{"id":5007,"date":"2016-08-18T09:59:43","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T13:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/?page_id=5007"},"modified":"2016-09-18T18:39:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T22:39:47","slug":"the-critical-questioning-of-autobiographical-writing-in-heinz-czechowskis-die-pole-der-erinnerung-the-poles-of-remembrance-2006","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/archive\/glossen-41-august-2016\/the-critical-questioning-of-autobiographical-writing-in-heinz-czechowskis-die-pole-der-erinnerung-the-poles-of-remembrance-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"The Critical Questioning of Autobiographical Writing in Heinz Czechowski\u2019s Die Pole der Erinnerung<\/em> (The Poles of Remembrance<\/em>) (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

von Gabriele Eckart<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201calles Geschriebene ist [\u2026] nur eine Ann\u00e4herung an die Wahrheit und an die Wirklichkeit, so da\u00df auch das Gewesene lediglich mit dem Satz \u2018Wie es gewesen sein k\u00f6nnte<\/em>\u2019 beschrieben werden kann.\u201d
\n(\u201ceverything written down is [\u2026] only an approximation to truth and reality; therefore you only can describe past events stating \u2018How they could<\/em> have been.\u2019\u201d) (Czechowski 212)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There has been and still is a flood of autobiographical writing since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the GDR that reflects on the years leading to these events; see, for instance, Vierzig Jahre<\/em> (1996) by G\u00fcnter de Bruyn, Erwachsenenspiele<\/em> (1997) by G\u00fcnter Kunert, or Nebbich<\/em> (2005) by Adolf Endler. While all these authors express some doubts regarding the question of whether their memories show their East German past as it was, one autobiography that questions the veracity of the genre of autobiography itself most radically, claiming that it is nothing but fiction, is Heinz Czechowski\u2019s. This article examines Czechowski\u2019s critical attitude towards his own autobiographical writing.
\nWhile the author, born in Dresden in 1935, tells the story of his life in The Poles of Remembrance<\/em> as he remembers it, including, for instance, his participation in the demonstrations in Leipzig that led to the \u201csamtene[\u2026] Revolution\u201d (\u201cvelvet revolution\u201d) in the GDR in 1989, he self-critically reflects on the process of this remembering. This reflection starts with simple statements such as: \u201cDas Erinnern geht eigene Wege, ungelenkt durch das Bewu\u00dftsein\u201d (\u201cmemory goes its own ways, not directed by consciousness\u201d) (226) and advances to critically analyzing psychological phenomena related to memory as, for instance, that of nostalgia. In regard to it, he states that over the years of childhood and early adolescence there is a veil \u201cder alles in einem milderen Licht erscheinen l\u00e4\u00dft\u201d (\u201cthat has everything appear in milder light\u201d) (211). However, he continues, also later years are prone to such deceptions. Applying his insights on nostalgia to the phenomenon of the so-called \u201cOstalgie\u201d (nostalgia for the former GDR), the narrator states:<\/p>\n

Wenn heute gesagt wird, \u2018in der DDR sei ja nicht alles schlecht gewesen\u2019, so ist das nichts als der Ausdruck eines Bewu\u00dftseins, dessen Unsch\u00e4rfe der Verdr\u00e4ngung geschuldet ist. Denn auch in der Nazizeit ist durchaus \u2018nicht alles schlecht gewesen\u2019. Es geh\u00f6rt zu den bekannten Eigent\u00fcmlichkeiten der Erinnerung, da\u00df sie das Gewesene nicht nur in jenes mildere Licht taucht, sondern es auch bis zur Ertr\u00e4glichkeit filtert.
\n(When they say today that \u2018not everything was bad in the GDR,\u2019 so it is nothing but an expression of a state of mind that is rooted in the blurring [that occurs in the process] of suppression. In fact, also in the time of the Nazis not everything \u2018was bad.\u2019 It is a part of the known characteristics of memory that it not only puts the past in that milder light, but also filters it to a degree we can live with.) (211)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given such reflections that result in the pessimistic insight that our mental survival depends on such acts of \u201cVerdr\u00e4ngung\u201d (\u201csuppression\u201d) (211), it is surprising that more recent events such as, for instance, conflicts with close friends whom he perceives as having become his enemies after the Fall of the Wall, are narrated with such a fury that even the author\u2019s conflicts with the GDR\u2019s SED-bureaucrats (SED means Socialist Unity Party) whom he had abhorred seem not to have been too bad in comparison. Embittered about changes in the East after German reunification that, according to the author\u2019s point of view, also benefited people who did not deserve it1<\/a><\/sup>, Czechowski had moved to West Germany. From there, feeling uprooted and lonesome, he watched skeptically everything that was going on in East Germany, especially the professional success of former party officials in the reunited Germany, until he could not endure it any longer: \u201cEine heilige Wut ergriff Besitz von mir. Ich beschimpfte, wo ich konnte, die im Osten verbliebenen Freunde. Vor allem die Leipziger Szene war Zielscheibe meiner Verbalattacken\u201d (\u201cA holy fury overpowered me. Wherever I could, I reviled my friends who had remained in the East. Especially the scene in Leipzig became a target of my verbal attacks\u201d) (242). Is the author not aware of the fact that if he had waited a little longer to write his autobiography, the so-called \u201cSchleier,\u201d (211) i.e., veil of memory that puts everything in a milder light after some years passed, would have put these conflicts with old friends also into perspective? However, is there ever a right time to write an autobiography? Are there not always bothersome events that are too fresh to be dealt with even-temperedly? In addition, the author, suffering from heart disease, might have felt that his time was running out. Indeed, he died in 2009, three years after having published this autobiographical text.<\/p>\n

