The Berlin Journal

A Magazine from the American Academy in Berlin | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 THE BERLIN JOURNAL

In this issue: Mahnaz Afkhami Leonard Barkan Stephen G. Breyer Nicholas Eberstadt Mitch Epstein Joel Harrington Susan Howe John Kornblum Harvey Mansfield Michael Queenland Mary E. Sarotte New York‘s newest attractions are built by us.

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The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 COURTESY OF THE ARTIST THE OF COURTESY

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World without Walls Ambitious Arts Historical Crossings

8 mary e. sarotte narrates the evening 24 harvey mansfield campaigns for 34 stephen g. breyer details the legal hours of November 9, 1989 and how a political science to adopt a broader arguments and historical dramas of the botched press conference inadvertently understanding of how politics actually Supreme Court’s Dred Scott case and how begins the end of the Cold War. works by glancing at a notion in Greek its unfortunate decision – and furied philosophy and the fundamentals of reception – helped to foment the Civil War. 10 john c. kornblum recounts his time literature. at NATO when the Berlin Wall fell and 42 joel harrington examines the observes the continued importance of 30 leonard barkan peeks into sixteenth-century journal of Nuremberg’s the transatlantic alliance. Michelangelo’s mind, hewing closely to not-ungodly official executioner, teasing the artist’s unscripted jottings comprised out the broadly transformative ethos of 16 nicholas eberstadt and hans of words, pictures, and mysterious asides. Reformation justice. groth argue that Russia is in dramatic demographic decline – the makings of a 47 susan howe evokes subtle memories future catastrophe. of the Midwest in a poem composed of N1 On the Waterfront notes by western-moving pioneers about 20 mahnaz afkhami envisions the future the precious things they left behind. expansion of women’s rights in Muslim- The American Academy’s newsletter, majority nations by recollecting Iran’s with the latest on fellows, alumni, and Donations to the Academy recent past. trustees, as well as recent events at the Hans Arnhold Center. 2 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

The Berlin Journal The American Academy A magazine from the Hans Arnhold in Berlin Dire ctor’s Note Center published by the American Executive Director Academy in Berlin Gary Smith Number Eighteen – Fall 2009 CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE A Berlin Whole and Free OFFICER Publisher Gary Smith Andrew J. White Editor R. Jay Magill Jr. he Cold War began with the division of Europe. Managing Editor Am Sandwerder 17–19 It can only end when Europe is whole.” These words, Alissa Burmeister 14109 Berlin spoken by George H.W. Bush on May 31, 1989, in Associate Editors Tel. (49 30) 80 48 3-0 “T Nicole Busse, Jeff Silver, Fax (49 30) 80 48 3-111 Mainz, evinced the deepest hopes of the transatlantic alliance Mieke Woelky www.americanacademy.de just a half year before the Berlin Wall disappeared, eastern bor- Advertising 14 East 60th Street, Suite 604 ders opened, and the world became incalculably smaller. We Berit Ebert, Coralie Wörner New York, NY 10022 Design Susanna Dulkinys & were proud last year to honor the former US President with the Tel. (1) 212 588-1755 Edenspiekermann Fax (1) 212 588-1758 Henry A. Kissinger Prize for his unfaltering, historic commit- www.edenspiekermann.com Printed by Ruksaldruck, Berlin ment to German reunification, just as we were in presenting that same award this year to Richard von Weizsäcker, the for- Copyright © 2009 The American Academy in Berlin mer German President whose courageous eloquence in accept- ISSN 1610-6490 ing the burdens of history and responsibilities of democracy Cover: Mitch Epstein, Checkpoint has shaped the sensibility of modern Germany. Charlie, Berlin, 2008 The visionary efforts of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and

President Bush to reunite Germany within Europe and within

Honorary Chairmen Thomas L. Farmer, Richard von Weizsäcker the NATO alliance formed the foundation for a steady enlarge- CO-Chairmen Karl M. von der Heyden, Henry A. Kissinger ment of democracy throughout Europe. With the expansion of Vice Chair Gahl Hodges Burt the European Union to 27 members in 2004, the Atlantic world President & CEO Norman Pearlstine Treasurer Andrew S. Gundlach could celebrate a major step towards the dream of a Europe Secretary John C. Kornblum “whole and free.” Trustees Barbara Balaj, John P. Birkelund, Manfred Bischoff, As foreign troops left reunified Berlin in 1994, Vice Stephen B. Burbank, Gahl Hodges Burt, Caroline Walker Bynum, President Al Gore put forward a proposal for a new type of Gerhard Casper, Mathias Döpfner, Marina Kellen French, Michael E. Geyer, Hans-Michael Giesen, Richard K. Goeltz, C. Boyden Gray, Vartan Gregorian, American presence: The American Academy in Berlin. Four Andrew S. Gundlach, Franz Haniel, Karl M. von der Heyden, years later, the initiative begun by US Ambassador Richard Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Josef Joffe, Henry A. Kissinger, Michael Klein, C. Holbrooke was a reality, and the Academy opened the doors John C. Kornblum, Regine Leibinger, Lawrence Lessig, Nina von Maltzahn, Wolfgang Malchow, Erich Marx, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Julie Mehretu, of the historic villa once the residence of the eminent banker William von Mueffling, Christopher von Oppenheim, Norman Pearlstine, Hans Arnhold and his wife Ludmilla, whose descendants have David Rubenstein, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Y. Solmssen, Fritz Stern, become the principal benefactors of this young, private insti- Kurt Viermetz, Manfred Wennemer, Pauline Yu tution. The American Academy has consistently over the past Honorary TrusteeS Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Klaus Wowereit (ex officio) decade sought to embody the spirit of reunification through Senior Counselors Richard Gaul, Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, the presence of its fellows, their work, and their engagement in Bernhard von der Planitz, Karen Roth, Yoram Roth, Victoria Scheibler the Berlin community and beyond. We are especially pleased to bring readers in this issue of SUPPORT The Berlin Journal to the work of fellows Mary Sarotte, who The Academy is entirely funded by private donations. If you like what we are doing, please contribute by making a tax-deductible donation: compellingly narrates the frenzied Berlin night of November 9, 1989; Mitch Epstein and Michael Queenland, whose images IN GERMANY IN THE UNITED STATES Contributions may be made Contributions may be made entice imaginative entry; Leonard Barkan, who reads the mind by bank transfer to: by check payable to: of Michelangelo through his list-making; and Joel Harrington, American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin who enters a grisly sixteenth-century ledger. We also present a Berliner Sparkasse 14 East 60th Street, Suite 604 BLZ 100 500 00 New York, NY 10022 Supreme Court Justice’s critical account of one of the Court’s Account: 660 000 9908 by bank transfer to: JPMorgan Chase more notorious decisions; an essay on how political science IBAN: 500 Stanton Christiana Road, Newark, can better learn from the humanities, as well as how the nine DE07 1005 0000 6600 0099 08 DE 19713; Account: 967 33 12 77, BIC: BELADEBEXXX ABA: 21 00 00 21 teenth-century Midwest can be poetically evoked through SWIFT CODE: CHASUS 33 descriptions of objects left behind. – Gary Smith How can 400,000 people serve the needs of more than six billion?

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RZ: J:Böhme, Siemens, 1/1 PZ, Berlin Journal, Englisch, Motiv: Employee_one_question, Format: 210 x 280 mm, SIM=CC 9/10/24, A-Version 30005302_Berlin_Journal_1Question_A_210x280_E.indd 1 27.08.2009 18:11:38 Uhr Expedition Knowledge

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210x280_han1009_Berlin_en.indd 1 18.09.2009 13:23:29 Uhr CONNECTING PEOPLE AND MARKETS

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Vattenfall and the BMW Group have launched large-scale ﬁ eld trials of electric cars in Berlin. With public recharging posts that allow you to refuel with green electricity, Vattenfall is supplying the infrastructure for an emission-free motoring future. For more information, visit www.vattenfall.de/mini_e

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Vattenfall · e Mini ·the Berlin Journal · F: 210x280+3mm · Head24,5 pt · copy 10 pt Klebebindung links 4mm!!! 8 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 k yor w Ne , a ll ery G o M i l ossi nd Y a nd artist the of ourtesy C

Night Crossing The historic evening of November 9, 1989 in East Berlin began with a botched press conference, over-eager journalists, and a tidal wave of Wall crossers ebullient with newfound confidence.

By Mary Elise Sarotte

mitch epstein, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, 2008 Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 9

All source references are here omitted for og n e

o l reasons of space and may be found in Sarotte’s , C , forthcoming book from which this essay

a nd er is adapted, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton University Press, November 2009). Z T homas a l erie G of ourtesy n. C n. E pstei M itch / d. Lt ,

articipation in protest

n s d uctio P ro R i v er k Bl ac © events organized by opposition Pgroups and churches had grown by orders of magnitude throughout October and November 1989. It climaxed in the half-million-strong marches of November 4 in Berlin and November 6 in Leipzig. Every march or protest that took place successfully inspired more people to join the next one. Even loyal party members wrote to Egon Krenz, the head of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), demanding change. Dissent, expressed throughout most of the summer and fall in the form of mass exit, had been forced by the border sealing into voicing itself as mass demonstration. These two forms of expression – equally devastating to the workers’ and peasants’ state – had an important qualita- tive difference. While the two groups were not entirely mutually exclusive, by and large the emigrants wanted to escape the GDR while the demonstrators wanted to change it. The main chant of earlier demonstrations had been “We want out!” Now the chants became “We are the people” and “We’re staying here!” The SED tried new travel and emigration regulations to appease the crowds, but they were too similar to existing rules. Local party offices were flooded with complaints. In numerous demonstrations GDR protesters let the SED know what they really wanted. Signs carried at an East Berlin protest illustrated sentiments felt across the country: “Here’s for putting graffiti on both sides of the wall,” “All the way to Hawaii without any visa,” and “Passports for everyone – marching orders for the SED.” The consequences of failing to meet those expectations were not hard to guess: Even more flight to the West and increased domestic instability. The country could mitch epstein, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, 2008 hardly take more of either. ﬁ 10 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

NOVEMBER 9, 1989

ost surprising to me about the events of November 9, 1989 In the midst of this joy, my first task after November 9 was to was that so many people were surprised by them. My job in worry about the dangers of change. As acting US Ambassador to MWashington, Berlin, and Brussels since the early 1980s had nato, I became part of a small, still secret group to work out a radical been to chart the weakening of Soviet control over Eastern Europe. reorganization of the Alliance, announced at a summit in June 1990. In the State Department we had known since at least 1983 that the In that same month we saw first stirrings of a civil war in Yugoslavia, East German economy was near collapse. In October 1989 alone, over which became the European conflict so many had feared. More than 50,00 people had left the gdr. Mikhail Gorbachev had summed it up 200,000 died before nato bombing missions helped pressure Serbs himself in East Berlin on October 7: “Life punishes those who come to sign the Dayton Agreement in 1995. I had been deputy negotiator at too late.” Dayton and later succeeded Richard Holbrooke as US Special Envoy The division of Europe had a significance beyond the tragic for the Balkans. It was then that I helped to implement nato’s first human conditions it created; namely, the world had come to accept ever combat deployment, based on plans we had worked out five years the East-West ideological stand-off as the de facto peace treaty, put- earlier. ting a lid on the conflicts that had led to World War II. For many, the Twenty years later, Berlin is no longer a center of conflict; but the status quo, however bad it might be, was preferable to the danger of world remains a dangerous place. The new nato is deployed outside war that radical change could entail. They were too uncertain about Europe in regional disputes and against the threat of terrorism. But it the future to see what was happening before their eyes. is important to remember that in 1965, twenty years after World War I experienced such denial firsthand in 1987 when, as US Minister II, the situation looked much bleaker than it does today. Enlargement in Berlin, I faced German fears that an appearance by President of nato and the EU have created a transatlantic democratic commu- Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate could cause a counterreaction from nity that stretches from Finland to Alaska. Despite the challenges, the East. Worries deepened as the events of 1989 unfolded. The this new type of Atlantic Alliance provides a foundation that can French President and the British Prime Minister expressed doubts make us much more certain about the future than we were in 1989. about the wisdom of German reunification. At the end of October 1989, the US and the Soviet Union had already decided to talk over the situation at a summit meeting in December.

john C. kornblum

Belatedly, East German leaders had constitution said as much. Yet “national The bad economic news distracted party realized that their month-old sealing of security” exceptions – still in place in the leaders from the travel regulations – includ- all GDR borders had caused an intolerable regulations – had always stopped the exer- ing, importantly, from the fact that the escalation of tension and frustration, seen cise of that right. wording of the most recent alterations was in the increasing number of demonstration The “new” travel regulations with their getting confusing as it passed through the participants. The Politburo hoped that a fine print received approval from the dis- hands of various authors. These alterations new safety valve to Czechoslovakia might tracted party leaders on November 9. The were not meant to end all restrictions, but defuse the anger and thus allowed travel top leadership was busy processing other they were beginning to sound that way. there to resume. Czech leaders, fearful problems, such as learning that it was That no one at any stage in the alteration of the spectacle of East Germans again bankrupt. On becoming head of the SED, process discussed the fundamental issues roaming Prague’s streets, immediately Krenz had asked for an honest assessment of consulting the Soviets about opening the announced that GDR citizens would be per- of the GDR’s economic health (as opposed border, assigning extra guards to duty to mitted to exit from Czechoslovakia directly to the rosy reports that had been given to handle increased traffic, or even informing into the West. Between November 1 and his predecessor, Erich Honecker). Krenz border guards, showed that free travel was 7, over 37,000 East Germans left by this discovered that the GDR was “dependent to not the planned outcome. Gorbachev would route; the rate sometimes reached 300 per the greatest possible extent on capitalistic later be amazed that the East Germans had hour. Despite this new door of escape, pro- credit.” Mikhail Gorbachev was horri- opened the wall without consulting him; tests in the GDR increased. fied when he learned of this, since East the deputy Soviet ambassador in East Berlin Germany was the Soviet Union’s largest thought that the entire GDR leadership had he beginning of the end came trading partner. He had assumed that the gone mad. In reality, no one told the Soviets when the SED decided to issue more GDR was much healthier, and he was not it would happen because they did not know T“new” travel regulations, but ones alone. As late as 1987, the CIA, making a themselves. Nor did anyone comment on that still included extensive fine print of significant mistake, stated in itsFactbook the wisdom of opening the wall without get- the kind that had always prevented foreign that the East German gross domestic prod- ting compensation from the West, or doing travel. Notionally, East Germans had uct per capita was $100 higher than that of so on the anniversary of the Night of Broken the right to leave the GDR; the country’s West Germany. Glass. In short, there were no signs that Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 11

anyone realized that the new regulations with obvious relief: “It is 7:00 p.m. This is Working through a translator, Brokaw were going to detonate under the wall on the last question.” Evasively, he concluded tried to pin Schabowski down. Attempting the evening of November 9. the press conference by responding: “The to put words in the East German’s mouth, question of travel, of the permeability Brokaw said, “It is possible for them hat evening at 6:00 p.m. a mem- therefore of the wall from our side, does not [East Germans] to go through the wall.” ber of the East German Politburo who yet answer, exclusively, the question of the Schabowski, running on little sleep and Talso served as its media spokesman, meaning, of this, let me say it this way, for- upset by the fuss that the final minutes of his Günter Schabowski, was scheduled to hold tified border of theGDR .” After this vague press conference seemed to be causing, cut a press conference. Shortly before it began reply, he tried another approach. “We have the American off with a more cautious state- he received a piece of paper with an update always said that in that case, there are many ment: “It is possible for them to go through on the latest travel-law alterations and the other factors that must be taken into con- the border.” Since the laws of East Germany suggestion that he mention them publicly. sideration.” Furthermore, “The debate over had always permitted its citizens the pos- Schabowski had not been present at any of these questions could be positively influ- sibility of going across the border – though the discussions about these “new” regula- enced if the Federal Republic and if NATO hardly anyone received permission to do so, tions and did not have time to read them. would commit themselves to and carry out of course – Schabowski was safe in putting He decided to remark on them in passing. disarmament.” it this way. But he would not be drawn into Only in the fifty-fifth minute of an As it was doubtful that NATO would making a clear statement about the wall. otherwise uninteresting hour-long press disarm itself by breakfast, it is clear that But when Brokaw subsequently uttered the conference did Schabowski get around to Schabowski did not expect much to happen phrase “freedom to travel,” the translator the regulations. The conference itself was that night. His attempt to pour cold water said in English that Schabowski replied “Yes, so uninteresting that US anchorman Tom on this speculation about the wall came of course, it is no question of tourism. It is a Brokaw, present that evening, remembered too late, though: A number of journalists permission of leaving the GDR.” that he was “bored” by it. Then, just as it had already left the room to spread the Brokaw and his team decided they had was about to end, a journalist’s question news they thought they had just heard. And enough, despite the strangely incompre- about travel seemed to spur Schabowski’s Schabowski himself left matters hanging hensible reply. Shortly thereafter, he and memory. He tried to summarize the new when, true to his word, he ended the press his crew headed to the lifeless and empty regulations in a wordy and confused fash- conference 54 seconds after 7:00 p.m. He Brandenburg Gate to broadcast a live bul- ion. A number of incomplete sentences did not allow even a full minute of clarifica- letin back to the United States. The anchor trailed off incoherently. Sprinkled among tion. Little did he know that he had just lit reported that East Germans “could now his long-winded phrases – “Anyway, today, a fuse. cross the wall.” A local television team as far as I know, a decision has been made, filmed Brokaw making this broadcast, so it is a recommendation of the Politburo f the rising self-confidence of Germans on both sides of the border could that has been taken up, that one should, the East German population was the see it, as well. from the draft of a travel law, take out a pas- Imajor development in summer and Because of the US time difference, sage” – were unclear but exciting snippets fall 1989, the intersection of this confi- Brokaw’s staff had hours to mull over the like “leaving the GDR,” “possible for every dence with the impact of mass media was wire reports and the Schabowski interview citizen,” and “exit via border crossings.” not far behind. Journalists rushed out of footage before the “hit time,” or start of Schabowski was surprised to see that Schabowski’s press conference at 7:00 p.m. broadcast, of the full NBC Nightly News every journalist in the room suddenly and reported the most favorable possible program. The West German television wanted to ask questions. “When does that interpretation: The Berlin Wall was open. channels did not have that luxury. One of go into force?” shouted one. “Excuse The wire agencies, on which news organi- them, ARD, had to decide what to broadcast me?” Schabowski replied, puzzled. zations around the world relied for their from the 7:03 p.m. wire reports on its eve- “Immediately?” shouted another. The own reporting, sent out this message loud ning news show at 8:00 p.m. At first, the press spokesman, irritated, started flip- and clear. Reuters was first, at 7:03 p.m., staff decided to take a relatively cautious ping through the papers in front of him followed by the Deutsche Presse Agentur, approach, guessing that the wall “should in search of an answer. The question was insistently repeated: “When does that go into force?” Visibly rattled and mumbling Journalists rushed out of Schabowski’s press conference to himself as he tried to concentrate on his at 7:00 p.m. and reported the most favorable possible papers, Schabowski uttered the phrase, interpretation: the Berlin Wall was open. “Immediately, right away.”

