Letters and Papers From Prison (33 page)

I also got very nice birthday letters from Karl-Friedrich, Hans-Christoph and little Horn.
¹⁶³
Hans-Christoph’s accounts of life in Bucharest surprised me; it’s still peaceful. I’m amazed that any country in Europe can still lead such a special existence today. Things have been better for him with his African and Italian divisions. Please thank them all very much.

I’ve been very impressed by Harnack’s
History of the Prussian Academy;
it has made me feel both happy and unhappy. There are so few people now who want to have any intimate spiritual association with the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: music tries to draw inspiration from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, theology from the time of the Reformation, philosophy from St Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, and the present
Weltanschauung
from bygone Teutonic days. But who bothers at all now about the work and achievements of our grandfathers, and how much of what they knew have we already forgotten? I believe that people will one day be quite amazed by what was achieved in that period, which is now so disregarded and so little known.

Could you please get hold of Dilthey’s
Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Renaissance und Reformation
for me? How are Renate, her child and her husband? Please give them all my love.

With much love from your grateful

Dietrich

Congratulations to Hans-Walter on his 20th birthday!

From his father

[Charlottenburg] 3 March 1944

Dear Dietrich,

We got your letter yesterday. It’s the same with us as with you. One thinks that by the time the letter gets into your hands we shall perhaps already have spoken and it will be out of date. That
makes our writing less regular, too. We’re already waiting expectantly for the next visit. Everything is much slower through having to go by Torgau.
¹⁶⁴
Provisionally we intend to go to Pätzig on the 13 th of this month…We’re thinking of being at home for the next bright nights.
¹⁶⁵
Going to and fro is very strenuous for mother with two lots of housekeeping…The Dresses are also spending nights at Sakrow now until their things are ready for moving. Suse then wants to go back to the children again. I expect that Walter will stay out there for the present. Renate, with her mother and child, and Christine, who is inseparable from her mother, are also still there. So with four generations Christel has considerable additions to all the rest, even though we sit at three different tables, as in a hotel, and each family cooks for itself. As the swarm mostly rushes off to Berlin in the morning and only returns in the evening, the day is fairly quiet. I wish that mother could get some relaxation. Going to and fro, the unaccustomed standing in the kitchen, her desire to help in the many places makes her very tired without her wanting to acknowledge it. A great burden will fall from her spirit when in the spring, as we are certain, at least the family, if not the world at large, is freed from its care.

4 March

Just after I asked for the permission to visit to be speeded up, it arrived. So I expect that this letter will be out of date by the time you get it. Meanwhile the letter from Hans-Christoph and the grandmother at Klein Krössin will be in your hands. Mother keeps wanting to write to you, and is sorry that she is so distracted.

Affectionately, your Father

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] 9 March 1944

Dear Eberhard,

I’ve heard through my parents again today that you’re at least finding things tolerable, and although that’s not very much (for
we want life to be more than just ‘tolerable’), it is some comfort, as long as we look on our present condition as only a kind of
status intermedius.
If only we knew how long this purgatory is going to last! It seems likely now that I shall have to wait till May. Isn’t this dawdling shameful? My parents are now going to Pätzig, where I hope they will have a rest. Sepp is home again; he has fought his way through with all his old resilience and defiance.
¹⁶⁶

I haven’t yet answered your remarks about Michelangelo, Burckhardt, and
hilaritas.
I found them illuminating – at any rate, what you say about Burckhardt’s theses. But surely
hilaritas
means not only serenity, in the classical sense of the word (Raphael and Mozart); Walther v.d. Vogelweide, the Knight of Bamberg, Luther, Lessing, Rubens, Hugo Wolf, Karl Barth – to mention only a few – also have a kind
of hilaritas,
which I might describe as confidence in their own work, boldness and defiance of the world and of popular opinion, a steadfast certainty that in their own work they are showing the world something
good
(even if the world doesn’t like it), and a high-spirited self-confidence. I admit that Michelangelo, Rembrandt and, at a considerable remove, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, are in quite a different category from those that I’ve mentioned. There is something less assertive, evident, and final in their works, less conviction, detachment, and humour. All the same, I think some of them are characterized by
hilaritas
in the sense that I’ve described, as a necessary attribute of greatness. Here is Burckhardt’s limitation, probably a conscious one.

