Books and Writers
Books and Writers The Two Germanys By DR. ERNST FRAENKEL GERMANY—TO BE OR NOT TO HH? Hx Cerkart Seger and Stegfaed A March The Rand Sthovi Press, New York, l'>43 IN the world-wide discussion...
...This restraint seems to me to be one of the advantages of this book...
...lies In this trUe, dialectic conception of the German being "in his contrariness...
...Hx Cerkart Seger and Stegfaed A March The Rand Sthovi Press, New York, l'>43 IN the world-wide discussion concerning the fat* of Middle Europe, the representatives of German Social Democracy have the right to be heard...
...Certainly her rendition* into English of an elusive poetic prose is nowhere anything more than literal...
...If it be true that the forces of humanism have quite often in Germany's history been **ohg enough to defeat the destructive rudimentary German instincts, should it not lie...
...and his comments on the war are as feeble aa they are unreal...
...The Republic of Weimar was planned as a compromise between the bourgeoisie and the working classes...
...Confronted'with the question "Tp Be or Not to Be...
...THIS if not 13 worth of book—or of war...
...But'Seger and Marck refrain from erecting a social frontier within Germany, or to point to the ruling class—the nobility and the property owners— as "the one" and to the working class as "the other figM'hy...
...riven if there are "two hob la" in every German's breast, it is not accidental forces nor the weight of heritage but rather certain social components that will bring about a change in the position of the center of gravity...
...The book differs from other analytical treatises on the German character m this respect: it aaes historico-philosophieal knowledge to arrive at a practical lesson...
...It should serve as a warning to all Of us to treat all questions concerning the interrelationship of the United Nations with the greatest possible tact...
...But, should it not l>e the aim of such a control to bring about a self healing process for Germany...
...Seger and March have spent the best years of their liaas actively participating in the construction and expansion of free German democracy...
...During the <***-jimplil drf i nail— fight of the Herman Republic against the annihilation of all human values, they stood in tag front Vines...
...It is sub-1 titled, "Bsbig On« Man's Odyssey on Many Fronts," but the neaiest thing in it to an activr front is the Mnginot Line in the time of tbe ghostly lull that preceded its collapse, ami IK* Soviet Foreign Office at Moscow1:' The latter, with rare exception, is par for the course for American and British correspondents covering our Russian ally...
...It is true, of course, that a cataclysm such as National •oeinhsm is unthinkable without a certain inclination h> that direction...
...He covered the riots in India...
...possible to achieve 'be definite laming of th« wild German spirit thiough mtrntional, conscious dneclioii after this most dis as I. mis of all i »i„-1 rophes in German history ? Should it not b<- possible to give the (ierman people ajmthei chance for definitely overcoming its innate dualism— while observing all measures necessary for Hit safety of the real of the world' Seger and Maick know only too well that Pf*t-llitler Germany will be the scene of such turbulent chaos that it will he in need of support, leadership, and control for an indefinite future period...
...Chaplin...
...The emphasis which Seger and Marck put on the lack of democratic education among the German people for explaining the foundering of the first German Republic is perhaps a bit too onesided in its ideology...
...Should not the powers that are to occupy Germany and decide her ultimate fate look for the support of thoae social traditions and forces In which the will and urge for free democratic development was predominating even lief ore Hitler and certainly immeasurably strengthened through having experienced National Socialism...
...Of course, his foreword explains that the book Is <4|bet the Wttle things that happened...
...Rimboud's "l,es Illuminations" mean hardly more to me, I am afraid, than they did to Helen Rootham, the translator...
...For •Sfger and Merck know the German people...
...Where they touch upon the future of German-Russian relations, tbey remain restrained...
...Ihe uuthors believe in the German people's capacity for self-healing because they do not evaluate the experiment of the Weimar Republic in a purely negative maimer...
...New Direction Yes...
...Being a part of this war instead of a precious bystander, his poems seek to portray and analyse—and to a great extent he is quite successfully evocative, although without the poWer and bite of the RAF*s John Pudney...
