Martin Schongauer: Painter and engraver (1450 – 1491)

This post is about Martin Schongauer, a Northern European painter and engraver whose work I got to know in the early 1990s. Schongauer was allegedly the teacher of Mathias Gruenewald, a painter and engraver of the early 16th century, whose “Isenheim Altarpiece” anticipates expressionism.

Before I proceed, I would like to give the reader a sense of the geography involved.

The thin blue line running from top to bottom is the river Rhein. Colmar, Schongauer’s birthplace is on the upper left, the city where he died, Breisach, is to the right of Colmar, and Basel at the bottom. Basel is known to be in the three-state area of France to the northwest, Germany to the northeast, and Switzerland to the south.The distance between Colmar and Breislau is less than 20km, and between Colmar and Basel is less than 100 km.

geography2.jpg

Most of his work that survived is engravings. With his prints, Schongauer transmitted his name and his designs across Europe and, over the centuries, the world.

Martin Schongauer (1450-1491) was born in Colmar, in Alsace. He had a goldsmith father who had bought the rights of bourgeoisie in 1445. Martin Schongauer came back to Colmar after an itinerant training and a probable passage in Flanders.

235012697-zum-schwan-house-or-schongauer-house-1
“Zum Schwan“ House (or Schongauer House), Colmar, Alsace

“Martin Schongauer is first documented in the matriculation register of Leipzig University, winter term 1465, as a Bavarian (Erler, ‘Leipzig’, p. 254) when he was presumably in his early teens. He is described as a ‘young apprentice’ in an inscription by Dürer on a Schongauer drawing of 1470 (Rupprich, i, pp. 208f., no. 58).”  (The British Museum)

Vasari claims that Schongauer studied under Rogier van der Weyden (see my article “Deposition“), a claim that has not been confirmed. However, Schongauer has been clearly influenced by the Dutch Master’s attention to detail. This influence – mostly attention to detail and the use of vivid colors – is manifested in the paintings that follow.

429px-Hans_Burgkmair_d.Ä._-_Bildnis_Martin_Schongauer_(Kopie).jpg

“The portrait of Schongauer in Munich (Alte Pinakothek) is inscribed on the back by the artist Thoman Burgkmair (q.v) “Mayster Martin Schongauer Maler genent Hipsch / Martin von wegen seiner Kunst . . . 1488′ with a line added by his son Hans Burgkmair (q.v) describing himself as Schongauer’s apprentice.” (The British Museum)

hb_20.5.2

Martin Schongauer, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons (The Temptation of St. Anthony), Engraving, 30 x 21.8 cm, c.1475, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

“Saint Anthony gazes serenely out at the viewer as frenzied demons grab at his limbs, clothes, and hair and pound him with sticks. Schongauer depicted these imagined creatures in a remarkably convincing way. His realistic description of their scales and fur point to his direct observation of animals, yet he compiled these naturalistic details to produce some of the most fantastic and grotesque fabrications in the history of printmaking. Although this is one of Schongauer’s earliest prints, it was probably his most influential: Vasari recounted that even Michelangelo made a color drawing of the work at the age of thirteen.” (The Met)

grunewald_isenheim_anthony.jpg

Similar monsters and demons would later find their way to Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece.

“Schongauer’s Temptation of Antony engraving demonstrates how well-conceived
his overall plan is in its organization. His symmetry of design immediately stands out in counterpoint to the asymmetry of chaos in the demonic beings. A circular
arrangement of devilish monsters, tattered wings, forked tails and clawed talons almost add kinetic motion to the moment, making it appear to almost spin around before the viewer while Antony remains suspended, resolutely static despite being clubbed, his clothes being pulled, hair wrenched and limbs grasped. This contrast might even suggest the illusory nature of Antony’s sufferings despite their sensory acuity. The theomorphic hybridity of the demons – mixing reptilian, amphibian, fishy, mammalian and avian body parts with scales, spines, horns, raptor beaks, fangs, barbed tongues and tentacle suckers and odd trunks – is not accidental except in twisted nature, certainly not coincidental in Schongauer’s vision.” (Martin Schongauer: Gothic Vanguard of the Renaissance, Patrick Hunt, Stanford, Kunstpedia – ArtWis, Netherlands, August 2014).

The engraving inspired young Michelangelo, who created a painting of the subject, adding a landscape in the background and “fishscales” to the monster on the left side. He also altered the expression of the Saint.

790px-Michelangelo_Buonarroti_-_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, oil and tempera on panel, c. 1477-1478, 47 cm × 35 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Texas

A story has it that in 1492 the 20 year old  Dürer (see my article on his house) journeyed along the Rhine to Breisach, which is near Colmar, to meet Schongauer, who had moved there in 1489. Unfortunately Schongauer had died the year before, most likely a victim of the plague.

geography.jpg

In the picture you can see Colmar on the left, the Rhein River running from North to South, and Breisach on the right. Today the Rhein is the natural border between France and Germany. Both nation states did not exist back in Schongauer’s time.

Martin_Schongauer_-_Christ_Bearing_His_Cross_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Martin Schongauer, Christ Carrying the Cross, c.1475, 28.9 × 42.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

“The largest and most painterly of his prints, Christ Carrying the Cross is Schongauer’s masterpiece. This engraving depicting Christ’s procession to Golgotha is the artist’s most visually complex. He created a spectrum of tones from white to gray to black by altering the density of the hatching. Throughout the print, he masterfully offset light and dark areas: for example, he placed the fully shaded figures on the right against a landscape delineated only by outlines and did almost the reverse with the boy in the lower left, situated in front of an area of shadowed ground. Schongauer was inspired by a painting of the subject by Jan van Eyck, now lost and known only through copies, and similarly created an image packed with lively characterizations of exotic figures and incidental detail. Yet he pushed the entire procession to the foreground and, as in devotional icons, he turned Christ’s head to confront the viewer, emphasizing man’s identification with Christ’s suffering.” (The Met2)

“Perhaps Schongauer wants the viewer to ponder the weight of Christ’s
suffering as far more spiritual than physical as he faces his viewers, unlike the spectators and perpetrators of his impending Passion. His neck looks ready to break under the angular cross as he is dragged forward. Fascinating visual subplots include the thin crossed spears at a diagonal angle to the heavy cross; another kinetic event is the procession itself curving in front of the viewer: on the right the horses lead into the frame while on the left the horse derrieres exit with interesting subtleties like a braided tail. Accordingly, most of the spectator faces are on the right. Some human faces at such a spectacle display the “uglifying” curiosity of an appetite for violence, others are merely apathetic bystanders as if this crucial historic event evoked mere common passivity for those spiritually dead. For Schongauer, the overt intellectual contrast between human participants and the Son of Man is enhanced by his treatment of light and shadow with both drama and dynamic subtlety. This artistic interplay is a glimmering of the Humanism to come when the old scholiastic theological arguments about Christ’s kenosis, his dual nature, held less sway than the immediate gospel of his identification with that profound paradox of both the weaknesses and the aspirations of his human brethren. The areas of darkness in this engraving may also allude to the event itself; even the gospel account in Matthew 27:45 records how during the climax of Christ’s Passion the sky went dark at midday as if all nature itself was affected.” (Martin Schongauer: Gothic Vanguard of the Renaissance, Patrick Hunt, Stanford, Kunstpedia – ArtWis, Netherlands, August 2014).

peonies_getty.jpg

Martin Schongauer, Studies of Peonies, Guache and Watercolor, c. 1472, 25.7 × 33 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum

“One of the earliest surviving northern European botanical studies drawn from life, this drawing shows a fully opened peony bloom, viewed first from the front and then from the back, and one bud. Martin Schongauer achieved subtly gradated coloration by laying in the basic forms in a broad painterly wash and then describing the details in bodycolor, opaque water-based color, with the point of the brush. Though an outstanding example of a highly finished drawing, it was made as a study for the painting, The Madonna of the Rose Garden of 1473, in the Dominican church in Colmar. ” (The J. Paul Getty Museum)

vierge_au_buisson_colmar.jpg Schongauer’s masterpiece is the “Madonna in the Rosegarden”, painted in 1473. It is housed in the Dominican Church in his native city, Colmar.

1504px-Martin_Schongauer_Madonna_in_Rose_Garden.jpg

“Despite the desire of horticulturalists to peg the exact Old World red rose varietal climbing on the lattice behind the Madonna of the Rose Garden – a kudo to Schongauer’s attentive realism – it is the faces of both Mary and the Child that are mesmerizing. Despite angelic corroboration hovering overhead, Mary and the infant Jesus are anything but glibly happy, even looking in opposite directions rather than at each other in the typical serenity of Madonna and Child where the external world hardly exists. In fact, both visages are plangent with troubled thoughts while Schongauer offers a canonic concession to Mary’s Byzantinish bent neck angle. Her pained emotional mien is a sure departure from more typical otherwordliness. Could Schongauer be alluding to the Lucan Gospel’s narrative (Luke 2:35) where the old prophet Simeon hints that a “sword will pierce your heart also” most likely because this Child was born to die and Mary must also “ponder these things” even in the grace of the Nativity?” (Martin Schongauer: Gothic Vanguard of the Renaissance, Patrick Hunt, Stanford, Kunstpedia – ArtWis, Netherlands, August 2014).

