Buch" that

would lead readers to view the world around them differently.17

Ende does indeed successfully communicate the likelihood and

subsequent horror of nuclear war, particularly in light of the NATO INF

decision, and in so doing it exposes the disastrous consequences that

could result from failure to oppose nuclear weapons. Guha's narrator, a

journalist like the author, imparts a great deal of information through

his recurring critique and discussion of nuclear deterrence and the

actions of the West German populace, political parties and institutions.

He also involves the reader through frequent use of rhetorical

questions, and communicates a sense of immediacy and urgency with his

first person, present tense account. But certain aspects of the novel's

style and content counteract Guha's intention to mobilize his readership

to political opposition: repeated criticism of nuclear deterrence and

demonstration of the inability of our emotions to respond to the threat

of nuclear war prove tedious over 180 pages of text. And citation of

fatalistic philosophical theories regarding the development of Western

civilization suggest that the situation the narrator describes is

predetermined and hence unavoidable .18

Guha's war chronicle opens with a passage that closely parallels

an argument the author had made in a journalistic article in the

Frankfurter Rundschau in 1981. In telegrammatic style, the opening pages

demonstrate how a conventional war between the superpowers, caused by

U.S. aggression toward Cuba, rapidly evolves into a nuclear conflict with Europe as the battlefield. Once underway, the military machine

cannot be halted, indeed it is helped along by the panic reaction of 115 commanding officers. Deterrence theory, for so long the basis of Western security policy, has failed to take account of human emotions, in particular fear.19

Der Plan sah vor, den Gegner mit einigen gezielten Schlagen zur Vernunft zu bringen. Der Plan der Abschreckung ist gescheitert, weil er den Menschen nicht einkalkulierte. (156)

In addition to deterrence theory, Guha's narrator also criticizes the behaviour and attitudes of West German political organizations, the press, the peace movement, and the population as a whole. According to the diary, Western civilization comes to an end in 1998. Politics in

West Germany, the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, however, closely resemble politics in 1983, when the book appeared. As Europe sits perched on the brink of atomic war in 1998, the West German chancellor, as in 1983, insists upon continued support of the U.S. as proof of the strength of the NATO alliance. The unions protest but refuse to call for a general strike until it is too late. The SPD, still in opposition, appeals to the government to use its influence in Washington to help prevent further escalation and appeals to Moscow to hold back threats that could provoke such escalation.

But theory and practice remain separate for the SPD and for the narrator's colleagues. The journalists at the newspaper for which the narrator works reproach themselves for having failed to inform their readership of the implications of deterrence theory. They now wish to expose the dangerous game the U.S. is playing, but remain inactive due to the editor's fear of losing readers should the catastrophe be 116 averted. The church appeals to people to pray rather than protest. The peace movement, we read, had fallen apart in the eighties on account of resignation, quarrelling, undirected activity and a failure of the masses to get involved. The majority of people, the narrator claims, were either insufficiently informed or were too lazy, comfortable, isolated and accustomed to talk of nuclear holocaust to oppose the suicidal military strategy that their political and military leaders had embraced. Now that the horror is beginning to unfold, they are finally alarmed, but at a loss as to what to do. Consequently the peace movement experiences a brief revival in large cities where workers gather in townhalls bearing banners with the following slogans: "Wir werden nicht sterben," "Stoppt diesen Wahnsinn," "Wir haben nur diese eine Erde," and

"Was haben euch unsere Kinder getan?" (19).

But this large-scale opposition has come too late. "Widerstand," the narrator claims, is "Pflicht und Verantwortung. Vor allem aber die letzte Chance, vielleicht sogar nur noch ein ethisches Prinzip" (45). At this point, it can be no more than the latter. The German government declares a state of emergency. Troops fire on protestors at military bases, Germans are prohibited to leave the country while the

"Gastarbeiter", to Bonn's delight and the dismay of the Turkish government, quickly "abandon the sinking ship," the "obere Zehntausend" depart in private jets bound for North Africa, and government officials, preparing to enter their bunker, appeal for the defense of Western values and assure the population at large of U.S. support. The United

States, however, clearly has no interest in West Germany other than as a battlefield. The same applies to the Soviets. With nowhere to escape, 117 the bulk of the population fervently gathers supplies and starts digging bunkers, believing that it can survive if it is well enough prepared.

But the narrator, who knows differently, decides instead to keep a diary as an attempt to preserve his sanity.

The remainder of the novel constitutes a report on the narrator's own feelings and those of others around him before and immediately after the explosion: feelings of fear and paralysis as they wait for the imminent apocalypse, desperation, helplessness, and resignation in face of the ghastly state of fellow survivors whose pain can only be relieved through death. But the narrator, like those he observes, knows no actions or emotions or words fitting to the situation: "Sprachlosigkeit.

Gesundbeterei. Uneingestandene Ohmacht" (15) are representative of his commentary on his and others' reactions. While some of the young, including the narrator's daughter, head south in the hope of finding better conditions, others, including the narrator himself, commit suicide. After the narrator's wife dies of radiation sickness, he takes poison and lies beside her, content to die amidst the flames that have enveloped their home. "Endlich ist Frieden" (168) is his final comment before exiting from a situation that, during extensive philosophical ruminations, he has presented as the predetermined fate of humanity.

In addition to being an observer and a reporter, the narrator also comes across as a philosopher of sorts. As he witnesses the demise of

Western civilization, he recalls and recites, among other things, Arthur

Koestler's thesis that humanity is an "Irrlaufer der Natur" and Max

Born's belief in the "Unfahigkeit der Natur, ein denkendes Wesen hervorzubringen" (10). The expounding of such fatalism seems at odds 118 with Guha's aim to mobilize opposition. But according to the author's

1985 preface, the fatalistic outlook that pervades the diary is in fact intended to prompt the reader to act to prevent such theories of the inevitability of man's self-destruction from ever becoming reality:

Der in diesem Tagebuch zum Ausdruck kommende Fatalismus ist also situationsbezogen, wenngleich konsequent. Er soli den Leser der Gegenwart aufrutteln, sich zu engagieren, mitzuhelfen, dal) sich die Thesen von der Unvermeidlichkeit des Untergangs nicht bewahrheiten. Dieses Engagement lebt von der Hoffnung, dafi der Mensch Geschichte gestaltet, und dal) er daher auch die Freiheit hat, nicht nur das drohende Verhangnis abzuwenden, sondern eine Welt zu gestalten, in der er mit sich und der Natur versdhnt leben kann. (10-11)

While Guha's preface leaves the reader with no doubts as to the function of the fatalistic citations, this function is not discernible from a reading of the text itself. Guha's highly critical and apparently enlightened narrator does at first question them, but, in the end, he cites them with certainty and conviction. Moreover, he himself offers a harsh condemnation of the patriarchal system as repressive, aggressive, and ultimately responsible for the nuclear holocaust he is experiencing.

Mannlichkeit - Patriarchat - Unterdruckung der Frau - repressive Moral - Aggressivitat - aggressive Kultur - repressive Gesellschaften - Lust- und Lebensfeindlichkeit - Kriege - Apokalypse.(65)

Die Lust am Tod, am Toten, am todlichen Risiko ist doch wohl eine rein mannliche Eigenschaft. Die Frau ist dem Leben eher verhaftet als der Mann, aber sie fehlt bei der Gestaltung der Welt. (27)

Like Jens, Guha indicates female submission under the patriarchy, but he postulates that if the world were controlled by women instead of men there would be no wars, no Auschwitz, no Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no 119 torture, murder or death squads. Men, he contends, are responsible for the production of all weapons and will eventually blow up the world:

Gewifi, das Patriarchat hat sich die Frau unterworfen und bewirkt, dafl sie sein Weltbild teilte. Ohne die Bewunderung der Frau ware kaum das infantile Heldenideal denkbar gewesen, und somit auch wohl nicht der gesellschaftliche Stellenwert alles Militarischen. Madchen und Frauen waren es, die die ausriickenden und heinkehrenden "Helden" bekranzten und selbst brav und aufopfernd an der Heimatfront ihren Dienst taten. Und dennoch: In einer von Frauen gestalteten Geschichte Europas hatte es vermutlich keine Kreuzziige gegeben, [ . . . ] Alle Waffen haben nur die Vater. Ein Mann erfand das Pulver, das Gewehr, die Kanone, das Maschinengewehr, das Kampfflugzeug, die Atombombe, die Wasserstoffbombe, die Rakete, den Mehrfachsprengkopf. Diese ganze perfektionierte Totungsmaschine, die alles hohere Leben auf diesem Globus auszurotten vermag, entsprang mannlichen Hirnen. Es sind Manner, die entschlossen sind, "unter der schwachsinnigen Drohung 'wenn es denn sein muiJ' , die ganze Welt in eine von giftigen Diinsten umhiillte Wiiste zu verwandeln". (28-29)

In order to uphold this argument, he adds that negative female historical figures such as Catherine the Great, Golda Meir, Indira

Ghandi and Margaret Thatcher "werden doch eher als weibliche Manner wahrgenommen" (28). By whom, besides himself, he does not say.

All in all, Guha's fictional account, intended to shock readers out of a false sense of security and to mobilize them to opposition through awakening a productive sense of fear, instead "lahmt das Denken, den Moglichkeitssinn, die Verantwortlichkeit, auf die der Autor eigentlich zielt."20 By presenting the nuclear annihilation of which he warns as inevitable, it is likely that Guha will evoke a similar feeling of helplessness in his readers as that experienced by the narrator and those he observes. The novel makes opposition appear just as futile to the reader as it was for the character in the novel who protested once 120 the war was already underway and for whom protest represented no more than "ein ethisches Prinzip" (45). The work may, however, not even have that effect. The intentional mirroring of the inadequacy of the characters' emotions and actions , extended over 180 pages of text, as well as the repetitive nature of Guha's argumentation, are, in my opinion, much more likely to bore or annoy his audience.

Another sci-fi thriller of the same year, Der Bunker.21 by GDR emigre Gerhard Zwerenz, also constitutes an attempt to reach a wide audience with a warning of the danger of nuclear war posed by politicians' faith in nuclear deterrence and the indifference of the

West German population to national security issues. Zwerenz, who declared his determination to oppose INF deployment in a radio speech broadcast by Sudwestfunk Baden-Baden in September 1981,22also seeks to incite a large-scale peace protest that, in the wake of nuclear holocaust, his narrator claims might have saved Germans. The author's clear expression of his political purpose in the introduction and in the final pages of the novel is, however, scarcely evident in the 400-plus pages that lie in between. Moreover, as was the case with Guha, repeated citation of fatalistic theories by the narrator are likely to have a debilitating rather than a mobilizing effect on the reader. With the exception of fleeting references to the threat of nuclear war inherent in deterrence theory and the NATO double-track decision, a few images of the after-effects of a nuclear explosion and a computer print-out relating oft-cited facts and figures about the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, the bulk of the 448-page novel relates a series of trashy 121 adventures rich in blood, gore, sex and romance and conveys a contrived message, via repeated references to Koestler, Kraus and Nietzsche, that

Western civilization is doomed to end in destruction. Rather than incite resistance, these philosophical references, coupled with a critique of the patriarchal system, lend validity to Zwerenz's provocative remark in his preface that the quest for money and power will continue to determine political behaviour despite his warning.

In the opening pages, as in Ende, an outbreak of local hostilities around the globe rapidly leads to war between the superpowers and culminates in a nuclear confrontation which both superpowers agree to limit to Central Europe. Shortly before the subsequent annihilation of both German states, we find the narrator, a bestseller author named

Seraphim Landauer, residing in West Berlin, where he is struggling to write a work entitled "Deutschland zwischen Ost und West." There he is approached by a friend with an unusual request: that he serve as the chancellor's assassin in the event that the West German leader should survive a nuclear attack on West Germany in his bunker in the Eiffel.

Similar assassinations, he is told, have been planned against all NATO and Warsaw Pact leaders as a measure to prevent war by making it clear to politicians that they will perish along with their people. Landauer, nervous about the prospect of committing murder, does not agree to perform the task but ends up in the chancellor's bunker in any case after the chancellor summons him back to Bonn to assume his old post as government press spokesman.

Once inside the bunker, it soon becomes clear to him that the chancellor also has a special job for him. He is to write a chronicle of 122

West Germany's destruction that presents the chancellor as an innocent onlooker. In this connection, Landauer receives unlimited access to the chancellor, whom he analyzes closely throughout the chronicle. The Image that actually emerges, as one critic rightly put it, is of a man who represents "eine Mixtur aus Schmidtscher Intelligenz, Strauflschen

Machiavellismus und Kohlscher Aufgeblasenheit.1,23 Upon seeing pictures of Germany's destruction, he reacts at first coldly, then experiences aesthetic delight in the destruction itself, and finally cares only for his own survival. The aesthetic pleasure he derives from the horrible images he observes on his monitor lead him to crave such literature as

Ernst Jiinger's Stahlgewittern. 's Die letzten Taee der

Menschheit as well as Nietzsche's philosophical writings, which he ironically conceals between the cover of an Immanuel Kant volume. To ensure his own safety, he goes to great lengths to protect himself from any would-be assassin and devises a clever plan to ensure his escape and that of twelve others in the event that the Soviets attack the bunker.

The chancellor, however, is not the only one who is indifferent toward the fate of those outside the bunker, obsessed with nihilistic literature and eager, above all else, to secure his own survival.

Reluctantly, Landauer must recognize that he shares this outlook. Like

Guha's narrator, he makes frequent reference to fatalistic theories regarding Western civilization and attributes the decline of the latter to men. As the following citation indicates, Zwerenz also shares Guha's positive view of women:

Unser Kulturkreis hatte all seine verfiigbaren Energien und moralischen Intelligenzen in die Vernichtungsmaschinerien investiert, und so blieb fur Kunst, Kultur und Leben nichts 123

mehr ubrig. Selbst die tausend Mordagenten, die die Regierungen am Ende anheuerten, damit die Verantwortlichen zum guten Ende umgebracht wurden, vermochten sich nicht zum Handeln aufzuraffen, auch sie waren von des Gedankens Blasse angekrankelt und dem Zaudersyndrom anheimgefallen. Ausgenommen Elizabeth, eine Frau. (441-2)

But he also makes clear that women have no significant political power.

This is attested to by their absence in the bunker. Elizabeth, who is allowed access on account of her good looks, can exert a small amount of influence on the chancellor due to his emotional attachment to her, indeed she alone can get close enough to kill him, but her influence is nonetheless minimal. This, no doubt, is the reason why Zwerenz states in his preface that he suspects his warning will be to no avail:

Der Romanschriftsteller vermag nur seine Warnung auszusprechen, und er weifl, die Absturzenden werden noch wahrend ihres letzten Falls den Streit um Futterkrippen, Gehaltserhohungen und Machtpositionen fortsetzen.

The lack of ideas and imagination that the narrator contends is characteristic of males is evident in the vagueness of his suggestion as to what action individuals and institutions should have taken, and by insinuation, we as readers should now embrace:

... er [der Kanzler] hatte doch als Weltpolitiker auch richtige und moralische Entscheidungen und Entschliisse finden konnen, die Volker hatten ihre Fuhrer auf den besseren Weg lenken oder drangen konnen, die groflen Geister oder Genien der Kultur hatten den Zielen des Guten, Wahren, Schonen und Friedlichen mehr Aufmerksamkeit widmen konnen ... Hatten die Deutschen denn eine Chance zu iiberleben? Vielleicht, wenn sie sich in einer einzigen ungeheueren Anstrengung des Friedens gefunden hatten - etwas wie die katholische Kirche, als sie fur die notleidenden Polen Millionen Pakete schickten. Ja, wenn die Kirchen in einer millionenfachen und abermillionenfachen Friedensaktion den Krieg sabotiert hatten ... lebten die Deutschen noch als Volk und lebte der Kanzler und lebten alle noch, die im 124

Bunker saflen und zersprengt und verbrannt und erschlagen worden sind, als sei es nur darauf angekommen, die furchtbarsten Kassandrarufe, die elendigsten Prophezeiungen, die schwarzesten Utopien zu verwirklichen." (442-44)

As the reviewer of Der Bunker for Spiegel pointed out, Zwerenz, particularly in the final pages, attributes Germany's downfall to

"mange lnder Friedensradikalitat."24 Zwerenz himself, however, also lacks such radicalness. While he fulfils a moral obligation to warn of the danger of nuclear annihilation in writing the novel, he quite obviously despairs of the chances of being heard, or of the current course being altered, and has no concrete strategies of resistance to offer.

Consequently, if his readers were to derive any political message from the work, it would be an extremely pessimistic one. In light of this, it is perhaps fortunate that given the novel's emphasis on adventure and romance, it is likely to have been consumed simply as entertainment.

While the West German authors examined above sought to warn of the threat of nuclear war and to mobilize opposition to the proposed NATO intermediate-range missile deployment, a children's peace anthology entitled Ich leb' so gem25 that was published in 1982 by the Kinderbuch

Verlag in East Berlin condemns the presence of nuclear weapons in the

West, but defends the militarism of East German society as necessary in face of the imperialist threat. The paintings, drawings, simple, didactic poems, stories, fairytales, fables and autobiographical sketches that are contained in the volume illustrate the suffering experienced by Germans during World War II, warn of the danger of nuclear war posed by the imperialist pursuits of the U.S. and its 125

Western allies, and present peace as something to be worked for and protected at all times by the socialist states. The images of Americans as cold-blooded murderers of the Japanese at Hiroshima26 and of the

American who designed the neutron bomb as a man who dislikes people27 stand in stark contrast to recurrent references to the Soviet soldier and his government as protectors of world peace. Peace is portrayed as embodied in the socialist states, and the party line that peace must be armed reverberates throughout.

The same is true of the 1983 novel Eiszeit28 by Eberhard Panitz that, like the anthology, constitutes a response not only to the NATO decision of 1979 but to criticism of militarism within East Germany by members of the unofficial peace movement there. In an interview given shortly after the work appeared, Panitz described his novel as "eine

Geschichte zur Mahnung, zur Warnung, zum Nachdenken und . .. zur

Mobilisierung aller Krafte fiir den Frieden."29 As the final pages of the novel make clear, the novelist's main goal is to elicit the support of

Christians in the GDR for the East German government's defense policy.

