1. The two best accounts of right-wing literature during this period are Sontheimer, Kurt, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich, 1962),Google Scholar and Mohler, Armin, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932 (Stuttgart, 1950).Google Scholar

2. See the recent comments by Binder, David, “Two Literatures in Germany Seen,” New York Times, 04 2, 1967, p. 20.Google Scholar

3. Sauer, Wolfgang, “Das Problem des deutschen Nationalstaates,” in Moderne deutsche Sozialgeschichte, ed. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich (Cologne and Berlin, 1966), pp. 417–18.Google Scholar

4. A useful, though somewhat outdated, survey in English of this genre of literature is Legge, G. James, Rhyme and Revolution in Germany. A Study in German History, Life, Literature and Character (London, 1918);Google Scholar see also Bramsted, K. Ernest, Aristocracy and the Middle-Classes in Germany. Social Types in German Literature, 1830–1900 (rev. ed. Chicago and London, 1964; 1st ed.London, 1937, under the name Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt).Google Scholar

5. Herwegh, Georg, “An die deutschen Dichter,” Gedichte eines Lebendigen (Stuttgart, 1891), p. 57.Google Scholar

6. Herwegh, Georg, “Zukunftslied,” Herweghs Werke, 3. Teil, ed. Tardel, Hermann (Berlin, etc., n.d.), p. 22.Google Scholar

7. Grillparzer, Franz, “Gebet,” Sämtliche Werke (Munich, 1960), I, 480.Google Scholar

8. Herweghs Werke, 3. Teil, pp. 88–89. It was eventually overshadowed by the “International,” written in 1871 by the Frenchman Eugène Pottier. The music to the latter was composed in 1888 by the Belgian Pierre Degeyter.

9. Jürgen, Rühle, Literatur und Revolution. Die Schriftsteller und der Kommunismus (Cologne and Berlin, 1960), p. 167;Google ScholarMann, Thomas, Altes und Neues. Kleine Prosa aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 529–30.Google Scholar On the expressionist movement in general see especially Muschg, Walter, Von Trakl zu Brecht. Dichter des Expressionismus (Munich, 1961).Google Scholar

10. Muschg, p. 13.

11. Ibid., pp. 15–16.

12. Ibid., pp. 14–16, 24–27, and passim; Hatvani, Paul, “Über den Expressionismus,” Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts, VIII, No. 31 (1965), 179–84.Google Scholar

13. Rühle, pp. 168–69; see also the assessment of expressionism in Die Zeit ohne Eigenschaften. Eine Bilanz der zwanziger Jahre, ed. Reinisch, Leonhard (Stuttgart, 1961), pp. 52–59, 183–91;Google ScholarPross, Harry, Literatur und Politik. Geschichte und Programme der politischliterarischen Zeitschriften im deutschen Sprachgebiet seit 1870 (Freiburg, 1963), pp. 81–88;Google Scholar Hatvani, pp. 179–206, passim; and Ich schneide die Zeit aus. Expressionismus und Politik in Franz Pfemerts “Aktion,” ed. Raabe, Paul (Munich, 1964), pp. 7–15.Google Scholar

14. Potsdam, 1919. A less partisan and more famous anthology was published the following year by Pinthus, Kurt, ed., Menschheitsdämmerung. Symphonie jüngster Dichtung (Berlin, 1920),Google Scholar reissued as Menschheitsädmmerung. Ein Dokument des Expressionismus (Hamburg, 1959). Becher (see below) is represented in it with fourteen contributions, five of which appeared also in Kameraden der Menschheit.Google Scholar

15. Rubiner (1881–1920) was one of the most idealistic and probably also most political poets of the expressionist movement. He has been called a “fanatical Communist” (Lyrik des expressionistischen Jahrzehnts. Von den Wegbereitern zum Dada, ed. Benn, Gottfried [Wiesbaden, 1955], p. 310), but his communism was closer to Gustav Landauer's brand of anarchism than to Marxism-Leninism.Google Scholar For a brief profile of Rubiner see Richter, Hans, Dada Profile (Zurich, 1961), pp. 43–46.Google Scholar