One example of a furious attack against a close former friend, perhaps his closest, is that against the poet Wulf Kisten. The narrator complains that when he visited Wulf Kirsten in Weimar some years after German reunification to bring him a very special present \u2013 a first printing called Unstrutw\u00e4rts<\/em> (Towards the River Unstrut<\/em>) \u2013 as a late birthday gift, he merely was offered a cup of coffee. The narrator goes on to complain that Kirsten did not seem to remember their long friendship:<\/p>\n

Erst als er mich hinausgeleitet hatte, raffte er sich am Auto zu der Frage auf, wie es mir in Limburg [Czechowskis neuer Wohnort] denn so gehe. Ich antwortete, wahrheitsgem\u00e4\u00df: schlecht. Sein lapidarer Kommentar lautete: na, da siehste mal, wie es einem DDR-Schriftsteller geht. Ich stellte die Gegenfrage, ob er nie ein DDR-Schriftsteller gewesen sei und bekam zur Antwort: Ich? Nie, ich war schon immer ein deutscher Dichter!
\n(Only, when he brought me to the car he asked how I was doing in Limburg [Czechowski\u2019s new hometown]. I told him truthfully: bad. His lapidary comment was, there you see how a GDR writer is doing. I asked him in return, if he never has been a GDR writer and received the answer: Me? Never. I always was a German poet!) (243)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Angrily, Czechowski rushed home and wrote a poem called \u201cLautlos\u201d (\u201cSoundless\u201d) about Kirsten in which he insinuates sarcastically that the poet whom he calls \u201cKamerad \u00c4ngstlich\u201d (\u201cComrade Afraid\u201d) was a fearful opportunist in the GDR. His poetic work he characterizes as \u201cEin paar Harmlosigkeiten \/ Aufs Niveau \/ Der Sklavensprache gebracht\u201d (\u201cSome harmless things \/ brought down to the level \/ of slave language\u201d (243). The third stanza reads:<\/p>\n

K\u00fcrzlich
\nDort zu Besuch gewesen: eine
\nFlasche Rotwein f\u00fcr
\nVier Personen, Freunde,
\nDie Bettzeit naht, l\u00f6scht
\nJetzt das Licht, den Finger
\nGelegt vor den Mund, da\u00df
\nDen Nachbar nichts st\u00f6re,
\nHalb elf, da man um sieben
\nAufstehen mu\u00df.
\n(Recently,
\nI visited him: one
\nBottle of red wine for
\nFour people, friends,
\nThen, time to go to bed. Switch
\nOff the light, the finger
\non the lips, don\u2019t disturb the neighbor
\nIt\u2019s half past ten, at seven
\nYou have to get up (244).<\/p>\n

