The Paradox of Sovereignty in Modern German History Plays

The Paradox of Sovereignty in Modern German History Plays
Tomislav Zelic
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2009
UMI Number: 3348441
Copyright 2009 by
Zelic, Tomislav
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Abstract
The Paradox of Sovereignty in Modern German History Plays
Tomislav Zelic
This dissertation is the first attempt to read key history plays in the tradition of
modern German literature with regards to the paradox of sovereignty. The paradox of
sovereignty is that political entities break the law in order to protect the legal order in
critical situations. In critical situations, political entities paradoxically break laws in
order to protect the legal order. The investigation of modern German history plays ties in
with the classical formulation of the paradox of sovereignty in order to enrich the
conceptual framework for literary interpretations. It will be explored how history plays
expose rulers whose symbolically political performances make the inevitable paradoxes
of sovereignty invisible. It analyzes the theatrical and poetic character of verbal and
nonverbal performative acts as represented in modern German history plays from the
French Revolution to German Reunification. The question is how logical, legal, political,
and ethical paradoxes arise from individual or collective claims to absolute sovereignty in
different historical situations and constellations and what aesthetic procedures history
plays use in order to criticize or affirm the historical and political discourse of absolute
sovereignty that conceals underlying paradoxes.
The main part traces the paradox of sovereignty in selected modern German history
plays from the early eighteenth through the twentieth century, from Kleist through
Grabbe and Biichner to Brecht and Miiller. It revolves around historical and dramatic
figures of sovereignty from Hermann through Frederick William Elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick II King of Prussia, and Napoleon I Emperor of France to Adolf Hitler, German
Reichsfuhrer, and Josef Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. It deals with the foundation of the Germanic-German nation-state and the rise of
Prussia in Kleist's patriotic plays Die Hermannsschlacht (Hermann's Battle) (1808) and
Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (Prince Frederick of Homburg) (1811) in the first two
chapters. It reconstructs the diversification of absolute sovereignty in Grabbe's Vormdrz
drama Napoleon oder die hundert Tage (Napoleone or the Hundred Days) (1830) in the
third chapter and the permanent crisis of popular sovereignty during the Reign of Terror
of the French Revolution in Buchner's Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835) in the
fourth chapter. It reconstructs the satire against absolute sovereignty in Brecht's Der
aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui) (1941) in the fifth
chapter and deals with the problem of popular sovereignty in divided Germany as
presented in Miiller's Germania Tod in Berlin (Germania Death in Berlin) (1971) in the
sixth chapter. The conclusion draws together various strings of the previous chapters and
presents some thoughts on the reasons why history plays and political drama about
German Reunification do not deal with the paradox of absolute sovereignty.
The investigation into the paradox of sovereignty in history plays can teach us a
lesson about modern nation-states, opportunities and risks, hopes and fears, successes and
failures attached to it. It will elucidate the aesthetic dimension of rhetoric, poetics, and
theatrics in political communication. It may help us in demystifying the phantasm of
absolute sovereignty in the history of the past and present. Before analyzing selected
history plays in detail, a few preliminary remarks will outline the project and introduce
the main concepts. First, there is the paradox of sovereignty as theorized in early modern
political theory since the Renaissance, and secondly, performative, or more precisely,
declarative acts as theorized in the philosophy of language, and finally theatricality and
performativity of sovereignty as theorized in theater studies.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgment
iii
Introduction
The Paradox of Sovereignty
... and Theatricality
8
9
19
Chapter One: The Phantasm of Absolute Sovereignty
Sovereign Acts of Simulation and Dissimulation
Absolute Enmity, Total War, and Dishonorable Stratagems
Grotesquely Comical Elements in the Aesthetics of Sublimity and Cruelty
The Sovereign Nation-State of the Future
Critique against Affirmative Interpretations
27
30
34
41
50
54
Chapter Two: Romantic Subjectivity and Absolute Sovereignty
The Paradox of Romantic Subjectivity and Absolute Sovereignty
The Chiasmatic Exchange of Positions between Romantic Subjectivity and Absolute
Sovereignty
The Apotheosis of Romantic Subjectivity and Subjective Self-Discipline as the
Condition of Possibility for Absolute Sovereignty
Absolute Sovereignty as An Aesthetic Illusion of Romantic Subjectivity
67
74
Chapter Three: The Return of Absolute Sovereignty
The Satire on the Bourbon Kingdom or the Disillusionment of Royal Sovereignty...
The Aesthetics of Cruelty or the Disillusionment of Popular Sovereignty
The Aesthetics of Sublimity or the Disillusionment of Imperial Sovereignty... in
the Political Arena
... and on the Battlefield
Multiperspectival Dramaturgy and the Disillusionment of Imperial Sovereignty
The German King of Soldiers or the Restoration of Absolute Sovereignty
85
91
95
107
109
112
119
133
140
143
Chapter Four: The Paradox of Popular Sovereignty
The Paradox of Sovereignty and the Conflict between Jacobin Government and
Dantonist Opposition
The Subjective Insight into the Irresolvability of the Paradox of Sovereignty
The Paradox of Popular Sovereignty and the Theater of the Guillotine
151
163
178
Chapter Five: The Satire on Absolute Sovereignty
The Theatricality of Fascism
Excursion: Gestures in Epic Theater
The Satire on the Nazi Claim to Absolute Sovereignty
The Parody of Classical Theater in Epic Theater
Performative Contradictions in Pseudo-Political Speeches
The Satire on the Political Theology of Nazism
The Satire on Popular Sovereignty
191
194
199
201
205
212
218
221
I
147
The Satirized Sovereign as a Marionette of Capital?
225
Chapter Six: Disenchantment of Popular Sovereignty in Divided Germany
The Foundation of the Federal Republic and the Survival of Nazism
The Foundation of the GDR and the Failed Spartacus Uprising
The Frederician Mentality of Subservience to the State in the GDR
The National Uprising in the GDR and the Paradox of Popular Sovereignty
A Workers' Memorial or the Symbolic Death of the Revolutionary Proletariat
232
237
247
251
261
265
Conclusion:
The Paradox of Sovereignty and the Aesthetic Form of Modern History Plays
276
Bibliography
282
n
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank my dissertation sponsor and advisor Professor Harro Miiller and
Professor Andreas Huyssen for their guidance and support as well as Professor Stefan
Andriopoulos, Professor Taylor Carman, and Professor Erk Grimm for serving on the
Dissertation Committee; the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at
Columbia University for a Faculty Fellowship, William Dellinger and Peggy Quisenberry
for their organizational support; Professor Richard A. Korb for mentoring my language
teaching education; the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Max Kade Foundation
for granting me summer stipends and travel grants; Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and
Study Foundation of the House of Representatives Berlin for yearlong fellowships;
Graduiertenkolleg "Korperinszenierungen" of the Institute for Theater Studies at the
Free University Berlin for their hospitality during my yearlong stay in Germany; my
employers, my counselors Carla E. Massey, Kenneth Eisold, Bettina Auerbach-Welters,
and Richard Geduldig for their financial, mental, and legal support; my friends and
colleagues Dario and Michelle Fofic, David Lazanja, Dominik and Katharina Hezel,
Katie Terezakis, Matthew Miller, Amir Irani-Tehrani, Randa Baki, Ole Goos, Sanja
Peros, Kristina Runje, Anja Tachler, Silvia Neumann, Robert Maas, Martin Wewer, Julia
Milanovic, Simona Vaidean, Amra Dumisic, Jennifer Cameron, Andrew Homan, and
Robert Weston for their friendship and support; my family, my parents Milka and Stanko
Luka and my brother Kristijan Zelic, my grandmothers Peka Zelic and Ankica Pavicic,
all my aunts, uncles, and cousins for their love and support, and finally Bojana Hajdic
from my heart for her love and support.
iii
Pages 1-7 Intentionally Left Blank
Introduction
After the collapse of socialism behind the Iron Curtain in 1989, some proclaimed the
end of the cold war and the beginning of a new world order. During the 1990s, others
who welcomed globalization expected that the sovereign nation-states, as we have known
them since the French and American Revolutions, would gradually lose their importance.
Such speculations based themselves on economical and political globalization as well as
the exigency for international cooperation, increasing influence and authority of
supranational organizations. Internal and external sovereignty in fact weakened because
of increased political, economic, and ecologic interdependence between the nation-states
and the UN or EU.
Yet although modern world society denationalizes culture, historicizes the nationstate, and limits national state sovereignty, it is doubtful whether we arrived at a truly
'post-national' or 'post-sovereign' political world order.1 After the terrorist attacks of
9/11, the United States asserted national state sovereignty and waged a global war on
terrorism in disregard of Geneva Conventions and UN Resolutions following the theory
and practice of preemptive strikes. Political culture is far from having overcome the
particularities and idiosyncrasies of national identity and history.
Since the sovereign nation-states are here to stay for the near future, the theme of
national state sovereignty and the basic question as to liberalism, republicanism, or
totalitarianism has lost none of its political and historical relevance; it becomes even
1
Jurgen Habermas, Die postnationale Konstellation (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1998). Giorgio
Agamben, Giorgio Agamben, Ausnahmezustand (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2005). English: Giorgio
Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005). Michel Foucault, Society Must
Be Defended, Lectures at the College de France, 1975-6 (New York: Picador, 2003).
8
more pressing today. Modern nation states require establishing the rule of law,
institutionalizing parliamentary representative democracy, implementing social or
capitalist market economy, some believe, if necessary, by force, while others prioritize
cultivating civil society peacefully. However, it presupposes the foundation of the
sovereign nation-state in the first place; everything else is subordinate to it, conditioned
and made possible by it.
German history from the French Revolution to German Reunification abounds with
half-heartedly attempted, catastrophically failed, and modestly successful new
foundations of the German nation-state. Five German states existed during the twentieth
century alone: the Wilhelmine Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the
Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic, or more precisely six, if we add the
reunited Berliner Republic as a new state. German literature from the French Revolution
to German Reunification isrichin history plays that take issue with national state
sovereignty in various historical situations and political constellations. Modern German
history plays aesthetically condense collective historical and political experiences without
exposing their audiences to the same pressure under which the contemporaries lived
through these very experiences.3
The Paradox of Sovereignty
The history of modern nation building is a history of war for the most part. The
foundation of modern democratic nation-states has occurred violently with only a few
2
Matthias Lutz-Bachmann/James Bohman (Hrsg.), Weltstaat oder Staatenwelt? Fur und wider die Idee
einer Weltrepublik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2002).
3
Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), Bd. 1,
437ff. As works of art that represent dramaturgic actions, history plays contain implicit knowledge about
the paradox of sovereignty and pass an aesthetic critique on strategic actions in politics, law, and so on.
9
exceptions. These acts are paradoxically neither lawful nor unlawful as such, as far as
they enforce the distinction between lawfulness and unlawfulness in the first place.4
Political philosophy since the Renaissance theorized this problem as the logical and legal
paradox of sovereignty.5 Generally accepted jurisprudence defines sovereignty as legal
autonomy, that is, the ability of a physical or legal subject to determine itself legally
contrary to legal heteronomy, that is, the determination of a physical or legal subject by
others than itself. The classical theory of international law distinguishes external
sovereignty, that is, independence of a state from all other states, and internal
sovereignty, that is, self-determination of the state regarding its form of government,
legislation, administration, and so on. Anthropology and psychology use the concept of
sovereignty rather vaguely regarding autonomous and self-determinate behavior of
persons. In this sense, modern history plays reflect on the aesthetic dimension of
sovereign appearances and manners in the political arena.
The French jurist Jean Bodin, for instance, defines sovereignty as the highest power
of decision that is transferable to the person of the king alone; it is indivisible and
inalienable. In view of the Huguenot Wars, this legal conception should have enabled the
absolutist ruler to enforce laws against the will of his subjects in order to preserve the rule
of law and order. The absolute monarch concentrates all public political power onto him
himself and performs legislation and law enforcement. He is entitled to appoint and
depose highest state officials, to declare war and negotiate peace to the best of his
4
Jacques Derrida, „Force of Law: The 'Mythical Foundation of Authority,'" in Drucilla Cornell/Michel
Rosenfeld/David Gray Carlson, Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice (New York: Routledge,
1992), 3-67.
5
Joachim Ritter (Hrsg.), Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 9 (Basel: Schwabe, 1995). Otto
Brunner/Werner Conze/Reinhart Koselleck (Hrsg.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Historisches Lexikon
zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Bd. 5 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1994).
10
knowledge, to dispense justice, to mitigate punishments, and to pardon crimes. Although
all of these competencies express absolute sovereignty, none of them represents a
sufficient and necessary attribute for defining absolute sovereignty in essence. As a
personified representation of the state, the absolute sovereign exercises his rights
unilaterally both internally towards his subjects in domestic affairs and externally
towards other absolute sovereigns in foreign affairs. His decisions and actions are
independent of both internal individuals and groups and external entities such as the
pope, the emperor, or other sovereign states that are his protectors, tributaries, or vassals.
Contractual loyalty and vaguely defined natural, moral, and divine laws or perhaps
individual conscience and personal responsibility are the only limitations to absolute
sovereignty.6
The classical theory of absolute sovereignty from Machiavelli through Bodin to
Hobbes attempted to make the paradox invisible by conceiving of the state as represented
by the physical body of the absolutist monarch yet simultaneously constituting a
metaphysical unity between his natural person and political office.7 In Hobbes, the
sovereign is not an involved party to the social contract of government between the
subjects who legally bind and oblige each other to transfer absolute sovereignty
exclusively to him. He is rather the beneficiary of the social contract. He retains the
unrestricted natural right to everything and anything that everybody exercises in the state
of nature. He is not subject to the civil laws that he himself enforces on his subjects. He
6
Luhmann (2002, 324 and 340).
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (London: Penguin, 1995). Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1955). Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's
Two Bodies, A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).
Luhmann (2002,340f.)
7
11
is subject to the laws of nature alone and hence only morally obliged to keep agreements
into which he enters. Yet the laws of nature require him to prevent the relapse into the
state of nature and to guarantee peace, security, and self-preservation of the state and
people by enforcing civil laws.
After the subjects surrender absolute sovereignty that they exercise in the state of
nature according to the natural laws and transfer it to the monarch in the act of state
foundation according to the social contract, the sovereign concentrates all power onto
him himself and exercises coercive power over his subjects. He enforces civil laws and
oversees adherence on pain of penalties and threat of force in case of noncompliance or
contravention of the subjects. However, there is no higher authority superordinate to the
absolute sovereign to which subjects may appeal to determine that the sovereign violated
the laws of nature, civil laws, ethical duties, or the social contract itself, not to mention,
legally punish him for such offenses. Hobbes explicitly excludes all rights to protest
against or resist the sovereign. The subjects have the perfect duty to obey the law that is
a sovereign order.
By definition, the sovereign cannot, whatever he does, do injustice to his subjects or
commit a breach of the social contract. He is paradoxically exempt from the civil laws
that he himself enforces. Despotism and tyranny are the lesser evil in comparison to the
state of nature according to Hobbes' rational choice theory. The social contract cannot be
terminated by anybody except for the sovereign. Sovereign termination thereof results in
civil war. Since all subjects including the sovereign have the natural right to selfpreservation, natural rights of the sovereign and that of the subjects would collide, if the
subjects tried to limit or abolish absolute sovereignty. Revolutions would cancel the state
foundation and mark the return into the state of nature according to Hobbes. In sum, the
absolute sovereign alone may or may not solve conflicts between the factual legal
foundation and normative moral limitations to absolute sovereignty, or in short, conflicts
between political power and moral justice. Hobbes limits absolute sovereignty inforo
interno alone - and that is God or conscience at best.
The classical theory of absolute sovereignty usually employed the "topographic" or
"topological"8 model according to which the state simultaneously stands above and under
the law. Carl Schmitt, for instance, writes in connection to this, "The sovereign stands
outside of the normally valid legal order and yet belongs to it, because he is responsible
for deciding whether the constitution could be suspended in toto." {Der Souveran steht
aufierhalb der normal geltenden Rechtsordnung undgehort dock zu ihr, denn er ist
zustdndigfur die Entscheidung, ob die Verfassung in toto suspendiert werden kann.)
Subsequently, Giorgio Agamben defines the paradox of sovereignty as follows,
"Standing outside of the legal order and yet belonging to it: that is the topological
structure of the state of exception, and as far as this structure logically defines the being
of the sovereign who decides on the state of exception, the oxymoron ecstasy-affiliation
characterizes him." {Aufierhalb der Rechtsordnung zu stehen und doch zu ihr zu
gehoren: das ist die topologische Struktur des Ausnahmezustands, und insofern der
Souveran, der iiber die Ausnahme entscheidet, in seinem Sein durch diese Struktur
logisch bestimmt ist, kann er ouch durch das Oxymoron einer Ekstase-Zugehorigkeit
charakterisiert werden.)10 The sovereign must abide by the law in order to legitimize
himself politically but he paradoxically limits his absolute sovereignty in this way. He
8
Agamben (2005, 32)
Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie, Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveranitat (Berlin, 2004), 14.
10
Agamben (2005,45).
9
13
breaks the law in the state of exception in order to preserve his authority and the legal
order.
The paradox of sovereignty becomes observable in critical situations or states of
exception, for instance, a state of siege or emergency, an occupation or liberation war
such as the Jacobin Reign of Terror or Napoleonic rule during the French Revolution.
According to Schmitt's equally concise as precise definition, "sovereign is who decides
on the exception." (Souverdn ist, wer uber die Ausnahme entscheidet.)11 The sovereign,
be it the king, despot, or tyrant, ruler, dictator, or autocrat, be it the government,
administration, or regime, the nation, people, or crowd, suspends the existing legal order
in part or on the whole in the state of exception. He takes legitimate or illegitimate,
illegal or extralegal, in any case self-authorized measures in order to preserve the
existence of the state and guarantee the rule of law when the political or legal order is in
danger. Paradoxically, he thus places himself above the law in order to protect or restore
the rule of law and he simultaneously places himself under the law in order to legitimize
himself.12 Locked in a double bind, he breaks positive laws that he otherwise institutes,
enforces, and protects. Instead, he enacts emergency laws. The sovereign thus stands
inside and outside of the legal order for a moment. "The state of exception is not a
dictatorship but an unlegislated space, a zone of anomy in which all legal determinations
[...] are deactivated. The state of emergency is not a state of law but a space without law.
[...] Unlegislated space is essential to the legal order."13 The paradox of sovereignty
n
Schmitt(2004, 14).
Agamben (2005, 32).
13
Agamben (2005, 64).
12
14
unfolds in an area of conflict between might and right, power and law, enforcement and
justification, legitimacy and legality.14
In the course of the early modern paradigm shift from principal to popular
sovereignty in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, the paradox of sovereignty not only remains
in place but it also further complicates the problem.15 The Enlightenment negotiates the
question what metaphysical essence or what anthropological feature of man is sovereign.
However, many candidates compete for the title and rights of absolute sovereignty,
metaphysical essences as well as historical subjects, for instance, god the almighty, the
nation, the people, or the crowd, universal reason or conscience, natural rights or moral
laws, public opinion or the legal order, to name but a few. Nobody answered the
question satisfyingly yet. The discussion is still ongoing today and will probably
continue tomorrow.16
For the purpose of this investigation, the concept of absolute sovereignty requires a
redefinition contrary to the classical concept of autonomy, as far as sovereignty includes
more than just the ability of the transcendental subject to legislate itself, to put it in
Kantian terms; for it includes the ability to break self-legislated rules for self-
Carl Schmitt, Legalitat undLegitimitdt (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1998). English: Carl Schmitt,
Legality and Legitimacy (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
15
John Locke, Two Treaties of Government (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). Jean Jacques
Rousseau, The Social Contract (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1997). Immanuel Kant, „Zum
ewigen Frieden, Ein philosophischer Entwurf," in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main, 1977), Band 11,195ff. Harms
Kurz (Hrsg.), Volkssouverdnitdt und Staatssouverdnitdt (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1970).
16
Niklas Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2002). Nicolai Rosin,
Souveranitat zwischen Macht und Recht, Probleme der Lehren politischer Souverdnitdt in derfruhen
Neuzeit am Beispiel von Machiavelli, Bodin undHobbes (Hamburg: Kovac, 2003). Jacques Derrida,
Rogues, Two Essays on Reason (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). William Rasch, Sovereignty
and Its Discontents, On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the Political (Portland: Cavendish,
2004). Marcus Twellmann, Das Drama der Souveranitat (Miinchen: Wilhelm Fink, 2004). Ulrich Haltern,
Was bedeutet Souveranitat? (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). Robert Jackson, Sovereignty, The Evolution
of an Idea (Cambridge: Polity, 2007). Friedrich Balke, Figuren der Souveranitat (Miinchen: Wilhelm
Fink, 2008).
15
preservation. Sovereign rights may collide with each other. Sovereign acts may infringe
or break positive, natural, moral, or divine laws; they may imply crimes such as high
treason and result in political murder.17
The paradox of sovereignty in modern German history plays is contrary to antiidealist and anti-materialist philosophies of history according to which individual or
collective subjects have the power to intervene into the course of history, if not make
history both literally and figuratively. While idealist philosophies of history in the vein
of Schiller and Hegel (or, for that matter, Nietzsche yet in a different way) assign the
power to make history to great individuals of world-historical importance, materialist
philosophies of history put the proletariat in their place.18 Yet either way philosophies of
history underlay real history with a metaphysical teleology that conceals the rule of
radical contingency. Modern history plays by Kleist, Grabbe and Buchner, Brecht and
Muller represent individual or collective historical agents who are simultaneously
subjects and objects of history. Thus, the playwrights deconstruct the idealist and
materialist philosophy of history and transcendental subjectivity. Historical agents are
the subjects of a personalized history of actions and events, as far as their interventions
into history make history in the first place; however, they are simultaneously the object of
the anonymous process of history, as far as they are made by history after the fact.
Therefore, history is paradoxically "disposable" and it is simultaneously "non-
17
Susanne Knaller and Harro Muller define sovereignty in relation to autonomy as a Steigerungsbegriffm
their Einleitung to Susanne Knaller/Harro Muller (Hrsg.), Authentizitdt, Diskussion eines dsthetischen
Begriffs (Mtinchen: Fink, 2006), 12.
18
Friedrich Schiller, Briefe iiber die dsthetische Erziehung des Menschen, in: Schillers Werke im WWW
(Cambridge, UK: Chadwyck-Healey, 1998). G.F.W. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der
Geschichte, in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1995). Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral
(Berlin: Akademieverlag, 2004). Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels, Manifest der kommunistischen Partei in:
Werke (Berlin: Aufbauverlag, 1956ff.). Vladimir I. Lenin, What is to be done? Burning Questions of Our
Movement (New York: International Publishers, 1969).
16
disposable" to them.
Reinhart Koselleck reflects on this problem under the term "the
heterogeneity of ends" (Heterogenie der Zwecke) defined as "the incommensurability of
intention and result" (Inkommensurabilitdt zwischen Absicht und Ergebnis)
of an
action. Loosely based on Wilhelm Busch, Erstens kommt es anders, zweitens als man
denkt. For instance, Frederick II King of Prussia or Napoleon did not only conduct many
important political reforms but both of them also waged wars of aggression against their
immediate neighbors, or Josef Stalin did not only emerge victorious over German fascism
but he also established the totalitarian Soviet regime. The strength and weakness of
Koselleck's conception is that it does not dwell on the political, legal, and moral aspects
of historical agency.
The social systems theorist Niklas Luhmann argues that the concept of sovereignty
belongs to the "self-descriptions" (Selbstbeschreibungeri)21 of the political system. In
truth, nobody and nothing is sovereign, neither social systems nor individuals. Other
social subsystems than politics such as the economy, law, education, and so on may take
precedence over it depending on the mode of social communication. Politics does not
occupy a central position in modern, functionally differentiated society.22 Nevertheless,
states and state representatives communicate, as if they were actually sovereign.
Luhmann goes on to argue that the classical concept of sovereignty becomes problematic
in modernity as far as sovereignty no longer resides in a physical or metaphysical unity.
The political system duplicates the distinction between friend and enemy, which forms
Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp, 1979), especially the section on „Verfugbarkeit der Geschichte," 260ff. English: Reinhart
Koselleck, Futures Past, On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press,
2004).
20
Koselleck (1979,156ff. and 276).
21
Luhmann (2002, 319f£).
22
Luhmann (2002, 100).
17
the basis for Schmitt's classical definition of the political, by constitutionally establishing
structures and procedures for internally differentiating government and opposition.
The
self-differentiation of sovereignty at the head of state follows from the plurality of
different views in modern society. However, pluralism is irreducible to the general will
or public opinion as a covert sovereign; it paradoxically represents the new form of
sovereignty rather than threatening it.24 Therefore, sovereignty constitutes "validity
without meaning" (Geltung ohne Bedeutung).
The normative definition states that the
true sovereign is the one who does not use violence in order to exercise power yet
paradoxically on pain of violent penalties in case of disobedience, noncompliance, or
contravention.26
The paradox of popular sovereignty as theorized by Rousseau, according to which the
people or the nation simultaneously acts as the author and addressee of the laws, the
subject and object of power, forms the metaphysical basis for the applicable constitutions
of many representative parliamentary democracies such as the US, France, or Germany.27
The modern theory of democracy and the democratic form of government defines popular
sovereignty as the political capacity of people to represent and act as the constituting
power that constitutes the state as the constituted power in the first place. In addition, the
people determine the form of government, establish the constitutional principles of
governance, and legitimize state authority through elections and votes. All power
23
Luhmann (2002, 97f.)
William Rasch, Sovereignty and its Discontents, On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the
Political (Portland: Cavendish, 2004), 162.
25
Agamben (2005,73).
26
Walter Benjamin, „Kritik der Gewalt," in: Angelus Novus, Ausgewdhlte Schriften 2 (Frankfurt/Main:
1995), 42-66. Foucault (2003,282ff.). Luhmann (2002, 39 and 46f.). Agamben (2005,105).
27
Theo Stammen, „Volkssouveranitat," in: Uwe Andersen/Wichard Woyke (Hrsg.), Handworterbuch des
politischen Systems der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2003).
24
18
emanates from the people according to the Basic Constitutional Law of the Federal
Republic of Germany (GG Article 20 Section 2 Sentence l). 28
Admittedly, the global war on terrorism resulted in an irresolvable antinomy between
the constitutional and democratic rights to liberty and equality. Yet the executive power
of the parliament does not inevitably have to corrode, nor is it limited today to the
ratification and enactment of decrees proposed by the executive branch of government, as
some alarmists would have it. The infamous article 48 of the Weimar Republic did not
find its way into the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany for good reasons.
Therefore, it is not true that the temporary suspension of the tripartite separation of power
between legislation, execution, and jurisdiction, an essential feature of the state of
exception, has become a permanent praxis of governance, nor is it true that constitutional
dictatorship, that is, the rule by sovereign decree, has become an established praxis of
Western democracy today, as the alarmists continue to argue.29 Nevertheless, the model
of democracy legitimized by civil and human rights and political values such as liberty
and equality perpetuates the classical model of absolute sovereignty, as far as it
inescapably presupposes the structural asymmetry between the ruler and the ruled. It
contradicts itself by simultaneously granting and limiting liberty and equality.30
Sovereignty and Theatricality
The topological model of absolute sovereignty proposed by Agamben following the
theory of law from Bodin through Hobbes to Schmitt based on spatial metaphorization
28
Grundgesetz fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, http://www.gesetze-imintemet.de/gg/BJNR000010949.html (accessed August 26,2008).
29
Agamben (2005,14).
30
Luhmann (2002, 364).
19
may seem theoretically more or less elegant but it is rather static for the present purpose.
Therefore, add a temporal dimension shall be added to t by introducing the dynamic
concepts of theatricality and performativity to the investigation of dramatic
representations that refer to historical and political reality. The paradox of sovereignty
unfolds in time, be it in real history, be it in Active history plays. It becomes observable
in verbal or nonverbal performative acts of speech or embodiment, which more or less
poetically or theatrically invent a certain new symbolical meaning and legitimize a new
political order. State foundations and comparable sovereign acts of state have the
aesthetic quality of a spectacle, drama, or theater. To observers it may seem performed
quasi onstage, even if they are not intended as such.31 Common language use includes
syntagmas such as the drama or theater of politics and the philosophy of art discusses the
relationship between theater and politics since Plato and Aristotle through Rousseau and
Diderot to Brecht and Artaud among others. Theater studies enthusiastically theorized
this aesthetic quality of extra-aesthetic actions and events under the terms theatricality
and performativity.32 However, scholars did not yet arrive at an authoritative definition
of these concepts.33 Almost anything could possess theatrical or performative structures
if observed from a purely aesthetic or linguistic point of view. The present investigation
insists on the literariness, that is, the text-based and poetic character of theater and
performance while using the concept of theatricality and performativity to supplement the
31
Christoph Horn, Der aufgefiihrte Staat (Tubingen: Francke, 2004).
Josepf Friichtl/J6rg Zimmermann, Asthetik der Inszenierung (Frankfurt/Main: Suhkamp 2001). Sybille
Kramer/Marco Stahlhut, „Das 'Performative' als Thema der Sprach- und Kulturphilosophie," in: Erika
Fischer-Lichte/Cbristoph Wulf (Hrsg.), Theorien des Performativen, in: Paragrana: Internationale
Zeitschriftfur Historische Anthropologic 10 (2001), no. 1: 35-64. Uwe Wirth (Hrsg.), Performanz,
Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2002). Erika FischerLichte, Asthetik des Performativen (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2004).
33
Andreas Kotte, „Theatralitat: Ein Begriff sucht seinen Gegenstand," in: Forum Modernes Theater 13
(1998), no. 2: 117-33.
32
20
formal and structural analysis of literary texts. Moreover, the scope of analysis is limited
to the theatricality and performativity of absolute sovereignty and underlying paradoxes.
Classical speech act theory distinguishes constative from performative speech acts but
it cannot uphold the distinction.34 Certain performative acts, so-called declarative acts,
are paradoxically constative and performative at the same time.35 They refer to a state of
affairs that they bring about in the first place.
Precisely this linguistic indeterminacy
and paradoxical double structure generates their specific rhetorical and theatrical, poetic
and aesthetic, historical and political effects.37 The perlocutionary force of declarative
acts affects emotions, thoughts, and actions of the addressees. Declarative acts represent
a key element of political communication, as far as they motivate the voluntary selfsubjection of the autonomous subject to the absolute sovereign and thus make possible
both the rule of the state over the subjects and the civil rights of the citizen before the
state. The perlocutionary force of declarative acts is indeed an index for political power.
The paradoxical double structure of declarative acts is structurally analogous to the
paradox of sovereignty. This structural analogy becomes observable in more or less
theatrical and poetic declarations that institute new political bodies and legal orders but
contain performative self-contradictions between saying and doing, sense and meaning,
pretense and reality. Since the aesthetic theory of theatricality and performativity, on the
one hand, and the political theory of absolute sovereignty, on the other hand, do not
provide exact and invariable definitions of their key concepts and since one cannot
deductively construct a clear and distinct tertium comparationis, they will elucidate each
34
John L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994).
John L. Searle, Speech Acts, An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge; Cambridge University
Press, 1969).
36
Judith Butler, Excitable Speech, A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997).
37
Derrida (1992, 3-67).
35
21
other independently as well as with regards to the investigation of selected history plays.
In other words, the formal and structural analysis of literary texts adopts two perspectives
and describes their relationship. This approach takes advantage of the fact that literature
and theater present abstract theoretical problems in concrete sensual perceptions than
aesthetic or political theory.
Two examples from the history of the French Revolution are in place here, that is, the
declaration of national sovereignty, on the one hand, and the imperial self-coronation, on
the other hand. Mirabeau responded to the royal master of ceremony who had just
delivered the king's order to clear the national assembly at Versailles in 1789 as follows
according to Heinrich von Kleist's famous anecdote.
What authorizes you [...] to give us orders? We
are the representatives of the nation. [...] The
nation gives orders; it does not receive them.
[...] So let me make myself perfectly clear to
you. [... ] Tell your king that we will not clear
the assembly until he uses the force of the
bayonet.
Dock was berechtigt Sie [...] uns hier Befehle
anzudeuten? Wir sind die Reprdsentanten der Nation.
[...] Die Nation gibt Befehle und empfdngt keine. [...]
Und damit ich mich ihnen ganz deutlich erklare. [...]
So sagen Sie Ihrem Konige, dafi wir unsere Pldtze
nicht, als aufdie Gewalt der Bajonette verlassen
werden?%
The historical dramatist Kleist took great interest in the linguistic structure of this
political communication that makes visible the paradox inherent to the self-constitution
of popular sovereignty. Similarly, Napoleon's self-coronation vividly demonstrates that
the constituting power and the constituted power are identical in the performative act of
reestablishing imperial sovereignty. Mirabeau does not only refer to the preexisting
nation but he also gives it a new symbolically political meaning based on Rousseau's
revolutionary concept of popular sovereignty; he actually constitutes the French nation
through the declarative act in the first place. By reinventing the nation as the bearer of
popular sovereignty, he denies principal sovereignty and thus commits a crime against
38
Heinrich von Kleist, Sdmtliche Werke undBriefe (Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 2001), 32f.
22
royal majesty. Similarly, Napoleon does not only refer to the preexisting empire but he
also gives it a new symbolically political meaning based on civil and human rights of the
revolutionary Code Civil. By reinventing the empire as the bearer of imperial
sovereignty, he simultaneously rejects both principal and popular sovereignty. Both
examples contain aesthetic elements such as the literary and poetic devices and speech
acts or the aesthetic dimension of performance and theatrics as Joules Dalou's or
respectively Jacques Louis David's historical paintings of these historic events
demonstrate.
It is a matter of common knowledge that Hegel's philosophy of history directly
connects world history to drama and theater, or more precisely, historical agency to
classial tragedy.
Similarly, the classical theory of sovereignty from Hobbes to Schmitt
implicitly or explicitly establish a constitutive link between the paradox of sovereignty
and theatricality. On the one hand, Hobbes derives the concept of legal and political
authority and sovereignty from the dramatic and theatrical concepts of persona and mask,
impersonation, representation, and acting,40 On the other hand, Heiner Muller hints at the
importance of theatricality for Carl Schmitt's theory of politics and law.
Carl Schmitt is theater. His texts are stage
productions. I am not interested whether he is
right or not. His excellent texts are simply
excellent stage productions. For instance,
"Theory of the Partisan", that was a key text for
me. I am interested in the dramaturgy. Carl
Schmitt puts his material into an order following
probably randomly chosen juridical and
theological categories and turns history into a
legal case. Theater also has to do with trials,
trials have a theatrical structure. Plays are often
trials, legal cases. (...)
Carl Schmitt ist Theater. Seine Texte sind
Inszenierungen. Mich interessiert da nicht, ob er recht
hat oder nicht. Seine guten Texte sind einfach gute
Inszenierungen. Zum Beispiel die „Theorie des
Partisanen", das war ein Schlusseltext fur mich. Mich
interessiert die Dramaturgic Carl Schmitt ordnet en
Material nach bestimmen, wahrscheinlich ziemlich
willkttrlich gesetzten juristischen und theologischen
Kategorien und macht aus Geschichte einen Rechtsfall.
Theater hat ja auch mit Prozessen zu tun, der Prozefi ist
eine Theaterstrukrur. Theaterstucke sind oft Prozesse,
Rechtsfalle. (...)41
39
Hegel (1986,29ff.). Buchner's history play Danton 's Tod anachronostocially features the radical
Jacobin revolutionaries as self-confident Hegelians, as shall be shown in Chapter Four.
40
40 Hobbes (1996,106f.)
41 Heiner Muller, Krieg ohm Schlacht (Koln: Kiepenhauer & Wietsch, 1999), 272.
23
Modern German history plays dramatically reenact real historical political actions and
events that contain many kinds of cultural performances, including but not limited to the
theatrics of legal, political, and military procedures. There are, for instance, acts of state
such as state foundation and legislation, political debates and party congresses, political
agreements and conspiracies, parades, coronations, and award ceremonies, court trials,
pronouncements and executions of death sentences, acts of grace, and so on. Such legal,
political, and military procedures may take place secretly or publicly in historical reality.
However, the selected history plays are aesthetically highly self-reflexive and therefore
elucidate the forms and functions of "figurative politics"42 by internally reflecting on
their status as theater. Most reenactments of sovereign acts in the history plays occur as a
play in the play.
Symbolically political theater in the sense of pseudo-politics represents a special case
of political communication that contains both politically strategic and aesthetically
expressive elements. As far as politics is generally representative, it requires
aesthetically mediated presentations and is therefore symbolical per se. Political power
defined as an asymmetrical social relationship between sovereign and subject requires
aesthetic visualization. However, since political representation requires symbolical
presentation, it oscillates between simulation and dissimulation. On this basis, it
becomes difficult to distinguish symbolically political performance and symbolizing
political representation; in fact, they become indistinguishable.43
Hans-Georg Soeffher/Dirk T&nzler (Hrsg.), Figurative Politik, Zur Performanz der Macht in der
modernen Gesellschaft (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2002), 21.
43
Soeffher/Tanzler (2002,21). Luhmann (2002, 32).
24
Modern German history plays stage the paradox of sovereignty in different real
historical situations and political constellations, using different kinds of performative acts
each showing a different kind of theatricality. They put claims to absolute sovereignty
into critical perspective through aesthetic procedures, for instance, aesthetic selfreference and multiperspectival self-reflection. They demonstrate how political rulers
use symbolically political performances to make invisible the paradox underlying their
claims to absolute sovereignty. However, they do not sketch logical, legal, or political
solution or quasi-dialectical sublations for the paradox of sovereignty. They expose the
historical and political discourse of absolute sovereignty as purely symbolically political
performance and rhetorical trickery. They expose absolute sovereignty as an aesthetic
illusion of megalomaniac political rulers. Moreover, it becomes observable that dramatis
personae in these history plays act self-reflexively in a way that more or less foregrounds
the theatricality and performativity of their symbolically political acts.44 They sometimes
address commentaries about the drama directly or indirectly to other dramatic characters
onstage or the audience offstage. They speak of themselves in the third person, exchange
their roles with each other, or act out of character both dramatically and ethically.
Besides this aesthetic technique theorized by classical rhetoric of theater under the term
parabasis, there are many other aesthetic techniques used by historical dramatists to
affirm or criticize the political phantasm of absolute sovereignty.
The first chapter deals with Kleist's affirmation of absolute sovereignty in his first
patriotic play. The second chapter inquires into the interdependence between absolute
sovereignty and romantic subjectivity in Kleist's second patriotic play. The third chapter
44
Paul Friedland, Political Actors, Representative Bodies and Theatricality in the Age of the French
Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
25
argues that Grabbe's Napoleon drama pluralizes absolute sovereignty but ultimately
reaffirms Kleist's Old Prussian glorification of absolute sovereignty. While Grabbe and
Buchner are the first German playwrights to deal with the paradoxes of popular
sovereignty during the French Revolution, Brecht and Miiller satirize Prussian
imperialism and German Nazism. In addition, Miiller criticizes both the East and West
German claim to popular sovereignty by dramatizing the social and political divide
between the ruling elite and the ruled people.
26
Chapter One: "Germaniens Retter und Befreier von Roms Tyrannenjoch"45 or
The Phantasm of Absolute Sovereignty in Hermann von Kleist's
Hermannsschlacht (1808)
Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) wrote two "patriotic" (vaterldndische)46 history
plays in reaction to the Napoleonic occupation of the German states at the beginning of
the nineteenth century. Die Hermannsschlacht (Hermann's Battle), written in 1808 after
the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, turns back to the ancient Battle of the
Teutoburg Forest in the year 9. The German tribes led by Hermann, prince of the
Cherusci, had ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions, six cavalry detachments,
and six cohorts of auxiliaries led by the Roman commander-in-chief Varus.47 The rather
insignificant victory had come to symbolize the struggle for national sovereignty and
independence in Germany a millennium and a half later. From Humanism in the early
sixteenth century until Nazism in the mid-twentieth century, German poets and
philosophers celebrated Hermann as the historic and quasi-mythic founding father of the
German nation-state. In this tradition, Kleist glorifies Hermann as the "Germany's savior
and liberator from the yoke of Roman tyranny" (Germaniens Retter und Befreier von
Roms Tyrannenjoch) and presents him as an unscrupulous ideologist-in-chief who
attends to the birth of Germany "in the mud and blood of battles."49 As a figment of
English translation "Germany's savior and liberatorfromthe yoke of Roman tyranny." All quotations
following the German original: Heinrich von Kleist, Sdmtliche Werke und Briefe, Zweibdndige Ausgabe in
einem Band, ErsterBand, hrsg. v. H. Sembdner (Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2001) detailing
act, scene, verse, and page, here IV/10,1853f, 599. All translationsfromthe German original into
English are mine, T.Z.
46
Heinrich von Kleist, Sdmtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweiter Band, Briefe, 871 and 876. See letters 204
dated Berlin, June 21,1811 and 214 dated August 15,1811.
47
Wolfgang Schliiter, Kalkriese, Romer im Osnabrucker Land (Bramsche: Rasch, 1993). Rainer
Wiegels/Winfried Woesler (Hrsg.), Arminius und die Varusschlacht, Geschichte - Myihos - Literatur
(Paderborn: Schoningh ,1995). Rainer Wiegels (Hrsg.), Die Varusschlacht, Wendepunkt der Geschichte?
(Stuttgart: Theiss, 2007).
48
V 13,2191, 611.
49
Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the College de France 1975-1976, trans. D.
Macey (New York: Picador, 2003), 50.
27
Kleist's political imagination, the title figure Hermann embodies the poetic phantasm of
absolute sovereignty, the future German king of soldiers modeled on the French Emperor
Napoleon.50 However, the Active dramatic figure exceeds its historical anti-model by far
in terms of treachery and cruelty. The patriotic play is a heroic drama of absolute
sovereignty.
This chapter sketches out Hermann's strategy of total war and absolute enmity before
analyzing performative contradictions in its realization and highlighting comical elements
in Kleist's aesthetics of cruelty and bestiality. It locates Kleist on the cultural and
political map by characterizing the future German nation-state envisioned by his patriotic
plays and political writings of 1809. In addition, it traces the paradox of sovereignty at
the level of affirmative and critical interpretations of the history play.
The playwright designed his poetic history play as a political propaganda play,
speculating on historical parallels between the past and the present. Accordingly, the
ancient Roman Empire represents the modern Napoleonic Empire, Augustus represents
Napoleon, the German princes Hermann and Marbod represent the kings of Prussia and
Austria respectively, the pro-Roman German princes Fust and Gueltar represent the proFrench Confederation of the Rhine States, the pro-Roman German prince Aristan
represent the pro-French king of Saxony, and so on.
Kleist's monumental historiography51 tells a political success story in which the
victory of the German tribes over the Roman Empire in the past exemplifies the liberation
50
Hans Joachim Kreuzer, „Vom Engagement zur Utopie, Uber Kleists vaterlandische Dramen," in:
Wolfgang Wittkowski, Revolution und Autonomic Deutsche Autonomiedsthetik im Zeitalter der
Franzosischen Revolution, Ein Symposium (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 1990), 201-6. Hans Joachim
Kreuzer, „Die Utopie vom Vaterland, Kleist politische Dramen," Oxford German Studies 20 (1991): 6984.
51
Friedrich Nietzsche, „Uber den Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fur das Leben," in: Samtliche Werke,
Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bdnden (Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999).
28
of the German territories from foreign occupation by the Napoleonic Empire in the
future. Just as Hermann arouses animosity against the Romans in the poetic history play,
Kleist intended to arouse animosity against the Frenchmen among his contemporaries in
reality with his political propaganda play. In other words, he tried to promote among his
contemporaries support for illegal and extralegal "measures" (Mafiregelrif2 that the
sovereign should take modeled on Hermann. On the one hand, the German people must
give the absolute sovereign free reign. The absolute sovereign, on the other hand, is
entitled to make all kinds of claims on them. More precisely, he may "arbitrarily
operate" (willkiirlich zu schalterif2 with all material and human resources in order to
compel respect for and obedience to his government during the general uprising against
the foreign occupier.
Accordingly, in the play, Hermann, authorizes himself to cancel the social contract,
impose the state of exception, and enforces martial law. He absolves himself from the
duty to protect the German people and territory in the conventional sense. In doing so, he
usurps the singular and indivisible position of absolute sovereignty over the kingdom of
Germany, which he will found in the first place. As highest political authority, he
exercises unlimited rights and is bound to no duties except for one, namely, to take
revenge on the Romans. As long as the Romans occupy Germany, for Hermann, "Hatred
is my office, and my virtue revenge!" (1st Hafi mein Ami undmeine TugendRache!)54
As the figure of absolute sovereignty, the Prince of all German Princes elevates himself
above the human sphere of alliances and rivalries, enmity and friendship in the
52
Heinrich von Kleist, „Uber die Rettung Osterreichs," in: Samtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweiter Band, 3802, here 381.
53
Ibid.
54
rV79,594.
29
conventional sense and approximates the superhuman and divine sphere like a mystic or
prophet. "Alone I must stand in such a war | bound to nobody except for my god" {Allein
mufi ich, in solchem Kriege, stehn \ Verkniipft mit niemand, als nur meinem Gott).55
Sovereign Acts of Simulation and Dissimulation
During the diplomatic and military negotiations with the Romans, Hermann presents
a false image of himself to the Romans. He pretends to be like the other purely selfinterested and power-hungry yet conceited German princes who overestimate their
capabilities by forming an alliance with the Roman Empire in the illusory hope that they
will become the absolute sovereign over Germany under Roman patronage. The Roman
Empire played them off against each other by making the very same promise to each of
them yet breaking their word.
Kleist's hero sees through the imperialist divide-and-rule strategy of the Roman
Empire. By enforcing his play of simulation and dissimulation, he beats the Romans,
"the children of deception" (die Kinder des Betruges),56 at their own game. Hermann
considers not only what he has to expect from the Romans but also what they expect of
him. He expects their expectations and pretends to meet them. He plays the character
role of the stereotypical German prince in the Roman view. He pretends to have retreated
from the political arena and military battlefield into private life. In this way, he lulls his
enemies into a false sense of security while he deceives them politically and weakens
them militarily. They expect to have another walkover as with the other German princes
whom they have already outmaneuvered. While he forms a pseudo-alliance with them
1/3, 237-9,269-71
1/3,202,541.
30
ostensibly in order to assert himself against Marbod, his most powerful competitor for the
right and title of the King of Germany, he actually forms a secret alliance with him
against them. He deceives their diplomatic and military leaders. He lures their army into
a trap and with the aid of Marbod inflicts a humiliating defeat upon them. As a result, he
liberates the German tribes from Roman occupation, unifies the nation, and founds the
kingdom of Germany.
At an important juncture in the intrigue of absolute sovereignty, the stage directions
call for a dramatic pause before the diplomatic flatteries and symbolically political
playacting climax with Hermann simulating the paradoxical sovereign act of submitting
to the Roman Empire. However, Hermann first negotiates a condition for the alliance
treaty with the Roman Empire.
HERMANN nach einer kurzen Pause.
Wenn du die Aussicht mir erOffhen kfinntest,
Ventidius, daB mir
Die hochste Herrschergewalt in Deutschland
zugedacht:
So wttrd Augustus, das versichr' ich dich,
Den warmsten Freund wiird er an mir erhalten.
HERMANN after a short pause.
If you could give me prospect, Ventidius, that
The highest authority over Germany is
reserved for me:
Then Augustus would make me, I assure you,
The warmest of his friend.57
Ventidius ostensibly guarantees that the Roman Empire will install Hermann as the
absolute sovereign over Germany under Roman patronage but Hermann ostensibly
accepts as true what he actually considers an empty promise. Hermann's simulated act of
submission to the Roman Empire finds both figurative and literal expression in specific
theatrical gestures and body movements, as the stage directions explicitly specify, as well
as fake rhetorical pathos.
HERMANN vom Thron herabsteigend.
Nun denn, Legat der romischen Casaren,
So werf ich, was auch saum ich langer,
Mit Thron und Reich, in deine Arme mich!
Cheruskas ganze Macht leg ich,
57
HERMANN stepping down from the throne.
Well, now, legate of the Roman Caesars,
Sol throw myself, why hesitate any longer?
Including my throne and kingdom, into your arms!
Cheruscia's entire power I lay down,
II/2,460-4, 549.
31
Als ein Vasall, zu Augusts FttBen nieder.
LaB Varus kommen, mit den Legionen;
Ich will fortan, auf Schutz und Trutz
Mich wider Konig Marbod ihm verbinden!
As a vassal, at Augustus' feet.
Let Varus come with his legions;
Heretofore I want to ally myself to him
Defensively and offensively against King Marbod!58
By demonstratively abandoning the seat of government, Hermann symbolically
surrenders absolute sovereignty over his principality. The simulated surrender of
absolute sovereignty finds metaphorical expression in purely symbolical performative
speech acts—the two idiomatic phrases 'to fall into somebody's arms' and 'to lay oneself
or something at somebody's feet'—that do not accomplish the political facts to which
they refer.
Hermann does not only deceive the Roman diplomacy and army but also the German
princes and peoples. In forming a secret alliance with Marbod, Hermann, as pater
familias who exercises the absolute sovereign right over the life and death of his
offspring, places his two sons at the grace of Marbod in order to authenticate his true
intentions behind his secret play of simulation and dissimulation. In case that Marbod
doubted Hermann's credibility, Hermann suggests that Marbod kill Hermann's two sons
whom Hermann sent as messengers and hostages to avenge himself for Hermann's
attempted act of disloyalty. Purportedly as a "servant" {Knechf), Hermann pays tribute to
Marbod, his "lord and great king" (Herr undhohen Konig).59 He disclaims absolute
sovereignty over the German kingdom and surrenders it to him. However, claiming his
right to protection against foreign rule, he also assigns the duty of expelling the Roman
occupiers from all German territories, including that of Hermann, to Marbod,
"Germany's overlord" (Deutschlands Oberherrscher).60 Here it is paradoxical that
Hermann pretends to subject himself voluntarily to Marbod for a moment only to
11/1,483-90,550.
11/10, 776, 560.
11/10, 782, 560.
32
exercise absolute sovereignty more efficiently. However, exercising absolute
sovereignty, he designs the plan of war and invests it with "the force [...] of the law" (die
Kraft [...] des Gesetzes).61 In other words, he moves from pretending voluntary selfsubjection to his superior, through demanding total commitment to the common cause
from his equals, to enforcing the secret plan of war on his secret ally.
At the end of the play, Hermann and Marbod each disclaim absolute sovereignty and
surrender authority over the Kingdom of Germany to the respective other, expressed in
the theatrical gesture of bending their knees in front of each other. Since the German
princes hail Hermann as the king of Germany, Marbod pronounces him the provisional
prince regent over the state and military commander-in-chief of the army. Hermann
decides to adjourn the crowning of the King of Germany to the next assembly of the
German princes who will elect one amongst themselves into the royal office. In a
moment characteristic for Kleist's dramaturgy, the figure of absolute sovereignty suffers
from faintness for a moment in the middle of the battle while listening to patriotic poetry,
that is, the choral singing of the bards (Bardengesang).63 As a result, he is incapable of
issuing military orders and refers his generals to Marbod. Hermann serves as the
warmongering ideologist-in-chief, but the victory in his battle is not so much his than
rather Marbod's merit.
61
11/10, 828, 561.
As we will see in the second chapter, the interaction between the Prince von Homburg and the Elector of
Brandenburg is similar in usurping and delegating, claiming and exercising absolute sovereignty.
63
V/14, 2236ff., 613.
62
33
Absolute Enmity, Total War, and Dishonorable Stratagems
In early modernity, the emerging political communication system operates based on
the distinction between power and powerlessness or success and failure more or less in
disregard of economic profits and losses, justice and injustice or rightness and wrongness
in terms of law, ethics, and morality, religion, and so on.64 In the tradition of the 'dark'
poets and philosophers from Machiavelli, Gracian, and de Sade through Nietzsche and
Ernst Junger to Carl Schmitt,65 Kleist uncouples the historical and political discourse
from all other discourses, including economy, law, ethics, morality, religion, and so on in
his political writings as well as in his history plays. However, with his history play about
Hermann, he outbids this tradition by far.66 By radically superimposing the historical and
political discourse on all other discourses, Hermann, and by extension Kleist, totalizes the
political code. He aesthetically suspends the ethical and moral discourse not only vis-avis Roman soldiers but also German soldiers and civilians whom he sacrifices in the
name of the fatherland. Just as Kleist's political writings of 1809 overflow with torrents
of hatred against Napoleon and the Frenchmen,67 Hermann sings the song of absolute
Niklas Luhmann, Macht (Stuttgart: Enke, 1975). Niklas Luhmann, Recht der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am
Main, 1993). Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1997). Niklas
Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000).
65
Regarding the displacement of the political from the legal see Niklas Luhmann: "Staat und StaatsrSson
im Ubergang von traditionaler zu moderner Herrschaft," in: Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 3, Studien
zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989), 65-148, here 88.
Regarding the impossibility of integrating functional subsystems into the social system by way of morality
and for the theory of the moral code as a second order code without corresponding functional subsystem,
see Niklas Luhmann, Paradigm Lost, Uber die ethische Reflexion der Moral (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1990), 23 ff. Niklas Luhmann, Die Moral der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
2008, forthcoming). On sadism as a perverted form of Kantian morality, see Max Horkheimer/Theodor W.
Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklarung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998), 88-127; Niklas Luhmann, Paradigm
Lost, Uber die ethische Reflexion der Moral (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990), 13-4.
66
William C. Reeve, In Pursuit of Power, Heinrich von Kleist's Machiavellian Protagonists (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1987).
67
Heinrich von Kleist, „Katechismus der Deutschen abgefasst nach dem spanischen, zum Gebrauch fur
Kinder und Alte in sechzehn Kapiteln," in: Sdmtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweibdndige Ausgabe in einem
Band, Zweiter Band, 350-60, here 358.
34
hatred in Kleist's patriotic play of 1808. The Germans must liquidate every single
enemy, military or civilian, without exception everywhere and forever. He implements a
historical and political discourse of absolute enmity68 according to which no Roman
deserves any respect even if distinguished by altruistic acts of heroism. Quite to the
contrary, he dictates that those enemies whom one may deem morally or ethically good
by the standards of humanism, classical idealism, and universal morality deserve
liquidation above all because their humane acts may inhibit fanaticism, bellicosity, and
hatred for the enemy in the German population required for Hermann's war. Hermann
disabuses his wife Thusnelda of her identification with and empathy for the Romans, as
Kleist intends to do with his ideal audience.
HERMANN
Was! Die Guten!
Das sind die Schlechtesten! Der Rache Keil
Soil sie zuerst, vor alien anderen, treffen!
HERMANN
What? The good ones!
They are the worst ones! The wedge of revenge
Shall hit them first, prior to all others!69
Hermann, and by extension Kleist, establishes a racist discourse on the asymmetrical
difference between Germans and Romans and the superiority of the Germans over the
Romans. The exclusion of the absolute enemy from the sphere of humanity finds
expression in derogatory animal metaphors.
HERMANN
Die ganze Brut, die in den Leib Germaniens
Sich eingefilzt, wie ein Insektenschwarm,
MuB durch das Schwert der Rache jetzo sterben!
HERMANN
The entire breed that befell the body of Germany,
Like a swarm of insects,
Must die through the sword of revenge now.70
By conceiving the absolute enemy as a subordinate and useless vermin animal rather than
an equal human being, Hermann approves the Romans for instantaneous killing. The
sovereign act of revenge upon the enemy compares to the purification of the national
68
Raimar Zons: „Von der ,Not der Welt' zur absoluten Feindschaft," Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie
109 (1990), No. 2: 175-99.
69
IV/9, 1697ff., 593.
70
IY/9,168Iff., 593.
35
body politicfromparasites. However, absolute hatred for the absolute enemy is not so
much a passive and temporary emotional state of hostility than rather an active and
sovereign act of will based on cold-blooded and cool-headed decision.
HERMANN
Ich will die hohnische D&monenbrut nicht lieben!
HERMANN
I do not want to love the taunting brood of demons!71
The immediate purpose of Hermann's war is the liberation of the fatherland from
foreign rule. However, Hermann codifies a permanent war of aggression against the
archenemy and sets the occupation, conquest, and annihilation of Rome as the ultimate
goal. He does not only wage a liberation war against the real enemy but rather a total war
against the absolute enemy designed from the outset as revanchism. In the first scene, he
disabuses his skeptic compatriots who cast doubts on his chances of success.
HERMANN
Nicht weit? Hm! - Seht, das mochte ich just nicht sagen.
Nach Rom - ihr Herren, Dagobert und Selgar!
Wenn mir das Gliick ein wenig gtinstig ist.
Und wenn nicht ich, wie ich fast zweifeln muB,
Der Enkel einer doch, wag ich zu hoffen,
Die hier in diesem Paar der Lenden ruhn!
HERMANN
Not far? Hm! - See, I wouldn't say just that
To Rome - you sires, Dagobert and Selgar!
If fortune give me a little favor.
And if not me, as I almost must suspect,
Then one of my grandchildren, I dare to hope,
Who rest in this pair of loins!72
Again, in the last scene, Hermann does not only confirm his ultimate goal, but now, as
prince regent, he also codifies absolute enmity and total warfare against the Roman
Empire as a project for generations to come.
HERMANN
Uns bleibt der Rhein noch schleunig zu ereilen,
Damit vorerst der Romer keiner
Von der Germany heiligem Grund entschliipfe.
Und dann - nach Rom mutig aufzubrechen!
Wir oder unsere Enkel, meine Bruder!
Derm eh doch, seh ich ein, erschwingt der Kreis der Welt
HERMANN
We still must hurry to the Rhine
Lest any of the Romans slip away
From Germany's holy ground for now:
And then - bravely start for Rome!
We or our grandchildren, my brothers!
For, I see, the murderous brood will not leave
Vor dieser Mordbrut keine Ruhe,
The circle of the world in peace
Als bis das Raubnest ganz zerstort,
Und nichts, als eine schwarze Fahne,
Von seinem oden Trummerhaufen weht!
Until the nest of robbery is destroyed entirely,
And nothing except for a black flag
Is flying on its bleak ruins!73
71
IV/9,1723ff, 594.
V/24,2627ff, 628.
73
1/3, 365-70, 546.
72
36
Since here "Rome" metonymically designates the world and the black flag
metaphorically symbolizes its conquest and annihilation, Hermann aspires to absolute
sovereignty over nothing less than the world. However, such world domination amounts
to the total annihilation of the world. On this view, total victory is the condition of
possibility for eternal peace. However, as we know from Kant, eternal peace exists
nowhere except for on the graveyard.74 The war for eternal peace is itself eternal.
In order to evoke absolute enmity and wage total war against the Romans, Hermann
uses "dishonorable stratagems" (ehrlose Stratageme)15 by the normative standards of the
classical philosophical and juridical discourse on universal morality. He does not only
operate in secrecy, launch surprise attacks and ambushes, and commit breach of surrender
and assassination, as shall be shown below. Given the military superiority of the Roman
army over the German tribes, he chooses an extreme war strategy. Instead of meeting the
enemy "united following old custom" (vereint nach alter Sitte) in the "battle on open
field" (Feldschlacht),76 he opts for a scorched earth policy that accepts many material and
human sacrifices. He himself destroys the social structures in his homeland in order to
weaken the enemy and increase his chances of success against a vastly superior enemy.
HERMANN
Kurz, wollt ihr, wie ich euch schon einmal euch sagte,
Zusammenraffen Weib und Kind,
Und auf der Weser rechtes Ufer bringen,
Geschirre, goldn' und silberne, die ihr
Besitzet, schmelzen, Perlen und Juwelen
Verkaufen oder sie verpfanden,
Verheeren eure Fluren, eure Herden
HERMANN
Well, as I told you already once, if you want to
Snatch your wives and children,
And bring them to the right bank of the Weser,
Melt the golden and silver tableware
That you Own, sell your pearls and jewels
Or put them in pledge,
Devastate your meadows, slay
74
Immanuel Kant, „Zum ewigen Frieden, Ein philosophischer Entwurf," in: Schriften zur Anhropologie,
Geschichtsphilosophie, Politik undPddagogik 1, Werkausgabe, Band 11, (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1968), 200, BA 13. English edition: Immanuel Kant, "Toward Perpetual Peace," in : Practical Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 311-51, sixth preliminary article, 320.
75
Immanuel Kant, Die Metaphysik der Sitten, Werkausgabe, Band 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1968). English edition: Immanuel Kant, "The Metaphysics of Morals," in: Practical Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 353-588, paragraph 57,458.
76
1/3, 276 and 299,543/4.
37
Erschlagen, eure Platze niederbrennen,
So bin ich euer Mann.
Your Herds, burn down your places,
Then I am your man.77
Hermann advises the German princes to follow his counterintuitive reasoning according
to which they must paradoxically count everything for lost to win the negative freedom of
the fatherland from foreign rule. He requires them not only to abandon their territory and
property but also to destroy it deliberately in order to weaken the enemy. They must
sacrifice themselves, including material goods, territory, individual rights, moral norms
and values. Kleist anachronistically designs Hermann's scorched earth policy modeled
on the Prussian militarist mentality of "selflessness" (Selbstlosigkeitf* and anticipating
the Spanish guerilla war against the Napoleonic Empire. The partisan strategy of total
warfare requires a qualitatively different kind of engagement from both the army and the
civilian population and it creates a qualitatively different kind of enthusiasm, fanaticism,
and bellicosity than pre-modern limited warfare.
The sovereign leader pretends to surrender to the Roman Empire but he actually
usurps absolute sovereignty over all German territories and tribes, including that of the
German princes who collaborate or confederate with the Roman Empire. He disabuses
them about mistaking his pretended surrender for actual surrender to the Roman Empire.
HERMANN
Behiite Wodan mich! Ergeben! Seid ihr toll?
Mein Alles, Haus und Hof, die ganzliche
Gesamtheit des, was mein sonst war,
Als ein verlorenes Gut in meiner Hand noch ist,
Das, Freunde, setz ich dran, im Tod nur,
Wie K6nig Porus, glorreich es zu lassen!
Ergeben! - Einen Krieg, bei Mana! will ich
Entflammen, der in Deutschland rasselnd,
Gleich einem durren Walde, um sich greifen,
Und auf zum Himmel lodernd schlagen soil!
HERMANN
Wotan forbid! Surrender? Are you mad?
My everything, house and court, the entire
Entirety of what has otherwise been mine,
Is in my hands only like a lost good,
That, my friends, I jeopardize and will lose only,
Like King Porus, gloriously in death!
Surrender! - A war, for Mana's sake!
I want to wage, which, rattling in Germany
Like a droughty forest, will run rampant
And go up in blazing flames to the heavens!79
77
1/3, 374ff, 546.
Heinrich von Kleist, „Uber die Rettung Osterreichs," in: Samtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweibdndige
Ausgabe in einem Band, ZweiterBand, 380-2, here 381.
79
1/3, 526ff., 545.
78
38
Hermann is a Janus-faced figure of absolute sovereignty who is simultaneously a fatalist
and a hazarder. The fatalist pretends to accept total defeat, "All of Germany is already
lost," (Ganz Deutschland ist verloren schon),so in anticipation of "the beautiful death of
the hero" (den schonen Toddes Helderi)}1 The hazarder makes a strategic withdrawal in
preparation of launching a fast and sudden surprise attack and ambushing the vastly
superior enemy on impassable terrain in order to increase chances of success.
Hermann does not only silently accept but he also actively facilitates Roman invasion
and occupation of Germany and Roman war crimes against the civilian population such
as pillaging and plundering, violence and murder, desecration of religious sites, and so
on. He quasi-poetically fabricates the hyperbolical image of the hateful Roman by not
only inventing atrocity tales and circulating false reports about war crimes but also
intervening actively. He does not even shy away from deploying his henchmen costumed
in Roman uniforms as a special task force to terrorize his people. He promises the
Romans that he will suppress German rebels who resist foreign occupation and
administer self-justice on Roman war criminals. He urges them to pardon Roman war
criminals who would otherwise receive capital punishment according to Roman law. He
hosts festivities in honor of the foreign occupying power on the front stage, while he
secretly wishes for further war crimes behind the scenes. He watches without
intervening, as the occupying forces ostensibly guard the local religious sites but actually
confiscate the weapons stored therein. He does all of this in order to stoke up hatred for
the Romans in the Germans, increase their readiness to kill and die in battle, and incite a
general uprising of the German people against the Roman army.
