MAX KADE CENTER FOR GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES MAY 2003 Historical Legacies and Controversies Converge in Kansas Walter Erhart When Ellen Kelley, a descendant of German author and politician Ernst Moritz Arndt, visited Germany recently, she and her family considered leaving twenty-one autographed letters (dated 1843–1852), along with photographs, silverware, a telescope, and a letter seal, to the Arndt Museum in Bonn. Finally, however, the Arndt heirs decided to donate the items, which have been valued at $1 million, to the Max Kade Center. Known today to students and scholars of German literature as a poet and to historians as a leading politician in the first half of the nineteenth century, Arndt studied and later taught at the University of Greifswald in northeastern Germany. Coincidentally, this semester, almost two hundred years later, Professor Walter Erhart came from the Ernst Moritz Arndt University to Lawrence as this year’s visiting professor at the Max Kade Center. His reflections presented on April 14 follow: Ernst Moritz Arndt was born writer, a journalist, poet, professor in 1769 and died in 1860. He lived of history, and politician. While through important and exciting one of the first to envision a united times in modern German history. Europe, he supported royalist Only twenty years old when the interests rather than democratic French Revolution broke out, he reforms. experienced the difficult years of Before Napoleon invaded the Napoleonic wars and saw Germany, Arndt had been teaching Europe change through the at the University of Greifswald. repressive governments that Because of his anti-Napoleonic followed. Along with Hegel, stance, he had to flee. After he Fichte, Schleiermacher, and returned from Sweden, he was Wilhelm and Alexander von forced to flee again, this time to Humboldt, he belonged to the Berlin, where he lived in generation of German Romantic- concealment for a year. He was in ism. In 1848 he experienced a Russia when Napoleon invaded period of revolution. A member of the country. In his autobiography, the National Assembly in the he described the burning of Frankfurt Paulskirche, he was a Moscow. After taking part in the Newsletter of the Max Kade Center • Editor: Frank Baron; e-mail: [email protected] Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; The University of Kansas 1445 Jayhawk Blvd., #2080; Lawrence, KS 66045-7590 Telephone: (785) 864-4803; Fax: (785) 864-4298; website: www.ku.edu/~german 1 war of liberation from Napoleon, revolution. At the age of seventy- he wrote patriotic articles and eight, Arndt was elected to the poems. He became famous for National Assembly in Frankfurt. such poems as “Die Leipziger He was a member of the delegation Schlacht” and “Der Gott, der that offered Friedrich Wilhelm IV Eisen wachsen ließ,” which the crown in the spring of 1849. expressed his intense hostility to In his letters he tells his son about Napoleon and the French. his personal and public life. At the In 1818 he was appointed same time, the letters reflect his professor of modern German son’s new beginnings in America history at the newly founded and they bring to life events and University of Bonn, in 1824 his connections. son Hartmuth was born. In 1855 Although I cannot say that I am Hartmuth emigrated to the United an Ernst Moritz Arndt scholar, I States, and after living in come from a university named Wisconsin, Mississippi and after him, and I have taken part in Florida, settled in Kansas, where Professor Walter Erhart in the Max Kade discussions about his controversial he died in 1876. We owe the Center apartment historical role. Because of Arndt’s preservation of the valuable letters intense animosity toward the and artifacts to his descendants, old, Arndt wrote: “Hartmuth . French, certain people believe that the Schultheis and Kelley families. wird wohl kein Lesekerl werden.” it is inappropriate to link our Letters now destined for the Arndt wanted Hartmuth to university to his name. Many wish archives of the Max Kade Center become a farmer. To his father’s to delete Arndt from the name of were addressed by Arndt to his son dismay, Hartmuth intended to the university. I believe that it is Hartmuth. They show a private pursue this goal not in Germany good to have such debates, and I side of the writer. We learn that but in the United States. also believe that it would make Arndt’s son did not display The letters reflect Arndt’s state sense to keep Arndt’s name, to scholarly interests or potential; of mind during the years before, symbolize the history of our when Hartmuth was sixteen years during, and after the 1848 university and to reflect on his historical role. When Professor Keel informed me about the existence of the Arndt letters, I described this as “sensational news.” The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann wrote: “A biography is a collection of coincidences.” The discovery of the Arndt letters in Kansas