The Lifeand Work of Gunter Grass AlsobyJulian Preece NINE LIVES:EthnicConflictinthePolish-UkrainianBorderlands(co-author) BRADFORDSERIESOFCOLLOQUIAON CONTEMPORARY GERMAN LITERATURE(co-editor) THE CAMBRIDGECOMPANIONTO KAFKA(editor) The Life and Work of Gunter Grass Literature, History, Politics Julian Preece ReaderinGermanandComparativeLiteraryStudies UniversityofKent palgrave macmillan ©julian Preece 2001, 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in hardcover 2001 First published in paperback 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging. pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. ISBN 978-1-4039-1608-2 ISBN 978-0-230-28660-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230286603 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Preece, julian. The life and work of Gunter Grass :literature, history, politics I julian Preece. p.cm. 1. Grass, Gunter, 1927-2. Authors, German-20th century -Biography. I. Title. PT2613.R338Z77 4 2003 838'.91409-dc22 [B] 2003061603 For my father Alan Preece, 1931-97 Contents ListofIllustrations ix AcknowledgementsandNoteonTranslation x Chronology xii Map: ThechangingshapeofGermany, 1937-90 xviii 1 Life andArt 1 Biographies: real andimagined 1 Multi-talentedart student 19 Artistic cross-connections 25 Idealists, absolutists andcrypto-socialdemocrats: the plays 30 2 Lives in History 34 Aworldnovel: TheTinDrum 34 Oskar's Danzigrequiem 37 Scandal 47 CatandMouse: isPilenz guilty? 50 AfterKafka- after Mann 56 Brokenbiographies: Dog Years 58 3 The Turn to Politics 68 Afamous youngman 68 Abrokencritical tradition 74 'I advise you to vote ES-PE-DE' 80 Writersandpoliticians 89 The studentrevolt 93 'Imeantmyselfjust asmuch': Bertolt Brecht in the crossfirein ThePlebeiansRehearsetheUprising 99 On cookingpigs' heads: ExhaustivelyQuestioned 106 'Burn, warehouse, burn!':LocalAnaesthetic 107 Sceptics andmelancholies:From theDiaryofaSnail 118 vii viii Contents 4 The End ofHistoryMan 127 Astate ofthenationnovel: TheFlounder 127 'Social-DemocraticRabelais' 134 FalseMessiah on Father'sDay 137 Feminismand TheFlounder 141 Writers andthe state, 1647-1979: TheMeetinginTelgte 145 Orwell's decade 150 Acritical intellectualin thepost-modernera 153 Exotic encounters 157 Fiction againstthebomb: TheRat 161 5 WrongSide ofthe Wende 170 The galloping Weltgeist 170 Grassandthe GermanQuestion, 1953-89 176 Burying thepast or melting-potutopia: TheCalloftheToad 180 Executionofan author 187 Fonty/Fontane:brokenbiographies in TooFarAfield 194 Makingsense- findingtruth 202 Postscript: 1997-2002 208 Notes 224 GuidetoFurtherReading 233 Index 237 List ofIllustrations 1and2. WithHeinrichBollat theSPDConferencein 1972.(Copyright Visum/Rudi Meisel.) 3. WithUte Grunert. (CopyrightVisum/RudiMeisel.) 4. Tastingsoup for TheFlounder. (CopyrightVisum/RudiMeisel.) s. FontyandHoftallerfrom TooFarAfield. (CopyrightVisum/DirkReinartz.) 6. Manuscriptpage ofTooFarAfieldwithdrawing. (CopyrightVisum/DirkReinartz.) 7. The writerat work onhis old Olivetti. (CopyrightVisum/DirkReinartz.) 8. The artistwith pipeandsketchpad. (CopyrightVisum/DirkReinartz.) ix Acknowledgements and Note on Translation IdeasforthisbookhavebeengerminatingsinceIfirststartedtoreadGermanandtravel to Germanyup to twentyyears ago.IfirstheardthenameGunterGrassat grammar school in Taunton and my thanks go to Michael Robinson for encouraging my interests in all things German. Denys Dyer took me through Grass's novels at university;DavidConstantine,whofoundhecould notapproveofmyauthor'sironic slipperiness, supervised my doctorate: my thanks go to both of them. My greatest intellectualdebt isto DieterStolzwhowilldisagreewithmuchofwhathe readshere butwithoutwhommyargumentswouldhavebeenmuchweaker.Othershave helped in other ways: Stuart Taberner, Chloe Paver and Colin Riordan kindly let me see unpublished research; Sean Allan shared his memories of Ralph Manheim; Susan Tebbutalerted me to OttoPankok;JohnWieczorekhelpedwithJohannesBrobowski andJ.H. Reidwith Heinrich Boll.My colleagues Osman Durrani, Martin Kane and Elisabeth Demleitner have been generous with advice and materials. George Stern demonstrated admirable thoroughness in proof-reading a draft of the manuscript, which greatly improved the finished version. Iam also grateful to Gunter Grassfor allowingme toviewhis correspondencewith Helen Wolffprior to itspublication. My research has taken me to a number of libraries in the UKand Germany. In particularIwouldliketomentiontheincomparablefacilitiesattheFreieUniversitat in Berlin,theeverhelpfulstaffat theInstituteofGermanicStudiesandtheGerman Historical Institute London and the Literaturarchiv in Sulzbach Rosenberg for helpingme gain accessto the correspondencebetween GrassandWalterHollerer. Somematerialused in thisbookhas beenpublishedelsewhere,albeitlyusuallyin differentform. Iam grateful to the editors of the following books and journals for permission to plunder the following chapters and articles: Arthur Williams and StuartParkesfor'LiteratureandtheEndoftheWorld: GunterGrass's DieRattin',in LiteratureontheThreshold:theGermanNovelinthe1980s(1990);theeditorsofJournal oftheKafkaSocietyofAmerica17(1993)for'The DangerofReachingThirtyforFranz Kafka,Josef K.andOskarMatzerath:KafkaesqueMotifs inDieBlechtrommel';to The German Monitor 47 (2000) for 'Seven Theses on DerFall Fonty'; and to the Modem LanguageReview90 (1995)for'Sexual-TextualPolitics:theTransparencyoftheMale Narrativein DerButtby GunterGrass'. Quotations from primarysources are with the kind permission of the publishers: the works of Gunter Grass, copyright Steidl Verlag;Max Frisch} DieTagebucher and Hans Mayer, EinDeutscheraufWiderruf, copyright Suhrkamp Verlag;Marcel Reich Ranicki,MeinLeben,ArnulfBaring,Machtwechsel, copyrightDeutscheVerlags-Anstalt; Peter Riihmkorf, TABU1 and DieJahre die ihr kennt, copyright Rowohlt Verlag; Peter Ruhmkorf, IchhabeLustimweitenFelde ...,copyrightWallsteinVerlag;Peter Schneider, Lenz, copyright Europaische Verlagsanstalt/Rotbuch Verlag; Hans WernerRichter, 1mEtablissementderSchmetterlinge, copyrightHanserVerlag. x