[In the following excerpt, Kamla focuses on the ideas and career of Konrad Merz, an anti-fascist novelist who left Germany to write in exile.]

Konrad Merz numbers among the younger writers who made their literary debut in exile. Written shortly after his flight to Holland in 1934, Ein Mensch fällt aus Deutschland (1936), an epistolary novel, describes the traumatic experiences of the uprooted emigrant who attempts to find some purpose to his new existence. The semi-integrated status in which Merz portrays his autobiographical hero at the end anticipates his own situation after 1945. Merz never returned to Germany to take up the law practice for which he had studied prior to his exile. A brief visit to Berlin after the war was such a depressing experience for him that it apparently made him feel more alienated than the condition of exile itself.¹ Since the end of the war he has been employed as a masseur in a hospital near Amsterdam. Merz's second and last novel to come out of his exile, Generation ohne Väter (1938), unfortunately was never published. No doubt it would have shed valuable light on the author's treatment of the youth issue in the work at hand.

Born in 1908, Merz belongs to a generation of youth caught up in the wave of political extremism in the 1920's. The problem of the youth vacillating between the poles of radicalism and liberal humanism is new to the category of novel presently under study. Ein Mensch fällt aus Deutschland gives such unusual expression to this problem that one is tempted to write it off as a simple lamentation of an existential predicament followed by an irrational, dirt-throwing denunciation of the regime responsible for putting the hero Winter into this dilemma. It is not surprising that Merz's name remained a virtual nonentity among the population of exiled literati. Certainly the more established humanistic writers would have envisioned little meaningful protest arising from a novel employing images of excrement and festering limbs as an expression of defiance towards Nazi Germany. The representative spokesmen of the established “other Germany” could only have looked with repugnance upon such “vile anarchy.” Even Klaus Mann, a fellow younger writer always ready to promote new talent in Die Sammlung, would probably have drawn the line with Konrad Merz.

Despite this unfortunate nonrecognition, Merz is still very much a part of the exiled “other Germany” which sought to defend humanity against its barbaric abuse at home. But the astonishing way he approaches the dilemma of youth, seen in the dualistic position of Winter as both representative and defier of traditional humanism, undoubtedly accounts for this author's isolation among his contemporaries. Neither young nor old could have sympathized with a form of protest, emanating especially from the second half of the novel, that is divested of all reason—so it would seem. A critical glance at this highly problematic work is, therefore, long overdue.

As the novel opens we find Winter hiding out with his former classmate Heini, a left-wing anarchist wanted by the Nazis. Winter does not share his friend's radicalism; his alignment with this political fugitive is rather a sign of general protest felt by a betrayed youth. Essential to an assessment of Merz's intent is an understanding of Winter's historical insight into Hitler's rise to power. The protagonist does not seek to cancel out tradition through anarchistic revolt, as Heini and his clique of followers do, but recapitulates critically the developments leading up to and explaining the desperation expressed by his generation: “Weg mit dem Kaiser, her mit der Republik; her mit der Inflation, weg mit dem letzten Wohlstand. Dann die Scheinblüte, und dann blühten die Stempelämter. An jeder Haltestelle ein neuer Betrug. So war unser ganzes Leben: ein Fahrstuhl nach unten—und mit uns fiel auch unser Gott den Fahrstuhl hinunter. Dann kam Hitler: Erdgeschoss, aussteigen!”² We will see that Winter does not attempt to totally reject the past, but takes a position whereby he interacts dialectically with it. Merz regards him as a historical person, as one who criticizes the past but who also is a product of it. Winter emerges as a figure who must settle accounts with the old in order to bring about the new. Later in the novel he exclaims: “Dürfen wir auch deine Fehler lieben, Deutschland? Wir dürfen nicht: wir müssen” (77). Only by overcoming the mistakes of the past can a realistic future be envisioned, and the realization of a solution to the future will depend on the type of youth portrayed by Winter.

