Glossen

Death Images in The Baader Meinhof Complex

Abstract

The paper explores the different aesthetic strategies The Baader Meinhof Complex uses to approach the RAF trauma. By incorporating several of Gerhard Richter’s paintings for interpreting original press photos, the movie creates a unique style based on modern art theory, which establishes the film as a central player in the RAF mourning process.

I. Introduction
In his review of the 2008 movie Der Baader Meinhof Complex Ulrich Kriest writes that by focusing on style and images rather than on content and substance the movie capitalizes on the fashionable image the RAF has gained with the current post-Wall generation.[1] Since film is essentially an image-oriented medium, Kriest questions whether it is capable of capturing the core of the RAF, which was known for its brief violent acts, but also its lengthy theoretical manifestos. In this contrast Kriest captures the ongoing debate about the artistic representation of RAF terrorism. In looking over the large body of films about the RAF, it becomes obvious that the focus of the debate has indeed shifted away from the political discourse of the RAF and the original flood of words, whether by the RAF or their many interpreters, has been replaced by an extraordinary number of images. By ignoring a discussion of the political roots of the RAF Thomas Elsaesser claims that we avoid the discussion about the role of capitalism in Western societies.[2]

The Baader Meinhof Complex is the last example in a lengthy series of feature films and documentaries attempting to address the RAF history by straddling the interests of two generations, the first post-WWII generation and the generation Golf/Berlin. In its ambitiously comprehensive goal of appealing to both post-WWII generations the Baader Meinhof Complex movie is the first in attempting to capture the entire ten years of RAF activity from 1967-77. Aspects explored in earlier films were the relationship between the Ensslin sisters (Marianne and Juliane), Andreas Baader (Baader), RAF members hiding in the GDR (The Legend of Rita), the Herrhausen assassination (Black Box BRD) and most often the events surrounding October 18, 1977, the kidnapping of Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of the Landshut plane (Mogadischu, Deutschland im Herbst, Todesspiel).

Thus the stakes for The Baader Meinhof Complex were high from the beginning and its ambitious attempt to authoritatively interpret the RAF history will ultimately influence and define our interpretation of the events.[3] The almost forty-year long fascination with the RAF myth has shaped both post-war German generations. Inge Stephan places the obsession with the RAF in a line with two other traumatic experiences in German history, the holocaust and German unification. To highlight its significance Stephan dedicated an entire volume to the RAF in her three-book series on visual representation of traumatic periods in recent German history, NachBilder.[4] Elsaesser also emphasized the power of movies as particularly suited to dealing with tragic events as they can interpret subliminal and traumatic elements since the moving image can recall memory and traumatic experiences.[5] As Svea Bräunert wrote, basing the mourning process on movies works well within Germany’s consensus-driven society with its tendency to interpret West German terrorism films as part of the foundational trauma on which to build the Berlin Republic.[6]

The unresolved traumatic core of the RAF-debate resurfaces whenever a major movie or public event, such as the 2005 “KunstWerke” exhibit,[7] attempts to define to what extent the RAF constituted a threat to the foundation of the Federal Republic. What became apparent from these debates was that between 1967 and 1977 nobody in West Germany was left untouched by the RAF activities. The activities of the RAF need to be seen as part of a larger political shift, of the power change from the war generation to the next generation, in Germany referred to as the “Sixty-Eight” generation. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s staged interview with his mother in the movie Germany in Autumn (1978) is still one of the most chilling examples of this debate, when she longs for a “benevolent dictator” in light of the West German inability to deal with the RAF-crisis.[8] This polarization between the older generation raised during Nazi totalitarianism and the first post-WWII generation brought up in a democratic state is the source of this conflict. Surveys reveal that a significant number of citizens were “sympathizers”, to recall the popular term used at that time.[9] Time has erased the memory of why the Baader Meinhof Group was ever popular; in fact it has changed our memory to the point that the current generation no longer knows why the RAF ever appealed to intelligent and sensitive people. By asking why these “preposterous and repulsive figures” [10] who announced the advance of a revolution, were not considered “political porn”, we are able to explore the core of our history with the RAF.

The younger generation’s lack of awareness was the reason for creating the movie. Bernd Eichinger, the producer of The Baader Meinhof Complex, and the film’s director, Uli Edel, both belong to the first post-WWII generation and are contemporaries of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, which is also Fassbinder’s generation. Eichinger and Edel met at Munich’s film academy, where they considered themselves “anti-authoritarian”, as were about eighty to ninety percent of students during the late sixties.[11] Eichinger has since become one of Europe’s most prominent filmmakers with movies such as Christiane F, which was also directed by Uli Edel.

Since Eichinger had gained a reputation for falsifying historical facts in Downfall about the Hitler saga, most reviewers were concerned that The Baader Meinhof Complex would take equal liberties with the truth.[13] Eichinger asserted however that he faithfully followed Stefan Aust’s book The Baader Meinhof Complex and changed only minor details.[14]

The issue of veracity in The Baader Meinhof Complex dominated the critical discussion from the beginning. In anticipation of this reaction, Eichinger says he intended his movie primarily for two viewer groups: audiences abroad and the younger generation at home, his own children, not the post-WWII generation that experienced the RAF times themselves.[15] Eichinger repeatedly refers to its internationally positive reception, especially in the United States. However, since German movies in the United States usually appeal to a different audience than they do in Germany, the charge of “dumbing down” the story for an international audience remains valid. Whereas facts about the RAF are mostly unknown to non-German audiences, Germans of the Baader-Meinhof generation will look for a new interpretation of the events in the movie.

II. Aesthetic concepts
The Baader Meinhof Complex incorporates several overlapping aesthetic concepts that include artistic thoughts of the original RAF members themselves. Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof’s rival in leading the RAF, had given each member of the core group a code name based on Hermann Melville’s novel Moby Dick; Ahab stood for Baader and Starbuck for Holger Meins. As we recall, Ahab is the tyrannical captain of the whaling ship “Pequod” who is driven by a monomaniacal desire to kill Moby Dick, the whale that had maimed him on a previous voyage. As a result Ahab ultimately condemns the crew of the Pequod to death by his obsession with Moby Dick. During her imprisonment in Stammheim high security prison Ensslin had read the novel and made the RAF connection to Melville’s tragic tale when she realized their likely fatal end. By using Melville’s novel as a model for the RAF, she became the first to mythologize the group. Ensslin’s recommendation influenced Meinhof whose notes indicate she was also reading Moby Dick in her prison cell.[16] Both recognized the tragic element of the RAF’s monomaniac reach for power, “Größenwahn”, as Helmut Schmidt called it.[17] Thus Theodor Adorno’s belief that antagonisms in society should be replicated in the structure and content of art [18] finds its application in The Baader Meinhof Complex. Ensslin’s linking the RAF to the biblical saga of Ahab and Leviathan elevates the Baader-Meinhof story into a timeless tragic tale of man versus society. Stefan Aust reproduces this tragic structure in his book The Baader-Meinhof Complex by dividing the text into five dramatic parts, “Paths into the underground” (exposition of the story), “Splendor of terror” (the terror develops), “Costume of fatigue” (the tragic turn), “Court Session “ (giving up hope), and “Fall 1977” (the end).

As movies are governed by images, whether authentic or reconstructed, the presentation, recreation and editing of those images, establishes the event in the collective memory. The dramatist Leander Scholz, a member of the second post-WWII generation, is convinced that the RAF texts will not survive but the images that he still remembers will.

Eichinger uses recreated images as a major structuring device, thereby shifting the emphasis away from manifestos. In his highly visual movie most viewers will not grasp the full scope of action at first, but they will relate to the emotional intensity of the events. Heinrich Breloer had been one of the first to show the attack on Hanns-Martin Schleyer in his docudrama Todesspiel (Death Game); however, Breloer’s long shots allowed less immediacy than Edel’s close-ups.[20] Eichinger’s claim that he produced an “objective” movie with high documentary power, “what the film tells is authentic”, cannot be taken at face-value although Eichinger backs his claim up with original TV footage, which was incorporated in some of the reenactment scenes.[21] With its image-based scenes, the film turns the RAF story into an action movie with the emphasis on characters, which “immerse” the viewer in intense close-up scenes.[22] These scenes, accompanied by a powerful musical score, generate a very personal movie with its dizzying litany of dates and locations, and “the ever-present blast of gunpowder.”[23] The result is a new heritage film, as Lutz Koepnick calls it, which does not challenge history as auteur films of the Sixties did, but uses Hollywood techniques in order to represent a “historic consensus”.[24]

However, this general statement needs to be modified since there are several instances where the film achieves an uneasy intensity normally not found in Hollywood movies. This intense proximity to the protagonists has been called political pornography[25] and achieves a degree of sympathy for the protagonists. Frank Schirrmacher described Eichinger’s reenactment method as a cinematic cloning of an entire world, where the recreated scene is almost indistinguishable from the original.[26] This is especially true for Andreas Baader, who as the leader of the group had achieved the highest degree of iconization. Thorwald Proll described Baader as a movie buff with aspirations of looking fashionable since he himself had written movie scripts inspired by French nouvelle vague films [27] such as Breathless.

With his interest in avantgarde cinema, Baader lived in his own artificial world of movie characters such as James Dean, Jean Paul Belmondo and Marlon Brando.[28] While Ensslin saw the RAF more along mythological lines, perhaps due to her upbringing in a protestant minister’s family, Baader’s perspective was more radical, innovative and reminiscent of the West German radical leftist Sponti-scene of the nineteen-seventies. It is obvious that Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character Michel in Breathless along with Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde became a model for Baader and later also for Ensslin during their time in Paris. The Parisian underground lifestyle shown in Breathless also began to appeal to Ensslin, which she emulated along with Baader.[29] They appear to be kindred spirits with their preference for fast cars and avant-garde fashion. One particular scene in the 1966 movie The Battle of Algiers became the model for the Berlin bank raids in which three banks were robbed simultaneously.

