The Novel as Parable of National Socialism: On the Political Significance and Status ofHermann Broch's BergromanAuthor(s): David HorrocksSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 361-371Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3730536 .

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THE NOVEL AS PARABLE OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM:

ON THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND STATUS OF

HERMANN BROCH'S BERGROMAN

One of the earliest critical responses to Hermann Broch's Bergroman, George C. Schoolfield's pioneering essay of 1956, identified clear parallels between the action in the novel's fictional setting of the alpine village Kuppron and Hitler's seizure of power in Germany.1 Ever since, a majority of critics has accepted that the novel, in part at least, demands to be read as a symbolic portrayal of the rise and triumph of Nazism. Critics differ, however, as to the relative importance of the political strand in the novel or, where they accept it as primarily a portrayal of Nazism, their views diverge widely when it comes to assessing its validity. Thus, for Theodore Ziol- kowski, it constitutes 'next to Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus the most profound portrayal of the rise of irrationalism in Germany during the Hitler era',2 whereas Timothy Casey considers it to be 'on the face of it singularly unhelpful as an expose of Hitlerism'.3 The present article is designed to contribute to this debate, first by looking at what the novel has to say about Nazism, secondly by considering why Broch went about portraying the rise of the movement in the oblique way he did, and thirdly by examining the significance and status of the novel as a political statement.

The parallels between the action ofBroch's novel and the rise of Hitler have been most thoroughly explored by Paul Michael Liitzeler in three articles published between I976 and I978.4 The third, a compilation of the previous two, entitled 'Hermann Brochs Die Verzauberung im Kontext von Faschismuskritik und Exil- roman', contains the following fairly comprehensive list of elements that link Marius Ratti (the character who casts a spell over the inhabitants of Broch's imaginary mountain village) with Hitler and his seizure of power: Seine Gemeinschaftsideologie, sein irrationalistischer Blut- und Bodenmythos, sein anti- kapitalistischer Affekt, seine anti-erotische Gesinnung, sein Militarismus, sein Selbst- verstandnis als religi6ser Erneuerer und Erliser, sein Appell an die Opferbereitschaft, seine Rhetorik und Propaganda, die Behauptung des Fiihrerprinzips, die Behandlung der Massen,

1 'Notes on Broch's Der Versucher', Monatshefte, 48 (1956), I-i6. Schoolfield's article was based on the version of the novel edited by Felix St6ssinger and first published in 1953 by the Rhein Verlag, Zurich, a highly questionable conflation (under a title Broch himself never used) of three separate versions found in the Nachlafl. From the 194os onwards Broch predominantly used the working title Bergroman, which is that chosen by Frank Kress and Hans A. Maier for their critical edition of the three versions (4 vols, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt a.M., 1969) ). Only the first of these, finished early in 1936, is complete. The second, a revision carried out in I936/37, breaks off after eight chapters or roughly two-thirds of the plot, whilst the third, a further revision begun in 1950 in America shortly before Broch's death, extends to only five chapters. My article is based largely on the first version, for which Broch contemplated the title Die Verzauberung. Page-references in brackets are to the edition published under that title as Volume 3 of Hermann Broch. Kommentierte Werkausgabe, edited by Paul Michael Liitzeler, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt a.M., I976). The abbreviation KW is used for references in brackets to other volumes of the Kommentierte Werkausgabe.

2 Hermann Broch (New York and London, I964), pp. 28-29. 3 'Questioning Broch's Der Versucher', DVLG, 47 (1973), 467-507 (p. 506). 4 The first two articles were: 'Hitler als Metapher. Zur Faschismuskritik im Exilroman (1933-45)', in

Akten des V. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses i975, edited by L. Forster and H.-G. Roloff (Berne, 1976), pp. 251-57; 'Hermann Brochs Die Verzauberung als politischer Roman', Neophilologus, 6I, no. 3 (I977), III 1-26.

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Broch's 'Bergroman' and National Socialism

sein Biindnis mit den Oberschichten, sein Terror Andersdenkenden gegeniiber und die Verfolgung von Minorititen.5

The list is impressive, though the method of comparison is somewhat questionable, since the ideas and behaviour of Ratti are described in the terminology not of Broch's novel but of the historiography and theory of fascism, thus establishing connexions that remain to be proved. While 'Verfolgung von Minoritaten', for instance, clearly applies to Nazism, it is an unwarranted exaggeration of Ratti's persecution of one individual and his family, even though Broch is clearly alluding to anti-Semitism in his depiction of the plight of the Calvinist Wetchy, the dealer in insurance and agricultural machinery.

The other objection to such catalogues is that they tell us nothing of the relative weight attached by the author to the various elements concerned. 'Sein Biindnis mit den Oberschichten' is a case in point. The fact that Lax, one of the wealthier landowners in Kuppron, goes along with Ratti's scheme to reopen the old goldmine because he sees it as an opportunity to increase the profits from his sawmill is certainly evidence of Broch's awareness of the role played by economic interests in smoothing Hitler's path to power. Indeed, one could add to Liitzeler's list by pointing to the increased level of economic activity in the village after Ratti's arrival: the pub is full every evening. 'Das Geschaft geht', as the doctor remarks to Sabest, the landlord. 'Ja, der Marius ist ein groBartiger Kerl', is the reply. 'Jetzt fangt eine neue Zeit an' (p. I39). But it is more important to recognize that such economic factors are assigned only a marginal role in Broch's portrayal when compared, for instance, to the pseudo-religious appeal of Ratti.

