Interview with Ernst Bloch

Abstract

Bloch: One shouldn't exaggerate.... There was a Schiur (private seminar) which met every Sunday afternoon at Weber's house, in which half of the Stefan George Circle participated, so they weren't exactly revolutionaries.... And Weber himself was far from being a revolutionary. He considered himself to be objective and the bearer of a value-free science (Wert-frez). At that time Marxism didn't play the same role it does now; it was considered to be one model among others, one literary reality among others, and therefore wasn't the object of polemics within the circle; besides, it was impossible to discuss anything at all with people like Gundolf; it's impossible to project the present onto the past of the years 1910-13. At the time the war broke out, Weber was an enthusiastic militarist; he put on his reserve officer's uniform to welcome us every Sunday.