MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE

By HER·MANN sCHAFER

Like a"11 oj 1M aria. liUralllre U Ihe ezpru8ion oj tM .otJ oj a nation. Whena nation u 8ick. a.t the Ge""an nalio" wa. ajkr Ihe Greal War, iu predominantliterary prod.u:lion u aUo pathological. dutruclive. and Ngative. When Ihe nationr_rl. a netQ literature "'aku illt appearance. flit leading wrilIlr6 then are eithermen who were not underlltood and liUk /..,.own beJore or member. oj Ihe you71gergeneration. The Jollowing article dwZ. wilh thru men who mnd in Ihe Jronl rankoj 'Jill writer. oj pruml-da,y Germany.

TM altlhor 11M been in clOH touch wilh G~ lilerature 8ince tM 0011.oj hi. youth. He left Germora1l in /93/ and hall liwd in Japan eller llinee.-K.M.

MODERN German literature hasgrown from the German people'scharacter and traditions. Its un­

derlying forces are the peasant spirit andthe soldier spirit. By "peasant spirit"we mean the feeling of being deeplyrooted in the Boil, a characteristic notonly of peasant life itself but graduallymanifesting itself throughout the entirelife of Germany. And by "soldier spirit"we mean the determined, purposeful, anddisciplined attitude not only in war timebut always and in every sphere of life.

THE mDDEN GBRJIANY

Although this literature passed througha number of intermittent stages anderrors in the course of the years, andeven lost itself now and again, italways found the way back to itselfand, above all, never surrendered its truevalue. In the years of its beginningand early growth, the "chroniclers andcommentators of decadence, the lovers ofthe morbid and of death, the aestheteswith the tendency toward the precipice,"as Thomas Mann once characterized him­self and his companions, assailed it asliterature of the lowest peasant level.After 1933, German emigrants and for­eign writers called it politically tenden­tious (in the bad sense of the word).bloodthirsty, saber-rattling, and "a litera­ture written at the order of the Nazis."However, the saying: "That which didnot kill it only served to make it stronger"proved itself correct in the case of this

literature too. Stronger than all oppo­sition was the vast process of recoverythat gradually spread throughout theGerman nation. And it was these ma­ligned writers of the "hidden Germany"who had an infallible sense of that re­covery and who now began to tell of thenew Reich that was emerging.

Although the works of these prophetsand pioneers of the Third Reich mirrorthe sober, iron forces which, throughstruggle and will power, have led to theforming of the new Reich and which areto remain as its basis, their contents arenot exhausted by that. In them therecan also be found a peace, a quiet, acontemplation, an introspection, that fillthe reader with a deep sense of happiness.The national content of this literature isrevealed not only in the national-politicalfighting poems, but just as often in thequiet creations which show the individualin daily life, in the life of the community,and in the world-wide kingdom of thearts and of ageless imagination.

It is impossible even to mention herethe names of all these forerunners andcreators of the national German literatureof present times. Consequently, we havechosen from this number only three,Rudolf G. Binding. Hans Grimm, andGerhard Schumann, since we regard Bin­ding anu Grimm as worthy representativesof the older generation of the writers ofthe German nation, while Schumann isone of the poets of the new Germany.

220 THE XXth CENTURY

Just as deeply as Binding loved histime, his people, and his country andalways frankly admitted this, just asdeeply did he love life itself. The worldof his works is strongly marked byearth­liness and zest for living, even in hisethereally beautiful Legenden der Zeit(Legends of Our Time). In the first ofthese legends, entitled "Coelestinn," hetells with classic calm, animated by hisown humor, the story of Hea\'en's per­plexity ovor an angel who has inadvert­ontly fallon to Earth. Delicious is the

THE ARTIST AND illS TIME of rebirth that the visible also be goodand beautiful, that the attitude corre-

Rudolf G. Binding, this extraordinary spond to the words, the deed to the com-man, this singer of upright, straight- mand, and the discipline of the ruler toforward Gorman men, was born in 1867 his rule. Binding has personified thisand spent his childhood and youth in desire to a rare degree; for, like his storiesFreiburg, the Black Forest, and Leipzig, and poems, which are all little pictures ofwhere his father was a professor of law the greatest and highest in Man, he tooat the muvcrsity. He is characterized was upright and straight, he who onceby the words he wrote in an introduction expressed the wish to be buried standingto a volume of photographs of the works upright.of Georg Kolbe, the sculptor: Binding tells of his own development

