The Black Swan (Martin Walser)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Black Swan is a drama written by Martin Walser from 1961 to 1964 , which was written against the background of the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt . It was published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 1964 and was premiered on October 16, 1964 at the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart . The play is about the son of a former concentration camp doctor who confronts his father with his past through a role-play that shows parallels to Hamlet . It mainly deals with the topic of coming to terms with the past and demonstrates different memory models. It also deals with the question of whether the sons of the perpetrators would also have been capable of the deeds of their fathers had it been up to them.

Emergence

The drama “The Black Swan” is the second of Walser's three planned “Pieces from a German Chronicle” after the piece “ Eiche und Angora ” completed in 1962 , of which the third piece, “The Horse from Berlin”, remained undeveloped . Instead, Walser wrote the piece " Kashmir in Parching " in 1995 . Walser does not refer to the three pieces as a trilogy , although they are related through contemporary history . For the pieces mentioned, the " contemporaries [...] should be invited to look at what they did with each other and against each other". All three pieces deal with the inability to come to terms with the past and deal with guilt. "Oak and Angora" is about being involved in the "crimes of the Nazi era ", while "The Black Swan" is about the suppression of the past and how the next generation will deal with it. In his third piece on a similar subject, the appropriate way of dealing with the past of National Socialism is discussed.

The creation of the drama “The Black Swan” can be described as rather lengthy. Martin Walser began his new piece as early as 1957/1958, after he had completed “ Marriage in Philippsburg ”. The first serious draft was made in 1961. The piece was finally completed in 1964. On October 16, 1964, “The Black Swan” was premiered at the Württemberg State Theater, at which Peter Palitzsch and Hellmuth Karasek worked together with Walser on the production of the play worked. This can also be seen in Walser's diaries, in which he mentions meetings with them.

In the development of his work, Walser intended to call it "memories" for the time being, since it shows "a few types of memory", but later called it "The Black Swan". In the play, the title is an SS man's answer to young Rudi's question what SS means (see p. 285; I, 4). However, not only was the title of the piece changed, but "[p] in fact only the mental hospital as a framework has remained the same". In addition, the end of the first version, which only appeared in a special edition of Theater heute magazine, differs from the end of the revised version. The first version ends with Liberé leaving the clinic to face the authorities, while in the revised version he decides against a public trial, although he is unable to justify his decision (see p. 325; II, 7).

action

The play takes place in a psychiatric clinic called Karwang and is about the twenty-year-old Rudi Goothein, the son of a former concentration camp doctor, and how he dealt with his father's past during the Second World War . Prior to the actual plot of the play, Rudi stumbled upon a letter addressed to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp, signed by Rudolf Goothein, about the deportation of prisoners. Although Rudi is impossible to sign the letter because of the date on the letter, he still assumes the guilty role. Since his father bears the same name as him, Rudi now knows about his father's complicity during National Socialism and tries to provoke him to confess by calling himself guilty.

His father instructs him in the Karwang psychiatric institution, the director of which is a friend and also a former concentration camp doctor, Liberé, with which the play begins. Liberé fears that Rudi could uncover the lie of the fictional past in India that he invented for his daughter Irm, as the two children grew up together near the concentration camp where their two fathers were employed as doctors. Nevertheless, Rudi becomes a patient in Karwang.

Liberé realizes that Rudi does not really believe that he is the author of the letter and therefore guilty, but that he only plays the role to urge him and Goothein to confess their actions. He asks him to show his father the letter, which Rudi refuses to do.

In a conversation with Irm, Rudi talks about his childhood, while Irm adds details that Rudi did not mention. They realize that they grew up together and remember an RPG from that time in which Rudi played an SS man who could decide the girl's life. Irm realizes that she is the girl Rudi is talking about. She later learns that her real name is Hedi.

Since neither Goothein nor Liberé have reacted to Rudi's provocations so far, Rudi's staged a play with four patients from the institution that depicts the rise of a former concentration camp doctor from his return from the war to his success as a businessman. But neither of the two fathers showed the hoped-for reaction to the play.

Rudi then turns to Irm again and asks her to be allowed to point a pistol at her in order to receive an answer to the question whether he, like his father, could also become a perpetrator. Their joint suicide is also intended to prevent them from having to take part in “the atrocities of the next generation”. Irm, however, prefers to forget and refuses to help Rudi. Then Tinchen comes, who goes with Rudi to Liberé's tree, a seven-stemmed thuja, where she wants to celebrate a midsummer celebration.

While everyone else is talking in the Liberés' living room, Rudi commits suicide on the Thuja . When Tinchen tells them about it, Liberé first decides to face it publicly, but then immediately takes back his decision, which is accepted by his family so that their life lie can be upheld. Goothein leaves the clinic convinced that Liberé is to blame for his son's suicide.

