HANNS HEINZ EWERS' VAMPIR:

A Thesis


KARIN WIKOFF 

Side Real Press Introduction:

  The final part of the "Frank Braun" trilogy; Ewers' novel 'Vampir' (published as 'Vampire' -John Day Co. 1922) is  a strange and confusing beast in its English translation compared with the two earlier novels in the series 'Alraune' (translated 1924) and  'Sorcerers Apprentice' (translated 1927)

    Of course there is still more than enough perversity, bloodletting and dream-prose to satisfy any Ewers' fan; but there is also a very definite political content, this almost entirely absent from the earlier novels, and its general prose style reads somewhat oddly in places.
    Comparison of the German and English versions reveals that the English edition was censored by person unknown somewhere along the line from the German to English, and a brief overview of this matter is given in John Hirschhorn-Smiths introduction to Ewers life in work published in 'Nachtmahr' (Side Real Press 2009) (also available as a Side Real Press Extra here) which drew heavily upon Karin Wikoffs' thesis for its information. 

    It is this thesis which follows in full  below. 
    Side Real Press would like to extend their thanks to Karin for allowing this material to be re-published online. 
    Whilst we have made every effort to ensure the text is accurate this file was recreated from scanned originals. Any mistakes are, of course, that of Side Real Press, and we apologise for any inaccuracies that may have been inadvertantly added  during this process.

WE SHOULD WARN YOU THAT VERY SERIOUS SPOILERS ARE GIVEN IN THIS ESSAY

HANNS HEINZ EWERS' VAMPIR:

A Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
Cornell University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts

by
Karin Elizabeth Wikoff
May 1995

Copyright K. Wikoff 1995

ABSTRACT

    If he is remembered at all, Hanns Heinz Ewers is remembered for his novel of supernatural sensationalism, Alraune. Ewers was, however, a prolific author whose many works included everything from novels to radio plays to newspaper articles to opera librettos to a fictionalised biography and film script of the murdered National Socialist Horst Wessel.
    Ewers' novel Vampir can be viewed as an idealised autobiography of the period of his life spent in the United States during World War I. It can also be examined in the context of vampire literature. Using Bram Stoker's Dracula as the standard, I compare the two novels, giving careful consideration to their treatment of female sexuality. Above all, however, Vampir is a political novel. Ewers uses the horror/sensation novel format to expound his unusual philosemitic/German nationalist views, as well as his opinions on the participants in the First World War. Ewers also presents an interesting blend of politics and horror as he equates the protagonist's vampirism with the bloodlust of nations at war. Finally I trace the history of Ewers and his novel Vampir through their years in Nazi Germany.  Despite his strong philosemitism, Ewers joined the NSDAP in 1931. Thereafter, he wrote two pro-National Socialist novels, Reiter in der deutschen Nacht and Horst Wessel. His relationship with the party was never very comfortable, and it wasn't long before his earlier "perverse" and pro-Jewish writings came to the attention of his fellow National Socialists.  All of his writings were eventually forbidden, including both Vampir and Horst Wessel. Although he remained a member of the party until his death in 1943, he died (of natural causes) disliked by both the Nazis for his pro-Jewish views and by non-Nazis for his associations with the NSDAP.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

    Karin Wikoff graduated from Wells College in Aurora, NY in 1986 with Bachelor of Arts in German, summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa and in the Special Field of German. She went on to study German literature at the graduate level at Cornell University for the 1987-88 year. While working as a Library Assistant in Cataloguing at Wells College, she continues to study at Wells — German and English literature, Russian language, Middle Eastern studies, computer science and arts. As part of her professional development, she has also attended numerous conferences, workshops and training sessions on a variety of library and information technology topics; most especially in the area of on-line information retrieval. She is currently serving on Wells' Internet Implementation Workgroup. She expects to graduate with a Master of Arts in German studies in May of 1995.

DEDICATION

For the many loving and patient people who have lent me their support and encouragement — above all my husband, Jack Wikoff, but also my mother, Judy Turner Hurlbert; my brother, Tod Hurlbert; Chair of my Special Committee at Cornell, Herbert Deinert; Member, Inta Ezergailis; my friend, advisor, co-worker and former professor, Ken Larson; and my understanding fellow library staff members at the Wells College Library: Thank you all for helping make this thesis possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER TWO: INVERSION AND PERVERSION: VAMPIR AS A VAMPIRE NOVEL

CHAPTER THREE: SUBVERSION AND CONVERSION: VAMPIR AS A POLITICAL NOVEL

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION: "VAMPIR AUF NATIONALSOZIALISTISCH": HANNS HEINZ EWERS AND THE NSDAP

REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

    Hanns Heinz Ewers, son of portrait painter Heinz and Maria aus'm Weerth Ewers, was born in Düsseldorf on November 3, 1871, interestingly, the first year of Germany's existence as a single unified political entity. He was destined to lead a wild and fascinating life, full of scandals, fame and infamy, only to drop into an obscurity so deep that he is almost completely unknown today. The bibliography of his works in Kugel's 1992 biography (1), including novels, essays, short stories, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, film scripts, stage and radio plays, an opera libretto and various other writings, covers 38 pages in tiny typescript. During his lifetime Ewers was the most-translated living German author, but very few recognise his name now. When he is remembered, it is as the author of a biography of Horst Wessel,which he wrote late in his life, his stint as a (philosemitic!) National Socialist; or occasionally someone will have heard of his novel, Alraune, the only item of his vast oeuvre still in print.
    Alraune is one of a trilogy of novels featuring Frank Braun, a character who served Ewers as a sort of alter ego. Michael Sennewald, in his book Hanns Heinz Ewers: Fantastique und Jugendstil describes Frank Braun as "zweifellos eine der aufschlußreichsten Gestalten des Ewersschen Werkes; denn in gewisser Weise ist Frank Braun ein Alter ego seines Schöpfers, ein nur oberflächlich verschlüsseltes literarisches Selbstporträt"(p.100).
    In the first two novels of the trilogy, Der Zauberlehrling (1909) and Alraune (1911), Frank Braun carries many of Ewers' personal characteristics, or at least those he wished to project: Frank Braun is worldly, sophisticated, well-travelled, attractive to women, immoral, intelligent, creative in a perverse way, egotistical, and detached. But these traits are altered and idealised to suit both the story and the author's ego. It is in the third novel, Vampir (1920), that Frank Braun's life and adventures mimic Ewers' own to such a degree that the novel begins to look autobiographical. In fact, whereas in the first two novels Ewers' personality is moulded to fit the stories, in the third the story is moulded to the events of Ewers' life.
    Ewers left Europe shortly before the outbreak of World War I, ending up in America, where he worked as a lobbyist for the German cause and also as an undercover agent. Frank Braun's life follows the same course in the first few chapters of Vampir, and it is here that Ewers uses Frank Braun to justify his own actions, almost defensively, against detractors (2) who claimed Ewers was a coward for running away from the war while his fellow countrymen were suffering and dying: Frank Braun is described as a hunter, traveller and adventurer who has fought in several wars just for fun, but who tries to dissuade a group of foolishly patriotic German-Americans from throwing away their lives in trying to get back to the Fatherland to fight, and justifing his staying in America as a better way to serve his country.
    Ewers is known to have made at least one trip to Mexico during the early years of the war to meet with Pancho Villa on behalf of the German government. Frank Braun also goes to Mexico, where he watches various animal fights in the bullring and observes the orgiastic behaviour of Villa's troops, describing Villa as a childish, sadistic gorilla. (3) Ewers' real journey was surely no less interesting. However, it is doubtful that he was single-handedly responsible for getting Villa to attack American cities, as Frank Braun is.
    During his stay in the U.S., Ewers befriended a variety of interesting people. Like the character Ivy Jefferson, he moved among society circles, but also along their fringes, associating with occultists, satanists (Aleister Crowley was a close associate of Ewers'), film and theatre people (including Thomas Edison, who was both involved in the development of early cinematography and interested in the supernatural), homosexuals and other sexual experimenters (homosexual rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld was also a friend), political and social radicals, and, of course, other authors. Among his long-term associates was George Sylvester Viereck, occultist and publisher of the strenuously pro-German Fatherland, who was the model for Frank Braun's friend, Tewes, a newspaper publisher and promoter of the German cause in America.
    Another real life character who shows up in Vampir is Adèle Guggenheimer-Lewisohn, Ewers' half-Jewish lover, upon whom Frank's mistress, Lotte Lewi-Van Ness, is patterned. Again it seems we are looking at an idealized relationship portrayed in such a way as to boost the author's ego. In Lotte's eyes, Frank Braun is so worthy that she is more than willing to sacrifice herself for him. Vampir is dedicated to Adele with typical Ewers-esque self-centeredness and arrogance:

            To Adèle G.-L.

            I fought with all; more then [sic] all — with you
            I suffered much; so, I suppose did you.
            And out of cruel wounds and bleeding years
            Grew forth this book, brimfull of love and pain.
            It is your book — take it with gracious hands! (p.5)

    We don't know just what Adèle thought of him, but Ewers' future second wife, Josephine Bumiller, whom he was also courting during this, did not find Ewers all that wonderful — she left him (though she never divorced him) after only a few years of marriage, and often wrote him letters detailing his many faults.
    By using Frank Braun as his alter ego, Ewers is not only able to present a more complimentary picture of himself, but he is also able to use him as a surrogate; Frank Braun can be an experimenter in a variety of perversions and other unsavoury activities which Ewers could not have gotten away with. This is particularly true in Der Zauberlehrling, in which Frank Braun causes the population of a small town to go into a religious frenzy, which culminates with him stabbing his pregnant mistress through the womb with a pitchfork as she is (voluntarily) crucified.
    The real perversions are a step further removed in Alraune — Ewers creates Frank Braun, who in turn creates Alraune, who sexually ensnares both men and women before destroying them. Here Frank Braun is more of a catalyst, someone who sets events in motion, then sits back and acts the detached observer, much as Ewers would like to have us view him, Ewers, as an author.
    In Vampir, Ewers has Frank Braun explore the possibilities of mixing sexuality with the drinking of human blood. This is one perversion Ewers may well have known first-hand through his association with Crowley. These excerpts, written by Crowley and quoted by his successor, Kenneth Grant, deal with vampirism and Crowley's Mass of the Phoenix:

    "The vampire selects the victim, stout and vigorous as may be, and, with the magical intention of transferring all that strength to himself, exhausts the quarry by suitable use of the body, most usually by the mouth, without himself entering in any way into the matter. And this is thought by some to partake of the nature of Black Magic.
    The exhaustion should be complete; if the work be skillfully executed, a few minutes should suffice to produce a state resembling, and not far removed from, coma.” (p.140).


Grant goes on to state:

“Crowley's partners were always willing; the act was never in the nature of an assault, nor did it give them anything but pleasure, as his Magical Record repeatedly shows. On the contrary, in the case of exceptionally vital and robust women, he considered it essential to their well-being to drain off superfluous energy.” (p.141).

    Taken with the fact that Ewers not only was a friend of Crowley, but also did any number of lecture tours touting Satanism, these passages throw an interesting light on the end of the novel. When Frank Braun drains Lotte's blood, almost to the point of her death, and receives strength from her in this way, he is following along the general path outlined by Crowley's ritual. (4) And further, Crowley's belief that robust women need to be sapped of their excess vitality falls right into line with the fear of women's (sexual) power that has been such an issue in vampire literature since Dracula.
    These issues — the connection of vampirism and sexuality, as well as fear of women's sexuality, and particularly Vampir's treatment of these topics in relation to traditional vampire literature — are the subjects of Chapter 2: "Inversion and Perversion: Vampir as a Vampire Novel."
    Frank Braun, as Ewers' surrogate, has another function to perform in Vampir as well. He can speak the political messages Ewers was not able to speak while he was in the United States, and many of which would bring him trouble later in Germany during the Second World War. This subject is covered in Chapter 3: "Subversion and Conversion: Vampir as a Novel."

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE:

(1) Kugel, Wilfried.  Der Unverantwortliche: das Leben des Hanns Heinz Ewers. Düsseldorf: Grupello,1992. All biographical information provided in this thesis is culled from this biography unless otherwise noted.

(2) Kugel writes: "Man hat es Ewers während des 1. Weltkrieges und auch zu Beginn des 3. Reiches zum Vorwurf gemacht, daß er nicht sofort nach Deutschland züruckgekehrt sei."(p. 202) Kugel names no specific detractors here. but he does quote a few, as well as Ewers' defensive response (in a letter to his wife), in a section on Ewers' return to Germany after World War I (pp.240-41),and also later in a section on Vampir's reception in Germany (p.246-49).

