An era is visited

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Dust jacket of the first print in 1946

An era will be visited are the memoirs of Heinrich Mann , written from 1943 to June 23, 1944 in exile in California and published in Stockholm in March 1946 with an edition of 3,500 copies . The Aufbau-Verlag Ost-Berlin published the book in 1947 with 40,000 copies. Johannes R. Becher had preprinted some chapters in Moscow in 1945 .

The history of Europe will be visited, starting with the French Revolution through the "extensive phenomenon" Napoléon to Wilhelmine Germany . The author takes a closer look at the Weimar Republic and the era of National Socialism as an emigrant up to the foreseeable destruction of the Greater German Reich . The largely sarcastic reading, a - especially for German readers - sometimes bile-bitter medicine, contains a number of short portraits of people from contemporary history that are well worth reading .

age

Heinrich Mann dates both the beginning and the end of the era in question and also sums up the 19th century epoch.

  • June 6, 1944. In the penultimate sentence of his memoirs, Heinrich Mann wrote: “Completed on the seventeenth after D-day ”. An old age is "leaving".

The author has witnessed almost half of these one and a half centuries and is therefore probably authorized to take this - albeit quite idiosyncratic - view of history. This autobiography could actually be called “Exile from Europe”. Because the reader perceives all too clearly after reading it at the latest that the author can be expelled from the continent, which begins on February 21, 1933 with an inconspicuous train train journey from Berlin to Frankfurt am Main and on October 13, 1940 with the landing in the Port of New York ends, don't get over it. Heinrich Mann has "more luck than brains". He “must” write it down. He sees “the German adventures that Napoleon imitates” as the cause of his violent uprooting.

With all the disappointment, with all the resentment, Heinrich Mann is deeply grateful that he was allowed to live through his age: “Living it from A to Z made you cry and laugh”.

States

In his memoirs, Heinrich Mann characterizes different states in 19 chapters on 511 pages.

"The imperial Reichsbank President Havenstein, " mocked Heinrich Mann, died in 1923 "of shock" before he understood the inflation . The "hastily swollen inflation merchant Stinnes " earns for his children. At the end of 1923, inflation would have "stopped". Suddenly the "Goldmark" was there after "Kaufmann Stinnes, a comet, and his magical fellow stars had brought the tangible basis of national income into their possession". Even before 1933, “the industrialists financed the Pan-Germans , and mainly the stubborn demands of the industrialists for conquered territories” had “driven the emperor and his strategists to complete defeat”.

The "sick, not spared by anyone" President Ebert was said to have been "hooted" by the National Socialists in Munich as an "unprotected tourist" when they were not yet called Nazis. Reich Chancellor von Papen would have been "a professional spy" during the First World War . " Hitler killed General von Schleicher as early as 1934," writes Heinrich Mann. And, he continues: “The republic has not changed the existing distribution of power. Generals, large landowners and industrialists remained in power, as ever ”. In “Germany before the seizure of power ”, power would have been “on the streets”.

  • National Socialist Germany

The "inspection" of these fateful years occupies a large space in the memory book. “The Germans” had “chosen their government themselves, specifically to be executed”. "Terror in Germany", directed against "socialists, Jews, intellectuals, Christians", was "required", "so that no contradiction loudly" would become "against the war". And “the German masses” would have been there “to deceive them, to despise them.” So that the armament “would not have been in vain”, “there would have to be war”. The " pact " of August 23, 1939 is said to have hyped "kinship with the Soviets ". Hitler sent "his proletarian masses as friends". “That” was “even more dangerous”.

The "German attack on the Soviet Union " was "no longer to be explained by moral insanity". “Their last predatory war” cost “the Germans their land”. Heinrich Mann registered more than two thousand political executions in Germany in just one month in 1944.

  • Soviet Union

Radek's dialogue with the public prosecutor Vyshinsky at the Moscow Trial in 1937 is mentioned. From August 23, 1939, the day of the non-aggression pact, the “silent Soviets” had built “shelters” in Moscow.

“Thanks to the wisdom of England ”, writes Heinrich Mann, “the conquered countries forgot that they had been conquered. The social invention of the empire is the commonwealth of all its parts ”. “It must be a common good that is believed to be safe for the future when Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, including Indians, sacrifice their blood unnecessarily in Europe”. Hitler called "his English-speaking opponents idiots in front of the assembled Reichstag ".

“The service of the word”: Heinrich Mann warns against Hitler for eight years in a French newspaper close to the government. Heinrich Mann attended meetings in Paris up to 1935 at which Henri Barbusse prepared the French Popular Front . Léon Blum is to become Minister of the Popular Front. Blum's opponent is Pierre Laval . André Gide , who has seen the Soviets differently since his visit to Moscow than he did from Paris, takes part in the meetings, as does Louis Aragon and the physicist Paul Langevin .