The last stanza is addressed to the former Saxon countess and patron of the arts Anna Amalia (1739-1807), pitying her for the gutlessness of her \u201cKinder\u201d (\u201cchildren\u201d) (244). Czechowski published this poem in his volume W\u00fcste Mark Kolmen<\/em> (1997); Kirsten was deeply hurt.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, before the Fall of the Wall, the common enemy \u2013 the East German State with its \u201cWidersinnigkeit einer verordneten Utopie\u201d (\u201cabsurdity of a decreed utopia\u201d) (Strebel 1) \u2013 had kept together the friends, Czechowski and Kirsten, to a degree that such differences as how much wine to offer to a friend or at what time to go to bed were irrelevant. Even the more important question of whether you considered yourself to be a GDR-poet or a German poet would not have ended this friendship. Now, after the Fall of the Wall, this common enemy had disappeared; feelings of frustration and aggression needed a new target. The main cause of frustration in Czechowski\u2019s and many other GDR poets\u2019 case was probably the disappearing interest in reading poetry on the part of the East German audience in the stressful climate after German reunification. There was not much interest in poets\u2019 new works. As Volker Strebel points out, in the GDR Czechowski\u2019s texts were considered a \u201cGeheimtipp\u201d (\u201cinsider tip\u201d) \u2013 reading them closely, you could trace \u201cdie feinen kulturpolitischen Schwankungen \u00fcber das, was im Augenblick ver\u00f6ffentlicht werden durfte\u201d (\u201cthe fine fluctuations in cultural politics in matters of what could be published at the moment and what not\u201d). With the end of censorship after the Fall of the Wall, such issues were of no interest anymore for readers. Not only poets, but also successful GDR novelists lost their publishing houses and had to survive on welfare. In an essay, Czechowski stated in 1998: \u201cIn einer Zeit, wo das Geld als einziger \u00dcberlebenswert die Existenz beherrscht, ist die Poesie als gesellschaftlicher Wert a priori zum Scheitern verurteilt\u201d (\u201cIn a time when money rules your existence as the only value necessary to survive, poetry is condemned to fall through\u201d) (G\u00f6dden 125). Indirectly, there is praise for the GDR hidden in this statement (money was not so important in that country). Nevertheless, since Czechoswki had bitter emotions towards the state of the GDR for its lack of freedom and was relieved when it collapsed, he could not direct his aggression against the so-called West German \u201ccolonizers\u201d that introduced the terror of thinking in terms of money in a Daniela-Dahn-way2<\/a><\/sup>. In fact, as we remember, he had even moved to the West to be closer to West Germans. So it happened to Czechowski and others that they chose former friends as their target \u2013 not because they had turned out having been informers of the Stasi (the East German state police), but for petty personal reasons as, for instance, to have been \u201cmit einer Tasse Kaffee [\u2026] abgefertigt\u201d (\u201cgiven short shrift with a cup of coffee\u201d) (243) when they came for a visit bringing a late birthday gift. After the poem\u2019s publication, Kirsten took vengeance by having Czechowski lose his prestigious Swiss publisher. The author states: \u201cEinige Zeit sp\u00e4ter setzte Wulf Kirsten w\u00e4hrend einer Tagung des Ammann Verlages Egon Ammann die Pistole auf die Brust und sagte: Entweder Czechowski oder ich! Worauf sich Ammann f\u00fcr Kirsten entschied\u2026\u201d (\u201cSome time later, during a meeting of the Ammann Verlag, Wulf Kirsten held a pistol on Egon Ammann\u2019s head and said: Either Czechowski or me! Whereupon Ammann decided in Kirsten\u2019s favor\u2026\u201d) (243) Later, the narrator mentions that in a moment of self-criticism he decided to repair his old friendship with Kirsten. When he saw him getting out of a taxi at a cultural celebration to which they both were invited, Czechowski went to him and addressed him in a friendly way. However, Kirsten responded, \u201cer pflege nicht mehr mit mir zu sprechen\u201d (\u201cit was not his custom any more to talk to [him]\u201d) (245). Thinking about it, Czechowski states self-critically: \u201cIch bin in diesem Zusammenhang auch oft Opfer meiner eigenen Irrt\u00fcmer geworden\u201d (\u201cIn this respect [the fact that he lost many friends due to his verbal attacks], I often became a victim of my own misapprehension\u201d) (245). Nevertheless, for reasons of pride he decides not to regret having published his poem on Kirsten; otherwise he would not have republished it in his autobiography. Furthermore, almost proudly, the narrator quotes the critic J\u00fcrgen Serke stating: \u201cHeinz Czechowski hadert mit seinen Schriftstellerfreunden von einst [\u2026], die sich auf eigenes Versagen nicht einlassen wollen\u201d (\u201cHeinz Czechowski quarrels with his former friends [\u2026] who do not want to engage in any critical discussion of their failure\u201d) (250). In Czechowski\u2019s eyes, \u201cfailure\u201d means in this context that they remained in East Germany after the Fall of the Wall. The question must be raised, why does the author overreact in such a way? Susanne Sch\u00e4dlich in her autobiographical text about her stay in the United States retells a story she heard about an American Indian and relates it to her own situation after her family had moved from East to West Berlin in 1977. She states that they felt deeply unhappy in the West and can explain this unhappiness only in the following way: Because everything had changed in the way they lived their lives they felt overwhelmed and lost balance: \u201cwir waren schon hier und immer noch dort\u201d (\u201cwe were here already and still there\u201d) (81). As an analogy, she continues to tell the story of an Indian standing at the side of the road to hitch a ride. A car stops; the Indian gets in. Halfway on his route, the Indian wants to get out. \u201cDer Fahrer fragt warum? Und der Indianer sagt, er m\u00fcsse warten, bis seine Seele nachgekommen sei\u201d (\u201cThe driver asks why; and the Indian says he has to wait until his soul has followed\u201d) (81). Czechowski\u2019s situation after he moved to West Germany was similar. His soul had not been able to follow him yet; unhappily, he drives to the East to visit old friends in whose houses his soul might still be lingering; as a result, he gets entangled in situations of misunderstanding. Erroneously, he thinks that if these friends had also moved to the West, these painful encounters would not be necessary.<\/p>\n