Brokaw remembered that it felt as if “a signal had come from outer space and one minute later. Even as these messages become permeable.” A long report on electrified the room.” The commotion were going out, Brokaw was conducting a Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s arrival in Poland intensified. Some journalists rushed out to prearranged interview with Schabowski. for a state visit, originally intended to be file reports, not waiting for Schabowski to The two had agreed to speak right after the the lead story before the Schabowski press finish. A number of questions were called press conference, and now the American, conference, dominated the program. out all at once, among them, “What will hap- believing that the Berlin Wall had just been For the 10:30 p.m. news broadcast pen to the Berlin Wall now?” Alarmed about opened, was determined to get an unequiv- (delayed that evening to 10:42 p.m. by what was unfolding, Schabowski answered ocal statement to that effect. soccer), however, the ARD staff decided ﬁ 12 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 to go big. The moderator, a man named Lautenbach then tried interviewing West the early evening and then seeing increas- Hanns Friedrichs, who enjoyed the sta- Berliners who said they had heard that East ingly more confident announcements, like tus that Walter Cronkite had in the US, Germans had gotten out. Next the show that of Friedrichs later, East Germans solemnly intoned at the opening of the repeated footage of the press conference became convinced that they could in fact show, “One has to be careful with superla- and finally even gave the sports report. cross the border. Some even rushed out tives … but this evening, we may risk using After trying one last time to get some while in pajamas or with children asleep one.” Then, forgetting the superlative exciting news out of Berlin, the program in another room, since they only wanted to altogether, he excitedly proclaimed, “This essentially had to admit defeat, informing look at the West while it was possible, not ninth of November is a historic day. The viewers that the big surge of people “has to leave for good. GDR has announced that, starting imme- perhaps not yet happened.” diately, its borders are open to everyone.” Journalists had gotten ahead of reality. he decades-long Cold War Declaring that “the gates in the wall are But reality was making a determined effort division of Germany ended around wide open,” the show cut live to Berlin. to catch up. An enormous number of East T11:30 p.m. on the night of November 9 Breathless television viewers did not know Germans had the ability to watch shows not at the Brandenburg Gate, but at the what to expect. like this one and listen to radio reports, Bornholmer Street border crossing, in East They got some confused footage and despite the fact that doing so was theoreti- Berlin. No prominent East or West German then one lonely, uncomfortable-looking cally forbidden. It had been estimated that politicians were there. No representatives correspondent, Robin Lautenbach, who about 90 percent of East Germans watched of the four occupying powers were present. had tried unsuccessfully to find some West German television. Western analysts Bornholmer Street border guard Harald dramatic scenes at both the Brandenburg speculated that the GDR regime tolerated Jäger had been on the job since 1964 and Gate and the Invaliden Street crossing. this massive illegal viewing because it had never dreamed that what was about to Although it had been three and a half quieted protest against travel restrictions. happen was even possible. He was inside hours since the end of Schabowski’s press East Germans could partake in a virtual the station that night, as usual, eating conference, the wall was devoid of crossers “nightly emigration” to the West via their some dinner and watching Schabowski’s or celebrants. Lautenbach looked pain- television sets every evening instead of press conference on television, when what fully aware of being tossed a hot potato. actually trying to leave. he heard just before 7:00 p.m. made him Berlin reality was failing to live up to Now, however, in the context of 1989, choke on his food. He was dumbfounded media-fueled expectations. The program television was more a motivating than pla- by Schabowski’s remarks, and he was cut to a prerecorded report about the wall. cating force. Viewing television coverage in not alone. After telling his fellow guards

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that Schabowski’s words were “deranged reinforcements in the form of 45 men ther crossings opened in bullshit,” Jäger started calling around to armed with machine guns. the course of the night in much find out if anyone knew what was going But it was at Bornholmer Street that O the same way: Individual guards, on. His superiors assured him that travel events came to a head. After more phone fearing the crowds and unable to get clear remained blocked as always. But a half- calls, Jäger and his team started to let a instructions, decided to raise the traffic hour later Jäger and his team were busy trickle of people through, a few at a time, barriers. And every opening meant more trying to wave back would-be crossers, in the hopes of easing the pressure. They people flooding into the West in front telling them that the border was not open. would check each person individually, take of cameras, which meant more images The guards received reinforcement in the names, and then penalize the rowdiest beamed back into the East, which in turn form of a police van with a loudspeaker by refusing them reentry. At about 9:00 sent more people out on to the streets to see that started announcing the same mes- p.m. his team started this process, putting for themselves; it became a self-reinforcing sage, but the crowds just kept swelling. stamps on the faces of photos of those to be feedback loop. Stasi headquarters, in a Jäger and his colleagues were armed and, kept out. They managed this for an hour rushed report prepared the next day, esti- in theory, could use deadly force. He and and a half, by which time the overwhelm- mated that 68,000 East Germans had others had received an oral order not to ing crowd was ominously chanting, “Open crossed from East Berlin to West Berlin on shoot, however, presumably after the the gate, open the gate!” foot; another 9,700 cars had driven over. public condemnation of the shooting of By the time that ARD anchorman Of those, some 45,000 people and 5,200 Chris Gueffroy, a 20-year-old killed trying Friedrichs was going on air, just before vehicles had returned home by 4:00 a.m. to cross over the wall on February 5, 1989. 11:00 p.m., the border guards at Born on November 10. Gueffroy’s unknowing legacy resulted in holmer Street were realizing that their The scenes in East Berlin repeated them- the unwillingness of the East German attempts to reduce the pressure by process- selves elsewhere in the country. A further border guards to use the deadly force avail- ing a few individuals at a time were simply 5,404 people and 2,192 vehicles crossed able to them on November 9. not working. After debating among them- into the West from places elsewhere in the An enormous crowd amassed, and the selves, Jäger decided that the only course GDR; of those, only 1,099 people and 335 situation grew increasingly ugly. The bor- of action (other than mass violence) was to vehicles had returned by 4:00 a.m. The der guards were heavily outnumbered, open the barriers, and he told his men to do Stasi report found that the reason for the and police efforts to dispel the crowd had so. A massive surge ensued. Later, Jäger’s massive emigration was clear: The impact failed utterly – a situation repeating at team would estimate that several thousand of the mass media. As the report stated, it other checkpoints, too. The guards at the people pushed their way out within just 30 “was obvious that the decision to travel can Invaliden Street crossing called up armed minutes. The division of Germany was over. be traced back to the reports ﬁ 14 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 in Western media.” The Stasi had often of the Central Committee assembled in visas. So strong were old habits in East blamed behavior that it found objectionable their own appointed conference room just Germany that despite the scenes of visaless on the instigation of the Western media. before 7:00 p.m., missing the crucial final travel on the night of November 9, over But the comments of those who came to the minutes of the press conference and sitting 5.2 million East Germans still sought and border that night suggest that in this case it in ignorance for nearly three hours until received such visas. Offices responsible for was accurate, if unintended. their superiors finally broke free from the their distribution were overrun and could In an enormous stroke of good luck for Central Committee and rushed to join not distribute them fast enough. Nor could those crossing, nearly every political offi- them after 9:30 p.m., amazingly enough the East German state supply what travel- cial senior enough to make strategic deci- without getting any substantive updates ers really needed: Western currency. The sions was locked in crisis meetings. The en route. Presumably no one wanted to be “welcome money” that West Germany gave main one was the East German Central the bearer of extremely bad news to the big to all East Germans who made it over was Committee session, which was running bosses. hardly enough for an extended trip. And well over schedule, debating until 8:45 p.m. The Deputy Minister for National not until November 12, three days after the instead of its scheduled 6:00 p.m. ending. Defense, Manfred Grätz, would later recall, tsunami of protesters flooded over the wall, In an era before cell phones and texting, sadly, that “at this crucial time, we sat was the practice of shooting persons trying this meant that the participants were cut around a lot, we talked a lot, sometimes we to cross the border without visas – which off from the news, and underlings on the talked uselessly, and the time slipped away.” had killed Gueffroy just nine months earli- outside were too timid to walk in and inter- Although a few people were finally called er – officially and fully repealed. Largely as rupt. As a result, those who might have con- to the phone during the late night military a result of misunderstandings, the known templated ordering bloody reprisals were meeting, only after its midnight ending Cold-War world had ceased to exist. µ uninformed and unaware. did most of the military leadership – those On top of this, the senior military most capable of using massive, organized Mary E. Sarotte is Professor of leadership had called for its own meet- force to prevent a border opening – find out International Relations at the University ing to start at 7:00 p.m., following on the what was going on. of Southern California and a fall 2009 expected 6:00 p.m. ending of the Central Within the next three days, approxi- Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the Committee meeting, which senior officers mately three million GDR citizens visited American Academy in Berlin. had to attend first. This scheduling had West Berlin and West Germany. In a rear- the unintended consequence that military guard action, the ruling party at first tried John C. Kornblum is a Trustee of the leaders who were too junior to be members to insist that would-be travelers procure American Academy in Berlin. BeijinG Berlin Boston BRUsseLs FrankFurt LonDon Los AnGeLes neW YoRk oxFoRD PALo ALto WALtHAM WAsHinGton DC

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Michael Queenland, And then, at some point if I feel better, the news just sounds really sad, and I want music on all the time …, 2008; Plaster, fiberglass, acrylic paint, banana skins, metal, balloon tie, string; 50 × 3 6 × 1 0 . 5 i n c h e s Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 17 Slipping Growth With few born and far too many dying, Russia is caught in a demographic straitjacket.

By Nicholas Eberstadt and Hans Groth

ver since the days of the British immediate wake of Mao’s disastrous “Great rates in Western Europe may constitute political economist Thomas Robert Leap Forward.” China’s population decline a challenge, few voters or policymakers EMalthus [1766–1834], demographic abated, however, as soon as Beijing’s fanati- would describe their fertility picture as a commentators have been faulted for exces- cal policies were reversed. Russia’s depopu- crisis, much less a disaster. sive despondency, for being overly ready to lation, on the other hand, shows no signs find ubiquitous “population problems” in of turnaround. hat distinguishes the virtually every new demographic develop- One major component of the “demo- Russian demographic from ment. Still, serious or even disastrous graphic shock” that Russia has been Wthe rest of Europe’s today is not population problems can truly threaten experiencing was a sudden, radical its fertility trends, but rather its patterns real, existing countries – even today. In fact, reduction in fertility. In the late Soviet of mortality and survival, which can be there is a crisis of historic proportions right era – the Perestroika period – the Russian described as shocking – even disastrous. before our very eyes. Federation’s childbearing patterns held In the post-war era, the modern world It is not, however, ravaging an illiterate more or less at the levels required for has been all but exploding with health. and impoverished Third World country. long-term population replacement. By con- According to the UN’s Population Division, Instead, the crisis is unfolding in a mod- trast, in the early years of the twenty-first for the planet as a whole, life expectancy ern, highly-educated nation that sent the century, Russia’s fertility rates have been at birth jumped by about twenty years first cosmonaut into space: The Russian almost 40 percent below the replacement between the early 1950s and the early Federation. Russia is in the grip of startling level. Although the Kremlin unveiled an 2000s. Russia has been an exception to and anomalous demographic tendencies, trends whose humanitarian and economic consequences are not only self-evidently Russia is in the grip of startling and anomalous demographic adverse, but, quite arguably, dire. tendencies, trends whose humanitarian and economic Russia today is a society at peace. But consequences are not only self-evidently adverse, but, quite going by vital statistics alone it looks like a arguably, dire. country trapped in a prolonged and devas-

tating war. Since the end of the Communist era, in late 1991, the country’s birth rates ambitious and expensive pro-natal popula- this global rule: According to those same have collapsed while its death rates have tion program several years ago, this seems UN estimates, the country’s life expectancy soared. Over the post-Communist era as to have elicited only a modest increase was actually two years lower in 2000–2005 a whole, Russia has reported three deaths in births. According to official Russian than in the late 1950s. Though there has for every two births. The year 2008 was a reports, birth totals in the first four months been some recovery since 2005, life expec- “good” one for modern Russia: It registered of 2009 were up, albeit slightly, on a year- tancy for both males and females in the “only” five deaths for every four births. to-year basis – but death rates remained Russian Federation is lower now than it was Since the beginning of 1992, Russia substantially higher than birth rates. four decades ago. has recorded nearly 13 million more deaths Low sub-replacement fertility can be The country’s worsening public health than births, and the country’s population expected to accelerate the “graying” of a conditions have caused a catastrophic loss has dropped by about 7 million; only a society and to hasten the shrinkage of its of life and a corresponding severe depletion net influx of migrants prevented an even working-age population – tendencies that of “human capital.” Health conditions were steeper drop. The magnitude of Russia’s can impede efforts to enhance economic far from ideal during the Gorbachev era ongoing population decline (to date) is over- growth and prosperity. Russia’s circum- and before. Yet when measured against the shadowed in our post-war epoch only by stances, in this case, are not so different country’s survival schedules from the late China’s terrible population decline in the from the rest of Europe. But while low birth 1980s, post-Communist Russia ﬁ 18 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

has, thus far, suffered a toll of nearly seven living with HIV and virulent new strains of True, Russia is burdened by the legacy million “excess deaths.” XDR TB. Thus far, Russia’s alarming health of generations of Communist rule and has Examined more closely, the details trends have been primarily due to non- suffered travails in its “transition” away of Russia’s upsurge in death rates are communicable causes. But unexpected from Soviet-style socialism. But it is not nothing short of terrifying. For men in virulent epidemics/pandemics could exact unique in this regard; the entire former their 30s and 40s, Russia’s death rates their own grim toll on the country in the Soviet Bloc faced the same daunting are roughly twice as high as they were years ahead. situation. And the record of the past two 40 years ago. Scarcely less appalling are More than just a humanitarian catas- decades demonstrates that substantial, the death rates for females in their 40s, trophe, Russia’s demographics act as an even dramatic health progress is possible now 50 percent higher now than they were economic straitjacket, stifling the nation’s for any given post-Communist European four decades ago. productivity and obstructing its goal of population. Cardiovascular disease – heart attacks, strokes, and the like – kill four times as many people in Russia as in Western Russia’s demographics act as an economic straitjacket, Europe, even after adjusting for popula- stifling the nation’s productivity and obstructing its goal tion size and age. Furthermore, Russia’s of developing into a prosperous 21st century society. death levels from injury – accidents, suicide,

murder, and so on – are absolutely “Fourth World.” The only other spots on the planet developing into a prosperous 21st century The most remarkable example is the sustaining such radical losses are the con- society. Life expectancy in Russia today former German Democratic Republic. Life flict- and post-conflict societies of sub-Saha- is a full 12 years shorter than in Western expectancy in Eastern Germany has soared ran Africa, such as Angola and Sierra Leone. Europe. Its per capita output – even with since reunification. In the 16 years from We should not assume that Russia’s generous purchasing-power adjustments – 1990–2006, overall life expectancy in East health situation could not worsen any is still not much more than a third of Germany is estimated to have risen by over further. The country faces looming risks Western European levels. Simply put, eight years – over 3.5 days for every passing from infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS Russia has little chance of narrowing the week! Despite four decades of Communist- and drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB). income gap with the EU unless it also clos- era disadvantage, life expectancy at birth Current international estimates indicate es the yawning health gap that separates for the population in Eastern Germany has that nearly one million Russians are now Russians from the rest of Europe. converged with that of Western Germany; The city is yours...... with Berlin’s most inﬂ uential newspaper!

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TS_Academy.indd 1 11.09.2009 13:55:46 Uhr Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 19

today it stands within just a few months of lations in Europe since the revolutions of ing the Putin presidency. Over those eight the Western German level. 1989. Overall life expectancy has risen by years, apart from the “baby bonus” scheme, This tremendous accomplishment is nearly five years in the Czech Republic, and the Russian government’s commitment to a consequence of broadly-based improve- similar gains have been made in Slovenia. addressing the nation’s multi-dimenional ments arising from a still ongoing trans- Even Hungary, a notorious health laggard crisis hardly went beyond rhetorical flour- formation of East Germany’s population under Communism from the 1960s ishes. Unfortunately, there is scant reason with increased wealth, freedom of mobil- onward, has seen a turnaround: Overall to be confident that the Kremlin will ity, unrestricted access to high-quality life expectancy is a full four years over the change course and back its words with healthcare, and hence improved health and 1989–2006 period. action this time around. levels of happiness. Such factors have led to Russia’s ongoing health crisis may justi- significant improvements in survival pros- s there cause for hope for Russia? fy an air of gloom, but it must not encourage pects for men and women of all ages, not Some would say there is; and they total fatalism. There are reasons for hope, just selected groups of beneficiaries. This Iwould point to President Dmitri but they all begin with the frank acknowl- accomplishment looks all the more breath- Medvedev’s own words. Writing in edgment of reality, followed by a firm taking when we compare the life expec- September 2009 Medvedev declared, determination to act. Improving population tancy trajectories of East Germany and the health and economic prosperity is more United States over the past two decades: In Negative demographic trends must be than a statistical accomplishment. It is 1985, overall life expectancy at birth was slowed and stopped. We need to improve about a sense of humanity and preparing a two years longer in the US than in Eastern the quality of medical care, promote nation to move up the ladder of growth. µ Germany; by 2005 it was one full year longer fertility, ensure safety on the road and in Eastern Germany than in the US. in the workplace, combat the pandemic Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Scholar While East Germany offers the most of alcoholism and develop physical in Political Economy at the American spectacular example of post-Communist culture and mass sport. This requires Enterprise Institute, was a spring 2008 health progress, it is hardly an isolated case. both a strategic approach and making Bosch Fellow in Public Policy at the As highlighted by cross-national analyses such things the everyday tasks of the Academy. Co-author Hans Groth is a provided by researchers at the Human government. Member of the Board of Directors for Mortality Database (HMD), substantial Pfizer-Switzerland AG and Guest Lecturer health improvements have been enjoyed by Stirring words, some would say – but unfor- on Demography & Health, University of a number of other post-Communist popu- tunately we had heard much the same dur- St. Gallen, Switzerland.

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090911_AZ_Flossen_Berlin Journal/American Academy Berlin_210x135.indd 1 27.08.2009 14:01:02 Uhr 20 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 A Beaten Path It is not Islam that holds women back; it is the road of patriarchy Muslim nations have taken.

By Mahnaz Afkhami

t the time of the Constitutional 1970, women had gained the right to vote Women, by then supported by a sig- Revolution of 1906, Iran was a and to be elected to parliament. They had nificant portion of civil society, opposed Asociety organized on precepts that also passed a seminal family protection these moves. Their determined struggle for centuries had defined the subordinate law that altered the position of women at against the dictates of the Islamic Republic position of women as the natural order home and in their communities. Women’s eventually forced the ruling elite to modify of things. The nascent civil society faced expectation of social order had dramatically its positions. What had begun as a policy the issue of women mostly as a problem changed. But they still did not participate resembling gender apartheid was gradu- between traditionalism and modern- significantly in high-level decision-making. ally altered as the government was forced ism. But as the moderns grew in size and to adopt language and policy more palat- influence, women received more support. able to women. Gradually the areas of study The frame of reference for this support, Tension and cultural and the fields of work that had been closed however, remained largely traditional. schizophrenia in Iran to women were modified. But tension and Women were allowed to get an education, persisted. cultural schizophrenia in Iran persisted. but essentially in order to become better They still do. They still do. mothers and wives, producing and training Today, the majority of the students that more capable men for the “betterment” of pass the horrendous entrance exam for the society. The process nevertheless brought They had also not yet articulated their universities are women, but prominent lead- the genders together, allowing women to desire to move beyond being man’s comple- ers publicly discuss the danger this will pose gain experience in the mechanisms of their ment to being a complete person with full for the society because it shakes up the bal- own society, including the operations of the rights as a human being and citizen. By the ance between genders. A law is passed tying Iranian government and the market. end of the decade, just shy of the January women’s marriage portion to inflation, but These changes, of course, had produced 1979 revolution, women leaders had made a deputy formally states in the parliament, palpable social tension. In mid-twentieth that claim, and government had tacitly “Money depreciates, but so do women as they century Iran, women’s groups and orga- accepted it: They began implementing a grow old.” Women are not allowed to shake nizations sought to bring about increased plan aimed at integrating women into the hands with or look directly at a man who is women’s participation in decision-making, decision-making process. not next of kin, yet women film directors diversify the areas in which they could be The Islamists who came to power after and actors maneuver across these bound- active, and transform the ideas that gave the 1979 revolution, of course, reversed aries to make prize-winning films. The shape to social life. The result of these all of this. They politicized religion, contradictions are myriad, and undulating struggles was a civil society that had gained reinforced patriarchal concepts, and dis- tensions force women in and out of jail daily. a degree of complexity and sophistication paraged women’s participation in social Nonetheless, women also persist. regarding gender. The new discourse affairs. To do so, they launched a two- included the idea that if women were to be pronged attack: First, they reduced the hat is true of Iran is more empowered to become equal partners in number of women and lowered the level or less true of other Muslim- deciding options for society, then gender of their participation in decision-making. Wmajority countries. In some, responsibilities at home would have to Second, they launched a strong, multifac- women have a truly arduous task ahead. accommodate women’s emerging responsi- eted campaign to socialize everyone in the But nowhere is the future as bleak as it bilities at work. ideology of gender complementarity rather appears through the Islamist prism. A By the time I became Secretary General than gender equality as the cultural con- major reason for this is the rise of religious of Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), in text for social behavior. fundamentalism. ﬁ Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 21 artist the of ourtesy C

Haleh Anvari, On the Road II (north of Isfahan, Iran), 2005 22 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