...Despite occasional lines which strike that, Barker's locooo i ne tap by n*i - and psychiatrics reveal more s disturbed than a poetic mind, a shunning of structure for ornamentation, of clarity for vocabulary...
...Democracy—as Kngland is proving again in this vrnr—it the most resistant form of government—with one notable exception: it noes not always prevent suicide...
...287 page...
...AppkHom-Century...
...It was Germany's Social Democracy at which Hitler Hung his boast: "Germany shall be free—but without you...
...Another War Book By PAUL SLADE SEVENTY THOUSAND MILES 'OF WAR...
...Except for the riots, the book records no evidence that Chaplin heard any shots fired at all...
...Rather, they demonstrate that the battle ground for the conflict between the two Germanys P ^ithln the soul of every single person that grew IP in the atmosphere of German civilisation...
...But if you substitute "meaning" for "love" you have an apt, if sweeping, characterisation of these poems...
...Bill Chaplin, NBC commentator who for 10 years was a correspondent of Hearst's uninspired International News Service, did cover ground...
...By W. IF...
...But this wild, untamed spirit, which left its imprint on Luther and Beethoven, an Bismarck, Nietzsche, and even Goethe, has again and again been suppressed and counterbalanced by the opposing forces of occidental thinking to whose, formation Germany contributed her full share...
...He toured our Pacific outposts before Pear) Harbor and saw the pstbetir resuRs of a short-sighted Congress' refusal to fortify such islands as Guam...
...They are not satisfied with merely explaining the historical background of the inner dualism ap parent in the German national character...
...the authors, with singular lucidity, have declared themselves for a future Germany "to be...
...Heinrich Heine prophetically fore-aaw thist dangerous latency...
...Is il a melody, a condensation of lyrir experience, oi merely elegant ebfuecationt I mention these alternatives net hoc bum I expect enlighmnment but merely to embarrass the well intentioned publishers of tleorgf Barker's "Sacred and Secular Elegies...
...rseems to me that the particular merit of "Germany—To Be or Not to Be...
...He was in France before the debacle...
...Voett of tkt I'm...
...He was in Delhi when Stilwell arrived after his gallant and tragic retreat from Burma...
...their opposing ideas were to he arbitrated in a democratic manner...
...t.ES ILLUMINATIONS OF ART HUB RIM BAUD...
...It's quite readable, but It isn't background...
...for him, "the hundred thjDOsands of gray men and women" were at best the vsrtor background for the biographical descriptions of iuitaWe persona!h*i.-« ft is therefore timely and afpropriate to heat from those who from their earliest youth ware aa integral part of these masses...
...When the bourgeoisie submitted unresistingly to the owners of monopolistic enterprises, the very foundation of democracy became shaky...
...The dome craflr German labor movement, which has ever been the exponent of occidental etvihsaUoa in Germany, has through many years of educational activities contributed more toward the cradle a n.m of the German worker's dual character than any ether force in modern German history...
...lvI IT is sometimes accessary to ask, "Whs* is a poem...
...he is frequently clumsy, sometimes pretentious...
...Ernest Frsenkel, noted German labor lawyer, lived under the Natl system until 1988...
...the backgiona^Hsehied the things you've read about...
...It should be apparent by now that aiick effects do not u poem make, nor an overturned nail a stage...
...For it waa a (ierman Social Democrat who was the last to give the newly appointed Chancellor Adolf Hitler the negative answer of German Labor on that memorable March 22, 1033, before the darkness of enforced silence descended on Germany...
...His first hand observstions en the changes in Germany's economic, political and social structure were published here by the Oxford University Press under the title "The DusI Stste...
...Other than a general yearning for a retrogression to the womb, Bsrker seems to have Utile to say...
...And be-< ause tbey know it, they are aware that it is entirely wrong to regard National Socialism as the essential expression of the German character which can only' be overcome by the destruction of the German people...
...The authors have not taken lightly the task of refuting the theory that Nazism and Germany are one...
...and when a part of Germany's working classes became disloyal to democratic traditions, the German Republic wns lost Seger and Marck say' very plainly that the pre-Hitler economic system must never return, for It would be incompatible With a newly to be constructed democracy...
