European Studies Research Institute Josefine DOLLE Ph.D. Thesis 2014 The Work of Christa Wolf Post-Unification in the Light of the ‘Deutsch-Deutscher Literaturstreit’ and Wolf’s Stasi Revelations Josefine DOLLE University of Salford, European Studies Research Institute Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Contents Page Introduction 1 Chapter One: The ‘deutsch-deutscher Literaturstreit’ and Christa 19 Wolf’s Stasi revelations Chapter Two: Auf dem Weg nach Tabou – a collection of ‘Bruchstücke, die miteinander korrespondieren, einander fragen, auch in Frage stellen’? 62 Chapter Three: Hierzulande Andernorts 110 Chapter Four: Medea. Stimmen – ‘Gegenwartsbewältigung’ through ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’? 149 Chapter Five: Leibhaftig – a model of ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ through ‘subjektive Authentizität’? 198 Conclusion 245 Bibliography 255 ABSTRACT This thesis is an examination of the extent to which the work of Christa Wolf post- unification can be interpreted as Wolf’s response to the attacks on her in the ‘deutsch- deutscher Literaturstreit’ of 1990 and to the negative publicity generated by her Stasi revelations in January 1993. This thesis will also consider Wolf’s post-unification work in the context of her characteristic aesthetic of ‘subjektive Authentizität’. Chapter One examines the nature of the accusations levelled against Wolf in both the ‘Literaturstreit’ and the media furore following her Stasi revelations, notably the allegations of complicity with the SED regime and prolonged allegiance to socialist ideals. The chapter also discusses criticism, expressed in these controversies, of Wolf’s writing as littérature engagée. Chapter Two analyses the collection Auf dem Weg nach Tabou (1994) which, with its emphasis on Wolf’s own sense of changing status as a writer in post-unification Germany and her concern with ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, can be read as Wolf’s explicit response to issues raised in the controversies. Chapter Three considers the collection Hierzulande Andernorts (1999), where Wolf’s concern with ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, in the sense of both personal and collective experience of the GDR, continues but where her responses to issues in the controversies are conveyed more subtly, whilst additionally providing insight into Wolf’s reflections on littérature engagée and its relevance to her own distinct narrative concept of ‘subjektive Authentizität’. Chapter Four analyses the novel Medea. Stimmen (1996) which, with its focus on the ‘rehabilitation’ of a mythical figure and the theme of victimisation, continues Wolf’s preoccupation with the broader theme of going back to the past in order to confront unresolved issues in the present. Chapter Five examines the narrative Leibhaftig (2002) which, with the reworking of Wolf’s memories of the GDR as well as the Third Reich and the treatment of the theme of guilt for the failure of the utopian socialist project in the GDR, constitutes not only Wolf’s continued concern with ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ at a personal level but also a reassertion of Wolf’s concept of ‘subjektive Authentizität’. The conclusion will propose a detailed study of Wolf’s final novel Stadt der Engel oder The Overcoat of Dr. Freud (2010) as the natural progression for future research, and in the context of a contribution to the nascent field of memory studies. Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Andy Hollis, for his constructive support and guidance. I would also like to thank my mother for her support, moral and otherwise, and in particular my father, from whom I inherited the interest in German literature which led me into academia. My youthful memories of him instantly recalling poetry by Goethe and Schiller remain vivid, and have served to maintain my motivation on more than one occasion. Finally, I owe special thanks to my husband. Without his unconditional support, encouragement and patience, completion of this thesis would not have been possible. This project has been a long personal journey, not least because, for the greater part, it was undertaken alongside a demanding full-time job, yet a journey which has been a personally enriching experience. I dedicate this thesis to my father. INTRODUCTION Context ‘Was bleibet aber, stiften die Dichter’1 When East German writer Christa Wolf (b. 1929) passed away on 1st December 2011, major German newspapers, rather than simply announcing her demise, tended to break the news with headlines singing her praises, such as ‘Eine Frau mit hochanständigem Charakter’, ‘Christa Wolf – die Leibhaftige von Weltrang’, ‘Schwäche wusste sie in Stärke zu verwandeln’, ‘Eine Sozialistin, die im Sozialismus aneckte’.2 In stark contrast, the publication in June 1990 of Christa Wolf’s narrative Was bleibt (What Remains),3 which she had written