Baader’s and Ensslin’s reenactment of cinematic fantasies appeals to the current “Generation Berlin” that has been brought up on movie fantasies and has trouble separating art and life.[30] Several other scenes resemble film scenes as well, such as the baby carriage scene, which stopped Schleyer’s car and looks like a scene from an Eisenstein movie.[31] It seems indeed that the RAF considered themselves artists who wanted to turn West Germany into a stage for a didactic play in Brecht’s tradition and saw themselves as actors in a play.[32] Their existence depended largely on spectacular actions such as bomb explosions, which stopped life like photoflashes to record the moment for their and our collective memory.[33] The current generation Berlin mythologizes the RAF as seventies pop culture icons, which West Germany never had.[34] At this point the heritage movie turns into a nostalgic movie glorifying the seventies.

III. Mediation

No previous RAF movie attempted this degree of recreating its history with a calculated emotional response. In order to achieve its goal The Baader Meinhof Complex employs several strategies. It is shot in a nouvelle vague look which cameraman Rainer Klausmann created by copying authentic press photos.[35] With refined film technology, reenactments are a common method to recreate original black and white photographs.[36] One of the best examples of an iconic image the movie uses is Jürgen Henschel’s June 2, 1967 photograph of Benno Ohnesorg’s death, which still represents the most dramatic moment of the first fatal shooting victim of a police officer. As witness of the event, Henschel’s photo stands out among others with its use of flash photography highlighting the pietá effect of the well-composed shot. This original photograph shows the climax in the chain of events when the woman assisting Benno Ohnesorg, Friederike Dollinger, turns to the photographer with an expression of desperation. In comparing the Larssen photo with Henschel’s the attraction of the latter becomes apparent. In Henschel’s photo the flash captures the plea for help in the woman’s face while cradling Ohnesorg’s head, whereas Larrsen missed the “pregnant” moment because Dollinger had turned her head back to the dying Ohnesorg.

 

In recapturing and reenacting this scene, Edel does not use the bright flash of Henschel’s original but instead immerses the scene in uniquely obscure light, which removes the unevenness of the flash. Edel explains:

The French call it cinema vérité. When we put the lights on a set, we would only enhance the natural or available light rather than adding dramatic “movie light.” And we avoided dolly shots or contrived camera angles. Most of the film was shot with a hand-held camera, giving the actors as much freedom as possible. They didn’t have to follow the camera because the camera followed them.

[37]

Frank Schirrmacher called the lighting effect “heartbreaking” since it creates a heightened sensibility in the viewer. The light makes the movie look more like a science fiction movie, “as if the figures were shown through an aquarium or a clear water surface,“[38] a cool and modern effect, which “hurts our eyes.” The effect is mesmerizing. With his technique Klausmann’s lighting transcends the intended authenticity and creates a film that seems more perfect than a documentary, as the complete shot below shows.

As the scene sequence demonstrates, Klausmann framed his shot with the original photographer inserted into the scene, thereby adding another layer for the current viewer that did not exist in the original. The effect is that we are constantly reminded of watching a mediated event.[39] The cool and distancing light is also reflected in the actress’s expression that no longer shows the shock of the original photograph.

Edel uses TV sets and doors or window frames to show the mediated images of Ulrike Meinhof. An important example is Meinhof’s 1972 jump out of the window of Berlin’s Institute for Social Studies where she assisted Andreas Baader in shooting his way to freedom. The frame serves as an important internal device in the movie to structure Meinhof’s biography since she left her regular life behind with this jump to begin her career as an underground terrorist.

The picture showing Ulrike Meinhof’s arrest in 1972 has a similar effect. As in the Ohnesorg photo, Meinhof’s original arrest photo seems raw and unrefined with the flash highlighting her face, along with the jagged and crude movements of the arresting policemen. The aggression in the authentic photo originates clearly in the police, not with Meinhof because the picture shows the presentation of her for the media.

This image of Meinhof’s arrest influenced the writer Heinrich Böll’s 1974 novel and the 1975 movie version The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, in which Volker Schlöndorff presents a similar scene in the arrest of the fictional Katharina Blum character. Schlöndorff’s movie shows a fictionalized story about the very first phase of the RAF, which is based on Heinrich Böll’s relationship with Ulrike Meinhof who he had defended in a Spiegel article. Although no terrorist himself Böll was considered a “fellow traveler”. Like his fictitious character Katharina Blum, he was hounded by the press. While Böll protested the search of his house and arrest of his guests, Katharina Blum knew no other way to defend her honor than by shooting the journalist responsible for fabricating stories about her connection with terrorists. Böll’s story demonstrates how during those days of overreacting police and press in West German any ordinary person could be regarded as a terrorist.

Edel copies Schlöndorff’s scene in framing his action for his Ulrike Meinhof character through the camera lens. As in the Ohnesorg sequence, Edel again portrays Meinhof’s arrest scene in his signature uniform light. A single policeman uses his hand to touch Meinhof’s shoulder lightly, to support her sagging torso rather than to present her to the camera as in the original photo. Edel centers on her expression, which seems subdued; he interprets her arrest as a mental and physical breakdown. Unlike in the original photo and Schlöndorff’s movie, Edel’s Meinhof does not show any reaction, but only exhaustion. Her tears at her arrest do not show her as weak but as human.[40] As her aggressive emotions have disappeared we recognize the filmmakers’ attempt to change the revolutionary posture of Meinhof into a slumping and sad woman who has given up.

A similar pattern of inter-medial interpretation can be seen in the arrest scene of Andreas Baader, Holger Meins and Jan Carl Raspe, which is framed by a picture of a girl taking a photo of the event. We witness a sequence of shots, first the advance of the police, then Raspe’s arrest, which is followed by Baader’s and Meins’s retreat into one of the garages, followed by the shooting of Baader, and finally the arrest of Meins and Baader. By assuming the child’s point of view, the camera copies the location of the original police photo and makes the girl the key witness for this scene. As a ten-year old, this child is the witness for all of those viewers who were children during the nineteen-seventies, Eichinger’s intended target audience.

In order to extract Meins and Baader from the garage where they had barricaded themselves, the police used teargas, which blurred the arrest scene. In the Meinhof arrest scene Klausmann’s camera had focused on her face and invited identification and sympathy with the victim, which was reinforced by her submissive expression, with no hint of the aggression shown in the authentic photograph. However, in Baader’s and Meins’ arrest scene, the camera does not close in, but pulls back to a long shot which obscures Baader’s shooting in a foggy teargas scene. By focusing on the girl as its point of view, the movie does not provide the identification that it did with the medium shot of Ulrike Meinhof’s arrest.

IV. Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter used the same shot in his painting “Arrest 2 (Festnahme 2)”, which is part of his cycle “October 18 1977” where, in typical Richter fashion, the scene shows a copy of the original press photo.[41] “Festnahme 1 and 2” are part of a fifteen-part painting cycle, all executed in Richter’s grey and black style and arranged like a mini-film with subsequent shots. They are difficult and irritating to explore since the viewer cannot distinguish many details in the fuzzy brush-over paintings.[42]

Like Böll Richter belongs to the older war generation who survived the Nazis, but unlike Böll, the East German Richter knew firsthand what Communism meant. By focusing on the death of the terrorists, Richter wants to show the sadness he experienced when he was looking at these images.[43] This sadness reflects the sadness he experienced as the communist system was collapsing, which he saw as the end of an era but also as the end to the idea that humans can change society by ideological concepts. As an expression of his own mindset in the 1980s, Richter’s cycle of paintings is a powerful illustration of conceptual art. Although many of Richter’s original photos were based on color photographs, all fifteen are washed in muted grays to express an overall notion of despair.[44] Although Uli Edel and Rainer Klausmann were only interested in representing the original setup of Baader’s arrest scene, the resulting long shot shows an amazingly similar effect to Richter’s. The blurring in Richter’s painting has been replaced by the tear gas.

Edel’s attempt to distance the viewer from the action is further reinforced in one of the final scenes in the movie, showing Gudrun Ensslin’s suicide in her Stammheim prison cell. This scene is strikingly similar to Richter’s almost identical painting entitled “Hanged” (“Erhängte”) of the same scene. Richter’s rendition is closer to the original press photo of the body hanging in front of the window, with a black curtain pulled to left side, disguising the body. Richter frames the figure through an exaggeration of the blanket, which is now a black curtain to the left of the image, and the bright white of the wall that runs along the right side of the frame.[45] When the image originally appeared in the magazine Stern, Ensslin’s body was depicted in a full-frontal shot in which all but the window frame behind her and the ground beneath her feet was cropped. A tape measure ran the length of her body in a gesture of scientific rationalization. The resulting photograph is a medium shot of Ensslin hanging by her neck from the bars of her jail cell. The painting’s blurred effect is so pronounced that only the barest photographic fact remains visible; yet one detail of “Hanged” continues to haunt: On the wall facing Ensslin’s face but also facing ours, is a frame which could be either a mirror, a window, a picture under glass, or even an oil painting.[46]

Edel shows the scene in a carefully balanced framed shot, including the attending physician on the left and the prison guard in the right foreground. As in Baader’s arrest scene, Richter’s obscured image strains our eyes and forces the viewer to search for clues in order to comprehend the image. Edel achieves a similar effect through balance and subdued lighting. We recall Schirrmacher’s description of the movie lighting as science-fiction-like and heartbreaking,[47] which seems fitting for a movie that focuses increasingly on death scenes, and which underscores the overall tragic narrative.

