Golo Mann: The History of Germany since 1789 – Part II: from 1890 to 1933

 

Introduction

It has been some time since I published the first part of Golo Mann’s “History of Germany since 1789”, covering the period from Napoleon to the end of Bismarck’s rule.  In today’s post I will continue 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.

This is the second part, covering the period from 1890 to the rise of Hitler and Nazism to power (January 1933).

The third part will cover the period from January 1933 to the early 1960s. 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.

Timeline

A timeline from 1890 to 1933, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor.

1890 – Growing workers’ movement culminates in founding of Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

1914-1918 – World War I

1918 – Germany defeated, signs armistice. Emperor William II abdicates and goes into exile.

1919 – Treaty of Versailles: Germany loses colonies and land to neighbors, pays large-scale reparations. Beginning of the Weimar Republic, based on a new constitution. Its early years are marked by high unemployment and rampant inflation.

1923 – Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, leads an abortive coup in a Munich beer hall. France, Belgium occupy the Ruhr over failed reparation payments. Hyperinflation leads to economic collapse.

1924 – Hitler writes Mein Kampf – “My Struggle” – in prison.

1929 – Global depression, mass unemployment.

 

January 1933 – Hitler becomes chancellor. Weimar Republic gives way to a one-party state.

 

To facilitate the historical context, I added in some parts a [timeline tag].

Part Eight: The Age of William II (1888 – 1914)

After 1890 German affairs took a turn for the worse and therefore many historians came to the conclusion that Bismarck’s fall was a disaster and the beginning of all Germany’s misfortune. But it needs little acumen to show the erroneousness of this view. (p. 415)

Our character is determined partly by the reality in which we live, by the tasks that confront us. (p. 422)

The semi-dictatorship which Bismarck had exercised in order to preserve the peace, to deprive German development of its momentum, had collapsed in 1890. The verdict was final; it could not be reversed five years later. The energies of the German Reich could no longer be neutralized as in Metternich’s day. Something had to be done with them. (p.426)

Great states, that is states which under given conditions regard themselves as great, want to be influential beyond their own frontiers. History confirms this a hundred times. (p. 426)

“Only complete political dishonesty and naive optimism can fail to recognize that, after a period of peaceful competition, the inevitable urge of all nations with burgeois societies to expand their trade must now once more lead to a situation in which power alone will have a decisive influence on the extent to which individual nations will share in the economic control of the world, and thus determine the economic prospects of their peoples and of their workers in particular” Max Weber (p.434)

“Bernhard Bullow (German Chancellor from 1900 to 1909) is clean-shaven and flabby, with a shifty look, and usually has a smile on his face. Although he has no ideas in stone for emergencies he adopts the ideas of others and reproduces them skilfully… If Bullow wants to set one man against another he says with a charming smile ot the one that the other does not like him. The method is simple and almost infallible.” Geheimrat Holstein (p.437)

Once people had made the mistake of regarding the nation-state as the ultimate human goal and its “greatness” as an absolute purpose, there was no escape from the wearying game of threats and reconciliations, attempts to expand and withdrawals, of ever-changing speculative combinations; while always on the horizon there was the thing which everyone and no one believed in, war. (p.438) …alliances, however peacefully meant, always provoke others, and thus increase the danger they try to avert. (p.439)

On the contrary, in the nineteenth century Germany had been definitely popular among the Anglo-Saxons. The unpopular countries were France and Russia, France because it was revolutionary, imperialistic and restless, and Russia because it was exotic, barbarian and despotic. .. Only in the last ten or twelve years before 1914 did Germany become unpopular in Britain. The Germans lost the sympathies of the world because they did not believe that they had them and boastfully announced that they could do without them. (p.443)

There are two sides in every conflict and it would be wrong to hold German diplomacy alone responsible for the intrigues and fears that poisoned the European atmosphere in the decade before 1914. Foreign policy is largely irrational and comes up against elements that are also irrational. .. Economic competition can be controlled by sensible aim of making money; the same does not apply to political competition. (p.445)

Franz Ferdinand en Hertogin Sophie in Sarajevo 1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo 1914

The trouble with all youth movements is that they fail to keep their promises, however hard they try. German youth did have ideals when it came to nation and state, but given modern society as it was these ideals could only be cultivated by a small, young circle. This led to disappointments and later also to political aberrations. (p.466) The concept of the nation had no logical place in the Habsburg Empire. (p.467)

The Habsburg monarchy was a survival of the past, the only great non-national state in the age of nationalism. (p. 468) Economic interests bring people together, politics divide them. Political activity is competitive and threatening. The question of whether you can kill me or I can kill you arises between all living beings who do not share the same laws and do not trust each other. (p. 476)

The living know they will die but they do not believe it because they have become used to life and only know life. Such, more or less, must have been the mood before 1914. (p.478)

It was an old Austrian axiom that the “monarchy” would not last much longer than Turkey. Both states were supra-national and violated the principle of the nation-state. If Balkan nationalism triumphed over Turkey it would also triumph over Austria and in Austria. The Austrians therefore regarded the end of the First Balkan War as a defeat. (p.478)

Part Nine: War

Nothing is inevitable until it has happened. (p.481)

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Text: Subscribe to the war loan! The Army and Navy expect it from you!. Date Created/Published: Berlin : Hollerbaum & Schmidt, 1917.