in 1979, prompted criticism of the author in major West German newspapers, with captions proclaiming, for example, ‘Mangel an Feingefühl’, ‘"Dem Druck des härteren, strengeren Lebens standhalten": Auch eine Studie über den autoritären Charakter’, ‘Was bleibt, das ist die Scham’.4 Given that the subject matter of Was bleibt is a fictionalised portrayal of Wolf’s experiences of being under surveillance by the East German state security police (the Staats- sicherheit, or ‘Stasi’ for short), and given that the narrative’s publication – just a few months before the GDR was to be subsumed into a unified Germany – coincided, as Georgina Paul emphasises, with the onset of ‘public discussion 1 Friedrich Hölderlin, ‘Andenken’, Werke, Stuttgart: Cotta, 1953, 2: 196-198. ‘What remains, however, is what writers contribute’ (my translation), here 198. 2 See Die Zeit, 1.12.2011; Die Welt, 1.12.2011; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1.12.2011; Süddeutsche Zeitung, 5.12.2011. 3 Christa Wolf, Was bleibt, Munich: Luchterhand, 1993 (first printed Frankfurt a.M.: Luchterhand, 1990), henceforth referred to as WB; What Remains and Other Stories, translated by Heike Schwarzbauer and Rick Takvorian, London: Virago, 1993. 4 See Die Zeit, 1.6.1990; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2.6.1990; Die Welt, 23.6.1990. 1 on the corrosive effects’ of the Stasi ‘on GDR society’,5 it was not surprising that the text and its author came under scrutiny in the West German press. The fact that, of the East German writers who had remained in the GDR until the end, Christa Wolf was not only the most prominent but also the first to release a text so explicitly treating the theme of Stasi operations added resonance to the media debate on Was bleibt.6 What was surprising to some observers, though, was the vehemence of a debate which progressed quickly from the review of a single literary text and its formerly highly-rated author into what became known as the ‘deutsch-deutscher Literaturstreit’,7 ‘[eine] Kontroverse, die […] das nachkriegsdeutsche Literatursystem vielleicht am nachhaltigsten erschütterte’,8 as Robert Weninger contends. Contrary to what the expression might suggest, the ‘deutsch-deutscher Literaturstreit’ of 1990 was not a debate conducted along the fault lines of East 5 Georgina Paul, ‘"Ich, Seherin, gehörte zum Palast": Christa Wolf’s Literary Treatment of the Stasi in the Context of her Poetics of Self-Analysis’, in Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman (eds.), German Writers and the Politics of Culture. Dealing with the Stasi, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 87-106, here 87. 6 It should be noted that 1990 also saw publications by two ex-GDR writers based on excerpts from their respective author’s Stasi files: Erich Loest’s autobiographical work Der Zorn des Schafes and Reiner Kunze’s documentary text Deckname Lyrik. Both writers had emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1981 and 1977 respectively, and in their 1990 publications both focused on those periods in their lives when they had been subjected to intensive surveillance by the Stasi. For scholarly analyses of the theme of the Stasi in German literature of the 1990s, see Brockmann, Stephen, Literature and German Unification, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 80-108, here 80f; and Paul Cooke, Representing East Germany since Unification. From Colonization to Nostalgia, Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005, 61-101. 7 See, for example, Wolfgang Emmerich, Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR, Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1996, 462. The articles which comprised the debate are anthologised in Thomas Anz (ed.), "Es geht nicht um Christa Wolf": Der Literaturstreit im vereinten Deutschland, Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1995 (first printed Munich: Spangenberg, 1991), henceforth referred to as Anz; Karl Deiritz and Hannes Krauss (eds.), Der deutsch-deutsche Literaturstreit oder ‘Freunde, es spricht sich schlecht mit gebundener Zunge’, Hamburg and Zurich: Luchterhand, 1991. 8 Robert Weninger, Streitbare Literaten. Kontroversen und Eklats in der deutschen Literatur von Adorno bis Walser, Munich: Beck, 2004, 133. In his analysis of twelve major post-1945 German literary controversies, Weninger focuses on the controversies surrounding Thomas Mann, Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Hochhuth, Emil Staiger, Heinrich Böll, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Thomas Bernhard, Christa Wolf, Botho Strauß, Peter Handke, Martin Walser and Günter Grass, but excludes the debates surrounding Peter Weiss’s Die Ermittlung, the ‘Gruppe 47’, Max Frisch’s Wilhelm Tell für die Schule, Elfriede Jelinek’s literary works, W.G. Sebald’s Luftkrieg und Literatur, or any debates relating to GDR literature. 2 German as opposed to West German commentators