The dilemma confronting Winter in Germany is representative for those youth who did not seek to establish an identity in the late twenties and early thirties by taking extreme positions to the left or right: “Der Boden von Deutschland brennt. Schon fast ein Jahr lang wanken und fallen alle Balken in unserem Lande, und ich sollte so tun können, als ginge mich das wenig an? Oder ich sollte gar die Hacken zusammenschlagen, weil irgendein Stiernacken es befiehlt, mich bücken, ein krummer Hund werden, weil ich meine Dreigroschenhoffnung, mein ranziggewordenes Glück in Sicherheit bringen wollte?” (20-21). Dietrich, another school-mate of Winter's, typifies the dissatisfied youth who embarked on this reactionary path. Heini, the other comrade, has chosen the opposite road. The one will perpetuate the corrupt elements of society; the other, by the task assigned him to eliminate Hitler, will seek to eradicate these elements and, by committing this act, compromise the decency in man. The justification given this deed by Heini's anarchistic group recalls the revolutionary fervor of the expressionist generation (with which Merz felt an affinity): “Ein einziger Mensch müsse weg, damit Millionen leben können. Diese Tat sei nicht Mord, nicht Töten, sie sei Gebären, Lebenschaffen. Endlich sei es an uns, zu vollbringen, an der Jugend. Das Gesetz, darum ginge es, und das Gesetz seien wir” (15). Winter, an innocent bystander to this plot, interjects defiantly: “Eben um das Gesetzliche geht es. … Ihr kommt mir vor wie ein Verein für Selbstentleibung” (16). Still, Winter is linked by association to the conspiracy, and when the attempted assassination fails, he is forced into exile.

From a documentary standpoint, Ein Mensch fällt aus Deutschland sets the tone for the typical material problems of exile. An opponent of the Nazi regime must flee Germany to avoid imprisonment. Unable to make preparations for his exodus, he finds himself in exile without finances or passport. Since work permits are not issued to foreigners, especially to those who have crossed borders illegally, life in exile becomes a constant struggle for survival. Without identification papers the newly arrived refugee must avoid any confrontation with legal authorities; at the same time he is dependent upon the generosity of the guest country for his material existence. As so often happens, he must resort to peddling to earn a livelihood, an occupation which offers little assurance of continued survival.

In approximately the first half of the novel—before Winter sustains a leg injury and meets the Dutch physician Coy, the two incidents spurring him to defiant protest—the hero occupies an apolitical role not unlike that of certain other figures in the exile novel. The everyday problems of exile take precedence over a direct concern for the political oppression existing at home. The recurrent motif of “Durchhalten” in Merz's novel exemplifies a passive attitude emerging in other works, where numerous emigrants optimistically endure their misfortune in the knowledge that they will prevail if the Germany they once knew is to survive. In the initial stages of his exile Winter is portrayed in much the same way. A sense of responsibility towards the disgrace that has befallen Germany has not yet crystallized into open conflict. Winter psychologically withdraws from the present Germany by nostalgically seeking refuge in the past: “Deutschland. Ilse. Mutter. Aber nicht jenes Deutschland, ans Hakenkreuz geschlagen!” (62). (Ilse, the girl Winter left behind, eventually becomes an enthusiastic supporter of the brown-shirts.)

Merz's disjointed style initially reflects the personal conflicts related to the alienating experience of exile. Winter's flight from Germany is symbolic of a loss of identity. His experiences as an emigrant consist of repeated attempts to restore this identity, to establish roots in an antagonistic environment. His conversations, often internalized, serve the purpose of discovering whether he is who he is: “Ich sitze mir gegenüber” (36); “Ich sehe garnichts. Ich will ja nur … ja was will ich! Ich bin hierher gefallen … ich muss nun … ja was muss ich! Ich werde jetzt endlich … ja was werde ich!” (31). He finds himself in a perpetual state of movement, without direction or goal: “Da steht ein Baum. In der ganzen Strasse steht nur ein einziger Baum. Und nicht einmal dick. Er steht rechts, also muss ich nach links … nach links … nur nicht … bumm! In der ganzen Strasse steht nur ein einziger Baum, und gerade gegen den muss ich … ein richtiger Radfahrer würde ihn vielleicht garnicht treffen …” (39-40). Winter's inability to orient himself, to establish a self-identity, takes on the appearance of a timeless, universal uprootedness. Even repossession of his passport fails to alter his situation appreciably: “‘Staatsangehörigkeit ‘Preussen’. Ist das wahr? ‘Gestalt: leider vorhanden’. ‘Beruf: Ausländer’. ‘Farbe der Augen: verboten’. ‘Gesicht: unangenehm’. ‘Besondere Kennzeichen: Hat mächtigen Hunger’. ‘Wohnort: auf der Erde, postlagernd’” (76).

