Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht : the story of a friendship

278 Pages·2009·0.992 MB·English, German

by  Benjamin, Walter, Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht, Bertolt, Benjamin, Walter, Wizisla, Erdmut

Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht
This page intentionally left blank
Erdmut Wizisla
Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht
– the story of a friendship
translated by Christine Shuttleworth
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
First published as Walter Benjamin und Bertolt Brecht – Die Geschichte einer
Freundschaftby Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, 2004.
First published 2009 in English in the United Kingdom by Libris.
First published 2009 in English in the United States by Yale University Press.
Copyright © 2009 Libris.
Translation copyright © 2009 Christine Shuttleworth.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publishers.
Designed by Kitzinger, London.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009922943
isbn 978-0-300-13695-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48‒1992 (Permanence
of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Publisher’s Note vii
Chronology of the Relationship ix
Map and time chart of Benjamin and Brecht xxvi
I A Significant Constellation
May1929 1
A Quarrel Among Friends 9
II The Story of the Relationship
First Meeting, A Literary Trial, Dispute over Trotsky, 1924–29 25
Stimulating Conversations, Plans for Periodicals,
‘Marxist Club’, 1929–33 31
Exile, Detective Novel, Chess, 1933–40 45
III ‘Krise und Kritik’
Project for a Journal 66
Contributors 73
Topics: Crisis, Criticism, Method, Role of Intellectuals 75
Ambition and Failure 89
IV Benjamin on Brecht
Agreement 98
‘Laboratory of Versatility’ 107
V Brecht on Benjamin
‘Expert Opinions’ 144
‘Useful to Read’ 151
Four Epitaphs 180
Appendix: Documentation and Minutes of ‘Krise und Kritik’ 187
Endnotes 208
List of Abbreviated Titles and Sources 219
List of Works Cited 222
Acknowledgements and Permissions 230
Annotated Name Index 231
Index of Works by Bertolt Brecht 239
Index of Works by Walter Benjamin 241
List of Illustrations
Between pages 68 and69
1. Emil Hesse-Burri, Benjamin, Brecht, Bernard von Brentano and Margot
von Brentano, Le Lavandou, June 1931Michael and Peter von Brentano
2. Brecht and Bernard von Brentano, Hotel Provence, Le Lavandou, June
1931 (photo by Margot von Brentano) Michael and Peter von Brentano
3. Brecht in 1931Bertolt Brecht Archive
4. Benjamin, unknown woman, Carola Neher, Gustav Glück, Valentina
Kurella, Bianca Minotti (later Margaret Mynatt), Alfred Kurella and
Elisabeth Hauptmann, in Berlin (Berliner Strasse 45), Christmas 1931
Elisabeth Hauptmann Archive
5. The same, without Kurella and with Bernard von Brentano
Elisabeth Hauptmann Archive
6. Brecht, Weigel, Brentano and Stefan Brecht, Berlin, 1932
Bertolt Brecht Archive
7. Helene Weigel, Moscow, 1933 Walter Benjamin Archiv
8. Helene Weigel with Barbara and Stefan in Skovsbostrand, Denmark,
August1935Bertolt Brecht Archive
9. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Berlin, 1932Elisabeth Hauptmann Archive
10. Asja Lacis, Berlin, around 1929 (photo Joël-Heinzelmann)
Walter Benjamin Archiv
11. Gretel Adorno, Berlin, March 1931
(photo Joël-Heinzelmann) Walter Benjamin Archive
12. Theodor W. Adorno, Los Angeles, 1946Theodor W. Adorno Archive
13. Margarete Steffin,1940Bertolt Brecht Archive
14. Hannah Arendt, 1933Hannah Arendt Estate
15. Benjamin in front of the Brechts’ house, Skovsbostrand, Summer 1938
(photo by Stefan Brecht) Walter Benjamin Archive
16. Benjamin and Brecht, Skovsbostrand, Summer 1934
Bertolt Brecht Archive
vi
Publisher’s Note
This work, which began as a doctoral thesis in the former East Germany (the
German Democratic Republic), was completed in 1993, three years after Ger-
man reunification. The author substantially rewrote it for publication in 2004.
This English-language edition has, with the author’s agreement and participa-
tion, in turn been modified for a further new readership. The intention is to
make it available to an English-reading public, including those who know
German but who prefer to read a substantial study like this one in their own
language, or – even if English is not their first language – in English rather than
in German. This means that, where published English translations of books,
articles or poems exist, such sources are quoted and/or cited. This involves
primarily the work of Benjamin and Brecht themselves, but also that of Theodor
W. Adorno, Gershom Scholem, and Hannah Arendt among others. In all these
cases, quotations in this edition have been taken wherever possible from the
published English-language source, to which reference is made. Where transla-