Person overview

Rudi

Rudi, the main character in the play, is a representative of the younger generation who cannot cope with his father's past. When he learns of his father's guilt, he refuses to go on with his previous life. He refuses to take his high school diploma and celebrate his engagement until he is tried as a Nazi criminal whose role he begins to play. His father then has him admitted to the psychiatric clinic. Through his role play, Rudi hopes to provoke Goothein and Liberé to confess their actions. In addition, he performs a self-staged play and reads the letter that Goothein wrote to the fathers. As a child, Rudi learned to assume certain roles that he had copied from others, such as that of an SS man who could decide about the lives of others (see p. 317; II, 7).

Although he tries to get his father and Liberé to talk about the past with his actions, he tells Irm that the actions of that time are incomprehensible. He speaks of a kind of killing bureaucracy that made it impossible for the perpetrators to fully understand their actions (see p. 315; II, 7). Nevertheless, Rudi does not manage to suppress the past and keeps asking himself whether he would also have been guilty in the place of his father. He wants to check this by pointing a pistol at Irm to see if he would be able to pull the trigger. Rudi then wants to shoot himself (cf. p. 315; II, 7) because he fears that if he lived on he would “take part in the atrocities of the next generation” (p. 318; II, 7). He would rather “exterminate the children of the murderers” (p. 318; II, 7). At the end of the play Rudi actually commits suicide, but without shooting someone else first (see p. 323; II, 7).

The character Rudi Goothein is reminiscent of Alois from " Eiche und Angora ", because he is also a "broken person" who fails in the end. Both characters try to change the circumstances of society, but in the end they have to recognize that they fail and society remains unchanged.

Liberé

The head of the institution, whose real name is Leibnitz, has ironically changed his name to Liberé in order to distance himself from his past as a doctor in the concentration camp, where he was guilty of the mass murders of National Socialism . He and his family have built a new life for himself in the seclusion of his psychiatric clinic, in which he lives isolated from the rest of the world. On the one hand, life in the institution helps him to maintain his invented past in India, with which he not only wants to protect himself but also his daughter (see p. 263; I, 1). On the other hand, it is a kind of self-imposed detention for him with which he tries to atone for his guilt. He carries out prison jobs such as making whisks, eats from tin dishes and has “fittings like a cell door” (p. 262; I, 1) on his bedroom door in order to be prepared for a life in prison . Liberé himself expresses at the end of the piece that "penitential dummies" and a "memory plaster" (p. 325; II, 7) should remind him of his guilt again and again.

He justifies and justifies the fact that, in contrast to Goothein, he did not report himself publicly with the fact that the judges would want to distinguish themselves from him and his guilt, although they themselves had no idea about this in order to be able to feel "clean" ( see p. 262f .; I, 1). For him, formal processes are just grotesque social rituals that cannot lead to debt relief. In addition, he sees an excuse for his actions in the fact that he did not know why people acted as they did at the time (see p. 291; I, 5).

He tries to get closer to the victims of National Socialism by, for example, adopting Tinchen or breeding what he sees as a seven- stemmed thuja , which reminds him of the Jewish victims, since the tree can otherwise only be found in cemeteries (see p. 261; I, 1). His work as a psychiatrist, who cares for those affected by the war like the inmates of Room 104, is a sign of his attempted identification with the victims.

Liberé recognizes Rudi's role-play very quickly, as he himself plays different roles, such as that of the caring family father or the head of a clinic, in order to cope with his feelings of guilt. Liberé accuses him, however, that no one who was not in his situation could judge him because he did not know what he would have done "if it had been up to [him]" (p. 292; I, 5 ).

Goothein

The name Goothein means something like "beautiful death" which alludes to the mass extermination within the framework of the National Socialist policy of persecution and extermination, in which Goothein was involved during the war. He was imprisoned for four years, which means that he is freed from his guilt and feelings of guilt (see p. 262; I, 1). Believing to have destroyed everything suspicious from his past, Goothein has built a new life as a surgeon and family man in which the past no longer has any place. Nevertheless, he confesses to Liberé that he sometimes dreams of numbers (see p. 292; I, 5) that are probably symbolic of the number of mass killing victims he murdered .