The "overrun of France" serves Hitler to make the German workers ready for the " attack of the Soviet Union ". "The execution of every fascist ghost" costs "the living French two hundred strangled and shot dead".

Portraits

Sketches

Heinrich Mann inserted some “ novelistic sketches” into the text or conjured up haunting images.

  • “Captain Langsdorf ”, commander of the German “ vest pocket battleship ” Admiral Graf Spee , shot himself on December 19, 1939 in Buenos Aires .
  • The chapter “My Brother” is a homage to Thomas Mann .
  • Berlin, Unter den Linden 1906: A worker is thrown out of a café.
  • Tilla Durieux appears in Berlin.
  • Arthur Schnitzler , the "beloved friend", the "poet of death", is honored in a chapter.
  • " Félix Bertaux , Germanist, teacher at a lycée" and Heinrich Mann invited each other to Paris and Munich after the First World War.
  • “A love story” tells of a calculating young woman who catches a rich man who is much younger. The couple advanced to become the war profiteers of the First World War, but were not happy about it.
  • Max Liebermann , the friend, died in Berlin in 1935. "The surviving wife poisoned herself when she was supposed to be deported" to the East "".
  • " Udet " asks "his friend" Hitler: "Have you gone crazy?"
  • The “bully” and “daredevil” Bismarck receives the “writer ” and “fighting stallion” , the “ Robespierre without guillotine”, Ferdinand Lassalle .

Friend and foe

Eyewitness Jx Heinrich Mann wants to interfere "with moderation". So the “viewer” of this “tour” introduces himself with “Jx”. Even so, the distinction between his friends and enemies is almost always possible. Getting away from what's going on is a resolution that Jx can rarely keep. All too often, Jx's vein swells. Then he quickly steps too close.

friend

  • Heinrich Mann chats about how his friend, the "trained speaker Albert Steinrück , became the public's lackey".
  • Heinrich Mann calls " Thomas Garrick Masaryk " his true friend. The founder of the Czechoslovak state helps the German emigrant, who repeats the Czech incorrectly, to obtain Czechoslovak citizenship in 1936.
  • Heinrich Mann writes appreciatively about Ernst Barlach , Max Reinhardt , the theater man, Anatole France , Ernest Renan , the doubter. And he mourns the murdered friend Erich Mühsam .
  • Heinrich Mann expresses himself respectfully about Giacomo Puccini , Dostoevsky and Tolstoy . “ The Kreutzer Sonata ” is “one of the wonders of the age”. In one breath with his praise for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Heinrich Mann dares to claim that the “ October Revolution ” is the “realization of a century of literature”. Stendhal and his hero "Julien Sorel" in " Le Rouge et le Noir ". are equally admired.
  • Heinrich Mann writes about Bismarck with great respect: "The prince made the peace strong from 1875 to 1990". In 1883 - fourteen years before the British - he started the "German workers' insurance". Bismarck was "a conservative boon of this continent" [Europe] "- endlessly removed from its threat".
  • Heinrich Mann feels sympathy for the victors of the Second World War - for Churchill , who has "his roots in the writer Churchill" and for Roosevelt , the "most spiritual guy America knows".

enemy

  • Wilhelm II .: Heinrich Mann's aversion to Wilhelm II appears particularly pronounced. The Kaiser plays the “absolute ruler”. In addition, he often changes his clothes, always travels, knows everything and speaks even more. He only respects money and connects with industry. Wilhelm II provokes, shrugs back and plays "with deadly hostilities". In 1906 the Emperor rode past Heinrich Mann on Unter den Linden in the “posture of a comfortable triumphant. When he is greeted, "he smiles - less severely than with reckless disregard". Regarding the “workers legislation”, the emperor remarked: “The compote bowl is full” and when the war broke out: “I did not want that”.
  • Hitler: The insulting epithets that Heinrich Mann uses to denote his intimate enemy in the text from the safe distance of his exile in California suggest what the author thinks of the “ Führer ”: the “Schreckensmann”, the “private, who never becomes a non-commissioned officer” could ”, the“ pathological type ”in which the masses“ see their perfect pattern ”, the“ false revolutionary ”, the“ bogey ”, the“ doll of heavy industry ”,“ the dream walker ”,“ Schicklgruber Adolf with German-Bohemian Accent and Ascension Nose ”,“ Sleight of hand of world domination ”and“ Lord of all Pétains ”. The idea of ​​the “dilettante” is, “Nobody wants war, so I can make it”. Germany would give itself into the hands of the "lower individual". With his “ attack on the Soviet Union ”, Hitler imitated “Napoleon's invasion of Russia ”, precisely to the day - June 22nd. Hitler draws all of his political capital from " anti-Bolshevism ". The “strategy of the Führer” is based “on his irrational impulses”. That is why the “ manufacturers ” could not get any “sober plans”. Hitler was "too lucky". In the event of a disaster, he is despised "from the general who board the rescue plane to the common man when he freezes on the ice after a last piece of horse meat -" in grotesque positions ", as reported". The “ headquarters ” had to be “moved back to Poland and, who knows, how soon it will be in Chemnitz”.
  • Art theft in the countries occupied by the Wehrmacht is deeply hated by the Schöngeist Heinrich Mann. So he puts the NSDAP politician Alfred Rosenberg and the German ambassador in Paris, SS Brigadefuhrer Otto Abetz in the pillory.
    • "Rosenberg, former spy of the tsar, the reliable Balte", had plundered in "conquered Russia".
    • The "drawing teacher Abetz" offered the "painter Picasso " the "co-operation" in vain.