In fact, the darkest colors dominate in the description of his old friends in Poles of Remembrance<\/em>. They are mainly the members of the so-called \u201cS\u00e4chsische Dichterschule\u201d (\u201cSaxon School of Poets\u201d) that included Karl Mickel, Rainer Kirsch, Adolf Endler, Elke Erb, Bernd Jentzsch, and others. What makes Czechowski\u2019s text worth reading is his awareness that he is not fair in such aggressive portrayals as, for instance, that of Kirsten, and tries to come to terms with his unfairness. Claiming that it comes mainly from his inclination to fall prey to his own \u201cIrrt\u00fcmer\u201d (\u201cerrors\u201d) (245) means acknowledging the unreliability of his memory and his inability to draw appropriate conclusions from it. Mainly Czechowski\u2019s inner conflict of wanting to regret his errors and make up with his old friends in the East and not being able to prevents the construction of an autonomous subject and of narrative closure. A critic of this autobiography states that the text has something \u201cUnfertige[s]\u201d (\u201cunfinished\u201d) (Grandt). Given Czechowski\u2019s deep skepticism towards the genre of autobiography that is based on the insight that we are unable to separate fact from fiction when we look back at our life, the text\u2019s fragmentary character must be interpreted as strength, not a weakness.<\/p>\n

As Czechowski\u2019s editor Sascha Kirchner points out, due to this skepticism towards the genre, the writer had tried hard to refrain from writing his autobiography for years, stating for instance: \u201cAlle Autobiographien sind Fiktion, sind das Ergebnis eines Nachdenkens \u00fcber sich selbst, das mit der Wirklichkeit nicht \u00fcbereinstimmt\u201d (\u201cAll autobiographies are fiction, are the result of a reflection about yourself that does not agree with reality\u201d) (Kirchner 281). However, as Kirchner states correctly: \u201cWer sich selbst auf solche Weise mahnt, dessen Erinnerungsmechanismus l\u00e4uft schon hei\u00df und reproduziert Bilder \u2013 oder produziert Trugbilder \u2013, die festgehalten werden wollen\u201d (\u201cWho warns himself in such a way, the person\u2019s mechanism of memory is already overheated and reproduces images \u2013 or chimeras \u2013 that want to be written down\u201d) (281). In addition, as Kirchner states, Czechowski had also political reasons for delaying his autobiographical writing, as he did not want to \u201ceinstimmen\u201d (\u201cbe attuned\u201d) into the \u201cChor der Vergangenheitsbew\u00e4ltiger\u201d (\u201cchorus of those who have set out to overcome the past [of the GDR]\u201d) (Kirchner 281). It means that he felt bad about judging the GDR and his role in this country too quickly and, perhaps, superficially. We should add that the word \u201cTrauerarbeit\u201d (\u201cwork of mourning\u201d) (217) scares Czechowski because it is too ambiguous: \u201cSollte man trauern, 45 Jahre lang vergeblich einer DDR angeh\u00f6rt zu haben? Sollte man das Unrecht bedauern, das man anderen angetan hatte?\u201d (\u201cShould you mourn to have belonged in vain for 45 years to a GDR? Should you regret the injustice you have done to others?\u201d) (218). Looking back at the injustices he did to others as a former candidate and later member of the SED also includes the injustices he did to animals. As a renowned \u201cNaturlyriker\u201d (\u201cpoet of nature\u201d) (\u201cG\u00f6dden\u201d 128), the reader can imagine Czechowski\u2019s agony when he was writing about his role in the controversial \u201cRinderoffenstall\u201d (\u201copen stables for cattle\u201d) affair, in which he uncritically had supported the Party line. The SED had ordered the agricultural production cooperatives to leave the cattle outside overnight also during the \u201cstrengsten Fr\u00f6sten\u201d (\u201cthe worst freezing\u201d) (92) \u2013 a new Soviet method according to which the animals would produce more meat. As a result, \u201cviele Tiere froren in der eigenen Jauche fest und mussten get\u00f6tet werden\u201d (\u201cmany animals froze in their own liquid manure and had to be put down\u201d) (92). The author\u2019s self-criticism in instances like this one, in which he had justified a political measure that turned out to be \u201cUnsinn\u201d (\u201cstupidity\u201d) (92) and had to be paid for with a high price of suffering, certainly contributes to the many mainly positive reviews the text The Poles of Remembrance<\/em> has received after its publication.<\/p>\n