"A fearlcss artist always reproduces in his noble autobiography Erlehtu Leben,the present. He docs not have to turn (Life As I Have Lived It). It is an ac-to it, to learn its count of the timesideals; he reproduces that goes far beyondit all out of his own thc limits of thelonging. Heexpresses individual and thatour truth, the truth also reveals throughof our time; its what manifestationscharacteristics are: of decadence in thesimplicity, soberness, life of Germany heno ecstasies, no passed, now andm.ptures, no extrava- again even beinggance, no excessive touched by them, andpathos, no intem- yet conquering themperanee. He and his in tho avowal that hetime both have the preferred his timesame faith, the sarno and his country tolook, tho same con- other times and coun-fidence: they both tries into which heseek for what is might have beenunalterable, ultimate, born, not because hesimplest, irrefutable, considered his timeinexorable." and his country

What Binding especially privileged,says here about his RudoU G. llinding but because theyfriend could just as well apply to all his coneerned him more than other timesown works. And one would like to add and countrios, because he loved themthat, wherever people speak about the more deeply and more dearly.exalted minds of Germany, this fastidiouswriter of the heart and shape of theGerman soul should not be forgotten.For, after all, the purity of the heartusually resembles the purity of what isexternal and visible, and both requiredaily care in order not to fall vict.im toosoon to dirt and dUl't. Only throughmaintaining an attitude and leading alife full of character clln a writer exert acleansing, bealing, and strengthening in­fluence on his nation. It is an old desireof the human race and at the same t.imeone of the basic demands of ollr era

MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE ttl

word for the humor with which Bindingdescribes in the second of the legends,"St. George's Representative," the onlyman whom God deems worthy of beingthe representative of St. George, becauseof h.is indefatigable zest for living, for"he could not use a poor, miserablesinner for 80 important a job." Withthe third of these legends, "The LittleWhip," the author has produced a charm­ing and popular Christmas story forchildren.

These legends and a number of otherstories, among them the famous DerOpfergang (The Sacrifice), appeared in theyears 1909 to 1911, and made a name forBinding even before the Great War. Hewas especially popular with young people,who still find pleasure in reading theausterely beautiful Opfergang, with whichthe writer has set up a monument to aheroic woman.

AGELESS POET OF THE YOUNGER

GENERATION

Indeed, the younger generation hasnever ceased to count this "ageless" manas belonging to its own ranks. Forwhen, at the age of nearly fifty, he re­turned from the Great War and liftedup his voice again, it was the youngergeneration to which he spoke and whichlistened to him. Its longing was hisown, and vice versa, only ~t he hadbeen endowed with the faculty Of beingable to say the words which youngpeople needed more than anything else.For he was one of the first to dare toproclaim, while the echo of shots wasstill dying away and in the midst of theconfusion of a disintegrating age, that,in spite of everything, what was takingplace was neither "absurd" nor "in vain"but a mighty stroke of destiny, whichcalled for both mourning and pride onthe part of the younger generation. Thewar was not the end for him, but abeginning and the hardest disciplinarianas well as the liberator and awakener ofhis love for the German people and theirdestiny. That and nothing else waswhat the war should also be to theyouth of the nation.

He expressed this faith in his book ofverse Stolz und Tra'lUr (Pride and Mourn­ing) and in the stories Ul1-8terblichkeit(Immortality) and Der WinguU. Thestory "Immortality" may be called asmall masterpiece of German literature.It is often called the "Richthofen story,"for it is the account of a pilot, a strangeman of strange greatness, with whom thedaughter of a landowner in Flanders,whose fields are being used temporarilyby a German pursuit squadron duringthe Great War, faUs deeply in loveagainst her will. In A U8 dan K rUge(From the War), a book that is still vorymuch worth reading, Binding has givenus an unvarnished chronicle of his ex­periences in the Great War. It containsletters and diary entries as he wrotethem at the front under the direct impactof events there.