One should note here especially the parody by Hans Reiman: Ewers: Ein garantiert verwahrloster Schundroman in Lumpen, Fetzchen, Mätzchen und Unterhosen von Hanns Heinz Vampir. Hannover: Steegemann-Verlag, 1921, in which Reiman pokes fun at Ewers' motives for staying in America during the war. Kugel quotes from Thomas Wörtche's summary of the Reiman parody (from Wörtches doctoral dissertation on Ewers and Meyrink, Universität Konstanz, 1987): "es darf nicht übersehen werden, daß die Kempunkte seiner Attaeken in der in der Unterstellung bestehen, Ewers sei a) impotent und deswegen b) ein Pornograph und zudem c) ein Drückeberger vor dem Kriegsdienst gewesen."(Qtd.in Kugel, p.248)

(3) Ewers, Hanns Heinz. Vampir: ein verwildeter Roman in Fetzen und Farben. München: Georg Müller, 1920. p.166. Page references to Vampir will be to this edition except where otherwise noted.

(4) According to "Liber XLIV: The Mass of the Phoenix," published in an appendix to Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice (pp.329-330), this ritual involves the magician cutting his own breast, staunching the blood with a cake, and eating it himself. Grant's description in The Magical Revival (pp.137-142), however, implies that it was also carried out on willing others.

CHAPTER TWO:

INVERSION AND PERVERSION: VAMPIR AS A VAMPIRE NOVEL

    Frank Braun, a German caught in the U.S. during World War I, has contracted some mysterious ailment which makes him fatigued and lethargic, except when he has just been alone with a woman, especially his lover, Lotte. Sometimes he feels as though his mind and body are under the control of some outside force, and yet other times he is completely unconscious or has no memory of events. These sound not at all unlike symptoms experienced by the victims of vampires in prose literature, a tradition already about 100 years old when Vampir was written, and with folk tradition considerably longer.

The Tradition

    Traditionally, victims of vampires in literature first exhibit symptoms of lethargy, listlessness, and often languorousness; these all owing to an unexplained anaemic condition. Sometimes small holes are discovered on the victim's neck, though it often takes the characters some time to figure out that that is where the blood exited. In spite of a nagging worry about Lotte's little sharp knives which she keeps by her bedside, Frank Braun has no wounds in himself anywhere. And when he sees a doctor, he discovers he is not anaemic.
    Vampires also commonly cause their victims to do their bidding by placing them in a hypnotic trance, after which they remember nothing, or only vaguely remember in dreams. Frank Braun suffers from strange, vivid dreams, like those of a person taking strong hallucinogenic drugs. In addition to his periods of unconsciousness, he also finds himself acting against his own will, or for reasons unknown to him. For example, he agrees to be a speaker for the German cause, but he doesn't know why — at this point in the novel he doesn't have any particularly patriotic feelings, and often scorns those who do, though he does frequently express strong anti-British sentiments.
    But Frank Braun is not a victim of vampires; he is, in fact, a vampire himself without knowing it. His lethargy is caused by a lust for more fresh blood, and in his lethargic state he often finds himself yearning after something, something women have, but not sex, and he doesn't know what it is. Nor is it explained to the reader, though s/he can read between the lines — it is the women's blood he is after.
    The states of hypnotic trance and unconsciousness are likewise caused by his "disease", i.e. his vampirism. The disease seems to have a life and will of its own, causing Frank Braun not only to seek out blood to feed it, but ruling his will in social, political and personal matters as well. This isn't difficult, as Frank Braun hasn't much will of his own anyway.
    Another staple of vampire fiction which is at work in Ewers' Vampir is male anxiety about female sexuality. Early vampire stories, such as Polidori's The Vampyre(1819), or John Malcolm Ryder's Varney the Vampire(1845) have highly sexualised vampires, but they are all male. The threat these vampires pose is to females — to their virtue, their reputation and most frequently to their very lives. These women are utterly passive and never threatening to men. In fact, they seem to be, by and large, the same stock "heroines-in-distress" as are found in other gothic literature.
    The first prose story in English(5) with a female vampire is J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla"(1872). Carmilla is sexual and dangerous, but her vampirism has strong lesbian overtones. She is a threat to other women, not to men. Except for being female, she functions much the same way towards Laura, her victim, as her male predecessors do towards their victims.

Dracula: The Standard

Beginning with Bram Stoker's Dracula(1897), male characters are menaced by female sexuality, and specifically in association with their (the females') vampirism.
    Dracula is important because, as Brian J. Frost puts it: ",..[I]t has systemized the rules of literary and cinematic vampirology for all time,..." (p.52). For this reason then, namely that Dracula has established the conventions of vampire literature, including the theme of threatening female sexuality, it deserves closer attention.
    The scenario works as follows: Two young women, one after the other, become the objects of the vampire's designs. Both young women are recently engaged, placing them on the threshold of "legitimate" sexuality.
    In the first case, Lucy Westenra is repeatedly visited by the vampire, and rapidly declines in health; amongst her symptoms, she exhibits a certain languidity(pp.110,111,179).(6) In spite of strenuous efforts on the part of the men around her, she is soon dead (to this life).
    However, with her death, she has become a full-fledged member of the Undead — a vampire. She immediately changes from "sweet"(pp.71,76,101,103,110,130, etc.), "sensitive" (p101) and "sweetly pretty" (p76) to "voluptuous", "wanton" (pp.181,236) and "diabolical" (pp.236). In short, in becoming a vampire, she has become a "suddenly sexual woman."(7) Furthermore, she uses her sexuality in a threatening way, to try to entrap her former fiance and make him into a vampire as well:

    "...when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands.
    She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said: —
    "Come to me Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" (p.236)
    The men resolve their anxiety over Lucy's sudden lasciviousness in this sexually charged scene:

    "Arthur placed the point [of the stake] over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.
    The thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled up and spurted up around it. ....
    And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still" (p.241).

    It is interesting to note that while she is a vampire, Lucy is only referred to as "the thing," "the body," or "it" and never as "she", as if a sexual woman is not a woman.
    As Jeffrey L. Spear asserts, Dracula posits

a pristine, virginal womanhood that is gender without sexuality. But this womanhood's ostensible purity has no power to resist the vampiric possession that inverts those characteristics, producing what Phyllis Roth calls "sudden sexuality": an aggressive, non-(or pre-)genital, oral sexuality that can dissolve sexual gender distinctions, an appetite that overturns the presumed essence of womanhood by making women overtly sexual beings who will suck from children (p180).