Wolfgang Ertl concludes from reading Czechowski\u2019s poetry written after the Fall of the Wall that the writer mourns the loss of the \u201cUtopie-Potentials der untergegangenen DDR\u201d (\u201cpotential for utopia of the disappeared GDR\u201d) but not the downfall of its political regime. This also seems to be the case in the text The Poles of Remembrance<\/em>. However, as the \u201cRinderoffenstall\u201d episode shows, it is not always clear; sometimes, Czechowski is not sure if it was not the socialist utopia itself that led to suffering. After all, without his strong belief in this utopia he would not have blindly supported such absurd political measures; and how many other believers had acted like him? Such uncertainty of the first-person narrator about the reasons for the downfall of the GDR and the problematic character of his life contributes to the text\u2019s lack of closure.<\/p>\n

As Kirchner remembers, Czechowski also had worried that \u201ces werde mir an der F\u00e4higkeit mangeln, das Vergangene in seiner Tats\u00e4chlichkeit als Text wieder hervorzurufen\u201d (\u201cI might lack the ability to evoke the past in its factuality in the text\u201d) (281); this means he was concerned about the lack of authenticity. As Dennis Tate states, this concern is typical for the middle generation of critical GDR authors, born between the 1930s and 1950s. Many of them, as for instance Christoph Hein and Wolfgang Hilbig, preferred to tell their life stories in the form of fiction because they regarded the autobiographical genre with its implied claim for authenticity and consistency \u201cas an obsolete structure for conveying the elusiveness and fragmented nature of contemporary identity\u201d (12). In fact, their reason for preferring a fictional form is strong; nevertheless, also Karen Leeder\u2019s thought is noteworthy: \u201cAny form of work on the GDR past which allows itself the freedom of fiction might ultimately not prove finally rigorous enough to do justice to its subject matter\u201d (262). Obviously, Czechowski thought along similar lines when he preferred the controversial genre of autobiography for telling his life\u2019s story that, on the other hand, he could only begin to write down after he had given up his claim of authenticity and consistency. He states: \u201cIn Wirklichkeit, so scheint mir, ist [\u2026] die Vergangenheit nur eine Imagination, die dem jeweils gegenw\u00e4rtigen Stand des Bewu\u00dftseins entspricht\u201d (\u201cIn reality, so it seems to me, [\u2026] the past is only an imagination that corresponds to the state of consciousness at a time\u201d) (Kirchner 281). It speaks for the author\u2019s sincerity when he admits that his \u201cStand des Bewu\u00dftseins\u201d (\u201cstate of consciousness\u201d) was troubled at the time when he wrote The Poles of Remembrance<\/em>. Having survived the firebombing of the city of Dresden as a child and experienced the \u201cKrallen\u201d (\u201cclaws\u201d) (47) of Stalinism later on, he suffered from depression to such a degree that in between writing the chapters of his autobiography he had to spend time in mental institutions. After he had moved to the West he felt so depressed that he became an alcoholic with dire consequences: \u201cDer Schmerz um das Verlorene sa\u00df in der Kehle. Ich fuhr fort, die im Osten zur\u00fcckgebliebenen Freunde zu beschimpfen, vom Alkohol angeheizt, in einer Art Verfolgungswahn\u201d (\u201cThe pain about my loss was sitting in my throat. I continued to verbally harass my friends who had stayed in the East, heated up by alcohol, in a kind of paranoia\u201d) (247). As J\u00fcrgen Serke pointed out in reviewing this text, Czechowski always needed a circle of well-meaning friends to be able to stay alive. The critic continues: \u201cWenn er heute \u00fcber fr\u00fche Freunde entt\u00e4uscht ist und mit Verbitterung reagiert, so ist das eine Verbitterung, die sich im Kern gegen ihn selbst richtet.\u201d (\u201cWhen he today is disappointed about former friends and reacts with bitterness against them, so it is a bitterness that basically is directed against himself\u201d) (203). In other words, his attacks are a form of self-destruction. At times, The Poles of Remembrance<\/em> reads like a desperate self-portrayal by a madman who needed the desperation to be able to write.<\/p>\n