Whereas democracy is predicated on the system that limits religion’s intrusion into dualistic, where a layer of modernity is human as the measure of political author- political decisions. superimposed upon a mass of tradition. ity and legitimacy, religion – and specifi- Yet contrary to what we now hear about Rather, modernization has brought togeth- cally fundamentalism – derives authority Islam as being inherently different from er a host of foreign and domestic values, from the supernatural. A theocracy like other religions and therefore inimical to floating, as it were, in the air. Individuals the Islamic Republic of Iran may organize democracy, Islam has been defined and and groups, depending on their socio- regular elections and may even be relatively interpreted in different ways not only in economic and geographical position, mix open, but it cannot be democratic; the different countries, but also in the same indigenous and non-indigenous values – will of the people is made subordinate to a country in different locations and times. the more modern, the more the non- higher supernatural power whose will only The contemporary vogue of political Islam indigenous in the mix. So, despite the contemporary resurgence of fundamentalist Islam, it is not Islam that holds women Most surveys taken in Muslim-majority societies indicate back; it is the particular path of patriarchy that a vast majority of respondents, sometimes above that Muslim-majority societies have will- 90 percent, favor democracy and human rights – a higher fully taken. percentage than in other parts of the world, including, ironically, among advanced democracies. reedom, gender equality, and democracy do not happen overnight; Fthey are functions of historical a group of experts may interpret and imple- has caused many pundits and policy change. If women in the Global South are ment. This is not democracy subverted, as makers to overly conflate, if not confuse, in a relatively inferior political, social, and when a demagogic leader misuses an oth- Islamic epistemology with the sociology economic position, it is not only because erwise democratic system in ways inimical of Muslim peoples. This is an intellectual the framework of their social existence has to the constitution and the laws. This is trap that has already taken us to illogical, been historically crafted by men – a fact the constitution and the law. For such a undesirable, and unsought consequences. they share with women in all societies – system to become democratic it will have Culture, too, across the vast diversity of but also because they began fighting for to abandon the fundamentals in which its Muslim societies is neither homogeneous their rights later. When New Zealand first legitimacy resides. It will have to yield to a nor coequal with religion. Nor is it simply gave the franchise to women at the end of MGB AmericanAcademy 185 x 124:Layout 1 30.07.09 12:09 Seite 1

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g des Deutschen Bundestages u i r o V B Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 23 the nineteenth century, nowhere in the – in some countries more than men – than good. But the key question facing us will world could women vote or stand for office. they were just a few years ago. There are be if being empowered inside the current By the latter half of the twentieth century, more women in the universities than ever patriarchal and hierarchical structures will though still excluded from political leader- before, many of them studying subjects make new women leaders indistinguish- ship, a majority of women in the world had historically considered masculine. Most able from the leaders we have always known. attained the right to vote. surveys taken in Muslim-majority societ- A better alternative would be to have Today, approximate gender parity exists ies indicate that a vast majority of respon- women succeed in adopting a leadership in certain northern European countries, dents, sometimes above 90 percent, favor model that not only optimizes their chanc- such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and democracy and human rights – a higher es of becoming participants in decisions Finland, where women constitute more percentage than in other parts of the world, that affect their lives and the lives of their than 41 percent of the membership in including, ironically, among advanced families, communities, and countries, but national parliaments, are equal in number democracies. that also enhances the values they respect to men in secondary school enrollment The majority of the Muslim world’s as women. The leadership they exercise and also employment in non-agricultural population is below the age of 25. They are will have to be gender-inclusive, communi- paid activity. In most other parts of the open to new ideas, less entrenched in tradi- cative, participatory, and egalitarian. This world, political participation gauged by the tional modes of interaction, and more recep- is important for achieving not only democ- number of women in national parliaments tive to modern communication. Women racy, but the values we seek to promote in a is between 9.6 and 21.8 percent. Ten years in Muslim-majority societies now have the democracy: equity, justice, and peace. µ ago women’s share of seats in national knowledge, resources, and organizational parliaments in Muslim societies was below potential to lead. And from Morocco to Iran Mahnaz Afkhami is the Founder and 5 percent; in the Middle East it was 3.6 per- to Nigeria, they are forming partnerships to President of the Women’s Learning cent. Today in the Arab states, women’s do so. Increasingly, they are attuning their Partnership for Rights, Development, share in parliaments is 9.6 percent – still societies to the indispensability of informa- and Peace, in Bethesda, Maryland. This the lowest in the world but a palpable tion not only for learning about the world, essay is derived from her spring 2009 improvement compared to a decade ago. but also for remaking it. David Rubenstein Distinguished Visitor But the good news is that in almost all Muslim women, to be sure, are on Lecture at the American Academy. Muslim societies women are now far more their way to empowerment. Many of them educatedJMB_ImgAnz_184x124_EN2_RZ:Layout and socially and politically aware 1 25.08.2009are already in power12:06 and Uhr are Seitdoinge much1

TUESDAYS – SUNDAYS 10 AM – 8 PM Lindenstr. 9–14 , 10969 Berlin Tel. +49 (0)30 25993 300 [email protected] MONDAYS OPEN UNTIL 10 PM WWW.JMBERLIN.DE 24 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 Understanding Politics The importance of being important

By Harvey Mansfield Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 25

person with “nerve” thinks it ignores the question of who you think individual data with names in order to himself more important than he is. you are and why you are so important as arrive at universal propositions. A But how do we back up the reproof: to deserve what you get. It regards the Yet human beings and their associations How important is he; how important are concern for importance as a source of bias, always have names; this is how they main- we? This is the central question in politics. the enemy of truth, which is objective tain their individuality. Names mark off the Politics is about who deserves to be more and no respecter of persons. Individuals differences between individuals and societ- important: Which leader from which in science can claim prizes and nations ies or other groups, and they do so because party with which ideas. Politics assumes can take pride in them, but this sort of the differences are important to us. You can that the contest for importance is itself recognition is outside science, a collective, think your way to an abstract individual or important. It also assumes that human anonymous enterprise. Political science, society without a name, but you cannot be beings are important. Political science which by studying politics ought to be or live in one. Science is indifferent to prop- today avoids this question; its ambition sensitive to importance, to the importance er names, and confines itself to common is to be scientific. This is thereason why of importance, aims to abstract from nouns. But all human life takes place ﬁ

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in an atmosphere of proper names. “To You can tell who is in charge of a society you up. People go into politics to pick a make a name for yourself,” as we say, is by noticing who is allowed to get angry and fight, not to avoid one. Self-interest tends to become important. “To lose your good for what cause, rather than by trying to towards peace, and if it could replace the name,” to suffer a stain on your reputation, gauge how much each group gets. Blacks thumos in our souls it would accomplish is to live thinking less well of yourself, or and women wanted benefits only as a sign universal peace. Meanwhile, people want among others who think less well of you. of equality, not to give themselves greater to stand for something, which means It appears that human beings like to think purchasing power. But power is too vague opposing those who stand for something they are important. Perhaps they have to a term when separated from honor. When else. In the course of opposing they will think so if they are to live responsibly, for we say that people are “empowered,” that often resort to insults and name-calling, how can you do your duties if they are not means they have the power that goes with which are normal in politics though never ascribed to your name? honor. But with honor goes victory. For in your interest. The demand for more I want to suggest two improvements for although you can lose with honor, you must civility in politics today should be directed understanding politics that arise not from gain it back in a contest, not a calculation. toward improving the quality of our insults, political science, but from the humani- Politics is a series of victories and defeats in seeking civility in wit rather than through ties. The first is to recapture Plato’s and which every victory for one side is a defeat blandness. Aristotle’s notion of thumos, a part of the for the other. Thumos, like politics, is about one’s soul that makes us want to insist on our Thumos, then, is a concept that motivates own and the good. It is not just one or the own importance. The second improve- this contest from the outset. It represents the other, as if one might suppose that politics ment is the use of names. Literature tells spirited defense of one’s own, standing for is simply acting on behalf of what is one’s stories of characters with names, in places the bristling reaction of an animal in face of with names, in times with dates. Science a threat. It is first of all a wary reaction rather Modern biology saves ignores these things or explains them away. than eager forward movement, though it lives, but the old biology may attack if that is the best defense. The understands them better. humos is psychology or biology, and reaction often goes too far when the animal thus “science” as conceived by Plato risks its life in all-out attack in order to pre- Tand Artistotle. It is now proper to the serve itself. To risk one’s life to save one’s life own – realism – or simply advancing the humanities because, having been expelled is the paradox of thumos. good – idealism. It is about both – together from modern science, thumos lingers, un In thumos we see the animality of man, and in tension. One’s own is never enough noticed and unemployed, in the history of for men (and especially males) often behave on its own; it needs a reason to justify it. But science, which is a museum of rejected sci- like dogs barking, snakes hissing, birds the reason generalizes one’s own to what ence. The old biology of Plato and Aristotle, flapping. But precisely here we also see the is similar to one’s own and thus puts one’s unlike modern biology, actually takes humanity of the human animal. A human own in a class with others; reason socializes account of the soul, the sense of human being not only bristles at a threat but also and politicizes. Your own is part of the good, importance. gets angry, that is, reacts for a reason, even the common good. Your realism turns into But let us approach thumos from a for a principle, a cause. Only human beings your idealism. Even the most self-centered more elementary observation: Politics get angry. When you lose your temper, you libertarian wants everyone to be a libertar- is about what makes you angry, not so look for a reason to justify your conduct; ian; for the world would be a better place if much about what you want. Your wants thinking out the reason may take a while, only everyone were perfectly selfish. do matter, but mainly because you feel after the moment of feeling wronged is The simplified notion of self-interest you are entitled to have them satisfied. past, but you cannot feel wronged without a used by our political and social science Many times people who seem poor do not reason – good or bad, well considered or not. cannot tolerate the tension between one’s complain of their wants, because they do Now consider what happens when you own and the good, for that tension leaves not feel entitled to those wants. When you produce that reason. To complain of an human behavior unpredictable. One can- complain, it is not so much that you lack injustice is an implicit claim to rule. It is a not penetrate into every individual’s private what you want as that you feel slighted or demand that rulers adjust their rule to pro- thoughts, and there is no clear way to judge offended in not having what is rightfully vide for you, and not merely as a personal among different conceptions of the good. yours. In our democracy, for example, poli- favor but as one case of a general principle. So in order to overcome the tension, science tics is motivated especially by the sense Since the rulers already hold their own tries to combine one’s own and the good in that you are not being treated equally. The principles, you might well want to remove such a way as to preserve neither. It general- civil rights movement and the women’s them to make way for yours. Politics is izes one’s own as the interest of an average movement are obvious examples. They about change, or, to speak frankly, revolu- or, better to say, predictable individual who were initiated not for the sake of gaining tion. It is not about stability or equilibrium, lives his life quantifiably so as to make its benefits, but to receive equal honor and the goal that political science today borrows study easier for the social scientist. For the respect. We do not worry so much about from the market. same purpose it vulgarizes the good by the wants of the rich and their desire But politics is not an exchange between eliminating the high and the mighty in our for inequality. In a liberal democracy we the bargaining positions of a buyer and a souls (not to mention the low and vicious), make room for the rich and allow inequal- seller in which self-interest is clear and transforming our aspiration to nobility and ity in practice if not in principle. Unless the result is either a sale or not. Self- truth into personal preferences of whose their democratic rights are violated, the interest, when paramount, cools you off value science is incognizant, to which it is rich may not get angry. and calms you down; thumos pumps indifferent. Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 27

Our human thumos reminds us that the bond between what is lower in us and merely regard them as embarrassments to be we are animals with bodies that we must what is higher, between the all-too-human abstracted from, suppressed, and forgotten, defend. But when we defend ourselves and the divine. The bond is mutual, and it as standing for idiosyncrasies that distract using reason, we are also reminded that we ensures that the higher is connected to the us from the main point, which is the general have bodies that are open to our souls, and lower, as God is not the universal goal of laws determining what we do. souls that are open to the whole of things. humanity without also being the salvation Precisely the part of our soul most con- for each individual and each people. aving considered the impor- cerned with the body is the vehicle for rising Science for its part speaks against the tance of human importance, let above it. When we are impelled to give a rea- special importance of any object of sci- Hme propose that literature and son for our anger, we say in effect that what ence, including human beings, and in the science have the same aim of finding and we are defending is not just our bodies; and theory of evolution it seeks to erode the telling the truth, which is important to them when we risk our lives for that reason – now difference between human beings and both. Although some of the greatest works become what we call a cause – we imply that other animals. The study of primates aims of science are well-written, science finds we are not to be identified with our bodies. at this goal with particular relish. Hardly its elegance in mathematics and not in the Rather, we are the cause toward which we a day passes without a breathless science charm of a good story well told. The social strive. Our bodies become bodiless. article delivering to our waiting ears a fresh sciences are in a special difficulty because resemblance of chimp to man. But the they cover the same field of human behavior e here arrive in the realm discovery of chimpanzee religion has not as literature. As science, they must claim to of religion and thumos. Science yet been reported. Chimps receive names improve upon the prejudice and superstition Wand religion are nowhere more from human beings, but they do not give of common sense, and are therefore com- opposed than in regard to human impor- themselves names. These are items yet to pelled to restate the language of common tance. Religion declares for the importance come in the imputed progress of chimpan- sense, full of implication and innuendo, in of humans and seeks to specify what it is. zee civilization. Their greatest triumph, irreproachable, blameless, scientific prose According to Christianity, men are not however, will be the achievement of science. innocent of bias or any other subtlety. In God, but God came to men as a man, and For science, according to science, ought to response, the name common sense gives to man was made in the image of God, the be the most important attribute of human this sort of talk is jargon. Science is required only such among the creatures of the world. beings. Modern science especially seems to be replicable in principle to everyone, so A Christian is humble, but he takes pride to represent the control of our environment, it speaks directly and without concealment, in his humility. Although one can speak of nature. To be sure, science as opposed to thus in mathematics as much as possible. of religion generally, religion is always religion recognizes nothing sacred either In practice, unfortunately, lack of mathemat- a particular religion; a sociological view outside man or within him. But collectively, ics in the public and lack of scientists’ “com- of its function misstates that function by science is the assertion of man over non- munication skills” (an example of jargon) making religion too general. That is why I man, surely an unembarrassed claim to leaves the latter dependent on non-scientist just mentioned Christianity. importance and rule. Yet as individuals, publicists to inform the public and, not Every religion has a distinct view of a personal God or gods that take special care Philosophers in the eighteenth century, skeptical of religion of men, keeping us on track and serving but willing to acknowledge its power, came up with deism, as particular guarantors of human impor- the idea of God without God, caring for the universe without tance. Philosophers in the eighteenth caring for you. century, skeptical of religion but willing to acknowledge its power, came up with deism, the idea of God without God, car- scientists are anonymous factors in the incidentally, politicians, of what science has ing for the universe without caring for you. scientific enterprise, each one substitutable found. These publicists usually have an axe But true religion shows its concern for the for another. For all science cares, scientists to grind, and so science, despite its noble human species by addressing individual could as well be numbered as named. intent to rise above petty human partisan- human beings. It can be seen in the very But every human being has his own ship, often becomes involved in it. animality of the human body, in the nature name, distinguishing him from all other But literature, besides seeking the truth, of brutish thumos, always defending one’s human beings (except for the many Joneses also seeks to entertain. The reason is not so own but always reaching beyond oneself in and Kims). This is a fact by which we indi- much that some people have a base talent willingness to sacrifice oneself. In defend- cate that each of us is important as each. We for telling stories and can’t keep quiet. The ing like a dog for its master, thumos, like are not necessarily equally important, but reason is that literature knows something religion, defends something higher than our importance is judged as we are individu- that science does not: Human resistance to itself. When the lower in us defends the als. Individuals do belong to groups or class- hearing the truth. Science does not inform higher in us, it exacts a price: Partiality to es; still, they too have names, such as Red scientists of this basic fact, and most of them whatever is our own, a human imperfec- Sox Nation or Phi Beta Kappa, indicating are too devoted to science to learn it from tion we can never quite escape. The advan- their individuality. If we want to understand any source outside science, such as com- tage, however, is that we can respect the human behavior, especially the particular mon sense. The wisdom of literature arises importance of the human species through insistence on human individuality that we mainly from its attention to this point. the defense each of us displays for himself. see in the quality of thumos, we must come To overcome the resistance to truth, litera- Self-defense in thumos is a guarantee of to terms with human names. We must not ture makes use of fictions that areﬁ 28 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 images of truth. To understand the fictions Ah, the greatest names. Human great- is ignored by and may lack the approval of requires interpretation, an operation that ness is the height of human importance, science. The humanities too, whose profes- literature welcomes and science hates for where the best that humans can do is tested; sors often suffer from a faint heart, need to the same reason: Interpreters disagree. it is the work of great individuals. The great recover their faith in what is individual and Literature is open to different degrees of Tocqueville alluded to himself and his favor- their courage to defend it. Thumos is not understanding and yet somehow has some- ite readers as “the true friends of liberty and merely theoretical. thing for everyone. Science achieves uni- human greatness.” Somehow liberty and It is up to you to improve your life by versality by speaking without rhetoric in a human greatness go together, a hint that behaving as if it were important, but let monotone and succeeds in addressing only nature cares only for the human species and me provide a summary of the things that the company of scientists. Science is unable leaves its greatness to be revealed by free you will know better after running into to reach the major part of humanity except human action, by our assertiveness prompt- thumos: The contrast between anger and by providing us with its obvious benefits. ed by thumos. To be great, one must become gain; the insistence on victory; the func- Literature takes on the big questions of great, requiring an effort of ambition. Not tion of protectiveness; the stubbornness of human life that science ignores – like what everyone has that ambition; most of us are partisanship; the role of assertiveness; the to do about a boring husband. Science stud- content with modest careers in safe niches, ever-presence of one’s own; the task of reli- ies the very small and the very large, surely like tenured professors. But we all feel ambi- gion; the result of individuality; the ambi- material for drama but not exploited by tion in our small ways and know something tion of greatness. Altogether thumos is science because in its view the measure of of great ambition when admiring it. The one basis for a human science aware of the small and large is merely human. Literature political science of our day almost entirely body but not bound to it, a science with soul offers evidence for its insights from the ignores ambition, because ambition smacks and taught by poetry well interpreted. But observations of writers, above all from the of greatness; it is not average enough to be here someone might object, You have left judgment of great writers. These insights the object of a science that knows nothing out love! Yes, I have. Love is a much further are replicable to readers according to their of individuality, hence nothing of great- complication. µ competence without the guarantee of scien- ness. Even the word “great” is unscientific tific method that what one scientist sends because it is pretentious. But we human Harvey Mansfield is William R. Kenan, is the same as what another receives. While beings are animals with pretensions. Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard science aims at agreement among scientists, My profession needs to open its eyes and University and was a John W. Kluge in literature, as in philosophy, the greatest admit the help of literature and history. It Distinguished Visitor at the Academy in namesAmerican disagree. Academy-Anz. Mazower.qxp:Layoutshould 1 be 09.09.2009 unafraid to risk 15:06 considering Uhr Seite what 1spring 2009.

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For more information see www.bmwgroup.com 30 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 Renaissance Scribbler The vastness of Michelangelo’s inner life on the scraps of paper he left behind

By Leonard Barkan

ichelangelo was a painter, On these surprisingly multi-tasking a sculptor, and an architect. He sheets of paper we can find everything Mwas also a writer – of poetry, per- from the grandest expressions of his sonal letters, and countless memos. Most monumental genius to the most intimate of those who have studied the man have messages to himself. We can read his considered him as a visual artist; others – a ambition and despair, watch his 89 years smaller number – as a poet. But without expressed in words and pictures inextrica- considering the way that pictures and words bly linked. entangled themselves in Michelangelo ’s Sometimes the combinations of materi- vast imagination, we cannot fully under- als on these sheets offer us a glimpse into stand his genius. a truly mysterious privacy. Considering True, he wrote love poems with meta- that he intended most of these drawings phors drawn from sculpture, painted for his eyes only – and destroyed many of frescoes that had their origins in the books them just before he died precisely because he read, and gave indications in his letters of their intimacy – it comes as no surprise about what sort of plans he had for many of that those extant offer outward signs of an his unfinished artistic projects. intriguing interior monologue. More telling than all these, however, is In one case, he draws two versions of the writing on scraps of paper he covered a David statue and then inscribes next with pen and brush strokes, with both to them the enigmatic assertion, “David words and images. In fact, a third of the five with his slingshot and I with my bow,” or six hundred sheets of paper containing followed by a signature. At other times, his drawings also contain text in his hand- he inserts in the narrow spaces between writing. Conversely, a quarter of the poems sketches fragmentary religious utterances that we have in Michelangelo’s autograph (“God, you are in man, in thought”; “Save make appearances on the same pieces of me, O Lord, by thy name”; “sweet room in paper as the drawings. As for personal let- hell”), or verses, apparently quoted from ters and bookkeeping memos, a notable per- memory, like, “Gather them up at the foot centage are on sheets that he used at some of the wretched bush,” from Dante, or point for doodles, sketches, and beautiful “Death is the end of a dark prison,” from finished works. Petrarch. ﬁ

On a sheet executed in the first years of the 1500s, Michelangelo produces some exquisitely cross-hatched facial features and two portraits, one demonic and the other heroic. But he intersperses these artistic exercises with apparently random pen squiggles and with fragmentary bits of text, including reference to an unidentified “Signor Alessandro,” a quotation from a Petrarch sonnet, and the mysterious utterance, no bisognia. Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 31 , 1504 , nd w riti n g a nd , d ies stu hea d other , he l met d w ith hea d of y tu d , S , B uo n arroti o iche l a n ge M k. / bp ll e n stha Ku H amburger © 32 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

One of the ways to map the artist’s inner eyes, he writes, “Andrea, have patience; it he has produced some tiny sketches of his territory is to observe how frequently these love me, sufficient consolation.” Still else- preliminary ideas for the library’s famous sheets of paper are the sites where incon- where, these communications have to do staircase. At other times, the connections gruent materials cohabit. For instance, one with artistic production itself. Under a are more difficult to plot. There is a sheet side of a sheet is devoted to a red chalk gorgeously rendered version of the Fall of on which we can trace Michelangelo ’s sketch depicting the Resurrection of Christ, Phaëthon, Michelangelo hastily scribbles, attempts to compose a poem expressing while the other side is covered with careful “If you don’t like this sketch, let me know, grief over the death of a loved one, but the notations of the moneys spent for chickens, so I’ll have time to get another one done by writing is interrupted at a particularly pain- oxen, funeral rites for his father, and cloth- tomorrow night”; on a different page, next ful moment in the metaphysical conceits of ing for two of his assistants. A beautiful to some lovely projections for a triumphal the verse, at which point he has apparently drawing of a Madonna and child is located arch, he writes, “I don’t have the courage turned the sheet 90 degrees and produced next to a mock love-poem that begins, “You because I’m not an architect.” a portrait of his own left hand. Its index have a face sweeter than boiled grape juice, These examples are largely drawn from finger precisely touches the truncated prob- and a snail seems to have passed over it.” Michelangelo’s work as a visual artist who lem spot in the rhyme. On another, he inscribes a quatrain about produced text, literally, in the margins. When Michelangelo’s great biographer, God’s artistry on a spot previously occupied But it is equally significant that when he J.A. Symonds, declared that the drawings by the drawing of a horse’s rear end. committed himself to poetry – a calling represent “the involuntary revelation of the If some of the words amidst drawings he took more seriously than some have artist’s soul,” he was, by thinking merely are signs of the artist’s intimate self-conver- believed – he was also likely to intermingle of the images, only considering half the sation; others are signs that Michelangelo’s alternative media of expression on a single picture. With these pieces of paper in studio was also a place of society, where sheet. Sometimes the underlying intercon- front of us and with a unitary vision of text assistants, pupils, and patrons interacted nections are curiously logical: A sheet on and picture, we can almost literally read with him. “Draw, Antonio, draw, and don’t which he writes a poem concerning the Michelangelo’s mind. µ waste time,” he writes to an assistant on a difficulties he has expressing his gratitude sheet where he has previously composed a also contains the draft of a letter to the Leonard Barkan is Class of 1943 University beautiful Madonna, and the pupil in ques- artist-biographer Giorgio Vasari. In it he Professor in the department of Comparative AmAcademy_210x135mm 28.08.2008 12:10 Uhr Seite 1 tion has produced a ghastly copy right next reflects upon the painful indebtedness he Literature at Princeton University and the to it. In another mood, on a sheet where he felt for being dependent on Vasari for the fall 2009 Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow at and a different pupil have been drawing building of the Laurentian Library; next to the Academy.