Mrs. Liberé

In Walser's play, Ms. Liberé is portrayed as a woman who does not want to “wither” any longer in the institution (p. 313; II, 7), but longs to enjoy life, to break out of her so-called coffin and with her daughter and to move their fiancé to the city (see p. 321ff .; II, 7). She perceives Karwang and life there as a "lifelong corpse watch" (p. 321; II, 7), for which she blames her husband because he did not present himself publicly at the time (see p. 321; II, 7) . On the other hand, she admires Goothein for his imprisonment in the penitentiary , which, in her opinion, has "put his case into order" (p. 321; II, 7). She herself “doesn't care about memory” (p. 280; I, 3) and makes clear with her statement “then rather none than such a bed of chives from memory” (p. 280; I, 3) that she would rather forget than hold on to an invented past, although she does so in the end (p. 325; II, 7).

Irm

In addition to Rudi, Irm is another representative of the young generation, who, however, deals with the past in a completely different way. It would like to suppress everything and be "the grass that grows over it" (p. 319; II, 7). Although in a dialogue with Rudi, in which they talk about common childhood memories and growing up near a concentration camp , she realizes that her real name is Hedi, and that her father was guilty at the time in the concentration camp , she wants to continue to contact them for his sake believe the invented past in India (cf. p. 318 .; II, 7). For her, the only option is to go on living and forget, as she realizes that the alternatives are insanity, as with the inmates of Room 104, or self-destruction, as with Rudi. In contrast to her father, who tries to empathize with the victims, she makes it clear that this is not possible: it is not possible to take part ”(p. 318; II, 7). She has a less good relationship with her fiancé, von Trutz, and is at times rather dismissive and cold (see p. 275; I, 3). In return she confesses to Rudi that she could imagine a life with him (see p. 318; II, 7).

Harald von Trutz

Dr. Harald von Trutz is a doctor in the Karwang Psychiatry (see p. 264; I, 2). He is also Irms fiancé and treats her lovingly, almost submissively (cf. p. 315; II, 7). He only remembers trivialities from his past, such as the fact that he “had a flat tire two kilometers from Kiev ” (p. 276; I, 3); On the other hand, he has repressed the unpleasant memories.

Tinchen

Tinchen is Liberé's thirty-year-old adoptive daughter, who suffers from “ meningitis ” (p. 275; I, 3) and is supposed to remind him of his guilt as a living memory. It is his “constant visualization of fate.” Her statements are often “influenced by the National Socialists”. So she asks, for example, for a donation to the Winter Relief or speaks of the summer solstice party wanting to visit (see pp. 277f .; I, 3).

Occupants of room 104

Four patients are housed in room 104 of the Karwang psychiatric institution: Seelschopp: A former Jewish graphic artist who forged passports during the Nazi era . He was housed in Dachau and Theresienstadt and suffers from the “ concentration camp syndrome ” (p. 298; II, 6). Gerold: A former radio operator with a frontal lobe injury (see p. 297; II, 6). Figilister: A survivor of euthanasia who suffers from guilt psychosis (see p. 300; II, 6). Bruno: A former gardener of Hitler with “delusion of sin” (p. 299; II, 6).

Thus two of the patients, Seelschopp and Figilister, are victims of National Socialism , the other two, Gerold and Bruno, belong to the group of perpetrators. However, the fact that they are all patients in Karwang due to mental health problems also makes Gerold and Bruno victims. They help Rudi to put on the play he has staged.

Historical background

Walser wrote the "Black Swan" around twenty years after the end of the war, at a time when the economy was experiencing an upswing and as a result there was little time left to deal with the past. In addition, the post-war generation grew up during this period, which in 1945 was either very young or not yet born, and now began to ask unpleasant questions.

Work context

The drama is based on a real case, that of the euthanasia professor Werner Heyde , who was negotiated in the Auschwitz trials from 1963 to 1965. Walser took part in the negotiations as an observer and then wrote the essay “ Our Auschwitz ”. The process , writes Walser himself in a letter to Waine, “is probably the reason that 'The Black Swan' is so serious and distances itself from the ironic ”. The processes worried aloud Walser for a distance between people and the perpetrators depicted as a monster, was made impossible thus a reflection on one's own responsibility. He writes that the defendants were "people like you and me" who took a different route due to special circumstances.

In his essay he criticizes the fact that the legal process only convicts the actual murderers, but not those who are indirectly guilty: “The idealistic criminal law prefers to look at the hands. And they are simply not bloody with the political or economic cause ”. The processes thus become a kind of "alibi event" for him. A similar criticism is presented in his play by Liberé, who also considers the legal system to be a system through which judges and spectators can feel fair (see p. 262f .; I, 1). In an interview, Walser also reveals that he sympathizes more with the character Liberé than with Goothein, since the former is his own judge, who also assumes that the story will not be settled by the judiciary. Liberé's speeches in which he justifies himself can therefore be read as a “comment on the legitimacy of the Auschwitz trial ”, which Walser obviously doubts.

