Arendt Wrote a Review of a German Book That — in the Middle of the War — Was Available to Her Only in English Translation

einen Staatenlosenpaß erbitten. […] Ebenso verstand ich erst in der Minute, da ich nach längerem Warten auf der Bittstellerbank des Vorraums in die englische Amtsstube einge- lassen wurde, was dieser Umtausch meines Passes gegen ein Fremdenpapier bedeutete. Denn auf meinen österreichischen Paß hatte ich ein Anrecht gehabt. Jeder österreichische Konsulatsbeamte oder Polizeioffizier war verpflichtet gewesen, ihn mir als vollberech- tigten Bürger sofort auszustellen. Das englische Fremdenpapier dagegen, das ich erhielt, mußte ich erbitten. Es war eine erbetene Gefälligkeit und eine Gefälligkeit überdies, die mir jeden Augenblick entzogen werden konnte. Über Nacht war ich abermals eine Stufe hinuntergeglitten. Gestern noch ausländischer Gast und gewissermaßen Gentleman, der hier sein internationales Einkommen verausgabte und seine Steuern bezahlte, war ich Emigrant geworden, ein ›Refugee‹.« Zweig: Die Welt von gestern, 462-463. 95 35 »The Great Silence« ] »ONA, March 9, 1942«. Anmerkung im Text. Der Aufsatz war unter demselben Titel in der Neuen Volkszeitung [New York] vom 22. Juni 1940, 2, erschienen. Eine englische Übersetzung dieser Fassung, »The Great Si- lence«, übersetzt von William G. Phelps, erschien in: The Shreveport Times [Shreveport], 30. Juni 1940, 5. Die von Arendt genannte Fassung des Aufsatzes (ONA, March 9, 1942), die fast zwei Jahre später erschien, konnte nicht nachgewiesen werden. Zweig: Das große Schweigen (Neue Volkszeitung). 95 35-36 kurz vor seinem Tode ] Stefan Zweig hatte am 22. Februar 1942 Selbstmord began- gen. 96 4-6 »als sei ein … worden«, ] Stefan Zweigs Essay »Das große Schweigen« beginnt mit den Worten: »Ich glaube, dass die erste Pflicht aller, die die Freiheit des Redens haben, heute die ist, im Namen der Millionen und Abermillionen zu sprechen, die es selber nicht mehr können, weil dieses unentwendbare Recht ihnen entwendet worden ist.« Für »vier- zig oder fünfzig Millionen Opfer« will der Schreiber sprechen, »deren Stimmen in Mittel- europa erstickt, erdrosselt ist«. Die zitierte Passage lautet: »Die ganze Welt war schreck- lich betroffen. Es war, als ob ein Mensch unter der Wirkung eines heftigen Schocks aus grosser Höhe niedergestürzt sei und als ob er nun sich wieder erhöbe, um sich blickte und sich fragte: ›Wo bin ich? Sind wir wirklich im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert der Menschheit?‹« Zweig: Das große Schweigen, 424. 96 6-8 jenes »Jahrhundert, dessen … waren«. ] »Was ein einzelner Mensch berichten kann, ist nur ein Tropfen in diesem Ozean von Elend, der ein Viertel Europas überschwemmt hat. Später einmal, wenn man seinen ganzen Umfang kennen wird, wenn man um die Mil- lionen und Millionen glücklicher Existenzen, die er verschlungen hat, wissen wird, später einmal wir die Menschheit sich derer schämen, die durch Akte nutzloser Grausamkeit ein Jahrhundert besudelt haben, dessen Fortschritt, dessen Wissenschaften, dessen Künste, dessen großartige Erfindungen unser aller Stolz und unser aller Glaube waren.« Zweig: Das große Schweigen, 426.

Portrait of a Period

A rather complicated story: Arendt wrote a review of a German book that — in the middle of the war — was available to her only in English translation. She wrote her review in German, and an unknown translator rendered the text

404 Anhang / Appendix

3278_Arendt_6_Essays_Auflage_2_DD.indd 404 25.02.19 14:44 into English. In her original version, Arendt at times translated passages from the book back into German herself; in these cases, we have decided to present both the English she was using as well as the actual German original in the annotations to her German version. In all other cases, the English quotations are to be found in the English apparatus, with references to the German original.

