The Problem of Identity in Anna Seghers` "Transit"

Orbis Litterarum (1972), X XVII, 145-152
The Problem of Identity in Anna Seghers'
"T ra n s it"
Helena Szépe, R oosevelt University
Published in 1944, two years after her best-seller Das Siebte Kreuz, Transit
belongs to Anna Seghers’ lesser known works. The scholarly treatments that
devote more than cursory attention to the novel are few. Paul Rilla, in his
essay “Die Erzåhlerin Anna Seghers” ,1 interprets Transit rnainly as a critique
of the decadent Western W orld and as a writer’s plea for political commitment, and the hero is depicted as a man lost in the bureaucratic jungle of
the dying Capitalist system. Marcel Reich-Ranicki2 concludes that the depressed mood of the novel mirrors the ideological conflicts and personal
crisis of its Communist author in the aftermath of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
However, in his recent study Exil und Literatur, M athias Wegener3 examines
the book mainly as a model description of the chaos and insecurity of life in
exile.
To be sure, exile and the writer’s political commitment are key issues of
Transit. Yet they seem to revolve around an even more crucial problem,
namely the identity crisis of its hero, Seidler. This paper proposes to indicate
how the progression of this crisis corresponds to the various stages of Seidler’s
legal and spiritual identification with a man who has committed suicide.
Despite outward semblances between Das Siebte K reuz and the later novel,
such as their protagonists being young workers who have eseaped from a Nazi
concentration camp, the differences between the two books are probably even
more apparent. In Transit, the narrator’s account of his adventures in occupied France is a very personal one, whereas an omniscient narrator and a
multiplicity of viewpoints characterize D as Siebte Kreuz. Both are survival
1. Paul Rilla. “Die Erzåhlerin Anna Seghers”, Essays, (1955), pp. 284-327.
2. Marchel Reich-Ranicki, “Die kommunistische Erzåhlerin Anna Seghers”, Deutsche Literatur
in West und Ost, (1963), pp. 354-385.
3. Mathias Wegener, “Das Exil als Bedrohung der menschlichen Ordnung. Anna Seghers:
Transit”, Exil und Literatur, (1967), pp. 214-225).
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stories, but if in D as Siebte K reuz Heisler’s problem is physical survival, Seidler, the hero of Transit, is faced with a severe psychological crisis. As titles
for the two novels A nna Seghers has chosen the main symbol of each: but
whereas the “seventh cross” symbolizes the inviolability of hum an values,
the “transit”-document is a negative symbol for a universal illness and for the
transitoriness of everything human.
The rum or that the refugee ship “M ontreal” has sunk, provides the frame
for the structurally rather conventional novel. It also furnishes an explanation
for the narrator’s obvious compulsion to teil his story. He invites, in faet al­
most forces, a fictitious listener, who disappears almost completely as the ten
chapters unfold, to accept a glass of wine and begins immediately with the
account of his escape from a Nazi concentration camp and his subsequent
internm ent in France. In 1940 he is able to flee to Paris, only to find it already occupied by the Germans. He meets there a former fellow inmate, Paul
Strobel, who asks him to deliver a letter to a writer named Weidel. With the
unsuspecting acceptance of this errand Seidler’s involvement with Weidel be­
gins, for when he arrives at the given address, the owner of the hotel informs
him of W eidel’s suicide. His death has been hushed up in order to spare the
proprietress trouble with the German authorities.
In addition to the letter, Seidler finds himself now burdened with the dead
m an’s suitcase, which the hotel owner is anxious to discard. After several
abortive efforts to rid himself of the suitcase, Seidler opens it. He finds,
among other things, an unfinished manuscript of a novel, a rejection letter by
a publisher, papers for immigration to Mexico, and a letter from W eidel’s
wife telling him that she has left him for another man. To his astonishment,
however, Seidler learns from the last letter (the one he had been given to de­
liver) that she must have changed her mind after all, for she is now urging her
husband to follow her to Marseilles. On the spur of the moment Seidler decides to leave for Marseilles.
After his arrival he tries to turn over the dead m an’s belongings to the Mexican consulate, but an official there assumes that he is Weidel who has come
to apply for his final emigration papers. Hesitantly, Seidler decides to use the
writer’s papers for the extension of his stay in Marseilles. From this moment
on, Seidler’s involvement with the dead man takes on legal terms. And as if
this were not enough, he meets Marie, Weidel’s wife, and falls in love with
her at first sight. Marie, who lives together with her lover, a physician, is still
desperately searching for her husband, partly because she feels guilty about
The Problem of Identity in Anna Seghers’ “Transit”
147
having left him, partly because she needs his influenee to obtain her own emi­
gration visa. As Seidler continues to use thedead m an’s name with theauthorities, Marie becomes firmly convinced that Weidel is in Marseilles and that he
will leave on the “M ontreal” , the boat on which she and the doctor are sailing.