The plot of the novel is quite obviously devised to warn of a callous, nuclear-armed, and hence dangerous West Germany and to stress the contrasting peaceful and defensive attitude of East Germany. With a united effort, Panitz implies, East Germans will stand a better chance of defending themselves and ensuring the continued survival of the state.

Panitz's identity with the official government stance in military matters is reflected not only in the novel's content but in its style.

Panitz namely adheres to the strict form of socialist realism that was 126 dictated by the party in the fifties and sixties. According to cultural policy at that time , the GDR writer was expected to participate actively in shaping the socialist state by depicting a social totality and

"typical" experience from a perspective which would show the underlying tendency toward socialism. The writer's main models were the

"Bildungsroman" of and the novels of 19th century bourgeois Realism. Characteristic of GDR literature till the late sixties therefore was a "krass[er] Schematismus der Fabelkonstruktion, der Heldenwahl und der Personendarstellung," closed form, and an optimistic or happy ending.30 The same criticism applies to Eiszeit. The novel is further marred by some rather heavy-handed symbolism.

In the above-mentioned interview, Panitz indicated that the novel was intended as a contribution to the then current debate surrounding the proposal to deploy NATO intermediate range nuclear missiles in West

Germany. In the final pages of the novel, a respected, authoritative figure called Maxim points to the increased likelihood of nuclear war in

Europe presented by the decision:

Je schneller die Vernichtungswaffen ihre vorprogrammierten Ziele erreichen, je dichter und naher sie stationiert werden, desto aussichtsloser wurde der Versuch, die todliche Entscheidung riickgangig zu machen . . . (147)

In light of this possibility .however, Panitz, in contrast to Guha and

Zwerenz, does not espouse nihilistic philosophical theories, but rather words of encouragement from Communists in adverse situations, and he asks them to help defend their lives:

"Menschen, seid wachsam" , hat uns ein Kommunist vor seiner Hinrichtung angesichts erbarmungsloser Henker zugerufen. 127

"Mensch, wie stolz das klingt!" ein anderer in diisteren Zeiten der Erniedrigung, um uns zu ermutigen. Und ein dritter: "Das Wertvollste, was der Mensch besitzt, ist das Leben. Es wird ihm nur einmal gegeben ..." Nutzen wir es so, daii uns nicht zwecklos vertane Jahre, Tage oder Stunden bedrucken, zogern wir keinen Augenblick, um das Leben auf der Erde, das Einmalige, zu schutzen und zu verteidigen, damit die befreite Menschheit eine Zukunft hat. Dazu ein Wort von : "Wenn man ein Ochse sein wollte, konnte man naturlich den Menschheitsqualen den Rucken kehren und fur seine eigene Haut sorgen." Aber selbst dieser allgegenwartige Spruch genugt heutzutage der Wirklichkeit nicht, wenn wir sie nicht im Marxschen Sinne andern: Beenden wir die Menschheitsqualen und retten wir unsere Haut! (148)

More concretely, he suggests the need for a nuclear-free zone in Europe, the reduction of nuclear warheads and of troops, renunciation of first strike nuclear capability by NATO, and East-West negotiations, before nuclear war results from U.S. aggression, the expansionist ambitions of some crazy political or military leader, or simply computer error. In the novel, the nature of the incident that calls forth the new "ice-age" referred to in the title is allegedly a nuclear-missile accident of some kind that occurs in West Germany. This, however, is not entirely clear to any of the characters; nor therefore, we can presume, is it of great interest to Panitz. Of importance to the novelist is not the nature or cause of the incident but rather where it takes place. The narrator's account of his experience in a remote Thuringian hotel in which he is stranded with around a dozen others focuses on the reluctance of some

East Germans to face the threat from the West and to act responsibly by supporting their government in its attempt to avert it.

In the opening scene, the narrator, a young writer engaged in research on Goethe's political activities at Weimar, arrives along with 128 his sister and a Westerner named Herr Anschutz, at a hotel with the highly symbolic title of "Artushof." Although initially relieved simply to have shelter from the snow and freezing temperatures, the narrator soon begins to worry about the cause of the storm and about the need for himself and his companions to recognize the nature of the situation before the snow melts:

Nur eine winzige Gnadenfrist blieb uns, um den kleinen Rest der Vernunft zu gebrauchen und, so gut es ging, der Wahrheit ins Gesicht zu sehen. (12)

When he notices several pairs of shoes in front of the bedrooms on the first floor, he is glad to see that there are presumably others with whom he can discuss the matter. Anschutz, who, we later learn, had rather suspiciously arrived from West Germany immediately before or after "the incident", had been reluctant to talk about it.

Also gab es vermutlich noch weitere Hotelbewohner, auf die man rechnen konnte, wenn es gait, sich ein Bild tiber die katastrophalen Tatsachen zu verschaffen, die der wiirdige Anschutz, angeblich um uns Mut zu machen und um des lieben Uberrlebens willen, zu verharmlosen trachtete. (12)

The next morning, however, it soon becomes clear that most of the other hotel guests - a railway worker, an actress, a ranger, a doctor, a hotel manager, a waiter, and an old Communist called Maxim, in short, a cross-section of the East German population - are also reluctant to face reality. Like Anschutz, the railway man, eager to resume his duty, and the forester, keen to look for his children, want to depart immediately from the hotel and are angry to discover that someone has hidden their shoes. Throughout the hotel, the semblance of normality is 129 upheld through adherence to the daily routine. The waiter appears as usual in full garb, the guests complain about the quality of the coffee.

Moreover, the two men who appear to be in charge, the doctor and old

Maxim, seem intent on maintaining this lack of curiosity and concern.

The doctor expresses optimism that they will soon be able to resume their journeys and points out that the hotel is not falling down but is under renovation. This, presumably, is a reference to the GDR in its evolution toward communism. "Der alte Maxim" who, as we later find out, was active during the opening phase of the establishment of the GDR in the fifties, practices and seeks to promote the positive thinking to which he attributes East Germany's achievements since World War II. When pressed by the actress, Xenia, to speak about the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe, he flatly denies that anything so irrevocable could have occurred, contending that nothing beyond our conception could possibly take place:

. . . was undenkbar ist, mull undenkbar bleiben, unmoglich. Unmoglich, sag' ich. (36)

At this point, it appears that only the artists, Xenia and the narrator himself, i.e. the trouble-shooters and visionaries of the socialist state, are willing to face the truth. Soon, however, it becomes clear to them that the doctor, Maxim and the hotel director are also aware of the gravity of the situation and are simply trying to keep everyone calm. The doctor is secretly administering medicine against radiation sickness that he received from Anschutz. Old Maxim's collection of "sonnigen Goethe-Spruche" (61) that features a verse in 130 praise of the power of the poppy to withstand the devastation of war, is smeared with hand-written notes documenting the nature of the catastrophe and its likely devastating effects. Maxim's notes, Panitz has indicated, were culled from documents on the effects of fallout on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.31 The poppies which Goethe praises would clearly not have emerged unscathed from the nuclear war for, as Maxim notes beside the poem, with reference to Hiroshima, "Nur die Insekten erwiesen sich als widerstandsfahig" (63). More significantly, however, in addition to these individual undertakings, the doctor and Maxim have colluded in hiding the guests' shoes in a vase which, at the "Artushof", functions as "lebensspendender Gral"32 by reminding the guests not to leave the hotel and to stick together, for no one, with or without shoes, as the narrator points out, could survive alone.

Compelled to remain at the hotel, the guests gradually begin to forge a feeling of community. Anschutz, whom the others distrust and resent as a Westerner, declares his cigarettes communal property. The others consider this an ostentatious act, but begin nonetheless to share whatever they have and to help run the hotel. Finally, as their situation worsens, they begin to face reality and to take relevant action. The doctor is the first to do so. When supplies begin to run out and the weather shows no sign of improving, he sends Anschutz and the narrator's sister for help and speaks openly of the nuclear accident to a select group that he can trust not to panic. Shortly afterwards, the appearance of a horsedrawn sleigh loaded with dead radiation victims compels all the hotel guests to recognize what has happened.

Consequently, some of them criticize their past behaviour. Xenia, whose 131

initial reaction is to demand that those responsible be found and

punished, ends up blaming herself and the others for their failure to

recognize the danger until it was too late:

Wir haben viel zu lange gewartet und gehofft, wir haben es kommen sehen und nicht far moglich gehalten (98)

This verdict is echoed by the narrator:

Es war in allem ein Leben ohne Angste gewesen, das Besinnen auf die Bedrohung kam zu spat. (103)

The previously composed waiter, who has meanwhile sought solace in

alcohol, also admits that he had seen the catastrophe coming for years.

Rather than blaming himself, though, he accuses the Americans of bombing

Europe, striking first as they had threatened, and reproaches the GDR

for doing nothing to prevent or to avenge the attack. But Panitz's

omniscient, authoritative narrator later rejects the notion that the GDR

should respond with violence by condemning the popular children's rhyme,

"Fuchs du hast die Gans gestohlen," for presenting the unreasonable idea

of revenge in an apparently logical manner.

And, soon it emerges that the East German government did not act

unreasonably by responding with aggression. Instead, it and its Soviet

allies employ their military machinery to rescue survivors. After some

members of the group assist during the birth of a son, Christopher, to a young couple that had isolated themselves on account of the pregnancy,

the hotel guests leave the hotel together. Carrying the children, the

future, on their shoulders, they soon find themselves marooned in a nuclear wasteland and at a loss as to where to turn. Under such 132 conditions, the narrator had stated earlier, "Panzer und Soldaten" would be their "letzte, einzige Hoffnung" (117). At this point, tanks do not in fact roll to their assistance, but a helicopter with a red star descends like a god from the heavens and a waving hand beckons them to approach:

In diesem Moment, als niemand mehr weiter wuBte, nicht eirunal Maxim, horten wir aus weiter Ferne ein Gebrumm. Wir blickten ins Tal hinaus, iiber die nachsten und ubernachsten Berge, zum Himmel, doch sahen nichts. Aber der Junge auf meinem Rucken schrie: 'Ein Hubschrauber!' Ein paar Sekunden spater war er iiber uns, und alle starrten auf die winkende Hand neben einem roten Stern. (149)

Where it came from and where it is taking them is not stated.

This final and literal "deus ex machina" underscores the fact that

Panitz is not taking issue in this novel with all military technology or equipment. In response to the anti-militarism of those engaged in the unofficial peace movement in the GDR, panitz clearly wishes to leave his readers with a sense of the potentially liberatory aspects of military machinery. What he wishes to convey is the potentially negligent conduct of the West German government and its allies with regard to nuclear weapons and hence the need for a strong and united East German defense to serve as a deterrent.

When the book first appeared in East Germany, critics there praised Panitz's political intentions, but several reviewers felt that the government rescue mission drastically lessened the ill-effects of the nuclear accident and hence reduced the impact of the warning.

Panitz, however, steadfastly defended the "happy ending," stating that it provided necessary reassurance for his readership by demonstrating 133

"Es ist zu schaffen."33 Moreover, I would add, while the rescue mission

does indeed appear to undermine the severity of "the incident," it

underscores the author's message that the East German government intends

to use its military equipment in the interest of its people, i.e. for

defense purposes, and that trust and support for its policies will

ensure survival. The group, it will be recalled, can only be rescued

once the couple who call their son Christopher have joined them. Through

reference to the name that the previously isolated couple give their newborn child, it becomes clear that the novel is directed at

Christians, who, like the young couple in the novel, have isolated

themselves from the mainstream. Panitz does not directly name this

group, whose existence the East German government did not want to publicize, and was still trying to win over, but he leaves no doubt as

to the fact that the couple represents them. Like the majority of

Christian peace activists, the couple is young. The young man, the narrator points out, "war keine fiinfundzwanzig Jahre" (124). The

Christian significance is also underscored by the narrator. For the child's mother, he comments, the decision to name the child Christopher was "deutlich, ganz selbstverstandlich" (132). The narrator himself is

immediately reminded of the child's namesake "der alten Sage" (132), and

later, as he thinks back to the thaw that took place shortly before the child was born, he remarks: "Wieder wurde ich an die uralte, christliche

Geschichte dieses Namens erinnert" (138).

The thaw in the weather is clearly intended to symbolize the thaw

in relations that takes place after the young man expresses faith in the decisions of those who have assumed positions of authority around them 134 and gratitude for the fact that they have chosen to wait for them. Upon learning of the group's decision, the young man, deeply moved, remarks to the narrator:

"Danke, ich kann es nicht so ausdrvicken, ich werde das mein Lebtag nicht vergessen. Ich habe sofort Vertrauen zu Ihnen gehabt und wufite, Sie entscheiden richtig." (126)

After the group is united, Maxim apologizes for the "Versteckspiel und die Geheimniskramerei" and states with confidence: " 'Mit dem Doktor war ich mir einig, dafi wir uns alle letzten Endes einig sind,' auch das gehore zur Politik (140)." In GDR reality, however, it is extremely unlikely that Panitz's own "Versteckspiel" would have proved as convincing for the progressive group he was trying to convert. The novel's appeal would have been undermined not only by the conciliatory outcome, which offended many GDR critics, but the schematic nature of the novel's plot and characters, and the heavyhanded and highly contrived symbolism that pervades the work.

While Panitz's efforts in Eiszeit were aimed at increasing support among Christians for the GDR's official peace policy, the 1981 novel

Ahasver34 by GDR dissident Stefan Heym can be read, on one level at least, as an attempt by a Marxist to justify and express support for

Christian peace activists within East Germany. Heym, as I pointed out in chapter two, was an outspoken defender of these groups during his contributions at the writers' peace conferences and in other oral and written statements. He also read at unofficial peace movement gatherings. In the novel Ahasver. Heym, like Panitz, does not refer 135 directly to Christian peace activists, presumsably, in his case, for censorship purposes. Instead, he indicates his support through extensive use of religious imagery. Through a reinterpretation of the legend surrounding Ahasver, the Jew who refused Christ shelter from the sun as

He carried His cross to Golgatha and who was subsequently cursed to wander the earth restlessly until Christ's return, Heym suggests that

East German Christian peace activists are a positive dialectical force

35 in the evolution toward peace, equality and justice that are ostensible goals not only of Christianity but of Communism. At the same time, as Nancy Laukner and GDR critics Ursula Reinhold and Werner

Liersch have remarked,36 the novel criticizes both these ideologies for their failure to realize these goals and demonstrates the need for action to prevent the threat of nuclear war from being realized.

In Heym's version of the legendary figure, Ahasver was originally an angel like Lucifer, who fell from grace at the beginning of creation on account of his refusal to honor Adam as he did God. Lucifer, we read in the opening lines of the novel, did so because he considered man unworthy and rightly predicted that he would destroy the earth (7).

Ahasver, in contrast, considered himself superior due to his revolutionary spirit:

... er [der Mensch] bewegt die Welt nicht, aber ich bewege sie, zum Ja und zum Nein, er ist Staub, aber ich bin Geist." (7)

Intent upon destroying the world, Heym's Lucifer seeks throughout history to promote political reactionaries in return for their souls.

Ahasver, on the other hand, who has the Marxist Heym's sympathy, is a 136 revolutionary who seeks to change the world.37 In the novel, we see him work on three time levels and in three geographical locations to try to keep the historical process moving: at the time of Christ's crucifixion in Jerusalem, when the legendary figure allegedly lived, in the years following the reformation in Germany, when the legend originated, and in

East Berlin in the eighties with the superpowers prepared for nuclear war. At all times, he is accompanied and in competition - or, when it comes to removing reactionaries, in collusion - with Lucifer, or, as he is known in German translation, Leuchtentrager.

During an early encounter with Christ in the desert, rendered in the novel in language imitative of Luther's German, Ahasver shows Jesus the injustice that has appeared in the world since God's revolutionary act of creating it from nothingness (135) and asks Christ to lead the people of Israel in a second revolution ("kehre das Untere zuoberst" 42) in order to establish "das wahre Reich Gottes" (42) that would be characterized by peace, justice and brotherhood. Jesus, however, just as

Lucifer hopes, does not choose to become the revolutionary leader

Ahasver and others want, but complies instead with God's plan that He be crucified. Consequently, Ahasver rejects Him:

... ich kehrte mich ab von Reb Joshua, denn ich dachte, wer sich selbst so verrat, der ist wahrhaft verloren.(64)

Jesus, as Heym's Lucifer points out, is merely a tool to protect

God's order against any insurrection. Like all revolutionaries once their revolution has been carried out, Lucifer explains, God is 137

Interested in protecting His position at the top of the new order and seeks as a result to uphold the status quo:

Gott ist wie alle, die einmal etwas veranderten; gleich bangen sie um ihr Werk und die eigene Stellung, und aus den lautesten Revolutionaren werden die strengsten Ordnungshuter. (135)

In the sixteenth century, this attitude is exemplified by Luther.

Referring to the Reformation, Ahasver comments:

keiner wie er [Luther] habe den Lauf der Welt so beschleunigt, habe Ordnungen zerstort, die Tausende Jahre gedauert, und den Bau der Lehre und den Wall des Gesetzes gesprengt; nun rausche die Flut dahin und reifle alles mit sich fort, hin zu den Abgrunden, und vergeblich stemme der Gute sich ihr entgegen. (39)

Lucifer, however, immediately counters:

Nicht doch, er hab's aus des Luthers eigenem Mund, wie er's mit der Angst bekommen, sobald er gesehen , wie eines aus dem anderen stieg, blutiger Aufruhr aus wohl bedachter Reform, und Tohuwabohu uberall; worauf er denn eiligst die von sich gestoBen, die ihn gestutzt und das gleiche gewollt wie er, und hatt auch den nachsten Schritt nicht gescheut, und in Gottes Namen die alten Damme und Schanzen wieder errichtet fur die alten Herrn. (39)

But Ahasver is nonetheless sustained by the thought that every revolution brings the world a little closer to completion and he is sure that he will one day be able to rest:

Der Jud schiittelt den Kopf. Was geschehen ist geschehen, sagt er, und keiner, auch der Luther nicht, konnt es wieder machen wie vorher. Und aus jedem Umsturz wachse ein Neues, Besseres, bis endlich der groBe Gedanke Wirklichkeit geworden und seine, des Jtiden, Arbeit getan und er Ruhe finden konne, Ruhe, Ruhe. (39) 138

During his appearance in the sixteenth century, evoked in the novel in a style imitative of the Baroque "Schelmenroman" with burlesque, grotesque and fairytale features,38 Ahasver tries to prolong the progress made by Luther in his early days by thwarting the zeal of the opportunistic and doctrinaire Lutheranian, Paulus von Eitzen. As a result of Ahasver's intervention in Eitzen's plans to convert

Protestants of other sects and Jews to the Lutheran faith, Eitzen has him arrested and whipped to death. But, cursed as he is to wander the earth till Christ's return, Ahasver turns up on Eitzen's doorstep one day and tells him that he will be fetched by the devil for forcing the human spirit into "hohle Doktrinen" (236). The dogmatist Eitzen is thereupon transported by Leuchtentrager, with Ahasver's assistance, to hell, which, according to Heym, is a suitable resting place for dogmatists.39

In twentieth-century East Germany, the same fate befalls a certain professor BeifuB of the "Institut fur wissenschaftlichen Atheismus."