A sign of Czechowski\u2019s distrust in his ability to create authenticity in his autobiographical writing is the inclusion of poems in the text. As Karl Corino states, \u201cDie in seine Autobiographie eingef\u00fcgten Gedichte f\u00fchren oft wie unter dem Vergr\u00f6\u00dferungsglas die Konstellationen vor Augen, in denen er stand [in einem bestimmten Augenblick]\u201d (\u201cThe poems sprinkled into his autobiography often show, like under a magnifying glass, the constellations in which he lived [at a given moment]\u201d). Obviously, Czechowski hoped that the included poems could make up for the lack of authenticity in his autobiographical narrative. This inclusion, as well as that of excerpts from his Stasi-files, gives the text a hybrid character, loosening up the stiff structure of the autobiographical form for its good.<\/p>\n

Relentlessly, the author also examines his personal life, including his unfaithfulness towards his first wife and the breakdown of his two marriages. This examination reaches its climax when the author remembers driving from West Germany to the East to break into his second ex-wife\u2019s apartment. She calls the police; Czechowski has to spend an embarrassing night in jail. An author who falls prey to the temptation of painting a rosier picture of his life in order to give it meaning, probably would have left out this incident. Czechowski explains:<\/p>\n

Das Absurde der Situation wurde mir dergestalt bewu\u00dft, da\u00df ich in der DDR [\u2026] niemals in Haft gewesen war, obwohl ich einen pr\u00e4ventiv ausgestellten Haftbefehl in meinen Stasiakten fand. Ausgerechnet der Bundesrepublik, die ich mit herbeigerufen hatte, blieb es vorbehalten, mich hinter Gitter zu bringen\u2026
\n(The absurdity of the situation became clear to me in such a way that in the GDR [\u2026], although I found a preemptively issued warrant of arrest in my Stasi-files, I was never in jail. Of all things, the Federal Republic of Germany that I had helped to create had reserved the right to put me behind bars\u2026) (241).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be repeated that due to such radical self-criticism and self-questioning until the end, there can be no closure, neither narrative closure nor closure in meaning. If the text has a message, it comes close to what Milan Kundera said famously: \u201chuman life as such is a defeat\u201d (10). However, when Kundera continues to state, \u201cAll we can do in the face of that ineluctable defeat called life is to try to understand it\u201d (10), Czechowski would add, he tried hard to understand his life; however, it was such that it cannot be understood, neither by him, nor by anybody else. Not even the fact that he wrote remarkable poetry during his life in the GDR suffices to give it meaning.<\/p>\n

The text ends with the author\u2019s visit to his hometown Dresden where he has was a writer-in-residence from April to September 1998. The last lines are drenched in melancholy when he remembers a walk on Christmas Eve through the part of the city in which he grew up on: \u201cAlles, so schien es, war eine T\u00e4uschung: die H\u00e4user, der Kirchturm, der alte Friedhof \u2013 zu nichts anderem bestimmt, als vom Vergessen verschlungen zu werden\u201d (\u201cEverything, so it seemed, was a deception: the buildings, the church tower, the old cemetery \u2013 destined to nothing else but to be forgotten\u201d) (278).<\/p>\n

Besides having enriched the portrayal of East Germany before and after German reunification in 1991 by many interesting details, the merit of Czechowski\u2019s autobiography lies in the author\u2019s radical self-reflection that includes the critical scrutiny of his ability to remember and write about his memories. Kirchner summarizes the author\u2019s thoughts in the following way: \u201cIdentit\u00e4t \u2013 eine Fiktion. Die Erinnerung \u2013 eine Fiktion. Daraus folgt mit gnadenloser Notwendigkeit: Eine Autobiographie ist nichts anderes als \u2013 Fiktion\u201d (\u201cIdentity \u2013 fiction. Memory \u2013 fiction. The pitiless conclusion is: an autobiography is nothing but \u2013 fiction\u201d) (282). Praising Czechowski\u2019s sincerity, the critic states correctly: \u201cWer dies erkannt und artikuliert hat, der schreibt der Erz\u00e4hlung seiner Biographie das h\u00f6chstm\u00f6gliche Ma\u00df an Wahrhaftigkeit, an \u00dcberzeugungskraft und an Objektivit\u00e4t ein, derer ein einzelner f\u00e4hig ist\u201d (\u201cWho has realized and articulated this, writes the story of his life with the highest possible amount of truthfulness, persuasiveness, and candor a person is able to\u201d) (282).<\/p>\n

At this point it should have become obvious that Czechowski\u2019s text The Poles of Remembrance<\/em> is an ideal example to be studied in regard to our present critical discourse on autobiographical writing that emphasizes the inability or unwillingness of the author \u201cto accurately recall memories\u201d (\u201cAutobiography\u201d 3). Czechowski has all the willingness in the world to recall his past life accurately, but he is not able to due to what he calls \u201cmeine[r] Erinnerungsschw\u00e4che\u201d (\u201cthe frailty of my memory\u201d) (227).<\/p>\n

Linda Maeding, examining autobiographies of German exile writers who tried to come to terms with their painful experience of sudden uprooting before and during World War II, refers to Egon Schwarz3<\/a><\/sup>, who reflects on the question of \u201cwie weit der Einzelne sein Leben bestimmt und bis zu welchem Grad es von \u00fcberpers\u00f6nlichen M\u00e4chten genormt ist\u201d (\u201chow far the individual rules his\/her life and to what degree it is ruled by impersonal powers\u201d) (Meading 488). If we look at Czechowski\u2019s autobiography from this point of view, we have to ask: what ruled his life that according to his own judgment suffered from the lack of meaning? Obviously, it was ruled by both his own self-destructiveness due to his mental instability as well as by \u201c\u00fcberpers\u00f6nliche[n] M\u00e4chte[n]\u201d (\u201cimpersonal powers\u201d). However, to what degree was his self-destructiveness, triggered by his depression and his escape into alcoholism, not also caused by the historic events of the twentieth century? Bearing in your memory \u201czu Kindergr\u00f6\u00dfe geschrumpfte Brandleichen\u201d (\u201cburnt corpses shriveled to the size of children\u201d) (42) from the firebombing of Dresden in 1944 and on top of it the \u201cdrei-mal verfluchte DDR\u201d (\u201cthree-times-cursed GDR\u201d) (280) \u2013 how can you be mentally stable enough to construct a meaningful life? And, how can you be now a healthy old man mellowed by age and experience who, surrounded by his grandchildren perhaps, explores his life even-temperedly and gives us a balanced account of it ending with closure? In other words, the question of whose fault it is that Czechowski\u2019s life and autobiography lack closure \u2013 is it his? is it that of German history? \u2013 cannot be answered. However, the fact that the author discusses his difficulties in writing about his life so openly and self-critically, not falling prey to self-pity or imposing meaning and closure, makes his autobiography Die Pole der Erinnerung<\/em> worth reading. Kirchner states in his epilogue correctly: \u201cMan liest eine Autobiographie nicht, weil man von ihr Objektivit\u00e4t erwartete, im Gegenteil \u2013 man liest sie wegen ihrer ganz und gar subjektiven Perspektive.\u201d (\u201cYou don\u2019t read an autobiography because you expect objectivity from it, to the contrary, you read it because of its outright subjective perspective\u201d) (279).<\/p>\n

To conclude, many former East German writers published autobiographies after German Reunification reflecting on their lived experience, but only one of them, Heinz Czechowski, also examined very critically the possibility of writing about his life using the genre of autobiography. While he tries hard to get as close as possible to historical truth, he self-critically reflects upon the impossibility of achieving this objective. According to his view, the major reason for this impossibility is that memory is not reliable, so you can never separate fact from fiction.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/h3>\n

1<\/sup> After listing several examples of people with a \u201cparteinahen Vergangenheit\u201d (\u201cpast close to the Party\u201d) (247) who were successful in starting a new career after German reunification, he concludes: \u201cIch hatte mir die Vereinigung, dummen Illusionen folgend, gerechter vorgestellt\u201d (\u201cI had imagined the reunification, following stupid illusions, to be more just\u201d) (247).
\n2<\/sup> The books that Daniela Dahn published during the decade following the Fall of the Wall defend the GDR and express a certain amount of nostalgia. Westw\u00e4rts und nicht vergessen<\/em> (To the West and Not Forgotten<\/em>) (1996), for instance, written in view of the property sharks and speculators who moved into the eastern regions during the 1990s, frames an extreme radical political statement and can be read as a polemic pamphlet against the West\u2019s so-perceived colonization of the GDR.
\n3<\/sup> Egon Schwarz, born in 1922 in Austria in a Jewish family, had to flee from the Nazis in 1938. The family found refuge in La Paz. Later, Schwarz became a professor of German at Harvard University and a writer. His renowned autobiography is titled Keine Zeit f\u00fcr Eichendorff: Chronik unfreiwilliger Wanderjahre<\/em> (No Time for Eichendorff: Chronicle of Involuntary Years of Wandering<\/em>) (1979).<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/h3>\n