It is also important to ask oneself how effective and convincing the portrayal of each element is. The militarism referred to by Liitzeler, for example, is obviously there in the training of the group of village youths by Ratti's henchman Wenzel and the sacred oath of allegiance they have all sworn. The growth of the SA is also mirrored in their rapid increase in numbers from fourteen in August to thirty or so in September, including some recruits from the upper village, until by October all the youths from Oberkuppron have joined up too. It is, however, questionable whether the reduction of the model to the village scale is really adequate to convey the impact of a mass paramilitary movement: whether it does not inevitably appear pathetic or even comic on this toytown level. This is certainly the impression conveyed by Broch's attempts to parody typical SA songs:

Wir sind Manner, keine Knaben Unsern Boden soil kein andrer haben Wir fluchen Handlern und Agenten Sie tun unsern Boden schanden WirJungen die Zukunft in Handen halten Ehren die Vater, hassen die Alten Tapfer treu und keusch und rein Im Sonnen- wie im Mondenschein.

(p. I64)

Most of the elements of the real thing as written by the Bluncks and the Baumanns are recognizable here, but the exaggeration for the purpose of parody of the kitsch features of the originals tends merely to trivialize them and rob them of all force. On the other hand, one could see this approach as a deliberate strategy on Broch's part:

5 In Broch Heute, edited byJoseph Strelka (Munich and Berne, 1978), pp. 51-75 (p. 58).

362

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DAVID HORROCKS

a way of indicating how such nonsense could readily but fatally be dismissed as harmless by the more intelligent, such as the doctor who narrates the events. This is certainly the case with the latter's repeated dismissive references to Ratti himself as being no more than a fool.6

Be that as it may, Broch's portrayal does have some considerable strengths, not all of which are recognized by Liitzeler. One is the way in which he shows that Ratti's success in winning over the villagers derives to a large extent from his ability to articulate fears, resentments, and prejudices that are already there in them. 'Der Marius sagt bloB das, was die anderen denken', as Wenzel puts it (p. I35). The point is later confirmed, albeit with somewhat implausible insight into his own situation, by the farmer Miland: 'Der Marius ist ein Mensch wie wir, Herr Doctor,... er ist genau wie wir, er spricht nur aus, was wir denken, den verstehen wir' (p. 226). In such passages Broch anticipates the view of Hitler as 'representative individual' which has been so persuasively argued byJ. P. Stern.7 He reinforces the point on a more symbolic level in a number of passages that stress similarities in appearance between Miland and Ratti, culminating in the farmer's description of the demagogue as 'einer, der mein Bruder sein k6nnte' (p. 225). This approach offsets to some extent the vision of Ratti as a magician who by virtue of an irresistible magnetism manages to bewitch everyone. In this sense the title Die Verzauberung, which Broch sometimes used, oversimplifies the issues as they are actually presented in the novel.

The associations of the occult, the demonic, and the irrational evoked by that title do find expression in the novel (one thinks of Ratti's skills as a dowser or of his hypnotic power over the girl Irmgard, or of statements such as the doctor's 'er behext die Leute' (p. I25)), but Broch resists the temptation to demonize the figure totally. He gives due weight, for instance, to the element of planning and rational calculation involved in Ratti's takeover. His diplomatic skills are stressed (p. 81), as is his political awareness in exploiting the legal path to power, which on the village level means via the parish council. He has no qualms about abandoning key principles of his ideology or key figures in his entourage when hejudges it expedient. Ratti the great proponent of blood and soil, and hater of all things urban, eventually enlists the aid of city lawyers and engineers for his mining venture, and he ruthlessly distances himself from his right-hand man Wenzel when the latter's illegal attempt to reopen the mine fails. All this gives the lie to Mutter Gisson's glib verdict 'ein Zauberer ist er, sonst nichts' (p. 172). Broch also makes it clear that Ratti's speeches, for all their moments of hysteria, are characterized by calculated role- playing, 'daB er zu jenen Narren geh6rte, die neben ihrem Irresein auch noch Kom6die spielten', as the doctor puts it (p. 212). The same figure cannot help admiring the techniques of stage-management that culminate in the general hysteria of the scene in which Irmgard is ritually sacrificed, especially Ratti's exploitation of pregnant pauses or 'Kunstpausen' (p. 263). Here Broch comes close to seeing Ratti as a brother in another sense: the fellow artist of Thomas Mann's 1939 essay Bruder Hitler.8

6 For example, 'das Narrentum des Marius' (p. 64); 'Zweifelsohne war er ein Narr' (p. 74); 'so ernst wie eben nur Narren alles ernst meinen' (p. 8i); '"Mein Gott, ein Narr findet viele Narren..."' (p. 178).