This third time level takes the form of a satire of a correspondence between BeifuB and a certain professor Leuchtentrager from the Hebrew

University in Jerusalem. The latter is, of course, none other than

Lucifer. From December 1979 to September 1980, Leuchtentrager attempts to dispel BeifuB's disbelief in the existence of the .

Leuchtentrager claims to have come across him during the uprising in the

Warsaw Ghetto during World War II and alleges that he now has a shoe- store on the Via Dolorosa. He even offers to bring him to East Berlin.

But, Beifufi's dogmatic insistence on his materialist world view, and his superior's insistence that he employ the correspondence as an 139 opportunity to reproach Israel on its treatment of Palestinians, preclude him from even considering the possibility of Ahasver's

existence. On New Year's Eve 1980, therefore, BeifuB, like Eitzen, is

fetched by Leuchtentrager and Ahasver, an incident that, along with the

BeifuB/Leuchtentrager correspondence, presents an opportunity for

satirical derision of the GDR bureaucracy.

The novel, however, does not end with a triumph for Lucifer.

Before departing for Berlin, Ahasver had rejected Lucifer's suggestion

that the two of them allow people to destroy themselves and the world

and establish a kingdom without God or humanity. Ahasver chooses instead

to try to preserve the world God has created and leaves in search of

Christ to report to Him on developments since his crucifixion. His

report constitutes a horrendous condemnation of modern man, who has

failed to realize the love, justice and peace that Jesus preached.

Instead, Ahasver alleges:

Sie gieren nach Reichtumern und ihres Nachbarn Weib, huren und saufen und verkaufen ihre Kinder, spritzen sich Gift in die Adern uand verlastern, was edel ist im Menschen. Und ist ein jeder von ihnen des anderen Feind, belauschen sich und verraten einander, sperren einander in Lager, wo sie in Massen verhungern, oder in Kammern, wo sie ersticken, schlagen und qualen einander zu Tode, und an jedem Ort verkunden die Herrschenden, dies alles geschehe im Namen der Liebe umd zum Wohle der Volker. Sie vergeuden und vernichten die Schatze der Erde, verwandeln fruchtbares Land in Wuste und Wasser in stinkende Jauche, und die vielen miissen sich plagen fur die wenigen und sterben dahin vor ihrer Zeit. Kein Schwert, entgegen dem Wort des Propheten, wurde je umgeschmiedet zur Pflugschar, kein Spiefl zur Sichel geformt; vielmehr nehmen sie die geheimen Krafte im All und machen draus himmelhohe Pilze aus Flamme und Rauch, in denen alles Lebendige zu Asche wird und zu einem Schatten an der Wand. (161-2) 140

The failure of humanity to turn its swords into plowshares, which, of course, was the demand and motto of the unofficial peace movement in the

GDR, leads Christ to deny a crowd His blessing and finally incites Him

to follow Ahasver's call for action. After responding initially that He will wait for God to send Him to earth for the final judgement, He then becomes outraged by the nuclear threat that we have become accustomed to and unleashes an apocalypse of His own in an attempt to overthrow God.

The rebellion fails, but the situation, as Ahasver earlier claimed was

the case with all revolutions, has been altered for the better: the

former world order has been dissolved and God has regained His revolutionary spirit. For at the end of the novel, Christ, who is one with God, falls from grace and unites with Ahasver to form "ein Wesen, ein grofler Gedanke, ein Traum" (244).

By the early eighties, Christ, who represents some of the

Christians in the GDR, i.e. those engaged in the unofficial peace movement there, has evolved from a reactionary force into a revolutionary, dialectical force due to the threat of nuclear war and

His opposition to nuclear weapons. East German officials, on the other hand, are portrayed assisting the devil in his aim to destroy the world, through their dogmatic rejection of the Christians and their arguments and their participation in the cold war. Heym's novel, in stark contrast to Panitz's, does not end with the descent from the heavens of a Soviet helicopter, but the descent of a revolutionary Christian.

In keeping with the divergent political tendencies of the two works is their stylistic divergence. While Panitz adheres strictly and, it appears, deliberately to an outdated version of socialist realism, 141

Heym, whose oeuvre to this point had conveyed a dependence on the same policy, abandons it in Ahasver to a large degree. Heym prefaces each chapter with a Baroque summary of events, and, like a Baroque author, presents his lesson through a variety of tales. Instead of delivering a straightforward linear plot, he interweaves narratives dealing with three different historical periods and geographical locations, and equips each narrative level with characteristic speech. He also varies the narrative perspective: the experiences of Ahasver in the present and in Biblical times are narrated in the first person; Ahasver's encounter with Eitzen is related by a third person, omniscient narrator; his origins and meaning for the GDR are discussed in the form of a correspondence. In keeping with the dictates of socialist realism, both the Eitzen story and the correspondence have a closed form. The story of

Ahasver, on the other hand, remains open-ended, but is clearly and typically optimistic.

As Heym's digressions from socialist realism indicate, he, unlike

Panitz, is not concerned with upholding the status quo, but rather with effecting disarmament and progress in the area of civil rights. It is his belief that he can best serve the GDR not by conforming to its rules but by criticizing its shortcomings and contradictions.40 In this respect, not only Christian peace activists, but Heym himself, as Jurek

Becker has remarked, closely resembles Ahasver:

Seine Haltung ist storrisch und kompromifilos, wie die des Erzahlers. Der nimmt, obwohl nie unhoflich, keine Riicksicht auf jene, die von Geschichten dieser Art besonders betroffen sein konnten. In Kreisen der Kirche mag das zu Irritationen und zu Widerspruch fiihren, nicht anders in Kreisen der Partei.41 142

The identity between the two is also suggested in the biblical and present-day passages when Ahasver narrates in the first person. The use

of the first person also facilitates reader identity with the figure and what he represents in these sections. For the most part, though, Heym is

concerned with establishing a critical distance between the reader and

the events and characters he describes through, for example, the

insertion of Baroque summaries at the head of each chapter and

imitation, or close approximation of, Lutheran and bureaucratic German.

Heym's criticisms - particularly the most obvious ones, such as

those pertaining to the bureaucracy and to Luther, whom the GDR planned

to honor as one of their own in 1983 - naturally did not please the party. Consequently, Ahasver did not appear in East Germany till 1988, when the spirit of Glasnost was making itself felt sporadically there.42

When the novel appeared in West Germany in 1981, reviewers there

focused on the obvious reasons why the book had not been published in

the East, and overlooked, or neglected to mention, Heym's contribution to the peace discussion that was taking place when the book appeared.43

The relationship between the novel and the INF debate was pointed out by an American Germanist, Nancy Laukner, in 1984,44 but was not addressed by a German critic until after the novel appeared in East Germany. In

Weimarer Beitrapre. Ursula Reinhold presented it as a contribution to the peace discussion of the early eighties and characterized it as "ein

Appell an die Menschen, alle Krafte der Vernunft und das uberlieferte

Potential menschheitlicher Entwicklung in die Waagschall der 143

Auseinandersetzung urn die Zukunft zu legen."45 "Ahasver," she continues,

"verkorpert dabei den Rebellen und Veranderer, die revolutiondre Gewalt gegeniiber dem christlichen Prinzip der Nachstenliebe, Vergebung und

Friedfertigkeit. Beide sollten zu einer Einheit verschmelzen."46 What

Laukner and Reinhold fail to point out is that the plot and imagery of

Heym's novel imply that both of these aspects were in fact embodied by

East German Christian peace activists. Their peace policy and not that of the party, the novel suggests, promises hope for human survival.

All of the authors discussed above sought to alert their audiences to the threat of nuclear war and to prompt action that would help prevent it, or reduce the likelihood of its occurence. They attempt to arouse anger by characterizing NATO defense policy as ill-conceived and

German politicians' compliance with it as fundamentally immoral. They try to shame and frighten their audience into taking action by criticizing and demonstrating the possible consequences of failure to act. And they, or their narrators, announce their own commitment to the cause of peace and disarmament and call, explicitly or implicitly, for support for West or East German peace efforts.

To convey these messages and/or to increase their appeal, the authors have, for the most part, drawn on forms and motifs characteristic of political literature in the past. Contributors to the various peace anthologies, as well as Peter Schiitt and Wolf Biermann employ functional verse popularized in the twenties and thirties by poets such as Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Kastner. Biermann also draws on, and modernizes, Brecht's symbol of an innocent, helpless 144 war victim, "stunune Kattrin" from Mutter Courage. Valter Jens's drama

Der Untereang is a modernized version of Euripides' popular play The

Troian Women that dates from 415 B.C. and constituted a harsh condemnation of conventional war. By radicalizing the destruction and intensifying the individual suffering he depicts, however, Jens underscores the differences between conventional and nuclear war and stresses the need and possibility for action to prevent the latter's occurence by having most of the characters carry out symbolic acts of individual protest. These acts, as well as Talthybius's evocation of the peace movement slogan "swords to plowshares," were alien to the original and to other twentieth century adaptations of it. In addition, Jens also seeks to remind Germans of the antiwar sentiment that had existed in the early postwar period. Der Untergang premiered in the same city and with the same leading actress as in Werfel's version of the drama that had achieved a high emotional impact when performed in 1947.

Guha and Zwerenz, for their part, attempted to reach a wider, less educated audience than Jens by presenting their messages in the form of science fiction. Zwerenz, however, scarcely does more than entertain, and when he attempts to do more than this, his message is extremely pessimistic. Guha's novel is likewise pessimistic, while its intentional inarticulateness and tiresome citation of pessimistic philosophical theories is neither entertaining nor politically convincing.

East German Eberhard Panitz presents and attempts to convince his audience of his confidence in the East German government's defense policy, particularly in the wake of the NATO double-track decision, through strict adherence to the staunch form of socialist realism that 145 had prevailed in the 1950's. Heym, on the other hand, critical of his

government's defense policy, and a keen supporter of East German

Christian peace activists, breaks with his earlier adherence to the same

cultural dictates through his use of religious imagery, complicated narrative structure and open form. His work, like Panitz's, ends on an

optimistic note, but his optimism derives from the action of Christian peace activists and critical intellectuals like himself rather than

government policy. Panitz's adherence to an outmoded cultural policy, however, most likely drastically reduced the appeal of his novel for the progressive forces he was trying to reach. And the overt criticism of

the GDR bureaucracy and of Luther in Heym's novel meant that his more

subtle message regarding the virtues of Christian peace activists did not reach an East German audience till 1988 when the spirit of Glasnost was making itself felt sporadically in the GDR.

The appeal of all the texts examined above - with the exception of

Ahasver - is almost exclusively emotional. There is little reasoned discussion in any of the texts. Arguments held by supporters of nuclear deterrence, or of those who favored the proposed NATO deployment, are not addressed. Nor do any of the authors outline possible reasons for the lack of opposition. Instead, adherence to deterrence theory is dismissed as mere folly. The deployment of Soviet SS 20s throughout

Eastern Europe that some in the West perceived as a threat, is not mentioned, nor is the second aspect of the double-track decision, namely negotiations with the Soviets. Lack of action is attributed to indifference, apathy, feelings of helplessness and criticized as immoral and irresponsible. And West German concern for economic matters amidst 146 rising unemployment in the early eighties is referred to with disdain and bitterness by Zwerenz. As a result of the one-sided nature of their argumentation and their strong emotional impact, the texts were most likely initially compelling. Their longterm effect, however, would almost certainly have been undermined by the authors' failure to address counterarguments of supporters of deterrence or the NATO decision, and to offer explanations as to why people might feel opposition would be pointless or impossible.

This is not the case in the works I examine in the next chapter.

Writing in the mid-eighties, i.e. in anticipation or in the wake of the

Bonn decision to comply with the NATO proposal to deploy medium range nuclear missiles in West Germany, the authors I address attempt, to varying degrees, to uncover the underlying social and political reasons for the nuclear threat as well as for the failure of popular opposition to nuclear weapons. They also advocate a change of attitudes as an individual contribution to, and a prerequisite for, peace and disarmament. 147

ENDNOTES

1. Erich Fried, "Status quo," Lebensschatten (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1981) 93.

2. See, for example, Hildegard Wohlgemuth, ed., Frieden: Mehr als ein Wort (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1981); Annemarie Stern and Agnes Hiifner, eds., Her mit dem Leben. Illustriertes Arbeitsbuch fur Abrustung und Frieden (Oberhausen: Asso Verlag, 1981); Hans Adler, ed., Der Frieden ist eine zarte Blume. Gedichte gepen den Krieg (Bochum: Edition Wort und Bild, 1981); Weiflt du. was der Frieden ist? Lese-Bilder-Noten-Buch fur den Frieden (West Berlin: Initiative Ktinstler fur den Frieden, 1981); Wolfgang Beutin and Christian Schaffernicht, eds., Friedenserklarung. Ein Lesebuch (Fischerhude: Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus, 1982); Verband deutscher Schriftsteller in der IG Druck und Papier Hessen, Friedensfibel (Frankfurt: Eichborn, 1982); Josef Singldinger, ed. , Lieder gepen den Krieg. Kiinstler fur den Frieden (Munich: Heyne, 1983). In 1987, a sampling of West German peace poetry was published in the GDR: Hans von Ooyen, ed. , Acht Minuten noch zu leben? Neue Friedensgedichte aus der BRD (East Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1987). And in 1989, shortly before the reunification of Germany, the following anthology was published in East and West Germany. Dem Frieden entpegen. Ein Lesebuch mit 100 Texten aus funf Jahrhunderten (Munich / : Langenscheidt/ VEB Verlag Enzyklopadie, 1989). The volume was compiled by the Internationaler Deutschlehrerverband.

3. Gerhardt Pickerodt, "Die Fragen von heute und die Literatur," Deutsche Volkszeitunp 16 Dec. 1983.

4. The editors of the volumes cite this as their aim in their forewords.

5. Friedenserklarung. 154-55.

6. This information is derived from the jacket of a peace anthology by Peter Schutt entitled Entrtistet euch! Gedichte fur den Frieden (Dortmund: Weltkreis Verlag, 1982).

7. Wolf Biermann, Verdrehte Welt - das seh' ich perne (Cologne: Kiepenheuer Wirsch, 1982). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

8. The poem is accompanied by a photograph of a starving Third World child.

9. The same connection is pointed out by many of the contributors to the peace anthologies mentioned above.

10. Walter Jens, Der Untergang (Munich: Kindler, 1982). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text. 148

11. See introduction by Don Taylor to Euripides, The War Plavs. trans. Don Taylor (New York: Methuen, 1990) .

12. See Mechthild Lange, "Warnung vor den Kriegsgreueln," rev. of Der Un ter gang, by Walter Jens, Frankfurter Rundschau 12 Jan. 1983.

13. Werner Burckhardt, "Der Troerinnen Untergang," rev. of Der Untergan^. by Walter Jens, Suddeutsche Zeitung 8/9 Jan. 1983.

14. See Werner Burckhardt; Mechthild Lange; Jurgen Busche, "Impulse der Friedensbewegung im alten Troja," rev. of Der Untergang. by Walter Jens, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 8 Jan. 1983; Hans-Rainer John, "Schreckens- und Warngedicht," rev. of Der Untergang. by Walter Jens, Theater der Zeit 6 (1987): 3-4.

15. Anton-Andreas Guha, Ende. Tagebuch aus dem dritten Weltkrieg (Konigstein: Athenaum, 1983; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985). I refer below to the latter edition. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

16. Examples of such sci-fi that I came across during research include: Gerog Zauner, Die Enkel der Raketenbauer (Munich: Heyne, 1980); Der Verbotene Kontinent (Munich: Heyne, 1983); Matthias Horx, Es petit voran (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1982); Gluckliche Reise (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1983); Herbert W. Franke, Endzeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985); Friedrich Scholz, Nach dem Ende (Munich: Heyne, 1986).

17. These citations are from the jacket of the book.

18. Professor Gerhard Bauer referred briefly to these points in a lecture that was held at the Freie Universitat in West Berlin entitled "Literatur fur den Frieden? Christa Wolf, Berlin (DDR), und Anton-Andreas Guha, Frankfurt/ Main." Professor Bauer kindly gave me a copy of the talk after a discussion I had with him concerning my project. I am grateful to him for the text and his comments.

19. See Anton-Andreas Guha, "Der dritte Weltkrieg findet in Europa statt, " Frankfurter Rundschau 29 Apr. 1981.

20. Bauer.

21. Gerhard Zwerenz, Der Bunker (Munich: Schneekluth, 1983). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

22. Gerhard Zwerenz, "Blick in die Zeit: Erinnerung an den vorigen russischen Krieg," interv. with Sudwestfunk Baden-Baden, 20 Sept. 1981, repr. in Friedensfibel. 51.

23. "Reporter des Untergangs," rev. of Der Bunker, by Gerhard Zwerenz, Spiegel 12 Dec. 1983: 187-8.

24. "Reporter des Untergangs." 149

25. Eberhard Gunter, et al., eds., Ich leb' so pern (East Berlin: Kinderbuch Verlag, 1982).

26. See Edith Bergner, "Itai," Ich leb' so pern. 61-67.

27. See Christa Kozik, "Ein Brief an die Kinder," Ich leb' so g e m . 167- 6 8 .

28. Eberhard Panitz, Eiszeit. Eine unwirkliche Geschichte (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1983). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

29. "Eberhard Panitz im Gesprach," interview with Helmut Hauptmann, Neue Deutsche Literatur 7 (1983): 36.

30. Wolfgang Emmerich, "Die Literatur der DDR," Deutsche Literaturgeschichte von den Anfangen bis zur Geeenwart. ed. Wolfgang Beutin (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1984) 434.

