Not I

by Joachim C. Fest

  The artist’s dress in which Kiefer made his entrance evidently reflected the fact that he regarded the teaching profession merely as a temporary role with which to earn money and basically saw himself as a painter. In the hours when he was not teaching he would roam the terrain around the battery with easel, sketch pad, and folding chair. Sometimes one saw the man, his figure tending to corpulence, among the apple trees, which were meanwhile bearing red-yellow fruit, searching for a suitable motif, climbing up a rise or down a slope; a few hours later he returned to camp, out of breath, but clearly full of inspiring impressions, with two or three pieces painted in the Expressionist style, and was happy to enter into conversations with us. Quite often he would then pick up the thread of the school topics of the morning.

  He could talk without stopping about Goethe and Schiller, about Kleist, Georg Büchner, and also about the Shakespeare translations of Schlegel and Tieck, without once tormenting us with dull subject matter.7 He retold Schiller’s Intrigue and Love as a romantic tragedy involving Fred, the son of a senior civil servant, and the daughter of a caretaker who (as far as I remember) was called Irmgard Schönquell. As I wrote to my mother, Lady Milford seemed to have wound up with the name Pamela Grace in Kiefer’s version; my mother thought her “someone who has been around too much for her own good.” Without revealing the origin of the story, Kiefer also transposed Prinz Friedrich von Homburg to the present with minor modifications, especially toward the end, which might well have caused him some problems. He did the same with Goethe’s Faust. Yet, in conclusion, Kiefer always explained that of course he hadn’t himself experienced the events he related. Rather, he had wanted to convey to us in a relatively unconventional way one of the great works of classical literature. At the same time he had wanted to show that the widespread fear of the famous works of the poets was quite unfounded. Then he started on the literary interpretation of the text described. What he valued above all was doubt, which at a time of “prescribed faith” he had turned into a kind of idol. “In case of doubt, choose doubt! That should be your motto in life,” he liked to say.

  It was probably stories about Dr. Kiefer and some arrogant lines about the soldier’s life that I included in a lengthy, somewhat formal letter to my grandfather in Berlin. At any rate, he replied immediately and informed me in a few words that on my next leave I should “present myself at Riastrasse for tea.” A roommate, who saw the card lying on the top bunk bed, found the tone very funny and asked if I still used the formal Sie (you) with my grandfather. I merely responded, “No, no Sie and no formality. Simply big city manners!” He then spread it around that I was quarrelsome and ill-mannered.8

  As we were cleaning artillery pieces in the barracks square, another roommate recommended the poet Josef Weinheber, of whom I had never heard. He also lent me a volume of poems, which I read with increasing interest. The title was Adel und Untergang (Aristocracy and Ruin). It was a noble tone (though I felt it was no match for Schiller) that I encountered in these pages, at times high-flown, heroic, again and again associating life and death, and full of the pathos of the time. He wrote of “holy wanderings,” also of “universal fire,” but already in the next line there were echoes of Expressionism with “soaring embers” and “ambrosian curls”: all aristocracy and ruin, which then again shifted to a classicism that was always a little strained. I was also impressed by his play with rhyme and lines, above all in the lyric cycles. Wolfgang—to whom I gave one of Weinheber’s volumes when we met in Frankfurt on the Oder, where he was doing his basic military training—had only ridicule for the “verbal clamor,” as he called it, and parodied individual passages as a priestly Dies irae. I, however, who for a little while longer still considered Josef Weinheber’s “blossom-garlanded brows” and “dream-curving mouths” to be notable poetry, became aware, thanks to this poet (and at a distance of several years), just how easily one can fall in with the spirit of the times, even when one was raised in opposition to it.9

  At about the beginning of May 1943 a letter arrived from my father, which related some events in Karlshorst. He added that he had twice gone to Halle Gate, but had not been able to see our friend Dr. Müller; he had presumably been assigned for duty, and we could only hope that he would return home unharmed. Naturally, I had an awful premonition, and in my mind I again went over some poems and Dr. Meyer’s remarks when we had parted and which had consolidated our relationship. In my reply to my father, however, I did not mention any of that. Instead, I concealed my disquiet behind some trivial matters and mentioned that I would probably get leave at the end of June, when I hoped to hear details from him. At the same time I confirmed the arrangement that I would bring two friends with me. We should leave everything else until then. And as a PS I had added: What can we do?

  At the end of June I did indeed travel to Berlin with Helmut Weidner and Norbert Steinhardt. My parents were waiting for us at Anhalt Station. My father again appeared very dejected, and a little later, as I walked behind the others with my mother, she expressed the hope that our visit would cheer him up. We should do everything possible in that respect and avoid any political argument. She was worried, not without cause, and expected my support.

  At the beginning our conversations did several times wander into politics, but my mother and I always managed to change the subject, and when Father Wittenbrink turned up in the garden in the morning I was able to say a few words of warning. My friends certainly shared our political views, I said, but no one could say how discreet they would be under pressure. Also I hadn’t invited them to Berlin to have political discussions, but to show them Berlin with its palace, Unter den Linden, museums, and Alexanderplatz. We wanted nothing else but a holiday from our military duty, I said, to go to the theater and concerts, the bicycle races in the Sportpalast, and, as we deliberately and dismissively put it, to see the “colorful girls” on Friedrichstrasse. I felt something like an owner’s pride as I took them around, most strongly when we went out to Potsdam—to Sanssouci Palace, the Marble Palace, and the Garrison Church—which I had loved since childhood and which was rather deserted these days.

  The next morning, when we came down to the garden for breakfast, Wittenbrink was already walking up and down on his side of the fence saying the breviary. Hardly had we arrived when—in view of our prior warnings—he began a conversation about Mozart and how he had appeared in the world as a complete being. When he added that that was almost as amazing as the miracle of Cana, I took the liberty of warning him against the sin of heresy. Wittenbrink merely laughed and answered that luckily there was no Inquisition anymore.10 But since my friends did not really respond to one musical subject or another, he changed to painting. His great preference was for the Italians and the Flemish and Dutch, he assured us, then he told us about the various schools of painting, of Siena, Florence, and Rome, and from there got to, as he said, “the great Caravaggio,” whom he admired unreservedly, despite his liking for “all-too-naked flesh.” It had always been his dream to own a picture by the great painter, but, given his short life—large parts of which were spent in bars, brothels, and prisons—he had left too little behind. His skill in using light as a kind of cold fire quite overwhelmed the senses; it warmed the viewer and at the same time made him shiver. We must on no account miss the opportunity to look at the works of “the great Caravaggio” in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum.11

  We did then go to the gallery in the city center, but I think the few paintings which I remembered from earlier visits had already been removed by this time.12 However, I showed my guests the Museum Island, we walked through the Nicolai Quarter and down Unter den Linden, as well as to my former Gymnasium and other supposedly important places, always avoiding my father’s political conversations. Because all the time my friends were there I had a presentiment, possibly reinforced by my worried mother, that there would nevertheless be an outburst by my father. I asked once again as to the whereabouts of some friends, such as Walter Goderski, Bruno Block, and Dr. Meyer. But he
had nothing specific to say.

  Thanks to my father’s questions about the school classes, the conversation got around to Virgil, and Norbert, who was just reading a book about the state poet of Emperor Augustus, instantly presented himself as an expert. “Please, not a learned conversation!” begged Helmut. But once he had started Norbert wouldn’t let himself be distracted and knew countless details, historical or legendary, which linked the rise of Rome to the fall of Troy. He related how Aeneas, as he discovers the terrifying picture of his native city, becomes certain that compassionate people must be living in Carthage, because the ability to feel the misfortune of others is what constitutes a decent world. At some point my father joined in by saying that in Germany Virgil had never enjoyed such renown as in the rest of Europe. It was no doubt telling that the Odyssey ends in married bliss, but the Aeneid with the foundation of a state.

  On one of the following days I went to Riastrasse for tea, and for the first time in my life experienced my grandfather as a communicative, even elegant conversationalist. He did not just know, as we had always maintained, how to growl a few sentences about life and business, but was also able to talk knowledgeably about classic French literature from Montaigne to Chateaubriand. Surprisingly, he mentioned the “first small piece of literature” I had sent him with my letter and wanted to know more about Dr. Kiefer and the other teachers, which book had most impressed me recently, and how I reconciled my literary preferences with the mindlessness of military life. Also the attentions, which were usually our concern, now came from him: he poured tea for me, offered me biscuits, and from time to time asked what I would like. He also wanted to know my plans. I replied that what counted was to get through the war. Nothing else! He had heard about the letter in which I had declared I wanted to become a “private scholar,” and he said, “Hold firmly onto that in these times! If some laugh, pay no attention! One always has difficulties doing the right thing!” My grandmother, who had sat down with us for half an hour, gave me an earthenware pot with her famous crème caramel.

  Soon after that my grandfather said that we had to bring matters to a close. At the door, when I wanted to say goodbye, he shook his head and said, “Today I shall accompany you!” During the ten minutes to Hentigstrasse we talked about the landscape around Friedrichshafen and Lake Constance. I told him that during guard duty at the dark gun emplacement one of my comrades had called it “tender,” but then, almost shocked, had immediately asked me to forget the word. When asked as to the reason, he said it didn’t fit in with the soldiers’ world and would only arouse laughter, which in turn amused my grandfather.

  When we reached our house, I said that now it was my turn to accompany him back, that was only right and proper. Once again the old man said no. “Not today! Today I accompanied you home.” And while I was still wondering why my sisters found my grandfather so intimidating, he said, almost admonishingly, “See that you get through it!” Then, he added, there are things one can do: “You know what I mean!” I had no idea, but pretended that I had understood. Finally, touching my shoulders, he suggested an accolade, turned on his heel, and left. When I told my mother about it, she said with a smile, “He just doesn’t like any kind of sentimentality. That’s who I get it from, after all!”

  At the supper table the next evening my father’s feared explosion of anger came. It began fairly harmlessly with his remark that in the face of an existence that was passing by, every person had a debt to pay—if the circumstances allowed it. Clumsily, I asked if by that qualifier he was trying to justify his own interrupted career, and from one moment to the next it burst out of him like resentment which had been too long bottled up. How dare I say that to him? he shouted, throwing down his cutlery in the presence of my schoolmates. For years he had suffered from his inactivity. For the sake of his family—so what? he interrupted himself. To damn the regime at the garden fence, to listen to the BBC and to pray for those in need: that was nothing at all! “Yes!” he went on. “I keep out of things. Like everyone else! And I’ve got good reason to do so! But I now know that under the present conditions there is no separation of good and evil. The air is poisoned. It infects us all!” And so on for a long time, more or less, and as far as we were able to reconstruct it later.

  At this angry outburst, which was unlike any before, my mother stood up, but remained standing by the door. After a brief pause she went to his chair and put her hands on his shoulders. “I beg you, Hans!” she said quietly. “We have guests!” My friends sat there as if petrified, but my father was evidently not yet finished. “No one can acquit themselves,” he began again, “not even the most justifiable hate grants us absolution! And what does that mean anyway? Hate is not enough. Just stop the talking! You only do it to get the guilt off your back!’

  The scene only came to an end when my two sisters, startled by the noise, appeared at the door in their nightdresses, crying. With reassuring words my father took them back to their room and a little later returned to the table with an apologetic phrase. As he picked up his cutlery from the floor, he said that he stood by every one of his words. He apologized only for yelling, which was crazy of him to indulge in, and for his loss of self-control.

  The three days which still remained I spent with my friends mostly in town, which was already marked by the air raids, and at the garden table. Dr. Hausdorf called once and in an unusually serious mood involved us in a conversation about skepticism, which he called the other truly human virtue besides faith. Where one of the two was missing, then human coexistence was made more difficult or even impossible; both together, on the other hand, guaranteed the little bit of tolerableness that human beings could achieve. The question as to how these opposites could be reconciled gave rise to a lengthy discussion in which we drove him into a corner. Yet once he had gone we said that he had been right. Life simply did consist of contradictions.

  On the day before our departure we came downstairs just as Father Wittenbrink was doing a round of his garden, and when he saw us sitting down at the table he came toward us with quite impetuous strides. “I’ve got it at last!” he cried to us from a distance. “Forget the Scholastics and Thomas Aquinas! Forget Descartes and Leibniz! I have the definitive proof of the existence of God!” Wittenbrink seemed to be beside himself, and my mother, who was just bringing us tea, said later that his eyes had been damp. “The matter requires no complicated deductions,” he went on, “but consists of one word, like all convincing insights. The most convincing proof of the existence of God is … Mozart! Every single page of his biography teaches us that he comes from another world and at the same time, despite all the tormenting concealment, makes it visible. Why has no one seen it before?”

  Wittenbrink continued in this vein almost entranced. “When has there ever been anything like it, that someone doesn’t need to work anything out, but simply writes down his inspirations, because he has always possessed them? Just compare Mozart’s notation, on the whole, at any rate, with that of Beethoven! He struggles with everything which Mozart came into the world with, and so Beethoven always writes incantatory music!” Naturally, I’ve forgotten most of what Wittenbrink said. But I still remember the impetuousness of his outburst. Some of the ideas also, such as, for example, that someone can be as light as air and at the same time deep, serene, and sad, literally in the same note, great and never banal. That he can translate even the most glaring contradictions into complete harmony without taking away anything of their opposition. “Anyone who hears the Ave verum,” he said, “must realize that no human voice can express devotion in that way. And it’s just the same with countless other emotions: for love the Rose aria from The Marriage of Figaro should be mentioned; for reverie the duet of Fiordiligi and Dorabella in Così fan tutte; for others, many movements from the piano concertos or passages from the string quartets.” He continued talking in the same fashion. At best Wittenbrink interrupted himself by throwing in the phrase “proof of the existence of God” from time to time. My two friends under
stood almost nothing of what he meant. I, at least, had some kind of schooling behind me. The way he said it seemed all the more convincing, and that day I understood how content can sometimes take second place to tone.

  Shortly before we left, when the suitcases were already half-packed, my father suggested a short walk. At the sandhills, when there was no one to be seen far and wide, he came back to when he lost his temper: he had been upset because he had dreadful news from the East. When I asked for details, he refused to reply, and said, “Not now! Perhaps another time. Because it would only put you in danger!” He simply mentioned it, he added, to make his irritability comprehensible. His behavior had been a faux pas. But I should know that there had been reasons for it.

  Nevertheless, anyone who kept his eyes open and summoned up a degree of mistrust toward those in power soon came across more and more clues about mass murders in Russia, Poland, and elsewhere. Certainly, much sounded contradictory and was only passed on as rumor; but the accumulation turned what was reported into near certainty. I heard the first hints from Wigbert Gans on my next Berlin visit, and in Freiburg, too, there was whispering about indiscriminate shootings and mass graves. In spring 1944, and then again three months later, Wittenbrink, to the accompaniment of most earnest entreaties to keep silent, told me about hardly conceivable atrocities, which he had heard about from members of his congregation who had served on the Eastern Front and were at a loss what to do. He also said he had often discussed with my father—to the point where they were both in despair—what could be done about such crimes. Nevertheless, I should not say a word to my father about what I had learned, because Wittenbrink had promised he would tell us nothing. Besides which, each one of their conversations had ended with the two of them feeling even more oppressed by their powerlessness. In all the confidential pieces of information passed on to me, however, gas chambers were never mentioned. The frequently posed question was why the British broadcasting stations had not repeated and spread their knowledge of the extermination of large numbers of people, so causing outrage in the rest of the world. Yet London remained silent, said our religious studies teacher, whom I met as I left Freiburg Minster after one of the dissident, crowded Sunday sermons of Archbishop Gröber.