tions of passages quoted do not exist, they have naturally been translated, but
the German reference has been retained. This also applies to any secondary lit-
erature, whether quoted or mentioned. In one or two cases, reference to a
standard English-language work has replaced or supplemented an original,
untranslated, German-language secondary work (see the List of Works Cited,
p.222).
The German edition contains a section (in the first chapter) of detailed dis-
cussion on the debate, dating from 1967, about the initial republication and
publication of Benjamin’s work in Germany from the mid fifties. This polit-
ically founded controversy, albeit generally conducted in scholarly and philo-
logical detail, remained a parochial, inner-German affair. None of the books
and, mainly, articles referred to in this respect in the German edition is available
in English. Consequently, all material pertaining exclusively to this past
controversy, as well as some other references that refer to exclusively German
philological matters, has been omitted.
vii
This page intentionally left blank
Chronology of the Relationship
1924
Summer, Capri WB asks the theatre director from Riga, Asja Lacis, whom he
had got to know on Capri, to introduce him to Brecht who is staying in
Positano. Brecht is not interested.
November, Berlin Lacis persuades BB to meet WB. The meeting takes place
in Meierottostrasse 1, a pensionefor artists, but nothing transpires and the two
men then seldom meet.
1925
Berlin WB – and possibly BB – attends meetings of the Philosophy Group.
December An article for Querschnitt by WB and Bernhard Reich arguing for a
looser form of cabaret revue indicates considerable knowledge of BB’s
theatrical work.
1926
8 November, Berlin WB and BB meet at the ‘literary trial’ of Johannes R.
Becher’s novel Levisite, by the ‘1925 Group’.
6 December, Moscow WB tells Asja Lacis and Bernhard Reich about BB
immediately on arriving in Moscow.
1927
WB, BB, Klabund, Carola Neher and Soma Morgenstern meet Ludwig Hardt
after a recitation evening by Hardt. Debate about Trotsky.
13 April, Paris WB expresses the wish to review BB’s Devotions for the Home
for the Frankfurter Zeitung.
1928
13 July, Berlin WB and BB each respond to a Literarische Welt questionnaire
about Stefan George and German intellectual life.
1929
30 March, Berlin WB goes to the première of Marieluise Fleisser’s Pioniere in
Ingolstadt, which BB is involved in directing. The play, wrote WB, shows ‘the
collective powers created in the uniform masses, and which are counted on by
clients of the military’.
6 June, Berlin WB informs Gershom Scholem that he has got to know BB.
ix
chronology
23 June, Frankfurt In a review in the Frankfurter Zeitung of Gedichte, Lieder
und Chansons by Walter Mehring, WB refers to BB as ‘the best chansonnier
since Wedekind’.
24 June, Berlin WB tells Scholem in a letter that his ‘very friendly
relationship with Brecht’ is based ‘on the well-grounded interest one is bound
to have for his present plans’.
30 August, Berlin In an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung on a conversation he
had had with the radio broadcaster Ernst Schoen, WB reports that Schoen has
interested BB in working on radio features.
Summer/Early Autumn, Berlin Ernst Bloch persuades WB to ‘formulate his
Brecht-spell’.
18 September, Berlin WB writes Gershom Scholem that ‘not much honour
accrues’ to Happy End.
20 October, Berlin Première of Karl Kraus’s post-war drama Die
Unüberwindlichen (‘The Invincibles’) at the Volksbühne. In the 1 November
issue of the Literarische Welt, WB reviews the play, which initially BB was
going to direct at the Theater am Schiffbauerdam.
1930
18 April, Berlin In a conversation with Siegfried Kracauer WB confesses to
being very taken with the recently published first volume of the Versuche.He
drafts a commentary on it.
25 April, Berlin WB and BB’s plan to ‘annihilate Heidegger’ in a critical
reading-group fails because BB is away.
24 June, Frankfurt WB gives his radio talk ‘Bert Brecht’ on
Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk.
6 July, Frankfurt WB’s ‘From the Brecht-Commentary’ is published in the
Frankfurter Zeitung.
September WB, BB, and Herbert Ihering plan to edit a journal for Rowohlt.
In discussing its programme they agree on the social role of intellectuals,
develop educational ideas, and devise a catalogue of writing styles. The work is
to develop in three stages: ‘i) creation of a capitalist pedagogics, ii) creation of a
proletarian pedagogics, iii) creation of a classless pedagogics.’
8 September, Berlin According to Ernst Rowohlt WB, BB and Herbert
Ihering are ready to work on the journal, whose general position is moving
‘sharply left’.
Autumn, Berlin BB sees the following as editorial directors of the journal:
Herbert Ihering, WB, Bernard von Brentano, and himself.
x