Merz's later departure from a treatment of an exile experience that is quasi-existentialistic to one that is violently polemic seems, at first glance, to lack structural continuity. We know from the pre-exile scenes in Germany that Winter is an active opponent of the Nazis, a fact born out by his association, however indirect, with an anarchist left-wing group. Why then should Merz delay the polemic aspect of the novel by spending so much time on his hero's personal encounters in Holland? Surely not for the purpose of leveling criticism against the red tape of a foreign bureaucracy. This aspect certainly presents itself, but there appears to be a more critical reason, one that ties in with Winter's experiences in Germany.

It would seem that Winter had been an exile figure from the very start, the result being that his actual exile status forms the physical extension of a spiritual uprootedness that had already existed at home. His search for identity already had its inception in Germany. Thus one form of exile, the inner, complements the other, the outer.

One might question the credibility of such a comparison by calling to mind the active political impression conveyed of Winter in Germany, an image hardly resembling that of an uprooted isolationist. Yet what Merz does is characterize Winter as a political opponent without a following. Winter's alignment with Heini signifies the spiritual bond of one youth to another, a bond which Heini vitiates, however, by his bloodthirsty anarchy: “Und … wenn ich kein Genosse bin von Heini, so ist er doch mein Freund, mein Bruder, ein Stück von mir: ich weiss in dieser Sekunde nicht einmal genau, wo er aufhört und wo ich beginne” (21). Winter's isolation is evidenced by his futile desire to champion a form of political opposition based on reason, on Gesetz, an undertaking naturally lacking aspirants in a period governed by irrationality and extremism. Winter's political stance, however noble it may be, was virtually outmoded at a time when the majority of German youth had swung to the left or right. In the second half of the novel the problem of Winter's dual exile experience assumes highly dramatic proportions, crystallizing in the conflict between the hero and both his radical peers in Germany as well as the humanistic “other Germany” whose idealistic tradition had indirectly brought on the disillusionment and resultant extremism of his generation in the 1920's.

That Winter includes himself as a member of a dissatisfied youth movement becomes clear in the one scene where he recalls the inspirational leadership of his fascist classmate Dietrich. Winter's relationship to Dietrich in school was marked by an ambivalence which in the present action of the novel helps to illuminate his conflict. On the one hand he identifies with Dietrich's rebellious pathos as an expression of freedom from the constraints of an unsympathetic system: “Er war der Apostel einer neuen Bewegung, die Deutschland Ehre und Kraft zurückbringen werde und Befreiung. Und danach suchten wir. Er steckte uns an, denn er war der Stärkste von uns” (143); yet he also recognizes the potential dangers erupting from a revolutionary fervor rooted in militancy and power: “Dann gingen wir mit ihm, Heini und ich. Und an diesem Tage wurden wir Feinde. Denn wo er Blut fühlte, fühlten wir Schminke, und wo er Taten sah, hörten wir Worte” (143). We know the path that Heini was soon to take. However extreme and irrational the political poles represented by Dietrich and Heini were, they still insured the group identity for which the youth of Germany had been searching. Ironically, Winter was forced into isolation because he foresaw the disastrous consequences. Idealism on the part of German youth was distorted into the partisan loyalties of communism and fascism. Winter stands, therefore, in opposition to the present as well as the past that had spawned it.

Merz characterizes this opposition by placing his figure in a double dilemma. On the one hand, Winter's insistence on reason and Gesetz implies a respect for the best of German tradition. This is revealed in his admiration for Goethe: “Man hasst ein ganzes Land und meint doch nur seine Krankheit. Und manchmal werde ich selbst irre daran, darum und darum soll es über mir sein, wenn ich mich abstaube, und wenn ich die Knöpfe an meine Hosen nähe, über mir sein, wenn ich meine Muskeln zurückschleppe in den Abend zu mir: das Bild von Goethe” (162). On the other hand, Winter literally profanes the machtgeschützte Innerlichkeit (Thomas Mann) of the recent German past for its failure to incorporate into reality the lofty ideals of its rich tradition. Merz leaves no doubt as to his polemic intent when, in a later episode, Winter assumes the duties of a “Kuhstallknecht” for a herd of cattle, one of which symbolizes the innocuousness of Germany's intellectual heritage: “Die Kuh Idealismus ist kurzsichtig, wir werden ihr eine Brille kaufen müssen, dieser abgemagerten Vergangenheit. Aber es lohnt sich nicht, sie gibt so unverschämt wenig Milch, sie wird wohl abgeschlachtet werden” (173). In this invective Merz is exposing a politically unconcerned society's ineptitude for dealing with the social realities of the day. Winter's admiration for Goethe and the travesty of idealism illustrated here are not to be construed, however, as contradictory. He is really opposing a regression to tradition, not its realistic application in society. It is an abstract idealism he makes a mockery of, one whose adherents had not put into practice the humane principles implied therein.