165 22-23 “one rung lower,” … category.” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 408-409. 165 31 thanked Richard Strauss … libretti. ] Die schweigsame Frau, an adaptation of Ben Jonson’s comedy Epicene, or The Silent Woman (1609). The opera premiered in Dres- den in 1934 and was cancelled before the second performance. Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 368-377. Zweig: Die Welt von gestern, 418-428. 165 35-36 that his name … “criminal,” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, vi. See 399. 166 1-2 “the fall into … occurred” ] “I could not adequately describe the fall into the abyss which I with countless others equally innocent suffered, if I did not indicate the height from which it occurred, and the singularity and consequences of this destruction of our whole literary generation, an occurrence unique in history.” Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 317. »ich könnte also den Absturz, den ich – mit unzähligen andern und ebenso Schuldlo- sen – später erlitten, nicht in seiner ganzen Tiefe und Totalität anschaulich machen, wenn ich nicht zuvor die Höhe zeigte, von der er erfolgte, und nicht auch die Einmalig- keit und Konsequenz dieser Ausrottung unserer ganzen literarischen Generation, für die ich eigentlich in der Geschichte kein zweites Beispiel weiß.« Zweig: Die Welt von gestern, 362. 166 13-14 “frühgereift und zart und traurig” ] Hofmannsthal: Introduction Anatol, xvi-xvii. See 399-400. 166 22 real life ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 118. See 400. 167 8 “the Golden Age of Security” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 1. See 400. 168 4-5 Treitschke made antisemitism “fit for good society.” ] Treitschke: Unserer Aussichten, 575. See 400. 168 6-10 Lueger as Mayor … friends.” ] “Karl Lueger, with his soft, blond beard, was an imposing person — der schöne Karl, the Viennese called him. He had been academically educated in an age that placed intellectual culture aver all else; and he had not gone to school in vain. He could speak in a way that appealed to the people; he was vehement and witty, but even in the most heated speeches-or at least those that were thought to be heated at that time-he never overstepped the bounds of decency. […] He always maintained a certain chivalry towards his opponents, and his official antisemitism never stopped him from being helpful and friendly to his former Jewish friends.” Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 63. See 400. 168 12-13 with the exception … Herzl. ] Zweig got to know Herzl in 1901; he “was the first man of world importance whom I had encountered in my life”. Regarding reactions to

Kommentar / Commentary 405

3278_Arendt_6_Essays_Auflage_2_DD.indd 405 25.02.19 14:44 Herzl’s Der Judenstaat it reads: “but I can still remember the general astonishment and annoyance of the bourgeois Jewish circles of Vienna. What has happened, they said an- grily, to this otherwise intelligent, witty and cultivated writer? What foolishness is this that he has thought up and writes about? Why should we go to Palestine? Our language is German and not Hebrew”. Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 101 and 103. See 400. 168 17 how antisemitic the better classes were ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 17 and 111. See 400-401. 169 11-13 how the death … tears. ] “I can remember, for example, that once when I was very young our cook ran into the room with tears in her eyes. She had just been told that Char- lotte Wolter — the most prominent actress of the Burgtheater — had died. The grotesque thing about her wild mourning was obviously the fact that this old, semi-illiterate cook had never once been in the fashionable Burgtheater, and that she had never seen Wolter either on the stage or elsewhere; but a great national actress was the collective property of the entire city of Vienna, and even an outsider could feel that her death was a catastrophe.” Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 16. See 401. 169 34-36 “nine-tenths of what … Jewry.” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 22. See 401. 169 38 “Posterity weaves no wreaths for the mime” ] Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein, prologue. 170 5-6 “general geniuses,” detached … greatness.” ] Zweig often discusses “greatness”: An “otherwise unimportant writer” gained “a sudden greatness“, Vienna “drew the artists and educated them to greatness”. When describing Walter Rathenau, he writes: “And in staking his life on a single idea, the salvation of Europe, he attained the greatness which was innate to his genius.” Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 270, 19, 182. See 401. 170 21 despite his connoisseurship ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 18. See 401. 170 25-27 “Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, … Stifter.” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 23. See 401. 170 32-33 In his guest-book … passionately ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 367. See 402. 170 39 for the “born genius” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 48. See 402. 170 39 “the poet in the flesh” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 49. See 402. 171 16 “The radiant power of fame” ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 42. See 402. 171 18 Karl Haushofer ] Zweig met Karl Haushofer on a four month long trip through Asia: “One of the men whom I met on my trip to India has achieved an immeasurable even if not publicly apparent influence upon the history of our time. From Calcutta to Indo-Chi- na, and on a river boat headed up the Irrawaddy, I spent hours every day with Karl Haus- hofer and his wife. He was on his way to Japan as German Military Attaché. Erect and slim, spare-faced and eagle-nosed, he gave me my first insight into the unusual qualities and the intrinsic discipline of a German General Staff officer. […] Haushofer […] came from middle-class people of culture — his father had published some poems and was, I believe, a university professor — and his education, besides military science, was compre-

406 Anhang / Appendix

3278_Arendt_6_Essays_Auflage_2_DD.indd 406 25.02.19 14:44 hensive.” In the following Zweig describes in detail how he learned about Haushofer’s “geopolitics” and how the term “Lebensraum” (coined by Haushofer) found its way to the language of the Nazis: “But one of Haushofer’s pupils had been Rudolf Hess, and he had brought about the connection. Hitler, though himself far from receptive to unfamiliar ideas, possessed, from the outset, the instinct to appropriate whatever might serve his personal ambitions. […] So it was my old traveling companion […] as senseless an example of the transformation of a single pregnant formula into deed and destiny through the power immanent in language […]. As far as I know, Haushofer never held a prominent position in the party; perhaps he never was a party member.” Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 184-186. See 402-403. 171 38-39 “homeless in borrowed languages.” ] “He [Sorrento] had not been banned, nor his books, like Merejkovsky whom I had met in Paris, tragically embittered; not as we today who, as Grillparzer put it, ‘have two abroads but not a home,’ homeless in borrowed languages, tossed about by the wind”. Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 342. »Er [Sorrent] war nicht verbannt mit seinen Büchern, mit seiner Person wie Mer- eschkowsky – ich bin dem tragisch Verbittertem in Paris begegnet –, nicht wie wir es heute sind, die nach Grillparzers schönem Wort ›zwei Fremden und keine Heimat‹ haben, unbehaust in geborgten Sprachen und umgetrieben vom Wind.« Zweig: Die Welt von gestern, 389. 171-172 39-4 his collections were … itself. ] In the chapter, “Into the World Again,” Zweig writes: “During the first years I was never bold enough to think of earning money with my books, let alone to be able to make a living out of their proceeds. Now, suddenly they brought in considerable and ever-increasing amounts which seemed — who could have foreseen times like the present? — to lift me above financial worries for all time? I was able to give free rein to the passion of my youth, manuscript collecting, and some of the most beautiful, most valuable of those marvelous relics became the objects of my tender care. For those relatively ephemeral works which I had written I was able to acquire manuscripts of everlasting works, manuscripts by Mozart and Bach and Beet hoven, Goethe and Balzac.” The chapter, “Sunset,” describes in detail how the collec- tion evolved and what became of it once Zweig emigrated to England. Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 323 and 348-354. See 403. 172 6-7 take too seriously his newly acquired British citizenship ] Zweig: The World of Yesterday, 408-409. See 403. 172 15 “The Great Silence” ] “ONA, March 9, 1942”. Annotation in the text. 172 15 shortly before his death ] Stefan Zweig committed suicide on February 22, 1942. 172 25-26 “as if a … blow.” ] Zweig: The Great Silence, 5. See 404. 172 27-28 “century whose progress, … all.” ] Zweig: Das große Schweigen, 426. The version of the essay that Arendt names, which appeared almost two years later, could not be found. The essay was published under the same title on page 2 in the June 22, 1940 edition of the Neuen Volkszeitung (New York). An English translation by William G. Phelps, appeared under the title, “The Great Silence,” on page 5 of the June 30, 1940 edition of The Shreveport Times. Zweig: Das große Schweigen (Neue Volkszeitung). Zweig: The Great Silence.

Kommentar / Commentary 407