Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:28:27 +0200 Reply-To: "GRMNHIST - German History Forum" <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1.BITNET> Sender: "GRMNHIST - German History Forum" <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1.BITNET> From: Walter Felscher <iikfe01@MAILSERV.ZDV.UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE> Subject: Mr.Wilson, socialism, and Christa Wolf In view of Mr. Dan Wilson's recent contribution, I begin this note by reprinting, with a few omissions, an article which I wrote on February 3rd on 9NOV89-L@DB0TUI11.bitnet. It contains the background material, together with a commentary, on Christa Wolf's involvement with the MfS as it then was discussed in the German press. 1. It was, apparently, Der Spiegel which first published parts of the GI-file of Christa Wolf. On January 22nd, the FAZ on its page 29, published a short article on this matter. According to the FAZ, the file consists of 130 pages, dating from 1959 until 1962. Wolf, then living in Halle, was approached and enlisted on March 24, 1958, as an informer to the MfS under the self-chosen name of 'Margarete', and in view of her "leicht unruhige Stimmung", no written obligation was requested from her. In the following years, Wolf met her guidance officer in distances of between 20 and 25 days. When she left Halle for Berlin in 1962, her file was closed and the MfS did not resume the contact later. Working as informer, Wolf reported about interna of organizations to which she belonged (the staff of the literary journal NDL, her publisher, the writer's union). When requested, she wrote appreciations on particular persons, and the FAZ reprints in facsimile her handwritten report on the author Walter Kaufmann where she writes Ich halte XXX fuer recht talentiert. Sein [?] is gefaehrdet durch mangelhafte theoretische Kenntnisse. Er ist, scheint mir, zu sehr Impressionen ausgesetzt; manch- mal vermisst man dabei die gedankliche Durchdringung des Stoffes. Zu Anfang hat XXX sich seine Arbeiten von YYY, der in Westberlin wohnt, und ZZZ uebersetzen lassen. Jetzt arbeitet VVV fuer ihn als Uebersetzer. Her guidance officer commented on October 18, 1960: "GI Margarete berichtet aufgeschlossen, umfassend, doch noch nicht mit der erforderlichen Liebe fuer unsere Aufgaben. Sie diskutiert sehr gern ueber theoretische Fragen unserer Literatur." 2. The report on Kaufmann, quoted above, can hardly be said to contain remarks which could be construed as politically critical for the man. As Wolf's file was available to the FAZ, I assume that more critical reports would have been mentioned had they been present. Consequently, what has become known of Wolf's involvement with the MfS leads to the conclusion that 1. she cooperated with the requests made to her, but 2. carefully abstained to report about specific persons in a manner which might have aroused political suspicions against them. It is idle to speculate whether Wolf did act so from the naivite of a convinced communist, out of touch with the harsh realities, or whether she knowingly limited her cooperation to a purely formal one "nicht mit der erforderlichen Liebe fuer unsere Aufgaben". What counts is that, based upon the files now available, she appears to have observed basic human decency. [Of course, 1959 was not 1936. But still, Ulbricht was in power, and only recently, after November 1956, quite a number of people had been executed in Hungary. Thus compare Wolf's confidential reports with the statements of German communist authors 1936 in Moscow.] 3. Christa Wolf is an author of prosa. I shall refrain from any literary evaluation. But even if she would have been a fink, even a cunning murderer: that would have no relevance for the appreciation of literary qualities. G.Benn enthusiastically supported Hitler early in 1933. J.R.Becher for many years wrote poems adoring Stalin. J.Weinheber publicly supported the Anschluss. Ezra Pound broadcast Italian fascist propaganda during the war. All that does not change the fact that these men count among the outstanting poets of this century. 4. Involving herself into politics was a necessary consequence of Mrs. Wolf being an author in the DDR. Because the communist parties permitted authors only as tools for society's education: an author necessarily had a political mission. It was under these conditions that Wolf grew up to become an author. [Matters seemed to soften slightly in the eighties when there appeared to be loopholes.] After the 1969 West German cultural revolution, progressive authors and their journalistic appendage began to dominate the published opinion. West German published opinion adopted the East German attitude that all literature had to have a political mission: educating towards the progress of the Progressives. Young people, which passed through West German schools during the last 20 years, have been educated to subscribe to that belief. The productions of the Gruppe 47, and in particular the propaganda pieces of Boell, have been the models on which they were brought up. Authors, not willing to involve themselves into this political mission, were driven into isolation and, in the case of Uwe Jonsson, into suicide. Thus during the eighties, Christa Wolf, with her adherence to a possibly modified communism/socialism, became a favourite partner for the West German Progressives. After November 9, 1989, Wolf