Soul of the Age (43 page)

So I shall keep sending you some printed matter occasionally; I would like to send a lot of people a copy of the New Year speech.

TO THE AMERICAN EMBASSY

[
never sent
]

Montagnola, January 25, 1946

As you know, in the fall of 1945 a certain Captain Habe, who was at the time managing editor of several newspapers published by the American Army, wrote to me stating that I didn't deserve to be heard and shouldn't be allowed to play any literary role whatsoever in present-day Germany. I never answered that strange letter; Herr Habe's tone was so arrogant and hostile that I couldn't possibly have responded, especially since he apparently knows nothing of my work, political convictions, and public impact. Moreover, I have no particular ambition to write for the current German press.

Some references to this ridiculous affair have appeared in a portion of the Swiss press—due to the efforts of some friends to whom I had mentioned Habe's letter—to the effect that America has placed me on a “blacklist” or forbidden my works in Germany. At that point I wrote to the newspapers that had insisted on leaping to my defense, saying that they should let the matter rest at that, and through a few telephone calls, I was able to prevent several papers, the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
in particular, from running a story about this incident.

I received another letter recently from Herr Habe, and I am enclosing a copy. He takes it for granted that I “launched” those press commentaries, and then proceeds to engage in further invectives against me.

In any case, I wish to insist that I had nothing to do with the decision certain Swiss papers made to speak out on this matter. I have never regarded the attacks of this Herr Habe, whom I have never answered, as official American pronouncements, and merely see them as an expression of that gentleman's impertinence.

I sent my friend Thomas Mann a copy of Habe's first letter, in which he accused me of not having bombarded Hitler with articles and radio talks the way Thomas Mann did, and enclose Mann's answer, but would like to add that this letter is purely for your information and should not be passed on or publicized in any way.

I am not expecting an answer or statement from you; I merely wished to inform you about this matter.

Respectfully

TO ERNST MORGENTHALER

Montagnola, February 1, 1946

[ … ] As regards Richard Strauss,
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I fear that your hunch will turn out to be true: no matter what you do, you will end up regretting your decision. That is one of the disgusting things about the present situation. All the fronts overlap, and so just after having done the right thing, one keeps on asking oneself: Have I made the wrong decision? That happens to me too.

Strauss was in Baden when I was there, and I carefully avoided making his acquaintance, even though I felt he was a fine old gentleman, very much to my liking. Once, after I had arranged one evening to see the Markwalders at a certain time, they told me that would be fine, since Strauss was going to be there at the same time and was looking forward to meeting me. I withdrew, saying that I did not wish to get to know Strauss. Naturally, he was not told in quite that way; they came up with some sort of excuse for my absence.

The fact that Strauss has Jewish relatives is, of course, neither a recommendation nor an excuse. The existence of those relatives should have prevented him from accepting any advantages and homages from the Nazis, especially since he already had more than his fill of riches. He was at an age when he could have withdrawn and kept his distance. His inability to do so may conceivably be a product of his vitality. For him “life” means success, homages, a huge income, banquets, festival performances, etc., etc. He could not live without that—and wouldn't have wanted to—and so he wasn't wily enough to resist the devil. We don't have any right to reproach him in any substantive way. But I think we have a right to keep our distance.

That's all I can say. Ultimately, Strauss will always win, since he will never pull out his hair or allow himself any pangs of conscience. Even though he adapted to the Nazis, he was one of the very few Germans whom the victors immediately permitted to travel to Switzerland. It's been six months since several others, just as old as he, who suffered and were imprisoned under Hitler, received an invitation from Switzerland to spend time convalescing here, but the victorious powers have not yet let them out. The very thought is enough to give one heartburn.

TO WALTHER MEIER

[
Early March 1946
]

Many thanks for the welcome books and letter.

Naturally enough, the beautiful offprints
354
came not from the Zurich newspaper—a nice idea like that would never have occurred to them—but from a friend of mine, who had it printed for me at his expense, since the issue in which the letter appeared was immediately sold out.

On Friday, Bishop Wurm of Württemberg spent half a day here with me. He has had an invitation to visit Switzerland since last summer, but the Americans have only let him out now, obviously because they did not want to be responsible for the nonappearance of an important participant at the ecumenical church conference. Whereas they had no problem giving an exit visa to that darling of the Nazis, Richard Strauss. And Hitler's favorite artist, the sculptor who produced that ultra-life-size, monumental kitsch for him,
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thereby earning himself millions, is just as popular now with the Americans, and his income is almost back to its previous level. Similarly, at the University of Milan, virtually all the old fascist professors are still thriving. Everything has been in vain.

I have naturally given up hope of seeing my work brought together, not to mention the prospect of ever living from the proceeds again. If only Suhrkamp at least could get something out of it! But I fear his share will not amount to much either.

It's almost ideal for us old people that one gets sick of the world after a certain amount of time, and this makes parting easy.

TO JOACHIM MAASS

Montagnola, March 23, 1946

Dear Herr Maass,

Thanks for your letter. I accept my lack of fertility and increasing inability to work in much the same spirit as you do; in old age, when one's physical powers go on strike, one immediately needs to think in terms of years rather than weeks and months. The work on
The Glass Bead Game,
the stay in Castalia, and my belief in the meaningfulness of that absorbing task helped me to survive the Hitler years and the war up to the spring of 1942, when I wrote those final few pages about Knecht's death. That is now exactly four years ago, and ever since then I have been without any refuge, comfort, and meaning. So as to give myself a chance to experience that kind of thing again, at least for a few hours, I wrote the Rigi booklet or “The Stolen Suitcase”
356
and two or three other trifles. The mail is consuming my time and energy, and has become extremely cumbersome; I no longer have a publisher, and Ninon is only able to help in a limited way (as a housewife, correspondent, courier for letters, etc., for émigrés in every country, she is more harried than I). My friends and relatives in Germany are starving; I sell privately printed pieces in exchange for contributions; the rich refuse, the poor donate. Since December I was able to send off packets worth 1,000 francs, and have invited four people to come and recuperate over here, and that requires a lot of correspondence, etc., with the authorities—two are sisters of mine. I shall not go into cases in my own circle, similar to that of your dear Lampe;
357
we have been up to our necks for years in that sort of misery and absurdity. Here in Europe life has lost the substance it once had. Well, in a way that is good, since the world always elicits a sense of wonder; it always thrills young people and makes parting easier for those who are seasoned.