July 1914

His (Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria) views on Serbia were more or less those of Bismarck, namely that its plum trees and pigs were not worth the bones of an Austrian soldier. (p.482)

The War Guilt Question

Nobody knew what anybody else would do. This was the basis of the risk, of the bluff, the sportsmanship of the affair; this has always been the game of politics. (p. 492)

Moods

By nature man oscillates between egoism and the desire to destroy himself for a great cause. (p.496)

louvain

Frustrated plans

All countries believed they were the victim of attack, but all attacked. All general staffs had long prepared and nurtured grand offensive plans which they now put into action. … After six weeks nothing was left of any of these plans and elaborate stratagems. (p. 501)

War have almost never gone according to plan; sooner or later they have developed in a way not foreseen by the strategists on either side. (p.502)

War Aims and Domestic Friction

In wartime it is not political sense that rules, but war – the generals or civilians who know how to wage it.  (p.508)

The aims had not led to the war, but the war, once there, led to the aims… Only German Social Democrats believed from the first day of the war to the last in the idea of peace without conquests, thus proving once again how superior their political education was to that of the middle classes. (p. 511-512)

It is difficult to have sensible aims in the midst of an orgy of senselessness… What would the peoples, the masses, do if they suddenly saw the whole enormous war effort as a cruel piece of foolery? (p. 512)

Changes

War is known to strengthen the strong and to weaken the weak, those who are already on their way down. The strong were those who were capable and could be made use of, but they were also vulgar, ruthless and shameless. (p. 520)

Armisticetrain_(slight_crop)

By Unknown – Press photo published all over the world. F.ex. Jan Dąbrowski “Wielka wojna 1914-1918” ( The Great War 1914-1918) Warsaw 1937, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9423922

Chronology

In other countries the crisis brought to the top the most ruthless, most imaginative politicians, Lloyd George in England and a year later Clemenceau in France. … It is logical that when war penetrates and dominates everything, when it is “total” war, the general must rule. .. Ludendorff was a tremendous worker, an expert on the new weapons, a man whose head was full of figures and names but who was irritable and brutal and in the subtleties of life as inexperienced as a child. (p. 524)

The Last Year

Just as the army leaders had  never paid any attention to the psychology of the enemy, they now gave no thought to the effect which their armistice offer must have on the German masses. (p.543)

Mass_demonstration_in_front_of_the_Reichstag_against_the_Treaty_of_Versailles
Massive demonstrations in front of the Reichstag, during the armistice negotiations of 1919

Part Ten: Weimar

Two basic documents

We know today that the wars of this century are bad for everybody and that the victor cannot undo the damage done to him by doubling or increasing to hundredfold that done to the defeated enemy. If he tries to do this he multiplies the damage done to himself. Victory is an illusion. (p. 568)

But the world cannot reverse gear; it cannot. It can fall or decline, like Greece or Rome, but it can never reverse gear. (p. 569)

It is an old truth that one should place least trust in one’s own right, in one’s own power and its duration when one is on top; then is the moment for humility , the moment to doubt of one’s own merit. There is always something in victory to be ashamed of. (p. 570)

The German Government signed the treaty… The Germans signed under protest because they had no choice. They called the treaty a “dictation” which indeed it was; because genuine negotiations had taken place only between the victors, not between victors and vanquished. Such a treaty does not last linger than the political situation on which it was based. (p. 570)

The Weimar Constitution presupposed that the Germans were agreed on the basic concepts of their communal existence. That they respected each other and were prepared to live together. It was possible to have differences of interest and opinion, they existed everywhere and could be dealt with, But the nation needed to be reasonably at peace with itself and with the rest of the world. If it was not no constitution could help it…(p.574)

weimar_billions_note_medium

Unrest, Followed by Apparent Consolidation

Munich thus became the center both of Bavarian opposition and of an all-German conspiracy against Berlin democracy… Berlin was supposed to hold together the divided, threatened and deeply dissatisfied nation. (p. 576)

The economic chaos of the post-war years, the growing inflation brought with it a profound change. (p. 577)

Consequently the supporters of the old order possessed at least two attractive arguments in favor of a counter-blow from the right; the new democratic authority had feet of clay; and it allegedly offered no guarantees against the Communist or anarchist threat. (p.  582)

spengler
Oswald Spengler

The Intellectuals

Spengler, like Hegel, was aware of living at the end of an historical epoch, and he was stimulated by the war as Hegel had been by Napoleon’s appearance…What was dangerous for Hegel, the glorification of war, the worship of power and success, Spengler took over. (p.618)

What made Oswald Spengler into a central intellectual figure was his description of the present and the immediate future. (p. 619)

“Blood for gold”, was what Spengler taught, and “work for moneybags, blood for gold” was what the National Socialists sang later.  (p. 620)

By praising old Prussia but criticizing the monarchy, by ridiculing the ideal of progress, by glorifying war but claiming to be a socialist, by completely overthrowing conventional ways of thinking in politics Spengler became the co-founder of an intellectual movement which the present writer cannot ignore, however confused it was and however little came of it in the end. It was called the “Conservative Revolution” . (p. 620)

Karlsbad, Gustav Stresemann mit Gattin und Sohn
Stresemann with his wife and son

From Stresemann to Brüning

[Timeline: With the end of the First World War and the start of the November Revolution, Chancellor Max of Baden announced the abdication of the German Emperor Wilhelm II on 9 November 1918. He also appointed Friedrich Ebert as his own successor as Chancellor. The Council of the People’s Deputies, a provisional government consisting of three delegates from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and three from the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), took over the executive power on the following day and called for a National Congress of Councils on 16 to 21 December to convene in Berlin. This Reichsrätekongress set elections for a national assembly to take place on 19 January 1919.]

1919 was the great hour of democracy but it was not a happy hour.  (p. 623)

The people was a chaos of conflicting hopes and fears. Chaos does not resolve itself on its own; what is needed are ideas and determination and not just a well-prepared constitution. The leaders of the Social Democratic Party replaced determination to govern by determination to keep order and by considerable, affecting integrity.(p. 624)

At the 1919 elections to the National Asembly more Germans voted for the Social Democrats than voted for the National Socialists even at the time of their greatest popular triumph in the summer of 1932. (p.683)

In fact the party which decided the fate of the Weimar Republic was the Center. (p.626)

Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-15436-0010,_Weimar,_Nationaltheater,_Denkmal_Goethe-Schiller
Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar

(Stresemann) He received no thanks for any of his achievements and he was blamed for everything that he had failed to achieve. .. The good period of the Weimar Republic was thus, on closer inspection, not so good after all. Nor was it felt as such.  (p. 627)

The relationship between between Germany and the new Polish state could not be good. Poland had been created at the expense of Germany, as Prussia had been at the expense of Poland… The Germans felt superior to the small Slav nations in a very different sense from that in which they felt superior to the French. It seemed natural to them that Poles lived under Prussian rule because the strong expands at the expense of the weak … But the same mutual, arrogant dislike separated Germans and Czechs, the latter regarding themselves as morally superior and the former as basically stronger, as having the justification of history behind them. (p. 628)

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Friedrich Ebert (center) with Konrad Adenauer (right) in the 1920s

The Weimar Constitution provided for the election of the President by the people, by all men and women entitled to vote. The first President, Ebert, had not been elected under this procedure, but had been appointed by the National Assembly. After his death in the spring of 1925 it became necessary to hold an election. The united right chose Hindenburg as its candidate and Admiral von Tirpitz persuaded him to accept the honour – two veterans of 1870. Hindenburg was elected, although by a narrow majority. Had the Communists not put up a third candidate, the “popular bloc”, represented by a mild Center republican, would have triumphed over Hindenburg’s “Reich bloc”. (p.631)

The idea of the Weimar Republic , to the extent that it had one, was compromise, peace between classes, not class struggle to the bitter end. (p. 635)

A few months later, at the beginning of October (1929), Gustav Stresemann died after a stroke. This was a loss of the kind which the Republic could least afford at this moment. Like no one else Stresemann had kept Parliament together, had personally made possible the compromise between labor and capital, and by his diplomacy had given meaning to Germany’s existence as a state among states. (p. 636)

hitler_1929
NUREMBERG, 1929. HITLER AT THE 3RD PARTY CONGRESS

Crisis and Disintegration of the Weimar Republic

In the Reichstag of 1928 the Nazis has mustered only 12 members and the Nazis were considered as part of the “lunatic fringe”. Hitler made no progress as long as things were going tolerably well in Germany.  But starting in 1929 the economy collapsed.

The Nazi Party had the advantage that it was in no way involved with what had happened in Germany since 1919.

In Germany the storm now turned against the Republic itself, against the whole “System” and all who had been part of it. (p.643).

[Timeline: Brüning was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg on 29 March 1930 when the grand coalition under the Social Democrat Hermann Müller collapsed.]

When the votes were counted in September 1930, it appeared that the supporters of the National Socialists had increased tenfold (my note: from 12 to 107). The New Reichstag was scarcely capable of doing the things which a Parliament is supposed to do, of positive investigation and decision.

The system by which Germany was governed depended on the pleasure of the President.

Reichskabinett Brüning I
Brüning’s first cabinet, March 1930.

After 1930 only the Army and the President – two not very republican institutions – stood between the Nazis and the Republic (p.685).

In 1932 Germany produced scarcely half of what it had produced in 1929.

[Since 1929, Germany had been suffering from the Great Depression as unemployment rose from 8.5% to nearly 30% between 1929 and 1932, while industrial production inside Germany dropped roughly 42%.]

It was the misery and the fear of misery which drove people into the Nazis arms. (p.654)

[Timeline: In March 1932, presidential elections pitted the incumbent Hindenburg, supported by pro-democratic parties, against Hitler and communist Ernst Thälmann. Hitler gained roughly a third of the vote and was thus defeated in the second round in April by Hindenburg, who gained a narrow majority.]

In Germany civil was had threatened since 1930; this was not a climate in which the economy could flourish.

sa_zeitschrift.jpg

All the major parties by this time had their own “strong arm” squads. By far the most limitant group, however, were the Sturmabteilungen – SA for short – of the Nazi Party, an army organized to fight a civil war.

[Timeline: In April 1932 Brüning had both the communist “Rotfrontkämpferbund” and the Nazi Sturmabteilung banned. The unfavourable reaction in right-wing circles further undermined Hindenburg’s support for Brüning.]

It is impossible to single out all the elements, poisonous or healthy, that fed the Nazi movement. (p. 656)

[Timeline: Hindenburg at the end of May 1932 was persuaded to dismiss Brüning as chancellor, replacing him with Franz von Papen, a renegade of the Centre Party, and a non-partisan “Cabinet of Barons”. Papen owed his appointment to the Chancellorship to General Kurt von Schleicher, an old friend from the pre-war General Staff and influential advisor of President Hindenburg. Schleicher selected Papen because his conservative, aristocratic background and military career was satisfactory to Hindenburg and would create the groundwork for a possible Centre-Nazi coalition. Papen’s cabinet had almost no support in parliament and only three days after his appointment, when faced with the opposition, had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag and called for new elections, for 31 July, so that the Reichstag could not dismiss him immediately.]

February-1932-Reich-President-Hindenburg-with-his-grandchildren-at-a-lunchtime-walk-in
February 1932, Reich President Hindenburg with his grandchildren at a lunchtime walk in the gardens of the Reich president’s palace, the present day location of the memorial. Image Source: Das Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13171.

[Timeline: The July 1932 elections resulted in great gains by the Nazi Party; with 230 seats, it was the largest party in parliament but without an overall majority. Neither the Nazi Party nor Hindenburg had a governing majority, and the other parties refused co-operation. Neither side had a majority on its own, and no coalition could be formed to create a governing majority. Thus, Papen’s minority government continued, leading to another election in November.]

[Timeline: The results of the November 1932 election were a great disappointment for the Nazis. Although they emerged once more as the largest party by far, they had fewer seats than before, and failed to form a government coalition in the Reichstag parliament.]

The Weimar state was thus more an appendage of the Empire of William II or the Bismarck than it was a distinct historic epoch; it was an interregnum between two eras, the second of which was, as we know, infinitely worse. (p.685)

In an interregnum the strongest takes over and it was Hitler who happened to be the strongest. (p.686)

Machtergreifung-Hitler-u-Papen
January 30, 1933, shortly before 5 p.m .: After the first photo shoot of the new government of Hitler, the Chancellor looks deep into his vice Chancellor’s eyes

[Timeline: In the November 1932 election the Nazis lost seats, but Papen was still unable to secure a Reichstag that could be counted on not to pass another vote of no-confidence in his government. Papen’s attempt to negotiate with Hitler failed. Under pressure from Schleicher, Papen resigned on 17 November and formed a caretaker government. Papen told his cabinet that he planned to have martial law declared, which would allow him to rule as a dictator. However, at a cabinet meeting on 2 December, Papen was informed by Schleicher’s associate General Eugen Ott that Ministry of the Reichswehr war games showed there was no way to maintain order against the Nazis and Communists. Realizing that Schleicher was moving to replace him, Papen asked Hindenburg to fire Schleicher as defence minister. Instead, Hindenburg appointed Schleicher as chancellor.]

How small the people sometimes are who are in a position to make history, how base their motives, their thoughts, their character… This enmity, this paralysis of German politics caused by the conflict of the mass parties, gave them (the Nazis) their chance… An industrial society in a state of great political excitement could be ruled either democratically or demagogically and tyranically. (p.677)

In the end there was nothing sinister about the way in which Hitler came to power, because he was politically the strongest and had the most vehement popular movement behind him.(p.678)

[Timeline: On 9 January 1933, Papen and Hindenburg agreed to form a new government that would bring in Hitler. On the evening of 22 January, in a meeting at the villa of Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin, Papen made the concession of abandoning his claim to the Chancellorship and committed to support Hitler as Chancellor in a proposed “Government of National Concentration”, in which Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Minister-President of Prussia. On 23 January, Papen presented to Hindenburg his idea for Hitler to be made Chancellor, while keeping him “boxed” in. On the same day Schleicher, to avoid a vote of no-confidence in the Reichstag when it reconvened on 31 January, asked the president to declare a state of emergency. Hindenburg declined and Schleicher resigned at midday on 28 January. Hindenburg formally gave Papen the task of forming a new government.]

Reichskabinett Adolf Hitler
The Hitler Cabinet on 30 January 1933

[Timeline: In the morning of 29 January, Papen met with Hitler and Hermann Göring at his apartment, where it was agreed that Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Commissioner for Prussia. It was in the same meeting that Papen first learned that Hitler wanted to dissolve the Reichstag when he became Chancellor and, once the Nazis had won a majority of the seats in the ensuing elections, to activate the Enabling Act. In the end, the President, who had previously vowed never to let Hitler become Chancellor, appointed Hitler to the post at 11.30 am on 30 January 1933, with Papen as Vice-Chancellor. While Papen’s intrigues appeared to have brought Hitler into power, the crucial dynamic was in fact provided by the Nazi Party’s electoral support, which made military dictatorship the only alternative to Nazi rule for Hindenburg and his circle.]

It was because of Papen’s activities that Hitler became Chancellor in a particular way and this fact alone should have been enough to make Papen remain forever silent in shame and remorse. (p.679)

Once in power (1933) Hitler therefore found it terrifyingly easy to assume absolute control, and the political parties in particular were reduced to dust at his touch. (p.687)

What seemed to begin as a new chapter in German history became the adventure of a villain who forced his will on Germany and through Germany on a large part of the world. (p.688)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Teutoburg Forest Battle

Introduction

Reading H.A.L. Fisher’s “A History of Europe” I stumbled upon the battle of Teutoburg Forrest in 9 A.D. and started reading about it. This article is a compilation of my reading.

“In 6 AD the Roman view of the situation in Europe looked good. Gaul was peaceful and Germany appeared pacified and ready for taxation. Tiberius and Sentius Saturninus stood prepared to attack Rome’s last major European rival, the Marcomanni, led by their king Maroboduus. The attack never came about; rebellion erupted in Pannonia, requiring two thirds of the Roman army to put down and threatened the safety of Macedonia and Italy. Worse was to come. In 9 AD the Germans launched their own rebellion and defeated the Romans at Teutoburg Forest. The German victory at Teutoburg Forest, coupled with the rebellion of Pannonia brought an end to the period of Roman expansion and led to the formation of Roman frontiers.” (1)

Part of the battle site has recently been identified near Kalkriese, about 16 kms north of Osnabruck, in northern Germany.

At Detmold,  believed to be the site of the battle, in 1875 they erected the statue of Arminius, the warrior who defeated Varus and thus sealed the border separating the Roman Empire from what is known today as Germany.

It is interesting to note that at the end of the 3rd – early 4th century A.D. while the Roman Empire was splitting into East and West, most of the soldiers in the Roman legions stationed in the various outposts of the Empire were Germans!

Kalkriese
Kalkriese

Varus and Arminius

“Why is there a Germany? Part of the answer goes back to a battle fought in A.D. 9 in the treacherous marshes and dense thickets of Teutoburg Forest, near modern Osnabrück. As described by the Roman historian Tacitus, three Roman legions led by Quinctilius Varus had crossed the Rhine from Gaul, intent on incorporating the vast area known as Germania into the empire. They were ambushed and annihilated by German tribes under the command of a warrior named Arminius. It was one of the worst military disasters the Romans ever suffered.” (4)

Varus was appointed as governor of Germania, probably in the autumn of 6 CE. The office of governor of Germania had been created in the years 16-13 BCE, when the Romans had organized the strip of land along the Rhine and Danube as a military zone. (The legions guarding the Rhine had, until then, served as occupation force in Gaul; the fact that they were now transferred to the river proves that Gaul had become a thoroughly romanized area.) The fortresses along the Rhine had served as base for the conquest of the east bank of the river.(7)

Varus himself committed suicide as his command was massacred around him, with few escaping. The emperor Augustus’s dying words were: ‘Varus, give me back my legions.’

When Roman power was advanced from the Rhine to the Elbe, Arminius had initially accepted the situation. He graduated to Roman citizenship – in those days a considerable honour – and a military command in the imperial auxiliaries. But by 9 AD, he was disgusted by what he saw as Roman oppression and secretly organized a revolt, which involved contingents from a large number of Germanic tribes. Even after this huge victory, Arminius won only temporary allegiance from his people. In the face of the Roman counterattack and his own aspirations to kingship, support melted away from him and towards his uncle Inguiomerus. First his family was taken captive and then he himself was eventually killed by his own people. (8)

In the modern era, he was turned anachronistically into a symbol of triumphant German nationalism, but the monument erected to him at Detmold in 1875 is 70 km south of the real battlefield.

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Hermannsdenkmal in Detmold, near Bielefeld

Parenthesis: the discovery of the site

Tony Clunn is a retired major in the British Army. In the summer of 1987, he was attached to the Royal Tank Regiment in Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, in Germany. His hobby was to search for Roman coins with a metal detector. He asked Wolfgand Schlutter, the resident Archaeologist in Osnabruck, where to go. Schlutter suggested to try an area 20km north of Osnabruck. The site was first suggested by 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen, one of the “founding fathers” of modern research into ancient history. Tony Clunn went ahead and discovered the site of the battle. His metal detector did a very good job indeed!

(Mommsen decreed in his 1899 will: “What I have been, or what I was supposed to have been, is nobody else’s business.”)

Wolfgang
Wolfgang Schlutter

A battle that changed the course of world history

“According to accounts by two great chroniclers of Rome, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, in A.D. 9 a chieftain named Arminius led a mas-sive army of Germanic warriors—”barbarians” to the Romans—in the annihilation of some twenty thousand Roman soldiers. It was one of the most devastating defeats suffered by the Roman army The effects of this catastrophe were profound. It ended Rome’s designs on conquest farther east beyond the Rhine and resulted in the emperor Augustus’s decision to expand and strengthen a series of military bases along the Rhine frontier, creating a densely militarized zone in the middle of Europe. As the bases grew, towns were established near them, many of which became major centers of medieval and modern Europe, includ-ing Bonn, Cologne, Mainz, and Strasbourg. Furthermore, the Rhine remained the political and cultural boundary of the Roman world throughout the succeeding four centuries of the Roman Empire, and it has continued as a cultural, and often a political, boundary for the past two thousand years. The psycho-logical effect of the crushing defeat on Augustus and his successors contributed to their ending the policy of military expansion not just in Europe but in Africa and Asia as well. This battle truly changed the course of world history. “(2)  

Roman Mask recovered in Kalkriese
Roman Cavalry Mask recovered in Kalkriese

The military perspective

James Venckus, a US military analyst, summarizes the battle:

Eighteen thousand Romans died as a result of their commander‘s mistakes.The Roman commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, misunderstood his Germanic enemy and the operational environment. Varus negligently assumed a lax marching order. He also failed to adjust to his situation and recognize multiple factors from terrain to weather, which negated his legions abilities and placed them in a vulnerable position, resulting in the Roman massacre.” (3)

During the autumn of 14 A.D., the army of Germania Inferior unexpectedly invaded “free” Germania. The cause was probably that the soldiers were unquiet after the death of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius, and Germanicus, commander of the army and  son of Tiberius’ brother Drusus, wanted to give them something else to think about. Tacitus describes Germanicus’ entry in Germania:

“Part of the cavalry, and some of the auxiliary cohorts led the van; then came the first legion, and, with the baggage in the center, the men of the twenty-first closed up the left, those of the fifth, the right flank. The twentieth legion secured the rear, and, next, were the rest of the allies.” [Tacitus, Annals, 1.51.2;tr. A.J. Church & W.J. Brodribb]

It is quite interesting to note how careful Germanicus was with protecting his flanks, something the Varus – most likely – failed to do.

Map
Map

Germanicus in Teutoburg 

In the passages that follow, Tacitus recounts Germanicus and his men surveying the wasted battlefield of the Teutoburg Forest.

“Therefore a desire invaded Caesar (Germanicus) to pay the final honours to the soldiers and their general, and the whole army who was present there was moved to pity at the thought of their relatives and their friends, and finally at the thought of the vicissitudes of war and the lot of humanity. Once Caecina had been sent ahead in order to explore the hidden passes and to raise bridges and ramparts over the watery swamps and the deceitful plains, they went forth into the sorrowful places, mutilated in their look and in their memory. Here was the first camp of Varus, with its wide circumference and the measurements of its headquarters showing the toil of three legions; then, from the half-ruined tower and the meagre ditch, it became clear that only the remnants of the army had taken up position there: in the middle of the field were whitening bones, scattered or piled up in the places where the men had fled or had resisted. Shattered remains of weapons and the limbs of horses were lying all around, and there were also human heads, nailed to the trunks of trees. In the nearby groves were barbarian altars, at which they had slaughtered the tribunes and the centurions from the first rank. And the survivors of that massacre, who had escaped the battle or their chains, were relating that here the legates had fallen, there the standards had been captured; here was where Varus had received his first wound, there he had found death by his unlucky right hand and his own blow. They pointed out the mound at which Arminius had harangued the soldiers; how many gibbets for the captives there were; what the pits were; and how, in his arrogance, Arminius had mocked the standards and the eagles.

Tacitus
Tacitus

And so the Roman army, present there six years after the massacre, began to bury the bones of the three legions, although no-one knew whether he was burying the remains of someone unknown or of his own relative but, as they buried them all as though they were their close friends or their relatives, their rage against the enemy rose; they buried the men whilst sorrowing and hostile at the same time. Caesar was the first to place the turf on the raised mound, as a most gratifying honor to the dead and as an ally to the present grief. However, this act was forbidden by Tiberius, whether because he wanted to criticize all of Germanicus’ acts or because he believed that the sight of the slaughtered and unburied men would make the army more slow to battle and more frightened of the enemy; and he thought that a general who was endowed with the office of the augurate and with its very ancient ceremonies should not have polluted himself with the funeral rites.” (6)

Roman soldiers

Teutoburg and Napoleon

In the nineteenth century, the battle became a powerful national symbol. In 1806, the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte decisively beat the armies of the German states. The humiliation was too big for the Germans, who started to look to the battle in the Teutoburg Forest as their finest hour. As Napoleon spoke a romanic language and presented himself as a Roman emperor, it was easy for the Germans to remind each other that they had once before defeated the welschen Erbfeind – an untranslatable expression that refers to the Latin speaking archenemies of Germany. The Teutoburg Forest became the symbol of the eternal opposition between the overcivilised and decadent Latin and the creative and vital Germanic people, between old France and new Germany.

Varus, Anselm Kiefer

Tacitus’ Germania and the Nazis

‘The Romans had been bedeviled for years by the motley tribes they lumped together as Germans. Tacitus set out to describe them. In his telling, the Germans possessed “fierce blue eyes, tawny hair, huge bodies.” They prized freedom, scorned luxury and esteemed military courage above all else. They were a people of sturdy values for whom “good laws” were no substitute for “good habits.” In the land of the Germans, Tacitus writes, “nobody laughs off vice; and to corrupt and to be corrupted is not called ‘modern times.’ ” Pointedly, he observed that the Germans were “not tainted by intermarriage with any other nations” but rather existed “as a distinct unadulterated people that resembles only itself.”

In 1924, the young Heinrich Himmler read “Germania” while on a train trip. In his diary he evoked “the glorious image of the loftiness, purity and nobleness of our ancestors.” He vowed, “Thus shall we be again,” adding the ominous note, “or at least some among us.” The Nazi Party convention held in Nuremberg in 1936 featured a “Germanic Room” with Tacitean quotations. In 1943, Himmler sent troops to a palazzo in Italy where he believed the oldest manuscript of “Germania” was preserved. They didn’t find it. The manuscript made its way to Germany eventually — in 2009, for an exhibition marking the 2,000th anniversary of Arminius’ victory.’ (4)

Sources

1. Nolan Doyle, Rome’s Bloody Nose. The Pannonian Revolt, Teutoburg Forest and the Formation of Roman Frontiers.

2. Peter Wells, The Battle that stopped Rome

3. JAMES L. VENCKUS, LCDR, USN, ROME IN THE TEUTOBURG FOREST

4. Cullen Murphy, The Idea of Germany, From Tacitus to Hitler, The New York Times, June 10 2011

5. Teutoburg Forest, LIVIUS, Articles on Ancient History

6. Tacitus Annals 1.61-62 (contributed by Sophie Mansell), The Classical Anthology

7. Publius Quinctilius Varus, LIVIUS, Articles on Ancient History

8. Arminius, ruler of the Cheruscans, BBC

Proselytizing children and adolescents to fascism – Greece’s Golden Dawn “spiritual awakening” seminars

Europe has a tradition in democracy.

Democracy was born in Athens, Greece.

However, today democracy is having a really tough time in its own birthplace.

The town of Artemisia (Loutsa) is 20 km east of Athens.

Golden Dawn's "Spiritual Awakening" Seminars
Golden Dawn’s “Spiritual Awakening” Seminars

In this low to middle income sleepy town, the extreme right party of Golden Dawn has started proselytizing children and adolescents, claiming that they teach them history.

“Ta Nea” (The News) newspaper reports today that on Saturday, 23rd February the Artemissia (Loutsa) office of the Golden Dawn party issued a statement that they started a program of “spiritual awakening” that is addressed to children and adolescents.

According to the article written by Yannis Papadopoulos, the program is based on the book “Propaganda – Methodology and techniques of the manipulation of the masses”, written by the Propaganda Minister of the Colonel’s Greek Junta Georgios Georgalas back in 1967.

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On the website of the newspaper one can find also interviews with 14-14 year olds who say that “whenever they meet a Pakistani they run after him”. The argument they use is convincing: “If the Golden Dawn (adult) members do it, why shouldn’t we?”

Attacking – and even murdering – “foreigners with dark skin color” is happening in the country that gave birth to democracy.

Golden Dawn is the third most popular party according to the polls after New Democracy and SYRIZA.

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The leaders of the fascist party make open and clear statements regarding their view of democracy and its institutions.

Recently Golden Dawn invited in their offices in the Greek Parliament German Neo-Nazis.

In spite of all that, Golden Dawn is today a legally recognized party that benefits from all the rights of – whatever remains of – the Greek Democracy.

Golden Dawn and German Neo-Nazis in the Greek Parliament
Golden Dawn and German Neo-Nazis in the Greek Parliament

This attitude of tolerance – or rather cowardice – towards the fascists I find as one more sign that Greece is rapidly becoming a society that has lost its democratic bearings. With potentially disastrous implications.

Why New Democracy, PASOK, Democratic Left and SYRIZA do not ask the institutional court of the country to outlaw Golden Dawn?

My question should be read as technical. I am not a constitutional expert. The procedure may be different, but the fact is that if these parties wanted, they could outlaw Golden Dawn.

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The fact is that they do not do it.

“We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal.” Karl Popper, Philosopher.

 

Reflecting on the results of the Italian Elections, February 2013: When things don’t work, they don’t work.

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A lot has been written about the results of the Italian elections. The ink has not dried yet.

I want to offer a very simple view on the results.

When things don’t work, they don’t work.

A man walks past election campaign posters in Rome

The Berlin-Brussels doctrine and policy of fiscal austerity is not working.

The Italian voters have very clearly expressed this.

But the political leaders involved and supporting this, with their entourage, turn their eyes away from this fact, and insist on moving on with their policies that lead Italy – and many other countries – to disaster.

img_606X341_thenetwork-italian-elections-200213

We have  in front of us a new totalitarianism.

I am afraid that the proponents of this are not going to stop at any cost.

We may be entering a very dark period of European history.

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)

1001 Ways to Die – (5) Ferdinand Lassalle, German Politician and Publicist

Lassalle's Tomb in Wroclaw, Poland

The German politician and publicist Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64) died after a duel in Switzerland at the age of 40.

Sturm und Drang marked the life of Ferdinand Lassalle. Born in 1825 in Breslau, Eastern Prussia (today’s Wroclaw in Poland) as Ferdinand Lasal, he changed his name to one that sounded less Jewish and more like a revolutionary French name. As lawyer for Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt in her divorce, he became famous and received a tidy sum, which he dedicated to the revolution and the workers’ movement.  (Source: IISH)

The General German workers’ Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was established by Lassalle in 1863. The only stated purpose of this organization was the winning of equal, universal, and direct suffrage through peaceful and legal means. As a result of the “disagreements between MArx and Lassalle, a lot of German Marxists did not join the first labour party in the history of Germany.  

The German Social Democratic Party, SPD, ws established in 1875, absorbing ADAV.  

But Lassalle was not an “ordinary” socialist. He became friends with Bismarck. As Geoffrey Wawro notes in his review of Steiberg’s Bismarck biography on WSJ:

“Mr. Steinberg notes that Bismarck’s tactical use of democracy drew much from his controversial friendship, in the early 1860s, with the dashing socialist Ferdinand Lassalle. None of Bismarck’s conservative contemporaries could make sense of this relationship, but Bismarck learned from Lassalle clever ways to ­discredit liberalism and what the ­Germans called Manchestertum—the mania for British-style capitalism ­wedded to parliamentary government.

Lassalle loathed liberalism on the grounds that it merely replaced the landed aristocracy with a new elite of merchants and professionals; it would lead, he believed, “to a deep immorality and to exploitation” of the poor by the rich. Bismarck would later employ that novel line of attack to justify the paternal Polizeiwirtschaft (police state) that he wielded against German socialists and Catholics after unification. With one hand, he doled out old-age pensions and accident insurance, while removing representative government with the other.”

Ferdinand Lassalle

 

According to Golo Mann (The History of Germany since 1789) when Bismarck had to address the Reichstag years later, he made what was almost a declaration of love for LAssalle as a human being:

“He had something which geatly attracted me as a private person; he was one of the most intelligent and charming people with whom I have come in contact, a man who was ambitious in a big way. Lassalle was an energetic and highly intelligent person and to talk to him was very instructive; our discussions lasted for hours and I was always sorry when htey were over. I regret that our political positions did not allow more extended dialogue. I would have been glad to have a man of such talents and intellect as my neighbour in the country….”

But Lassalle was not just a politician. He was a man of many talents. In 1845, having graduated from University, he started wrting a book on Heraclitus. The author’s efforts were intrrupted by other events and the book was eventually published in 1858 with the title ” The philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark Philosopher of Ephesus”. In this essay Lassalle portrayed Heraclitus as a young Hegelian, or a precursor of Hegel.

The reason that led him to the fateful and fatal duel was is love for a woman, Helene von Donniges, the daughter of a Bavarian diplomat. Herr von Donniges was dead against the marriage between his daughter and the socialist Leader. Helene finally sucumbed to the huge pressures exerted by her family and renounced Lassalle, becoming engaged to the Wallachian Count von Racovitza. Lassalle who did not take this lightly challenged both Helene’s father and fiancee to a duel. The fiancee accepted and on the morning of 28 August 1864  Lassalle was mortally wounded. He died on August 31.

Wilhelm von Donniges

Helene married the Wallachian Count Von Racovitza and, subsequently, the actor Siegwart Friedmann, a leader in German theater. After Friedmann’s death, Helene married again, this time the Russian Baron von Schewitsch. After the Baron died in Munich in 1911, Helene became very distressed and committed suicide taking chloral hydrate in November of the same year.

Helene von Donniges

In a dramatic and romantic posture worthy of Sarah Bernhardt, Helene (Von Racovitza) poses at the Mora studio.

Paris - Musée d'Orsay: Jean Baptiste Carpeaux's La Danse (model)

Note: This allegorical vision of a genie of the dance, surrounded by Dionysiac creatures, was designed in 1865for the Paris Opera House. Puritans, who exist even in France, thought that the sculpture was obscene and erotic. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux had given the genie a female face (that of Princess Helene de Racowitza) and a male nude body (the model was a carpenter, Sebastien Visat). (Source: flickr)

Lassalle's Death Mask

Anselm Kiefer salutes Martin Heidegger

For a long time I wanted to publish a sequence of posts for one of my favourite modern artists, Anselm Kiefer. Kiefer was born in Germany after the second world war and studied with Joseph Beuys.

His work is a journey inside German history and culture, a painful and horrific journey at times, establishing dialogues with figures that inhabit the realm of Culture and Tradition, depicting objects and tracing trajectories in space.

Through his multi-layered compositions, Kiefer exposes the tragic elements of life and existence, in all shapes and proportions.

I considered it appropriate to start the journey of experiencing some of his works with two works on paper that he “dedicates” to the Holy Monster of Modern German Philosophy, Martin Heideger.

Essence
“Essenz”
1975. Watercolor, acrylic, and ballpoint pen on paper
11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in. (29.8 x 39.4 cm)
Inscribed lower center in watercolor: ESSENZ
Inscribed on nine areas of white acrylic in ballpoint pen: Ek-sistenz [ex-sistence]
Inscribed lower left in watercolor: für Julia [for Julia]
Purchase, The Barnett Newman Foundation Gift, 1995
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Essence/Ex-sistence
“Essenz /Ek-sistenz”
1975. Watercolor and gouache on paper
Inscribed upper right in gouache: Ek-sistenz
Inscribed lower center in watercolor: Essenz
Inscribed lower left in watercolor: für Julia [for Julia]
11 3/4 x 15 5/8 in. (29.8 x 39.7 cm)
Purchase, The Barnett Newman Foundation Gift, 1995

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


In Essence, the German word “Ex-sistenz” appears on each of several mountains rendered in plan view in thick white acrylic, and the word “ESSENZ” is rendered in black, the letters moving across the surface and weaving in and out of the mountains. Here, as in the accompanying work, Essence/Ex-sistence, Kiefer has used both graphic means and language to symbolize the German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s ideas. Essence, it is suggested, occupies no particular material place, while existence has palpable physical presence.

Emil Nolde – Part I: Seascapes

Further to my last post about Husum, Germany, I start today the publication of posts on the work of Emil Nolde, one of the most important expressionist painters in the 20th century.

 

Emil and Ada Nolde on their wedding day, 1902
Emil and Ada Nolde on their wedding day, 1902

 The first part covers seascapes from the North, and the South.

High Sea, Watercolor on paper
High Sea, Watercolor on paper

 Nolde’s watercolor paintings were produced in high numbers throughout his carrer. He had developed a technique called “wet on wet” soaking the paper with extremely wet brushes.

 

Junks (red), watercolor on paper, China 1913
Junks (red), watercolor on paper, China 1913

In 1937 over 1,000 of Nolde’s works were confiscated by the Nazis and later some of them exhibited in the “Degenerate Art” Exhibition in Munich. Nolde withdrew to his home in and started painting the  so called “Unpainted Pictures”.

 

Sea with Red Sun, watercolor on paper, 1938-1945
Sea with Red Sun, watercolor on paper, 1938-1945

In his depiction of the sea, Nolde was influenced by the British painter Turner. However, Nolde’s seascapes are almost violent, full of energy that flows out f the canvas or paper and grabs your undivided attention!

 

The Sea III, oil on canvas, 1913
The Sea III, oil on canvas, 1913

.”….Nolde sees the Sea devoid of any reference to man, eternally in motion, ever changing….”

Max Sauerlandt, Nolde’s first biographer 

 

 

 

 

 

Drifting heavy-weather clouds, oil on plywood, 1928
Drifting heavy-weather clouds, oil on plywood, 1928
Tropical Sun, oil on canvas, 1914
Tropical Sun, oil on canvas, 1914

Husum, Germany

I am in travelling mood today and I dug out some memories from a visit to Emil Nolde’s hometown, Neukirchen, in Germany. On my way there (60 km south from Neukirchen) I decided to spend the night by the sea in the outskirts of a town named Husum. This is the hometown of Theodor Storm, a 19th century poet and novelist. The area is very near the border of Germany with Denmark, and I drove from Hamburg to the north.

 

Birds over the Sea
Birds over the Sea

I arrived early in the afternoon. The day was cloudy and hazy. It was early spring, so the day was not quite long. 

Emil Nolde was a painter in the first half of the 20th century, and his seascapes are of the most beautiful and powerful I have seen. This may be the reason I wanted to see the sea that he was looking at from his hometwown. 

The beach was very quite. There were no people around.

 

Loneliness
Crossing lines

Windmills
Wind turbines

 

Cabins
Cabins

The cabins were empty shells, gaping open mouths standing still.

 

After a rainfall that lasted for one hour, the sky started lightening up.

 

Lighter light
Lighter light

And then a few rays of sunlight emerged. 

 

Sailing boat
Sailing boat

 

A cyclist
A cyclist

A cyclist in the middle of the fields.

P.S. I will write about the painter Emil Nolde in another post.

P.S.2 All the photos in this post are taken facing west, except the last one, which is facing to the north.