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Unter den Linden 77 · 10117 Berlin, Germany · Tel +49 30 2261 0 · Fax +49 30 2261 2222 · [email protected] · www.hotel-adlon.de Notebook of the American Academy in Berlin | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 On the Waterfront News from the Hans Arnhold Center

N1 Academy Notebook: Richard N1 Academy Notebook: US N7 Sketches & Dispatches: Fritz N11 Life & Letters: Academy von Weizsäcker awarded the Attorney General Eric Holder Stern lauds Angela Merkel; Fellows, a preview of 2009 Henry A. Kissinger on closing Guantanamo; reports on visits by Anne- the spring 2009 class, Prize. Richard Holbrooke’s Glenn Lowry and Sir Clive Marie Slaughter, Jonathan alumni books, and personal introduction. Gillinson broaden the arts Franzen, and Peter Gelb the fall calendar Honoring Richard von Weizsäcker Richard Holbrooke’s personal introduction to the recipient of the 2009 Henry A. Kissinger Prize

wo years ago the No individual embodied c her American Academy in these lofty aspirations more than H or n is TBerlin decided to establish Henry Kissinger, a founding © a prize that would reflect the Trustee, Honorary Chairman, ethos of its founding mission. and current Co-Chairman of the The award would mirror the Board of the American Academy unique nature of the American in Berlin. He is a towering figure Academy itself, of its broad scope, of twentieth-century diplomacy. and the political and cultural And he was one of the first per- origins of its task. Our aim was to sons to break the mold of postwar do more than reward past service diplomacy. Innovations such as to transatlantic understanding; arms control treaties, détente the award should recognize with the USSR, the Nixon visit new ideas – we called them New to China, and the Quadripartite Traditions in self-conscious irony Agreement on Berlin all broke – which reflect the rapidly chang- ground for a new era, ultimately ing nature of the post-Cold War world. » continued on Page N2 Richard von Weizsäcker

Closing Guantanamo Onward with the Arts! Attorney General Eric Holder’s Academy address How MoMA and Carnegie Hall are broadening on detainees and new directions the cultural public

recently visited represent a time and an approach o how does an D. Lowry, and the Executive and Guantanamo. I felt it was my that we want to put behind us: India-born cellist Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall, I duty to see the detention cen- A disregard for our centuries- “Sbecome Sir Clive?” Sir Clive Gillinson, opened with ter, meet with military officials long respect for the rule of law So began an evening of truly their fascinating biographies: stationed there, and determine and a go-it-alone approach that charming discussion, moderated Mr. Lowry was “set to become where things stand. I can confi- alienated our allies, incited our by Executive Director Gary Smith, an Olympic skier” and then a dently report that the prison is adversaries and ultimately weak- of the challenges and opportuni- medical student before becoming now run in an efficient, profes- ened our fight against terrorism. ties cultural institutions face in enthralled with Arabic art; Sir sional manner. Detainees are Simply put, keeping the deten- America and Europe. Clive joined the London Symphony treated humanely. tion facilities at Guantanamo Bay On the evening of the Orchestra in 1970 as a cellist with But President Obama open makes America less safe Academy’s spring 2009 Board no managerial background. believes, and I strongly agree, Meeting, the director of the that Guantanamo has come to » continued on Page N6 Museum of Modern Art, Glenn » continued on Page N9 N2 | Academy Notebook | News from the Hans Arnhold Center

• Academy Notebook • c her H or n is hotos © p hotos A ll

1. Honoring Richard von Weizsäcker

greatest men I have ever had the edgement of the crimes of the 1 Richard C. Holbrooke, » continued from N1 privilege of meeting. The life he National Socialist regime, and at Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, leading to the end of the Cold War has led has been larger than life the same time a forward-looking Gabriela von Habsburg, and the reunification of Germany. in some ways, and yet the life of defense of the Federal Republic’s Richard von Weizsäcker Henry Kissinger continues to be the century. He embodies the western-democratic traditions. 2 Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, one of our most insightful and German nation at its greatest. As He gave voice and dignity to an Thomas L. Farmer eloquent mentors in guiding Fritz Stern once wrote: “Richard unqualified acceptance of the 3 Marina French, the Atlantic world through the von Weizsäcker was one of the past. In his words: “Everyone who Nina von Maltzahn labyrinth of foreign policy and main architects of the Federal closes his eyes to the past is blind 4 Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, security challenges in a rapidly Republic of Germany’s success to the present; there is no recon- Norman Pearlstine, changing twenty-first century. story after the Second World ciliation without remembrance.” Gahl Burt He does so unfailingly with a War … (He) used the office of Germans had to accept the truth 5 Richard C. Holbrooke lucid, realistic vision of the oppor- President for what it ideally was about their past: “Too many of us 6 Dr. Henry A. Kissinger tunities for an auspicious New intended: As the voice of moral claimed that they had not known World Order. We are honored that authority.” anything about it.” he has agreed to give his name The defining moment of von He moved the entire nation for this ambitious award. Weizsäcker’s Presidency came in that speech, even adversaries It is a tremendous personal less than a year into his ten-year such as Franz Josef Strauss, who honor to be able to speak about term, on May 8, 1985, the 40th wrote that von Weizsäcker con- tonight’s recipient of the anniversary of Germany’s uncon- formed to his ideal conception of Henry Kissinger Prize, former ditional surrender. It was the a head of state. Von Weizsäcker German President Richard von contrary of the symbolic politics Weizsäcker. He is one of the of Bitburg but a clear acknowl- » continued on Page N4 News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Academy Notebook | N3 c her H or n is hotos © p hotos A ll

4. 3.

5. 6. N4 | Academy Notebook | News from the Hans Arnhold Center demonstrated, as so often in the first president of all Germans Von Weizsäcker was aware of strictly linked to European inte- his life, an uncanny ability to after reunification. the pitfalls, of the fragility of the gration issues beyond the merely articulate the deeper truth, the Building bridges between East reunification process. When he economic. “The Atlantic partner- moral truth, at a crucial moment and West, working for concili- reminded his countrymen that ship is the basis of our security,” in time. Unforgettable were the ation, had always been second “reunifying means learning to he said in 1970. “She can only be more than 35,000 personal let- nature to Richard von Weizsäcker. share,” he was speaking from a achieved through the political ters he received in response to his He had already been effective in moral viewpoint that defined his unity of Europe.” speech. The demand was so great catalyzing reconciliation in his influence and contribution to the Henry Kissinger and I could that the speech had to be reprint- first significant official visit to the German spirit of the present. easily fill the next few hours with ed again and again, reaching a GDR, in 1983, as member of the Having rejected the policy of examples demonstrating one total edition of 650,000 copies. German Evangelic Church. containment and having opened large truth, a truth that makes And the President of the As we mark in this very year doors to “former enemies,” obvious why it was so impor- Federal Republic of Germany the twentieth anniversary of the Richard von Weizsäcker always tant to us and the American spoke for all of Germany, even Fall of the Berlin Wall, we should supported European integration Academy in Berlin that Richard then. In the GDR, the speech also recall his prescient, influential as a project of peace and stability, von Weizsäcker should receive witnessed a particularly strong, words from 1989: “It is my opin- the recipe for avoiding once and this prize: His life demonstrates positive reception. It was thus ion that we are a single nation, for all the inter-states conflicts that moral authority matters fitting that this widely admired and what belongs together will that destroyed Europe 60 years in the world. Integrity matters. German president, so far the grow together.” This was not ago. His “bridging inclination” And no one in postwar Germany only candidate to have stood for necessarily a widespread senti- made him one of the greatest sup- represents moral authority with elections for the office ofFederal ment at the time, and his decisive porters of the Eastern countries’ greater conviction and wisdom President uncontested, was support to move the capital of EU membership. At the same than Richard von Weizsäcker. We reelected for a second term of Germany to Berlin was not espe- time he was one of the first sup- are honored to be honoring him office, in May 1989 – becoming cially popular either. porters of transatlantic relations today. New Trustees on Board Hans-Michael Giesen, C. Boyden Gray, Julie Mehretu, Wolfgang Malchow, and Peter Solmssen

ince autumn 2008 degrees from the universities this bond after German reunifi- German-American organizations, the American Academy of Freiburg and Münster and cation is the major achievement including the American Council Sin Berlin has welcomed from the University of Michigan of the Academy. I continue to on Germany and the American five new members to its Board of Law School. He is admitted to be amazed how much has been Chamber of Commerce in Trustees: Hans-Michael Giesen, the bar in both Berlin and New achieved to the present day.” Germany. C. Boyden Gray, Julie Mehretu, York. Giesen spent the majority Another ready ally of the Wolfgang Malchow, and Peter of his legal career with the firm Academy, Ambassador Boyden Solmssen. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Gray, has lead an illustrious The Academy is particularly of whose Berlin office he was a career in US diplomacy and pub- delighted to welcome Hans- founding partner, in 1990 (then lic service, having most recently Michael Giesen, a dedicated called Bruckhaus Westrick served as the Special Envoy for friend and adviser, to its Board. Stegemann), and whose New York European Affairs and Special Having served as the Academy’s office he headed from 1996 to Envoy for Eurasian Energy at pro bono legal counsel since its 2000. Giesen moved to GÖRG in the Mission of the United States inception, in 1994, Giesen has 2008, and his broad experience to the European Union, under aided the Academy’s growth in corporate law on both sides President George W. Bush. Prior and success in immeasurable of the Atlantic has informed his to this post Gray served as US ways. A partner in the Berlin counsel to the Academy for over Ambassador to the European office ofGÖRG , one of the leading fifteen years. Union from 2006 to 2008 under independent business law firms “I have vivid memories of the US Secretary of State Condoleeza in Germany, Giesen represents divided Berlin and the impor- Rice. corporate clients, entrepreneurs, tance of the Allied presence, most Hans-Michael Giesen A partner with the law firm and governments in corporate notably the American,” Giesen Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale transactions and restructurings, says. “I always felt that, beyond Giesen’s own achievements and Dorr since 1976, Gray’s previ- as well as in corporate disputes official relations, there existed in both Germany and the US are ous government appointments and governance matters. a special bond between the two in keeping with the Academy’s have included legal counsel to Born in Berlin in 1957 and countries. Having maintained, transatlantic spirit, as is his Vice President George H.W. Bush raised in Mainz, Giesen has law broadened, and ‘intellectualized’ membership in a number of and then White House Counsel News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Academy Notebook | N5

to the President, from 1989–1993, intricately powerful canvases spring 2009. “Political and eco- Trained as an attorney, Solmssen when Gray became one of the have earned Mehretu interna- nomic relations between the US practiced international and main architects of the 1990 Clean tional acclaim and, in 2005, a and Germany must be fostered corporate law at Morgan, Lewis Air Act Amendments. He was MacArthur grant for “visually and intensified, particularly & Bockius until 1998, when he also Counsel to the Presidential spectacular excavations of mul- through cultural and intellectual Task Force on Regulatory Relief. tiple epochs and locales.” dialogue,” Malchow says. “This Ambassador Gray received his Mehretu’s own history is as is why the American Academy LLM from the Law School of the global and crisscrossing as her in Berlin will continue to gain University of North Carolina at imagery: Born in Addis Ababa, importance in the future, and I Chapel Hill, where he was editor Ethiopia, she was educated in am honored to be playing a role.” in chief of the Law Review, and Michigan, Senegal, and Rhode Along with this clear sense of subsequently became a sergeant purpose, Malchow brings addi- in the US Marine Corps Reserve tional high caliber experience before clerking for Chief Justice in corporate management to the Earl Warren. The majority of Academy’s Board of Trustees. Gray’s career has been spent This includes overseeing the between public service posts and Packaging Technology Division the law offices of WilmerHale at Bosch, as well as oversight of in Washington, DC, where he human resources and social ser- focused on regulatory matters vices, CIP (continuous improve- pertaining to the environment, ment process) coordination, Peter Y. Solmssen energy, antitrust, public health, legal services, compliance, tax and information technology. obligations, intellectual property, joined General Electric as Vice A familiar face at the Hans internal auditing, and external President and general counsel of Arnhold Center while serving as affairs, as well as governmental its Advanced Materials division. the US Ambassador in Brussels, and political relations. He later served as Executive Vice the Academy is fortunate to wel- President and general counsel come him to its Board of Trustees Julie Mehretu of GE Healthcare before joining and as part of its extended circle Siemens in October 2007. of friends in Washington. Island. Based in New York City, As its general counsel and a Mehretu temporarily relocated to member of the Siemens’ man- Berlin after her residency at the aging board, Solmssen is also Hans Arnhold Center, in spring responsible for the company’s 2007, as a Guna S. Mundheim activities in the Americas. His Fellow in the Visual Arts. Her experience in both the German connections to Germany have and American corporate worlds since been galvanized by a adds valuable perspective to the recent commission by Deutsche Board’s composition and to the Bank for their corporate collec- Academy’s strategic planning tion, as well as by an exhibit at capabilities. the Deutsche Guggenheim, in But Solmssen hopes that his October 2009. involvement in the future of the Aside from myriad group Wolfgang Malchow Academy will bring diplomatic exhibits, Mehretu has shown at grace, as well: “When I was asked P.S. 1, in Queens; White Cube, A native of Hamburg, to joint the Academy Board, in London; and the Istanbul, Malchow studied Law at the German public perception of the C. Boyden Gray Whitney, São Paulo, Busan, and University of Munich, where United States and its culture had Sydney Biennials, and she has he completed his first state reached a new low,“ Solmssen Academy alumna Julie had solo exhibitions at, among examination in Law in 1974 says. “All the good things that Mehretu joins the Board as its others, the Walker Art Center, and where, four years later, he Americans were doing at home first-ever fine arts Trustee. Her in Minneapolis; REDCAT, in Los received his doctorate in law. In and abroad were lost in a wave of large-scale oil and acrylic paint- Angeles; Albright-Knox Art 1979 Malchow completed his anger prompted by our political ings mesh fine-line prints of Gallery, in Buffalo; St. Louis Art second state legal examination and business behavior. What I urban grids, maps, and socially Museum; and MUSAC, in Léon, and began working for Bosch. He saw in the Academy’s programs charged public spaces with the Spain. joined its Board of Management was an opportunity for the abstracted images of history, The Academy is pleased to wel- in January 2004. real America to show itself to war, and the urban landscape to come Wolfgang Malchow, a mem- Peter Y. Solmssen comes to Germany, and for Germans to create narratives about global- ber of the Board of Management the Board of Trustees with a rediscover the America they ism and history, space and time, of Robert Bosch GmbH who career built upon a solid legal thought they knew.” and personal experience. These joined the Academy’s Board in and corporate background. N6 | Academy Notebook | News from the Hans Arnhold Center Closing Guantanamo

to al-Qaeda. He will soon answer » continued from N1 to those crimes in court, and and makes our friends in this and justice will be served – perhaps other European cities less secure. by his conviction but certainly That is why one of President by his opportunity to defend him- Obama’s first acts in office was to self in an open court. issue an Executive Order mandat- We will find no one policy ing that Guantanamo be closed or sweeping approach that will within one year. appropriately apply to all detain- Many in the global community ees. But by treating each case have been quick to point out that individually, I am confident that the logistics of closing the prison we will get this right. won’t be easy. That is true. In fact, As we work to close I expect it to be one of the most Guantanamo, the President has daunting challenges I face as also instructed us to develop new Attorney General. policies to govern the handling of The President has directed future detainees captured in the that I lead a team to determine fight against terrorism. As impor- the disposition of each detainee tant as it is that we find just solu- Attorney General Eric Holder and Chief of Staff Kevin Ohlson housed there. We must devise a tions for each current detainee, it plan that abides by American and is equally important that we learn sions that this moment in history sacrifices and we must all be will- international law while ensuring from the mistakes of the past requires. But we cannot confront ing to make unpopular choices. the safety of the American people. rather than repeating them. these challenges alone. Just as The United States is ready For some detainees, the decision To see what principles will we joined hands with our inter- to do its part, and we hope that will be fairly easy. Some, we will guide our approach, look to the national allies to bring down the Europe will join us – not out of a conclude, no longer pose a threat action we took just recently in our Iron Curtain that divided this sense of responsibility, but from to the United States and can be own legal system when we with- great city, so must we join togeth- a commitment to work with one released or transferred into the drew for Guantanamo detainees er to close Guantanamo. of its oldest allies to confront one custody of other countries. The the use of the term “enemy Our history has shown that of the world’s most pressing chal- Bush administration already took combatant,” which had become Europe and America are stron- lenges. The story of the last half- this approach with many detain- needlessly inflammatory to our gest when we work together. century is one of each side of the ees. Others, we will choose to allies around the world. While Divided by an ocean, we are Atlantic turning to the other for prosecute in federal court. the symbolism of this decision united by our belief in the rule of help in times of need, and today We are making progress every made headlines, you will also find law and a commitment to extend- is no different. day. And I can promise you that here a legal rationale that demon- ing freedom and prosperity to America’s Constitution – our our ultimate solutions will be strates the manner in which this every corner of the globe. And founding document and liv- grounded in the Constitution administration will proceed in just as we defeated communism ing, breathing moral compass of the United States, the inter- detainee matters. together in the last century, so too – begins by contemplating the national laws of war, including Rather than baldly asserting will we defeat the international pursuit of a “more perfect union.” the Geneva Conventions, and that the President has the inher- terrorist networks that threaten Implicit in those words, of course, consistent with the rule of law ent authority to hold detainees, our civilizations in this century. is that we are imperfect. We and the democratic histories of we grounded our authority in a But we will do it not just with the make mistakes. But we embrace our peoples. congressional enactment, spe- force of our armies, but also with the pursuit of perfection. I am We closely weighed and met cifically in the Authorization for the strength of our ideas and the confident that the steps President those criteria in the case of a Use of Military Force passed by example of our actions. And we Obama is taking to close the pris- detainee named Ali al-Marri. Congress in the days after the must do so together. on at Guantanamo Bay will help Al-Marri had been sitting in a September 11th attacks. And we I know that Europe did not us to become a safer and more naval brig in South Carolina for relied upon the international open Guantanamo, and that perfect world. And I hope you will more than five years facing no laws of war, which have been in fact, a great many on this join us in that pursuit. charges, without the prospect developed over centuries and continent opposed it. But as we of either release or prosecu- have legitimacy in the eyes of our turn the page to a new begin- Excerpted from US Attorney tion. But in February the Justice global allies. ning, it is incumbent upon us all General Eric Holder’s Department indicted him in fed- Our nation will be stronger – to embrace new solutions, free speech at the American eral court on two counts of pro- and safer – for that approach. from the rancor and rhetoric that Academy in Berlin on viding and conspiring with oth- We are facing these issues head divided us in the past. To close April 29, 2009 ers to provide material support on, and making the hard deci- Guantanamo, we must all make News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Academy Notebook | N7