Spring is here for the time being, and at least the blue, white, and yellow flowers in the meadow and forest are still the same as ever.

Fond regards from Ninon and myself. We shall keep our fingers crossed for you and your book,
358
and we're very fond of the magical year.

The January edition of the
Rundschau
359
arrived recently.

TO GEORG REINHART

June 1946

I was glad to get your letter. It's enviable that you receive only a limited quantity of personal mail and can answer almost all of it by hand. Having a famous name is often a nuisance, and, moreover, I live in Switzerland. Half my family and friends are in Germany, the other half are émigrés abroad, so I have had a heavy burden ever since 1933 doing the correspondence, passing on news, etc., etc. And there is a big disappointment at the close of my life: my work has been destroyed, a wall the height of a tower has been erected between me and my real sphere of influence, and all of this is plaguing me in strange ways. People in Germany are always asking me to see to it that my books are again made available or simply requesting the books as presents.

Some of them scold me very naïvely and accuse me of reneging on my obligations toward my readers, etc. Those impatient readers don't seem to realize that the elimination of my books, of my ability to communicate, and of my material income creates far greater difficulties for me than for them. And that only represents a small, insignificant portion of my mail. Another portion deals with hunger; then there are the very numerous letters about the POWs, of whom there are hundreds of thousands, cut off for years and half crazy by now, sitting behind barbed wire in Egypt, Morocco, Syria, etc. The letters about hunger and the POWs are not at all intellectual or literary; it's a question of providing immediate material help, and unfortunately the machinery of the Red Cross, etc., has been of no great use. So I have had to assume personal responsibility for these matters. I have taken over the task of supplying the prisoners with as much good reading, etc., as possible, and have sent hundreds of volumes to selected addresses; the response has been extremely gratifying. And on top of that, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that a small number of worthwhile people in Germany, whom I regard highly, do not go hungry, more than a dozen. That in itself calls for considerable effort and an unbelievable amount of work, since on each such occasion I have to raise the necessary funds in small amounts, through the sale of privately printed pieces or manuscripts, and the pillaging of my library, etc. But that's enough. I just wanted to suggest the situation that gave rise to such pieces as the “Letter to Germany.” By the way, it was originally addressed to an individual who, like my publisher, had been imprisoned for a long time and could have faced death.[ … ]

Two months ago I invited my two sisters in Swabia to visit, and I have been waiting in vain for weeks and months for these two seventy-year-old sick women, who are now seriously malnourished, even with our few packages of foodstuffs. The Americans and French are introducing a system of harassment that is eliminating every vestige of humanity and rationality and may even be somewhat worse than the one under Hitler. A pity, because these victors, who a year ago were still being regarded as the champions of an idea dear to the whole world, have slipped into a disastrous role, not because there may be many rascals and gangsters among them but simply because they lack qualities like alertness, imagination, love, empathy, and the capacity for serious work, conscious of nuances.
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The English have long seemed the only ones who are behaving in a noble, humane manner, for which one can be grateful.

It is sunny and hot today. The cuckoo has been calling all morning close by the house, and the drenched roses are beginning to release their fragrance.

TO JOHANNA ATTENHOFER

[
July 1946
]

Thank you very much for your welcome gift and kind letter.

You ask: What's the point in being sad? Along the same lines, one could ask a dying person: What's the point in suffering from pneumonia? There's no answer to that.[ … ]

I have had few positive experiences with large welfare machines such as the Red Cross, etc.; every initiative is crushed by the organization, which is too large and, to some extent, also badly managed. As for my two welfare areas, the hungry and the POWs, I'm taking care of them entirely on my own, and am constantly having to raise funds by selling special editions, manuscripts, etc., etc. It's a lot of work and only partly successful. Nevertheless, I have been able to help a small number of splendid people whose lives are at risk keep their heads above water, and shall keep on doing so. I see the extremity of the hunger most clearly in those letters that try very hard to keep a lid on the matter rather than in those voicing complaints. And as for the POWs, since God has given you the gift of imagination, imagine a highly educated person who was drafted in 1939 or 1940, arrived in Africa, was captured there, has been kept two, three, four years in the desert in Egypt or Morocco, without knowing whether he will ever get back again and not knowing who is still alive at home, etc., etc. Well, I have to support quite a number of people like that with letters, books, etc., etc. I'm holding a rope, as on a mountain-climbing expedition, and a number of people who are at risk are hanging from it, and I know that, should everything become too much for me and I let go, they will all perish.

But enough of that. After receiving your gift, I felt that I ought to let you know about this.

TO H. C. BODMER

[
August 16, 1946
]

Bremgarten, on the day of the trip home

[ … ] I have had to read a lot of derogatory letters from Germany again, because a Munich newspaper has printed the “Letter to Germany” (without ever asking or receiving permission).

I was asked at the same time whether I would accept the Goethe Prize,
361
for which I had been unanimously proposed. I was very opposed to the idea, but was persuaded to the contrary; I asked some extremely precise questions and ascertained that the Prize Committee had acted courageously and irreproachably under Goebbels. By the way, the whole affair is a mere formality, since I shall, of course, not receive one cent of the prize money.