...Never and nowhere before has it been possible to build a democracy upon a mono political, economic •¦i.fe...
...The valleys pulled up like a fisherman's reel The flowers thst rise like knives in the sun Ghost of men up-ended, the row's vague butt Horned in its gut Needing no vaster plsn For s faster future, 1 watched the Sky, scarlet fever and go blind Norman Macleod [Thi$ poem i« from u furthcoming book by Mr...
...Gandhi, by the way, impressed him most unfavorably, but so did the Mahatma's British antagonists...
...fought against Carman and International fascism...
...And in the millions of their anti-Neht eo < on.hai..11 ts they recognized a type of human being that inspired them with the new and unshakable faith: Hitler is not Germany, and tlie German people ** a whole are not ii-retrievably lost to humanity...
...They have a new and highly original interpretation of the phenomenon of "the two Germanys...
...Series, Nete Dinecbion*, Norfolk, Conn, fl earn...
...He lacks polish...
...It's just snectode mid obgervation, and it doesn't throw much light on the war...
...Macleod, to or entitled A Man in MidpoMiage.] (fooiU and Wtiteu...
...By PAUL CASTELAR SACKED AND SECULAR BUtOtBS, by George Marker...
...THE VIOLENT, by /forty Brown...
...The Days Are Dead Itegia with sand that rides down from the rock (Ten years beck I objected to sirplsnes The psrty'a acid remark, the college who laughed...
...I don't want .your confidence...
...Now—although Germany, without and against Social Democracy, has not been freed but rather forced to the very edge of an abyss - the time has come to recall that German ,S«xial PitWii racy can ley claim to the honor of having lieei tho only group in the world which Hitler designated and treated as "unworthy of appeasement " (inhalt Seger and Siegfried March are well known as untiring opponents of Nazism It was during the days of Hitler's triumphal rise that the author* of "Gennany-.-Ta Be or Not to Be...
...The love that never coming, always goes" is one ol George Barker** better iu.es and there sre many such sprinkled tantahxingly through the "Elegies...
...But Brown, writing often m the sardonic manner of light verse, is always sincaj^e, always concerned with communication...
...entirely unsocial nfe" kept him "away from all soaUPunal interests," and that he "experienced deep sentiments only when alone, or with another parson, or in a very restricted, intimate circle...
...They are well aware, however, that the future "to be" of Germany depends to no small degree upon the answer the Germans wilt give to the question: "What do you think of Soviet Russia ?" In this respect there is much in this book which encourages the attentive reader to do his own thinking And what better recommendation could be given any book than that it encourages the reader to think for himself...
...Harry Brown is not so accomplished a technician as Barker...
...But it should not prevent us from realizing that notwithstanding any decision reached in Teheran or Moscow, Germany's most fateful problem of the future will for years to come be her relationship with Russia...
...Now, the bombers drive, dripping the moons of death): Follow the « hi11-i..ias far as you feel...
...Thus they look at things from an entirely different angle than Euul Ludwig, foi instance, who, in his autobiography (OetchUhtr dVt Lebent, p. 364) confesses that "a .omantli...
...Seger and Marck no not believe that Germany's interior is separated by a sort of wall which makes Prussia the "bad" and thO southern and western portions "the other Ger-massr.*- The principal protagonist of this theory, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, had he observed with Ms own eyes how the population In the various parts af Germany reacted to National Socialism before and after Hitler's coming to power, would be unable ttf deny that it met with the most passionate resistance among the workers of Berlin and Central •erMany...
...87...
...As for Rimbaud's work, I am reminded that today we have our surrealists, so why be harsh with the postured obscurantism of another time...
...latterly incapable of experiencing deep, sweeping mass satijinsnts, Btntl laid wig, white witnessing the inv i.it'ssive funeral servn.-s vt the elder Liebkneeht, felt hhnseM unable to "feel the spark of bfe that emanated fagm tab coffin" because his "esthetic werki was much ton compiicut.d" <p...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 2