Therefore she does not believe Seidler, when he at last makes an attempt to
tell her the truth about her husband’s death. She leaves with her lover, and
Seidler stays behind in Marseilles.
The similarities between George Heisler, the hero of Das Siebte Kreuz,
and Seidler apply especially to their lives before their respective political involvements. Both men, it seems, have been drifters without apparent am­
bitions and incapable of sustaining longer and deeper relationships. In the
case of Seidler, a spontaneous act of moral indignation had resulted in his
imprisonment.4 Unlike Heisler, who has proven himself under torture, and
who has gained a sense of his own identity, Seidler emerges from his ordeal
in the concentration camp as a bewildered man. His recurring statements that
he is suffering from “todlicher Langeweile” have to be taken literally. He is
weighed down with boredom and indifference, going through bouts of de­
pression when he views his whole life as a failure: “Mein Leben geht ganz
daneben” .5 Boredom is also his main motive for opening Weidel’s suitcase.
He begins to read the manuscript and becomes so involved with it that he is
left disconsolate when it suddenly breaks off: “Mich uberfiel von neuem die
grenzenlose Trauer, die todliche Langeweile. W arum hat er sich das Leben
genommen? E r hatte mich nicht allein lassen diirfen.” 6 For a man who speaks
carelessly much of the time, Seidler now displays unusual sensitivity to lan­
guage: “Und wie ich Zeile um Zeile las, da spurte ich auch, dass das meine
Sprache war, meine M uttersprache, und sie ging mir ein, wie die Milch dem
Såugling. Sie knarrte und knirschte nicht wie die Sprache, die aus den Kehlen
der Nazi kam, im morderischen Befehlen, in widerwårtigen Gehorsamsbeteuerungen, in ekligen Prahlereien, sie war ernst und still.”7 Throughout
4. Seidler compares Weidel’s political writing with his own sudden act of indignation: “Nur
wenig, ein paar Zeilen in einem Anfall von Eingreifenmiissen, so wie es bei mir auch nur
ein Faustschlag gewesen war in das Gesicht irgendeines SA-Liimmels.” Transit, (Darmstadt,
163), p. 218.
5. Anna Seghers, Transit, (Darmstadt, 1963), p. 83.
6. Ibid., p. 27.
7. Ibid., p. 26.
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Helena Szépe
the novel, the narrator’s diction alternates between colloquial and literary
language.
Seidler’s dreams, anxieties and uncanny experiences are fused with the
trivia of everyday life. At times, the characters in the novel appear to be
transformed from ordinary people into mythical figures. The city too stands
for the Marseilles of the year 1940, and at the same time for any ancient
port in the Mediterranean. This deliberate transcendence of reality is familiar
to the reader from Anna Seghers’ early work, especially from her short stories
“G rubetsch” , “Die Ziegler”, etc. In Transit, too, reality and dreams, past and
present, are blended into one, and the dead Weidel is as close to Seidler as
his living acquaintances. In faet, Weidel is the only person with whom he can
completely identify, and he understands the dead man so intuitively that it
appears quite logical when he later falls in love at first sight with Marie.
W eidel’s wife repeatedly is shown in her untiring search for her husband,
combing one part of the city after another. Like Seidler, she lives without
deep personal commitments. She has easily abandoned her husband, and she
does not display unusual concern when her present lover attempts to leave
Marseilles without her. She is young and attractive, yet there is an air of
gloom and fatalism about her. Through Marie and friends of Weidel, Seidler
finds out that the dead man was indeed a writer of great talents and strong
political commitments. He learns that Weidel was anolderm an, short, taciturn
and unsociable to the point of being unable to tolerate the company of his
young wife. As Seidler becomes more entangled in the affairs of the dead
man, he falls victim to the curious notion that he himself is doomed to continue where Weidel has left off. For instance, when he learns that M arie is
W eidel’s wife, he thinks: “Die Trauer wiirde nie mehr von mir weichen. Das
war die Hinterlassenschaft meines Toten. Ich war es, der litt.” 8 This feeling
of spiritual closeness even extends to a sense of obligation towards Weidel.
Paul Strobel unwittingly characterizes this relationship when he refers jokingly
to Seidler as “W eidel’s Kuli” and “Pistolero of Francesco W eidel” . Seidler’s
services even go as far as paying an old bill for the dead m an’s wife.9 A t times,
Seidler has the feeling that the very faet that he is not Weidel gives him an
8. Ibid., p. 144.
9. Ironically, Seidler is paying the expenses for the delivery of Marie’s letter to Paris, i.e., the
letter Seidler was given to turn over to her husband.