Walser makes it clear in his diaries that there is no language for Auschwitz and that it cannot be represented because only the victims know its reality. He cites the reason for the impossibility of representation in his essay “Realism X”, in which he writes that reality should be described as it appears in people's minds. H. as a perception of reality in people's consciousness . However, since only the victims consciously experienced the reality, only they can report about Auschwitz, which is why Walser does not make Auschwitz the subject of his play. He also writes in his essay that “every realistic depiction of the Third Reich [...] must extend into our time” in order to show how the characters acted then and how they act today. This happens in the "Black Swan", which deals with the effects of the Third Reich in the 1960s. In addition, all figures should be "made of the same material" so that there is neither the good nor the bad in the "Black Swan"; instead, each character struggles in their own way with the aftermath of the past. In the end, however, no solution is provided, only a multitude of options for dealing with the past are presented. Although Walser's essay “Realism X” was only written in 1964, i. H. after the "Black Swan" was already completed, some of the features of its new realism can already be found there.

Waine sees Walser's play “The Black Swan” as a gap in the development of comedy in his plays between the predominantly satirical language of his first three stage pieces and the ironic mood of his subsequent pieces. Walser himself wrote in a letter to them: "All the other pieces that I have written are funny, but this is not". Nevertheless, Waine recognizes features of irony in the "Black Swan" that contradict the seriousness of the subject; an example of this is the interruption of the celebration due to Rudi's suicide, which is actually a farewell party for Irm and her fiancé.

Theme of the play

Reaction to the Auschwitz trials

Based on Walser's essay “Our Auschwitz”, the play “The Black Swan” can be read as a “literary response to creating a distance between the perpetrators in the Auschwitz trial ”. For this, Walser chose perpetrator characters who are fathers of families and seemingly normal citizens - "every man" as Walser once calls them in a letter to Waine. This makes it possible, unlike in the processes in which the perpetrators were portrayed as monsters, to identify with the perpetrators and to reflect on one's own guilt and responsibility for the acts of National Socialism .

Memory possibilities

Instead of a solution, the piece presents “a number of memory options”. With Goothein, a perpetrator is introduced who believes he has been acquitted of guilt due to his four years in prison. Through constant employment he (apparently) manages to suppress his guilt. Liberé, on the other hand, depicts a perpetrator who suffers from enormous feelings of guilt and tries to punish himself for his actions, because he does not believe that a court hearing can change anything (see p. 262; I, 1). He tries to save his family from his past by means of a new identity and a fictional story, which he reminds them of again and again so that it remains in their memory and suppresses reality (cf. p. 279ff .; I, 3). His daughter Irm, against her better judgment, believes in this past, because she just wants to forget and “be the grass that grows over it” (p. 319; II, 7). Her mother would prefer to have no memory at all instead of “such a patch of chives from memory” (p. 280; I, 3), as she calls the invented past in India. Finally, Rudi is presented as a character who does not want to come to terms with being forgotten, but demands confessions about the deeds, which ultimately leads to his death. In doing so, he shows that you can not reach the wall of silence of the father generation either with feigned guilt, a strategic play or the confrontation with documentary evidence - not even suicide, as the end of the play shows (p. 325; II, 7).

The suicide

Rudi's suicide can be interpreted in different ways. On the one hand, Rudi himself says that after his death he no longer has to take part in the “atrocities of the next generation” (p. 318; II, 7) and thus will not find out what qualities he would discover in himself in this case. Walser writes in his essay “Our Auschwitz” that the perpetrators “were confusingly similar to all of us up to some point between 1918 and 1945” and only became perpetrators “through special circumstances”. One must therefore expect at all times that “hidden possibilities of evil will unfold when we are exposed to different social and political conditions”. Rudi feels this too, wondering whether the circumstances of the war would have made him a perpetrator as well, as they did with his father. The letter and the lack of a confession from his father also make him guilty, who must assume from himself that he would have acted the same in his father's situation and possibly will do so in the future. In addition, in his memory of the role play with Irm or Hedi, Rudi identifies himself as the "Black Swan", which represents an SS man and thus a perpetrator. Since only those who are dead can no longer be tempted to be guilty, Rudi sees no other way out than to murder himself.

Karasek writes that Rudi is killing himself for fear that he might also forget if he lives on. He doesn't want to stick to the "tacit agreement" to push the blame aside. According to Karasek , Walser wants to show through Rudi's death that one cannot live in constant awareness of guilt, which is why the brain invented a “ritual of beneficial amnesias ”. The constant awareness and reminder of guilt is ultimately fatal, as Rudi's case shows.