    The view of female sexuality presented by Stoker in Dracula allows for two possibilities:  Women are either chaste and uninterested in physical intercourse almost to the point of being repressed, or they are wanton whores. The former are seen as desirable as spouses, the latter are desired, but feared. Furthermore, this unnatural dichotomy allows no in-between position for women with normal, healthy sex drives. As Cynthia Griffen Wolf notes, this split has become known as the "Virgin/whore syndrome" (p.98).
    As for Lucy, as soon as she is dead, truly dead and cured of her vampirism, and thereby also her sexuality, her "unequalled sweetness and purity" (p.241) return. The price for her sexuality has been her life, and the men all breathe a sigh of relief when it is over.
    The case of Mina is a bit more complicated, perhaps, as some critics have suggested (8), because of the anxiety caused by the male characters having actually killed the first woman, Lucy; there is a compulsive need to tell the story again with a more acceptable outcome.
    Mina is less sexually available to begin with. She is already engaged at the novel's opening, whereas Lucy is trying to decide between three suitors, and finds herself wishing a girl could have three or more husbands (p.71). Mina is visited only once by the vampire, rather than repeatedly. Mina has a stronger will than did Lucy, and is better at resisting Dracula. She does not become voluptuous, but after her undoubtedly sexual encounter with the vampire (kneeling upon her marital bed, she is made to suck blood from the vampire's chest), she becomes a threat to the group of men, including her husband, who are trying to hunt the vampire down. Dracula has made a mind link to Mina, who could then telegraph their plans, and could at any moment fall so much under his control that she could take an active part against the men. The scenario is finally worked out not by killing Mina, but by destroying the vampire, thereby freeing Mina of his influence. Now "de-vamped", Mina takes her place as dutiful wife and mother.
    Three more vampire women appear in the novel — Dracula's so-called "brides." Jonathan Harker, Mina's future husband, meets them at Castle Dracula early in the story. Described as voluptuous, coquettish, cunning, and animal-like (p.47-48), they arouse "deadly fear" and "wicked burning desire" (p.47) in Jonathan. It is their ability to arouse males sexually which make them so frightening.
    One of them takes the lead with Jonathan, in something of a parody of Mina's criticism of the New Woman, who "will do the proposing herself" (pp.103-104):

    "Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin." The other added: —
    "He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all" (pp.47-48).

    Nowhere is the fear of voracious female sexuality so clearly delineated.
   Later in the novel the same three vampire women menace Dr. Van Helsing, the leader of the band of vampire hunters. He goes to destroy, and as he gazes upon the first one, asleep in her coffin, he describes in his broken English the danger of their attraction:

    So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and fascination of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss — and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead! (p.407)

    Note that even in the passivity of their sleep he describes them as "wanton." Van Helsing solves the problem handily by hacking off their heads and driving stakes through their hearts.
    In all three cases: Lucy's, Mina's and the three vampire women's, Stoker gives a contextual justification for the male characters' fear of female sexuality (sexuality=vampirism=and death or "un-death" for the victims). This fear operates as a cover for male anxiety over a feared inability to satiate voracious female desire.   In the novel, the male characters work out this anxiety through vicarious sexual violence and destruction of the threatening females as a means to "cure" them of their "wantonness."

    Vampir Compared to the Standard

    Frank Braun, however, is not in the least perturbed by "wantonness"; he is a thoroughly modem man in the sense that he takes female desire for physical intercourse as a given. He leads a very free sexual life, as do his lady friends, without a care at all over conventional sexual mores or conventions. In fact, Vampir is entirely lacking the repressed sexuality upon which traditional Gothic horror literature hinges. As Eve Sedgwick Kosofsky describes:

    "The more traditional image of "self as depth, to which some Gothic conventions seem to answer readily, stems in part from a map of psychic topography derived from a reading of Freud. In this map the self, a vesicle of life substance, is separated from the surrounding reality by a thin membrane that, while formed from the life substance, has for protective reasons differentiated itself in several respects. To guard its contents against dissolution as a result of inner drives, it had developed mechanisms of defense, signally repression, by which the inner drives, signally sexuality, are denied expression and returned to the interior "unconscious." Trauma, or the rupture from without of the protective membrane, threatens dissolution through an uncontrolled influx of excitation; and its content too is often notoriously sexual.
    In congruence with this map of the self, critics of the Gothic, and not only those who describe themselves as psychoanalytic, ... group together on the one hand the surface, reason, and repression and on the other the depths, the irrational and the sexual (p.141).

    This is the crucial juncture — the point at which repressed sexuality threatens to break through to the surface world of reason in some monstrous form. Here fear of that rupture creates the tension which is the driving force of traditional Gothic horror literature.
    Frank Braun's sexuality is never denied expression. But that which is repressed, and which bursts out to the surface world (but without breaking into Frank Braun's conscious), namely, his blood-lust, gradually replaces his sexuality, and in so doing, becomes imbued with strongly sexual overtones.
    Every time Frank Braun drinks a woman's blood it is in a sexual context; he drinks only from his lovers while kissing or making love with them — in fact whether he actually has physical intercourse with most of them is not at all certain.
    Slowly, his passion for blood takes the place of his passion for sex, a perversion of the natural bond between men and women, but as he is unconscious of his own blood-lust, he is left with increasingly uneasy feelings about his relations with women. In his mind, he inverts the real state of affairs, believing his victims are a threat to him. This is not unlike the way women are sometimes considered dangerous because of their passive ability to arouse men. (9)
    After weeks of feeling weak and tired for no discernible reason, Frank Braun wakes up in the middle of the night and find himself in bed with Lotte, who is moaning quietly in her sleep. He thinks:
    "Aber anders wie sonst, nicht müde — frisch, o so frisch! Nur — eine Angst hatte er — eine grosse Angst. Und er wusste es gleich: es war eine Furcht vor der Frau da." (p.70).
    He also notices that there is blood on his lips. He feels right away that it is all somehow connected: the woman, the blood and suddenly feeling better, but for some reason it makes him fearful, and he runs away. The next morning Lotte tells him over the phone that she knows he is now well, but she won't tell him how she knows,  and furthermore, she tells him that she is not well and can't see him for a while. This only makes his vague suspicions and fears about Lotte grow.
    Frank Braun next encounters Emaldine Farstin, an opera diva, at a speaking event at which he is to debate with a famous Englishwoman about the war. Feeling extremely nervous and cowardly, Frank Braun is encouraged to have a drink. He downs a large glass of champagne, but feels no better. He is about to attempt to sneak away when he runs into the diva. On impulse he asks her for a kiss:

    “Er wartete nicht auf ihre Antwort. Er griff sie, zog sie an sich, wild, tierisch. Er riß ihre Arme herab, preßte seine Brust an ihre mächtigen Brüste. Faßte ihren Kopf, küßte sie.
    Er fühlte wohl, wie sich ihre Lippen öfneten. Er schloß die Augen, trank, trank diesen rasenden Kuß —"(p.81).

    Immediately he feels better. He goes on stage and starts speaking, but he doesn't know what he is saying; he sees nothing but red, and he hears nothing but the storm of the crowd. Afterwards he speaks with the diva, who hints at his strange taste in drinks as if he knows what she means.
    Then, after telling him that he bit her lips, she invites him to spend the night with her.
    If at first "die Farstin"is interested in Frank Braun's wild, animalistic passion, she soon discovers that he is more than she bargained for. After their night together, about which the reader is given no details (though we can well imagine), she refuses to have anything more to do with him. Frank Braun is left wondering about yet another woman.
    As  his "illness" progresses, Frank Braun's attraction to women changes; he begins to lose interest in them, though he is still drawn into their circles, but it is almost against his will. He lets Aimée Breithauer take him off to her private love-tent at the Moon-Ladies' orgy. She does finally get him to make love to her, (the only time in the whole novel he definitely has sexual intercourse), but not without a lot of hesitation on his part. He can't figure out why he isn't really interested, and though he makes up excuses to himself, it's hard to believe he really believes them.
    His confusion about women is increased when he takes mescal buttons and sinks into strange and disturbing dreams. He dreams of red, and of drinking, of women in danger, and dangerous women, of threatening, transforming polyps, and of sucking; the dreams contain all the answers, true and false, to his questions and fears, but all jumbled up and confused:

    "Sie tranken ihn aus — sie tranken ihn aus.... Und es war, als ob auch er sauge — wie die Weiber.... Und doch tranken sie ihn — sie, die Weiber." (p.311).

    He awakes from his dreams to find no less confusion in his waking life; the woman with him, Dolores Echevarria, is covered in blood, he remembers nothing, and Lotte is there accusing him of unfaithfulness.
    Lotte also has substituted the transfer of blood for intercourse, but she does it consciously. Her concern here is that Frank Braun has drunk the woman's blood, not that he did or didn't have sex with her (the woman is later proved to be a virgo intacta).To Lotte, drinking her blood, and her blood alone is what constitutes faithfulness. However, she explains none of this to Frank Braun, and this lack of communication between them eventually leads to their separation.
    Frank Braun is left in the hands of his wilful young American fiancée Ivy ,Jefferson. She notices his pining away after Lotte, and assumes it must be sex he wants, so she plans to seduce him. But Frank Braun has reached the point that the inversion is complete: he is yearning after blood (still not consciously), and his earlier hesitation and lack of interest has turned to disgust at the thought of sex:

    "Keine Frau hatte er berührt, seit er Lotte nicht mehr sah. Nicht wel er verlobt war — ach, darum hätter jede Nacht eine andere genommen.
    Etwas ander es war es. Furcht wohl — und ein wenig Ekel. Er gab sich nicht Rechenschaft darüber— es mußte wohl mit Krankheit zusammen hängen. Wenn er Ivy sah — oder irgendeine Frau — begehrte er sie nicht.  Manchmal nur durchzuckte ihn etwas — wie neulich beim Konzert der Farstin. Es war, als ober etwas wünschte von dieser Frau — etwas sehr Wildes, sehr Seltsames. Aber er wusste nicht, was es war — und ganz sicher war es nicht Liebe."(pp.392-93).

    He tries putting Ivy off. Then, when she insists, he tries getting them both drunk, but it is too late, and in a desperate fit of (unconscious) blood-lust he attacks Ivy; she then breaks off their relationship — without ever telling him why.
    Just why there are so many similar incidents of Frank Brauns drinking's blood — far more than are necessary to advance the plot — may be explained by a theory put forth by Doane and Hodges in their article about Anne Rice's vampire novels, but which can be applied, at least in, to other vampire tales as well: Vampirism in literature, with its obsession with (infantile) orality, is driven by a yearning for a return to "a dyadic union with the mother — a symbiotic union and reunion that never satisfies, ... and that is always experienced as lost because the relationship with mother can never be retrieved. So we get an obsessive repetitive tale that never progresses..." (p.431).

    Frank Braun's paranoia about women reaches its peak at the very moment his thirst for blood is at its worst. This paranoid fear of women, which is an inversion of reality within the context of the novel, is a deception Frank Braun subconsciously uses to mask his true nature. Therefore it is no wonder that it is at its strongest when his physical need for blood is making its most strenuous threat to break down the barrier he has thrown up to hide the truth from himself.
    Because he is compelled toward her by his desire for her blood, Frank Braun is unable to stay away from Lotte. But at the same time, because of his inverted view of reality, he doesn't trust her alone with him. As the tension of this conflict builds, he gives in to her pleading and agrees to spend the night at her house. Almost hysterical with fear, he locks himself into his room, barricading it against attacks from the outside — specifically from Lotte. The tension driving Frank Braun's near-hysteria derives in part from how close the truth is to making itself known to him. His locking himself in, ostensibly to protect himself against Lotte, can also be viewed as a subconscious attempt to contain, on the physical level, himself, and, on the psychical level, the truth, namely that he is the monster.
    In his desire to hang onto the belief that he is the passive (therefore gendered female) victim, Frank Braun places himself in what can be read as a female space — a locked room, barricaded against penetration from without,(10 )when, in fact, the real object of his fear, himself, is locked in him.
    Lotte, on the other hand, possesses the truth about Frank Braun. By all rights, she ought to be afraid of him. Instead, she actively encourages him to stay with her, knowing and wanting him to drink her blood. He does, and in the ultimate sado-masochistic perversion, on what is very nearly her deathbed, Lotte thanks Frank Braun for what he has done to her:

    Aber sie lächelte. Hauchte: "Soviel Milch trankst du, mein lieber Junge!  Soviel rote Milch!"   Zärtlich, so zärtlich streichelte ihn ihr Blick.
...
    — Dann kam Dr. Cohn. Aber ehe sie sich noch an den Arzt wandte, flüsterte sie: "Nun geh, mein Freund. Du wirst deinen Zug noch erreichen. Geh!"
    "Ich bleibe!" riefer.
    Aber sie schüttelte langsam den Kopf. "Nein, du muß gehn. Ich will es. Denk an mich!"
    Ganz leicht streichelten ihre Hände sein Haar, küßten ihre Lippen seine Augen. "Leb wohl,' hauchte sie, "leb wohl, Junge. Ich - danke dir!"(pp.466-67)