1/3,281,544.
1/3, 360,546.
39
However, when the Roman army starts pulling out of Teutoburg to meet Marbod on
the Eastern front, the "horrors of unfettered war" {Greul des fessellosen Kriegesf2 fail to
materialize. If Hermann were incapable of stoking hatred for the Romans in the German
civilian population, his strategy would fall through. He coincidentally finds a crowd
gone hysterical over the death of the young girl Hally who was killed by her father after
having been raped by three Roman legionaries. Although the crime may be pure chance,
no one can rule out the possibility that Hermann's special task force committed it.83 As
the sovereign executor of the general will, Hermann unscrupulously exploits civilian
victims for political propaganda; he commands the crowd to dismember the corpse into
fifteen pieces and distribute them among the fifteen German tribes. By adding a third act
of violence to rape and murder,84 he transforms the corpse into "the horrific symbol of the
fatherland" {des Vaterlandes grauses Sinnbild).85 The abused dead body of the young
girl Hally poetically and politically allegorizes the sacred political body of Germany.
Although this is a purely symbolical political act,86 it brings about what it refers to in the
first place, that is, the fatherland, the German nation-state as the community of all
German tribes. Paradoxically, it is through the sovereign act of desecrating the corpse
(necrophilia), that Hermann succeeds in inciting the general uprising of the German
people against the Roman army.
82
IV/3, 1484, 585.
Barbara H. Kennedy, „For the Good of the Nation: Woman's Body as Battlefield in Kleist's Die
Hermannsschlacht," Seminar - A Journal of Germanic Studies 30(1994), No. 1: 17-31.
84
Christine Ktlnzel, „Gewaltsame Transformationen: Der versehrte weibliche Korper als Text und Zeichen
in Kleists 'Hermannsschlacht,'" Kleist-Jahrbuch (2003): 165-83.
85
V/5,2549, 625.
86
Andreas D6rner, Politischer Mythos und symbolische Politik (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1995).
On the concept of symbolical or figurative politics see Hans-Georf Soeffner/Dirk Tanzler, Figurative
Politik, Zur Performanz der Macht in der modernen Gesellschaft (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2002).
83
40
While it may seem absurd that the German tribes decipher Hermann's message in the
dead body parts, it is more important to Kleist that his ideal audience recognize the
phantasm of absolute sovereignty. In this sense, the desecrated female body captures
many aspects of the political state of affairs in Germany under Napoleonic occupation.
Rape as sexual oppression symbolizes foreign occupation, political oppression, and the
danger of enslavement. The dismembered corpse represents the disunity between the
German tribes. It should express the imperative to overcome the particular interests and
the territorialism of the German mini-states (Kleinstaaterei), to accomplish national unity
in resisting the common enemy, and to establish the sovereign and independent allGerman nation-state, religiously codified as a resurrection from the dead.
Grotesquely Comical Elements in the Aesthetics of Sublimity and Cruelty
Although he is the ideologist-in-chief, Hermann does not commit any killings, but he
rather arranges and orders his henchmen to commit them. These capital punishments of
the criminalized absolute enemy follow the totalitarian and state terrorist logic of wars for
on
just causes without just enemies.
Enthroned as absolute sovereign over both friends and
foes, he contrives lethal intrigues, imposes ad hoc adjudications of capital punishment,
and orders bestial executions of defenseless prisoners of war and high traitors, even after
the Germans have won the battle against the Romans and such liquidations are
unnecessary for the success of the liberation war. The assassinations and breaches of
surrender exemplify the kind of treatment that absolute enemies deserve according to his
strategy of total war.
87
Carl Schmitt, Theorie des Partisanen, Zwischenbemerkung zum Begriffdes Politischen (Berlin: Duncker
& Humblot, 1963), 34f. Carl Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of
the Political (New York: Telos, 2007).
41
Nevertheless, there are many grotesquely comical elements in the propagandist
history play. First, Kleist uses a peculiar poetic language; the dominantly paratactic
syntax accumulates inversions and particles, interjections and expletives. Secondly, there
are many slapstick effects. For instance, Kleist presents the Roman soldiers as confused
intruders who get lost in an alien environment. In addition, he has the Germans put them
on the wrong track using the homophonic names of two settlements, "Pfiffikon" instead
of "Iphikon," in an equally idiotic as murderous word play. In other words, he
demonstrates the superiority of the Germans over the Romans to his ideal audience in an
amusing way. Kleist audaciously combines the aesthetics of sublimity and cruelty,
brutality and bestiality with grotesquely comical elements in order to create the poetic
and political phantasm of absolute sovereignty. Hermann expresses his sovereign
contempt for the absolute enemy accordingly. He orders executions in an air of "splendid
nonchalance or unusual slyness or both."89 His play of simulation and dissimulation is
just as cruel as ingenious.
VARUS tritt verwundet auf.
Da sinkt die grofie Weltherrschaft von Rom
Vor eines Wilden Witz zusammen,
Und kommt, die Wahrheit zu gestehn,
Mir wie ein dummer Streich der Knaben vor!90
VARUS enters wounded.
There falls the world domination of Rome
Because of the wit of a savage,
And seems to me, to tell the truth,
Like a silly trick of a boy!
However, if at all, it raises the kind of laughter that sticks in our throats. The
executioners make ridiculous fools out of the Romans by degrading and humiliating them
before killing them brutally. Nevertheless, the playful and nonchalant manner in which
the executioners perform the bestial killings onstage does not take awayfromthe plain
political message of the propaganda play. Quite to the contrary, Kleist expected that such
88
V/l, 1881-2, 600.
Rolf N. Linn, „Comical and Humorous Elements in Kleist's Die Hermannsschlacht" The Germanic
Review Al (1972), No. 3: 159-67, here 164.
90
V/21,2463ff.,622.
89
42
grotesquely comical elements would make the aesthetics of sublimity and cruelty and
politics of absolute sovereignty all the more appreciable to his ideal audience.
The first and probably most bestial is the killing of the Roman legate Ventidius by
Hermann's wife Thusnelda. In the beginning, Hermann does not only silently accept the
love affair between them but he also actively encourages it and uses it as a smokescreen
for his secret plans. In the meantime, he systematically disabuses his wife of her
admiration for Roman culture and ultimately manipulates her into taking revenge on her
Roman lover for unrequited love and disloyalty. Hermann leaks a letter from Ventidius
to the Roman Empress to Thusnelda in which the Roman diplomat praises himself for
having stolen a golden lock from Thusnelda as war loot. Given that Hermann
manipulates friends and foes alike in many other instances, the letter may not be
authentic but rather forged by Hermann.91
The disdained Thusnelda takes literally bestial revenge on her allegedly unfaithful
lover. Ostensibly setting up a romantic rendezvous, she actually lures him into a trap
where a famished she-bear lacerates him. While crime and punishment are grotesquely
out of proportion, the real appearance of a she-bear in the theater is indicative of Kleist's
theatrical sensation mongering. More importantly, Kleist stages the bestial killing as a
perfidious comedy of mistaken identities. When Ventidius in fear of death states: "The
dark black she-bear of Cheruscia, | Is standing next to me paws pulled out" (Die
zottelschwarze Bdrin von Cheruska, \ Stent, mit geziickten Tatzen, neben mirl),
Thusnelda and the she-bear become metaphor and metonymy for each other. Kleist
further literalizes the metaphor through the stage action and language, as Thusnelda
91
Regina Schafer, „Der gefalschte Brief, Eine unkonventionelle Hypothese zu Kleists Hermannsschlacht,"
Kleist-Jahrbuch(1993): 181-9.
92
V/18, 2388/9, 619.
43
laments about Ventidius disloyalty: "He turned me into a she-bear" (Er hat zur Bdrin
mich gemacht),93 before she stage-manages the laceration as a literally bestial act of
revenge.
The love triangle between Hermann, Thusnelda, and Ventidius is not just a subplot to
the main plot consisting in the main acts of state (Haupt- und Staatsaktion). Kleist
closely connected the two strands of the dramatic action on purpose. He inserted the
shocking scene with the famished she-bear exactly in place of the hardly performable
battle. In fact, the drama of absolute enmity culminates and climaxes in this scene; it
does not only allegorically replace the title event, Hermann's battle, as such, but it also
exemplifies Hermann's sovereign act of revenge on the Romans in the first instance.94
The second bestial killing is that of the Roman commander-in-chief Varus. History
passed down that the wounded general evaded the barbaric treatment of the German
hordes by committing suicide, considered by Romans an honorable death in battle.
However, in Kleist's history play, Varus' suicide attempt ironically fails, since his thorax,
secretly allied to Hermann, is steelier than his sword. While a steely chest is the classical
metonymy for heroism, in this case it is precisely the obstacle for performing the
sovereign act of dying honorably by his own hand instead of dishonorably by the
enemy's hand. In other words, Kleist ironically denies the Roman general to die as a
classical hero of war.
Yet this is only the beginning of Varus' humiliation and debasement. In another
grotesquely comical situation, the renegades Fust and Gueltar, formerly Roman
93
V/16, 2321, 616.
Hinrich C. Seeba, ,„Historia in Absentia,' Zur Aussparung von Hermanns Schlacht bei Kleist," KleistJahrbuch 1988/9,242-258. Wolfgang Struck, „Der erste Befreier oder der letzte Held: Hermann und die
Schlacht," in: Konfigurationen der Vergangenheit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 1997), 106-39.
94
44
collaborators and now reconverted German loyalists, decide the question as to who will
receive the right to kill the Roman general who is lying on the ground wounded like a
"speckled deer" (gefleckter Hirsch)95 in a unjust duel. Under the political pressure of
rehabilitation and the pain of capital punishment for high treason, they intend to redeem
themselves opportunistically through the 'patriotic' act of taking revenge on the wounded
and defenseless Roman commander-in-chief. Foresighted Hermann had decided to spare
the lives of converted high traitors because "They are the bravest and best, when it has to
do with taking revenge on the Romans" (Das sinddie Wackersten undBesten, \ Wenn es
um die Romerrache geht).96 By the standards of universal morality, there is of course
nothing brave and good about killing wounded and defenseless enemies.
In addition, Kleist presents Hermann as sovereign over his wryneck henchmen whom
he exploits for his purposes at will. When Fust apologizes for having stolen "the wreath
of victory" (Siegeskranz) from him, Hermann roars with sovereign laughter exiting the
stage because he is interested in the liberation of the fatherland from foreign rule alone.
Immaterial goals such as glory are secondary. In other words, the arousal of animosity
against the enemy is a pure end in itself for Hermann.
Thirdly, Hermann orders the execution of Septimius as a personalized and
individualized punishment for the illegitimate Roman invasion, occupation, and conquest
of Germany, although he himself aims at the equally illegitimate German invasion,
occupation, and conquest or even annihilation of Rome. As absolute sovereign, he issues
a single performative or rather declarative act that at once establishes criminal guilt of the
V/22,2510, 623.
V/15,2283, 615.
V/22, 2534,623.
45
accused as an unshakable matter of fact and imposes capital punishment on the convict
stantepede without legal proceeding:
HERMANN March him off,
And let the droughty soil of the fatherland
Drink his blood, first, immediately!
HERRMANN Fiihrt ihn hinweg,
Und lasst sein Blut, das erste, gleich
Des Vaterlandes diirren Boden trinken!98
Reduced to bare life, Septimius protests in vain against such barbaric acts of revenge
appealing Hermann to the "victor's duty" (Siegerpflicht)99 to respect the right to life
exercised by defenseless prisoners of war according to universal moral norms and values.
Hermann, however, strikes the sublime posture of absolute sovereignty.
HERMANN leaning on his sword.
Of right and duty! Lo and behold, upon my life!
He has read the book of Cicero.
What must I do, say, according to this book?
HERRMANN aufsein Schwert gestiitzt.
An Pflicht und Recht! Sieh da, so wahr ich lebe!
Er hat das Buch von Cicero gelesen.
Was muBt ich tun, sag an, nach diesem Werk?100
He derides Septimius and imperturbably exercises absolute sovereignty over written
laws, military conventions, universal moral norms and values in form and substance as
well as his personal conscience. In the only episode of the entire play where he engages
in intellectual argumentation for a moment, he cynically juxtaposes Septimius'
knowledge of the Roman civil and moral law according to Cicero's republicanism with
the political and military program of Roman imperialism.
HERMANN jumping at him.
You know what right is, you damned boy!
And came to Germany, non-offended
To oppress us?
HERRMANN indem er aufihn einschreitet.
Du weiBt, was Recht ist, du verfluchter Bube,
Und kamst nach Deutschland, unbeleidigt,
Um uns zu unterdrilcken?101
On principle, wars of liberation are morally or politically justifiable, while wars of
aggression, occupation, conquest, or extermination are not. However, the criteria for
distinguishing legitimate wars of liberation from illegitimate wars of aggression are
V/13,2202, 612.
V/13,2207, 612.
3
V/13, 2208ff, 612. See Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
1
V/13, 2215ff, 612.
46
contentious. Therefore, the paradox of sovereignty underlies Hermann's total war. On
the one hand, Hermann rejects the Roman conception of right, law, and honor as political
and ideological fraud and exposes Roman imperialism as illegitimate and illegal,
hypocritical and criminal. On the other hand, he himself supports German imperialism
and his total war against Rome is equally illegal and illegitimate, hypocritical and
criminal. Anti-imperialism against Roman imperialism in support of German
imperialism is evidently self-undermining. On the one hand, Hermann accepts that the
Romans will outlaw and incriminate him and his people, that is, locate them outside the
sphere of right, law, and honor, because of the simulated alliance and high treason.
"Augustus punishes the attempt just as the deed!" (Augustus straft den Versuch, so wie
die Tat!)102 On the other hand, that is precisely his self-legitimatization for outlawing the
Romans in turn.
This self-contradictory reasoning denies Septimius the right to argue his case based
on the legal and moral discourse. In line with his program of total war against the
absolute enemy, Hermann takes revenge upon the Roman general who invaded Germany
"non-offended" (unbeleidigt).103 In order to express both the legal punishment of the
criminal and the political revenge on the oppressor, he chooses a barbaric and bestial
method of summary execution exceptionally crude and humiliating. "Take a cudgel of
double weight, | and strike him dead!" (Nehmt eine Keule doppelten Gewichts, \ und
schlagt ihn tot!)}04 The double weight may reflect the twofold offense of which the
Roman general is guilty according to Hermann; first, the occupation of Germany as such,
and secondly, as Hermann imputes to Septimius, the possible pretension that it was
102
IV/8,1665, 592.
V/13, 2216, 612.
104
V/13,2219/20, 612.
103
47
legitimate. Overall, Hermann wields legislative, executive, and judicial power all at
once; he serves not only as the political leader and military commander-in-chief but also
as the supreme judge. He embodies the poetic phantasm of absolute sovereignty.
Fourthly and lastly, Hermann, "the supreme German" {Oberster der Deutscheri),
hesitates only for a moment before ordering the execution of the inveterate high traitor
Aristan who is "the worst [...] of all German princes" (der Schlechteste [...] von alien
deutschen Fiirsteri)105 in the eyes of Varus. Hermann ironically exclaims, "Woe is me!
How must I begin my office?" (Weh mir! Womit muss ich mein Ami beginnen?)106
During this short dramatic retardation, Kleist gives his hero time and space to reaffirm his
doctrine of absolute enmity and his ideal audience to pass through the catharsis of
residual humane empathy and scruples, block identification with the absolute enemy, and
internalize Hermann's doctrine of absolute enmity. During the military review, where
Varus presented Fust, Gueltar, and Aristan as "the brave German princes who have
joined my military campaign" (die tapferen Fiirsten Deutschlands, \ Die meinem
Heereszug sich angeschlossen)107 against Marbod, Hermann had still pretended that he
admired Aristan for his decision to confederate with the Roman Empire by taking a deep
bow.
HERMANN taking a bow.
Arminius admires his wisdom.
HERRMANN mit einer Verbeugung.
Arminius bewundert seine Weisheit.108
On the one hand, Aristan appeals to positive liberty, individual autonomy, and absolute
sovereignty as the independent ruler over his independent principality, territory, and
people. He invokes his right to pursue his particular interests and to form alliances to the
105
V/10,2094/5,608.
V/24,2599,627.
107
III/5,1210f., 575.
108
III/5,1204/5, 575.
106
48
best of his knowledge. Similarly, Septimius previously appealed to the victor's duty to
respect the lives of defenseless prisoners of war. On the other hand, Hermann claims
absolute sovereignty over the German territory and people as a whole, including that of
Aristan. As "the supreme of the Germans" {oberster der Deutscheri),109 "king of
Germany" (Konig von Germanien)110 in spe, and prince regent legitimized by the victor
in battle Marbod and the majority of German princes, Hermann asserts his claim against
Aristan's plea. In possession of absolute power, he brutally exercises absolute
sovereignty by issuing the authoritative and imperative command that is at once political
decision, military order, and legal verdict that adjudicates Aristan as a public enemy and
imposes the death sentence: "March him off and throw down his head!" (Fiihrt ihn
hinweg und werft ihm das Haupt niederl)111
The execution of disloyal allies, defenseless prisoners of war, and high traitors
exemplify the treatment that enemies deserve according to Hermann's doctrine of
absolute enmity and total war and Kleist's phantasm of absolute sovereignty. However,
in both cases, Hermann paradoxically commits acts of absolute sovereignty that are
similar to those because of which he adjudicates others.
110
In the "lesson" (Lektiori) that Hermann teaches Aristan, Kleist hardly conceals a
reference to the famous aphorism #95 from Goethe's and Schiller's Xenien on "The
German Reich. Germany, but where does it lie? I am unable to find the country [...]."
(Das Deutsche Reich. Deutschland? aber wor liegt es? Ich weifi das Land nicht zufinden
[...].) By condemning Aristan as an idealist hero of virtue and morality in the vein of
109
V/24, 2596, 627.
V/24, 2585,626.
111
V/24, 2618,628.
112
V/24, 2619, 628
110
49
Schiller's historical tragedies, Kleist declares war on the aesthetics and politics of
Weimar classicism. While Kleist radically defends the phantasm of absolute sovereignty,
the right to independence and self-determination of the German nation-state, Goethe and
Schiller, who disapproved of the use of violence against the foreign occupier, advocated
the formation (Bildung) of the German cultural nation {Kulturnatiori) based on language,
literature, and culture instead of the state and army.
The Sovereign Nation-State of the Future
Having inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans, what kind of state does
Hermann, and by extension Kleist, envision for the future? In close proximity to political
romanticism, Kleist supports the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire (Heiliges
Romisches Reich) that Napoleon had destroyed in 1806. Just as Hermann envisions
1 1 "2
European unification "under one royal scepter" (unter einem Konigszepter) in Kleist's
history play of 1808, Kleist makes no secret of his political hopes in his political writings
of 1809. He had in mind a traditional monarchy in a modern guise, including full
recovery of state sovereignty and German unification. He envisions a homogeneous
nation-state, in which the absolute sovereign who having enforced the distinction
between lawfulness and unlawfulness and founded the kingdom of Germany continues to
exercise the "heroic right to found states" (Heroenrecht zur Stiftung der Staaten).lu The
absolute sovereign paradoxically continues to exercise the "heroic right" that, strictly
speaking, applies "only in an undeveloped state" (nur im ungebildeten Zustand),115 even
113
1/3, 308, 544.
G.F.W. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie desRechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im
Grundrisse, in: Werke in zwanzig Bdnden, Band 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), 507.
115
Ibid., 180 (§ 93, Zusatz).
114
50
after it expired through the state foundation. The sovereign act of state foundation in
itself is paradoxically neither lawful nor unlawful per se since it defines and enforces the
distinction between lawfulness and unlawfulness in the first place. Hermann legitimizes
it through the instantaneous performative act of lawmaking and law enforcement. By
exercising absolute sovereignty, the executions establish crude accomplished facts.
Through the performative act of self-legitimatization in medias res or ex post factum
through success, Hermann, the designated king of Germany, posits the fist beginning and
the founding myth for the new state of the future, that is, the kingdom of Germany.
Kleist gives an aesthetically radical not to say modern apology for the pre-modern
politics of absolute principal sovereignty. In the Old Prussian tradition, he advocates an
illiberal and authoritarian military autocracy spearheaded by a sovereign monarch who
rules autocratically over his subjects who act as public servants or soldiers without
exercising any civil and human rights. He rejects the liberal constitutional state of free
and equal citizens in the tradition of the French Revolution. He favors principal
sovereignty over popular sovereignty, autocracy over democracy, military community
over civil society, the permanent and exclusive state of exception over the rule of law,
emergency or martial law over civil and human rights guaranteed by a constitution,
subservience over individual liberty, and so on.
In his political essay entitled Was gilt es in diesem Krieg? (What is at stake in this
war?), written in 1809, Kleist answers the question by stating that the future German
liberation war against the Napoleonic Empire is about the existence or nonexistence of
the pre-modern "community" (Gemeinschaft) in contrast to modern "society"
51
(Gesellschaft).116 It is paradoxical that he conceives the community in question as both
particularly German and universally human, as an equal member and the exemplary
representative of humanity. He claims that this concept of community excludes the kind
of "imperiousness and conquest" (Herrschsucht und Eroberung) exemplified by the
Napoleonic Empire. However, he also envisions enthroning a "world government"
(Weltregierung) accepted and supported by all nations who paradoxically give consent to
their "subjugation" {Unterwerfung) to the Empire "by free choice" (infreier Waht)}11
Kleist legitimizes the historical and political existence of the German Reich
exclusively through tradition instead of modern political values. Accordingly, in the
play, Hermann does not adopt a constitution, which set an example for the ruling Prussian
kings from the Wars of Liberation 1813-5 through the failed March Revolution of 1848
to the Second Empire founded in 1870/1. Nor does he grant individual liberty, enforce
civil and human rights, not to mention, exercise or represent popular sovereignty or
establish the democratic rule of law.
Kleist had an idiosyncratic notion of democracy, which he developed under the
impression of the French Revolution, especially the Jacobin ochlocracy, that is, the rule
of the mob at the high point of the Reign of Terror, the dramatic representation of which
in Grabbe and Buchner will be analyzed in chapters three and four respectively. The
word 'democracy' or the rule of the people does not occur once in all of Kleist's writings.
He concedes, however, that the principal state may have a "democratic appearance"
116
Heinrich von Kleist, „Was gilt es in diesem Kriege?" in: Samtliche Werk undBriefe, Zweibdndige
Ausgabe in einem Band, Zweiter Band, 377-9. On the dichotomy of community and society see Ferdinand
TSnnies, Kritische Gesamtausgabe in 24 Bdnden (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1998ff.). English edition:
Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
117
Heinrich von Kleist, „Was gilt es in diesem Kriege?" in: Samtliche Werk undBriefe, Zweibdndige
Ausgabe in einem Band, Zweiter Band, 377-9, here 378.
52
(demokratisches Anseheri), albeit for an extremely limited time, that is, the dangerous
situation during the general uprising of the people against the occupying power, the
liberationfromforeign rule, and the precarious moment of state foundation or restoration.
The Hally scene in his history play is apparently where one may find an expression of the
general will of the people and the exercise of popular sovereignty on his terms. Hermann
exercises absolute principal sovereignty before and after that. Therefore, 'democracy' in
Kleist turns out to be a euphemism for the sovereign rule of the prince who depends on
his ability to incite a general uprising of the people against the foreign occupier while
simultaneously containing it lest it turn against him himself.
Kleist's historical and political discourse of absolute sovereignty cannot be
universally morally justified and politically legitimized in terms of the universal moral
cosmopolitan right to emancipation. It bases itself on the particularistic and nonuniversal right of nature to national self-determination derived exclusivelyfromthe
traditional history of the family and nation without reference to universal norms and
values such as individual liberty or civil and human rights.119 Kleist derives the historical
and political right and title to German hegemony over Europe and the worldfromthe
premise that the German community of the Holy Roman Empire is superior to French
society, that is, the ancient Roman Empire, the modern French Empire, and Western
civilization altogether. However, his political vision is certainly inconsistent with the
idea of "the cosmopolitan community of nations."120 Hermann does not provide a
118
Heinrich von Kleist, „Uber die Rettung Osterreichs," in: Samtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweibandige
Ausgabe in einem Band, Zweiter Band, 380-2, here 380.
119
Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the College de France 1975-1976, trans. D.
Macey (New York: Picador, 2003).
120
Wolfgang Wittkowski, "Arminius aktuell: Kleists Hermannsschlacht und Goethes Hermann," in: Rainer
Wiegels/Winfried Woesler (Eds.), Arminius und die Varusschlacht, Geschichte - Myihos - Literatur
(Paderborn: SchSningh, 1995), 367-388, here 375.
53
starting point for deescalating the conflicts between Germans and Romans, not to
mention establishing a balance of power between coexisting neighbors and limiting
interstate wars according to international law. Sovereign states coexist in the Hobbesian
state of nature dominated by the war of all against all. Kleist's propaganda history play
heralds a dark age of perpetual warfare in which the acts and counteracts of revenge enter
into a vicious circle. Later German nationalism, chauvinism, and imperialism in the
extended long nineteenth century, from Frederick II King of Prussia in the eighteenth
through Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the nineteenth to Nazi Fuhrer Adolf
191
Hitler in the twentieth century of course easily exploited Kleist for their politics.
Critique against Affirmative Interpretations
This chapter thus far has tried to elicit the paradox of sovereignty in the dramatic text
and its theatrical dimensions. At the level of interpretations with cognitive interests in
199
political, ethical, and moral questions, it may clarify the problem of legitimacy.
Before
doing so, let us summarize the historical context and reception history. Kleist's first
patriotic play, which was "calculated for the moment more than any other" (mehr, als
1
William C. Reeve, Kleist on Stage 1804-1987 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993.)
Theaters staged Homburg as a nationalistic, imperialistic, or fascistic propaganda play until 1945 or as an
existentialist psychodrama after 1945. The older authoritarian tradition downplayed or even suppressed the
fear-of-death-scene and emphasized the Froben funeral (III/l), the Prince's self-subjection to the sovereign
(IV/4) and apotheosis (V/6-11). It highlighted the educational process that the criminal victor allegedly
undergoes. The more recent anti-authoritarian tradition starts with stage productions inspired by the French
philosophy of existence en vogue during the early 1950s; West German directors tied in with it after 1968.
While the former propagandistically exploited the poetic history play by glorifying the phantasm of
absolute sovereignty and the latter aesthetically concentrated on the mental conflicts of romantic
subjectivity, both equally reduce its complexity. Neither succeeds in dramatizing the conflict between
absolute sovereignty and romantic subjectivity such that the underlying ambiguities and paradoxes come to
the fore fully.
122
Klaus Rek, ,„Und alle Greul des fessellosen Krieges!' Legitimation und Motivation von Gewalt in
Heinrich von Kleists Hermannsschlacht" in: Angelika Corbineau-Hoffmann/Pascal Nicklas (Hrsg.):
Gewalt der Sprache - Sprache der Gewalt, Beispiele aus philologischer Sicht (Hildesheim: Georg Olms
Verlag, 2000), 103-29.
54
irgend ein anderes, fur den Augenblick berechnei) of his plays, had explosive force
only during the time the playwright authored it, that is, around the turn of the year
1808/9. Once Napoleon defeated Austria in the Battle of Wagram in 1809 for a second
time after the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, Kleist's hopes that the kings of
Prussia and Austria would answer his call to duty and assume Hermann's and Marbod's
roles in reality were definitely disappointed. The poetic phantasm of absolute
sovereignty did not materialize in political history during Kleist's lifetime. The
playwright who committed suicide in 1811 did not live to see the Wars of Liberation
(1813-1815) but he would have most likely hailed them enthusiastically. A quick glance
at the political map of Europe around 1808/1809 shows that the balance of power had
changed so drastically that the propaganda play became unrealistic; it became history; not
only was its subject matter historical to begin with, but also its political program became
historical and outdated before it came to theater stages.124
The political project of establishing German hegemony over Europe during the
extended long nineteenth century (1815-1945) evoked Kleist amongst others. German
imperialism and fascism easily assimilated the propaganda play, especially in the eve of
the Franco-Prussian War and the foundation of the Second Empire in 1870/1 as well as
during the rule of Nazism 1933-45.125 Just as the Wilhelmine age compared Hermann to
10ft
Bismarck, so the Nazis compared Hermann to Hitler.
After 1945, the majority
returned to Weimar classicism and its humanistic ideals and marginalized the anti123
Letter 145 dated Dresden, February 22,1809, Heinrich von Kleist, Sdmtliche Werke undBriefe in zwei
Banden, Einbdndige Ausgabe, ZweiterBand, 821.
124
Lawrence Ryan, "Die 'vaterMndische Umkehr' in der Hermannsschlacht," in: Walter Hinderer (Hrsg.),
Kleist Dramen, Neue Interpretationen (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 189.
125
Rolf Busch, Imperialistische und faschistische Kleistrezeption 1890-1945, Eine ideologiekritische
Untersuchung (Frankfurt am Main: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1974), 241.
126
Wolfgang Sydow, Deutung und Darstellung des Arminiusschicksals in seinen wesentlichen
Auspragungen besonders seit Kleist (Greifswald: Buchdruckerei H. Adler, 1937).
55
humanist propaganda play deemed incompatible with the classical tradition of German
humanism and idealism. Owing to its political corruption and alleged aesthetic
inferiority, some tried to exclude it from the literary canon.127 It returned to the West
German stages in the aftermath of the time when RAF terrorism shook up West
Germany. Claus Peymann (*1937) portrayed Hermann as an anarchist terrorist who
fights against the state as such in the vein of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in his
1982 production at the Schauspielhaus in Bochum, West Germany.128
Since Kleist puts radical drama and theater into the service of extremist politics, many
critics argue that he sold out poetry to politics. Some reject the propagandistic history
play based on the politically correct albeit short-circuited argument that the admittedly
mortifying reception history historically and politically corrupted it. Other critics reject it
because it was allegedly aesthetically deficient. Some found fault with the lack of
dramatic suspense,129 others were missing an equal antagonist to live up to Hermann.130
However, such and similar criticism, besides arbitrarily setting Weimar classicism as the
aesthetic norm, preempt allegorical literary readings and critical political interpretations.
It certainly does not suffice to reject the play as an aesthetic dead-end of early modern
literature. Historical and sociological reductions of identifying the fictive dramatic
Walter Muller-Seidel, Versehen und Verkennen, Eine Studie fiber Heinrich von Kleist (Koln: Bohlau,
1961), 53.
128
Claus Peymann/Hans Joachim Kreuzer, „Streitgesprach uber Kleists ,Hermannsschlacht,"' KleistJahrbuch (1984): 77-97.
Kurt May, Form und Bedeutung, Interpretationen deutscher Dichtung des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart: Klett 1957), 254-262.
130
Gerhard Kluge, „Hermann und Fiesko - Kleists Auseinandersetzung mit Schillers Drama" Jahrbuch der
deutschen Schillergesellschaft 37 (1993): 248-70.
56
character Hermann with the embodiment of the proto-fascist dictator
or denunciating
Kleist as a reactionary Old Prussian Junker132 are implausible.
Many interpreters discuss the question as to whether or not Hermann's war is
justifiable in political, ethical, or moral terms. On the one hand, those, who justify
Roman occupation politically, ethically, or morally as legitimately modernizing, tend to
ignore or downplay the Roman war crimes. On the other hand, those, who justify
Hermann's liberation war politically, ethically, or morally as legitimately anti-imperialist,
tend to ignore or downplay Hermann's ideology of absolute enmity and total war with its
ultimately imperialist goals. Yetfromthe very outset, and not after an alleged shift in
focus during the play, as some literary critics would have it,
Hermann leaves no
doubts whatsoever about his imperialist goal. At the end of the play, Hermann's antiimperialist war of liberation seamlessly passes into the imperialist war of conquest or
extermination.
Hermann's liberation war does have the "telluric character" {tellurischer Charakter)
of the partisan warfare on Carl Schmitt's terms.134 It may be justifiable politically,
ethically, and morally one way or another; according to the theory of natural rights or the
principle of national self-determination, for instance. The liberation of the fatherland
from foreign rule legitimizes limited warfare against the real enemy according to
universal morality and international law. If we agreed with Carl Schmitt, the partisan war
Georg Lukacs,„Die Tragodie Heimich von Kleists," in: Deutsche Realisten des 19. Jahrhunderts
(Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag 1951), 19-48.
133
Bernd Fischer, „Frembestimmimg und Identitatspolitik in Die Hermannsschlacht," Paul Michael
Liitzeler/David Pan (eds.), Kleists Erzahlungen und Dramen, Neue Studien (Wurzburg: 2001), 165-78, here
165.
134
Schmitt (1963,26).
57
has "no normative meaning, but an existential meaning only,"135 Hermann, the total
partisan warrior, as a paradoxical figure of absolute sovereignty, would paradoxically be
neither legal nor illegal, neither moral nor immoral per se.136 However, Hermann's total
war negates the telluric character of the liberation war on Schmitt's terms. It is a war of
aggression against a sovereign state ultimately aiming at occupation and conquest,
extermination and annihilation of the enemy. It is not justifiable in any way whatsoever.
It is illegitimate and criminal. Therefore, Kleist's patriotic plays do not only represent
poetic models of partisan warfare par excellence, as Wolf Kittler would have it following
Schmitt.
It rather propagates the total war against the absolute enemy, as different
from a legitimate war of liberation, on Schmitt's terms,138 or as Kleist puts it in the mouth
of Hermann, an "unleashed war" (fesselloser Krieg).
Regarding Hermannsschlacht, it
is hard to separate "the holy war in the defense of humanity" from the unholy war for the
imperialist nation-state.140
Since the ultimate goal of Roman imperialism is not so much the total annihilation of
everything German than rather the occupation and conquest of German territory,
foundation of a new Roman province and incorporation into the Augustan Empire, some
Roman apologists justify Roman imperialism because it allegedly promoted
modernization.141 They make counterfactual speculations on potential historical,
135
Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963), 49. Carl Schmitt, The
Concept of the Political (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 49.
136
Schmitt (1963, 33).
137
Wolf Kittler, Die Geburt des Partisanen aus dem Geist der Poesie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach,
1987) referring to Schmitt (1963,15).
138
Schmitt (1963, 92).
139
IV73, 1484, 585.
140
Ryan (1981,193).
141
Peter Michelsen, „,Wehe, mein Vaterland, Dir!' Heinrichs von Kleist ,Die Hermannsschlacht'" KleistJahrbuch (1987): 115-36. See also Kluge (1993), Schafer (1993), and Gratthof (1994).
58
political, and cultural achievements that Roman rule could have brought to the German
territories.
Arminius, ally and advisor of the Romans, whom
the Romans entrusted with command over the
German auxiliary forces, had fraudulently deceived
the general Varus. There is nothing solemn or
national about this traitor. Without this massacre,
the territory up to Minden would have become an
urban Roman province, a European model country.
The region had a second European opportunity not
before Bonaparte founded Westphalia and the
Arminius, Verbiindeter und Berater der Romer, dem
der Befehl iiber die germanischen Hilfstruppen
anvertraut war, hatte den Feldherrn Varus
betrugerisch getauscht. Nichts Feierliches oder
Nationales ist an diesem Verrater zu finden. Ohne
dieses Massaker ware die Landschaft bis Minden
urban romische Provinz geworden, ein europaisches
Musterland. Erst die Grundung Westfalens und des
Rheinbundes durch Bonaparte brachte eine zweite
Confederation of Rhine States.
europaische Chance fur das Gebiet.142
However, it is more than just questionable whether and to what extent the Roman
Empire would have enforced the rule of civil law in Germania Superior. Above all, the
question arises as to whether Augustus would not have rather enslaved the German
people than granted equal rights to them. Admittedly, the Roman commander-in-chief
persists in punishing the war criminals who desecrated a holy oak-tree under protection
of the highest German god Wotan. Ostensibly paying deference to local religious
customs, the colonialist in the history play indeed confiscate the weapons that the
Germans store in their religious sites. In effect, they act as protectors of law and order in
order to subjugate the Germans more easily. Although some interpreters praise the
Roman Empire for waging a limited war and establishing military jurisdiction, the
imperialist conquest and occupation of Germany nevertheless remains illegitimate and
criminal following the classical discourse of universal morality.
At this point, Kleist exposes the imperialist methods of conquest under the cloak of
legitimacy and legality. On the one hand, Kleist underscores and exaggerates the
historical and political comparability between the past Roman Emperor Augustus and the
142
Alexander Kluge, Die Lticke, die der Teufel lafit, Im Umfelddes neuen Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), 551, my translation, T.Z. The English edition, Alexander Kluge, The Devil's
Blind Spot, Talesfromthe New Century (New York: New Directions, 2004), does not contain this passage.
59
present French Emperor Napoleon. However, there are important differences between
the ancient Roman and the modern French Empire. The allegorical equalization proves
to be misleading and the propagandistically motivated hyperbole becomes evident. Kleist
exaggerates in allegorically representing modern Napoleonic occupation as ancient
Roman enslavement. In reality, Napoleonic occupation forced the underdeveloped
German states to modernize following the French example. As accelerated
modernization became a military, political, and economical exigency, German national
unification was a belated side effect of Napoleonic occupation.
As for the Roman apologists, they obviously argue in allegorical reference to the
modern French Empire and not in literal reference to the ancient Roman Empire. While
the Roman Empire most likely would not have granted equal civil rights to German
slaves, the French Empire unified the German nation against Napoleon even though
national unification did not necessarily promote liberty and equality, democracy and the
rule of law. Similarly, the brutally implemented Pax Romano did not so much promote
social and political reform than establish a totalitarian military order. On the other hand,
Kleist's apologists are certainly right in urging us not to condemn the history play along
with its political propaganda.143 However, in an attempt at justifying the German
liberation war politically, ethically, and morally despite its totalitarian propaganda by
reducing it to its anti-imperialist message and overstating its legitimacy, they either
ignore or lose out of sight Hermann's total war.
Ryan (1981,188). Wittkowski (1995, 380).
60
For instance, some argue, "that imperialism is the greatest evil, because it involves
enslavement, and thatfreedomis the greatest good."144 Along similar lines, others
emphasize that Roman imperialism commits "the crime of crimes", that is, "disrespect for
the liberty of others" {Nichtachtungfremder Freiheif).145 More importantly, for them
"imperialist oppression" is the "greater wrong" in comparison to the allegedly politically
necessary violation of the natural, civil, or human right to life that defenseless prisoners
of war and high traitors exercise according to the universal morality and the cosmopolitan
rule of law.146 Using pseudo-dialectical rhetoric to argue for the legitimacy of Hermann's
war, they maintain that such inhumane acts are justified in defense of humanity or that
one must suspend ethics in order to exercise it.147 However, not only the Romans violate
universal moral laws and human rights out of "disrespect for the liberty of others" by
"forcing their will on other human beings" (anderen Menschen seinen Willen
aufzwingen).Ui That is precisely what Hermann is doing vis-a-vis friends and foes.
Likewise, one should not follow interpretations according to which Hermann's
ideology of absolute enmity and total war is an instinctive reaction of nature against the
injustice inherent to the Roman culture of oppression.149 All the more so, since Hermann
himself uses manipulation, trickery, deception, and intrigue belonging to the culture of
oppression in order to incite the general uprising of the German people against the
Roman army. In fact, Hermann carefully stage-manages it as an uprising of nature
against repression. While justifying (German) bestiality in defense of humanity as a
144
Ruth Kriiger Angress, "Kleist's Treatment of Imperialism: Die Hermannsschlacht and Die Verlobung in
St. Domingo," Monatshefte fur deutschen Unterricht, deutsche Sprache undLiteratur 69 (1977), 17-33,
here 21.
145
Wittkowksi (1995,371).
146
Angress (1977,28).
,47
Wittkowski (1995, 377).
148
Wittkowski (1995, 369).
149
Ryan (1981,205).
61
patriotic revolution that allegedly breaks the (Roman) tyranny of rational law, antiimperialist apologists ignore that it itself results from the (German) tyranny of rational
law.150 Therefore, the paradox of sovereignty is that German liberation and state
foundation, according to Hermann "the work of liberty" (das Werk der Freiheit),151
perpetuate unfreedom.
Such and similar uncritically affirmative arguments beg the question as to whether
certain means to the end are morally justifiable and whether certain sovereign measures
are necessary to reach the goal. Even if Roman imperialism were the greater crime in
comparison to German anti-imperialism, that still does not justify dishonorable
stratagems and war crimes such as breaches of surrender and assassinations. The
execution of defenseless prisoners of war and high traitors is certainly not necessary for
the success of the liberation war. It exemplifies absolute enmity and total war. It
certainly does not follow an allegedly "inescapable logic of the situation"
(unausweichliche Logik der Situation)152 but Hermann's general rule of sovereign
contempt and hatred for the absolute enemy.
The anti-imperialist apologists of Kleist's propaganda history play recode former
nationalistic, imperialistic, and fascistic readings of the propaganda history play in terms
of postcolonial theory. Some use the political ideology of anti-imperialism of the time
when the Red Army Fraction shook up West Germany with its leftist anti-state
""Ryan (1981,208).
V/12, 2177.
Gesa von Essen, Hermannsschlachten, Germanen- und Romerbilder in der Literatur des 18. und 19.
Jahrhunderts (Gottingen: Wallstein, 1998). Gesa von Essen, „R6mer und Germanen im Spiel der Masken"
Kleist-Jahrbuch (1999): 41-52, here 51, referring to Ernest Gellner, Natiuons and Nationalism (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1983), 142-51.
151
62
terrorism.
Others later used the rhetoric of critical theory and negative dialectics to the
same effect.154 Yet others used and abused postcolonial theory warped by the new
German self-confidence in the political atmosphere of the Berliner Republic. 55 Thus, all
of them paradoxically end up subscribing to what they meant to condemn.
Roman imperialism and German anti-imperialist and imperialist revanchism stand in
conflict with each other, while they base themselves on similar principles and pursue
similar goals. Each perform acts of absolute sovereignty in conflict with universal
morality. While Roman imperialism violates the principle of non-intervention, infringes
on the right of nature to national liberty, independence and self-determination, and
commits war crimes against civilians, German revanchism uses dishonorable stratagems,
breaks the right to humane treatment of the enemy, and commits war crimes against the
Roman soldiers. There simply is no universal moral justification for either Roman
occupation or German liberation, or even if there was, the means to the respective end are
not morally justifiable. Although neither Roman occupation nor German revanchism is
justifiable in any way except for a totalitarian one, both the Roman and the German
apologists are nevertheless wrong each in their own way. On the one hand, the Roman
apologists who praise the Roman Empire for waging only a limited war, implanting
military jurisdiction, and punishing Roman war crimes against the German civilian
population according to martial law fail to give a satisfying political, ethical, or moral
justification for the Roman occupation of Germany and related war crimes. Even if the
imperialist modernization of Germany were politically, ethically, or morally justifiable,
153
Angress (1977). Lothar Bornscheuer: „Heinrich von Kleists ,vaterlandische' Dichtung, mit der kein
,Staat' zu machen ist," in: Helmut Scheuer (Hrsg.), Dichter und ihre Nation (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp 1993), 216-36.
154
Ryan (1981) and Wittkowski (1995).
155
Essen (1998 and 1999).
63
the ancient Roman or modern French war of conquest and its related war crimes are
certainly not. On the other hand, the German apologists who defend the anti-imperialist
liberation war fail to give a satisfying political, ethical, or moral justification for the
execution of disloyal allies, defenseless prisoners of war, and high traitors. Even if the
anti-imperialist war of liberation were politically, ethically, or morally justifiable, the
bestial acts of revenge on the absolute enemy are certainly not. Ultimately, the
discussion about the legitimacy and justification results in an aporia. Both antiimperialist and imperialist apologia is equally objectionable, even though for different
reasons. As long as the underlying paradox of sovereignty remains unobserved, the
discussion among literary critics over the political, ethical, and moral legitimacy of
imperialism and anti-imperialism may continue endlessly. Once we recognize the
underlying paradox of sovereignty, we may suspend judgment and grasp the complexity
of the issues raised by Kleist's history play.
Weimar classicism and German idealism subscribe to the aesthetic ideology that
assigns to art, literature, and theater the exclusive social function of aesthetically
reconciling the cognitive discourse of truth, the aesthetic discourse of beauty, and the
moral and practical discourse of the good, paradoxically, within the medium of aesthetic
representation. In contrast, Kleist rejects such aesthetic and political Utopias of harmony
and reconciliation. The historical and political discourse uncoupled from the legal and
moral discourse gives Kleist leeway to invent new and radical forms in the aesthetic
medium. Of course, we must take his aesthetic radicalism with a grain of salt owing to
the inherent political extremism. Assuming not only that art, literature, and theater are
autonomous but also that the aesthetic discourse is sovereign over historical and political
64
reality as well as universal morality, the aestheticist fascination with the beauty of radical
evil would not so much be politically, ethically, or morally problematic in the aesthetic
sphere.156 After all, art is just art; it presents fictive reality and not real reality.157 While
the political, ethical, and moral problem becomes pressing in reality, we may dissect it in
the aesthetic sphere without the pressures of experience and decision-making in real life.
Kleist employs aesthetic techniques characteristic for an extremely simple if not
oversimplified classical illusionist theater of identification and empathy with the central
heroic figure of absolute sovereignty. He gives the audience in the theater an advance in
knowledge over the Romans in the play and turns his ideal audience into accomplices
privy to Hermann's secret plan. By glorifying Hermann's equally nonchalant and
murderous showmanship and demonstrating the superiority of the German over the
Romans, Kleist aims at two things. First, he intends to evoke admiration and respect for
the national hero in his ideal audience. Secondly, he intends to encourage the German
people to submit to and obey their sovereign who will assume Hermann's role and
liberate them from foreign rule in reality.
Without making a case for the aestheticist fascination with the beauty of radical
evil,
one could argue that an aesthetically radical and politically extremist play as the
Hermannsschlacht deserves attention still today. From a historical distance and from a
differing political viewpoint, a critical audience will easily break out of the narrow
horizon to which Kleist confines his ideal audience, arrive at various allegorical readings
156
Bemd Hamacher, ,„Auf Recht und Sitte halten?' Kreativitat und Moralitat bei Heinrich von Kleist,"
Kleist-Jahrbuch (2003): 63-78.
157
Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995). Niklas Luhmann,
Art as a Social System (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
158
Karl-Heinz Bohrer, Imaginationen des Bosen, Zur Begriindung einer asthetischen Kategorie (Hamburg:
Hanser, 2004) does not mention Kleist's Hermannsschlacht. With an emphasis on the autonomy if not
even sovereignty of art over reality, Bohrer defends an aesthetic category of evil independent of the
philosophical and judicial discourse on universal morality.
65
in reference to different historical situations and political constellations in the past and
present. We may leave details up to them here but they would certainly not subscribe to
the affirmative reading of the play that Kleist suggests to his ideal audience; it may easily
see through Kleist's aesthetic ideology as a political ideology of domination criticized in
different ways by Grabbe and Btichner in the nineteenth, Brecht and Mtiller in the
twentieth century. Although the propagandist history play as political stillbirth suffers
from historical belatedness, it ruthlessly tells us the ugly truth about absolute enmity and
total warfare. The equally playful as bestial intrigue over absolute sovereignty vividly
illustrates the totalitarian methods of imperialism and anti-imperialism, terrorism and
anti-terrorism, statism and anti-statism used by both the self-proclaimed freedom fighters
and the autocratic forces of modernization in the struggle for liberty and security, identity
and globalization in the modern age from the French Revolution up until today.
66
Chapter Two: "Ich will das heilige Gesetz des Kriegs (...) durch einen freien Tod
verherrlichen"159 or Romantic Subjectivity and Absolute Sovereignty
in Heinrich von Kleist's Prinz Friederich von Homburg (1811)
Kleist persisted in dramatizing anti-Napoleonic propaganda, although he neither
published nor staged his first patriotic play during his lifetime and his political writings of
the year 1809 did not meet with much response. His final work and masterpiece, the
second patriotic play Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (1811), turns to early modern
Prussian history, more precisely the victory of Prussia over Sweden in the Battle of
Fehrbellin in 1675. Conventional historiography describes this battle as the turning point
after which Prussia ascended to a Central European superpower.160
In the play, Frederick Elector of Prussia-Brandenburg and his entourage discover the
exhausted cavalry chief, Prince Frederick of Homburg, somnambulating through the
garden behind the castle. "Envisioning posterity, he's busy | entwining his own splendid
wreath of glory" (Beschdftiget, | Sich trdumend, seiner eigenen Nachwelt gleich, \ Den
prdchtigen Kranz des Ruhms zu winden)}61 While his gesture of absolute sovereignty
emulates Napoleon's self-coronation, he is absurdly dreaming of glory, heroism, and
immortality from the standpoint of the afterworld, in which he would have to be dead.
The sovereign decides to play a trick on his subject. The Elector stages the Prince's
unconscious wish fulfillment dream as a play in the play: he ties his necklace, the insignia
of absolute sovereignty, around the Prince's laurel wreath and hands it over to Princess
159
"I want to glorify the sacred law | of war (...) | by dying freely." (V/7, 1750-2, Scheuer 1963,108). All
quotationsfromthe German original detailing act, scene, verse and page number following Heinrich von
Kleist, Sdmtliche Werke undBriefe, Zweibdndige Ausgabe in einem Band, Erster Band(Miinchen: Carl
Hanser, 2001), 629ff. Prince Frederick of Homburg, trans. L.R. Scheuer (Great Neck: Barron, 1963) and
Prince Frederick of Homburg, trans. D. S. and F. G. Peters (New York: New Directions, 1978).
160
Leopold von Ranke, PreuSische Geschichte (Essen: Volmer, 1996). Wolfgang Neugebauer, Die
Geschichte Preufiens, Von den Anfangen bis 1947 (Miinchen: Piper, 2006).
161
1/1,26ff., Scheuer (1963,2).
67
Natalie, his orphaned niece and adoptive daughter. Thereupon, the Prince confesses love
to her and reaches for his supposed bride, but only grasps her glove. After awaking, he is
confused about the love token and wonders to whom it may belong. Distracted by the
mysterious glove and the presence of the Princess, he misses important instructions
before battle and launches a self-authorized attack in battle. The sovereign has the
subject arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for insubordination after battle
despite victory. The Prince does not recognize the gravity of the situation until he learns
that the Elector signed the death penalty and prepared his grave. In the controversial
'fear-of-death-scene' (HI/5), the Prince begs the Electress and the Princess for pardon.
The Elector is confused when he learns about this reaction. The sovereign self-ironically
declares that he will consider the subject's opinion, but attaches an important condition to
amnesty: the Prince should ask for pardon, if and only if he believes that the death
sentence was unjust. In the meantime, the Princess orders the army to march up at the
castle in support of the mercy petition for the Prince. The Elector conditions amnesty on
the army's acceptance of the Prince's leadership. As general opinion sides with the
Prince, the state and army overcome the internal conflict and return to combat.
This chapter analyzes the conflict between romantic subjectivity and absolute
sovereignty resulting from self-authorized subjective acts of insubordination that usurp
absolute sovereignty. After reconstructing a chiasmic exchange of positions between
romantic subjectivity and absolute sovereignty during the peripety of the play, it analyzes
the apotheosis of romantic subjectivity and the uncritical affirmation of the principle of
subjective self-discipline in the grand finale of the play as the condition of possibility for
absolute sovereignty. Finally, it argues that a critical audience, contrary to the subjective
68
experience of the Prince, recognizes the phantasm of absolute sovereignty as an aesthetic
illusion of romantic subjectivity.
Kleist's second patriotic play combines the classical dramatic form of a
symmetrically arranged five-act play in blank verse
with romantic motives, for
instance, the conflict between love and duty or the plot of crime and clemency.163 It
distinguishes itselffromthe crude aesthetics of bestiality in the first patriotic play
through its higher aesthetic complexity. However, both poetic history plays ultimately
convey the same message. While the first totalizes the historical and political discourse
of hatred, the second revolves around conflicts between the romantic discourse of love
and the juridical and philosophical discourse of law and justice.164 The dramatic plot
Jochen Schmidt, Heinrich von Kleist, Studien zu seiner poetischen Verfahrensweise (Tubingen:
Niemeyer, 1974), 137-9. Bernd Leistner, „Dissonante Utopie: zu Heinrich von Kleists Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg," in: Walter Dietze/Peter Goldammer (Hrsg.), Impulse: Aufsdtze, Quellen, Berichte zur deutschen
Klassik und Romantik (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1979), 259-317.
163
Kleist uses the motives of the Homburg legendfromhistorical source texts: Friedrich II. von Preufien,
Memoirs pour servir a I'histoire de la Maison de Brandenbourg (1751) and Karl Heinrich Krause, Mein
Vaterland unter den hohenzollernschen Regenten (Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1803).
164
The distinction between these two discourses follows Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended,
Lectures at the College de France 1975-1976 (New York: Picador, 2003). Kleist's propaganda plays
charge the Prussian king with the liberation of the fatherlandfromforeign rule. The sovereign heads the
popular uprising in Hermannsschlacht and tolerates limited self-authorized acts of the military elite in
Homburg. In both cases, the sovereign wages total war against the absolute enemy aiming at the
occupation, conquest, and total annihilation. Neither presents us with legitimate national wars of liberation
but rather illegitimate imperialist wars of conquest. In his seminal work Die Geburt des Partisanen aus
dem Geiste der Poesie, Heinrich von Kleist und die Strategic der Befreiungskriege (Freiburg im Breisgau:
Rombach, 1987), Wolf Kittler passes over an important difference between Kleist and the liberal aristocrats
Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Stein. The Konigsberg triumvirate planned comprehensive military and some
social reforms to incite a popular uprising by orderfromabove based on Clausewitz's theory of guerilla
warfare in order to liberate the German territoriesfromNapoleonic occupation. Kleist's ultimate goal is
revanchism. Although Kittler (1987,266f.) recognizes that Kleist rallies for „total war" and „merciless war
of extermination" (erbarmungsloser Vernichtungskrieg) instead of „diplomacy and limited warfare"
(Diplomatic und gehegter Krieg), he qualifies it as ..republican" (republikanisch) and not totalitarian in
,„Die Revolution der Revolution oder Was gilt es in dem Kriege, den Kleists Prinz von Homburg kampft,"
in: Gerhard Neumann (Hrsg.), Heinrich von Kleist, Kriegsfall, Rechtsfall, Silndenfall (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Rombach, 1994), 61-83, 72. Wolfgang Wittkowski obstinately argues that Kleist's patriotic
plays present defensive warfare (Verteidigungskrieg) in „Recht, Unrecht, Ironie in Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg und MichaelKohlhaas," in: Peter Ensberg/Hans-Jochen Marquardt (Hrsg.), Politik —
Offentlichkeit - Moral, Kleist und die Folgen (Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag, 2002) and „Duelle, Krieg
und Streitkultur. Uber den Umgang mit Menschen, Texten, Themen oder die Kunst, den Wald vor BSumen
nicht zu sehen," Heilbronner Kleist-Bldtter 5 (1998), 14-25. For a discussion, see Bernd Hamacher, ,„Darf
69
includes many ambiguities and unfolds the paradox of absolute sovereignty, as far as the
intersubjective division of absolute sovereignty between the romantic subjects generates a
military, political, and legal conflict.
Because of the somnambulist episode, the Elector mistrusts the weakly performing
Prince who won only one out of three battles. He gives special advice to him by
prescribing "composure" (Ruhe) and "proper self-control" (regier dich woht),165 literally
self-governance or subjective self-discipline, that is, the quasi-sovereign self-subjection
of the romantic subject to the absolute sovereign for our purposes. He also appoints
Colonel Kottwitz senior advisor and chaperon to the Prince and orders the Prince to
intervene into the battle not before an adjutant appears in person before him to deliver an
explicit order to do so. At this time, the Prussians should already have dissolved the
Swedes according to plan. Therefore, the Elector selects precisely the Prince to strike the
devastating blow against the enemy and designates him as future victor. The Prince may
appear to be "the most wretched general" (der erbdrmlichste General),166 as Hegel noted.
For instance, the somnambulist arrives late on the battlefield. Kottwitz lines up the
cavalry instead of him. During the battle, he is absent-minded and disoriented. While his
comrades-in-arms give teichoscopic reports about the course of the battle, he remains
silent for the most part and articulates confusion about the Prussian line-up and
incomprehension of the combat operations. He intervenes into the battle suddenly as the
cheer of triumph is already erupting; it seems that he intervenes more out of fear that he
might miss the chance to realize his dreams than better insight into the situation. He
ichs mir deuten, wie es mir gefallt?' 25 Jahre Homburg-Forschung zwischen Rehistorisierung und
Dekonstrviktion" Heilbronner Kleist-Blatter 6 (1999), 9-67,36-8 and 51/2.
165
1/5, 348-52, Scheuer (1963,1).
166
G.F.W. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik II, in: Werke, Bd. 14 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1997),
202.
70
rejects the improperly received sovereign order of the law and replaces it with the
subjective "order of the heart" (Order des Herzen).
Arbitrarily instituting a
personalized chain of command, he issues a new parole. He paradoxically expects
subordinate officers to obey his orders, while he refuses to obey sovereign orders from
his superior.
Like Hermann, the Elector does not wage a limited war aiming at a partial victory as
the basis for peace negotiations but rather a total war aiming at total victory. Prussia
could have won total victory over Sweden, if the Prince had abided by the law. On the
one hand, afflicted with a conceited self-perception as glorious hero, he in fact endangers
state and army, foils the war plan, and forfeits total victory. His self-authorized attack
causes many unnecessary casualties. "Here he met deadly rain of iron, his horsemen |
buckled and flattened like a crop of wheat." (Hier schlug so morderischer Eisenregen \
Entgegen ihm, dass seine Reuterschar, \ Wie eine Saat, sich knickend niederlegte).
The shot that supposedly killed the Elector but actually killed the equerry Froben came
from the Swedish entrenchment into which he had rushed the cavalry prematurely.
Therefore, he bears a share of responsibility for the loss.
On the other hand, he makes a major contribution to the limited victory.
Overwhelmed by pain and anger over the loss of his father figure and inspired by the
desire to take revenge on the enemy, he hits out like a "bear" (Bar),169 similar to
Thusnelda in Hermannsschlacht. Psychoneurotic misperceptions increase belligerence.
Had the Prince intervened timely, he could have not only spared the lives of many
soldiers but also gained total victory. Had he not fought ardently, Prussia would not have
167
II/2,474f., Scheuer (1963,34).
II/5, 525ff., Scheuer (1963, 38), slightly altered, T.Z.
169
II/5, 550ff., Scheuer (1963, 39).
168
71
defeated Sweden or might have suffered defeat.
Such and similar subjective acts are
radically contingent, they are subject to the heterogeneity of ends: intention and result are
incommensurable.171
Like Hermann in Die Hermannsschlacht (see Chapter One), the Elector exercises
absolute sovereignty by issuing a single declarative act that is at once constative and
performative. The despotic adjudication simultaneously establishes the unshakable
matter of fact that the accused cavalry chief committed a self-authorized act of caprice,
that the criminal is therefore guilty of insubordination, which is a crime against majesty,
and it declares the death penalty against the convict prior to the official trial. In full
possession of absolute power, the sovereign disposes over the life and death of the
subject.172 As a legalist despot, the Elector transforms the Prussian military court into a
mechanical legal instrument of executing his sovereign will.173 The Elector does not
condemn the victory as much as its unlawfulness. Yet he paradoxically sentences the
insubordinate cavalry chief to death and bestows the honorary title of "victor in the Battle
Siegfried Streller, „Verantwortung und Verantwortlichkeit in Kleist ,Prinz Friedrich von Homburg,'"
Kleist-Jahrbuch (1991): 53-9, 58. See also Karl Eibl, „Lehrstiicke vom Einverstandnis, Kleists 'Prinz
Friedrich von Homburg' und Brechts 'Die MaBnahme,'" Jahrbuch desfreien deutschen Hochstifts (1995):
238-69,253 in reference to Horn (1992, 137).
171
Loosely based on Wilhelm Busch, Erstens kommt es anders, zweitens als man denkt. G.F.W. Hegel,
Vorlesungenfiberdie Philosophic der Geschichte, in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), Band 12,
42f. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp, 1979). Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past, On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2004).
172
II/9, 721f. Kleist's poetic invention of the draconic adjudication negotiates a loophole in the law around
1675. See Renate Just, Recht und Gnade in Heinrich von Kleists Schauspiel Prinz Friedrich von Homburg
(Gottingen: Wallstein, 1993), 52.
173
Kleist's history play anachronistically reflects the historical reality the ancient Roman tyrannies and the
contemporary Kingdom of Prussia of the late eighteenth and the Napoleonic Empire of the early nineteenth
century as illegitimate yet self-legalizing rule of the law in the poetic representation of the Electorate of
Brandenburg-Prussia of the seventeenth century. The adjudication follows the scheme of political murder
during the French Revolution. Kleist obviously uses the title figure as a mouthpiece by condemning the
"rigor of antiquity" (wie die Antike starr) (11/10, 787, Scheuer 1963, 54) in the Elector or ranking him
amongst "the ancient Roman tyrants" {altromische Tyrannenreihe) (III/l, 905, Peters 1978, 54); see Dirk
Gratthoff, „Heinrich von Kleist und Napoleon Bonaparte, der Furor Teutonicus und die feme Revolution,"
in: Gerhard Neumann (Hrsg.), Heinrich von Kleist, Kriegsfall - Rechtsfall - Siindenfall (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Rombach, 1994), 31-54.
72
of Fehrbellin" (Sieger in der Schlacht von Fehrbellin)11A upon the criminal. Just as the
victor does not deserve the incrimination, the criminal does not deserve the honorary title.
In addition, the limited victory is not only "brilliant" (gldnzend)175 but also
"unbidden" (unberufen),176 since it forces Prussia to interrupt the war, accept armistice,
and commence peace negotiations with Sweden. The Swedish king stipulates ratification
of the peace treaty on the Elector's agreement to wed Princess Natalie to him. Since the
sovereign does not seem to have a biological son, the succession to the throne, that is, the
dynastic existence of the Prussian Electorate is at issue. Under the false impression that
the Elector died in battle, the Prince is quick to follow the subjective order of the heart for
a second time. He spontaneously proposes to the Princess in an endeavor to promote his
social standing and attain the right to succeed to the throne. The romantic subject intends
to assume the role of the absolute sovereign by executing the Elector's political
1 77
testament.
"I'll be the executor of that last will." (. ..ich will der \ Vollstrecker solchen
1 78
letzten Willens sein.)
Oscillating between the ridiculous and the sublime, he fancies
himself surpassing the deified ancient Roman Emperor Caesar: "O Caesar Divus, | the
ladder now I lay against your star!" (O Cdsar Divus! \ Die Leiter setz ich an, an deinen
Stern!)119
Hohenzollern's soul-searching and talking cure supposedly exposing a second crime
against majesty, actually evokes a transference neurosis in the Prince vis-a-vis the
Elector. The subject is ironically as presumptuous as to erroneously assume that his
174
V/l 1, 1855, my translation, T.Z.
II/9, 729, Scheuer (1963, 50).
176
IV/1,1134, Scheuer (1963, 73).
177
Kittler(1994,67).
178
II/6, 586, Scheuer (1963,41).
179
II/8, 713f., Scheuer (1963,48).
175
73
secret, imaginary, yet one-sided engagement to the Princess obstructs the peace
negotiations. In another narcissistic gesture, the Prince breaks off the anyhow immaterial
engagement to the Princess and urges the Elector not to agree to the political marriage.
Neither total victory nor eternal peace is possible due to the Prince's usurpation of
absolute sovereignty, conceited desires, and imperious actions.
The Paradox of Romantic Subjectivity and Absolute Sovereignty
The Elector, arigorousKantian moralist and republican legalist, initially
superimposes the juridical and philosophical discourse of law and justice on all other
discourses. He subordinates romantic subjectivity as well as radical contingency, luck or
fortune (Gliick)m and chance {Zufalt)m to the rule (Reget), statute (Statut), law (Gesetz),
code of war (Kriegsgesetze), and code of law (Gesetzesbuch). He rej ects acts of
caprice (Willkur) and self-authorization (Eigenmacht),184 disobedience (Ungehorsam)
and insubordination (Befehlsverweigerung). Instead, he requires "obedience to the law"
(Gesetz Gehorsam) and fulfillment of duty (Pflicht) from subjects especially and
particularly at times of war. He constantly strives to embody the moral and political ideal
of the just ruler who respects both the code of law and the autonomy of his subjects. He
upholds the legal fiction that he as the absolute sovereign is paradoxically subject to the
laws in order to legitimize his rule.186 He acts neither as a tyrant dominated by private
interests and personal feeling nor as a despot blindly abiding by the laws. If he rashly
180
V/5,1564, Scheuer (1963, 100).