Ultimately, his suicide seems pointless, since it does not lead to change, but on the contrary, all characters continue to live as before and maintain their framework of lies. This pointlessness can be found again in the death of the victims of National Socialism . In addition, the suicide of the seven-stemmed Thuja, which is a symbol of Judaism, is symbolic and ultimately makes Rudi “a German victim of National Socialism”.

Rischbieter describes Rudi's death as a “theatrical death”, which Karasek confirms. It does nothing, but makes clear the unanswerable nature of the questions raised in Walser's play. Von Schilling also points out that suicide makes no sense, but rather illustrates the perplexity prevailing everywhere. It shows that consciousness cannot live with guilt, which is why forgetting is an existential necessity. The piece thus tells of the power of repression of memory, which is necessary in order to live on, as do all the characters with the exception of Rudi Goothein, who does not want to cling to oblivion and ultimately breaks because of it.

Relief arguments

Since Walser sympathizes with Liberé and his arguments are later even repeated by Rudi, Liberé's actual prosecutor (cf. p. 325; II, 7), it seems that Walser agrees. Liberé justifies his actions by stating that at the time he did not know what he was doing or what was going on (see p. 291; I, 5). He also describes “how difficult it is to pull the trigger” (p. 293; I, 5), whereby the perpetrators are made sufferers and even victims of the circumstances. Waine is convinced that if Walser had wanted to portray Liberé as morally guilty, at the end of the play he would not have allowed him to refuse a public trial, as he did in the first version. After Rudi's suicide and Goothein's accusations that he was to blame, he announced: “I have to go to town” without subsequently revoking his decision. In addition, the consent of his family to maintain the fiction of their life, with the daughter rejecting the name Hedi and the professor confirming himself to be called Liberé instead of Leibniz, reinforces the impression that Walser does not consider his character's behavior to be morally inexcusable, but rather for required. Despite Rudi's rebellion against oblivion and despite his suicide, there is no change. Instead, in the end the realization remains that “a public 'coping' and the condemnation of the perpetrators by the young generation are impossible in retrospect”, especially since they would not have known what they would have done “if [they] were old enough would have been ”(p. 292; I, 5).

Piece in piece

At the beginning of the second act, Rudi and his father and Liberé, together with the inmates from room 104, perform a staged play entitled "The domestication or taming of the Erinyes by Doctor F. An exercise for the guilty party", which is strongly reminiscent of Hamlet , the also uses a play as a means of provocation. Rudi's play is about a former concentration camp doctor who returns home plagued by guilt and is expected by Erinyes, whose job it is to keep reminding him of his guilt, as he is determined to atone for his deeds. However, he recovers quickly and his Erinyes become servants of his work as a businessman. With the help of the results obtained through cruel experiments during the war, he manufactures a new drug and becomes a “successful pharmaceutical manufacturer” instead of dealing with the past (see p. 306ff .; II, 6).

With the play Rudi wants to provoke his father and Liberé to confess their actions. Walser writes in his essay “ Hamlet as an Author” that Rudi apparently “saw no other means of helping himself”. Only through the play can what happened then be made public, and thereby a conversation about the past can arise, which Rudi is trying to achieve. The hoped-for reactions do not materialize, however (see p. 309; II, 6), so that no honest dialogue can arise. Likewise, through the staged piece , Walser also wants to hold up a mirror to the viewers of the "Black Swan", so to speak, and show them that the past has not come to terms with the economic upturn and reconstruction , since "the demands of the present are increasingly displacing the unpleasant memories" so that there is no time to remember the guilt. Rudi expresses this at the end of the piece as follows: "[T] he guilt falls asleep like the kitten in the sun" (p. 308; II, 6).

Reception and effect

premiere

The play was premiered on October 16, 1964 at the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart .

criticism

The reactions to Walser's play are "largely mixed" as Fetz writes. While Waine considers the play to be a successful contribution to the theater of coming to terms with the past and, in his opinion , Walser deals most specifically with this topic compared to other authors, others criticize that “The Black Swan” has “stylistic and dramatic weaknesses”. Taëni, for example, describes the characters as "largely typified and without a real life of their own". In his opinion, they only serve the interests of the author as well as "almost every element of the action is subordinate to the socially critical purposes of the author". He feels that the reaction to Rudi's suicide is implausible with regard to their own talents and accuses them of “dictated” behavior. In addition, Taëni criticizes that Walser does not stick to the Brechtian style , which he considers most suitable for the subject matter of the piece, but is also not able to “develop his own alternative style”. Critics also criticize the fact that at the end of the play there is no solution to the problem of not coming to terms with the past, so that the viewer remains at a loss at the end.

