A Stranger in My Own Country (34 page)

Read A Stranger in My Own Country Online

Authors: Hans Fallada

BOOK: A Stranger in My Own Country

4.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

46
.Â Alfred Rosenberg (1893â1946), a leading NS ideologue, stoked up anti-Semitism by distributing numerous pamphlets on racial ideology. In 1922 he became editor-in-chief of the
VÃ¶lkischer Beobachter
. In 1929 he founded the âMilitant League for German Culture', with the aim of combating âthe culturally corrosive aspirations of liberalism', and in 1930 the
Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte
[
National Socialist Monthly
]. 1930 also saw the publication of his book
Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts
[
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
]. In January 1934 he was appointed âCommissioner of the FÃ¼hrer for supervising all aspects of the intellectual and philosophical training and education of the NSDAP'. Part of the remit of the âRosenberg Office' was the âcultivation of literature'. Rosenberg was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials and executed on 16 October 1946.

57
.Â In his comments on the âJewish' physiognomy (later Paul Mayer is described as âa little, degenerate Jew weighing barely 35 kilos, and grotesquely ugly'), on the âdifferent' attitude of the Jews to money and
on the âdifference in blood', Fallada draws on the same anti-Semitic stereotypes that were being peddled by the Nazis in their inflammatory pamphlets and caricatures. In this respect the Prison Diary is a document of its times â alarmingly so. Fallada gives a forthright account of the change he underwent after the Nazis took power. He sees the behaviour of the victims as a confirmation of anti-Semitic prejudices. Fallada claims not to be a âvictim' or adherent of Nazi propaganda, yet the Prison Diary shows the extent to which he had internalized anti-Semitic arguments. In the 1945 typescript Fallada revised and âcorrected' these passages; see note 59.

59
.Â The anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews' greed for money was revised by Fallada in the version of the text he edited for publication (the 1945 typescript). He adds the following explanation: âThat was my first impression at the time, perhaps influenced after all by the constant Nazi propaganda pointing out that the Jews were a quite different (and of course inferior) race of people. Later I reflected further on these matters, and it eventually dawned on me that for one thing there were many among my many Jewish friends who thought and felt exactly as I did. And on the other hand it occurred to me that there were also thousands, tens of thousands of
my own race
, the so-called Aryans, who were prepared to put up with anything for the sake of money, who not only endured humiliations but were also willing to commit any crime if there was money to be made â witness the good old Sponars, Aryans through and through. There really is something very insidious about the odious form of propaganda practised by Mr Goebbels. Repeating the same old thing in every speech, month after month, year after year, over and over again! In the end the poison seeps into even the healthiest of bodies, and if you don't recognize that, and don't fight against it, you are lost.' (Hans Fallada,
Der unerwÃ¼nschte Autor. Meine Erlebnisse wÃ¤hrend zwÃ¶lf Jahre Naziterror
. Typescript 1945, Hans Fallada Archive, Neubrandenburg, p. 82)