V. Recontextualizing the images
In some of its most sensitive scenes The Baader Meinhof Complex movie shows an uncanny interpretation of artistic renditions. As Roland Barthes wrote, Gerhard Richter’s artistic concept proves that death is the essential form of photography.[48] The repainting of the police-commissioned photographs of the RAF in the October 18, 1977 cycle revives the repressed trauma in the minds of their viewers, since so many of the RAF photographs were, according to Storr, all but inaccessible to the public. Therefore these recovered images remain a potential agent in the process of witnessing unresolved traumatic historical events. Richter writes that instead of provoking horror, the paintings cause grief: [49]

[T]he public posture of these people: nothing private, but the overriding, ideological motivation. And then the tremendous strength, the terrifying power that an idea has, which goes as far as death. That is the most impressive thing, to me, and the most inexplicable thing; that we produce ideas, which are almost always not only utterly wrong and nonsensical but above all dangerous. (Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting)

[50] For Richter the terrorists’ death marked the emancipation from “the illusion that unacceptable circumstances of life can be changed by this conventional expedient of violent struggle,” from “ideology,” and from the cycle of “deadly reality, inhuman reality; our rebellion; impotence; failure; death.” [51] As Richter’s paintings pull the viewer into the scene, so do the movie shots; in fact, the movie ends with an interpretation of Martin Schleyer’s death scene. His body is dropped on a pillow of dry fall leaves with subdued amber light resembling the color of Meinhof’s family scenes at the beginning of the movie.

 

By using artistic interpretations of the RAF images, the movie incorporates various stages of the mourning process. It turns into an epitaph for the RAF dead, both culprits and victims as in Hans-Peter Feldmann’s photo cycle “The Dead” (“Die Toten”, 1998) in the exhibition held in 2005 at the Berlin Kunst-Werke entitled “Regarding Terror”. It becomes apparent that the generational shift from Böll’s war generation to the postwar “Sixty-Eight” generation of Baader and Meinhof and to the current post-Sixty-Eight generation of Eichinger’s children has been translated into an aesthetic concept in The Baader Meinhof Complex. While Böll felt an affinity with the Sixty-Eighters, Richter’s concept finds greater resonance with the generation “Berlin” that has been dealing with WWII on a different level by working through its traumatic consequences. The overwhelmingly positive reactions to Richter’s and Feldmann’s exhibits in Germany affirm that The Baader Meinhof Complex found indeed an appropriate way to present the RAF.

Notes
1 Kriest, Ulrich: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. Film-Dienst, 12/19/08. http://www.filmzentrale.com/rezis2/baadermeinhofkomplexuk.htm
2 Elsaesser, Thomas. Terror und Trauma. Berlin: Kadmos Kulturverlag, 2007. Print.
3 In German the term “Deutungshoheit” is used which defined the meaning and connotations of a political term.
4 Stephan, Inge and Alexandra Tacke (Hrsg.). NachBilder der RAF. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2008.Print
5 Elsaesser, Thomas. Terror und Trauma Berlin: Kadmos Kulturverlag, 2007. Print.
6 Braeunert, Svea. “Replaying Terror: Prosthetic Memories of the RAF and the German Heritage Film.” Manuscript, 2009.
7 „Zur Vorstellung des Terrors“ Berliner Kunst-Werke 2005: http://www.artnet.de/magazine/zur-vorstellung-des-terrors-in-den-berliner-kunstwerken/
8 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner et al. Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst, 1978) Film.
9 Conrad, Vera (with Ulrich Steller und Regine Wenger). Filmheft Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. Education GmbH. Herrsching, 2009. Print.
10 Knörer, Ekkehard: „Terror.“ 24.09.2008. http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/4953.html.
11 Filmheft. Edel seems to have played a bigger role in Munich’s anti¬establishment groups than Eichinger. In Munich both were at a considerable disadvantage in their political development in comparison to the action in West Berlin with its precarious political status as a US outpost, which may explain their more moderate political perspective.
12 Edel is chiefly known in the United States for the movie Body of Evidence, which showcased Madonna.
13 Hake, Sabine. “Historisierung der NS-Vergangenheit. Der Untergang”. NachBilder des Holocaust. Böhlau: Cologne, 2078, 188-218. Print.
14 Herold’s assistant e.g. was added to give him a dialogue partner.
15 In its attempt to serve many different viewer groups The Baader Meinhof Complex elicited a similar German reaction as the NBC production Holocaust in the nineteen-seventies when critics contended that the holocaust should not be reenacted on TV.
16 Aust, Stefan. Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex. Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Hamburg, 2008. Print.
17 Schmidt, Helmut. “Interview.” Todesspiel, dir. by Heinrich Breloer, 1997. Film.
18 Adorno, Theodor W. “Rede über Lyrik und Gesellschaft” Noten zur Literatur, hg. v. Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt/M. 1981, 49-68. Print.
19 Tacke, Alexandra. „Bilder von Baader“. Inge Stephan, Alexandra Tacke (eds.). NachBilder der RAF. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2008: 62-87. Print.
20 Kurbjuweit, Dirk. “Bilder der Barbarei.” Der Spiegel, September 8, 2008. Print.
21 Filmheft, op. cit.
22 Filmheft, op. cit.
23 Yue, Genevieve: “World Gone Wrong.” Reverse Shot 25, http://www.reverseshot.com/article/baader_meinhof_complex 24 Koepnick, Lutz. “Reframing the Past: Heritage Cinema and Holocaust in the 1990s.” New German Critique 87 (Fall 2002), 47-82. Print.
25 Kriest, op. cit., Knörer, op. cit.
26 Schirrmacher, Frank. “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14. September 2008. Print.
27 Filmheft, op. cit.
28 Tacke, Alexandra (with Inge Stephan). „Einleitung“. Inge Stephan, Alexandra Tacke (eds.). NachBilder der RAF. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2008, 7-23. Print.
29 World Gone Wrong, op. cit.
30 Berendse, Gerrit-Jan. “Schreiben im Terrordrom. Gewaltkodierung, kulturelle Erinnerung und das Bedingungsverhältnis zwischen Literatur und RAF-Terrorismus.” edition text + kritik 2005. Print.
31 Elsaesser, op. cit., 83.
32 Elsaesser, op. cit., 100
33 Elsaeser, op. cit., 23
34 Elsaesser, op. cit., 25
35 Filmheft, op. cit.
36 Therefore Steven Spielberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan is seen as superior to authentic photographs.
37 Edel interview under http://www.baadermeinhofmovie.comcastcrew/edel_interview.html
38 Schirrmacher, op. cit.
39 Edel copied a number of framed scenes from Breloers Todesspiel.
40 Kothenschulte, Daniel. “Belmondo Baader”. Frankfurter Rundschau, September 17, 2008. Print.
41 Dettweiler, Marco. “Wenn Terroristen-Bilder verwischen”. Der Spiegel, February 20, 2004.http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,286889,00.html
42 Richter chooses his images from a cache of photographs he collects which are then projected on a large screen, where he copies them meticulously onto the canvass. At this enlarged stage they are unbearable in their detail, as Richter states, and subsequently, he obscures them again in his process by brushing over the image again with grey white paint.
43 Storr, Robert. Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief in Painting. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2003. Print
44 World Gone Wrong, op. cit.
45 Guerin, Frances. “The Grey Space Between: Gerhard Richter’s 18. Oktober 1977”, Frances Guerin. The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture. London, New York: Wallflower, 2007
46 Horowitz, Gregg. Art and Mournful Life. Stanford 2001: 165.
47 Schirrmacher, Frank, op. cit.
48 Roland Barthes in Storr, op. cit.
49 Guerin, op. cit.
50 Richter Gerhard. The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1960-1993. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995: 194. Print.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor W. “Rede über Lyrik und Gesellschaft,” Theodor Adorno. Noten zur Literatur, Rolf Tiedemann (ed), Frankfurt, 1981: 49-68. Print.

Aust, Stefan. Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex. Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Hamburg, 2008. Print.

Der Baader Meinhof Complex. Paramount DVD, 2009

Karin Bauer, edt. Everybody Talks About the Weather . . . We Don’t: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008. Print.

Berendse, Gerrit-Jan. “Schreiben im Terrordrom. Gewaltkodierung, kulturelle Erinnerung und das Bedingungsverhältnis zwischen Literatur und RAF-Terrorismus.” edition text + kritik 2005. Print

Black Box BRD, dir. by Andreas Veiel. 2002. Film.

Braeunert, Svea. “Replaying Terror: Prosthetic Memories of the RAF and the German Heritage Film” Manucript, 2009.

Conrad, Vera (with Ulrich Steller und Regine Wenger) Filmheft “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex,” education GmbH. Herrsching, 2009. Print

Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex. Dir. Uli Edel Paramount Home Entertainment 2009. Film

Dettweiler, Marco: “Wenn Terroristen-Bilder verwischen”. Der Spiegel, February 20, 2004. http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,286889,00.html

Eichinger, Katja. Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. Filmbuch. Das Buch zum Film. Hoffmann und Campe, 2009. Print.

Elsaesser, Thomas. Terror und Trauma. Berlin: Kadmos, 2007. Print

Hake, Sabine: “Historisierung der NS-Vergangenheit. Der Untergang”. NachBilder des Holocaust. Böhlau: Cologne, 2078: 188-218. Print.