Karasek , on the other hand, emphasizes that the play does not provide a solution, but does discuss and define a state of affairs, and that "so astutely and thoroughly as it has never happened before in the drama that took up this topic." Other critics also praise the "Black Swan". Rischbieter, for example, notes that Walser is very insistent in describing "the investigation of guilt, the inspection of the souls of the guilty, the uncovering of the entanglement between all of our present and that 'past'". Johannes Jacobi expresses appreciation in an article that Walser differs from others in his portrayal of coming to terms with the past in that his play is "a dramatic fiction that enables the viewer to distance himself and at the same time demands a personal opinion". Other critics also appreciate Walser's play for the fact that it leaves the audience affected. Wendt writes, for example, that it “left a feeling of dismay, confusion, and perplexity”. However, you have to get involved with the piece and “face it personally”.

Walser himself considers the “Black Swan” to be his worst play , as he admits in an interview, as he “only tried to exacerbate the state of consciousness”. If reality is already clear from the start and you no longer have to make it recognizable by writing, as is the case here, "it is better to write a lecture" about it, he revealed. Even Emperor criticized that the piece "things [describes], which could be the content of a magnificent essay" while Müller holds the "Black Swan" for a psychological treatise and not for a play.

expenditure

First edition

  • The black swan. In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year. (Special issue) 5th year, 1964, pp. 65–80.

Revised versions

  • The black swan. German Chronicle. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964.
  • The black swan. In: Three pieces. Oak and Angora, larger than life Mr. Krott, The Black Swan. Berlin and Weimar. Construction Verlag, 1965.
  • The black swan. In: Spectaculum 8. Six modern plays. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966, ISBN 3-518-37400-1 , pp. 283-330.
  • The black swan. In: Collected Pieces. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-518-06506-8 , pp. 215-272.
  • The black swan. In: The Black Swan. Program book no. 69. Schauspielhaus Bochum, 1985, pp. 7-64.
  • The black swan. In: pieces. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-37809-0 , pp. 215-272.
  • The black swan. In: MWW. IX, pp. 257-325.