Although war and the experiences ofwar have become 088entiaUy the "meas­ure of all things" for Binding, we haveonly touched upon one side of his workin our description 80 far. We have, forinstance, not yet spoken of Binding thepassionate rider and lover of horses, whofound in the horse a "stricter taskmasterthan in his powerful father." We mustmention his gayest and happiest littlevolume, the Reitwrschrift fiil' eine Geliebte(Riding Instructions for a Beloved), andhis Heiligtum der Pferde (Sanctuary ofHorses), in which he teUs the story of amighty stallion who roams like a kingover the wide pastures of the famous oldstud farm of Trakebnen in East Prussia,how the earth .trembles at his roar, andhow at last he knows the fulfillment oflove and mating with an equally noblepartner. Nor must we forget Bindingthe connoisseur of fine wines and hisexquisite, tender Moselfahrt am Liehe8­kummer (Journey on the Moselle Becauseof Disappointed Love).

Some of Binding's works have appearedin Japanese. Kenji Takahashi and KojiKunimatsu have translated the storiesDie Wafftnbrfider, Angelucia, Der Opfer­gang, and U1I8terblickkeit. Wir fordern.Reim8 zur Uebergabe auf has been trans­lated by Shunro Mori. At present,

222 THE XXth CENTURY

NATION WITHOUT SPAOE

Cornelius Friebott, a young man soundboth in mind and body. is the son of amiddle-class family in a village on theWeser, one of those surplus grandsons ofthe soil who must look for work inquarries, factories, or mines. Narrowlyescaping death in a mine, he breaks loosefrom the narrowness and oppression ofindustry; for he still has "freedom withinhimself" and needs "space about himand sun over his head" in order to be­come a true, vigorous man. He findshis way to Africa. First he lands in aBritish colony, where he finds it hard toadjust himself because of his German

After the war, Grimm took six years(1919 -1925) to write the great novel ofGerman destiny, Volk ohne Raum (NationWithout Space). This work, which ap­peared in 1926. a mighty epic in prose,has made him a political writer andeducator of inestimable influence. One

is j ustmed in callingJ'olk ohne Raum aGerman Odyssey.For what else is thisstory of CorneliusFriebott but thegigantic diary andthe epio review ofthe German nationduring the years be­fore, during. andafter the Great War?Grimm himselI oncesaid of it that itshowed the fate of allGermany, "just as itsometimes happensthat the history ofan ordinary mansimultaneously re­veals the fate of hisnation."

tivo of tragic content. During the GreatWar he was a private at tho front, tillhe was recalled in 1917 by the ColonialOffice to write Oels1u;her von Duala (OilProspectors of Duala), describing themartyrdom of German prisoners of warin Africa.

AN ARTIST ABROAD

When Binding died on August 4, 1938,ODe of the men who stood mourning atthe bier was Hans Grimm who, likeBinding, has become an integral part ofthe history of German literature. Withhis works, he is one of the most originaland clear-sighted reproducers of modernGerman evolution. For, just as Bindingwill always remain a knight and poet ofour times who identifiod the idea offreedom with humancourage, so Grimmis the sober realistwho hides nothing,either from himselfor from us, and whoin his healthy, in­telligent, and taci­turn men of actionhas given us backthe half-forgottenfigures of Germansoldiers, peasants,craftsmen, and mer­chants &8 they werein times gono by.

HaDs Grimm wasborn in 1875 inWiesbaden. As abusinessman in SouthAfrica (1896-1910), atfirst as an employee, Hans Grimm

later as tho partner of 8. firm in CapeProvince. he became personally ac­quainted with the fateful questions ofoverseas Germans and of Germans ingeneral. In the vast expanses of Africahe became used to looking for the essen­tial in all things and gradually tried toput this down in writing. He beganwith sketches from the lifo of Boers andKaffirs in Sudafrikanische Novellen (Talesfrom South Africa) published in 1913.He went on to his settlor and horsemanstories from German Southwest Africain Der Gang durch den Sand (The WalkThrough the Sand), and in the OlewagenSaga (Tho Saga of Olewagen) he at­tempted to put down a saga-like narra-

Binding's autobiography Erlebte8 Lebenis also being translated.

MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE 123

8eIl8itiveness and habit of brooding. Butthen he succeeds through his equallyGerman industrioU8Dess and tries "topartake of the goods of the earth andyet to remain German." Later he goesto the German colony of SouthwestAfrica and joins the campaign of Captainvon Erckert against the Hottentots,which is thrillingly desoribed. Finally,he manages to settle down more or lessaecurely.