Henatsch, Martin. Gerhard Richter: 18, Oktober 1977. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1998. Print

Kligerman, Eric. “Transgenerational Hauntings: Screening the Holocausts in Gerhard Richter’s ‘October 18, 1977′” Paintings. Gerrit-Jan Berendse and Ingo Cornils (eds.) Baader-Meinhof returns: History and Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism. German Monitor 70. Rodopi: Amsterdam, New York, 2008: 41-63. Print

Knörer, Ekkehard: „Terror.“ 24.09.2008. http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/4953.html.

Koepnick, Lutz. “Reframing the Past: Heritage Cinema and Holocaust in the 1990s.” New German Critique 87 (Fall 2002). 47-82. Print.

Kothenschulte, Daniel. “Belmondo Baader”. Frankfurter Rundschau September 17, 2008.

Kriest, Ulrich. „Der Baader Meinhof Komplex“. Film-Dienst, 12/19/08. http://www.filmzentrale.com/rezis2/baadermeinhofkomplexuk.htm

Kurbjuweit, Dirk: “Bilder der Barbarei.” Der Spiegel, September 8, 2008. Print.

Nord, Cristina. „Der Spuk geht weiter: Seit es die RAF gibt, gibt es Filme über die RAF. Damals wie heute ist es schwer, sich den Affekten zu entziehen, die mit ihnen einhergehen. Traumata lösen sich ja nicht durch Aufklärung -sie verschwinden, wenn man lange genau drüber redet.“ taz 20. September 2008:19. Print.

Richter Gerhard. The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1960-1993. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Print.

Schirrmacher, Frank. “Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14. September 2008. Print.

Schmidt, Helmut. “Interview.” Todesspiel, dir. by Heinrich Breloer, 1997. Print.

Schwartz, S: “Gerhard Richter: ‘October 18, 1977’.” New York Review of Books 49, no. 6, April 11 2002: 16-18.

Seeßlen, Georg. „Der ist an allem schuld!“ epd film, December 19 2008.

Stephan, Inge and Alexandra Tacke (Hrsg.). NachBilder der RAF. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2008. (Literatur -Kultur -Geschlecht. Studien zur Literatur-und Kulturgeschichte. 24). Print.

Storr, Robert. “Gerhard Richter. Malerei”. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit. 2002. Storr, Robert. Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief in Painting. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2003. Print.

Storr, Robert. “Gerhard Richter ‘October 18, 1977’.” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002.

Tacke, Alexandra. „Einleitung“. Inge Stephan, Alexandra Tacke (eds.). NachBilder der RAF. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2008, S. 7-23. (With Inge Stephan) Print.

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, dir. Volker Schlöndorff, 1975.

Todesspiel, dir. Heinrich Breloer, 1997.

Trnka, Jamie H. “The Struggle Is Over, the Wounds Are Open”: Cinematic Tropes, History and the RAF in Recent German Film New German Critique. 2007: 1-26. Print.

Zachau, Reinhard, Forty Years of Böll Scholarship. Literary Criticism in Perspective. Camden House: Columbia, South Carolina, 1994.

Lyrik

Hans Bender: Immer noch – Neue Vierzeiler
Mirko Bonné: Fünf Gedichte
Günter Kunert: An Pater Augustinus — Fünf neue Gedichte
Helga Kurzchalia: ist es nacht
Erwin Messmer: Fünf Gedichte
Dirk von Petersdorff: Erinnerungen
Arne Rautenberg: Vier Gedichte

Prosa

Michael Augustin: In Flensburg
Uwe Kolbe: Abendland
Nyk de Vries: Prosagedichte/ Ultra short stories

Essay

Gabriele Haefs: Hirsedieb, oder: von Ludwig Bechstein lernen, heißt …

Gespräch

Wolfgang Ertl im Gespräch mit Glossen

Artikel

Gabriele Eckart: Intertextual Traces: Cervantes’s The Ingenious Don Quixote of La Mancha in GDR Poetry
Britta Kallin: Intertextualities in Elfriede Jelinek’s Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel), Luis Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel, the Bible, and T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”
Jay Julian Rosellini: Neues Serbien? – Neuer Handke?
Reinhard Zachau: Death Images in The Baader Meinhof Complex

Rezension

Wolfgang Müller: Thea Dorn und Richard Wagner: Die deutsche Seele
 

Autoren

Autoren Glossen 33/2011

 

Fünf Gedichte
   

Die Vogelbeerglocke

Ein Ebereschenstrauch
steht im Morningside Park
unterhalb der Kathedrale
von St. John the Divine.

Die Beeren leuchten.
Der graue Bau, der brannte
vor zehn Jahren, ist eingerüstet.
Noch fehlt ein Jahrhundert
bis zum Glockenturm.

Die Beeren leuchten
rot im Oktober, verschmäht
von Staren der Upper West Side,
die in lauten Wolken südwärts
nach Staten Island ziehen.

Sie sind die älteren Zeugen.
Vertrau auf die Vögel: Stumm
im Wind klingt die rote Glocke
aus leuchtenden Beeren.
   
   
Ende September

Denk nur, heute Abend soll es stürmen.
Schon seit Monaten nicht war die Wut im Gras
so spürbar. Bedenklich die Heidschnucken,
ein taumelndes Pfauenauge.

Keine Krähe zu sehen. Sie sammeln sich
in der Totenstatt, um morgen mit Steinzeitflüchen
Ausflügler zu erschrecken. Nimm die Jacke,
gehn wir noch mal mit den Hunden.

Auf der Treppe der Staub, der Graue Star.
Die Land- und Seekarten von allen grünen Inseln
waren immer Gemälde. Aber was wir lieben,
liegt warm unter der Schädeldecke.

Für Adrijana Bohocki

   
   
Irgendwo in Harlem

Das letzte Haus an der Madison Avenue
ist ein verrußter Ziegelbau: Nummer 2066.
Besprüht mit Graffiti, parkt davor ein Van,
ausgeschlachtet im Regen über Harlem.

An Gusseisengittern entlang geht es hinauf
in einen kleinen Park: Bänke, Turm, Glocke.
Unter den Pappeln ein Rund, wo auf Mauern
Gestalten sitzen, hinabblickend nach Harlem.

Weit entfernt führt die hellblaue Hebebrücke
über den Fluss: Dort stehst du und wartest.
Überlegst. Oder du springst, fällst tief, tiefer
und landest bestimmt irgendwo in Harlem.
   
   

Klee

Lass das Netz
der Spinne.
Es leuchtet dem Sommer
den schläfrigen Weg.

Josua stapft
mit sieben augenbrauenlosen
Schülern des Herrn
um Jericho.

Entzifferbar
erkaltende Sonnenblumen,
Großväterzeichen,
in Grenzsteine geritzt.

Diesseitig bin ich gar nicht fassbar.
Und über das Licht
gespensternd
Starres und Unbewegtes.

Sieh die Blitze,
die Fische.
Sie messen das Reich aus
lebendiger Linien.
   
   

Libellenbrief

Fahrige Fremde, die auftaucht
im Dunst als die Verkörperung
des Dunsts, hat sie, wie ich,
die Jugend versäumt? Lernte
kein Griechisch, aß nicht täglich
einen Apfel, sondern schwirrte.

Der Bewegungen der Pappeln
folgen ihre Manöver. Augen –
Augen – Tauperlen – Tau.
Sieht sie her, wird sie zackig,
Garten ihr Schwebflug, eckig,
o Briefkasten Sonnenfleck.
   
   

---

Mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Autors aus dem 2013 bei Schöffling erscheinenden Gedichtband “Traklpark”.

Glossen: Du bist Deutscher von Geburt, lebst aber nun schon ein ganzes Leben in den Vereinigten Staaten. Wo in Deutschland kommst Du her?

Wolfgang Ertl: Mein Lebensweg fing an in Sangerhausen, wo meine Eltern nach der Vertreibung aus dem Sudetenland gelandet sind. Sangerhausen war eine Kreisstadt im Bezirk Halle, am Südostrand des Unterharzes, damals bekannt für den Kupferschieferbergbau und das Rosarium. Ich ging – durchaus gern, soweit ich mich erinnere – auf die Thomas-Müntzer-Schule und zu den Jungen Pionieren. Zu meinen lebendigsten Kindheitserinnerungen gehören die Sommerferien im Garten meiner Großeltern in Dresden mit seinen Obstbäumen und Sträuchern, dem Rhabarber, den langen Erdbeerbeeten, dem Sandkasten, dem kleinen Häuschen, in dessen Dachboden ich nachts im Bett mit Taschenlampe lesen konnte. Aus dieser Welt wurde ich im 11. Lebensjahr herausgerissen und fand mich nach kurzem Aufenthalt im Flüchtlingslager Berlin Marienfelde in Westdeutschland wieder. Nach einigen Jahren in Würzburg ging es dann nach Hessen, wo ich in Fulda Abitur gemacht und in Marburg studiert habe.

Gl: Wie, wann und warum bist du nach Amerika gekommen?

W. E.: In Marburg habe ich meine spätere Frau Mary kennengelernt. Sie kam aus New Hampshire zum Auslandsstudium in Deutschland. Wir haben vor 42 Jahren in Portsmouth, ihrem Geburtsort, geheiratet und wohnen jetzt wieder ganz in der Nähe von Portsmouth an der Atlantikküste. Dazwischen liegen die Jahre in Philadelphia und die lange Zeit im Mittleren Westen. Es hat sich einfach so ergeben.

Gl: Warum hast Du ausgerechnet Germanistik studiert?