16. Kameraden der Menschheit, p. 176.

17. Adling, Wilfried, et al. , Lexikon sozialistischer deutscher Literatur von den Anfängen bis 1945. Monographisch-biographische Darstellungen (Halle, 1963), p. 84,Google Scholar hereafter cited as Lexikon. Becher also wrote for Die weissen Blätter, Revolution, Neue Jugend, Die neue Kunst, and Der neue Merkur; see Schlawe, Fritz, Literarische Zeitschriften, II, 1910–1933 (Stuttgart, 1962), pp. 13, 14, 16, 42, 43.Google Scholar

18. Lyrik des expressionistischen Jahrzehnts, pp. 140–41.

19. Lexikon, p. 85.

20. Kessler, Harry Graf, Tagebücher 1918–1937. Politik, Kunst und Gesellschaft der zwanziger Jahre, ed. Pfeiffer-Belli, Wolfgang (Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 141, 161, 193, 328.Google Scholar The remark in Lexikon, p. 85, that “he joined the German November revolution with enthusiasm” leaves it open to what extent, if at all, he actually took part in it.

21. Kessler, p. 141.

22. Ibid., p. 197.

23. Lexikon, p. 85. For a brief profile of Becher during the period of the Weimar Republic see Koestler, Arthur, The Invisible Writing. An Autobiography (Boston, 1954), p. 44.Google Scholar

24. Lexikon, pp. 85, 407.

25. Ibid., pp. 131, 257–58. Renn, like Becher, is not of proletarian origins but comes from the Saxon nobility. His real name is Arnold Friedrich Vieth von Golssenau. He joined the KPD in 1928, the year when his well-known book, Krieg, was published. He is living in East Germany. Abusch, son of a coachman, became after Becher's death in 1958 his successor as minister of culture. Grünberg, son of a shoemaker, is now a freelance writer in East Berlin. Richter, like Renn, Abusch, and Grünberg, was subsequently the staff of Linkskurve. I was unable to find out what became of her.

26. On Münzenberg, see Gruber, Helmut, “Willi Münzenberg's German Communist Propaganda Empire 1921–1933,” Journal of Modern History, XXXVIII (1966), 278–97. Becher occasionally still contributed to journals that were not engagé. Thus, in 1929 he published two poems in Literarische Welt, “My Childhood,” a bitter commentary on his bourgeois father, and “Farewell,” the first stanza of which reads:CrossRefGoogle Scholar

See Zeitgemässes aus der Literarischen Welt von 1925–1932, ed. Haas, Willi (Stuttgart, 1963), pp. 226–27.Google Scholar

27. One very practical reason for founding Linkskurve was that Becher had cut his ties with another literary journal, Die neue Bücherschau, a left-wing though not Communist-controlled monthly under the chief editorship of Gerhard Pohl. Becher, who had joined the editorial board in 1927, tried to turn the journal into a forum for proletarian-revolutionary views. Pohl, who insisted on a nonpartisan position in editorial policy, put his journal freely at the disposal of middle-class and proletarian writers alike. This aroused the opposition of his two communist co-editors, Becher and Egon Erwin Kisch, who quit Die neue Bücherschau in the late summer of 1929. See Schlawe, p. 18, and Lexikon, pp. 331, 372–74.

28. All of these, except for Kläber, who broke with Communism in 1938, became prominent after World War II in shaping the cultural affairs of East Germany or, in the case of Gabor, of Hungary (see below, n. 34).

29. On communist policy during this period see esp. Bahne, Siegfried, “Die Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands,” in Das Ende der Parteien 1933, eds. Matthias, Erich and Morsey, Rudolf (Düsseldorf, 1960), pp. 656–58 and passim;Google Scholar also Komintern und Faschismus 1920–1940. Dokumente zur Geschichte und Theorie des Faschismus, ed. Pirker, Theo (Stuttgart, 1965), pp. 62–64 and passim;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNollau, Günther, Die Internationale. Wurzeln und Erscheinungsformen des proletarischen Internationalismus (Cologne, 1959), pp. 91–92.Google Scholar

30. Bahne, p. 659; Völker hört die Signale. Der deutsche Kommunismus 1916–1966, ed. Weber, Hermann (Munich, 1967), pp. 121–23, 126–31, and passim, contains documents that illustrate these policies.Google Scholar

31. “Unsere Front,” Die Linkskurve, I, No. 1 (08 1929), pp. 1–3. Although Becher's writings during this period were often crude and always polemic, his style retained traces of his expressionist past. Even in the midst of political agitation the poet occasionally still intruded upon the propagandist.Google Scholar

32. “Der Jahrtausendputsch der Literaturnihilisten,” ibid., I, No. 1 (Aug. 1929), pp. 19–22. The reference to “Leuna and the Ruhr” is to proletarian uprisings in central and western Germany, respectively, during the early twenties.