31. "Eberhard Panitz im Gesprach," 38.

32. Artur Arndt, "Wollen und Wirkung," rev. of Eiszeit, by Eberhard Panitz, Neue Deutsche Literatur 5 (1984): 125.

33. Panitz makes reference to this aspect of the book's reception and responds to his critics in "Eberhard Panitz im Gesprach," 41.

34. Stefan Heym, Ahasver (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1981). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

35. "Gelitten und nicht mehr. Auskunft uber den Ahasver-Roman," interview with Hartmut Panskus, Wege und Umwege. erw. Ausgabe (Munich: Bertelsmann, 1985) 470.

36. See Nancy A. Laukner, "Stefan Heym's Revolutionary Wandering Jew: A Warning and a Hope for the Future," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, GDR Culture and Society 4. Selected Papers from the Ninth New Hampshire Symposium on the German Democratic Republic, ed. Margy Gerber, (Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1984) 65-78; Ursula Reinhold, "Stefan Heym: Ahasver." rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Weimarer Beitrage 3 (1989): 495-502; Werner Liersch, "Sturz und Aufstieg," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Neue Deutsche Literatur 2 (1989): 136-40.

37. Heym, "Auskunft uber den Ahasver-Roman," 470.

38. Heym, "Auskunft uber den Ahasver-Roman," 471.

39. Heym, "Auskunft uber den Ahasver-Roman," 473.

40. "Gesprach mit Stefan Heym," Deutsche Bucher 12 (1982,2): 95. 150

41. Jurek Becker, "Der Ewige Jude gibt keine Ruhe," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Der Spiegel 2 Nov. 1981, 240.

42. See Wolfgang Emmerich, "Glasnost in der DDR? Zur Kulturpolitik der 80er Jahre," Kleine Literaturpeschichte der DDR. 5th ed. (Frankfurt: Luchterhand, 1989) 259-68.

43. See, for example, Gunter Zehm, "Mit Teufels Hilfe iiber die Mauer," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Die Welt 5 Sept. 1981; Martin Gregor-Dellin, "Im Sturz durch die Welten," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Oct. 1981; Joachim Kaiser, "Schade um so vile Schlaues ...," rev. of Ahasver. by Stefan Heym, Stiddeutsche Zeitung 12 Dec. 1981; Jorg Bernhard Bilke, "Lucifer fliegt uber die Mauer," rev. of Ahasver. ;by Stefan Heym, Rheinische Merkur 16 Oct. 1981.

44. Laukner, 76.

45. Reinhold, 497.

46. Reinhold, 497. CHAPTER IV

BOOKS ABOUT THE BOMB

"Literatur muB heute Freidensforschung sein." [Christa Wolf, Buchner Preisrede, 1980]1

" Ich weiB nicht, ob eine Literatur des Friedens viberhaupt etwas anderes sein kann, als eine Literatur des Widerstandes, denn "Friede auf Erden", das bleibt im Augenblick und auf mittlere und langere Sicht ja doch nur Resignation. Wir leben hier im Unfrieden bei Abwesenheit von Krieg, wahrend anderswo Kriege gefuhrt werden. Aber selbst diese relative Abwesenheit von Krieg bei uns hat in sich noch immer die Moglichkeit, tatsachlich Frieden zu schaffen, eine Asthetik des Friedens zu erarbeiten, eine Sprache, Verhaltens- und Verkehrsformen in der Sprache zu entwerfen, deren Inhalt Frieden ist. Ich finde, das ist eine Herausforderung an die Literatur, der die Schriftsteller sich stellen mussen." [ West German literary critic, Heinrich Vormweg: statement at "Interlit", 1982]2

"[...] uber alle Grenzen von Staaten, iiber alle Meinungsverschiedenheiten hinweg richten wir an die Verantwortlichen den dringenden Appell, das neue Wettrusten zu unterlassen und unverziiglich wieder miteinander in Verhandlungen iiber weitere Abriistung einzutreten. Wir fordern die Weltoffentlichkeit auf, nicht zu resignieren, sondern sich mit verstarkter Energie fur den Frieden einzusetzen." [ extract from the "Appell der Schriftsteller Europas", Aug. 1980]3

"Wenn wir zu hoffen aufhoren, kommt, was wir befurchten, bestimmt." [Christa Wolf, Kein Ort. Nirgends. 1979]4

151 152

The authors examined in this chapter, like those featured in chapter three, sought to warn of the danger of nuclear war and to motivate their readers to take action to help avert it. However, writing in anticipation, or in the aftermath of the peace movement's failure to persuade the Bonn government to reverse its decision to accept the deployment of medium range nuclear weapons beginning in the fall of

1983, they were not concerned with inciting their readers to join the peace movement. Instead, they attempt, to varying degrees, to understand and explain the historical, social and political reasons for the deployment of the weapons on German soil and the failure of the majority of Germans in West and East to oppose nuclear missile deployment actively, outline the change of consciousness they consider necessary, and urge their readers to try to make an individual contribution to peace and disarmament by changing their attitudes and behaviour.

West German children's author Gudrun Fausewang (Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. 1983), East German novelist Fritz Rudolf Fries

(Verlegung eines mittleren Reiches. 1984), and West German Gunter Grass

(Die Rattin. 1986) attribute the presence of nuclear weapons in both

German states to political and moral indifference that has resulted from a postwar preoccupation with material goods. Pausewang calls for a reform of this behaviour, but does not investigate the reasons for it.

Fries and Grass, on the other hand, attribute it to a desire to escape the past and to a general lack of imagination. Moreover, these two authors, as well as East German author Christa Wolf, attribute the latter, as well as the existence of nuclear weapons, to the predominance and instrumentalization of reason in male-dominated Western culture and 153 attribute the failure of the popular opposition to the proposed missile deployment to manipulation by the political and military establishments through language, culture, economic incentives and, as a last ressort, physical force.

In an attempt to help produce a balance between abstract reson and imagination, Fries sets out to stimulate his reader's imagination. And, together with Wolf and Grass, he pleads additionally for people to pay attention to warnings from their subconscious and their emotional faculties. For all three of these authors, the literate nature of the male-dominated, impersonal and manipulative bureaucratic states they criticize presents a conflict for them as writers. Fries simply points this out. Wolf and Grass, on the other hand, express a longing for oral, pre-literate cultures and traditions - the origins of Western civilization (Wolf), and the pre-Enlightenment era when fairytales were passsed down orally by women (Grass) - and attempt to avoid manipulation of characters and linear narration of events in their own texts. Their works stand in stark contrast to Pausewang's didactic and heroic youth novel and Fries's satirical chronicle, both of which are written in the

Enlightenment tradition. Moreover, in contrast to Pausewang and Fries,

Wolf and Grass do not impart a sense that the problems they cite can necessarily be solved. Their works are much more ambiguous, imbued in part with feelings of fear, helplessness, and resignation. But, they do not resign and encourage their readers to do likewise. In their texts the reader witnesses two individuals actively combatting their negative feelings and searching for an alternative path to the suicidal dead end in which they believe Western civilization will shortly culminate. 154

In her 1983 teenage-adventure novel entitled Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn.5 Pausewang, clearly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war in Central Europe, depicts as a warning the suffering experienced by inhabitants of a fictional village in West Germany following a nuclear war between the superpowers sometime in the near future. Dismayed by the lack of protest by older people to the proposed

NATO missile deployment, her narrator attributes the disaster to the political and moral indifference of a postwar generation obsessed with attaining economic prosperity. Events are narrated from the perspective of a naive and heroic teenage victim, with whom the young reader can identify. The boy's detailed and relentless account of the misery experienced by the people of Schewenborn - in particular the narrator's family - in the first four years following the war is fast-paced and overtly didactic, and it both seeks and achieves a high emotional impact and moral appeal.

In the opening pages, Roland describes the action of the day the disaster occurred. He recalls in swift succession his family's departure from Frankfurt amid growing East-West tensions for a short vacation with his grandparents in the small town of Schewenborn (near Fulda), the fun he had with his two sisters during the first part of the journey, and the idyllic aspects of the town they were all looking forward to seeing.

In Schewenborn gab es noch viel mehr, worauf wir uns freuten: die Winkel und Treppchen und Tore zwischen den alten Fachwerkhausern, wo es sich so gut Versteck spielen lieft. Den dicken alten Turm mit dem Umgang, von dem aus man die ganze kleine Stadt uberblicken konnte. Das Heimatmuseum in der Burg, durch das uns der GroBvater manchmal fiihrte und alles so interessant und witzig erklarte, daB es uns nie 155

langweilig wurde. Das Schwimmbad an der Schewe mit warmem Wasser auch an kalten Tagen. Meine Mutter freute sich auf den Schloflpark, in dem sie abends mit der GroBmutter gern spazieren ging, rund um das SchloB zwischen den riesigen Kastanien. Mein Vater freute sich auf die groBen WAlder, denn er war ein begeisterter Wanderer, und auf den Maldorfer See, an dem er oft mit dem GroBvater angelte. (12-13)

The topography Roland describes in these opening lines is familiar and pleasurable no doubt to many of his West German peers. But the pleasure anticipated by Roland and his family soon turns to horror. As their car leaves the highway and enters the woods on its approach to

Schewenborn, they are brought to a sudden stop by "ein blendendes Licht, weifl und schrecklich, wie das Licht eines riesigen Schweiflbrenners oder eines Blitzes, der nicht vergeht" (13). The light is followed by "starke

Hitze" and "ein rasender Sturm" (15) , a combination of phenomena that

Roland's parents reluctantly conclude is a nuclear explosion. As they approach Schewenborn via a road obstructed by trees and darkness, they find the residents of a neighboring town amidst the chaos of broken glass, fire, ruined buildings, dead bodies and wounded survivors.

Schewenborn, they soon discover, is in a similar state of disarray and the grandparents they have come to fetch are not there but in Fulda, which is presumed to have been at the center of the explosion.

As it soon becomes clear, the grandparents, who probably died immediately, were the lucky ones. For from this point on, Roland's account focuses on the physical and psychological suffering of survivors in and around Schewenborn, and, as in Der Untereang. the living quickly have reason to envy the dead. In sober, short sentences, the narrator describes his own experience and that of the other survivors in the four 156 years following the disaster. Mercilessly, he parades before the reader survivors from the Fulda area, "aschige, blutige Gestalten, von denen die Fetzen herabhingen. War es Stoff? War es Haut?" (30). Graphically, he describes the victims of radiation sickness cared for by himself and a few others in miserable, inadequate hospital conditions.

Manner, Frauen und Kinder durcheinander, Verletzte, Verstummelte, Verbrannte. Bei den meisten hing die Haut in Fetzen herunter. Manche lagen in ihrem Erbrochenen, andere in ihrem Blut. Es roch nach Kot und Urin. Und wie in Wellen - mal lauter, mal leiser, dann wieder anschwellend zu wildem Geschrei - wehte das Gebettel, das Gestohn, das Gejammer der Verdursteten nach Wasser bis auf die Strafie hinaus. (39)

The same suffering, he knows from a search he undertakes with his father for better living conditions, is taking place in East Germany also.

The narrator's personal is considerable. Helplessly, he watches his elder sister die of radiation sickness, sees his younger sister and a girl the family cared for die of typhus and experiences his mother's madness as a result of this loss and the discovery that she is pregnant. His mother's vain quest for what she believes to be an intact home in Frankfurt takes them away from Schewenborn on an arduous and pointless journey during which a boy they had adopted dies of the flu.

Following their return to Schewenborn, his mother bleeds to death after giving birth to a grotesquely deformed child:

Meine kleine Schwester Jessica Marta hatte keine Augen. Dort, wo sie hatten sein miissen, war nichts als Haut, gewohnliche Haut. Nur eine Nase war da, und ein Mund, der an meiner Brust herumsuchte und saugen wollte. Mich lahmte ein solches Grauen, dafl ich nicht einmal imstande war,das Kissen wieder zusammenzuraffen, als sich das Kind blofistrampelte. Da lag es, nackt und blutig, und ich sah, daB es nur Stummelarme besafi. (114) 157

The mercy killing of the child by Roland's devastated father and the burial of his mother and the baby conclude the account of the first year.

In the final chapter that describes the situation four years later, Roland characterizes life for the four hundred or so survivors as

"eine Kette von Angsten: Angst vor der Kalte, dem Hunger, den

Krankheiten, den Insektenplagen. Angst vor dem Tod" (116). Of his family, only he and his father are alive. They have established a school in the castle for the children who remain. Physically or mentally maimed in some way, however, the children reject Roland's father as a "Morder"

(123) contending that he, like most of his generation, had taken no action to prevent nuclear war. His defense, Roland informs us, is that the very existence of nuclear weapons was a means of preserving peace, and, even if it were not, he had no influence on such matters. The children charge that in reality all he cared about was personal comfort and prosperity.

The preoccupation of Roland's father and other adults with material possessions and their resultant political indifference and moral irresponsibility are not only stated at the end of Roland's account but are emphasized throughout the novel. In the opening lines,

Roland's father insists that the family depart on vacation despite signs that war is imminent; two old people whom the family meet shortly after the explosion are more concerned about the valuable binoculars they have mistakenly left behind in their hotel room than about the human dimensions of the disaster that has just occurred; during the initial 158 days of the family's stay in Schewenborn, Roland's parents and those of other children are reluctant to help anyone but their own family members, or to let their children help others, and plundering and stealing are the order of the day. This behaviour, which distresses

Roland, is explained to him by an old lady working alongside him at the hospital:

Vor der Katastrophe ging es alien so gut, dafl niemand Hilfe brauchte. Da hat man's verlernt, anderen beizustehen. Und wo wirklich mal Hilfe notig war, hat sie einem der Staat abgenommen. Daher denkt heute jeder nur an sich selber. Auch deine Eltern. Sie stammen eben aus einer herzkalten Zeit. (41)

As an indication to the reader that these failings are socially conditioned and can quite easily be corrected, the adults are shown to change. Roland's mother takes in two orphans and sets up a home for over one hundred others in the cellar of the castle. Within four years, all plundering and killing is over. This change of attitude, however, has come too late to be of any assistance to the Schewenborners. Their example is therefore clearly intended as an indication for the readers of the behaviour and attitudes that they themselves must adopt if they are to avoid a similar fate. For further emphasis, the attitudes acquired by the Schewenborners are summed up in the final lines in the form of a curriculum that Roland draws up for his students. In order that their lives, however short, will be peaceful, the last children of

Schewenborn referred to in the title will be taught not only the three

Rs, but how to respect, help, love, care for, and communicate with each other: 159

Es gibt so viel Wichtigeres als Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen, was ich ihnen unbedingt beibringen will: Sie sollen einander wieder achten lernen und helfen, wo Hilfe notig ist. Sie sollen miteinander sprechen lernen und sollen fur ihre Schwierigkeiten gemeinsam Losungen finden, ohne gleich aufeinander einzuschlagen. Sie sollen sich fureinander verantwortlich fiihlen. Sie sollen einander liebhaben. Ihre Welt soil eine friedliche Welt werden - auch wenn sie nur von kurzer Dauer sein wird. Denn diese sind die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. (125)

In an essay that appeared in Die Zeit in 1985, in which Pausewang explains her motivations for writing the novel, she points to the need for a similar change of consciousness:

Ich habe den Zweiten Weltkrieg miterlebt. Ich trauere nicht nur urn meinen Vater, der in RuBland fiel, sondern bange auch um meinen vierzehnjahrigen Sohn, urn meine Schuler, die mir ans Herz gewachsen sind, und um alle Kinder der Welt. Deshalb versuche ich, meinen Lesern den Wahnsinn jeden Krieges, vor allem aber eines nuklearen, bewuflt zu machen und vor dieser Gefahr zu warnen. Beide Anliegen verschmelzen zu einem einzigen, daB da heiBt: wir mussen uns andern. Unsere Gesellschaft mufi sich andern; weg vom Haben, hin zum Sein. Weg von der Gewalt, hin zur Liebe. Es wird hochste Zeit, daB wir uns andern. Denn schon sind uns unsere Kinder in die falsche Richtung gefolgt.6

Pausewang's penetrating vision of nuclear war and its physical, psychological and social consequences, effects a strong emotional impact with the detailed and honest reporting of the young narrator and the geographical and temporal proximity of the situation described in the novel for young West Germans. For this reason, as

Birgit Dankert, who reviewed the novel for Die Zeit. has pointed out, it is likely to affect young readers in a way that anti-war literature dealing with World War II allegedly cannot: 160

Die Erfahrung der Literaturvermittler in Schule, Bibliothek und Elternhaus lehrt, daB Kinder Fiktion und Information zum zweiten Weltkrieg und zur weit entfernt liegenden Kriegsschauplatzen oft als fur sie unverbindliche Vergangenheit und Gegenwart aufnehmen. Sie spuren darin nur bedingt die friedenspadagogische Warnung vor sie selbst betreffenden Kriegshandlungen. Gudrun Pausewang projiziert ihre Warnung als Utopie einer atomaren Katastrophe in die zeitlich wie geographisch nahe bundesrepublikanische Zukunft. Sie erreicht damit wahrscheinlich bei jungen Leuten einen sehr viel hoheren Grad an Betroffenheit.7

Dankert also remarked that the honesty, bravery and morality of the hero in face of the horror he describes serves as a source of inspiration for the young readers, while his curriculum provides guidelines for the behaviour and outlook they should adopt.

Dankert's enthusiasm for the novel was shared by many others, as is reflected in the numerous honors the book received: In 1983 Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn was declared "Jugendbuch des Monats

April, Wien" as well as "Buch des Monats August, Gottingen" and received the "Preis der Leseratten, Mainz" and the "Zurcher Kinderbuchpreis 'La vache qui lit'." In 1984 it was honored with the "Buxtehuder Bulle" and the "Gustav-Heinemann-Friedenspreis."8

However, some reviewers did express legitimate reservations.

Christa Melchinger, who reviewed the novel for the Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung and the Badische Zeitung. was disturbed by the horror depicted and suggested that the work be read in the company of an adult.9 Gerhard Pickerodt, on the other hand, welcomed the emotional effect of the horror Pausewang portrays, but criticized the author's failure to address the political causes of the nuclear threat and to indicate what concrete action readers could undertake to help avert it. 161

"Insofern," he writes, with reference to this omission, " kann die ausgeloste emotionale Betroffenheit leicht in Resignation umschlagen."10

In 1985 Pausewang responded to the reproach by Melchinger and many parents that her gruesome story could frighten and overtax the audience for which it was written. Young people on the threshhold to adulthood, she countered, have to be aware of the state of the world in which they live and to be informed of the dangers they face. For the sake of their children, she urged parents to recognize the gravity of the situation, overcome their fear and feelings of hopelessness and to work together with the young to help secure peace.11 In a later statement, she addressed the problem cited by Pickerodt, in suggesting that young people read the book in the company of an adult - a parent, teacher, pastor or friend - who could help them put the content of the work into perspective and to consider what they could do to help avoid a similar situation.12 An enlightened adult may, however, not always be at hand.

It would therefore doubtlessly have been more constructive for Pausewang to have offered some explanation for the postwar obsession with material goods, the involvement of both German states in superpower conflicts, and to have drawn attention to the opposition being performed by concerned adults like herself, and by young people, as indeed she did in a later novel titled Etwas laflt sich doch bewirken.13

In addition to the objections listed above, one other criticism was leveled against Pausewang after her novel appeared: her neglect to depict the nuclear winter that scientists predict will follow the detonation of an atomic bomb.14 The same criticism could apply to the 162 tropical post-nuclear landscape depicted by Fritz Rudolf Fries in his sci-fi chronicle entitled Verleeung eines mittleren Reiches15 that appeared in East Germany in 1984. In both cases, this deviation indicates that the authors -- in contrast to authors of popular sci-fi -

- are not primarily interested in simulating the aftermath of nuclear war but, as I have demonstrated in Pausewang's case, in revealing the negative social and political behaviour that could one day result in nuclear catastrophe. Fries states this clearly in a preface to the work that is intended as a reader's guide:

Bis zum schlimmen Ende beschreibt der Roman Verhaltensweisen

Indeed, as Wolfgang Emmerich has remarked, Fries's sci-fi diary, on one level at least, consstitutes "eine verschliisselte Darstellung der

Nachkriegszeit unter der sowjetischen Besatzungsmacht,"16 and a very critical one at that. In it, Fries, like Pausewang, reproaches the postwar generation for its materialism. But while Pausewang's emphasis is on West Germans, Fries focuses on those in the East. The fictional editor of the chronicle points out already in his introduction, that instead of examining their past and reforming their ways after the war and attempting to render the ideals to which the occupiers paid at least lip service, a reality, the people the chroniclist describes were more concerned with avoiding the ghosts of their past and satisfying their stomachs.

Auf eines nur will der Herausgeber kritisch aufmerksam machen: es ist der, wenn auch schwachliche, Egoismus der hier beschriebenen Menschen eines beinah dorflichen Ortes. Sie leben dahin wie im Traum, keine der groBen Ideen, welche 163

die Zeit doch anbot, weckt sie zur Tat, und so gehen sie unter wie aus eigenem Antrieb. Die Bedurfnisse ihres Bauches mobilisieren sie, nicht die Vorstellungen einer wie immer zu bewertenden Menschengemeinschaft ihres Lehrers Remann-Zi, und blind vorbei gehen sie an der Chance, welche die Geschichte inuner wieder geboten hat, durch einen Vergleich mit einer fremden Kultur die eigene zu iiberpriifen, im Widerspruch zu starken oder gewinnbringend auszugeben. Nichts dergleichen geschieht hier nach dem Einmarsch einer fremden Armee. Die Angst vor den selbstverschuldeten Ungeheurern treibt sie alle in den Untergang. (7-8)

The culpability for their destruction at the end of the novel, however,

Fries also indicates, does not lie solely with the East Germans themselves. Fries also criticizes East Germany's Soviet occupiers for their failure to realize the ideals they preach, in particular peace, their emphasis on rational, scientific endeavor, to the exclusion of imagination and instinct, and their intolerance of opinions counter to their own. The attitudes and values of the Soviets and the East Germans, the novel implies, will result in either nuclear annihilation or the establishment of a dictatorship. The "mittleres Reich" referred to in the title, Fries indicates in his preface, may be "zeitlich, aber auch geographisch gemeint sein," or it may represent "die Mitte, die jeder sucht, um sich zu finden."

Fries's aim, he states further in the preface, is to inform the reader of the problems resultant from the occupation and the occupier's policies, to demonstrate their possible catastrophic results. To help the reader recognize the problems he addresses, Fries distances him/her for didactic purposes through irony, sarcasm and humor. Referring to the threat of nuclear war at the writers' peace conference held in East

Berlin in May 1987, Fries also pointed to the emancipatory aspects of 164 humor: ”Wer sich schreibend dagegen [die atomare Bedrohung] zur Wehr setzen will, warum sollte er es nicht auch mit Mitteln absurder Komik versuchen, denn Lachen befreit und laflt uns iiber die Tiicken des Zufalls nachdenken."17 In Verlepung eines mittleren Reiches, he also seeks to stimulate the reader's imagination through highly imaginative descriptions of village life and tropical vegetation: "Die

Vorstellungskraft des Lesers sollte helfen, den Groflen Krieg, und die hier geschilderten Folgen abzuwehren."

The chronicle opens with a laughing condemnation, in the wake of nuclear war, of the East-West arms race, the emphasis in both blocs on rational, scientific endeavor, and politicians' duping of the public with palatable terminology:

Wie lachten wir, damals in unserem Winkel mit der Welt sehend und horend verbunden -, lacherlich was da erdacht erforscht erfunden wurde, wie ein Land dem andern die Meflergebnisse abjagte, hbher hinaus die Raketen, Milliarden verpulvert fur immer dasselbe Projekt, die eine Bombe, versehen mit neckischen Namen aus der Mythologie, mit Laborabktirzungen, handlich gemacht fur unser Vorstellungsvermogen. [. . . ] Jetzt sitzen sie da oben, Regierungsreste, Parteiausschusse, Wohlfahrtsgremien, und segeln in ihren Weltraumringen im Kreise. Die Munition verschossen, die Sonnensysteme zerhackt, und dennoch, so stelle ich mir vor, geben sie einander vom Band die alten Parolen weiter, Schmahungen Programme Zukunften, die ein Volk nicht mehr erreichen. In Steppen und Wiisten safl das Volk, oder was von ihm geblieben war, und nahrte sich von Wurzeln und lernte mit affischen Gesten eine neue Grammatik der Kommunikation. (9)

The account then progresses to a portrayal of the fate of a village that had survived the catastrophe largely intact. The village in question clearly represents East Germany. It emerges from the catastrophe as a tropical paradise, and is occupied by the Kwan-Yins 165

from the Reich der Mitte, who, with their red trappings, their dismantling of the village economy and industry shortly after their arrival, and their goal to establish a "Volkskommune," clearly represent the Soviets. The order the latter establish, however, is not fundamentally different from the old one, and it, too, is destroyed before the year is over. The reasons for the village's destruction, and, by implication, for the potential annihilation of East Germany, are revealed in the narrator's account of village life during the occupation.

The opening pages of the chronicle refer to the conformism that took place in Germany following the arrival of occupation forces after

World War II by describing the eagerness of the village population to comply, at least superficially, with the demands of the occupiers, the

Kwan-Yins from the "Reich der Mitte," after the "letzten Krieg" (7).

Hungry and ignorant of events taking place beyond their own borders, they happily go along with instructions to cultivate rice, eggplants, peppers and bamboo and to turn over all their eggs to the government.

They even cook recipes decreed by the new rulers. "Hier herrscht das

Kontinuum einer vormals unbekannten Welt,” (10) notes the chronicler with characteristic sarcasm. Indeed, the villagers are so anxious for an easy transition that they are relieved to learn that their old political leaders have been executed, for it then appears that they must simply deny the old order and relieve themselves of its trappings in order to be accepted by the new one.

. . . man konnte nun eine drohende Feindschaft zwischen den alten und den neuen Herren vermuten und sich also der neuen Ordnung unverdachtig machen, wenn man alles von sich wies, 166

was der alten Ordnung gegolten. So konnte man noch am Vormittag beobachten, wie die Miillhalde am Ortsende wuchs und wuchs von den zerschlagenen Emblemen, Bildern und zerrissenen Losungen der alten Ordnung. (26)

The same is true of the intellectuals in the community, the chronicler himself --an historian who had lost his academic position in the old order, as Fries did in the GDR in the sixties18 a musician called Franz, a chemist named Falk and the painter/doctor, Remann-Zi (Zi for short). This group quickly realizes that the occupiers could use them, and they readily let themselves be used. After being initially ignored, then mistrusted by the new regime, Zi manages to persuade the commanding general that he and his friends had dreamed of revolution before the arrival of the foreign army. Zi himself is in fact familiar with and truly committed to the philosophy the occupiers propagate. The protagonist and his friends, on the other hand, like the rest of the villagers, are simply survivors, whose only concern is to continue surviving: "Klug war am Ende nur, wer uberlebte" (39). But, while the others in the comunity are concerned with satisfying their material needs and longings, this group simply sit around and dream. Their purely aesthetic existence, their desire for a "poetisch regierte Welt" (58), that they dream about beneath the "Bo-Baum der Fantasie" (10), however, finally proves boring and is condemned in the chronicle19 along with the material concerns of the majority of villagers and the purely rational emphasis of Zi and the new rulers. The narrator and his friends, Zi advises, should concern themselves with the practical problems resultant from radiation. And the community, the narrator suggests, would benefit 167

from an alliance between the rational, pragmatic Zi and the intuitive

and superstitious Frau B.:

Zi ware gut beraten, eine Art Biindnispolitik mit ihr anzustreben. Sie stehen zueinander wie die dunkle Ying-Seele des Taoismus zur helleren leichten Zang-Seele, die nach dem Tode den Himmel erlebt wie eine groBe weite Landschaft. In den Kategorien friiherer Jahrhunderte gesprochen, ist Zi ein Rationalist, ein Aufklarer, sein Gott ist gedacht, und auch in seiner Malerei ist er genau wie ein Geometer. Frau B. aber ist, trotz ihrer blauen Augen, die dunkle Nachtseite, ihr Uhrentick kann nicht dariiber hinwegtauschen, daB sie eine Metaphysikerin der Zeit ist. (76)

Like Guha and Zwerenz in the previous chapter, Fries suggests that the

possibility of survival may reside in qualities preserved by women in

modern day Western culture, in particular intuition, instinct, and

common and practical sense necessary for survival. In addition to

designating Frau B. as a vital complement to Zi, the narrator has the

following to say about his wife: "Li, meine Frau, brachte Thee in der bauchigen schwarzen Kanne, aus der, wie mir schien, der unversiegbare

Strom seit Jahrhunderten in die Schalen geflossen war" (17).

While the narrator phantasizes about a fusion of male and female values, of reason and instinct, intellect and imagination, theory and

practice, he makes no effort to realize his phantasies. This behaviour

is criticized by his friend Gernold, who is unhappy with the new order

and wishes to alter the political situation in the village. Soon, however, the latter realizes the reasons for the narrator's withdrawal: under the new regime, intellectuals are considered useful for propaganda purposes, but their criticisms are not valued. Gernold, realizing it is not possible to effect change under these circumstances, leaves for Zinsendorf, a neighboring village that has allegedly preserved the former way of life and experienced economic growth since the war.

Judging from its name, its separation from the village by a heavily armed wall, and the attitude of the village inhabitants toward it,

Zinsendorf clearly represents capitalist West Germany. When the new rulers fail to realize the dreams of the majority of village inhabitants, dreams that the chronicler sums up sarcastically as

"Erlosung durch Verkundigung doppelter Fleischrationen, durch ein Ende der Besatzung oder durch einen Wetterbericht, der fur morgen Regen oder

Abkiihlung versprach" (151), and a flood of balloons bearing the meaningless message "das ist die wahre Lehre" (165) arrives from Zin- sensdorf, many try to flee. And many more would certainly have followed if not for the catastrophe reported in the final pages of the chronicle; ten months after the beginning of the occupation, the community that emerged largely intact from the war but was unable to alter the attitudes that had brought it about, perishes in a second explosion when fireworks mix with the radiation in the air to produce a catastrophic fire.

The new order, the chronicler infers throughout, is not radically different from the one it replaced. It, too, is rationally oriented

("ihre Statistiker berechnen nach erster Fuhlungsnahme der fremden

Verhaltnisse das Eiersoll" (10), and has just as little interest in securing peace: "Der Clubraum ist mit rotem Seidenfahnen, Rollbildern und einem Bild des groBen Denkers und Lenkers geschmuckt. In einer

Nische, ziemlich klein und unauffdllig, eine Abbildung des

Friedensgottes Kwan-Yin" (77). As their decor and their rejection of 169

Zi's plans for a temple of truth, wisdom and peace in favor of a cultural center for propaganda concerts indicates, the Kwan-Yins are more concerned with propagating peace than in rendering it it a reality.

Fries, like Heym, chastizes the Soviets for their failure to pursue peace genuinely following World War II, and warns of the possible catastrophic results for East and West Germany of the nuclear arms race that it and the United States were conducting. And the East and West

Germans, he implies, are by no means innocent by-standers. The presence of nuclear weapons in both Germanies, he infers, derives from moral and intellectual bankruptcy prevalent in them. This he attributes to an overriding preoccupation among West and East Germans with material acquisition, and to the withdrawal of creative, critical intellectuals from political life. In the case of East Germany, which is his main focus, the preoccupation with material possessions derives from a desire to forget the past as well as material deprivation, while political disinterest among creative intellectuals is attributed to their political impotence in a rationally oriented society that endures no criticism. Without a reversal of these policies and attitudes, Fries warns, those who survived the destruction wrought by World war II may soon perish as a result of nuclear war, or one day live under a full­ blown dictatorship: The narrator's manuscript, we learn in the introduction, was discovered by one of the chronicler's descendents during an "action" titled "Entrumpelt Eure Wohnungen und Kdpfe" (7), required "oberster Druckgenehmigung" (8) before it could be printed, and 170

is signed by a person with a number rather than a name. (The number, rather significantly, coincides with Fries's date of birth.20)

Speaking at the writers' peace conference held in East Berlin in

May 1987, Fries voiced the mistrust of politicians for whom "ultima ratio regis" (90) that he had expressed earlier in Verlegunp eines mittleren Reiches. and addressed the need for politicians to be receptive and responsive to criticism so that the problems writers recognize and formulate could be solved. During the same speech, he pointed with pleasure to Gorbachev's disarmament proposals and East

German support of the latter (91). Both actions, no doubt, he considered a response, in part, to his own criticisms. For Fries's diary - with its veiled rather than overt revelation of the discrepancy between Communist theory and practice, aspirations and achievements - in contrast to

Heym's Ahasver. passed the censor and was able to appear in the GDR before Gorbachev had even come to power. The book appeared shortly after

its completion in 1984. It was, moreover, received in the constructive manner in which it was intended. Werner Liersch, who reviewed the book for the scholarly literary journal Neue Deutsche Literatur. described it as a creative and constructive contribution to the "Friedensmuhen unserer Literatur."21

East German Christa Wolf and West German Gunter Grass also attribute the existence of nuclear weapons to the predominance and instrumentalization of reason and the suppression of imagination, instinct, intuition and subconscious elements in male-dominated Western culture. The works in which they address the threat of nuclear 171

annihilation are, however, much more ambiguous. They are imbued with

feelings of helplessness, despair, even resignation. But, in each of the works, the reader witnesses an individual - protagonist, narrator and/or

the author (Wolf in her diary and letter)- who is confronting and

actively attempting to combat these negative emotions and the

dichotomies prevalent in the societies in which they live. The two

authors reveal the roots of the nuclear threat and their own negative

feelings about it and attempt to counteract the latter through their

literay production. Both criticize patriarchal thought and value systems

and look for alternatives to patriarchal aesthetics.

In a 1977 essay entitled "Beriihrung,1,22 which constituted an

introduction to a collection of interviews that Maxie Wander conducted with East German women from all walks of life, Christa Wolf attributed

the existence of nuclear weapons to the predominance of egocentric,

rational, domineering, aggressive, destructive and ultimately self­

destructive thought patterns and modes of behaviour within patriarchal

society. This behaviour, she indicated, was manifest mostly in men, while women, on account of the fact that they have been largely excluded

from positions of power under patriarchy, embody qualities that the patriarchy, to its detriment, had oppressed: fantasy, creativity, kindness, loving, nurturing, solidarity, responsibility toward and

respect for others. The women featured in Maxie Wander's anthology, she

remarked, seem also to be aware of a difference between themselves and

their male colleagues or partners. For after having received the

opportunity under socialism to work beside them and to perform what were 172 traditionally men's roles, they quickly came to see that the roles they were being asked to fill were not worthy of emulation. Thus, Wolf remarks, they were now claiming the right "... als ganzer Mensch zu leben, von alien Sinnen und Fahigkeiten Gebrauch machen zu konnen"

(303), and were beginning to look for new ways of life: "Vernunft,

Sinnlichkeit, Gluckssehnsucht setzen sie dem bloBen Niitzlichkeitsdenken und Pragmatismus entgegen" (304). Given men's enslavement to the

"Unterordnungs- und Leistungszwang" (301) imposed on them through the course of history, it is to women that Wolf looks in this essay for help if the world is to be saved from nuclear annihilation.

Three years later, in her Buchner Prize Acceptance Speech held in

Darmstadt in 1980, when the NATO double-track decision made the possibility of nuclear war seem imminent, Wolf expanded her appeal to creative writers of both sexes: "Literatur muB heute Friedensforschung sein." At this time, she herself was already engaged in a search for a model that would uncover the roots of the destructive dualities she believed were prevalent in patriarchal society and that would point beyond them. Her quest for such a model took her back to the origins of

Western civilization. In her 1983 work Kassandra.23 a text composed of four lectures and a story, she presents Troy during the Trojan war as a turning point during which matriarchal structures were slowly being replaced by patriarchal ones, and some overlap still existed. "Das

Troja, das mir vor Augen steht," she writes in the second lecture, "ist

- viel eher als eine riickgewandte Beschreibung - ein Modell fur eine Art von Utopie" (108). 173

In Kassandra. as in her 1968 novel Nachdenken uber Christa T.24

Wolf introduces the reader to an individual who is free of the dualities

that are slowly beginning to characterize the society in which she lives

and presents her life as a warning and a hope for the future. In

Cassandra's case, however, wholeness and autonomy of personality are not

achieved until shortly before her death as she recalls the course of the

Trojan war from her prison cell in Mycanae. The Cassandra featured in

the work bearing her name differs considerably from the figure depicted by Homer, Aeschylus, Schiller, or, more recently, Walter Jens. Rejecting male interpretations of the figure as skewed from the perspective and

for the benefit of the patriarchy, Wolf pursues the question of who

Cassandra was before her male predecessors appropriated her: "Wer war

Kassandra, ehe irgendeiner uber sie schrieb?" (162) In her

interpretation of the figure, Cassandra is not merely a prophetess who,

endowed with magical powers, was cursed to predict Troy's downfall, but

not to be believed. Rather, she is a person who employs all her senses

to examine the society in which she lives and recognizes its destructive

tendency after men begin monopolizing positions of power in preparation

for war with the Greeks. She is not believed or disbelieved by the men

around her but simply brushed aside because what she has to say does not

fit in with their expansionist ambitions.

The insight Cassandra gains from her recollections regarding the

nature of war and attitudes and events leading to it is presented for

the benefit of future generations, in particular Wolf's contemporaries

who, at the time Wolf was writing, appeared to be living through the

preparatory stage of a European nuclear war. This emerges not only from 174 the story but from the four lectures that precede it. In addition, the figure also points to the obstacles that can prevent the insight she herself finally gains and the pain that can accompany it, but stresses the need for her knowledge and for alternative attitudes and behaviours to those she describes.

Cassandra's retrospective account of the war and the events preceding it, like that of Hecuba and the Trojan women surrounding her in Jens's Untereane. has little in common with accounts such as Homer's.

Like Hecuba in Jens's drama, Cassandra makes clear that there are no victors, and women in her account are victims long before the war is over. The Trojan women and their Greek counterparts are deprived of all power, traded like pawns between the warring factions, and physically abused and sexually violated by the enemy. Moreover, war, as viewed through Cassandra's eyes, has nothing to do with defense and bravery. It is, rather, the result of cowardice, weakness, stupidity, lies, and emotional inadequacy. As a Trojan princess as well as a prophetess,

Cassandra has close contact with the heroes celebrated by Homer. Her father, King Priam, she reveals, seeks battle on account of wounded pride and expansionist ambitions.(The Trojans are not fighting for

Helen, but for strategic waterways.) Her brother Paris, the military leader Eumelos, and the Greeks Agamemnon and Achilles, are psychologically and emotionally disturbed and look on battle and the abuse of women as an outlet for their aggression and an opportunity to achieve glory. Worst of all, Cassandra informs the reader, none of them know how to live: 175

0 dafl sie nicht zu leben verstehn. Dafl dies das wirkliche Ungluck, die eigentlich todliche Gefahr ist -nur ganz allmahlich hab ich es verstanden. (209)

The Trojan war, in Cassandra's account, is planned and prepared

for by men. But it involves and affects all members of society at all

stages. In the course of her monologue, Cassandra recalls and describes

the deception, creation of stereotypical enemies, historical

falsification, suppression of opinion, restriction of actions and the

misuse of language prevalent in Trojan society as it prepared for war.

In the early stages, she recalls, the term "Gastfreund" (256) was no

longer extended to the Spartan Menelaus and it was considered a crime

for anyone to refer to him in this manner. The war, for propaganda

purposes, is presented to the people as a battle to retain Helen, a

bounty from a military escapade conducted by Paris, that had flattered

the Troj ans:

Die Vorstellung, im Palast ihres Konigs weile die schdne Helena, verdrehte den Leuten die Kopfe.(269)

Again, for propaganda purposes, the war in the opening stages is

referred to as an "Uberfall," for "Krieg durfte es nicht heiflen" (273).

Then later, once the war is underway, such care is no longer necessary.

A reign of terror led by the military leader Eumelos, intimidates all

opposition, first in the palace, and then throughout the city.

... Eumelos. Er zog die Schrauben an. Er warf sein Sicherheitsnetz, das bisher die Mitglieder des Kdnigshauses und die Beamtenschaft gedrosselt hatte, uber ganz Troia, es betraf nun jedermann. Die Zitadelle nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit gesperrt. Strenge Kontrollen alles dessen, was einer bei sich fvihrte, wann immer Eumelos dies fur geboten hielt. Sonderbefugnisse fur die Kontrollorgane. 176

Eumelos, sagte ich, das ist unmoglich. (SelbstverstSndlich wuflte ich, dafl es moglich war.) - Und warum? fragte er mit eisiger Hoflichkeit. - Weil wir uns damit selber schaden, mehr als den Griechen. - Das mttcht ich gerne noch mal von dir horen, sagte er. - In diesem Augenblicke sprang die Angst mich an. Eumelos, rief ich, flehend, dessen scham ich mich noch immer: Aber glaub mir doch! Ich will doch das gleiche wie ihr. (305)

At this point, Cassandra recognizes in retrospect, she was conforming out of fear for her life. But it was also, in any case, too late for effective opposition. It is important, she therefore informs the reader, to look for signs of deception prevalent in the preparatory stages of war.

Wann Krieg beginnt, das kann man wissen, aber wann beginnt der Vorkrieg. Falls es da Regeln gabe, muflte man sie weitersagen. In Ton, in Stein eingraben, uberliefern. Was stiinde da. Da stunde, unter andern Satzen: Laflt euch nicht von den Eignen tauschen. (268)

Cassandra herself, who let herself be fooled in the early stages, is aware of the reasons why one may not wish to see: love of and pride in one's country, feelings of loyalty, fear of ostracization and loss of privilege or identity. The signs of war, and of certain defeat, she realizes also in retrospect, would have been obvious for anyone able and willing to employ all their senses.

Cassandra's own insight and resolution to act are not achieved until the war is well underway. But by that time, and under the prevailing social conditions, the only opposition possible is silence, or retreat. Cassandra's warnings, protests and objections are unwelcome and she is quickly overcome: declared mad, denounced a traitor, and imprisoned. Her retreat takes first mental and then physical form. She 177 retreats initially into madness and then to an idyllic community outside the citadel, in which matriarchal values still prevail. In the idyllic setting of the Ida Mountain, on the bank of the Scamander river, a harmonious community extols and lives by the values opposed by the patriarchy.

This community offers Cassandra and others who are tired of the war, an opportunity to recover. But it does not constitute a viable alternative. As Therese Horningk explains:

Obwohl Kassandra in der friedlichen Umgebung neuen Lebensmut schopfen kann, ist sie, die dem Glauben abgeschworen hat, nicht imstande, sich mit der naiven ReligiSsitdt des Kybelle-Kults zu identifizieren.25

As the flip-side of the patriarchy, it can, Wolf demonstrates be equally destructive. This is made apparent in the story by the Cybele worshipers' vicious attack upon Panthous.26 The group offers a shimmer of hope for the future not as a model for emulation, but as reassurance that the values they extol have been preserved by some individuals under the patriarchal system. The community is composed mainly of women who, as Wolf indicated in her essay "Bervihrung" , have been restricted access to the citadel and are as such largely uncorrupted. Unlike the warriors in both the Greek and Trojan armies, this group, Cassandra points out, know how to live and love, and they extend comfort and affection not only to eachother but to war-weary soldiers on both sides.

The balance of qualities that Wolf proposed in "Beruhrung" would be necessary for human survival is to be found between Skamander and the palace. They are united, finally, in Cassandra herself. Cassandra, as 178

Henk Harbers has demonstrated, productively combines rational contemplation and subconscious insight -the latter gained from dreams and bouts of madness - to gain knowledge about the society in which she lives. She recognizes and confronts her fear and her desire to be privileged and accepted, and she actively looks for an alternative.27

But in the society in which she lived, and, by analogy, in the present day, there is no alternative open to her. This, as Wolf writes in her work diary, explains her decision to die at Mycanae:

Am Ende ist sie allein. Beute der Eroberer ihrer Stadt. Sie weifl, das es fur sie keine lebbare Alternative gegeben hat. (124)

Christa Wolf's decision to have Cassandra die at Mycanae has been interpreted by some critics as an indication that Cassandra has not successfully distanced herself from the heroic customs and patriarchal values she criticizes.28 But Cassandra's death has also been interpreted positively as signalling a willful attainment of autonomy from male reification, and an outright rejection of the heroic tradition.29 In contrast to other accounts of the Cassandra legend, Wolf's Cassandra is presented with the opportunity to leave with Aineas and begin a new life, but she turns down the offer, or, rather command, of the future hero, who is changing before her very eyes, for the benefit of future generations:

Aineias, der mich nie bedrangte, der mich immer gelten liefl, nichts an mich biegen oder andern wollte, bestand darauf, dafl ich mit ihm ging. Er wollte es mir befehlen. [. . . ]

Aineias. Lieber. Du hast mich verstanden, lange eh dus zugabst. Es war ja klar: Allen, die uberlebten, wiirden die neuen Herren ihr Gesetz diktieren. Du, Aineias, hattest 179

keine Wahl: Ein paar hundert Leute mull test du dem Tod entreiflen. Du warst ihr Anfiihrer. Bald, sehr bald wirst du ein Held sein mussen. (342)

Wir hatten nicht die Zeit, uber meine Weigerung, mit ihm zu gehn, die nicht die Vergangenheit betraf, sondern die Zukunft, uns grundlich auszusprechen. Aineias lebt. Er wird von meinem Tod erfahren, wird, wenn er der ist, den ich liebe, sich weiter fragen, warum ich das wShlte, Gefangenschaft und Tod, nicht ihn. Vielleicht wird er auch ohne mich begreifen, was ich, um den Preis des Todes, ablehnen muBte: die Unterwerfung unter eine Rolle, die mir zuwiderlief. (298)

Indeed, like Hecuba in Jen's Untergang, Wolf's Cassandra is shown to

choose death as a martyr consciously over a life she does not wish to

lead. Insofar, her death should not be viewed as "tragisches Schicksal" but as "bewuiit gewahlter, sinnvoller Widerstand gegen herrschende

Wahnsysteme. "30 In addition, her death, again like that of Jen's Hecuba,

as well as that of Christa T. in Wolf's 1968 novel Nachdenken iiber

Christa T.. demonstrates the possible catastrophic consequences of the

dualities Wolf criticizes, and the need to do away with them. Wolf,

indeed, has indicated that she expects Kassandra to elicit a similar

response from readers as the earlier work had done. In a 1984 discussion with students and faculty at the Ohio State University, Wolf stated that

it was her hope that the reader would rebel against Cassandra's fate as

Wolf herself had done in writing about her.31 Wolf's struggle with and

rebellion against Cassandra's fate, i.e. the reduction of human beings

in patriarchal society to the status of objects and victims through the

instrumental reason of those in power, is evident throughout the whole

work, just as it was in Nachdenken iiber Christa T. . 180

The contemporary relevance of the story is made most apparent in the third lecture, which constitutes notes from Wolf's working diary.

Here Wolf reflects on the apparent hopelessness of the situation in which she and her European, or, more specifically, her German contemporaries find themselves, and expresses doubts about the possibility of effective opposition to nuclear weapons due to the fact that a great many people are dependent on the nuclear industry for employment and that they and others feel alienated by this work. She also questions the possibility of opposition in view of the fact that the deterrence system seems to work, i.e. the two German states appear to function as effective buffer zones in East-West confrontation. But immediately she raises the question, with reference no doubt to peace movement activity in both states, if peace may perhaps one day be possible:

Dali man also anscheinend (oder scheinbar) den Status quo wunschen; dali man seine Erhaltung befordern mufl, da seine Verletzung Krieg (was heiBt "Krieg"; Vernichtung) bedeuten wiirde oder konnte; daB daher innerhalb der beiden deutschen Staaten Veranderungen am wenigsten denkbar sind; daB die jungen Intellektuellen zu beiden Seiten dieser Grenze sich an Unmoglichem abarbeiten, aber das ist ihr Leben. Und daB die Alteren, Abgeklarten meiner Generation schon lange erkannt haben: Es gibt keinen Spielraum fur Veranderung. Es gibt keine revolutionare Situation. Oder ist es gerade anders? Wiirde die Grundlage fur Frieden - was jetzt herrscht, ist ja nur Nicht-Krieg, "atomares Patt" - eben dadurch gelegt, dafl produktive Veranderungsprozesse in Gang k&men? (123)

Regardless how Wolf estimates the effectiveness of peace movement protest, she is not inclined to leave the protest to others and seeks through Kassandra to make her own contribution as an individual, as a 181 writer, to help bring about the necessary change by striving for authonomy from the repressive and destructive behaviour she criticizes and she appeals to her readers - and political leaders - to do the same.

In the third lecture she has the following to say regarding women's writing:

Inwiewiet gibt es wirklich "weibliches" Schreiben? Insowiet Frauen aus historischen und biologischen Grunden eine andre Wirklichkeit erleben als Manner. Wirklichkeit anders erleben als Manner und dies ausdrucken. [...] insoweit sie, schreibend und lebend, auf Autonomie aus sind. Da begegnen sie dann den Mannern, die auf Autonomie aus sind. Autonome Personen, Staaten und Systeme konnen sich gegenseitig fdrdern, miissen sich nicht bekampfen wie solche, deren innere Unsicherheit und Unreife andauernd Abgrenzung und Imponiergebarden verlangen. (146)

In the first two lectures, travel reports from Greece, her readers witness her in Greece, actively searching for a vehicle for her ideas.

In the third, a work-diary, she links her Cassandra project to the contemporary threat of nuclear war, and in the final lecture, an essaylike letter, she reflects upon interpretations of Cassandra and the role of writers under the patriarchy. Coming to the conclusion that

"male", objective, linear aesthetic structures with closed forms reflect and perhaps help to uphold the rational, manipulatory and teleological nature of Western culture, she expresses the desire to break this pattern. As Wolf herself, and many critics have commented, the epic story has nonetheless a closed form, a fact that appears to reflect the influence of prevailing patriarchal social structures and aesthetic norms on Wolf herself.32 182

But Wolf also reaches beyond these restrictions. While the story has a closed form, the form of the work as a whole, i.e. the story and four lectures combined, is open, fragmentary and heterogeneous.33

Breaking with the traditional form of academic lectures as well as with academic discourse, Wolf's lecture series, which culminates in the story

"Kassandra," mixes reflective contemplation, sense impressions, rational argumentation and poetic imagery, fact and fiction, dreams and reality.

She mixes genres - the travelogue, diary, letter, and fictional monologue -in order to achieve at once rational and emotional expression, to reconcile in her work the dualities that she believes may one day destroy Western civilization. Moreover, she claims to follow rather than manipulate her protagonist, and lets her speak for herself in the first person, a fact that may account for the closed form of the story that Wolf intended to be openended:

Ich wunsche mir, daB der Leser - wie ich beim Schreiben - sich tiber diesen iiber dreitausend Jahre zuriickliegenden Tod auflehnt, ihn nicht akzeptiert. Das kann nicht sie so sehen, obwohl sie vieles versteht - das muB der Leser sehen. Deshalb versuche ich, die Figur moglichst wenig zu beschadigen, nicht zu einem Objekt zu machen. Zuerst habe ich sechzig Seiten in der dritten Person geschrieben, dann habe ich gemerkt, daB es nicht das bringt, was ich wollte. Ich schrieb dann das Ganze als Monolog, was eine groBere Intensitat und eine starkere Identifizierung mit der Figur brachte, die sich vielleicht auf den Leser iibertragt. Sie war kein literarisches Objekt, das man von auflen besieht und manipulieren konnte, sondern es gab eine eigene Gesetzlichkeit, der ich folgen mufite, die ich nicht beschadigen durfte. Ich wollte moglichst genau und behutsam die psychologischen und gesellschaftlichen Bewegungen in dieser Figur herausstellen. Ich wollte mich eines Urteils enthalten, also nicht sagen: das ist richtig, oder da hatte sie vollkommen anders handeln miissen. Da war einfach diese Figur, die ganz bestimmte Bewegungen verlangte, weil sie sie vor meinen Augen tat. Es war wie eine Buhne, auf der sie sich bewegte; aber es gab nicht diese Trennung durch den 183

Orchesterraum. Ich war mit auf der Bvihne, sie war mit mir im Leben.34

Through the expression of her own fear, the example of her own creative productivity, and the protest of her protagonist, Wolf urges her readers to be afraid and to make a contribution of their own to overcoming the destructive dualities she describes. Like Fries, however, she also recognizes that individual protest is ineffectve without an echo from politicians, and so she addresses and advises her government also. In a 1983 interview with Jacqueline Grenz, she stated that she as a writer considered it her duty to articulate people's feelings, fears and depressions, and to indicate means of resistance. Speaking of the possibility of nuclear annihilation, she then articulated the need for a different value structure and unilateral disarmament. This, she added, was difficult for the East given the nature of the Reagan government, but would have to be undertaken: "Man mufl bei sich selbst anfangen.1,35

In Kassandra also she issues an appeal that the East German government disarm unilaterally and renounce first strike capability. Moreover, she asks it to render constructive criticism possible by doing away with censorship. For writing in the early eighties, Wolf expresses little faith that her own criticisms and ideas will be published, let alone heeded. They would instead, she implies, like those of other critics of

East Germany's defense policy, have to be transmitted orally:

Klytaimnestra, sperr mich ein, auf ewig, in dein finsteres Verlies. Gib mir knapp zum Leben. Aber, ich fleh dich an: Schick mir einen Schreiber, oder, besser noch, eine junge Sklavin mit scharfem Gedachtnis und kraftvoller Stimme. Verfuge, dafi sie, was sie von mir hort, ihrer Tochter weitersagen darf. Die wieder ihrer Tochter, und so fort. So dab neben dem Strom der Heldenlieder dies winzige Rinnsal, 184

muhsam, jene fernen, vielleicht glucklicheren Menschen, die einst leben werden, auch erreichte. Und daran konnt ich glauben, auch nur einen Tag? (284)

Remarkably, however, Kassandra was able to appear in the GDR in 1983, admittedly with a few omissions: Wolf's direct call for East German unilateral disarmament as well as, ironically, her criticism of censorship, had to be removed from the third lecture before the work could be published.36 They were not added until 1988, i.e. in the wake of Gorbachev's new thinking regarding disarmament and freedom of expression.

When the book appeared in both Germanies in 1983, it was received, for the most part, in East as well as West, in the constructive vein in which it was intended.37 As a notable exception in the West, Fritz J.

Raddatz, writing for Die Zeit. considered it a statement regarding

Germany's inevitable destruction. Wolf's claim in the third lecture,

"Hitler hat uns eingeholt" (137) sums up the outlook of the work for him. GDR critics, predictably, had other objections. While considering the work to be a constructive contribution to the cause of peace, GDR critics Hans Kaufmann and Werner Kahle felt that Wolf had gone too far in her objections to the scientific establishment, and pointed to the emancipatory aspects of scientific endeavor. Kahle also took issue with

Wolf's criticism in the third lecture of the socialist states' participation in the arms race and with Cassandra’s call for unilateral disarmament. And Kaufmann criticized Wolf's rejection and limited interpretation of "male" aesthetics. Her concept of what is "male", he points out, only applies to Aristotle and the German classicists Goethe 185 and Schiller. It fails to take account of male writers who have successfully departed from these aesthetic norms. Indeed, one such case is Wolf's West German counterpart Gunter Grass, whose 1986 work Die

Rattin38 I examine next.

Like Wolf, Grass attributes the development of nuclear weapons and the subsequent threat of nuclear war to the exclusion of instinct, imagination and myth from human affairs. This he traces back and attributes to the universalist claims of the Enlightenment and the instrumentalization of reason by a male-dominated Western culture.

Moreover, in Die Rattin he expresses similar feelings of fear, helplessness and despair as Wolf in the face of this deep-seated and pervasive problem. But, like her, he also attempts to overcome the dualities he considers prevalent in all areas of patriarchal society in his aesthetic production. In addition, he addresses the cynicism and resignation that philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in his 1983 treatise,

Kritik der zvnischen Vernunft. posits has resulted from the disappointment experienced by West German intellectuals following their disillusionment with the Enlightenment tradition in the late sixties.39

In Die Rattin Grass, like Sloterdijk, expresses understanding and sympathy for these feelings, but, like Sloterdijk also, he makes it clear to his readers that he considers them -- as well as the failure of

Germans to confront their Nazi past and the emphasis placed by West

Germans on economic prosperity -- responsible for the lack of widespread opposition to nuclear weapons. Die Rattin. like Kassandra. illustrates the catastrophe that could result from a lack of oppostion, and the 186 reasons for both, and urges the reader to abandon cynicism and resignation, to break with the dualities that threaten to destroy

Western civilization, and to adopt and nurture a productive fear that may prevent nuclear war and thus make survival possible.

Die Rattin. a work which Grass refuses to call a novel,40 takes the form of a narrative duel41 between a human, a figure who closely resembles Grass himself, and the rat of the title. The latter, the narrator informs the reader in the opening lines, is a gift that he requested for Christmas, in the hope that it could provide "Reizworter fur ein Gedicht, das von der Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts handelt"

(5). Instead, however, the rat emerges as a physical manifestation of the narrator's fears, not, as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, of her own species, but regarding the possibility of imminent nuclear destruction ("Sie spielt mit meinen Angsten, die ihr handlich sind"

[7]). In a series of incessant chats and lectures that the narrator experiences as dream or nightmare sequence, and in which it is not always clear who is doing the dreaming, the rat reveals that the

"Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts" as proposed by Lessing has resulted in nuclear war from which only rats, the narrator, and Anna Koljaicek - the grandmother of the renowned protagonist of Grass's 1959 bestseller

Die Blechtrommel. who, along with Oskar, is resurrected in this work - emerged alive. This outcome, she claims, was an inevitable result of

Western man's promotion of reason to the exclusion of instinct, in particular the fear necessary for survival. Oppression of this instinct, she explains, was made possible through military and political leaders' employment of a manipulative language, "die beruhigend ausglich, 187

schonungsvoll nichts beim Namen nannte und selbst dann noch verniinftig

klang, wenn sie Blodsinn als Erkenntnis ausgab" (65), and their

rejection and oppression of all opposition as irrational. In the final

days, she informs him, rats tried to warn of the danger and to incite

people to opposition, but their efforts were to no avail. Those who had

learned to live with the threat of nuclear annihilation, on account of

overexposure and trivialization of the event by the new media and in

film and fiction, she argues, were incapable of protesting. Counting on

immortality and addicted to hope, humans had lost all fear of nuclear

war. And when the nuclear threat appeared imminent, they simply gave way

to "Finalismus" (66) and became "fleiflig beim Abschiednehmen" (250). A

few punks, she remarks, did feel and express fear and foreboding for the

future, but their protests were violently oppressed by riot police and

their warnings, like those of the rats, were not heeded. People, it

turns out, proved unable, or unwilling, to change (326) or to heed a

warning from animals (or instincts) for which they had no respect. Human behaviour, till the very end, was characterized by self-deception and

stupidity:

Tuchtig im Selbstbetrug war das Menschengeschlecht, als es mit ihm zu Ende ging, allwissend und dumm zugleich. (165)

Finally, disillusioned with human behaviour, the rats simply withdrew,

or "dug themselves in." And unlike humans, she informs him, they managed

to survive on account of their instincts and their solidarity. Rats, the

narrator's pet rat makes clear, had more to fear from humans than vice 188 versa. And the humans have more reason to fear nuclear weapons and their own political and military leaders than they do rats.*2

All aspects of the rat's characterization of human beings are evident in the behaviour and tales of the human narrator. Arrogantly he repeatedly denies what the rat tells him, insisting instead that he and not rats will determine when the world will end (43), and that it cannot end as long as he continues to make plans. At weaker moments when the rat's arguments appear convincing, he dreams of his own survival ("Auf- gespart in der Raumkapsel," 80) or of the survival of some other human beings (145). At other times, he counters with optimistic reports from

"das dritte Programm." A further, and more elaborate defense, however, is his withdrawal into counterfictions of resistance, which he himself describes as an attempt to postpone the end through words (13), and to escape from her cynical pessimism:

Nichts wollte ich wissen. Meine Raumkapsel wollte ich wieder beziehen, enthoben sein, auf Distanz gehen, anders bewegte Bilder traumen. Nur weg von hier. (194)

There is, however, no escape for the narrator from what is, essentially, a manifestation of his own fears regarding the possibility of nuclear war. The various narratives he devises and interweaves with those of the rat in the end merely amplify and underscore the contemporary relevance of what she says. Moreover, they all culminate, like hers, in nuclear holocaust.

In one narrative strand, the narrator follows the activity of five feminists on a ship who are seeking to estimate the ecological damage caused by a drastic increase in the population of jellyfish in the 189

Baltic. But their struggle, that is symbolized for the narrator in their knitting, they soon recognize, will be to no avail. They realize that those in power are interested in documenting the damage, but have no intentions of trying to counteract it. Convinced that they can have no real power or influence in a society that continues to be dominated by males, they plan to establish a "Frauenreich" at the site of the sunken city of Vineta. Like Wolf, Grass attributes the possibility of nuclear, or ecological, disaster to male domination, but unlike her, he has no faith in women as a counterforce. The feminists who in the seventies proposed to change society, his narrative implies, have no hope of succeeding and, like the rats, are in retreat. There is, however, nowhere on this earth safe for them to go. By the time the women reach

Vineta, it is already occupied by rats and shortly afterwards the women perish in a nuclear explosion.

In a second story line, the narrator observes and interacts with the legendary protagonist from Grass's famous novel Die B1 echtrommel

(1959). In the almost thirty years since the reader last met him, Oskar has evolved from a cautious, insightful outsider into a calculating, conformist in a materially-oriented consumer society. He is now a sixty- year-old, affluent, opportunistic video-producer, who rides around ostentatiously in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. He, too, like the five women, is vaporized in the nuclear exposion that occurs while he is in his hometown of Danzig, celebrating his grandmother's 107th birthday. In grotesque fashion, familiar to readers of Grass's former novels, he is later discovered by the rats, shrivelled beneath his grandmother's skirts, and venerated along with her as a religious icon. 190

The third and fourth tales devised by the narrator arise from his association with Oskar. They are presented, namely, as scripts for educational videos that Oskar and the narrator are co-producing. When the narrator first comes across him, Oskar, who is still very much preoccupied with the "deceptive" fifties, is interested in producing a video on the East Prussian painter and master forger of Gothic murals in the Cathedral at Lubeck during this time, a certain Lothar Malskat. The narrator is first dismayed by Oskar's preoccupation, considering it irrelevant in face of the nuclear and ecological destruction that threatens the future of humanity, but after investigating the case, he discovers that Malskat's fate is a powerful symbol of the time in which he lived and that it helps to explain the threat West Germany was facing in the eighties. Malskat, he claims, after examination of his life and his works, was no forger. He initialed each of his paintings and even went so far as to publicize the fact that they were falsifications. His contemporaries, on the other hand, wishing to believe that the murals had miraculously survived the bombing, and preoccupied with the economic miracle West Germany was experiencing at that time, ignored his statements. In fact, Malskat had to take himself to court in order that justice could be served.

Es war nun mal die Zeit des Zwinkerns, der Persilscheine und des schonen Scheins. Im Jahrzehnt der Unschuldslammer und weiflen Westen, der Morder in Amt und Wurden und christlichen Heuchler auf der Regierungsbank, wollte niemand dies oder das allzu genau wissen, gleich, was geschehen war. (354)

For the same reasons, the narrator claims, two other forgers at that time, namely, Adenauer and Ulbricht, were able to forge two false 191 states. But they, unfortunately, in contrast to Malskat, remained unpunished.

Ach, hatte man seine Bilder, zumal er die Wahrheit ans Licht brachte, doch stehen lassen und den wahren Schwindel, der nie eingestanden wurde, die Machwerke der Staatsgriinder aufier Kraft gesetzt. Er, der sein Eingestandnis vor die Richter warf, kam hinter Gitter, die beiden Groflfalscher hingegen konnten ungeschoren ihr boses Spiel Staat gegen Staat spielen, Luge gegen Liige setzen, Falschgeld gegen Falschgeld miinzen und schon bald - wahrend eilfertig Malskats gotisches Bildwerk zerstort wurde - in Divisionen Soldaten, schon wieder deutsche Soldaten, gegeneinander ins SchuJJfeld rucken; und das, als Erbschaft der Greise, bis heute mit immer mehr Soldaten, mit immer genauerem Ziel, mit der geubten Absicht, es ganz und gar ausgehen zu lassen. (401-2)

In the story-line dealing with Malskat's fate, Grass's narrator attributes the presence of nuclear weapons in Germany to the eagerness of Konrad Adenauer and his East German counterpart, Walter Ulbricht, to bury Germany's Nazi past and to seek a newfound dignity and identity by submerging the two halves of the country into two opposed socio-economic systems and armed camps. In this development, he also indicates, West

Germans were willing accomplices. Adenauer's military and economic policies, he claims, were welcomed by a population that was eager to put its past behind it and to achieve economic prosperity. A further negative outgrowth of this behaviour - the "undemocratic" influence of big business and the military in West German political life - is revealed in a fourth narrative strand.

The fourth narrative, allegedly the plot of a second educational video that Oskar and the narrator are producing, demonstrates how the military and political establishment, with the support of industrialists 192

and conservative clergy, deal with opposition. The video traces the protest by well-known fairytale characters against the ecological

devastation of the woods. Their actions initially promise success. They

abduct the government, put its members to sleep with a prick from

Sleeping Beauty's needle, seize power, and assume vital cabinet positions. But their victory is shortlived. Very soon they are ousted

from power by a coalition of military and capital, blessed by the

church. And, the prince, unable to stop kissing, leads them to the

chancellor.

As the behaviour of the prince demonstrates, the fairytales that

Grass suggested in Der Butt could provide an alternative history on which to build as oral history handed down by women, have been reduced

to shadows of their former selves through the Grimm Brothers' recording of them in written form. Carefully contained on paper, they have become manipulable and incapable of effective opposition.43 Opponents of the establishment, the rat informs him, are manipulated and controlled in

the same way.

Ach das Humane! Oh, dieses Menschengeschlecht! Selbst im Zustand verzweifelter Wirrnis hatten sie alles gut organisiert. Ordner fugten die zum Selbstopfer bereiten Blocke. Der versammelten Kopfzahl entsprechend, standen Ambulanzwagen bereit. (64)

By recording the numbers of demonstrators at various gatherings, the authorities were able to predict how many would turn out, and to send the appropriate number of ambulances and riot police to deal with them. 193

In Die Rattin. Grass not only draws attention to and criticizes the literate nature of the bureaucratic state. He also, like Wolf, implicitly critiques the process of writing under the patriarchy as a mirror and example of manipulation and reification prevalent in all other areas of patriarchal society. Grass underscores this with comments to his audience and characters regarding his authorial power and control. "Weil ich das so will," (20) is stated frequently throughout the text. In addition, he threatens Oskar by stating that he may thwart his intentions to return to Poland by allowing his visa to lapse. But, at the same time, the narrative also breaks with such manipulation. At times, the narrator loses control over his creations. Oskar, for example, goes to Poland despite the narrator's objections, and the rat constantly interrupts his narrative and finally claims that she is dreaming him and not vice versa. Moreover, she has the last word. In the final lines, when the narrator asks her to consider that people do still exist, "doch diesmal wollen wir fureinander und auflerdem friedfertig, horst du, in Liebe und sanft, wie wir geschaffen sind von Natur" (456), she laughingly rejects his proposal, characterizing it "ein schoner

Traum" (456) .

When Die Rattin first appeared, it was criticized by many reviewers as a depressing and demoralizing work, not least on account of the rat's final remarks. Marcel Reich-Ranicki in the conservative

Frankfurter Alleemeine Zeitung spoke of "Enttauschung, Resignation, Hof- fnungslosigkeit,1,44 as the prevailing mood, while Wolfram Schiitte, in his review of the book for the left-liberal Frankfurter Rundschau, declared that Grass, in face of the threat of nuclear destruction, had 194 capitulated.45 Both of these reviewers, and many others, also criticized the work as a prosaic presentation, or, indeed, a mere listing (Schiitte) of well-known problems. Additionally, they designated the large number of story-lines contained in the work as well as its open form confusing, and interpreted the reappearance of characters from Grass's former works as a sign that the author's treatment of nuclear war lacked imagination.46 Such critics, however, as has remarked, committed the error of approaching a new work with traditional bourgeois aesthetic assumptions regarding the nature of a "true" work of art. In so doing, they neglected to consider the aesthetic principles underlying Die Rattin.47

Arnold, for example, suggests that the narrator's incessant creation of narratives could be interpreted as a "Gegenanerzahlen," an attempt at "Selbstbehauptung" inspite of , or rather, on account of the rat's cynicism, despair and resignation. The rat, Arnold writes, "ist

Sprachrohr der Stimmung um ihn herum: durch sie, die im Traum ihm erscheint, redet die menschliche Resignation ihn an, spricht von Hoff- nungslosigkeit und von der Vergeblichkeit aller Vernunft."48 In addition, as I suggested above, the narrator's apparent lack of control over the characters and plot of his work, appears to constitute an attempt on Grass's part to break with the manipulation of and teleological approach toward characters and plots that Grass considers has been influenced by and reflects a social system that is bent upon self-destruction.

In Die Rattin. Grass draws attention to the the mythical nature of human fear of rats and the real need to fear nuclear holocaust, against 195 which we have been immunized through frequent and trivialized simulations in popular culture; he points out the fictional nature of hope of survival derived from manipulative reports of political and military propagandists; and he urges Germans to learn from their past and to be afraid. As at Heilbronn in 1985, he appeals also for Germans to combat feelings of cynicism and resignation, to oppose a political establishemnt governed by the interests of big business and the military and committed to a suicidal defense policy, and to look for strategies of resistance against domination by instrumental reason. In Die Rattin he presents an example of an effective struggle and strategy. He confronts "the rat" in himself, and as an alternative to instrumental reason and its grotesque outgrowth, The Bomb, he pleads for an expansion of the classical Enlightenment to include imagination, dreams, myth, instinct and intuition. His text, like Wolf's, with its mixture of various styles and modes of expression -- including satire, bizarre and grotesque humor, melancholic verse, and serious philosophical and political commentary and essays -, its fusion of dreams and reality, fact and fiction, breaks with the dualities of intellect and emotion as an example for the reader to emulate. As individuals, his text implies, we may be powerless, but with a united effort, like the rats, we may just be able to survive.

In contrast to the authors presented in the previous chapter, the authors addressed above, writing in the knowledge that the proposed INF deployment was likely to proceeed, or was, indeed, already underway, were not concerned with agitating for the peace movements in West or 196

East Germany. Instead they explain the reasons for the failure of those movements and for the deployment of nuclear weapons on West German soil, and urge a change of outlook. In the texts of these West and East German authors, there is a great deal of overlap, and their criticisms apply to both German states. One reason for the deployment and lack of opposition to the nuclear weapons in both German states, Pausewang, Fries and Grass claim, is an overriding concern with material goods, and subsequent political and moral indifference, prevalent since the war. Fries and

Grass attribute this to an attempt by Germans to avoid facing their past. Fries, Grass and Wolf contend, additionally, that the instrumentalization and domination of reason, not only in both German states, but in Western civilization as a whole, is responsible for the existence and German tolerance of the weapons.

The attitude of these authors toward the problems they cite, and to some extent the problems themselves, are reflected in the form in which they choose to convey them. Pausewang, confident that the political and moral indifference can be overcome once Germans realize the possible implications of their materialism, makes a moral and emotional appeal in her didactic teenage novel for a change of attitudes, and expresses confidence that peace can thus be achieved. In addition to criticizing postwar materialism, Fries, as I demonstrated, presents a more fundamental critique of thought patterns in both German states. But like Pausewang, he, too, expresses confidence that the problems he cites can be overcome if he can activate his reader's imagination with a fantastic plot, and strengthen their powers of resistance with humor, as he uncovers them. Wolf and Grass, on the other 197 hand, do not express confidence that the same problems can necessarily be overcome. The instrumentalization of reason in Western society, they show, is allpervasive. Indeed, it appears to be reflected in, and thus perpetuated by, writers like themselves. Such doubts, however, do not result in resignation. Realizing that resignation only serves to uphold the status quo, i.e. would bring the world a little closer toward nuclear, or ecological, annihilation, they rebel against it, and attempt to counteract the predominance and instrumentalization of reason in their texts. Rather than draw on previous literary models, like the other authors examined in this study, Wolf and Grass break with authorial manipulation and teleological, linear narration and experiment with genre and form. Lacking confidence in their respective political establishments, they offer their own creative productivity as examples for their readers to emulate, and hope that over the longterm they can thus alter public opinion and effect change. 198

ENDNOTES

1. Christa Wolf, "Von Buchner sprechen (Darmstadter Rede, 1980)," Fortgesetzter Versuch. Aufsatze. Gesnrache. Essavs (Leipzig: Reclam, 1985) 152.

2. Heinrich Vormweg, statement at "Interlit," "Es geht. es geht...": Zeitgenossische Schriftsteller und ihr Beitrag zuro Frieden - Grenzen und Moglichkeiten. eds. Bernt Engelmann, Gerd E. Hoffmann, Angelika Mechtel, and Hans v.d. Waarsenburg (Munich: Goldmann, 1982) 230-1.

3. "Appell der Schriftsteller Europas," "Es geht. es geht ....11 9.

4. Christa Wolf, Kein Ort. Nirgends (East Berlin: Aufbau, 1979) 171.

5. Gudrun Pausewang, Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn (Ravensburg: Ravensburger Junge Reihe, 1983). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

6. Gudrun Pausewang, "Lernziel: Friedfertigkeit. Kinder und Erwachsene mussen sich gemeinsam engagieren," Die Zeit 4 Jan. 1985.

7. Birgit Dankert, "Asche, Tod und schwarzer Regen," rev. of Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. by Gudrun Pausewang, Die Zeit 4 Mar. 1983.

8. This information is listed at the front of the edition to which I refer.

9. Christa Melchinger, "Nach der Katastrophe - Hiroshima in Hessen," rev. of Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. by Gudrun Pausewang, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 16 July 1983; "Sieht so unsere Zukunft aus?" rev. of Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. by Gudrun Pausewang, Badische Zeitung 23 July 1983.

10. Gerhard Pickerodt, "Die Fragen von heute und die Literatur," Deutsche Volkszeitung 16 Dec. 1983.

11. Gudrun Pausewang, "Lernziel: Friedfertigkeit."

12. Gudrun Pausewang, "Die Gefahr ausleuchten, um sie zu bannen," interview, Theorie und Praxis der Sozialnadagogie. Evangelische Fachzeitschrift 5 (1987): 25.

13. Gudrun Pausewang, Etwas laflt sich doch bewirken (Ravensburg: Ravensburger Junge Reihe, 1984). Pausewang, who was herself actively engaged in the West German peace movement, produced a number of works in the eighties in which she attempted to enlighten children of all ages to the danger of war 199

and to inspire in them a will for peace. They all appeared in the Ravensburg series. See, in addition to the above works, Frieden kommt nicht von alleine. 1982.

14. Pausewang, "Die Gefahr ausleuchten," 25.

15. Fritz Rudolf Fries, Verleeune eines mittleren Reiches (East Berlin: Aufbau, 1984). Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

16. Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literatureeschichte der DDR. 5th ed. (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1989) 287.

17. Berlin - ein Ort fur den Frieden. Internationales Schriftstellergesprach (East Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1987) 90.

18. Fries, personal interview, East Berlin, August 1989.

19. A more detailed discussion of this aspect of the novel is to be found in Bernard Greiner, "Paradies am Ende der Welt," Apokalvose. Weltunterpangsvisionen in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. eds. Gunter E. Grimm, Werner Faulstich and Peter Kuon (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986) 369-83.

20. This is pointed out by Waldtraut Lewin in her review of the work that appeared originally in Sonntag (9/1985). It was reprinted in Kritik *85: Recensionen zur DDR-Literatur. eds. Eberhard Gunther, Werner Liersch, and Klaus Walther (Halle/Leipzig: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1986) 73-75.

21. Lewin, 75. See also review of the work by Werner Liersch, "Zeit- tausch," Neue Deutsche Literatur 3(1985): 135-138.

22. Christa Wolf, "Beruhrung," Fortgesetzter Versuch. 294-307. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

23. Christa Wolf, Kassandra. Vier Vorlesungen. Eine Erzahlung (East Berlin: Aufbau, 1983) . Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

24. Christa Wolf, Nachdenken uber Christa T. (Halle/Leipzig, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1968).

25. Therese Horningk, "Kassandra," Christa Wolf (Gottingen: , 1989) 216.

26. Sabine Wilke also refers to the Skamander community as the flip-side of palace life, with negative as well as positive consequences. See her article entitled "'Ruckhaltlose Subjektivitat'. Subjektwerdung, Gesellschafts- und Geschlechtsbewufltsein bei Christa Wolf," Women in German Yearbook 6 . Jeanette Clausen and Helen Cafferty, eds. (New York: University Press of America, 1991) 34-35, 39. 200

27. Henk Harbers, "'Widerspruche hervortreiben,' Eros, Rational!tat und Selbsterkenntnis in Christa Wolfs Erzahlung Kassandra." Neophilologus 71 ( 1987): 272-3.

28. See, for example, Ricarda Schmidt, "Uber gesellschaftliche Ohnmacht und Utopie in Christa Wolfs Kassandra." Oxford German Studies 16 (1985): 109- 21; Leslie A. Adelson, "The Bomb and I: Peter Sloterdijk, Botho Straufi, and Christa Wolf," Monatshefte 78 (1986): 500-15; Edith Waldstein, "Prophecy in Search of a Voice. Silence in Christa Wolf's Kassandra." The Germanic Review 4 (1987): 194-99.

29. Corinna Range, "Eine andere, nichttotende Art auf der Welt zu sein," Neophilologus 72 (1988): 588-99.

30. Range, 96. See also Anna Kuhn, Christa Wolf's Utopian Vision. From Marxism to Feminism ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 191.

31. "Documentation: Christa Wolf," German Quarterly 54 (1984): 108.

32. See, for example, Ricarda Schmidt, "Uber gesellschaftliche Ohnmacht und Utopie in Christa Wolfs Kassandra." OGS 16 (1985): 109-121; and Leslie A. Adelson, "The Bomb and I: Peter Sloterdijk, Botho Straufl, and Christa Wolf," Monatshefte 78 (1986): 500-13.

33. Anna Kuhn points out that the reading of the lectures that precede the story "explodes the closed structure of the Cassandra narrative." 191.

34. "Documentation: Christa Wolf," 108.

35. See Jacqueline Grenz, "Gesprach mit Christa Wolf," Connaissance de la R.D.A. 17 (1983): 76-77.

36. See Peter J. Graves, "Christa Wolf's Kassandra: The Censoring of the GDR Edition," Modern Language Review 81 (1986): 944-56.

37. See, for example, Manfred Jager, "Mythos und Utopie," Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt 29 May 1983; Frank Benseler, "Kassandra. Oder die Bedingungen des Friedens," Deutsche Volkszeitunp 14 July 1983; "Den heutigen zur Warnung," Baverischer Kurier 15 Oct. 1983; Gunter Cwojdrak, "Kassandra heute," Die Weltbuhne 45 (1984): 1431-33; Hans Kaufmann, "Wider die troianischen Kriege," Sinn und Form 3 (1984) 653-63; Werner Kahle, "Ein Modell fur eine Art von Utopie," Sonntap 6 May 1984.

38. Gunter Grass, Die Rattin (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986; Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1988). I refer to the latter edition. Henceforth references will appear in parentheses in the text.

39. Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zvnischen Vernunft. 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983). See introduction by Andreas Huyssen, "The Return of Diogenes as Postmodern Intellectual," Critique of Cvnical Reason, trans. Michael Eldred (Minnesota: Minnesota UP, 1987). 201

40. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, "Literaturkritik: Hinrichtungs- oder Erkenntnisinstrument, " L'80: Zeitschrift fur Literatur und Politik 39 (1986): 12 2 .

41. Patrick O'Neill, "Grass's Doomsday Book: Die Rattin." Critical Essavs on Gunter Grass. ed. Patrick O'Neill (Boston: G.K. Hall and Co., 1987) 214.

42. For a prolonged discussion of this point see Erhard Friedrichsmeyer, "Gunter Grass's The Rat: Making Room for Doomsday," South Atlantio Review 54 (1989): 179-82.

43. For a more detailed analysis of this aspect of the work see Walter Filz, "Dann leben sie heute noch? Zur Rolle des Marchens in Butt and Rattin." Text und Kritik Gunter Grass, ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, 6th ed. (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1988) 93-100.

44. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, "Ein katastrophales Buch," rev. of Die Rattin. by Gunter Grass, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10 May 1986.

45. Wolfram Schiitte, "Futsch midde Minscher (oder: alles fiir die Katz)," rev. of Die Rattin. by Gunter Grass, Frankfurter Rundschau 1 Mar. 1986.

46. In addition to the above mentioned reviews see Peter Schvitze» "Der Dichtermann, die Rattenfrau und das Ende," Deutsche Volkszeitung H Apr. 1986.

47. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, "Literaturkritik. Hinrichtungs- oder Erkenntnis instrument," 118.

48. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, "Erzahlen gegen den Untergang," Dent-sche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt 16 Mar. 1986. CONCLUSION

In the eighties, as in the fifties, prominent West German writers actively opposed plans to deploy nuclear weapons. In both decades, they used their celebrity to draw attention to protestors' goals by signing petitions and letters, delivering speeches and reading at protest meetings. In contrast to the fifties, their protest also took on a new dimension through their participation along with rock stars and other artists in peace concerts and in acts of civil disobedience. A further fact that distinguished their protest in the eighties from that three decades earlier was their participation with colleagues in East Germany in a series of discussions designed to elucidate how they could help promote nuclear disarmament.

As the summons to the first meeting indicates, they did not want to leave the discussion of the matter to their respective political leaders. Their discussions, however, were little more constructive than those conducted by politicians during the same period: Their debates mirrored East/West tensions and suspicion, as well as tension and dissent of opinion among East Germans with regard to the unofficial peace movement in East Germany. Moreover, the achievement of political consensus during one of these meetings involved insufferable moral compromise for some West German writers on the issue of civil rights of unofficial peace protestors in the GDR and had serious repercussions for

202 203 the West German writers' union (the VS) that, since its inception, had constituted an unlikely alliance of individuals who looked upon it as a political body that could protect their economic interests. In addition, a minority of authors considered it and wished it to function as a moral institution. This minority was composed largely of belletristic authors who regarded their role within West German society as that of moral authority and social conscience and considered it their duty to defend human rights and freedom of speech. They found compromise in these matters unconscionable. Moreover, they did not believe that compromise on the question of free expression in the East bloc could further the cause of peace and disarmament, but would instead serve to uphold the status quo. The case of unofficial peace protestors was championed for the same reason by East Germans such as Stefan Heym, Franz Fuhmann and

Christa Wolf. And, in Heym's opinion, support expressed by himself and other writers at the first writers' peace conference in East Berlin in

December 1981 for these forces called forth the first ever unofficial peace demonstration in East Germany in mid-February 1982.

There is no evidence to indicate that the political activism of the writers I examined as well as that of all other individuals who participated in the peace movement in the eighties directly influenced either Gorbachev's disarmament proposals or the Western governments' compliance with them. Economic problems in the Soviet Union apparently provided impetus for the disarmament proposals, and an economic upturn in West Germany appears to have increased concern among the West German population for national security matters. But during the period when the majority of West Germans were preoccupied with economic problems, peace 204 protestors kept the issue of medium-range nuclear weapons alive and in so doing helped create a climate receptive to Gorbachev's ideas. The same is true of fictional literature written as a reaction and in opposition to the NATO double-track decision that received extensive coverage in the cultural sections of the popular press.

In the early eighties, West German authors writing in conjunction with the peace movement sought primarily to incite their readers to oppose the proposed missile deployment by criticizing the system of nuclear deterrence and the lack of widespread opposition to further missile deployment and warning of the danger and catastrophic consequences of nuclear war. East Germans writing in the early eighties also warned of the danger of nuclear war. Their texts, however, also indirectly addressed and sought either to reject (Panitz) or legitimate

(Heym) the role of unofficial peace protest in East Germany. In the mid­ eighties, the aims of writers underwent some modification as they shifted from agitation to analysis. Writing in anticipation or in the aftermath of the Bonn decision to accept the proposed nuclear deployment, the authors I examined not only warned of the danger of nuclear war and attempted to inspire opposition, but reflected upon the reasons for the deployment and the failure of opposition. Consideration of these issues resulted in a critique of postwar political developments and attitudes in the two German states (Pausewang/Fries/Grass) or a fundamental critique and rejection of the values extolled by Western civilization (Fries/Wolf/Grass), and a subsequent appeal for a change of consciousness. The nature of the political message particular individual writers sought to convey, as well as their attitude toward it, had implications

for and is reflected in their employment, adaptation, or rejection of traditional aesthetic styles, forms, or motifs. The authors of the agitational literature produced in the early eighties drew, for the most part, on forms and motifs that had been employed by previous authors of political literature. Contributors to the multitude of peace anthologies, as well as Peter Schutt and Wolf Biermann produced functional lyric similar to that of Brecht, Tucholsky and Kastner, and

Biermann also protrayed a modern version of the "stumme Kattrin" from

Brecht's antiwar drama Mutter Courage. In 1982, Kattrin assumed the form of an innocent, helpless, suffering Third World victim of the Cold War.

In his 1982 drama Der Untereang. Walter Jens, seeking to remind his audience of the horror of World War II, and to reproduce the antiwar sentiment that had existed in the early postwar period, adapted a drama that had achieved a high emotional impact when performed in 1947. He even made a point of having his own version performed in the same city and theater in which the drama had been performed in 1947, and assigned the same actress the leading role. At the same time, however, he stresses the fact that a nuclear war would have even more devastating consequences than a conventional one by radicalizing the destruction and intensifying the individual suffering he depicts. He also deviates from the original and other twentieth century adaptations of it by having some of the characters conduct symbolic acts of protest in an effort to underscore the need for and possibility of such action. His drama is 206 overtly didactic and appeals to the audience' s powers of moral reasoning to help prevent a similar catastrophe from occuring.

Guha and Zwerenz, on the other hand, attempted to reach a wide audience and to take them by surprise with their agitational political sci-fi chronicles. Zwerenz, however, scarcely does more than entertain, and on the few occasions when his narrator addresses the nuclear threat, his outlook is extremely pessimistic. Guha's work with its intentional

inarticulateness and tiresome citation of pessimistic philosophical

theories is neither entertaining nor politically convincing.

In the case of the East Germans, the intention to uphold or undermine official peace policy is reflected in the author's adherence to or deviation from official cultural norms. Panitz, seeking to demonstrate and elicit support for his government's peace initiatives, adheres strictly and intentionally to the austere form of socialist realism that many East German writers had left behind in the late sixties. Heym, on the other hand, critical of the government's peace policy and its treatment of the Christian opposition, infers his support for the latter's peace activities through the use of religious imagery and deviation from his previous adherence to the same cultural dictates as Panitz. Panitz's stragegy, however, was ill-suited for the progressive groups he was trying to convert, while Heym's overt and radical criticism of the GDR bureaucracy and Luther, and perhaps also his more subtle expression of support for Christian peace activists, was as unacceptable for the East German authorities as the activities of

Christian peace activists. The government responded at this time by 207 ignoring both. The work did not appear in East Germay till 1988, in the wake of Gorbachev's new thinking regarding disarmament and free speech.

In an attempt to enlighten their audiences about the danger of nuclear annihilation, the behaviour and attitudes responsible for the threat, and those they would have to adopt if they wished to survive,

West German Gudrun Pausewang, and East German Fritz Rudolf Fries present their readers with overtly didactic works. In her 1983 teenage novel,

Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn. Pausewang portrays the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war for a small West German village, attributes the disaster to an overriding concern among the postwar generation with material goods, and their subsequent political and moral indifference, and appeals through her innocent, heroic, young narrator to a new sense of morality. In his 1984 sci-fi chronicle, Verleeune eines mittleren

Reiches. Fries likewise attributes the existence of nuclear weapons in both German states to a preoccupation with material possessions. This he attributes, in turn, to the reluctance of Germans to confront and learn from their Nazi past, and, additionally, to the predominance and

instrumentalization of reason in Western civilization. Moreover, he reproaches the Communist system for its failure to provide for its citizens, to encourage independent intellectual activity and constructive criticism and to pursue peace. Through humor, wit, irony and sarcasm, Fries's narrator distances the reader for didactic purposes from the events and characters he describes and underscores his negative attitude toward both. Despite the more fundamental nature of his critique compared to that of Pausewang, Fries, too, expresses confidence in his preface that the situation he describes can be avoided if people 208 recognize the problems and are willing and able to employ their imaginations in order to solve them.

Christa Wolf and Gunter Grass, for their part, also attribute the threat of nuclear annihilation, as well as the lack of opposition to nuclear weapons, to the predominance of instrumental reason and the suppression of imagination, intuition and instinct in Western civilization. But, in contrast to Fries, they do not appear confident that the catastrophes they describe can necessarily be averted. The manipulation and reification that threaten to destroy both German states, they infer, are deep-seated and all-pervasive. Indeed, they imply that they and other authors may have helped to sustain them through the example of their written texts. Rather than resign, however, in the face of what seems an inescapable fate, they stress the need for recognition of the problems they cite, productive concern for the future, and individual opposition. As an example of the latter, they themselves attempt to avoid manipulation of character and events in their own narratives and to counteract the dualities they describe in creative experimental narratives that carefully balance rational and irrational discourse, fact and fiction, reality and dreams. The message and hope they seek to convey is that what is possible in the text may just be possible in reality, if large numbers of individuals can find the strength and courage to resist. This, in the absence of any response to peace protestors in East and West by the East and West German governments and their respective allies, seemed the only remaining hope at the time they were writing. 209

Since then, of course, superpower negotiations have brought about the withdrawal of intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Central

Europe. Speaking at the writers' peace conference held in East Berlin in

May 1987, Christa Wolf expressed delight that politicians were gradually beginning to make morally sound political choices regarding the future of the planet and were beginning to make demands similar to those that had been censored a few years earlier from her manuscript. This, she continued, would serve as an incentive for her to continue thinking and writing about problems that have yet to be publicly recognized and addressed. Specifically, she pointed to the need for Western cultures to recognize and confront the aggressive character of Western civilization, its abuse of natural resources and its exploitation of the Third World.1

The challenge remains for writers to find appropriate aesthetic means to communicate the nature and ramifications of these problems and to describe appropriate correctives. ENDNOTES

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