Hans Magnus Enzensberger, often considered Germany’s most important living poet, is also the editor of the book series Die Andere Bibliothek and the founder of the monthly TransAtlantik. His books include Lighter Than Air: Moral Poems, Civil Wars: From L. A. to Bosnia, The Silences of Hammerstein and History of Clouds
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A couple of anecdotes [extract from The Silences of Hammerstein]
The eighteenth century was the heyday of a shortform which today has gone out of fashion: the anecdote. Authors like Chamfort,Fontenelle and Lichtenberg made use of it. It doesn’t have a good reputation asa historical source. A pity, because anyone interested in characters and maximsshould at least give it a hearing, even if not unquestioningly believe it.
In her delightful, completely unpretentiousmemoirs, Hammerstein’s daughter, Maria Therese, relates of her father:
He has two huge index fingers, Butzi [Marie Luise]holds one and I hold the other and he goes with us to the Südwestkorso [inBerlin], to the horses which have been brought there from Moabit Barracks,places a piece of sugar on each of our hands and shows us how thumb must befirmly pressed against index finger, so that the horse doesn’t snap at it.Before 1914, that’s the only thing I can remember my father teaching us. (1913)
My parents are running round the breakfast table,which I’ve crawled under. She has the morning paper in her hand, and father ischasing after her because he wants it. I found that very unusual. Although Iwas only four years old, I understood that it wasn’t good news. The newspaperannounced mobilization. (1914)
One morning, my father looks through the door intoour dark bedroom. He’s wearing his helmet with the big white plume and istaking leave of us, before travelling to headquarters on the Emperor’s specialtrain. He was then a captain on the Great General Staff. (1914)
Maria Therese’s younger sister, Helga, adds a lessidyllic story:
In the big dining room with the greendamask-covered chairs from some castle or other and a very ugly table thatdidn’t match them at all. Papus [their father] is angry with us (Butzi and me),I no longer know what about, and hits us with the riding whip. The only time wewere hit—not very nice. (1921)
Maria Therese again:
One summer, my father had rented a place for us inSteinhorst near Celle.A part of the house, however, was occupied by a family that didn’t want to moveout and had barricaded themselves in it. They didn’t want to give up thekitchen and were defending their home by force of arms. My father entered theirdining room, likewise with a weapon in his hand. That’s the only time I saw himin a civil war-like situation, and in his own house at that. He had to gothrough a wearisome lawsuit, in order finally to get them to move out. And hehad even leased the house in order not to be burdened in the Berlin of those years with his big family.(1921)
A removal van has driven up: I run out and help themen by carrying in the dining room chairs. Afterwards, I hear Papus say aboutme: ‘Good-natured but stupid.’ It must have pained him that I didn’t run intothe new garden like the others. The impulse, not to be waited upon, was quiteforeign to him, the last ‘grand seigneur’. (1924)
From Berlin, hetakes us to Lake Stechlin. He shows us his father’s headforester’s house—it’s quite close. He knows all the trees and tells us theirnames: elm, alder, ash . . . He takesthe forest seriously. He gets hold of collapsible canoes and goes paddling withus. He’s happy in the countryside in which he spent his childhood and we aretoo. (1920s)
We only ever heard him talking at length when therewere visitors. He always let us sit and listen. I admired his knowledge, but,when it came to it, he always took Mummy’s side. Once he came into my room,which was between floors, to apologize—in the Tiergarten park, he had got soangry on one occasion that he had hit out at me with his walking stick. Becauseof the long separation during the war and after, he and Mummy hadn’t learned toaccommodate one another. Perhaps that also explains his complete silence attable. (1926)
He wanted a united Europe,was friends with Coudenhove-Kalergi. In a second world war, he said, Germany wouldbe partitioned. ‘Communism will come, but I shall try to prevent its coming foras long as possible.’ (1929)
His son-in-law Joachim Paasche relates:
He definitely had a taste for luxury. He loved hiscognac and a good cigar. In the Bendlerstrasse, he sat at the head of thefamily dinner table without saying a word, without moving a muscle. But he hadto laugh when I didn’t realize that we were served game and thought it wasbeef. I heard him say to the servant: ‘Let him bring me . . .’ I had neverheard this eighteenth-century form of command before. (1931)
His seven children were known for their wildnessand rebellious nature. And nor did he bear any similarity to the typical,hard-working and conscientious German. He liked people, often simply left hiswork lying and went hunting. (1931)
His self-irony, as anti-Semitism became rampant: ‘Ihope we’ll soon be rid of this Hitler, so that I can insult the Jews again.’ Atthat time, one could still permit oneself such a remark. (1931)
Margarethe von Oven, his secretary, later CountessHardenberg, remembers: ‘When I entered his office the morning after theReichstag Fire, he welcomed me with the words: “Of course they set it alightthemselves!” I was shocked and at first disbelieving. His response brought medown to earth: “So you’ve fallen for them too?” He and my mother were the onlyones who didn’t let themselves be taken in.’ (1933)
And Maria Therese recalls: ‘My father kissed metwice in his whole life: once in the hall, during the First World War, when hecame home on leave, and the second time, when I said goodbye to him in 1935,before emigrating to Japan.’