7 In Chapter i of his Hitler, The Fuhrer and the People (Glasgow, I975). 8 In a letter of March 1940 to Guiseppe Antonio Borgese, Broch later describes Hitler as 'ein politisches

Genie', pointing out 'mit welcher Meisterschaft er ... seine Triimpfe ausspielt, immer wissend, wann der richtige Zeitpunkt hiefiir eingetreten ist...' (KW 13/2, p. 173).

363

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364 Broch's 'Bergroman' and National Socialism

He identifies many other features both of the man and of the movement, too numerous to explore in detail now, but some of which can be indicated briefly. The notion of movement itself is one: the dynamic of'Bewegung', so beloved of the Nazis, which Broch alludes to in the constant repetition of the adjective 'beschwingt' to describe Ratti's gait, and in his characterization as 'Wanderer' in comparison with the sedentary villagers. The pernicious legal concept of'das gesunde Volksempfin- den' is another, clearly recognizable when Ratti, asked how the persecution of Wetchy squares with his professed ideal ofjustice, replies: 'Mit der habe ich nichts zu schaffen ... die [Hetze] ist einfach Volkes Stimme, aber das Volk ist immer gerecht' (p. I42). A whole complex of motives for this persecution (that is, the motives behind anti-Semitism) is also suggested, including the notion that the persecutor hates the persecuted because of a fundamental likeness between them. Mutter Gisson's gnomic words: 'Zwischen ihm [Ratti] und dem Wetchy ist kein so groBer Unterschied ... deswegen haBt er ihn auch' (p. I48) might be interpreted socially (Ratti is himself repeatedly seen as petty bourgeois) or psychologically (prejudice as transferal of one's own faults and weaknesses on to another) or even, if one is so inclined, in terms of what George Steiner calls 'the neurotic conjecture of some secret, fore-doomed relationship between Nazi and Jew'.9 Finally, one could add a number of other personal characteristics of Ratti that point to Hitler: what the doctor calls his 'Halbbildung', revealed in the half-baked mixture of ideas derived from Nietzsche and Otto Weininger that dot his speeches; the ascetic side of him (the non-smoking, non-drinking apostle of chastity) and, perhaps not unconnected with that commitment to chastity, the numerous allusions to his effeminacy and/or impotence.

What this list of features demonstrates is that Broch's symbolic portrayal of Nazism is remarkably wide-ranging, especially when compared with Thomas Mann's story Mario und der Zauberer, where the approach is primarily psychological, or with Brecht's parable play Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui, with its almost exclusively economic explanation of Hitler's success.10 Unlike these two authors, Broch can scarcely be criticized for ignoring the complexity of the phenomenon. Indeed, with the possible exception of theories of continuity of the type 'From Luther to Hitler' or 'From Bismarck to Hitler', Broch's model touches at some point or other on most of the features of Nazism to which historians (and so-called psycho-historians) have ever drawn attention. That said, however, if one is to avoid the trap of merely offering a catalogue similar to that of Liitzeler criticized above, the question still remains of the relative weighting of these features, and the degree to which they are successfully combined to form an effective political critique of Nazism.1l In other words, one needs to investigate the manner in which Broch chooses to present the complex matter of his novel.

9 'A Note on Giinter Grass', in Language and Silence (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 152-59 (p. 152). 10 The respective approaches of Mann and Brecht are interestingly compared in Anthony Grenville's

article 'Idealism and Materialism in the Representation of History in Literature: The Dictator Figure in Thomas Mann's Mario und der Zauberer and Brecht's Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui', Journal of European Studies, 17 (1987), 77-105. 11 Liitzeler's approach is criticized in similar terms by Norbert Mecklenburg ('Moderne Romanpoetik und konservative Metaphysik: Symbolisch-mythischer Regionalismus in Hermann Broch's Bergroman', in Erzahlte Provinz, Regionalismus und Moderne im Roman (K6nigstein, 1982), pp. 129-79 (pp. 152-53) ). I am indebted to this, by far the most detailed and cogent analysis of Broch's novel to date.

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DAVID HORROCKS 365

In the first place it needs stressing that the choice of the parable or model approach must have been determined partially by Broch's initial hope of getting the novel published in Nazi Germany. In a letter to Edith Renyi-Gy6mroi of the 4 November 1935, by which time thirteen of the fourteen chapters of the first version were complete, but not the foreword or postscript, he says he is desperate to finish the work before the coming war breaks out and 'daB ich sie [die Arbeit] unbedingt noch in Deutschland placieren will' (KW I3/I, 372). The Frankfurter Zeitung had in fact approached him in September I935 with a view to serialization of the novel before its publication in book form. Initially, though he was flattered by this interest, Broch seemed convinced that the newspaper would never print the work. 'Bringen werden sie den Roman zwar nicht', he wrote to his publisher Daniel Brody on 15 September, 'aber erfreulich ist es doch.'12 A month later, however, we find him informing Brody that he is writing the last two chapters, and adding 'dann kommt die erste Uberarbeitung, die fuir Frankfurt ausreichen muB' (KW 3/I, 362). Nothing came of the plan, partly because this first revision dragged on until early 1937 and was never completed, partly because Broch, in view of the deterioration of the situation in Germany (his Jewish publisher Brody emigrated in January 1936) quickly gave up hope of publication there, turning his eyes to England and America instead.13 None the less, his determination, as late as November I935, to get the novel published in Hitler's Reich suggests that it was to some extent deliberately encoded with a view to getting it past the censors. In view of this there are strong grounds for considering the novel in the context of Innere Emigration writing rather than that of exile, which has commonly been the case.14

Secondly, the parable form seems to have been dictated by a didactic intention even stronger than was usual with Broch. In his Autobiographie als Arbeitsprogramm of 194I he defines the hope underlying all his literary works in the period I928-35 as being 'die erzieherische Wirkung ethischer Dichtung'. These works 'bemiihten sich um exoterische Wirkung mit Hilfe dichterischer Mittel'. He adds: 'Insbesondere gilt dies fur einen Roman Verzauberung.' In this novel, he says, 'habe ich versucht, das deutsche Geschehen ... nicht abzukonterfeien, sondern es auf eine dichterisch einfachste Formel zu bringen' (KW 9/2, 248). This emphasis, together with indica- tions in letters that he intended the book to be far less analytical than Die Schlafwandler and was concerned to achieve a 'klare, einfache Zeichnung',15 suggest that he was determined to reach a much wider readership.

Thirdly, to judge from the commentary he sent to Benno Huebsch at the Viking Press in Spring I94o,16 he adopted a parable approach because he believed that attempts to portray instances of mass hysteria objectively, even if set in their

12 Hermann Broch-Daniel Brody: Briefwechsel i93o-i95i, edited by Bertold Hack and Marietta Kleiss (Frankfurt a.M., I97 ), p. 671. 13 See Broch's letter to Stefan Zweig of 27 March 1936, when he notes 'daB die Aussichten fur den

deutschen Buchbetrieb sich ... mit jedem Tag vermindern', and adds: 'Wichtiger ist zweifelsohne England-Amerika...' (KW I3/ , p. 401). 14 Paul Michael Liitzeler, having previously considered the novel in the context of exile writing, refers in

a more recent article to the years 1933-38 as constituting 'a sort of pre-exile' for Broch, adding that the author's retreat to villages in the Tyrol and Styria after I935 'bears the marks of both exile and inner emigration' ('The Avant-Garde in Crisis: Hermann Broch's Negative Aesthetics in Exile', in Hermann Broch: Literature, Philosophy, Politics. The Yale Broch Symposium, edited by Stephen D. Dowden (Columbia, South Carolina, I988), pp. 14-3I (p. I5)). 15 Letter of 8 September 1936 to Daisy Brody, quoted in Brochs 'Verzauberung', edited by Paul Michael

Liutzeler (Frankfurt a.M., 1983), p. 48. 16 Die Verzauberung (Roman), in KW 3, pp. 383-85.

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366 Broch 's 'Bergroman' and National Socialism

historical context, would inevitably result in empty assertions that such things occur, rather than saying anything meaningful about their true function and effect. He wanted to get at their roots. Paradoxically (and this is equally true of the theoretical work Broch did on mass behaviour in the early 194os) he insists that those roots must lie not in the masses as such but in the individual and his experience.

Here we have the reason for that other feature of the technique of the Bergroman which, apart from the parable form, is of key importance: the choice of a first-person narrator who is directly involved in and himself to some extent succumbs to the events he relates. The didactic aim is not to be pursued from a standpoint of superior knowledge, the narrative is no longer to be steered by any notion of'Der Erzahler als Idee' as in Die Schlafwandler, because, to cite Broch's commentary of I940 again, 'es hat auch keinen Sinn, fiber die Dinge "klug" zu reden' (p. 383). No insight is to be gained from a vantage-point of detached reflection. Only the individual who has experienced the events directly and emotionally can have anything of value to say: 'Nur die Einzelseele, welche zur Beute solcher Unbegreiflichkeiten wird, vermag hieriiber AufschluB zu geben' (p. 383). Of course, in the case of the Bergroman that individual cannot be the average peasant: peasants do not often record events in diaries, and hence the choice of the country doctor as narrator. He is capable of critical and self-critical reflection, but his medical qualifications do not guarantee immunity against contamination by the disease spread by the demagogue Ratti. Indeed, the very fact that he, as intellectual, is also threatened, will serve to underline the astonishing force of Ratti's influence. The similarity between the function of the country doctor in this respect and that of the narrator figure in Thomas Mann's Mario und der Zauberer is marked. Although Broch nowhere directly refers to this story, he did follow Thomas Mann's work closely from Der Tod in Venedig onwards, often commenting on it extensively. It is therefore reasonable to assume that he knew it.

There is, however, a crucial difference in the degree to which Broch exploits this technique compared to Mann. The narrator of Mann's story confesses only to 'einer gewissen Ansteckung' under the influence of the hypnotist Cipolla, and one never feels that he is in danger of leaving his seat to join the dancing in the aisles. Broch's doctor, in contrast, is totally involved in the wild dancing that precedes the killing of Irmgard. There is an equally important difference in the styles of the two narrators: Mann's retains a superior, ironic detachment almost throughout, whereas Broch's is much freer in the expression of his own emotional involvement, thus forcing the reader to live through the experience with him in all its irrationality, a point Broch stresses in a letter to Benno Huebsch of August I940 when explaining that 'die "Verzauberung" sich bemiiht, Massenwahnphanomene den Leser "innerlich" nacherleben zu lassen' (KW 13/2, 22I). This technique is not employed solely for the purpose of illuminating and thus presumably warning against the dangers of contamination by mass hysteria. It is also used to persuade the reader of the validity of those other, equally irrational experiences the doctor has, which ultimately make it possible for him to resist the appeal of Ratti. These are the influence on him of the supposedly higher wisdom of Ratti's great antagonist in the novel, Mutter Gisson, and his own mystical perceptions of a basically benevolent and loving divine principle at work in creation, which he arrives at through contemplation of nature.

This brings me to the religious aim of the novel that Broch constantly mentioned in his correspondence from the earliest days of its composition onwards. Writing to

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DAVID HORROCKS 367

Daniel Brody in October I934, for instance, he asks whether literature can still satisfy social needs, and answers in the affirmative, saying: Und zwar ist es in einer Zeit, die nicht und schon langst nicht mehr zu >>glauben< und zu philosophieren, d.h. religi6s zu denken vermag, deren tiefstes Bedirfnis jedoch nach Glaubenk6nnen geht und diejedes Surrogat dafir nimmt, ist es in und fur eine solche Zeit von auBerster Notwendigkeit, daB man ihr die M6glichkeit des Glaubensaktes, die Entwicklung des Supranaturalen aus dem irrationalen Seelengrund beispielhaft an wirklichen Menschen vor Augen fihre. (KW I3/', 300)

Broch considered that his novel really was capable of providing such a genuinely religious experience for the reader, as can be judged from his not over-modest statement in a later letter to Brody ofJanuary 1936, when he had just completed the first version: 'Ich habe den Eindruck, daB es wirklich der erste religiise Roman werden wird, namlich einer, wo das Religi6se nicht in Gottesstreitertum usw. liegt, sondern im Nacherleben' (KW 3/I, 385; the italics are Broch's own). In other words, the reader, through the narrator figure of the country doctor, is to be vouchsafed a religious experience which will counteract the pseudo-religious appeal of Ratti: that is, Hitler. To this end Broch will appeal to the reader's emotions with all the power of rhetoric at his command - a counter-rhetoric to that of the dictator. The section on the style of the novel in Timothy Casey's article is excellent on this, pointing to Broch's virtuoso use of'symmetrical syntax, parallelism and chiasmi... while relying above all, in his assonance and consonance, in his anaphers and alliterative Stabreim on the most primitive and effective principle of repetition' (Casey, p. 496). This could well, as Casey implies, be a description of the style of a Hitler speech. What the reader is subjected to is 'the incantatory voice of a hypnotiseur' (p. 499). The novel is thus not merely the account of a 'Verzauberung'. It is one in itself. When discussing the narrative technique of the novel, Norbert Mecklenburg rightly accuses Broch of 'eine Strategie, die den Leser entmiindigt' (Mecklenburg, p. I73), for the effect is dictatorial, and deliberately so. As such it is typical of Broch's tendency to attack Hitler on his own ground, as it were, whilst appropriating the dictator's methods. The same process can be seen at work in his later more directly political writings: his belief, for instance, in the need for 'eine Gegenpropaganda gegen die Propaganda des B6sen' (KW 13/2, 51 ) or his notion of 'totalitare Demokratie' (KW 13/2, 74).17

The rhetoric Broch employs in the Bergroman in pursuit of his wider religious aim inevitably detracts from its effectiveness as a political statement. Indeed, although the novel is conceived as a political act and the means used can, in terms of rhetorical persuasion, be construed as political, its ultimate message, for all the insights it may convey into Nazism, is profoundly unpolitical. This is certainly the case if the country doctor is accepted as Broch's spokesman, and there is every reason to do so, given the near identity of his views with those expressed by the author in essays and letters of the period. The doctor does show great moral courage in standing by the persecuted Wetchy (a stand that is all the more admirable because it involves his overcoming a strong antipathy to the man) but on the political level he is quite inactive when it comes to resisting Ratti. He is himself a member of the parish council, but stays away from the first meeting after Ratti's election and confesses that ideally he would like to withdraw from the body altogether, but as the local

17 Compare also Broch's essay of 1939 'Zur Diktatur der Humanitat innerhalb einer totalen Demokratie' (KW I, pp. 24--7).

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368 Broch 's 'Bergroman' and National Socialism

doctor, he cannot do so. Then, in the epilogue, he says he prefers not to think of the fact that Ratti is still a member. None of this is surprising in one who, when recalling his past love for the Communist doctor Barbara, can acknowledge his own 'heftige Abneigung gegenjegliches politische Geschehen' (p. 20I). Forjust one example of a similar attitude on Broch's own part one can turn to a letter written to Willa Muir in October 1934. He refers there to the 'Schielereien' (his word) of February andJuly earlier that year in Vienna as symptomatic evidence of his conviction that 'der Durchmarsch durch das Nichts beginnt'. Then he adds: 'GewiB, das ist nur Politik, aber wir sind hier in ein Stadium getreten, in dem man aufdie Politik nicht mehr nur sagen darf' (KW 13/I, 304).18

The reference to 'der Durchmarsch durch das Nichts' here makes it clear that Broch was still interpreting political events in the metaphysical light of the theory of disintegration ofvalues that he had developed during the First World War, and which played such a central role in Die Schlafwandler. Indeed, he several times pointed to the rise of Hitler as substantiating that fundamentally fatalistic and determinist theory of history. It is hardly surprising, then, to find him, in a letter ofJuly 1933 to Stefan Zweig, expressing the conviction 'daB die ganze Bewegung, die wir so schmerzlich mitmachen, eine notwendige Entwicklungsphase des gesamten abendlandischen Geistes darstellt, in ihrer autonomen Logik begriindet und daher unaufhaltsam ist, genauso unaufhaltsam wie seine schlieBliche Rickkehr zum Platonischen, was aber an die hundertJahre oder dariiber wahren wird' (KW I3/I, 24I). The same notion that 'all these things must come to pass' is expressed more than once in the Bergroman. It is there in Mutter Gisson's words, 'Erst muB der HaB kommen mit seiner Angst, dann die Liebe' (p. I75), and also in the doctor's view of Ratti as the unfortunate product of an inevitable evolutionary process: one of those 'Vorversuche der Natur, ihre unzahligen Fehlversuche, ehe ihr die Erzeugung eines wirklichen Genies glickt' (p. 64). A similar determination to see a meaning and purposiveness in creation is shown in the doctor's thoughts as he makes his way home at five in the morning, after experiencing the horrors of Irmgard's sacrifice and the terrorization of Wetchy and his family. After gazing up at the stars, he says: 'Sinnlos lag die Welt darunter, sinnvoll doch in ihrer Grausamkeit und Giite' (p. 291).

This fundamentally religious conviction on the doctor's part springs from a vision of nature which is neo-Platonic and mystical. In trance-like states he sees in the temple of nature all manner of correspondences from which he derives the idea of a divine unifying principle at the heart of creation. This in turn corresponds to that centre of the individual's universe, the heart, the source of a love which is seen as the only guarantor of true humanity. 'Die Mitte, ... wo das Herz ist' (p. 307), 'die Wahrheit des Herzens ... die Wahrheit der Mitte' (p. 308) are frequently invoked by Mutter Gisson as eternal values to set against the hatred appealed to and preached by Ratti, and the doctor, however vulnerable he may be to the latter's spell, basically remains convinced that the old matriarch's knowledge is superior: Und ich ahnte, daB es ein schlichtes und niichternes Wissen um das menschliche Herz ist und daB solches Wissen alles Gewesene, alles Seiende, alles Kiinftige in sich einschlieBt: denn alles was geschieht, geschah undje geschehen wird, ist Spiegel des menschlichen Herzens, und wer um das Herz weiB, der weiB um das Ur-Alte und um das Ur-Neue, kein Zauberer ist er mehr, 18 The same passage is quoted by Klaus Amann in his excellent essay 'Hermann Brochs Auseinander-

setzung mit dem Faschismus', in Hermann Broch. Das dichterische Werk. Neue Interpretationen, edited by Michael Kessler and Paul Michael Litzeler (Tiibingen, 1987), pp. 159-72 (p. I63). Amann's essay did not come to my attention until the present article was substantially complete.

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DAVID HORROCKS 369

sondern ein Erkenner, ein Seher, einer, dessen Wort, dessen schlichtes Alltagswort so stark ist, daB esjederzeit zur ganzen Natur sich zu entfalten vermag. Dies ahnte ich vor dem Antlitz der alten Frau, die mir gegeniiber saB und mich anlachelte. (p. 173)

That Broch himself shared these sentiments of his narrator can be judged from a letter he wrote to Frank Thiess on the same day (20 October I934) as that to Willa Muir referring to 'der Durchmarsch durch das Nichts'. To Thiess, Broch expresses similarly pessimistic views about the current situation, pointing out that more than ever mankind seems prepared 'jedem zu folgen, der von ihr Hingabe an irgend etwas fordert, selbst wenn dieses Etwas allgemein als Surrogat durchschaut wird', a clear reference to the pseudo-religious appeal of Nazism. But the only solution to the

problem he envisages is one of withdrawal and retreat into the individual self, and 'Das einfache Leben' that he recommends is described in a language strikingly similar to that of the country doctor in the novel: Aber wahrscheinlich ist es das schlichteste, einfiltigste, kleinste Leben, dem wir zustreben miissen: eine >Zernichtung< im Ekkehartschen Herzensgrund, eine Reduktion aufdas Nichts - und eine von der Zeit erzwungene Zernichtung und Reduktion! -, aufein Nichts, das nur mehr dem Individuellen angeh6rt und doch den Keim zu neuer Soziabilitat in sich trigt, weil jene Einfalt und Einfachheit auch die Liebe ist .... (KW 13/1, 307-08)

The 'Riickkehr zum Platonischen' may, as Broch had written to Zweig in 1933, be a hundred years or more away, but it seems that it can be anticipated at the level of the individual human being by a process of'Einkehr'. The only adequate response to the

painful experience of the times is a retreat into that sphere of simple humanity, to which Broch referred in the brief essay on Mythos und Dichtung that he sent to Thomas Mann on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday in 1935, the year he was writing the

Bergroman: 'Jener einfachen Humanitat, die vielleicht Liebe geheifen werden darf, vielleicht Giite, vielleicht Gottesschau, vielleicht, unaussprechlich schier, das zit- ternde FlieBen zwischen Mutter und Kind' (KW 9/I, 30-31). The mother and child evoked in this lyrical climax remind one that the novel itself closes with a nativity and the hope of the country doctor that Agatha and her newborn son might be an omen of'die neue Fr6mmigkeit..., die die Welt braucht' (p. 370). In its style (all too

typical ofBroch's rhapsodic vein) the phrase 'das zitternde FlieBen zwischen Mutter und Kind' reminds one of the fact that when he took his Matura Broch's German was

adjudged to be merely 'befriedigend'. In divinity, on the other hand, he was

'vorziiglich'.19 Earlier it was suggested that the Bergroman, as a 'coded' statement about Nazism, ought properly to be considered in the context of the literature of Innere Emigration. It is arguable that it belongs in that category on ideological grounds, too, given the emphasis placed on escape into Innerlichkeit by both author and narrator figure. Indeed, since that 'inwardness' is expressed in predominantly mystical and religious terms, it might be even more appropriate to assign the novel to Max Bense's category: 'Die theologische Emigration der deutschen Literatur'.20

It would, however, be unfair to finish on such a critical note without recognizing that Broch himself showed an awareness of some of the weaknesses in the novel that have been indicated above. Writing to Ruth Norden in January 1936, for instance, after completing the first version, he maintained that as a whole it was 'eine

19 See Paul Michael Liitzeler, Hermann Broch. Eine Biographie (Frankfurt a.M., 1985), p. 35. 20 In his Ptolomaer und Mauretanier oder die theologische Emigration der deutschen Literatur (Cologne and Berlin, 1950).

13

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Broch 's 'Bergroman' and National Socialism

anstandige Leistung', but voiced doubts about its chances of achieving much success, adding with nice self-irony: 'Die Geschichte ist wenig unterhaltlich, sie ist leider erhebend' (KW 13/I, 384). In October and November of the same year, when he was struggling with the second version of the novel in Alt Aussee, we find him several times bemoaning the fact that artistically the work has got out of hand, that he is incapable of producing 'einen einfachen anstandigen Roman' (KW I3/I, 429) of the type that he admires in contemporary American writing, or even in Vicky Baum. It is not that his talent is too small; rather, it is too great, 'aber die Verwirklichungskraft ist zu gering, und so gerate ich ins Bombastische' (KW 13/I, 429). The truly great novelists (Balzac, Zola, Dostoyevsky) have, he argues, always been 'schlampert und unkiinstlerisch' in their technique, more concerned with 'menschliche Vertiefung und Gesinnung' than with art itself (KW 13/I, 431). What he terms '"kiinstlerische" Schreiber', authors such asJoyce and Thomas Mann, are by contrast 'einfach Atavismen, viel mehr Plfischsofa, als man ihnen eigentlich zumutet, und leider muf3 ich mich ihnen gleichfalls zuzahlen' (KW 13/I, 433).

Self-criticism along these lines indicates that Broch was well aware that his original intention to produce a novel sufficiently accessible to a wide public as to have a direct influence had failed. That intention had in any case probably been thwarted by the practical impossibility of finding a German publisher after Decem- ber 1935. To go on filing away at the manuscript with the aim of bringing it to a state of artistic perfection was, he increasingly thought, in the worsening political circumstances of late 1936, positively immoral: 'Das Buch wird sicherlich ein richtiges Kunstwerk, aber abgesehen davon, daB die Fertigstellung doch bis in den nachsten Weltkrieg hineinreichen wird, fragt man sich unausgesetzt: wozu? warum? fir wen?, und das macht die Arbeit im Grunde unmoralisch' (KW I3/I, 431). In such a statement one can see a reason for Broch's abandonment of the second version of the novel and turning his attention in I937 to more directly political writing in the form of his Volkerbund-Resolution. The extent of his pessimism with regard to the possible political influence of works of art is indicated by a statement in a letter to Friedrich Torberg of April I943: 'Und wenn es um die politische >Erweckung? des Publikums durch die Kunst gehen soll - eine Erweckung, an die ich iibrigens nicht glaube, da sie von Faktoren neben der Kunst ausgeiibt wird -, so sind diese Erweckungsprodukte erst recht Kitsch; bloB Bucher in der Qualitit von >>Onkel Toms Hiitte? haben politischen EinfluB gehabt' (KW 13/2, 322).

Not only did Broch become increasingly sceptical about the possible political impact of his novel. During the years of exile in America, he seems also to have revised his views on the alternative religious experience it had been designed to afford to the reader. In his essay 'Trotzdem: Humane Politik' of I950 he is concerned to promote 'die Wiedergewinnung politischer Moral durch realpolitische Mittel'. The notion that 'eine allgemeine Wiedererweckung der Religiositit' can be of benefit in national and international affairs is expressly rejected. 'Viele Christen denken so', he argues, 'und merken nichts von der dabei mitschwingenden Blasphemie', and he adds:

... ein Glaubenswille, der sich zur Rettung der sonst an ihren politischen Siinden zugrunde- gehenden Welt einstellt, ist blasphemisch; solches Weltenlos kann durch Hinzufiigung einer allgemeinen Glaubenssiinde, wie eben die Erniedrigung des Glaubens zur politischen Ret- tungsaktion, nur besiegelt werden. Beten, das von der Not gelehrt wird, fiihrt- der katholische Austro-Faschismus mitsamt seinen 'guten' anti-hitlerischen Absichten war ein Beispiel hierfiir - zumeist zu noch gr6ferer Not. (KW I I, 393-94)

370

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DAVID HORROCKS

What is more, when he returns to the novel at the end of his life, Broch expresses fundamental doubts about literature's capacity, by exploring metaphysical issues, to satisfy what he had previously called 'Ungeduld der Erkenntnis'. In a revealing letter to Daisy Brody ofJune 1941, he recalls the fate of the character Nuchem in the third volume of Die Schlafwandler, the orthodox Jew who became attracted by the revivalist Christianity of the Salvation Army girl Marie, and suggests that he was misguided: 'Denke ich zuriick, so steht aufder ersten Ebene eine Aufforderung an den Juden Nuchem: "LaB dich von keiner noch so zarten Legendenhaftigkeit verfiihren, sondern bleib beim abstrakten Buch, bleib ein Jud, bleib bei deiner Thora."' Then he draws an analogy with his own attraction to literature: Aufeiner zweiten Ebenejedoch ist es eine Aufforderung an den Dichter: 'LaB dich nicht vom Heilversprechen verfiihren; Dichtung vermittelt Dir keine Gnade, vielmehr liegt der Gnadenweg in der Erkenntnis, und erst wenn du diesen bis zum auBersten ausgeschritten haben wirst, wird es dir vielleicht m6glich sein, zur Dichtung zuriickzukehren, nur daB du sie dann freilich nicht mehr brauchen wirst.' (KW 13/3, 335)

This denial of the redemptive potential of literature is tantamount to a revocation of the religious claims he had earlier made for the Bergroman. The lesson that literature is no pathway to grace, he adds, has become all the clearer to him now that, after many years, he is turning once more to the unfinished novel, as well as reworking old novellas for inclusion in another novel, Die Schuldlosen. He is, he considers, capable of better writing now, but adds: 'Es befriedigt mich nicht, wie es mich damals befriedigt hat; der darin liegende Erkenntnisfortschritt ist mir zu gering.'

The marked lack of enthusiasm for the Bergroman project here is matched by repeated complaints in the last eighteen months of his life that 'die Roman- schreiberei' or 'Dichterei' is interfering with the more important rational pursuit of knowledge in his political and philosophical writing. All the indications are that Broch's main motive for embarking on a third version was financial. Yet he must have been aware of the problems involved. In January 1938, when work on the second version had ground to a halt, he had confessed to Rudolf Brunngraber that with the Bergroman he had bitten off more than he could chew: 'Ich habe das Gefiihl, mich thematisch und formal einfach uberhoben zu haben' (KW 13/I, 492). The thematic and aesthetic difficulties he had failed to overcome in the first stages of composition still remained when he embarked on the third reworking, and (apart from a noticeable effort to cut out some of the 'bombast') there is little in the five chapters he completed before his death in I951 to suggest that he had come any nearer to solving them.

The original version, Die Verzauberung, whatever its merits as a parable of the rise of Nazism, was, as I have shown, profoundly unpolitical in effect. Although the situation it had been designed to expose was now a matter of history, Broch still claimed in a letter of February 1951 that, given time, he could make of the novel something as weighty as Der Tod des Vergil. But he was under no illusions as to its weight in the political scheme of things. 'Natiirlich ist es nur ein Roman', he now emphasized to AnneMarie Meier-Graefe Broch, 'und Du weiBt, wie ich dariiber denke' (KW 13/3, 526), a statement which shows that he had moved a long way from his position on the events of 1934, quoted above: 'GewiB, das ist "nur" Politik.'

37I

UNIVERSITY OF KEELE DAVID HORROCKS

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