The other side of Winter's dilemma rests with his own generation. He is both one and at odds with the youth of his day. Whereas he identifies with his peers in their disillusionment over a politically inept Weimar Republic, many of whose constituents were descendants of the “rising” bourgeoisie under the monarchy, he cannot share the extremism underlying their desire to change things. Thus, when Dietrich is suspended from school for undisciplined behavior, Winter's reaction is one of both approval and rejection: “Wir wurden die besten Feinde” (144).

Merz goes so far as to idealize his main character by setting him up as a model of youth in Nazi Germany, but he also stains him with the guilt incurred by many members of his generation as they gathered in force to support the fascist movement. The last half of the novel shows Winter violently erupting from the twofold nature of his isolation. In the most loathsome of metaphors he proceeds to vent his wrath against a Germany for whose barbaric tyranny he expresses both guilt and rejection. Whether an “idea” workable for the future can be reconstructed from this extreme confrontation remains to be seen.

Werner Vordtriede has discussed various images and tones employed in the poetry of exile which can be partly exemplified in this novel, whose subjective, highly stylized language has a lyrical quality about it to begin with. Vordtriede refers to the emigrant lyricist who departs from a traditional art form by resorting to unesthetic metaphors. The artistic medium for conveying this iconoclastic imagery is the parody: “Dialektisch verbunden mit dieser schweren Traditionstreue ist die Exilparodie. Sie ist kein spassiges Randwerk, sie gehört zum Hauptwerk, ist Waffe gegen die Traditionsverderber zu Hause und zugleich ein Eigenkorrektiv.”³ Merz employs his language along similar lines whereby the polemic intent is to expose the inhumanity of Nazism through the evocation of dehumanized imagery. Vordtriede goes on to mention “Hassdichtung” as one of the extreme forms of parody in exile: “Der Exilierte ist zunächst selber nichts als ein Opfer des Hasses, er will nicht hassen, nur als Gehasster wird er zum Hasser.”⁴ This hate frequently takes on the form of animal comparisons: “Das Hassgedicht hat aber die Fähigkeit, das Scheusslichste, den Kot, den Dreck, dichterisch möglich zu machen.”⁵ And so we see Merz executing such language as a vehicle of protest and satire against the animalism of a soulless regime:

Jeder Fusstritt hat seinen Sinn, jede Blutsstrieme auf meinem Rücken hat ihren Wert. Saat unterm Schnee. Und sie wird aufgehen in jenem Sommer. Dafür bluten wir. Für jenen Sommer. Den wir vielleicht niemals erleben werden. Schon drei andere Säcke über dem Allerwertesten. Ob wir nun draussen bluten oder im Lande. Jeder Tropfen soll Saat sein. Wird Saat sein. Wir glauben es. Wir sind Dünger. Nur Dünger. Aber das sind wir!

(127)

Mein linkes Bein ist heiss. Es glüht wieder. Fieber. Dieser hündische Oberschenkel, der mich trägt. Und nicht tragen will. … Er will mich quälen, er will nach Berlin. Der Oberschenkel gehört mir.

(128)

Jetzt bin ich also Kuhstallknecht. Habe morgens und abends den werten Kühen den Strunk unter ihren Hinterausgängen wegzuschaufeln und abzufahren. Der wird dann draussen aufgeschichtet zu einem Denkmal. Die Kühe erkundigten sich erst, ob ich auch die Universitätsreife hätte, und nachdem ich ihnen das beweisen konnte, liessen sie mich, sichtbar befriedigt, an ihre Allerwertesten.

(167)

Immer wieder stampfte ich mit den beiden Dreckeimern an den Pfuhl und zog das Gestinke an den Tag. Es wurde nur langsam weniger, denn die Kühe legten immer noch mehr dazu, aus persönlicher Niederträchtigkeit; das floss durch die Rinne immer wieder in den Pfuhl. … Mein Körper war schwer wie selbst voll Kuhmist. … Ich möchte jedem, der mir in die Quere kommt, eins in die Schnauze hauen oder ihn abküssen. Bis zum letzten Vorrat.