I’ve recently been studying the mature ‘worldliness’ of the thirteenth century, conditioned, not by the Renaissance, but by the Middle Ages, and presumably by the struggle between the
idea of the emperor
and the papacy. (Walther, the Nibelungen, Parsifal – what surprising tolerance of the Mohammedans in the figure of Parsifal’s half-brother Feirefiz! – Naumburg and Magdeburgh cathedrals.) This worldliness is not ‘emancipated’, but ‘Christian’, even if it is anti-clerical. Where did this ‘worldliness’, so essentially different from that of the Renaissance, stop? A trace of it seems to survive in Lessing – in contrast to the Western Enlightenment - and in a different way in Goethe, then later in Stifter and Mörike (to say nothing of Claudius and Gotthelf), but
nowhere in Schiller and the Idealists. It would be very useful to draw up a good genealogy here; and that raises the question of the value of classical antiquity. Is this still a real problem and a source of power for us, or not? The modern treatment of it under the heading ‘city-state man’ is already out of date, and the classicists’ treatment of it from the aesthetic point of view has only a limited appeal today, and is something of a museum piece. The fundamental concepts of humanism – humanity, tolerance, gentleness, and moderation – are already present in their finest form in Wolfram von Eschenbach and in the Knight of Bamberg, and they are more accessible to us here than in classical antiquity itself. How far, then, does ‘education’ still depend on classical antiquity? Is the Ranke-to-Delbrück interpretation of history as a
continuum
consisting of ‘classical antiquity’, ‘the middle ages’, and ‘modern times’ really valid, or isn’t Spengler also right with his theory of cultural phases as self-contained cycles, even though he gives too biological a twist to historical events? The idea of the historical
continuum
goes back to Hegel, who sees the whole course of history as culminating in ‘modern times’ – i.e. in his own system of philosophy. That idea is therefore
idealistic
(in spite of Ranke’s assertion that every moment of history is ‘immediate to God’; that assertion
might
have supplied a corrective of the whole conception of the
continuum
of development, but it didn’t do so). Spengler’s ‘morphology’ is
biological,
and that gives it its limitations (what does he mean by the ‘senescence’ and ‘decline’ of a culture?). For the concept of education, this means that we can neither ideal-istically accept classical antiquity as
the
foundation, nor simply eliminate it, biologically and morphologically, from our pattern of education. Until we can see further into it, it will be as well to base our attitude to the past, and to classical antiquity in particular, not on a general concept of history, but solely on
facts
and
achievements.
Perhaps you will bring back from Italy something important in this direction. Personally, I’m afraid, I’ve always felt cool towards the Renaissance and classicism; they seem to me somehow alien, and I cannot make them my own. I wonder whether a knowledge of other countries and an intimate contact with them are not more important for education today than a knowledge of
the classics. In either case, of course, there is the possibility of philistinism; but perhaps one of our tasks is to see that our contacts with other peoples and countries reach out beyond politics or commerce or snobbishness to something really educational. In that way we should be tapping a hitherto unused source for the fertilizing of our education, and at the same time carrying on an old European tradition.

The wireless is just announcing the approach of strong contingents of aircraft. We could see a good deal of the last two daylight raids on Berlin;
¹⁶⁷
there were fairly large formations flying through a cloudless sky and leaving vapour trails behind them, and at times there was plenty of flak. The alert was on for two and a half hours yesterday, longer than at night. Today the sky is overcast, I’m very glad that Renate is in Sakrow; also thinking of you. The siren is just going, so I must break off and write more later.

It lasted two hours. ‘Bombs were dropped in all parts of the city,’ says the wireless. In my time here I’ve been trying to observe how far people believe in anything ‘supernatural’. Three ideas seem to be widespread, each being partly expressed in some superstitious practice: (I) Time after time one hears ‘Keep. your fingers crossed’, some sort of power being associated with the accompanying thought: people do not want to feel alone in times of danger, but to be sure of some invisible presence. (2) ‘Touch wood’ is the exclamation every evening, when the question is discussed ‘whether they will come tonight or not’; this seems to be a recollection of the wrath of God on the
hubris
of man, a metaphysical, and not merely a moral reason for humility. (3) ‘If it’s got your number on, you’ll get it’, and therefore everyone may as well stay where he is. On a Christian interpretation these three points might be regarded as a recollection of intercession and community, of God’s wrath and grace, and of divine guidance. To the lastmentioned we might add another remark that is very often heard here: ‘Who knows what good may come of it?’ There doesn’t seem to me to be any trace of a recollection of eschatology. I wonder whether you’ve noticed anything different. Do write and tell me your thoughts on all this.

This is my second Passiontide here. When people suggest in
their letters…that I’m ‘suffering’ here, I reject the thought. It seems to me a profanation. These things mustn’t be dramatized. I doubt very much whether I’m ‘suffering’ any more than you, or most people, are suffering today. Of course, a great deal here is horrible, but where isn’t it? Perhaps we’ve made too much of this question of suffering, and been too solemn about it. I’ve sometimes been surprised that the Roman Catholics take so little notice of that kind of thing. Is it because they’re stronger than we are? Perhaps they know better from their own history what suffering and martyrdom really are, and are silent about petty inconveniences and obstacles. I believe, for instance, that physical sufferings, actual pain and so on, are certainly to be classed as ‘suffering’. We so like to stress spiritual suffering; and yet that is just what Christ is supposed to have taken from us, and I can find nothing about it in the New Testament, or in the acts of the early martyrs. After all, whether ‘the church suffers’ is not at all the same as whether one of its servants has to put up with this or that. I think we need a good deal of correction on this point; indeed, I must admit candidly that I sometimes feel almost ashamed of how often we’ve talked about our own sufferings. No, suffering must be something quite different, and have a quite different dimension, from what I’ve so far experienced.

Now that’s enough for today. When shall we be able to talk together again? Keep well, enjoy the beautiful country, spread
hilaritas
around you, and keep it yourself too!

I think of you faithfully each day. With all my heart,

Your Dietrich

Do you see any possibility of my coming to your neighbourhood? I hope that you, too, are continuing to be very sensible.
¹⁶⁸
Now we have people of all ages from Klausen (the little one) to father. Do you really get enough to eat? Can one send you anything? Maria would love to. I’ve been waiting three weeks for W.’s
¹⁶⁹
visit; he said he was coming and then stayed away without letting me know. Quite inconsiderate, but one is gradually getting used to that, too. I really can’t understand it. By contrast, the unwearying loyalty of my parents is a great act of kindness…There are
situations in which the simplest action is more than the greatest outlines and plans and discussions. I also tell myself that from my present experiences. The real examples I call to mind are your visit that time to Gerhard and your visit (and several attempts) here, and the weekly journey of my parents and Maria’s journeys. I really don’t want to be unjust to anyone. Each one acts as he has been given. But Matt. 25.36
¹⁷⁰
remains the most important thing.

Good-bye. The letter is going off now!

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] Laetare [19 March 1944]

Dear Eberhard,

With the news of the heavy fighting in your neighbourhood, you’re hardly ever out of my thoughts; every word that I read in the Bible, and every line of a hymn, I apply to you. You must be feeling particularly homesick…in these dangerous days, and every letter will only make it worse. But isn’t it characteristic of a man, in contrast to an immature person, that his centre of gravity is always where he actually is, and that the longing for the fulfilment of his wishes cannot prevent him from being his whole self, wherever he happens to be? The adolescent is never wholly in one place; that is one of his essential characteristics, else he would presumably be a dullard. There is a wholeness about the fully grown man which enables him to face an existing situation squarely. He may have his longings, but he keeps them out of sight, and somehow masters them; and the more he has to overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more he will have the respect and confidence of his fellows, especially the younger ones, who are still on the road that he has already travelled. Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer. Lack of desire is poverty. Almost all the people that I find in my present surroundings cling to their own desires, and so have no interest in others; they no longer listen, and they’re incapable of loving their
neighbour. I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves. It’s remarkable then how others come to rely on us, confide in us, and let us talk to them. I’m writing all this to you because I think you have a big task on hand just now, and because you will be glad to think, later on, that you carried it out as well as you could. When we know that someone is in danger, we want to be sure that we know him as he really is. We can have abundant life, even though many wishes remain unfulfilled – that’s what I have really been trying to say. Forgive me for putting such ‘considerations’ before you so persistently, but I’m sure you will understand that considering things takes up a large part of my life here. For the rest, I must add, as a necessary supplement to what I’ve just written, that I’m more convinced than ever that our wishes are going to be fulfilled, and that there is no need for us to throw up the sponge.