W.E.: Es war sicher die Liebe zur Literatur. Obwohl unser Deutschlehrer am Gymnasium, den ich sehr mochte, einmal erklärte, wer Deutsch studiere, sei selbst dran schuld, habe ich mich von Anfang an für Germanistik entschieden. Die Wahl des zweiten Hauptfaches fiel auf Anglistik, hätte bei meinen ziemlich weit gespannten Interessen aber auch etwas anderes sein können. Ich habe mein Studium dann nach der Auswanderung in die Vereinigten Staaten an der University of New Hampshire und der University of Pennsylvania weitergeführt und 1975 mit der Promotion abgeschlossen.

Gl: Du warst einer der ersten unter den jungen amerikanischen Germanisten der siebziger und frühen achtziger Jahre, die sich mit dem Thema Literatur aus der DDR beschäftigten. Du hast dich ja unter anderen den Texten Volker Brauns, Wulf Kirstens, Thomas Rosenlöchers und Heinz Czechowskis zugewandt. Warum gerade Literatur aus der DDR, also neueste deutsche Literatur und das in einem akademischen Milieu, für das die deutsche Literatur damals, grob gesagt, mit Thomas Mann aufhörte?

W.E.: Was meine Forschungsarbeit betrifft, bin ich ausgehend von der Beschäftigung mit der Lyrik der Moderne und der Gegenwart auf Exil-Autoren gestoßen und habe meine Dissertation über die Traditionsbeziehungen in der Lyrik Stephan Hermlins geschrieben. Hier nahm meine weitere Spezialisierung auf die Literatur der DDR und dann die literarischen Entwicklungen seit der Vereinigung ihren Ausgang. Zu meinen umfassenderen Themen gehörten dabei immer wieder auch die Poetisierung von Natur und Landschaft und die Darstellung der ökologischen Problematik in der Literatur (nicht nur der DDR). Mein biographischer Hintergrund und das Interesse für das Experiment eines sozialistischen Staates auf deutschem Boden mögen eine Rolle spielen.

In meinen Vorlesungen und Seminaren habe ich mich neben dieser Thematik auch verschiedenen Aspekten der Literatur seit dem 18. Jahrhundert zugewandt, etwa der Geschichte der deutschen Lyrik und der Literatur vom Naturalismus zum Expressionismus.

Gl: Du bist nun seit einiger Zeit auch als Künstler an die Öffentlichkeit getreten. Gibt es für dich etwas, was Schreiben über Literatur und Malen eint und vielleicht auch trennt? Und dazu noch, man würde vermuten, dass es jemanden, der über Literatur schreibt, reizen könnte, kontinuierlich, über sporadische Versuche hinaus auch selbst z. B. Gedichte, Kurzgeschichten oder Romane zu schreiben. Hast Du es je versucht?

W. E.: Literatur und Kunst haben mich schon immer gleichermaßen interessiert, und etwa Mitte der sechziger Jahre habe ich auch mit ernsthafteren Versuchen zu malen und Gedichte zu schreiben angefangen. Kunsthistorische Studien und die eigene künstlerische Arbeit sind tatsächlich seit meiner Emeritierung immer mehr in den Vordergrund getreten, während ich mich nach wie vor mit Literatur beschäftige, gern auch über mein Spezialgebiet der neueren deutschen Literatur hinaus. Das Schreiben über Literatur hat für mich wenig gemeinsam mit dem kreativen Vorgang des Malens. Das Schreiben von Gedichten und fiktionalen Texten schon eher. Schon immer interessiert haben mich allerdings die Wechselbeziehungen von Kunst und Literatur.

GL: Deine frühen Bilder tendierten zum Abstrakten. In deinen jüngeren Gemälden, jedenfalls in denen, die in den letzten Jahren in Ausstellungen zu sehen waren, kommt in der eher „realistischen“ Darstellung ein sehr tiefes und sensibles Verhältnis zur Natur zum Ausdruck. Was ist es, das dich an der Landschaft anzieht und das dich nun zu dieser „beschreibenden“ Landschaftsmalerei zieht? Um Missverständnisse zu vermeiden, weder „realistisch“ noch „beschreibend“ trifft genau das, was Du in diesen Bildern künstlerisch tust, wie ja auch die Bezeichnung „abstrakt“ für deine frühe künstlerische Produktion nicht voll zutrifft, weil sie wiederum Bilder von Landschaften evoziert.

W. E.: Von der beobachteten Natur und erlebten Landschaft gehen sicher letztlich die Impulse aus, ob für die mehr oder weniger stilisierten Landschaftsbilder oder die gänzlich abstrakten Kompositionen. Obwohl es mir durchaus immer wieder auch darauf ankommt, die atmosphärischen und topographischen Besonderheiten der Landschaft einzufangen – in den letzten Jahren besonders meines näheren Umfeldes der Küstenlandschaft von New England – , erfährt die wahrgenommene „Realität“ doch meist eine beträchtliche Umwandlung in die Welt der Formen und Farben, angebracht auf zweidimensionalem Grund. Was mich übrigens an abstrakter Malerei so besonders anzieht, ist einerseits die Befreiung vom Gegenstand oder Motiv, andererseits aber gerade die Konzentration auf das Konkrete, das Material der Farbe etwa. Meine Vorliebe für Pastellfarben zum Beispiel beruht u. a. darauf, daß sie fast nur aus reinen Pigmenten mit einem Minimum an Bindemitteln bestehen und unmittelbar mit den Fingern auf die Malunterlage übertragen werden. In letzter Zeit habe ich übrigens wieder ein paar abstrakte Arbeiten angefertigt und auch eine auf abstrakte Kunst spezialisierte Gruppenausstellung in York, Maine organisiert.

Gl: In deinen Gedichten „Gemälde –Fünf Gedichte“, die verschiedene Gemälde beschreiben, scheint es so als hätten diese Gemälde, jedes für sich und alle zusammen für das lyrische Ich eine „Seele“, erzählten eine Geschichte, z. B. die kriegerische Geschichte des blutigen europäischen 20. Jahrhunderts.

GEMÄLDE – FÜNF GEDICHTE

1.

Blau schwebt spröde
Über weiße Strukturen
Bleibt durchlässig haften
Bis es zerbröckelt

Sichtbar wird in
Lichter Ödnis
Schwachroter Lack
Der kalt zerrinnt

Daneben verschwimmen
Hellgrüne Streifen

2.

Grell und dumpf
Glühen und drohen
Lohende Farben

Mächtig steht der
Rumpf der Mühle

Weißer Kalk
In bleicher Kühle

3.

Rotviolettes Heidekraut
Vereinzelt die
Schlanken Birken

Im Hintergrund
Ein verrosteter Panzer

4.

Ohne Lider
Die Vorstellung allein
Verwandelt alles in
Weiße Steine

Möglich
Eine ungeahnte
Offenheit

5.

Ein Bild
Ohne Rahmen
Mit Sonnenuntergang
Ohne Anspielung auf
Ende oder ähnliche
Unverstandene
Innereien

W. E.: In diesen frühen Versuchen aus den sechziger und siebziger Jahren, angeregt von intensiver Beschäftigung mit moderner Lyrik – Rilke, Trakl und viele andere – kommt tatsächlich einiges zusammen: Beschreibende Bildbetrachtung, Umsetzung eigener Bilder in Worte,
Selbstreflexion. Es geht um den Ausdruck ganz subjektiver Befindlichkeiten, aber auch um Besinnung auf Geschichte (angesichts der Betrachtung von Kunstwerken, etwa Emil Noldes, aber auch auf eigenen Erlebnissen beruhend, wie zum Beispiel Bundesgrenzschutz-Manövern).

Gl: Lassen sich auch deine Landschaftsbilder, etwa die in dieser Glossenausgabe befindlichen sieben, in ihrer Gesamtheit auch als Geschichte „lesen“ oder sogar als Allegorie? Und wenn das so ist, in welcher Maltradition, wenn in überhaupt einer, siehst Du dich?

W. E.: Es sind nur Beispiele aus den letzten beiden Jahren, tatsächlich beobachtete Landschaften neben imaginierten, wobei einige aus dem „Zusammenhang“ motivähnlicher Reihen von Bildern genommen sind. Ich kann und will mich nicht auf eine bestimmte Maltradition festlegen, es gibt so viele Künstler, die mich immer wieder begeistern und mir permanent vorschweben. Daher wohl auch der eher eklektische Charakter und das nie endende Experimentieren. Auf symbolische oder allegorische „Lesbarkeit“ hin sind sie nicht angelegt, sie lösen aber hoffentlich hier und da etwas im Betrachter aus, das über das vordergründig Gegenständliche, Stimmungshafte oder Dekorative hinausgeht.

Gl: Deine Landschaften lassen sich unterhalb der Schwelle einer metaphorischen und symbolischen Interpretation teilweise nördlichen, aber auch südlichen Gefilden zuordnen. Sie sind aber geographisch zu allgemein, als dass sie auf Landschaften deines Geburtslandes und damit auch auf die Landschaften deiner Kindheit verweisen könnten. Ist dieser Bereich für dich ein abgeschlossenes Thema oder ein Thema, das besser bewusst ausgeklammert bleiben sollte?

WE.: Vor einiger Zeit habe ich eine Studie zum Kindheitsthema in der Lyrik Wulf Kirstens veröffentlicht. Kirsten gelingen beeindruckende unsentimentale und wirklichkeitsgesättigte Kindheitsbilder. Trotzdem spricht er von seinem Zweifel an der Authentizität der in die Sprache des Gedichts heraufgeholten Kindheitsbilder aus längst vergangener und auch untergegangener Zeit. So manches aus meiner Kindheit ist mir noch in guter Erinnerung, wie anfangs angemerkt, mein visuelles Gedächtnis aber scheint nicht auszureichen, um den Landschaften meiner Kindheit Gestalt zu geben. Ich habe es allerdings auch noch nicht versucht … Ich hole gelegentlich schon Landschaften, in denen ich mich vor einigen Jahren aufgehalten habe, hervor und lasse mich von ihnen, etwa mit Hilfe der Gedächtnisstütze früherer Skizzen oder Photos, zu neuer Darstellung anregen.

