U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: I, , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in It is entitled: Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Criminals and Artists: Detecting the Artist in German Crime Literature of the Twentieth Century A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) in the Department of German Studies of the College of Arts and Sciences 2009 by Erick Francis Urbaniak M.A., University of Cincinnati, 2002 B.A., Xavier University, 2000 Committee Chair: Todd Herzog, Ph.D. ABSTRACT My dissertation, Criminals and Artists: Detecting the Artist in German Crime Literature of the Twentieth Century, examines how German speaking authors of the twentieth century reflect upon their identity as artists through writing about criminals both real and fictional. Moreover, each case represents a response to a specific era. This project begins with Thomas Mann’s crime novel Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull. Mann’s work draws on a long, but rarely examined tradition of linking the criminal to the artist that stretches back to Plato and forward to Michel Foucault. Mann’s novel establishes the nexus in which the artist and the criminal are united. Felix Krull, a confidence man, is a unique case because he is simultaneously a criminal deceiving society for one’s personal gain, and an artist, performing a role for an audience like a masterful actor. This novel not only uncovers points of intersection for the criminal and the artist, but also reveals the surprising function the public / audience has in differentiating the two. This study also considers a little known and short-lived series of reports on contemporary criminal cases by a variety of authors called the Außenseiter der Gesellschaft. Die Verbrechen der Gegenwart edited by Rudolf Leonhard. The specific volumes discussed are Der Mord am Polizeiagenten Blau by Eduard Trautner, Karl Otten’s Der Fall Strauβ, and Freiherr von Egloffstein by Thomas Schramek. This group is responding to the criminalization of the artist in the Weimar Republic which threatens their own personal freedom and livelihood. Interestingly, they discuss contemporary criminal cases without the aid of fiction to defend the freedom of speech and combat the labeling of artists as criminals. iii The artist and the criminal are also linked by seriality. An analysis of the fictional serial killer in Doron Rabinovici’s novel Die Suche nach M, provides a new way to approach the main characters of the work which illuminates new insights to the process of identity formation and re-formation for the surviving generations of Jewish-Austrians living in Vienna in the decades following the Holocaust. Read alongside Rabinovici’s short story “Ich schriebe Dir” and Mark Seltzer’s Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture, this novel discovers the serial bahavior that authors might exhibit through writing. iv @ Copyright 2009 Urbaniak, Erick F. All rights reserved. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the faculty members, both past and present, in the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati for the challenging and inspiring academic environment that has enriched me intellectually throughout my career as a graduate student. Special thanks must be given to Todd Herzog, my dissertation advisor, for being an extraordinary mentor. I am indebted to his guidance and unwavering support from the very start of my time at UC. I also would like to thank Jennifer Kelley-Thierman for her friendship and pushing me to become the best teacher possible. I will always treasure working with you and learning from you. I would like to express my gratitude to the many graduate students I had the pleasure to work with and befriend. Graduate school would not have been as enjoyable without them. Thank you for the wonderful thought-provoking discussions, teaching tips, and moments of sanity. I am grateful to each and every teacher I have had. I have learned something from each of you. I would especially like to thank Leo Schulte and Irene Compton for opening my eyes to the wonders of the German language and culture. They epitomize what it means to be a teacher. I am also indebted for the sponsorship of the Verband der Deutsch-Amerikansichen Clubs, which made it possible for me to live and conduct research in Berlin for a year. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for the incredible amount of support and encouragement they have shown through the many years of being a perpetual student. I would like to especially thank my dearest Beth for her love, patience, and understanding. My vi brother, Michael for being the best brother I could ever have. I am forever grateful to my parents and grandparents who instilled in me the importance of an education and have supported my journey through life in every way possible. Thank you for your unconditional love and encouragement. vii Table of Contents ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. vi Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................viii 1.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 An Overview of the Project ............................................................................................................1 1.2 Who is the Artist?: Surveying Portrayals of the Artist from Classical to Criminal........................3 1.3 Linking the Criminal to the Artist.................................................................................................14 1.4 Thomas Mann: The Criminal as Artist .........................................................................................22 1.5 Auβenseiter der Gesellschaft: The Artist as Criminal...................................................................23 1.6 Doron Rabinovici: The Artist as Serial Killer...............................................................................25 2.0 Chapter 1 The Criminal as Artist............................................................................................ 28 2.1 Finding the Unexpected Artist ......................................................................................................28 2.2 The Artist: Caught in Between......................................................................................................30 2.3 “Eine auffallende Mischung”: Criminological and Philosophical Intersections..........................37 2.4 Entstehungsgeschichte: The Story of the Story ............................................................................51 2.5 The Adventures of Felix ...............................................................................................................54 2.6 Desire of Deception: The Artist, the Criminal and the Victim .....................................................59 2.7 Thomas Mann: The Real Hochstapler? ........................................................................................85 2.8 Allsympathie: Revealing the Secrets of the Criminal as Artist .....................................................94 3.0 Chapter 2: Auβenseiter der Gesellschaft : The Artist as Criminal.......................................... 97 3.1 The Criminality of Art ..................................................................................................................97 3.2 Adof Loos: the Scientific and Philosophical Cases against Artists and Tattoos...........................99 3.3 Artists under Siege: The Legal Case against Artists...................................................................107 3.4 Explorations of Genre and Making a Case for the Artist............................................................117 viii 3.5 Discovering the Artist through Observing the Criminal.............................................................121 3.6 Conclusion: Implementing the Model of the Criminal in Defense of the Artist.........................131 4.0 Chapter 3 The Artist as Serial Killer..................................................................................... 135 4.1 Like a Serial Killer: Repeating My Search for the Artist............................................................135 4.2 Searching for the Serial Killer in Fact and Fiction .....................................................................136 4.3 Locating the Suche nach M.........................................................................................................145 4.4 Situating the Suche in Scholarship..............................................................................................152 4.5 Helmuth Keysser: The Seriality of Identity ................................................................................157 4.6 Sina Mohn: Detecting the Ignorance of Art................................................................................164 4.7 “Die Welt