The exhibition by the Goethe-Institut and the German Academy for Language and Literature is based on ‘Double Life. Literary Scenes from Postwar Germany’ - a project of the German Academy for Language and Literature and the Literaturhaus Berlin, in cooperation with the archives of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, the German Literature Archive in Marbach and other partners.
According to historians, one thing is clear: in post- 1945 Germany, there was no such thing as ‘Zero Hour’. This notion, however, is not commonly expressed in literary discussions, especially given the term Kahlschlag (denoting deforestation or making a clean break) which is deeply entrenched in memory and the founding of the influential ‘Group 47’. One also tends to forget who set the tone in the west during the post-war years: they were poets such as Rudolf Alexander Schröder and authors acting in the role of literary functionaries and networkers, most famously Kasimir Edschmid (PEN-Secretary General and Vice-President of the German Academy) and Frank Thiess, who was involved in a controversy against Thomas Mann. In the Soviet Zone of occupation there was Johannes R. Becher, another prime example of a cultural-political functionary holding a variety of influential positions. The literary world at the time was dominated by 55- to 70-year olds, who asserted in the west they had gone into ‘inner emigration’ and returned from the Soviet Union in the east. There was no place in the west for the ‘younger generation’ or the returning émigrés. It was not until the mid-fifties that new contours could be identified, especially through the growing importance of the Group 47.
The exhibition takes a look at the major controversies of the time: the debate about Thomas Mann who had been treated with hostility for being a symbol of emigration, the meteoric rise of Gottfried Benn, who through his radical aesthetics and his focus on elitism and solitude offered mass possibilities for identification, the politico-aesthetic conflict between Becher and Brecht in the GDR, and the clash between East and West over German unification – the Writers' Congress in October 1947 in Berlin showing clearly that the two sides were irreconcilable. In the early years of the Federal Republic post- National Socialism, anti-communism was particularly important in creating a common bond in terms of domestic policy. Materials dealing with the history of the founding of the German Academy for Language and Literature in Darmstadt have been published for the first time, documenting the spirit of Germany under Konrad Adenauer. They also show how difficult it was to grow into democratic structures imposed from outside.
curator of the exhibition ‘Double Life’ works as reviewer and columnist
