German Life and Letters 492 April 1% 0016-8777

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION’

PAUL O’DOHERTY

It has often been claimed since 1945 that the destruction of German Jewry in the Shoah brought with it the end of German-Jewish literature or of the German-Jewish symbiok2 These claims sit uneasily with the existence of such important figures in postwar German literature as Paul Celan, Rose Auslander, Edgar Hilsenrath, Rafael Seligmann and a small number of others associated with West German literature. One thinks also of Peter Weiss, resident in Sweden, Lion Feuchtwanger in the USA3 and the Austrian Erich Fried in London, or indeed Ilse Aichinger in Austria, who together represent a significant element in post-1945 German writing. It is in the GDR, however, that writers and intellectuals of Jewish descent were particularly prominent.

Friedrich Wolf, Arnold Zweig, Anna Seghers, Alexander Abusch, Stephan Hermlin, Stefan Heym, Hans Mayer, Ernst Bloch, Konrad Wolf, Jurek Becker, Gunter Kunert, Wolf Biermann, Helga Konigsdorf, Barbara Honig- mann and others were associated with the GDR for all or part of that state’s history. All are of Jewish descent and all were prominent in GDR literary and cultural life, with the exception of Honigmann, whose success came after her departure from the GDR. Many of those above left the GDR, for various reasons which, with the exception again of Honigmann, had little or nothing to do with Jewishness.

Contrary to claims about post- 1945 German-Jewish literature, the above writers, taken as a whole, represent a continuation of this literature after the Shoah. Some of these writers represent a strongly assimilationist tend- ency within Judaism, notably Seghers and Abusch, as well as one which declined to discuss Jewish themes. Others repeatedly introduced Jewish issues in their writings, though usually without offering either a religious or a national definition ofJudaism. Honigmann left for cultural and religious reasons, which she outlined subsequently in an interview4 and which had

’ This paper is a revised version of a talk given at the Conference of University Teachen of German, held at the University College of Swansea in March 1994. I am grateful to Moray McGowan of the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Sheffield for the invitation to give that talk.

Examples of this claim are: ‘Die Konturen dieser [pre-1945] deutsch-jiidischen Literatur - abrupt beendet, unwiederholbar und nicht fortzusetzen - will dieses Buch nachzeichnen’ (Hans Schiitz,

JudcIl in dcr dnrtschen Litcrutur, Munich 1992, pp. 26-7); the Shoah as ‘Vorginge, mit denen die deutsch-jiidische Symbiose ihr furchtbares Ende fand’ (‘Vorbemerkung der Herausgeber’, in Jh in dn dnrtschen Litcratur, ed. StCphane MosZs and Albrecht Schone, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, p. 11).

Feuchtwanger’s post-45 novels with a ‘Jewish’ content published in the GDR include Die J a i n nrm Tole&, Berlin 1955, and Je$a und seine Tochtcr, Berlin 1957. ’ Ariane Thomalla, ‘Von Ost-Berlin nach StraDburg. Cesprich mit der deutsch-jiidischen Schriftstel- lerin Barbara Honigmann’, D e n t s c W Archiu, 19 (IW), 1 2 W . Honigmann did not consider it possible to lead a Jewish life in West Germany either, and chose instead to resettle in Strasbourg. Q Bl~ckwcll Publishers Ltd 1996. Published b Blackwell Publishen, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 lJF, UK md 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, LSA.

272 GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES I N GDR FICTION

more to do with a lack of Jews in East Berlin than with the kind of persecution alleged by another Jewish GDR exile, Chaim NoL5 There were few, if any, writers of a strongly religious or national Jewish tendency in the GDR. Of course, this would in any case be unlikely, given the opposition of the GDR both to religion and to Zionism. Neither, however, were there many such writers in exile from the GDR.

There is, on the other hand, a body of German-Jewish writing in GDR fiction which is anything but monolithic in its nature.6 Some such texts were among the most prominent pieces of literature produced by GDR writers of whatever background, and the Shoah is by no means the only theme in this literature. Examples are Stefan Heym’s novel about the Jewish German socialist, Lassalle,’ the same author’s novel about the Wandering Jew, Ahasver,8 Arnold Zweig’s World War I novel, Die Feuerpa~se,~ or Jurek Becker’s thematising of Jewish storytelling.” Indeed, there was even a small non-Jewish contribution to this body of literature, the most prominent examples of which are a novel, some short texts and several poems by Johannes Bobrowski.” Although the question of Jewishness was not central to the literary debate in the GDR, I shall argue that this body of literature was sufficiently prominent to make the question mark in Thomas C. Fox’s look at Jewishness in the GDR superflu~us.’~ I shall also argue that this body of work alone, even without reference to Celan, Weiss, Fried and others, negates the claim that German-Jewish literature found its ‘irrevo- cable end’13 in the Shoah.

In December 1952 the wave of Stalin-inspired anti-Semitic show trials which had swept Eastern Europe finally began to have consequences for Jews in the GDR, partly due to the naming of Paul Merker and other East German Jews in the Slansky Trial in November 1952 in Prague, and partly simply because the GDR was the only remaining state under Stalin’s control which had not yet staged such show trials. However one interprets the motivation behind the subsequent arrests and trials in the GDR, it is not

Hans [= Chaim] Noll, ‘Friichte des Schweigens: Judische Selbstverleugnung und Antisemitismus in der DDR, Dcutrchlund Archiv, 22 (1989), 769-78.

In an otherwise excellent essay, ‘Der verordnete Antifaschismus’, Ralph Giordano claims that Jewish writers in the GDR were obliged to ‘sich “antizionistisch” bekennen’ (Ralph Giordano, Die zwcitc Schld odcr Von dcr Larf Drvtrcb zu sein, Berlin 1990, pp. 215-28 (here p. 226)). Giordano offers no proof to support his thesis, but claims to have spoken often with Alfred Kantorowicz and Ernst Bloch on the subject. In a revised version of the essay (1990), Giordano refers to Jewish Politburo members Hermann Axen and Albert Norden and the writer Peter Edel as ‘careerists’ (p. 374). There is, however, no evidence that the anti-Zionist views of these Jewish communists were anything other than sincerely held. Giordano’s claim is, I suggest, untenable. ’ Stefan Heym, Larsallc, Berlin 1974. ‘Stefan Heym, A h w , Berlin 1988. ‘Arnold Zweig, DL Firmpoucc, Berlin 1954. ”Jurek Becker, ‘Grothater’, in J. B., Erzamgcn, Rostock 1986, pp. 5-10. ” Johannes Bobrowski, Lmins Mihlc, Berlin 1964. ”Thomas C. Fox, ‘A ‘yewish Question” in GDR literature?’, GLL, 44 (1990-1), S 7 0 . l3 This claim is made on the mver of Schiitz’s book: ‘die deutsch-jiidische Literaturgeschichte, [...I die mit dem V6lkermord der Nationalsozialisten ihr unwidermfliches Ende fand’. @ Blackwell hblishen Ltd 1996

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION 273

disputed that a t least 400 members of the GDR’s Jewish communities left for the West in January and February 1953. Certainly, these events were widely covered in the world’s media, including regular reports in The Times.

In March 1953 Stalin died, and in its next edition Sinn und Form honoured him with contributions from 12 writers praising his life. Of these twelve East German contributors, 5 had Jewish backgrounds, a somewhat bizarre statistic given the atmosphere at the time.14 Just a few years later we are confronted with another curious statistic: in 1958, three of these five occu- pied three of the most important posts in the cultural life of the GDR, Alexander Abusch as minister for culture, Anna Seghers as president of the writers’ union, and Arnold Zweig as honorary president of the Akademie der Kunste.I5 Of these, however, only Zweig was a member of a Jewish community, the East Berlin one.16

The above statistics are quoted in order to establish what I believe is crucial to any discussion of Jewishness and/or anti-Semitism in the GDR. I t has been argued that the GDRs open anti-Zionism (after 1952) often led to expressions of opinion which bordered on the anti-Semitic. Events in 1952-3 are also often quoted to support the theory that the GDR was an anti-Semitic state. Whichever way one defines the discrimination against Jews which took place in the GDR, however, it is not comparable to the racially based anti-Semitism of the Third Reich. The GDR never divided society into Jews and non-Jews, discriminating against all of the former. Seghers, for example, though her father had been a ‘bourgeois’ elder of the Mainz Jewish community, was never confronted with her Jewishness by GDR officialdom.

The extent to which a writer of Jewish origins in the GDR could be considered a ‘Jewish writer’ was, in effect, a decision that was left to the individual concerned. Apart from the brief period in 1952-3, mentioned above, such a decision had neither negative nor positive consequences for a writer. Most chose not to be Jewish or, at least, not openly Jewish. For the most part, Jewish writers in the GDR were socialists and communists who believed that socialism was the solution to the ‘Jewish question’.

A close look at Stalin’s five Jewish obituarists is instructive. In 1924 Netty Reiling completed her doctoral thesis on Jews in Rembrandt’s paint- ings. Reiling, or Anna Seghers, to give her her pen-name, did not publish

’* ‘Zum Tode J. W. Stalins’, Sinn und Form, 5 (1953), 2, 10-17 . The Contributors of Jewish origin were Alexander Abusch, Stephan Hermlin, Anna Seghers, Friedrich Wolf and Arnold Zweig. ” Abusch was Minister of Culture from 195861, before going on to become Ulbricht’s deputy as head of the Council of Ministers. Seghers was president of the ‘Schriftstellerverband’ from 1952-77; Zweig was honorary president of the ‘Akademie der Kiinste’ from 1953 until his death in 1968, having been president from 1950-53. There appears to be nothing sinister about Zweig’s change of job in 1953. l6 Peter Kirchner, a former president of the East Berlin Jewish community, has stated that Zweig was a member of that community until he died. See Peter Kirchner, ‘Die jiidische Minoritat in der ehemaligen DDR, in Zwischm Antismitismus undPhilornnilirmw.Judn in dn Burrdcsrcpubl~, ed. Wolfgang Benz, Berlin 1991, pp. 29-39 (here p. 31).

0 BlaekweU Publiphers Ltd 19%.

274 GERMANdEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION

this work in the GDR until 1981.17 Seghers occasionally included Jewish figures in her works, one of the most notable being the ‘jiidischer Arzt’ in Dar siebte Kreuz, but these figures were never central, nor was any Jewish theme. Only after her eightieth birthday did Seghers bring her earlier concern with Judaism to public attention in the GDR.

Alexander Abusch suffered briefly in 1953. He had been editor in Mexico City from 1942 to 1946 of the literary-political monthly Freies Deutschland, a journal which was accused of having espoused Zionism in this period.’* Abusch’s career suffered only a brief setback, and he was not arrested. From 1946 to 1953 he was Secretary of the ‘Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands’, and in 1954 he became Deputy Minister for Culture. Abusch was, like Seghers, someone who never emphasised his Jewishness.

Friedrich Wolf I shall not deal with - he died in 1953 and, as with Brecht, who also died early in the GDRs history, it is difficult to regard him as a GDR writer. Not so Hermlin, almost all of whose publications have come in the post-I945 period, though initially in collaboration with Hans Mayer in the West.lg After moving to the GDR he published a collection of three stories in 1950, the title story of which dealt with a Jewish communist who rejects Zionism and returns to Poland in 1944 to engage in resistance activity there.20 Another book by Hermlin, which contains portraits of thirty resistance fighters and was published in 1951, refers to only two Jewish individuals.*l Hermlin makes it plain that for one of the two, Herbert Baum, anti-Semitism was designed merely to prevent the exploited classes of all nations from recognising the true cause of their exploitation. Thomas C. Fox describes these books as ‘two early literary examples of the orthodox Marxist theory of ant i -Semit i~m’.~~ As Fox points out, in Bronsteins Kinder, published in the GDR in 1987, Jurek Becker ironises the official attitude that Jews who were communists were persecuted primarily for their communism. Referring to a film in which the narrator’s girlfriend has been asked to play a Jewish resistance fighter specifically because of her own Jewish looks, the Jewish narrator tells us: ‘Die Geschichte handelte von einer Widerstandsgruppe, zu der auch eine Jiidin gehorte, eben Rahel; alle Mitglieder lebten mit falschen Papieren und waren auf gleiche Weise gefahrdet. Fur Rahel spielte es daher keine

Netty Reiling [Anna Seghers], Judc und Judml~m im Wde Rmbrandtr, Leipzig 1981. It had, in fact, supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which was the official

Soviet line until about 1949. It had also had contacts with Arnold Zweig’s antifascist journal in Palestine, the latter entitled Orient. See Alexander Abusch, ‘Die Bewihrung des groRen Realisten’, Nnu Dnrtsctu Likatur, 10 (19621, 1 1 , 3-9 (here p. 5).

Stephan Hermlin and Hans Mayer, Anrithttn i b n einige Biichm und Schnjbklln, Frankfurt a. M. 1947. This was revised and enlarged for the East Berlin edition of 1948.

Stephan Hermlin, DU 2 t dn Cmuinsdcit, Berlin 1950. ‘I Stephan Hermlin, DU nste Rcihc, Berlin 1951.

0 Blackwell PIlbliSbers Ltd 1996.

22 Fox, p. 59.

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION 275

Rolle, daR sie Judin war . . .’23 One other charge that Fox makes is, however, perhaps a little unfair to Hermlin. He states that one of the ‘painful ironies’ of these books by Hermlin is that they ‘appeared during a period of pronounced anti-Semitic activity in East bloc ~ o u n t r i e s ’ . ~ ~ There had cer- tainly been an anti-Semitic element in the Budapest show trials of 1949. In the GDR, however, there had been purges in 1950, but no clear anti- Semitic element in state persecution until 1952, i.e. u f t r the publication of Hermlin’s books. I have argued elsewhere that the delay in starting such (Soviet-orchestrated) trials in the GDR was not co in~identa l .~~

Arnold Zweig had arguably been a Zionist before he settled in the GDR. He was a member of the East Berlin Jewish community until his death. He continued to write about Jewish themes, though with an increasingly critical attitude to Israel and Zionism. Nevertheless, positive characters are still occasionally pro-Israel, such as Hermann Treppner in Truum ist tcuer, published in 1962. Zweig, like Seghers, achieved prominence long before 1945, but lived and wrote for long enough after 1945 for it to be legitimate to regard him as, amongst other things, a GDR writer.

What all of these examples amount to is that writing about Jewish themes was a matter for the individual writer in the GDR, and continued to be so throughout the GDRs history. Writers such as Stephan Hermlin and Stefan Heym, who had first-hand experience, as adults, of the struggle against Nazism, published during the whole forty years of the GDR’s existence on Jewish themes. In addition, a new generation of writers of Jewish descent sprang up in the GDR in the 1960s and 1970s, writers who had not been part of any anti-Nazi campaign or part of the communist- led antifascist struggle. One thinks here of Jurek Becker, Gunter Kunert and Helga Konigsdorf. Non-Jewish writers who published on Jewish themes include Martin Greg~r[-Dellin],~~ Franz F i ihman~~,~’ Johannes Bobrowski and Heinz Knobloch,28 while minor Jewish figures play a part in fiction by Max Walter S c h ~ l z , ~ ~ Christa

John P. Wieczorek has challenged Bobrowski’s depiction of Jews in, amongst other things, the novel Leuins Muhie, where he claims the didactic

and a number of others.g1

23 Jurek Becker, Bronrtcins Kin&, Rostock 1987, p. 95. 24 Fox, p. 60. 25 Paul ODoherty, ‘The GDR in the Context of Stalinist Show Trials and Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe 1948-56, German History, 10 (1992), 302-17. 26 Martin Gregor, JiidFcha Largo, Halle 1956. Published subsequently in the West as J d o b Hufng!anz. 27 Franz Fuhmann, Dac Judmauto, Berlin 1962. 28 Heinz Knobloch, Hm Mows in Bnlin, Berlin 1979. 19 Max Walter Schulz, Wir sind nicht Sku46 im Wind, Halle 1962. ”Christa Wolf, Kindheitmuster, Berlin 1976. 31 In Die Judmdorskllung in da dcutschsprachigm Erzihllpmsa (194%1981), 2nd ed., KCnigsteiniTs. 1986, pp. 148-9, Heidy M. Miiller claims that there is a negative Jew portrayed in Werner Heiduczek‘s Abxhicd om den E q h , Halle 1968. This claim is repeated by Fox (p. 58). In fact, the figure concerned, who is in West Germany, merely pretends to be a Jew in order to get rid of a girlfriend he knows to be anti-Semitic. See Heiduczck, 6th ed., Halle 1971, pp. 26-7.

0 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1996.

276 GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION

intention in respect of German wrongs is all too apparent.32 However, he defends Bobrowski against Heidy Muller’s argument that Bobrowski is engaging in philo-Semitism by making his Jewish figures ‘makellose “Unsch~ldslammer”’~~ by pointing out that Levin’s passivity in the novel is implied criticism in the GDR. Thus, for all Bobrowski’s obvious sympathy with the Jews, his characterisation is in the mainstream of East German literature. Any philo-Semitic intention is counterbalanced by the lack of Jewish resistance to oppression. This problem is repeated in Jurek Becker’s Jakob der Liigner, published in 1969.

Becker has stated that his novel is all about r e ~ i s t a n c e . ~ ~ When it appeared in 1969, however, the novel was noted for two things in particular. One was that Becker introduced humour to the theme of a ghetto under the Nazis. The other was that there was little or no resistance to the Nazis, and certainly no organised communist resistance. Becker thematises this lack of resistance in the novel itself when he has the narrator inform us: ‘Es hat dort, wo ich war, keinen Widerstand gegeben’.35 Becker is tired of all the portrayals of heroic resistance to the Nazis, which at times leave the avid reader wondering how Nazism could ever have become so popular in Germany.36 So he takes a Jewish theme and uses it as a vehicle to challenge the existing orthodoxy on the subject. Becker’s resistance is to established GDR literary portrayals of the Nazi period. However, since those offering no resistance to the Nazis are Jews, Becker at once both challenges and conforms to the very orthodoxy he wishes to resist.

Becker is the most important representative of this younger generation of Jewish writers who published in the GDR. Gunter Kunert dealt with Jewish themes only occasionally, most notably in the fantastic novel Zm N a m der Hiite, published in 1967 in the West but not until 1976 in the GDR,37 though excerpts of the novel were published both in Weimarer Beitrage and in Sinn und Form in 1967. Rather than any Jewish themes, it seems to have been the intensely obscure content, not least in respect of its attitude to the GDR, which caused the delay in publication in the GDR. Helga Konigsdorfs Respektloser Umgang was published in 1986 and deals with the Jewish physicist, Lise Meitner, who was involved in the research that led to the splitting of the atom, but who was forced to flee Germany

32 John P. Wieczorek, ‘Questioning Philosemitism: The Depiction of Jews in the Prose Works of Johannes Bobrowski’, GLL, 44 (1990-1), 122-32. 33 Mirller, p. 116. 34Jurek Becker, ‘Resistance in Jakob dcr f ignn’ , Sminur, 19 (1983), 269-73 (here p. 273). ’5Jurek Becker, Jakob d n I i g n n , Berlin 1969, p. 93. 36 By having his narrator discuss trees at the beginning of the novel, Becker is implicitly referring to at least two novels and one poem which contain similar discussions and which stand in the GDRs self-defined antifascist tradition, even if some of this literature predates the GDRs existence. See Anna Seghers, Dac Sicbtc Krny, Berlin 1948, p. 7 (first published 1942); Bruno Apitz, Nuckt ~ l n WO)r61Jcn, 20th ed., Leipzig 1985, p. 7 (first published 1958). The poem is Benolt Brecht’s ‘An die Nachgeborenen’. Other literature in this tradition includes Bodo Uhse, Die Put&tcn, Berlin 1954, and Otto Gotsche, Dic Fahw DOR Kriuloj Rag, Berlin 1959. ”Gunter Kunert, Itn NOIIU. dcr HLtc, Munich 1967 and Berlin 1976. Q Blackwell PuMiShers Ltd 1996.

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION 277

in 1938, partly because of her Jewishness and partly due to a suspicion that she was sabotaging the research. Konigsdorf makes reference to her own part-Jewish ancestry, but this discussion is carried out entirely in the context of the Nazi period and, in particular, the Nuremberg Race Laws. When I asked Helga Konigsdorf, during a discussion in Nottingham in November 1992, whether the Jewish theme had created any difficulties for the publication of the book, her answer was a definitive ‘No’. Wolf Biermann is another prominent GDR writer of Jewish ancestry, and also one who had difficulties publishing and performing in the GDR. Jewish themes are not prominent in his works nor was his Jewish ancestry the reason for his difficulties with the GDR authorities. Becker, on the other hand, repeatedly approached Jewish themes.

Becker wrote four novels while in the GDR, and it is another statistic that the only one not published there is also the only one with no Jewish references. Jakob der Liigner and Der Boxer deal explicitly with Jewish themes, while in irrefihnmg der Behiirden one of the characters is a Professor of Law who had the prospect of a fine career before him until the Nazis decided that ‘seine Abstammung nicht den Notwendigkeiten e n t s p r a ~ h ’ , ~ ~ though the word ‘Jewish’ is not used explicitly. In Schlaflose Tage, published in the West in 1978, there is not even such an oblique reference to Jews. Again, decisions about what was allowed to be published had little or nothing to do with Jewishness.

Jakob der Liigner was orthodox GDR in another sense - it treated the Jewish question in connection with the Nazi period, i.e. as a past rather than present issue, though there is one brief postwar scene in the novel. Der Boxer takes the theme of Jews in society into the present, by looking at a Shoah survivor who fails to integrate into life in the GDR. Becker shows both his main protagonist and GDR society in an essentially negative light. The survivor of the Shoah, Aron Blank, refuses to become part of the new society, concentrating instead on raising his son, the only other survivor in his family. When his son leaves him by leaving the GDR, he deems his own life, if not actually his physical existence, to be at an effective end. GDR society is shown as one which concentrated far too much on the whole of society and which paid far too little attention to the needs of individuals, especially the individual whose experience of the Nazi period was neither as an actively resisting communist nor as one of the passive masses.

Stefan Heym, for all his frequent difficulties with the GDR authorities, repeatedly published on Jewish themes. His novel Der Kiinig David Bericht, a satire on Stalinism set in ancient Israel, was published in the GDR in 1973. The historical novel, h s a l l e , was published in the GDR in 1974. In this novel, Heym includes appendices which quote from Marx’s and Engels’s correspondence on the subject of Lassalle, correspondence which

38Jurck Becker, Irrecfiihtung der Behrdcn, 2nd ed., Rostock 1974, p. 57.

0 Blackwell Publishen Ltd 1996.

278 GERiMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION

is full of anti-Semitic reference^.^' The inclusion of these references may have prevented publication in 1969, but the period of liberalisation which followed Honecker’s ‘keine Tabus’ speech in 1971 appears to have enabled publication. The novel Ahasver finally appeared in the GDR in 1988, seven years after it had appeared in the West. In it, the GDR’s plans to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth are satirised, the author reminding us that Luther not only called for the massacre of peasants but was also an anti-Semite. In the novel, a correspondence between an East Berlin professor, called BeifuB, at the (fictitious) ‘Institut fiir Wissen- schaftlichen Atheismus’ and Professor Jochanaan Leuchtentrager (alias the Devil) of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on the subject of the Wander- ing Jew provides scope for a satire on the subordination of almost all work and research in the GDR to the official party line. As with the novel Collin, however, which was published in the West in 1979 and which led to the author being fined in the wave of repression which followed the Biermann affair of November 1976, it was the attacks on the GDR and the satirising of GDR bureaucracy that the censors objected to. The. Israeli connection possibly did not help the cause for the book’s publication either, though the GDR always maintained that Israel and the Jews were two entirely different issues.

Most GDR writers since Zweig have had no Israeli connections, unlike many members of the Jewish communities in the GDR. Reference is occasionally made to Israel, often indirectly. In Der Boxer, Aron Blank‘s son, Mark, writes to him every month until June 1967, the last few letters having come from Israel. The assumption is that Mark died in the Six Day War, a war which the GDR condemned as a war of Israeli aggression and over which most other East European countries broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, the GDR never having had such relations. In Bromteins Kinder, written while Becker was living in West Berlin though still a GDR citizen, three elderly Jews in East Berlin who are survivors of the concen- tration camps become oppressors themselves when they imprison and tor- ture a former camp guard. In an interview with Volker Hage in 1986, Becker stated explicitly that he was warning against the oppressed becsming oppressors, and specifically mentioned Israel.40

That Israel and the Jews were so distinct in the official GDR line is disputed by some. Chaim Noll, a Jewish exile from the GDR who is the son of Dieter Noll, has written the incredible sentence: ‘Das Wort “Staatssicherheit” wird in die Geschichte eingehen wie das Wort “Ausch- witz’”.“ In this essay, entitled Nachtgedanken iiber Deutschland, No11 repeatedly compares the GDR leadership to the Nazi leadership, though when it comes to hard facts, he appears to imply that whereas Hitler victimised Jews, the

’9 Heym, Lassallc, pp. 366-9.

1987, pp. 331-42 (here p. 337). “ Chaim Noll, Nachtgcdankm iibcr Drutschhnd, Reinbek 1992, Q. 95. @ Blackwell Pubtisbers Ltd 1996.

Volker Hage, ‘Hinter dem Ritcken des Vaten’, in Dcufscht Lihatur IW, ed. Volker Hage, Stuttgart

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES I N GDR FICTION 2 79

Stasi victimised Germans as a whole: ‘Ein von den Nazis gefolterter Jude raubt mir den Schlaf nicht anders als ein von der Staatssicherheit gefolterter D e ~ t s c h e r ’ . ~ ~ On other occasions he has referred to official anti-Semitism in the GDR, though the most blatant example of this is from the 1950~,*~ and much of the supposed anti-Semitism would appear to be a result of his own paranoia, as when he feels like a conspirator reading the quarterly Nachrichtenblatt der Jiidischen Gemeinden der DDR, a copy of which was always available in that most conspiratorial of places, the main public library in East Berlin.

By contrast, Jurek Becker, who by then had published two novels on Jewish themes, told the FAZ in 1980 that the one unexpected surprise he had faced on moving to West Berlin was that he was suddenly confronted with his Jewishness, ‘was in meinem bisherigen Leben in der DDR so gut wie keine Rolle gespielt hat’.44 In the novel Bronsteinr Kinder, the 18-year- old Hans, son of one of the three Jewish persecutors of the camp guard, is certainly of an assimilationist frame of mind. Becker himself has often used the sentence ‘meine Eltern waren Juden’, while saying nothing further about his own identity.45 In respect of the GDR, his Jewish origins seem to have been irrelevant.

Hans Mayer would appear to confirm this. Mayer is under no illusions about the uses of anti-Semitism, adhering as he does to the theory that it is a tool which can be and has been used not only by capitalist rulers but by any rulers. ‘Naturlich sind sie Antisemiten, die sogenannten Antizionisten der sowjetischen Observanz’, he stated in a 1978 essay on his own Jewish origins.* He nevertheless distinguishes between official Soviet attitudes and official GDR attitudes when he states of his fifteen years in Leipzig, from 1948-63 (i.e. including the 1952-3 purges): ‘Ich bin judischer Abkunft und lebe in einem der beiden deutschen Staaten, nachdem ich, durchaus ohne irgendeine Diskriminierung ob meiner Herkunft, in der DDR habe arbeiten konnen.’47

Stephan Hermlin is another GDR citizen who has never suffered as a result of his Jewish origins, but who is aware of the persecutions of 1952-3.

‘’ Ibid. 43 Hans Noll, p. 774. No11 quotes the GDR atomic physicist, Gabriel Berger, whose own family fled to the GDR in 1956 to escape Polish anti-Semitism and who himself later left for the West. The warning from Berger’s father, that they should keep their Jewishness to themselves, can at best be a reflection of the family’s Polish experience and unknown fears in respect of the GDR, since the warning was given just a few hours after their arrival there. See Gabriel Berger, Mir langt’s, uh g c h , Freiburg i. Br. 1988, p. 28.

Jurek Becker, ‘Sieben Antworten auf Fragen der FAZ’, in Jurck Bcckn, ed. I r h e Heidelberger- Leonard, Frankfurt a.M. 1992, p. 53. Originally published as ‘Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht’, FAZ, 18 November 1980. *’Jurek Becker, ‘Mein Judentum’, in Mcin Judmtw, ed. Hans Jurgen Schulz, Munich 1986, pp. 10-18 (here p. 10).

‘’ Ibid. Hans Mayer, ‘Mein Judentum’, in Schulz, pp. 208-18 (here p. 218).

@ Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1996.

280 GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION

In the story Abendlicht, published in 1979, he is apparently speaking about Nazism when he says:

Bei Lenin hatte ich gelesen, daR auch nur die kleinste Nuance des Antisemi- tismus vom reaktionaren Charakter der Gruppe oder Einzelperson zeugt, an der sie sichtbar wird. Ich begriff, daB diese Bemerkung das Wesen einer Formel, einer mathematischen Gleichung in sich trug. Wo immer die feige Pest sichtbar wiirde, da konnte, allen groBen Worten zum Trotz, kein Sozia- lismus seimq8

Thomas C. Fox has correctly pointed out that there is a subtext to this statement. In an interview with Klaus Wagenbach in 1979 Hermlin claimed that the influence of other socialist countries meant that the ‘Judenfrage’ had for long been repressed in the GDR. Hermlin specifically says that any word other than repressed (‘verdrangt’) would be unfair to the GDR.*’ In an interview with the FDJ newspaper Junge Welt in 1988 Hermlin emphasises how wrong this repression of the ‘Jewish question’ is when he berates a colleague for boasting that his children do not even know what a Jew is.50

By wishing for more openness on the subject of Jewishness, Hermlin is opposing the attitude which was dominant among communists in the immediate postwar period. Whereas Seghers, Abusch and many of the figures in politics in the post-1945 period ignored their Jewishness as a way of overcoming anti-Semitism, the modern writers spoke increasingly openly about Jewishness, regarding education as preferable to ignorance. Most of these modern writers were atheists, their Jewishness a question of history. They neither belonged to the Jewish religion nor did they see themselves as part of ‘the Jewish people’. If anything united them it was membership of a ‘Schicksalsgemeinschaft’.

Within the GDR, such membership had no negative consequences; indeed, the opposite was often the case, since victims of fascism and their descendants were accorded privileged treatment. Writers, whether of Jewish or non-Jewish descent, were free to choose whether or not they wished to include this issue among their subject matter, or, indeed, in the case of Becker, Heym and Bobrowski, make it central to their writings. GDR writers covered the whole spectrum, from completely ignoring the subject of Jewishness to being almost completely immersed in it, though none of these writers were religious or national Jews.

Although never repeated, and despite the fact that the motivation came largely from outside the GDR, the events of 1952-3 cast a long shadow. Hermlin’s comments in 1979 are a testament to that. If it happened once,

* Stephan Hermlin, Abendluhf, Leipzig 1979, pp. 112-3. 499‘Wo sind wir zu Hause? Cesprach mit Klaus Wagenbach‘, in Stephan Hermlin, AyBmngm 19f4-1982, Berlin 1983, pp. 3 M 8 (here p. 400).

Hans-Dieter Schiitt and Peter Neumann, ‘Nationalitit: deuph. Staatsbiirgerschafi: DDR. Bes. Kennzeichen: keine. Stephan Hermlin’, Junge Web, 16 September 1988, 3-5.

8 Blackwcll Publisben Ltd 1996.

GERMAN-JEWISH WRITERS AND THEMES IN GDR FICTION 281

it could happen again. I feel it would be wrong, however, to attribute this fear to the totalitarian nature of the GDR state. Going right back to the crusades, there is a sense in which all Jews in Europe are ‘Schutzjuden’, who enjoy full rights but who cannot irrevocably be accepted as full members of European societies other than by marriage, conversion and ultimately assimilation, i.e. loss of identity. In this respect, the GDR was no different from any other European state.

It was, however, different from West Germany, in that many writers of Jewish descent played a central role in literary and cultural life. The literature produced by these writers was varied in content and in style, and the decision about whether to write such material was a free one taken by individual writers. The depth and breadth of this writing is more restricted than that which can be attributed to German-Jewish writers of the pre-1933 period. Nevertheless, there is a body of literature significant enough to allow definition as a continuation of prewar German-Jewish literary traditions.

This body of literature has received a large amount of attention outside the GDR on an individual basis, either in the shape of reviews and articles, or in biographies of individual writers. As a German-Jewish whole, however, it has largely been neglected.51 This may at least in part be a result of ideological considerations, since the GDR was the German-speaking state most hostile to Israel. It is the case that a basically pro-Zionist consensus has been reached between Israelis and West Germans on almost all matters relating to Jewish and German-Jewish culture, with assimilation and the attempt at creating a German-Jewish symbiosis being deemed by common agreement to have failed. Such an attitude leaves little room for consider- ation of writers such as Stefan Heym and Stephan Hermlin, while Arnold Zweig, because of his decision to leave Israel for the GDR in 1948, was for long regarded as a traitor in Israel. Jurek Becker, who has openly discussed the Jewish aspects of his writing but who steadfastly refuses to label himself a Jew, has been the subject of a somewhat patronising analysis of the meaning of his ‘Jewishness’ by one Israeli a~ademic.~’ It would be a service to the study of German-Jewish literature if the post-Shoah consen- sus on this issue were to be reconsidered.

51 Thomas C. Fox’s article is a welcome first step. Thomas Nolden’s more recent study, ‘Contempor- ary German Jewish Literature’, GLL, 47 (19934), 77-93, unfortunately reverts to type bj wnsider- ing only one East German writer, Barbara Honigmann, all of whose publications have come since her departure from the GDR in 1984. ’* Chaim Shoham, ‘Jurek Becker ringt mit seinem Judentum’, in Albrecht Schone (ed.), Kmtroamm, dk und new. Aktcn &s VII. hkrnationah Gmniskn-Kongresses Gottingen 1985, Tiibingen 1986, pp. 225-36.

0 Bleckwell Publishers Ltd 19%.