But then the Great War breaks out,followed by the terrible time of the post­war years-and his German Odysseygoes on. The vicious arbitrariness of theBritish, who unremittingly and withobvious intention endeavor to deny thatthe Germans have any colonial talent,drives him into innumerable legal trialsand heaps want and misery upon him.But, in spite of everything, Friebott re­tains his German pride. After weeks ofconfused flight through jungle and veldt,through rains and droughts, he succeeds,a "strange, uncertain, and frightenedvagabond," in saving himself and reachinghis tortured country. There the sweet­heart of his youth, young Melaene, iswaiting for him and becomes his wife.

But even married life cannot force thisrestless man to settle down. The eco­nomic and political collapee around himand his sense of leadership drive him outonto the road to proclaim "the onemisery which is common to all Germanpeople, to laborer and peasant, princeand beggar, the common misery ofdesperate lack of living space." So,"like an American quack or a bareleggedNature fiend," he moves from village tovillage, from one smoky hall to the nextand lifts his voice everywhere to demandfreedom for Germany and room to workfor the German people. In the midst ofone of these passionate speeches on themarket square of a little place in Saxony,he meets his death by the hand of apolitical opponent.

CAPTAIN VON ERCKERT'S END

This, in short, is the content of thevast work, a work that flows along inconstant controlled pa.88ion through 1,299

pages, written in a very individual,almost harsh style that, however, alwaysseems genuine. The book also containsa number of descriptions of lives andevents that are rounded off in themselvesand which, like Grimm's short Btoriee,represent in their extremely rationalstyle little masterpieces of the Germanlanguage. This is particularly true ofthe incident of Captain von Erckert'scampaign. This officer goes off with apicked troop of German riders, amongthem Cornelius Friebott, beyond theeastern border of German SouthwestAfrica into the desert of the Kalahari,where, after incredible su1Jering, he suc­ceeds in fulfilling his assigned task. Wequote the burial soone from that incident:

The new leader did not make a big speech.Like all of them, he had deep-Bet eyes. He said:"Here lie8 our leader Friedrich von Erckert . . . .For eight montha he did nothing but plan andthink and Jook and prepare for thiII one moming.You know how he brought about everytbin~were aU there with him. When hia_~f auhe wu at.ruck by ODe of the fint~ he wuprobably the fint among the falleo. the othertwelve foUowed him later. ThOlle who want to,may have a Jut look at our captain'. face. Wecannot take our dead with WI. W. are buryingthem here in the Engliah Kalahari. They lie forus like guarda before Oerman Southweat Africa:'

Alter that he said, no longer with the purpoeelybarking voice of an officer, but with that of anyloved BOD .peaking ol hill lovt"d mother: "I WlUltt~ read to you what tho Captain wrote down lorhi.mIIelf in hie notebook on tho way here fromMoJeo'-n, I want to read that to you now, althoughno ODe would have ever heard it or _ it if hewere atill alive." And BO he read, now with hiebarking voice apiD: "Above aU, the greateetBfllf.reapect. To do nothing mean, keep body andBOul clean. Always to control o-u; to be Bfllf.Je.. ~, aod brave. To tell oae-lf that aat.raight, upriaht attitude is the upr-aon ol astraight, upright 1IOU1. To have pleuure in lIimplethinp; Dot to demand the impoeaible, but toapply patience, endurance, and concentrated willpower to a goal that can bll reached. Neverremain in filth. Even the beet can IOmetimOllget into it, but no one need stay in it."

Then they lowered their dead, covered withhone blankets, into the gravoe; and the deedpaued from sight, and the three aalvoe were fired.

SPACE AND DESTINY

Grimm's work revolves around twobaaio elements, "space" and "destiny."He has never really moved away fromthese elements, he has always onlyextended them and rounded them off.For just as at the very beginning they

224 THE XXth CENTURY

made up the contents of his hard expe­riences, so do they later permeate everyline he wrote. It is always these twopoles a.round which he revolves andwhich in all his works exert through theirtension a. deep influence on the reader, atension which Grimm increases by meansof his exceptional talent for compactnessand for massing contrasts.

