37^ A8/J- //<5.Wc»7 GERHART HAUPTMANN: GERMANY THROUGH the EYES of the ARTIST DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council
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37^ A8/J- //<5.Wc»7 GERHART HAUPTMANN: GERMANY THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ARTIST DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By William Scott Igo, B.S., M.Ed. Denton, Texas August, 1996 37^ A8/J- //<5.Wc»7 GERHART HAUPTMANN: GERMANY THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ARTIST DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By William Scott Igo, B.S., M.Ed. Denton, Texas August, 1996 1$/C. I go, William Scott, Gerhart Hauptmann: Germany through the eyes of the artist. Doctor of Philosophy (History), P / C if August, 1996, 421 pp., references, 250 entries. Born in 1862, Gerhart Hauptmann witnessed the creation of the German Empire, the Great War, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and World War II before his death in 1946. Through his works as Germany's premier playwright, Hauptmann traces and exemplifies Germany's social, cultural, and political history during the late-nineteenth to mid- twentieth centuries, and comments on the social and political climate of each era. Hauptmann wrote more than forty plays, twenty novels, hundreds of poems, and numerous journal articles that reveal his ideas on politics and society. His ideas are reinforced in the hundreds of unpublished volumes of his diary and his copious letters preserved in the Prussian Staatsbibliothek, Berlin. In the 1960s, Germans celebrated Hauptmann's centenary as authors who had known or admired Hauptmann published biographies that chronicled his life but revealed little of his private thoughts. This dissertation examines Hauptmann's life from his early childhood through his adult life with emphasis on social and political commentaries found in his works, diaries, and letters. Hauptmann told of the social problems alcohol and greed created and used historical events to express his concern about Germany's labor and social conditions. He also used historical events to address the political problems that plagued Germans and their government. Even his fairytale, Hannele criticized the Volk's rejection of his view of German nationalism and unity. In all his works, Hauptmann challenged the Volk to find strength within their own souls and to reject the materialism of the modern world. Hauptmann's published and unpublished works reveal a man who found comfort and strength in the Volk and volkisch Kultur. He yearned for a united German Kultur and shaped his politics and commentaries to achieve unity. This dissertation examines Hauptmann's vision of German unity which winds its way throughout his works, an idea overlooked in other biographies and critiques. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHIC HERITAGE 17 3. EARLY LIFE AND LITERARY DEVELOPMENT .... 46 4. HAUPTMANN'S SOCIAL CRITICISM: 1873-1888 . 84 5. HAUPTMANN'S "VOR SONNENAUFGANG:" A TULMULTUOUS TRIUMPH 107 6. WILHELMINE GERMANY AND "THE WEAVERS:" 1890 - 1894 141 7. THE DEVELOPMENT OF HAUPTMANN'S NATIONALISM: WILHELMINE GERMANY BEFORE THE WORLD WAR 1895 - 1913 203 8. HAUPTMANN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: 1914 - 1918 253 9. PEACE, REVOLUTION, AND THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 1918 - 1933 299 10. HAUPTMANN AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM, THE JEWISH QUESTION, AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR 1923 - 1946 345 11. CONCLUSION 383 ABBREVIATIONS 402 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 403 xxx CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION All too frequently historians attribute the development of a society, a government, or even a nation to a grand philosophical ideal or the political machinations of a powerful person or group. These historians also frequently slight the most obvious element in the development of any social institution, especially a nation. Any society is a reflection of the people who organize it: their common cultural heritage, their identification and acceptance of an ideal-self, and a sense of being and purpose. Literature exemplifies a people's culture as authors express the ideals, social mores, and societal views the general populace possesses. Through his drama, poetry, and prose writings, Gerhart Hauptmann, whom many literary critics consider the greatest German poet-playwright since Goethe, expressed the social, cultural, and political consciousness of many rural and educated Germans during the Wilhelmine Era, the Weimar period, and the Third Reich. Hauptmann's works shocked the theater-going public, but at the same time they received world-wide critical acclaim and plaudits. In 1912, Hauptmann received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The author of more than forty plays, twenty- five novels and prose "tales," verse epics and numerous lyric poems, essays, speeches, and voluminous unpublished fragments, diaries, and letters, Gerhart Hauptmann saw his works performed on the stage, shown on the silver screen, and translated into more than thirty foreign languages. This dissertation will examine the life and work of Gerhart Hauptmann to discern the impact of his social and political commentaries on German life and thought. It will examine Hauptmann's upbringing, his education, and experiences of youth to ascertain the influences that shaped his views and how he expressed those views. As a poet- playwright, Hauptmann lived through and commented upon three of the most spectacular eras of modern German history. His commentaries are a reflection of the German people. Through an examination of his plays, novels, diaries, and unpublished journals and literary fragments, a clearer picture of German culture and society from the Wilhelmine Era through the fall of the Third Reich can be formulated. In other words, a study of Gerhart Hauptmann's life and works is a study of German history from the wars of unification to the destruction of the Nazi Reich in 1945. During the Wilhelmine era, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his chancellors prohibited the production of Hauptmann's Die Weber (The Weavers, 1893) in both state-sponsored and public theaters. At the same time the state censored Die Weber, the socialists praised the work as a "people's" play. Even though Hauptmann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912, the Crown Prince, in 1913, suppressed Hauptmann's Festspiel in deutschen Reimen rCelebration Play in German Rhvmel when the play did not fit the mold of the new-found nationalistic spirit it was commissioned to represent. Yet, the Nazis later celebrated Hauptmann as a devout nationalist for his 1896 play Florian Geyer. Gerhart Hauptmann was born on November 15, 1862, in Obersalzbrunn, Silesia. The third son of an innkeeper and grandson of a Silesian weaver, Hauptmann grew up with all classes of people, including wealthy guests of his father's hotel as well as the servants who worked for his father. Robert Hauptmann and his wife, Marie Strahler Hauptmann, often too busy for their children, left the rearing of the children to servants. Young Gerhart frequently walked about the village and saw first-hand the squalor of the miners and weavers, comparing it to the middle-class wealth of his father and his father's acquaintances. Hauptmann began attending the village school at the age of six; in 1874, at the age of twelve, he joined his older brother Carl at the Realschule am Zwinger in Breslau. Hauptmann studied carelessly while attending school; he spent a great portion of his time sketching and composing fairy tales and crude poems. The strict religious training at the Realschule. however, did leave a lasting impression on the young boy.1 Hard economic times fell upon all Germany in the late 1870s, and the Hauptmanns in Silesia felt the financial strain more than most. The middle class, upon whose spending the Hauptmanns prospered, traveled less then they had before, and Robert Hauptmann lost his inn to creditors. The family possessed only meager savings, and since Gerhart was not the best student of the children at the Realschule. Robert sent the youngest son to live with an uncle on a farm. The adventures and zealous religious experiences with the uncle's family became material for a semi- autobiographical short story, Bahnwarter Thiel (Flacrman Thiel, 1888), and novel, Per Narr in Christo Emanuel Quint (The Fool in Christ Emanuel Quint, 1910). In 1880, Gerhart Hauptmann returned to Breslau and once again attended the Realschule there. This time, the young man turned his studies to the arts and practiced sculpting and writing epic poetry. In 1882, Hauptmann moved to Jena to live with his brother Carl and his brother's new wife, but at twenty years of age, Gerhart felt the wanderlust and set off on a long trip through southern France, Spain, and Gerhart Hauptmann, "Das Abenteuer meiner Jugend," Samtliche Werke. 11 vols. (Berlin: Propylaen Verlag, 1962- 1974), 477ff. All that is known of Gerhart Hauptmann's youth is found in this autobiography which encompasses the events of his youth through the late spring of 1888. Italy. Upon his return to Jena, Hauptmann began visiting Carl's sister-in-law, Marie Thienemann. Gerhart's and Carl's oldest brother, George, had previously married the oldest Thienemann daughter, and in 1885 Gerhart married Marie; the three Hauptmann brothers had married three wealthy sisters. The newlyweds moved to Berlin where Gerhart began to write, but his early work was considered trite, and no one published it. Gerhart and Marie's relationship was strained under the burden of financial problems, but Marie's inheritance helped the couple live a comfortable life during these financially troubled times for the young author. After the couple moved to Erkner, a Berlin suburb, Hauptmann fathered three sons, began studying acting, and spent much of his time with other aspiring young artists who also lived in Erkner. Hauptmann began work on one of his more famous works, Promethidenlos (The Fate of the Prometheans. 1884), put the finishing touches on his book of poetry, Das bunte SHSh (The Varicolored Book, 1884), and later Faschina.