Secondary literature

  • Werner Brändle: The dramatic pieces of Martin Walser. Variations on the misery of the bourgeois subject. Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-88099-046-8 .
  • Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser. Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-10299-8 .
  • Wolfgang Ismayr: The political theater in West Germany. 1st edition. Hain 1977, ISBN 3-445-01430-2 .
  • Johannes Jacobi: The Black Swan. In: The time. March 25, 1966. (online)
  • Joachim Kaiser: There is nothing to understand. In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 128-132.
  • Hellmuth Karasek: The playwright Martin Walser. In: Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz: The narrator Martin Walser. Bern 1971, ISBN 3-7720-0899-2 , pp. 101-115.
  • Hellmuth Karasek: The Eternal Anti-Semite? In: The world. July 20, 2005. (online)
  • Hellmuth Karasek: Martin Walser as a playwright. Attempt of an analysis on the occasion of the Stuttgart premiere of the 'Black Swan'. In: The time. October 23, 1964. (online)
  • Helmuth Kiesel (ed.): Martin Walser. Works in twelve volumes. Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 258-325.
  • Matthias N. Lorenz: “Auschwitz pushes us into one spot”. Representation of Jews and Auschwitz discourse with Martin Walser. Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-476-02119-X .
  • Andreas Meier: Looking for a suitable language. An afterword by Andreas Meier. In: Andreas Meier (Ed.): Our Auschwitz. Confrontation with the German guilt. Reinbek near Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-499-27126-7 , pp. 371-399.
  • Werner Mittenzwei: The playwright Martin Walser. Epilogue. In: Three pieces. Berlin 1965, pp. 285-308.
  • André Müller: Overcome the unresolved? In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 133-135.
  • Henning Rischbieter: The Black Swan. In: Theater 1964. (Yearbook of Theater heute), p. 66.
  • Klaus v. Schilling: The present of the past in the theater. The culture of coping and its failure in political drama from Max Frisch to Thomas Bernhard. Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-8233-5229-6 .
  • Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz: The narrator Martin Walser. Bern 1971, ISBN 3-7720-0899-2 .
  • Rainer Taëni: Drama after Brecht. Possibilities of today's drama; an introduction to dramaturgical problems of the present on the basis of detailed analyzes of works by the authors Dorst, Hildesheimer, Michelsen, Walser, Kipphardt, Weiss. Basel 1968.
  • Anthony Edward Waine: Martin Walser. Munich 1980, ISBN 3-406-07438-3 .
  • Anthony Edward Waine: Martin Walser. The Development as a Dramatist 1950-1970. 1st edition. Bonn 1978, ISBN 3-416-01432-4 .
  • Martin Walser: The Black Swan. In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year. (Special issue) Vol. 5, 1964, pp. 65–80.
  • Martin Walser: The Black Swan. German Chronicle. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1964.
  • Martin Walser: Hamlet as an author. In: Ders .: Experiences and reading experiences. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 1969, pp. 51-58.
  • Martin Walser: Life and Writing. 1951-1962. 1st edition. Reinbek near Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-498-07355-9 .
  • Martin Walser: Life and Writing. 1963-1973. 1st edition. Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-498-07358-9 .
  • Martin Walser: Realismus X. In: Ders .: Experiences and reading experiences. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 1969, pp. 83-93.
  • Martin Walser: Our Auschwitz . In: Andreas Meier (Ed.): Our Auschwitz. Confrontation with the German guilt. Reinbek near Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-499-27126-7 , pp. 104–120.
  • Caroline Welsh: Aftermath of National Socialism. Mechanisms of the transfer of guilt to the children of the perpetrators and their cultural memory functions in Martin Walser's drama 'The Black Swan'. In: International Archive for the Social History of German Literature. 37, 2012, pp. 1-29.
  • Ernst Wendt: The realistic fiction. In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 123-128.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Walser: "The Black Swan". In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year (special issue) (1964). 5th vol., Pp. 65–80, here: p. 67.
  2. ↑ Cf. Anthony Edward Waine: Martin Walser. The Development as a Dramatist 1950-1970. 1st edition. Bonn 1978, p. 173.
  3. ↑ Martin Walser: "The Black Swan". In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year (special issue) (1964). 5th vol., Pp. 65–80, here: p. 67.
  4. ↑ Gerald A. Fetz: Martin Walser. Stuttgart 1997, p. 82.
  5. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 198.
  6. ↑ See ibid., P. 106.
  7. ↑ See Martin Walser: Life and Writing. 1963-1973. 1st edition. Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, pp. 105, 112.
  8. ↑ Martin Walser: The Black Swan. In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year (special issue) (1964). 5th vol., Pp. 65–80, here: p. 67.
  9. ↑ Cf. Caroline Welsh: “Aftermath of National Socialism. Mechanisms of the transfer of guilt onto the children of the perpetrators and their functions of memory culture in Martin Walser's drama 'The Black Swan' ”. In: International Archive for Social History of German Literature 37 (2012), pp. 1–29, here: p. 10.
  10. ↑ Quoted from: Helmuth Kiesel: Martin Walser. Works in twelve volumes. Frankfurt am Main 1997.
  11. ^ Walser, March 13, 1972. Letter to Waine quoted from: Waine: Martin Walser, p. 387.
  12. ↑ Martin Walser: The Black Swan. In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year (special issue) (1964). Volume 5, pp. 65–80, here: p. 80.
  13. ↑ See Martin Walser: The Black Swan. German Chronicle. Frankfurt am Main. Suhrkamp Verlag 1964.
  14. ↑ Werner Mittenzwei: Epilogue: "The playwright Martin Walser". In: Dreistücke, pp. 285–308, here: p. 287.