Sieben neue Bilder von Wolfgang Ertl

 

 

---

© Wolfgang Ertl
Zur weiteren Information: www.wolfgangertlart.com

Intertextualities in Elfriede Jelinek’s Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel): Luis Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel, the Bible, and T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”

Elfriede Jelinek’s play Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel) (2008) examines the silence about a massacre at the Austrian-Hungarian border in the Austrian Burgenland that took place in the early morning hours of March 25, 1945. The countess Margit Batthyány, neé Thyssen, had invited around 30 guests on the evening of March 24, 1945, to her castle. After partying and drinking all evening, weapons from the castle were handed out. An unknown number of guests walked to the nearby town to use those weapons to kill Jewish workers who were assembled at the nearby train station. That night almost 200 already starving and weakened Jewish workers were shot to death for, as it seems, no other reason than amusement of the murderers. Various groups of SS soldiers and members of other National Socialist organizations who were invited as guests to the castle of Margit Batthyány supposedly committed the massacre. Two of those SS officers were Ortsgruppenleiter and SS-Sturmscharfürer Franz Podezin and Hans Joachim Oldenburg.[1]An SS man who was willing to give testimony in court and one Jewish survivor of the massacre were both killed under strange circumstances in 1946. These two murders have never been solved. Nobody in the town of Rechnitz (Rohonc in Hungarian) has come forward to describe the events that took place that night. The corpses of the Jews have not been found. According to reports, 18 Jewish laborers who dug the graves for the killed Jews were shot dead the next day.

When the historian David Litchfield published his book The Thyssen Art Macabre  (2007) and various articles containing details about the massacre in the British newspaper The Independent and the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2007, discussions took place in the German and Austrian media about the unresolved case. In the article in The Independent, Litchfield writes:

Six hundred Jews, assigned to strengthen the Rechnitz defences [sic], were housed in the cellars of the castle, living in appalling conditions. Many were arbitrarily beaten and shot, particularly by Podezin, while local people reported the countess derived obvious sadistic pleasures from observing these barbaric acts. (n. pag., 2007)

The massacre has become a representative case of the difficult relationship of Austria’s involvement with National Socialism and crimes committed by Austrians during that period.[2] Countess Batthyány died in 1989 in Switzerland and was never held accountable for the shootings and killings and never brought to trial. Her lover at the time of the massacre, NS-Ortsgruppenleiter Franz Podezin, who participated in the shootings, lived in Kiel till the mid-1960s before leaving for South Africa. He also was never accused of the crime because it seemed impossible to gather enough evidence.

In this article, I argue that Jelinek draws on several texts to highlight the interconnectedness of Western thoughts on human civilization, religion, brutality, and Austria’s role in relation to National Socialism to strengthen her case against those who cover up crimes of genocide and to disturb those who try to keep silent about those crimes. As in many of her other texts, Elfriede Jelinek uses a subset of literary sources in which she entangles her play Rechnitz. For example, there are a number of connections between the Jelinek play and Luis Buñuel’s movie, The Exterminating Angel (1962).[3] Another text is the poem “The Hollow Men” (1925) by T. S. Eliot, which explores the spirit of the time in Europe and the US after WW I. There are also parts of historians’ descriptions of the massacre and the findings of two documentary filmmakers, Margareta Heinrich and Eduard Erne, who filmed a documentary movie about the backgrounds of the massacre and the reactions of the towns’ inhabitants, entitled Totschweigen (1994).[4] Jelinek also includes passages from the Bible in her play that underline the contrast between the brutality of the atrocities and the Christian tradition in which the victimizers were educated. In Rechnitz, Jelinek also uses passages from Günter Stampf’s Interview mit einem Kannibalen (2008), in which the murderer Armin Meiwes, also known as the cannibal of Rotenburg, reports on locating, contacting, murdering, and eating his victim Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes. Meiwes was found guilty of killing and devouring his victim in 2004. He was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. The following year the court changed the sentences from manslaughter to murder and Meiwes now serves a life sentence. Furthermore, Jelinek employs excerpts from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-85) for parts that deal with the philosophical debate about the existence or non-existence of God.

In addition, Jelinek includes a number of quotes from Euripides Die Bakchen (405 B.C.), a play that deals with Dyonisus who punishes Pentheus and his mother Agave because they refuse to worship him. While driven into an ecstatic frenzy, Agave and other women tear Pentheus’ body apart without knowing who their victims are. Dyonisus is the central character of the play who directs the other characters according to his wishes. In a review of Foley’s path-breaking study on Euripides, S.E. Scully quotes Helen P. Foley who writes, the poet “uses the ritual crisis to explore simultaneously god, man, society, and his own tragic art” (207). Scully continues, “In this ‘protodrama’ Dionysus, the god of the theatre, stage-directs the play (219)” (Scully 1987, 321). Due to its gruesome theme, the play Die Bakchen was for a long time overlooked as a serious engagement with theater’s forces. It was Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie (1872) that revived an interest in Die Bakchen and the forceful chorus scenes were staged quite dramatically throughout performances in the 20^th century.

Last but not least, Jelinek also incorporates the libretto of Der Freischütz (1821), written by Friedrich Kind for Carl Maria von Weber’s opera. The source of the Freischütz plot is a German folk legend in which a marksman agrees to a contract with the devil. The marksman receives bullets that do not miss the target, which the shooter aims at. In turn, the marksman will sacrifice his life to the devil. The connection here are the references to hunting, the deal with the devil that the Nazi soldiers seemed to agree on when shooting innocent Jewish workers, and the German nationalist undertones in the opera that was deemed the first German Romantic opera of its genre. David Boyden writes in An Introduction to Music, “This work … marked the emancipation of the German opera from Italian and French models … In addition to the magic and supernatural elements, the opera specializes in local color of the forest, peasants, rustic love, hunting, and hunting horns … the folk tale, the folk-song type of melody, and folk dances. These elements are rather naïve and nationalist in emphasis” (339). Also, the corpse of the hero Kaspar who sold his soul to the devil is finally thrown into the Wolf’s Glen (“Wolfsschlucht”). The similarities between Wolf’s Glen and Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair (“Wolfsschanze”) are telling. While the victims disappear in a mountainous, dark valley in Der Freischütz, the almost 200 victims of Rechnitz disappear in the soil that Hitler’s men forced a group of the Jewish workers to dig up. Furthermore, the name of Agave is reminiscent of Agathe; Agave acts as the female hero in the play Die Bakchen and Agathe is the heroine in Der Freischütz. In addition, besides the fact that Der Freischütz is based on a German folk legend it also draws on the dichotomy of Appolonian and Dyonisian elements of theater and nature’s powers. Another source that Jelinek employs at the end of her play is the interview “Jammern ist nie eine gute Idee,” printed in Die Weltwoche, in which Hans Magnus Enzensberger talks about his book on the German military persona general Kurt von Hammerstein, Hammerstein oder der Eigensinn: Eine deutsche Geschichte (2009). Jelinek analyzes several of Enzensberger’s laconic comments in the interview about the role of the Holocaust in current day German schools and public debate.[5]

The parallels between Luis Bunuel’s Angel Exterminador (1962) and Jelinek’s play are not as evident as some of the quotes of other sources. First, the setting of the film and the play are similar because in both cases a hostess or host invites guests to a party in a mansion. In the movie, all guests wear formal dress code. The men wear tuxedos and the women wear evening gowns as they are all coming back from an opera they watched that evening. The narrative line of Exterminating Angel is not linear but here, Bunuel, plays with the limits of cinematic freedom. The movie is considered one of his many surrealist films where the spectator is confronted with continuity errors, repetitions, inconsistencies, and contradictions which are mirrored in Jelinek’s play.[6] The film depicts class conflict in its extreme, neither the bourgeois nor the servants can identify with the opposite group. A female guest at the party describes a train wreck in which “the third-class compartment, full of common people, had been squashed like a huge accordion,” and calmly continues, “The suffering of those poor people didn’t move me at all.” The female actor asserts, “The lower classes seem to be less sensitive to pain.” Similarly, Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities who were persecuted by the Nazis were not considered human and less susceptible to pain. The sheep in Exterminating Angel represent the thoughtless humans who are sacrificed when following religion or other groups such as the Nazis. After the guests seem to be trapped in the living room of the host’s house in Bunuel’s movie, they slowly lose all civilized behavior and turn into brutal savages when they demand the death of the host. They break down walls to get to water pipes and one couple commits suicide. They find solace in dreams, magic, chicken legs, and narrative. Marsha Kinder writes: “Their mysterious inability to leave the room is experienced as failure of will — perhaps no more mysterious than the one that prevents citizens from changing the totally corrupt economic, social, and political system on which their own privileges (and the miseries of the servants and other have-nots) are based” (n.pag.).

While there is no rational explanation for the guests’ frivolous behavior in Bunuel’s movie, there is also a lack of explanation for the behavior of the guests at Margit Batthyány’s party in her castle in Rechnitz. [7] Yet, the guests in Bunuel’s movie do not commit crimes like the soldiers who shot the Jews. At the end of the plot, Bunuel’s guests are miraculously allowed to leave the house. Yet, a few days later again they are trapped inside a church with a large group of other churchgoers. There is no end to the absurdity of Bunuel’s plot. In his movie, one guest comments on a loud noise that sounds like shattering glass he hears in another room and he expresses anti-Semitic sentiments. The guest explains, “That might have been a Jew.” Marsha Kinder writes “The Exterminating Angel demonstrates how religion provides an underlying justification for some of the worst injustices of the bourgeois social order” (n.pag.).