(171-72)

Die Löcher an meinen Händen eiterten.

(174)

Als ich heute früh unserer werten Kuh Bügelfalte den Rücken säubern musste, schlug sie mir mit dem Schwanz ins Gesicht. Ich wollte ihr in den Hintern treten vor Wut, konnte es aber nicht, ich darf mich hier ja nicht mit Politik bemühen. Für Ausländer verboten.

(184)

Two related events incite Winter to action. Hospitalized with an injured leg as a result of an automobile accident, he comes under the care of a Dutch physician named Coy, whose German husband is languishing in a Nazi concentration camp. Winter's festering leg refuses to heal and he associates this rotting limb with Germany's sickness: “Die Krankheit Deutschland tut mir mehr weh als mein Bein” (87). His sense of guilt prevents him from reciprocating Coy's affections and he escapes from the clinic. Finding work on a peasant's farm, he wallows in self-chastisement, associating his malady with dung as a symbol of Germany's corruption: “Hier riecht es doch nach Kuhdung, nach Pferdeäpfeln, nach Dreck, hier riecht es doch nach mir. Ich bin aus Deutschland geflohen, geflohen, ich Hund … ich Hund. Ich will bezahlen” (110). On the farm Winter attempts, through self-inflicted pain, to overcome his affiliation with a diseased country. Dehumanized images of decay, rot, filth, excrement are evoked as an indication of his desire to remove his burden of guilt. He wishes to atone for Nazi Germany's bestiality by self-degradation, by writhing in pain as a martyr for the transgressions of a barbaric regime.

Merz does not depict these indignities as an end in themselves. Winter is no masochist. However grotesque the metaphors may seem, they demonstrate a definite polemic function. Merz is exposing a barbaric ideology by employing images appropriate to the situation. His hero's conflict evolves from a desire to overcome, to supercede, the fascist path his generation had taken: “Das ‘Dritte Reich’ ist nicht Deutschland. Man sieht nur die Pickel und nicht das Gesicht dahinter” (162).

The author does not set off the real Germany from the false one, but views them dialectically. “Wir sind dort und hier,” Winter states, “weil wir zu schwach waren, darum dort und darum hier” (149). That this antagonism does not stagnate, but symbolizes a dynamic struggle that begs for a historical solution is evidenced by frequent references to the future: “Was mir heute wehtut, das muss in Schweiss eingelegt werden für künftige Zeiten” (115); “wir werden zurückfinden nur, wenn wir überwunden haben” (149). The comparison between Winter's festering leg and a barbaric regime has a deeper level of meaning. By symbolically relegating Nazism to the level of decay and filth, Merz in effect strips his lampoon of all human qualities, thereby enabling Winter to overcome, and thus render nonexistent, any element of guilt—also a human quality.

This dialectical turnabout crystallizes in Winter's application of his festering limb—symbolic of his link with fascist Germany—to constructive action. A dynamic process associating past with future passes before our eyes in Winter's figurative working of the soil on the farm:

Und dann kommt der gute Morgen.

Der beginnt mit Unkrautrausziehen. Unkrautrausziehen, … das müsste jeder Mensch lernen, das müsste sehr zeitgemäss sein. … Das müsste man heute über die ganze alte Erde tun. Das wäre endlich ein Anfang. Oder ich muss Stangenbohnenpflanzen an die Stange binden. Damit sie aufrecht werden. Immer mit dem Köpfchen an die Stange. … Auch das müsste man über die ganze alte Erde tun. Gleich nach dem Unkrautrausziehen. Du siehst, … ich arbeite nicht nur für meinen Bauch, die Arbeit geht in kommende Jahrzehnte.

Und dann das Pflücken. Auch das will gelernt sein. Zum Beispiel die Erdbeeren …, die müssen mit festem Griff abgezogen werden. Aber das Pflücken, soweit sind wir auf der alten Erde noch längst nicht. Darum muss ich jetzt auch meistens nur Unkrautrausziehen.