33. “An die Leser der Literarischen Welt,” ibid., I, No. 1 (Aug. 1929), p. 26.

34. The son of a Hungarian civil servant, Gabor (born 1884) studied philology in Budapest, became a “bourgeois” novelist, but in 1919 joined Bela Kun's communist revolution. He was subsequently arrested by Horthy's police, escaped to Vienna, then went on to Berlin where he joined, and wrote for, the KPD. From 1929 to 1930 he was on Linkskurve's editorial board. He returned to Hungary after World War II “to work for socialist development [Aufbau]”; see Lexikon, pp. 188–90.

35. “Über proletarisch-revolutionaäre Literatur,” Die Linkskurve, I, No. 3 (10 1929), pp. 3–6.Google Scholar

36. On Die Weltbühne see Enseling, Alf, Die Weltbühne, Organ der Intellektuellen Linken (Münster, 1962);Google Scholar for a much more penetrating although less inclusive study see Deák, István, “Weimar Germany's ‘Homeless Left’: the World of Carl von Ossietzky” (unpub. diss., Columbia, 1964), available on microfilm from University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Mich.Google Scholar See also Koplin's, Raimund biography, Carl von Ossietzky als politischer Publizist (Berlin and Frankfurt, 1964). Das Tagebuch still awaits its historian.Google Scholar

37. Linkskurve was published by Internationaler Arbeiterverlag, Berlin, and in all probability was subsidized by the KPD. Hiller, Kurt, who was in a position to judge, states in Rote Ritter Erlebnisse mit deutschen Kommunisten (Gelsenkirchen, 1952), p. 36, that Linkskurve was “less official [weniger amtlich]” than Die Internationale; it was presumably also less official than the party's central organ, Die Rote Fahne.Google Scholar

38. Anon., “Gerhard Pohl, ein Schriftsteller dieser Zeit,” Die Linkskurve, I, No. 3 (10 1929), p. 29.Google Scholar

39. Although interest in Weimar Germany's left-wing intellectuals is growing, as is evident from the studies by Rühle, Deák, Enseling, Koplin, et al., a comprehensive history has not yet been written. The group was by no means homogeneous. It included middle-class liberals like Thomas and Heinrich Mann, pacifists (Kurt Hiller, Carl von Ossietzky, Helmut von Gerlach), and pronounced radicals (Ernst Toller, Erich Mühsam), to name but a few representatives.

40. Schneller, Ernst, “Die Rettung,” Die Linkskurve, II, No. 2 (02 1930), pp. 3–5 note the composition of the list of culprits! Schneller was a member of the KPD's Reichstag delegation (Fraktion) from 1924 to 1933, a leading communist functionary and deeply involved in the party's illegal Apparat.Google Scholar

41. Peter Maslowski, “Republikschutzgesetz und Schriftsteller,” ibid., II, No. 8 (Aug. 1930), pp. 22–23.

42. J. Kraus, “Nach den Wahlen—vor der Entscheidung,” ibid., II, No. 10 (Oct. 1930), pp. 1–4. I have not been able to identify Kraus.

43. See below, pp. 51–52.

44. This was ibid., III, No. 7 (July 1931), with the following relevant contributions: Rudolf Renner, “Kriegsrüstungen,” pp. 1–3; Barbusse, Henri, “Klarheit,” pp. 3–5;Google Scholar “Nemo,” “Zur ideologischen Vorbereitung des Krieges,” pp. 5–8; Jottkas, Peter, “Wirtschaftliche Mobilmachung,” pp. 9–12;Google Scholar and Renn, LudwigGoogle Scholar, “Das Gesicht des kommenden Krieges,” pp. 15–17. See also Internationales Büro für revolutionäre Literatur, “Die Fälscher am Werk,” ibid., II, No. 9 (Sept. 1930), p. 32, and Becher's appeal to all proletarian writers, “Genossen! Kameraden!” in ibid., IV, No. 6 (June 1932), pp. 1–2.