V/5,1566, Scheuer (1963, 100).
182
11/10,781, Scheuer (1963, 54).
183
V/5,1603, Scheuer (1963,101).
184
V/2,1418, my translation, T.Z.
185
II/9, 734, Scheuer (1963, 50).
186
Peter Horn, ,„.. .sich traumend, seiner eigenen Nachwelt gleich,' Verhinderte Tragik im Traum des
Prinzen von Homburg von seinem postumen Ruhm," Kleist-Jahrbuch (1992): 126-39,129.
181
74
suppressed the lawful judgment of the military court and perverted the course of justice,
he would limit absolute sovereignty and might lose authority. Temporary military,
political, and legal disorder, perhaps even anarchy, may support the strategy and tactics
of total warfare, as Hermannsschlacht demonstrates. However, if unlawful acts of
subjects were the general rule and not the sovereign exception, romantic subjectivity
would not only endanger state sovereignty but also the existence of the state. Since he
legitimizes monarchic rule over the state through the republican rule of law, he is
certainly justified in raising the normative claim that he cannot and must not tolerate
unlawful acts that undermine the state militarily, politically, and legally, even if they
contribute to or result in military victory. The subjective usurpation or sovereign
suspension of internal sovereignty could weaken external sovereignty to such an extent
that the state collapses under the attack of the enemy. Therefore, the Elector initially
refuses to annul the death penalty.
On the other hand, the romantic subjects, Prince of Homburg, Princess Natalie, and
Colonel Kottwitz leading the way, superimpose the discourse of love on both the
historical and political discourse of power and the juridical and philosophical discourse of
truth, law, and justice. They give priority to the subjective "order of the heart" {Order
des Herzen)ni over the sovereign order of the law and subordinate legality and justice to
feelings (Gefuhle) and sentiments (Empfindungeri) such as romantic love and national
patriotism.
Despite the crime against majesty, subsequent arrest, imprisonment, and conviction of
the Prince, they expect the Elector to temper justice with mercy, to abstain from seeking
the death penalty, and to perform the sovereign act of grace. They believe that affection
187
II/2,474f., my translation, T.Z.
75
between the fatherly sovereign (Landesvater) and his son-like subject overrides lawful
judgments of the military court, notwithstanding the social distinction, political power
divide, and legal disparity between sovereign and subject, plaintiff and defendant,
commander-in-chief and cavalry chief.
Thus, the Prince concedes that the Elector must discharge of his duty by adjudicating
him following the sovereign order of the law. Yet he expects him to follow the
subjective order of his heart by pardoning a lawbreaker. "The Elector acted as his duty
bade him, | and now he'll listen to his heart as well." {Der Kurfurst hat getan, was
Pflicht erheischte, | Und nun wird er dem Herzen auch gehorchen.)m
HOMBURG
The judges' sentence had to be for death;
So says the law that guides their judgment.
Yet before he'd have such sentence executed,
Before he'd yield this heart, which loves him truly,
By sign of handkerchief, to a rifle shot,
He'd rather open his own breast, you see,
And drip his blood himself into dust.
HOMBURG
Das Kriegsgericht musste auf Tod erkennen;
So lautet das Gesetz, nach dem es richtet.
Doch eh er soldi ein Urteil lafit vollstrecken,
Eh er dies Herz hier, das getreu ihn liebt,
Aufeines Tuches Wink, der Kugel preisgibt,
Eh, sieh, eh eroffnet er die eigne Brust sich,
Und spriitzt sein selbst tropfenweis in Staub.m
The subject fancies that the sovereign will confront the "heartless judges" (herzlosen
Richter)190 "like a god" (als ein Gott) and perform the sovereign act of grace through "a
(serene) ruler's verdict" (einem heiteren Herrscherspruch).
Blinded by love for the Prince yet resonating with his narcissistic megalomania,192 the
Princess supports the speculative idea that the romantic subject as a moral and religious
martyr has the aesthetic, moral, and religious power to usurp absolute sovereignty and to
188
III/l, 820f., Scheuer (1963, 57).
III/l, 870ff., Scheuer (1963, 59).
190
III/l, 853, Scheuer (1963, 58).
191
III/l, 855f., Scheuer (1963, 58).
192
Contrary to Hegel who had still vaguely spoken of "dark forces" {dunkle Mdchte), Vorlesungen iiber die
Asthetikll, in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1999), 202, dominating romantic subjectivity like
external forces, my psychoanalytically inspired interpretation singles out a passion defining the individual
character of the Prince, namely, narcissism, megalomania, and the unquenchable thirst for glory, heroism,
and immortality. It simultaneously increases love for oneself and hatred for the other.
189
76
rise into the sphere of transcendence. Precisely by serving an unjust death penalty, he
may morally triumph over death even if he physically succumbs to it. Moreover, if the
Elector pardoned him, he would be resurrected from the dead, as it were, in possession of
the immortal body in line with the religious aesthetics and philosophy of history of
Christian eschatology. "A victor during life a thousand times | can be victorious also in
death." (Undder im Leben tausendmal gesiegt, \ Er wirdauch noch im Todzu siegen
wissenf)
From the Princess' philosophical and historical, aesthetic and eschatological point of
view, the despotic execution of the death sentence would not only be "sublime"
(erhaben) in aesthetic terms but also "inhuman" (unmenschlich)194 in terms of the
romantic discourse of love. She disabuses the Elector: "To crown him first as a victor,
then behead him | is not what history calls on you to do." (Erst, weil er siegt, ihn
krdnzen, dann enthaupten, \ Dasfordert die Geschichte nicht von dir.)195 Passing an
aesthetic judgment, the Princess holds the Elector responsible for insulting the Prince's
narcissistic megalomania. "Oh, what a hero's heart you've broken!" (Ach, welch ein
Heldenherz hast dugeknickt!)196 The aesthetic judgment becomes clearer in the
following statement: "a lamentable and unpleasant sight. | Nobody praised by history as
its hero | could fall into such misery I had thought." (Ein unerfreulich,
jammernswiirdiger Anblick! \ Zu solchem Elend, glaubt ich, sdnke keiner, | Den die
Geschichte als ihren Heldenpreist.)
III/5,1073f., Scheuer (1963, 70).
IV/1,1109f., Peters (1978, 60).
IV/1,1107/8, Scheuer (1963,72).
IV/1, 1155, Scheuer (1963, 74).
IV/1,1166-8, Scheuer (1963,75).
77
The Princess paints a romantic Utopia in which absolute sovereignty of the state, on
the one hand, and the aesthetic beauty and moral autonomy of the romantic subject, on
the other hand, reflect each other. She demands liberty, independence, and sovereignty
for Prussia just as for the Prince. Amnesty, a sovereign act that is paradoxically against
and under the law at the same time, would not only solve the personal and political
conflict between romantic subjectivity and absolute sovereignty but also provide the state
10S
with romantic love and aesthetic beauty as a new political self-legitimatization.
The
sovereign could institute "the most beautiful order" (die schonste Ordnung)199 by
aesthetically reconciling absolute sovereignty and romantic subjectivity, "the laws of
war" (Kriegsgesetz) and "tenderhearted sentiments" (liebliche Geftihle).200
However, this sentimental mercy petition contains a crucial self-contradiction. While
the Princess makes a gesture of subjecting herself to the sovereign by kneeling down at
some distance before him, her performative speech act of pleading for the Prince's life
represents an encroachment onto the Elector's sovereign rights. She paradoxically
confesses love for the Prince and simultaneously renounces all rights to him. "I merely
want him in existence, uncle, | apart, free, independent, on his own | just like aflowerin
which I take delight." (Ich will nur, dafi er da sei, lieber Onkel, \ Fur sich, selbstdndig,
frei und unabhdngig, \ wie eine Blume, die mir wohlgefdllt.) Here she makes an
aesthetic judgment according to Kant's third critique of judgment. She expresses her
198
Adam Miiller, Die Elemente der Staatskunst (Berlin: Sander, 1809). Novalis, „Glaube und Liebe," in:
Werke in einem Band (Munchen: C. Hanser, 1984). Novalis, Philosophical Writings (Albany: SUNY
Press, 1997). On Adam Mtlller's influence on Kleist: Peter Foley, Heinrich von Kleist und Adam Miiller,
Untersuchung zur Aujhahme idealistischen Ideenguts durch Heinrich von Kleist (Frankfurt am Main/New
York: Peter Lang, 1990), Michael Emmrich, Heinrich von Kleist und Adam Miiller, Mythologisches
Denken (Frankfurt am Main/New York: Peter Lang, 1990), and Klaus Peter,,,Fur ein anderes PreuBen,
Romantik und Politik in Kleists Prinz Friedrich von Homburg," Kleist-Jahrbuch (1992): 95-125.
199
IV/1,1128, my translation, T.Z.
200
IV/1,1129f., Scheuer (1963, 73).
201
IV/1, 1087ff., Scheuer (1963, 71/2).
78
"disinterested pleasure" (interessenloses Wohlgefallen) in the Prince whom she compares
to Kant's exemplary aesthetic object of "free" and "independent" beauty: the flower.
She believes that the Prince's self-authorized act of insubordination neither represents a
crime against majesty nor undermines state sovereignty; rather the subjective sentiment
of "loyalty" (Treue) and "ardor" (Eifer) in serving the sovereign, seduced the Prince "to
break the barrier of the law" (Die Schranken des Gesetzes zu durchbrechen.) The state
is endangered by neither the "gesture of mercy" (Regung der Gnade)204 nor the
"unbidden victory" (unberufner Sieg)205 but primarily the external enemy. She does not
only follow the subjective order of her heart, that is, her love for Prince, by signing the
mercy petition but she also usurps absolute sovereignty. Abusing power of command,
falsifying documents and signatures, and committing fraud, she orders the Prussian army
to march up at the Berlin court in support of the mercy petition. She is ready to save the
Prince out of love, if necessary, by brute force.
Pressured by the army, the head of state engages in a discussion with his officers.
Colonel Kottwitz argues that victory takes priority over legality. However, the victory
neither presents extenuating circumstances nor does it, as the Colonel argues, de jure
"excuse" (entschuldigf) the Prince who is de facto guilty of insubordination. As the
Prince's bosom friend, psychological counselor, and attorney at law,207 Hohenzollern
Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, in: Werke in zwolfBdnden (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1996),
Band X, 115ff. Dorothea von Mucke, „,Prinz Friedrich von Homburg. Ein Schauspiel.' oder Die Asthetik
der Verklarung," Kleist-Jahrbuch (2002): 70-93, recognizes the Kantian aesthetic judgment of independent
beauty without capturing its political meaning.
203
IV/1, 1 lOlff., Scheuer (1963, 72).
204
IV/1,1123, Peters (1978, 60).
205
V/5,1595, Scheuer (1963,101).
206
II/9, 731, Scheuer (1963, 50).
207
Hans-Jakob Wilhelm, „Der Magnetismus und die Metaphysik des Krieges: Kleists Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg," in: Gerhard Neumann (Hrsg.), Heinrich von Kleist, Kriegsfall, Rechtsfall, Sundefall (Freiburg
imBreisgau: Rombach 1994), 85-105,98.
79
goes even further than Kottwitz in exonerating the subject and charging the sovereign.
He argues that the crime against majesty occurred in extenuating circumstances. Had the
Elector not played a "trick" (Scherz)20* on the Prince in the opening scene, testing his
limits of usurping absolute sovereignty, he would have not committed the crime against
majesty. As a result, the sovereign bears a share of responsibility for the subjective act of
insubordination.209 However, this argument is also self-contradictory. The Elector is
paradoxically sovereign and not sovereign at the same time. He is sovereign as far as he
has command over his troops but he is not sovereign as far as his subjects are
autonomous if not even sovereign on the battlefield. In addition, Hohenzollern presented
the Elector with the somnambulating Prince and thus provoked the sovereign to play a
trick on the subject.
The sovereign and the subjects each take a limited point of view. From the
perspective of rigorous legalism in the vein of Roman and French republicanism with
despotic tendencies, the sovereign rejects the tactical autonomy of his romantic subjects
as a "sophistic principle of freedom" (spitzfundge Lehrbegriff der Freiheit).210 From the
perspective of national patriotism in the vein of German Romanticism with anarchical
tendencies, the subjects reject the absolute sovereignty of the monarch. The antagonism
between absolute sovereignty and romantic subjectivity leads to an aporia. On the one
hand, the absolute sovereign is right in holding before the romantic subjects that selfauthorized acts of caprice are not acceptable in a republican monarchy even at times of
war.
208
V/5, 1653, my translation, T.Z.
Maria M. Tatar, "Psychology and poetics, J.C. Reil and Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg," in: The
Germanic Review 48 (1973): 21-34.
210
V/5, 1619, Scheuer (1963,102).
209
80
ELECTOR
You fool, how can you hope for that to happen
If on the battle chariot anyone
May seize my reins, according to his will?
You think that fortune always, as this time,
Will grant a wreath for insubordination?
I want no victory which accrues to me
A child of chance. My wish is to maintain
Legality, the mother of my dominion,
That bears whole families of victories to me.
KURFURST
Mit welchem Recht, du Tor, erhoffst du das,
Wenn auf dem Schlachtenwagen, eigenmachtig,
Mir in die Ziigel jeder greifen darf?
Meinst du das Gluck werd immerdar, wie jiingst,
Mit einem Kranz den Ungehorsam lohnen?
Den Sieg nicht mag ich, der, ein Kind des Zufalls,
Mir von der Bank fallt; das Gesetz will ich,
Die Mutter meiner Krone, aufrecht halten,
Die ein Geschlecht von Siegen mir erzeugt!211
On the other hand, the romantic subjects are right in holding before the absolute
sovereign that despotic legalism may inhibit their emotional and political engagement
necessary for waging the total war against the absolute enemy successfully.
KOTTWITZ
Sire, the highest, supreme law,
Which shall affect in your commander's chest
That is not the letter of your will
That is the fatherland, that is the crown,
That is you yourself whose head it wears,
What do you care about the rule, I beg you,
That the enemy follows in battle: if only he sinks
Before you with all his banners?
The rule that beats him, that one is the highest!
Will you reduce the army that fervently loves you
To a mere instrument, like the sword
That rests dead in your golden belt?
The poorest spirit, foreign to the stars,
Gave such a lesson first! It is the worst,
Shortsighted statesmanship that because of a case,
Where sentiment was ruinous,
Ten other cases fall into oblivion,
Where sentiment alone may rescue!
Did I spill my blood into the dust for you
For pay, be it money, be it honor, on the battle day?
Heaven forbid! It is too good for that!
What! My delight, my pleasure I take,
Freely and for myself in silence, independently,
In your excellence and majesty,
In the glory and growth of your great name!
That is the pay for which I sell my heart!
KOTTWITZ
Herr, das Gesetz, das hochste, oberste,
Das wirken soil, in deiner Feldherrn Brust,
Das ist der Buchstab deines Willens nicht;
Das ist das Vaterland, das ist die Krone,
Das bist du selber, dessen Haupt sie tragt.
Was kummert dich, ich bitte dich, die Regel,
Nach der der Feind sich schlagt: wenn er nur nieder
Vor dir, mit alien seinen Fahnen sinkt?
Die Regel die, ihn schlagt, das ist die hochste!
Willst du das Heer, das gluhend an dir hangt,
Zu einem Wekrzeug machen, gleich dem Schwerte,
Das tot in deinem goldnen Gurtel ruht?
Der armste Geist, der in den Sternen fremd,
Zuerst eine solche Lehre gab! Die schlechte,
Kurzsichtige Staatskunst, die, um eines Falles,
Da die Empfindung sich verderblich zeigt,
Zehn andere vergiBt, im Lauf der Dinge,
Da die Emfmdung einzig retten kann!
Schutt ich mein Blut dir, an dem Tag der Schlacht,
Fur Sold, seis Geld, seis Ehre, in den Staub?
Behtlte Gott, dazu ist es zu gut!
Was! Meine Lust hab, meine Freude ich,
Frei und fur mich im Stillen, unabhangig,
An deiner Trefflichkeit und Herrlichkeit,
Am Ruhm und Wachstum deines groBen Namens!
Das ist der Lohn, dem sich mein Herz verkauft!212
Here the Colonel constructs a paradoxical unity between love and law. The quasidialectical sublation of the conflict between the sovereign order of the law, that is, what
1
2
V/5,1561 ff. Scheuer (1963,100).
V/5,15701T. Scheuer (1963,100).
81
he calls "the letter of your will" (der Buchstab deines Willens),
and the subjective
order of the heart gives priority to victory over legality. It simultaneously rejects
despotic legalism, the classical view that legality is an end in itself, and affirms
instrumental rationality, the modern view that the end justifies the means, and thus
constitutes "the highest, the supreme legality" {das Gesetz, das hochste, oberste). What
counts for the romantic subjects is victory and victory alone notwithstanding its
lawfulness or unlawfulness. "The rule that beats him," that is, the enemy, says Kottwitz,
"that one is the highest." (Die Regel, die ihn (den Feind) schldgt, das ist die hochste])214
Although this argument may be correct in general, it is incorrect in reference to the Prince
who did not act on better insight into the tactical situation on the battlefield, but because
of his narcissistic megalomania.
In addition, Kottwitz recommends a military reform, which Homburg later puts into
practice. The Colonel argues that the classical paradigm of sovereign power is "poor,
shortsighted statesmanship" (schlechte, kurzsichtige Staatskunst),215 insofar as it reduces
the army to a "mere instrument" (totes Werkzeug)216 in the hands of the monarch. Instead
of "money or renown" (sei's Geld, sei's Ehre)217 it is rather the love for the fatherland,
which animates and motivates the early modern army. Romantic subjectivity imitates
and participates in absolute sovereignty at least aesthetically if not politically, as Kottwitz
puts it to the Elector: "I take delight in your magnificence, | Free and for myself in silence
| The splendor and the growth of your great name. | That is the wage for which my heart
is sold." (Meine Lust hab, mein Freude ich, \ Frei undfiir mich im Stillen, unabhangig, \
213
V/5,1570ff., Scheuer(1963,100).
V/5,1576ff., Scheuer (1963,100).
215
V/5,1583f., Scheuer (1963,100).
216
V/5, 1580f., Peters (1978, 80).
217
V/5,1589., Scheuer (1963,100).
214
82
An deiner Trefflichkeit und Herrlichkeit, \ Am Ruhm und Wachstum deines grofien
Namens! \ Das ist derLohn, dem sich mein Herz verkauftl)
The sovereign may exercise the right to design the war strategy and sign it into law
prior to the battle, but he cannot control the subjective tactics during the battle.
Nevertheless, he may exercise the right to convict insubordinate subjects after the battle.
The performative acts of lawgiving, warfare, and jurisdiction alone do not guarantee that
the sovereign will enforce and the subjects will comply with the code of war. Despite
exercising legislative, executive, and juridical power, absolute sovereignty is
paradoxically limited to the extent that the sovereign depends on his subjects in tactically
implementing his war strategy. The absolute sovereign is paradoxically subject to
strategic heteronomy, while the romantic subjects have tactical autonomy.219
The sovereign must paradoxically delegate sovereignty to subjects temporarily and
abolish self-authorized acts of caprice at the same time in order to preserve absolute
sovereignty. The subjects must usurp absolute sovereignty or act as sovereign, if only
temporarily, in order to implement the sovereign strategy. On this view, the Prince's
disobedience does not so much represent a crime against majesty than rather an
adjustment of subjective tactics to sovereign strategy.
218
V/5,1591ff., Scheuer (1963,101).
An anecdotic event in the play exemplifies this aptly. The Elector's equerry Froben saves the Elector by
sacrificing himself after he had replaced the Elector's white horse, an easy target for the enemy, with his
camouflaged chestnut horse. Following the classical paradigm of absolute sovereignty, the commander-inchief does not dispense with the aesthetic pomp and splendor of political self-representation, even while
rushing into the battle ahead of his army. The subject, not the sovereign, realizes that total war requires
tactical camouflage as opposed to political self-representation of absolute sovereignty in the strategy of
limited warfare. Since the subject and sovereign do not only exchange horses but their dramatic and
political roles, the subject acts as if sovereign. Had the sovereign been riding the white horse, he would
have died instead of the subject. The classical subject Froben sacrifices himself heroically for the absolute
monarch, but the romantic subjects Homburg, Kottwitz, and Natalie support romantic ideas and ideals such
as love, freedom of the fatherland from foreign rule, or glory, heroism and immortality.
219
83
Romantic subjectivity and absolute sovereignty are temporarily reciprocal in the
discontinuous moment when the subject usurps sovereignty; this moment, however,
passes as soon as the subject performs the quasi-sovereign act of subjection itself to the
sovereign. Romantic subjectivity paradoxically undermines and supports or limits and
supplements absolute sovereignty at the same time to the extent that the quasi-sovereign
self-subjection of the subject to the sovereign depends on the autonomous if not even
sovereign decision and action of the subject. It does not only claim autonomy and
spontaneity but also absolute sovereignty. It has not only the faculty of giving oneself
and following its own moral rules and the faculty of inventing regulative and imperative
ideas but also the faculty of exercising illegal and extralegal authority by breaking
positive laws in order to protect the state as the legal and political order under positive
and moral laws.220
For instance, the Prince performs the self-authorized act of insubordination during the
battle and acts as the executor of the Elector's political testament after the battle. The
Princess abuses her power of command over the dragoon regiment. The Colonel does not
only excuse the Prince's tactical mistake but he also assures the Elector that he would act
like the Prince in a comparable situation even on the pain of death. The Prussian army
submits a mercy petition in favor of the Prince to the Elector. The Elector pardons the
Prince. The Prince enforces the sacred laws of war. All these are paradoxically
subjective acts of absolute sovereignty.
Following Harro Miiller who defines sovereignty in relation to autonomy as a Steigerungsbegriff'm his
Einleitung to Susanne Knaller/Harro Miiller (Hrsg.), Authentizitat, Diskussion eines asthetischen Begriffs
(Munchen: Fink, 2006), 12.
84
The Chiasmatic Exchange of Positions between Romantic Subjectivity and
Absolute Sovereignty
The peripety occurs after the Elector sends a letter to the imprisoned Prince in which
the Elector reminds the Prince that he discharged of his duty and heeded the law by
convicting him. However, the Elector is at first "taken aback" (betroffen)
when he
learns that the imprisoned Prince doubts in the justice of the sovereign judgment. Then,
he is "extremely surprised" (im aufiersten Erstaunerif11 to learn that the Prince suffers
from fear of death and pledges for life. "Confused" (yerwirrt), the Elector self-ironically
pretends to take the subjective "view" (Meinung) of the Prince into consideration of his
sovereign decision-making process and accept it as the limits of absolute sovereignty.
The egregious circumstances inspire the Elector to a momentous thought experiment. He
delegates the sovereign decision as to the justice of the judgment and the life and death of
the subject to the convicted subject itself. This self-ironical act of suspending absolute
sovereignty in favor of romantic subjectivity, if only temporarily, paradoxically
represents a performative act of absolute sovereignty. He playfully pronounces that he
will pardon and release the Prince.
ELECTOR
Upon my oath! I swear it. How could I
oppose the view of such a man-at-war?
His intuition, as you're well aware,
deep in my heart I hold in great respect.
KURFURST
Bei meinem Eid! Ich schwors dir zu! Wo werd ich
Mich gegen solchen Kriegers Meinung setzen?
Die hochste Achtung, wie dir wohl bekannt,
Trag ich im Innersten fur sein Geruhl.
However, the crux is that the sovereign attaches a condition on the execution of the
act of grace that places the subject in a double bind. Having previously sentenced the
criminal victor to death, the sovereign now self-ironically calls upon the subject to decide
whether the lawful death penalty was ethically just or unjust. If and only if the Prince
221
222
IV/l, 1145f., Peters (1978, 61).
IV/l, 1155f., my translation, T.Z.
85
considered the judgment of the military court unjust, then and only then he should plead
for mercy. "If he can think the sentence is unjust, the articles are set aside; he's free."
(Wenn er den Spruchfur ungerecht kann halten \ Kassier ich die Artikel: er istfreil)
However, the purely performative act does not guarantee that the sovereign will actually
pardon the subject. The underlying reasoning is as follows. If the judgment were unjust,
the defendant would have a claim against the plaintiff. Since the military court lawfully
pronounced the subject guilty, the convicted cannot plead innocence without violating
absolute sovereignty. The plaintiff expects him to confess his guilt, accept the
conviction, and serve the death penalty. This would satisfy his sovereign right to reprisal
against public enemies and re-establish internal state sovereignty.
However, both the Princess and the Prince ironically misread the Elector's letter.
Based on the wrong premise that the judgment was unjust, the Princess erroneously
concludes that the Prince may plead for his life. She wants to dictate to him the
supposedly only appropriate reply along the lines 'I suffered injustice, your majesty!
Have mercy on me!' However, she does injustice to both the Elector and the Prince in
this way; to the Elector because she assumes that the conviction was unjust and to the
Prince because she does not recognize that he cannot and must not claim either the
injustice of the judgment or innocence, not to mention plead for mercy. The judgment is
after all lawful.
Overemphasizing the meaning of the conditional sentence, the Prince ironically
misreads and over-interprets the Elector's self-ironical words. Usurping absolute
sovereignty in measureless self-overestimation, the subject ironically concludes that the
sovereign delegated the decision as to the justice or injustice of the lawful judgment to
223
VI/1, 1181ff., Scheuer (1963,75).
86
him himself. "He calls upon me to make the decision myself." (Mich selber ruft er zur
Entscheidung auf.)224 In fact, the Elector calls on the Prince to examine the legal case
and to reiterate the justice of the judgment from the standpoint of absolute sovereignty.
However, the supposed delegation of absolute sovereignty ironically intensifies
narcissistic megalomania, thirst for glory, heroism, and immortality instead of triggering
the civic reflection on the reason of state in the Prince. Contrary to the Princess who
believes in the innocence of the defendant and the injustice of the judgment, the Prince
realizes that he cannot and must not argue for his innocence or the injustice of the
judgment not to mention plead for life. Nor can he take legal action to enforce amnesty
for the Elector is the highest authority. Nevertheless, he prioritizes the romantic
discourse of love between the fatherly sovereign and the son-like subject over the
historical and political discourse of power and the philosophical and juridical discourse of
truth, law, and justice. Not the feeling of injustice but the feeling of love prevents the
subject from entering into a legal dispute with the sovereign over the question as to the
justice or injustice of the lawful judgment.
On the other hand, the Prince ironically confesses his guilt not because he believes
that he committed a crime for which he deserves death or his mercy petition would
violate the military code of honor. It is also not because he wants to serve up justice and
stabilize internal state sovereignty. The narcissistic megalomaniac does not consider
state interest at all but rather subjective romantic dreams alone. Hence, it is rather
because it contradicts his narcissistic and megalomaniac self-perception as immortal and
glorious hero. The Elector's call to reason does not represent an existential threat to him
but quite on the contrary it ironically keeps in store an extremely seductive promise. He
224
IV/4,1342, Peters (1978, 70).
87
hopes to triumph over death and make his subjective dream of glory, heroism, and
immortality come true precisely by serving the death penalty and thus glorifying and
immortalizing himself. Although Kleist suppresses the Prince's written reply to the
Elector, we may extrapolate its content from the dramatic plot. As if exercising the
sovereign right over his life and death, the Prince informs the Elector that he is ready to
serve the death penalty; he may confess guilt or not, but it certainly contains neither the
assertion that he suffered injustice nor a mercy petition.
After the peripety (IV/4) when the Prince and the Elector exchange letters, the
absolute sovereign and the romantic subject undergo a chiasmatic exchange of positions.
While the Elector overcomes his rigid position of despotic legalism, the Prince
overcomes his fear of death. Now, the sovereign decides to follow the subjective order of
the heart by performing the act of grace and the subject decides to serve the death
sentence. Now, the sovereign, like his subjects, prioritizes the romantic discourse of love
over the historical and political discourse of power and the philosophical and juridical
discourse of truth, law, and justice. At his point, he exclaims, "All right! My heart is in
their midst." {Nun gut! - So ist mein Herz in ihrer Mitte.)225 The sovereign contests yet
the subject persists in the legal validity of the death penalty, however, each of them for
different reasons. While the Elector defends himself against his rebellious officers, the
Prince believes himself on his path towards glory, heroism, and immortality.
However, the usurpation of absolute sovereignty by the army produces a retardation
effect. Entering the stage "half dressed" (halbentkleidet)226 at the beginning of the final
act, the sovereign, reduced to bare life, as it were, is caught off guard by the army on red
V/4,1441, Scheuer (1963, 93).
V/l, 1394f., Scheuer (1963, 90).
88
alert submitting a mercy petition in favor of the Prince. The army's request represents a
usurpation of absolute sovereignty, as far as it encroaches on the Elector's rights. The
army urges the Elector to temper justice with mercy in keeping with the explicit
concession of the military court judgment. The ruler is in danger of losing internal
sovereignty, as the entire army backs the mercy petition. If he persisted in executing the
death penalty, he might provoke the petitioners and a potential military "rebellion"
{Rebellion)221 might escalate into a popular uprising, coup d'etat, or even regicide.
At this point, the Elector holds three documents in his hands; first, the lawful
judgment of the military court, secondly, the mercy petition of the army, and finally a
letter from the Prince in which the subject submits to the sovereign. He stipulates the
Prince's readiness to serve the death penalty as the condition sine qua non for amnesty.
He will not pardon him before he voluntarily submits to the law before the army.
Although he must consider the mercy petition because of the critical mass behind it, it
becomes irrelevant, since the Prince volunteers to serve the death penalty. However, the
sovereign act of grace is paradoxically not a sovereign decision in the strictest sense. The
petitioners force the Elector to pardon the Prince under virtual threat of force without
actual use of force. The sovereign must not execute the subject but he must pardon him
in order to save himself. Thus, the romantic subjects paradoxically act as absolute
sovereign in simultaneously supporting the petition and containing its revolutionary
potentials. For a moment, the general will of the Prussian army puts into question and
limits the Elector's absolute sovereignty. As the "entire general staff (gesamte
Generalitdi)
has assembled at the town hall, the state seems to acquire a "democratic
V/3, 1428, Scheuer (1963, 92).
V/l, 1404, Peters (1978, 91).
89
appearance" (demokratisches Ansehen)
according to Kleist's idiosyncratic
understanding of democracy in light of the Jacobin reign of terror. Far from being a
democratic state based on popular sovereignty and the rule of law, the state represents an
authoritarian military community.230
The conflict between absolute sovereignty and romantic subjectivity loses its military,
political, and legal grounds. After taking another meaningful look at the military court
judgment to remind the army that the Prince is guilty according to the applicable laws, he
poses a rhetorical question to the officers. "Will you a fourth time take your chance with
him?" {Wollt ihrs zum vierten mal mit ihm wagen?)231 In this way, the absolute
sovereign simultaneously distances himself from the act of grace and shifts responsibility
to the romantic subjects. As a result, the army entertains the illusion that they are
participating in sovereign decision-making, while the Elector actually exercises absolute
sovereignty.
However, the sovereign does not perform the act of grace immediately.
Simultaneously exercising absolute sovereignty and pretending to surrender it, he selfironically claims that he cannot and must not pardon the subject against its free will in
order to remain impeachable for despotic legalism and tyrannical nepotism. "First I
would have to ask the Prince's view, | for arbitrariness, as you must know, | did not
imprison him nor can free him now." (Da musst ich noch den Prinzen erst befragen, \
229
Kleist (2001, 380), my translation, T.Z.
Contrary to Klaus Ltidersen, „Recht als Verstandigung unter gleichen in Kleists 'Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg' - ein aristokratisches oder ein demokratisches Prinzip?" Kleist-Jahrbuch (1985): 56-83.
231
V/9, 1818ff., Scheuer (1963,112).
230
90
Den Willkur nicht, wie dir bekannt sein wird, \ Gefangen nahm und nicht befreien
kann.)
The Apotheosis of Romantic Subjectivity and Subjective Self-Discipline as the
Condition of Possibility for Absolute Sovereignty
The fifth act begins in an ambiguous atmosphere superimposing the dramaturgy of
execution on that of amnesty. Although the Elector lawfully pardoned the Prince and
cancelled "the dreary spectacle" (das ode Schauspiel)233 of the execution, he sends him
back to prison. While condemnation of a victor approximates a despotic act, amnesty
with the criminal approximates a tyrannical act. He performs the sovereign act of grace
following the explicit provisions of the military court judgment. However, he reduces it
to a theatrically unspectacular gesture of tearing apart the military court judgment.
Contrary to the criminal conviction, a sovereign act under the law that is neither despotic
nor tyrannical, amnesty represents a quasi-dialectical sublation of despotism and tyranny.
It inevitably contains a severe breach of the law and injustice on principle and that is
precisely what makes it a sovereign act par excellence.234 It is paradoxically under and
above the law at the same time; it is under the law, as far as it cancels the despotic act of
adjudication according to the sovereign order of the law, but it is above it, as far as it
performs the tyrannical act of grace according to the subjective order of the heart.
As the "secret stage director,"235 the Elector puts on a show in the grand finale.
232
V/3,1469ff., Scheuer (1963, 94).
III/5,985, Scheuer (1963,67).
234
Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, in: Werke (Frankfijrt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1996),
Band VII, 337.
235
Kittler (1994,72f.).
233
91
In the classical age, the absolutist monarch would either stage the violent "spectacle
of the scaffold"236 or perform the non-violent act of grace displaying "the splendor of
majesty" (Glanz seiner Hoheit)237 in any event exercising absolute sovereignty.
Following the principles of Machiavellian reason of state, a political advisor, therefore,
recommends to the Elector to deescalate the internal conflict by granting clemency to the
Prince and hence not only politically exercising but also aesthetically displaying absolute
sovereignty. "You'll give the journal one more noble deed | and one less awful deed to
write about." (Du gibst der Zeitung eine Grosstat mehr, | Und eine Untat weniger zu
melden.)
However, premature amnesty would undermine the authority and credibility of the
absolute sovereign. Therefore, the Elector, whom Kleist anachronistically presents as an
enlightened monarch in the vein of Frederick II King of Prussia, abstains from using the
despotic power of the sword in the sovereign act of execution or the tyrannical power of
the word in the sovereign act of amnesty. Instead of the classical self-display of absolute
sovereignty in despotically executing the unlawful victor or tyrannically pardoning the
decorated criminal, he chooses a third possibility, namely the apotheosis or selfglorification of romantic subjectivity. The Elector calls in the Prince, at once a deus ex
machine and subservient subject who will act as his "advocate" {Sachwalter) by
demonstrating "the meaning | of discipline of warfare and obedience" (Der wirddich
lehren, das versichr' ich dich, \ Was Kriegszucht und Gehorsam set)
to the army. In
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random House, 1995),
47ff.
237
Kant (1996,337).
238
V/3, 1467f., Scheuer (1963, 94).
239
V/5, 1616ff., Scheuer (1963,101).
92
order to disabuse the petitioners, he presents them with the Prince who is tired of life and
longs for death.
The Prince does not simply accept the death penalty as a subservient subject. In the
belief that he will make his dream of glory, heroism, and immorality come true by
serving the death penalty, he usurps absolute sovereignty over state and law and acts as
the sovereign lord over his own life and death. The romantic discourse of love and
national patriotism reaches the hyperbolic climax when he proclaims that he will glorify
the sovereign order of the law and the subjective order of love by sacrificing his life, and
thus triumphing over death and immortalizing himself. "I want to glorify the sacred law |
of war, which I infringed before our army, | by dying freely." (Ich will das heilige Gesetz
des Kriegs, \ Das ich verletzt, im Angesicht des Heers, \ durch einenfreien Tod
verherrlichen!)240 The decision to serve the death penalty and glorify the sacred law of
war is not a moral act offreewill because its motivation is "pathological" in both Kantian
and Freudian terms. The narcissistic and megalomaniac Prince affirms the law only after
the Elector gave him an opportunity to appropriate it as his law; he intends to represent
the law and assume the role of the sovereign lawgiver.
However, the performance
entangles itself in the paradox of absolute sovereignty.
On the one hand, the Prince performs the rhetorical gesture of self-subjection to the
sovereign. "I lay myself impassioned at your feet" (Dir leg ich tiefbewegt zu Fufien
949
mich!)
On the other hand, he acts as absolute sovereign not so much by reinstituting
240
V/7,1750ff., Scheuer (1963,108).
Christian Moser, Verfehlte Gefuhle, Wissen - Begehren - Darstellen bei Kleist und Rousseau
(Wtirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 1993), 104.
242
V/7, 1767, Scheuer (1963, 109).
93
the Old Prussian "code of war" (Mdrkische Kriegsartikel)
than rather by passing new,
different, and modern laws. What he calls "the sacred law of war" (das heilige Gesetz
des Kriegs)244 or "the ten commandments of Mark Brandenburg" (die zehn markischen
Gebote)245 represents the quasi-dialectical sublation of romantic subjectivity and absolute
sovereignty and reconciles the conflict between the sovereign order of the law and the
subjective order of the heart. Then again, he asks the Elector for forgiveness instead of
pardon and he claims that he will acquit his guilt and do penance for his crime against
majesty by serving the death penalty. The underlying reasoning is ambiguous. The
subject does not subject itself to the sovereign to do public justice to the military,
political, and legal order following the Elector's rigid legalism but rather to realize
private dreams. The execution would not glorify the absolute sovereign but rather
immortalize the romantic subject. The romantic subjective illusion of absolute
sovereignty, that is, the aesthetic realization of the narcissistic and megalomaniac dream
of glory, heroism, and immortality, ironically coincides with the voluntary submission to
the law, which is the military, political, and legal condition of possibility for absolute
sovereignty.
During the battle, the Prince followed the subjective order of the heart alone in
disregard of the sovereign order of the law. After the battle, he simultaneously follows
the sovereign order of the law and the subjective order of the heart. Romantic
subjectivity temporarily takes priority over absolute sovereignty. However, tyrannical
narcissism drives the Prince. "Silence! It is my inflexible desire." (Ruhig! Es ist mein
11/10, 781, Scheuer (1963, 54).
V/7, 1750, Scheuer (1963,108).
II/2,488, Peters (1978, 31).
94
unbeugsamer Wille!)
Since the Prince subjects himself to the absolute sovereign,
which is paradoxically a quasi-sovereign act of romantic subjectivity, the Elector, now
explicitly addressing him as "young hero" (junger Held),247 makes the sovereign order of
the law appear as the subjective order of the heart.
The victory over the internal enemy, that is, feelings and sentiments of romantic
subjectivity, paradoxically undermine and support the sovereign order of the law at the
same time. The subject does not so much glorify absolute sovereignty than rather the
subjective self-discipline or quasi-sovereign self-subjection of the subject to the
sovereign stylized by the Prince as the victory over the inner fiend (der innere
Schweinehund): "triumph (...) over the most destructive adversary within us - defiance,
arrogance" (Triumph (...) iiberden verderblichsten \ Der Feindin uns, den Trotz, den
Ubermut)™
Absolute Sovereignty as an Aesthetic Illusion of Romantic Subjectivity
However, the Prince somnambulates not only in the opening scene but also, as it
were, through the entire play.249 At many important junctures of the plot, he is incapable
of distinguishing dream and reality, for instance, the despotic adjudication, arrest, and
imprisonment in the first through third act or the peripety in the fourth act, but, most
246
V/7,1749, Scheuer (1963,108). It is hard to agree with Wolf Kittler's argument that the Elector was a
revolutionary and the Prince a tyrant. {Der richtende Konig als Revoluzzer und der verhaftete Untertan als
Tyrann.) Kittler (1994,63). The claim that both the Elector and the Prince were republican is most
problematic. Kittler does not distinguish sufficiently between the Elector's and the Prince's contradictory
views, that is, despotic legalism and tyrannical anarchism, classical absolute monarchism and romantic
national patriotism.
247
V/7,1776, Peters (1978, 87).
248
V/7, 1753ff., Peters (1978, 86), slightly altered, T.Z. See also Kittler (1994, 76).
249
E.E. Mason, "In my beginning is my end," German Life and Letters 31 (1977/8): 135-44. Gudrun
Grapow/Peter Horn/Monica Koep, „Der Prinz von Homburg - oder die preuBischblaue Apotheose," in:
Peter Horn (Hrsg.), Positionen, Beitrdge zur Germanistik, Bd. 1, Heinrich von Kleist 1777-1811
(Capetown: Rondebosch, 1978), 29-50, 31.
95
importantly, the grand finale in thefifthact. He takes a precarious position betwixt and
between sleep and waking, dream and reality, insanity and sanity, life and death, finitude
and eternity, this world and the netherworld, and so on. To put it differently for our
purposes, he oscillates between usurping and submitting to absolute sovereignty.
In the closing scene, the Elector restages the dream play from the opening scene. The
Princess once again crowns the Prince with a laurel wreath and hands over the golden
chain, the insignia of absolute sovereignty, to him, but this time in the presence of the
entire army. While Prussia pays tribute to the victor in the Battle of Fehrbellin, the
Prince receives amnesty in anticipation of death. The audience who witness the Elector's
unspectacular act of grace has an advance of knowledge over the "blindfolded" Prince
who hears the "drums of a funeral march" and expects death through execution instead of
amnesty. While the Prince insists on serving the death penalty, expecting to experience
glory, heroism, and immortality, the sovereign act of grace does not only annul the death
penalty but, more importantly, it also forecloses the realization of his narcissistic and
megalomaniac dreams and hence represents an insult to his narcissistic self-image. As a
reaction to the ambiguity, he looses consciousness. The ecstatic irruption of absolute
sovereignty into individual consciousness results in the collapse of romantic subjectivity.
The Elector ironically orders cannonball fire and marching music to reawaken the
unconscious Prince.250
However, the unconscious sleepwalker who mistakes dreams for reality in the
opening scene, now as a conscious daydreamer, mistakes the realization of his dream for
a dream in the closing scene.
HOMBURG No, say! Is this a dream?
250
HOMBURG Nein, sagt! 1st es ein Traum?
Heiner Miiller dramatically satirizes this scene in his history play; see Chapter 6.
96
KOTTWITZ
A dream, what else?
KOTTWITZ
EinTraum, was sonst?251
In this way, the play internally reflects on its aesthetic status as dream,fiction,and
theater. The internal aesthetic reflection on the distinction between dream and reality
defers the subjective experience of glory, heroism, and immortality. The fantastic selfsacrificial death fulfills his perverted desire to observe himself as the glorious and
immortal hero paradoxically in this world yet from the perspective of the afterworld.252
Similarly, the internal political reconciliation at the end of the play is an intersubjective
aesthetic illusion and the apotheosis or self-glorification of the Prince is not so much an
objective failure253 than rather a subjective aesthetic illusion. The exchange of rhetorical
question and answer reveals a political goal to the ideal audience and an aesthetic
ideology to the critical audience. Kleist's aesthetic ideology of internal reconciliation
makes the ideal audience affirm the ongoing internal domination and external
254
aggression.
It is not any different in the infamous immortality monologue, in which the Prince
uses the "rhetoric of sublimity"255 to give expression to his assumed triumph over death.
In contrast to the lyrical subject from Kleist's antitype, Klopstock's Ode an Fanny, in
which the lyrical subject addresses itself to its lover, the Prince ironically addresses
himself to allegorically personified immortality. Ironically, he does not make the real
lived experience than rather a merely subjective aesthetic illusion of apotheosis as a
251
V/ll, 1855, Scheuer (1963,115).
Horn (1992, 138).
253
Gerhard Kluge, "Die miBlungene Apotheose des Prinzen von Homburg," Neophilologus 82 (1998): 27990.
254
In his Nachwort to the German edition of Paul de Man, Aesthetic Ideology (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996), the editor Christoph Menke argues that spiritual reconciliation cannot become the
matter of sensual representation, for that matter, in the aesthetic medium of drama and theater. See Paul de
Man, Die Ideologie des Asthetischen, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1993).
255
Bohrer (2004,122).
252
97
quasi-religious elevation into the sphere of transcendence, imagining himself in
possession not of the immortal body but rather immortality itself.
HOMBURG
Now, immortality, you are entirely mine!
Your light shines through my blindfold
With the brilliance of a thousand suns!
On either shoulder wings unfold,
My soul mounts up into the silent upper spheres;
And as a ship, borne forward by the wind,
Sees dropping fast behind the busy port,
So all life sinks and fades for me into the haze.
Now I still distinguish colors and forms,
And now everything lays fog all beneath me.
HOMBURG
Nun, o Unsterblichkeit, bist du ganz mein!
Du strahlst mir, durch die Binde meiner Augen,
Mir Glanz der tausendfachen Sonne zu!
Es wachsen Fliigel mir an beiden Schulter,
Durch stille AtherrSume schwingt mein Geist;
Und wie ein Schiff, vom Hauch des Winds entfuhrt,
Die muntre Hafenstadt versinken sieht,
So geht mir dammernd alles Leben unter:
Jetzt unterscheid ich Farben noch und Formen,
Und jetzt liegt Nebel alles unter mir.
The passion that defines the individual character of the Prince, narcissistic
megalomania, does not change over the course of the drama. What does change,
however, is his attitude towards death. Until the Elector seeks the death penalty, he
suppresses death and the fear of death altogether. He declaratively takes full
responsibility on the pain of death for launching the premature attack. "Let it be upon my
head" {Ich nehms aufmeine Kappe).256 Here he ironically anticipates neither crime nor
capital punishment. Ostensibly ready to sacrifice himself for the sovereign, he had still
boasted at the Froben's funeral: "He has been paid. Had I ten lives to spend 11 could not
use them better than he did." (Er ist bezahlt! Wenn ich zehn Leben hdtte, | Konnt ich sie
besser nicht brauchen, als so!)
Having seen his own grave, the glorious hero ironically
suffers from inglorious fear of death in anticipation of the execution and dishonorably
pleads for his life before the Electress and the Princess in the infamous fear-of-deathscene (HI/5). At his point, the glorious hero is ironically ready to live an inglorious life
as a farmer instead of dying an inglorious death without realizing that the death of the
subject is paradoxically the condition of possibility for immortalization. When he
256
257
II/2, 497, Peters (1978, 32).
II/8, 678f., Scheuer (1963,46).
98
receives the Elector's letter right before the peripety (IV/4), the Prince probably realizes
that a real hero must die in order to immortalize himself. He hopes to make his dream of
immortality come true by volunteering to die. Having overcome his fear of death by
looking at his grave once again on recommendation of the Princess, which ironically
further intensifies narcissistic megalomania in him, he realizes that the fear of death in
anticipation of the execution is not any different from the fear of death in the thick of
battle. Contrary to the fear-of-death-scene in which the hero ironically clings to bare life
and prefers inglorious life to inglorious death, death now appears to him to be the
fulfillment of his dream of posthumous heroic glory and anticipated immortality.258
Ultimately, he does not only overcome his fear of death and accept death but he rather
wishes and longs for death, which paradoxically appears to him as a new kind of life.
Again, the issue is not so much mortality as such than rather the endangered realization of
his dream of glory, heroism, and immortality. In sum, he is forgetful of death until the
adjudication, he suffers fear of death after the adjudication, he does not only accept death
but he wishes and even longs for it after the peripety, however, amnesty in the grand
finale paradoxically destroys his narcissistic and megalomaniac dream of glory, heroism,
and immortality.
Although, the death of the subject, be it on the scaffold, be it on the battlefield, is the
avenue to the aesthetic illusion of immortality, it also makes the experience of glory,
heroism, and immortality impossible.259 The Prince expresses this paradox in a graphic
metaphor. "A pity that the eyes are rotting | which are to see all that magnificence."
Moser (1993,106).
Horn (1992,130).
99
(...nur schade, dafi das Auge modert, \ Das diese Herrlichkeit erblicken soil.)
However, the somnambulist seems to make the posthumous experience of immortality in
this life already. Hence, the lived experience thereof is merely a subjective aesthetic
illusion. The Prince is paradoxically dead and alive at the same time. He is virtually
dead because he is guilty of insubordination and deserves capital punishment. Yet the
Elector keeps him alive in order to continue fighting against the occupiers. The Prince
proclaims not only that he is ready to accept death but also that the Elector grants him a
new life. "Now, Sire, you've given me my life." (Nun sieh, jetzt schenktest du das Leben
mirl)261 This is in a double sense. The sovereign does not only spare the life of the
subject in a literal sense but also figuratively, as far as he resurrects him from the
virtually dead by pardoning him. The Prince is simultaneously humiliated and elevated,
glorified and exploited. Experiencing political exploitation as an illusory realization of
his dreams, he is a war-machine and a poetic genius, a living warrior and a dead spirit or
god of war. He leads an aesthetic and ethereal existence heretofore, marching ahead of
the Prussian army and "dead leading the banners on the battlefield" (tot vor den Fahnen
schreitend).
Although his subjective expectations are disappointed, the Prince serves as both a
member and the exemplary representative of the state and army. He embodies the
exemplary subject, figure of identification, and collective ego ideal of the military
community. The army celebrates the Prince as a war hero—"every army loves its hero"
(Jedwedes Heer liebt (...) seinen Helden!)263—and all together intone a shrill battle cry.
260
261
IV/3, 1295f., Scheuer (1963, 82).
V/7,1794, Scheuer (1963,110).
262 v
263
/ 7 ;
1 ? 9 2 )
S c h e u e r
(1963)
n o )
V/4,1460, Scheuer (1963, 94).
The Prussian army onstage and the ideal audience offstage pay tribute to a new type of
warrior in the early modern war of peoples, namely, the romantic soldier in the army of
citizens, politically engaged and emotionally invested in the fight for the freedom of the
fatherland from foreign rule. The Wars of Liberation 1813-5, the Franco-Prussian War
1870/1, and the First and Second World War politically exploited Kleist's patriotic plays.
Many critics who intend to retrieve internal critical potentials from the play speculate
that the Prince could not possibly join in with the battle cry after having made such an
ambiguous and ambivalent experience.264 Some of them downplay or ignore his
inflammatory political speech on absolute enmity, total war, and world domination.
Others find nothing rotten in the state of Prussia, foregrounding the supposedly "ethical
Utopia"266 and "reconciliation between individual and state"267 while simultaneously
pushing the nationalistic, chauvinistic, and imperialistic project into the background.
However, the stage directions alone do not permit any doubts. Before the curtain falls,
"All" exclaim "Into the dust with all enemies of Brandenburg!" (In den Staub mit den
Feinden Brandenburgsl)
The Prince may appear like an exotic member of the
Prussian army but he is certainly one of them. His internal perspective may hardly serve
as a starting point for external criticisms against the aesthetic ideology of nationalism,
chauvinism, and imperialism.
The diabolically ironical or grimly comical dimension of the drama is that the subject
does not achieve his goals, although he voluntarily submits to the sovereign. He will
264
Eibl (1995,253) referring to Horn (1992,133) and Liidersen (1985, 56)
Helmut Arntzen, ,„Prinz Friedrich von Homburg' - Drama der Bewufitseinsstufen," in: Walter Hinderer
(Hrsg.), Kleists Dramen, Neue Interpretationen (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), 211-37.
266
Peter Uwe Hohendahl, „Der Pass des Grafen von Horn, Ein Aspekt des Politischen in Prinz Friedrich
von Homburg," The German Quarterly 41 (1968): 167-76.
267
G.Kluge (1998,279-90).
268
V/l 1, 1857, Peters (1978, 92).
265
101
make his dreams come true not before he earns total victory over the absolute enemy on
the battlefield, if ever at all. Although the Elector promises the Princess to the Prince, he
will have to wrest his bride from the Swedish King on the battlefield like a war loot or
trophy. The absolute sovereign places the romantic subject into a bad infinity (mise en
abyme), as it were. He should win total victory over the absolute enemy, which is an
eternal process. At the same time, eternal peace is unachievable except for on the
cemetery, as we know from Kant.269 The reconciliation of the internal conflicts at the
price of the continuing aggression against external enemies represents a "dissonant
Utopia,"270 as Bernd Leistner put it aptly, or in other words, the dystopia of the total war
against the absolute enemy.
The drama nevertheless contains ironical and grotesquely tragicomical elements
arising from the conflict between romantic subjectivity and absolute sovereignty. It is not
so much comical that the sovereign defends himself against his subjects who constantly
assure him that self-authorized acts do not threaten absolute sovereignty.271 It is rather
comical that the subjects temporarily usurp absolute sovereignty without ever exercising
it. Although they usurp absolute sovereignty, they are incapable of enforcing amnesty
themselves; the sovereign alone has the power to impose amnesty with the force of law.
In Hegel's theory of classical drama, the conflict between ethical substances or moral
laws of nature destroys individual subjectivity in tragedy, while individual subjectivity
indeterminately negates ethical substances and moral laws of nature in comedy. By
contrast, Homburg is neither a comedy nor a tragedy. Amnesty averts the classical
269
Immanuel Kant, „Zum ewigen Frieden, Ein philosophischer Entwurf," in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp, 1977), Band XI, 195ff.
270
Leistner (1979,292).
271
Liewerscheidt (1990,321).
102
tragedy of individual subjectivity in a comical way.
The project of total war
overshadows the classical comedy of absolute sovereignty. The distinctly modern drama,
therefore, eludes the distinction between tragedy and comedy in the classical sense, as
Hegel noted.273
Kleist dramatizes the foundation of the early modern nation-state envisioned by
German romanticism as a community of hatred constituted by the exclusion of the
absolute enemy. Applying the discourse of love internally and the discourse of hatred
externally, it combines internal homogeneity with external heterogeneity. The Homburg
affair does not only celebrate romantic subjectivity and reinforce absolute sovereignty but
it qualitatively changes the character of the Prussian state.274 After the romantic subject
reinforces the sacred laws of war, the absolute sovereign does not only appease the
military rebels and reassert internal sovereignty, prevent a popular uprising and establish
national unity, but he also resumes the total war against the absolute enemy. Having
resolved the internal conflict between absolute sovereignty and romantic subjectivity with
the aid of the subservient Prince by concentrating the internal rebellious energy and
redirecting potential revolutionary energy into the aggression against the external enemy,
the early modern war of peoples may reach a previously unknown degree of intensity.
However, the somnambulist romantic subject is unaware of the political meaning and
function of his dream of glory, heroism, and immortality. The absolute sovereign
simultaneously affirms and exploits romantic subjectivity, more precisely, narcissistic
272
See Horn (1992,126-39), Lawrence O. Frye, "Kleist's 'Prinz Friedrich von Homburg,' A Comedic
Lighting of Political Idols," Colloquia Germanica 25 (1992), No. 3/4: 229-54, and Liewerscheidt (1990,
313-23).
273
G.F.W. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik III, in: Werke (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), Band
14, 520ff.
274
Jochen Schmidt, „Stoisches Ethos in Brandenburg-PreuBen und Kleists Prinz Friedrich von Homburg"
in Kleist- Jahrbuch (1993): 89-102.
103
megalomania, in order to exercise absolute sovereignty. The theatrical spectacle of the
Prince's submission to the sovereign order of the law by the subjective order of the heart
aesthetically reconciles the sovereign order of the law and the subjective order of the
heart. The romantic subject that embodies this aesthetic reconciliation affirms the
modern paradigm of subjective self-discipline, the quasi-sovereign self-subjection of the
subject to the sovereign, as the condition sine qua non for absolute sovereignty.
The Elector ultimately succeeds in preserving absolute state sovereignty by
supplementing the classical paradigm of sovereign power over the life and death of the
subjects with the modern paradigm of subjective power as self-discipline, that is, the
quasi-sovereign self-subjection of the subject to the sovereign. He puts into practice the
modern model of "bio-power"275 that does not rule under the motto "make die and let
live" but rather "make live and let die". On the one hand, the sovereign evokes and
simultaneously contains ambiguous desires in the subject, including the basest instincts
and the highest ideals, which resulted in the crime against majesty in the first place.276
On the other hand, subjective self-discipline does not support state sovereignty alone but
it also generates political engagement and emotional investment of national patriotism,
military spontaneity, and poetic enthusiasm in romantic subjectivity.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, An Introduction (New York: Random House,
1990), 143. The author further explains: "Another consequence of this development of bio-power was the
growing importance assumed by the action of the norm, at the expense of the juridical system of the law.
Law cannot help but be armed, and its arm, par excellence, is death; to those who transgress it, it replies, at
least as a last resort, with that absolute menace. The law always refers to the sword. However, a power
whose task it is to take charge of life needs continuous regulatory and corrective mechanisms. It is no
longer a matter of bringing death into play in the field of sovereignty, but of distributing the living in the
domain of value and utility. Such a power has to qualify, measure, appraise, and hierarchize, rather than
display itself in its murderous splendor; it does not have to draw the line that separates the enemies of the
sovereign from his obedient subjects; it effects distributions around the norm." (Foucault 1990,144,
slightly altered, T.Z.).
276
Kittler(1994,82).
In Homburg, Kleist deals with the modernization of the army during the "threshold
period" (Sattekeit, Schwellenzeii),211 that is, the transition from pre-modern stratified to
modern functionally differentiated society, more precisely, the precarious "functional
differentiation" of the legal and the political system.278 He reformulates the
Enlightenment imperative, to think for oneself—sape audere—by reissuing a sharpened
military order to romantic subjects. It is an oxymoronic unwritten law that contains the
paradox of sovereignty. They should act tactically in accordance with the overall
strategic goals yet paradoxically obediently and rebelliously, subordinately and
insubordinately, disciplined and undisciplined, submissively and usurping, rigidly and
flexibly, normatively and spontaneously, lawfully and unlawfully, under and against the
law at the same time. Paradoxically, there is no general rule according to which subjects
must apply the sovereign order to particular cases.
Although the romantic subjects, similar to Schiller's beautiful souls, construct poetic
political Utopias based on the quasi-dialectical sublation or synthesis of binary opposites
such as love and law, subjectivity and sovereignty, and so on,279 their romantic discourse
of love simultaneously perpetuates the nationalist, chauvinist, and imperialist discourse of
hatred, absolute enmity, and total war. Although they put into perspective internal
sovereignty, they reinforce external absolute sovereignty. In the role of the unofficial
state poet warrior, the Prince—like Hermann in Kleist's first patriotic play—puts world
277
Reinhart Koselleck, "A Response to Comments on the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe," in Hartmut
Lehmann and Melvin Richter (eds.), The Meaning of Historical Terms and Concepts: New Studies on
Begriffsgeschichte, (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, 1996), 69.
278
Niklas Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1993ff.), Das Recht
der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts, Beitrdge zur
Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1999), Die Politik der Gesellschaft
(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2002).
279
Friedrich Schiller, Schillers Werke im WWW (Cambridge, UK: Chadwyck-Healey, 1998). Friedrich
Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (New York: Oxford University Press,
1982), http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve7clio4816281 (accessed May 2,2008).
105
domination on the political agenda. "Go and wage war, Sire, overcome the world | that
dares to stand up to you, for you deserve it!" (Geh und bekrieg, o Herr, und iiberwinde
den Weltkreis, der dir trotzt, - denn du bists wert!)m
In the final analysis, Kleist's
patriotic plays reject democracy based on popular sovereignty and the rule of law and
instead presents an apology of principal sovereignty.
V/7, 1798f., Scheuer (1963,110).
Chapter Three: „Wir haben hundert Tage grolJ getrSumt."281 or the Return of
Absolute Sovereignty in Christian Dietrich Grabbe's Napoleon oder die hundert
Tage (1830)
Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801-1836) wrote Napoleon oder die hundert Tage
(Napoleon or the Hundred Days) about the second comet-like rise and fall of the petit
"great" man (in 1815) under the impression of the French July Revolution in 1830. This
poetic history play with at least 180 individual speaking parts does not only center on the
main character but it also thematizes the age of the French Revolution (1789-1815) as a
whole.282 The poeta doctus paints a vast social panorama of French society under
Bourbon rule to show different social forces vying for power in the first part before
staging a bombastic battle drama in the second part. The form of government, national
unification, and the constitutional rule of law were pressing issues at the time in France as
well as in the German states. Counterrevolutionary forces such as restorative
monarchism or aristocratism and revolutionary forces such as radical democratic
Jacobinism or liberal constitutionalism compete against Napoleonic imperialism.
Grabbe's history play responds to the diversification of absolute sovereignty in early
modernity, as it represents the succession of several different states of emergency. There
are four basic forms of government each of which favor a different model of absolute
sovereignty: Bourbon monarchism claims royal sovereignty, ultra-revolutionary
Jacobinism popular sovereignty, liberalism constitutional sovereignty, and Napoleon
imperial sovereignty. The revenant French Emperor resumes power in the space of time
281
"We've dreamt greatly for a hundred days." QuotationsfromChristian Dietrich Grabbe, Napoleon oder
die hundert Tage, Ein Drama in fiinf Aufziigen, in: Werke undBriefe, Zweiter Band (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963), 314-459, detailing act/scene and page number; translations
mine, T.Z.
282
Letter to Kettembeil April 30, 1830. Ladislaus L6b, Grabbe iiber seine Werke, Christian Dietrich
Grabbes Selbstzeugnisse zu seinen Dramen, Aufsatzen undPlanen (Franfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 137.
107
limited to Hundred Days (Les Cent-Jours), after returning from exile on the island of
Elba to France and before ostracism to the island of St. Helena. Suffering a defeat
against England and Prussia on the battlefield, France looses external sovereignty and
none of the parties realizes their claim to absolute sovereignty. The old monarchy returns
in a new disguise.
Besides reenacting the histrionic dramatization and self-dramatization of the title
figure in the dramatic character role of the sovereign Emperor, Grabbe also satirizes
Bourbon monarchism, shows the Jacobin Reign of Terror in action, and traces the secret
paths of liberal constitutionalism. He uses various aesthetic techniques from dramatic
irony through political satire to the aesthetics of sublimity and cruelty not only to
represent the symbolically political self-representation of various forms of government
but also to stage the aesthetic disillusionment of their respective claim to absolute
sovereignty. In each case, Grabbe internally frames the miniature drama in the drama as
an aesthetic and symbolically political event. The internal reflection on the aesthetic
status of symbolically political performances as such divides the stage into front stage
and back stage. Minor characters on the front stage observe the dramatic action of the
main characters on the back stage, designate it as a play in the play, and address their
affirmative or critical comments directly or indirectly to the audience. The aesthetically
self-reflexive, multiperspectival dramaturgy developed by Grabbe, a precursor for
Brecht's epic theater, highlights the aesthetic difference between symbolically political
performance and historical and political reference, between political play-acting and
dramatic role-playing, between the claim to absolute sovereignty and its reality. It
produces anti-illusionist or dis-illusionist reality effects through increased aesthetic self-
108
reflexivity and self-reference.
It puts histrionic self-dramatizations of claims to
absolute sovereignty into critical perspective. The critical audience offstage may
aesthetically demystify the phantasms of absolute sovereignty following minor characters
who reflect on kaleidoscopic or prismatic refractions of the main characters.
This chapter analyzes Grabbe's critique and reaffirmation of absolute sovereignty. It
covers the satire against the Bourbon kingdom as a disillusionment of royal sovereignty,
the aesthetics of cruelty in the Reign of Terror as a disillusionment of popular
sovereignty, and the aesthetics of sublimity in Napoleon's appearance both in the
political arena and on the battlefield as the disillusionment of imperial sovereignty.
Finally, it reconstructs Grabbe's reaffirmation of absolute sovereignty in the poetic
phantasm of the German king of soldiers modeled after Napoleon.
The Satire on the Bourbon Kingdom or the Disillusionment of Royal Sovereignty
Grabbe undermines the Bourbon claim to royal sovereignty by inverting classical
tragedy and comedy. He turns the dramatis personae of classical tragedy into the subject
of irony in an aristocratic comedy, while the bourgeois dramatis personae from classical
comedy represent the critical audience onstage.284 He satirizes Bourbon monarchism by
characterizing the relationship between the monarch and the people, on the one hand, the
monarch and his Swiss Guard, on the other hand. A crowd of mostly aristocrats and a
few members of the third estate gathered at the Tuileries in expectation of the
283
Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1995). Gerhard Plumpe,
Epochen der deutschen Literatur, Ein systemtheoretischer £>7Av«//(C)pladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1995).
24
Herbert Kaiser,,,Hundert Tage Napoleon oder Das goldene Zeitalter der Willensherrschaft. Zu Grabbes
Napoleon oder die hundert Tage," in: Walter Hinck (Hrsg.), Geschichte als Schauspiel, Deutsche
Geschichtsdramen, Interpretationen (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), 198. Maria Porrmann, „Die
franzosische Revolution als Schauspiel," in: Detlev Kopp/Michael Vogt (Hrsg.), Grabbe und die
Dramatiker seiner Zeit (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1990), 164f.
109
symbolically political self-representation of the royal family returning from Sunday
church service. The two groups of spectators onstage comment the first appearance of
Louis XVIII in the drama from two mutually contradictory points of view. The
aristocratic point of view is aesthetically illusionist and politically affirmative, the
bourgeois point of view is aesthetically anti-illusionist and politically critical. Contrary
to the aristocrats who fall for the illusory glamour of the revived ancien regime and
praise the supposed closeness of the king to his people, the burghers have a more realistic
view. What the aristocrats admire as "involuntary grace" (unwillkiirliche Grazie)2*5 in
the king's body movements, they satirically expose as physical ugliness caused by age
and obesity. "The fat Mister King is limping like the devil." (Der dicke Herr Konig
hinktja wie der Teufel).286 Here Grabbe satirizes royal self-representation and the
medieval political theology of the king's two bodies.287 While the monarchy and
aristocracy glorifies itself as a "loyal nation" (treue Nation) following the ideas of the
French Revolution, the burghers make ironical and cynical comments on the symbolically
political performance staged by "a few old women and men who ran away from the
guillotine" (paar alien, der Guillotine entlaufenen Weiber undHerren.)2*8
The king did not only gamble away his political credit with the French people. When
he tries to break out of the protocol for royal self-representation by surmounting the
barrier of the illusionist fourth-walled stage onstage in order to demonstrate closeness to
the people, he comes into conflict with his stoic Swiss Guard who does not permit such
transgressions of social and dramatic character roles.
285
1/2, 338.
1/2, 338.
287
Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies, A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1957).
288
1/2, 339.
286
110
MADAME DE SERRE What do I see? The king
is greeting and approaching me!
SWISS GUARD (to the king). Step back!
THE KING I am the king,
friend.
SWISS GUARD And this is my post to which my
officer has ordered me and for which I am paid.
Step back, or THE KING Alright, alright, good warrior - (To
himself.) What a loyal stupid animal! (Aloud.)
Madame de Serre, I know you, and I wish to
greet you - but, as you can see, my warriors are
so loyal to me that they don't let me come to
you and they would be capable of protecting
me against myself.
MADAME DE SERRE Sire, this is the greatest
day of my life - 1 (The king with his entourage exits.)
OLD MARQUIS She faints.
MADAME DE SERRE Was seh' ich? Der Konig
winkt mir, tritt auf mich zu!
SCHWEIZERGARDIST (zum Konige). Zuriick!
DERKONIG Ich bin der Konig, Freund.
SCHWEIZERGARDIST
Und dies ist mein
Posten, auf den mich mein Offizier gestellt hat
und fur den ich bezahlt werde. Zuriick, oder DER KONIG
Schon gut, gut, braver Krieger (Fur sich.) Was fur ein treues dummes Tier!
(Laut.) Madame de Serre, ich kenne Sie, und
wunschte Sie zu griiBen - aber Sie sehen, meine
Krieger sind so felsentreu, dafi sie auch mich
nicht zu Ihnen kommen lassen und imstande
waren, mich gegen mich selbst zu schutzen.
MADAME DE SERRE Sire, dieses ist der grQBte
Tag meines Lebens - Ich (Der Konig mit seiner Begleitung ab.)
DER ALTE MARQUIS Sie fallt in Ohmacht.289
The sovereign commander-in-chief must paradoxically yield to the instructions of the
dutiful subject who as a security agent protects him from his people against his free will.
The symbolically political performance of the king in the role of the man of the people is
miscarried. The French people do not support the monarchy and the monarch lost
supreme power of command over his mercenary army, an important attribute of absolute
sovereignty.
In addition, the Bourbons misjudge the situation and underestimate the danger
emanating from Napoleon. They erroneously believe that fair and simple police
measures would suffice to ostracize the returning emperor. They surround themselves
with dilettantish political advisors who reassure them against all appearances, "The
nation loves and admires the royal family limitlessly." {Die Nation liebt und verehrt die
konigliche Familie grenzenlos.).290 They hire opportunist renegades and false friends
who play a double game against them. They lack power of decision in practical matters.
They cannot protect the interests of their extremely weak power basis consisting of
289
290
1/2, 339f.
1/3, 345.
Ill
returned aristocratic emigres whom Napoleon dispossessed of their property, rights, and
privileges. Instead, they indulge in idle talk and inactivity and their words of power have
no force. They come into preposterous conflicts with each other based on age-old feuds.
Old European cabinet politics and diplomacy at the Vienna Congress support and limit
absolute sovereignty of the Bourbon monarchy. Tired of politics in general and the
Restoration in particular, the king disproves of Duchess of Angouleme's romantic return
to late medieval Jesuitism, which is just as anachronistic as Utopian, and prefers to escape
from the chaos of history into the staged natural order of a British botanical garden. He
appears as the exact opposite of an absolute sovereign, foreshadowing the
Schopenhauerian resigned, quietist, and pessimistic king of the Biedermeier age, for
instance, in Grillparzer's and Hebel's historical tragedies.
The Aesthetics of Cruelty or the Disillusionment of Popular Sovereignty
The French people concur in two points. They condemn the absolutist monarchy
comparing the Bourbons depicted in historical paintings to extinct animals in the
menagerie and they admire Napoleon limitlessly pinning their hopes on him in defense of
the French Republic against its external enemies. Otherwise, public opinion is divided
and variable. Politically disoriented, the crowd in the streets of Paris is open to political
seductions by various propagandists. It bends with the political winds like a field of
reeds. In one instance, it celebrates the Duke of Orleans as their future king when he
arrives at the scene to settle a conflict between returned aristocratic 6migr6s and retired
imperial guards. He tries to impersonate the friend of the people and just ruler who
defends the civil right to free speech in order to popularize the Bourbon monarchy. Here
112
Grabbe anachronistically satirizes the fact that Philippe Louis, the "citizen-king"
(Btirgerkonig),291 also known as Philippe Egalite,fromthe House of Orleans ascended
the throne as King of the French and ruled 1830 through 1848. The satirical episode
culminates in a short moment of dramatic silence.
DUKE OF BERRY (...) Long live the King! CHASSECCEUR Well!
(Everybody falls silent; the Duke with his
entourage exits.)292
HERZOG VON BERRY (...) Es lebe der Konig! CHASSECCEUR Hm!(Alles schweigt; der Herzog mit seinem Gefolge ab.)
However, the symbolically political act of sovereignty fails, as the crowd remains silent
and refuses to express subjective self-discipline to absolute sovereignty against the
official protocol for celebrating the monarchy.
In the next instance, the crowd evokes the Reign of Terror, which Grabbe reflects in
three different stages. At first, an old saleswoman articulates nostalgic memories and
figurations of the revolution (Revolutionsbildlichkeii) and Duchesne stages the
symbolically political theater of the revolution {Revolutionstheater) (11). Then, a master
tailor evokes the spirits of the past, before the ultra-revolutionary Jacobin Jouve reenacts
the reality of the revolution (Revolutionsrealitdt) (III l).293 Nourished by the rumor that
Napoleon was executed and incited by antiquarian and monumentalistic historiography
and by the liberal constitutionalists Carnot and Fouche who criticize the Restoration and
defend the people's sovereignrightto regicide, the people rehearse the insurrection in the
streets of Paris after the Bourbons took flight and before Napoleon resumes power.
Dilettantish impersonators of historical and political heroes, for instance, the hack-lawyer
Duchesne, perform a symbolically political show in the limelight of the street theater
291
T. E. B. Howarth, Citizen-King, The Life of Louis-Philippe, King of the French (London, Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1961).
292
1/2, 337.
Manfred Schneider, Destruktion und utopische Gemeinschaft, Zur Thematik und Dramaturgie des
Heroischen im Werk Christian Dietrich Grabbes (Frankfiirt/Main: Athenaum, 1973), 256f.
113
onstage addressing revolutionary agitation and propaganda against the Bourbon
monarchy to the excited crowd. Fulminating against clericalism and feudalism and
glorifying the heroes of the French Revolution, he parodies the classical style of the
revolutionary orator. He argues that royal sovereignty must base itself on popular
sovereignty, that the king must exercise absolute sovereignty by surrendering it and grant
civil and humanrightsto his subjects instead of authenticating the claim to absolute
sovereignty by divine grace and noble descent to suppress the citizens. Otherwise, he
suggests, the people should claim absolute sovereignty and use their natural right to
enforce limits on royal sovereignty and bring the king to justice like his predecessor.
However, this argumentation contains several self-contradictions. Although the selfproclaimed tribune of the people appeals to the sovereign right of the French people to
mandate absolute sovereignty to the king, he obliges them to submit to the returning
Emperor, yet another monarch.294 In the final analysis, the emulator falls back behind the
emulated heroes of the French Revolution—"the mighty Danton, the sublime HeraultS&helles, the terrible Robespierre" (der gewaltige Danton, der erhabene HeraultSechelles, der schreckliche Robespierre).
A critical audience should be able to
recognize the aesthetic difference between the symbolically political performance and its
historical and political reference, political play-acting and dramatic role-playing, claim
and reality.
Grabbe stages the symbolically political theater of the French Revolution as a
carnival parade accompanied by music, song, and dance. The political ritual combines
mystic, occult, and satanic incantations with empty political phrases as well as
294
295
1/1,334.
1/1, 332.
114
philosophical and theological slogans of the Enlightenment.296 Metaphorically acting as
stage manager, a puckish master tailor instigates the crowd against the monarchy and
aristocracy through a performative speech act of necromancy. Four catchwords—Paris,
Seine, aristocrats, and danger— articulated in an occult state of trance set the rumor mill
to work and inspire mass hysteria in the crowd. The spirits of the past evoked by him
ironically appear onstage incarnated by the suburbanites from St. Antoine who march up
on the Place-de-Greve singing the revolutionary folk song with the first line Ah! ga ira,
ga ira, ga ira. The revolutionary crowd, "beasts of have-not and sirs of hit-hard" (Bestien
von Habenichts undHerren von Schlagzu)291 spearheaded by the ultra-revolutionary
Jouve, the "head-chopper of Versailles and Avignon" (Kopfabhacker von Versailles und
Avignon), recognizable by his grotesquely enlarged red cap on his head {eine ellenhohe
rote Miitze)29% fill the power vacuum after the Bourbon took flight and before Napoleon
returns. After twenty-five years in the underground, the ultra-revolutionary Jacobin
Jouve resurfaces in the political arena, as he senses an opportunity for rekindling the
spirit of 1792 and claiming popular sovereignty by reestablishing the Reign of Terror.
The carnival parade of the suburbanites from St. Antoine with the Goddess of Reason
and revolutionary claptrap resembles the ultra-revolutionary H^bertists who have
"parodied the sublime tragedy of the revolution" (erhabene Tragodie der Revolution
parodiert)299 as Robespierre in Btichner's history play puts it. However, Grabbe
exaggerates the parody of the sublime tragedy into a grotesque horror show. The
aesthetic folklore of Jacobinism is the harmless prelude to an anachronistic and fictional
296
III/1,380.
HI/1, 379.
298
HI/1, 380.
299
Georg Biichner, Dantons Tod, in: Werke und Briefe (Miinchen: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 2002),
67-133,1/3, 76.
297
115
intermezzo of revolutionary violence between the social panorama and the battle drama.
The revolting crowd takes the law into their hands by committing political murder against
petty bourgeois opportunists who profit from every change of power based on the motto
"new government, new fashion" {neue Regierung, new Kleider)}m Jouve unalterably
sorts everybody according to a strictly applicable schematic rule for distinguishing friend
from enemy; everybody who exercises any kind power is a high traitor against the nation
approved for immediate liquidation always and everywhere. The perfidious theater
performance of the revived revolution is purely symbolical and entails new theatrically
self-referential masquerade and costuming.
JOUVE The blood and brain of the tailor - W e
need better blood - Who does not have a
Jacobin cap yet shall dye his hair with this
blood, until we have more noble blood.
(Many suburbanites do so.)
Forward - put the Tuileries on fire! - Long
live liberty!
ALL SUBURBANITES Long live liberty!
JOUVE
Schneiderblut und Schneidergehirn Besseres Blut tut uns not. Wer keine
Jakobinermutze hat, fSrbe sich, bis wir edleres
haben, mit diesem Blute die Haare.
(Viel Vorstadter tun es.)
Vorwarts - die Tuilerien angesteckt - Es lebe
die Freiheit!
• 301
ALLE VORSTADTER SielebeP
By Jouve's order, the revolting crowd commits arbitrary acts of violence and politically
motivated manslaughter against the master tailor and a merchant for having dared "to sell
the colors of the nation" (die Farben der Nation zu verkaufen).302 They desecrate the
master tailor's corpse in a grotesque act of necrophilia303 and rape the merchant's wife
morbidly in the name of the Emperor. The political ritual murder follows the aesthetics
of cruelty inspired by the tricolor flag of the French nation.
JOUVE I'll make a tricolor out of you for
free:
look, I clench my fist under your nose and you
turn white, - now it strangles you and you turn
blue like the clear sky, - finally I trample
JOUVE Dir schaff ich daftlr das Trikolor umsonst:
sieh diese Faust ballt sich unter deiner Nase, und du
wirst weiB, - jetzt erwurgt sich dich und du wirst
blau wie der heitere Himmel, - nunmehr zerstampf
300
III/1,379.
111/1,381.
302
111/1,384.
303
III/l, 381. Compare to the Hally-scene in Kleist's first patriotic play Die Hermannsschlacht.
301
116
down your head and you turn red of blood.
ich deinen Kopf, und du wirst rot vor Blut.
The murderous crowd greets blood and brain with enthusiastic jubilation.
However, the eruption of revolutionary violence abruptly discontinues, as the
imperial army suddenly marches up. Napoleon and his army overtrump Jouve and his
mob. The imperial coup d'etat preempts the ultra-revolutionary coup d'etat. While, the
cynical playwright and an affirmative audience may indulge in the aesthetics of cruelty, a
critical audience should be able to realize that brute force is politically meaningless. The
revived Reign of Terror claims popular sovereignty and pretends to enforce a radically
egalitarian democracy. However, the revolutionary massacre on the Place-de-Greve
actually violates the republican rule of the law. Democracy, the rule of the people,
degenerates into ochlocracy, the rule of the mob.305 The arbitrary acts of violence based
on lynch law paradoxically undermine human and civil rights, that is, the political ideals
of the French Revolution that they should realize. They are the flipside of radically
democratic egalitarianism, or as the master tailor critically comments, "Qa ira, Sir, means
as much as 'Head off, where we'd like.'" (Qa ira, mein Herr, heifit so viel als .Kopfab,
wo es uns gefallt. *)
Although the suburbanites from St. Antoine hold that "Through
justice the nation will have it all" (Par la justice la nation I'aura),307 the performative act
of doing justice to persons declared guilty of high treason in the name of egalitarianism
and anti-commercialism paradoxically results in doing injustice to innocent individual
citizens.308
304
111/1,385.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1997), 108.
306
111/1,379.
307
III/1,380.
308
David Horton, '"Die Menge ist eine Bestie': The Role of the Masses in Grabbe's Dramas," German Life
and Letters 35 (Oct. 1981), no.l: 14-27.
305
117
In the final analysis, the people do not have programmatic political propositions.
They are not the sovereign subject of power, as the political philosophy of democracy
according to Rousseau would have it,309 but rather the powerless object of power. They
are the cue ball in the power game of the ruling class—be it Bourbon royalists or
Napoleonic imperialists, be it liberal constitutionalists such as Carnot and Fouche or
moderate revolutionaries such as Duchesne.
The ultra-revolutionary Jouve ultimately returns to the political underground. His
decision requires appropriate strategic disguise highlighted as a self-reflexive theatrical
and performative act. Saving the sans-culotte attire, the red Phrygian cap of the Jacobins,
for a later time, he replaces it with the costume characteristic for the middle-class citizen.
JOUVE The imperator is back and in fashion as
long as it lasts. I'll join in and wear an elegant
tailcoat again tomorrow. The Jacobin caps
outlive everything in the end.
JOUVE Der Imperator zurtick und in der Mode,
solang es dauert. Ich mache sie mit und trage
morgen wieder einen eleganten Frack. Die
Jakobinermutzen iiberdauern am Ende alles.310
In spite of everything, Jouve remains true to his ultra-revolutionary policy by putting it
into a long-term perspective or, as it were, choosing a strategy of hibernation in
expectation of opportune moments in the future.
JOUVE (apart) Nothing to do here - The people
are too exercised and too enthusiastic - My
dreams gone - Long live the emperor!
JOUVE (fur sich). Hier ist nichts zu machen - Die
Leute sind zu einexerziert und zu begeistert - Weg
meine TrSume - Es lebe der Kaiser!311
The subject pretends to submit to the absolute sovereign for the time being. However,
the invented dramatic character does not exit the stage yet. Grabbe uses him as a
mouthpiece for critically commenting on Napoleon's histrionic self-dramatization as
absolute sovereign.
v
Rousseau (1997).
111/1,384.
1
III/2,386.
0
118
The Aesthetics of Sublimity or the Disillusionment of Imperial Sovereignty
... in the Political Arena
After the imperial army triumphantly marched through France, the Bourbons took
flight, and Jacobinism succumbed without bloodshed, Napoleon, the egocentric power
politician and imperialist warmonger, steals the show of all other parties and reassumes
power over the French Republic. Grabbe reenacts Napoleon's claim to imperial
sovereignty in different ways. For instance, Napoleon acts as the lord of Europe and the
world, the anti-liberal self-made man and the autocratic head of state, the pseudoplebiscitary legitimated French emperor, the revolutionary generalissimo, victorious
commander-in-chief, and glorious war hero. All these are instances in which Grabbe
represents Napoleon's histrionic dramatization of absolute sovereignty. These
mystifications and self-mystifications in the political arena and on the military battlefield
following the aesthetics of sublimity should inspire respect and admiration and evoke
subjective self-discipline in the ideal audience onstage and offstage.312 However, since
these episodes internally reflect on their aesthetic status as symbolically political theater,
a critical audience should be able to keep a critical distance to the histrionic dramatization
and self-dramatization of imperial sovereignty and reject affirmative interpretations.
Grabbe's multiperspectival dramaturgy sheds light on the political and aesthetic
conditions under which heroic idolatry and subjective subservience to the figure of
absolute sovereignty emerge. The main character is both an aesthetic and a historical and
political construction, a political play-actor and dramatic role-player who acts as the
figure of absolute sovereignty. Composed of histrionic self-dramatizations of absolute
312
Bertolt Brecht (W 24/316f.) recognizes the historical and political dangers emanatingfromthe aesthetics
of identification and empathy vis-a-vis the phantasm of absolute sovereignty under the impression of the
Nazi regime. See Chapter Five.
119
sovereignty and the theatrical perceptions of minor characters embodying social forces of
the epoch, he represents an aesthetic illusion of absolute sovereignty. In Grabbe's history
play, Napoleon appears as a self-impersonator and as the one whom others see in him.313
For instance, the two General Adjutants, Cambronne und Bertrand, act as directors and
stage-managers of grandiose scenes in which Napoleon presents himself in the historical
dramatic character role of the sovereign commander-in-chief and glorious war hero. An
uncritical audience would not be able to affirm claims to absolute sovereignty without
falling back behind the level of complexity achieved by Grabbe's multiperspectival
dramaturgy.314 As a distanced observer of the July Revolution 1830, Grabbe had
reservations against the affirmative Napoleon myth in the vein of Goethe, Hegel, and
lie
Nietzsche
but he oscillates between mystification and demystification, neither
affirming the positive nor rejecting the negative Napoleon myth in the history play.316
The histrionic dramatizations and self-dramatizations of imperial sovereignty contain
a plethora of performative contradictions. For instance, Napoleon defends French
nationalism and imperialism under the guise of paltry utilitarianism. According to him,
the French are the greatest of people and he is the greatest of Frenchmen. He
simultaneously claims absolute sovereignty over Europe and the world for the French
Empire and imperial sovereignty over France for himself.317 The immediate purpose is
regaining and preserving hegemony over Europe but his final goal is world
313
Porrmann (1990,165).
Dieter Liewerscheidt, „,...seine Trommeln t8nen vielen Eseln noch zu laut' Grabbes ,Napoleon' oder
die asthetische Einheit," Grabbe-Jahrbuch (1989): 57-67, 61.
315
Johann Wolfgang Goethe/Johann P. Eckermann, Gesprdche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines
Lebens, in: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Sdmtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebiicher und Gesprdche in vierzig
Bdnden, (Frankfurt/Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999). Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der
Moral (Berlin: Akademieverlag, 2004). Liewerscheidt (1989, 62f.).
316
Schneilin (1996,168).
317
1/4, 352.
314
120
domination.318 He envisions a modern Cartage spanning over the North Atlantic Ocean
from Europe to North America and reaching into Latin America and the South Seas. He
himself would spearhead the World Empire as the "ruler of the human race" (Herrscher
des Menschengeschlechts)?19
While the old European monarchies compete with each other for hegemony over
Europe at the Vienna Congress, the political revenant models his return to power on the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. The self-deification follows a political theology that
borrows the Christology of the New Testament according to which the Emperor serves as
God's deputy on earth.
NAPOLEON
Congress at Vienna! There they are fighting
against each other over the cloak of the lord whom
they deem crucified here (...)- But the lord
resurged! — Europe, the infantile old man, needs
the disciplinary rod, and what do you think, St.-Ple, who could whip it better than I do?320
NAPOLEON
KongreB zu Wien! Da streiten sie sich um den
Mantel des Herrn, den sie hier am Kreuze wahnen
(...) - Aber der Herr erstand! - - Europa, der
kindisch gewordene Greis bedarf der Zuchtrute,
und was meinen Sie, St.-P-le, wer konnte sie besser
schwingen, als Ich?
Napoleon concocts a pretext for his coup d'etat. He invokes his sovereign rights
authenticated by his aristocratic title within the old European political system that he
otherwise rejects. Thus, he passes off his preemptive strikes, proactive wars of
aggression, and imperialist warmongering as a legitimate act of national self-defense. He
claims that as sovereign Prince of Elba, he wages war on the Bourbon monarchy for a
just cause and with arightintention, as far as they committed a crime against his majesty
by not having met their pension payment obligations to him. By contrast, the Vienna
Congress does not condemn the Russian war campaign against the Ottoman Empire, even
318
Contrary to literary critics who downplay Napoleon's nationalism and imperialism in the tradition of
German idealism—see, for instance, Kaiser (1981,226).
319
319 IV/2, 400.
320' i1/4, 352.
121
though it is neither for a just cause nor with the right intention.321 This claim is formally
legitimate but he is complicit with nineteenth-century European imperialism, although
the French Emperor critically exposes it.
As far as the Vienna Congress places Napoleon into diplomatic isolation and outlaws
him, and the advancing Coalition troops march against France on the country and
seaways,322 the French Emperor must react and his sovereignty is limited. However, his
strategy of acceleration and escalation of conflicts,323 following the maxim that attack is
the best means of defense, reinstates his claim to absolute sovereignty and enhances the
chances of realizing improbable military successes. Grabbe presents him as an
obsessive-compulsive gambler in a military game of pure chance, a soldier of fortune
who accepts higher risks and lower hit rates to increase possible profit. However, the
strategist does not passively wait for opportune moments that present themselves, as his
enemies, but he rather actively brings them about through his strategy of acceleration and
escalation {er schaffi sich notigenfalls den Augenblick)?24 The outworn metaphor of
lightning from the classical aesthetics of sublimity expresses Napoleon's speedy and
sudden surprise maneuvers.325 Although his blitzkrieg strategy gives him a competitive
edge over internal and external enemies,326 he gambles it away in the end. Napoleon
presses for a political decision on the military battlefield under the premise that the
military victor on the battlefield presents both political friends and foes with
321
m/3,391.
III/3,390.
323
TV/2, 385.
324
V/3,442.
325
II/4, 369. Lightning is not only a metaphor for Napoleon's speed but also for his pure mediatory that is
faster than the modern technological medium of optical telegraphy. Jlirgen Fohrmann, „Die Ellipse des
Helden," in: Detlev Kopp/Michael Vogt (Hrsg.), Grabbes Welttheater, Christian Dietrich Grabbe zum 200.
Geburtstag (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2001), 119-135.
326
HI/1, 385; IV/4,407; V/l, 430f..
322
122
accomplished facts in the political arena. Military success and military success alone
legitimizes internal and external sovereignty at home and abroad.
Liberal constitutionalism represented by Carnot and Fouch£ relies on the power of
words allegorized by the "printing press" (Druckereif21 in order to control public opinion
at home and negotiate a peace treaty with the Coalition via international cabinet politics
and diplomacy abroad. By contrast, Napoleon relies exclusively on military might,
allegorized by a "French company" (franzosische Kompanie),m in order to defend the
French Republic against its external enemies. Accordingly, Napoleon's first official act
at the Tuileries is replacing prayer books from the private library of Louis XVIII,
allegorizing the exegesis and normative interpretation of various kinds of legal, political,
and religious texts, with geographical maps, allegorizing the design of military strategies
and determination of marching routes. "The books aside, and maps on the table." (Die
Biicher beiseit, und Landkarten aufden Tisch).
As soon as Napoleon reassumes power, the liberal bourgeois constitutionalists Carnot
and Fouche try to rope him in a conspiracy. The conspirators had prepared the deposition
of the Bourbon monarchy by denying royal legitimacy, criticizing restorative measures,
and defending the people's natural right to regicide and revolution in their memoirs about
the French Revolution (1/4, II/2, and II/4). However, they arrange a secret conspiracy
against Napoleon on the Place-de-Greve, the "sacrificial altar of France" (Opferaltar
Frankreichs),330 where Danton and Robespierre sunk, marking the end of the Reign of
Terror and the beginning of Directorate usurped by Napoleon. After Napoleon overthrew
327
III/3,392.
III/3, 392.
329
111/3,389.
330
II/5, 372.
328
123
the Bourbons and contained Jacobinism at home, they rely on him to repel attacks of
external enemies. On this basis, they intend to establish a new constitutional state tied in
with the Directorate, however, and this is the crux of the plan, supported by Napoleon's
popularity with the French people and army. They propose that the Emperor enforce a
liberal constitution in the tradition of the French Revolution to the fright of the old
European kings and to the pleasure of the French people. The constitutionalists need the
authoritarian leader Napoleon to fill the vacant position as head of state in order to
enforce, guarantee, and protect the constitution that paradoxically limits absolute
sovereignty at the same time. "He shall become emperor again, however, strongly
restrained by a constitution." (Er werde wieder Kaiser, jedoch krdftig gebdndigt mit
einer Konstitutiori)?n However, the Emperor foils their plot. In exile, he had
forebodingly pondered, "Conspirators are always villains in search for a tool that they
like to throw away after their plans succeed." {Verschworene sind immer Schurken, die
nur ein Werkzeugfiir ihre Plane suchen, welches sie nachher gerne wegwerferi).
He
rejects their suggestion with a laconic word of power. "Well, now, believe me,
messieurs! Charters and constitutions are more lacerable than the paper on which they
are printed." {Aber, aber, glauben Sie, meine Herren, Charten und Konstitutionen sind
zerreifibarer als das Papier, auf welches man sie druckt.)
The crux of the plot is the synthesis of constitutionalism and emperorship.
Constitutionalism overestimates the legal binding power of the constitution over the
emperor. The emperor does not only have the duty to enforce and protect the constitution
but he also has the sovereign right to amend or suspend it in part or in full. It cannot
331
II/5, 372.
1/4, 353.
333
III/3, 392.
332
prevent him from imperialist warmongering without aidfromthe old European
monarchies at the Vienna Congress. Absolute sovereignty alone may paradoxically limit
itself. No internal political force, neither aristocratism and monarchism, nor radical
democratic Jacobinism and liberal constitutionalism, matches Napoleon's military might,
not to mention Napoleon's popularity with the army and people. When the liberal officer
Lab6doyere defends the Marseillaise as "a liberal song, appropriate for the Zeitgeist" (ein
liberates Lied, passendfur den Zeitgeist)334 in battle, Napoleon's General Adjutant
cynically defines subjective self-discipline as the only kind of "liberalism" possible in an
authoritarian state. Both in politics and on the battlefield, constitutionalism fall prey to
Napoleon's autocracy. The Emperor does not shy away from Machiavellianism
following in the footsteps of state terrorists like Robespierre.
The nation-state must
defend external sovereignty against its enemies before exerting internal sovereignty by
adopting a constitution. This paradoxically defers the establishment of the Republic in
the name of the Republic.
ThefranticEmperor has "no time for etiquette" (keine Zeit zur Etikette). In disregard
of the old European customs of cabinet politics and diplomacy, he does away with
internationally accepted "formalities" {Formlichkeiteri) such as "declarations of war"
(Kriegsmanifeste) and linguistic decorum such as thepluralis majestatis and the
theological formula of political legitimatization 'by the Grace of God'.
NAPOLEON In the future you will leave out
"We" and "by the grace of God" in all official
writings. I am I, that is, Napoleon Bonaparte who
created himself in two years.
NAPOLEON Ktoftiglafitduinjedemoffiziellen
Schreiben, das „Wir" und das „von Gottes Gnaden"
aus. Ich bin Ich, das heifit Napoleon Bonaparte, der
sich in zwei Jahren selbst schuf.337
334
IV/6,418.
335
III/3,392.
IV/2,401.
337
III 3, 390.
336
125
Through this performative act of self-legitimatization, the autocratic military dictator
places himself over the old European system of royal dynasties accustomed to
substantiate their traditional power of monarchical majesty 'by the grace of God'. He
acts as an autochthonous self-legitimized and self-legitimizing sovereign who is a selfmade man if not the self-positing self-creator who represents the tautological self-identity
of the absolute subjectivity theorized by German idealism.338
Grabbe inserts the dramatic representation of the symbolically political adoption of a
constitutional amendment into the drama as a play in the play (IV 1) and gives minute
stage directions as to the setting of the scenery. The stage onstage is coated in red velvet,
the imperial throne placed at its center, and seats for ministers and state officials arranged
circumferentially. The army marches up on the parade ground, accompanied by
marching music and saluted by roars of guns, state officials takes their seats before the
emperor accompanied by his ministers enters the scene celebrated by people.
The choice of location for the deposition of Louis XVIII in 1815 on the Champs-duMars commemorates the abdication of Louis XVI upon request of the French people
spearheaded by Danton in 1791. Napoleon changes costumes for the theatrical act of
state. The commander-in-chief replaces his military attire with the insignia of
emperorship: ermine cloak, golden scepter, and laurel wreath. He claims absolute
sovereignty over Europe by slipping into the dramatic character role of the emperor of
Europe in the vein of Charlemagne, the medieval "Frankish emperor" (frankischen
Kaiser),340 and enforcing a constitutional amendment that reestablishes the Empire.
338
Johann Gottlob Fichte, Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Hamburg: Meiner, 1997). G.F.W.
Hegel, Phanomenologie des Geistes (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1996), 138.
339
IV/l,396f.
340
III/3,392.
126
Although he aims at overcoming the old European system of monarchies, his militarism,
nationalism, and imperialism follows the high medieval universalism and its main idea of
empire, or in German Reich?41 He is primarily concerned with uniting the French people
and army under one banner for the impending decisive battle against the advancing
Coalition forces. The adoption of a republican and democratic constitution falls into
second place.
Two dramatic figures on the front stage do not only teichoscopically report but they
also affirmatively and critically comment on the symbolically political act of state on the
backstage. Contrary to the third act where Jouve acted up the radical Jacobin
revolutionary, he now appears in the crowd disguised "in a blue tailcoat" (im blauen
Frackf42 acting up a gallant bourgeois gentleman. He realizes that his flirtations with a
bourgeois lady mirror Napoleon's deception of the French people. The bourgeois lady
and Jouve put forward two different interpretations of the symbolically political
performance. The first interpretation politically affirms Napoleon's claim to imperial
sovereignty, the second interpretation criticizes it as an aesthetic ideology of political
domination. The bourgeois lady admires Napoleon as "a great man" (ein grofter Mann)
for his "gravely majestic" (ernst-majestdtisch)
look in his eyes. However, Jouve
portrays the common man behind the mask of the Emperor. The political play-actor
Napoleon customarily puts on such gestures and facial expressions in public life, "as long
as he knows that the crowd is looking at him" {solang er weifi, dafi ihn die Menge
anblickt), Jouve argues. In his private life, Jouve continues, he may be "grumpy, funny,
341
Otto Brunner/Werner Conze/Reinhart Koselleck (Hrsg.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Historisches
Lexikon zurpolitisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 8 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1972ff.).
342
IV 1, 396.
343
IV/1, 397.
127
and loquacious, as anybody else" (miirrisch, lustig, schwatzhaft, wiejeder andere)}44
Jouve points out that Napoleon may have consulted with the theater actor FrancoisJoseph Talma (1763-1826) about "facial expression and drapery" (Minenspiel und
Faltenwurf).345 He puts the histrionic self-dramatization of imperial sovereignty into a
critical perspective by highlighting the aesthetic difference between the symbolically
political performance and its historical and political reference. Penetrating the "indecent
frippery of the surface" (Schandflitter der Oberflache)?46 Jouve critically exposes
Napoleon's claim to imperial sovereignty as a symbolically political performance staged
to deceive the masses. "Tis all comedy after all." ('s istja dock alles Komodie)?41 The
symbolically political performance aesthetically evokes obedience to the absolute
sovereign in the subjects; violent repression would provoke resistance.
The performative act of taking the oath contains a performative contradiction, as far
as Jouve critical distances himself from its historical and political meaning. Although he
acts up the bourgeois gentleman who submits to absolute sovereignty by taking the oath
to Napoleon's constitutional amendment, the inveterate Jacobin within him exposes the
symbolically political performance as such.
JOUVE
Five times hundred thousand perjurers, including
myself, without a thunderbolt striking down on
them, are an interesting appearance! What did we
not swear to and break again, thefirst,the second,
the third constitution, Napoleon's by-laws, the
Bourbon charter.
JOUVE FtinfmalhunderttausendMeineidige,
mich selbst mit eingeschlossen, ohne daB ein
Blitz auf sie fallt, sind doch eine interessante
Erscheinung! Was haben wir nicht alles
beschworen und gebrochen, die erste, die zweite,
die dritte Konstitution, die Satzungen Napoleons,
die Charte der Bourbonen.348
344
rv/l, 398.
rv/l, 398. Similarly, Arturo Ui, embodying Al Capone and Adolf Hitler, consults with a Shakespearean
actor in order to learn how to walk, stand, sit, and talk "in the great style" of the classical historical theater
in Brecht's parable play The Resistible Rise ofArturo Ui. See Chapter Five.
346
IV/1, 399.
347
rv71,398.
348
III/3, 386.
345
128
Here Jouve critically exposes the symbolically political performance as mass perjury.
However, his sarcasm and cynicism ultimately gives way to pessimistic resignation,
nihilism, and apocalyptic visions. The ultra-revolutionary Jacobin gives up his policy
and does not reenter Grabbe's history play.
Napoleon is the Janus-faced absolute sovereign who implements some yet betrays
other political ideas and ideals of the French Revolution in favor of his egotism and
autocracy. His front-face shows the anti-feudal and anti-clerical revolutionary but his
back-face shows the illiberal, anti-liberal, and authoritarian traits of the power politician
and imperialistic warmonger. The French Emperor is simultaneously the "executor"
(Testamentvollstrecker) and the "annihilator" (Vernichter) of the French Revolution.349
On the one hand, he conducted reforms in many areas including economy, law, and
administration. He adopted the Code civil that guaranteed religious freedom, civil rights,
and equality before the law to all French citizens. On the other hand, he excluded the
people from participating in the process of political decision-making through censorship
and systematic de-politicization of the public sphere. Napoleon's adhocracy follows the
principles of instrumental reason. It displays political power and military might in a
public theater spectacle, which serves him an ideological smokescreen for making the
paradox of sovereignty invisible and committing the army and the people to the Empire.
Napoleonic nationalism and imperialism is tantamount to anti-democratic populism. By
suspending the separation of powers and concentrating the branches of legislative and
Walter Grab, „Napoleons Janusantlitz als Vollstrecker und Vernichter der Ideen der Franzdsischen
Revolution," in: Julia Bertschik/Elisabeth Emter/Johannes Graf (Hrsg.), Produktivitat des Gegensatzlichen,
Studien zur Literatur des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Festschrift fur Horst Denkler zum 65. Geburtstag
(Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2000), 31-41.
129
executive power in his person and office, he establishes an autocracy and indulges in the
personality cult of charismatic authority.
In addition, he defended French hegemony over Continental Europe through
permanent warfare and terror against other states and peoples and aimed at world
domination by worldwide conquest and plundering. His proactive wars of aggression,
preemptive strikes, imperialistic and colonialist warmongering in Europe and the world in
the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity undermine the ideas of the French
Revolution. Although he abolishes monarchic, aristocratic, and clerical rights and
privileges, a modest concession to liberal constitutionalism, as it further defers the
establishment of the Republic, he himself appoints state offices for a lifetime, introduces
neo-aristocratic titles and inheritable political offices. The self-proclaimed "son of the
Revolution" (Sohn der Revolution),350 declares the end of the French Revolution, and
deposes of the Bourbon monarchy for a second time after 1804.351 Thus, he lifts the state
of emergency and solves the permanent crisis of popular sovereignty for the time being.
However, the end of Jacobinism did not only save the old European royal dynasties from
doom and made possible Restoration all over Europe but it also dashed all hopes for the
democratic rule of law based on popular sovereignty both in France and the world. Had
Napoleon continued the Reign of Terror, he would have perhaps had annihilated his
enemies, the old European royal dynasties.352
Minor characters critically expose further performative contradictions in Napoleon's
symbolically political performance on the Champs-du-Mars as a pseudo-plebiscitary selflegitimatization of imperial sovereignty. Thus, Jouve draws a comparison of the old and
350
1/4, 354.
III/3, 392.
352
1/4, 356.
351
130
new empire to the old monarchy as "the old mash in new dishes" {der alte Brei in neuen
Schusselri) and criticizes Napoleon, "That Bonaparte of all people does not want to
perceive the misery of aristocratic inheritability." {Dafi grade ein Bonaparte nicht
spilren will, wie erbdrmlich die aristokratische Erblichkeit ist).
In a rare moment of
critical self-reflection, Napoleon himself regrets that he reintroduced "ridiculous ideas
about ancestry" {lacherliche Ahnideerif54 as a principle for appointing public offices, yet
he supports neo-aristocratism in the political arena. The republican idealist Carnot
maintains that despite the Reign of Terror the Committee of Public Safety fought for a
better cause than the egotistical Emperor did (II/5). Contrary to Napoleon's political
theology of self-creation, the imperial guards Vitry and Chassecoeur point out that the
Revolution made the emperor and his army but the suburbanites of St. Antoine made the
Revolution and the emperor.355 Imperial sovereignty is subject to social forces that both
support and undermine it historically and politically. Grabbe himself believed that the
French Revolution was greater than the French Emperor was.
By the way, Napoleon is not such a great task. He
is a fellow whose egotism drove him to make use of
his age, - except for his selfish purposes, he, as a
Corsican, as half a Frenchman, never knew what he
was pursuing, - he is smaller than the Revolution,
and at bottom he is just the pennon at its pole, - it is
not him but the Revolution that is still alive in
Europe (...). It is not him but his history that is
great. His spirit is well and proficient, he often
won, many donkeys still hear his drums sounding as
loud as Paganini's G-string (that is, of the ingenious
charlatan), - but how did he win? He never had a
great opponent, - ancientness promoted his
opponents and spirit promoted him, - hence, there
we find a hundred times more great people within
ten years at the time than now within twenty years,
- and hence, the Revolution where something
emerged from the excrement bears a resemblance to
Napoleon ist ubrigens eine so grofie Aufgabe nicht.
Er ist ein Kerl, den sein Egoismus dahin trieb, seine
Zeit zu benutzen, - auBer eigenntitzigen Zwecken,
hat er schon als Corse, als Halbfranzose nie gewuBt,
wohin er eigentlich strebte, - er ist kleiner als die
Revolution, und im Grunde ist er nur das Fahnlein
an deren Maste, - nicht Er, die Revolution lebt noch
in Europa (...). Nicht Er, seine Geschichte ist groB.
Sein Geist ist gut und tuchtig, er hat oft gesiegt,
seine Trommeln tonen vielen Eseln noch so laut wie
Paganinis elende G-Saite (namlich des genialen
Charlatans), - aber wodurch siegte er? Er hatte nie
einen grofien Gegner, - seine Gegner waren durch
Anciennitat, er durch Geist befordert, - darum
finden wir trotz der schlechten damaligen Zeit dort
in 10 Jahren 100 Mai mehr groBe Leute als jetzt in
20, - darum hat die Revolution, wo aus dem Kothe
auch etwas hervortauchen konnte, Aehnlichkeit mit
353
IV/1, 398.
III/3, 391.
355
III/l, 382.
354
131
him.
However, I will prudently uphold the l'empereur et
roi in the drama. I can do it with quiet conscience.
He is great because nature made him great and
placed him high similar to the constrictor when it
seize the tiger.
ihm.
Im Drama werde ich aber aus Klugheit den
l'empereur et roi hoch halten. Ich kann's auch mit
guten Gewissen. Er ist groB weil die Natur ihn groB
machte und groB stellte, gleich der Riesenschlange,
wenn sie den Tiger packt.356
In fact, Napoleon is located "at the point of junction of the monarchical, ritual
exercise of sovereignty and the hierarchical, permanent exercise of indefinite
discipline."357 The Napoleonic age is a transitional period between pre-modern society,
organized in stratified structures and its socio-political semantics of absolute sovereignty
and modern society, organized in functionally differentiated structures and its sociopolitical semantics of subjective self-discipline. The Napoleonic Empire is the forerunner
of modern military dictatorship that paradoxically combine the pre-modern discourse of
absolute sovereignty with modern discipline and self-discipline of individual subjectivity.
Napoleonic emperorship falls back onto the pre-modern paradigm of traditional authority
and anticipates the anti-modern paradigm of charismatic authority characteristic for
modern military dictatorship.
In Grabbe's history play, Napoleon's rejection of popular sovereignty finds
expression in the autocratic contempt for the French people. When the crowd in the
streets of Paris calls on him to show himself to them, Napoleon brings himself to submit
to the political and theatrical ritual unemotionally, as if he were discharging of an
unpleasant duty. At this occasion, he expresses the contempt of the "great" man for the
little people whom he pejoratively calls "scoundrels" (Ca«az7/e),358 although their
356
Letter to Kettembeil July 14,1830. L6b (1991,138f.).
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random House, 1995),
217.
358
1/4, 349.
357
132
numerousness is the condition of possibility for the aesthetic illusion of his political
greatness.
NAPOLEON The scoundrels are growing insolent
- The Bourbons, though of high nobility, have
rather slackened the reigns — Well - He shows
himself at the window, loud clamor resounds,
"Long live the emperor!" He steps back.
NAPOLEON
Die Canaille wird anmaBend Die Bourbons haben, so hochadlig sie sind, die
Ztigel doch recht schlaff gehalten — Nun - Er geht
einen Augenblick an das Fenster, lautes Geschrei:
"Es lebe der Kaiser" erschallt. Er tritt zurtick.359
Furthermore, Napoleon intimates that only the social elite waste time with political ideas
such as liberalism, republicanism, and constitutionalism. As Carnot must know from his
experiences in the Committee for Public Safety, the silent majority of common people,
argues Napoleon, knows very little or nothing about such lofty matters.
... and on the Battlefield
Grabbe reenacts the histrionic dramatization and self-dramatization of Napoleon in
the dramatic character role of the sovereign Emperor following the classical aesthetics of
sublimity not only in the political arena but also on the battlefield. Before the battle,
Grabbe presents Napoleon "asleep on the undercarriage of a canon" (schlummernd auf
der Lafette einer Kanone).
Metaphorically posing as a sleeping gun, he nevertheless
awakes punctually for the beginning of the battle with the certainty of a somnambulist.
This may leave the impression on the onlookers that he has some kind of esoteric
knowledge about the right moment (kairos). The General Adjutants jealously watch over
the sleeping Emperor, protect him against false alarmism, and prevent self-authorized
acts of subordinates. They believe that their charismatic leader is infallible. Even if his
inscrutable thoughts, decisions, and actions may not be transparent to common men, his
111/3,388.
IV/6,417.
133
orders require blind obedience.361 At the beginning of the battle, Grabbe shows
Napoleon free of fear amidst the audiovisual spectacle of war, dramatically represented
as a medley of battle cries, roars of gunfire, hails of bullets and cannonballs, clangor of
sabers and bayonets, accompanied by marching music. Grabbe presents Napoleon in
characteristic body postures following the monumental aesthetics of sublimity.
NAPOLEON Ha! The thundering of my battles
NAPOLEON Ha! meine Schlachtendonner wieder
again — I fall silent inside.
He crosses his
In mir wirds still
Er schlagt die Arme
arms.
iibereinander.
CAMBRONNE Who was not going to be pleased
CAMBRONNE Wer sollte sich nicht freuen, der
at this sight? - What silence, what quietly shining
ihn jetzt sieht? - Welche Ruhe, welche
glances!
stillglanzenden Blicke!
BETRAND Yes, it is as if clear summer heavens
BERTRAND Ja, nun ists mit ihm als stiegen
were rising up in his chest and filling it with
heitere Sommerhimmel in seiner Brust auf, und
delight and serenity. I saw him smiling quietly like erftillten sie mit Wonne und Klarheit. Still und
this in every battle, even at Leipzig.
lachelnd wie jetzt, sah ich ihn in jeder Schlacht,
selbst bei Leipzig!363
The General Adjutants do not only make affirmative comments as the bourgeois lady on
the Champs-du-Mars but they also act as stage-managers who set the scene for heroic
idolization by highlighting an ephemeral moment of tranquility, equanimity, and joviality
against the battle noises.
Grabbe presents the imperial commander-in-chief as an efficient combat-machine that
quickly analyzes the situation and issues a maelstrom of orders and commands during the
battle. The language of imperial sovereignty is as stichomythic, elliptical, and breathless
as in Kleist. While modern literary criticism appreciates rhetorical ambiguity and
semantic polyvalence, Napoleon's central performative speech acts must not produce any
ambiguities and do not tolerate interpretation, contradiction, or challenge. The French
Emperor has no assignment for "a stuttering equivocalist" (Ein stotternder
361
362
IV/6,418.
Fohrmann (2001, 132ff.).
363
IV/6,420.
134
Zweideutler) like the Bourbon Chamberlain whom he discharges from service
immediately after resuming power. The sovereign requires subjects to put orders and
commands into practice immediately, blindly obedient, without challenging authority.
Confident of victory, Napoleon mounts a horse before he orders all forces to concentrate
for an escalade. This creates another monumental and iconic self-representation of
absolute sovereignty.365 The representation of the head of state and commander-in-chief
on a muscular battle horse is a conventional motif in the visual arts such as the cavalier
statue. Grabbe stages his main character in the tradition of Jacques-Louis David's
famous historical painting showing the Hegelian world spirit on a white horse. The
figure of absolute sovereignty attends to news politics amidst the undecided battle by
combining the proclamation of the military victory over his enemies with the
enforcement of potentially unpopular political measures following the principles of
"French Journalism," as theorized by Kleist.366
Yet although Napoleon derides the post-heroic Bourbon society for wallowing in
nostalgic memories in lack of heroic deeds,367 he himself does so at the end of the
Hundred Days. Nostalgic for his glorious past, he tries to tie in with the old days when
he used to be the General of Lodi. He rebels against the inevitable defeat vigorously and
offers total resistance against the enemy in a hopeless military situation. As he dismounts
his horse, puts himself ahead of the imperial guards, and with the rapier in his hand leads
them into the battle as a pre-modern prince and commander-in-chief, it may seem that he
willfightcourageously unto death. The renunciation of the imperial crown and the self364
III 3,389.
IV/6, 422f.
366
IV/6, 423. See Heinrich von Kleist, „Lehrbuch der Franz6sischen Journalistik," in: Sdmtliche Werke
undBriefe (Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 2001), 361ff.
367
1/4, 349.
365
135
degradation of the Emperor to the rank of the General of Lodi represent a paradoxical
performative act of surrendering absolute sovereignty militarily in order to preserve it
aesthetically.
NAPOLEON I abandon the title of emperor (jumpingfromthe horse) I am again the General of
Lodi, and with the rapier in hand, I myself am
leading you to Mont Saint-Jean!
THE GUARD Above the stars the emperor!
BERTRAM) Emperor, emperor - Horrific There he stands, the hat has fallenfromhis head,
the rapier in hisfist,like the most common of his
sergeants - Sire, duty commands you not to risk
your life as you are about to do!
NAPOLEON Den Kaiser werf ich weg von mir (yom Pferde springend) ich bin wieder der General
von Lodi, und mit dem Degen in der Hand fuhr' ich
selbst euch auf Mont Saint-Jean!
DIE GARDE Uber die Sterne der Kaiser!
BETRAND Kaiser, Kaiser - Entsetzlich - Da steht
er, der Hut vom Kopf gefallen, den Degen in der
Faust, wie der gewohnlichste seiner Souslieutenante
- Sire, die Pflicht gebietet dir, dein Leben nicht so
auszusetzen, wie du im Begriff bist!368
However, Grouchy's precise execution of Napoleon's order ironically results in the
ultimate defeat in the battle of Waterloo.
As in Kleist's Homburg, the heterogeneity of
ends, that is, the incommensurability of intention and result, determines individual
actions. Napoleon misjudges the military superiority of the Prussian army spearheaded
by Blucher and unexpectedly reinforced by the Pommerian army spearheaded by
Bulow.370 However, he disclaims liability for the defeat at the turning point in the battle
of Waterloo and shifts the blame to Grouchy who is not even a dramatic character of the
history play.371
Grabbe critically exposes the phantasm of absolute sovereignty. Firstly, the audience
would err, if it were expecting heroic martyrdom from the main character following the
pattern of classical idealist historical tragedy. Contrary to Kleist's Homburg, Grabbe's
Napoleon subordinates therightof putting at risk and potentially sacrificing his
individual life to the duty of self-preservation, addressing a laconic and cynical formula
368
V 5,453f.
IV/6,424.
370
V/5,452.
371
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleons Leben von ihm selbst (Stuttgart: Lutz, 1918), Band 10,230ff.
369
136
of valediction to his army, "Granite column, farewell!" {Granitkolonne, lebe wohl!)
Reduced to a private person without political office and world historical assignment, he
strikes the pose of the lonely individual hero of Romanticism following the classical
aesthetics of identification and empathy. His last words before exiting the stage of world
history forever expose a coward commander-in-chief who orders his troops to die bravely
and honorably instead of him for the French nation behind the self-proclaimed hero.
After the emperor ingloriously takes flight from the battlefield, the General Adjutants
stage-manage the downfall of the granite column following the aesthetics of sublimity.
"Down? Granite column, fall gloriously, straight and proud like the sun!" {Nieder -?
Granitkolonne, hoch undstolz wie die Sonne, undgefallen herrlich wie sie!) 373 They
even orchestrate song and marching music, make-up and costuming in order to sublimate
aesthetically what is otherwise meaningless. "Oh how sweet is death!" {Oh, wie siifi ist
der Tod!)374 However, the aesthetics of sublimity does not impress a critical audience
who realize that its effects are limited to the heroic moment of death and therefore
undermine the underlying claim to absolute sovereignty.375 Heroic death is an act of
absolute sovereignty, as far as it simultaneously undermines and exercises the autonomy
of the subject and violates the natural right and moral duty to self-preservation. The
paradox of absolute sovereignty becomes observable in the heap of dead bodies after the
battle.
Grabbe demonstrates that Napoleon treats imperial soldiers like cheap cannon fodder
while aesthetically dignifying their sacrifices at the same time. Although the French
372
V/7,458.
V/7,459.
374
V 5,454.
375
Fohrmann (2001,131) argues similarly but without reference to the paradox of absolute sovereignty.
373
Emperor displays himself as absolute sovereign, he conceals the torture and repression of
subjects behind the scenes. The episode of horse training for the impending battle as
systematic torture at the imperial stable (TV/3) shows that the Napoleonic Empire rests
upon drilling and dressage of the living creature, both man and animal. The training of
the horse is parallel to the education of the soldier, as far as the Emperor "beats down on
his piquer with his quirt worse than he does on his horse" (er haut bisweilen mit seiner
Reitpeitsche drger aufseinen Piqueur als dieser aufsein Pferd).
However, Grabbe
also shows Napoleon in a rare moment of critical self-reflection, as far as the French
Emperor concedes that the human sacrifices are meaningless except for if sublimated
aesthetically. "You poor people also don't know why you're sighing and moaning. Forty years later the street songs will comment it. (IhrArmen wifit auch nicht, weshalb
ihr seufzet undstohnt. -Nach vierzig Jahren kommentieren es euch Gassenlieder).
77
Since politics is the fate of modern man for Napoleon,378 his militarist realpolitik of
power prioritizes the historical and political discourse of absolute sovereignty over all
other discourses including but not limited to constitutionalism and the democratic rule of
law, universal moral norms and values.379 Napoleonic imperialism either subordinates or
exploits them for military or political purposes. It considers the democratic rule of law,
applicable positive laws, republican constitution, universal moral norms and values
purely instrumentally if at all. It legitimizes itself based on the right of the stronger and
the Machiavellian maxims that the end justifies all means, charismatic authority,
376
IV/3,402.
V/5,450.
378
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, „Unterredung mit Napoleon," in: Samtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebiicher und
Gesprdche in vierzig Banden, (Frankfurt/Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999), Band 14, 577ff.
379
Heidemarie Oehm, „Geschichte und Individuality in Grabbes Napoleon oder die hundert Tage,"
Wirkendes Wort 42 (1992): 43-55,47.
377
138
proactive wars of aggression and preemptive strikes, military might and pure political
power politics instead of formal normative, rational, and discursive procedures. The
ubiquitous metaphor of the predator or the beast of prey captures Napoleon's ruthlessness
and brutality. The Emperor does not shy away from dishonorable stratagems such as
secret activities, feints, censorship and false reporting in order to deceive his internal and
external enemies as well as manipulate the French people. His politics of absolute
sovereignty does not stand the test of universalization applied by his stepdaughter
following the categorical imperative of Kantian moral philosophy.380 He claims that he
would make peace, if the situation permitted him to do so. However, she exposes his
claim to absolute sovereignty based on objective necessity as a transcendental subjective
•501
illusion: "You must - yes, because you want to." (Du mufit -ja, weil du willsf).
Yet although Napoleon features himself as the organ of historical necessity in the
vein of the Hegelian business executive of world history, he succumbs to non-tragic
powers such as chance and misfortune instead of tragic powers such as fate. Thus,
Grabbe refuses him the tragic downfall following the Hegelian paradigm of classical
historical tragedy in which the individual subject must go down after fulfilling a general
purpose in the objective course of history, just like an empty shell falls from the core.
The history play writes failure across its title hero. Nevertheless, Napoleon tries to keep
up the sublime appearance of absolute sovereignty. He claims a position for himself
j80
III/3,394.
III/3, 395.
382
Porrmann (1990, 165). Oehm (1992, 51f.). Gerard Schneilin, „Grabbes drei letzte Stttcke Napoleon
oder die hundert Tage, Hannibal und Die Hermannsschlacht als Modelle zur Umformung des politischen
Theaters im 19. Jahrhundert," in: Horst Turk/Jean-Marie Valentin (Hrsg.): Aspekte des politischen Theaters
und Dramas von Calderon bis Georg Seidel (Bern: Lang, 1996), 170.
381
139
superior to his fate. He believes himself to have reached a height of fall (Fallhohe) from
where he cannot fall anymore, as if he were immune to tragedy.
CAMBRONNE
It's time that you took flight or that...
NAPOLEON
Or else?
CAMBRONNE Imperator, fall!
NAPOLEON
My good luck may abandon me - but I do not fall.
CAMBRONNE
Excuse me, Emperor! You are right!
CAMBRONNE
Es ist Zeit, daB du fliehest, oder dafi NAPOLEON Oder?
CAMBRONNE Imperator, falle!
NAPOLEON
General, mein Gliick fallt. Ich falle nicht.
CAMBRONNE
Verzeihung, Kaiser, du hast recht!383
Grabbe dramatizes the endgame of a 'great' military and political career, which is at odds
with Napoleon's histrionic self-dramatizations of absolute sovereignty, as the last fifth of
'1QA
thefifthact, a replay of a classical heroic drama without tragic substance.
Multiperspectival Dramaturgy and the Disillusionment of Imperial Sovereignty
However, a critical audience should be able to recognize the aesthetic difference
between the dramatic performance of absolute sovereignty and its historical and political
meaning. There are many points of departure for a critical interpretation of Napoleon's
claim to absolute sovereignty in the history play. The title of the drama alone, a
disjunction of the title figure's proper name, typical for classical history plays since
Shakespeare, and the limited period of Hundred Days, untypical for classical history
plays since Shakespeare, anticipates tension between Napoleon's claim to absolute
sovereignty and its spatial, temporal, and logical limitations. Secondly, a grotesquely
comical defenestration of a gambler in the exposition of the drama gives an ironical
synopsis of the drama to come by establishing a metaphorical link between imperialism
3 3
* V/7,458.
Contrary to Marx's view that everything in history repeats itself, "the first time as tragedy, the second
time as farce"—see The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (London: Electric Book, 2001)—Grabbe's
history play does not presents the Hundred Days as a classical historical tragedy following Hegelian
idealism but rather as a farcical replay of a classical heroic drama. If Napoleon I were a farce, Napoleon III
would actually be the farce of a farce.
384
140
and gambling: "Well, well, father violet played for the world and we were his croupiers."
{Ja,ja, Vater Veilchen spielte um die Welt undwir waren seine Croupiers).
The
episode anticipates the end of the Hundred Days by comparing it to a catastrophic game
of pure chance with a fatal outcome. More importantly, it foils both the claim to absolute
sovereignty and the paradigm of the classical historical tragedy. Even more so, as the
soldier of fortune explains away his downfall, as a gambler would explain away total
loss; he claims that he lacked strength and good luck abandoned him. All this is contrary
to the objective peripety and subjective anagnorisis in classical historical tragedy from
Greek antiquity through Schiller to Grillparzer and Hebbel. Thirdly, the leitmotiv folk
song of the Savoyard boy about the marmot that returns every spring is just as ambivalent
as the metaphor of the sun. It mythically describes the eternal return of the same paradox
of absolute sovereignty.
Fourthly, the audience could question the histrionic self-
dramatization of absolute sovereignty following the iconoclastic act of the imperial guard
Vitry and Chassecoeur. They literally destroy a raree show on the fairground because the
unrealistic historical representation of the Battle of Leipzig falsifies the facts and
suppresses the ugly truth about history.
Fifthly and finally, the dramatic irony of the
plot reflecting the objective course of historical events—Napoleon's war strategy fails,
Napoleon assigns blame on others, suffers a devastating defeat, and exits ingloriously
from the stage of world history—does not only prove the Bourbons who predicted the
historical and political self-destruction of the French Emperor right. More importantly, it
385
1/1, 323.
Raimer Zons/Klaus Lindemann, „La marmotte: Uber Grabbes Napoleon oder die hundert Tage," in:
Winfried Freund (Hrsg.), Grabbes Gegenentwiirfe, Neue Deutungen seiner Dramen (Mtlnchen: Fink,
1986), 59-81.
387
Raleigh Whitinger, „lllusionare GroBe. Zu den poetologischen Elementen in Grabbes Napoleon oder die
hundert Tage und Hannibal," in: Marianne Henn/Christoph Lorey (Hrsg.), Analogon Rationis (Edmonton:
University of Alberta Press, 1994), 317.
386
141
undermines Napoleon's claim to absolute sovereignty.388 Disillusioned by the military
defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon ultimately concedes, "We have dreamt greatly for a
hundred days." (Wir haben hundert Tage grofi getrdumt)?%9 This disillusioning insight
might serve the spectatorship and readership as a starting point for developing an antiillusionist and dis-illusionist interpretation of Napoleon's symbolically political display
of imperial sovereignty.
In spite of everything, Grabbe uses his main character as a mouthpiece for
envisioning a post-sovereign society in which the position of absolute sovereignty would
remain vacant.
NAPOLEON Instead of one great tyrant, as they
used to call me, they will have many small ones.
( . . . ) - - until the world spirit will rises again and
touch upon the water gates that are containing the
waves of the revolution and my emperorship,
breaking them open, so that the void that my exit
will leave behind may be filled again.
NAPOLEON Statt eines groBen Tyrannen, wie
sich mich zu nennen belieben, werden sie bald
lauter kleine besitzen (...)-- bis der Weltgeist
ersteht, an die Schleusen ruhrt, hinter denen die
Wogen der Revolution und meines Kaisertums
lauern, und sie von ihnen aufbrechen laBt, daB die
Liicke gefUllt werde, welche nach meinem Austritt
zuruckbleibt.390
Claiming that the transient age of heroism in the Hegelian sense has ended with his
downfall, Napoleon leaves behind a "void" (Liicke).291 The liberal age of modern
bourgeois society distinguishes itself through the old European cabinet politics and
diplomacy and the eternal multilateral debates aiming at compromises that preserve the
status quo. It may seem that the age of individual heroism and absolute sovereignty is
ending. In preparation of his final exit from the stage of world history, Napoleon begins
recording his posthumous fame and glory. However, Grabbe predestines Prussia to fill
the void left behind by Napoleon.
388
1/3, 344; II/4, 368.
V/7,457.
390
V/7,457f.
391
V/7, 457.
389
142
Since history is irreducible to biographical facts and personal stories, modern history
plays do not concatenate actions and events following the logic of cause and effect.
Narrative structures emerge only limitedly; the plot is secondary to successive episodes in
which claims to absolute sovereignty arise but remain unrealizable. The phantasm of
absolute sovereignty conceals the rule of radical contingency. Grabbe's atectonic design
and the mixture of genres from bitterly comical satire through the aesthetics of grotesque
cruelty to the aesthetics of sublimity as a subject of dramatic irony reflect on the paradox
of sovereignty. The distinctive hiatus between IV/3 and IV/4, which separates the two
seemingly disparate parts of the drama, the social panorama and the battle, far from being
an aesthetic deficiency, is neither historically and politically nor dramatically necessary.
It antedates and elucidates the fact that good fortune devolves from the loser to the victor
following Grabbe's modern conception that history does not follow the principles of
instrumental and normative reason or any teleological and metaphysical philosophy of
history.392
The Poetic Phantasm of the German King of Soldiers or the Restoration of
Absolute Sovereignty
Grabbe's politically affirmative image of Prussia and particularly the Prussian
commander-in-chief Blucher does not only put the mystification and self-mystification of
Napoleon as absolute sovereign into a critical perspective.393 It also aesthetically restores
the phantasm of absolute sovereignty under the battle cry "Forward, Prussia!" (Vorwdrts,
392
Harro Mtiller, „Subjekt und Geschichte. Reflexionen zu Grabbes Napoleon-Drama," in: Werner Broer,
(Hrsg.), Internationales Grabbe-Symposium 1986, Detmold (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1987), 96-113,106f.
393
Detlev Kopp, Geschichte und Gesellschaft in den Dramen Christian Dietrich Grabbes (Frankfurt/Main:
Peter Lang, 1982), 149.
143
Preufien!).
No matter whether the historical and political appeal addresses the radical
democratic and liberal bourgeoisie or the conservative aristocracy, Grabbe follows in the
footsteps of Kleist by calling for the national unification of German territories under
Prussian leadership. Grabbe ties in with the anti-French nationalism and imperialism
prevalent in the German territories during the Wars of Liberation based on false
universalism,395 just as anti-German nationalism, chauvinism, and imperialism of
Frenchmen loyal to Napoleon claimed for their leader. He glorifies the Prussian-German
victory in the Wars of Liberation and it ties in with the anti-French resentment of German
Romanticism.
While Kleist wished for the Wars of Liberation, Grabbe commemorates
them and puts them in the service of the future assuming that the Hegelian world spirit
would resurrect in Germany or more precisely Prussia after it had deceased in the
historical figuration of Napoleon. German imperialism and fascism politically exploited
Grabbe's Napoleon drama just as Kleist's patriotic plays.397
Although he catches Blucher off guard, Napoleon with the aid of the British
commander-in-chief Wellington prevails over the French Emperor. Wellington's virtues,
"steadfastness" (Festigkeif) and "strict discipline" {strenge Disziplin), represent typically
•5QO
Prussian ideals.
Blucher brings to bear a forceful army characterized by its uniform
but internally varied constitution, a strong affective tie between leadership and following
modeled on the patriarchic family tie between father and sons, and the political ideology
of Prussian monarchism and German nationalism. Its multiethnic composition suggests
394
V/7,459. Contray to Raleigh Whitinger/John L. Plews, "The Anti-Heroic Consistency of C. D.
Grabbe's Historical Dramas: Poetological Discourse and Intertextuality in Gothland, Hohenstaufen, and
Napoleon," Colloquia Germanica: Internationale Zeitschriftfur Germanistik 29 (1996), no. 1: 39-60.
395
IV/5,412.
396
Schneilin (1996,166).
397
Maria Porrmann, Grabbe - Dichter fur das Vaterland, Die Geschichtsdramen aufdeutschen Bilhnen im
19. undlO. Jahrhundert (Lemgo: Wagener, 1982), 69ff., 162ff., 213ff., 279ff.
398
V/1,431.
144
national unification regardless of social differences and the military hierarchy.
The
Prussian army internalized the principle of subjective self-discipline and the Frederician
mentality of subservience (friderizianischer Untertanengeist) to absolute sovereignty.
The commanders-in-chief have absolute power of command over the army who parry
instantly even under the hail of bullets.400 A replay of the Homburg affair seems to be
impossible. The apology for his belated arrival on the battlefield given by the
Pommerian Field Marshal Billow demonstrates that absolute sovereignty and individual
subjectivity do not contradict each other anymore. "The Field Marshal respects reason
more than orders, therefore I am excused." (Der Feldmarschall achtet die Vernunft mehr
als seine Orders, undsomit bin ich entschuldigt).401 Contrary to Hermann and the
Elector in Kleist, Blucher abstains from violence in dealing with a defector from the
Napoleonic army in Grabbe. This represents a paradoxical act of exercising absolute
sovereignty by surrendering it. The anti-French war becomes an educational experience
{Bildungserlebnis) for the comrades in arms. It evokes a sense of community charged
with a homoerotic note.402 It makes the asymmetry between sovereign and subjects
invisible. However, the Prussians are subject to the heterogeneity of ends, that is, the
incommensurability of intention and result of an action. Their victory over the
Napoleonic Empire could redound to the advantage of their archenemy: the Bourbons.403
Grabbe like Kleist allegorically compares German national unification with reassembling
a dismembered body and expresses the political hope for Prussia regaining territories lost
IV/4,408ff.
V/2,435.
V/2,438.
IV/5,412. Schneider (1973,278ff.) and Fohrmann (2001,129).
IV75,411ff.
145
to Napoleon in the biological metaphor of the body politic.
Moreover, it will also
regain the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which Austria had forsaken all too
frivolously and Napoleon picked up in the streets of Paris and put on his head himself.
Similar to Kleist who constructed his patriotic plays against the historical backdrop of the
Napoleonic Empire, Grabbe simultaneously glorifies Napoleon's downfall and Blucher's
rise. The historical and political twin brothers occupy an ambivalent position; they take
center stage in the Franco-German dream and nightmare about the European king of
soldiers. Kleist's and Grabbe's history plays affirm the political phantasm about the
future Prussian-German king of soldiers modeled on the French Emperor Napoleon.
During the long extended nineteenth century 1789 through 1945, Prussian-led Germany
exploited them for her political purposes.
11/4, 362 and IV/5,412.
146
Chapter Four: "Keiner versteht zu regieren" or the Paradox of Popular
Sovereignty in Georg Biichner's Dantons Tod (1835)
Kleist's patriotic plays represent principal sovereignty in the pre-modern segmented
or stratified society {Standegesellschaft) and Grabbe's Napoleon represents the return of
imperial sovereignty during the transition to modern functionally differentiated society.
By contrast, Dantons 7W(Danton's Death)405 (1835) by Georg Buchner (1824-1837)
revolves around the paradoxes of popular sovereignty in early modern democracy. This
history play about the French Revolution focuses on the events at the height of the
infamous Reign of Terror between September 5,1793 and July 28,1794. More precisely,
it covers approximately two weeks, beginning shortly before the execution of the
Hebertists on March 24, 1794 and, as the title Danton 's Death already indicates, ending
with the execution of Danton and his friends on April 4, 1794. In addition, it anticipates
the execution of the Jacobin leaders on July 28,1794, which marks the end of the Reign
of Terror.
The Revolutionary Government, spearheaded by the Jacobins Robespierre and St.
Just, attempted to establish the Republic of France based on liberty, equality, and
equality. To this end, it paradoxically imposed the state of exception in permanence,
suspended human and civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution, enforced emergency
laws, and expanded the competences of the Revolutionary Tribunal in order to adjudge
counterrevolutionary public enemies more effectively. The political order was extremely
unstable, legal uncertainty prevailed, and everybody was a potential suspect. "The ax of
405
All quotationsfromthe original, detailing act, scene, and page number in the footnote following Georg
Buchner, Werke undBriefe, ed. K. PSrnbacher, G. Schaub, H.-J. Simm and E. Ziegler, (Munich: Deutscher
Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002), 67-133. All quotationsfromthe translation, detailing page number in brackets
in the footnote following Georg Buchner, Complete Works and Letters, trans. Henry J. Schmidt, ed. Walter
Hinderer and Henry J. Schmidt, (New York: Continuum, 1986), 57-138.
147
the law," Buchner has a Deputy in the National Convention say, "hangs over all heads."
(Das Beil des Gesetzes schwebt iiber alien Hduptern.)406 During the Reign of Terror, the
French Revolution developed a murderous momentum. Having executed or
disempowered the king, aristocracy, and clerics, the political factions turned against each
other for lack of enemies and started accusing each other of high treason under the
pressure of the economically desolate and politically radicalized people. The
Revolutionary Government preserved itself by criminalizing, prosecuting, convicting,
and executing the members of opposing factions, until it was itself brought to justice. In
less than a year, the Revolutionary Tribunal executed tens of thousands of insurgents and
suspects in the name of the Republic. However, the self-preservation through political
murder is eventually self-undermining. In the civil war between the political factions, the
ruling class absurdly began liquidating itself. The condemned Danton resignedly
determines in Buchner's history play that "the Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its
own children" (die Revolution ist wie Saturn, siefrifit ihre eigenen Kinder).401
Buchner portrays the dramatis personae following the poetological principle of
probability, abstaining from aesthetic idealizations and extenuations. In a letters from
Strasbourg, he writes, "I had to remain true to history and present the men of the
Revolution as they were: bloody, slovenly, energetic, and cynical (blutig, Hederlich,
energisch und zynisch.)"m Later he explains:
Regarding the so-called immorality of my book, I have the following to say: the dramatic
poet is in my eyes nothing but a writer of history; he is superior to the latter, however, in
that he creates history a second time for us, and instead of telling us a dry story, he places
us into the life of an era, giving us characters instead of characteristics and figures instead
of descriptions. His greatest task is to come as closely as possible to history as it actually
II/7,101 (91).
1/5, 84 (74).
Letter dated May 5, 1835, 301 (272).
happened. His book must be neither more nor less moral than history itself [...]. The
poet is not a teacher of morality, he invents and creates figures, he brings past times to
life, and people can learn from that, just as well as from the study of history and from
observations of what is going on around them. [...] If someone were to tell me that the
poet should not depict the world as it is but as it should be, then I answer that I do not
want to make it better than God, who certainly made the world, as it should be. As far as
the so-called idealistic poets are concerned, I find that they have produced hardly
anything besides marionettes with sky-blue noses and affected pathos, but not human
beings of flesh and blood, whose sorrow and joy I share and whose actions fill me with
loathing or admiration. In a word, I think much of Goethe and Shakespeare, but very
little of Schiller.409
Without intending to reduce the work to biography, one could say that the Thermidor410
atmosphere in the history play reflects Buchner's personal disenchantment with
revolutionary politics, which found expression in dramatic form. The playwright does
not only practice poetic realism by increasing external referentiality but he also constructs
an aesthetically highly self-referential history play that internally reflects on its aesthetic
status as theater and on the drama of the French Revolution as such. The symbolically
political theater or the theatrical politics in the streets of Paris, in the Jacobin Club, the
impeachment of the Dantonists in the National Convention, and the rigged show trial
before the Revolutionary Tribunal includes many entrances and exits, all of which
eventually culminate in the theater of the guillotine on the Square of the Revolution.411
409
Letter dated July 28,1835, 305 (276/7).
Hans Mayer, Georg Biichner und seine Zeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972), 214f. Gerard
Raulet, „Die ,Moderne' als Kategorie der Literaturgeschichtsschreibung, Georg Buchners ,Dantons Tod,'
in: Albrecht Schone (ed.), Kontroversen, alte und neue, Akten des VII. Internationalen GermanistenKongresses, Gottingen 1985, Vol. 9, Historische und aktuelle Konzepte der Literaturgeschichtsschreibung;
Zwei Konigskinder? Zum Verhaltnis von Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft, (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer
Verlag, 1986), 93-104, 95/6.
411
Walter Hinderer, ,„Wir stehen immer auf dem Theater, wenn wir auch zuletzt im Ernst erstochen
werden,' Die KomQdie der Revolution in Buchners ,Dantons Tod'" in: ibid., Uber deutsche Literatur und
Rede, Historische Interpretationen (Munchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1981), 191-199. Volkmar
Braunbehrens, ,„Aber gehn Sie in's Theater, ich rath' es Ihnen!' Zu Dantons Tod" Georg-BuhnerJahrbuch 2 (1982): 286-299. Harro Miiller, Giftpfeile, Zu Theorie und Literatur der Moderne (Bielefeld:
Aisthesis, 1994), 171. Terence Michael Holmes, Rehearsal of Revolution, Georg Buchner's Politics and
His Drama 'Dantons Tod' (New York: P. Lang, 1995). Jiirgen Schwann, Georg Buchners implizite
Asthetik, Rekonstruktion und Situierung im dsthetischen Diskurs (Tubingen: Narr, 1997). Ingo Breuer,
„Die Theatralitat der Geschichte in Georg Buchners Danton's Tod," Deutschunterricht, Beitrdge zu seiner
Praxis und wissenschaftlichen Grundlegung 54 (2002), no. 6: 5-13.
410
149
The French people of Paris, the audience of the bloody political show, is itself
onstage in the play and comments on it, demonstrating approval by applauding and
disapproval by booing and hissing, enthusiastically singing the Marseillaise and dancing
the Carmagnole. Like a disoriented and aimless wryneck, they cheers up Robespierre in
one moment, Danton in the next, and then again Robespierre. The historical and political
theater of the French Revolution offers many different dramatic character roles. The
main dramatic characters appear as historical and political role-players who stage-manage
their public appearances, enact their predefined or self-assigned dramatic parts, and
perform theatrical spectacles in front of their audiences.412 At times, they imitate or
parody mythical, biblical, or historical models.
For instance, Danton "made his
revolutionary face and spoke in epigrams" (Er machte seine revolutiondre Stirn und
sprach in Epigrammen)413 or "parodied Jupiter and shook his locks" (Danton parodierte
den Jupiter und schiittelte die Locken.)
14
Robespierre alternatively appears as the
ancient Greek statesman Aristides, the ancient Roman Emperor Nero,415 or an "impotent
Mohammed" (impotenter Mahomet)416
This chapter analyzes similarities and differences between Dantonism and Jacobinism
as well as performative contradictions in their mutually exclusive political programs and
histrionic self-dramatization.
After refocusing on Danton and his insights into the
irresolvability of the paradox of sovereignty, it analyzes the paradox of popular
sovereignty in the theater of the guillotine.
412
Paul Friedland, Political Actors, Representative Bodies and Theatricality in the Age of the French
Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
413
1/6, 88 (75).
414
111/6,114(104).
415
IV/5,128(117).
416
111/6,117(107).
150
The Conflict between Jacobin Government and Dantonist Opposition
Biichner's multiperspectival dramaturgy brings together many different selfundermining and mutually contradictory views.417 His multifaceted dramatic characters
give away their own self-contradictions and expose each other's blind spots directly or
indirectly. The Dantonists are political play-actors who self-ironically parody
themselves. As loudmouths, braggers, and big shots, they parrot their own meaningless
ideological slogans and empty political phrases ranging from the vague to the absurd.
The playful form of their political self-dramatization in their pre-given historical
character roles alone undermines the sincerity of their programmatic contents and their
claim to absolute sovereignty.418 Condemning Jacobin "guillotine-romanticism"
(Guillotinenromantik),419 they would terminate the Revolution and establish the
Republic, decriminalize oppositional politicians and dissidents, grant clemency and
rehabilitate public enemies, abolish the guillotine, reenact the Constitution, and enforce
the rule of law.420 However, they do not have the power to do so. Although they
declaratively adopt pleasure and happiness as the political principles for the rule of the
people, they exclusively provide for their own pleasure and happiness. As a result, they
fall out of favor with the people, fail to seize power, and remain unable to lift the
permanent state of exception.
Henry J. Schmidt, Satire, caricature andperspectivism in the works ofGeorg Biichner (The Hague:
Mouton, 1970).
418
Walter Hinderer, "Deutsches Theater der Franzosischen Revolution," The German Quarterly 64, no. 2
(Spring 1991): 207-219, here 209.
419
1/1,70 (60).
420
Gerhard Kurz, „Guillotinenromantik: Zu Biichners Dantons Tod" Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie
110 no. 4, (1991): 550-74.
151
There are many performative contradictions in their sensualistic politics of pleasure
and happiness.421 Their ideas to establish the liberal constitutional state and enforce the
republican rule of law based on individual autonomy, civil, and human rights may be well
intended, their idea to unite politics and sexuality under the erotic republic tempting.
However, since such political Utopias are either unenforceable without force or
irreconcilable with the principle of individual liberty, they are either self-contradictory or
ill conceived to begin with.
Nevertheless, the Dantonists pretend to indulge in
hedonism, although Danton, for instance, makes a drastic experience of deficiency and
frustration in the company of the libertine prostitute Marion.
As a result, their political
leader expresses his melancholic skepticism regarding his friends' jovial optimism in
tautological wordplays and jokes. "Who's going to accomplish all these beautiful
things?" (Wer soil diese schonen Dinge ins Werk setzen?)42*
On the other hand, Buchner depicts the Jacobins as the kind of moralistic politicians
with Mosaic pretensions against whom philosophers have repeatedly warned us.425 In
fact, St. Just expressly suggests to the National Convention to follow in the footsteps of
Moses, a figure of absolute sovereignty, "who led his people through the Red Sea and
into the desert until the old corrupt generation had destroyed itself, before he founded the
new state." (Moses fuhrte sein Folk durch das rote Meer unddie Wilste bis die alte
Takanori Teraoka, Spuren der "Gotterdemokratie," Georg Biichners Revolutionsdrama Danton's Tod im
Umfeld von Heines Sensualismus (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2006).
422
Olaf Hildebrand, ,„Der gottliche Epicur und die Venus mit dem schenen Hintern': Zur Kritik
hedonistischer Utopien in Biichners ,Dantons Tod,'" Zeitschriftfilr Deutsche Philologie 118, no. 4 (1999):
530-54.
423
Silke-Maria Weineck, „Sex and History, or Is There an Erotic Utopia in 'Dantons Tod'?" German
Quarterly 73, no. 4 (Fall 2000): 351-65.
424
I/1, 71 (61).
425
Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden (Berlin: Akademie, 1995). English edition: Immanuel Kant, To
Perpetual Peace, A Philosophical Sketch (Indianapolis, IN.: Hackett Pub., 2003). Niklas Luhmann,
Paradigm lost, Uber die ethische Reflexion der Moral (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990).
152
verdorbene Generation sich aufgerieben hatte, eh' er den neuen Staat grundete.)
However, Moses himself ironically never saw the Promised Land in the Bible. In the
belief that they are in possession of absolute power and truth, the Jacobin chief
ideologists make the moral discourse absolute. They subsume all discourses, including
the historical, political, judicial, philosophical, aesthetic, medical, and so on under the
moral discourse in order to pass off their state terrorism as the revolutionary rule of
emergency law in the permanent state of exception. Applying the schematic distinction
between friends and foes of liberty and equality, the Jacobins unequivocally divide
observers and participants of universal history into two groups. The virtuous
revolutionary friends may continue to live; the vicious counterrevolutionary foes must
die.
However, the moralistic politics of virtue in theory is at odds with the unethical
power politics in practice.427 The Revolutionary Government that defines and applies the
distinction between lawfulness and unlawfulness, equality and inequality, justice and
injustice is simultaneously above and under the law. It is above the law because it
suspends the Constitution and the natural and civil rights of citizens and imposes the
Reign of Terror instead; it is under the law because it enforces the emergency law and
serves revolutionary justice. Btichner's history play highlights performative
contradictions in the speeches and actions of the Jacobins. In the Jacobin Club and the
National Convention, Robespierre uses redundant rhetorical devices such as
contradictions in terms and non-sequiturs to produce indeterminate negations that hardly
426
II/7,104 (94).
Harro Miiller, „Poetische Entparadoxierung: Anmerkungen zu Buchners Dantons Tod und zu Grabbes
Napoleon oder Die hundert Tage Source," in: Detlev Kopp/Michael Vogt (eds.), Grabbe und die
Dramatiker seiner Zeit, Beitrage zum II. Internationalen Grabbe-Symposium 1989 (Tubingen Max
NiemeyerVerlag, 1990) 187-201, here 192. Miiller (1994:174).
427
153
conceal the paradox of absolute sovereignty in an attempt at providing a dialectical
solution to it. Here are two examples. "The Revolutionary Government is," for instance,
"the despotism of liberty against tyranny." (Die Revolutionsregierung ist der
A.0 ft
Despotismus der Freiheit gegen die Tyrannei.)
In addition, Robespierre absurdly
justifies the Reign of Terror as the rule of virtue. "The weapon of the Republic is terror;
strength of the Republic is virtue. Virtue: for without it terror is corruptible; terror: for
without it, virtue is powerless. Terror is an outgrowth of virtue." (Die Waffe derRepublik
ist der Schrecken, die Kraft der Republik ist die Tugend. Die Tugend, weil ohne sie der
Schrecken verderblich, der Schrecken, weil ohne ihn die Tugend ohnmdchtig ist. Der
Schrecken ist ein Ausflufi der Tugend.)
St. Just goes even further than Robespierre. He politically uses and abuses ancient
Greek mythology as well as natural and moral philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Parallelizing the French Revolution with a natural catastrophe, he concludes that history
mechanically follows moral laws. In this way, he justifies the Reign of Terror as a
historically and politically necessary event, although the occurrence of a natural
catastrophe is indeed radically contingent. He exercises the sovereign right over life and
death of the French people and downplays the political murders to negligible side effects
of the alleged progress of humanity overall. All of this becomes a subject of irony with
the Dantonists who on the contrary interpret the Reign of Terror as a regress of humanity.
"They want to change us into cavemen. St. Just would be happy to see us crawling
around on all fours." (Sie mochten uns zu Antediluvianern machen. St. Justsdh es nicht
1/3, 78 (67).
1/3, 78 (67).
154
ungern, wenn wir wieder auf alien Vieren krochen.)
Secondly, St. Just absurdly
parallelizes the Reign of Terror to the ancient Greek myth of Pelias, claiming that it is the
means to the end of history. "The Revolution is like the daughters of Pelias; it cuts
humanity into pieces to rejuvenate it." (Die Revolution ist wie die Tochter des Pelias; sie
zerstilckt die Menschheit, um sie zu verjiingen.)431 Since the ancient Greek myth as such
already undermines itself, St. Just's adaptation thereof does all the more so. The
daughters of Pelias dismember their father in the hope that he would be resurrected from
the dead rejuvenated. Unsurprisingly, the ritual fails: the corpse remains dead.
Correspondingly, the Republic will not come true through political murder
notwithstanding St. Just's assertion to the contrary.
Robespierre, on the other hand, acknowledges that the Reign of Terror is contingent
rather than necessary at least in a private monologue before the court of his conscience.
"The sin is in our thoughts. Whether thought becomes action, whether the body carries it
out—that is pure chance." (Die Siinde ist im Gedanken. Ob der Gedanke Tat wird, ob ihn
der Korper nachspielt, das ist Zufall.)432 Reflecting on his historical, political, and
dramatic character role as the "Blood Messiah" (Blutmessias), he feels "the agony of the
executioner" (Qual des Henkers) and suffers from the fact that "not one of us redeems the
other with his wounds" (es erlost Keiner den Anderen mit seine Wunderi).433 However,
these momentary insights, internal and external criticisms bear no consequences on his
histrionic self-dramatization as the main figure of absolute sovereignty. In the public
10
1/1,70 (60).
II/7, 104 (94).
2
1/6, 88 (77).
3
1/6, 90 (79).
1
155
sphere, Robespierre seems to have overcome his prangs of conscience, as he continues to
justify the Jacobin guillotine politics in substance as historically and politically necessary.
Buchner has the audience have a look behind the scenes where the Jacobins return to
pre-modern arcane politics by secretly directing, staging, and enacting the rigged show
trial on the front stage. They suspend the separation of the three powers of government—
the legislative, executive, and judicial—and concentrate absolute power in their hands
without checks and balances. Robespierre tacitly accepts and St. Just actively initiates
interventions in and manipulations of the court proceedings. They pronounce the
Dantonists public enemies. They write up an embellished bill of indictment, invent false
incriminatory evidence based on rumor and hearsay, and make groundless accusations
and charges. They enact a decree prohibiting that their opponents address the National
Convention. They dictate political decisions to the National Convention and lawful
judgments to the ostensibly independent jury. They even manipulate the jury
composition in the Revolutionary Tribunal by picking out physically disabled, morally
corrupted, or politically biased people who will obey their orders.
Although all of these declarative acts of absolute sovereignty contain constative
elements that are false, illegal, illegitimate, criminal, or morally wrong, the performative
elements nevertheless exercise the force of law and constitute social reality. They do not
just present "violations of rules" (Verletzung der Formen)4U and "legal formality" (die
geseztliche Form),4*5 as the persecutor and the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal
put it, but rather deliberate "misuse of power" (Mifibrauche einer Gewalt),4*6 severe
breaches of the Constitution and all applicable laws, in short, moral and political crimes.
434
111/6,116(106).
III/2,109 (99).
436
II/7,102 (92).
435
156
Linguistically speaking, the distinguishing mark of declarative speech acts is that saying
so makes it so. In this sense, the Jacobins exercise absolute sovereignty through
declarative speech acts. For instance, Robespierre incriminates the Dantonists in the
National Convention: "They pretend to tremble. But I say whoever trembles at this
moment is guilty, for innocence never trembles before the watchful eye of the public."
(Man stellt sich, ah zittre man. Aber ich sage Euch, wer in diesem Augenblick zittert ist
A'in
schuldig, denn nie zittert die Unschuld vor der offentlichen Wachsamkeit.) The
performative speech act of suspecting them of high treason has the meaning and fulfills
the pragmatic function of the declarative speech act of proving them guilty of the capital
crime.438 Conversely, the Dantonists incriminate themselves through their performative
speech acts of protesting against the politics of the Revolutionary Government. "Their
tongues guillotine them." (Ihre Zunge guillotiniert sie.)m
Posing as one of the "founders of the Republic" (Stifter der Republik),440 Robespierre
exercises the sovereign right to enforce the distinction between lawfulness and
unlawfulness and serve "swift, rigorous, and inflexible justice" (die schnelle, strenge und
unbeugsame Gerechtigkeit).441 He claims absolute infallibility, when he innocently asks
Danton the outrageous rhetorical question: "Whoever said that an innocent person has
been struck down?" (Wer sagt denn, dafiein Unschuldiger getrojfen sei?).442 However,
Buchner dramatizes convincing counter-examples based on his historical sources.
Political renegades utilized the Revolutionary Tribunal to save themselves and
437
II/7,102/3 (92/3).
G.F.W. Hegel, Phanomenologie des Geistes (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996). English: G.F.W.
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 360.
439
1/3, 77 (66).
440
1/3, 78 (68).
441
1/3, 78 (67).
442
1/3, 87 (77).
438
157
opportunists to serve their private interests.
In the course of action, the Revolutionary
Government executes guilty and innocent citizens alike. In other words, it paradoxically
commits political crimes under the guise of legality and injustice in the name of liberty,
equality, and justice.
In the end, nobody has any rights except for the sovereign state that equalizes all
citizens and liquidates dissenters whose heads stick out above the line of abstract
equality. The Revolutionary Government claims to establish the Republic of liberty,
equality, and justice. To this end, it however suspends the Constitution, imposes the state
of exception in permanence, and enforces the emergency law. As a result, the Reign of
Terror justifies formally legalized political murder. In defense of equality, the
Revolutionary government paradoxically suspends equal rights altogether. The declared
rule of virtue paradoxically leads to the Reign of Terror in reality. Therefore, the
performative act of establishing the Republic undermines itself and the Revolutionary
Government lacks legal consistency and eventually loses political legitimacy. The Reign
of Terror paradoxically perpetuates unfreedom, inequality, and injustice in the name of
liberty, equality, and justice.
Accordingly, political prisoners lay bare the historical reality behind the political
ideology of egalitarianism and demystify Jacobinism as a pretentious revolutionary
attitude. The Deputy to the National Convention, Thomas Paine, puts into perspective
the immorality inherent to the Jacobin's moralistic politics of virtue: "One can remain
virtuous, as they say, and resist so-called vice without having to despise one's opponent".
{Sie konnen, wie man so sagt, tugendhaft bleiben undsich gegen das sogenannte Laster
III/5,113 (103) and IV/2,122 (112).
158
wehren, ohne deswegen ihre Gegner verachten zu musseri).
It is, however, unclear
who or what could induce or force the Jacobins to act in this way. The imprisoned
Girondist Mercier puts the paradox of popular sovereignty inherent to Jacobinism most
succinctly in the rhetorical form of an oxymoron: "the guillotine republicanizes" (die
Guillotine republikanisiert).445 In other words, the instrument of political murder is
absurdly the means to the end of founding the Republic. As a result, "Paris is a
slaughterhouse" (Paris ist eine Schlachtbank).446 On the one hand, the mechanical
liquidation erases the individuality of the victim, while it performs the abstract
equalization of all citizens. On the other hand, Mercier, by reversing the process of
equalization and highlighting its theatricality, reasserts the rights of individuality. "The
galleries clap and the Romans rub their hands, but they don't hear that each of theses
words is the death rattle of a victim." (Da Matschen die Galerien und die Romer reiben
sich die Hande, aber sie horen nicht, dafijedes dieser Worte das Rocheln eines Opfers
ist.)441 In addition, he critically reflects on the dramatic incarnation of historical and
political discourse and exposes the contradictions inherent to the performative speech
acts of absolute sovereignty during the Reign of Terror. He instructs the Dantonists to
question their empty political slogans: "Try following your rhetoric to the point where it
becomes flesh. Look around you: all of this you have spoken. These wretches, their
hangman, and the guillotine are your speeches come to life." (Geht einmal Euren
Phrasen nach, bis zu dem Punkt wo sie verkorpert werden. Blickt um Euch, das Alles
111/1,107(97).
111/3,110(99).
111/3,110(99).
111/3,110(99/100).
habt Ihr gesprochen, es ist eine mimische Ubersetzung Eurer Worte. Diese Elenden, ihre
Henker unddie Guillotine sindEure lebendig gewordnen Reden.)
Both the Jacobins and the Dantonists observe the French Revolution as a drama, the
Jacobins as a sublime tragedy and the Dantonists as a grotesque comedy. The Jacobins
conceive of themselves as the sovereign authors, directors, and actors of the historical
and political spectacle. The desk murderer St. Just compares sovereign interventions into
the course of history to the composition and correction of a text. "Every portion of our
proposition, applied in reality, has killed its human beings." {Jedes Glied dieses in der
Wirklichkeit angewandten Satzes hat seine Menschen getotet.) On this view, the main
revolutionary events from the Storming of the Bastille to the September Massacres
represent "punctuation marks" and the completion of the social revolution by means of
the Reign of Terror requires "several conclusions",449 that is, the liquidation of the
Hebertists and the Dantonists. The relationship between authorship and absolute
sovereignty or text production and revolutionary violence becomes a subject matter in the
drama itself. "Yes, go St. Just, and spin your phrases, where each comma is a
swordstroke and each period a decapitated head." (Ja geh, St. Just undspinne deine
Perioden, worin jedes Komma ein Sdbelhieb undjeder Punkt ein abgeschlagener Kopf
ist.)450 The intrepid and unbendable Jacobins claim to have a monopoly on the
interpretation of the dramatic text about the French Revolution. They do not permit
alternative readings, least of all comedy, irony, satire, or parody. Accordingly, they
111/3,110(100).
II/7, 104 (94).
111/7,116(106).
liquidate the Hebertist faction for having "parodied the exalted drama of the Revolution"
iparodierte das erhabne Drama der Revolution).
51
In the sublime historical tragedy, Robespierre acts as the tragic hero of virtue who
shortly claims individual sovereignty over his own personal life and death. He is
determined to accept and celebrate political martyrdom while promoting his political
ideals following Hegelian aesthetics. "Thus I declare that nothing shall stop me, even if
Danton's danger should become my own." (So erklare ich denn, nichts soil mich
aufhalten, undsollte auch Dantons Gefahr die meinige werden.)
5
However, his main
opponent Danton satirizes him as the "military policeman of heaven" (Polizeisoldat des
Himmels)453 and compares the moralistic self-righteousness of his Stoicism to the
"refined" (/erne)454 kind of Epicureanism in analogy to Christianity. Finally, his rivals in
the Committee for Public Safety deride him for his claim to moral and political
superiority. "Robespierre wants to turn the Revolution into a lecture hall for morality and
the guillotine into a pulpit." (Robespierre will aus der Revolution einen Horsaaljur
Moral machen unddie Guillotine als Katheder gebrauchen.)455
Buchner has the Jacobins sing the political praise for popular sovereignty following
the aesthetics of sublimity and the rhetoric pathos of classical historical tragedy
characterized by natural metaphors and parodying imitations of ancient Greek and
Roman Gods.456
COLLOT (withpathos.) Go, St. Just. The lava
COLLOT (mit Pathos.) GehSt. Just. Die Lava der
451
1/3, 77 (67).
II/7,103 (93).
453
1/6, 86 (76).
454
1/6, 86 (76).
455
111/6,117(106).
456
Ulrich Port, „Vom ,erhabnen Drama der Revolution' zum .SelbstgefUhl' ihrer Opfer: Pathosformeln und
Affektdramaturgie in Buchners ,Dantons Tod,'" Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie 123, no. 2 (2004): 20625.
452
161
of the Revolution is flowing. Liberty will
strangle in its embrace those weaklings who tried
to fertilize its mighty womb; the majesty of the
people will appear to them in thunder and
lightning like Jupiter to Semele and reduce them
to ashes. Go, St. Just, we will help you hurl the
thunderbolt upon the heads of the cowards.
Revolution flieBt. Die Freiheit wird die Schwachlinge,
welche ihren machtigen SchoB befruchten wollten, in
ihren Umarmungen ersticken, die Majestat des Volkes
wird ihnen wie Jupiter der Semele unter Donner und
Blitz erscheinen und sie in Asche verwandeln. Geh St.
Just wir werden dir helfen den Donnerkeil auf die
Haupter der Feiglinge zu schleudern.457
Another aesthetic and rhetorical strategy of the Jacobins is the religious codification
of the historical and political discourse. It has both rhetoric and theatrical elements. St.
Just prescribes the histrionic self-dramatization in terms of the religious discourse: "We
must bury the great corpse with proper decorum, like priests, not murderers." (Wir
mtissen die grofie Leiche mit Anstand begraben, wie Priester, nicht wie Morder.)45* Here
Biichner indirectly exposes the aesthetic process through which political murderers
pretend to act as religious leaders. In this way, they pass off the unlawful political
murder as a lawful religious ritual of sacrifice and make invisible the paradox of
sovereignty. The critical audience easily debunks this aesthetic cover-up for totalitarian
politics.
All the more so, as many dramatic characters contradict the Jacobin conception of the
French Revolution as a sublime historical tragedy in which the self-sacrificing heroes of
virtue worship popular sovereignty. Robespierre absurdly addresses the enraged and
bloodthirsty mob as "Poor, virtuous people" (Armes, tugendhaftes Volk). In contrast,
Buchner invents the Active dramatic character, the drunkard, wife beater, and theater
prompter Simon who undermines the political phantasm of the virtuous, revolutionary,
and sovereign people by parodying ancient Roman and modern French tragedies with
comical wit, dirty jokes, and ribaldry. Furthermore, Buchner's realist critique of idealist
aesthetics, articulated both in his history play and his letters, applies to Jacobinism. It
111/6,116(106).
1/6, 88 (78).
162
applies directly to the Jacobin idealist aesthetics of sublimity and rhetoric of pathos and
indirectly to the Jacobin moralistic politics and idealist materialist philosophy of
history.459 Finally, while the Jacobins direct, stage-manage, and enact their sublime
historical tragedy in an air of seriousness and intrepidness, the Dantonists satirically
expose the histrionic self-dramatization as sublime kitsch and perceive the political
theater as a grotesque comedy in the vein of the early romantic Friedrich Schlegel.460
Most of all, Danton could break out into sovereign laughter over the theater of the
revolution. "Actually, the whole affair makes me laugh." (Eigentlich mufi ich iiber die
ganze Geschichte lachen.)461 As a result, it is impossible to distill the presumably "tragic
essence" of the history play without falling back behind the level of reflection achieved
by the multiperspectival dramaturgy.462
The Subjective Insight into the Irresolvability of the Paradox of Sovereignty
Biichner masterfully stages Danton's existential drama of ennui. In the beginning, the
celebrated revolutionary still underestimates the dangers emanating from the Jacobins
and overestimates his own capabilities. "They never had courage without me, they won't
have any against me. The Revolution isn't over yet, they might still need me—they'll
keep me in the arsenal." (Sie hatten nie Mut ohne mich, sie werden keinen gegen mich
haben; die Revolution ist noch nicht fertig, sie konnten mich noch notig haben, sie
5
Axel Schmidt, Tropen der Kunst, Zur Bildlichkeit der Poetik bei Georg Biichner (Wien: PassagenVerlag, 1991). See also MUller (1994: 175/6).
Friedrich Schlegel, Fragmente zur Geschichte undPolitik, in: Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, ed.
Ernst Behler, Athenaeum, Vol. 20, (Mtinchen: Ferdinand SchOningh Verlag, 1958), 216.
461
II/4, 98 (88).
462
Georg Lukacs, ,JDer faschistisch verfalschte und der wirkliche Georg Biichner," in: ibid., Deutsche
Realisten des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, Aufbauverlag, 1952) 66-88. William Henry Rey, Georg Buchners
"Dantons Tod" : Revolutionstragddie und Mysterienspiel (Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1982). Huimin Chen,
Inversion of Revolutionary Ideals, A Study of the Tragic Essence of Georg Biichner's Dantons Tod, Ernst
Toller's Masse Mensch, andBertoltBrecht's Die Massnahme (New York: Lang, 1998).
163
werden mich im Arsenal aufheben.)463 Atfirsthe still refuses to act, in the meantime he
hesitates to act, before hefinallybrings himself to act. However, then it is already too
late. In fact, it has been too late from the very outset, since the political gambler
metaphorically loses already at the card table in thefirstscene. Throughout he repeats
his refrain three times: "they," that is, the Jacobins, "won't dare" (sie werden's nicht
wagen)464 to put him to death. He does not acknowledge the seriousness of his situation,
until hefindshimself in prison, where he pours fourth metaphysical speculations
oscillating between nihilism, agnosticism, and atheism. "I didn't believe they would
dare." (Ich dachte nicht, dafi sie es wagen wiirden.)465
The political quick-change artist Danton, metaphorically described as a "bloodhound
with dove's wings" (Dogge mit Taubenfliigelri),466 is a multifaceted dramatic character
who shows many ambivalences and irresolvable self-contradictions throughout the play.
He appears as a "dead saint" (toter Heiliger), "relic" (Reliquie), or "monument"
(Monument),461 then again, as "the evil genius of the Revolution" (der bose Genius der
Revolution)46* or "the scarecrow of the Revolution" (Vogelscheuche der Revolution).469
On the one hand, he declares individual sovereignty over his conscience, comparing it to
"a mirror before which an ape torments itself (ein Spiegel vor dem ein Affe sich qudlt)470
in the dialogue with Robespierre. On the other hand, he himself suffers from prangs of
conscience for having orchestrated the September massacres.471
463
1/5, 85 (74)
1/5, 84 (74); II/l, 92 (82); II/4,98 (88).
465
HI/1,108 (97).
466
111/1,108(97).
467
II/l, 91 (80).
468
HI/1,108 (97).
469
HI/2,109 (98).
470
1/6, 86 (75)
471
Muller (1988, 84), Mtiller (1990,194f.).
464
DANTON
Beneath me the earth was panting in its flight, I had
seized it like a wild horse, with immense limbs I
rooted in its mane and pressed its ribs, with my head
bent down, my hair streaming out of the abyss. I
DANTON Unter mir keuchte die Erdkugel in
ihrem Schwung, ich hatte sie wie ein wildes RoB
gepackt, mit riesigen Gliedern wuhlt' ich in ihrer
Mahne und preBt' ich ihre Rippen, das Haupt
abwarts gebiickt, die Haare flatternd tiber dem
was being dragged along.
Abgrund. So ward ich geschleift.472
In his nightmare, an ambivalent fantasy of absolute sovereignty, he still seems to
dominate the world and yet he is subject to its course.
The Jacobins and the Dantonists have two mutually contradictory views of history,
which unfold an irresolvable paradox. The Jacobins conceive of history as a
concatenation of single events and actions performed by autonomous subjects who as
chief executives of the world-spirit literally and figuratively make history. The Jacobin
idealist materialist philosophy of history focuses on personal names and individual
actions of the great heroes. On the one hand, Buchner puts a Hegelian anachronism into
the mouth of St. Just who defines the Jacobins as objects of the world-spirit. "The world
spirit makes use of our arms (...)." {Der Weltgeist bedient sich unserer Arme (.. .)." 473
On the other hand, the Jacobin features himself as an absolute sovereign and subject who
in the role of chief executives of the world-spirit transform "the shape of moral nature—
that is, humanity" {die ganze Gestaltung der moralischen Natur, d.h. der Menschheit) and
must "shed blood" (durch Blut geherif14 to this end.
By contrast, Danton has long since made the drastic experience of radical
contingency, historical and political heteronomy and powerlessness. Since the September
Massacres and the liquidation of the Hebertists, he has realized that intention and result
of an action are incommensurable and that actions produce unintended side effects. This
II/5,99 (89).
II/7,104 (93).
II/6, 104 (94).
165
is a problem in the philosophy of history that Reinhart Koselleck has called "the
heterogeneity of ends" (die Heterogenitdt der Zwecke).475
DANTON One year ago I created the
Revolutionary Tribunal. I ask God and mankind
to forgive me for that; I wanted to prevent new
September massacres, I hoped to save the
innocent, but this gradual murder with its
formalities is more horrible and just as
DANTON Esistjetztein Jahr, dafiichdas
Revolutionstribunal schuf. Ich bitte Gott und die
Menschen dafttr urn Verzeihung, ich wollte neuen
Septembermorden zuvorkommen, ich hoffte die
Unschuldigen zu retten, aber dies langsame Morden mit
seinen Formalitaten ist grSBlicher und eben so
inevitable.
unvermeidlich.476
As a result, he resignedly accepts his fate that others have determined for him. "I would
rather be guillotined", he claims, "than guillotine others" (ich will lieber guillotiniert
werden, als guillotinieren zu lasseri).471 He realizes that he would have to use the same
means as the Jacobins to defeat them in a meaningless game.
On Danton's view, history appears as an anonymous process without autonomous
subjects and absolute sovereigns. The historical and political discourse has logical,
ontological, and temporal priority over individual subjectivity. In the grotesque comedy,
individuals are not so much autonomous subjects than rather passive objects made by
history even against their free will. The dramatic figures are self-ironical political playactors who are subject to mysterious mechanism and unknown forces. Having been
reduced to a mere object of history, Danton reflects the "indisposability of history,"478
that is, the impossibility that autonomous subjects make history at will,479 in the chiasm,
exchanging the syntactical positions of subject and object as well as replacing the active
475
Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1979). English edition: Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past, On the Semantics of Historical Time
New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
476
111/3,110(100).
477
II/l, 91 (81).
478
Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1979). English edition: Reinhart Koselleck, Futures past, On the Semantics of Historical Time,
trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
479
Hinderer (1988: 212). Rodney Taylor, History and the Paradoxes of Metaphysics in 'Dantons Tod'
(New York: Peter Lang, 1990).
with the passive voice. "We haven't made the Revolution; the Revolution has made us."
(Wir haben nicht die Revolution gemacht, die Revolution hat uns gemacht.)
He
graphically visualizes this historical experience in the poetic metaphor of the puppet
theater: "We are puppets, our strings are pulled by unknown forces, we ourselves are
nothing, nothing!" (Puppen sindwir von unbekannten Gewalten am Drahtgezogen;
nichts, nichts wir selbst!)m
These unknown forces could either be metaphysical
substances such as god, history, nature, and so on, referred to, for instance, in the
philosophical debates in the prison scenes or the modern symbolically generalized
communication media such as power, money, love, and so on.482 Since the course of
history is radically contingent, it is impossible to predict relations of cause and effect or
cost and benefit for the future based on the past. The critical audience will easily
recognize that the main protagonists of the French Revolution have resigned, as in the
case of Danton, or will have to resign in the end, as in the case of Robespierre and St.
Just 483
At heart, Danton's melancholic reflections revolve around an anthropological riddle.
"A mistake was made when we were created—something is missing. I have no name for
it. We won't rip it out of each other's intestines, so why would we break open each
other's bodies." (Es wurde ein Fehler gemacht, wie wir geschqffen worden, esfehlt uns
was, ich habe keinen Namen dafur, wir werden es uns einander nicht aus den
480
11/1,91 (81).
'"' II/5,100 (90).
482
]Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997).
Ulrike Paul, Vom Geschichtsdrama zur politischen Diskussion, fiber die Desintegration von Individuum
und Geschichte bei Georg Biichner und Peter Weiss (Mtinchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1974). Theo Elm,
„Georg Biichner: Individuum und Geschichte in ,Dantons Tod'" in: Theo Elm and Gerd Hemmerich (eds.),
Zur Geschichtlichkeit der Moderne: der Begriff der literarischen Moderne in Theorie undDeutung, Ulrich
Fiilleborn zum 60. Geburtstag (Mtinchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1982), 167-184. Hinderer (1988: 212).
Eingeweiden herauswuhlen,was solllen wir uns drum die Leiber aufbrechen.) The
history play itself does not give an answer to the question, "What is it in us that whores,
lies, steals, and murders?" {Was ist das, was in uns liigt, hurt, stiehlt undmordet?)
The human being addresses the question to the world, which, however, remains silent.486
On the one hand, Danton has disengaged himself from both private and political life,
given up the completion of the social revolution, accepted that "Robespierre is the dogma
of the Revolution" {Robespierre ist das Dogma der Revolution) and that "The Revolution
is letting me retire" {Die Revolution setzt mich in Ruhe).4S7 On the other hand, he
celebrates a comeback in the limelight of the public sphere. In contrast to the
melancholy, resignation, and passivity during most of the play, Danton shows a different
side of himself before the Revolutionary Tribunal and on the Square of the Revolution at
the end of the play. Before exiting the theater stage of world history forever, he acts as
the people's tribune and the glorious hero of the French Revolution using his rhetorical
and theatrical skills as a political orator and play-actor. He makes an attempt at turning
the tables on the Jacobins, insulting, threatening, and incriminating them, challenging
them to political debate, charging them with high treason, apprehending foreign
occupation, and appealing to his individual civil and human rights.
Playing on the registers of individual sovereignty over his personal life and death, he
claims that he will survive himself, that he will make history, and that people will
posthumously remember him for his fame and glory. "The Revolution calls out my
name. My residence will soon be nothingness and my name in the Pantheon of history."
484
11/1,91 (81).
II/5,100 (90).
486
Mttller (1988, 85f.), Milller (1990,197).
487
11/1,81 (91).
485
168
(Die Revolution nennt meinen Namen. Meine Wohnung ist bald im Nichts und mein
A 488
Name im Pantheon der Geschichte.) He reminds his audience of the milestones in his
career as a revolutionary politician. In his self-glorifying narrative about the history of
the French Revolution, he parodies himself in the historical and dramatic character role of
the chief executive of the world-spirit who single-handedly promotes the progress of
humanity. "Men of my sort are invaluable in revolutions, on our brows hovers the spirit
of liberty." (Manner meines Schlages sind in Revolutionen unschatzbar, aufihrer Stirne
sckwebt das Genie der Freiheit.)4*9 He represents an absolute sovereign or subject who
literally makes history. "Fate guides our arm, but only powerful natures are its
instruments." (Das Schicksal fiihrt uns die Arme, aber nur gewaltige Naturen sind seine
Organe.)490 In narrating the political success story, he takes up the position of the
historical and grammatical subject in the first person singular.
DANTON On the Field of Mars I declared war
on the monarchy, I defeated it on 10th of
August, I killed it on the 21st of January and
threw the king's head down as a gauntlet before
all monarchs. [...] In September I gorged the
young brood of the Revolution with the
dismembered corpses of the aristocrats. My
voice forged weapons for the people out of the
gold of the aristocrats and the rich. My voice
was the typhoon that buried the minions of
despotism under waves of bayonets.
{Loud applause)
HERRMANN Danton, your voice is worn out,
you are far too emotional. At the next meeting
you will conclude your defense. You are in
need of rest. The session is adjourned.
DANTON Now you know Danton; in a few
hours he will fall asleep in the arms of glory.
DANTON Ich habe auf dem Marsfelde dem Kdnigtum
den Krieg erklSrt, ich habe es am 10. August
geschlagen, ich habe es am 21. Januar getetet und den
Konigen einen Konigskopf als Fehdehandschuh
hingeworfen. [...] Ich habe im September die junge Brut
der Revolution mit den zerstuckten Leibern der
Aristokraten geatzt. Meine Stimme hat aus dem Golde
der Aristokraten und Reichen dem Volke Waffen
geschmiedet. Meine Stimme war der Orkan, welche die
Satelliten des Despotismus unter Wogen von Bajonetten
begrub.
(Lauter Beifall.)
HERRMANN Danton, ihre Stimme ist ersch6pft, Sie
sind zu heftig bewegt. Sie werden das Nachstemal Ihre
Verteidigung beschlieBen. Sie haben Rune n6tig.
Die Sitzung ist aufgehoben.
DANTON Jetzt kennt ihr Danton: noch wenige
Stunden und er wird in den Armen des Ruhmes
entschlummern.
488
111/4,110(100).
111/4,111(101).
490
111/4,111(101).
491
111/4,112(101/2).
489
169
However, in the course of the heroic saga, a telling change of perspective occurs that
reflects a change of position in history from subject to object. Danton gradually
abandons the historical and syntactical subject position of the absolutely sovereign
subject and replaces the first person singular "I" with the medial metonymy "my voice,"
that is, the disembodied voice of the people's tribune, until he finally refers to himself as
a depersonalized object in the third person singular, proper name and personal pronoun.
In the final analysis, his performance is nothing but antiquated theater, histrionic selfdramatization in historical and political character roles that he has long since abandoned.
The rhetorical coups and theatrical stunts are political rearguard action and purely selfreferential showmanship straining for immediate political effect. They are illusive and
remain without consequences, although they sensationalize the crowd for a moment.492
Ultimately, Danton is unable to change public opinion in his favor let alone claim
absolute sovereignty and if he were able to do so, he would only incriminate himself
further.
Although his histrionic self-dramatizations before court and on the scaffold build up
an irresolvable tension between theatrical playacting and dramatic role-playing,
performance and reference,493 he persists in the aesthetic and existential unity between
the Active existence of dramatic character roles and the real existence of the theatrical
play-actors. As a Active dramatic character, Danton playfully reflects on his aesthetic
status as a historical and political play-actor in the theater of the French Revolution.
".. .we're always on stage, even if we're finally stabbed in earnest" (wir stehen immer auf
Hinderer (1991: 212).
Erika Fischer-Lichte, Asthetik des Performativen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004).
170
dem Theater, wenn wir auch zuletzt im Ernst erstochen werden.)
Thus, he takes the
real effects of symbolically historical and political theater seriously. When the Jacobins
announce that they will politically expose the Dantonists as vicious counterrevolutionary
public enemies of the republic, "It's time to tear off masks" (Es ist Zeit die Masken
abzureifieri),495 he playfully and laconically responds with a word joke that highlights the
murderous effects to be expected from the unmasking. "The faces will come off with
them." (Da werden die Gesichter mitgehen.)496 On death row in prison, he feels that
"it's so miserable to have to die" ('s ist so elendsterben miissen)."491
As death is virtually certain for the Dantonists, there seems to be no need for
masquerade anymore. Young Camille tries to stage-manage the Dantonists' final
appearance on the scaffold. "Just don't make such virtuous and witty and heroic and
intelligent faces—we know each other, after all; save yourselves the trouble." (Schneidet
nur keine so tugendhafte undso witzige undso heroische undso geniale Grimasse, wir
kennen unsja einander, sport Euch die Muhe).m What would happen, if the repertoire
of historical, political, and dramatic character roles was exhausted and if the historical
and political masquerade and costuming was over? Again, young Camille gives an
interesting answer to this question: „We ought to take the masks off for once: as in a
room with mirrors we would see everywhere only the same age-old, numberless,
indestructible muttonhead. " (Wir sollten einmal die Masken abnehmen, wir sdhen dann
494
11/1,92 (81).
1/3, 77 (67).
496
1/5, 84 (73).
497
IV/3,124(114).
498
IV/5,128(118).
495
171
wie in einem Zimmer mit Spiegeln iiberall nur den einen uralten, zahllosen,
unverwiistlichen Schafskopf.)499
However, the self-ironical Dantonists do not abstainfromparodying classical ancient
Roman and Greek role models or engaging in artistic rhetoric and theatrics even on the
scaffold. Their leader seems to be at least amused if not satisfied with the modern
Republic of France as a parodying replay of the ancient Republic of Rome: "It's not such
a bad idea to drape yourself in a toga and look around to see if you throw a long shadow."
(Es ist nicht so iibel seine Toga zu drapieren undsich umzusehen ob man einen langen
Schatten wirft.)5m Ironically, it is the professional actor and revolutionary politician
Herault who debunks the theatrics of individual sovereignty. "This is all rhetoric for
posterity, isn't it, Danton? It means nothing to us." (Das sindPhrasenfur die Nachwelt,
nicht wahr Danton, uns gehn sie eigentlich nichts an.)501
While historical role-players and political play-actors make mostly inauthentic
utterances and spread empty political slogans in the public sphere, they do make a few
authentic utterances, however, for the most part in the private sphere. Danton, on the
other hand, is in a position to make a few correct observations and authentic statements
even in the public sphere. As a public enemy on death row, he indulges in the jester's
license to speak his mind freely. He seems to be the only dramatic character from all
history plays considered herein who has at least implicit knowledge about the
irresolvability of the paradox of absolute sovereignty. Since he has experienced the
undisposability of history, he undermines the Jacobins unshakable belief in the
disposability of history. He breaks through the aesthetic illusionism of the historical and
499
IV/5, 128(118).
IV/5,129(118).
501
IV/5, 128(118).
500
political theater of the French Revolution—be it the sublime tragedy of the Jacobins, be it
the grotesque comedy of his own. He does not only disenchant the sublime historical
tragedy that the Jacobins stage, but he also counteracts the political fantasy of absolute
sovereignty, authority, and omnipotence.
He concludes correctly, "No one knows how
to govern." (Keiner versteht das Regieren.)
If read in reference to both the Jacobins
and the Dantonists, it is not only the most authentic utterance in all of the history plays
considered herein but it also reflects on the paradox of popular sovereignty even if only
implicitly. The diagnosis of the permanent crisis may be correct, but it does not specify
any treatment.504 Although he tells the truth about the morally and politically corrupt
Jacobin potentates, his political powerlessness is the condition of possibility for him to
debunk their political illegitimacy. Precisely by exercising this kind of individual
sovereignty, he paradoxically cannot exercise political sovereignty. Although he has the
knowledge that the paradox of popular sovereignty is irresolvable, he does not have the
power to solve it. He himself does not know how to govern. He is one of the fools who
paradoxically rule over the state under the law yet against the interests of the people.505
The political conflict between the Jacobin government and the Dantonist opposition
runs along the lines of Stoicism and Epicureanism, dogmatism and skepticism,
spiritualism and libertinism, hedonism and asceticism, and so on.506 The political
programs of the Jacobins and the Dantonists are diametrically opposed to each other.
While Dantonism privileges pleasure over displeasure, happiness over unhappiness,
Jacobinism privileges virtue over vice. The Jacobins adopt the political program of
502
Mtiller (1990,190), Mttller (1994,178f.).
IV/5,127(117).
504
Miiller (1988, 85f), Mtiller (1990,195ff.).
505
Leslie Mac Ewen, Narren-motifs in the works ofGeorg Biichner (Bern: Peter Lang, 1968).
506
Raulet (1986, 97). Hinderer (1991,208).
503
173
egalitarianism according to which the purpose of the state is to guarantee the equality of
all citizens and to serve justice. The Dantonists, who are moderate rightist dissidents to
the Jacobin consensus, adopt the political program of libertarianism according to which
the purpose of the state is to guarantee individual liberty and support the pursuit of
happiness.507 Both factions consider themselves in possession of the absolute truth.
However, the two programs each plagued by its specific internal self-contradictions put
each other into a critical perspective. Whenever the Dantonists make an appeal to the
constitutional right to equality of all before the law, the Jacobins reinterpret this motion
as an appeal to privileges. From the Jacobin point of view, privileges and inequality lurk
behind the mere appeal to equal rights. From the Dantonist point of view, the Jacobins
deprive suspects of their rights to due process of law by disallowing them to defend
themselves against charges of high treason. There is no general solution to the antinomy
between individual liberty and equality for all and every specific solution perpetuates it.
Robespierre holds that the Dantonist who pretend to promote liberty, pleasure, and
happiness of the people, "display the luxury and vice of the former courtiers" (mit alien
Lastern und allem Luxus der ehemaligen Hqflinge Parade macheri).50* He exercises the
sovereign right to define the public enemy. "Vice is the mark of Cain on the aristocracy.
Within a Republic it is not only a moral vice but a political crime; the vice-ridden are the
political enemies of liberty." (Das Laster ist das Kainszeichen des Aristokratismus. In
einer Republik ist es nicht nur ein moralisches sondern auch ein politisches Verbrechen;
der Lasterhafte ist derpolitische Feind der Freiheit.)509 However, the Dantonists are
aware of the fact that their debauched lifestyle alienates the people. "And besides,
507
Miiller (1988,79f.).
1/3, 79 (68).
509
1/3, 78 (68).
508
Danton, we are vice-ridden, as Robespierre says, that is, we enjoy ourselves; and the
people are virtuous, that is, they don't enjoy themselves" {Und aufierdem Danton, sind
wir lasterhaft, wie Robespierre sagt d.h. wir geniefien, und das Volk ist tugendhaft d.h. es
geniefit nicht).510 Nevertheless, they do not resist an opportunity for enjoying
themselves. Since the Revolutionary Government deceives the people, deprives them of
their constitutional civil rights, and prevents them from pursuing their real interest in
solving the socioeconomic crisis, Danton is correct in pointing out that the Jacobins are
politically illegitimate, as long as they cannot solve the economic crisis: "You want bread
and they throw you heads. You are thirsty and they make you lick the blood from the
steps of the guillotine." (Ihr wollt Brot undsie werfen Euch Kopfe hin. Ihr durstet und
sie machen euch das Blut von den Stufen der Guillotine lecken.)511 On the other hand, the
Dantonists themselves do not have an effective political remedy.
In the final analysis, Buchner, to whom Walter Hinderer attested "a critical look on
false revolutionary theatrics and showmanship" {einen unbestechlichen Blickjurfalsche
revolutiondre Theatralik und Schaustellerei),
illustrates that both factions alike make a
parody of the political ideals of the French Revolution; the Dantonists of liberty and the
Jacobins of equality. It would be an understatement, if one said that the Jacobinism was
'unpleasant' from the Dantonist point of view just as it would be an overstatement, if one
said that the Dantonism was 'vicious' from the Jacobin point of view. Both factions alike
fall back into neo-aristocratism. From the Jacobin point of view, Dantonist libertarianism
does not promote the pleasure and happiness of the people but it rather leads to neoaristocratic debauchery; from the Dantonist point of view, Jacobin egalitarianism does
510
1/5, 84 (74).
111/9,121(110).
512
Hinderer (1991,209).
511
175
not promote equality and justice but rather leads to neo-aristocratic "dictatorship."
Because of the stalemate, neither of the two factions is able to provide a feasible political
platform for overcoming the socioeconomic crisis of the French people and to intervene
between the self-managing social subsystems of politics and economy. Therefore,
neither of the two factions is able to claim legitimately absolute sovereignty.
At the height of the crisis, the two factions charge each other with high treason. The
general will of the sovereign people is still indeterminate, public opinion divided,
although the Dantonists are virtually dead in political and existential terms. Some still
admire Danton as a glorious hero recalling the Storming of the Bastille and the
September Massacres; others denounce him as a public enemy blaming him for their
misery. Buchner gives the political stalemate between the two factions and the two main
antagonists the aesthetic shape of a rhetorical chiasm.
FIRST CITIZEN Who says Danton is a traitor?
SECOND CITIZEN Robespierre.
FIRST CITIZEN And Robespierre is a traitor.
SECOND CITIZEN Who says that?
FIRST CITIZEN Danton.
ERSTER BURGER Wer sagt Danton sei ein Verrater?
ZWEITER BURGER Robespierre.
ERSTER BURGER Und Robespierre ist ein Verrater.
ZWEITER BURGER Wer sagt das?
ERSTER BURGER Danton.514
The enraged crowd on the Square before the Palace of Justice forms public opinion based
on associate thinking following the illogical connection between simplified yet
sensationalizing visual images that excite the power of imagination and increase
emotional excitability instead of putting forward rational argumentation based on
established facts. In this process, it may add fantasy to reality, lies to truth, and
defamation to justified condemnation, the charge with political high treason to moral
corruption, and the death penalty to character assassination.
111/9,120(110).
111/10,111(101).
Ultimately, the Jacobins assert themselves against the Dantonists having long since
succeeded in producing and publicizing the morally and politically corrupting image of
the Dantonists as "scoundrels" (Spitzbuben)515 and contrasting it with their self-righteous
public image of virtue heroes. They argue that as "idols" that exercise "privileges," the
Dantonists would "stand as victors over the fatherland," (einige Manner den Sieg ilber
das Vaterland davontragen).516 The usurpation of absolute sovereignty undermines
popular sovereignty and generates inequality. Therefore, the Jacobins force the
Dantonists under the law as common subjects by means of the guillotine. The Jacobin
rhetorical strategy of denouncing the Dantonist debauchery as moral vice, political crime,
and subversion of popular sovereignty is more persuasive to the people than the
Dantonist rhetorical strategy of denouncing the Jacobin Reign of Terror as a horrible
dictatorship. When the crowd places the poor and virtuous Robespierre next to the rich
and vice-ridden Danton, public opinion sways in favor of the Jacobins. Either way the
sovereign people ironically side with morally and politically corrupted leaders.
While they appear morally bigoted and politically seducible for the most part,517 they
prove a good sense of humor in at least one scene, when they abstain from hanging a
young aristocrat on the lamppost. Ironically, he wins over the bloodthirsty crowd with a
witty wordplay about the dialectics of enlightenment stating that even if they murder him
it "won't make things look brighter" (ihr werdet deswegen nicht heller seheri).5n In this
way, he indirectly demonstrates that the claim to popular sovereignty would be selfundermining, if it led to random murder.
515
1/5, 85 (75).
II/7, 102 (92).
517
Hinderer (1991,211).
518
1/2, 74 (64).
516
The Paradox of Popular Sovereignty and the Theater of the Guillotine
While the ruling class carries on with its political and existential self-liquidation, the
French people eke out a miserable existence in poverty and pain. As long as the
socioeconomic crisis continues, it is no stable political basis for any government. Their
revolutionary anger, hatred, and thirst for revenge threaten to discharge in random
manslaughter of the rich and powerful at the spur of the moment. Buchner inserts his
political message from his manifesto Der hessische Landbote (The Hessian Messenger)
(1835) into his history play, whereby his revolutionary political engagement becomes
relative.
FIRST CITIZEN You have hunger pains and
they have gas pains, you have holes in your
jackets and they have warm coats, you have
calluses and they have velvet hands. Ergo: you
work and they do nothing; ergo you earn it and
they steal it; ergo: if you want to get a few cents
backfromyour stolen property, you have to go
whoring and begging; ergo: they are thieves and
must be killed.
ERSTER BURGER Ihr habt Kollern im Leib und sie
haben Magendrucken, ihr habt Locher in den Jacken
und sie haben warme Rocke, ihr habt Schwielen in den
Fausten und sie haben Samth&nde. Ergo ihr arbeitet
und sie tun nichts, ergo ihr habt's erworben und sie
haben's gestohlen; ergo, wenn ihr von eurem
gestohlnem Eigentum ein paar Heller wieder haben
wollt, muBt ihr huren und betteln; ergo sie sind
Spitzbuben und man muB sie totschlagen.519
These agitational antitheses between the ease and comfort of the rich and powerful, on
the one hand, the pain and misery of the poor and powerless, on the other hand, leads to
the murderous conclusion that the people must take revenge on those who have betrayed
them. The people reproach one revolutionary faction after another with having recruited
them for their own political goals. Exasperated as they are, they tend to accept illusions
and make misjudgments in political terms. Although they have repeatedly made the
experience that political murders have not and will not ever improve their socioeconomic
conditions, they unwaveringly thirst for revenge.520
519
1/2, 73f. (63).
Karl Eibl, ,„Ergo todtgeschlagen,' Erkenntnisgrenzen und Gewalt in Georg Biichners ,Dantons Tod'"
Euphorion 75 (1981): 411-429.
520
THIRD CITIZEN They told us: kill the
aristocrats, they are wolves! We strung up the
aristocrats on the lampposts. They said the veto
eats up your bread; we killed the Veto. They
said the Girondists are starving you out; we
guillotined the Girondists. But they took the
clothes off the dead and we go barefoot and
freeze, the same as before. We want to pull the
skin off their thighs and make pants out of it, we
want to melt off their fat and blend it into our
soups. Let's go! Kill anyone without a hole in
his coat!
FIRST CITIZEN Kill anyone who can write
and read!
SECOND CITIZEN Kill anyone who turns up
his toes when he walks!
ALL screaming Kill them, kill them!
DRITTER BURGER Sie haben uns gesagt: schlagt
die Aristokraten tot, das sind die W6lfe! Wir haben die
Aristokraten an die Latemen gehangt. Sie haben gesagt
das Veto friBt euer Brot, wir haben das Veto
totgeschlagen. Sie haben gesagt, die Girondisten
hungern euch aus, wir haben die Girondisten
guillotiniert. Aber sie haben die Toten ausgezogen und
wir laufen wie zuvor auf nackten Beinen und frieren.
Wir wollen ihnen die Haut von den Schenkeln Ziehen
und uns Hosen daraus machen, wir wollen ihnen das
Fett auslassen und unsere Suppen schmelzen. Fort!
Totgeschlagen, wer kein Loch im Rock hat!
ERSTER BURGER Totgeschlagen, wer lesen und
schreiben kann!
ZWEITER BURGER Totgeschlagen, wer auswarts
geht!
ALLE schreien totgeschlage, totgeschlage .521
As if by chance, the people's tribune Robespierre enters the scene. In his political
function as the sovereign lawgiver and law-enforcer, he calms the excited spirits and
restores legal and political order by appealing to the force of law.
ROBESPIERRE In the name of the law!
FIRST CITIZEN What's the law?
ROBESPIERRE The will of the people.
FIRST CITIZEN We are the people, and we don't
want any law, ergo: this will is the law, ergo: in the
name of the law there is no more law, ergo: kill
them!
ROBESPIERRE ImNamendesGesetzes!
ERSTER BURGER Was ist das Gesetz?
ROBESPIERRE Der Wille des Volkes.
ERSTER BURGER Wir sind das Volk und wir
wollen, daB kein Gesetz sei, ergo ist dieser Wille
das Gesetz, ergo im Namen des Gesetzes gibts kein
Gesetz mehr, ergo totgeschlagen!522
However, the people's idiotic claim to absolute sovereignty contains a dangerous
performative contradiction. Assuming that, in Rousseau's metaphysics, the general will
of the absolutely sovereign people expresses the law, and given that, in Buchner's history
play, the absolutely sovereign people express the general will that there be no law, the
performative act of claiming popular sovereignty paradoxically undermines itself.
Instead of establishing the Republic, it destroys it; instead of enforcing the rule of the
law, it abolishes it. More precisely, it exercises negative freedom from law as such. The
French Revolution threatens to escalate into ochlocracy, sink into anarchy, and result in
1/2, 74f. (63f.).
1/2, 75 (65).
the self-destruction of the people. Even though they are desperately in need of leadership
and direction, the people are a political force neither the Dantonists nor the Jacobins
should neglect. If the people rose to power, they would prove to be superior to the ruling
class as a whole.523
In exercising absolute sovereignty over the state and the people as lawgiver,
Robespierre's performative act of appealing to the force of the law makes invisible the
paradox of popular sovereignty. In what is, as it were, the primal scene of popular
sovereignty, the state representative paradoxically empowers the sovereign people to
transfer power to him as the sovereign lawgiver. He paradoxically legitimizes himself
and acquires absolute sovereignty over the state and the people by temporarily placing
the Revolutionary Government under the rule of the mob. On the one hand, the
sovereign people as the constituting power express their general will and give a political
mandate to the sovereign lawgiver to define the laws. On the other hand, the sovereign
potentate as the constituted power defines and enforces the laws in the name of the
people and requires them as subjects of the state to observe the laws. In this way, popular
sovereignty transforms into state sovereignty—at least according to the classical theory
of democracy.
However, Robespierre indeed enacts the particular sans- culotte "will of all"524 rather
than the general will of the sovereign people. He seals the unholy alliance between the
radicalized sans-culotte crowd in the streets of Paris and the Jacobin political club in the
National Convention. On the one hand, Robespierre cunningly prevents ochlocracy and
anarchy in the streets of Paris. On the other hand, he temporarily usurps absolute
523
524
Miiller (1988, 84), Mtiller (1990, 195).
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
sovereignty over the state and the people, imposes the permanent state of exception,
suspends the constitutional, civil, and human rights, enacts the emergency law, and
preserves power by committing political murder under the guise of legitimacy and
legality in the name of the sovereign people.
ROBESPIERRE Poor, virtuous people! You do
your duty, you sacrifice your enemies. People you
are mighty. You reveal yourselves in lightning and
thunder. But you must not be wounded by your
own blows; you kill yourselves in your own wrath.
You can fall only through your own strength. Your
enemies know that. Your lawmakers are watchful,
they will guide your hands. Their eyes are
infallible, your hands are inescapable. Come with
me to the Jacobins. Your comrades will open their
arms to you, we will hold a bloody judgment over
our enemies.
MANY VOICES To the Jacobins! Long live
Robespierre! (They all exit.)
ROBESPIERRE Amies, tugendhaftes Volk! Du
rust deine Pflicht, du opferst deine Feinde. Volk du
bist groB. Du offenbarst dich unter Blitzstrahlen und
Donnerschlagen. Aber deine Streiche durfen deinen
eigenen Leib nicht verwunden, du mordest dich
selbst in deinem Grimm. Du kannst nur durch deine
eigene Kraft fallen. Das wissen deine Feinde. Deine
Gesetzgeber wachen, sie werden deine Hande
ftihren, ihre Augen sind untrugbar, deine Hande
sind unentrinnbar. Kommt mit zu den Jakobinern.
Eure Briider werden euch ihre Arme offhen, wir
werden ein Blutgericht tlber unsere Feinde halten.
VIELE STIMMEN Zu den Jakobinern! Er lebe
Robespierre! (Alle ab.)525
The influential people's tribune Robespierre appears as a figure of absolute sovereignty
and serves the people as a screen of projection for their moral and political needs and
wants. The tragic hero of virtue embodies their collective ego ideal. The paradox of
sovereignty becomes obvious in the body metaphor for the transfer of absolute power
from the people to the state and the division of political labor between the "infallible"
"eyes" of the "lawmakers" and the "inescapable" "hands" of the "people". The high
sense of mission justifies political murder.
The Revolutionary Government indeed staged the administration of justice as a
macabre theatrical spectacle, whereby it turned the ritual of sacrificing public enemies
into symbolically political theater. The guillotine, euphemistically designated "the
mechanics of the watchmaker from Geneva" {Mechanik des Genfer Uhrmachers),526
takes center stage in the theater of the French Revolution. It does not only mechanically
525
1/2, 75 (65).
1/1,70 (60).
526
181
perform capital punishment on the public enemies of the Republic of France. As an
aesthetic and political theater machine, it demonstrates popular sovereignty in action. In
other words, the symbolically political theater of the guillotine legitimizes the Jacobin
government by aesthetically forming and representing the unity between the sovereign
people as the constituting power and the sovereign government as the constituted power.
In the sublime theater of the guillotine, the people aesthetically and politically experience
themselves as spectators and participants, authors and addresses, sovereign and subject at
the same time.527
In addition, the spectacle temporarily distracts from the desolate socioeconomic
conditions in which they are living.528 A woman in company of her children pushes
through the crowd towards the guillotine on the Square of the Revolution: "Make room!
Make room! The children are crying, they're hungry. I have to let them look, so they'll
be quite. Make room!" (Platz! Platz! Die Kinder schreien, sie haben Hunger. Ich mufi
sie zusehen machen, dafi sie still sind. Platz!)529 In fact, the people assess the
entertainment value of the last words and gallows speeches in the theater of the guillotine
following the code of the modern art system, interesting/boring or innovative/repetitive in
Buchner's history play.530 Pinning his hopes on the dialectics of Enlightenment, a
Dantonist artfully composes a dialectic chiasm, but, contrary to his intentions, he
paradoxically justifies and perpetuates the bloody self-liquidation of the ruling class in
the past, present, and future.
LACROIX to the people. You kill us on the day
you have lost your reason; you'll kill them on the
LACROIX zu dem Volk Ihr totet uns an dem
Tage, wo ihr den Verstand verloren habt; ihr werder
527
Muller (1988,: 83), Muller (1990,: 192).
Daniel Arasse, Die Guillotine, Die Macht der Maschine unddas Schauspiel der Gerechtigkeit (Frankfurt
am Main: Rowohlt, 1988), 102.
529
IVY 7, 130(120).
530
Muller (1994,170).
528
182
day when you've regained it.
SEVERAL VOICES We've heard that before!
How dull!
sie an dem tQten, wo ihr ihn wiederbekommt.
EINIGE STIMMEN Das war schon einmal da! wie
langweilig!531
Hypothetically, the Jacobins could repeat the unique revolutionary event of the past,
the foundation of the Republic based on popular sovereignty, any number of times by
staging the theater of the guillotine. That is, if the aesthetic and political device were not
self-undermining and self-deconstructing. It is simultaneously a metaphor and a
metonymy for popular sovereignty. It is a metaphor for popular sovereignty because it
demonstrates it in action. However, the "sublime moment" (erhabene Augenblick)532 of
manifesting "the majesty of the people" {Majestdt des Volkes) is spatiotemporally,
logically, and aesthetically limited. Admittedly, the stage-managers can prolong the
political and legal spectacle artificially and more or less artfully.534 Nevertheless, the
aesthetic and political effect disappears as soon as it appears; the public spectacle has
only momentary impact and requires repetition. Therefore, the theater of the guillotine is
a metonymy for popular sovereignty.
The Revolutionary Government claims that it enacts popular sovereignty. However,
the irresolvable paradox of absolute sovereignty gets in the way. It imposes the state of
531
IV/ 7,131 (121). The aesthetic technique of intertextuality and theatricality becomes observable here.
Buchner mounts quotations or adaptationsfromhis historical sources into his fictive text. In this case, he
adds the people's comment on the theatrical spectacle to Lacroix' historical bon mot, which is verifiable in
his historical sources. See Georg Buchner, Dantons Tod, Kritische Studienausgabe des Originals mit
Quellen, Aufsdtzen und Materialien (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1980), 71. There is abundant research
on Biichner's aesthetic technique of montage and quotation as critique against revolutionary rhetoric. See
Werner R. Lehmann, Geht einmal euren Phrasen nach, Revolutionsideologie und Ideologiekritik
(Darmstadt: Eduard Roether Verlag, 1969); Jiirgen Siess, Zitat undKontext bei Georg Buchner, Eine Studie
zu den Dramen 'Dantons Tod' und 'Leonce und Lena' (Goppingen: Kummerle, 1975); Reiner Niehoff,
Herrschaft des Textes, Zitattechnik als Sprachkritik (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991); Harro
Muller (1994,74); Sabine Dissel, Das Prinzip des Gegenentwurfs bei Georg Buchner, Von der
Quellenmontage zurpoetologischen Reflexion (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2005), 32-78. Nicolas Pethes, „,Das
war schon einmal da! Wie langweilig!' Die Melancholie des Zitierens in Georg Buchners dokumentarischer
Poetik," Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie 125, no. 4 (2006): 518-35.
532
II/7,105 (95).
533
111/6,116(106).
534
Arasse (1987,125,142ff.).
183
exception instead of establishing the Republic, which it defers. It enforces the
revolutionary emergency law instead of the constitutional, civil, and humanrightsof the
people, which it suspends. It enacts state sovereignty instead of popular sovereignty.
The Jacobins cannot break the vicious circle at will; they must continue the horrific ritual
of sacrificing public enemies until either all of them or they themselves succumb to it.
The aesthetic and political self-legitimatization of the Revolutionary Government through
the theater of the guillotine is subject to a murderous repetition compulsion.
The Jacobins control the precarious legal and political order in the permanent state of
exception that they themselves have imposed under the pressure of the politically
radicalized people. They have to deal with a primarily technological problem. On the
one hand, they must regulate the frequency of the public executions in order to satisfy the
people's thirst for revenge. „The people are a Minotaur that must have a weekly supply
of corpses if it is not to devour its leaders." (Das Volk ist ein Minotaurus, der
wochentlich seine Leichen haben mufi, wenn er sie nicht auffressen soil.)536 A citizen
complains: "The guillotine is too slow. We need a downpour." (Die Guillotine istzu
langsam. Wir brauchen einen Platzregen.)537 On the other hand, the Jacobins must assert
internal sovereignty over the state and the people, while simultaneously containing the
rule of the mob, without antagonizing the people. They keep in check the revolutionary
energy of the people and channel it into government policy, emergency law, and finally
the horrific public spectacle of revolutionary justice.
Meanwhile the horrific theater of the guillotine must not lose its force of deterrence.
Barrere recognizes that "it's not good if the guillotine begins to laugh; the people will no
535
Arasse (1987,102), Miiller (1990,194), Muller (1994, 171).
1/4, 80 (70).
537
1/2, 74 (64).
536
184
longer fear it. One shouldn't be so familiar." (es ist nicht gut, dafi die Guillotine zu
lachen anfdngt, die Leute haben sonst keine Furcht mehr davor. Man mufi sie nicht so
familiar machen.)
Otherwise, the Jacobins would not be able to use it as an aesthetic
and political instrument of wielding power and that could lead to political suicide or even
death. "The guillotine thermometer must not drop—a few degrees lower and the
Committee of Public Safety can seek its bed on the Square of the Revolution." (Der
Guillotinethermometer darf nicht fallen, noch einige Grade undder Wohlfahrtsausschufi
kann sich sein Bett aufdem Revolutionsplatz suchen.)539
Yet the theater of the guillotine is inevitably subject to an aesthetic and political
attrition effect. "It's not even enticing anymore; it's gotten quite ordinary." (Es ist auch
gar nichts Pikantes mehr dran; es ist ganz gemein geworden.)540 Since the Revolutionary
Government is sovereign de jure only as long as it serves the general will of the sovereign
people, it is paradoxically not sovereign de facto. Although it ostensibly exercises
absolute state sovereignty on the authority of the people, it is really subject to the
murderous mechanism of its guillotine politics. It runs into a permanent crisis of political
self-legitimatization that is ultimately irresolvable. Although it temporarily concentrates
all power by controlling and consolidating the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of government, that is, the National Convention, the Committee of Public
Safety, and the Revolutionary Tribunal, it does not occupy the center of power. It comes
off as victor over both the H6bertists and the Dantonists for the time being, but a new
faction forms in the Committee of Public Safety around the hardliners Collot and Barrere.
In the key scene III/6, these two cruel and inhuman power politicians, who are cynically
538
III/6,115f. (105).
1/4, 80 (69f.).
540
111/5,114(103).
539
185
bent on preserving and expanding their political power and influence by all means
necessary, secretly conspire against Robespierre and St. Just, who are absent from the
stage. They prepare the self-authorized replacement of the Jacobin government without
parliamentary legitimatization or political mandate from the people. It becomes apparent
that they will seize power. As we know, they later paved the way for the Directorate and
Napoleonic Empire.
In the final analysis, neither the Jacobin government nor the French people, least of
all the Dantonist opposition is sovereign.541 First, the crowd claims popular sovereignty,
but this leads to ochlocracy according to lynch law if not anarchy and thus paradoxically
reduces itself to absurdity. The Jacobin government claims absolute sovereignty, but
they only temporarily establish the Reign of Terror instead of democracy and the rule of
law. Finally, the self-ironical Dantonist opposition claims absolute sovereignty, but they
are politically powerless.
Marion's prostitution, Julie's insanity and, more importantly, Lucille's suicide
represent individual acts of sovereignty that paradoxically execute and undermine the
autonomy of the subject. They may represent an exemplary act of sovereignty as far as it
is an assertion of the human will against the absurdity of existence in a meaningless
world, as for instance, under the Reign of Terror. However, these sovereign acts
paradoxically execute and undermine the autonomy of the subject at the same time. They
execute it, as far as they protests against heteronomy, exploitation, and oppression but
they simultaneously undermine it, as far as the self-destruction and self-annihilation of
the subject does not only violate the perfect moral duty to self-preservation but also
rejects the meaning of human existence in a meaningless world. Far from solving the
541
Hinderer (1991,211).
paradoxes of absolute sovereignty, they perpetuate the traumatic repetition compulsion,
as the absurd theater of the guillotine staged by Jacobinism. Since the rationalfreewill
of the human being represents the sole source of moral duty following Kant, prostitution,
insanity, and suicide contain performative contradictions. As acts of free will, they
paradoxically destroy the free will. They therefore amount to attacks on the source of
moral authority and a debasement of humanity in one's person.542 Although Marion's
prostitution asserts independencefroma traumatic experience, Julie's insanity eclipses
historical and political reality, and Lucille's suicide affirms love and loyalty to her
husband against the political regime, these sovereign acts are mere means to contingent
ends. They give the subject an illusory promise of liberty from the absurdity of human
existence subject to the rule absolute sovereignty. They are paradoxically both an
expression and a rejection of liberty. They are expressions of liberty as far as they
establish the meaningless of world but they refuse to give meaning to human existence in
a meaningless world.
Even if suicide, as a sign of unconditional love, or gestures of solidarity unto death
between the Dantonists on the scaffold may be authentic acts of individual sovereignty,
neither provides a starting point for the political solution of the socioeconomic crisis.
Even if they provided a minimum of meaning beyond the meaningless Reign of Terror,543
they cannot solve the paradoxes of popular sovereignty.544 If the play proposes any such
Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 423.
Rudiger Campe, '"Es lebe der Konig!' - 'Im Namen der Republik.' Poetik des Sprechakts," in: Jtirgen
Fohrmann (ed.), Rhetorik, Figuration undPerformanz (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004), 557-581.
544
Reinhold Grimm, "'Coeur' and 'Carreau': Love in the Life and Works of Buchner," Love, Lust, and
Rebellion, New Approaches to Georg Buchner (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 79111. Arnd Bohm, „Biichner's Lucile and the Situation of Celan's ,Der Meridian'" Michigan Germanic
Studies 17, no. 2 (1991 Fall): 119-27.
543
187
solutions, then they are metaphysical and meta-historical, or otherwise private escapism
and empathetic humanist materialism.
If the Revolutionary Government would improve the socioeconomic conditions of the
people one way or another, it could defer the paradox of popular sovereignty. By
establishing formal discursive procedures based on the distinction between government
and opposition at the head of state, it could lift the state of exception and promote a
political culture in which the opposition may articulate constructive criticism yet remain
loyal to the state, while the government would be able to act without criminalizing
dissidence.545 In the final analysis, the sublimated state terrorism of Jacobinism just as
the self-ironical playfulness and melancholic resignation Dantonism is not a feasible
solution to the paradox of popular sovereignty.546 Biichner artfully dramatizes the
paradoxes of popular sovereignty, but he does not and cannot propose any practicable
political solutions.547 Ultimately, neither a dialectical sublation nor an aesthetic
reconciliation would overcome the problem.548 The atectonic design of the drama,
polymethic plot with many self-sufficient episodes, multiperspectival dramaturgy,
complex constellation between the main characters, and the juxtaposition of many
different literary forms, genres, and styles put the various claims absolute sovereignty
into critical perspective.
Niklas Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp: 2002). William Rasch,
Sovereignty audits Discontents, On the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the Political (Portland:
Cavendish, 2004).
546
Muller (1994,180f.).
547
Hans-Joachim Ruckhaberle, „Georg Btlchners Dantons Tod: Drama ohne Alternative" Georg-BiichnerJahrbuch 1 (1981): 169-176.
548
Helmut Fuhrmann, „Die Dialektik der Revolution: Georg Buchners Dantons Tod," Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 35, (1991): 212-33.
It is time to make a leap into the twentieth century and to turn to the aesthetic
destruction of the historical and political figures of absolute sovereignty in history plays
by Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Muller. Kleist, Grabbe, and Buchner indeed advance the
genre history since Goethe's Gotz von Berlichingen (1773) which is usually praised as
the first history play in the German tradition but despite all their innovations in form and
content, they remain within the bounds of the conventional history play in the
Shakespearean tradition. As I hope to have demonstrated in chapters one through four,
the aesthetic form of their history plays directly reflects the paradox of sovereignty, or
converesly, the paradox of sovereignty underlies the aesthetic structure of their history
plays, if it does not drive the dramatic plot or even determine form and content.
By contrast, Brecht and Muller critically reflect on both the literary genre history of
the history play and the poetic phantasm of absolute sovereignty. In addition, they react
to an increasingly complex social and historical reality by increasing aesthetic
complexity. For our investigation into the aesthetic representation of the paradox of
sovereignty or rather the aesthetic critique of the poetic phantasm of absolute
sovereignty, this has an important methodical and thematic implication. First, it becomes
methodically more difficult to recognize the paradox of sovereignty in the more complex
aesthetic form of twentieth-century history plays, which, secondly, makes it necessary to
shift the focus of analysis and interpretation from the paradox of sovereignty to the more
complex aesthetic form and its critique of absolute sovereignty.
189
Chapter Five: „Dieser Respekt vor den grofien Totern mufi zerstort werden"549
or the Satire on Absolute Sovereignty in Brecht's Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des
Arturo Ui (1941)
Contrary to Kleist who glorifies absolute sovereignty and subservient subjectivity,
Brecht satirizes them in Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo t/i (1941) (The Resistible
Rise of Arturo Ui), "a parable play, written with the intention to destroy the commonly
dangerous respect for the great killers" (ein Parabelstiick, geschrieben mit der Absicht,
den ilblichen gefahrvollen Respekt vor den grofien Totern zu zerstoren).550 Brecht
demands a "revision of the bourgeois notion of the great man" (Revision der burgerlichen
Vorstellung vom grofien Mann)551 characteristic for conventional historiography focusing
on individuality and subjectivity. The Napoleon cult of German Romanticism
exemplifies heroic worship of the Janus-faced figure of absolute sovereignty. Since such
idolizations downplay or conceal the brutal villain behind the heroic mask, Brecht
recommends not mistaking the extent of the crimes with the meaning of the agent.
We must expose the great political gangsters; preferably, their ridiculousness. They are
not primarily great political criminals, but rather committers of great political crimes—
which is something completely different. [...] The first Napoleon absorbed the poor
imaginativeness of those Germans not because of the Code Napoleon but because of
millions of victims. Bloodstains are becoming of such conquerors like beauty marks.
[...] the bloodstained conqueror turns out to be great because he was not very petty in
contact with human beings. This respect for the great killers must be destroyed.552
549 « j n j s r e S p e c t f or the great killers must b e destroyed." A l l quotation from Bertolt Brecht, Werke, Grofie
kommentierte
Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), abbreviated W ,
detailing volume and page number, here W 2 4 / 3 1 7 , m y trans., T.Z., unless otherwise noted following
Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (London: Methuen, 2 0 0 2 ) , detailing page in brackets.
550
W 24/318.
W 27/380.
552
„Die grofien politischen Verbrecher mussen durchaus preisgegeben werden, und vorziiglich der
Ldcherlichkeit. Denn sie sind vor allem keine grofien politischen Verbrecher, sondern die Veriiber grofier
politischer Verbrechen, was etwas ganz anderes ist. [...] Der erste Napoleon beschdftigte die arme
Phantasie dieser Deutschen nicht durch den Code Napoleon, sondern durch Millionen seiner Opfer. Die
Blutflecken stehen diesen Eroberern gut zu Gesicht, wie Schonheitsflecken. [...] so wird der blutbefleckte
Eroberer [...] schon dadurch grofi, well er im Umgang mit Menschen nicht kleinlich war. Dieser Respekt
vor den grofien Totern mufi zerstort werden." (W 24/316f).
551
190
In this sense, The Resistible Rise ofArturo Ui satirically mirrors the Nazi claim to
absolute sovereignty in an Italian-American "gangster show" (Gangsterschau). The
parable play, set in Chicago during the late Roaring Twenties, shows the rise of the petty
criminal Arturo Ui into the ranks of the ruling class and beyond. The "gangster of all
gangsters" {Gangster aller Gangster)554 seizes the first opportunity to become
indispensable for the rich and powerful. The trust managers who receive a city loan after
bribing a council member accept Ui's help, when the misappropriation is about to leak
out. The gangster boss obstructs the investigations and perverts the course of justice. He
kidnaps, debilitates, and murders counter-witnesses. He stages ariggedshow trial. In the
unjust theater of justice overshadowed by violence and crime, he commits perjury, makes
false accusations, and intimidates the court of law and the press. He shifts the blame on
innocent people. He bribes and corrupts politicians and businesspeople, the police and
justice. He sets up his own auxiliary police officers and paramilitary catchpoles, and
forces media into self-censorship. Having entered the corridors of power, the racketeer
protects the dealers under the trust against the terror his gang deals out, extorts protection
money for his service, and violently suppresses the insurgent underclass by order of the
trust. He does not shy away from liquidating antitrust dissidents in his own ranks and
using malicious arson, terror and violence to force unbending dealers to submit. Having
conquered Chicago, murdered a business competitor, and orchestrated the incorporation
of the neighbor town Cicero, he asserts independence from the trust. In the final
monologue, he announces further conquests of the major cities across the United States.
W 7/113.
W 7/114.
191
Theriseof the gangster boss in the play mirrors both the rise of the Italian-American
gangster Al Capone and the rise of German Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler in historical
reality.555 The Italian-American gangsters in the play appear hardly costumed as their
German Nazi models. Their names resonate and they share distinguishing features with
each other. The city councilor Dogsborough is old and sick like Reich President Paul von
Hindenburg. The gangster leaders Arturo Ui, Giuseppe Givola, Emanuele Giri, and
Ernesto Roma represent the Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann
Goering, and Ernst Rohm or Al Capone and his gang respectively.556 The gangsters
represent Nazism, Dogsboroughrightwingconservatism, the trust heavy industry, big
business and high finance, and the dealers the German people. In case the parallels
between the gangster and Nazi story were not clearly recognizable, Brecht suggests
elucidating them by projecting short entries from the historical timetable between the
scenes.557 The sequence of scenes mirrors historical events in the late Weimar Republic,
from the Great Depression through the Reichstag Fire Trial, disempowerment of the SA,
and suppression of the labor movement, to the incorporation of Austria into the German
Reich, rearmament in breech of the Versailles Treaty Reich, and the beginning of the
Second World War. Brecht projects the historical events of the decade from 1929 until
1939 in Germany onto historical events during the Roaring Twenties in Chicago and
compresses them into a single year. Thus, he tries to demonstrate under what conditions
Let us try to give an answer to the question as to the aesthetic and political legitimacy of belittling
Nazism as gangsterism and its ethical implications, after analyzing the satire on absolute sovereignty in
detail.
556
Ernst Schurer, "Revolutionfromthe Right, Bertolt Brecht's American gangster play The Resistible Rise
of Arturo Ui," Perspectives on Contemporary Literature 2 (1976), No. 2: 24-46.
557
Bertolt Brecht, Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1965), 127f.
192
the interweavement of economy and politics with criminality and terrorism may result in
the establishment of totalitarian dictatorship.
This chapter reconstructs the 'theatricality of fascism' as observed by Brecht and the
function of the gesture in epic theater as theorized by Benjamin, before analyzing
Brecht's satire on absolute sovereignty in detail as a parody of the classical theater of
identification and empathy. In addition, it elucidates performative contradictions in Ui's
pseudo-political speeches and argues that Brecht exposes Nazi pseudo-politics as a
perverted political theology of popular sovereignty without reducing either Hitler or Ui to
the marionette of capital.
The Theatricality of Fascism
Before analyzing Brecht's political satire on absolute sovereignty in depth, let us first
sketch Brecht's examination of what he calls 'the theatricality of fascism' and then define
epic theater as gestural following Walter Benjamin's theoretical summary of Brecht's
original invention. In anticipation of Brecht's essay "On the Theatricality of Fascism"
and perhaps Brecht's satirical parable play as well, Benjamin observed that Nazism
brought about the politicization and mobilization of the masses in preparation of an
expansionist war through the "aestheticization of political life" (Asthetisierung des
politischen Lebens).S5% Brecht had previously discussed an everyday street scene, in
which eyewitnesses reenact a car accident to curious onlookers, as a model for epic
Walter Benjamin, „Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit," in:
Illuminationen, Ausgewahlte Schriften 1 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1961), 148-184,175. Walter
Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in: Illuminations (New York:
Schocken Books, 1999), 217ff.
193
theater, as far as the actors both represent and comment their dramatic character roles.
Subsequently, he sets out to describe similar kinds of theater and "secret role-playing"
(geheime, eine rolle spielen *) in everyday life. Brecht observed that the political playactor Hitler slipped in and out of many different dramatic character roles and that he
adjusted them to the given situation. The political quick-change artist poses as the
mourning veteran at a First World War commemoration, the occupied business executive
and the composed statesman or the joking guest at the state visit, the charitable
benefactor and fellow citizen of ordinary people, the connoisseur and generous patron of
truly German art and so on.560 The Fuhrer followed a carefully defined dress code
tailored to his appearance in the symbolically political shows. Accordingly, the choice of
tailcoat along with top hat and cane, business attire, party or military uniform depends on
the political occasion.
Regarding Hitler and his histrionic self-dramatization as absolute sovereign in
historical reality, Brecht assessed that "his unnaturalness, his stiltedness, and his
inflatedness" alone evoke "exhilaration" (sein unnatiirliches Benehmen, seine
Gespreiztheit undseine Aufgeblasenheit Heiterkeit hervorrief).561 While Hitler used
theatrics to suggest wryness, self-composure, and leadership, he appears involuntarily
comical, foolish, and silly on closer inspection even to an unbiased observer. Brecht's
Kriegsfibel (War Primer), journals, and literary remains contain a vast collection of
newspaper clips and other documentary material such as press photographs of Hitler.
Brecht must have mischievously laughed about this, especially the series of images
"Hitler dances..." that he cut out an American weekly magazine, snapshots from a British
559
Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1957), 90ff.
W22.1./564f.
561
W22.1./563.
560
194
newsreel in which the Fuhrer's idiotic performance undermines his claim to absolute
sovereignty.
Brecht traces theatrical elements in most, if not all, non-aesthetic areas of society,
including the economy, politics, law, religion etc. He then draws special attention to
"theatricalization of politics in fascism" (Theatralisierung der Politik durch den
Faschismus).562 The Nazi predilection for histrionic self-dramatization and symbolically
political shows of absolute sovereignty did not escape the inventor of epic theater, who
writes the following in connection to this.
I suggest we examine how the oppressors of our times put on their theater not at thenplayhouses but in the streets and assemblies as well as private homes, diplomatic offices,
and conference rooms. By claiming that they are putting on theater, we do not mean that
they behave as required but that they act consciously before the eyes of the world, trying
to impose the impression on their audience that their performances and dealings are
plausible and exemplary. Undoubtedly, the fascists behave very theatrically. They have
a particular appreciation for theater. They themselves speak of stage direction and they
have taken many effects directly from the theater: spotlights, background music, choirs,
and surprises.563
Brecht unquestionably had the highly ritualized and theatrical Nazi spectacles and
festivities in mind: mass rallies, party congresses, and street parades, the paramilitary
organization of party politics and everyday life, costuming with military uniforms, brown
shirts, and swastika armbands, the ubiquitous decoration of public space with Nazi
emblems, and the culmination in the political speeches of the Fuhrer. Under the guidance
of the Propaganda Minister Goebbels, Nazism staged carefully prepared and wellcalculated symbolically political shows, regulated and rehearsed like theater
562
W 26/443.
„Undjetzt schlage ich vor, zu untersuchen, wie die Unterdrucker unserer Zeit Theater spielen, nicht in
ihren Theatern, sondern aufder Strafie und in den Versammlungshausern sowie in ihren Privatwohnungen
und ihren diplomatischen Kanzleien und Sitzungssdlen. Und unter Theaterspielen verstehen wir dabei, dafi
sie sich nicht nur benehmen, wie es ihre direkten Verrichtungen verlangen, sondern dafi sie bewufit vor den
Augen der Welt agieren und ihre direkten Verrichtungen und Geschdfte einem Publikum als einleuchtende
und vorbildliche aufzudrdngen versuchen. Es ist da kein Zweifel moglich, dafi die Faschisten sich ganz
besonders theatralisch benehmen. Sie haben besonderen Sinn dqfiir. Sie sprechen selber von Regie, und
sie haben einen ganzen Haufen von Effekten direkt aus dem Theater geholt: die Scheinwerfer und die
Begleitmusik, die Chore und die Uberraschungen." (W 22.1./ 562-3).
563
195
performances, to assert their claim to absolute sovereignty under the banner ein Volk, ein
Reich, ein Fiihrer. Immediately after the Reichstag Fire Trial, it established dictatorship
pursuant to the provisions for emergency legislation in Article 48 of the Weimar
constitution. This was not an act of revolution in the strict sense of the word. The selfauthorized usurpation of absolute sovereignty was far from an illegal seizure of power
{Machtergreifung), as some historians still maintain today, but rather a legal transfer of
power (Machtilbergabe). The Reich Chancellor imposed the state of emergency and
conferred absolute sovereignty over the state and society to him himself. The Reichstag
disempowered itself, adopting the Enabling Act (Ermachtigungsgesetz) with the majority
of votes from the Nazi, rightist conservative, and Christian democratic representatives.
Having dissolved parliamentary democracy and suspended the Weimar constitution, the
Nazis reigned supreme over the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of
government. They could now adopt laws without consent from parliament and reign
through decrees. They implemented the arbitrary rule of the police state and set terror
and violence against regime dissidents on the agenda. The concentration of power
{Gleichschaltung) encompassed not just the state and economy, police and justice, but
rather all social subsystems from education through the arts and sciences to medicine.
They abolished labor unions and all political parties except for theirs, burnt books,
instituted the Reichskulturkammer, a state department charged with the organization,
supervision, and censorship of culture, imprisoned many political dissidents, and
established the first concentration camps.
In historical reality, Nazism staged the claim to absolute sovereignty as a
symbolically political spectacle. It united ritualized performances into a political
196
Gesamthmstwerk, a synthesis between various kinds of visual, performing, and poetic
arts, combining processions and parades as a framework for the central political speech of
the Fuhrer along with the ecstatic audience arranged into an ornament of the mass.564
These performances were not just aestheticist ornaments but they had a politically
formative function. The Nazis deployed them in the service of the manipulation and
mobilization of the masses. Brecht demonstrates how Nazism modeled its political selfrepresentation on the classical illusionist theater of identification and empathy,
paradigmatically articulated by Lessing. The theatricality of fascism represents the
highpoint and end of classicism from an aesthetic point of view. However, its aesthetic
and political intentions are diametrically opposed to those of classical theater. It does not
aim at emotional catharsis like classical theater but it rather politically exploits its
anesthetizing aesthetic effects in order to transform the audience into blind followers of
the sovereign political leader.
Brecht fought Nazism and modern liberal society equally, yet instead of denouncing
classicism as inherently fascist,565 he criticized the politically exploitative use and abuse
of it by Nazism.566 Nazism exploited classical theater and its high style as an aesthetic
medium for political propaganda and mass manipulation, asserting the political claim to
and performing the histrionic self-dramatization of absolute sovereignty. Wherever the
Nazis pretended greatness and extraordinariness, Brecht recognized ordinary gangsterism
embellished by rhetoric and histrionic self-dramatization. Thus, he satirically exposes the
564
Siegfried Kracauer, Das Ornament der Masse (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1963). Siegfried Kracauer,
The Mass Ornament (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
565
Jan Knopf, „Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui," in: Brecht-Handbuch - Theater, Eine Asthetik
der Widerspruche (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1980), 227-37,234f.
566
Burkhardt Lindner, Bertolt Brecht, „Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui" (Miinchen: Fink, 1982),
121.
197
political exploitation of classical theater aesthetics through Nazism. Brecht dissociates
the elements of Nazi theatrics and mounts fragmented and de-contextualized quotations
of Nazi rhetoric into the parable play.567 He inserts estranged forms of classical theater
into epic theater as a play in the play. By enclosing classical theater, epic theater
functions as its critical counter-model that neutralizes its exploitability for totalitarian
politics. It satirically reenacts the act of political exploitation. In the tradition of the
Enlightenment, it contributes to the secularization of the performing arts in contrast to the
quasi-religious political cult of Nazism and the political theology of absolute
sovereignty.568 It exhibits and debunks the aesthetic mechanisms of the symbolically
political shows staged by Nazism following the principles of the classical illusionist
theater of identification and empathy.
Excursion: Gestures in Epic Theater
Before analyzing key scenes in detail, let us summarize the theory of epic theater and
estrangement following Walter Benjamin who defined its aesthetic and historical, social
and political principles in view of gestures as its raw material. "Epic theater is gestural."
Its focal point is the aesthetic technique of interrupting dramatic action and plot, thus
isolating gestures and making them quotable: "[...] the more frequently we interrupt
someone engaged in an action, the more gestures we obtain. Hence, the interrupting of
action is one of the principal concerns of epic theater."569 Accordingly, Benjamin
567
This technique is central to Brecht's poetic program of modernist realism (W 22.2./638).
,J)ie ,Strafienszene' bedeutet einen grofien schritt entgegen der Profanisierung, Entkultisierung,
Sdkularisierung der Theaterkunst." (W 26/443.) "The 'street scene' constitutes a big step towards making
the art of theatre profane and secular and stripping it of religious elements." (J 115, slightly altered).
569
Walter Benjamin, "What is Epic Theatre?" in: Understanding Brecht (London: Verso, 2003), 1-32, 3
and 20, slightly altered. ,fias epische Theater istgestisch. [...] Die Geste ist sein Material, unddie
sketches a theory of acting with an emphasis on the quotability of gestures. The internal
reflection on the aesthetic status of epic theater as theater increases self-referentiality,
which results in an increase of external references to historical reality.
This consciousness (of the fact that epic theatre is theatre) enables it to treat elements of
reality as though it were setting up an experiment, with the 'conditions' at the end of the
experiment, not at the beginning. Thus, they are not brought closer to the spectator but
distanced from him. When he recognizes them as real conditions, it is not, as in
naturalistic theatre, with complacency, but with astonishment. [...] Epic theatre, then,
does not reproduce conditions but, rather, discovers them.570
The interruption of dramatic action produces an increase in quotations of gestures that
reveal social conditions in the "dialectics at a standstill" (Dialektik im Stillstand).
The
immediate purpose of the estranged representation in the Ui-drama is to inspire
"astonishment" {Erstaunen) in the audience about the striking parallels between the
almost synchronic histories of German fascism and American gangsterism. However, the
ultimate goal is to analyze from a critical distance what may be generally accepted but
rarely noted. The intended effect is to expose Nazis satirically as very ordinary yet
extremely brutal criminals. The audience should neither just absorb the dramatic
representation nor be absorbed by it. Instead, they should "discover the conditions," as
Benjamin put it, under which Nazism rose to power. Predominantly presented with
accomplished facts, rather than witnessing the development of dramatic actions in realtime, they must infer in particular the acts of brute force offstage. They should wonder
zweckmaftige Verwertung dieses Materials seine Aufgabe. [...] Gesten erhalten wir urn so mehr, je hdufiger
wir den Handelnden unterbrechen. Fiir das epische Theater steht daher die Unterbrechung der Handlung
im Vordergrunde." Walter Benjamin, VersuchettberBrecht (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1966), 17-29,19.
570
Benjamin (2003,18, slightly altered, T.Z.). ,JDas epische Theater [...] behalt davon, dafi es Theater ist,
ununterbrochen ein lebendiges und produktives Bewufitsein. Diese BewuBtsein befahigt es, die Elemente
des Wirklichen im Sinne einer Versuchsanordnung zu behandeln und am Ende, nicht am Anfang diese
Versuchs stehen die Zustande. Sie werden dem Zuschauer also nicht nahegebracht sondern von ihm
entfernt. Er erkennt sie als die wirklichen Zustande, nicht, wie auf dem Theater des Naturalismus, mit
Suffisance sondern mit Staunen. [...] Das epische Theater gibt also Zustande nicht wieder, es entdeckt sie
vielmehr." Benjamin (1978,20).
571
Benjamin (2003,12 and 28).
199
how it all could have happened in this way, and, for that matter, how it could have been
prevented. Both political education and aesthetic pleasure are the goal of epic theater.
Preparing to immigrate to the United States, Brecht geared his "showpiece"
(Schaustiick)572 towards the American middleclass used to the classical Shakespearean
five-act play and counted on the aesthetic shock effect of depicting German Nazis in
Italian-American gangsters and vice versa using the high style.573 He initially intented to
"explain Hitler's rise to the capitalist world by transferring it into a familiar milieu" (der
kapitalistischen Welt den Aufstieg Hitlers dadurch zu erkldren, dafi er in ein ihr
vertrautes Milieu versetzt wurde).574 Still today, the parable play, as a didactic learning
play rather than a or documentary drama in the strictest sense, addresses an audience
willing to learn from the past for the present and future.
The Satire on the Nazi Claim to Absolute Sovereignty
Following Benjamin's remarks, it is self-evident that historic snapshots are the raw
material par excellence for epic theater. However, their documentary value or unchanged
reproduction alone does not suffice for political satire. It is necessary to adapt it
aesthetically to the political purpose. Therefore, Brecht isolates ridiculously exaggerated
real historical phenomena, for instance, characteristic gestures, postures and body
movements, narcissistic self-infatuation and self-aggrandizement, and mounts them into
the highly artificial parable play. Yet these satirical allusions to historical reality remain
traceable. Brecht recommends "vivid presentation in a quick tempo with clearly arranged
572
Sjaak Onderdelinden, "Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg der Parabelform: Bertolt Brechts Arturo Ui," in:
Interbellum undExil (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991), 250-66,250ff.
573
Schtirer(1976,37).
574
Brecht (1965, 129).
200
group pictures in the fashion of the old historical representations on the fairgrounds"
(plastische Darstellung in schnellem Tempo mit ubersichtlichen Gruppenbildern im
Geschmack der alten Jahrmarktshistorien).575 As a result, even extremely short episodes
or moments within individual scenes actually resemble living images or tableaux vivants.
The quick pace of the performance does not only imitate the relative momentum that the
fascist movement achieved from the Great Depression to the Second World War. It also
overpowers the audience. Thus, some of the historic snapshots may escape their
attention. Consequently, the plot, that is, the concatenation of events and actions, does
not dominate the formal structure of the play; it is secondary to the parabolic
representation of dramatic states of affairs and montage of historic snapshots.
Brecht includes several historic snapshots into the scene that satirically alludes to
Hitler's characteristic gestures and postures. For instance, he shows Ui "who after his big
speech has been sitting there exhausted and listless" (nach seiner grofien Rede erschopft
und gleichgiiltig da safi). Secondly, "Ui gives Dockdaisy his hand and chucks the child
under the chin" (Ui reicht Dockdaisy die Hand undfafit das Kind unter das Kinn).
Thirdly, "During the performance the gangsters sit sunk in enjoyment of the music" (Die
Gangster sitzen wahrenddes Vortrags tiefversunken in den Musikgenufi).576 However,
the most important example is when Ui "seizes Dogsborough's limply dangling hand and
shakes it." (Erfafit Dogsboroughs schlaffherabhdngende Hand undschiittelt sie.)577
Here Brecht compresses a historic event into a single snapshot. The handshake between
Ui and Dogsborough satirically alludes to the handshake between Hindenburg and Hitler
575
W 24/315.
W 7/59ff. (53ff., slightly altered). See image No. 33 in Brecht's War Primer, underwritten "The Big
Nazi Three—Their Ending Should Be Wagnerian," showing Goring, Hitler, and Goebbels from left to
right, attentively attending perhaps the performance of a Wagner opera at Bayreuth. Lindner (1982,106).
577
W 7/58 (52).
576
201
on the steps of the Garrison Church in Potsdam flagged with imperial black-white-andred and swastikas alike on March 21,1933. The First World War veterans, the former
once Field Marshall now Reich President, the other once Private now newly appointed
Reich Chancellor, hosted mostly rightist conservative Reichstag representatives as well
as administrative, party, military and paramilitary officials, and some industry captains.
The Nazis deliberately selected the setting for the ceremonious act of state. Frederick
William I Elector of Brandenburg and Frederick II King of Prussia lay buried here.
Thus, they expressed their claim that the 'Third Reich' represented the legitimate heir to
the Second Reich. The Minister of Propaganda Goebbels staged the historic event as a
sentimental comedy (Riihrkomodie) in order to display Hitler's respectability and
reliability and lull the rightist conservatives in a false sense of security. The symbolically
political show should have established the unity between political and historical
opposites. It aimed at reconciling not only two First World War veterans, the older an
established Junker, the other a political upstart, but also rightist conservatism and
Nazism. Hindenburg took a shoulder-to-shoulder stance towards Hitler for the first time
in history. The Nazis later politically exploited the historic snapshot as a motif for
election posters. On the photograph, Hitler, dressed in business attire and taking a slight
bow, deferentially shakes hands with Hindenburg, dressed in an imperial uniform and
standing in upright position. The performative act of bowing to superiors on the front
stage and simultaneously treading inferiors underfoot behind the scenes is an infamous
political trick, which we find in all history plays from Kleist to Heiner Muller.
Paradoxically, the gesture simultaneously displays subjective self-discipline and claims
578
The latter featured in Kleist's Homburg, the former in Heiner Muller's Germania. See Chapter Two and
Chapter Six respectively.
202
absolute sovereignty. Brecht mirrors Hitler's relation to Hindenburg and the German
people in Ui's relationship to Dogsborough; Ui pretends respect for the city councilor yet
subjects the trust and its dealers as Hitler pretends respect for the Reich President yet
subjects the industry captains and the German people.
Tired of constant persecution, Ui wishes to operate under the protection of the ruling
class and unmolested by the police and justice in order to commit crimes under the guise
of legality.
UI No. First I need protection for myself
From cops and judges. Then I'll start to think
About protecting other people. We've
Got to startfromthe top.
Gloomily:
Until I've put the
Judge in my pocket by slipping something
Of mine in his, I don't have any rights.
UI
Erst brauch ich selbst Schutz. Vor Polizei
Und Richter muB ich erst geschutzt sein, eh
Ich andre schiitzen kann. 's geht nur von oben
Duster.
Hab ich den Richter nicht in meiner Tasche
Indem er was von mir in seiner hat
Bin ich ganz rechtlos.579
The racketeering strategy contains a contradiction in terms that Ui expresses in the
oxymoronic chiasm: "Nobody tolerates coercion except in misery." (Niemand vertrdgt
Zwang ohne Not).5 ° The gangsters first dish out terror and violence against the dealers
and then offer protection against their terror and violence. Where there is no misery, the
racketeers bring it about in the first place. Pretending to protect the economic interests of
the trust and the civil rights of the dealers, they actually violate the former as well as the
latter. The paradox of absolute sovereignty inheres not only to the gangster strategy of
racketeering but also to the Nazi ideology of the legal revolution.
W 7/24 (22, slightly altered).
W 7/93.
The Parody of Classical Theater in Epic Theater
The political satire on Nazism focuses on the "double estrangement"
{Doppelverfremdungf*1 of the historical subject displaced into the Italian-American
gangster milieu and composed in the high style of classical theater.582 Brecht gave
specific instructions to directors for staging the performance "in the high style of the
Elizabethan theater,"
which includes a specific style of acting, intonation, gestures and
postures as well as stage setting, background music and noise, makeup and costuming,
and so on. Brecht satirizes the symbolically political shows of absolute sovereignty
staged by Nazism following the aesthetics of classical theater. He contrasts the "great"
heroes of the past as represented by classicism with the "ordinary" gangsters of the
present as represented in the play. On the one hand, the theater director—an external
character of the drama—compares ordinary yet wicked gangsters to classical heroes such
as Shakespeare's Richard III. On the other hand, he presents them like predators or
beasts of prey in the circus displaying their irritability and dangerousness. Thus, he
appeals to the basest instincts in the ideal audience yet ridicules their sensation
mongering and luridness for popular representation of gangsters in the yellow press. In
this way, Brecht creates critical distance between the audience offstage and the
theatrically self-reflexive spectacle onstage. As a result, the discrepancy between the real
historical claim to absolute sovereignty asserted by Nazism, on the one hand, and the
banality of evil and the ordinary crimes committed by the gangsters in the parable play,
581
W 26/469. Bertolt Brecht, Plays, Poetry and Prose, Journals 1934-55 (London: Methuen, 1993), 137,
slightly altered, abbreviated J, detailing page number.
582
Rudiger Bernhardt, „Ein Gangsterstuck im groBen Stil-Brechts ,Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo
Ui,' in: Winfried Freund (Hrsg.), Deutsche Komodien (Mtinchen: Fink, 1988), 241-254.
583
Brecht uses direct references, parodist citation, montage, transformations and contra-facture of the
classical repertoire, including Shakespeare's Julius Cesar and Richard III, Goethe's Faust, Schiller's
Wallenstein and Wilhelm Tell.
on the other hand, is equally laughable as shocking.
Yet the laughter is the kind of
laughter that should stick in one's throat, that is, Grabbe's 'laughter of despair' (Lachen
der Verzweiflung). By combining slapstick effects of the gangster comedy onstage with
brute acts of violence offstage, often alternating them in direct succession, Brecht
satirically exposes how Nazism covered up crimes on its rise to power.
The parody of classical theater intensifies the satire against Nazism precisely to the
extent that form and content contradict each other in different ways. Brecht puts classical
verse language in the mouth of ordinary gangsters to highlight the discrepancy between
the heroes of classical drama of the past and their emulators in the present. "The verse
language," Brecht explains, "provides a measure for the heroism of the figures." {Die
roc
Verssprache macht das Heldentum der Figuren mefibar)
The higher the dramatic
form and poetic style soars, the more the gangsters remove themselves from the classical
ideal they emulate. Brecht invented a new doggerel for the sole purpose of satirizing
Nazism: a stilted iambic blank verse, bumpy and stumbling, or as he puts it, "jazzed up,
syncopated iambics [...] (five feet but tap-dancing)" (verjazzte, synkopische Jambus [,..]
filnfFilfie, aber steppend).5*6 The gangsters undermine the aesthetics of sublimity and
the rhetoric of high pathos in the vein of classicism through colloquial language with base
contents, vulgarities, and obscenities, euphemisms, idiosyncrasies, and archaisms,
business jargon and Americanisms, Social Darwinist platitudes and Nazi paroles. Short
and simple elliptical sentence structures alternate with highly artificial and convoluted
Brecht recommended combining comical slapstick effects with gruesome shock effects. "The comical,"
Brecht writes, "must not be without the gruesome." (Day Komische darfnicht ohne das Grausige sein.)
(W 24/315).
585
Brecht (1965,129).
586
W 26/470. J 137.
205
ones. The overuse of abstract concepts and emotional adjectives, performative speech
acts assertion, assurance, and order are characteristic for the gangster's language.
On the rise to absolute sovereignty, the gangster boss undergoes an aesthetic
transformation during which he acquires aesthetic and political playacting and
communication skills necessary to stage him himself as the figure of absolute sovereignty
in the high style of classical theater. At first Ui still makes an utterly inconsistent
impression on the economic and political leaders. The uncouth and unpolished
performances of the dilettante political play-actor contain a plethora of selfcontradictions, at the heart of which lies the paradox of absolute sovereignty. He uses
mixed styles from the ridiculous to the sublime and from the comical to the tragic, to give
expression to mutually contradictory moods, emotions, and intentions. Tearful pleas
alternate with vile insults and hostile threats, melodrama and sentimentality with
powerful sarcasm, ingratiation with extortion, weeping and sobbing with kicking and
screaming. He acts as a sycophantic supplicant with a megalomaniac sense of mission, a
bootlicking subject who crawls before his superior in one instance and an imperious
sovereign, trying to overpower his opponent in the next instance. He expresses respect
for the police and charges the police with corruption. He accuses others of crimes that he
himself commits. He undermines his heartbreaking appeals for humaneness, compassion,
and pity addressed to the human being by forcefully commanding obedience and
subordination to the criminal councilor. He acts up a savior who paradoxically begs for
salvation. He fails to cover up his paltriness with the display of strength and superiority.
Ironically, he bases his symbolically political strategy of persuasion and salesmanship on
two main principles that represent two chiasmatic oxymora, namely "gentle force and
206
steely embrace" (sanfter Gewalt undstdhlerner Umarmung)
The comical slapstick
effects tip over into shock effects, as the 'great' dictator who is not great shines through
the 'petty' criminal who is not petty.
After the crude public appearance at the investigation committee that left behind two
corpses in the process of covering up criminal machinations in the trust and city council,
Ui feels compelled to polish up his aesthetic and political acting skills. He decides to
take acting lessons with a retired actor in rags, learning how to walk, stand, sit, and speak
in the high style of the classical theater from Shakespeare to Ibsen.
UI Okay. Here's the problem. I've been given to
understand that my pronunciation leaves something
to be desired. It looks like I'm going to have to say
a word or two on certain occasion, especially when
I get into politics, so I've decided to take lessons.
The gestures too.
(...)
UI
Walk around like they do in this Shakespeare.
The actor walks around.
UI Good!
GIVOLA You can't walk that in front of the
cauliflower men. It ain't natural.
UI What do you mean it ain't natural? Nobody's
natural in this day and age. When I walk, I want
people to know I'm walking.
He copies the actor's gait.
THE ACTOR Head back.
Ui throws his head back.
The foot touches the ground first.
(Ui 'sfoot touches the ground first.)
Good. Excellent. You have a natural gift. Only
the arms. They're not quite right. Stiff. Perhaps
if you joined your arms in front of your private
parts.
Ui joins his arms in front of his private parts.
Not bad. Relaxed but firm. But head back. Good.
Just the right gait for your purposes, I believe Mr.
Ui. What else do you wish to learn?
UI How to stand. In front of people.
GIVOLA Have two big bruisers right behind you
and you'll be standing pretty.
UI That's bunk. When I stand I don't want
W 7/79.
UI
So horen Sie: Man hat mir zu verstehen
gegeben, daB meine Aussprache zu wunschen tlbrig
lafit. Und da es unvermeidlich sein wird, bei dem
oder jenem AnlaB ein paar Worte zu auBern, ganz
besonders, wenn's einmal politisch wird, will ich
Stunden nehmen. Auch im Auftreten.
(...)
UI Gehen Sie herum, wie man bei diesem
Shakespeare geht!
(Der Schauspieler geht herum.)
UI Gut!
GIVOLA Aber so kannst du nicht vor den
Karfiolhandlern gehen! Es ist unnatUrlich!
UI Was heiBt unnaturlich? Kein Mensch ist heut
natiirlich. Wenn ich gehe, wiinsche ich, daB es
bemerkt wird, daB ich gehe. (Er kopiert das Gehen
des Schauspielers.)
DER SCHAUSPIELER Kopf zuriick. (Ui legt den
Kopfzuriick.) Der FuB beruhrt den Boden mit den
Zehenspitzen zuerst. (Uis Fufi beruhrt den Boden
mit den Zehenspitzen zuerst.) Gut. Ausgezeichnet.
Sie haben ein Naturtalent. Nur mit den Armen mufi
noch etwas geschehen. Steif. Warten Sie. Am
besten, Sie legen sie vor dem Geschlechtsteil
zusammen. (Ui legt die Hdnde beim Gehen vor
dem Geschlechtsteil zusammen.) Nicht schlecht.
Ungezwungen und doch gerafft. Aber der Kopf ist
zuruck. Richtig. Ich denke, der Gang ist fur Ihre
Zwecke in Ordnung, Herr Ui. Was wunschen Sie
noch?
UI Das Stehen vor Leuten.
GIVOLA Stell zwei kraftige Jungs dicht hinter
dich und du stehst ausgezeichnet.
UI Das ist ein Unsinn. Wenn ich stehe, wiinsche
people at the two bozos behind me. I want them
looking at me.
He takes a stance, his arms crossed over his chest.
THE ACTOR A possible solution. But common.
You don't want to look like a barber, Mr. Ui. Fold
your arms like this.
He folds his arms in such a way that the backs of
his hands remain visible)
A trifling change, but the difference is incalculable!
Draw the comparison in the mirror, Mr. Ui.
Ui tries the new position in front of the mirror.
ich, daB man nicht aufzwei Leute hinter mir,
sondern auf mich schaut. Korrigieren Sie mich!
(Er stellt sich in Positur, die Arme uber die Brust
gefaltet.)
DER SCHAUSPIELER Das ist moglich. Aber
gewShnlich. Sie wollen nicht Aussehen wie ein
Friseur, Herr Ui. Verschranken Sie die Arme so.
(Er legt die Arme so ilbereinander, dafi die
Handrucken sichtbar bleiben, sie kommen auf die
Oberarme zu liegen.) Eine minutiose Anderung,
aber der Unterschied ist gewaltig. Vergleichen Sie
im Spiegel, Herr Ui!
(Uiprobiert die neue Armhaltung im Spiegel.fi%
This is the peripety in the development of the main character from an insignificant
gangster boss to the absolute sovereign, which marks the introduction of Ui into the
'refined' society of the ruling class. After the acting lesson scene, the dramatic figure
begins transforming into the satirical caricature of the historical figure Hitler, however,
without ever achieving complete identity.
It was Brecht's intention to inspire
astonishment in the audience about the growing impression that Hitler is getting more
and more recognizable in Ui, as the drama proceeds. The seventh scene is the highpoint
of Brecht's satirical Hitler parody and the critical exposure of the aestheticalization of
politics, as far as the play's aesthetic self-referentiality internally reflects on the aesthetic
status and political function of classical theater and the performing arts for the phantasm
of absolute sovereignty in Nazism.
A great number of press photographs show the Ftihrer in a particularly stiff and
strained body posture with his hands crossed slightly above his crotch. The acting
teacher and Givola who act as spectator onstage and the author's mouthpieces make
laconically ironic and sardonic comments in place of Brecht.
They expose the
unnaturalness and ridiculousness of Hitler's histrionic self-dramatization as the figure of
absolute sovereignty in the high style of classical theater. The satire of classical theater
W 7/49ff. (43ff.).
208
in the epic theater appears ridiculous to the critical audience offstage. We should not
interpret the scene as a burlesque intermezzo. We should not reduce it to its "legendary"
character stemming from Brecht's taunting colportage in the essay on the theatricality of
fascism.589 Ultimately, the man of theater was right, for Hitler took acting lessons with
an actor and opera singer.590
While economic power symbolized by the "bank account" (Bankguthaben)591 counts
in the plutocratic gentlemen's club of industry captains, Ui's social capital, beside the fist
power of his henchmen that stands for Hitler's political or rather paramilitary power,
consists in his theatrical and rhetorical ability to embody the figure of absolute
sovereignty. It is the aesthetic power to act as the uncontested leader, thereby to motivate
his followers to obey him and to induce them to submit voluntarily to him. The
symbolically political show of absolute sovereignty does not primarily address the ruling
upper class but rather the lower middleclass and underclass, that is, the "little man"
{kleine Mann),592 or the audience onstage represented by the dealers.593 Ui plays to the
galleries populated by ordinary people trying to fulfill their role expectation on him by
personifying the "petty bourgeois" idea of the sovereign "master" (Heir).594
UI But I'm not trying to convince professor
And smart-alecks. My object is the little
Man's image of his master.
UI Nur kommt's nicht an, was der Professor denkt, der
Oder jene Uberschlaue, sondern wie sich der kleine
Mann halt seinen Herrn vorstellt. Basta.595
589
W22.1./563.
Werner Maser (Hrsg.), Mein Schiller Hitler, Das Tagebuch seines Lehrers Paul Devrient, bearbeitet und
herausgegeben von Werner Maser (Paffenhofen: Ilmgau, 1975). Werner Maser (Hrsg.), Paul Devrient,
Mein Schiiler Adolf Hitler (Tubingen: Universitas), 2003. James Stark, "Acting in Brecht's Arturo Ui,"
Communications from the International Brecht Society 26 (December 1997), no. 2: 50-52.
591
W 7/51 (45).
592
W 7/52 (45).
593
Heiner Mtiller assigns three seats to three dealers in the first row of seats in the auditorium amongst the
rest of the audience offstage in his stage production at the Berlin Ensemble.
594
W 7/52 (45).
595
W 7/52 (45).
209
The parvenu obsessively and compulsively prides himself for and simultaneously denies
his social origin. He poses several times as the "Son of the Bronx" (Sohn der Bronx),596
the formerly misrecognized and unemployed 'ordinary' man from narrow circumstances,
who comes to town, becomes an insignificant gangster, and finally grows into a powerful
and influential 'great' man. Brecht foils the American social myth of the self-made man
who makes it from the rags to the riches and thus literally and figuratively makes history.
Ironically, Ui justifies his claim to absolute sovereignty precisely from his social
origin; however, his histrionic self-dramatization as a great man undermines his
authenticity and exemplariness as an ordinary man. On the one hand, the leader's social
origin singles him out as the most authentic and exemplary representative of the
underclass. On the other hand, precisely authenticity and exemplariness distinguish the
absolute sovereign from his subjects. As an authentic representative of his followers, the
sovereign leader establishes "affiliation" (Zugehorigkeit) towards his subjects; however,
as an exemplary representative of his followers, the sovereign leader establishes "ecstasy"
(Ekstase) towards his subjects.597 Paradoxically, internal "homogeneity" of the subjects
simultaneously supports and undermines external "heterogeneity" of the sovereign. The
heterogeneous existence of the sovereign paradoxically depends on the internal
homogeneity of his subjects who voluntarily submit to him.598
596
W 7/33, 102 and 111.
Giorgio Agamben, Ausnahmezustand (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2005), 45. Giorgio Agamben, State
of Exception (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005).
598
According to Bataille's theory fascism based itself on its actual psychological structure and not in the
economic conditions. The fascist leader legitimized his claim to absolute sovereignty and quasirevolutionary violence against the establishment by his origin from the underclass. Fascism paradoxically
accomplished uniting the heterogeneity of the sovereign with the homogeneity of the state, reflected
aesthetically in the claim to nobility and real infamy. Georges Bataille, 'The Psychological Structure of
Fascism," New German Critique 16 (Winter 1979): 64-87,72ff.
597
Performative Contradictions in Pseudo-Political Speeches
The aesthetic and political ability to appear in the high style of classical theater is
required for the first time, when Ui gives a political speech before the assembled dealers
at the trust headquarters. His task is to convince his audience onstage of the necessity
that they voluntarily submit to the trust. Brecht puts Nazi rhetoric into the mouth of Ui
who advises the trust managers that the dealers need "strong leadership" (starke
Fuhrung).599 The Nazi Fiihrer principle ties in with the Prussian mentality of sovereignty
and subservience (friderizianischer Untertanengeist) that increases self-renunciation up
to the point of self-effacement vis-a-vis the deified head of state. Giving a team talk to
his henchmen, Ui requires them "to act their part" (Die Pflicht getan) and he codifies that
„Duty comes first and then the recompense." (Verdienen kommt von Dienen.)m
The
symbolically political show of absolute sovereignty aims at subjective self-discipline. As
observed in Kleist's Homburg, absolute sovereignty bases itself on subjective selfsubjection and the political ideology of domination requires subjects to submit to the
sovereign unreservedly, to follow orders "blindly" (blindlings),601 and to discharge of
duties selflessly. However, the success of the symbolically political show depends on the
aesthetic suggestibility of the audience; the speaker "wants the audience to empathize
with him and say: yes, we would have acted that way, too" (das Publikum dazu bringen
[...], sich in ihn einzufuhlen undzu sagen: ja, so hdtten wir auch gehandeli).602 To this
end, two things are necessary: de-individualization and homogenization of the audience.
"We expect art," Brecht ties in with a classical truism, "to carry away the audience and to
599
W 7/35.
W 7/77f. (69).
601
W22.1./567.
602
W22.1./565.
600
211
transform it into a unified mass."
Yet Brecht then goes on to parallelize the classical
theater aesthetics of identification and empathy with the Nazi politics of absolute
sovereignty. Aesthetically, everything in the symbolically political shows of Nazism
indicates that the agreement between sovereignty and subjectivity follows the laws of
nature and that the sovereign leads the subjects with somnambulistic infallibility.604
Accordingly, Ui tries to establish identification and empathy of the listeners with the
speaker through a double change of perspectives in his speeches. At first, he adopts the
dealers' perspective emphasizing that he is an ordinary man like them. The sovereign
pretends that he feels and thinks like his subjects and that he understands their everyday
problems. In his monologue, he enacts a fictive dialogue between them and himself, in
which he poses rhetorical questions to himself from their point of view and anticipates
possible objections to his proposals. Thus, he constitutes intersubjectivity but then he
returns to his point of view as a gangster boss and great man in order to claim absolute
sovereignty. While the first change of perspectives increases agitation in the speaker and
facilitates the listener's identification and empathy with him, the second change of
,JEs entsteht da die Einfllhlung des Publikums in den Agierenden, die man fur gewohnlich als das
wesentlichste Produkt der Kunst ansieht. Da ist dieses Mitreifien, dieses Alle-Zuschauer-in-eineeinheitliche-Masse-Verwandeln, das man von der Kunstfordert." (W 22.1./565)
604
W 22.1 ./567. See the first imagefromthe War Primer, where Brecht satirizes the Fuhrer cult in terms
of somnambulism. Incidentally, Kleist's Homburg is a somnambulist as well. Kleist's Prince and Brecht's
Ui share the narcissistic phantasm of absolute sovereignty, omnipotence, and omniscience. In his satirical
sonnet about Kleist's patriotic play published as a "study" (Studie) entitled "On Kleist's piece 'The Prince
of Homburg'" {Uber Kleists StUck 'Der Prinz von Homburg'), Brecht satirizes Kleist's hero as an
ambiguous "paragon of warrior's pride and servant's mind" (Ausbund von Kriegerstolz und
Knechtsverstand) (W 1 l/272f.). However, he himself affirmatively dramatizes individual consent to
personal death for a political cause in his political propaganda and didactic learning play Die Maflnahme
(The Measure Taken) (1930/1). Beside differences in political tendencies of Kleist's nationalism and
Brecht's internationalism, the theme of subjective self-discipline is central to both plays—between
Homburg and the Elector in Kleist, between the Young Comrade and the Communist Party in Brecht.
Because of its model character, The Measure Taken is less of a history play than The Ui. The former fits
better into the sequence of history plays from Kleist to Heiner Mtiller than the latter. Since The Measure
Taken raises post-colonial issues like Hermannsschlacht, it has its place in another sequence ending with
Heiner Mtiller's didactic learning play Mauser (1975) and history play Der Auftrag (1980) set in Jamaica
during the French Revolution, which points back and parodies Biichner's history play Danton 's Death.
perspectives serves the speaker to disabuse his listeners. Having established the need for
action, he assumes the role of the sovereign executor who forces his conclusions on the
subjects and dictates the terms of his service to them.
From an external point of view, it is obvious to the audience offstage that the
followers absolve their leader from accountability and that they immunize him against
criticisms. Regarding the relationship between the speaker and his audience Brecht
writes:
He prompts everybody to give up their point of view and forget about their interests in
order to take his point of view and pursue his interests. He immerses his spectators into
him himself, he entangles them in his movements, he has them partake in his sorrows and
triumphs and he puts them off all criticisms.605
What Brecht illustrates regarding the Nazi leader in historical reality applies just as well
to the main dramatic character in the parable play:
He is an individual, a dramatic hero, who tries to make the people, or in other words, the
audience, say what he says. More precisely, let them feel what he feels. [...] The
listeners are able to follow him instinctively in all this; they partake in his triumphs and
adopt his attitudes. [...] However, the speaker thus prevents them from criticizing him
and obstructs their own views on the environment.606
The anesthetizing effects of classical aesthetics disrupt critical thinking in the audience
onstage. However, Brecht blocks identification and empathy with the dealers in the
audience offstage by ridiculing their lethargy and idiocy. In effect, the audience feels
superior to the dealers yet they must prove that they would be able to act superiorly.
Brecht inserts a series of performative contradictions into Ui's speeches that hardly
conceal but rather satirically expose the paradoxes of absolute sovereignty. Enthroned
,JEr veranlafit damit jeden, seinen Standpunkt aufzugeben, um seinen, des Agierenden, Standpunkt
einzunehmen, seine Interessen zu vergessen, um seine, des Agierenden Interessen zu verfolgen. Er vertieft
seine Zuschauer in sich, verwickelt sie in seine Bewegungen, lafit sie »teilnehmen« an seinen Sorgen und
Triumphen und verleidet ihnenjede Kritik." (W 22.1.1561).
606
„£r ist eine Einzelperson, ein Held im Drama, und versucht, das Volk, besser gesagt das Publikum,
sagenzu machen, was ersagt. Genauergesagt, fiihlenzu lassen, was erfiihlt. [...] In alldem kann der
Zuhorer ihm gefuhlsmafiigfolgen, der Zuhorer nimmt Teil an den Triumphen des Redners, er adoptiert
seine Haltungen." Damit "verleidet (er) ihnen (den Zuh6rern)/We Kritik, ja jeden Blick aufdie Umwelt
von ihrem eigenen Standpunkt aus." (W 22.1./566).
213
above all as the figure of absolute sovereignty, the gangster boss presents a continuous
success story in his annual report to the general assembly. He writes and rewrites history,
strains and stretches the truth, tells factoids and blatant lies. Evoking the absolute enemy,
who seems to remain invisible to the dealers but whom the audience offstage ironically
recognizes in the gangsters, Ui decries some of the crimes that his henchmen have
committed by his order in order to celebrate himself as the avenger of the victims and the
punisher of the perpetrators. He complains about the powerlessness of the city
government that he himself disempowered. He charges its "honorable men" (ehrenwerte
Manner) with "shady business dealings" {schattige Geschdftef01 that he covered up for
them. While the ordinary subject suffers from a deeply seated fear of powerlessness,
injured pride, and an inferiority complex, the absolute sovereign ironically suffers from
narcissistic megalomania, phantasms of omnipotence, and paranoid persecution
anxiety.608
Additionally, Ui's policy of peacekeeping through warmongering contains
performative contradictions, as the seventeenth scene that Brecht added after 1945
details. Ostensibly committed to peace, like his real historical model Hitler, he is
preparing for an expansionist war of aggression under the guise of self-defense. To this
end, he maintains, upgraded armament is required.609 While he avows himself
607
W 7/55.
Heiner Mtiller exhausted the satirical potential of Hitler's complexes to its fullest. See Chapter Six.
609
See image No. 28 in Brecht's War Primer, a medium-range shot of Hitler giving a speech at the Krupp
steel plant. Brecht underwrote it with the following epigrammatic quatrain:
Promising Socialism, there he stands.
Seht inn hier reden von der Zeitenwende.
Listen: a New Age will be proclaimed.
's ist Sozialismus, was er euch verspricht.
Behind him, see the work of your own hands:
Doch hinter ihm, steht, das Werk eurer Hande:
Great cannon, silent. And at you they're aimed.
GroBe Kanonen, stumm auf euch gericht'.
A similar picture, underwritten "Hitler at Krupp" (Hitler bei Krupp), can be found in Hans Bernhard
Gisevius, Adolf Hitler, Versuch einer Deutung (Munchen: Rtitten & Loening, 1963), 544f. From a bird's
608
peacemaker, protector of the trust and its dealers, and restorer of law and order, he
announces his plans for expanding his empire into the big cities across the United States.
He hardly conceals his preferred methods of terror, force, and violence. The critical
audience offstage should recognize a warmongering autocrat in him. Though introduced
by the archaic blare of trumpets, a popular theater effect used for announcing romantic
heroes, Ui is now standing before a modern microphone to deliver his last speech.610
UI
And to secure
This peace I have put in an order
For more Thompson machine-guns,
Armed cars, Brownings, and rubber truncheons
Etcetera. For Chicago and Cicero
Are not alone in clamoring for protection.
There are other cities: Washington und
Milwaukee!
Detroit! Toledo! Pittsburgh! Cincinnati!
And other towns where vegetables are traded!
Philadelphia! Baltimore! St. Louis! Little Rock!
Minneapolis! Columbus! Charleston! And New York!
They all demand protection! And not 'Phooey!'
No 'That's not nice!' will stop Arturo Ui!
(Amid drums andfanfares the curtain falls.)
UI
Und um den Frieden
Zu sichern, habe ich heute angeordnet
DaB unverzuglich neue Thompsonkanonen
Und Panzerautos und naturlich was
An Brownings und Gummiknuppeln und so weiter noch
Hinzukommt, angeschafft werden, denn nach Schutz
Schrein nicht nur Cicero und Chicago, sondern
Auch andere Stadte: Washington und Milwaukee!
Detroit! Toledo! Pittsburgh! Cincinnati!
Wo's auch Gemtisehandel gibt. Flint! Boston!
Philadelphia! Baltimore! St. Louis! Little Rock!
Minneapolis! Columbus! Charleston! Und New York!
Das alles will geschiitzt sein! Und kein "Pfui!"
Und kein "Das ist nicht fein!" halt auf den Ui!
Trommeln und Fanfarenstosse.611
In case Ui's speeches left the dealers unconvinced of the necessity that they must
voluntarily submit to the trust, the gangsters stage several melodramatic and sentimental
interludes that represent simple issues nonverbally and more graphically, and are,
therefore, more suggestive than the speeches. As it becomes foreseeable that neither the
speech nor the melodramatic and sentimental interludes will persuade the dealers and
create aesthetic identification and empathy as a means of political subjugation and
domination, the gangsters resort to the use of force. First, the gangster present the dealers
with the manager-in-chief as the guarantor for the "business basis" (geschdftliche [...]
eye view, it shows Hitler striking a characteristic pose before a microphone on a podium. SA bodyguards
and gigantic anti-aircraft guns manufactured at the Krupp steel plant shield him.
610
See images No. 28 and No. 81 in Brecht's War Primer (Kriegsfibel, 23f.). Image No. 81 is a full body
image of Hitler next to a microphone striking a characteristic pose with characteristic facial expressions.
611
W 7/11 If, (98, slightly altered).
215
Basis)
of the one-sided agreement between the protectors and the protected. To the
critical audience it is obvious that he pursues and protects the business interests of the
trust alone, neither able to limit Ui's absolute sovereignty nor able to protect the dealers'
rights. Then, they absurdly present to the dealers the fatally ill Dogsborough as a false
living example for "golden honesty" {goldener Ehrlichkeit) and "incorruptible morality"
(unbestechlicher Moral).613 However, the critical audience offstage witnessed that the
corrupt yet respected city councilor is mired in the criminal machinations of the trust and
the gangsters. The gangsters act up law-abiding citizens and charitable grand seigneurs
who promote the common good, social activists on a welfare mission, generous patrons
and distinguished connoisseurs of "truly" native art and music. Playing on the dealer's
heartstrings, the gangsters stage a charity performance and obsequy in commemoration of
the assassinated counter-witness in order to draw attention away from their secret
criminal machinations. In one scene, they appear with long faces "carrying big wreaths
in their hands" (grope Krdnze in den Hdnderif14 at the funeral pretending to mourn their
murder victim. In another scene, a prostitute with child appears onstage, pretending to be
the widow and heartbreakingly thanks the gangsters for their condolences. A schmaltzy
song about the homeland sung by a gangster bodyguard and spare time baritone singer
accompanies the grotesque theater in the theater. Here Brecht satirizes a habit shared
equally by German Nazis and Italian-American gangsters. Hitler had pictures taken of
him in company of widowed mothers with children and the choice of the song clearly
alludes to the Nazi love for folklore art and music.
2
W 7/57.
W 7/58.
4
W 7/98.
3
216
The Satire on the Political Theology of Nazism
Moreover, Brecht creates satirical effects by transposing the historic event and the
histrionic self-dramatization of absolute sovereignty into quasi-religious discourse
schemata, more precisely, a perverted Christology that resonates with the Nazi Fuhrer
principle and the related personality cult.615 Following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ yet
perverting the doctrine of Christian love, Ui preaches the doctrine of hatred and absolute
enmity.616 Satirically appropriating Christian theology, Brecht approximates the figure of
absolute sovereignty to God's son Jesus Christ, the savior sent by God the Almighty
Father to save the people from doom on earth and to lead them into heaven.
UI
Mr. Dogsborough
I owe you an incomparable debt
Of gratitude. Our meeting was the work
of Providence. I never will forget Not if I live to be a hundred - how
You took me to your arms, an unassuming
Son of the Bronx and chose me for your
friend,
Nay more, your son.
He seizes Dogsborough's limply dangling hand
and shakes it.
GIVOLA in an undertone:
How touching! Father and Son!
UI
Herr Dogsborough, ich fuhle
In dieser Stunde tief, wie sehr ich ihnen
Zu Dank verpflichtet bin. Die Vorsehung
Hat uns vereinigt. DaB ein Mann wie Sie
Mich Jungeren, den einfachen Sohn der Bronx
Zu Ihrem Freund, ich darf wohl sagen, Sohn
Erwfihlten, werd ich Ihnen nie vergessen.
Erfafit die schlaffherabhangende Hand und
schuttelt sie.
GIVOLA Qialblaut.)
Erschutternder Moment! Vater und Sohn!617
Ui calls himself the "son" {Sohn) and after the enjambment or line skip he assume the
role of "the chosen one" {der Erwdhlte) with clear and distinct allusions to Jesus Christ.
The constellation is complete with Dogsborough appearing as the almighty father God in
Givola's ironical comments. The self-deification of the sovereign leader raises him from
the immanence of this world into the metaphysical sphere of transcendence. The absolute
615
"It has been long established that the political power of fascism was derived from the condensation of
military might and religious authority." Bataille (1979, 77) Bataille further explains that the external
heterogeneity of the absolute sovereign in religious terms and the internal homogeneity of the subjects in
military terms paradoxically contradict and imply each other at the same time. Bataille (1979, 81).
616
Robert Atkins, '"Und es ist kein Gott aufier Adolf Hitler': Biblical Motifs in Brecht's Arturo Ui and
Related Works," The Modern Language Review 85 (1990), No. 2: 373-387.
617
W 7/58 (52f.).
217
sovereign expects subjects to surrender liberty, self-determination, popular sovereignty
and to confirm the religious mystery that anonymous transcendental powers such as
"Providence" preordained him to be the personification of the body politic, their
omniscient and omnipotent leader who will guide them on „the road to victory" (Weg
zum Sieg).61*
By contrast, the theater director, satirically applying the elements of the very same
religious discourse, presents Ui to the audience in the prologue as "The biggest gangster
of all times | Whom heaven sent us for our crimes | Our weakness and stupidity!" {Mit
dem uns der Himmel ziichtigte \ Fur alle unsere Siinden und Verbrechen \ Gewalttaten,
Dummheiten undSchwdcheri).619 Combining Ui's false pathos and Dogsborough's
inaction because of old age and fatal illness with Givola's momentary touch of
sentimentality, Brecht produces ridiculous contradictions. As a result, the critical
audience offstage recognizes that the sentimental comedy as a symbolically political
show ideologically exploits Christian theology.
The overuse of abstract concepts with religious connotations stand out in Ui's team
talk to his henchman after internal conflicts break out over the ring policy towards the
city and trust. Brecht mounts unambiguously Nazi terminology into the theatrical
monologue, as Ui demands from his henchmen like the Nazi leader from his followers
blind trust (blindes Vertraun), "fanatical" and "indomitable faith" (fanatischen (...)
unerschiitterlichen Glauben), and above all "firm faith in the predestination to
leadership" (feste Glaube, dafi (er) zum Fiihrer vorherbestimmt (ist)).620 This declaration
of political belief is a purely self-referential performative act without external reference.
618
W 7/78 (70).
W 7/114, (6).
620
W7/77f.(69).
6,9
It paradoxically refers to what it brings about in the first place. Like absolute religious
faith in general, the political theology of absolute sovereignty in particular is irrational
and non-discursive and it compensates for the deficits in political self-legitimatization
through heightened aesthetic self-reference.621 Symbolically political shows of absolute
sovereignty do not make up for rational discourse and plausible argumentation.
Ui's henchman Givola thanks the gangster boss for his services on behalf of the
dealers, ironically asserting that they are "deeply moved" (tiefbewegt) and "joyously
trembling" {freudeschlotternd).611 The neologismfreudeschlotternd,presumably coined
by Karl Kraus, adequately captures the ambiguous emotional reaction,623 as far as it
combines "anxiety" with "sacred attraction,"624 as subjectively experienced by the
enthused followers in the presence of what they consider "divine supremacy."625 More
importantly, it satirically exposes the quasi-religious deification of the sovereign state
embodied by the individual subject of the Fiihrer. Like in Kleist's Homburg, subjective
self-discipline results in the aesthetic experience of sublimity. However, in contrast to
Kleist, Brecht elucidates the ridiculous social, historical, and political character of such
621
The highly acclaimed performance of Martin Wuttke in the title role of Arturo Ui at the Berlin
Ensemble—Heiner Muller's 1994 production is still in the repertoire up until today—intensifies both the
theatricality and its satirizing effect. Parodying the aesthetic principles of Antonin Artaud's Theater of
Cruelty, he stunningly demonstrates the convergence between the aesthetics of the historical avant-garde
and the politics of totalitarianism. For instance, Wuttke achieves satirical effects by emphasizing the
material sounds of the repeated keyword artificially extending its articulation and distorting its intonation
while voiding it of its meaning and thus creating a monstrous magical incantation that incites sustained
laughter in the audience. In addition, Wuttke's performance oscillates between the real presence of the
play-actor's body and voice onstage, the Active internal presence of the dramatic character, Arturo Ui,
whom he is representing, and the Active external reference to the historical model, Adolf Hitler. By far
most impressive and unexpected theatrical performance, used by Wuttke, is the moment in which he
contorts his body into a swastika sign. Even though it makes the external reference to Nazism all too clear,
the surprise shock effect may succeed in both conveying an atmosphere of terror in the audience and inspire
in them the kind of laughter that stick in their throat.
622
W7/111.
623
Klaus Hildebrand, Das Dritte Reich (Munchen: Oldenbourg, 2003), 4.
624
Bataille(1979,79).
625
Bataille (1979, 75).
an 'inner experience', and for that matter, intensifies the comical effects from Homburg
up to the point of parody and satire and criticizes the political affirmation of absolute
sovereignty in Kleist's history play.
The Satire on Popular Sovereignty
Brecht reenacts the annexation (Anschlufi) of Austria to the German Reich in 1938 as
a forced incorporation of a suburban business into the Chicago trust parodying the
infamous courting scene from Goethe's Faust and the wooing scene from Shakespeare's
Richard III.626 Although Ui demands "unity" (Einigkeif) and "sacrifices" (Opfer),621 that
is, subjective self-discipline from his followers like Hitler from his, disunity and lethargy
prevail amongst the dealers. The gullible ones feel betrayed, condemn the crimes, and
assert their innocence. They claim there is no defense against violence. They did not
resist blackmail and paid protection money hoping to stop the violence. Nevertheless, it
continued. The smarter ones accuse them of cowardice. They reject lame excuses and
miss virtue and weapons. Someone absurdly pins his hopes on Ui's avenger and
overlooks that he might continue victimizing them. A self-helper calls to arms, invoking
the collective duty to defend the city against crime. The propositions represent purely
performative declaration of intention. Overall, the dealers remain inactive and their plans
unrealized. The subservient subjects are and continue to be obedient to the absolute
sovereign.
Heiner Miiller's production at the Berliner Ensemble further exaggerates the satirical motif: Ui rapes
widowed business proprietress, however, this ironically results in his castration, which the actor Martin
Wuttke, already mentioned above, puts into practice just as creatively as intensely. For our purpose, the act
of castration undermines the claim to absolute sovereignty.
627
W 7/56 (50).
220
All this reflects public opinion of the majority in Germany and Austria during the
early 1930s. Although Brecht observes Nazism as a social and political mass
phenomenon and examines it through the aesthetic lens of classical theater in his
theoretical writings, he obviously factors out from his parabolic history play that the
fascist ideology was enormously attractive to the German and Austrian people. Yet he
nevertheless succeeds in satirically exposing the aesthetic and theatrical mechanisms of
totalitarian demagoguery. The lethargic dealers are not enthused but rather intimidated
and terrorized by the symbolically political shows of the gangsters in the parable play.
Although the performance is a failure, the idiotic and depoliticized dealers fall for it. In
fairness to our distressed playwright, we should keep in mind that this is his wishful
thinking in the historical circumstances around 1941. Incapable of solidarity with one
another and collective action against Ui, the dealers are powerless to resist open terror
and violence. In the classical theory of democracy, the people simultaneously represent
the sovereign author and addressed subject of the law, the subject and object of power. In
Brecht's parable play, the absolute sovereign reduces them to passive observers of
symbolically political shows instead of active participants in politics proper. They are the
object and not the subject of political power. They fail to claim popular sovereignty in
protest of Ui's usurpation of absolute sovereignty and the establishment of dictatorship.
Reduced to a politically disengaged theater audience who is indifferently attending Ui's
histrionic self-dramatization of absolute sovereignty, their political apathy and ignorance
makes them look idiotic and laughable to the audience offstage. They are unfree in the
aesthetic and political sense. Aesthetically, they fail to engage critically with the
221
symbolically political show of the gangsters in the play. Politically, they fail to assert
themselves in terms of democracy and popular sovereignty.
The election scene in the parable play alludes to the plebiscite in 1938 that Nazism
staged to obtain a subsequent political legitimatization for the military act of force,
having created accomplished facts on the ground by occupying Austria. While, the
majority of Austrian people joyously welcomed the reign of Nazism in historical reality,
Brecht reenacts the historical event as a farce in an atmosphere of fear, terror, and
injustice in order to demonstrate that it was neither free nor secret. It was not free
because the election officials appointed by the Nazis kept watch over the voting booths
and it was not secret because voters literally handed over the ballots to the election
officials, instead of inserting them into a closed box. Brecht reflects these circumstances
in the parable play. Although Ui pays lip service to the political and moral norms and
values of liberalism such as "free decision" (freier Entschlufi),62* the right to vote,
national self-determination and popular sovereignty as well as nonviolence and the
renunciation of the use of "force" (Zwang),629 Ui, analogically to Grabbe's Napoleon visa-vis liberal constitutionalism, does not adhere to them. He does not stop at using force
to sway the elections in his favor by executing or threatening to execute election
boycotters and dissenting voters.
GIVOLA Now vote!
GIRI
Everybody who is for Arturo,
Hands up!
Some put up their hand immediately.
A CICERO GROCER Is it permissible to leave?
GIVOLA Everybody is free to do what he pleases.
The man from Cicero goes out. Two bodyguards
follow him. A shot is heard.
folgen
628
629
GIVOLA Zur Wahl!
GIRI
Wer fur Arturo Ui ist
Die Hande hoch!
Einige erheben sofort die Hand.
EIN CICEROER Ist's auch erlaubt zu gehn?
GIVOLA Jedem steht frei zu tun, was er will.
Der Ciceroer geht zogernd hinaus. Zwei Leibwdchter
ihm. Dann ertont ein Schuss.
W 7/111.
W 7/110, (96f., slightly altered).
222
GIRI Allright,friends!Let's have yourfreedecision! GIRI Und nun zu euch! Was ist euerfreierEntschluB?
They all put up their hands, each of them both.
Alle heben die Hdnde hoch, jeder beide Hdnde.
The enjambment or line skip that isolates the call to electionfromthe threatening order
"Hands up!" (Die Hdnde hochff31 creates another performative contradiction. The order
simultaneously represents a call to election and a criminal extortion to surrender unarmed
preferred by gangsters all over the world, in this case a figuratively and literally
disarming order to vote for the single candidate under the pain of death. Similarly, the
hand gesture in reply has two different meanings. It represents casting a vote by show of
hands in the democratic tradition and custom of free public elections and unarmed
surrender at gunpoint. The double exposure of the order satirically exposes the free
public election as an election under duress that defies the principles of liberty and
democracy rather than making the paradox of absolute sovereignty invisible. The
expression of the general will of the sovereign people represents the quasi-sovereign selfsubjection of the subjects to the absolute sovereign, that is, subjective discipline.
Moreover, the isolated gesture alludes to the Nazi greeting with the stretched-out right
arm and the exclaimed salutation to Hitler.
630
W 7/110f., (97f., slightly altered).
W 7/111.
632
Admittedly, these are embellishments, straining for the aesthetic effects of ridiculousness and
gruesomeness. However, farfrombeing merely comical slapstick or startling shock effects, we should not
charge Brecht with misrepresenting or falsifying history. He was primarily interested in satirical effects of
the parable play and only secondarily in the documentary function of the history play. Contrary to
Adorno's pseudo-dilemma of "infantility" or "infantilism," Brecht imitates the real historical infantilization
of the German and Austrian people by Nazism in the parable play. Theodor W. Adorno: ..Engagement," in:
Gesammelte Schriften, Band 11 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), 409-430,416. Theodor W. Adorno,
"Commitment," in: Notes to Literature, Volume 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 76-94,
82. Page numbers for citationsfromthe English translation in squared brackets.
631
223
The Satirized Sovereign as a Marionette of Capital?
According to its most pertinent critic Theodor W. Adorno, Brecht's parable play
"throws a harsh and accurate light on what is subjectively empty and illusory in the
fascist leader" (riickt das subjektiv Nichtige undScheinhafte des faschistischen Fiihrers
grell undrichtig ins Licht).633 However, its form and content does not permit us to
reduce either Ui or Hitler to the political marionette of monopoly capitalism, as some
interpreters would have it.634 If Hitler were only a laughable clown and a submissive
servant of capital instead of a gruesome figure of absolute sovereignty—Ui could indeed
only act the part of the "batch" (Charge) or "figurehead" {Galionsfigur) in the
symbolically political show staged by the trust mangers as the secret wirepuller behind
the scene. However, Brecht distinguishes corruption and intrigue in politics and business
from Ui's ingratiation with the rich and powerful. Accordingly, the orthodox Marxist
interpretation that the ruling class hires Ui to push through their economic interests by
means of crime is incorrect. For Brecht it would have been historically and dramatically
"inadequate" (unzulanglich) to reduce the historical and dramatic figure in such a way.635
633
Adorno (1974,417), [1991, 83].
In the wake of Karl Marx, The 18th ofBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte (London: Electric Book, 2001) in
reference to Napoleon III, Marxist critics commonly draw a parallel to Napoleon III and his theatrics and
interpret Ui as the submissive servant of capital. For instance, Werner Mittenzwei, Der Beitrag Bertolt
Brechts zur sozialistischen Dramatik (1930 -1938) (Dissertation, Berlin 1960) and Johannes Goldhahn,
Das Parabelstiick Bertolt Brechts als Beitrag zum Kampfgegen den deutschen Faschismus dargestellt an
den Stiicken ,Die Rundkopfe und die Spitzkopfe' und,Der auftialtsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui' (Rudolstadt:
Greifenverlag, 1961). Herbert Ihring criticized the Eastern German production at the Berliner Ensemble
for portraying Ui as a hysterical clown instead of a wicked gangster. Ihring argues that differences between
drama and history increase satirical effects. Herbert Ihring, „Bemerkungen zu Theater und Film," in: Sinn
und Form 11 (1959), No. 2: 312-9.
635
"[...] a puppet on a string [...] 'merely an actor' who is 'just playing' the great man, the 'nobody'
('anybody else would be just as good'), the 'man with nothing at the centre', precisely because he
represents the petty bourgeoisie, which only ever plays at politics. (Playing here is both acting* and
gambling*). For the drama, this would mean that HITLER could only be presented as a walk-on part
(figurehead). This would, however, be inadequate [...]." (J 203, the asterisks * indicate that the original
contains English words, slightly altered, T.Z.,). ,fias ist das ,Hampelmdnnertum' Hitlers. Er ist ein
, blofier Schauspieler', der den grofien Mann nur, spielt', der, niemand' (jeder andere ware grade so
634
He advises that "corruption, inadequacy, brutality" {Korruptheit, Unzulanglichkeit,
Brutalitaf) would not come to the fore fully, unless Hitler is recognized first as a
"national appearance, leader of the people, a clever, vital, unconventional and original
politician" (nationale Erscheinung, Volksfiihrer, schlau, vital, unkonventionell,
origineller Politiker).
Regarding the Nazi leader, Brecht defines gangsterism as
"henchmanship, but the henchman has a certain independence (faustlangertum, aber die
faust hat eine gewisse selbstandigkeit).631 Accordingly, the trust managers must painfully
learn that Ui changed the games of the rule and they have reason to fear for their lives.
One of them accuses the absolute sovereign of having transgressed the limits set by
morality and civility, fulminating against the murder that his henchman committed
against a business competitor who abided by the unwritten mafia law of silence. Brecht
demonstrates that politics and business operates with double standards; criminal methods
are mostly morally deplorable but sometimes pragmatically justifiable. One of the
gangsters ironically exposes the hypocrisy inherent to this purely instrumental reason,
which suppresses the assumption that collaborators who play by the gangsters' rules do
not deserve punishment, be it legal or illegal, even if they harm the trust.
GIRI
Who helps us eat the calf we slaughter, eh?
You're funny bastards, you yell for meat
But afterwards cuss the cook for using a knife!
GIRI
Wer frifit am Kalb nut, das wir schlachten, he?
Das hab ich gern: Nach Fleisch schrein und den Koch
Beschimpfen, weil er mit dem Messer lauft!638
The business managers must painfully learn that the parvenu has used and abused them as
a means to the end of rising to power.639 Having liquidated a business competitor self-
gut'), der ,Mann ohne Kern', weil er eben das Kleinburgertum vertritt, das in der Politik immer nur spielt
(spielen bedeutet hier acting und gambling). Fur die Dramatik wiirde das bedeuten, dafl Hitler nur als
Charge (Galionsfigur) gestaltet werden konnte. das ware aber unzuldnglich [...]." (W 27/58f).
636
W 27/380.
637
W 26/381.
638
W 7/99 (87, slightly altered).
225
authorized, Ui does not only oppose them for thefirsttime and assert independence from
them but he also takes over the trust and enthrones himself as the unchallenged absolute
sovereign without antagonist at the end of the play. The dramatic character Arturo Ui has
an aesthetic weight of his own in the parable play just as the historical figure Adolf Hitler
had a political weight of his own in historical reality. Just as Hitler's rise to power in
historical reality, Ui's rise to power in the play resultsfromthe concentration of power.640
Perhaps here lie the main reasons why Adorno rejected the parable play for falling
short of truly "dialectical theater."641 Admittedly, the internal reflection on aesthetic
form in the parable play does not thoroughly destroy the aesthetic illusion by determinate
negationsfromwithin. Brecht charged the audience with this task. However, it is
impossible to arrive at a dialectical sublation of the political satire on absolute
sovereignty, taking the dramatic form and content of the parable play as a starting point.
It is a task of the labor of the concept, as Adorno's lucid interpretation demonstrates.
Yet, Adorno's argumentation contradicts itself. On the one hand, Adorno ethically
condemns the belittlement of the "great" German Nazis to "ordinary" Italian-American
gangsters in 1962. In fact, many literary critics, including Adorno, belittle the allegedly
"ordinary" Italian-American gangsters while demonizing the "great" German Nazis as
anthropologically inhuman or non-human because of their morally inhumane actions.
Petty criminals and great gangsters who rise to power slowly yet surely endanger
democracy and liberty in pre-fascist or post-fascist society alike. On the other hand,
639
This resonates with the self-vindication of contemporary German business leaders such as Fritz Thyssen
(1873-1951). See the autobiography by Fritz Thyssen, I paid Hitler (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1941).
640
Contrary to Adorno (1974,417f.), [1991, 83f.].
641
Theodor W. Adorno, „Staatsaktion," in: Minima Moralia, Reflexionen aus dem beschddigten Leben
(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 187-91, 190. Theodor W. Adorno, "All the world's not a stage," in:
Minima Moralia, Reflections on a Damaged Life (New York: Verso, 2005), 143-5,144.
226
Adomo himself had drawn the very same comparison two decades earlier, in 1942, when
he, along with Horkheimer, interpreted gangsterism, racketeering, and fascism as
characteristic for capitalism.642
Hence, the elective affinity between Italian-American gangsterism and German
fascism was nothing new or surprising to either Adorno and Horkheimer or Brecht. As
orthodox Marxists and aficionados of Hollywood mafia films from the 1930s and 40s,
they agree on the convergence between gangsterism and fascism in liberal bourgeois
society theorized as "late capitalism."643 Fascism and gangsterism share in common
enough social customs and habits to justify the comparison at least aesthetically, if not
sociologically, while the differences between them might increase the satirical shock
effects intended by Brecht and dialectically theorized by Adorno. It therefore remains
puzzling that Adorno criticized Brecht's parable play for the equalization, although the
Frankfurt School drew on the theory racketeering to explain late capitalism
sociologically. If the comparison is sociologically legitimate, then there is no reason why
"Everywhere self-preservation pushes through the collective into the conspired clique. The division into
leader and followers that takes place in the ruling class reproduces itself compulsively at the bottom. The
syndicates turn into monopolies and the functionaries into bandits who require blind obedience from
admitted members and terrorize nonmembers but who would be ready to share the loot loyally with the
other monopoly leaders before the former took over the management of the entire organization in open
fascism. [...] History is, according to its image in the final economical stage, the history of monopolies.
According to its image after the manifest usurpation committed today by united leaders of capital and labor,
it is the history of wars between gangs, cliques, and rackets." - ,^illenthalben drdngt Selbsterhaltung tibers
Kollektiv zur verschworenen Clique. Zwanghaft reproduziert unten sich die Spaltung in Fiihrer und
Gefolge, die an der herrschenden Klasse selber sich vollzieht. Die Gewerkschaften werden zu Monopolen
und die Funktiondre zu Banditen, die von den Zugelassenen blinden Gehorsam verlangen, die draufien
terrorisieren, loyal jedoch bereit waren, den Raub mit den mit den anderen Monopolherren zu teilen, wenn
diese nur nicht vorher in offhemFaschismus dieganze Organisation in eigeneRegie nehmen. [...] Die
Geschichte ist, nach dem Bilde der letzten okonomischen Phase, die Geschichte von Monopolen. Nach dem
Bilde der manifesten Usurpation, die von den eintrdchtigen Fuhrern von Kapital und Arbeit heute veriibt
wird, istsie die Geschichte von Bandenkdmpfen, Gangs und Rackets." Theodor W. Adorno, „Reflexionen
zur Klassentheorie," in: Gesammelte Schriften, Band 8 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 373-391.
643
Both Adorno and Brecht use the orthodox Marxist concept of the "petty bourgeoisie" to explain the
social conditions for the rise of fascism and interpreted fascism as a radical means to stabilize the class
domination of the bourgeoisie from the perspective of Utopian communism. However, this approach has
limited explanatory power.
it should be aesthetically illegitimate, even if it was politically mistaken. Remarkably,
Adorno's Freudian theory of mass psychology in fascism applies the very same rhetorical
devices as Brecht's parable play to satirize the figure of absolute sovereignty, namely,
litotes and hyperbole, contrasting smallness and greatness, ordinariness and
extraordinariness, and so on.644 Moreover, Adorno himself explicitly confirmed the
sociological and aesthetic legitimacy of the comparison between fascism and gangsterism
in the very same essay.645
Consequently, it is not the case that Brecht's parable play does not fulfill the
requirements of truly dialectical theater. It is the case that Adorno failed to apply the
dialectical method to the formal analysis of Brecht's parable play strictly and missed the
internal aesthetic reflection on the difference between classical and epic theater. The
dialectics is not only located on the level of the doubly estranged historical contents but
rather on the level of aesthetic form and the internal self-reflection on aesthetic form.
The crux is that Adorno does not sufficiently distinguish Brecht's modernist realist
aesthetics from Brecht's orthodox Marxist politics. Adorno reduces Brecht's modernist
realist parable play to its supposedly false politics. His interpretation of Brecht's parable
play is wrong, as far as the orthodox Marxist reduction of fascism to late capitalism is
wrong. The problem is not so much Brecht's modernist realism than rather the economic
"While the Fiihrer must, on the one hand, appear superhuman," writes Adorno, "he must, on the other
hand, work the wonder of simultaneously appearing as an average person, just as Hitler posed as a
combination of King-Kong and suburban hairdresser." (Wdhrend ndmlich einerseits der Fiihrer als
Ubermensch erscheinen mufi, mufi er andererseits gleichzeitig das Wunder vollbringen, ouch als
Durchschnittsmensch zu erscheinen, so wie Hitler als eine Verbindung von King-Kong und Vorstadtfriseur
posierte.) Theodor W. Adorno, „ Die Freudsche Theorie und die Struktur der faschistischen Propaganda,"
in: Kritik, Kleine Schriften zur Gesellschaft (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1973), 48. See Frank Dietrich
Wagner, „Hitler und die Theatralik des Faschismus," Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie 101 (1982), No. 4:
561-83,579. Incidentally, both Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Brecht's Arturo Ui contain precisely the
satirical comparison of Hitler to a suburban hairdresser.
645
"And the group that staged the seizure of power was most certainly a gang." (Adorno 1991, 84). {Und
das Gremium, welches die Machtiibernahme inszenierte, wargewifi eine Banded) Adorno (1974,416).
reductionism inherent to orthodox Marxism as such and orthodox Marxist interpretations
of the parable play. The aesthetic and educative quality of the parable play depends on
the ability of the director, actors, and audience to infuse a "life of its own" {Eigenleberi)
into the parable play over against the 'dialectics' of "masking (Verhullung)" and
"unmasking (Enthullung)" Nazis as gangsters and vice versa.646 It depends on its ability
to assert artistic sovereignty over historical reality.647
The parable play establishes an autonomous third dimension of Active reality over
and against the real historical worlds of either Italian-American gangsterism or German
Nazism and upholds the historical differences between them, while creating an aesthetic
surplus of satire and horror and providing political education for the audience.
Brecht suspends the dramatic fiction between two historical realities. Arturo Ui mirrors
two historical persons, Al Capone and Adolf Hitler, in one artificial dramatic figure, who
represents neither of the two in the strictest sense but resembles both of them
simultaneously. The double external reference to historical reality, German Nazism and
Italian-American gangsterism, contains a twofold disguise and disclosure. The Nazis
appear as gangsters; the gangsters appear as Nazis. The parable play satirically exposes
646
W 26/469, J 137.
"A work of art, which does not show sovereignty over reality and does not accord the audience
sovereignty vis-a-vis reality, is not a work of art." {Ein Werk, das der Realitat gegeniiber keine
Souverdnitdt zeigt und dem Publikum der Realitat gegeniiber Souverdnitdt verleiht, ist kein Kunstwerk.)
(W 22.1./445). The issue of artistic sovereignty goes beyond the scope of this study. In connection to this,
Adorno critically remarked that Brecht "once wrote sovereignly that if he were fully honest with himself
the theater was ultimately more important to him than the alteration of the world it was supposed to serve."
Adorno (1991, 84) (... souveran schrieb er einmal, weenn er sich nichts vormache, sei ihm schliefllich doch
das Theater wichtiger alsjene Veranderung der Welt, der es dienen soil.) Adorno (1974,419). Regarding
the sovereignty of art, see particularly Christoph Menke-Eggers, Die Souverdnitdt der Kunst, Asthetische
Erfahrung nach Adorno undDerrida (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988). Christoph Menke-Eggers,
The Sovereignty of Art, Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno andDerrida (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998). For a
critical discussion thereof, Niklas Luhmann: Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1995). Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). Harro
Muller, for instance, defines sovereignty in relation to autonomy as a Steigerungsbegriff'in his Einleitung to
Susanne Knaller/Harro Muller (Hrsg.), Authentizitdt, Diskussion eines dsthetischen Begriffs (Miinchen:
Fink, 2006), 12.
647
not only the 'great' Nazis as 'ordinary' gangsters—that is the playwright's stated goal—
but also the 'ordinary' gangsters as fascists, which some interpreters, including Adorno,
overlook. The difference between gangsters and Nazis is not a matter of principle but
rather one of degree according to Brecht: "Such people pretend greatness through the
extent of their enterprises." (Solche Leute erwecken den Anschein von Grofie durch den
Umfang ihrer Unternehmungen.)M% It is impossible to reduce the parable play to either
the Italian-American gangster story or the German Nazi story because it makes
polycontextual allusions to history yet it invites updated interpretations for today.
Whenever interpreters overemphasize the differences and similarities between
gangsterism and fascism, they belittle fascist tendencies in gangsterism and rob the play
of its critical potentials or they fuel political paranoia that neo-fascism is on the rise
everywhere at all time, expressed by the playwright's admonition at the end of the play.
"The womb is still fertile from which that crept." (Der Schofi istfruchtbar noch, aus dem
das kroch.)649 The interventionist parable play does not have an aesthetic end in itself.
As an antifascist or as an anti-mafia play, its critique of absolute sovereignty is globally
applicable in various local settings.650
64S
W 24/317.
(W 7/112). The editors of Bertolt Brecht, War Primer (London: Libris, 1998), used these verses as a
subscript to image No. 81, which shows Hitler giving a speech in a characteristic posture. See also the
corresponding image no. 61 without subscript in Bertolt Brecht, Kriegsfibel (Berlin: Eulenspiegel, 1955).
650
Stage productions in the United States usually shy away from pushing through the line of thought that
gangsterism has fascist tendencies. David Bathrick, „Ein Ui kommt nach Cicero," Brecht-Jahrbuch (1975),
159-63. Heinz-Uwe Haus, "Once There Was America - Experiences with Brecht's 'Ui' 1986," Gestus,
The Electronic Journal ofBrechtian Studies 2 (Fall 1986), no. 3: 161-167. Lewis B. Ward, '"That
Wellknown Racket': The American Reception of Ui," Gestus, The Electronic Journal ofBrechtian Studies
2, (Winter 1986), no. 4: 317-327. On the more recent performance with Hollywood star Al Pacino in the
title role in 2002 in New York, see Stanley Kauffmann: "Resisting the Resistible," Theater 33 (2003), no.
3: 135-137. It was received better in other parts of the world, including Italy, Greece, and South Africa
amongst others. Giuseppe Bevilacqua, „Zwei italienische Brecht-Inszenierungen," Das Brecht-Jahrbuch
(1976): 142-61. Arnold Blumer, ,„Die groBe historische Gangsterschau' in Kapstadt," Das BrechtJahrbuch (1980): 185-188. Heinz-Uwe Haus, "Notes on Ui in Greece," Communications from the
649
Chapter Six: „Aber in Moskau war ich zum erstenmal mein eigener Chef'651 or
the Disenchantment of Popular Sovereignty in Divided Germany
in Heiner Muller's Germania Tod in Berlin (1971)
In the twentieth century alone, the German people claimed popular sovereignty three
times up until 1989, once in 1918/9 in the Weimar Republic, twice in 1949 in East
Germany and in West Germany respectively, even though in narrow circumstances. The
West and East German claim to sovereignty were mutually contradictory. On the one
hand, the Federal Republic implemented representative parliamentary democracy through
free multiparty elections and at the time still promising free social market economy based
on capitalism and anticommunism under the patronage of the Western Allies. It
expressed the claim to sole agency {Alleinvertretungsanspruch) for the whole of
Germany {Gesamtdeutschland) in the Hallstein-Doctririe in effect until 1969. On the
other hand, the German Democratic Republic implemented a one-party state based on
socialism and antifascism under the auspices of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union
ironically proclaimed sovereignty on behalf of the GDR in 1954. However, popular
sovereignty was indeed extremely limited in both West and East Germany. The historic
events of the early 1950s cemented the division of Germany for the near future. The
front line between capitalism and socialism ran through divided Germany; it was
identical with the borderline between the two German states. Divided Germany could not
recover national sovereignty during the Cold War. German Reunification occurred not
before the collapse of socialism. However, national sovereignty remains limited in the
International Brecht Society 15 (November 1985), no. 1: 32-34. Since 1994, it achieved a sustained success
the Berliner Ensemble that staged it directed by Heiner Muller more than 300 times up until today.
651
"But I was my own boss for the first time in Moscow." (W 4/377). Quotations from Heiner Muller,
Werke infiinj"Banden,Band 4, Die Stiicke 2 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2001), 325-78, abbreviated W,
detailing volume and page number. Translations mine, TZ.
231
age of European Unification and to what extent the German people triumphed over
authoritarian statism after the Wende remains questionable up until today.
All three attempts at establishing a sovereign nation-state under the rule of law after
the Second World War failed according to Germania Death in Berlin (Germania Death in
Berlin). Heiner Muller (1929-1995) wrote this history play between 1956 and 1971
under the impression of the national uprisings in the Eastern Bloc violently suppressed by
the Soviet Army: East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and
Poland in 1970. These East European states had limited sovereignty. As military
occupation power, the Soviet Union imposed the state of emergency, enacted martial law,
and ruled over the Eastern Bloc with an iron fist. The violent suppressions of the national
uprisings did not only violate the international principle of nonintervention. They could
also appear counterrevolutionary and reactionary from a Marxist point of view.
Under these historical circumstances, Muller dramatically represents the stagnation of
the GDR in contemporary history against the vast backdrop of German history.
Following the aesthetic principles of "fragmentation" and "anachronism,"652 he composes
an "album" (Bilderbogerif53 of thirteen snapshots in "time-lapse" (Zeitraffer).654 He
constructs a complex web of connecting lines and cross-reference between past and
present with many historical and literary citations, changes of location, and leaps in
time.655 Scenes from German prehistory out of chronological order alternate with scenes
Heiner Muller, „Einen historischen Stoff sauber abschildern, das kann ich nicht," in: Gesammelte
Irrtumer, Interviews und Gesprdche (Frankfurt/Main: Verlag der Autoren, 1986), 36.
653
Muller (1986, 32).
654
Muller (1986, 36).
655
Contrary to Brecht's parable play that still harks back to classical theater even though critically, Muller
more fully dissolves the dramatic unity of space, time, and action. "I don't believe," writes Muller, "that a
story 'with rhyme and reason' (the plot in the classical sense) can still cope with reality." [Ich glaube
nicht, dafi eine Geschichte, die .Hand und FuS hat' (dieFabel im klassischen Sinne), der Wirklichkeit noch
232
from contemporary history in chronological order.
Realistic scenes set in the working
class milieu refer to the foundation of the GDR in 1949, and events before, during, and
after the national uprising on June 17,1953, and anticipate the erection of the Berlin Wall
in 1961. Allegorical, surreal, and satirical scenes from prehistory refer to the German
labor movement in the twentieth century and the failed Spartacus uprising in 1918/9.
There is a clownish vaudeville act with the King of Prussia and the miller from Potsdam
in the political circus of the nineteenth century. There is a ghostly intermezzo with "The
Old Fred" (der Alte Fritz),651 who haunts an award-winning activist mason at the
presidential reception in the Frederician castle Sanssouci near Potsdam on the day of
Stalin's death in 1953. The Nibelung brothers, Caesar, and Napoleon anachronistically
appear in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942/3. A Grand Guignol act at the Fuhrer bunker
represents a grotesque allegory about the foundation of the Federal Republic. Moreover,
a bizarre pantomime beyond space and time, a prose text passage on the fraternal feud
between Hermann and his brother Flavius from the Annals by the ancient Roman
historian Cornelius Tacitus, and an excerpt from a city poem by the German expressionist
Georg Heym occur in the history play.
Thus, Muller interweaves various historical epochs both in the sequence of scenes
and within individual scenes to bring out continuities and discontinuities between the past
and the present. By dramatizing a genealogical analysis of the two newly founded
German states following Nietzsche and Foucault,658 Muller intrepidly exposes the
beikommt.J Heiner Muller, „Brief an den DDR-Journalisten Martin Linzer," in: Theater-Arbeit (Berlin:
Rotbuch, 1975), 125f.
656
Schulz (1980,129).
657
W 4/339.
658
Heiner Muller, Krieg ohne Schlacht - Leben in zwei Diktaturen, Eine Biographie (Koln: Kiepenhauer &
Wietsch, 1999), 270ff. Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in: Essential Works of Foucault
1954-1984, Vol. 2, Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology (New York: New Press, 1998).
233
negative determinants of German history, which appears as a single, endlessly
perpetuated catastrophe over the last two millennia. However, he does not dramatically
reenact the historic events between 1949 and 1953 but he rather refocuses on them from
many different marginal viewpoints of average people. A crowd scene in the streets of
Berlin replaces the state founding act as such. The working class receives the news of
Stalin's death in an East Berlin nightbar. The old mason Hilse, first strikebreaker, then
cancer patient at the intensive care unit, and a communist dissident held political prisoner
reflect on the national uprising. As a result, the audience may keep critical distance to the
official government policy and the national uprising, both of which are subject to the
paradox of absolute sovereignty, as will be shown below.
Mtiller satirizes both the socialist project in East Germany and the capitalist project in
West Germany. Thus, he dramatizes the disillusionment of popular sovereignty as the
recurring death of Germania in Berlin in many different historical situations and political
constellations. On the one hand, the Federal Republic uninterruptedly continued Nazism
according to Mtiller. On the other hand, the GDR, notwithstanding its official selfconception as the first socialist republic on German soil, remained deeply entangled in
the negative heritage of the historical and political past. Both German governments
continued to subordinate popular sovereignty to state sovereignty,659 the democratic rule
of law to power politics, civil and human rights to state interest. The German people in
the West and the East continued to subject themselves to the historical reality and the
political ideology of authoritarian statism. They gambled away the opportunities to turn
Hanns Kurz (Hrsg.), Volkssouveranitatund Staatssouveranitat (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1970)
234
around "the German misery" {die deutsche Misere) because of political treason,
historical contingency, and above all the Old Prussian mentality of subservience to the
authoritarian state, fear and cowardice, closed-mindedness and opportunism. According
to Muller, neither of the two German states was able to overcome twentieth-century
totalitarianism right away. The return or rather continuation of totalitarianism, be it
fascism or Stalinism, in either East or West Germany is looming large in the history play.
In spite of everything, Muller who endorsed the GDR as an attempt at a historical and
political new beginning tries to conserve revolutionary energies that had started
exhausting themselves increasingly in the stagnating GDR by deconstructing
contemporary history and envisioning the 'new,' 'other,' and 'better' Germany on the
horizon of the open-ended play. He refuses to distinguish the history play from the
contemporary period play (Zeitstuck).661 The look back into the past does not only
historicize the present but it also provides new perspectives on the future. There remains
only a little hope— however nostalgic and Utopian it may be—even so, hope that the
German misery could improve if not end altogether.
This chapter argues that Muller denounces the foundation of the Federal Republic as
the rebirth of Nazism and thus foils the West German claim to popular sovereignty. It
traces Muller's representation of the foundation of the GDR in light of the failed
Spartacus uprising and it shows that the playwright also denounces the national uprising
in the tradition of the German labor movement as treason against communism or
alternatively a return to fascism. It reconstructs Muller's dramatization according to
660
Heiner Muller, „Einen historischen Stoff sauber abschildern, das kann ich nicht," in: Gesammelte
Irrtumer, Interviews und Gesprdche (Frankfurt/Main: Verlag der Autoren, 1986), 31. Heinrich Heine and
Bertolt Brecht had previously diagnosed the failure of all German revolutions from the Peasant Wars
through 1848 to the Spartacus uprising in 1918/9 as the German misery.
661
Muller (1999,256f.)
235
which the Frederician mentality of subservience to the authoritarian state overshadowed
the foundation of the GDR. Finally, it demonstrates that the history play satirizes the
memorialization of the German labor movement in the GDR as the symbolic death of the
revolutionary proletariat that raises only weak if not rather completely illusionary hopes
for its symbolic rebirth.
The Foundation of the Federal Republic and the Survival of Nazism
Memories of the Nazi regime overshadow the early days of both the GDR and
Federal Republic. Mtiller presents a horrific satire on the political appropriation of the
ancient German sagas by Nazism. Hermann Goring (1893-1946), Nazi commander-inchief of the German air force during the Second World War, addressed the Nibelung saga
in connection to the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943. He emphasized two parallels between
myth and history. First, he compared the encirclement of the German army at Stalingrad
with the encirclement of the Nibelung at the court of the Hun king Etzel, that is, most
likely Attila, where all Nibelung die. Secondly, and more importantly, he evoked
"Nibelung loyalty" (Nibelungentreue) by ordering German forces to persevere in a
hopeless military situation.
However, a logical paradox inheres in the gist of Goring's
Stalingrad speech. The claim that the "fight unto the last man" (Kampfbis zum letzten
Mann) alone would guarantee "final victory" (Endsieg) is absurd.663 Either Germany was
going to gain final victory or suffer total destruction; there was no third alternative
662
Bernhard von Billow (1849-1929), Reich Chancellor 1900-1909, coined the term in a Reichstag speech,
committing Germany to unconditional loyalty to Austria-Hungary.
663
Hermann Goring, „Rede Gorings, gehalten am 30.1.1943 im Reichluftfahrtsministerium vor
Abordnungen der Wehrmacht," annexed to Peter Krilger, „Etzels Halle und Stalingrad, Die Rede Gorings
vom 30.1.1943," in: Joachim Heinzle/Anneliese Waldschmidt (Hrsg.), Die Nibelungen, ein deutscher
Wahn, ein deutscher Alptraum (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991,170-187), 180.
236
according to Goring's discourse of invincibility. However, it would hardly be a victory,
if only one man, the Fuhrer, for instance, survived. Goring eliminated the real possibility
that Nazi Germany could lose the war. Using the Nibelung myth, he glossed over the gap
between the Nazi myth of invincibility and the reality of the looming total defeat on the
eastern front.664
The paradox in GOring's speech is the starting point for Miiller's dramatization of the
Battle of Stalingrad. Miiller represents Wehrmacht soldiers as cannibals with incomplete
bodies and deformed limbs who subsist on the dead bodies of their cohorts who upon
death enter into the realm of the undead suspended between life, death, and afterlife.
Customary greeting gestures turn into acts of cannibalism.665 In the vein of Grabbe and
Brecht, sudden shock effects of Grand Guignol gags illuminate the horrors of the
Stalingrad experience in a flash. As the Nibelung appear as sadist murderers onstage
"larger than life in rusty harnesses" (iiberlebensgrofi in verrosteten Harnischen),666
Mtiller deprives them of their mythic aura and heroic brilliance into which the Nazis
steeped them. Following Nazi war propaganda, they commit fratricide and necrophilia
and desecrate corpses of soldiers by trampling them underfoot, using their dead body
parts as weapons, and drinking beer out of their brainpans.667 The equally horrifying as
grotesquely comical bogus battle and the building of the bulwark against "imaginary
Huns" (imagindre Hunneri),m absolute enemies, who remain invisible, as Miiller's stage
directions explicitly specify, allegorize the total war of the Nazis against Bolshevism.
664
Jochen Schulte-Sasse, „Die Kunst aufzuhoren, Der Nibelungenstoff in Heiner Miillers Germania Tod in
Berlin," in: Heinzle/Waldschmidt (1991,370-396, 383f.).
665
W4/340f.
666
W 4/341.
667
W 4/341.
668
w 4/342.
237
Nibelung Burgundy just as Nazi Germany projects internal conflicts in domestic affairs
outwards, which results in wars of aggression against the next neighbor. Muller
satirically exposes the horrific historical reality behind the political mystification of
Goring by literalizing his metaphorical figure of speech and casting German soldiers as
bloodthirsty Nibelung brothers. While Nazism resurrects the giants of the past from the
dark romantic mists of early German myth and glorifies them as the supermen of the
future, he debunks the Nazi ideology of Nibelung loyalty, heroism, camaraderie, and
brotherhood-in-arms, which Kleist and Grabbe had affirmatively glorified in their history
plays and the Nazis readily inherited from their predecessors. Muller presents the Battle
of Stalingrad as the nightmarish and grotesquely comical realization of Gftring's political
mystification in real history.669
Muller puts the Nazi war of extermination into a wider context; world history
presents itself as a single yet multi-layered story of mass murder. Following Brecht, he
brings to perfection the aesthetic destruction of heroic idolatry, respect and admiration for
the 'great' individuals by representing world history as an economy of death. Beside the
German soldiers and the Nibelung brothers, other historical figures of absolute
sovereignty, like the ancient Roman Emperor Caesar and the modern French Emperor
Napoleon, anachronistically appear in the theater of war. They pose as war profiteers
who outlive themselves through the investment and consumption of human capital. The
dead paradoxically live on the dead, just as capital accumulates surplus. The more dead
bodies and mass graves they have to answer for, the higher their profit in the shape of
posthumous glory, respect, and admiration from the living in their afterlives. Hegel's
Eke (1999,176). Schulte-Sasse (1991, 371).
business executives of world spirit (Geschdftsfuhrer der Weltgeistes), who strive off
the phantasm of absolute sovereignty and pursue world domination, literally make history
through mass murder. The battle noises from Etzel's hall reverberate with the Caesarian
and Napoleonic age in the Stalingrad Cauldron until they merge into the sirens and bells
marking Stalin's death heard by the workers and petty bourgeois in the Berlin bar. The
Nazi mystification of the Battle of Stalingrad Nibelung myth is yet another historical and
political dead hand {Erblast) overshadowing the construction of socialist society in the
early GDR.
The Holy Family is by far the most grotesque scene of the history play. Cross-fading
wartime and post-wartime, Muller mounts the foundation of the Federal Republic under
the auspices of the Unites States, Unite Kingdom, and France into scenes from the Fuhrer
bunker at the end of Second World War. The foundational act of state and army in 1949
and 1955 respectively coincides with the economical miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) and
the beginning of the Cold War. The Grand Guignol at the Fuhrer bunker advances the
aesthetic destruction of the figure of absolute sovereignty in the tradition of Chaplin and
Brecht. Beside the technique of belittlement and exaggeration, Muller uses crudely
comical wordplays and word jokes, clownery and slapstick comedy, allusion to Nazi
rhetoric, including clich6d slogans of total warfare and absolute enmity, racism, antiSemitism, and genocide, the parody of Hitler's characteristic body postures, suffering
from fear of assassination, paranoia, persecution and inferiority complex.671 By
literalizing figurative verbal speech acts and staging them as performative theater acts, he
G. F. W. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophic der Geschichte I, in: Werke, Band 18
(Frankfurt/Main, 1999), 46.
671
W 4/355.
239
represents Hitler, for instance, as a fuel-drinking cannibal, who pays lip service to
vegetarianism yet literally eats soldiers for breakfast.
Goebbels fosters Hitler's secondary narcissism, megalomania, and grandiosity, the
infantile id6e fixe of omniscience and omnipotence as well as the fantasy of mutilation,
dismemberment, and castration as revengeful and violent punishment against the absolute
enemy who is merely imaginary and remains invisible.672 However, as soon as the
surrogate parent assumes the role of the absolute sovereign, who is called up to grant
clemency and the infantile adult assumes the role of the subject, who pleads for mercy,
Hitler's histrionic self-dramatization as the figure of absolute sovereignty ironically
imitates Napoleon's infamous pose of grandiosity. Miiller dramatizes subjective selfdiscipline to absolute sovereignty as a performative act with sadomasochistic
connotations.673 The satirized figure of absolute sovereignty literally transforms into a
crawling bootlicker before the Three Magi.674 This compares to Ui in his first appearance
before Dogsborough in Brecht. The Active character Hitler represents the historical
person Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), Chancellor of the Federal Republic 1949-1963.
The West German Fuhrer according to Miiller solicited the reorientation towards the
West (Westbindung) and partially recovered state sovereignty through rearmament and
NATO membership conditioned on renunciation of absolute sovereignty and submission
to the Western Allies.
The atmosphere of a new departure that prevailed during the early 1950s made it easy
for the Adenauer administration to stylize the economic wonder as a symbolic rebirth.
However, Miiller puts the assumed caesura of 1945 into perspective and casts strong
672
W 4/353f.
W 4/354.
674
W 4/358.
673
240
doubts on West Germany's self-glorification by putting the slogan popular at the time,
"We're somebody again!" {Wir sind wieder wer!),675 into Hitler's mouth. Following the
infamous line from the epigrammatic quatrain in Brecht's War Primer and postwar
version of the Ui-drama, "The womb is still fertile from which that crept" (Der Schofi ist
fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch), he represents the founding act as the birth of a
f\Tl
monster out of the womb of Nazi propaganda.
Miiller casts the Federal Republic as
God's son and savior of capitalism, the "guarantor" (Garant)m for the survival of
Nazism in the Federal Republic under Christian Democratic rule. The title of the scene
satirically refers to the Gospel. While the Holy Family there consists of Joseph, Mary,
and the infant Jesus visited by the Three Magi of the Orient Casper, Melcher, and
Balthazar, in Muller it consists of Hitler, Goebbels, and the Federal Republic visited by
the three Western Allies, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France respectively.
Muller adapts motifs from the history of Christian religious art for a political satire on the
Federal Republic under Christian Democratic rule. To Muller, the Federal Republic
uninterruptedly continued nationalist and fascist traditions, while the GDR alone held the
promise to overcome the German misery. According to orthodox Marxism, German
Nazism, which is reducible to the continuation of capitalism with other means, while
capitalism represents the class domination of the bourgeoisie over society, survived the
Second World War in the guise of Western liberal democracy and social market
economy.
675
W 4/356.
Brecht W 7/112, translation from Bertolt Brecht, War Primer (London: Libris, 1998), subscript to image
No. 81, corresponding image no. 61 in Bertolt Brecht, Kriegsfibel (Berlin: Eulenspiegel, 1955).
677
Conservative West German theater critics criticized Muller for falsifying history and politically
betraying the East German national uprising. G. Hensel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6. Juni 1979.
Precisely this argument gave reason for staging the play in the GDR prior to the Wende (Muller 1999,256).
678
W 4/353.
676
241
The Janus-faced Ftihrer Hitler/Adenauer as a psychopathic self-imitator and
imperious clown and the Propaganda Minister Goebbels as his bosomy and clubfooted
transvestite partner with child make up a quarrelling old couple. The newborn would
have to be the counterpart to the infant Jesus, if things did not develop differently than in
the Gospel. The midwife and obstetrician Germania, allegorically personifying the West
German people, relieves the pregnant Goebbels from a deformed wolf.
GERMANIA Gentlemen, it's time. Where are my
forceps? Would you lend me a hand?
Germania applies the forceps, pulls, Magi 1 pulls
Germania, 2 pulls 1, 3 pulls 2.
HITLER My people!
HONORARY GUARDS GERMANY AWAKE!
SIEGHEIL!
THE THREE MAGI HALLELUJAH!
HOSIANA!
A wolf howls. Germania and the Three Magi fall
on their bottoms. Before them stands a Conterganwolf
GERMANIA Herrschaften, es ist soweit. Wo ist meine
Zange? Fassen Sie mal mit an.
Germania setzt die Zange an, zieht, Heiliger 1 zieht an
Germania, zwei an eins, drei an zwei.
HITLER MeinVolk!
EHRENKOMPANIE DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE!
SIEGHEIL!
DIE HEILIGENDREI HALLELUJAH!
HOSIANNA!
Ein Wolfheult. Germania und die drei Heiligen fallen
aufden Hintern. Vor ihnen steht ein ConterganWolf.679
The birth of the grotesque monster allegorizes the deep roots of the Federal Republic in
Nazism, the political and moral corruption of predatory capitalism in Western liberal
society, and the limitedness if not inexistence of state and popular sovereignty under the
Western Allies.
Muller exposes the historical and political continuities between the Nazi regime and
the early Federal Republic regarding the federal army. The "honor guards"
{Ehrenkompanie) make an oxymoronic appearance. On the one hand, they are clad in
"black uniforms" (schwarze Uniform), a clear and distinct trait of SS men, they have
"dog-heads" (Hundekopfe), allegorizing their bestiality in fighting, and their boots are
bloody, a sign for their mass war crimes. On the other hand, they are covered in "white
679
W 4/358. Muller's political resentment against the Federal Republic goes as far as to exploit the
Contergan scandal in the pharmaceutical industry of the time in order to affirm the official anti-capitalist
and anti-fascist party line. Contergan or Thalidomide, a sleeping pill and tranquilizer, caused serious birth
defects such as dysplasia and aplasia of limbs and organs.
242
veil" {weifier Flor) and they are wearing "angel wings" {Engelsflugel) on their back, a
sign for angelic innocence.680 They alternately propagate equally empty slogans of
German fascism and Western capitalism. The Nazi slaughterers pose as West German
soldiers. The Three Magi are at first skeptical about the compatibility of the West
German wolf with the Occident at the military review. Despite all the evidence to the
contrary, they are ironically convinced that "a new genius" (ein neuer Geist) prevails,
although Goebbels' "fart" (Furz)6U foils their conclusion. At the risk of losing his
audience because of pure theatrical nonsense, Muller imperturbably remains faithful to
the genre of slapstick comedy in presenting his critique against the Western world.682 As
the hot war against Nazi Germany turns into the Cold War, the Western Allies pursue
their geopolitical interests. The newly founded state and army is going to be the military
outpost of the Western defense system. Muller criticizes that the Three Magi of the
Occident do not even resign their former enemies in order to win the impending war
against communism. Although the Three Magi of the Occident approve of the honorary
guards' lip service to values such as peace, liberty, democracy, and the right to private
property, while they ignore their racist slogans, their presents for the newborn betray a
similar Weltanschauung. War game toys such as "instruments of torture"
(Folterwerkzeuge), "canons" {Kanonen), and "a set of men of color" (ein Satz Farbige)
should remind us of American, British, and French colonialism and imperialism in the
past and the persistence of racism in the United States, United Kingdom, and France after
W 4/356.
W 4/357.
Klussmann (1982,173).
W 4/358.
243
the Second World War. Western colonialism and imperialism emanatefromthe
phantasm of absolute sovereignty.
The Federal Republic recruited former Nazis into the federal army and all areas of
civil society. The West German people readily denied or glossed over their complicity in
the Nazi crimes, as Mtiller graphically demonstrates.
Germania stands up and takes a family package of
SUNIL out of her midwife case and pours it over the
wolf. White light. The wolf stands in sheep's
clothing.
Germania steht auf, nimmt eine Familienpackung
SUNIL aus der Hebammentasche und schiittet sie
iiber den Wolf aus. Weifies Licht. Der Wolf steht im
Schafspelz.684
In order to exclude all possibility of doubt about the reorientation towards the West,
Germania, allegorically personifying the West German people, literally whitewashes the
deformed wolf, allegorically personifying the West German state, with an all-purpose
laundry detergent, one of the modern blessings of the economical wonder, coincidentally
introduced in 1955, the very same year the federal army formed.685 Mtiller suggest that
the Western Allies sporadically followed through denazification and anti-Semitism
became intolerable for economical reasons alone. Following the official East German
party line, he criticizes West Germany for finding comfort in Western consumer society
instead of coming to terms with Nazism. Following in the footsteps of Brecht's Mother
Courage, Germania scorns her son Hitler for his "Jewish affairs" (Judengeschichteri)m
and she wants to improve her bad reputation only because it is unprofitable for business.
Mtiller puts the words of Brecht's Mother Courage in Germania's mouth almost
verbatim: "We've got to move with the times." {Wir miissen mit der Zeitgehn.)m The
limitedness or complete absence of West German sovereignty is associated with and
684
W4/348f.
The denazification certificate issued by Western Allies to Germans cleared of war crime charges was
nicknamed Persilschein—whitewash certificate referring to another laundry detergent at the time.
686
686,W 4/356.
687^W 4/356. See Bertolt Brecht, Collected plays in eight volumes (London: Methuen, 1970), Vol. 5 Part 2.
685
allegorized by prostitution, as Germania applies makeup to Goebbels' face, drawing "a
whore mask" (eine Nuttenmaske).6n Under the political pressure from the Western
Allies and the economical pressure of reconstruction, Germany sold out to the Western
Allies like a prostitute to the punter.
Germania is both the metaphorical figure of speech for and the allegorical
personification of the German people.
It is an extremely ambiguous figure. The name
"Germania" refers to the statue in Niederwald at the Rhine, a colossal armed and armored
female figure that ties in with male fantasies about female warriors, for instance, in Kleist
or Wagner. The statue is yet another cultural document of Wilhelmine brutalism
alongside the Hermann's monument in the Teutoburg Forrest. In Muller, it embodies the
kind of petty bourgeois common sense that Brecht criticized in Mother Courage. For an
uncritical audience, she is merely the screen of projection, identification, and empathy.
However, a self-critical audience should reflects on its complicity in war profiteering and
crime. Jost Hermand convincingly argued that the torture and execution of Germania
through Hitler allegorizes the end of the German nation after Second World War. It was
this historic event, Hermand continues, that finally made possible a future in which the
German people could finally overcome the German misery.690 Germania's childrearing
of the German nationfromthe age of Humanism up until and including Hitler allegorizes
her complicity in the history of German nationalism, imperialism, and fascism. Hitler's
absolute sovereignty approved by the majority of German people represents the
horrendous realization of the collective Germania phantasm. The phantasm of absolute
688
W 4/356.
Jost Hermand, „Braut, Mutter oder Hure? Heiner Mullers 'Germania' und ihre Vorgeschichte, in: Sieben
Arten an Deutschland zu leiden (Konigstein: Athen&um, 1979), 127-42.
690
Hermand (1979,140f.).
689
245
sovereignty leads to the Fuhrer bunker and the Stalingrad Cauldron. This dead end
allegorizes the distorted relationship of Germania to itself. The individual and national
identity crisis contains internal self-contradictions, social antagonisms, and political
conflicts that result in treason and revenge, fraternal feuds, fratricide, sadomasochism and
cannibalism, mass murder, annihilation and extermination, ultimately individual suicide
and national self-laceration in the figurative and literal sense.691 Hermand concludes that
the German people overcame their Germania complex only after the catastrophe of
Second World War. In other words, the end of Second World War was the condition of
possibility for making the illusory phantasm of absolute sovereignty obsolete. After the
fall of Nazism, when history exposed Hitler's usurpation of absolute sovereignty as
another in a long series of disasters, the German people were not able to claim popular
692
sovereignty.
The Foundation of the GDR and the Failed Spartacus Uprising
Muller dramatizes the discrepancy between the state and the people, more precisely
the official self-conception of the GDR and its historical and political reality, as
perceived and experienced by the average people in the streets of Berlin, in light of the
failed Spartacus Uprising in 1918/9. In the first street scene, an anonymous voice merely
evokes the general strike, the Spartacus uprising, and the ultimate failure of the
proletarian revolution, while the audience observes an everyday interaction between a
Wl
Eke (1999,175f.).
Following Alexander Mitscherlich and Friedrich Meineke, we could make the psychosocial argument
that the German people were not able to mourn the loss of national sovereignty after 1945 (rather than the
victims of the Holocaust) and that they were therefore not able to raise the political claim to popular
sovereignty.
692
baker and a sign distributor (Schildverteiler),
on the one hand, workers' children, on
the other hand. Hunger seduces the children to demonstrate against the Spartacus
uprising, which their fathers joined to fight for their bread.694 However, the baker and
sign distributor defraud the children. This miniature drama allegorically demonstrates
how the subservience of the bourgeoisie to the authoritarian state undermined popular
sovereignty claimed by the proletariat. The baker and the sign distributor, who
allegorically represent rightwing conservatism and social democracy, are not only the
adversaries of the children, who allegorically represent the proletariat, but also the
counterrevolutionary enemy of the proletarian revolution. According to Muller's
orthodox Marxist view, social democracy deepened the internal cleavages of the German
labor movement and betrayed socialism by violently suppressing the Spartacus uprising
with the aid of the free corps returning from the First World War and winning the
presidential elections. Parts of the proletariat sold out to rightwing conservatism and
social democracy because of economic misery and political ignorance. The working
class gambled away the revolutionary opportunity to establish the socialist republic based
on popular sovereignty.
The second crowd scene in the streets of East Berlin reflects on the foundation of the
GDR in light of the failed Spartacus uprising. On the one hand, the crowd dispels an
anonymous passerby who denounces the GDR as a "Russian state" (Russenstaat),695
which is not far away from the truth, considering the lack of state sovereignty vis-a-vis
the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the crowd is not enthusiastic yet loyal to the newly
founded state. The people are observant and temporizing, if not skeptic. Pimps,
693
W 4/328.
Klussmann (1982,164f.).
695
W 4/328.
694
prostitutes, and punters pursue more immediate economic and sexual needs and wants
unflinchingly instead of historical and political ones, not to mention the lofty ideals of
communism. In a short yet telling episode, "dustcoats" (Staubmantel), allegorizing
agents of the Ministry of State Security (Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit or colloquially
Stasi), haul off "windcheaters" {Windjacken), allegorizing young regime dissidents.696
The newly founded state spies on political dissidents. This anticipates the widely
ramified network of egotistical opportunists, chance snitches, and "unofficial
collaborators" (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, in short, IM) with the Stasi. A veteran of the
failed Spartacus uprising in 1918/9 dwells in memories thirty years later at the very same
location. The comparison between the early Weimar Republic and the early GDR brings
out more continuities than discontinuities. The disappointments from the past
overshadow the present yet inspire hope for a better future.
ALTER mit Kind aufdem Riicken
Hier haben wir Berlin, die Kaiserhure
Die Fetzen vom Kartoffelbauch gerissen
Den PreuBenfiitter von der leeren Brust.
Die Kaiserhure war Proletenbraut
Fur eine Nacht, nackt im Novemberschnee.
Von Hunger aufgeschwemmt, vom Generalstreik
Geriittelt, mit Proletenblut gewaschen.
Wir warteten im Schnee, der weiB wie nie kam
Der Nebel stieg, die Handfroram Gewehr
Der Schneefielsieben Stunden ohne AufhSrn.
Die Bonzen saBen warm im Schlofi, berieten.
Wir warteten im Schnee, der weiB wie nie kam
Von keinem Rauch aus keinem Schlot geschwarzt.
Wir wurden weniger. In der achten Stunde
SchmiB der und jener sein Gewehr weg, ging.
Im SchloB die Bonzen ritten auf den Stuhlen
Und stimmten Karl und Rosa an die Wand.
Wir schlugen die Gewehre an den Bordstein
Krochen zuruck in unsere MauerlQcher
Und rollten unseren Himmel wieder ein.
Der President. Ein Arbeiter wie wir.697
W 4/330.
W 4/328f.
OLD MAN with a child on his back
That's Berlin, the imperial whore
The tatters tornfromher potato belly
The Prussian knickknackfromher empty chest.
The imperial whore a proletarian bride
For one night, naked in November snow.
Bloated by hunger, shaken by the
General strike, washed in proletarian blood.
We were waiting in the snow, never whiter
The fog was rising, handsfreezingto the gun
Snow falling all the time for seven hours
The big shots were talking in the warm castle,
We were waiting in the snow, never whiter
No smoke from any chimney blackened it.
We were fewer and fewer. In the eighth hour
This and that one threw down his gun and left.
In the castle the big shots were riding on the chairs
And voted Karl and Rosa against the wall.
We banged our guns against the curbstone.
We crawled back into our holes in the walls
And we reeled in our heavens again.
The President. A worker like us.
Doubtful about the supposed victory of the working class back then, the veteran
anticipates that history may repeat itself. The German labor movement may suffer
another debacle in attempting to establish the socialist democratic republic. The selfproclaimed workers' and farmers' state may betray the interests of the workers and
farmers. ThefirstPresident of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck (1876-1960), may follow in the
footsteps of the first President of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), both
of whom came from the working class yet betrayed it. On the one hand, the veteran like
many other representatives of the people in the history play embodies past and present
contradictions of the German labor movement. On the other hand, he literally carries the
sign of political hope for a better future allegorized by his grandchild on his back. The
metaphors from the semantic fields of snow and ice capture historical stagnation and
political standstill in the early GDR. Similarly, metaphors from the semanticfieldsof
petrifaction and ossification later express the idea that the early GDR monumentalized
real existing socialism.
No dramatic figure, such as the President, appears onstage in person to proclaim the
foundation of the GDR. An anonymous voice announces from the top over the heads of
the crowd:
LONG LIVE THE GERMAN
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC THE FIRST
WORKERS' AND FARMERS' STATE
ON GERMAN SOIL.
ES LEBE DIE DEUTSCHE
DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIKDER
ERSTE ARBEITERUNDBAUERNSTAAT
AUFDEUTSCHEMBODEN.m
The loudspeakers ironically broadcast the applause that fails to appear in the politically
disinterested or disenchanted crowd.
W 4/328, all caps in the original.
All of this indicates that the state claim to absolute sovereignty in the name of the
people, passed off as the historical and political realization of the dictatorship of the
revolutionary proletariat, is purely declamatory; a symbolically political performance
without external reference to historical and political reality. The multiperspectival
reflection of the state founding act foils the claim that the newly founded state
representatively exercised popular sovereignty. The solemnity of the official act of state
becomes a subject of irony. The new state could not base itself on undivided support
from the people. From the beginning, the police and surveillance state prioritized state
sovereignty over popular and individual sovereignty to protect itself against its people.
The latent political legitimatization crisis subsequently leads to the national uprising.
While social democracy had defeated communism by violently suppressing the socialist
revolution from the bottom in 1918/9, the one-party state imposes the socialist revolution
on the people from the top in 1949. The division between the "big shots" {die Bonzerif"
of the labor movement and the workers in the late Weimar Republic prefigures the
division between the party elite and the working class in the early GDR. Authoritarian
statism and private opportunism persisted in both the Weimar Republic and the GDR.
The Frederician Mentality of Subservience to the State in the GDR
Muller dramatically demonstrates that the Frederician mentality of subservience to
the authoritarian state persevered from the late eighteenth century through the long
nineteenth century and the Nazi regime to the early GDR in the two scenes entitled
"Brandenburg Concerto" {Brandenburgisches Konzert) after Bach's famous musical
W 4/328.
piece. The first scene satirically adapts an anecdote about a legal dispute over private
property between the King of Prussia and the miller from Potsdam in which the sovereign
observes the laws to the advantage of the subject in order to exercise absolute sovereignty
over the state.700 Mtiller rhetorically and scenically sharpens Hacks' dramatization of the
legal dispute by casting clowns for the two parts of the king and miller, setting the scene
in the circus ring, and using colloquial and vulgar language as well as stage props to
produce many comical slapstick effects. As far as the scene internally reflects on its
aesthetic status as theater in the stage directions as well as the first-person and thirdperson narrations, Muller inhibits the identification and empathy with the 'great'
personality of real world history and the exemplary representative of the bourgeoisie.
The miller-clown ridicules the king-clown's self-conception as an enlightened
monarch and a progressive and law-abiding citizen by telling corny word jokes with
many sexual connotations and undertones, exhibitionism, and other obscene
performances, alluding to Frederick's homosexuality. Muller satirizes the famous
aphorism of the enlightened monarch Frederick II, "The ruler is the first servant of the
state" (Der Herrscher ist der erste Diener des Staates),701 originally constructed as an
antithesis to the famous aphorism of the absolutist monarch Louis XIV, "I am the state."
(L 'etat, c 'est moi.) The sentence expresses the paradox of the primus inter pares
Frederick II King of Prussia (1712-86) is yet another Janus-faced sovereign whose rule from 1740 until
his death includes both reforms and warmongering. Johannes Kunisch, Friedrich der Grofie, derKonig
und seine Zeit (Munich: Beck, 2004). For the anecdote see Reinhold Schneider, Anekdoten von Friedrich
dem Grofien (Leipzig: Insel, 1941), 28. Peter Hacks (1928-2003) took up Brecht's idea to dramatize the
anecdote. See Der Muller von Sanssouci (The Miller of Sanssouci) (1957), in: Werke infilnfzehn Banden,
Band 2, Diefruhen Stiicke (Berlin: Eulenspiegel, 2003), 195-250. There, the king stages the legal dispute
to demonstrate to the people that he exercises sovereignty over the state under the law. The sovereign
paradoxically orders the subject to protest against him: "He shall protest, I command him to do so."
{Protestiere er, ich befehle es ihm.) Hacks (2003,226). This performative act contains a double bind; the
subject shall obey by disobeying. See Kleist's Homburg. The miller ultimately keeps his property but
must release his bondservant to perform military service. The king observes the law to exercise his
sovereign rights to conscript subjects and wage wars. For a critique of Hacks, see Muller (1999,253).
701
K6nig von Preufien Friedrich II., Das Politisches Testament von 1752 (Ditzingen: Reclam, 1974).
251
according to which the absolute sovereign over the state is the first subject under the
state. The head of state paradoxically represents an affiliated member and the ecstatic
representative at the same time. Governing over the state is serving the state under the
law. Frederician subservience required from all citizens alike including the sovereign.
By sharpening the statement, Muller draws out the paradoxes of absolute sovereignty
in enlightened monarchism. As a Janus-faced figure who is paradoxically ruler over the
state and first servant under the law at the same time, the king-clown identifies himself
with his state like any absolutist monarch. "I'm the first servant of my state." (Ich bin
der erste Diener meines Staates.)1 2 The possessive pronoun and the ordinal number
express the claim to absolute sovereignty. However, the self-conception as the first
servant of his state exemplifies subjective self-discipline as the condition of possibility
for absolute sovereignty. Where the exemplary representative of the state is the
subservient servant of the sovereign state, the rule of law, civil and human rights are not
in effect, or if so, then as public service to the state alone.
The king-clown at first appears as a senile old man who prides himself on the
numerous battles that he ostensibly fought in defense of "Prussian glory" (Ehre
Preufiens)703 but actually for economical and geopolitical reasons, while, as he complains
sniveling, they sickened him seriously. The critical audience recognizes an authoritarian
militarist in him. Similarly, the miller-clown does not appear as the self-confident
Prussian burgher, who knows and is ready to defend his rights, as in the famous anecdote.
Although he lays claim to political emancipation, individual and popular sovereignty, he
ultimately is and remains a subservient subject to the absolute sovereign.
W4/333ff.
W 4/332.
At first, the miller-clown poses as a partner on equal footing with the king-clown and
threatens that he will not play along, if the king-clown does not protect private property
rights. As the sovereign both enacts and observes applicable laws, the subject remains
loyal to the sovereign and plays along both dramatically and politically. The millerclown and the king-clown form an alliance, when a new player enters the stage of world
history for the first time; it is a circus lion. Scared of the predator, the clowns take refuge
at the circus trapeze. Their grotesquely comical gymnastics result in a crash, after which
the lion turns out to be a fake and disintegrates into two parts.
The slapstick circus act on the trapeze obviously has an allegorical meaning. Muller
artfully compresses some three and a half centuries of German history, the extended long
nineteenth century from the late seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century into a clownish
circus act. It satirically reenacts the historic events and shows the true balance of power
before, during, and after the March Revolution in 1848. The bourgeois revolution failed
owing to the tradeoff between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. The aristocracy
remained in power. The bourgeoisie pushed through its economic emancipation but
remained politically powerless. The divide of the German labor movement into social
democracy and socialism allegorized by the disintegration of the circus lion further
weakened the proletariat.704 State sovereignty prevailed over popular sovereignty,
feudalism over emancipation, power politics over the rule of law, state interest over civil
and human rights, authoritarian statism over democratic republicanism.
The king-clown officially supports the miller-clown's fight for his rights, as long as
the form of government and the political status quo remain unchanged. However, the
sovereign intervenes into the symbolically political performance, when the subject starts
704
Klussmann (1982,167).
acting out of character and against the dramatic plot in the royal theater of bourgeois selfemancipation. The miller-clown threatens to quit the social contract, calls monarchy into
question, demands democratic participation in government, and insinuate a possible
dramatic and political exchange of roles between sovereign and subject.
CLOWN 2
What does king mean?
Anybody can govern CLOWN 1 Stop. You must stay within the
bounds of legality.
CLOWN 2 What's that.
CLOWN 1 That's French and it means
NO DUMPING.
CLOWN 2 Was heiBt hier Konig. RegierenkannjederCLOWN 1 Halt. Du muBt auf dem Boden der Legalitat
bleiben.
CLOWN 2 Wasistdas.
CLOWN 1 Das ist franzQsisch und heiBt
SCHUTTABLADEN VERBOTEN.705
Although the subject claims individual and popular sovereignty and prepares the
revolutionary passage from monarchy into democracy, the revolution in the circus ring is
merely a ridiculous symbolically political performance.
Following in the footsteps of Homburg from Kleist's first patriotic play and the
musician Miller from Schiller's bourgeois tragedy Kabale undLiebe, the miller-clown
takes fright at the king-clown's appearance in the dramatic character role of Frederick
King of Prussia. He wavers between disobedience and obedience, absolute sovereignty
and subjective self-discipline. Neither the emancipation of the subject from the absolute
sovereign nor the subjection of the subject to the absolute sovereign seems to be possible.
As a result, the subject ironically collapses precisely when anti-French resentment of
German nationalism prevalent during the Wars of Liberation against the Napoleonic
Empire 1813/4 and the Franco-German War 1870/1 rises.
CLOWN 2 I'm the miller of Potsdam. His knees
start shivering. He tries to hold them tight with his
hands. I'm a German man. He topples down and
stands up again in front of the threatening cane,
topples down again.
W4/336f.
W 4/337f.
CLOWN 2 Ich bin der Mtiller von Potsdam. Seine
Kniefangen an zu schlottern. Er versucht sie mit
den Handen festzuhalten. Ich bin ein deutscher
Mann. Fallt um, steht wieder aufvor dem
drohenden Kriickstock, fallt wieder um.
In spite of or precisely because of the 'awakening' of the nation in the age of German
Romanticism, the miller-clown fails to cope with his fear and falls back into habitual
mindsets and behavior patterns: blind subservience and anticipatory obedience. The
sovereign takes advantage of subjective fear and cowardice.
CLOWN 1 angrily: I'll show you what natural
force is. Beats him. I'm the first servant of my
state.
CLOWN2 licks the cane and begins eating it up.
While eating the cane, he straightens up until he
stands stark and stiff. The stage background
opens up in front of afirefrom which speech
bubbles arise: SHOOT THE RUSSIAN KICK
THE BRIT STAB THE FRENCH and into which
Clown 2 marches off goose-stepping.
CLOWN 1 bose: Ich werde dir zeigen, was eine
Naturgewalt ist. Schlagt ihn. Ich bin der erste Diener
meines Staates.
Clown 2 leckt den Kriickstock undfdngt an ihn
aufzuessen. Den Stock essend, richtet er sich an ihm
auf, bis er stocksteif dasteht. Der Buhnenhintergrund
offnet sich vor einem Feuer, aus dem Sprechblasen
aufsteigen: JEDER SCHUSS EIN RUSS JEDER
TRITT EIN BRIT JEDER STOSS EIN FRANZOS
und in das Clown 2 im Paradeschritt
hineinmarschiert.
The literal ingestion of the infamous cane characteristic for Frederick II allegorically
represents that the German people internalized the Frederician mentality of subservience
to the absolute sovereign in the nineteenth century. The cane functions as metaphor and
metonymy for subjective self-discipline required by the absolute sovereign as political
head of state and military commander-in-chief of the army from his subjects as public
servants and soldiers. Through the sadomasochistic performance, the collapsed subject
ironically starts literally re-erecting and figuratively reclaiming individual and popular
sovereignty, until finally standing "stark and stiff (stocksteif)70* like the ingested cane to
the attention of the absolute sovereign, before marching off in goose-steps straight into
the battlefield under the infamous euphoric battle cry of the First World War.709
707
W 4/338
W 4/338.
709
Heinrich Heine was the first to associate the stiff body posture of the Prussian soldiers to the literal
ingestion andfigurativeinternalization of the corporeal cane. As a paradoxical figure of speech for both
individual subjectivity and absolute sovereignty, uprightness symbolically contains an irresolvable
ambiguity between the historical and political discourse of authoritarian statism and the juridical and moral
discourse of civil society. The upright posture and gait of the subject (Hacks 2003,239) does not so much
signify personal maturity, moral integrity, and political courage of the free citizen integrated into the
republican constitutional state and civil society, but rather the personal immaturity, military heteronomy,
708
This primal scene of the extended long nineteenth century summarizes the historical
and political process that Foucault defined as the "manufacture" of individual
subjectivity.710 Muller demonstrates how the military education in the army of peoples
manufactures individual subjectivity whose personal autonomy is limited by military and
political heteronomy of absolute sovereignty. Service to absolute sovereignty reduces the
individual subject to a regimented battle machine. Absolute sovereignty installs an
'autonomous' power in the individual subject that disciplines both body and mind.711
Contrary to Foucault who distinguished the classical discourse of absolute
sovereignty from the modern discourse of individual subjectivity and self-discipline,
Muller's history play demonstrates that they paradoxically undermine and support each
other at the same time. Accordingly, the king-clown, contrary to the historical and
political self-conception of Frederick II as an Anti-Machiavelli,712 admits to the audience
offstage with a twinkle in his eye that he invoked the principle of legality not as an
ethical or moral end in itself but as a better means to the end of preserving and expanding
political power and influence. By debunking the political trick of paying lip service to
the rule of law in order to wage war, Muller criticizes the myth, shared equally by West
German Christian and social democracy and East German socialism, that the Frederician
Empire established the first sovereign German nation-state under the rule of law.
The parallel scene from the early GDR shows a distinguished mason with a head
bandage at a presidential reception on the day of Stalin's death. On the one hand, the
and political subservience of the soldier to the authoritarian military state. See Michel Foucault, Society
Must Be Defended, Lectures at the College de France, 1975-6 (New York: Picador, 2003), 49ff.
710
Foucault (2003,28f., 43ff.).
711
Norbert Otto Eke, Heiner Muller (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999), 175.
712
KQnig Friedrich von Preulien, Der Antimachiavell (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1991).
256
GDR President decorated him with the honorary title "hero of labor" {Held der Arbeit)
for having relocated by state order the equestrian statue of Frederick II from his original
position on Stalin Allee in midtown Berlin, formerly the Prussian boulevard Unter den
Linden, to the Frederician castle of Sanssouci near Potsdam. On the other hand, he
suffered a head injury after his coworkers threw bricks at him in protest of his activism
out of fear that his overachievement may increase work quotas and cut wages. Since the
state awards yet colleagues attack the activist, the conflict potentials between the state
and the people are looming large.
Unaccustomed to typically aristocratic food and beverage such as caviar and
champagne at the cold buffet, the "proletarian Danton"714 ironically suffers a stomach
upset, which results in a surreal episode. While he sits down on a Frederician Empire
chair to listen to the musical performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, an apparition
of Frederick II in the shape of an undead homosexual vampire appears to him and
assaults him.
FREDERICK 2 Wretch, will he not stand up
before his King.
MASON I thought that he doesn't fit on a chair
anymore. I'll show you where God lives. He sets
upon Frederick 2. The former beats him with the
cane. Hey. That's my back. He breaks the cane
over his knee. Frederick the Second tackles him
from behind. You're amiss with me. Fuck your
dog. Shakes him off. Frederick the Second goes for
the mason's throat. You're still thirsty, you cattle.
Go and swig water. Fight. Entrance comrade with
tray. Friedrich the Second disappears.
FRIEDRICH 2 Will Er nicht aufstehn, Kerl, vor
seinem Konig.
MAURER Ich hab gedacht, derpaBtaufkeinen
Stuhl mehr. Ich zeig dir, wo Gott wohnt.
Geht auf Friedrich 2 los. Der schldgt ihn mit der
Kriicke. He. Das ist mein Kreuz. Zerbricht die
Kriicke iiberm Knie. Friedrich der Zweite geht ihn
von hinten an. Bei mir bist du verkehrt. Fick deinen
Hund. Schuttelt ihn ab. Friedrich der Zweite geht
ihm an die Kehle. Hast du noch Durst, du Vieh. Geh
Wasser saufen. Kampf. Auftritt der Genosse mit
Tablett. Friedrich der Zweite verschwindet.
713
W 4/338.
Klussmann (1982,168).
715
W 4/3 3 9f. The image of Frederick II jumping on the back of the mason is not only a negative reversal
of the positive imagefromthe first street scene, where the grandchild on old man's back represents the
optimistic hope for the better political future. This scene also demonstrates that the East German workers
and farmers were literally haunted by the dark spirits of the past. Miiller extends the imagery by adding
Hitler to Frederick II jumping on the back of the farmer Flint in his drama Die Umsiedlierin oder das Leben
aufdem Land (1964), W 3/189f.
714
257
Assuming that the empire chair represents the empty throne of the Frederician
government, the socialist superhuman subject (Ubermensch/Untertan)716 makes
pretensions to absolute sovereignty over New Prussia. The apparition of Frederick II
returns to claim his due and dispel the usurper. However, contrary to the miller from
Potsdam, the mason from Stalin Allee is a man of action; he literally shakes off the
violent rapprochement and breaks apart the cane. The mason seems to put into practice
what the miller failed to carry out. Admittedly, he fends off the spirit of the past.
Consequently, he might pass as an ideal figure of popular sovereignty contrary to the
millerfromPotsdam or the fake circus lion.717
However, since no other dramatic character notices the apparition, the fight is merely
shadowboxing in his food-poisoned mind. The distinguished mason may have removed
the equestrian statue, a symbol for the Frederician age; however, precisely this act
perpetuates the Frederician mentality of subservience to the authoritarian state.718 By
carrying out the state order, the activist paradoxically failed to serve its purpose and
realized its exact opposite. Intention and result are incommensurable. The distinguished
mason did not simply perform the task and carry out his duty, but he actually did so in a
genuinely Prussian way, comparable to Homburg's premature attack in Kleist. Ironically,
he did not just exceed the work quota and outperform Western capitalist standards to the
glory of the GDR but he actually did so in "in world record time" {in Weltbestzeit).119
Helen Fehervary, "Enlightenment or Entanglement, History and Aesthetics in Bertolt Brecht and Heiner
Muller," New German Critique 8 (Spring 1976): 80-109, 89.
717
Klussmann (1982,168).
7,8
Muller (1986, 37f.).
719
W 4/339.
Here Muller ridicules the self-adulation of the socialist state and its showcase worker
who is a paradoxical figure of popular sovereignty.
The apparition of Frederick II disappears from the stage not until the absent President
orders beer and cutlet for the laureate in order to calm down his upset stomach. The
symbolical gesture shows that the sovereign state fobs off its subjects on cheap
accommodations to keep the social peace.721 The distinguished mason pursues more
immediate visceral needs and wants such as food and drink; he is unaware of and
disinterested in the presidential showmanship and self-representation of the Socialist
state.
Rejecting the Western model of the liberal state of private citizens and foiling the
communist Utopia of equal and sovereign proletarians, the socialist state of apparatchiks
succeeded the authoritarian Frederician state of public servants. Contrary to its official
self-conception, it depended on and promoted the mindset and behavior pattern, which it
strived to overcome. It perpetuated subjective self-discipline to the authoritarian state in
order to exercise absolute sovereignty over the state and society. Although the
"dictatorship of the proletariat" ruled "even in the kitchen" {Diktatur des Proletariats (...)
auch in der Kiiche), the proletariat was far from exercising popular sovereignty.
Furthermore, Muller casts the first President of GDR as a representative of the newly
founded state who broke off his socialist activism and now corrupted by political power
merely fulfills decorative functions. Thus, he follows in the footsteps of Frederick II, the
enlightened monarch whose state authoritarianism emanates from and simultaneously
betrays Enlightenment philosophy. Acting as theater director who directs the award
720
Eke (1999,178f.).
Schulz (1980,130f.).
722
W 4/339.
721
ceremony, he leaves behind the mason on thefrontstage and heads for the gangway
towards the back stagefromwhich he will orchestrate the musical performance of Bach's
Brandenburg Concerto.
The scene with the distinguished mason demonstrates that real existing socialism
reproduced the social divide of capitalist society into bourgeoisie who rule and exploit
and the proletariat who are ruled and exploited according to orthodox Marxism. All men
are created equal according to the theory of natural law. Paradoxically, some were 'more
equal' than others in real existing socialism, as popular wisdom has it. On the one hand,
the President represents the party elite or the caviar and champagne apparatchiks on the
top. On the other hand, the distinguished mason represents the working class or the beer
and cutlet proletariat on the bottom. However, together they belong to the privileged
class, while the average worker ranks amongst the underprivileged class. The activist is
an intermediary figure between the state and the people. As the exemplary representative
of the working class, he paradoxically belongs to the working class yet he at the same
time stands above it. Precisely his activism and the presidential decoration widen the gap
between the privileged state officials and underprivileged working people, as far as it
results in work quota increases and wage cuts, and finally in the national uprising.
The National Uprising in the GDR and the Paradox of Popular Sovereignty
The protests against increased work quotas for construction workers in the eve of the
national uprising on June 17,1953 followed the German labor movement. The
legitimacy of socialism and the existence of the East German state were beyond question.
The insurgents claimed their natural right and constitutionally guaranteed civil right to
260
popular sovereignty threatening to cancel the social contract. As they extended their
economic claims with political ones, calling for the resignation of the government,
accreditation of political parties, and free multiparty elections, the government reacted
following the patterns of authoritarian statism in lack of truly democratic customs and
traditions. It subordinated popular sovereignty to state sovereignty and asserted itself
against the people. Ironically, the self-proclaimed workers' and farmers' state failed to
protect workers' and farmers' interests. It preserved internal sovereignty over the people
by surrendering external sovereignty to the Soviet Union and suppressing the insurgents
with the aid of military force from the occupying power. Through this paradoxical
double move, it survived the state of emergency and prevented its downfall. A
government that exposes its people to foreign powers is illegitimate by definition.
In place of a visual representation, dull sounds and noises that permeate the thick
Prussian walls of the GDR prison723 and teichoscopic or rather stereoscopic reports of the
prison inmates evoke the national uprising. Thus, Miiller creates critical distance
between the audience, the history play, and its subject matter. The drama reflects the
national uprising in the lifelong fraternal feud between two unequal brothers. Both the
Nazi and GDR regime doubly traumatized each of them by holding both of them political
prisoners, however, each for different reasons. The Communist brother is an
antigovernment dissident whom the Nazi regime had interred at a concentration camp.
The Nazi brother is a former Communist whom the Gestapo had tortured during the
Second World War for being a Communist and a former Nazi whom his former
Communist comrades, now GDR apparatchiks, tortured after the Second World War for
being a Nazi. Old scars literally and figuratively open up again. After more than two
723
Schulz (1980,135).
decades, the political prisoners meet in the company of felons and saboteurs. The
Communist repents that he was not able to kill the Nazi, when he had an opportunity two
decades earlier. He was unable to commit fratricide. Had he done so, he would have
preempted his brother's war crimes for which he now feels guilty.
Muller's fraternal feud in the GDR allegorizes the division of Germany between
socialism and capitalism, internationalism and nationalism, antifascism and
anticommunism, Stalinism and Nazism, against the fraternal feud between Arminius, the
ancient German prince who fought against Rome, that is, Hermann from Kleist's first
patriotic play, and Flavus, who served Rome. The fraternal feud contains the paradox of
sovereignty, as far as the two brothers betray each other. The Communist betrays the
Nazi to Stalinism because of anti-communism and the Nazi betrays the Communist to
Nazism because of anti-capitalism. In addition, it apprehends a German-German war.724
The Nazi accuses the Communist for sounding out the International from the noise of the
Soviet tank tracks. "Do you like to hear the International | When it's being sung by tank
tracks." (Horst du sie gem die Internationale \ Wenn sie gesungen wirdmit
Panzerketten.)725 While the Socialist anthem celebrates the final victory of the
revolutionary proletariat, the Soviet tanks ironically crush the East German labor
movement. On the other hand, the Communist, following the official party line of the
pro-Soviet East German state party like the playwright, disapproves of the national
uprising as a symbolically political performance of drunken provocateurs that support
nationalism and fascism.
Klussmann (1982,174).
W4/371f.
However, similar to the workers' children of 1918/9, the miller from Potsdam, the
distinguished mason, the inveterate communist is and remains a self-disciplined subject
unbendingly loyal to the authoritarian state. Although the government holds him political
prisoner as a leftist dissident, he supports and legitimizes its decision to use illegitimate
force of the Soviet army against the national uprising.726 He absurdly calls upon the
prison guards to defend the prison against threatening mutiny that he misperceives as the
return of fascism under the impression of the fraternal feud.727 Blind to the totalitarian
rule of real existing socialism allegorized by his brother's reopened scars, he takes refuge
in the ideal world of his political faith in communism and anti-fascism. According to his
orthodox Marxist credo, the working class turns into the ruling class by establishing the
socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. The state officially glorified itself as the historical
heir to the German tradition of humanism, enlightenment, and socialism and the political
redeemer or fulfiller of its revolutionary legacy but, in truth, it victimized its own people
and perpetuated unfreedom, inhumanity, and Soviet imperialism. It went astray on its
paths towards realizing the communist Utopia. Muller parallelizes the self-defeat of real
existing socialism inside and outside the prison. On the one hand, the Soviet Union
rejects the East German claim to popular sovereignty. On the other hand, the Nazi and
two other inmates attack the Communist because of his support for the suppression of the
people by the state through an illegitimate foreign intervention. Communism allegorized
by the political prisoner succumbs to the internal contradictions of real existing socialism.
The state does not only hold the Communist political prisoner but it also takes the East
726
Stalinist apologists vindicate breeches of civil and human rights in the Eastern Bloc under the guise of
anti-fascism just as nationalist apologists vindicate breeches of civil and human rights in Western capitalist
states under the guise of anti-communism during the Cold War or anti-Islamism today.
727
W 4/369.
263
German people hostage, while it submits to the Soviet Union as a vassal state. Therefore,
the prison of the self-righteous Nazi and Communist brothers is both the setting for the
scene and an allegory for the GDR as such.728
A Workers' Memorial or the Symbolic Death of the Revolutionary Proletariat
In Death in Berlin 2, Muller ironically puts side by side a young mason's infatuation
with a prostitute and an old mason's infatuation with the Socialist Unity Party of the
GDR. A twofold drama of enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment unfolds in
the fields of love and politics. In both cases, a woman serves a man as a screen of
projections for the better future. In a previous scene, Muller had presented the old mason
named Franz Hilse after a dramatic character from Gerhart Hauptmann's naturalistic
history play Die Weber (1893). The strikebreaker stands on the construction site with
two brick trowels in his hands—his and the young mason's—as the vast majority of the
workers go on strike. This illustrates the isolation of Muller's inveterate Communists in
real existing socialism in general and the imperturbability of the hardliner Hilse in
particular.729 On the one hand, he refuses to join them. "You won't make me mad."
{Mich macht ihr nicht verriickt.)
On the other hand, he is one of the conformists who
perpetuate the mentality of subservience to the sovereign state. While Hilse in
Muller took pride in having broken a taboo by showing that the GDR held Communists political
prisoner. That is why his history play met with disapproval in East Germany, Muller (1999, 255).
Affirmative interpreters point out the tragic irony that the imprisoned Communist is the only dramatic
character, whose dream parable depicts the historical reality of the Nazi past and German self-laceration
adequately and continues in the GDR prison. However, his political martyrdom is a delusion, as far as his
communist ideology justifies Stalinism. It is hard to recognize tragic irony in the prison scene, Schulz
(1980, 135), or a Passion or mourning play that approximates "antifascist kitsch." Horst Domdey,
Produktivkraft Tod, Das Drama Heiner Mullers (Koln: Bohlau, 1998), 27. Such interpretations fall back
behind the level of reflection achieved by Muller's multiperspectival dramaturgy that brings out and
tolerates the irresolvability of the paradox of sovereignty.
729
Eke (1999,181). Bernd Matzkowski, Erlauterungen zu Heiner Muller (Hollfeld: Bange, 2000), 10.
730
W4/361f.
Hauptmann condemns the weaver's uprising because of his religious belief in God, his
namesake in Muller condemns the national uprising because of his political belief in the
one-party state government and the communist utopia.
Although he belongs to the underprivileged working class, he does not support the
national uprising in the tradition of the German labor movement but rather sides with the
privileged party elite. Caught in the crossfire between the state and the people, the
strikebreaker, just like the political prisoner, defends communism against its enemies in
the name of anti-capitalism, anti-nationalism, and anti-fascism. Contrary to Hauptmann's
Hilse who dies by accident uninvolved with the weaver's uprising, Miiller's Hilse does
not die in the thick of battle. Although he survives the assault, doctors diagnose him with
cancer and he eventually succumbs to the fatal illness, after having been hospitalized with
injuries caused by the stoning.
On the last visit to the dying old mason, the young mason reports that he has learned
his girlfriend is carrying his child and she is a prostitute. Although this is nothing new to
the audience, Hilse, and other characters, it comes as disenchantment to him himself.
Blinded by love he had mistaken a prostitute for "the Holy Virgin" (die Heilige
Jungfirau).m In an effort to make his situation clear, he ironically draws a comparison
between his girlfriend and Hilse's party.
If for example someone says that your
Party, for which you've sacrificed yourself
And which sacrificed you, ever since you knew
Where right and left is, and someone tells you
That she doesn't look like her herself anymore
Your party has so many skeletons in the closet
You'll go up the walls and without elevator.
Wenn Dir zum Beispiel einer sagt, deine
Partei, fur die du dich geschunden hast
Und hast dich schinden lassen, seit du weiBt
Wo rechts und links ist, und jetzt sagt dir einer
Dafl sie sich selber nicht mehr ahnlich sieht
Deine Partei vor lauter Dreck am Stecken
Du gehst die Wande hoch und ohne Aufzug.732
W 4/375.
W 4/375.
265
As the pregnant prostitute, "Whore 1" (Hure 1)
throughout the play, now transformed
into a "girl" (Mddcheri),134 enters the sickroom, the process of dying begins. Hilse's
throbbing heartbeat echoes the beating sounds in the prison scene. In his deathbed
fantasy, which is both a bitterly ironical comedy of mistaken identities and a political
Utopia, the dying old mason, overcome with revolutionary nostalgia and melancholia,
identifies the young mason's girlfriend with "the red Rosa" (die rote Rosa),135 that is,
Rosa Luxemburg, the iconic figure of the Spartacus uprising beside Karl Liebknecht.
Because of his unflinching adherence to the communist ideology and romantic hero
worship, Hilse mistakes the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR for the legitimate successor
of the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic. However, the Soviet
Union reduced German communists to party functionaries and apparatchiks instead of
accepting them as partners in a critical dialogue in Miiller's view.736
The young mason would be morally obliged to marry his pregnant girlfriend and be a
father to her child. Similarly, the old mason blindly obeys the authoritarian one-party
state, although the politically illegitimate and morally corrupted government betrayed the
East German people to the Soviet Army. Hilse makes the political leap of faith Brecht
suggested.737 Since the Communist Party, as the political avant-garde of the
revolutionary proletariat, is always right, Hilse embraces his party despite her crimes, just
as he identifies with his body despite his terminal illness. "We're of one party, my cancer
733
W4/330ff.
W 4/376.
735
W 4/376.
736
Heiner Miiller, Ich bin ein Neger, Diskussion mit Heiner Mtiller (Darmstadt: Verlag der Georg Buchner
Buchhandlung, 1986), 15.
737
Brecht once compared East Germany and the Soviet Union with prostitutes to the effect that the former,
contrary to the latter, at least was not infested with syphilis. Communist idealists, who act in good faith
like holy virgins, sell out politically, once they become apparatchiks.
734
266
and me." {Wir sind eine Partei, mein Krebs und ich.)
Just as the stoning of Hilse
brings to the fore the cancer, so the suppression of the general strike brings to the fore
Stalinism in the newly founded socialist state. Just as Hilse suffers from cancer, so the
Socialist Unity Party of the GDR suffers from syphilis like the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. On the one hand, the old mason distinguishes between party and
partisanship. As a loyal critic, he distances him himself from her crimes. However, he
paradoxically reconfirms the unity between her and him himself at the same time. As a
party hardliner, he justifies and excuses her crimes. His party loyalty ties in with the
Frederician mentality of subservience to the absolute sovereign and resembles Nibelung
loyalty in German rightwing conservatism and Nazism.
As Hilse ironically casts himself in the role of the "the eternal mason" (der ewige
Maurer), he allegorically personifies not only the collective subject in world history but
also the figure of absolute sovereignty in the dictatorship of the revolutionary proletariat
according to the orthodox Marxist history of philosophy. He inscribes a single moment
of discontinuity into the continuous history of capitalist exploitation of the proletariat,
stretching ten millennia from the pyramids in ancient Egypt through the hills of ancient
Rome to the modern skyscrapers in New York. He glorifies the construction of the
Moscow Metro during the early 1930s. According to Hilse's romanticist historiography,
it commemorates the assumed golden age when the revolutionary proletariat was
paradoxically subject and sovereign of the Soviet Union at the same time.
HILSE
But I was
My own boss for the first time in Moscow:
The Metro. Did you see it? And now
I've immured the capitalists
One brick, one lime. If you still had eyes
You'd be able to see shining through my hands
738
W 4/374.
HILSE
AberinMoskau
War ich zum erstenmal mein eigener Chef:
Die Metro. Hast du sie gesehn. Undjetzt
Hab ich die Kapitalisten eingemauert
Ein Stein ein Kalk. Wenn du noch Augen hattest
Konntest du durch meine H&nde scheinen sehn
The red flags on the Rhine and Ruhr.
Die roten Fahnen iiber Rhein und Ruhr.739
Hilse's political Utopia of German reunification under the banner of socialism and the
foundation of the Socialist Republic of Germany, as provided for by the Stalin Note of
1952, are just as anti-realist back then as unrealistic in retrospect. In anticipation of the
erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the grotesque superhuman subject self-ironically
prides himself on having immured Western capitalism, while the GDR, in fact, immured
East Berlin. The Berlin Wall came to symbolize unfreedom under the socialist regime.
Nevertheless, Hilse temporizes and believes in the realization of communism in an
uncertain future.
However, Muller stages Hilse's political utopia in such a way that it appears as a
figment of imagination in the ecstatic mind of a dying old man. He puts it into
perspective if he does not revoke it altogether through the theater in the theater that the
young mason and his girlfriend perform exclusively for Hilse.740
THE YOUNG MASON Say something!
Anything!
He's dying now.
GIRL
I can see them without eyes The young mason prompts her.
GIRL
Comrade.
The red flags - The young mason prompts her.
Over Rhine and Ruhr.
The dying mason smiles.
HILSE Isn't it too quite out there in
Friedrichsfelde?
MADCHEN NO. Sometimes we hear the children
play.
They play mason and capitalist.
HILSE laughs And nobody wants to be capitalist.
GIRL Right.
The heart sound has stopped. Silence.
JUNGERMAURER Du muBt was sagen.
Irgendwas.
Der stirbt jetzt
MADCHEN Ich kann sie ohne Augen sehn Derjunge Maurer souffliert.
MADCHEN
Genosse.
Die roten Fahnen - Derjunge Maurer souffliert.
Uber Rhein und Ruhr.
Der sterbende Maurer lachelt.
HILSE 1st es euch zu still drauBen in
Friedrichsfelde.
MADCHEN Nein. Manchmal h6ren wir die Kinder
spielen.
Sie spielen Maurer und Kapitalist.
HILSE lacht Und keiner will der Kapitalist sein.
MADCHEN Ja.
Der Herzton hat aufgehort. Stille.141
739
W 4/377.
Eke (1999,184).
741
W 4/377.
740
268
As the young mason directs and prompts his girlfriend who plays along and impersonates
the resurrected Rosa Luxemburg according to the dramatic plot of Hilse's political
Utopia, the performative act that resembles ventriloquy displays its own aesthetic status as
symbolically political performance. The young mason dictates to his girlfriend the
comforting words addressed to the old mason. As she repeats his words, she does not
seem to understand their meaning. In the face of his personal death, Hilse defers his
claim to individual and popular sovereignty and pins his hope for the return of the
revolutionary proletariat on the next generation. However, the revolutionary proletariat
may or may not reincarnate in the childrenfromFriedrichsfelde who prefer figuring as
the "good" mason to the "evil" capitalist in the communist version of cops and robbers,
according to the old wives' tale that the young girl tells him.742
The final scene, suspended between authenticity and inauthenticity, authentication
and rejection, political affirmation and humane consolation involves the audience in the
multiperspectival drama of disillusionment. Even if Hilse were a figure of identification
and empathy, the audience observes his deathbed fantasy through the prism of the young
couple's theater in the theater. The Utopian image of communism as a "children's
HA"!
game"
is merely the pipedream of an inveterate communist on his deathbed, an
infantile or senile delusion about the innocence and virginity of socialism devoid of
Stalinism and the entanglements into the paradoxes of absolute sovereignty. Owing to
aesthetic as well as historical and political misperceptions, Hilse's Utopia does not
The young couple may be "deeply moved" (ergiffen), Klussmann (1982,175), by Hilse's political
Utopia or Hilse's personal death. Their affirmation might just be a humane act of courtesy or deception out
of empathy, alleviating agony and providing comfort for the dying old man and warding off
disappointment. It may be "passive euthanasia" (Sterbehilfe) Domdey (1998,23).
743
Eke (1999,185).
correspond to any real development. It is an aesthetic anesthetic against political
disillusionment.
With the debacle of 1848,1918/9, and 1953 in mind, Muller gives over the task of
reformulating communism to his audience and urges them to overcome the limited
perspectives of the proletarian protagonists in the history play. Muller gives his audience
at least a vague hint. The GDR would survive through the rebirth of the Socialist Unity
Party in the spirit of the Communist Party of Germany from the Weimar Republic.
According to Hilse's eschatological communist catechism, Luxemburg embodied by a
pregnant prostitute is the Holy Virgin who will transform into the Mother of God and
give birth to the Savior who is the guarantor for the survival of communism in East
Germany in analogy to the deformed wolf who is the guarantor for the survival of
fascism in West Germany. The scene ends with standstill and silence; the heartbeat
stops, the eternal mason dies. As far as Hilse represents the orthodox communist
working class loyal to the one-party state and blind to Stalinism, his personal death
allegorizes the death of the revolutionary proletariat resulting from the failed attempt at
reconciling internal contradictions of the GDR and communist ideals with real existing
socialism. However, the children's game allegorizes Hilse's weak hope for the symbolic
rebirth of the revolutionary proletariat. Yet those who shape the present and future must
draw their own conclusions from the open-ended history play. Muller leaves open
whether or not the young couple shares Hilse's political belief in the final victory of
communism not to mention whether they or their children will put it into practice.
Critical distance and skeptic disillusionment prevail over hopeful affirmation.
270
Muller's homage to Stalin is ambiguous and bitterly self-ironical. On the one hand,
the victory of the Soviet Union made possible the institution of the socialist states and
raised hopes for the realization of the communist Utopia. On the other hand, the violent
suppressions of national uprisings in the Eastern Bloc and other political crimes
committed by Stalin's supporters since the 1930s that came to light after Stalin's death at
the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 belied all Utopian hopes. Instead of overcoming
the history of slaughter, whose last chapters were entitled Nazism and Stalinism,
socialism perpetuated it. Stalin, simultaneously victor over fascism and renegade of
communism, overshadows the history play as the absent Janus-faced figure of absolute
744
sovereignty.
After the euphoric new beginning under the banner of socialism and in the face of
Stalinism, Muller's genealogical analysis of German history calls into question the
Marxist philosophy of history that had lost credibility because of its false analysis of
fascism and misappropriation by Stalinism. Muller dramatizes the revision of the
orthodox Marxist philosophy of history as an aesthetic and political process of
disillusionment. Famously, Marx and Engels had welcomed the revolutionary proletariat,
a Utopian figure of absolute sovereignty in the socialist dictatorship spearheaded by the
communist party, as the 'gravedigger' (Totengraber) of the bourgeoisie in the Manifesto
of the Communist Party of 1848. However, the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR had
ironically turned into the gravedigger of the revolutionary proletariat. The working class
did not exercise absolute sovereignty over the workers' state.745
Eke (1999,179).
Schulz (1980,135ff.), Klussmann (1982,174).
In remaking Hilse into a "workers' memorial" (Arbeiterdenkmal),
West German
adolescents accomplish what the activist's colleagues had tried yet failed to do. Three
West German adolescents appear on the scene and stone the easy victim in the rhythm of
rock music. They add insult to injury, displaying the political hate crime as an "accident
at work" {ArbeitsunfalT) that allegedly follows logically from the work quota increase,
since, as the striking workers maintain, "Accord is murder" {Akkord ist Mord).747 Mtiller
glorifies the death of the inveterate communist who supports the state against the people.
The distinguished mason had self-ironically interpreted the attack on him as "the
acknowledgement of the working class" {der Dank der Arbeiterklasse) and an attempt "to
remake" him "into a memorial" (zum Denkmal umarbeiteri).748 Perpetuating the
Frederician mentality of subservience, he had sardonically offered his remains to be
erected on Stalin Avenue as a "replacement [...] for the old Fred" {Ersatzmann [.. .]fiir
den alten Fritz), that is, the memorial of Frederick II that he himself had removed. The
subject of the GDR symbolically claims absolute sovereignty yet submits to the absolute
sovereign, be it the enlightened monarch or the socialist state. Reflecting the historical
and political stagnation of the GDR as a process of "petrifaction" (Versteinerung),749 the
workers' memorial ironically symbolizes the abdication of the revolutionary proletariat
after the foundation of the socialist state. The metaphor of the workers' memorial in
Muller's history play records the abdication of the revolutionary proletariat from the
stage of world history. Yet it simultaneously reasserts the proletarian claim to absolute
sovereignty over society in terms of orthodox Marxism. It commemorates the symbolic
746
W 4/359ff.
W 4/364.
748
W 4/339.
749
Heiner Mtiller, Rotwelsch (Berlin: Merve, 1982), 87.
747
death of the revolutionary proletariat and simultaneously raises the weak hope for its
symbolic rebirth in anticipation of realized communism in an uncertain future.
As loyal GDR critic and orthodox communist, Miiller interpreted the national
uprising as a coup d'etat staged by reactionary and counterrevolutionary forces aiming at
undermining state sovereignty and abolishing socialism. He suggests that the situation in
the GDR escalated under the pressure of political propaganda from the Western media
rather than because of the legitimate political and economical demands of the East
German people. Accordingly, he marginalizes dramatic characters that support the
national uprising as opportunists, provocateurs, saboteurs, terrorists, nationalists, fascists,
or Nazis in his history play.750 Although he conforms to the official state party line in
part, he does not adopt the standpoint of the inveterate communists and pro-Soviet
hardliners from his history play. Neither the proletarian protagonists nor the antiproletarian antagonists arefiguresof identification and empathy for a critical audience.
Since there is no third alternative in the state of emergency, he must but cannot side with
one or the other side. In case of doubt, he is for communism. Although the inveterate
communists from the history play legitimize the socialist regime, he chronicles their
political disillusionment. Real existing socialism did not realize the communist Utopia.
As a consistent skeptic beyond affirmation or rejection, he contrasts optimism with
pessimism in his history play.751
750
W4/366f. Miiller (1999,132ff.).
Politically affirmative interpretations either exonerate Stalinism in the name of communism or reduce
the final scene to sentimental socialist realist kitsch by simplifying Mtiller's multiperspectival dramaturgy
that creates critical distance to Hilse's political utopia. Some argue that optimism outweighs pessimism by
underscoring the contrast between the negative genealogy of German history and the political affirmation
of the communist utopia. See Schulz (1980,132), Klussmann (1982,176), Eke (1989 and Eke (1999,183),
and Reinhard Tschapke, Heiner Miiller (Berlin: Morgenbuch, 1996), 88f. Matzkowski (2000). For a
discussion of this queston see Hans-Thies Lehmann/Patrick Primavesi (Hrsg.), Heiner Miiller Handbuch -,
Leben, Werk, Wirkung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003). However, the playwright himself answers the question as
751
273
The persistence of authoritarianism, statism, and totalitarianism in the newly founded
socialist state deferred the institution of civil society and the rule of law in the GDR.
Although the state triumphed over the people in 1953, its victory turned out to be its selfdefeat in the end. The causes for the political failure of the newly founded state lie in the
history of failed German revolutions since the Peasant Wars. The historical and political
contradictions of the past overshadowed the present. The state foundation was not really
a radical break with the past. Though projected as a counter-project to the history
German misery, the GDR was a stage thereof. The socialist state foundation in 1949 was
far from a compensation for the failed revolutions in the past. From the outset, the GDR
was neither able to reconcile the political divisions passed down by history nor able to
overcome the conflicting interests of the state and the people.
to the compatibility of the aesthetic "appetite for catastrophes" (Lust an der Katastrophe) and political
engagement as follows: "Wir leben davon, dafi die Welt so katastrophal und konfiiktreich ist." (Muller
1986, 57). Nikolaus Muller-SchQll, Das Theater des konstruktiven Defaitismus, Lektiiren zur Theorie eines
Theaters der A-Identitdt bei Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht und Reiner Muller (Frankfurt/Main:
Stroemfeld, 2002), probably captures Heiner Miiller's point of view best.
274
The Paradox of Sovereignty and the Aesthetic Form of Modern History Plays
The following conclusion summarizes the investigation into the paradox of
sovereignty in relationship to the aesthetic form of the selected history plays. Kleist's
patriotic plays represent the classical five-act drama at first glance, however, his antiidealist aesthetics of cruelty and sublimity combined with both romantic and grotesquely
comical elements foil classical German idealism epitomized by Schiller's historical
tragedies and theorized by Hegel's philosophical aesthetics. They follow the classical
illusionist theater of identification and empathy, however, in the service of the radical
anti-humanist aesthetics of cruelty and the extremist politics of absolute enmity and total
warfare instead of the humanist aesthetics of pity in the vein of the Enlightenment
dramatist Lessing. An audience informed by the early and late modern anti-illusionist
theater of estrangement in the vein of Grabbe, Buchner, Brecht, and Muller might put
Kleist's aesthetics into a critical perspective. It should recognize it as a political ideology
of domination that aims at evoking respect and admiration for the historical and dramatic
figure of absolute sovereignty and instill self-discipline in the ideal audience both in the
theater and political arena. Such external criticism may take the subjective
disillusionment of absolute sovereignty in Kleist's Homburg as an internal starting point.
Although it borrows the classical drama of illusion, Kleist's second patriotic play
overcomes it, as far as a critical audience may keep an aesthetic distance to the main
character's subjective illusions. We may, therefore, conclude that it represents the
precursor for the modern drama of disillusionment.
275
Contrary to German classicism in the vein of Lessing, Schiller, and Hegel—Grabbe,
Biichner, Brecht, and Mtiller do not only follow Kleist who uncoupled the aesthetic
discourse from the juridical and philosophical discourse of universal morality and made
possible radical aesthetics of cruelty and sublimity in order to glorify the phantasm of
absolute sovereignty. Yet—contrary to German classicism, that is, Lessing and Schiller,
as well as Kleist—Grabbe, Brecht, and Mtiller in particular invented the modern mixed
dramatic form of grotesque horror and satire to German literature and reject the political
phantasm of absolute sovereignty glorified by Grabbe and Kleist. Most importantly, all
playwrights except for Kleist criticize classical theater aesthetics in different ways.
Although Grabbe puts into critical perspective various claims to absolute sovereignty,
ranging from royal through popular and constitutional to imperial sovereignty, he
reaffirms Kleist's political dream about the German king of soldier's as the Active figure
of absolute sovereignty modeled after Napoleon. Brecht and Mtiller radically criticize
not only the classical theater aesthetics but also the politics of German nationalism,
imperialism, and fascism from the Wars of Liberation to the Second World War.
Kleist and Grabbe glorify principal sovereignty claimed by the Old Prussian
authoritarian state spearheaded by the absolute sovereign who rules over his subjects who
serve him as public servants without exercising civil and human rights in the tradition of
the French Revolution. By contrast, Grabbe and Biichner reflect on the paradox of
popular sovereignty by representing the self-defeat of democracy in the streets of Paris, in
the French parliament, or the Napoleonic corridors of power. Biichner in particular
refocuses from principal sovereignty to popular sovereignty and critically exposes the
divide between the state representatives and the represented people that reproduces the
276
classical divide between sovereign and subject in early modern representative
parliamentary democracy. Btichner demonstrates that the paradoxes of popular
sovereignty remain irresolvable in the permanent state of exception; rather absolute
sovereignty is paradoxically plural and transferable from faction to faction. The playful
self-differentiation of absolute sovereignty continues until Napoleon successfully
performs a coup d'etat.
As Grabbe's history play shows, the French Emperor does not only complete the
French Revolution and create the basis for modernizing the economy, law, politics,
administration, and army but he also betrays its political ideals of liberty, equality, and
fraternity by restoring the Carolingian Empire and founding a neo-aristocracy. However,
neither the kings nor the emperor, neither the people nor the constitution execute absolute
sovereignty in the end. The forms of government alternate in successive, spatially,
temporally, and logically limited states of exception. The different individual and
collective claims to absolute sovereignty undermine each other. Grabbe demonstrates
that the Jacobin claim to popular sovereignty reduces itself to absurdity, ridicules the
liberal claim to constitutional sovereignty, and puts the Napoleonic claim to imperial
sovereignty into an ironical perspective. Furthermore, he criticizes French monarchism
and imperialism by satirizing the Bourbon claim to royal sovereignty.
Similarly, Brecht and Mtiller criticize German Nazism by satirizing its claim to
absolute sovereignty. In addition, they criticize the Old Prussian phantasm of absolute
sovereignty and the Frederician mentality of subservience to the authoritarian state
glorified by both Grabbe and Kleist. Contrary to Grabbe and Btichner, who use the
aesthetic technique of multiperspectival dramaturgy and internal self-reflection, Brecht
277
and Muller directly involve the audience into the aesthetic play of absolute sovereignty.
Brecht parodies the classical theater aesthetics of identification and empathy in order to
satirize the Nazi claim to absolute sovereignty. Neither the Nazi gangsters nor the
dealers as their victims, not to mention other minor characters, are figures of
identification and empathy for a critical audience. However, since the parable play does
not go beyond but rather remains with its grotesquely comical shock effects of its satire
on absolute sovereignty, it does not propose any aesthetic or political solutions to the
paradox of sovereignty.
Contrary to Brecht who still harks back to classical drama even though critically,
Muller overcomes the three classical dramatic unities of space, time, and action more
fully. Similar to Buchner and Grabbe who represent the divide between the people and
their tribunes, he represents the divide between the political elite and the people in East
and West Germany. Muller ties in with Biichner as far as he demonstrates that the
paradox of popular sovereignty resurfaces not only in the Weimar Republic before the
Second World War but also in both East and West Germany after the Second World War.
Muller actively involves his ideally critical audience, particularly in East Germany but
also in West Germany, into the aesthetic and political process of disillusionment that the
main characters, from the Spartacus veteran through the imprisoned Communist to the
old mason Hilse and especially the young mason and his girlfriend, undergo in the history
play. Thus, he exposes the political idea to revitalize the stagnating GDR in the spirit of
Rosa Luxemburg as aesthetically illusory and politically Utopian. He directs his
grotesquely comical and shocking satire on absolute sovereignty against both Nazism and
capitalism, Hitler's Third Reich and Adenauer's Federal Republic. Like Brecht, he does
278
not propose any aesthetic or political solutions to the paradox of popular sovereignty in
either East or West Germany, except for German reunification under the political banner
of socialism. However, he presents this conceivable solution as aesthetically illusory,
politically Utopian, and without any correspondence to real history.
The critical history plays by Grabbe, Buchner, and Mtiller feature a great number of
dramatic characters in different historical situations and political constellations. Their
polymethic plots include many changes of location and time lapses. Their atectonic form
mirrors the paradox of sovereignty as far as different claims to absolute sovereignty
articulated by different dramatic characters that represent different social forces
undermine each other mutually. The complex constellation of dramatic characters and
the multiperspectival dramaturgy, especially in Grabbe and Buchner, puts individual and
collective claims to absolute sovereignty into critical perspective. Dramatic action, epic
dialogues, every day use of language especially in the crowd scenes prevails over poetic
self-consciousness of the tragic hero in the monologues characteristic for classical
historical tragedy in the vein of Lessing and Schiller. Compression of a series of single
episodes into a complex and multilayered plot prevails over the classical three dramatic
unities of space, location, and action. The combination of different forms, genres, and
styles, ranging from the tragic to the comical, from the sublime to the grotesque, from the
pathetic to the satirical, from the idyllic to the horrific, and so on characterizes modern
drama beyond comedy and tragedy in the classical sense. Although the paradox of
sovereignty is a serious legal, political, and ethical problem, history plays by Kleist,
Grabbe, Buchner, Brecht, and Milller contain many comical, ironical, and satirical
elements.
279
Miiller's Germania represents a conclusion in the genre history of the modern history
play. The situation shortly before, during, and after German Reunification is different.
The majority of political dramas written since 1989/90 revolve around current affairs and
daily politics.752 History play about German Reunification do not deal with the paradox
of sovereignty as the history plays investigated herein. Meanwhile, the issue of national
sovereignty seems to have lost its historical and political urgency after the Wende and the
age of European Unification. As a result, there are no aesthetic responses to the new
historical situation and political constellation of national state sovereignty. This may be a
sign that the German nation-state normalized, while other issues, social and economic
reform, for instance, are more pressing today.
The paradox of sovereignty, that is, singular violations of the law or even the
suspension of the legal order as a whole as conditions of possibility for law enforcement
and the preservation of the legal order, remains irresolvable in the aftermaths of
globalization, terrorist attacks, conflicts between liberty and security, and a widening gap
between the rich and the poor. Our investigation into modern history plays by Kleist,
Grabbe and Buchner, Brecht and Miiller has made observable how symbolically political
dramatizations and self-dramatizations of claims to absolute sovereignty use rhetorical
phrases and ideological slogans, theatrical gestures and postures, farcical plays and
spectacles in order to conceal the underlying paradox of absolute sovereignty. There is
no general solution to the paradox of sovereignty and every specific solution either
generates a new paradox or makes the initial paradox invisible.
Birgit Haas, Modern German political drama, 1980-2000, (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003).
Hellmut Hal Rennert, Essays on twentieth-century German drama and theater, An American reception,
1977-1999 (New York: Lang, 2004).
280
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