  15. ↑ Werner Brändle: The dramatic pieces of Martin Walser. Variations on the misery of the bourgeois subject. Stuttgart 1978, p. 121.
  16. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 206.
  17. ↑ Brändle: The dramatic pieces, p. 124.
  18. ↑ Matthias N. Lorenz: "Auschwitz pushes us into one spot". Representation of Jews and Auschwitz discourse with Martin Walser. Stuttgart 2005, p. 306.
  19. ↑ See ibid., P. 302.
  20. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1980, p. 148.
  21. ^ Walser, March 13, 1972. Letter to Waine quoted from: Waine: Martin Walser, p. 387.
  22. ↑ Cf. Walser: “Our Auschwitz”, p. 104f.
  23. ↑ Ibid., P. 108.
  24. ↑ See ibid., P. 112f.
  25. ↑ Ibid., P. 116.
  26. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: “The eternal anti-Semite? (World, July 20, 2005) ". https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article685693/Der-ewige-Antisemit.html (June 23, 2015).
  27. ↑ See Lorenz: Auschwitz, p. 306.
  28. ↑ Ibid., P. 300.
  29. ↑ See Walser: Life and Writing, p. 135.
  30. ↑ See Martin Walser: "Realism X". In: Ders .: Experiences and reading experiences. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 1969, pp. 83-93, here: pp. 88f.
  31. ↑ See Andreas Meier: “In search of a suitable language. An afterword by Andreas Meier ”. In: Our Auschwitz. Confrontation with the German guilt. Ed. V. Andreas Meier. Reinbek bei Hamburg 2015, pp. 371–399, here: p. 351.
  32. ↑ Walser: "Realismus X", p. 87.
  33. ↑ Ibid., P. 93.
  34. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 224.
  35. ^ Walser, September 25, 1971. Letter to Waine quoted from: Waine: Martin Walser, p. 386.
  36. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 217.
  37. ^ Welsh: "Aftermath of National Socialism", p. 25.
  38. ^ Walser, March 13, 1972. Letter to Waine quoted from: Waine: Martin Walser, p. 387.
  39. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1980, p. 149.
  40. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: “Martin Walser as a playwright. Attempt to analyze on the occasion of the Stuttgart premiere of the 'Black Swan' (Die Zeit, October 23, 1964) ”. http://www.zeit.de/1964/43/martin-walser-als-dramatiker (July 27, 2015), p. 3.
  41. ↑ Walser: “Our Auschwitz”, p. 113.
  42. ^ Wolfgang Ismayr: The political theater in West Germany. 1st edition. Hain 1977, p. 172.
  43. ↑ Ibid., P. 175.
  44. ↑ Welsh: "Aftermath of National Socialism", pp. 20f.
  45. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: “Martin Walser as a playwright. Attempt to analyze on the occasion of the Stuttgart premiere of the 'Black Swan' (Die Zeit, October 23, 1964) ”. http://www.zeit.de/1964/43/martin-walser-als-dramatiker (July 27, 2015), p. 3.
  46. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: "The playwright Martin Walser". In: Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz: The narrator Martin Walser. Bern 1971, pp. 101–115, here: p. 109.
  47. ^ Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz: The narrator Martin Walser. Bern 1971, p. 109.
  48. ^ Ismayr: The political theater, p. 175.
  49. ↑ Lorenz: Auschwitz, p. 306.
  50. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: “Martin Walser as a playwright. Attempt to analyze on the occasion of the Stuttgart premiere of the 'Black Swan' (Die Zeit, October 23, 1964) ”. http://www.zeit.de/1964/43/martin-walser-als-dramatiker (July 27, 2015), p. 3.
  51. ↑ Klaus v. Schilling: The present of the past in the theater. The culture of coping and its failure in political drama from Max Frisch to Thomas Bernhard. Tübingen 2001, p. 80.
  52. ↑ See Lorenz: Auschwitz, p. 306.
  53. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 205.
  54. ↑ See Martin Walser: The Black Swan. In: Theater 1964 - Chronicle and balance sheet of a stage year (special issue) (1964). Volume 5, pp. 65–80, here: p. 80.
  55. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 212.
  56. ↑ Lorenz: Auschwitz, p. 307.
  57. ↑ Waine: Martin Walser. 1980, p. 150.
  58. ↑ Martin Walser: "Hamlet as an author". In: Ders .: Experiences and reading experiences. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 1969, pp. 51–58, here: p. 58.
  59. ↑ See ibid., P. 57f.
  60. ↑ Waine: Martin Walser. 1980, p. 152.
  61. ↑ See Walser: Life and Writing, p. 130.
  62. ^ Fetz: Martin Walser, p. 92.
  63. ↑ See Waine: Martin Walser. 1978, p. 225.
  64. ^ Fetz: Martin Walser, p. 92.
  65. ↑ Rainer Taëni: Drama by Brecht. Possibilities of today's drama; an introduction to dramaturgical problems of the present on the basis of detailed analyzes of works by the authors Dorst, Hildesheimer, Michelsen, Walser, Kipphardt, Weiss. Basel 1968, p. 107f.
  66. ↑ Ibid., P. 117.
  67. ↑ Ibid., P. 121.
  68. ↑ Ibid., P. 121.
  69. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: “Martin Walser as a playwright. Attempt to analyze on the occasion of the Stuttgart premiere of the 'Black Swan' (Die Zeit, October 23, 1964) ”. http://www.zeit.de/1964/43/martin-walser-als-dramatiker (July 27, 2015), p. 2.
  70. ↑ Henning Rischbieter: "The Black Swan". In: Theater 1964 (Yearbook of Theater heute), p. 66.
  71. ↑ Johannes Jacobi: "The Black Swan (Die Zeit, March 25, 1966)". http://www.zeit.de/1966/13/der-schwarze-schwan (July 22, 2015), p. 1.
  72. ↑ See Fetz: Martin Walser, p. 93.
  73. ↑ Ernst Wendt: "The realistic fiction". In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main. 1970, pp. 123-128, here: p. 123.
  74. ↑ Ibid., P. 124.
  75. ^ Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz: The narrator Martin Walser. Bern 1971, p. 74.
  76. ↑ Ibid., P. 74.
  77. ↑ Joachim Kaiser: “There is nothing to be understood”. In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 128–132, here: p. 131.
  78. ↑ Cf. André Müller: Coped with the unresolved? In: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Martin Walser. Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 133–135, here: p. 135.