(117-118)

The incisive critical tone of this passage reveals itself once again in Merz's use of dehumanized images as a means of exposing the inhumanity of Nazism. The complexity of politico-social ideas erupting from this symbolic process of nature is significant in that it underlines the basic structural character of the novel: by employing a negative form of protest (festering leg, “Unkraut”) Merz unmasks the debasement of a barbaric regime, also a negative condition. He does not oppose the inhumanity of Nazi tyranny by depicting his hero as a model of decency. Fascist Germany had viewed humanity as a weakness to begin with; only the irrational and instinctual in man counted. Accordingly, Merz engages in an invective that the Nazis would understand. At the same time he imparts a dynamic aspect to Winter's criticism, one which develops beyond this purely negative stand by virtue of the positive qualities he possesses. In the metaphoric scene just described Merz does not predict a utopian society after the corrupt, objectionable elements have been “weeded” out. Rather his optimism is matched by a critical awareness of the constant reappearance of these elements. The kind of society on which a future Germany must build—typified in the figure of Winter—is one that must also realistically contend with and eradicate those reactionary elements that thrive anew (“Unkraut”) even after they have been uprooted (the situation prevailing in Germany in the early thirties).

This interpretation is not as outlandish as it may first seem. In the scene which shows Winter reflecting on his school days with Dietrich in the twenties, reference is made to the type of apolitical bourgeois intellectual who ignores the blunders of the Republic and reminisces instead on the “good old days” of the Wilhelminian era: “In der Aula, vorne, über dem Pult, war ein Stehkragen, er erzählte etwas von Vernunft, und wir verstanden ihn nicht, er sprach gar von guten Zeiten und konnte wohl nur seine Gehaltstüte meinen, und dann pries er zaudernd und verlegen eine Republik, die nicht bestand” (143). These so-called pillars of society who had expelled the impudent Dietrich for crying “Deutschland erwache!” (144) were the same ones who eventually re-echoed this call by bowing to Hitler: “Jetzt sind wieder die dran, die mich damals aus der Schule geworfen haben, genau dieselben, sie haben sich nur mein Abzeichen angesteckt und andere Vorsitzende gewählt” (144). Looking to the future, after Nazi Germany (“Unkraut”) has been “eradicated,” Merz is quite perceptive in recognizing that the ills of society will not have been cured overnight. He envisions a future in which reactionary attitudes will continue to spread, but he also envisions a youth coming to maturity which, having suffered and learned from the past, will represent an enlightened, democratic segment of society that will retard the growth of reaction (“Unkrautrausziehen”), thus enabling the positive forces of society to grow (“Stangenbohnen,” “Erdbeeren”).

The most problematic area of the novel lies in Winter's sense of guilt over the wrongdoings of a movement he had denounced from the very start. Why should he bear the guilt of Nazi Germany's disgrace if he was not responsible for its emergence? The answer seems to lie in Merz's conception of youth in Nazi Germany. Winter acts as both heir of the old and harbinger of the new. As spokesman for the new he, by virtue of his own youth, must count himself amont the future leaders of Germany. Yet the new, the current moving force of history, has retrogressed to barbarism, a retarding state, and a part of Winter has fallen with it. The redeeming factor enabling Winter to transcend this backward state reveals itself in his humanity, that part of the “other Germany” that respects reason, justice, “Gesetz,” which draws on and realistically applies the humane principles of Goethean tradition. The struggle against Nazi tyranny is still being waged (“Unkrautrausziehen”), but Merz does not allow his polemic to stagnate into mere opposition. Very likely he was of the opinion at the time that the fascist hegemony would appear as a brief phase of history, that the forces of corruption would soon induce their own dissolution. Thus the images of degeneration, decay, putrefaction. Merz looks beyond this phase of barbaric tyranny, anticipating a future that will be better because of its critical assessment of the past.

One might still be inclined, however, to question the credibility of a figure like Winter in his relationship to the future. Is he not, in the last analysis, still an isolated type without a following? Does not Merz characterize merely a dynamic struggle of ideas that lacks realistic backing? Where is there an indication of a presence of social forces during this period that would lend credence to the type that Merz draws? Such questions are not without foundation. If the other types representing the majority of youth—the Dietrichs and Heinis—ended in extremism, then there is not much left to recruit from. Merz makes it quite clear that Winter's political opposition was nonpartisan. It would seem then that he does create an isolated figure lacking representation in reality.

But youths are impressionable. It was not they who concocted the truculent theories of Germanic supremacy, racial purity, blood and soil, Volk and Führer. The credulous youths of the twenties were understandably intimidated by a political program that promised to restore social stability and national esteem. And a typical enthusiast of the new movement was Winter's “best enemy,” Sturmführer Dietrich von Winterstein.

The relationship in this contradiction is not one-sided. The reverse side comes into play as well: that Winter is also Dietrich's “best enemy,” suggesting that a reciprocal attraction of the two exists and that Merz is not condemning the rest of youth while singling out Winter as the exception. Rather he envisages in youth as a whole a redeeming quality quite absent in the totally corrupt fascist leadership. Winter indeed becomes Dietrich's “best enemy” when the latter joins him in exile!

Dietrich's presence in Holland is self-imposed. Other functionaries of the SA had relegated him to a lower position and, infuriated over this indignity, he comes to his political enemy and school friend for advice. His behavior is decidedly ambivalent at first. He is still the dedicated Nazi who clicks his heels, dons his SA cap, and flaunts his title, but who, behind this facade, is also looking for a rational meaning to the movement he has joined. It is Winter who tips the scale from the false to the real Germany for Dietrich. In a grotesque boxing match, where Winter literally beats Dietrich to his senses, Merz constructs a violent ritual symbolizing the struggle between the forces of reason and tyranny. Winter's victory has synthesized the “best-enemy” dualism of youth in the novel. His friend's transformation, his “cleansing,” is not without psychological motivation, however. Prior to the confrontation Dietrich had exhibited an attitude towards humanity that directly refutes one of the main tenets of fascist ideology, namely, Jewish racial inferiority: “Du weisst, ich habe diese Seite niemals gedeckt. Ich habe denn doch zu grosse Achtung vor uns Deutschen, man hat mir niemals einreden können, dass sich 99 Deutsche von einem einzigen betrügen oder gar ‘unglücklich’ machen lassen. … Ich bin selbst aus zu reinem Geschlecht, als dass ich Judenhasser sein könnte. Diese habe ich jetzt kennengelernt. Davon gibt es im ganzen nur drei Sorten, sage ich dir: neidische Schwächlinge, perverse Schweine, und die dritten sind selber ehemalige Juden” (163). After a short stay in Holland, Dietrich returns to Germany on a humane mission whose failure is really envisioned as a victory. While attempting to free Coy's husband from a concentration camp, he is caught and imprisoned. Winter's optimistic reaction to Dietrich's incarceration reflects the victorious expression of a generation's united opposition to tyranny: “Dietrich im Konzentrationslager … Das Schicksal ist doch grösser als unser grösster Wunsch! Was ich nicht konnte, das wird dort … er wird dort … er wird dort vielleicht erwachen!” (195). The implication of this optimistic outcry is that many youths who had initially regarded Hitler as a symbol of Germany's future would soon realize their mistake and join together in opposition. Despite his incapacitation through imprisonment, Dietrich nevertheless symbolizes the will of youth to resist. The satiric polemic still carried on by the exiled Winter in his role as a “Kuhstallknecht” reflects the spirit of the resistance to be undertaken in Germany.

At this early stage of exile such an optimism was not so ill-founded. Merz was not the only writer who believed that the anti-fascist opposition of the “other Germany” was the verbal counterpart of the real battle being wged at home. Many exiled writers had entertained the belief that Hitler's hegemony would crumble once the German people had come to their senses. If Merz had written his novel at a later period, one would be justified in viewing his confidence in a defiant youth as politically untenable. For, as time went on, it became evident that Hitler's most enthusiastic following came from these very ranks. Merz's premises seem to have been sound at the time he wrote the work. Unfortunately, the remaining years until 1945 did not bear them out.

Notes

1. Merz states in a personal letter dated August 13, 1972: “Die Friedhöfe vom Krieg. Ostberlin. Kein Haus, wo er gewohnt hatte, war noch Haus. Nur das letzte stand noch da. Es sprach nicht mehr mit ihm. Die Erinnerung ist eine Lügnerin, sogar unsre Fotos noch sind Lügner. Die Zeit vor Hitler ist der Zeit nach Hitler entnommen.”

2. Ein Mensch fällt aus Deutschland (Amsterdam: Querido, 1936), p. 13. Subsequent references appear parenthetically in the text by page number.

3. “Vorläufige Gedanken zu einer Typologie der Exilliteratur,” Akzente, 15 (1968), 570-71.

4. Ibid., 572.

5. Ibid., 574.