• Sketches & Dispatches • Honoring Chancellor Merkel Fritz Stern’s laudatio on the University in Exile’s 75th Anniversary and conferral of an honorary doctorate upon Chancellor Angela Merkel

his is a joyous occasion, all the tangled reasons why we follows is central. The founder the last thing he wanted or could for we are here to celebrate are here. But even the briefest of the New School was Alvin endure. American universities Tmultiple blessings: the account would have to begin with Johnson, a master in many fields, around 1910 – already striving anniversary of a great institu- the United States and Germany a typical American as we would to be among the best – were nev- tion, an outstanding individual, in the late nineteenth and early like to see ourselves, and yet ertheless all too often under the and a special affinity, the affinity twentieth century – the two so exceptional, so rare. Alvin influence of wealthy bigots and between the United States and countries in global ascendancy, Johnson, who thought himself their servants. In 1917, when reck- Germany; at our best moments, the most promising countries a Danish farmer, transplanted less German leadership forced an affinity in intellectual achieve- in a world we thought would into a Nebraskan farmer, had a the US to go to war, the American ment, an affinity for defending be forever western. The Great restless sense of public service, people were quickly gripped by freedom and, when oppressed, War changed all that, but it also of responsibility, of duty and the most appalling chauvinist giving it a refuge. And if, thanks brought about the birth of the humility. In American politics of intolerance. to the American Academy in New School for Social Research, that time he was a progressive, a In a gilded age or in the delu- Berlin, we meet here, on German in 1919, a birth that we want man yearning for public decency sionary postwar world of the soil and in an American home to celebrate today, and more in an age corrupted beyond what 1920s, the New School, rich in we remember the spirit of recon- particularly the University in one would have thought possible selective quality and poor in most ciliation: within eyesight is the Exile, which the New School (till now) by greed and maniacal other respects, tumbled from haunted place that housed the established exactly 75 years ago plutocracy. He combined realism crisis to crisis. But by 1933 a far Wannsee Conference; and this as a haven for German scholars, with serene idealism, all modi- deeper threat to freedom and to elegant house bespeaks recon- deprived of their home, their fied by self-deprecatory humor. all the values that a school born ciliation, thanks above all to the Heimat, and their freedom by Only a Johnson could proclaim: from dissidence and defiance Arnhold-Kellen family. Hitler’s terrifying regime. “If you want to live at ease in the had arisen: Hitler’s emergence It would take many histor But let me speak of individu- political world, be a practical reac- as chancellor, the establishment ians and untold hours to explain als, because their role in all that tionary.” But living at ease was in incredible rapidity of German totalitarianism, made possible – inter alia – by the perfidious pas- sivity of so many of the German elites, constituted that threat. By April 1933 German universities, so proud of their autonomy, sanctioned, partly welcomed, the dismissal or suspension of academics who did not conform to the regime’s new dogmas of racial purity or political orthodoxy. Professors were purged, books were burned, and the anti- enlightenment was in much applauded power. It was then that Johnson and others, many of them New Dealers, went beyond help to individual scholars; Johnson knew German, knew some of the academics threatened by homeless- ness, and wanted to help them – and conceived the University in Chancellor Angela Merkel and Fritz Stern Exile as an American home and at N8 | Sketches & Dispatches | News from the Hans Arnhold Center the same time as a protest against always be an easy lot; misfortune to free thought, the threats of embodied in individuals or insti- American isolationism and indif- doesn’t automatically translate torture and repression, are ever tutions. We have every reason ference, made the stronger by the into magnanimity, and German present. The University in Exile to celebrate that earlier model, Great Depression. Johnson had academics might still think of was the best of the US in minia- the University in Exile – and it known some of the newly home- themselves as guardians of culture; it was an expression and a is very much in its spirit that less German academics, many ture. Modesty was not necessarily beneficiary of a generous liberal the New School today wishes to distinguished in combining the foremost virtue of German spirit. In the 1930s and 1940s, honor Chancellor Merkel, one socioeconomic research with a academics. that spirit had many enemies of the preeminent political lead- philosophical-historical context. Allow me a personal note: – and it has them still today. In ers of the world, and one of the The crowning achievement of the I knew well a few members of gratitude to past defenders, we few who knows from her own University in Exile was a weekly that first group at the University must try to emulate them, to be experience of the fragility of free- seminar where these scholars in Exile, most especially Hans steadfast in support of decency. dom and the importance of free from different but cognate fields Neisser. My mother worked with Today’s Graduate Faculty con- scholarship. would present their research. The Max Wertheimer, co-founder tinues the tradition of relevant expectation was that such a newly of Gestalt psychology. It was scholarship in an international The above is an excerpt of a founded graduate faculty would an inspiring group, including context, as exemplified by the longer laudation – delivered train American scholars in some Frieda Wunderlich, a pioneer in symposium that will begin this in English and German – kind of synthesis of European social policy and a member of afternoon. Free scholarship will by Academy Trustee and and American methods. the Prussian parliament before always need protection or refuge; Columbia University histo- But Johnson’s effort was altru- 1933. All of these exiles had seen I see a distant affinity between rian Fritz Stern. He spoke at istic and humane; he saw that and suffered the fate of Weimar: the University in Exile in New the Academy on the occasion refugee intellectuals and indige- Their reflections on socioeco- York and some decades later, the of The New School’s confer- nous scholars would benefit from nomic issues and on humanistic flying university in Poland, meet- ral of an honorary doctorate each other’s presence. He knew education embodied lessons from ing furtively and underground, upon Chancellor Angela of likely difficulties; he had met Weimar’s failure. constituting a vital element Merkel, in February 2009, some of the scholars before he The ideals of the University in the ultimate self-liberation celebrating the University in brought them over. And he knew in Exile remain as valid today of Eastern Europe. Many of us Exile’s 75th anniversary. that academics in exile might not as they were then – the dangers live by past examples, whether US Lesson in World Politics Anne-Marie Slaughter and the new face of US diplomacy

t’s not what you say, it’s how of the Obama administration’s away from nuclear weapons, but even more so as the strategic you say it. This is especially approach to foreign policy. which pushes Pakistan increas- height of global development I true of current US foreign Slaughter was Obama’s top ingly into focus. The third prior- through diplomacy. Obama’s policy. Consultation, multilat- choice for the key position. ity is much more than a rhetorical speech to the Islamic world eralism, the United Nations, During last year’s campaign she shift: Rather than condemning in Cairo was followed by the patience, and hope are all on directly criticized Hilary Clinton, chaos states, it focuses on devel- appointment of task forces the agenda. Incidentally, the US but she reported with a smile that opment and climate change. on the terrain from the Atlas remains an overarching world in the meantime they have found The Europeans will kindly nod Mountains to the Hindu Kush. power and Europe’s good stand- their common ground. in agreement with all of this, but It was a lesson in world politics ing depends on its contribution The National Security they will also have to play their for the Berlin foreign policy to world order – whether in con- Doctrine in 2002 was the for- part. Whether that involves the establishment. “Soft power”? fronting economic depression, mal response to the 9/11 trauma nuclear spoil-sports Iran and The open hand rather than the Afghanistan, or Iraq. in New York and Washington. North Korea; or the Middle East – clenched fist has become the On Tuesday at the American It specified weapons of mass Obama does not just want to see leading metaphor for America’s Academy, an evening ripe for destruction, terrorism, and a process, but rather actual peace new foreign policy. But in the thunderstorms at Wannsee. The failed states as the first, second, between the states in the region; end it is hard power that matters – Director of Policy Planning for and third greatest threats to the or whether it’s about migration; this also goes for the Obama the US Department of State, United States. While weapons of or Turkey, which Washington is administration. Anne-Marie Slaughter, previ- mass destruction are still the top waiting to see if Europe would ously dean of the Woodrow concern, Obama’s policy does not like to have in the EU. By Michael Stürmer Wilson School for Public and lack a commitment to nuclear According to the Policy Die Welt International Affairs at Princeton disarmament, and Islam has Planning head, the Clinton State July 1, 2009 and the first woman to ever been removed from the rhetoric Department considers address- Translated by Alissa hold the highly regarded posi- of the former policy. A key objec- ing climate change as a moral Burmeister tion, spoke about the future tive remains keeping terrorists and humanitarian obligation, News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Sketches & Dispatches | N9 Of Operas and Awards Anna-Maria Kellen and Peter Gelb at the Academy

he Metropolitan Opera recently celebrated Tits 125th anniversary. Rather than coast on its countless merits, however, the Met has been revolutionized by dramatic changes initiated by Peter Gelb, the company’s 16th General Manager. Through a series of bold artistic strokes and public initiatives, including the groundbreaking Live in HD series of live transmissions to movie theaters around the world, the Met has revitalized its image and raised the profile of opera internationally. “We’re bringing opera back Anna-Maria Kellen and Peter Gelb into the cultural mainstream,” Mr. Gelb says, “a necessary step if performances of the second act Festspiele, Jürgen Flimm, whose Academy, who made the evening we wish to keep the art form alive of Verdi’s La Traviata, the third strong opposition to Mr. Gelb’s with Mr. Gelb possible. in the years to come.” act of Massenet’s Manon, and popularizing approach to opera During her stay in Berlin, Mr. Gelb, at the Academy as a the final scene from Richard spurred a dynamic and impas- Mrs. Kellen – born and raised in Stephen M. Kellen Distinguished Strauss’s Capriccio. sioned discussion. the German capital, in the house Visitor, began his June 21 lecture In the Academy’s own audi- In attendance as well, all the that is now the Hans Arnhold with coverage of the Met’s open- ence were several of Berlin’s way from New York City, was Center – was honored by the ing night – from the outside. musical luminaries: René Pape, Anna-Maria Kellen, wife of the Berlin Senate with the esteemed Projected onto multiple screens the great baritone from the late Stephen Kellen whose family Verdienstorden in “recognition throughout Times Square and Staatsoper; pianist Mariella remains the Academy’s biggest and appreciation of outstanding Lincoln Center before tens of Stockhausen; Peter Riegelbauer benefactor. Accompanying her merit to the city of Berlin,” par- thousands of fans was an eve- of the Berlin Philharmonic; was daughter Marina French, on ticularly her tireless support of the ning gala featuring fully staged and Director of the Salzburger the Boards of the Met and the American Academy.

Onward with the Arts!

music can reach. Carnegie Hall meant an extraordinary building- both remain optimistic about the » continued from N1 also began an education initiative renovation project and extended future of the arts in the US and Since, however, each has gone on that saw them join forces with public programming, but the Europe, regardless of their differ- to revolutionize their respective the Juilliard School of Music and decade-long partnership with ing models of funding – mostly institutions, bringing an ever- New York City public schools to Queens-based contemporary art private versus mostly public – an broader public before the cultural create a fellowship program for space P.S. 1. This symbiotic rela- issue they also addressed at length. gems they have to offer. the nation’s best young musi- tionship, Lowry explained, has A take-away message of the Sir Clive recalled the extraor- cians. As part of their award, helped to bring the power and evening: Moments like the one in dinarily successful, first-ever fellows received post-graduate relevance of contemporary art which cultural funding currently YouTube Symphony Orchestra. training with Juilliard’s best, in to a broader public, as well as to finds itself have occurred in the Organized by Carnegie Hall, the exchange for joining the teaching contextualize today’s art within past, too. And it is the arts that performance, comprised of an faculty of New York City’s public the larger tradition of modernism, have always helped us to under- international orchestra selected schools for a duration thereafter. a connection Lowry’s own writing stand the human components of from over 3,000 applicants, took The program’s success has been has helped to redefine and expand. the larger cultural mechanisms place on April 15, conducted by enormous. For both directors the global at work. This indispensability is Michael Tilson Thomas. The For MoMA and director Lowry, economic downturn has, of hardly one that can afford to be result: 15 million hits and renewed at the helm since 1995, reach- course, reduced budgets and curtailed. And so, onward and thinking about whom classical ing out to the public has not just slimmed down future plans. Yet upward with the arts! N10 | Sketches & Dispatches | News from the Hans Arnhold Center He Is So Free early seven years The author, who turned 50 ago, in January 2002, this summer, seems as young as NJonathan Franzen read ever. And the text he read con- from his then-forthcoming firmed that he has remained true novel, The Corrections, at the to himself – in tone and in the American Academy in Berlin. way he observes the world and What followed this German each of his characters struggling premiere is literary history: Just within it. As in The Corrections a few years later the German and his earlier novels, his cur- translation of Franzen’s novel, rent one, Freedom, is set in the including the portion he read Midwest. Patty and Walter live that night, caused him to be cel- in Ramsey Hill, in St. Paul, near ebrated as the star author of the Minneapolis. The tensions of Western world. the novel are laid out in the first Since then, Franzen’s impor- chapter, “Good Neighbors,” and tance has kept in lock step with then Franzen weaves a taught his fame. Despite the extra net of relationships among fam- security at the Academy gate, ily members, neighbors, and the presence in the audience friends that comes to serve as a of fellow Donald Antrim, and trampoline from which to launch authors such as Julia Franck and the conflicts, desires, and soaring Daniel Kehlmann, a feeling of ambitions he explores. déjà-vu was hard to resist as the Yet as the novel is still in Jonathan Franzen American Academy offered a very progress, Franzen was hesitant to special pre-premiere: Franzen say too much about it. It is about the narrator cares deeply about of literature, Franzen alluded, to presented the first chapter of his marriage and competition, and his surroundings. Franzen also take on the terrorist attacks as a unfinished fourth novel. one might get the impression that proved his competence at side- “national tragedy.” Truly powerful stepping disagreeable questions books that were able to capture with elegance and ironic self- the crisis were written before Citigroup Master Class regard: In a conversation with the terror attacks ever happened. literary critic Wieland Freund, he “Writers don’t wait in line to react; revealed that the novel’s work- they lead the way.” Franzen’s Essay Competition ing title, Freedom, was inspired readers know what he means. by George Bush. Following the Now the public must patiently n June 2009 Citigroup Global Markets Deutschland AG September 11 bombings, Bush’s await the release of Freedom in and the American Academy launched the first Citi Master statement “They hate our free- the United States, expected in fall I Class in Effective Entrepreneurship. Select German business dom” increasingly dismayed of 2010. graduates took part in seminars with internationally renowned Franzen the more he thought business leaders in Berlin and Frankfurt. At the end, each stu- it over. “Even if I can’t imagine By Felicitas von Lovenberg dent wrote an essay about the financially turbulent climate facing living without some of these free- Frankfurter Allgemeine young entrepreneurs. The best five essays will be posted on the doms,” he said, “it seems to me Zeitung, May 7, 2009 Academy’s website in November 2009. that freedom in excess is going Translated by Alissa to kill me.” But it is not the job Burmeister

in independent study in Berlin. Fellowships are typically awarded Call for Applications for an academic semester, occasionally for an entire academic year, and include round-trip airfare, housing, partial board, and a monthly stipend. Fellowships are restricted to candidates based The American Academy in Berlin invites applications for its resi- permanently in the US. American citizenship is not required, and dential fellowships for the 2010–2011 and future academic years. American expatriates are not eligible. Candidates in academic dis- Applications are due in Berlin on October 1, 2010 and will be ciplines must have completed a doctorate at the time of application. announced in February 2011. Fellowships are awarded to emerg- Application forms and further information may be found on the ing and established scholars, writers, and professionals to engage Academy’s website, www.americanacademy.de. News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Sketches & Dispatches | N11

• Life & Letters •

Alumni Books Recent and forthcoming releases

Aris Fioretos Jeffrey Herf Susanna Moore Donald Shriver Babel, a Festschrift for Werner Nazi Propaganda in the Middle East Big Girls (new German edition) H. Richard Niebuhr: Abingdon Hamacher (Yale University Press, 2009) (Atrium-Verlag, Hamburg, Pillars of Theology (edition Weil am Rhein: Engeler, 2009) (Abingdon Press, 2009) 2009 UND Den siste greken, Ha Jin novel, Stockholm: Norstedts, The Writer As Migrant 2009) (University of Chicago Press, 2008) Adam Garfinkle Jewcentricity: Why the Jews Are Juliet Koss Praised, Blamed, and Used to Modernism after Wagner Explain Just about Everything (University of Minnesota Press, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009) forthcoming 2010)

Kate Trumpener The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period (co-edited with Richard Maxwell; W. Simone de Pietro Cambridge University Press, City Dog: Writings on Life 2009) and Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2009)

Mary E. Sarotte Stephen Hartke Michael Meyer 1989: The Struggle to Create Post- CD Release: The Horse with The Year that Changed the World: Cold War Europe the Lavendar Eye – Piano and The Untold Story Behind the Fall (Princeton University Press, Chamber Music of the Berlin Wall 2009) (Simon & Schuster, 2009)

spring will be Jeffrey Chips tarian Camilo José Vergara Sneak Preview Smith, of the University of Texas as the Berlin Prize Fellow, and at Austin, and Tufts University translator Peter Wortsman as The spring 2010 fellows professor Judith Wechsler, who the Holtzbrinck Fellow, both will be the Anna-Maria Kellen from New York. Janet Gerzari, he incoming cl ass Johns Hopkins University. He and Berthold Leibinger Fellows, professor of English at Connec- of spring fellows prom- will be joined by law professor respectively. Novelist and jour- ticut College, comes to the Hans Tises another season of and Bosch Public Policy Fellow nalist Francisco Goldman, Arnhold Center as the Siemens lively intellectual exchange and David Abraham, and the semes- author of The Long Night of White Fellow. And in the arts, the Berlin debate. The inaugural Metro ter’s Ellen Maria Gorrissen Chickens, will join the spring Fellow in Music Composition will Berlin Fellow will be Sunil Fellow will be Charles Marsh, class as the Mary Ellen von der continue from fall, New Haven- Khilnani, Starr Foundation Professor of Religious Studies Heyden Fellow for Fiction. The based composer Andrew Professor and Director of the at the University of Virginia. Art Academy also welcomes writer, Norman. South Asia Studies Program at historians at the Academy this photographer, and documen N12 | Sketches & Dispatches | News from the Hans Arnhold Center