    Whereas fear of the threatening female is contextually justified in Dracula, it is textually justified in Vampir. It is specifically a manuscript — a text — prepared by Frank Braun's friend, Professor von Kachele, which brings Frank Braun's vague suspicions into focus as a fear of threatening females.
    Von Kachele occupies a very similar role in Vampir as Professor Van Helsing in Dracula. Each one is an older, more experienced man, who has spent much time delving into obscure and arcane knowledge, particularly of an occult nature. Each of them serves to deliver the lesson that one must be prepared to believe the apparently unbelievable: "Alles ist möglich im Menschenhim"(p.243) says von Kachele; and Van Helsing: "I want you to believe... in things that you cannot" (p.215). And they both have long, complex, pseudo-scientific documentation and argument to back up their assertions.
    Furthermore, there is something dubious about each of them, as if they each speak from personal experience with the darker side of hidden forces; Van Helsing only by veiled hints and innuendos, von Kachele quite clearly: on the surface he is a mild and harmless old man, but periodically he is taken over — possessed — against his will, by what he calls "Satan-Phallus..., Pan, der Bocksgott, der kein Him hat, und nur mit der Rute denkt"(p.242). On these occasions he has committed several rapes, and he cannot trust himself alone with a woman.
    Von Kachele has prepared a manuscript for Frank Braun which traces the origins and history of the myth of the destroying, devouring mother-goddess and her various cults. The manuscript tells the story of a myth which becomes bloody reality through peoples' belief in it, beginning in Babylon with Labartu, wife of Baal, who steals the beautiful sun-child, rips it to pieces and eats it. Von Kachele traces cults of such goddesses through many cultures, including the Phoenician Astarte, the black voodoo queen, Mamaloi, the Coptic Berzelya, the Jewish Lilith and others. He also mentions historical figures associated with such blood-letting: Countess Bathory, who is supposed to have bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth (and who is often associated with vampire stories), Gilles de Rais, murderer and close friend of Joan of Arc, the Marquise of Montespan, Louis XIV's mistress, whose naked body is supposed to have been used as an alter upon which she voluntarily allowed new born babies to be sacrificed to Astaroth. The description of the manuscript ends with: "Immer noch, immer trinkt sie der Kinder Blut: sie, Durga — Astarte — Mamaloi, die Würgerin. Heute noch — mitten in New York" (p.241).

    And if the implications of the manuscript aren't enough to make Frank Braun nervous about the women around him, Von Kachele's comments on it make it very clear:

    "Und wenn die schöne und gütige Dame, die vor Ihnen sitzt, wenn die Frau van Ness [Lotte] in dieser Nacht sich entpuppen sollte als die wildeste Priesterin Baaltis, wenn sie Knaben zerstückeln und ihr rotes Blut trinken sollte, so würde ich heute das keineswegs als etwas Aussergewöhnliches ansehn. Ich würde es bedauem, aber als Gelehrter würde ich den interessanten Fall meiner Arbeit zufügen, rein sachlich, als ein Beispiel des uralten Labartukultus"(p.243).

    The professor may be saying "if", but he nonetheless points the finger right at Lotte — Lotte who frequently calls herself mother and Frank Braun her child — as a potential priestess of a child-murdering devouring-mother-goddess cult.
    But although the manuscript provides textual justification for Frank Braun's fear of Lotte, it is also a red herring which can mislead the reader of Ewers' novels just as it misleads Frank Braun, for it harks back to Alraune, the previous novel in the Frank Braun trilogy. Alraune is about a powerful, highly sexual woman who destroys all the men in her life, and very nearly destroys Frank Braun as well — only narrowly does he escape by causing her death just in the nick of time.
    The allusion to Alraune is further strengthened by mentions of Frank Braun's dead uncle, Geheimrat ten Brinken, who figures prominently in the novel. His spectre haunts Frank Braun in the form of a sinister, disgusting, mouse-spitting man in black. He first appears in Vampir as the body of a dead chinaman, floating after the ship on which Frank Braun is sailing, then as a fellow passenger on a cross-country train (on this occasion he saves Frank Braun's life), and finally Frank Braun sees him on the streets of New York City in the middle of a snowstorm. Uncle ten's supernatural appearances are never explained, making him a strange element to be found in a novel which gives scientific, or at least psuedo-scientific, explanations for other apparently supernatural phenomena (such as vampirism, the healing powers of precious stones, etc.). Finally, the fact that ten Brinken's death in Alraune is caused by an all-destructive female is the most compelling reinforcement of Frank Braun's fears the allusion provides.
    Alongside the textual justifications of Frank Braun's misplaced fears are hints pointing to the true situation. Lotte is always seemingly on the verge of telling Frank Braun the secret of what is going on between them, and of which he is unaware. She casts herself in the role of his mother: "Ihr Kind war er — tagsüber. Sie pflegte ihn, dokterte so herum"(p.69). Then she provides mysterious "clues" regarding the relationship between mother and child. She has a necklace engraved with a griffin — a talisman which is supposed to keep up a woman's supply of milk for her child. When questioned about it, she tells Frank Braun she needs "Milch. — Für mein Kind. Viel Milch — rote Milch" (p.199).
    Then, after showing him a new ring, on which is pictured a pelican pricking open its own breast to feed its blood to its young, she tells him:
    "Es ist sehr schwer, Geliebter, was ich tue — schwer, schwer. Aber ich tue es gern."
    "Wie meiner Mutter Stimme,"dachte er(p.246).
    After the incident with La Goyita, she explains why the blood on the knife she gave him has her so upset:

    [I]ch will dir sagen, was es ist! Das Höchste, was ein Weib tun kann für den Mann, den sie liebt, eine Mutter für ihr einzig, ein Heiland für die leidende Menschheit — das lehrtest du mich tun — das Allerherrlichste, das ewig Göttliche! — Und gehst du her — und nimmst das von irgendeiner — der ersten Besten grade, die deinen Weg kreuzt! Von einer dazu, die nicht einmal weiss, was geschah! Und die — wenn sie es wüsste — dich anspeien würde! Das ist es! (p.330)