Bon mots

  • Blitzkrieg - is the admission that you could only get to your destination with a day's lead, then never again .
  • Total war - clearly means that the living nations are never really defeated: they must be killed .
  • Herrenvolk , Lebensraum and every other hoax are belated answers to the powerful word freedom .
  • War provides students with an excuse that is protected from censure in order not to learn anything more .
  • “Can he play his Andante ?” Beethoven asked because it is the hardest part .

Quotes

  • Every German of rank has suffered from the Germans .
  • Second World War: The Germans do not defend anything. Nobody had threatened their country .
  • The Germans after the First World War: Whoever hates profusely, destroys himself .
  • The lucky bears and wears itself .
  • We only have our common sense .
  • Anyone who denies reason does not need to be precise anywhere .
  • The love is free, only the inner grace give directions to the chosen one .
  • Nobody becomes good on orders from above .
  • Those who neither read nor learn are destined to fail on the spot like those before them .
  • The hatred does not forgive .
  • "Everyone who is to die is honorable," said Clemenceau .
  • Grace with dignity does wonders .
  • Fertility is the venture itself .
  • The scary is invisible .
  • The problem dies when innocence is wise .
  • Happiness that we don't deserve turns into disaster .
  • Heinrich Mann's “belief” in the Germans: In their public unskillfulness, they will do some new mischief .

Self-testimony

  • On November 11, 1943, Heinrich Mann wrote in a letter that his memoirs were less about self- reflection than about : It is about the overall result that I draw .

reception

  • In 1950, Thomas Mann praised his brother. The work is said to have an indescribably severe and cheerful shine, naive wisdom and moral dignity, written in a prose whose intellectually resilient simplicity makes it appear to me as the language of the future . And he prophesies - well-disposed towards the brother in this special case: I am convinced that the German school reading books of the twenty-first century will use samples from this book as a model.
  • The reader Dietze has the impression: Every line of the surveyed balance sheet is written under the overwhelming impression that at about the same time as one's own life curve is falling, an age is coming to an end and a new one is coming up.
  • According to Koopmann , these memoirs are the reconstruction of history since the early 19th century with the help of irrational categories such as the attitude to life.
  • Eder estimates: The chapter “My brother” in these memories is dictated by affection and admiration.
  • Schneider refers to statements from the years 1947–1949
  • Heinrich Mann had always admitted his partiality.

shape

  • elements

These memoirs consist of retrospectives , commentaries , portraits , novellistic sketches and autobiographical messages .

  • Malpractice

The above-mentioned elements are combined into a work of art with tremendous creative force. A closer look reveals a few small weaknesses in shape. For example, Heinrich Mann conjures up the same horrific image of a Hamburg street twice : after the air raid on the city on July 24, 1943 , residents fleeing on foot before the firestorm got stuck in the heated asphalt and were given the coup de grace by patrolling German soldiers.

  • Narrative attitude

The narrative attitude varies from warmth of heart to biting mockery.

  • polemic

Many blunt assertions made by Heinrich Mann cannot be confirmed by today's historical research. B.

In 1939, Hitler had General von Fritsch shot on the Polish front .