2048px-Martin_Schongauer_-_The_Holy_Family_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Martin Schongauer, The Holy Family, 1475-80
Oil on wood, 26 x 17 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

“Likewise in his circa 1469 Holy Family, Schongauer contrasts Joseph in his dark
alcove, seemingly alienated from full sanctity by not being the real father – his gaze is
also slightly melancholic (Fig. 3, Martin Schongauer, The Holy Family, 1469, Vienna
Kunsthistorisches Museum). In his subsidiary role Joseph can only bring animal fodder for the ox and ass. On the other hand, in the foreground Mary is fed by the Child in a Flight into Egypt visual narrative rather than by her spouse. The clusters of grapes (a possible allusion to John 15:1-2 where Christ is the Vine) are shared by Mother and Child with another fruit basket on the floor. Joseph’s bent stick to prod clusters now leans in the basket. This may also reference the apocryphal legend in the 8th-9th century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew chs. 20-21. In this text, while on the third weary third day of their journey to escape Herod’s murderous wrath, the Infant Christ miraculously brings fruit to his mother from higher branches Joseph could not reach. The trees obeyed the Child, bending down for access: “O tree, bend your branches, and refresh my mother with your fruit.” The original text states it was a date palm yielding its high fruit, but in Europe the fruit is often shown as cherries or some other more local fruit. Schongauer painted grapes, thus likely serving a double purpose of a more Mediterranean fruit as well as possibly referencing John 15 with the Vine as suggested. This apocryphal event is a familiar visual trope. For example, from the Abbey of Saint Denis outside Paris, a circa 1145 stained-glass vignette shows Mary holding a fruit that looks like a fig,25 another fruit unlikely to be found north of the Alps but more historically accurate to this text, like Schongauer’s grapes, which could also be cultivated in Northern Europe and certainly along the Rhine in the artist’s home territory.” (Martin Schongauer: Gothic Vanguard of the Renaissance, Patrick Hunt, Stanford, Kunstpedia – ArtWis, Netherlands, August 2014)

head_of_a_man.jpg

Martin Schongauer, Drawing of an old man with fur collar and hat,, 1475, Berlin State Museums.

This appears to be a true portrait, but it is not. True portraits where a rarity in the Middle Ages, but begun to appear here and there in the 1400s. By 1475 they were no longer uncommon. In this image what reveals this as a composition rather than an original, is the ear, whose angle is not the same as that of the other face.

256999-1330624000
A head of a man wearing a turban c.1480 Pen and brown ink | 10.6 x 7.0 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 912173 Royal Collection Trust

“Figures wearing turbans were often used in biblical scenes to denote eastern origin, or one who had not converted to Christianity. Studies of the heads of figures wearing oriental headdresses, such as the present example, therefore, were in common use as models for drawings and paintings, and the group of studies probably once formed part of a set of artist’s models.” (Fragment of a catalogue entry adapted from ‘The Northern Renaissance. Dürer to Holbein’, London 2011).

The drawing is attributed to a follower of the artist, quite likely a member of his workshop.

louvre-le-christ-du-jugement-dernier

Martin Schongauer, Christ of the Last Judgement, c. 1488, Louvre Museum, Paris

Martin_Schongauer_-_Nativity_-_met.jpg

Martin Schongauer,  The Nativity, Engraving, 25.4 × 16.8 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.

Martin_Schongauer_-_Nativity_-_WGA21041.jpg

Martin Schongauer, The Birth of Christ, c. 1480, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin

madonna_with_child.jpg

Martin Schongauer, Madonna and Child in a Window, about 1485–1490, Oil on panel, 16.5 × 11 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum

“Although he was reportedly a prolific painter, this panel is one of only seven paintings by Martin Schongauer in existence today. It belongs to a group of four Andachtsbilder, or devotional paintings, created near the end of his life. In his engravings Schongauer already had explored the theme of the Madonna and Child reading a book in a niche, symbolizing the Virgin’s role as Christ’s tutor. Here he balanced the Madonna’s serenity with the lively Christ Child and the book’s fluttering pages. Her dignified face, with its polished modeling and delicate features, is typical of Schongauer, who was heavily influenced by Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden’s art. Mary’s cascade of gently flowing hair shows Schongauer’s sensitivity to the expressive potential of line. His attention to detail is especially evident in the thin gold seams in Mary’s cloak, the jeweled crown, and the figures’ fine facial features. In the background, an angel holds the crown and scepter. Since the 1500s, Schongauer has been credited with bringing the advances of Netherlandish Renaissance art to Germany. He was the main inspiration for Germany’s next generation of artists, notably Albrecht Dürer. Schongauer’s engravings had far-reaching impact, influencing Italian artists such as Michelangelo.”  (The J. Paul Getty Museum2)

I would like to highlight one of the events in the picture’s provenance. In 1938, the owner of the picture, Rudolf von Gutmann, an important art and book collector, sold it “under pressure” and fled Austria. He survived the exodus and ended up in Canada. The provenance of this picture is worth an article by itself.

Before I conclude this short presentation of Martin Schongauer I would like to show  a surprise item, an engraving from the National Gallery in Athens, Greece. I discovered it while searching material on the internet. There are no details about the provenance of the engraving, I hope to dig out more when the Gallery reopens sometime in 2021 (it is currently undergoing massive reconstruction).

schongauer_agony.jpg

Martin Schongauer, The Agony in the Garden, Engraving, 16.5cm x 11.5 cm, National Gallery, Athens

Martin_Schongauer.jpeg

Schongauer’s statue is in Colmar’s Unterlinden Museum. It was commissioned to the Colmar sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and was finished in 1863.

 

 

August Macke’s untimely death: 26 September 1914

August Macke was born in 1887 and died in September 1914 in the trenches of Champagne, at the age of 27.

Macke was one of the expressionist painters who formed the Blue Rider (Blaue Rieter) group of painters at the beginning of the 20th century.

He was married to Elisabeth Gerhardt and had two sons.

August Macke Tutt'Art@
August MAcke with his wife Elisabeth and son Walther, circa 1911

In August 1912, Macke took part in a military exercise for the reserves in Elsenborn (today in Belgium). He wrote to his mother in Kandern (a town in Black Forest):

“[…] I have arrived here very well. I like it a lot, against expectation. The landscape is as beautiful as up on the Feldberg(a). There is wonderful honey. So everything is great […]”. “[…] For eight days we have now been going around in the rain with God for the King and the country. Liters of water in the boots. But I am standing up. Not even a cold. […]”. (1)

(a) Feldberg is a mountain in the Black Forest area in southwestern Germany. The village of Feldberg is located at 1,277 meters above sea, some 30 kilometers east of Kandern.

passage_to_tunisia
Macke on his way to Tunisia in April 1914

Macke was drafted shortly after his return form Tunisia, where he spent a month (April 1914) traveling with his fellow painter Paul Klee. He was 27 years old.

The trip to Tunisia was the high point of Macke’s artistic life. He arrived in Tunis on the 7th April 1914, on board the steamship  “Carthage”. When he returned home he had 33 aquarelles, 79 drawings and many photographs in his bags.

“Wir liegen in der Sonne, essen Spargel. Dabei kann man sich umdrehen und hat Tausende von Motiven. Ich habe heute schon sicher 50 Skizzen gemacht. Gestern 25. Es geht wie der Teufel und ich bin in einer Arbeitsfreude, wie ich sie nie gekannt habe. Die afrikanische Landschaft ist noch viel schöner als die Provence!” (3)

macke_markt_in_tunis_i_1914-38331796
August Macke, Market in Tunisia, 1914

“We lie in the sun eating apsaragus. There one can turn around and find thousands of themes. Today I have already prepared 50 sketches. Yesterday I did 25. It is as if I am in an artistic competition with the Devil, one which I cannot win. The African landscape is much pretier than Provence!” (the translation from German to English is mine).

After he was drafted and sent to the front, in his letters and postcards to Elisabeth, Macke uses words like “dreadful”, “horrible”, “awful”, “terrible” and “the most gruesome experience a man can undergo”. He suspects that his chances of surviving are minimal:

cart_postale-Hurlus-A
Les Hurlus, Champagne – Church and Cemetery

“I would consider myself incredibly lucky if I was to return from this war. I think about all the beautiful things that I have witnessed and that I have you to thank for”. Apart from being horrified about the losses on the German side, he also shows compassion considering the injured or killed French soldiers. (1)

On September 20 he is rewarded the Iron Cross Second Class, which he sends home immediately. His last postcard dates from September 24; in it, he asks for chocolate, warm socks, clothes, and cigarettes. On Saturday, September 26, German troops attacked French positions south of Perthes-lès-Hurlus. On this occasion, August Macke was killed. – In one of his last testimonies, Macke tells his brother in law about the front: “[…] My dearest ones! Safe and sound, I am back from a heavy battle. Yesterday, I got the Iron Cross and I am very happy about it. Auguste has written several times sending cigarettes. I am well and I think about you a lot. Faithfully goodbye, August […]”. (1)

August Macke, Turkish Coffee Shop, 1914

 

In a note from the front (1914) Macke wrote to his wife Elisabeth.

