'.. Und Gassen enden schwarz und sonderbar': Poetic Dialogues with Georg Trakl in the 1930s and 40s

Abstract

.Und Gassen enden schwarz und sonderbar5: Poetic Dialogues with Georg Trakl in the 1930s and 40s MARK ELLIOTT Jesus College,Oxford Georg Trakl's drug addiction, mental illness and eventual death from a cocaine overdose arguably made him a prime target in theNational Socialist witch-hunt for 'degenerate' Expressionist writers and artists that took place in the 1930s. This cultural pogrom broadly censured all Modernist art as 'eine Art j?disch-bolschewistischer Kulturverh?hnung' [a kind of Jewish Bolshevistic cultural travesty].1 In exile, the conservative aesthetics of Socialist Realism and the prevailingly anti-Modernist voices within the 'Expressionism Debate' of 1937-38 likewise seriously threatened to impair Trakl's reception. Expressionism was condemned byMarxist exiles as an ideological precursor of fascism and rejected on aesthetic grounds as 'the helpless stuttering, whimper ing and blubbering of untalented hotchpotchcubofuturoconstructivists' ? a derisive evaluation ofModernist art distincdy reminiscent of Nazi propa ganda.2 Existing studies have argued thatTrakl was 'barely tolerated' and that his reception was 'at best subliminal' within theThird Reich; in exile this pro cess has yet to be substantially explored.3 His work, however, never appeared on theListe des sch?dlichen undunerw?nschten Schrifttums [Listof Dangerousand Undesirable Writing issuedby the Reich Ministry forLiteraturebetween 1935 and 1943,4 and he was never publicly vilified to the extent that some other writers were.5 By the same token, Trakl was never openly denounced in the 'Expressionism Debate' or elsewhere in the exile press. 1 AdolfHider, Die Reden HitlersamParteitag der Freiheit(Munich, 1935),p. 33. 2 Alfred Durus, 'Abstrakt, abstrakter, am abstraktesten', inDie Expressionismusdebatte. Materialien zu einer marxistischen Realismuskonzeption, ed. by Hans-J?rgen Schmitt (Frankfurt a. M., 1973), pp. 142-56 (p. 155). 3 Walter Methlagl, 'Wirkung und Aufnahme des Werkes von Georg Trakl seit dem ersten Weltkrieg', inUndoner Trakl-Symposion, ed. by Walter Methlagl and William E. Yuill (Salzburg, 1981), pp. 13-32 (p. 31), and Diana Orendi Hinze, 'Wandlungen des Trakl-Bildes: Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte Georg Trakls' (unpublished doctoral thesis,Washington University, 1972), p. xiii. 4 See Anon., Liste des sch?dlichen und unerw?nschten Schrifttums. Stand vom 31. Dezember 1938 und Jahreslisten 1939-1941 (Leipzig, 1938-41; repr. Vaduz, 1979), and Anon., Jahresliste 1942 des sch?dlichen und unerw?nschten Schrifttums (Leipzig, 1942). 5 See Egon Schwarz, 'Rainer Maria Rilke unter dem Nationalsozialismus', in Rilke heute. Beziehungen undWirkungen, ed. by Ingeborg H. Solbrig and Joachim W. Storck, 2 vols (Frankfurt a. M., i975-76)> h 287-313 (pp. 294-96). MARK ELLIOTT 8l Trakl's work did find, however, widespread and lively reception among poets of the period, notably Franz Baermann Steiner, Paul Celan, Josef Weinheber, Stephan Hermlin and Karl Krolow. This selection reflects a broad cross-section of poets representing a range of backgrounds, experi ences and political standpoints. The reception ofTrakl's work in their poetry shows continuity in aesthetic discourse across political and geographical divisions in the era ofNational Socialism, as well as important historical links to the poetry of theModernist period. What ismore, the highly conscious and stylized engagement with tradition exhibited by these poets suggests a reception process thatwas everything but 'subliminal'. Rather itwas shaped by a 'learned' and theoretical awareness of the relationship between poet and tradition. What emerges is a more nuanced and coherent model of the poetrywritten in the 1930sand 40s thatextendsbeyond the rigidpolitical and period boundaries of this problematic epoch. Within the Third Reich, Trakl's reception in the regime-controlled realm of literary histories, journals and newspapers was mixed. A few were brutally censorious in line with the prevailing anti-Modernist ideology, such as Adolf Bartels's condemnation ofTrakl as the 'softest and most spineless' of Expres sionist poets.6 The majority, however, were ambivalent or even positive, appraising the poet's work, for example, as One of the purest poetic testa ments of recent times'.7 Similarly, the prominent Nazi critic Helmut Langenbucher was forced to concede that Trakl's 'talents [were] way above average',8 and even the V?lkischerBeobachter ran a brief piece commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 1944.9What ismore, those aspects of Trakl's work and life that were incompatible with Party ideology were not flady condemned but reinterpreted accordingly. Trakl was...