A posthumousconversation with Kurt von Hammerstein (I)
H: Youwanted to talk to me?
E: Yes.If you have a moment.
H: Timeis something I’ve plenty of. But what is it you want to talk to me about?
E: GeneralHammerstein, I have come across your name everywhere — in Berlin,in Moscow, in Canada . . . Your family . . .
H: Myfamily is of no concern to anyone else.
E: Buthistory, Herr von Hammerstein, in which you played an important part.
H: Doyou seriously believe that? For two or three years perhaps, then it was overand done with. Are you a historian?
E: No.
H: Anewspaper journalist?
E: Iam a writer.
H: Aha.I fear I don’t understand anything about literature. In my parents’ house, noone read any novels. And as for me, some Fontane, and, when I was in hospital,War and Peace. That was all.
E: Iam writing a book about you.
H: Mustyou?
E: Yes.I hope you haven’t got anything against it.
H: Myold Latin teacher always said that the poets lie.
E: That’snot my intention. On the contrary. I want to know exactly how it was, in so faras that is at all possible. That’s why I am here. Besides, it’s your birthdaytoday. I have taken the liberty of bringing you a box of Havanas.I know that you have a weakness for good cigars.
H (laughs): So you want to bribe me. Thank you verymuch. I don’t mind. Come in. As you see, my desk is bare. I have no secrets tokeep any more. What do you wish to know?
E: Perhapsyou can tell me something about your father-in-law, Herr von Lüttwitz?
H: Hewas completely lacking in imagination and politically a hopeless case. That wasclear to me the first time I met him.
E: In1904, in Berlin.
H: Correct.And then in the war, during my time on the General Staff. He was my superiorafter all.
E: Youhad difficulties with him.
H: Youcan say that again. Already in December 1918 — he was commandant in Berlin — he took quitebig risks.
E: Therevolution.
H: Ifyou want to call that mess a revolution. You can imagine that I didn’t havemuch time for the Spartakus people; but the marauding Freikorps were evenworse, and the old man allied himself with them.
E: Heput down the uprising. Is it true that his troops were involved in the murderof Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht? Your daughter Maria Therese remembersthat you rushed into the dining room and shouted: ‘Soldiers have thrown a womaninto the LandwehrCanal by her red hair.’
H: Quitepossible. The fact is at the time I was First General Staff Officer at BerlinGroup Command, and Lüttwitz was my boss. His favourite unit was the EhrhardtNaval Brigade, an altogether demoralized troop, and it has the murders on itsconscience.
E: TheArmy Minister at the time was the Social Democrat Gustav Noske, who coined thenotorious motto: ‘Someone has to be the bloodhound.’
H: Yes,the Communists liked to quote that sentence. They wanted to set up councilrepublics on the Soviet model. That would have meant civil war, which was, ofcourse, out of the question for me and my friends.
E: Youwere the ‘three majors’.
H: Wheredid you get that phrase from?
E: Brüninguses it in his memoirs.
H: Didhe? By that he presumably means Kurt von Schleicher and Bodo von Harbou, whom Iknew from MilitaryAcademy and the FirstWorld War.
E: Hewrites about you: ‘In the first half of 1919, these three majors, who were inconstant contact with one another, had a great, perhaps even dominant influenceon all important issues linked to military matters.’ He means that as greatpraise. You prevented a descent into chaos.
H: Well,he’s exaggerating a little there.
E: Ayear later, Noske, as laid down by the Versailles Treaty, finally wanted todisband the Freikorps who were leading him a merry dance. That didn’t suit yourfather-in-law.
H: Ofcourse not. He refused to obey orders. At that the minister suspended him, thatis to say, kicked him out. So then the old man mounted a coup d’état. That wason 12 March 1920. I remember very well, how he ordered the Ehrhardt Brigade tomarch on the capital and overthrow the government. He absolutely wanted me tojoin him.
E: Difficultfor you!
H: Why?
E: Yourefused.
H: Naturally.A brainless operation!
E: Youapparently did everything you could to dissuade him.
H: Itwas pointless.
E: Atthe time, your friend Schleicher was an important man in the Defence Ministry.He warned you against refusing to obey orders. ‘Think very carefully, you havefive children.’ And you are supposed to have replied: ‘Let them go begging, ifthey are hungry.’
H: Whosays that?
E: Yourson Kunrat.
H: Itmay be so.
E: Inthe end, your father-in-law even had you arrested.
H: Threeor four hours, then my people got me out.
E: Andhow did things go on?
H: Heused a figurehead by the name of Kapp. An insignificant, plump civil servantwith pince-nez and a wing collar, who had cosied up to Ludendorff (whoincidentally was also a flop).
E: Nevertheless,Lüttwitz and his Freikorps people occupied Berlin.
H: Mutiny.
E: Thechancellor and his cabinet fled.
H: Bauerwas his name. No genius either.
E: Andthen this Wolfgang Kapp installed himself as chancellor.
H: Hadno say. Lüttwitz had assumed supreme command of the Reichswehr, wanted to playat military government. The army of course didn’t join in. And the civilianscertainly didn’t either. They then organized a general strike.
E: Butthere were 2,000 dead.
H: Dirtybusiness. It was all over in four days. High treason! Fifty thousand marksreward for his capture — he was proud of that. Wasn’t easy for Maria, the wholething. Kapp, poor fellow, decamped to Sweden, and the old man took to hisheels. First to Breslau, then with a relative’s passport to Slovakia;passed himself off as a Herr von Lorenz. From there with a horse and cart overthe border to Hungary.Once a border guard who thought his passport was suspicious wanted to stop him.Galloped past and was gone. In the place where he found refuge, he met a cousinof my deceased mother-in-law and promptly married her. Heaven knows how he gothold of a genuine passport. With that he went back to Germany a few years later and hid with a priestin the Eulengebirge hills in Silesia.One day, the CID turned up, fifteen strong. ‘Where is the general?’ — ‘Noidea.’ — ‘His bed is still warm.’ Probably they weren’t that interested infinding him. But why am I telling you all this?
E: Goahead!
H: Naturallythree weeks later, as sure as fate, came the amnesty. Hindenburg had just beenelected President of the Reich and he made sure of that. My father-in-law evenhad the nerve to sue for back payment of his pension. And do you know what? Hegot it too. A bit thick. After all, he had beensentenced by a court for high treason. He kept his mouth shut for a while afterthat, until 1931. Then he saw a ray of hope again. The Harzburg Front suitedhim down to the ground, and, in 1933, he congratulated the Nazis on taking power.
E: Thatdoesn’t surprise me. He couldn’t stand Jews either.
H: Hewasn’t the only one. It was quite normal in the army. You should have heard thejokes of the officers in my regiment! No one thought it out of the ordinary.The French and the English were no different by the way. It wasn’t fanaticism —more a bad habit. By the time they realized where it led, it was too late.
E: Somenever learn.
H: Youcan say that again! But you misjudge old Lüttwitz. In 1934, after the Night ofthe Long Knives, there was a change. That’s when most of the old guard graspedwhat Hitler was capable of. And we went hunting again, Lüttwitz and I, as inthe old days. You probably don’t understand that.
E: Perhapsnot quite. But I’m doing my best. Nevertheless, may I ask you another question?
H: Goon.
E: Whatwas your state of mind, thirteen years later, on 3 February 1933, as you werewaiting for your guest at the Bendlerstrasse?
H: Mymood more than seventy years ago? Probably I felt like throwing up.
Extract from The Silences of Hammerstein. Buy your copy from here >>>