„Ich habe in den letzten Tagen viel an Dich, liebes Kind, gedacht, an die beiden, kleinen Kerle. Ich sehe immer das liebe, blonde Köpfchen vom Wölfchen und die großen träumenden Augen von Walter vor mir. Könnte ich die beiden sehen! Ich betrachte das jetzt immer als ein Wunder, daß das meine Jungen sind. … Ich wäre glücklich, wenn ich heimkommen könnte, in Eure Arme, wenn ich wieder malen könnte (das ist mir wie ein Traum jetzt). Aber wenn ich an die Kinder denke, dann packt mich immer eine wilde Verzweiflung, daß ich die nicht wiedersehen sollte. Es ist ja nur Egoismus, wenn ich einen Schmerz empfinde darüber, daß mir der Anblick der Kinder entrissen werden könnte. Kind, was werden wir aber glücklich sein, wenn dieser Krieg vorüber ist und wir sind wieder zusammen …“ (2)

In the last days I have thought a lot about you dear child, about the two little guys. I always have Wölfchen’s beloved blond head and Walter’s big dreamy eyes in front of me. I wish I could see them both! I always consider it a miracle that my children….I would be lucky to come home, in your arms, to be able to paint again (which is like a dream now). But when I think of the kids, a wild despair grabs me, that I will never see them again. When I feel pain about this, I seek a sight of the children to make the pain go away. Child, how lucky we would be, when this war is over and we are together again…” (the translation from German to English is mine).

macke_farewell
August Macke, Farewell, 1914 

Macke’s last painting is titled “Farewell”. In contrast with his other paintings that are bright and colorfull, this is a sombre, rather muted painting. As if the painter had a premonition about his imminent death.

Sources

  1. Kotte Autographs
  2. Galerie Thomas Exhibition 2017
  3. August Macke: “Tunisreise”

Some Thoughts on the Greek Puzzle

What is going to happen in Greece?

I do not believe that any of the “programs”, also known as memoranda, agreed between Greece and the debtors work.

The problems of Greece are far more serious. These programs only touch on the surface and usually are ideologically laden formulae, not practical solutions.

The Greek economy will never recover to its levels before the crisis. Therefore, the debt will never be paid back.

Such an acknowledgement cannot be made before the 2017 German elections, but it will need to be made immediately after.

The issue is which formula will be adopted.

According to various sources, scenarios have been developed and are under discussion.

One of the critical issues is Greece’s membership in the Eurozone.

Greece is so weak that a “strong” currency like the Euro is like tying a rock to the foot of a drowning swimmer.

Sooner (I hope) or later the Germans will make their minds up that Greece does not belong to the Eurozone.

For the sake of convenience and practicality, this decision may be coupled with the one on the Greek debt.

In conclusion, unless there is a game changing development, e.g. Italy, we should expect major developments in Greece in the year 2018.

The prognosis is that during this year the two major issues of the Greek crisis, i.e. the debt and the Euro, will be resolved.

Most likely formula will be an expulsion from the Eurozone, combined with – as a pain killer – the drastic reduction of the debt. The transition period will be between two and three years.

 

Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany

hauptmarkt_nuremberg_16th_century
Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, in the 16th century

Introduction

In another post, I have written about Albrecht Duerer’s House in the Old City of Nuremberg. The master was one of the famous sons of Nuremberg.

Today I am going on a different trip to Nuremberg.

Hauptmarkt is the main square in Nuremberg’s old town. Its two landmarks are:

  • Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady) – on the right far side
  • Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful fountain) – on the left near the center side
frauenkirche2
Frauenkirche, Nuremberg, October 2010, Photo: N. Moropoulos

Frauenkirche was built between 1352 and 1362.

schoner_brunnen_1

Schöner Brunnen, Nuremberg, October 2010, Photo: N. Moropoulos

Schöner Brunnen was built from 1385 to 1396.

hauptmarkt_nuremberg_1850
Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg

This post presents some of the square’s and its monuments’ photos and the relevant historical context, structured in two sections: The period 1927-1938, and The Second World War.

frauenkirche_nuremberg_1850
Frauenkirche, Nuremberg, 1850

For many reasons, Nuremberg became one of the three favorite Nazi cities in Germany, along with Berlin and Munich.

hauptmarkt_nuremberg_1891

Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, circa 1891

As a result, Nuremberg was bombed extensively during the Second World War.

schone_brunnen_nuremberg_1891

Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, circa 1891

The period 1927-1938

A lot of the photos in this post were taken before, during or after Nazi rule.

This is not an accident. Nuremberg was one of Hitler’s favorite cities, and it is there that the National Party Convention took place, starting in 1927.

The 3rd National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) Congress (“Day of Awakening”) was held on August 19 – 21, 1927 in Nuremberg. (3)

poster_nk

The first Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg took place in 1927, and it was an impressive event, in spite of the fact that at the time NSDAP was a small and almost insignificant party, albeit a party that had recovered Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.  (2)

In May 1928 elections, the NSDAP only managed 2.6 percent of the vote nationwide. (4)

hitler_nurember_1928
Hitler in Hauptmarkt, with Frauenkirche in the background, 1928

“The Party selected Nuremberg for pragmatic reasons: it was in the center of the German Reich and the local Luitpoldhain was well suited as a venue. In addition, the Nazis could rely on the well-organized local branch of the party in Franconia, then led by Gauleiter Julius Streicher. The Nuremberg police were sympathetic to the event.”(3)

frauenkirche_nuernberg19_21_august_1927
The music band of  SA in front of Frauenkirche, 19-21 August 1927

Hitler’s 1927 speech

Here are some excerpts form Hitler’s speech to the party members and friends in the 1927 Nuremberg meeting.

“When we examine the concept of power more closely, we see that power has three factors: First, in the numerical size of the population itself. This form of power is no longer present in Germany.

62 million people who seem to hold together are no longer a power factor in a world in which groups with 400 million are increasingly active, nations for which their population is their major tool of economic policy.

If numbers themselves are no longer a power factor, the second factor is territory. This, too, is no longer a power factor for us, even seeming laughable when one can fly across our German territory in a mere four hours. That is no longer an amount of territory that provides its own defense, as is the case with Russia. Its size alone is a means of security. If the first two sources of power, population, and territory, are inadequate, there remains always the third, that which rests in the inner strength of a people. A nation can do astounding things when it carries this power in its own internal values. When, however, we examine the German people, we must to our horror see that this last power factor is no longer present.” (1)

nuremberg_1928
Hitler and Hermann Goering with Frauenkirche in the background, 1928

“…

That leads to what the large parties proclaim, namely to a nation that thinks internationally, follows the path of democracy, rejects struggle, and preaches pacifism. A people that has accepted these three human burdens, that has given up its racial values, preaches internationalism, that limits its great minds, and has replaced them with the majority, that is inability in all areas, rejecting the individual mind and praising human brotherhood, such a people has lost its intrinsic values. Such a people is incapable of policies that could bring a rising population in line with its territory, or better said: adjust the territory to the population.” (1)

frauenkirche_march_1934
March in front of Frauenkirche, 1934

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933

“When elections were finally held again in July 1932, the Nazis got a whopping 37.4 percent of the vote.

It was a chilly winter day in 1933 when the German dictatorship began. Thermometers showed a temperature of minus 4 degrees Celsius — the skies were clear. At about 10 a.m., Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), made his way down Wilhelmstrasse in the heart of Berlin.

The 44-year-old Hitler was on his way to the Reichskanzlei, seat of the Weimar Republic’s government, where both he and his cabinet were to meet with President Paul von Hindenburg. A feeling of relief was in the air. For months, the German state had been limping from one failed government to the next, with three general elections having been held within 10 months. Hopes were high that the next government would provide some desperately needed stability. The swearing-in ceremony was set for 11 a.m.

Hindenburg, 85 years old at the time, spoke for just a few minutes, expressing his pleasure that all had finally managed to come together to form a coalition. Then he turned the floor over to Hitler, and nodded in appreciation as the new chancellor promised to uphold the constitution and govern for the good of the nation. It was Monday, Jan. 30, 1933 — exactly 75 years ago — and Hitler had finally reached his goal.” (4)

Roser 02 (Chip)
Hitler saluting a parade, Frauenkinche in the background, 1934

“The 6th Party Congress was held in Nuremberg, September 5–10, 1934, which was attended by about 700,000 Nazi Party supporters. Initially it did not have a theme. Later it was labeled the “Rally of Unity and Strength” (Reichsparteitag der Einheit und Stärke), “Rally of Power” (Reichsparteitag der Macht), or “Rally of Will” (Reichsparteitag des Willens). The Leni Riefenstahl film Triumph des Willens was made at this rally.” (3)

schone_brunnen_nuremberg_1938

Schöner Brunnen, Nuremberg 1938

The Nuremberg Race Laws

“At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.” Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights.

The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a “Jew” as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews.” (5)

schoner_brunnen_nuremberg_nazi_postcard

Schöner Brunnen, Nuremberg, Nazi postcard

‘A long-term policy in this war is only possible if one considers it from the standpoint of the Jewish question.’  Joseph Goebbels.

The Second World War

schone_brunnen_nuremberg_ruins

Schöner Brunnen in a cement corset, surrounded by ruins. 1945

During the war, Nuremberg has been one of the key targets of the Royal Air Force (RAF) raids. In the following sections I quote extensively from the RAF Bomber Command Archives.

frauenkirche_nuremberg_1945
Frauenkirche surrounded by ruins. 1945

10/11 August 1943

653 aircraft – 318 Lancasters, 216 Halifaxes, 119 Stirlings to Nuremberg.

The Pathfinders attempted to ground-mark the city and, although their markers were mostly obscured by cloud, a useful attack developed in the central and southern parts of Nuremberg. The Lorenzkirche, the largest of the city’s old churches, was badly damaged and about 50 of the houses in the preserved Altstadt were destroyed. There was a large ‘fire area’ in the Wöhrd district. 16 aircraft – 7 Halifaxes, 6 Lancasters, 3 Stirlings – lost, 2.5 per cent of the force. (7)

nuremberg_2_jan_1945
Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, 1945.

27/28 August 1943

674 aircraft – 349 Lancasters, 221 Halifaxes, 104 Stirlings – to Nuremburg.

33 aircraft – 11 of each type on the raid – lost, 4.9 per cent of the force.

The marking for this raid was based mainly on H2S.

47 of the Pathfinder H2S aircraft were ordered to check their equipment by dropping a 1,000-lb bomb on Heilbronn while flying to Nuremberg. 28 Pathfinder aircraft were able to carry out this order. Nuremberg was found to be free of cloud but it was very dark. The initial Pathfinder markers were accurate but a creepback quickly developed which could not be stopped because so many Pathfinder aircraft had difficulties with their H2S sets. The Master Bomber could do little to persuade the Main Force to move their bombing forward; only a quarter of the crews could hear his broadcasts. (7)

nuremberg_1945
Nuremberg in ruins, with Frauenkirche in the background. 1945

“H2S was the first airborne, ground scanning radar system. It was developed in Britain during World War II for the Royal Air Force and was used in various RAF bomber aircraft from 1943. It was designed to identify targets on the ground for night and all-weather bombing, allowing attack outside the range of the various radio navigation aids like Gee or Oboe which were limited to about 500 km.” (Wikipedia)

schone_brunnen_nuremberg_1946

Schöner Brunnen, Nuremberg, 1946

30/31 March 1944

This would normally have been the moon stand-down period for the Main Force, but a raid to the distant target of Nuremberg was planned on the basis of an early forecast that there would be protective high cloud on the outward route, when the moon would be up, but that the target area would be clear for ground-marked bombing. A Meteorological Flight Mosquito carried out a reconnaissance and reported that the protective cloud was unlikely to be present and that there could be cloud over the target, but the raid was not cancelled.

795 aircraft were dispatched – 572 Lancasters, 214 Halifaxes and 9 Mosquitos. The German controller ignored all the diversions and assembled his fighters at 2 radio beacons which happened to be astride the route to Nuremberg. The first fighters appeared just before the bombers reached the Belgian border and a fierce battle in the moonlight lasted for the next hour. 82 bombers were lost on the outward route and near the target. The action was much reduced on the return flight, when most of the German fighters had to land, but 95 bombers were lost in all – 64 Lancasters and 31 Halifaxes, 11.9 per cent of the force dispatched. It was the biggest Bomber Command loss of the war.

Most of the returning crews reported that they had bombed Nuremberg but subsequent research showed that approximately 120 aircraft had bombed Schweinfurt, 50 miles north-west of Nuremberg. This mistake was a result of badly forecast winds causing navigational difficulties. 2 Pathfinder aircraft dropped markers at Schweinfurt. Much of the bombing in the Schweinfurt area fell outside the town and only 2 people were killed in that area. The main raid at Nuremberg was a failure. The city was covered by thick cloud and a fierce cross-wind which developed on the final approach to the target caused many of the Pathfinder aircraft to mark too far to the east. A 10-mile-long creepback also developed into the countryside north of Nuremberg. Both Pathfinders and Main Force aircraft were under heavy fighter attack throughout the raid. Little damage was caused in Nuremberg. (8)

“This was the night when more than 100 Allied bombers — all on the same mission — were lost. Come dawn, more than 700 men were missing, as many as 545 of them dead. More than 160 would end up as prisoners of war. In one night alone, the RAF had lost more men than in the entire Battle of Britain.

He (Commander Harris) wanted a huge force — well over 700 bombers — to drop 2,600 tonnes of explosives on Nuremberg.

The historic city had plenty of major industrial targets, including tank and engine factories, but it was also of huge symbolic importance to the Nazis. Hitler had staged his rallies there and regarded it as the ‘most German’ of German cities. And it had not been touched for months.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592084/Still-insult-sacrifice-Exactly-70-years-ago-RAF-suffered-worst-night-losing-106-bombers-545-men-raid-Nuremberg-So-going-unmarked.html#ixzz47kggP72Z
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

frauenkirche_nuremberg_1948
Hauptmarkt, Nuremberg, 1948

2/3 January 1945

Nuremberg:

514 Lancasters and 7 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups.

4 Lancasters were lost and 2 crashed in France.

Nuremberg, scene of so many disappointments for Bomber Command, finally succumbed to this attack. The Pathfinders produced good ground-marking in conditions of clear visibility and with the help of a rising full moon. The centre of the city, particularly the eastern half, was destroyed. The castle, the Rathaus, almost all the churches and about 2,000 preserved medieval houses went up in flames. The area of destruction also extended into the more modern north-eastern and southern city areas.The industrial area in the south, containing the important MAN and Siemens factories, and the railway areas were also severely damaged. 415 separate industrial buildings were destroyed. It was a near-perfect example of area bombing. (6)

frauenkirche3
Frauenkirche, Nuremberg, October 2010. Photo: N. Moropoulos

Epilogue

Today the wounds of the war have healed.

schoner_brunnen_2

Schöner Brunnen, Nuremberg, October 2010, Photo: N. Moropoulos

It is only the tourists who raid the beautiful city. Let us hope it will remain this way.

Sources

1. Alfred Rosenberg and Wilhelm Weiß, Reichsparteitag der NSDAP Nürnberg 19./21. August 1927 (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1927), pp. 38-45.

2. German Propaganda Archive, Calvin College.

3. Wikipedia, Nuremberg Rally.

4. Jan. 30, 1933: The Story behind Hitler’s Rise to Power. Spiegel

5. The Holocaust, A Learning Site for Students. USHMM.

6. Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Campaign Diary 1945. January 1945

7. Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Campaign Diary 1943. August 1943

8. Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Campaign Diary 1944. March 1944

 

 

 

Can the Middle East migrant crisis be contained?

The migrant crisis has reached an acute  state in Greece and Europe for more than one year now. Millions of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries are flooding Greece aiming to continue their journey to other European countries. Some 45,000 of them are now stuck in Greece, after the northern borders of the country have been closed. Approximately 14,000 of them are in the area of Idomeni, a village of 150 inhabitants.

kabul_passport_office

Photo: Hundreds of people arrive at the passport office in Kabul to apply for new travel documents. SLOBODAN LEKIC/Stars and Stripes

Images of the migrants stuck in Greece near the border with FYROM (Macedonia) are all over the news. On the 17th March 2016 the EU leaders met and finalized the EU proposal to Turkey to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. An agreement was reached with Turkey on the 18th March 2016. According to the agreement, every migrant arriving in Greece after the 20th March 2016 who does not qualify for asylum in a European country will be returned to Turkey. In exchange, a Syrian refuge who is in Turkey and has not attempted to cross illegally to Greece, will be given asylum to a European country. There is a cap to this, of 72,000 people. There are significant implementation issues for the agreement to run smoothly. However, the big question remain: “Can the flow of migrants from the Middle East to Europe be stemmed?”

It is obvious that the European leaders and their advisors think that the flow can be stemmed. The deal with Turkey is structured on the basis of this hypothesis. Why is this the case? How can this be proven to be a reasonable assumption?

Quite simply put, the flow can be stemmed provided that the causes of the massive migration can be addressed so that migration is no longer the path to the future for millions of people. It is therefore essential that we know which are the causes of the migration, and that we examine how they can ills behind creating them can be cured.

The war in Syria has made the whole phenomenon look like a mass exodus of people from the battlefields of the Syrian war. This is the explanation that best suits the European Union’s agenda. The war stops, therefore the migration flow  declines and eventually stops. All we need – in this case – is to stem the flow from Turkey to Europe and wait until the flow stops.

syria_boy_tank
Photo: Boy on a destroyed tank in Kobane, Syria. Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images

Before I proceed I would like to clarify the terminology. Following the BBC, I use the terms migrant and migration to describe the phenomenon. I suggest that the word refugee is not needed, as it creates confusion and obfuscates the phenomenon at large. A migrant is a person who decides to leave their country of residence in order to move to another country. No matter what the reason is, political persecution, economic need, or something else, the migrant is a man determined to move and seek asylum in another country.

The confusion with the terminology arose out of the need qualify a migrant as a refugee in case the reason for their decision is political persecution.Being a refugee qualifies the migrant for automatic granting of asylum by the receiving country, whereas a simple migrant who, say, emigrates in order to make a living (so called financial refugees) has no right to asylum whatsoever and is not accepted.

_88578063_chart_top10_origins_of_asylum_seekers_2015

 

 

In order to establish the causes of the phenomenon, we must make sure we have the facts relevant to it. Lets begin with the country of origin.Where do the migrants come from?

The origin countries

According to Frontex, there were 1.83 million “illegal border crossings” into Europe in 2015 compared to the previous year’s record of 283,500. As we see in the Eurostat chart above, the three top origin countries of the migrants are Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. A total of 363,000 Syrians fled the war and entered Europe seeking asylum.

So far we have established one probable cause for the migration. The war in Syria. Assuming that this is the only cause, we have an issue to deal with in our analysis. How do we explain the migration from Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of the war in Syria?

 

Before addressing this issue it would be useful to gather some facts on the migration from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Afghan refugees walk through a beach where they will wait to board a dinghy sailing off for the Greek island of Chios
Afghan refugees walk through a beach where they will wait to board a dinghy sailing off for the Greek island of Chios, while they try to travel from the western Turkish coastal town of Cesme, in Izmir province, Turkey, March 6, 2016. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Afghanistan

The Afghanistan population is approximately 33 million. Male life expectancy is 59 years, and female 61 years. Unemployment is over 50%, while 38% of the population lives below the poverty demarcation line.Afghanistan is practically a country whose economy is destroyed and more than one third of its territory is under the control of the Taliban insurgents.

Eurostat  figures show that 178,000 Afghanis entered Europe in 2015 seeking a better life.

Slobodan Lekic writes in “Stars and Stripes”:

“Afghans are now the second-largest contingent of migrants heading for Europe, after Syrians but ahead of Iraqis fleeing from the murderous Islamic State jihadis in the Middle East, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the European Union’s statistical agency. But exact numbers are difficult to come by because many of the Afghans heading east have already been living as refugees outside Afghanistan’s borders. A good proportion of those traveling to Europe live in Iran, where some 900,000 Afghans have resided since the 1990s.”(1)

Dasha Afanasieva reports on the Afghanis in Turkey:

“The EU is not even discussing these issues and is exclusively focused on Syria,” Kati Piri, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Turkey, told Reuters last month.

“Even if the Syrian crisis would be solved tomorrow, there would still be a serious refugee crisis, with a large number of refugees in Turkey who don’t have access to their rights.”

Afghan migrants in Turkey interviewed by Reuters said that over the past few years they had been denied interviews with U.N. refugee agency UNHCR that would formally determine their refugee status, a key step in the journey to being resettled.

Polat Kizildag, program coordinator at ASAM, an organization which registers asylum seekers in Turkey, said they were generally told they were ineligible because Turkey was the third country on their journey and the expectation was that they apply for refugee status in their second, in many cases Iran.

Human rights groups have said Iranian forces deport thousands of Afghans without giving them a chance to prove their asylum status and that they are pressured to leave the country.

“More than 63,000 Afghans came to Turkey last year, a sharp rise from 15,652 in 2014, according to ASAM (an organization which registers asylum seekers in Turkey), counting only those who registered. Some came directly from Afghanistan, others from Iran, where they had tried unsuccessfully to settle.(6)

ap_ap-photo1602-wi-e1448474695814-640x478

Iraq

Iraq has a population of approximately 37 million people and its oil dependent economy is in a terrible shape. In her NPR report, Alice Fordham says:

“Everything seems to be working against the Iraqi economy. The government is waging a costly war with the Islamic State while dealing with falling oil prices, millions of displaced citizens and staggering costs for reconstruction of cities ruined by fighting.” (7)

Add to this the effects of the civil strife and you have the makings of an explosive situation. According to a report by the International Organization for Migration, more than 3 million people have been displaced in Iraq by violent conflict since January 2014.  Dominik Bartsch, the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said 10 million people were expected to need humanitarian support by the end of the year in that country, where 3.2 million were already displaced. (4)

In the past years there has been  migration within the region, which is now becoming migration to Europe. In a New York Times article, Ken Arango wrote in September 2015:

“Adnan al-Azzawi, 45, was in Damascus, Syria, from 2004 to 2011, and then returned to Baghdad. He recently sent his family on the migrant journey, and they wound up in Belgium. He hopes to join them soon.” (3)

iraq_displacement

The mix of the origin countries is changing

Since September 2015, the mix of migrants by country of origin has changed significantly. The extensive quote below is from Chris Tomlinson’s article (5):

The number of Syrian migrants is falling, while the number of Afghans, Iraqis and West Africans continues to grow, according to the European Union’s (EU) Frontex agency.

The organisation, which is tasked with monitoring and controlling movements around Europe’s borders, has revealed that the new wave of migrants aren’t necessarily fleeing conflict, but rather “aspiring” for a better economic situation, according to two agency reports.

The first document talks about migration coming through the Greek islands from the Middle East. They state that in recent months the percentage of Syrian migrants is decreasing.

According to the agency, although Syrians represented 56 percent of the illegal migrants that crossed into Greece in 2015, by December that number had fell to 39 percent.

The report also said that Iraqis and Afghanis as a percentage of the migrants had dramatically increased with the share of Iraqis more than doubling from 11 percent in October to 25 percent by the end of December. Afghani numbers also have increased to one third of migrants crossing into Greece.

aegli

Photo: The Aigli Hotel, a bankrupt resort near Thermopylae Greece, is now an official migrant center. Sergey Ponomarev for the New York Times.

First conclusions

What we can conclude from the Iraqi situation is that the tide of migrants will become stronger. When 10 million people are displaced and in danger of their well being, the tide will not only be big, it may also be unstoppable.

If the findings of the Frontex reports are valid, the wave of migrants from the Middle East to Europe will continue to come strong, contrary to the views that it will stop once the Syrian war is over. The reasons behind the migration are not restricted to the geographical territory of Syria, nor are they confined to fully blown war. There is an intense feeling of insecurity both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this feeling is not going away if we believe the relevant reports.

If insecurity drives the migration, this is not strictly a political issue. It is also an economic issue, and it is related to demographics.

Given all of the above, the migration crisis facing the Middle East and Europe is here to stay. And this raises a lot of questions regarding the adequacy of the EU – Turkey agreement regarding the flow of migrants. If the migration tide is not just the result of a war in Syria that is going to end, what are the chances that an agreement to control the flow of migrants from Turkey to the EU will prove to be totally inadequate?

European politicians have developed a piecemeal approach to tackle issues, no matter how big or small they are. As the collapse of the American financial system in 2008 has shown us, piecemeal measures do not work when the issue is a big crisis that transcends the ordinary. The Europeans do not seem to have learned this lesson. If we judge from the way the Greek crisis is being handled, the piecemeal approach thrives.

Is this going to work in the migrant crisis facing Europe? I do not think so. A year from now the situation in Greece will be intollerable, with many more migrants stuck in the country unable to move either to Europe or back to Turkey. The northern borders of Greece will continue to be closed for the migrants.

And what is the worst of all, the economic conditions that make migration inevitable also fuel insurgency in the Middle East.

iraq_war

Sources

(1) Afghans join Syrians, others migrating to Europe, by Slobodan Lekic. Stars and Stripes. Published: September 18, 2015.

(2) In Syria: Four Years of War. The Atlantic.

(3) A New Wave of Migrants Flees Iraq, Yearning for Europe, by Ken Arango. The New York Times, September 2015.

(4) U.N. sees refugee flow to Europe growing, plans for big Iraq displacement, by Tom Miles. Reuters, September 2015.

(5) EU Border Agency: Syrian ‘Refugee’ Numbers Declining, Economic Migration Exploding, by Chris Tomlinson. Breitbart, January 2016.

(6) Afghans feel forgotten in Europe’s migrant crisis, Dasha Afanasieva. Reuters, 6 March 2016.

(7) Iraq Faces A Perfect Economic Storm, Alice Fordham. NPR parallels, January 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

Eucken and Husserl: Arguments for just war

Introduction

In the context of a MOOC I am taking on the First World War and Modern Philosophy, I read the pro-war views of two German philosophers, Eucken and Husserl. In this short essay I will discuss Eucken’s two major arguments for just war, drawing from Eucken’s “The Moral Power of the War” (1) and supplement his views with Husserl’s as expressed in “Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity.” (2)

The two philosophers

Rudolf Eucken (1846 – 1926) was a German philosopher, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1908.

Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) was a German philosopher of Jewish descent.

I had not heard of Eucken until I took the MOOC, but knew of Husserl as a rigorously trained philosopher, who was disallowed for university duty by the Nazis and later resigned from the German Academy. I was not aware of his pro-war writings.

Both of Husserl’s sons were enlisted in 1914. Wolfgang Husserl died in the battlefield of Verdun in 1916. Gerhard Husserl was injured in 1917, but survived.

First argument

The first major argument put forward by Eucken is that this war is a just war because it “is waged by a whole nation for the purpose of self-preservation,  the maintenance of its sacred goods, and a defense against violent attacks, it will strengthen solidarity among the people, unveil hitherto dormant powers, and increase the standard of life.”

Eucken’s first argument can be summarised as follows:

The nation has purposes, war is the only way of achieving them, and therefore war is just.

Eucken identifies the “purposes” of the nation, but does not prove that the only way of achieving them is by waging war. I would have expected Eucken to identify at least one other way of achieving these purposes and then proceed to critically examine why war is the only way. Please note that by default, should there be another way of a nation achieving its purposes, this “non-war” way would be preferred over war.

Therefore the first argument is flawed, as its second premise is unfounded.

Second argument

In the second argument, Eucken introduces the higher forces that comprise an invisible network that unites the German people and leads them to a noble path. The people believe in these higher forces and allows them to be certain that their war deeds are not in vain, because they are done for the shake of these forces.

Husserl builds on this second argument. He elevates the German national Ideal to the Ideal of a genuine and true people. He asserts that “we exist in order to realize the pure Ideals… (we) wish to conquer in the war so that there be continued the revelation of divine Ideas in our glorious German people.”

The second argument can be rephrased as follows:

The German people are on a noble path by virtue of an invisible network of higher forces. The German people are genuine and glorious and they exist in order to realize the pure and divine ideals, which are necessary for the world to exist as a moral world. When the German people go to war, this war is fought to protect the pure and divine ideals from which morality springs, therefore it is a just war. They have to be victorious so that they continue being the carriers of divine ideals.

The flaw in this argument is the presumed exclusivity that the German people have in their union with the higher forces, their destiny to be the bearers of pure and genuine ideals, their morality. Why are the Germans unique in all of these? Why aren’t there other people who are in union with the higher forces? This is where the second argument collapses.

Summarising, Eucken’s arguments for just war are shaky and dangerous. They promote the concept of the “privileged” people and present war as a one way street.

 

References

  1. The Moral Power of the War (Die sittliche Kräfte des Krieges) by Rudolf Eucken, 1914. Translated by Anton Leodolter
  2. Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity (Three Lectures) by Edmund Husserl. From Edmund HusserlAufsiitze und Vortri~ge (1911-1921), Husserliana XXV, ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner Sepp (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 267-293. Numbers in text placed in square brackets refer to these pages.]. Translation by James G. Hart

 

On “Absolute” and “Total” War

Introduction

In the context of an online course I am taking, I recently read von Clausewitz’s “On War” and from the discussion that followed, realized that there was significant confusion on the meaning of the term “absolute” war, and its relation to “total” war. So I wrote an answer to a question in the discussion forum of the course and here I present an enhanced version.

The question of war is pertinent more than ever today, with the Western World facing its biggest challenge since World War II. In parallel to the activities in the theater of war in Syria, we now see terrorist activities developing at a massive scale in the heart of Europe.

Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz

Absolute War

If we agree that “absolute” war is a concept coined by Clausewitz, then we should try to understand what Clausewitz meant by “absolute” war. I will quote some passages from Book I, and then comment. All references are from von Clausewitz’s “On War”.

“We see, therefore, how, from the commencement, the absolute, the mathematical as it is called, nowhere finds any sure basis in the calculations in the Art of War; and that from the outset there is a play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web, and makes War of all branches of human activity the most like a gambling game.”(Book I, 21)

It is interesting to note that in the above passage of Clausewitz the absolute is equated with the mathematical. The lack of it leads to lack of a sure basis. He seems to be saying that War is not a deterministic phenomenon, and that there are many factors that mat make it like a gambling game.

“Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness. The Art of War has to deal with living and with moral forces, the consequence of which is that it can never attain the absolute and positive.”(Book I, 22)

“The War of a community—of whole Nations, and particularly of civilised Nations—always starts from a political condition, and is called forth by a political motive. It is, therefore, a political act. Now if it was a perfect, unrestrained, and absolute expression of force, as we had to deduct it from its mere conception, then the moment it is called forth by policy it would step into the place of policy, and as something quite independent of it would set it aside, and only follow its own laws, just as a mine at the moment of explosion cannot be guided into any other direction than that which has been given to it by preparatory arrangements….But it is not so, and the idea is radically false.” (Book I, 23)

I believe that the highlighted passage (in bold) gives the answer to the question. “Absolute” war is a theoretical construct that never materializes, simply because the human and social actors engaged in war are far too complex. Absolute war is like the explosion of a mine, subject ONLY to the laws of physics. But even at the height of military operations, there are so many other factors partaking in the process, that the last thing one can speak of is “absolute”.

So, to wrap up, Clausewitz used the term “absolute” to denote a notion of war that can never materialize in human communities and with human actors.

Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff

Total War

“Total war” is a term that was comprehensively used in a series of articles published by Leon Daudet in 1918 (Daniel Marc Segesser, Controversy: Total War). Leon Daudet was a French journalist and writer.

[Total war] is the extension of the struggle in its pronounced as well as its chronic phases to the fields of politics, economics, trade, industry, intellectual abilities, jurisprudence and the financial world. Not only armies fight in battle, but also traditions, institutions, customs, codes, minds and most of all banks.[17]

Segesser concludes that

“The concept of “total war” was thus born out of the conviction that a radicalization of warfare as well as a comprehensive mobilization of human and material resources was necessary at a time when France was on the defensive in Verdun in 1916 and after the unsuccessful Nivelle offensive in 1917 when it tried to hold its ground.[19]

After Daudet, the term was used by the German General Erich Ludendorff in his book Der Totale Krieg (The Total War) published in 1935. In it he promotes the idea that war should mobilize all the resources of the Nation, and thus be a Total War.

“Total war requires enormous things from the commander. Effort and labour will be expected from him that have never been asked for from commanders in the past, not even from Frederic the Great.[27]

ba106282

Building on the work of Ludendorff, Joseph Goebels delivered his 1943 speech a storming call to engage in “Total War”. Here are some excerpts.

“Total war is the demand of the hour… We can no longer make only partial and careless use of the war potential at home and in the significant parts of Europe that we control. We must use our full resources, as quickly and thoroughly as it is organizationally and practically possible. …The total war effort has become a matter of the entire German people. No one has any excuse for ignoring its demands. A storm of applause greeted my call on 30 January for total war. I can therefore assure you that the leadership’s measures are in full agreement with the desires of the German people at home and at the front. The people are willing to bear any burden, even the heaviest, to make any sacrifice, if it leads to the great goal of victory.” (Nation, Rise Up, and Let the Storm Break Loose, by Joseph Goebbels).

Goebels continues to describe the total war measures taken, like the drafting of all capable men (factory workers were exempt), the mobilization of women in civic duties, and so on.

volksentscheid-fuer-den-totalen-krieg

When Goebels made his speech, the situation in Hitler’s Germany was critical. The battle of Stalingrad was lost and Germany was for the first time facing defeat. No wonder that Goebels calls all Germans to full mobilization.

From the brief references above, one can conclude that “total” war as defined by Daudet, Ludendorff and Goebels was the last resort to a war machine that had run into trouble and needed (or so some people had thought) to command all the resources, material and human, of society at large.

The term “total” war has also been used loosely by journalists and historians to characterize World War I, due to the technological advances in the means of warfare. However, this use is rather informal and lacks any real significance.

Conclusion

“Absolute” war is the functioning of the military machine as if it were lacking all human elements. It is therefore an abstraction that never materializes.

“Total” war is one where the military machine mobilizes all human and material resources of society.

Parliamentary Elections in Greece – January 2015: The Outlook

Introduction

The coalition government of New Democracy and PASOK led by Mssrs. Samaras and Venizelos did not survive the three rounds of voting for the new president of Greek Democracy. As a result, on the 25th January 2015 the people of Greece will vote to elect the members of the Greek Parliament, who in turn will vote for the new President of the country and form a new government.

As we approach this critical date of parliamentary elections, I consider it pertinent to embark on building some scenarios for the results of the elections and what will follow.

There are two major events that will follow the parliamentary elections.

The election of the new president of Greece and the nomination of a new government.

The Greek Parliament has 300 seats.

In the vote for the new president, there will be a maximum of three rounds.

In the first round a majority of 181 votes is required. If this is not attained in the first round, the second round can elect president with 151 votes. Should this not be attained, the third round elects a president with simple majority.

In order to form a government a party or coalition of parties needs to get a minimum of 151 votes in parliament.

At first I will present the political parties who I think will get more than 3% of the vote and secure seats in the parliament.

Following that, I will proceed to build various scenarios. These scenarios are grouped in two groups. The first group refers to the January elections, whereas the second group refers to the potential second elections in March/April.

The outlook is presented as a set of outcomes, ranked by their probability of occurrence.

I conclude the post with some remarks on the tactical and strategic implications of this analysis.

Part II is published as a separate post, and focuses on some aspects of the “coalition formation processes and attitudes”, as well as potential developments following the January elections.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Color Planes 5
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Color Planes 5

The political parties

New Democracy

Orientations: Center-right, Right, Populist-right, Extreme-right

Leader: A. Samaras

Current status: Following two and a half years in government, New Democracy have made the fatal error of trying to cut the umbilical cord with Germany and the IMF too soon. In spite of that, having received many smacks on the face, they continue in my mind to be the favourites of Germany and the IMF. They will most likely not win in the January election, but this does not necessarily mean that they will not eventually govern again.

Outlook: I estimate they will get between 25 and 30 of the national vote and will be the second party after SYRIZA.

SYRIZA

Orientations: Center-right, Center, Center-left, Left, Extreme-left

Leader: A. Tsipras

Current status: SYRIZA was a marginal party of the left in 2008 when the financial crisis started. In the elections of 2012 they got more than 20 % of the vote and all of a sudden they became the opposition leaders. Today they claim the leadership of the country, having attracted many of the PASOK voters who feel betrayed by the current leader Mr. Venizelos. Their leader, Mr. Tsipras has polished his ways and is more moderate in his statements compared to previous years. In terms of policies, SYRIZA want to renegotiate the huge debt of the country. Whether they can do it is another story.

Outlook: They will get between 30 and 35 percent of the national vote and be the first party but they will have less than 150 members of parliament.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue

GOLDEN DAWN

Orientations: Fascists, Extreme-right, Right

Leader: N. Mikhaloliakos

Current status: The Golden Dawn is no longer comamnding percentages around 10%, but they continue to be strong, and over 5%. However, they are isolated by all other political parties and thus they will not be able to influence the outcome of the elections, unless they exceed 5% by a significant margin.

Outlook: They will get between 4 and 6 percent of the national vote.

KKE – Communist Party of Greece

Orientations: Communists

Leader: D. Koutsoumbas

Current status: Nothing is more stable and more predictable in Greek politics than KKE. They follow a solitary road for many years now (since they formed a coalition government with other parties in 1989). No surprises here. They will definitely not support SYRIZA under any circumstances.

Outlook: They will get between 4 and 6 percent of the national vote.

POTAMI

Orientations: Right, Center-right, Center, Center-left

Leader: S. Theodorakis

Current status: This party was formed a few weeks before the European Parliament elections of June 2014. They do not have any political agenda, and this will hurt them in the elections. Being unashamedly opportunistic and branding a nice smile does not get votes in a destroyed country. Many analysts predict that POTAMI will be the third strongest party in the elections, but I seriously doubt this.

Outlook: They will get between 3 and 5 percent of the national vote.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray

PASOK

Orientations: Center-right, Center, Center-left

Leader: E. Venizelos

Current status: PASOK is today a party of the past without any future. the formation of a new party by Mr. G. Papandreou was in my view PASOK’s death sentence. PASOK loyalists will vote for Mr. Papandreou. In spite of that, the momentum and the inertia of more than 30 years in politics, will keep them above the 3% mark.

Outlook: They will get between 3 and 5 percent of the national vote.

KDP – Movement of Democratic Citizens

Orientations: Center-right, Center, Center-left

Leader: G. Papandreou

Current status: This party may very well be the joker in the pack of parties. Initially this role was attributed to POTAMI, but now things have changed. G. Papandreou continues to be popular andmay very well take more than 3% of the vote, thus entering the parliament. Initally discarded as a prank, thie move to create a new party may turn all things upside down, especially if KDP win enough votes to be able to influence the formation of a new government.

Outlook: They will get between 3 and 5 percent of the national vote.

ANEL – Independent Greeks

Orientations: Extreme-right, Right, Center-right, Center, Center-left

Leader: P. Kammenos

Current status: This is a party of protest against the “troika” memorandum, but also a party of voters displeased with New Democracy. Basically it is a party of the right. The success or failure of Mr. Kammenos hinges upon his ability to lure the voters of the right to his weakening party.

Outlook: They will get between 2 and 4 percent of the national vote.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red and Blue
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red and Blue

The scenarios

There are two sets of scenarios. One refers to the parliamentary elections of January 2015. The other to the potential repat elections sometime in late March – early April 2015.

I. Parliamentary elections of January 2015

Scenario 1: SYRIZA win and form a government 

Likelihood: 10%

SYRIZA win in this scenario, but do not have the required 151 seats in parliament. Therefore they will need to form an alliance of some sort with another party. The most likely candidate for this is the party of ANEL, assuming that they will receive more than 3% of the national vote, and that the combined seats are more than 150.

Scenario 2: SYRIZA win but cannot form a government

Likelihood: 80%

SYRIZA win but do not have the required 151 seats and cannot form an alliance with another party.

In this case, the parliamentary elections will be repeated after the election of the president. The earliest date would be the middle of March 2015.

In this scenario SYRIZA will most likely be able to vote in a president of their liking, but failing to form a government the country will go to the polls again and a new government will not be formed until early April 2015.

Scenario 3: New Democracy win and form a government

Likelihood: 1%

In this scenario New Democracy win and they form a coalition with other parties, securing the required 151 seats.

Scenario 4: New Democracy win, but cannot form a government

Likelihood: 9%

New Democracy win but do not have the required 151 seats and cannot form an alliance with another party.

In this case, the parliamentary elections will be repeated after the election of the president. The earliest date would be the middle of March 2015.

In this scenario New Democracy will most likely be able to vote a president of their liking, but failing to form a government the country will go to the polls again and a new government will not be formed until early April 2015.

Piet Mondrian, composition c
Piet Mondrian, composition c

II. Parliamentary elections of March 2015

The second round of elections will be the result of no party being able to form a government after the first round of elections in January 2015.

Scenario 5: SYRIZA win and form a government 

Likelihood: 1%

SYRIZA win in this scenario, but do not have the required 151 seats in parliament. Therefore they will need to form an alliance of some sort with anoth party. The most likely candidate for this is the party of ANEL, assuming that they will receive more than 3% of the national vote, and that the combined seats are more than 150.

Scenario 6: SYRIZA win but cannot form a government

Likelihood: 9%

SYRIZA win but do not have the required 151 seats and cannot form an alliance with another party.

Scenario 7: New Democracy win and form a government

Likelihood: 80%

In this scenario New Democracy win and they form a coalition with other parties, securing the required 151 seats.

Scenario 8: New Democracy win, but cannot form a government

Likelihood: 10%

New Democracy win but do not have the required 151 seats and cannot form an alliance with another party.

Piet Mondrian, Tableau I Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray
Piet Mondrian, Tableau I Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray

Outlook

On the basis of the above, the outlook for the political developments in Greece is as follows. Outcomes are sorted by their likelihood of occurrence, from high to low.

On the basis of the likelihood prercentages I attirbuted to each scenario, the most likely outcome is that SYRIZA will win the January elections, but will not be able to form a government. New Democracy will bounce back and form an alliance with one or more parties, becoming the government. The reasoning behind this scenario has to do with the declining momentum of SYRIZA. As I have already stated above, SYRIZA does not have a cohesive social support. It is an opportunistic aggregate that cannot sustain its momentum over a long period of time. The fact that there are so many other parties competing for the ever so important “middle” stratum of society, is a time bomb in the bowels of SYRIZA. Therefore, should SYRIZA not be able to form a government after the January elections, I predict it is going to deflate, lose its momentum and will be overtaken by New Democracy and the small “center, center-left” parties.

Second most likely outcome is that SYRIZA will win the January election and form an alliance with another party, ANEL and/or KDP, becoming the new government of Greece.  But in terms of probability this outcome has 10%, compared to 64% of Outcome 1.

Outcomes 3 and 4 lead to a third election that is a nightmare outcome, and one of the very good reasons that everyone will try to end the process with the second election.

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie
Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie

The probability of each outcome is calculated as the product of the probabilities of each of the component scenarios, except in outcome 2, where there is only one scenario.

Outcome 1: Scenario 2 and Scenario 7 (0.80 * 0.80 = 0.64)

SYRIZA win the January elections, but cannot form a government. New Democracy win the second elections and form a government in alliance with one or more other parties. Most likely allies of New Democracy are: POTAMI, PASOK, KDP.

Outcome 2: Scenario 1 (0.10)

SYRIZA win the January elections and form a government in alliance with another party, most likely the ANEL party, although G. Papandreou’s KDP should not be ruled out.

Outcome 3: Scenario 2 and Scenario 8 (0.80 * 0.10 = 0.08)

SYRIZA win the January elections, but cannot form a government. New Democracy win the second elections but cannot form a government. A third election will need to take place.

Outcome 4: Scenario 2 and Scenario 6 (0.80 * 0.09 = 0.072)

SYRIZA win the January elections, but cannot form a government. SYRIZA win the second elections but cannot form a government. A third election will need to take place.

Piet Mondrian, Trafalgar Square
Piet Mondrian, Trafalgar Square

Tactical and strategic implications

Analyses of this sort are done because they highlight some important dynamics that must be taken into account from day one of the process leading to the elections.

I think that the analysis I presented above makes it very clear that if SYRIZA have a chance to form a government, they only have it in the January 2015 election. This means that they better try very hard to form an alliance with one or more parties in order to get the required vote of confidence from 151 members of parliament. Most likely allies of SYRIZA are the party of Mr. Kammenos, ANEL, and the party of MR. Papandreou, KDP. Both of these parties must prove their value in the electoral field.

Mr. Kammenos has been plagued by massive desertions and the polls show him below 3%. I think he will manage to get more than 3% but it will be a big struggle. Even assuming that they will enter parliament, the relationship between SYRIZA and ANEL may very well be a marriage made in hell, as Mr. Kammenos is quite temperamental and unpredictable, while SYRIZA may be unable to tolerate the extreme views of the ANEL party.

This leaves Mr. G. Papandreou as the best bet for SYRIZA to become the new government of Greece. A strong performance of KDP in the polls will legitimize Mr. Papandreou and the power broker and will force the “purists” of SYRIZA to look away while a deal between the two parties is struck. The big prerequisite here is a KDP percentage above 5%. If I am right in this, SYRIZA must be praying for the center and center-left strate of voters to vote for Mr. G. Papandreou.  Having said that, I doubt that SYRIZA have the political maturity to accept Mr. Papandreou as their ally in a new government.

For New Democracy the best tactical moves will be the ones that take votes away from ANEL and KDP, thus weakening the potential SYRIZA allies. The January elections will be a necessary evil, but not the end, because New Democracy will hope that S?YRIZA will fail to form a new government, thus opening the door to the second elections, which will be good for New Democracy. SYRIZA’s failure in January will bring the voters back to New Democracy, and make the smaller center, and center-left parties eager to form an alliance with the real winners, New Democracy. On the other hand, New Democracy will take advantage of the situation to present the new government as an alliance of political forces from a very wide spectrum of the political forces of Greece. This will be the best legitimization of the policies to be followed in the next two years.

There are other potential implications for New Democracy which are explored in Part II.

Golo Mann: The History of Germany since 1789 – Part I

Born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann, he was the third son of the novelist Thomas Mann and his wife Katia Mann.

One of six children of Thomas Mann, he described the drawbacks of growing up with a famous novelist for a father.

Katia Mann with her six children

“We almost always had to keep quiet — in the morning because our father was working, in the afternoon because he first read, then napped, and toward evening, because he was again occupied with serious matters. And there would be a terrible outburst if we disturbed him, all the more hurtful because we almost never provoked him intentionally.”

(Source: The New York Times )

I got to know him because of his father, one of the giants of world lieterature, and bought his book “The History of Germnay since 1789” years ago, when I was living in England, and forgotabout it withour reading it. All of a sudden, the book appeared in front of me one afternoon as if it had a voice, and without any further delay I Started reading it. It was an instant love affair, that continues until today, after almost two months of reading it.

Golo Mann

In today’s post I want to start sharing with you some quotes from the book, which I consider one of the best history books on Europe. The original’s title is “Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts”, first published in German in 1958. I use the English translation by Marian Jackson, reprinted by Penguin Books in 1990. For ease of reference, in each quote I will use  the page number of the 1990 reprint.

There will be two parts, the first covering the period from Napoleon to the end of Bismarck’s rule.

I am not aiming at reproducing the great intensity of the book, or summarize it. All I want is to present some elements of the work that are representative of its author and his views, which I find stimulating and challenging.

As an introduction to the period from 1789 to 1890, I offer the following timeline.

1813: Battle of the Nations at Leipzig; Napoleon is defeated

1848: a year of European revolutions; the Frankfurt Parliament convenes

1863: the Social Democratic Party of Germany is formed

1866: the kingdom of Prussia defeats the Austrian Empire in the battle of Koeniggaetz

1870: Bismarck emerges victorious from short war against the French

King Wilhelm of Prussia is proclaimed German Emperor

1871, January 18: GERMAN UNIFICATION – King Wilhelm of Prussia is proclaimed “German Emperor” in the Hall of Mirrors at the Chateau des Versailles. The German Empire is a confederation of 25 constituent states

1871: Bismarck becomes the first Chancellor of unified Germany

1875: Thomas Mann is born

1890: Bismarck resigns; Caprivi is sworn in a the next Chancellor

1898: Bismarck dies

Nations have always managed to find some rational necessity, some ideological reason for murdering each other (p. 28)

Nothing in history really starts at one particular moment (p.38)

The people’s of Europe have always learned from each other, and imitation is not necessarily follish (p. 59)

The moments in history in which noble enthusiasm reigns are short and one must be grateful for any lasting achievement from such a period (p. 67)

The mind of the individual is not a textbook, it is full of contradictions (p. 71)

… but eras follow each other without a break and clear divisions exist only in our minds (p. 85)

Ferdinand Lassalle

Our age is confused and devoid of ideas; it does not know what it wants and therefore anything seems possible (p.121)

A man without a home, without roots, cannot be effective, but he can see and speak, and that is what Heine did. (p. 142)

It is characteristic of men who have been disfranchised to take more than their share when they are liberated and to do to others what has been done to them (p. 169)

What anyway did right mean where interests conflicted, where two peoples were imbued with equal determination to survice? (p.171)

Anger unsupported by power can achieve nothing (p.178)

“The great questions of the age”, said Bismarck in 1862, “are not decided by speeches and majority decisions – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by blood and iron”. (p.204)

Ferdinand Lassalle once said: “Basically constitutional questions are not questions of law but of power; a country’s real constitution exists only in the actual prevailing political conditions. Written constitutions are only of value and permanence if they exactly express the existing distribution of power in sociaty”. (p. 214)

It is wrong entirely to condemn any class of human beings. The world is not a just place and when just men reach the top they are usually not as just as they promised to be while they were oppressed (p. 215)

Some men who are at odds with their age show that they belong to it by the extent of their opposition to it. (p.236)

Nevertheless he (Schopenhauer) was a Christian and distinguished between two basic tendencies in Christianity: an optimistic one promising paradise on earth, which he regarded as Jewish in origin, and an ascetic one proclaiming the misery and treachery of this world, teaching resignation and compassion. Something of this, which he found best expressed in the pantheism of the Indians, is present in his own work, and that is why a man who hated politics and modern society, a Christian commmunist like Leo Tolstoy, looked up to Schopenhauer as his master. (p. 239-240)

Yet he (Schopenhauer) wrote more beautiful and more forceful German than anybody who came after him; from the depths of German tradition, mysticism, romanticism and music came the moods which he skillfully combined into the four movements of his great symphony. (p. 240)

Arthur Schopenhauer

Everything that he (Bismarck) had tried to prevent or to delay, the worst that he feared, happened in the end: world wars, world revolution, the literal desctruction of the state which he idolized, with the result that the younger generation growing up today hardly knows the name of Prussia. Moreover, this happened not so very long after his death. People who knew him well actually experienced it; for example the wife of his son, who poisoned herself in 1945 a few hours before soldiers of the Red Army reached the family castle. A fate which serves to illustrate the futility of all political endeavour. Or should we say the futility of false, unjust and in the in the last resort unnatural political endeavour? Our story must seek to answer this question, although there will not be a clear yes or no. (p. 261-262)

He (Bismarck) denied energetically that Austria in the Balkans was defending German interests against Russia: “The mouth of the Danube is of very little interest to Germany”. Prussia had no reason to help Austria “to procure a few stinking Wallachians”. (p. 271)

His (Bismarcck’s) great achievement was not that he created German unity; that had been longed for and talked about for fifty years. What makes his achievement so very clever, daring and unnatural is the fact that he brought about German unity without the elements associated with it for fifty years: parliamentary rule, democracy, and demagogy. (p.287)

Bismarck saw the possible when it appeared and rejected the impossible. …If all but one player play a half-hearted game, the one who takes his game seriously is likely to win. (p.288)

The superior opponent attacks, and the attacker is almost always superiro; but he must know how to stop while he is still superiro. (p. 294)

Bismarck did not believe in elaborate constitutions. Like Lassalle he believed in the reality which alone would show what the constitution was and could be. (p. 307)

Often we are most eloquent about the virtues we lack…….The nature of politics does not permit a vacuum of power. (p. 312)

Payment for political services must be received in advance, not in retrospect. (p. 315)

But the frontiers between defence and attack are uncertain; and once the monster of war has been born it starts a life of its own not easily controllable by party political strategy. (p. 319)

Fuerst Otto von Bismarck
Fuerst Otto von Bismarck

Too much elaborate theory may harm a cause, as it has probably harmed American constitutional life to the present day. Too much brutal pragmatism has the same effect. The Reich suffered because bits that did not make a whole were hastily and roughly thrown together, the Prussian military monarchy, federation and universal suffrage. (p. 329)

Historical power is never without historical guilt (p. 345)

But the element which Stoecker (Adolf Stoecker was the court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm II, and founded the Christian Social Party in the 1870s) knew how to mobilize and which remained a sinister driving force in German politics was anti-semitism. It was an age-old, evil force which ahd existed in latent form from Christian, even pre-Christian, times onwards, concealed or under control and almost forgotten, only to break out again into brutal misdeeds. (p. 391)

For twenty -five years Bismarck had been Europe’s first statesman, at times its arbiter. His personal qualities entitled him to a place among the ranks of the great rulers of the past, Wallenstein, Cromwell and Napoleon. But whereas in comparable crises they did not hesitate to resort to extremes, to civil war and rebellion, all the Prussian Prime Minister could do was obediently to draft his letter of resignation (Bismarck resigned on 18 March 1890) the moment an undeserving young man asked him to do so. (p. 410-411)

Schluss – An End: A song by Hans Werner Henze, to a poem by Michalis Katsaros

Today’s post is about a song, written by the contemporary German composer Hans Werner Henze, to words of a poem by Michalis Katsaros. The translation of the poem from the Greek to the German language was done by the German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

Hans Werner Henze

I was lucky to meet the Maestro in London in 1996, in one of his lectures before the opening of the performance of his opera “Der junge Lord”. I had no idea at that time that he had composed a song using a poem by Katsaros. I found out when I bought “Voices” a compilation of twenty one songs he has wrtiten over the years.

Michalis Katsaros

An End

An end to the newsreels

An end to private housing

An end to the Te Deums

after the spent revolts

An end to all those

who define new directions

for our time

An end to genuine meetings

at ambassadorial level

An end to all those who pretend

to be our friends

An end to interpreters

An end to the public

and above all to me

who is telling you all this

When we have put an end to all that

we can begin

the Liberation

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

The interpeter of the poem in German, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, is one of the major living writers of Germany.

And now the song, sung by Joachim Vogt, tenor, and musicians of the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Horst Neumann.

10 Schluß