and my presence here as a visiting professor from the Ernst Moritz Arndt University are unusual coincidences that no one could have predicted, but for which I am very grateful. Grant and Ellen Kelley with Professors Erhart and Keel 2 Max Kade Center Acquires New “First Floor” For many years the basement of the Max Kade Center (Sudler House) was in need of a radical transformation. Walls and old furniture were removed. A new furnace and air conditioner replaced antiquated ones. Only the secret room in the back was spared, hidden behind a door that poses as a book shelf. (It is suspected that this was a place to hide alcohol during Prohibition, but, unfortunately, only empty bottles have survived.) The task of cleaning, painting, and furnishing the basement became our task. We needed new space to cope with acquisitions and overcrowding. Our photographs show that the upper levels have become better working areas. The newly acquired space will become the home of books from the Burzle estate and the recent donations from Walter Lewin and the family of Carl The “First Floor” in the Max Kade Center Zacharias. We are now also able to offer working areas for our German dialect project and the digital library of Alexander von Humboldt. Recent Publications of the Max Kade Center Forthcoming: German Lan- by William Keel. The inaugural Frank Baron, along with Gert guage Varieties Worldwide: Inter- publication features Christoph Sautermeister, former Max Kade nal and External Perspectives, edited Schweitzer’s edition and translation Visiting Professor from the Univer- by William Keel and former Max of the 1783 pamphlet “Wahrheit sity of Bremen, published an Kade professor Klaus Mattheier und Guter Rath, an die Einwohner illustrated book of interpretations of (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2003), 325 Deutschlands, besonders in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice pages. The essays in this volume Hessen” by former Hessian officer (Thomas Manns Der Tod in Venedig. were contributed by scholars from Karl Friedrich Führer, who attempt- Geschichte, Dichtung, Mythos). The Germany, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, ed to convince Hessian soldiers who book appeared in March in Lübeck, and the United States. The articles had served in the British army to Thomas Mann’s native city, and are based on the presentations giv- stay in the newly free United States includes essays by several former en at the “Sprachinselkonferenz rather than return to their despotic and present graduate students of the 2001” held at the Max Kade Cen- rulers in Germany. As Schweitzer German Department Sean Henry, ter in March 2001. notes in his preface, there “is no oth- Glenn Hudspeth, Rose R. Jones, er document dealing with the Hes- Traute Kohler, Courtney Peltzer, The Society for German-Amer- sians in the American Revolution Mark Pearson, and Tom R. Schultz. ican Studies recently published the that combines factual information first volume in the series of supple- with literary skill in such an unusu- Baron and Sautermeister also mental issues of the Yearbook of al manner as the 1783 pamphlet.” edited a book of essays (Goethe im German-American Studies edited Exil), based on a conference in 3 The “First Floor” in the Max Kade Center 1999. Published by Aisthesis Verlag contributed to significant develop- Nádherný between 1913 and 1933. in Germany, the book treats Goethe ments in the history of modern art. Lorenz makes extensive use of the as perceived by exiles in the Unit- After his return to the United States, notes Nádherný compiled for Bloch ed States during the period of Nazi Bloch continued his work as an art- about the poems, which treat top- domination of Germany. Contribu- ist at the University of Kansas, ics such as nature, death, sorrow tors to this volume include former where he taught art and art history. over lost and unrequited love, and Max Kade professors Burghard Less well known are his literary Eros as an inspirational force. The Dedner, Uwe-K. Ketelsen, Hel- activities. A key to understanding second half consists of the complete mut Koopmann, Gert Sauter- this side of Bloch’s achievements, correspondence between Bloch and meister, and Hartmut Steinecke. is his relationship to Karl Kraus, Nádherný. Although the letters fo- Former graduate student Monika whose work he studied, translated, cus on the poems Kraus had dedi- Moyrer also contributed an article. and promoted in the United States. cated to Sidonie Nadherný, they also provide important insights into Alumnus Werner Mohr pub- In September 2002 Iudicium Nádherný’s influence on Kraus’s lished Albert Bloch: Caricaturist, Verlag, Munich, published KU work, his relationship with Rainer Social Critic, and Translator of alumna Elke Lorenz’s book Der Maria Rilke, friendship with Karl Kraus with Ariadne Press. This Briefwechsel zwischen Sidonie Mechtilde Lichnowsky and other volume traces the life and work of Nádherný und Albert Bloch.