  • Categorization

These memoirs are by no means an objective report. They are more likely to be classified as a literary work. For example, eyewitness Jx used such creations as the solar plexus in a person's head. This strange term, nowhere explained, haunts Heinrich Mann's late work. B. also in the last two novels Reception at the World and The Breath . There as here, solar plexus stands for something that generates our nightmares, among other things.

literature

source

  • An era is visited . Volume 24: Heinrich Mann: Collected Works. 732 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1982.

expenditure

  • An era is visited . S. Fischer, ISBN 3-596-25929-0 .
  • An era is visited. Study edition in individual volumes. With an afterword by Klaus Schröter and a material appendix compiled by Peter-Paul Schneider. Fischer-TB, Frankfurt 1988 (4th edition 2007), ISBN 978-3-596-25929-8 .

Secondary literature

  • Sigrid Anger (Ed.): Heinrich Mann. 1871-1950. Work and life in documents and images. 335. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1977, 586 pp.
  • Volker Ebersbach : Heinrich Mann . Pp. 291-294. Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1978, 392 pp.
  • Walter Dietze: Afterword . In: Heinrich Mann: Gesammelte Werke , Volume 24, pp. 567-598. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1982.
  • Helmut Koopmann in: Gunter E. Grimm , Frank Rainer Max (eds.): German poets. Life and work of German-speaking authors . Volume 7: From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century . S. 37. Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-008617-5 .
  • Jürgen Eder in Helmut Koopmann (Ed.): Thomas Mann Handbook. S. 749. Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-82803-0 .
  • Gero von Wilpert: Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A-Z . P. 410. Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 .

supporting documents

An era is visited . Volume 24: Heinrich Mann: Collected Works. 732 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1982.

  1. ↑ p. 67.
  2. ↑ p. 215.
  3. ↑ p. 223
  4. ↑ p. 231.
  5. ↑ p. 234.
  6. ↑ p. 242.
  7. ↑ p. 262.
  8. ↑ p. 343.
  9. ↑ a b p. 344.
  10. ↑ a b p. 355.
  11. ↑ a b p. 472.
  12. ↑ p. 473.
  13. ↑ p. 467.
  14. ↑ a b p. 148.
  15. ↑ p. 229.
  16. ↑ p. 299.
  17. ↑ p. 436.
  18. ↑ p. 208.
  19. ↑ a b p. 194.
  20. ↑ p. 352.
  21. ↑ p. 284.
  22. ↑ a b p. 47.
  23. ↑ p. 49.
  24. ↑ p. 50.
  25. ↑ p. 22.
  26. ↑ p. 179.
  27. ↑ p. 466.
  28. ↑ p. 471
  29. ↑ a b p. 32.
  30. ↑ p. 12.
  31. ↑ p. 14.
  32. ↑ p. 222.
  33. ↑ p. 476.
  34. ↑ p. 109.
  35. ↑ p. 110.
  36. ↑ p. 115.
  37. ↑ p. 134.
  38. ↑ p. 175.
  39. ↑ a b p. 193.
  40. ↑ a b p. 360.
  41. ↑ p. 403.
  42. ↑ p. 404.
  43. ↑ a b p. 15.
  44. ↑ p. 117.
  45. ↑ p. 118.
  46. ↑ a b p. 364.
  47. ↑ p. 350.
  48. ↑ p. 414.
  49. ↑ a b c p. 29.
  50. ↑ p. 149.
  51. ↑ p. 486.
  52. ↑ p. 35.
  53. ↑ p. 43.
  54. ↑ p. 59.
  55. ↑ p. 184.
  56. ↑ p. 190.
  57. ↑ p. 198.
  58. ↑ p. 257.
  59. ↑ p. 259.
  60. ↑ p. 305.
  61. ↑ p. 376.
  62. ↑ p. 409.
  63. ↑ p. 413.
  64. ↑ p. 437.
  65. ↑ p. 478.
  66. ↑ p. 505.
  67. ↑ pp. 340, 422.
  68. ↑ p. 323.
  69. ↑ p. 340.

Other sources

  1. ↑ Schneider in the edition of Fischer-TB, Frankfurt 1988, pp. 630-631.
  2. ↑ Klaus Schröter in the afterword of the 1988 edition, p. 628 middle.
  3. ↑ Ebersbach, p. 279.
  4. ↑ a b Dietze , p. 576.
  5. ↑ quoted in Dietze , p. 574.
  6. ↑ quoted in Ebersbach , p. 294.
  7. ↑ quoted in Koopmann , p. 22.
  8. ↑ Dietze , p. 567.
  9. ^ Schneider in the edition of Fischer-TB, Frankfurt 1988, pp. 740–741.
  10. ^ Karl Lemke in the German biography .
  11. ^ Walter Kiewert in the German biography.
  12. ↑ Klaus Schröter in the afterword of the 1988 edition, p. 621 below.