In one scene in Bunuel’s movie, a couple that just met at the party and has fallen in love with each other commits suicide in the bathroom, the only other room where the guests are going to the toilet, to have sexual intercourse, or commit suicide. After a female guest discovers the dead couple, she tries to shut the door to the bathroom but a hand sticks out that she cannot get back into the tiny, closet-like bathroom. A hand (without a body) reappears shortly after this scene to haunt the woman who just woke up from a bad dream. She then tries to poke the hand that moves around the room with a knife. The scene is interrupted when another woman shrieks because someone tried to hurt her hand with a knife. It is not clear from the plot if the hand is meant to be a fantastical twist of the woman’s mind, the one who discovered the dead couple. The hand here represents the undead that return by getting into the business of those still alive. In Rechnitz, Jelinek uses the hand as a separate object that has its own force and also to taunt the living as a symbol of the undead:

Sonst werden die doch gefunden, die Toten, 180 Stück, das ist keine Kleinigkeit, die alle umzubetten, das können wir uns später in Ruhe überlegen, jetzt erst mal rein mit ihnen, das Blut hätte diese harte Erde doch wirklich vorher etwas erweichen können, da schaut ja noch eine Hand heraus und dort ein Fuss oder was ist das. (129)

In Bunuel’s and Jelinek’s works, two classes of society are involved. The servants in Bunuel’s movie leave the scene before the situation escalates with the exception of one male servant who remains at the house and finally shows the guests the exit door. In Jelinek’s play, she recalls the situation at the castle of Margit Batthyány who employed a number of servants. The cellar in Batthyány’s castle was used to house Jewish workers who had been sent to work on the “Ostschutzwall” which was supposed to be built in 1945 to keep the Russian army from advancing any further. According to reports, the Jews were kept in inhumane conditions and were beaten and otherwise tortured without reason.  In Rechnitz, a messenger reports: “Ich glaube, auch die Dienerschaft hält dicht, weil sie das schließlich weiß und muss“ (137). As the documentary Totschweigen also shows, Batthyány’s servants did not mention anything about the abuse of the Jews because their role was to keep quiet about what is now considered human rights’ abuses.

One of the more striking intertexts in Rechnitz is T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” that was written in 1925 and has since had a major influence on the culture of the United States. It has made its way into a number of literary and cinematic works as well as computer games. The poem is also read in the Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now (1979) where Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent to find and eliminate Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who is said to kill the Viet Kong indiscriminately one by one. In reference to its literary source, the movie displays the primal violence of human nature and the brutality of the soldiers’ hearts.

Jelinek makes use of Eliot’s allusions to Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1899) in which an amoral British man loses himself in the African wilderness and commits terrible crimes only to realize the horror on his deathbed. Similar to Eliot, Jelinek draws allusions to the Conrad novel, Eliot’s description of the death of cultures, and the modern man as hollow and corrupt. She also alludes to the scenes in Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now in which Marlon Brando reads Eliot’s poem and reflects on the destructive and evil nature of mankind. In the following, I will outline intertextual references in Jelinek’s Rechnitz, taken from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” by highlighting passages in bold that are directly taken from the English poem or passages translated into German and included in Jelinek’s play:

Gedenket unser, wenn überhaupt, nicht als verlorene gewalttätige Seelen, sondern denkt an uns nur als die hollow men, the stuffed men, vollgestopft haben sie sich, haben wir uns, wieso sind sie, wieso sind wir dann hohl, wieso sind die dann aber Höhle und wir nicht? Hohlenmenschen? Höhlenmenschen?, was weiß ich, was das ist, wer wir sind. Und die Herren P. und O. müssen wir auch noch mitnehmen, geht ja alles in einem Blutaufwasch, denn das sind die echten hohlen Menschen, in die geht alles rein. Oder sind es die anderen, die hohl sind, weil schon fast verhungert? Hohl gegen hohl. Auf einen Totenacker hat sie ihr Weg geführt. (R 61-62)

Jelinek plays with the expression “stuffed” as in “stuffed after being emptied,” the Jews who have not been given enough to eat in contrast to “stuffed as in satiated,” “full after a meal,” the meal that Podezin and Oldenburg celebrated at Margit von Batthyány’s castle. Jelinek offers contradictory images: the stuffed men are those who ate a lot because they are hollow and without essence in contrast to those who are starving. The original part of the Eliot poem reads like this:

Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men. (I, Eliot)

The computer-generated translation, which Jelinek used to translate the text, reads slightly different. Jelinek mocks the inability of the computer software that translates the poem into words that are assembled in incorrect grammar:[8]

Nicht als verlorene heftige Seelen, aber nur als die hohlen Männer die angefüllten Männer. (CGT)

Jelinek uses Eliot’s paradoxical imagery at the end of the first stanza of “The Hollow Men” who are hollow and simultaneously stuffed. She projects the image on the victims who are starved as well as on the victimizers Podezin and Oldenburg who are stuffed from the food at the party but hollow inside and uses the word play of “hohl-Höhle” to draw on their barbaric, uncivilized life.

Jelinek quotes complete sentences from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” “Sie [die Geschichte, B.K.] hält eine Vorlesung. Between the conception and the creation between the emotion and the response falls the shadow” (65). This is part of Eliot’s original poem’s fifth stanza. Eliot uses this as a rhythmic dance as part of the mulberry bush/prickly pear sequence with its repetitive lines, two of which end with the biblical reference “For Thine is the Kingdom”:

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long (V, Eliot)

 

Repeatedly, Jelinek uses images of shadows that depict the undead who lament the living’s lack of interest in justice for all. “[D]ass diese letzten Hilflosen also abgeknallt werden, anstatt dass man zuerst an die Rettung der eigenen Haut denken würde, die ja viel mehr wert ist in death’s twilight kingdom, und auch die Zeit ist viel wert, es ist nämlich höchste Zeit” (R, 66). In “The Hollow Men,” Eliot plays with the biblical expression from the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever,” with which the prayer ends. Instead of praising the kingdom without hesitation, Eliot develops a new kingdom of death’s twilight that is neither just nor bright.[9]

Similar to Eliot’s allusions to the Lord’s Prayer with the lines “For Thine is the Kingdom” and the crippled line at the end of the poem, Jelinek also refers repeatedly to the Bible in her play Rechnitz: “Also, wer der Herr, mein Hirte, ist, das weiß ich nicht” (R 161). “Man hebt bei Dunkelheit eine Grube aus, und dann legt man das eben hinein. Dann spricht man den Psalm 23. Der ist schön. Ich glaub, den magst du auch. Man betet danach das Vaterunser. Dann schaufelt man die Grube eben wieder zu” (R 202). Psalm 23 is sung by Jews and Christians alike. Jews sing it at the third Shabbat meal on Saturday afternoon. Sephardic and Hassidic Jews also sing it on Fridays. It is also read at Jewish and Christian funeral services:

Der Herr ist mein Hirte, mir wird nichts mangeln. Er weidet mich auf einer grünen Aue und führet mich zum frischen Wasser. Er erquicket meine Seele und führet mich auf rechter Straße um seines Namens willen. Und ob ich schon wanderte im finsteren Tal, fürchte ich kein Unglück; denn Du bist bei mir, dein Stecken und Stab trösten mich. Du bereitest vor mir einen Tisch im Angesicht meiner Feinde. Du salbest mein Haupt mit Öl und schenkest mir voll ein.

Gutes und Barmherzigkeit werden mir folgen mein Leben lang, und ich werde bleiben im Hause des Herrn immerdar. (Lutherbibel, 1984)

Jelinek rewrites the Biblic message by twisting its meaning and adding a doubtful voice and critique of the Christian message: “Ich glaube, es heißt richtig: Im Hause meines Vaters sind viele Wohnungen” (R 203). The original Bible quote reads: “In meines Vaters Hause sind viele Wohnungen. Wenn es nicht so wäre, so wollte ich zu euch sagen: Ich gehe hin euch die Stätte zu bereiten” (Joh. 14, 2; Lutherbibel, 1984).

Jelinek’s take on the Biblical passages subvert their meaning: “Dann sagt der Herr: Ich bin der Weg und die Wahrheit und das Leben. Niemand kommt zum Vater als nur durch mich“ (R 203). In the Bible, it reads: “Jesus spricht zu ihm [Johannes]: Ich bin der Weg und die Wahrheit und das Leben. Niemand kommt zum Vater denn durch mich“ (Joh 14,6; Lutherbibel, 1984).

The most frequently quoted passage from the New Testament demands that the Christian faith is the only true religion. In the last sentence of Rechnitz, Jelinek again inverts a line from the Bible in which God is asked for help. He assures his followers that he will be there for them. Jelinek twists the line around by negating it: “Und wenn ihr etwas bitten werdet in meinem Namen, so werde ich es nicht tun” (R 204).  While the Bible reassures its readers: “Und wenn ihr etwas bitten werdet in meinem Namen, so werde ich es tun” (Joh. 14, 14; Lutherbibel 1984). The questions by family members, historians, and Jelinek to find out the truth about the shootings of the Jewish workers has not been answered.

Despite the fact that the text is a play, a narrative voice carries the reader through the text. An actor will take that role on stage to tell the story of the dead and the victimizers. At one point, when the narrative voice reflects on Margit Batthyány as an art collector as well as art and its purpose for mankind, the voice refers back to Eliot’s poem.