    But this outpouring just leaves Frank Braun more confused. He thinks he feels better because of having taken the mescal,but Lotte sets the truth before him:  "Wild klang ihr Schluchzen, hysterisch und gell. 'Der mescal?!' schriesie, 'Blut — Blut!'"(p.330)
    But Frank Braun doesn't catch on. Obvious clues to the truth are presented side by side with false leads, but it is as if Frank Braun is predisposed not to be able to read the signs which point to the truth. And Lotte always pulls back without explaining what she really means, then refuses to answer any more questions.
    In traditional vampire literature there is a period of tension before the vampire is revealed — to both the characters in the story and to the reader.
    But when they find out, the characters react with horror and set out to destroy the monster.
    In Vampir there is a similar period of having the secret knowledge of Frank Braun's vampirism hidden. This lasts until nearly the end of the novel for both Frank Braun and for the reader, but in the interim there are several characters, all women, who discover his secret: Lotte, Emaldine Farstin, Dolores Echevarria (La Goyita), and Ivy Jefferson. Lotte is a special case, and will be discussed later.
    The latter three, however, all react more or less the same way. In his unconscious vampire state, Frank Braun attacks each of these women, hereby revealing his secret. The price they pay for this knowledge is some of their blood. But rather than reacting with horror and fear, they react only with disgust. "Geh züruck zu deiner Mätresse"(p.407), writes Ivy after Frank Braun's attack on her — Lotte can have him, as far as Ivy, Emaldine and Dolores are concerned. However, far from setting out to destroy him as a monster, they accept Frank Braun's blood-drinking as his own personal perversion, just one they would rather not take part in themselves. "Jeder hat sein eigenes kleines Pläsirchen — wie inn der Herrgott erschaffen hat. Ich will nett sein zu Ihnen, Doktor — hübsch Distanz — aber nett und lieb"(p.410), die Farstin tells Frank Braun. She then proceeds to give him a lecture on various perversions, not showing her disgust until the end, when she informs him: "Du hast einer Wanze Seele, oder eines Flohs!  Bist eine Mücke — eine Spinne vielleicht, eine Fledermaus! Bist alles — was saugt — das bist du!"(p.418) Her contempt for him seems to have at least as much to do with what she perceives as his denial of his true nature as with that nature itself.
    If La Goyita is a little more shocked than the other two — she sees Frank Braun on the street, screams, and runs away (p.421) — perhaps it is because, although she has travelled extensively and has seen a lot, she is less worldly and retains more of her innocence than the other two.
    Lotte's reaction is quite different. She learns Frank Braun's secret very in the novel, but rather than being either horrified or disgusted, she sets about to use the knowledge to her advantage. Having this knowledge gives her the opportunity to give Frank Braun something special he needs which no other woman would be willing to give him, namely, her blood. She thereby makes herself indispensable to him. No woman could hope to keep a hold on Frank Braun with sex alone, but Lotte has found something keep him firmly bound to her.  Furthermore, by withholding the knowledge of his true nature from him, she holds Frank Braun in a constant state of attraction and fascination — by keeping him in the dark, she keeps him under her control.
    It is a curious fact in this novel that only women possess the secret knowledge of Frank Braun's vampirism; none of the men do, until the very end, and even then only Frank Braun himself finds out. The women drop Frank Braun hints left and right, but all refuse to explain themselves when pressed: they simply cannot believe Frank Braun does not know the monster that lurks within himself.
    Lotte may be holding onto her knowledge as a means to exercise some measure of control over Frank Braun, but what of the other three? They all earn their knowledge by being victims, so it could be shame which causes them to hold their tongues: they fear no other man would want them if their perverse violation by the vampire were known. Therefore, in Lotte's case, the withholding of secret knowledge is an issue of a female's power over a male; in the other cases, it is an issue of women's fear of the male prerogative to reject a violated woman.
    But to return to Frank Braun's fears: if women are not the monsters he has built them up to be in his imagination, he must be projecting his fears about something else onto them. What is he trying to hide from himself? The most obvious answer to the question would be that he doesn't want to see that he himself is the monster. But, in this context, can the monster be taken purely at its face value?
    Could Frank Braun's fear of women be a fear of his own ambivalence with regards to his interest in them? Unlike Jonathan Harker in Dracula, in whom the "wanton" vampire women cause both sexual attraction/arousal/desire and fear/revulsion,(11) women attract Frank Braun in a vague way; he is only sure sex has nothing to do with it. At the same time intercourse becomes repulsive to him. Is his projection then a fear that his disease, which he doesn't understand, has caused him to be impotent? He wouldn't want the women to know, he wouldn't want anyone else to know, and most of all he wouldn't want to know it himself, hence the projection.
    In the same way, his fear could be that his lack of sexual interest in women indicates his own homosexuality.(12) As in Dracula and many other tales, and especially in vampire films, Frank Braun,as the male, takes only female victims.(13) There is one incident in which he comes close to taking a male victim: Frank Braun is sleepwalking (i.e. in his unconscious vampire state) at a time when the only other person present is his young male secretary, Ernst Rossius. Rossius hears Frank Braun in the other room, where he finds him preparing his razor, and, suggestively, leads Frank Braun back to bed:

    "Dann nahm ich [Rossius] ihren Arm und führte Sie [Frank Braun] zurück. Sie waren sehr sanft und ließen sich ruhig zu Bett bringen. Nach zwei Minuten schon schlossen sich Ihre Augen und sie schliefen fest—" (p.201).

    In the morning, after Rossius tells Frank Braun of his night-time activities, Frank Braun, who is lounging (seductively?) on the divan, admits that he is afraid: "Jedenfalls nicht, wenn ich wach bin. Aber ich glaube — ich habe Angst — wenn ich schlafe"(p.203). He expresses his fear of his recurring dreams (which accompany his unconscious vampire state), and angrily compares the state he finds himself in to women (significantly, women who bleed):

    "[Bich ich] ein hysterisches Weib in den Wechseljahren oder ein mondsüchtiges Frauenzimmer, das ihre Regeltage hat? — Zum Henker, nein! Ich habe Angst — sage ich Ihnen— ganz gemeine Angst - vor — vor — irgend etwas!"(p.203)

    Sexist comments aside, the gentleman protesteth too much, and the fact the act of vampirism is cut short before any blood can be passed male-to-male is also very telling. Frank Braun has placed himself in a gendered position, passively allowing himself to be brought to bed by his handsome young male secretary; his posing on the divan in his dressing gown "the morning after" only serves to undercut his words.
    The text provides just enough hints and innuendos to open these last questions, but not enough to justify any definite answers, leaving the reader wondering if Ewers was hiding something, or if it was an elaborate tease.
    Vampir contains any number of other perversions as well. Throughout the novel there is the implied incest between Lotte and "her child," Frank. Then there is the juxtaposition of nuns and maenads in chapter 9; here I mean both the juxtaposition of the two events — the nuns' celebration at the convent, and the Moon-Ladies' orgy —, and the interchangeability of nuns and maenads shown by the chorus girls who portray first one and then the other at the orgy. Then there are the two particularly perverse incidents of sadism — the encouraged suicide attempt in chapter 8 and the death of the female impersonator in chapter 11 —, and the lesbian pedophile at the orgy. None of these perversions have much to do with vampirism, except perhaps that some of them deal with the strong preying upon the weak. However, all contribute to the deliberate blurring of distinctions between opposites, also known as inversion, such as we have seen throughout the novel, wherein desire becomes revulsion, virgins double as whores, male gender roles are confused with female, and a man's sex drive — the impetus to create life — is transformed into a desire to drink blood — to cause death.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2:

(5) One French story and one Russian story with clear-cut female vampires pre-date "Carmilla:" Théophile Gautier's Clarimonde(1836), and Alexei Tolstoi's "The Family of a Vourdalak"(1841).