45. Klaus Neukrantz, “Schriftsteller ziehen in den Krieg,” ibid., II, No. 8 (Aug. 1930), pp. 1–3; anon., “Die Intellektuellen haben das Wort,” ibid., II, No. 9 (Sept. 1930), pp. 4–13; anon., “Deutsche Intellektuelle wählen einen politischen Standpunkt,” ibid., II, No. 10 (Oct. 1930), pp. 4–11. Among those who replied were Emil J. Gumbel, Kurt Tucholsky, Jakob Wassermann, Kurt Grossmann, Theodor Lessing, Walter Mehring, and K. A. Wittfogel. All except Wittfogel were found wanting. In June 1932, Linkskurve sent out another questionnaire. This time the threat to the Soviet Union was tied in with a vision of general war resulting from events in the Far East, and the writers were asked again to state their views and take a stand. Responses to the second questionnaire were fewer (they included letters from Ernst Toller and Walter Hasenclever), and all answers connoted resignation while rejecting war in principle. Only Toller asserted that “whoever fights for the Soviet Union fights for peace.” See anon., “II Fragen zum Krieg!” ibid., No. 6 (June 1932), pp. 30; and anon., “Schriftsteller stellen sich,” ibid., IV, No. 8 (Aug. 1932), pp. 1–4.

46. “Der heimliche Aufmarsch,” ibid., IV, No. 4 (April 1932), p. 10. On Weinert, see Lexikon, pp. 530–36, and Hiller, pp. 13, 28–29.

47. “Auf die Strassen!” Die Linkskurve, IV, No. 5 (May 1932), pp. 22–23.

48. On the communist attitude toward pacifism see esp. Josef Lenz, “Warum sind wir keine Pazifisten?” ibid., I, No. 1 (Aug. 1929), pp. 3–7, and F. M. Reifferscheidt, “Aus dem Vorzimmer der Roten Einheit,” ibid., II, No. 1 (Jan. 1930), pp. 5–7. Reifferscheidt's attack was mainly directed against Kurt Hiller, prominent independent left-wing pacifist and founder of the Gruppe revolutionärer Pazifisten, who has recorded his experiences with German communists during this period in Rote Ritter, pp. 11–50. On Hiller, see also Deák, p. 94, n. I, and passim.

49. “Einen Schritt weiter,” Die Linkskurve, II, No. 1 (01 1930), p. 2Google Scholar and “Kühnheit und Begeisterung. Der I. Mai und unsere Literatur-Revolution,” ibid., IV, No. 5 (May 1932), p. 6.

50. Nor did foreign authors like Romain Rolland, Upton Sinclair, and others escape rebuke. The most notorious example was perhaps the journal's attack on Barbusse. See Andor Gabor, “Die bunte Welt des Genossen Barbusse,” ibid., I, No. 5 (Dec. 1929), pp. 5–6, and Barbusse's reply, “Henry [sic] Barbusse an die Linkskurve,” ibid., II, No. 2 (Feb. 1930), pp. 5–6. Barbusse had sinned when he opened the columns of his periodical, Monde, to—socialists.

51. “m.,” “Das Bauhaus,” ibid., II, No. 6 (June 1930), p. 29. On the Bauhaus and its place in the cultural life of the Weimar period see Die Zeit ohne Eigenschaften, pp. 15–31, 139–51.

52. Biha, O., “Massnahme,” Die Linkskurve, III, No. 1 (01 1931), p. 13.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., p. 12.

54. Anon., “Deutsche Intellektuelle wählen einen politischen Standpunkt,” ibid., II, No. 10 (Oct. 1930), p. 11.

55. Ibid., p. 10. Linkskurve's “unjustified reservations vis-à-vis progressive left-bour-geois intellectuals (such as Tucholsky and H[einrich] Mann)” have now been branded “an un-Marxist attitude” by a recent East German publication, i.e., Lexikon, p. 333. Another belated attempt to do justice to this group is the study by Habedank, Heinz, Der Feind steht rechts. Bürgerliche Linke im Kampf gegen den deustschen Militarismus (1925–1933) (Berlin, 1965).Google Scholar

56. Anon., “An alle Schriftsteller, Künstler, Gelehrten, Ärzte, Juristen, Lehrer und Studenten Deutschlands,” Die Linkskurve, II, No. 9 (09 1930), pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