\u201cAutobiographie.\u201d [Online.] >http:\/\/ en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Autobiography<\/a>< 2\/2\/2011
\nCzechowski, Heinz. Die Pole der Erinnerung: Autobiographie<\/em>. D\u00fcsseldorf: Grupello, 2006.
\n———-. W\u00fcste Mark Kolmen<\/em>. Z\u00fcrich: Ammann, 1997.
\nCorino, Karl. \u201cEin historisches Dokument: Heinz Czechowski\u2019s Autobiografie Die Pole der Erinnerung<\/em>.\u201d Neue Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung<\/em> Jan. 13, 2007.
\nDahn, Daniela. Westw\u00e4rts und nicht vergessen: Vom Unbehagen in der Einheit<\/em>. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1996.
\nDe Bruyn, G\u00fcnter. Vierzig Jahre<\/em>. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1996.
\nEndler, Adolf. Nebbich: eine deutsche Karriere<\/em>. G\u00f6ttingen: Wallstein, 2005.
\nErtl, Wolfgang. \u2018Aufbruch in die Vergangenheit\u2019: Zu Heinz Czechowskis autobiographischer und diaristischer Lyrik seit der Wende.\u201d [Online.] >http:\/\/www.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/heft18\/czechowski.html<\/a>< 1\/3\/04
\nG\u00f6dden, Walter. \u201cNachwort.\u201d Heinz Czechowski. Mein Westf\u00e4lischer Frieden<\/em>. K\u00f6ln: Nyland, 1998: 123-32.
\nGrandt, Jens. \u201cHeinz Chechowski. Die Pole der Erinnerung: Autobiographie.\u201d S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung<\/em> 02\/22\/2007.
\nKirchner, Sascha. \u201cErinnerung und Erfindung: ein Nachwort.\u201d Heinz Czechowski. Die Pole der Erinnerung<\/em>. D\u00fcsseldorf: Grupello, 2006: 279-82.
\nKundera, Milan. The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts<\/em>. New York: Harper Collins, 2005.
\nKunert, G\u00fcnter. Erwachsenenspiele<\/em>. M\u00fcnchen: Hanser, 1997.
\nLeeder, Karen. \u201c\u2018Vom Unbehagen in der Einheit\u2019: Autobiographical Writing by Women since 1989.\u201d Mererid Puw Davis, Beth Linklater, Gisela Shaw. (Eds.) Autobiography by Women in German<\/em>. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000, 249-71.
\nMaeding, Linda. \u201cZur Autobiographik von Germanisten im Exil: Selbstbestimmung und Selbstreflexivit\u00e4t bei Bernhard Blume und Egon Schwarz.\u201d The German Quarterly 83,4 (2010): 485-502.
\nSch\u00e4dlich, Susanne. Immer wieder Dezember: Der Westen, die Stasi, der Onkel und ich<\/em>. M\u00fcnchen: Droemer, 2009.
\nSchwarz, Egon. Keine Zeit f\u00fcr Eichendorff: Chronik unfreiwilliger Wanderjahre<\/em>. K\u00f6nigstein: Athen\u00e4um, 1979.
\nSerke, J\u00fcrgen. Zu Hause im Exil: Dichter, die eigenm\u00e4chtig blieben in der DDR<\/em>. M\u00fcnchen: Piper, 1998.
\nStrebel, Volker. \u201cCzechowski randaliert wieder.\u201d [Online.] >http:\/\/www.literaturkritik.de\/public\/rezension.php?rez_id=10197<\/a>< 1\/31\/2011
\nTate, Dennis. \u201cThe End of Autobiography?\u201d Martin Kane (Ed.) Legacies and Identity: East and West German Responses to Unification<\/em>. Bern: Peter Lang, 2002: 11-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

von Gabriele Eckart \u201calles Geschriebene ist [\u2026] nur eine Ann\u00e4herung an die Wahrheit und an die Wirklichkeit, so da\u00df auch das Gewesene lediglich mit dem Satz \u2018Wie es gewesen sein k\u00f6nnte\u2019 beschrieben werden kann.\u201d (\u201ceverything written down is [\u2026] only an approximation to truth and reality; therefore you only can describe past events stating \u2018How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":282,"featured_media":0,"parent":4915,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5007","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/282"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5007\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}