63
.Â In the 1945 typescript this passage has been rewritten. Fallada revised the notion that it was the Jews themselves who had âerected this barrier between themselves and other nations'. The later version reads: âDuring that time I came to understand that in the hour of danger a Jew feels closer to another Jew, however much they disagree and differ, than to his friend of non-Jewish blood from happier days. I must admit that at first I was shocked by this discovery, and I observed our dear Paul Mayer with sadness and disappointment. The fact that he shared secrets with an empty-headed man-about-town like Leopold Ullstein, secrets which he kept from me, his loyal friend â I found this very hurtful. It took a while for me to realize that what had now happened was exactly what the teachers in the jail in FÃ¼rstenwalde had predicted: in their hour of danger the Jews of every country stuck together, and a huge wave of national feeling swept through world Jewry. They were right to view us as outsiders: we
were
outsiders. The danger that constantly threatened the Jews did not affect us. Their cares were not our cares. We could be outraged, horrified by the vile behaviour of the Nazis, we could have the most profound sympathy for our Jewish friends, but as for helping them, there was absolutely nothing we could do. And they didn't need our pity. After all, we belonged to a nation that had elected the FÃ¼hrer with 95 per cent of the vote, and vociferously applauded all his measures â why should the Jews, whose lives were constantly in danger, believe that we happened to belong to the other 5 per cent who had rejected him? Especially as there was no shortage of people who immediately set about exploiting the plight of the Jews. Jewish property was expropriated at ludicrous valuations and then flogged off at even more ludicrous prices to the upstanding Party followers and all the parasites who fell greedily upon these spoils.' (Hans Fallada,
Der unerwÃ¼nschte Autor. Meine Erlebnisse wÃ¤hrend zwÃ¶lf Jahre Naziterror
. Typescript 1945, Hans Fallada Archive, Neubrandenburg, p. 85.) At this point in the typescript
Fallada interpolated a story about the Jewish features editor Monty Jacobs (pp. 85f.). Through such additions, corrections and explanations he sought to underline his pro-Jewish attitude in 1945.

67
.Â Peter Suhrkamp (1891â1959) studied German language and literature after the First World War and worked part-time as a teacher. In 1929 he gave up teaching and moved to Berlin, where he worked as a freelance contributor to the
Berliner Tageblatt
and the monthly magazine
Uhu
published by Ullstein. In 1932 he joined the staff of S. Fischer Verlag, initially as the editor of the journal
Die Neue Rundschau
. In 1936, two years after the death of Samuel Fischer, he bought up the share in the Fischer publishing business that Gottfried Bermann Fischer was not able to transfer when he went into exile in Vienna. Suhrkamp ran the publishing house until April 1944, when he was arrested by the Gestapo for high treason and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After the war Suhrkamp was granted the first publishing licence in Berlin by the British military government. He collaborated initially with Bermann Fischer, but they parted company in 1950 and Suhrkamp set up his own eponymous publishing house. Carl Zuckmayer gives the following assessment of Suhrkamp's conduct during the Nazi period: âThere is absolutely no question that Suhrkamp ever approved, supported or endorsed anti-Semitic measures or tendencies, nor did he exploit the plight of others, but rather took on a highly complicated and difficult task.' (Carl Zuckmayer,
Geheimreport
, GÃ¶ttingen 2002, p. 22) The factually untenable accusations that Fallada levels against Peter Suhrkamp here owe a great deal to personal antipathy. This dates back to the summer of 1933, when Suhrkamp successfully negotiated an end
to the difficult situation in BerkenbrÃ¼ck on Fallada's behalf. Fallada felt that Suhrkamp had treated him like a schoolboy: âIt was a case of once a teacher, always a teacher with him, and he could be really acerbic and downright scathing when playing that part.' Then Suhrkamp wrote a review of
Once We Had a Child
in which he criticized the ending, which Fallada particularly liked. Rowohlt often sought Suhrkamp's opinion, and in a letter to Fallada of 4 March 1935 he passed on Suhrkamp's view that the title of the new novel
Und wenn der letzte Schnee verbrennt
[
Even If the Last Drop of Snow is Burned
] was too frivolous. It had also been suggested that Fallada could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had made a few judicious cuts to the two previous novels (
Once We Had a Child
and
Once a Jailbird
). This kind of intervention led Fallada to suspect that Suhrkamp was trying to drive a wedge between him and Rowohlt. On 6 March he informed his publisher that he wished to have nothing more to do with Suhrkamp, and would not tolerate any further interference in his work. This personal animosity was evidently still there in 1944, when it found expression in the malicious gossip about Suhrkamp the âlegacy-hunter'.

Other books

Dance in the Dark by Megan Derr

Tales From Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Survive by Alex Morel

Ghost in the First Row by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

Faerie Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) by Emma L. Adams

To Catch a Princess by Caridad Pineiro

California Man - The Author's Cut Edition by EC Sheedy

The Awakening by Marley Gibson

The Australian by Diana Palmer