will contrast the experience of Center. But the fascination with looking at these sherds in Italy Richter’s work is much older and Profiles in to that of seeing them in Berlin, more personal: Buchloh, who which, he says, “is no less marked received his M.Phil from the Free by history but where ancient art University of Berlin in 1969, has Scholarship has been subject to far more dis- been friends with the artist for placement, and in some ways, far over three decades. The fall 2009 class of fellows more successful display.” Throughout his academic In keeping with his genre- career, Buchloh has written on Rick Atkinson campaigns in North Africa and crossing oeuvre, Barkan’s modernism’s divergence into its Born in postwar Germany, Rick Italy in his first two volumes,An Academy project will comprise a European and American strains, Atkinson spent his formative Army at Dawn: The War in North collection of essays, drawing from focusing on the work of Yves years on the military bases where Africa, 1942–1943, which won both written testimonies of post- Klein, Joseph Beuys, Ellsworth his Army-officer father was sta- the 2004 Pulitzer for history, classical museum-goers (such as Kelly, and Andy Warhol. “Part tioned. The environment had and The Day of Battle: The War in Rilke and Winckelmann) and the of my motivation for wanting to an effect on the young Atkinson, Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944 (2007), modern, subjective experience of study modern art was a rebel- who has gone on to pen five Atkinson’s work, now from the visiting a museum. It will spring lious impulse,” Buchloh has acclaimed works of military his- Academy, aims to complete the from considerations of history said. “My interest grew in propor- tory and spend more than twenty trilogy’s third segment: A study of and poetry; from the examples tion to the inaccessibility of the years as a Washington Post cor- the events leading from the inva- of both Rome and Berlin; and, no material.” Buchloh has taught at respondent and bureau chief, sion of Normandy to Germany’s less important, from Barkan’s own the Staatliche Kunstakademie covering, among other areas, the surrender, in 1945. subjective manner of observing Düsseldorf, the Nova Scotia Pentagon. For his work Atkinson and understanding the German College of Art and Design, has been awarded four Pulitzer Leonard Barkan capital’s architectural spaces. SUNY-Old Westbury, MIT, the Prizes. The ruins of ancient Rome and University of Chicago, CalArts, Atkinson won his first Pulitzer the cultural moods they entail Benjamin Buchloh Barnard College, and Columbia for reporting in Kansas City that have long been a topic of scholarly The work of Dresden-born artist University. Co-editor of the jour- included a series of articles about fascination. Historians piece Gerhard Richter spans nearly five nal October, he was awarded the the West Point class of 1966, the together ancient narratives; decades and media from painting Golden Lion for Contemporary first group of graduates to join a archaeologists, its physical frag- to photography; from sculpture Art History and Criticism at the losing Army at a time when social ments; painters and poets lend to photographs; from bricolage Venice Biennale (2007) and is the attitudes towards the military their interpretations of eras past. to drawings. One of Germany’s recipient of grants from Getty, were drastically changing. This Even Sigmund Freud compared towering postwar cultural figures, CASVA, and Lehman foundations. reporting ultimately became his the practice of archaeology to that Richter’s presence has reverber- first book,The Long Gray Line of psychoanalysis: Both uncover ated throughout the art world. Nathan Englander (1989). buried layers. Yet there is a dearth of substantial Dov Binyamin went over to the Atkinson moved to the But what effect does the use literature on the artist. kettle, poured himself a mug of hot Washington Post in 1983 and later and display of fragments have To correct the oversight, water, and stirred in a spoonful became the lead correspondent on a culture? For Princeton Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Nescafé. “How about you don’t in the 1991 Gulf War, which led comparative literature scholar of Modern Art at Harvard give me a hard time today?” This to his second book, Crusade: Leonard Barkan, this has long University, Benjamin Buchloh, tensely wound domestic snippet The Untold Story of the Persian been a central concern. He has himself a towering figure in post- is from Nathan Englander’s first Gulf War. In 1993 he became the devoted much of his research war art history and criticism and set of short stories, For the Relief paper’s Berlin bureau chief, from to the intersections of literature perhaps the world’s preeminent of Unbearable Urges (1999), which where covered the simmering and art history, archaeology, and authority on Richter, will spend he published at age 29. The book conflicts in Bosnia and Somalia. aesthetics, most recently in a his Academy residency conclud- is comprised of nine separate No stranger to the war theater, book on Michelangelo’s habits of ing a monographic study of the tales, all set in the world of Jewish Atkinson was embedded with the writing and drawing, and another artist. He sees Richter’s under- Orthodoxy. Subsequently trans- US army in Iraq in 2003, leading on a year spent in Italy. It was in representation as stemming lated into 12 languages, the book to the creation of his book In The that country that Barkan explored both from a complex, paradoxical earned Englander a smattering Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle what Italy does best: Art, litera- artistic education and the atypical of awards for first fiction, includ- of Combat (2004), in which he ture, food, and wine – and their method in which he works, defy- ing a PEN/Hemingway Award, examined the complicated facets nuanced relations to the self. ing traditional theoretical tools. the Sue Kauffman Prize from of waging modern war. The link between fragments Buchloh’s Richter projects began the American Academy of Arts His magnum opus to date, in art and the experience of view- in earnest in the 1990s, when & Letters, and recognition in the however, has been The Liberation ing them will be Barkan’s point he curated a retrospective of the New Yorker as one of “20 Writers Trilogy, a tripartite account of of focus while at the Academy. artist in Paris and Bonn, penned for the 21st Century.” His second the American military’s role in Having spent significant time in several groundbreaking essays on work (and first novel),The Ministry the liberation of Europe during Rome, where a majority of ruins Richter’s work, and wrote a dis- of Special Cases, received equal World War II. Addressing the and artifacts are in situ, Barkan sertation at the CUNY Graduate acclaim for its darkly moving News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Life & Letters | N13

depiction of a family caught in the Joel Harrington was working Protestant Reformation, as cities battle is more intriguingly midst of Argentina’s “Dirty War.” on a research project in the and nations developed enhanced approached in a manner less con- Englander’s short stories have Nuremburg city archives, this is legal codes and new attitudes ventional than traditional military regularly appeared in The New precisely what he stumbled upon: towards criminal justice. The history: By looking at letters of Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The journal of Frantz Schmidt, Vanderbilt scholar has published soldiers and officers on both sides New York Magazine, and this Nuremburg’s official executioner two other works on early modern of the conflict. He does so to seek fall he will continue work on his from 1573 to 1617. The journal Germany, Reordering Marriage and out the details of the disparate ide- second novel, tentatively entitled chronicles 345 ritual disfigura- Society in Reformation Germany, ologies – and thus, intrapersonal Coward. Set in Israel in the tions and 361 public executions he and A Cloud of Witnesses: Readings hopes – that motivated the Soviet years between the two intifadas, performed while in service. in the History of Western and Nazi armies, providing them Coward’s narrative will take a more While Schmidt’s narrative Christianity. His work with radically different purposes and personal tone: During Englander’s does not lack for detail, the jour- Schmidt’s journal will constitute rationales for fighting.

First row: Laura Secor, Leonard Barkan, Philip Zelikow; Middle row: George Packer, Mary E. Sarotte, Nathan Englander, Michael Queenland, Andrew Norman; Back row: Jochen Hellbeck, Susan Howe, Joel Harrington, Rick Atkinson, Benjamin Buchloh

six years in Jerusalem he experi- nal offers something perhaps his third study focused on under- The ideology of the Third enced the intense period between more astounding: Rare insight standing the ways historical events Reich was driven by an exclusive, the two conflicts but left the city into the life of a man who worked in Reformation Germany have fatalist, and racist agenda, whose after it erupted into, he says, “what to reconcile his personal religious shaped the country as it is today. leaders saw themselves as “Aryan can only be described as war.” The piety with his gruesome profes- defenders against Asiatic hordes.” story delves into the politics and sion. Schmidt lived comfortably Jochen Hellbeck The Soviets believed that political religion, race and culture, and with his family and remained a War historians often cite the indoctrination and moral educa- dreams and violence of the divided respected member of the local Battle of Stalingrad as being a his- tion could inspire soldiers to city. These are universal themes, establishment, while also suc- toric turning point of the Second promote a cause of equality, broth- to be sure, but Englander’s specific cessfully petitioning to abolish World War. It sent the German erhood, volunteerism, and moral fictional universes, he says, are forms of unnecessary cruelty for army into retreat and paved the perfection. Through the study of “more about the setting facilitating those condemned to his hand. way for the Red Army’s advance personal diaries, letters, memoirs, the subtext than vice versa.” Throughout the explicit accounts to Berlin – ultimately leading to military records, and photographs, of execution and torture, Schmidt the Battle of Berlin that ended Hellbeck aims to ferret out the Joel Harrington also conveys sense of mercy, jus- the war in Europe. The Battle of dissonant political agendas that Of all the stories, films, and tice, and divine will. He believed Stalingrad, fought between July 17, met at the Battle of Stalingrad books depicting Europe during he was doing God’s work. 1942 and February 2, 1943, took and resonated in the intellectual the time of the Reformation, Harrington is interested in the nearly two million lives and effec- and emotional lives of those on few, if any, have done so through parallels between Schmidt’s jour- tively reduced the city to rubble. the frontlines – a prime recent the eyes of an executioner. Yet nal and the changes that Europe For Rutgers history professor example of ideology converted when Vanderbilt historian was undergoing during the Jochen Hellbeck, the Stalingrad into individual action. N14 | Life & Letters | News from the Hans Arnhold Center

A historian of Russia, Hellbeck’s both essays and poems, adding own experiences as a journalist. geometric lines and dynamic academic focus has been the study another volume to the twenty Having spent the early part of his asymmetry. of autobiography in historical books of poems and three books of career covering European affairs Born in 1979, Norman is a perspective. His most recent book literary criticism she has already for the Wall Street Journal, New graduate of the University of is Revolution on My Mind (2006), published. The chameleon city York Times, and the International Southern California and the Yale which looks at the paradox of self- of Berlin will undoubtedly have Herald Tribune, Maass also School of Music. He has received expression in Stalin’s repressive a potent effect on Howe’s out- spent several years in Eastern composition fellowships from political system. put: She knows that her poems Europe as a correspondent for the American Academy in Rome, develop from a close relationship the Washington Post, for whom he the Aspen Music Festival, the Susan Howe to her location and is eager to covered the war in Bosnia in 1992 Chamber Music Conference Susan Howe remembers return- explore the relationship between and 1993. and Composers’ Forum, among ing to the United States from a American themes and European Maass has written about the others. In 2009 he received the summer in Ireland in 1938 on a art afforded by her own voluntary topics of oil, war, terrorism, and Charles Ives Scholarship from ship full of refugees fleeing from displacement. Iraq, among others, for the New the American Academy of Arts across Europe. In 1941 her father Republic, Popular Science, and and Letters and was a Composer- enlisted in the US Army and was Peter Maass Slate, and is the author of Crude in-Residence at the Des Moines subsequently stationed in North Wars and conflicts of the twen- World: The Violent Twilight of Oil Symphony, whose orchestra, along Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and tieth century are often linked to (2009) and Love Thy Neighbor: A with the Modesto Symphony, Germany, separating him from images that quickly become Story of War (1996). will premiere his completed his family for three years. These iconic. Robert Capa’s 1936 pho- “Anachronies,” in 2010. early impressions of “the gulf that tograph of a felled militiaman in Andrew Norman separated Europe from America” the Spanish Civil War; the 1945 “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck George Packer had a formative, haunting impact photograph of US Marines raising in time” – the first line of Kurt The founding ideas put forth in on Howe’s worldview and ever the American flag at Iwo Jima; the Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, the United States Constitution since have shaped the backbone execution of a Viet Cong prisoner opened a narrative about a charac- have been a fundamental source of her poetic work. in the streets of Saigon in 1968; ter that experienced the events of of American activity, thought, Howe’s writing is rooted the toppling of a Saddam Hussein his life out of sequence. It was the legislation, and debate since the in the European tradition; her statue in Baghdad in 2003. These inspiration for Andrew Norman’s document’s ratification, in 1788. Its poems often arise from an images, he says, misshape the piece “Unstuck,” one movement claims, rooted in the English and interdisciplinary study of letters, public perception of war. of a larger cycle of his orchestral Scottish Enlightenment, champion memoirs, biographies, diaries, It is precisely this last example works entitled “Anachronies.” the democratic values that have drawings, paintings, and photo- from which Maass springs to dis- Referring to the displacement of long served as a model for coun- graphs: “Lean on handrail river cuss the way we view iconic pho- chronology in narrative form, it tries developing their own legal below / Sense of depth focus tographs. As American Marines is comprised of a set of discrete codes. But can these ideals be inter- motion / of chaos in Schlegel toppled the statue of Saddam pieces that explore an alternate preted for alternative purposes? only as / visual progress into Hussein in the Baghdad city cen- manner of structuring the idea Looking back at the wars depth its / harsh curb estrange- ter on April 9, 2003, the picture of chronology in abstract musical America has waged and sup- ment logic,” goes a passage from circled the globe and became a form. ported since its founding – from “Rückenfigur,” a poem heavily symbol of American conquest Norman’s music is often Thomas Jefferson’s support of the influenced by an exhibit of Caspar and Iraqi joy. But Maass, who inspired by the built or techno- French Revolution, to Woodrow David Friedrich paintings that was there, says the actual event logical forms he encounters. His Wilson’s break from isolationism alludes to classical figures in “was a minor sideshow; even the music draws from an eclectic mix to join World War I, to the 2003 ancient Greek poetry and myth. Marines who toppled the statue of sounds and often features a war in Iraq – New Yorker staff Beethoven, Adorno, and Beuys were surprised when it became an combination of color, energy, lyri- writer George Packer has traced are some of the other figures that icon.” Iconic images become nar- cism, and the fragmentation of the roots to an invocation of the have been influential in Howe’s ratives, Maass says, sometimes at musical ideas. The Boston Globe Enlightenment ideals rooted in the recent work – Europeans whose the expense of equally significant called Norman’s 2004 piece Constitution. Yet despite the fact perspectives have helped her to but more disturbing images. This “Gran Turismo” an “exhilarating that the defense of human liberty explore the themes of American sort of discrepancy highlights the exercise in perpetual motion and equality are often cited as the mysticism, Puritanism, and tran- fictional construction of war nar- constantly threatened by modern war’s purpose, these grandiose and scendentalism central to her writ- ratives that overshadow the reali- collisions en route,” noting that abstract ideas are often far from ing. The experience of displace- ties on the ground. it “was inspired in part by the the reality of daily combat and the ment in America is a tradition The project that the New York baroque concerto grosso, in part brutality of war. extending back to reformers and Times Magazine contributing writ- by the video game of the same While at the Academy, Packer sects in the nineteenth century er will pursue in Berlin includes name.” Norman’s 2003 piece will undertake a collection of who came to America as an ulti- research on German political “Light Screens,” for flute and a essays that address American mate result of the Reformation. iconography of the twentieth string trio, was inspired by a sec- policy and the unresolved, dichoto- At the Academy this fall, Howe century – the Nuremberg rallies tion of stained glass designed mous interplay it has repeatedly is working on the completion of and the fall of the Berlin Wall – by Frank Lloyd Wright: Simple faced between the “lofty ideals and a manuscript that will include as well as reflections from his repetitive shapes with heavy the use of force.” Inspired to the News from the Hans Arnhold Center | Life & Letters | N15

project after his time as a reporter he completed a residency at the former revolutionaries in Eastern will trace the story of Iran’s in Iraq researching the award- Studio Musem, in Harlem, and Europe were pushing. contemporary movement for winning Assassin’s Gate: America in 2006 received a United States The project is particularly democratic change, following the in Iraq (2005), Packer hopes Artists Fellowship. He has had timely – the twentieth anniver- political arc of a country that still to explore the ways in which solo and group exhibitions at, sary of the fall of the Berlin Wall resembles, even given recent tra- American idealism has lead inevi- among others, the Institute of – for its elucidation of the course vails, the closet thing to a democ- tably and repeatedly to bloodshed Contemporary Art at the Maine of thought and events that led to racy in the Muslim Middle East. and death. It would appear that College of Art, the Massachusetts the current world order. Sarotte the American republic, he claims, College of Art, in Boston, and the addresses this monumental Philip Zelikow is ultimately founded on prin- Whitney Museum of American shift at length with considerable When the 9/11 Commission was ciples that are inherently destruc- Art. narrative force in her new book, charged with investigating the tive. While the Enlightenment 1989: The Struggle to Create Post- events that lead to the worst ever values of liberty, humanitarian- Mary Elise Sarotte Cold War Europe, due out from terrorist attacks on American soil, ism, and self-determination are Historian Mary Sarotte points to Princeton University Press in they looked to Philip Zelikow. indeed indispensable, there is two distinct outcomes after the November 2009. It was Condoleeza Rice who “something chronic in American fall of the Berlin Wall: The end called on her State Department history and charter [that] produc- of a grand socialist narrative that Laura Secor colleague to rewrite the initial es the opposite.” directly competed with capital- In June of 2009 the world 9/11 Commission report. After he ism and individuality, and the watched as the campaign did, the Commission’s vice-chair, Michael Queenland beginning of what appeared to between Iranian President Lee Hamilton, recommended In Michael Queenland’s 2004 be an “era of unpredictability.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Zelikow be appointed director piece Trap, the New York-based Regarding the latter, immedi- reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi – making him head of the most artist created a structure of chop- ately after the Wall, questions neared election. Images of public wide-ranging investigation in the sticks that supported balloon-like swiftly arose as to the direction squares filled with exuberant history of the United States. cobwebs ensnaring little spheres post-Communist states would Mousavi supporters waving Since the 1980s Zelikow made of Styrofoam peanuts. take: Would they maintain some green flags lead many to wonder had worked on national secu- Delicately balanced and appear- variation of socialist narrative if the election would finally mean rity issues, serving on the staff ing to hover in midair, the piece, while incorporating new political regime change. The world then for Secretary of State George Queenland says, was a reference and security organizations, as witnessed the surprising out- P. Schultz during Ronald to Puritan theologian Jonathan Mikhail Gorbachev hoped? Or come, which lead to mass riots, Reagan’s second administra- Edwards’s “fire-and-brimstone would they wholly adopt Western police brutality, journalistic cen- tion, on the National Security image of man as a spider dan- institutions? sorship, and civilian deaths. Council under President George gling by a slender thread over the Sarotte, Professor of Interna While the 2009 Iranian elec- H.W. Bush, in 1989, and on flames of damnation.” tional Relations at the University tions are significant in their German reunification diplomacy Queenland’s work consistently of Southern California, argues own right, they are part of a and settlements accompany- explores American radical and that this new unpredictability larger narrative about political ing the close of the Cold War. social movements and refers to was allayed, in part, by former reform in Iran underway since In 1990 Zelikow worked with nonconforming figures in stan- German Chancellor Helmut the mid-1990s. This is the story National Security Adviser Brent dard thought and belief systems Kohl and his bold willingness to that New York-based journalist Scowcroft and Secretary of State by using a rich tapestry of mate- import Western bodies and ideas Laura Secor, whose writing on James Baker as part of the diplo- rials and media. Incorporating to the East – most notably, NATO. Iran has appeared in the New matic team that handled coalition sculpture, photography, and Kohl’s expansion of NATO into the Yorker, New York Times Magazine, affairs in the first Gulf War. After installation made of ephemeral former East German state pro- Atlantic Monthly, and the New this long stretch in government, materials such as soap bubbles, vided continuity and certainty at Republic, will be writing during Zelikow headed to the Kennedy brooms, and spider webs, he cre- a time when a new Western-style her residency as a Holtzbrinck School of Government at Harvard ates juxtapositions that at once order was by no means inevitable. Fellow at the American Academy. to teach public policy and serve “insist upon sensible, material fact Having recently gained early Having travelled four times to as co-director of the Intelligence and the ineffable meaning that access to the records of former the country since 2004 – one year and Policy Program. He departed exceeds it.” Queenland’s past proj- Chancellor Kohl, Sarotte will use before conservative hardliner in 1998 for the Miller Center of ects have included an exploration her Academy fellowship to work Ahmadinejad’s presidential vic- Public Affairs at the University of between minimal and conceptual primarily with these documents in tory – Secor has witnessed the Virginia, where he is currently he art, the aesthetics of Shaker fur- the German Federal Archives and shift away from Western-style is White Burkett Miller Professor niture, a chandelier constructed the Federal Chancellery before liberalism that ensued after the of History. of ping-pong balls, and pieces they are made available to the pub- reformist rule of Mohammad At the Academy this fall as an that begin as sculptures and then lic. Her research will ultimately Khatami was overturned. Axel Springer Fellow, Zelikow become narratives, images, signs. develop into a book project about Through the dramatic per- will be working on a project no Born in Pasadena, Queenland the priorities, doubts, and convic- sonal stories of Iranians exiled less ambitious than his extraor- studied at the University of tions that led Kohl to promote in Europe throughout the coun- dinary career: “Shaping the California, Los Angeles, where Western institutions over the alter- try’s recent course, Secor, in her Modern World,” about the history he received his MFA. In 2005 natives for which Gorbachev and project “Fugitives from Paradise,” of US foreign policy. N16 | Life & Letters | News from the Hans Arnhold Center

ﬁ Calendar

From concerts, readings, forums, and October November 11/23 True and False Selves: lectures, the Academy’s fall semester A Conversation with offers diverse and unique perspectives 10/1 The Rest is Noise 11/2 Adapting to a Michael Queenland on American intellectual, political, and Alex Ross, music critic, New York, Transnational World Michael Queenland, artist and cultural life. Herewith, a listing of events and alumnus, American Academy Philip Zelikow, White Burkett Miller Guna S. Mundheim Fellow in the in and around the Hans Arnhold Center, in Berlin Professor of History, University Visual Arts at the Academy from September through December. of Virginia; former Counselor, US 10/6 Bringing Back the Dead: Department of State; and Axel 11/24 Poems and Documents: History, Memory, and Springer Fellow at the Academy A Reading Writing about World War II Susan Howe, poet and Anna-Maria September Rick Atkinson, author and Location: Festsaal, Rektorats-Villa, Kellen Fellow at the Academy historian; Axel Springer Fellow TU Dresden 9/15 Presentation of the Fall at the Academy 2009 Fellows 11/10 Benefit Concert and Gala Greeting by US Ambassador 10/8 A Transnational World: Dinner in New York Philip Murphy; History, Policy, and a Time Franz Schubert’s Octet in F Major, December Introduction by Joschka Fischer, of Transition Opus 166 Former Vice Chancellor and Philip Zelikow, White Burkett Performed by the Scharoun 12/3 The Photograph as Memory Foreign Minister of the Federal Miller Professor of History, Ensemble Berlin, members of the Image in the Early Work of Republic of Germany University of Virginia; former Berliner Philharmoniker Gerhard Richter Counselor, US Department of State, Benjamin Buchloh, Andrew W. 9/17 Did the US Betray Russia? and Axel Springer Fellow at the Location: Morgan Library & Mellon Professor of Modern Art, The End of the Cold War, Academy Museum, New York Harvard University, and Daimler the Start of NATO Fellow at the Academy Expansion, and the 10/13 Lessons from the Great 11/12 How to Run the World: Consequences for Inter- Depression A Preview 12/10 Crude World: A Journey national Politics Twenty Liaquat Ahamed, author and Parag Khanna, Senior Research into the Violent Twilight Years Later David Rubenstein Distinguished Fellow and Director, Global of Oil Mary E. Sarotte, Professor of Visitor at the Academy Governance Initiative, Peter Maass, contributing writer, International Relations, University New America Foundation, and New York Times Magazine, and of Southern California, and Bosch 10/15 God’s Executioner: David Rubenstein Distinguished Berlin Prize Fellow at the Academy Fellow in Public Policy at the Meister Frantz Schmidt of Visitor at the Academy Academy Nuremberg (ca. 1555–1634) Joel Harrington, Associate Provost 11/13 Animal Spirits: 9/21 Philip Glass in Dialogue for Global Strategy and Professor of How Human Psychology with Dennis Russell Davies History, Vanderbilt University, and Drives the Economy and Philip Glass, composer and Berlin Prize Fellow at the Academy Why It Matters for Global Academy Guest, and Dennis Russell Capitalism Davies, conductor and pianist 10/20 The Ministry of Special Robert J. Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Cases Professor of Economics, 9/22 Globalization and the Law Nathan Englander, writer and Yale University, and Academy Guest Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow United States Supreme Court, and for Fiction at the Academy Location: Deutsche Bank AG Lloyd Cutler Distinguished Visitor Unter den Linden at the Academy 10/21 The New Liberalism George Packer, staff writer, 11/17 On High Culture and Food 9/22 Philip Glass and Chen Yi: The New Yorker, and Holtzbrinck Culture in Early Modern Piano Works Fellow at the Academy Europe Performed by Dennis Russell Davies, Leonard Barkan, Class of 1943 conductor and pianist, and Maki 10/27 Fugitives from Paradise University Professor, Department Namekawa, pianist Laura Secor, journalist and of Comparative Literature, Holtzbrinck Fellow at the Academy Princeton University, and Location: Radialsystem V Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow at the Academy 9/23 The German Elections: Not Enough Change 11/19 Front-line Stalingrad: John Vinocur, columnist, The Germans through International Herald Tribune, Soviet Eyes and David Rubenstein Jochen Hellbeck, Associate Professor Distinguished Visitor at the of History, Rutgers University, and Academy German Transatlantic Fellow at the Academy Please visit www.porsche.com/panamera for further information.

