Nach der Befreiung: Ausgewählte Essays zur Geschichte und Soziologie by H. G. Adler, and: Orthodoxie des Herzens: Ausgewählte Essays zu Literatur, Judentum und Politik by H. G. Adler

Abstract

MLR, .,   Nach der Befreiung: Ausgewählte Essays zur Geschichte und Soziologie. By H. G. A. Ed. by P F. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press. .  pp. €.. ISBN ––––. Orthodoxie des Herzens: Ausgewählte Essays zu Literatur, Judentum und Politik. By H. G. A. Ed. by P F. Konstanz: Konstanz University Press. .  pp. €.. ISBN ––––. Peter Filkins, the editor of these two volumes, has already established a reputation as the American translator of H. G. Adler’s prose, in particular the novels Panorama (), Eine Reise (), and Die unsichtbare Wand (). ose familiar with Adler’s work will understand the complexity of this task. e work of this Czech Jewish writer, which has undergone a recent renaissance, is both complex and extensive (two of the novels mentioned here number well over  pages). Filkins’s endeavours as a translator of Adler’s creative work have clearly equipped him well for the task of editing these selected essays. e two volumes present a range of essays on the subjects which were most important to Adler, a Holocaust survivor and exile whose post-war life was devoted to ensuring that the experiences of European Jewry were not forgotten. Indeed, for Adler it was not simply about remembering what happened during the dark days of the National Socialist regime, although that was important too, but rather about understanding what caused it and how it became so entrenched and so coldly vicious in a continent which considered itself to be the heart of the civilized world. Many of the essays selected have been published before in collections or periodicals, but there are also a substantial number which appear here in print for the first time, taken from Adler’s Nachlass, which is held in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. e material covers the entire post-war period until Adler’s death in  and in so doing enables the reader to follow the development of his thought from the days aer his release. e first of these volumes, Nach der Befreiung, contains Adler’s essays on Hitler, Artur Dinter, and Adolf Eichmann, as well as several reflecting on the role and ‘administration’ of the concentration camps. Adler’s prose is piercing, and while the shorter format forces him to forgo the detail found in monumental works on the period such as his eresienstadt – (), the factual and analytical approach in his writing belies the visceral experience upon which it is based. ese are essays which both take stock and condemn. e volume also contains several essays on sociological topics, including a discussion of what Adler termed ‘der mechanische Materialismus’, a bureaucratic manifestation of power which Adler claims underlies National Socialism and which has plagued, and arguably continues to plague, the Western world. e second volume, Orthodoxie des Herzens, presents Adler engaging with culture and Judaism and asking how writers and thinkers are able to exist in dialogue with politics and, more specifically, power and its many abuses. He reflects on his own experience as well as that of others, specifically Leo Baeck, but also in more general, conceptual terms. e two essays ‘Dichtung aus eresienstadt’ and  Reviews ‘Dichtung in der Gefangenscha als inneres Exil’ are particularly poignant in the context of his own life. Filkins provides an insightful aerword to each volume which contextualizes the essays and highlights parallels and connections. Both also benefit from a preface by Jeremy Adler, who has been instrumental in bringing his father’s work to the fore in recent years. e essays selected have something substantial to contribute to debates in the fields of Sociology, Literary Studies, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Political History, and Exile Studies. ey carry a relevance today which Adler himself sadly predicts. e lessons of history are seldom truly learnt. B U C T Literatur und Anthropologie: H. G. Adler, Elias Canetti und Franz Bermann Steiner in London. Ed. by J A and G D. Göttingen: Wallstein. .  pp. €.. ISBN ––––. is volume draws together fourteen thoughtful essays on three writers and their reflections on the Holocaust in their British exile. H. G. Adler and Franz Bermann Steiner had been friends since attending Gymnasium in Prague. e ‘schwierige Freundschasgeschichte’ (p. ) with Elias Canetti began in  a...