57. They are in ibid., III, No. 6 (June 1931), pp. 10–19.

58. Kläber, Kurt, “Wir brauchen BauernomaneGoogle Scholar,” ibid., III, No. II (Nov. 1931), pp. 20–22; Ring, G. T., “Bauer Ahoi!”Google Scholaribid., III, No. 12 (Dec. 1931), pp. 14–17; Frei, Bruno, “Warenhausangestellte,”Google Scholaribid., IV, No. 1 (Jan. 1932), pp. 13–16; Balk, Theodor, “Abbau! Abbau! Abbau!”Google Scholaribid., IV, No. 1 (Jan. 1932), pp. 16–20; “Gg.,” “Bei den schwäbischen Bauern,” ibid., IV, No. 2 (Feb. 1932), pp. 6–7.

59. Ernst Schheller, “Offensive für das proletarische Buch,” ibid., II, No. 12 (Dec. 1930), pp. 1–3.

60. “Sie Morden,” ibid., IV, No. I (Jan. 1932), pp. 1–4. Ebert, of course, was no longer alive. Norden is today head of the East German Agitation Commission at the Politbureau of the SED's Central Committee.

61. “Der Marxismus allein weist den Ausweg,” ibid., III, No. 6 (June 1931), pp. 1–5; italics in the original.

62. Anon., “Hitler und die Sterne,” and anon., “Durcheinander rechts,” both ibid., IV, No. 7 (July 1932), pp. 36–39.

63. On the significance of this issue see Bracher, Karl Dietrich, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik. Eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie, 2nd rev. ed. (Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, 1957), pp. 517–52, esp. 548–49.Google Scholar

64. Bark, Peter, “Die letzen Stunden der Novemberrepublik,” Die Linkskurve, IV, No. 8 (08 1932), pp. 5–9Google Scholar. Another observer commented that the state was turning from a “republic without republicans” into a “monarchy without a monarch”; see Peter Waldschmidt, “Preussische Gespenstersonate,” ibid., IV, No. 9 (Sept. 1932), p. 2.

65. All of these are in the last, double issue of Die Linkskurve, IV, Nos. II /12 (Nov.–Dec. 1932).

66. See above, p. 44.

67. The prize-winning contributions dealt exclusively with proletarian themes, e.g., “The Tobacco Proletarian,” a short story; a poem describing life at the assembly line, and similar topics.

68. Wittfogel, K. A., “Goethe-‘Feier’?” and Georg Lukács, “Der faschisierte Goethe,” Die Linkskurve,Google ScholarSonderheft, Goethe (May 1932), pp. 1–10, 33–40.Google Scholar

69. Lexikon, p. 131. These financial difficulties existed despite the fact that Linkskurve's circulation was comparatively high for a literary publication. The journal listed its circulation figure in 1931 as 7000 copies, according to Sperlings Zeitschriften- und Zeitungsadressbuch. Handbuch der Presse, Vol. 57 (Leipzig, 1931), p. 249.Google Scholar Furthermore, it appears that the League of German Proletarian-Revolutionary Writers, which published Linkskurve, received subsidies from Moscow (Lexikon, p. 134). This raises the question who Linkskurve's readers were. Here, positive information is lacking. One captive audience was the League. Although it counted in 1932 only five hundred members, half of them workers (Lexikon, p. 131), these were committed to win subscribers for the journal as well as for other communist publications (Lexikon, p. 133). In addition, non-communist intellectuals also read Linkskurve, as is evident from the rebuttals by persons whom the journal had attacked, which appeared frequently in its columns. See, for instance, a reference to this effect in Zeitgemässes aus der Literarischen Welt, p. 484, and Tucholsky, Kurt, Ausgewählte Briefe 1913–1935, eds. Gerold-Tucholsky, Mary and Raddatz, Fritz J. (Hamburg, 1962), p. 211. Hiller (p. 36) implies that Linkskurve was read rather widely, though he does not say by whom.Google Scholar

70. Rühle, p. 182.

71. On these tactics see Bahne, pp. 658, 676–78; Weber, p. 110, n. 47, and passim.

72. Quoted in the introduction to Menschheitsdämmerung (1959 ed.), p. 9. Becher became president of the Cultural League for the Democratic Renewal of Germany in 1945, minister of culture in 1954. He died on October 11, 1958, in East Berlin.