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berlin_210x280_Innovation_gb.indd 1 24.09.2009 16:40:04 Uhr 34 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 Library of Congress of Library US Courtesy Courtesy

Chattanooga, TN (vicinity). View of Umbrella Rock, Lookout Mountain, 1864. Stereograph Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 35 Guardian of the Constitution The question of slaves’ legal status fell to the Supreme Court in 1857. Poor reasoning and political motivation lead to a bad decision that helped spark the American Civil War.

By Justice Stephen G. Breyer

n the Dred Scott decision of 1857 the Northwest rather than in the Southwest, not only to maintain its evil institution, but Supreme Court held that no African- as the South had expected. This eventually to spread slavery throughout the nation. I American could be a citizen entitled to cost the South its political advantage, and Many hoped, or feared, that the Court would sue in federal court and that he could not it began to fear abolitionist legislation. The use the Dred Scott case to clarify the legal become free simply because he was taken North, on the other hand, feared that the status of slaves brought by their owners by his owner into a free state. Dred Scott South would use every political and legal into free territory. was a legal and practical mistake. device within reach to extend slavery into At the time of the decision, slavery was, new territories, thereby securing the elec- hree individuals play key roles of course, the main political issue of the tion of pro-slavery Senators and helping the in this story: Dred Scott, Roger Taney, day. The Constitution’s Framers, aware in South to maintain its political power. Tand Benjamin Curtis. 1787 that the South would not join a Union In this atmosphere Congress had to Scott was born a slave on a Virginia that prohibited slavery, had postponed the decide how to treat new territories, for plantation sometime between 1795 and question, writing into the Constitution example, those taken from Mexico in 1800. His first owner, Peter Blow, took him a series of compromises. They included 1848. In the 1830s Congress had forbid- to St. Louis, Missouri. Scott was then sold language that said Congress, prior to 1808, den slavery in territories north and west to an army doctor, John Emerson, who could not prohibit the “migration or impor- of Missouri; in 1845 it admitted Texas as a took Scott from base to base, including tation” of slaves into the United States; that slave state; in 1850 it admitted California Fort Armstrong, in the free state of Illinois, prohibited any amendment affecting that as a free state. And in 1854 it departed and Fort Snelling, in the free territory of Northern Missouri (now Wisconsin). Scott The South feared that those territories, if free, would married during his three-year stay at Fort soon mean a Congress that abolished slavery; it wanted the Snelling, and Dr. Emerson then returned to St. Louis with Scott, Scott’s wife, Harriet, Supreme Court to find that the right to own slaves, even in and Scott’s newborn child, Eliza. After the territories, was a right the Constitution required the Emerson died, Scott and his family became North to respect. the property of Emerson’s wife and, eventually, of her brother, Sanford. Scott, or bar; and that apportioned legislators (in from the Missouri Compromise principles, perhaps his wife, was not satisfied with the the lower house of Congress) among the permitting two states north and west of arrangement, so they brought a lawsuit, States according to population, which was Missouri (Kansas and Nebraska) to choose first in state and then in federal court. They to be determined by “adding to the whole whether to become slave or free states. argued that their lengthy stay in a free terri- number of free persons, … three-fifths of The upshot is that in 1854 the legal tory had legally made Scott a free man. all other persons,” i.e. slaves. This method status of slaves in the territories was of Chief Justice Roger Taney, born in of counting (allowing the South more enormous political importance. The South Maryland in 1777 to a family of tobacco representatives based on its slaves, while it feared that those territories, if free, would farmers, wrote the majority opinion in the forbid slaves to vote) meant that the South soon mean a Congress that abolished slav- Dred Scott case. He was a longtime sup- was overrepresented in the lower House ery; it wanted the Supreme Court to find porter of Andrew Jackson, serving as his of Congress and in the Presidential vote, that the right to own slaves, even in the Attorney General before being appointed giving it sufficient political power to block territories, was a right the Constitution Chief Justice, in 1835. Taney was an excel- abolitionist efforts. required the North to respect. The North lent lawyer, possessing what one observer During the first half of the nineteenth feared that a pro-slavery interpretation of called a “moonlight mind” that gave “all the century, however, population grew in the the Constitution would permit the South light of day without its glare.” ﬁ 36 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

He had argued for a gradual end to slavery, 1857, Taney read his lengthy opinion from was framed and adopted … It must be con- an institution he viewed to be an “evil” and the bench; the next day Curtis read, and strued now as it was understood then.” a “blot on our national character.” He had then released, his dissent. On May 12 the Curtis, in a powerful dissent, strongly represented abolitionists and had freed Court asked for re-argument on the juris- disagreed. In his view, “Every free person his own slaves. But as Attorney General dictional question. Taney then rewrote his born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen he had also advised the President that the opinion, releasing his final version that of a State by force of its constitution or laws, “African race, even when free, … hold what- month. is also a citizen of the United States” and ever rights they enjoy” at the “mercy” of the The Court initially considered the can thus “sue a citizen of a different State “white population.” jurisdictional question, that is, whether, as in federal court.” Benjamin Curtis, a native of Massachu- Chief Justice Taney said, “A negro, whose Looking back to the Republic’s found- setts, wrote the main dissent in Dred Scott. ancestors were imported into this country ing, in 1789, Curtis finds five states, New He had been appointed to the Supreme and sold as slaves” is “entitled to sue as a Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Court in 1851 by President Millard Fillmore citizen in the courts of the United States.” New Jersey, and North Carolina, that in part because of his reputation as a “mod- Taney and the majority, setting forth highly had included freed slaves among their erate” on the slavery issue. Curtis served legalistic arguments, held that the answer citizens. True, these states imposed some for only six years, however, resigning after to this question was no. disabilities on those freed slaves, but the Dred Scott because he doubted his useful- Here is why: The Constitution allows laws of the first four states permitted those ness on the Court in its “present state.” the suit only if the case arises “between freed slaves to vote; the Supreme Court citizens of different States.” The word “citi- of the fifth state, North Carolina, had cott initially brought his case zens” is limited to “citizens of the United explicitly held that “slaves, manumitted against Mrs. Emerson in a Missouri States when the Constitution was adopted.” here, became freemen and therefore, if S state court. He pointed to earlier And that group, says Taney, could not possi- born within North Carolina, are citizens Missouri cases holding that a slave who bly have included freed slaves. Why not? of North Carolina.” How can one read resided for a time in free territory became Writing in language that has since the Constitution, silent on the subject, as a free man. The Missouri Supreme Court become infamous, Taney explains that excluding from its term “citizen” some of rejected his claim, noting, “Times are not public opinion at that time considered those very persons who were allowed (in now as they were when the former deci- Africans “so far inferior” to the “white race” those states) to vote on the Constitution’s sions were made.” Before the Missouri deci- that they had “no rights which the white ratification? sion was final, however, Scott brought the man was bound to respect.” Even northern Curtis notes that without entering “into same suit against his new owner, Sanford, states where abolitionist sentiment ran an examination of the existing opinions of in a lower federal court. Stating that it must strong and slavery had been outlawed – that period respecting the African race,” a accept Missouri’s decision, that court also Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, “calm comparison” of the assertion in the rejected the claim. Scott appealed to the and New Hampshire – prohibited slaves Declaration of Independence that “all men United States Supreme Court. to serve in the state militia, limited their are created equal” with the “individual opin- A prominent attorney and later a mem- educational opportunities, and forbid ions and acts” of its authors “would not leave ber of President Lincoln’s cabinet (along interracial marriage. Moreover, many of these men under a reproach of inconsisten- with Benjamin Curtis’s brother) represent- the Founders, themselves slaveholders, cy.” It would show that they “were ready and ed Scott. Three prominent lawyers, includ- could not have intended the “equality” they anxious to make” the “great natural rights ing two United States Senators, represented preached to extend to slaves or former which the Declaration of Independence Sanford. The issues were the following: asserts … effectual wherever a necessary First, a jurisdictional question about the Even if Dred Scott regard to circumstances would allow.” Court’s power to hear the case at all: The is a free man, he is not Further, the purpose of the jurisdic- lawsuit was properly in federal court only a citizen. tional clause was to extend federal judicial if a “citizen” of one State was suing a “citi- power “to those controversies into which zen” of another State. Sanford was a citizen local feelings or interests might so enter as of New York. But even if we assume, with slaves. Further, some contemporaneous to disturb the course of justice.” And that Scott, that the law made him a free man, federal statutes distinguished between purpose is similarly served whether a party was he then a “citizen” of Missouri? Second, “citizens” and “persons of color,” showing to the case is of “white” or “African descent.” if Scott was a “citizen,” and jurisdiction was that the latter were not included among Moreover, the majority’s arguments, proper, what about the basic issue on the the former. Finally, Taney says that the Curtis declares, are unusually weak. Its merits? Did the law make Scott free? Constitution guarantees to “citizens of each statutory claim proves nothing. If the lan- The lawyers argued this case over the State … all privileges and immunities of the guage of some old federal statutes suggests course of four days in February 1856. Court several States.” How, in 1789, could anyone that freed slaves are not “citizens,” the lan- notes reveal that a majority agreed to a com- have thought that the South would have guage of other old federal statutes suggests promise: Justice Grier would write a short granted “privileges and immunities” to the exact opposite. Nor is its “privileges and jurisdiction-based opinion rejecting Scott’s former slaves whom the North considered immunities” argument convincing once claim. When two of the Justices said they free? The court, Taney concludes, must not one learns that the Constitutional provision would write a dissent, however, the compro- “give to the words of the Constitution a more simply repeats an older guarantee in the mise unraveled. Chief Justice Taney reas- liberal construction in their favor than they Articles of Confederation that entitled “free signed the opinion to himself. On March 6, were intended to bear when the instrument inhabitants of each of these States … to Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 37 all the privileges and immunities of free majority might have reached this conclu- locality around Fort Snelling, gave Dred citizens in the several States.” At the time sion by simply relying on the fact that Scott his freedom. the earlier language was adopted state Missouri state courts had reached it, and The majority reasoned that the laws of delegates explicitly voted down, by a vote of federal courts should follow state courts as Congress did not apply, however, because eight to two, a North Carolina amendment a matter of state law. But in the 1850s that Congress lacked the power to make those that would have inserted the word “white” was not always so: Federal courts often laws. It had to concede that the Consti between the words “free” and “inhabitants,” second-guessed state courts on state law tution’s “Territories Clause,” Art. IV, Sec. 3, so that the guarantee would have applied matters, particularly where the matter Cl. 2, says that Congress “shall have the only to free white inhabitants. How can concerned common, not statutory, law. And power to dispose of and make all needful one then say that the Framers intended to with respect to slavery, both common law rules and regulations respecting the terri- exclude all but “white” persons from the and foreign law were uniform and clear. As tory or other property of the United States.” clause’s protection? Curtis pointed out, when a master took a But, says the majority, the language, history, Moreover, the Court, after having held slave into free territory, living there “for an and structure of the Constitution make that it had no jurisdiction to decide the indefinite period of time,” taking part, for clear that this clause applies only to those merits of Scott’s legal claim, went on to do just that. Curtis, in reply, points out Indeed, important federal statutes, such as the Missouri that a court that lacks jurisdiction cannot Compromise, made this clear; they insisted that the law of decide anything further. In violating this the locality determined the status of the slave. basic legal rule the majority “transcends the limits of the authority of the court.” But Curtis concedes that he may go on to example, in the territory’s “civil or mili- territories that were territories in 1789, express his own views, because he believes tary affairs,” and certainly when the slave namely certain land belonging then to jurisdiction exists. married and had children there, the slave Virginia, North Carolina, and a few other Finally, the Court majority held that became free. Indeed, important federal states that intended to cede land to the fed- Scott’s claims lacked legal merit; his statutes, such as the Missouri Compromise, eral government. Congress, the majority three-year sojourn in the free territory of made this clear; they insisted that the law conceded, has an implied power to hold ter- Northern Missouri and in the free state of the locality determined the status of the ritory for the sole purpose of turning that ofAmercAcademie_185x124 Illinois did not emancipate him.02.09.2009 The 15:43slave. AndUhr so Seite the law 1of Wisconsin, the territory into new states. But it cannot ﬁ

„Every time I come here, it lifts my spirit.“ Eric Kandel, New York

Autumn sales · 26 – 28 November 2009 in Berlin Villa Grisebach Auktionen · Fasanenstraße 25 · D-10719 Berlin · Phone +49-30-885 915-0 · www.villa-grisebach.de 38 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 Library of Congress of Library US Courtesy Courtesy

Dutch Gap, VA. View of completed canal, 1865. Stereograph

interfere with the rights of citizens entering made free by being carried into this terri- tical construction nearly contemporaneous or living within that territory – any more tory, even if they had been carried there by with the adoption of the Constitution and than if they were citizens of states. And, the owner with the intention of becoming a continued by repeated instances through were they such citizens the Constitution permanent resident.” a long series of years may influence the would forbid the federal government to Curtis, adopting the common law posi- judicial mind and in doubtful cases should interfere with their rights to own slaves. tion, replies to the majority’s argument as determine the judicial mind.” That is because the Constitution forbids follows: First, the Territories Clause cer- As for the Fifth Amendment’s Due Congress to “deprive” a “person” of “prop- tainly does give Congress the right to hold Process argument, a slave is not an ordinary erty” without “due process of law.” It recog- territory acquired from a foreign nation, to piece of “property.” Slavery is a “right exist- nizes the “right of property of the master in make all necessary rules for governing that ing by positive law … without foundation in a slave.” Moreover, nothing gives “Congress territory, and to include among those rules the law of nature or the unwritten common a greater power over slave property … than a prohibition against slavery. Congress law.” Nor could “due process of law” mean property of any other description.” The has acted upon that assumption since the that a slave remains a slave when his master clause instead insists that the federal gov- nation was founded, buying the Territory moves from, say, slave state A to live perma- ernment “guard” and “protect” the slave of Louisiana from France, carving it into at nently in free state B. What law would then owner’s rights. least six present states, enacting ordinances govern the slave, the slave’s wife, his house, Thus, the Court’s conclusion: “It is and laws excluding slavery from various his children, his grandchildren? State B the opinion of the Court that the act of of the territories (e.g., the Northwest has no such laws. And State B’s judges Congress which prohibited a citizen from Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise) and could not work with a proliferating legal holding and owning property of this kind explicitly excluding slavery from at least system under which each slave, coming to … is not warranted by the Constitution and eight states carved out of either Louisiana or B, brought with him his own law, from A or is therefore void; and that neither Dred other acquired territories. When interpret- from C or from whatever other slave state he Scott himself, nor any of his family, were ing the Constitution, Curtis writes, a “prac- happened to be. Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 39 Library of Congress of Library US Courtesy Courtesy

Petersburg, VA. Officers of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry playing cards in front of tents, August 1864

More importantly, says Curtis, the he South and Southern to the tribunal which sanctioned it.” The phrase “due process of law” comes from sympathizers reacted favorably to report said the opinion paved the way for the Magna Carta. When Congress passed TJustice Taney’s March 6, 1857 deci- slavery’s spread to free states. If “a master the Northwest Ordinance, in 1787, it did not sion. Perhaps forewarned, President may take his slave into a free State without think that law violated the Magna Carta. Buchanan referred positively to it in his dissolving the relation of master and slave,” “I am not aware that such laws, though March Inaugural Address and then, later, then “some future decision of the Supreme they may exist in many States,” says Curtis, in his State of the Union. The Northerners’ Court will authorize a slave driver … to call “were ever supposed to be in conflict with the reaction was vehemently negative. Horace the roll of his manacled gang at the foot principle of Magna Carta incorporated into Greely’s New York Herald Tribune described of the monument on Bunker Hill, reared the State Constitutions.” the decision as “wicked” and “inhumane.” and consecrated to freedom.” Abolitionist Curtis and two others remained in dis- Another observer wrote, “If epithets and Frederick Douglass devoted a New York sent. But the Court’s majority of six had denunciations could sink a judicial body … lecture to the subject, saying, despite prevailed, holding that, firstly, Scott cannot the Supreme Court … would never be heard this “devilish decision” produced by “the bring his case in federal court because freed of again.” slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court,” slaves are not citizens of the United States; The New York State Senate judiciary that the Court could not make “evil good” and secondly that many congressional anti- committee’s report stated that the decision or “good evil.” But the Dred Scott decision, slavery-spreading statutes, including the had “destroyed the confidence of the people Douglas concluded, kept “the nation awake Missouri Compromise, are unconstitutional. in the Court,” predicted that it would be on the subject.” “My hopes,” he said, “were They also held that the Fifth Amendment’s “overruled,” and described Taney’s state- never brighter than now.” Due Process Clause protects the ownership ment that “the colored race” had “no rights Indeed, the decision did keep the nation rights of slaveholders even when they take which white men were bound to respect” awake. Northern supporters widely circu- their slaves into free territories and into free as “inhuman, unchristian, atrocious – lated the Curtis dissent in pamphlet form. states to live for extended periods of times. disgraceful to the judge who uttered it and Abraham Lincoln, then a Republican ﬁ 40 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

Justice Charles Evans Hughes said the decision was a “self-inflicted wound that almost destroyed the Supreme Court. And the Oxford Companion to the Supreme