proposed to continue the DDR with a "better" socialism - i.e. to follow the ideas of West German [and a few international] Progressives to continue the socialist model state. Obviously, progressive circles in the USA, sharing her regret about the DDR's demise, have now invited her to spread the word. It should be clear from the above that I neither accuse Mrs.Wolf for her involvement with the MfS, nor that I want to discuss her literary qualities - both the starting points of Mr.Wilson's original appeal. Others did accuse Mrs.Wolf, and in particular a certain Fritz J.Raddatz, in "Die Zeit", published a scathing article condemning her - ironically enough the same Raddatz who, until 1989, had been a most enthusiastic supporter of the progressiveness of the DDR. The FAZ then published a further article and excerpts from a correspondence between Mrs.Wolf and Efrem Etkind to which the begin of the following refers. It should be clear ... : in particular to Mr.Wilson, who at that time did read 9NOV89-L and did publish there an article, complaining that Mrs.Wolf's reputation as writer was being damaged. Upon this article, I replied on February 21st what follows: The FAZ article mentioned in Mr.Wilson's note contains, among other things, a longer description of the MfS's (and KGB's) setting up its agents as supposedledly innocuous friends and intermediators in the exchange of messages between Mrs.Wolf and the Russian author Efrem Etkind. I am afraid I have neither a scanner nor the time to type it into the machine. I do not understand Mr.Wilson's remark that Mrs.Wolf's "reputation as a writer" should not be damaged much by her earlier MfS involvement. As I remarked on an earlier occasion, the reputation as a writer, i.e. the literary quality, of poets such as Becher and Weinheber is not even touched by their involvement with (other) totalitarian movements - what may (and is) being touched that is their reputation "as a man". It is, I am afraid, precisely this confusion of two different qualities, the inference that the ability to express oneself in literary form implies moral virtuosness and political insight, which is the base from which rats such as Raddatz capture their audience. Of course, the literati in East Germany lived - and the younger ones all their lifes - in an environment in which every expression was supposed to be "politically relevant" and was checked for its rele- vance by forceful authorities. It is, therefore, not astonishing that many of them believed in the political role designed for them by the party, and that even those which, such as de Bruyn, consciously tried to abstain, viewed their abstention as a political role as well. Hence the soul-searching article of de Bruyn's in the FAZ of February 18th. But if anyone should search his soul, then it should be the Western literati who, more and more, accepted the Eastern Progressive view and inferred political insight from literary talent. I know some magnificient plumbers and carpenters, and none of them would infer political insight from the mastery of his craft. It is ridiculous to treat differently those which have mastered the crafts of literary expression. These observations from three months ago being known to Mr.Wilson, he and his friends now continue their obfuscation of literary and political qualities. In a manner only too well known, a technique of "virtue by association", he attempts to draw support for his political aims by appealing to the group-solidarity of those concerned with German literature: one of ours has been unfairly attacked because of A, let's rally behind her and also support our (her ? former ?) opinions B. Trotzkij, Tomskij, Rykov, Kamenev, Sinowjev: are we to support their aims because they were killed by their leader ? (There certainly are more than 42 tomes of NKWD files about them.) Is Ernst Roehm to become a hero for gay liberation ? In question are not the literary qualities of the author Christa Wolf. She is free to publish, and time will show whether her books will be read after the enhancement of a socialist model state has passed. In question is the politician Christa Wolf and whether she can serve as the model Mr.Wilson is propping her up to. I admit to be amused if Mr.Wilson, too far away to tear me apart bodily, at least tries to tear apart my name. I am, however, not amused, by his remark that I, and others, did not feel "compelled, either by personal considerations or by a desire to see a more egalitarian society succeed, to remain in such a country". This, I am afraid, is a personal insult upon the tens of thousands who, like me, fled the socialist paradise. Are we then accused of being not opportunist enough, of not being stupid enough to believe in the scheme of a 'more egalitarian', a socialist society ? And who was sitting in an easy chair: those of my friends who succumbed to an early death (e.g. Peter Juranek when attempting to flee across the Baltic sea, or Juergen Zarnack under the pressure of surveillance and re-education camps during his attempt at an academic career in pharmacy) ? Or those of us who fled and for years suffered the life of a refugee, living, indeed, more or less in cardboard boxes ? Or Mrs.Wolf, striving for a more egalitarian society as a pampered and privileged author, a friend of the jailers of her socialist prison state ? God save us from Mr.Wilson's socialism ! Walter Felscher, Tuebingen Up