Tintenterror: Joseph Roth's Analysis of Documenting and Policing Individuals 1919-1939 by Kaleigh Bangor Dissertation Submi
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Tintenterror: Joseph Roth’s Analysis of Documenting and Policing Individuals 1919-1939 By Kaleigh Bangor Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in German August 10, 2018 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Meike Werner, Ph.D. James McFarland, Ph.D. Christoph Zeller, Ph.D. Helmut Walser Smith, Ph.D. Copyright ã 2018 by Kaleigh Bangor All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank Vanderbilt University and the Department of German, Russian and East European Studies for the financial support of this project. With my sincerest appreciation, I would like to thank all of my professors, colleagues, friends, and family who encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University and supported me along the way. A special thank you goes to Dr. Joseph Moser whose continued guidance and mentorship throughout the years has been tremendously helpful. Furthermore, this work was inspired by an invigorating seminar on Joseph Roth given by Dr. Jan Bürger from the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach to whom I am incredibly grateful. His study of Roth’s texts and a memorable workshop in the archive benefited my work considerably. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their feedback, advice, and, in particular, Dr. Helmut Walser Smith, for his careful reading of the manuscript. Finally, this work would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my advisor, Dr. Meike Werner. Her enthusiastic encouragement and passionate intellectual guidance were invaluable to this project. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank Alexandra Alekseyeva for her persistent optimism, stimulating debate, and motivational spirit. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................iii LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................................vii INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. Roth’s Analysis of Personal Documentation.............................................................................30 “Eine Welt aus Papier ist erstanden” — A Short History of Personal Documentation in Europe...............................................30 “[Der westungarische Bauer] will seinen Erlaß in deutscher Sprache haben” — Roth’s Criticism of Citizenship Based on Ethnicity.....................................................36 “Das dokumentarische ich” — Roth on the Authority of State Documented Identity...................................................41 “Ich sehe Grenzen fallen, Pässe überflüssig werden” — Roth’s Ideal Society......................................................................................................51 “Der Paß, ein Reise- und Kulturdokument des ‘freien Westens’” — Roth against the Bureaucractic Practices of European Nation-States after WWI........57 “Die Staaten wehren sich gegen die Staatenlosen” — Roth’s Foreshadowing of Future State Responses to Mass Migration.........................63 2. Roth Criticism of Police in Democratic Austria and Germany.................................................70 “Manchmal, um mich unter [Opfer] zu mischen, begebe ich mich in ein Polizeiamt” — An Introduction to Roth’s Criticism of Police Across Europe.....................................70 “‘Dienst,’[der] nicht Herzlosigkeit bedingt” — Roth’s Message to the Viennese Constabulary.............................................................79 “An der Grenze stehen sechs Gendarmen und ein Polizeispitzel” — Roth on Policing the Austrian-Hungarian Border........................................................82 “Ein neugegründeter Sicherheitskörper, der andere Körper in Unsicherheit bringt” iv — Roth’s Criticism of the Viennese Town Watchmen.....................................................88 “Bis der Jude gemerkt hat, daß ihm nichts anderes übrigbleibt, als falsche Daten anzugeben” — Roth’s Analysis of Antisemitic Police Forces in Vienna and Berlin............................91 “Mir begegnete einmal ein rasselnder Polizeiunhold und legte mich fast in Ketten, weil ich keinen Paß führte und er mir meine Existenz nicht glaubte” — Roth’s Experience with the Police in Berlin................................................................93 “Die Berliner Behörde hat die Gewohnheit angenommen, zwischen ‘erwünschten’ und ‘unerwünschten’ Ausländern zu unterscheiden” — Roth on the Treatment of Foreigners in Berlin...........................................................103 3. Roth’s Analysis of Police Forces Abroad................................................................................114 “Ich zeichne das Gesicht der Zeit” — An Introduction to Roth’s Travel Reportage from Soviet Russia to Italy..................114 “Die Geheimpolizei ist wahrscheinlich so geschickt, daß ich sie nicht bemerke” — Roth on the Police in Soviet Russia...........................................................................119 “Die Polizei ist brutal, die Menschen sind freundlich” — Roth’s Criticism of State Officials in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes...133 “Gestiefelt, gespornt, bewaffnet” — Roth’s Experience with the Polish Border Police.......................................................136 “Die allmächtige Polizei” — Roth’s Analysis of the Police under Mussolini...........................................................143 “Die praktische Anstaltspsychiatrie erfüllt keine medizinische, das heißt: heilende Aufgabe, sondern eine polizeiliche” — Roth’s Analysis of the Psychiatric Profession ca. 1930.............................................165 4. Roth on Police Forces During the Rise of National Socialism................................................173 “Als wären Industrie, Armee, Ministerien, Polizei, SA-Mannschaften der Staat: alle, nur nicht der Dichter!” — Roth Criticism of National Socialism in Germany.....................................................173 “Auch im Wartezimmer der Polizei noch flüchten und wandern sie” — Roth on Policing Refugees in Paris...........................................................................202 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................... 207 v BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................212 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Joseph Roth’s military train ticket, 1918...................................................................................43 2. A photocopy of Joseph Roth’s citizenship acknowledgement, 1921........................................46 vii INTRODUCTION After the end of what would eventually be known as the First World War, the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and German empires rapidly collapsed along with the legitimacy of their governmental and social structures. The same institutions that served to stabilize society became the subject of public dissension and open contention. In the wake of these empires arose many nation-states with electoral democracies and almost universal suffrage. Within these new political systems, old pre-war institutions were modernized, if not entirely created anew. As political power changed, so too did the approach to governing and policing the state. During these years of instability, two aspects of bureaucratic institutions significantly impacted the everyday lives of individuals across Europe: documenting and policing individuals. As the writer Stefan Zweig succinctly stated in his reflections of Europe before the outbreak of World War One, nothing symbolized the socio-political changes more than movement control via documentation and policing. “Indeed, nothing makes us more sensible of the immense relapse into which the world fell after the Frist World War than the restrictions on man’s freedom of movement and diminution of his civil rights. Before 1914 the earth belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased.”1 Here, in Zweig’s autobiography, Die Welt von Gestern — Erinnerungen eines Europäers, published in 1944, his nostalgia for the prewar period might have led him to hyperbole. This exaggeration conveys the 1 Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography (London: Cassel and Company), 1964. Here p. 409- 410. See also: Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen Eines Europäers (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1976), 294. “In der Tat: nichts vielleicht macht den ungeheuren Rückfall sinnlicher, in den die Welt seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg geraten ist, als die Einschränkung der persönlichen Bewegungsfreiheit des Menschen und die Verminderung seiner Freiheitsrechte. Vor 1914 hatte die Erde allen Menschen gehört. Jeder ging, wohin er wollte und blieb, solange er wollte.” 1 degree to which those of Zweig’s generation longed to return to the cosmopolitanism of the Belle Époque or the half-century of almost unrestricted freedom of movement. While not new, the practices of documenting and policing individuals, who sought to travel or not, became a hallmark of the post-WWI period. Zweig further recalled the differences regarding individual freedoms before and after the war, There were no permits, no visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling