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German Intellectuals and Politics, 1789–1815: The Case of Heinrich von Kleist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Gordon A. Craig
Gordon A. Craig
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

In January 1949, Thomas Mann wrote to a correspondent: “I must acknowledge the arrival of your book on Kleist and assure you of my earnest attention to it. Of loving attention I cannot speak, since much about this writer, even in your incisive study, strikes me as really dreadful; and, after reading it, I find I can warm to his genius less than ever… In the Hermannsschlacht…one can see what a hysterical—Goethe said hypochondriacal—spirit he was on the whole, and one recoils in horror.”

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1969 , pp. 3 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1969

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References

1. Heinrich von Kleists Nachruhm: Eine Wirkungsgeschichte in Dokumenten, ed. Sembdner, Helmut (Bremen, 1967), p. 468.Google Scholar

2. See, for instance, his letters to Christian Ernst Martini in von Kleist, Heinrich, Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, ed. Sembdner, Helmut (2 vols., Munich, 1961), II, 472–86. (Hereafter cited as SW).Google Scholar

3. Hamburger, Michael, Reason and Energy: Studies in German Literature (New York, 1957). p. 113.Google Scholar

4. Anderson, Eugene Newton, Nationalism and the Cultural Crisis in Prussia, 1806–1815 (New York, 1939), pp. 123, 127, 133.Google Scholar

5. SW, II, 719.

6. See, for instance, SW, II, 718–21; and Mayer, Hans, Heinrich von Kleist: Der geschichtliche Augenblick (Pfullingen, 1962), p. 38.Google Scholar

7. SW, II, 735, 737; Mayer, Kleist, p. 34; Joachim Maass, Kleist: Die Fackel Preussens, pp. 92f.

8. Wolff, Hans M., Heinrich von Kleist als politischer Denker (“University of California Publications in Modern Philology,” XXVII, No. 6, Berkeley, 1947), p. 459.Google Scholar

9. SW, II, 760–61.

10. Blöcker, Günter, Heinrich von Kleist oder das absolute Ich (Berlin, 1960), pp. 87f.Google Scholar

11. Anderson, , Nationalism and the Cultural Crisis, p. 127;Google Scholar and Kohn, Hans, Prelude to Nation–States: The French and German Experience, 1789–1815 (Princeton, 1967), p. 195.Google Scholar

12. Benn, Gottfried, Das gezeichnete Ich: Briefe aus den Jahren 1900–1956 (Hamburg, 1962), pp. 32, 35;Google ScholarDelling, Manfred, “Irrtum und Fehltritt des Gottfried Benns,” Die Welt Welt (Hamburg), 05 30, 1963.Google Scholar

13. SW, II, 771.

14. Ibid., p. 815.

15. On Humboldt and Müller, see, inter alia, Bonjour, Edgar, Studien zu Johannes von Müller (Basel, 1957), p. 198;Google Scholar on Voss, see Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, 1966), p. 669,Google Scholar and Droz, Jacques, Le romantisme allemand et l' État: Résistance et collaboration dans l'Allemagne napoléonienne (Paris, 1966), pp. 98f., III.Google Scholar

16. Heinrich von Kleists Lebensspuren, ed. Sembdner, Helmut (2nd ed., Bremen, 1964), p. 165.Google Scholar

17. SW, II, 782.

18. Kleists Lebensspuren, pp. 285f.

19. It had, indeed, been further inflamed by the fact that, as a result of one of the absurd incidents that recur in Kleist's life, he had been arrested by the French during a trip from Königsberg to Berlin early in 1807, and imprisoned for four months at Châlonssur–Marne on suspicion of espionage, a charge of which he was entirely innocent.

20. SW, II, 782.

21. See Fichte, J. G., Reden an die deutsche Nation, ed. Schneider, Herman (Leipzig, 1924), especially Addresses 8 and 12.Google Scholar

22. SW, I, 585 (Die Hermannsschlacht, lines 1496–1503).

23. See ibid., II, 675 (to Adolfine von Werdeck, July 28/29, 1801).

24. Wolff, , Kleist als politischer Denker, pp. 474ff.Google Scholar

25. See Kleists Nachruhm, p. 356. The critic was Arthur Eloesser.

26. SW, I, 585 (Die Hermannsschlacht, lines 1482–89).

27. Ibid., p. 593 (lines 1698–99).

28. Ibid., pp. 615–21 (Scenes 15–19). Kleist explained to Dahlmann that Thusnelda was a simple girl, like many of those taken in by the French, whose reaction was violent when the scales fell from their eyes. Kleists Lebensspuren, p. 301. One can imagine the “young country maiden from the Mark” in Kleist's second Satirical Letter acting in somewhat the same manner as Thusnelda. See SW, II, 368ff.

29. As was the anonymous reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement, Aug. 21, 1953, who described Hermann and Thusnelda as “slyer and more brutal than those whose badness was supposed to be demonstrated.” Cited in Kleists Nachruhm, p. 474.

30. SW, I, 608 (Die Hermannsschlacht, lines 2096–98).

31. Ibid., pp. 28–31.

32. Ibid., p. 28.

33. Ibid., pp. 26f.

34. SW, II, 354f.

35. Ibid., pp. 380–82.

36. Kleists Lebensspuren, pp. 293f. On the Emperor's jealousy of his brother, see Craig, Gordon A., War, Politics and Diplomacy: Selected Essays (New York, 1966), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

37. Maass, , Kleist, p. 218.Google Scholar

38. SW, II, 828.

39. SW, I, 32 (“Das letzte Lied”).

40. Berliner Abendblätter, herausgegeben von Heinrich von Kleist (Facsimile edition, with epilogue by Helmut Sembdner, Stuttgart, 1965), issues of Oct. 1 and 22, 1810.

41. Maass, , Kleist, pp. 239–53Google Scholar; Kleists Lebensspuren, pp. 370, 382f., 385f., 416. On Hardenberg's policy at this time, see Thielen, Peter Gerrit, Karl August von Hardenberg, 1750–1822 (Cologne, 1967), pp. 245ff.Google Scholar

42. SW, II, 857.

43. The story of the Berliner Abendblätter is told with great detail, but often with tendentious interpretation, in Steig, Reinhold, Heinrich von Kleists Berliner Kämpfe (Berlin, 1900).Google Scholar More accurate is Helmut Sembdner, Die Berliner Abendblätter Heinrich von Kleists (Berlin, 1939).Google Scholar See also Rogge, Helmut, “Heinrich von Kleists letzte Leiden,” Jahrbuch der Kleist–Gesellschaft 1922 (Berlin, 1923), pp. 34–50.Google Scholar

44. SW, II, 871.

45. von Kleist, Heinrich, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, ed. Samuel, Richard in collaboration with Dorothea Coverlid (Berlin, 1964), introduction, pp. 26–28.Google Scholar

46. SW, I, 704 (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, lines 1750–52).

47. Ibid., p. 707 (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, line 1830).

48. For his earlier views on these things, see SW, II, 584f., 626f., 681; Wolff, Kleist, pp. 363f.; and Hohoff, Curt, Heinrich von Kleist in Selbstzeugnissen und Dokumenten (Hamburg, 1958), p. 38.Google Scholar

49. See Droz, , Le romantisme allemand, p. 232.Google Scholar

50. Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (Samuel ed.), introduction, p. 10.Google Scholar

51. Blöcker, , Kleist, p. 202.Google Scholar

52. Kleists Nachruhm, p. 330.

53. SW, I, 698 (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, lines 1575–1587).

54. Historische Zeitschrift, LXXXVI (1901), 89ff.;Google Scholar and the comments of Ritter, Gerhard, Stein: Eine politische Biographie, Stuttgart, 1958), pp. 336f.Google Scholar

55. SW, I, 545 (Die Hermannsschlacht, lines 332–35).

56. Pertz, G. H. and Delbrück, H., Das Leben das Feld–Marschalls Grafen Neidthardt von Gneisenau (5 vols., Berlin, 1864–1880), II, 112ff.Google Scholar

57. Kleists Lebensspuren, pp. 441–43; SW, II, 879.

58. Thielen, , Hardenberg, p. 272.Google Scholar

59. Craig, Gordon A., “Wilhelm von Humboldt as Diplomat,” in Studies in International History, 3rd ed.Bourne, K. and Watt, D. C. (London, 1967), pp. 85f.Google Scholar

60. Pertz, , Gneisenau, II, 191ff.Google Scholar

61. SW, II, 878.

62. Ibid., p. 884.

63. Wallensteins Lager, “Prolog,” lines 65–66.

64. Hamburger, , Reason and Energy, p. 113. Compare Anderson, Nationalism and the Cultural Crisis, pp. 141–42.Google Scholar

65. Brecht, Bertolt, Gesammelte Werke (Suhrkamp, ed., 20 vols., Frankfurt am Main, 1967), IX, 723 (“An die Nachgeborene,” lines 6–8).Google Scholar

66. See, for instance, his letter of late November 1805 to Rühle von Lilienstern, where he asks: “Wo soll die Unbefangenheit des Gemüts herkommen, die schlechthin zu ihrem Genuss nötig ist, in Augenblicken, wo das Elend jeden, wie Pfuël sagen würde, in den Nacken schlägt.” SW, II, 761.

67. See Droz, , Le romantisme allemand, pp. 231f.Google Scholar

68. On the Expressionists, see Craig, Gordon A., “Engagement and Neutrality in Weimar Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History, II, No. 2 (1967), 49–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar