Kleist's Hermannsschlacht and the Brandenburger Tor

Abstract

Since the momentous night of 9/10 November 1989, the Brandenburger has figured prominently in the media as the most compelling image both of the peaceful revolution and of the final realization of the long exasperated aspirations for a united Germany on the Tag der Einheit, 3 October 1990. As some of us looked at those pictures of exuberant youths celebrating on top of the wall in November or in the streets in October with the famous gate presiding over the festivities, there were mixed feelings: joy that a despotic regime and the symbol of its oppression had fallen, but an underlying sense of uneasiness as well. non-violent aspect seemed to clash with what das Tor has come to mean throughout its history. Built between the years 1788 and 1791 and originally intended als ein Symbol des Friedens; es sollte zunachst auch den Namen Friedenstor erhalten (Seib 34), it has acquired a reputation as the most striking monument to Germany's militaristic past. Whereas England has become synonymous with Big Ben, France with the Eiffel Tower, and the United States with the Statue of Liberty, the popular imagination has associated Germany with a neoclassical triumphal arch, surmounted by an allegorical representation of victory, through which marched returning German soldiers after the FrancoPrussian War, at the conclusion of the First World War, and during the Nazi regime. First recognized as the most outstanding landmark of Berlin, the capital of the Prussian state, it eventually stood for a Germany united by dint of the Prussian army and the Machiavellian manoeuvres of Bismarck (1871), while in the current century the propaganda apparatus of the Third Reich exploited its patriotic, militaristic connotations extensively (Busch) – hence the uneasiness. This same apprehension can be perceived in the critical reception of Kleist's patriotic drama Die Hermannsschlacht. Its stage success, with the exception of Claus Peymann's 1982 Bochum production, has been consistently linked to German chauvinism (Reeve, The Lion) and, interestingly enough, Kleist himself may also have had deliberate recourse to the symbolic value of the Brandenburg Gate, or at least a familiar part of it, to appeal to his audience's