Kunst ist prinzipiell und unerklärlich. Nur zwei, drei Leute verstehen sie. Sie ist ein Phänomen, sie ist sichtlos, sinnlos, nutzlos. Die Augen kommen immer wieder mal vorbei, doch umsonst, sie wollen sich was anschauen, aber sie sehen nichts, weil die Kunst sich geweigert hat, sich zu sammeln, sightless, useless the eyes reappear as the perpetual star multifoliate rose of death’s twilight kingdom the hope only of empty men. Die Leeren. Ja, die Leeren sind irgendwo eingegraben worden” (R 74).

In Eliot, it reads:

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men. (IV, Eliot)

 

Jelinek uses the third stanza of the fourth part in its entirety as a run-on sentence by only changing one word: unless becomes “useless” in Rechnitz. While Eliot leaves the option open that the rose can appear, Jelinek’s narrator describes it as unnecessary.

Aber wenn Deutschland auch nur flüstert,  kracht es schon überall. Wenn aber gleich zwei Deutschländer mit einem leisen Wispern, einem Wimmern von Millionen Stimmen, ineinanderstürzen, dann gibt es keinen bang, dann gibt es eben genau dieses gewhisper, und danach traut sich keiner mehr zu flüstern. (R 76)

The two German countries, Germany and Austria, joined forces under Hitler and the whispering of millions of Jews and other victims can still be heard. So no one dares to speak but they only whisper in light of the tragic history of the Shoah. Eliot’s original reads:

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless (I, Eliot) …
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. (V, Eliot)

 

The last stanza in Eliot’s poem again plays with the musical allusions of the children’s song “Here we go round the mulberry bush” and its repetitive lines. In “The Hollow Men,” however, Eliot changes the twist of all kids falling down to the world coming to an end in a dreadful state rather than in a powerful, imposing state. The whispering reoccurs several times in Rechnitz as the narrator recalls the whisper of the gassed and burnt victims in the sky. The act of whispering is particularly important in Jelinek’s oeuvre as she repeatedly connects the author/writer and a way to interfere while speaking about the content of her plays. The act of speaking is a dialectical dilemma for Jelinek because she has been asked to stop talking, commenting, etc. but cannot keep silent in light of her knowledge about the brutalities of the war and the brutalities in current day Austrian and German society.

Moment, man sagt mir: 180, an die 200 Wehrlose, ich sollte lieber sagen: vollkommen Wehrlose, um das Vollkommene daran mit Worten und Werten noch zu betonen, keines, keener bleibt übrig, sie fallen um wie Kegel, diese hohlen Menschen, nein, nicht Höhlenmenschen, das sind die hohlen Männer, die wir die angefüllten Männer sind, die zusammen das Oberteil lehnen, das mit Stroh gefüllt wird. Leider hat der blöde Computer das Gedicht nicht so schön übersetzt, ich hätte es besser gekonnt, aber im Prinzip stimmt es, was hier steht, es steht hier als Vorbote eines Gedichts. Ein Gedicht, das Ganze! Eigentlich sehen diese Höhlenmenschen aus wie richtige Menschen, nur eben hohl, weil sie nie etwas gegessen haben, hohl ihre getrockneten Stimmen, wenn sie zusammen flüstern, sie sind ruhig, sie schreien nicht, und als Wind im trockenen Gras oder in gebrochenem Glas der Füße der Ratten Überschuß in unserem trockenen Keller bedeutungslos. (R 96-97)

Jelinek here returns to the first few lines of Eliot’s poem:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rat’s feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar. (I, Eliot)

 

Jelinek uses both Eliot’s poem and a female narrator’s voice from a documentary, a woman who recalls the night of the massacre in Totschweigen. She reports on the victims who do not scream, that she could only hear bullet shots through the night. Jelinek continues to draw on Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” and the references in Rechnitz multiply and become more intense during this first part of the play.

… da stehen sie nun, bestellt und auch abgeholt, die, die mit direkten Augen uns gekreuzt haben, zu anderem Königreich des Todes erinnern sich an uns, aber dazu werden sie keine Gelegenheit haben, sie wurden uns zum Erschießen übergeben, und wir üben das Schießen aus, das ist unser Privileg. Das ist das Privileg der Menschen, welche nicht hohl sind, welche so angestopft sind mit Stroh, stuffed, im Gegensatz zu den andren, die nicht angestopft sind, jedenfalls nicht mit Stroh. … Es macht nur Spaß, wenn man sich vorher ordentlich einen ansäuft, soviel Zeit muss sein…das ist wie Tageslicht auf einer defekten Spalte dort, die sich schließt, ist ein Baum, der wächst, nein, ein Baum, der schwingt, und Stimmen sind im Wind, die entfernteres und erster als ein verblasener Stern singt, jetzt weiß ich nicht, meint der Sternsinger oder wen oder was? (R 98-99)

The computer-generated translation reads almost identical with a few minor differences:

Die, die mit direkten Augen gekreuzt haben, zu anderem Königreich des Todes erinnern sich an uns… Tageslicht auf einer defekten Spalte dort, ist ein Baum, der schwingt und Stimmen sind im Wind, der entfernteres und ernster als ein verblassender Stern singt.[10] (CGT)

Jelinek adds the personal pronoun “uns” – die uns gekreuzt haben – in the sense of “they have killed us.” She also changes the German translation of Eliot’s original English “The Hollow Men” back into a more elegant translation of the original:

Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star. (II, Eliot)

 

Jelinek changes the “column” as a column in the text to a “defekte Spalte” in the translation as something that is alive and can close again, associating the “Spalte” with women’s genitalia. Here, Jelinek plays with the sexual allusion of a moving cleft. Furthermore, she changes the grammar such that the sentence is incorrect as the “Stimmen” in the wind connect to a singular verb “singt” instead of “singen,” unless “singt” refers back to “Spalte.” While the computer correctly offers “verblassender Stern,” Jelinek changes the fading star to “verblasener” – verblasen meaning “blow or backfill” as well as the allusion to “aufgeblasen” which means “bloated,” “inflated,” and “pompous” referring to the attitude of the guests who shot the Jews. The Nazi shooters wrongly but confidently assume that it is their right to take the lives of the already tortured Jews. The voice’s final question if the computer means “Sternsinger” refers to children or adults who dress up as the Three Kings. Particularly in Southern German tradition, they dress up as the Three Kings and go from house to house between Christmas and January 6 to collect money for charitable donations.[11] A passage where Jelinek uses a longer quotation from Eliot stands out in the middle of the play:

…die Augen werden nicht dabei sein, die Augen werden nie dabei sein, bei der Gedenkfeier in der Senkfeier, in der Senkgrube, in dieser hohlen Senke dieser gebrochenen Kiefer, dieser zerbrochenen Knochen. Und eingraben müssen wir das alles auch noch, eingraben in dieser Senke, dieser Senkgrube, in diesem letzten der Treffpunkte suchen wir 60 Jahre später oder so, vielleicht 70, 80, 180?, etwa 60 Jahre schätze ich mal, aber es können auch mehr sein, suchen wir diesen letzten der Treffpunkte, suchen wir ihn, zusammen tastend, und vermeiden die Rede, indem wir sie halten, die Rede immer wieder halten, die irgendwann von diesem Fluss des Gedächtnisses erfaßt werden wird, am Strand dieses tumid Flusses, sightless heute, sightless morgen, es sei denn, die Augen wieder erscheinen, aber nicht einmal im Traum uns erscheinen diese Augen. (R 101)

The original text from Eliot, however, reads:

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

 

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star… (IV, Eliot)

 

The computer-generated translation of “The Hollow Men” provides us with:

IV

Die Augen sind nicht hier dort sind keine Augen hier in dieser Senke der sterbenden Sterne in dieser hohlen Senke dieser gebrochenen Kiefer unserer verlorenen Königreiche

In diesem Letzten der Treffpunkte suchen wir zusammen tastend und vermeiden die Rede, die auf diesem Strand des tumid Flusses erfaßt wird

Sightless, es sei denn die Augen wieder erscheinen, wie der unaufhörliche Stern (CGT)

Jelinek composes several changes in her version of a translation from the English original and the computer-generated translation in this paragraph. She turns the valley from “Senke” back to “Senkgrube” or “Grube” where the dead Jews were buried. Since the right location of the graves is still not known, the organization Refugius holds a memorial service once a year near the Kreuzstadl, a remembrance celebration to which Jelinek refers with “Gedenkfeier.” Jelinek changes “Avoid the speech” to “Rede vermeiden, die Rede immer wieder halten” as a warning not to forget and a reminder to remember the dead by speaking up against the silence that surrounds the victims. She also changes the “beach of the tumid river” to a “Fluss des Gedächtnisses” a “river of thought” that does not stay still but keeps moving and thus searches for and remembers the dead. Jelinek constructs the imagery of the “eyes” in Eliot as the eyes of those who claim they did not see what happened during that tragic night in March 1945 in Rechnitz. Thus, Jelinek does in Rechnitz what she does best among contemporary post-dramatists. By invoking Luis Buñuel’s movie The Exterminating Angel, quotes from the Bible, and T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men,” among other references to texts from literary, religious, and philosophical canons, she manages to awake the dead to haunt the living. Rechnitz rightfully reminds audiences in Germany and Austria of sins that have not been forgiven because no one acknowledged the guilt in the first place of committing the murders, no one has been held responsible for the crimes, and no one has asked for repentance for the deadly shootings that killed close to 200 Jews, a mass murder committed seemingly as pure amusement for some of Margit Batthyány’s cruel party guests.

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