Library of Congress of Library US Court observes that “American legal and constitutional scholars consider the Courtesy Courtesy Dred Scott decision to be the worst ever rendered.” These judgments reflect, in short, the immorality of the decision. But what can people today learn from it? For one, something about judicial rhetoric. Today as in 1857 the language a judge uses to set forth his argument matters. Taney’s words about Americans of African descent having no “rights that a white man must respect” are more lurid than can be found in other Supreme Court opinions, including Taney’s own. An experienced Supreme Court justice does not write such a phrase ignorant of the fact that others will repeat it and will emphasize its judicial origin in order to make the sentiment appear legiti- mate. But putting the words in the mouths of others, writing that others might have thought this, as Taney did, does not help. The public will simply ignore the effort to put moral distance between the sentiment Charleston, SC. Ruined buildings through porch of the Circular Church, and the author. And the justice knows it. 150 Meeting Street. April 1865 The language was as morally repugnant then as now. Curtis’s disdainful reply candidate for Senate, spoke often about tion to the Presidency; it fed into the circum seems right: “I shall not enter into an the decision, calling it a “legal aston- stances that led to that most fierce War examination of the existing opinions of isher,” while arguing that Taney’s “whites Between the States. And after the Northern that period respecting the African race,” only” views had turned “our once glorious victory, the nation added the thirteenth, while calling for a “calm comparison.” Declaration” of Independence into a “wreck” fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments Curtis’s language, on the other hand, is and “mangled ruin.” Lincoln based his to the Constitution, ending slavery while not the most colorful, but its reasoning is Cooper Union speech – the one that made securing equal treatment, voting rights, and by far the strongest. Indeed, it painted the him a national political figure – on Curtis’s basic civil rights to the newly freed slaves. Taney majority into a logical corner from dissent. He argued for the Founders’ view which it has never emerged. of the Constitution – a view that denied the The decision morally For example, what is the answer to despotism of slavery – unless, he added, energized the anti-slavery Curtis’s claim that five States treated that view conflicted with some yet more North. slaves as citizens at the time the Consti basic principle that the Founders had tution was written? He points to a state held, of which there was none. Lincoln Supreme Court decision and to the five fed the North’s fear of spreading slavery Chief Justice Taney remained on the States that allowed freed slaves to vote. by asking, “What is necessary for the Court until his death, in 1864. Benjamin Taney, in reply, refers only to racially dis- nationalization of slavery? It is merely for Curtis resigned in outrage immediately criminatory marriage and military service the Supreme Court to decide that no State after Dred Scott. And Dred Scott himself, laws – laws that are actually consistent under the Constitution can exclude it, just along with his family, was bought by a son with citizenship and hence do not signifi- as they have already decided that under of his original owner, Peter Blow, who set cantly undercut Curtis’s argument. And the Constitution neither Congress nor the them all free. Within a year, however, Scott what is the answer to Curtis’s jurisdiction- Territorial legislature can do it.” was dead of tuberculosis. al argument? If Dred Scott was not a “citi- While historians debate the precise role zen,” then the Court lacked jurisdiction Dred Scott played in inciting the Civil War istory has not treated to hear the case. If it lacked jurisdiction, it and the economic Panic of 1857, there is Dred Scott, or Roger Taney, had no business deciding the merits of the no doubt that the decision morally ener- Hkindly. Modern critics describe case, holding the Missouri Compromise gized the anti-slavery North. It became the the case as “infamous,” “notorious,” “an unconstitutional and depriving Congress Republican Party’s rallying cry; it helped abomination,” “odious,” a “ghastly error,” of the power to maintain slavery-free ter- bring about Lincoln’s nomination and elec- and “judicial review at its worst.” Chief ritories in the process. Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 41

What sound response can the majority Douglass predicted, it solidified the case hen discussing Dred Scott make to Curtis’s explanation of the scope for abolition thereby helping to “awaken” recently at a law school confer- of the Constitution’s Due Process and America to the strength of that case. And Wence, I asked the audience to con- Territories clauses? How could judges of a as a purely legal matter the anti-slavery sider a hypothetical question: Suppose you single free state or territory, say Wisconsin, constitutional amendments resulting were Benjamin Curtis. Imagine that Chief administer a legal system under which from the Civil War effectively reversed the Justice Taney comes to your chambers and different slave-state laws – say, of Alabama, Dred Scott decision. proposes a narrow ground for deciding the Georgia, Virginia – would have to govern There are, of course, institutional, jur- case. He asks if you will agree to a single well into the future the family relation- isprudential, and ethical arguments that paragraph unsigned opinion for the entire ships of different slave families brought militate strongly against judges of a con- Court, in which the Court upholds the permanently to live in that single free stitutional court holding up their fingers lower court on the ground that the matter is state? How could one harmonize the to the political winds. Hamilton’s writings one of Missouri law in respect to which the majority’s view of the Territories’ Clause make clear that the very point of granting Missouri Supreme Court must have the last with the fact that federal legislation such a Court the power of judicial review word. He will agree to this provided there is enacted under the authority of that Clause was to offer constitutional security where no dissent. had led to the admission into the Union of doing so is politically unpopular. But to Should you agree? If you do, the majority several new states? It is not surprising that such reasons, Dred Scott adds another, will say nothing about citizenship, nothing about the Missouri Compromise, nothing The kindest view of the majority’s opinion, even now, sees it about slavery in the territories and the as seeking a political objective. Many in Congress had asked Due Process Clause. As a result the Court the Court to “umpire” the great political issue dividing will create no significant new law; it will not diminish its own position in the eyes the country. of much of the nation; it will not issue an opinion that increases the likelihood of modern historians see the Curtis dissent purely practical consideration: Good civil war; and, since no one knows who as the more accurate historical picture. judges are not necessarily good politicians. would win such a war (the North almost Nor is it surprising, given the strength of Their view of what is politically expedient lost), the prospects for an eventual aboli- the Curtis reasoning, that those opposed could well turn out to be completely wrong. tion of slavery will be unaffected, perhaps to slavery circulated Curtis’s dissent Such was the case in Dred Scott. increased. but not the other dissents as a pamphlet One cannot easily reconcile Taney’s Not a bad bargain. The audience was throughout the nation. And it is also not vision with the expressed abolitionist uncertain. Then a small voice came from surprising that Lincoln’s speeches, aboli- hopes of many of the Framers. Nor, most the back of the room: “Say no.” The audi- tionist lectures, and informed Northern importantly, can one reconcile this vision ence broke into applause. That applause reaction closely reflected Curtis’s analysis. with the Constitution’s most basic objec- made clear the moral nature of the judge’s tive, the creation of a single nation. The legal obligation in that case. he kindest view of the major- Constitution does so by creating political A close examination of the Dred Scott ity’s opinion, even now, sees it as institutions strong enough to permit the opinion can teach us something about Tseeking a political objective. Many in “people” to govern themselves, determin- rhetoric, reason, politics, constitutional Congress had asked the Court to “umpire” ing policies and resolving problems rang- vision, and morality – all of which still the great political issue dividing the coun- ing in subject matter from defense to apply to the work of a Supreme Court judge. try. Taney and his majority might have territorial expansion to commerce, while These lessons help us understand the role thought that by reaching out unnecessarily protecting basic personal liberties across of the judge in a politically sensitive case, to decide a politically sensitive legal ques- (the Framers hoped) the centuries. The including cases involving the protection tion by settling the constitutional status of concept of a political treaty among sover- of individual rights and particularly in slavery in the territories, the Court would eigns, focusing primarily upon slavery, instances where the Constitution points promote an eventual, peaceful resolution is not compatible with this more basic one way and public opinion the other. To of the slavery question, perhaps through constitutional objective. If the Dred understand how courts act, or might best eventual abolition. Scott majority doubted that fact in 1859, act, under such circumstances today, we If that is what Taney believed, he was the post-Civil War amendments to the need to know more about the kinds of cases wrong. The Court’s decision did noth- Constitution, ending slavery, guarantee- modern courts must resolve. Dred Scott, the ing to heal the nation. It did not slow the ing voting rights, defining citizenship, Court’s “worst case,” sets us upon the path momentum toward civil war. It reinforced assuring individuals equal protection to finding answers to that contemporary the North’s fears of southern dominance of the laws, and protecting basic indi- question. µ by, in the words of New York’s legislature, vidual liberty from state interference, permitting the “slave driver” to bring overturned the legal precedent they cre- Stephen G. Breyer is Associate Justice his “manacled gang” to the foot of Bunker ated. The upshot is that Taney’s vision of of the United States Supreme Court and Hill. It helped Abraham Lincoln obtain the Constitution was not a constitutional was the Lloyd Cutler Distinguished Visitor the Republican Party’s nomination for vision; it was a view about a treaty that at the Academy in fall 2008. President. It promoted the political stand- linked states, not about a constitution that ing of that anti-slavery Party. As Frederick created a central government. 42 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009 God’s Executioner The personal journal of a Nuremberg executioner reveals much more than just gruesome methods of medieval retribution — but there’s plenty of that, too.

By Joel Harrington bp k / h a ll e Kunst Hamburger ©

Lukas Mayer, The Execution of Peter Stump, 1589

une 5, 1573. “Leonardt Russ of Legally empowered to torture, maim, and disdain by the very communities they Ceyern, a thief. Executed with the and kill suspected or convicted criminals, served, formally marginalized as members J rope at the city of Steinach. Was my the professional executioner is one of the of the “dishonorable trades,” a delimited first execution.” So begins the sixteenth- more evocative and charged symbols of menagerie that included slaughterhouse century journal of Nuremberg’s Frantz pre-modern Europe’s otherness. A ubiq- workers and gravediggers. And yet “Meister Schmidt (1555–1634), who during 45 years uitous and integral part of the European Frantz,” as he was popularly, endearingly of professional activity personally put to social fabric well into the modern era, known, remained a revered member of the death 361 individuals and tortured, flogged, these human “weapons of justice” were local establishment, widely respected for burned, or disfigured hundreds more. simultaneously viewed with suspicion his piety and steadfastness. Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 43

Schmidt maintained his personal jour- accounts of the various unfortunates he nal between 1573 and 1617, recording and encounters become both more colorful describing each and every execution and and more revealing of his inner world. corporal punishment he administered in Consequently, the journal unveils not so Bamberg and Nuremberg. Although the much a detailed portrait as a vivid sketch original volume is no longer extant, several of the moral cosmology of a sixteenth- manuscript versions of it circulated during century executioner.

No date [1573]. Kloss Renckhart of rantz Schmidt considered Feylsdorf, a murderer. Committed three himself first and foremost a murders with his companion. First, he shot Fprofessional, a master in the guild dead another companion. Secondly, a mill- sense. And as in other crafts, the trade er’s man who helped him to attack and plun- of the executioner was often passed from der a mill by night. The third instance was father to son, with Frantz following his again at a mill, called the Fox Mill, on the own father, the hangman of Bamberg, mountains, which he attacked at night with into the family occupation, at the age of 18. a companion, shot the miller dead, raped After five years’ work as a journeyman, the miller’s wife and maid, forced them to he secured a permanent appointment fry some eggs in fat and laid these on the at nearby Nuremberg, succeeding his dead miller’s body, then forced the miller’s future father-in-law as the city’s official wife to join in eating them, then kicked executioner – a position he would hold the miller’s body and said, “Miller, how do for a remarkable 40 years. Throughout you like this morsel?” Also robbed the mill. this period Schmidt enjoyed a life of bour- On this account executed on the wheel at geois respectability with his wife, Maria, Graytz, in the archbishopric of Bamberg. and seven children in their spacious Nuremberg residence, boasting an annual the subsequent two centuries. Three published versions appeared during the hun- February 12th [1584]. Hennsa of dred years after that, the last in 1928. While Geyselwind, otherwise known as Fatty; relatively well-known among German early Hennsa Palllauf of Hernda; Killian Wurmb modernists, the journal itself has appeared of Wirnsbach, otherwise known as Rear curiously resistant to in-depth analysis, End; Hans Schober of Weher, otherwise perhaps due to its seemingly disaffected known as Dusty; and Hennssla Klopffer of chronicle format. There are no introspec- Reigelsdorff. Five thieves who … had to tive crises resulting from extended torture be clothed, for they were naked and bare; sessions, nor lengthy philosophical dis- some of them knew no prayers and had courses or even brief musings on the mean- never been in a church. The eldest were ing of life. 22, 17, 16, and 15 years old; the youngest But just below the surface, beyond the 13 years. All five from here. Executed with The dichotomy begs to be reconciled, or, facticity of all the deaths caused by his the rope at Nuremberg. at least, interrogated: How did early modern very hand, the journal of Meister Frantz executioners square their unsavory occupa- opens up as a rich source for topics rang- salary that put him on par with the city’s tions with aspirations to social respectability ing from early modern concepts of iden- wealthiest jurists. After his retirement, and Christian morality? Was Schmidt a rare tity and social status to notions about in 1617, Schmidt began a lucrative second anomaly, or was he an indication of some- the human body and the development of career as a medical consultant, exploiting thing of broader social significance under- both the picaresque and autobiographical his extensive knowledge of human anato- way, perhaps laying a foundation for modern genres. As Schmidt grows in both profes- my – now to the end of saving lives. Upon rationalizations of the use of state violence? sional and storytelling experience, his his death, in 1634, Schmitdt enjoyed ﬁ 44 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

a state funeral and burial in the city’s most Forty-five years of personal entries reveal rather than in a more constricted denomi- prominent cemetery, a few paces away a good deal about Meister Frantz’s internal national or even evangelical sense. The reconciliation of apparently sincere person- first is, unsurprisingly, his self-identity as July 28th [1590]. Friedrich Stigler from al piety and hunger for respectability with a restorer of social order, a kind of moral Nuremberg, a coppersmith and execu- the violent acts he regularly performed – accountant, who, in his own words, “did his tioner’s assistant. For having brought torture by various methods, flogging, cut- duty and made things right again.” As if accusations against some citizens’ wives ting off of fingers or ears, as well as judicial making entries in a ledger, Meister Frantz that they were witches [literally Druids] execution by hanging, beheading, burn- carefully lists all known offenses commit- and he knew it by their signs. However, ing, drowning, live burial, or breaking on ted by each individual, including full item- he wittingly did them wrong. Also said the wheel. Two aspects of his professional ization of all stolen property, and numbers that they gave magic spells to people. all of his punishments, capital and corporal, Likewise for having threatened his broth- August 13th [1594]. Christoff Mayer, a providing annual totals for each. er, the hanged Peterlein, on account of weaver of fustian, and Hans Weber, a fruiter- While Schmidt’s tone is almost always which threat he had appeared before the er; both citizens of Nuremberg who for three dispassionate, the relative length of the court at Bamberg several years ago, but years had practiced sodomy together and entries and other clues reveal his implicit was begged off. Lastly, for having taken a were informed against by a hook-maker’s hierarchy of social values. Violent crimes, second wife during the life of his first wife, apprentice, who caught them both in the act particularly the outrages committed by and a third wife during the life of the sec- behind a hedge. The fruiterer had practiced vicious robber gangs, were clearly the worst ond, after the death of the first. Executed this for twenty years, namely with the cook and required the most severe punishments with the sword here out of mercy. Endress, with Alexander, also with Georg in to restore justice. Abuses of trust, however, the army, and with the baker Toothy Chris at were nearly as grievous in Schmidt’s eyes, from other famous sons, Albrecht Dürer Lauf, and otherwise with many other baker including treason, the murder of a relative and Hans Sachs. Schmidt’s life, in virtu- servants that he couldn’t name. The weaver (especially a child), the rape of a young ally every respect, had been a great social was first executed with the sword and then girl, or audacious financial fraud, such as success, although the dishonorable nature his body was burnt with the fruiterer, who the one-legged “treasure finder” Elizabeth of his profession consistently precluded was burnt alive. Aurholtin (a.k.a. “Scabby”), whose schemes his open participation in patrician and amassed a considerable personal fortune, craftsmen circles alike, placing him and identity emerge most consistently, both of or the master forger and con-man Gabriel his family in a unique kind of social limbo. them moral and religious in a broad sense, Wolf, who defrauded nobles across Europe

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of huge amounts. Crimes against property journal of criminal cases. Rather, Schmidt the offenders before him but also consis- in general required strict rectification, often seeks to create in the elaborate spectacle tently attentive to avoid unnecessary cruelty. of public death a sort of preliminary last Schmidt, for example, successfully leads a November 6th [1595]. Hans Sigert, from judgment that provides the condemned the pioneering campaign to abolish the drown- Pollingen near Neuenmark, a farm-hand opportunity to achieve “a good end” or “fine ing of female felons and execute them who murdered a tailor named Summerstein death,” and in his journal he comments by what he considered the more humane at the Sünderspühl with a fence post (zaun- extensively on his own success or failure in method of decapitation. He also regularly stecken). Executed here with the sword. ensuring that they did not part the world persuades his magisterial colleagues to Wept all the way until he knelt down. “godless” or “with no hope of salvation.” behead those condemned to die by fire or Above all, the journal entries and supple- being drawn and quartered. including hanging for theft. But most such Meister Frantz’s style and thinking offenses – except when they directly abused November 13th [1617]. Burnt alive here evolved over the course of his long career as people’s good will or hospitality – did not a miller of Manberna, who however was did his reactions to the range of individu- arouse Schmidt’s ire. His complacency was lately engaged as a carrier of wine. Because als he encountered during his professional even more evident in a variety of “victim- he and his brother, with the help of others, duties, alternately evoking his pity, disgust, less” sexual offenses (not rape), typified practiced coining and counterfeiting money indifference, bemusement, and, occasion- more by exasperation at the defiance of and clipping coins fraudulently. He also ally, grudging admiration. His matter-of- recidivist prostitutes and their pimps than had a working knowledge of magic … This fact recitation of hundreds of state killings, by any evangelical fervor. miller, who worked in the town mills here including some horrendous punishments, The other self-image that appears three years ago, fell into the town moat on cannot fail to jolt our modern sensibilities. prominently is that of a healer-priest, Whitsunday. It would have been better for At the same time, his work ethic, commit- likewise evident in his pervasive concern him if he had been drowned, but it turned ment to restoring civic order, and attempts with a full accounting of each individual’s out according to the proverb that “What at personal redemption are immediately crimes and sins, no matter how small, and belongs to the gallows cannot drown in familiar, perhaps to an uncomfortable Schmidt’s own active role in reconciling the water.” This was the last person whom I, degree. µ sinner with God. Strikingly, his approach Master Frantz, executed. is much less overtly doctrinaire than that Joel Harrington is Professor of History GSK-Imageanzeige_210x135.fh11of his colleague, prison 22.09.2009 chaplain 12:53 Johannes Uhr Seite 1 mental legal sources portray a man steeled at Vanderbilt University and a fall 2009 Hagendorn, who also kept a personal to the use of torture and otherC M violenceY CM MY on CY CMYBerlinK Prize Fellow at the Academy.

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Berlin +49 (0)30 885 92 70 [email protected] Düsseldorf +49 (0)211 302 01 50 [email protected] Frankfurt am Main +49 (0)69 95 95 70 [email protected] Hamburg +49 (0)40 378 90 10 [email protected] Fall 2009 | Number Eighteen | The Berlin Journal | 47 POEM FOUND IN A PIONEER MUSEUM “Of my country and my family I have little to say.”— E.A. Poe

By Susan Howe

I copied these poems, 1062: earrings 648: String used to tie cushion on almost verbatim, from Bought from Nid chair used by Joseph Smith Jr. typed identification cards Nod, a peddler in about 1843. placed beside items in the early days. donor: Hattie Allred donor: Clara Hadley Whitcher display cases at Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Memorial 8505: small purse (chain mail) Museum, founded in 1901 11069: clamp by the Daughters of Utah Used to hold train of party dress while 2010: beads Pioneers. The artifacts dancing. Hand-cut and memorabilia in their donor: Mrs. Wedell M. Smoot Ivory beads. Brought from collection date from 1847, India on a sailing vessel 100 years ago. when Mormon settlers 11636: ear ring donor: Carrie M. Wilkens first entered the Valley of ebenezer brown mormon Chicago, ILL. the Great Salt Lake until battalion member, the joining of the rail- Panned gold in California after he and his wife Phebe were 9393: parasol roads at Promontory Point, released from service. He made Belonged to: Utah, in 1869. each of his wives ear rings. Marion Thankful Beattie These are the ear rings he gave donor: Marion his wife Elsie Pulsifher Brown. Whitney Beattie, grand-daughter They are solid gold. donor: Verda S. Liedke Salt Lake City 583: masonic emblem Owned by Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. later belonged to Brigham Young. 7458: tatting shuttle donor: Zina Young Card donor: Mary Rockwell

12012: watch chain made from 10421: pocket gadgett human hair donor: Raymond W. Falon donor: Laura L. Carr

1506: jet hat ornament 6100: new testament Belonged to Margaret Kelly, Brought across the Plain a pioneer of 1852 by the Orson Spencer Family donor: Clara Hadley Whitcher 48 | The Berlin Journal | Number Eighteen | Fall 2009

43: Hair cut from Joseph Smith Jr. 7240: walking stick made 4687: porcelain doorknob by Mary Ann Smith Stratton of oak, carried by Emma just before he was taken prisoner. Smith, wife of Prophet It was given to Henriette Keyes Joseph Smith. 1512: cuff buttons Whitney Hale, pioneer of 1847. donor: Hazel M. Young Estate Bought from Nid It was the only thing she had left Nod, a peddler, by from the journey across. Mary Ann Hadley 3847: emblem Pioneer, 1863. hemmed from raw donor: Clara Hadley Whitcher 10563: coin purses silver by an Indian 1940 1—Mizer and given to David 2—Silver link J. Wilson 3—Crocheted 4843: wire (When This wire carried this you see 9255: marbles first telegraph Remember 8839: hair motto (1831) message across Me when This small motto was cross the nation in Many miles stitched in hair by Sarah 1862. Away). Evans Jeremy in Wales, 1831. donor: thomas bone The back is signed by her and reads “Ael y Bryn” 762: buckle, very donors: Esther Davis Stephen small, from hatband and Harriet Hazel Davis of Lt. John Banks killed in battle near Layton. 712: Piece of String cut from Susan Howe is a poet and the fall donor: Joseph Stringham underwear of Joseph Smith Jr. 2009 Anna-Marie Kellen Fellow at the when he was martyred. Academy.

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