The Problem of Identity in Anna Seghers’ “ Transit”
149
absurd superiority in dealing with the authorities: “So dicht, so ausgeklugelt,
so unentrinnbar war dieses Netz aus Fragen, dass dem Konsul keine Einzelheit meines Lebens hatte entgehen konnen, wenn es nur mein Leben gewesen
wåre.” 10
The spiritual and legal Identification with the dead man becomes a strangely
physical one when Seidler, using W eidel’s name, has his fingerprints taken:
“Sie belehrte mich geduldig, wie ich aufzudriicken hatte, nicht zu leicht, nicht
zu fest, meinen rechten, meinen linken Daumen, alle meine Finger und die
Ballen meiner Hånde. N ur dass es gar nicht die Finger des Mannes waren,
den man fortziehen lassen wollte. Wie fiihlte ich durch das sanfte tintenbefleckte Fleisch meiner Hånde die fleischlosen Hånde des anderen durch, die
nicht mehr geeignet waren zu solchen Spåssen.” 11 It is significant that after
this experience12 Seidler becomes convinced that Marie has stopped looking
for her husband and, instead, is now searching for him on her usual rounds
through the city.
It is natural that his strong identification with M arie’s husband makes
Seidler’s rivalry with the doctor more pronounced. He no longer thinks about
him as “mein T oter”, but uses “wir” . For instance, when he is jealous because
the doctor is holding M arie’s hand, he addresses the dead man as if to console
him: “Wir werden sie ihm bald wegnehmen. Sei ruhig, er wird sie nicht lange
behalten.” 13 Despite this feeling of alliance, Seidler does not overlook the
faet that the dead Weidel, in a curious and twisted way, is still a rival too for
M arie’s affection. Indeed, he considers Weidel an even more formidable rival
than the doctor. When he rinally looses out in his fight for Marie, he admits:
“Da gab ich es auf. Der Tote war uneinholbar. E r behielt in Ewigkeit fest,
was ihm zustand. E r war stårker als ich.” 14
After M arie has left, he transcends his own despair in a last violent attack
of grief for Weidel: “Denn plotzlich, ich weiss nicht, warum gerade jetzt,
ergriff mich der Kummer um den Toten, den ich nie im Leben gekannt hatte.
Wir waren zusammen zuriickgeblieben, er und ich. Und niemand war da,
um ihn zu trauern, in diesem von Krieg und V errat geschiittelten Land,
10. Transit, p. 210.
11. Ibid., p. 211.
12. This fusion of pitiless analysis of reality with a supernatural experience reminds one of
Rilke’s use of this technique in Malte.
13. Transit, p. 238.
14. Ibid., p. 278.
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Helena Szépe
niemand war da, um ihm ein wenig von dem zu erweisen, was man die letzte
Ehre nennt, als ich in dem Gasthaus am Alten Hafen, der sich mit dem ande­
ren um die F rau des Toten gestritten hatte.” 15
With this last outburst he has purged himself, at last, of his former aimlessness and his preoccupation with death. He has finally gained, though vague
at first, a feeling of his own identity: “ Ich habe damals zum erstenmal alles
ernst bedacht: Vergangenheit und Zukunft, einander gleich und ebenbiirtig
an Undurchsichtigkeit, und auch den Zustand, den man auf Konsulaten T ran­
sit nennt, und in der gewohnlichen Sprache Gegemvart. Und das Ergebnis:
nur eine Ahnung - wenn diese Ahnung verdient ein Ergebnis genannt zu wer­
den - von meiner eigenen Unversehrbarkeit.” 16
Seidler is now turning away from his preoccupation with the past and with
death. Instead of his former morbid attachment to the dead man, he resumes
normal hum an relationships. This is shown, for instance, in his increased
attention to a small boy to whom he had been drawn from the beginning of
his stay in Marseilles. This boy had always reacted with contempt and distress
to the hectic activities of the refugees who were obsessed with the sole objective of leaving the continent. Seidler experiences the same repulsion towards the crowd of dehumanized transit-hunters in Marseilles and contrasts
their egotistic behavior with the bravery of people who died while taking a
courageous stand against the enemy.
In Paris he had already sensed the ultimate absurdity of any flight: “D a­
mals durchfuhr mich zum erstenmal der Gedanke, warum diese Menschen
eigentlich fliichteten. Vor den Deutschen? Die waren ja motorisiert. V or dem
Tod? Der wiirde sie ohne Zweifel auch unterwegs einholen.” 17 This polarity
of continuity (Dauer) and change (Verånderung) is also a very important
concept of D as Siebte K reuz, where the simple life of people like the M arnet’s
is contrasted with the forces of destructive change as represented by the N a­
zis.18 In Transit, Seidler’s decision to stay and join his friends on the farm
indicates that he has chosen the role of “D auer” and that he has found him­
self at last. Marie, on the other hand, had felt that in abandoning her husband
15. Ibid., p. 282.
16. Ibid., p. 283.
17. Ibid., p. 9.
18. See Gerhard Haas, “Verånderung und Dauer. Anna Seghers: Das Siebte Kreutz”, DU 20,
(1968), pp. 69-78.
The Problem of Identity in Anna Seghers ’ “Transit”
151
she had taken an irreversible step: “Damit fing es an. Ich musste damals
iiber die Loire, und weil ich damals iiber die Loire musste, muss ich jetzt iiber
das Meer. Ich hatte bleiben sollen und weitersuchen. Das war meine
Schuld.” 19
After her departure, Seidler envisions her as an almost mythical being on a
mythical ship, doomed to a never-ending search: “Sie sucht rastlos nicht nur
in dieser Stadt, sondern in allen Stådten Europas, die ich kenne, selbst in den
phantastischen Stådten fremder Erdteile, die mir unbekannt geblieben sind.
Ich werde eher des W artens miide als sie des Suchens nach dem unauffindbaren Toten.” 20
Of the novel s of the 1940’s that revolve around the specific problem of
exile and identity during the German occupation of Western Europe, A rthur
Koestler’s A rrival and Departure (1943) and Erich M aria Rem arque s A rc de
Triom phe (1946) are probably closest to Transit. The young hero of Koest­
ler’s novel, Peter Slavek, suffering a mental breakdown after his escape from
Nazi torture, is discovering his true identity during psychoanalytic treatment.
In A rc de Triom phe, the physician Ravec has become hardened and cynical
during his experience with the Gestapo. But in his case it is revenge —he murders a Nazi agent - that returns to him a feeling of his former self. In all three
novels the decision to take a stand provides the turning-point after which the
heroes survive and attain a higher degree of hum anity.21
To be sure, the quest for identity is one of the major themes in many
modern Germans novels from M alte Laurids Brigge to Steppenw olf and Stil­
ler. Particularly Stiller’s attempt to blot out his past parallels Seidler’s desire
to assume another identity. In faet the Kierkegaard motto from Max Frisch’s
novel seems also strikingly applicable to Transit.22 Yet Seidler differs from
the familiar modern hero in that he is a simple man confronted with the type
of crisis that - at least in literature - has been almost exclusively reserved
19. Transit, p. 234.
20. Ibid., p. 290.
21. Reich-Ranicki has pointed out the closeness of Transit to French Existentialism: “Problemstellung und Atmosphere riicken Transit in die unmittelbare Nachbarschaft des franzosischen Existentialismus.” “Die kommunistische Erzåhlerin Anna Seghers”, p. 376.
22. “Sie, darum ist es so schwer, sich selbst zu wåhlen, weil in dieser Wahl die absolute Iso­
lation mit der tiefsten Kontinuitåt identisch ist, weil durch sie jede Moglichkeit, etwas
anderes zu werden, vielmehr sich in etwas anderes umzudichten, unbedingt ausgeschlossen
wird.” (Kierkegaard).
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Helena Szépe
for the intellectual or for the artist. In faet, nothing in his upbringing and
training has provided him for dealing with the “w ound”, as he calls his complicated illness. Unlike Malte, the Steppenwolf or Stiller, who all function
within a sophisticated framework of philosophical and aesthetie concepts,
Seidler can draw support only from a strongly developed moral sense and an
instinctive trust in the continuity of human values. He keeps his suffering to
himself, except for such few outbursts as his desperate appeal to Heinz, a
former fellow-inmate: “Denn du kannst es dir nicht vorstellen, wie es jemandem zumute ist, der ganz leer ist.” 23 The more he realizes that neither
friends nor acquaintances can help him escape this void, the more he turns
to a dead man for identification.
Whereas Frisch’s Stiller tries to negate his former self, Seidler manages to
use two identities simultaneously. M arie’s friend, the doctor, once diagnoses
this correctly: “Sie, lieber Freund, wenn ich mich nicht in Ihnen tåusche.
mochten gern zwei Leben haben: da es nacheinander nicht geht, dann nebeneinander, dann zweigleisig. Sie konnen es nicht.” 24 When, at the end, Seidler
is able to relinquish this “Zweigleisigkeit”, he has gained a new sense of his
identity and has won a critical round in what he had mockingly termed his
“Spiel um den irdischen Aufenthalt.” 25
23. Transit, p. 152.
24. Ibid., p. 155.
25. Ibid., p. 141.