Yet hardly a reader will feel despairor resignation after having read one ofhis books. This is where we discoverthe most significant difference betweenthe literature of the German decadencein the postwar years and prescnt-dayliterature. For who is there to say thatthe books of Thomas Mann, for instanoe.which at their best are only the artisticexpression of the morbid imaginations ofdiseased and weak people, give the readerstrength, edification, and the zest andwill for life1 And who could say thatGrimm's books do not contain all this1It is one of the most important achieve­ments of this man that he has given allthis to the Germans, and given it in aperiod when the general atmosphere wasthat of decline. And this in spite of thefact that his stories are full of cruelincidents and that his figures are ·twistedand constrained in the narrow confinesof their country while abroad they alsodo not find happiness and meet withconstant disaster.

Yet what fine men and women arethey, so quiet and brave, so sober andyet so passionate, scorched by suffering,pain, and the African sun, and yet soyoung and full of zest. His figures donot spend their time analyzing their soulsin a sanatorium: they stand in the widespaces of Afrioa and, instead of destroyingvalues, they create them. This is why tothem and to Grimm the idea of "space"is not a guarantee but only an opportunityfor them to become what they are. Andto them, destiny may mean some endbut not the end; for "the fame of theirdeecls remains greater than the end,"having its effect far into the future.Indeed, one of the wonderful thingsabout Grimm is that, in the wide circleof his works, there is never anything

really used up or ended. He and hisfigures are as inexhaustible, deep, andstern, but also as pure and clear as hisnation.

Hans Grimm is now sixty-seven yearsold. The number of his readers hasgrown, especially since 1933, in Germanyas well as abroad. In Japan, Grimmalready has a considerable circle ofadmirers. The first of his works to bebrought out in Japanese were four storiesfrom Der Richter in der Earu, translatedby Yoshitaka Takahashi. Last yearShiniohi Hoshino brought his years ofpainstaking translation of Yolk ohne Raumto a successful close and published thework in four imposing volumes.

YOUNG WARRIOR

The younger generation of writers hasfrom the beginning accompanied theNational-Socialist movement with itsliterary production. Like theirgreat pred­ecessors, these young "guardians of ourcharacter" are rooted in the soil of theircountry and, like them-but often moreclearly and more boldly so-they areheralds and fighters of nation and &ich.Their essence is the finally achievedunity of the nation which has found itsway back to its natural union; and theirstar is the idea and the purity of theReich. Since this unity and this Reichhad to be won through struggle, themain content of this literature is theexperience of the warrior soul. It is notconcerned with problems and 8uppressedcomplexes, but with upright attitudesand burning aims; it is not concernedwith parts or with dependence on chance,but with the whole. This is one of thecharacteristics of the literature of ourtime. Another and perhaps even moresignificant trait is the fact that, through­out the entire modern German literature(but certainly not by government edict,as is still often claimed abroad), a newfaith makes itself felt which seeks foran answer to the great new questions ofour time.

From the works of these numerouspoets and writers we shall mention onlyone here, but one who in his attitude

MODERN CERMAK LITERATURE

And though the:)' 8ClU'Ce could oompnbead In.meaning,

TIley felt the deep noetalgia of bomocoming.From hurdened beartAJ tbe icy layen molted.For t hey had found their lIOuls, their home, once

Inore.

And 811lJdollly they felt themselves secure,Enwrnppod in blU!l; by the deep ring of Lifo.Thcy knew: this is the dawning or the Reich.

For whida o/lch night bad yearned, aroont and red.And to fullilJrnent, suffering IDWit bow."rhell IlU wero faint of heart. be raised his voice.

ing for the new Reich and its founderresounds even more powerfully in hisseries of 80nnets entitled Eimr im JaAr­tau8tmd (One Man in a Thousand Years).We quote Sonnet XIII:Ala alle anken. atuul er IeucbteDd aul.na fuhf die Scbam in M.InDer. die in Sabanden

Ent-reehtet und gef~' mod .ioh~.­Nun lItt'l)mten ale 801dateD • zuhauf.

Und dio ibn noah bum fU8toD und~.In denen warll wie J1eimkebr, wob und loia.Von hartell Benen eohmolz du alte Eia,Weil sie min IIicb und ihre Heima' landen.

Und plOtzlich fQh)ten lIie lIiob tief im KreisDe.. Lebona fromm und eelig eingeborpa.Und Wl1lIlIten: di_ i-' dee ReiM. Morgen.

Del. aUe NAohte IIOhnten ro* und bei8Il.rnd dt"r ErlfllJung mU88 <las Leid aicb beggen.Als aile 7.agten. hob er an zu zeugen.

A rough translation of this would beas follows:When all sank down, he roee in abining glory.ThOll men were filled witb wmo who, in diagrace,Weary, deprived of rigbts. bad writhed in chains.Now in gr.' thI'oIllJll they came to be In.

warriora.

DECISION A.J.~D TIUAL

Schumann is deeplyconcerned with what isDlost noble and mostpowerful in the nation,with "the' warriors whowill withstand the lastassault." He calls forthe heroic fight and forthe love for the wholethat conquers the selfishego: "Oh surrender thy­self, he who says yes isredeemed." But it isnot only this that fillsSchumann's heart. Hehas also compoeed anabundance of poemswhich, written in ashy,UOI'bard l:k:bumann

Even his earliest verses,written during the worstdays of the Republic, arefilled with a deep religiousemotion which inspiresthe idea of the Reichwith an allconqueringfaith. Later, when theFuhrer had welded theGerman people into 1 astrong nation, whenthrough him the Ger­man people rallied andt.hrust open wide thegates to the future ofthe Reich, this profoundcomprehension and feel-

and ability is a worthy repreeentative ofthem all. This is Gerhard Schumann,bom in 1911 in Esslingen in 80uthwestGermany, who wrote his first poems in1930 as a student, and who now, like 80many of his young comradee, is a soldierat the front.

In Schumann's works the burningpassion of a National-8ocialist fighter iscombined with disciplined language andan upright spiritual attitude. Schumannfuses the religious world with the na­tional. In his works, which are imbuedwith truthfulness, manline88, and maturecomposure, he has given us a symbol ofwhat, through suftering and want,struggle and death, the Reich hascome to mean to all Germans. Forthe idea that carries along this youngtalent is the Reioh. This "dream of theReich," which, in the midst of adisintegrating epoch, forced itself upthrough his veins into clear consciousness,is his fundamental emotion. And it isthis emotion that has guided him instruggle and growth, in thought anddeed. His poems revolve arowld it.And in ever new aJlegories he sings of thisemotion in his poems and postulates itas the spiritual property of all Germans.Wit.h question and answer, love, hatred,and courage he is helping to build thegn-at cathedral of German brotherhood.

OSE l'tlAN IN A

THOUSA ND YEARS

226 THE XXth CENTURY

reserved form, reveal that he is alsofamiliar with the moments of quietrest and meditation. Perhaps it isthis fact that accounts for the maturityof his works.

In 1938, Schumann published his firstplay, Entllcheidu1U} (Decision), that grewout of a play which had been sketchedin outline many years before. It ischaracterized by a profound, conscien­tious gravity that bears witness to aquality still rare among the plaYWrightsof the day, namely, of not handing inanything unfurished but waiting patientlyfor the work to mature.

The scene of the play is a city inGermany, the time the spring of 1920, andthe content a Communist revolt. Al­though it deals with events of the timeand with the democratic hairsplitting ofthe postwar years (which Schumann hassucceeded amazingly well in typifying),the author is primarily concerned witht.he great struggle of the present time

and of human activity as a whole, withclarifying the fundamental ideas of thejustified revolution as opposed to thecriminal one. The author himself says:"I have dared to let people of our timeexperience, sufier, and stand the tests ofour time in words of our time, and Ihave tried simultaneously to let thetimeless, the eternal, that quietly holds usall in its hand, shine through the actionand the figures of the play." It is nottoo much to say that Schumann hassucceeded in this attempt.

Today, Gerhard Schumann stands onthe battlefield together with his youngfellow authors. His latest volume ofpoems, Bewiilirung (Trial), is determinedand filled by this greatest of all strugglesthe world has ever seen. In simple,severe words, he tells of the essence ofGerman soldiers and German men, ofthe "spirit of the sacred youth of ournation," which is eternally renewed andwhich passes through unceasing trials, toform the basis for victory.