(6) Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York :Dell, 1965. All page references to Dracula refer to this edition.

(7) Roth, PhyllisA. "Suddenly sexual women in Bram Stoker's Dracula."

(8) See esp. Roth.

(9) See esp. Sedgwick. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions.

(10) The use of a "female space" as the site for something threatening or anxiety-producing has a long history in Gothic and horror literature. More recently it has become common in modern horror films, esp. slasher films, for the male psychopath/monster to occupy a female-gendered space — a long dark tunnel or alley, a damp basement or underground lair, etc. Carol J. Clover, in her book Men. Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modem Horror Film calls this space the "Terrible Place" (30-31).

(11) See esp. Craft, Christopher. "Kiss Me with Those Red Lips."

(12) It should be noted that at the time of Vampir's writing, homosexuality was still widely
considered deviant behavior, a perversion. It is in that context that I am considering it in this
chapter, not from a more tolerant modem perspective.

(13) See Craft.

CHAPTER THREE:

SUBVERSION AND CONVERSION: VAMPIR AS A POLITICAL NOVEL

    The first two novels of the Frank Braun trilogy, Der Zauberlehrling and Alraune, were written with the intent to shock, titillate and thrill — "sensation novels" they were called.  Although Vampir retains many features of the first two stories, such as horror, sexual perversion, and elements of the supernatural, its agenda is clearly different from that of its predecessors': Vampir, for all its horror/sensation trappings, is a political novel.
    That the Allied authorities in World War I thought so there can be no doubt. Their repeated efforts to lay hands on the manuscript were only barely thwarted, and even before it was published it became the first book to be placed on the American "Index" of forbidden writings.(14) The author spent time in American jails and internment camps from 1917-1919 on account of (what the American authorities viewed as) his subversive pro-German activities. These activities took place before America entered the war, the incarceration after. He was eventually paroled only under the condition that he not publish anything '"weder in den Ver. Staaten noch in irgendeinem anderen Lande, weder in englischer noch irgendeiner anderen Sprache, weder privat noch öffentlich, weder direkt noch indirekt,' usw.,usw"([7] — quotes in original, but no source given). Furthermore, he was not allowed to leave the United States until mid-1920, well after the end of the war. It was at this time that the original German edition was finally published, in defiance of the conditions of his parole, with "kleinere Einfügungen in den beiden letzten Kapiteln..."(p.479).
    One cannot help wondering what the ending looked like when the original manuscript was completed in 1916 — when the Americans had not yet entered the war, and Germany still looked as if it had a chance to win. American readers, however, would not have had any cause to wonder, as the Foreword was cut from the English language edition, first published as Vampire in 1922 by the John Day Company of New York. In fact, a total of approximately 110 pages were omitted from the American edition, in smaller and larger chunks throughout the entire novel, ranging from single words to several pages. A very careful reader of Vampire might notice a few odd moments, but for the most part the omissions are rendered quite neatly.
    These omissions seem to fall into three basic categories. The first and most easily expected are the scenes involving various perversions. Some examples include: the peep-holes and their use at the orgy (pp.277,281), the lesbian pedophile (p.277), and the incident with the female impersonator (pp.347-351). Also in this category are incidents of non-sex-related perversions, cruelties and crudities including: the incident of the encouraged suicide attempt by a young German who comes to Frank Braun  for help (pp.209-225), Frank Braun's weird dreams on pages 303-322, the story of the white wolf (pp.231-237), the story of Prince Kakadu (pp.365-369), and the scene in which Frank Braun pulls the wings off flies (p.379).
    The second category is the cutting of the word "mother" (or in a few cases, a short phrase including that word) in several places throughout the novel. These cuts are not, as might have been expected, in places where the "Lotte as mother/Braun as her child" incest theme are played out but rather when the word is used sentimentally in connection with Frank Braun's and other Germans' longing for their homes and homeland. For example, the Germans on the fever ship are all longing for "Vaterland, Deutschland, Mutter" (p.39). In the American edition they long only for "Fatherland, Germany" (p.30). (15) The fact that just this single word in so particular a context was so thoroughly hunted down and eradicated from the American edition indicates a deliberate purpose, but just what that purpose was remains a mystery.
    The third category of editorial omission is clearly political in nature. A brief survey of some of the passages which fall into this category is very revealing: at least two passages describing German victories (German defeats are not cut); Germans singing patriotic songs including "Deutschland über alles"and some outpourings of German patriotic feelings; various uncomplimentary descriptions of Americans, especially those portraying American hypocrisy and greed, as well as uncomplimentary descriptions of American cities (the filth, the bums, the prostitutes, etc.); a couple of passages on the relations between America and Britain from a German point of view; various episodes of Frank Braun' activities as a German agent (smuggling, forging documents, etc.); Frank Braun discussing famous German patriots (cut despite the fact that he concludes they weren't really very patriotic after all); a long section on the political stance of American Jews vis-a-vis the happenings in Europe; the political allusions made from the animal fights in the Mexican bullring; Frank Braun's political motivation for buying the freedom of the nuns and priests captured by Pancho Villa (leaving the bewildered English language reader with no explanation for Frank Braun's uncharacteristically compassionate behavior); and a description of British wartime propaganda of supposed German atrocities and a mention of British war crimes.
    Additionally, there are two very significant passages at the end of the novel which were cut or altered. In the first, Lotte explains that her self-sacrifice to make Frank Braun German has been successful (not one word of which appears in the English language edition):
    "Du siehst anders aus wie früher."
    Er fragte:"Wie anders?"
    "Deutscher!" antwortete sie."Soviel deutscher."
    Sie wiederholte."Deutscher! Du gingst den Weg, den ich dich führte — den Weg zur Heimat. Gingst ihn — mit mir — für mich! Deutsch wurdest du: mein Blut fließt in dir"(pp.475-476).
    The omission of this passage leaves the American reader with no trace of the political motivation for Lotte's sacrifice, leaving only her love for Frank Braun as motivation — which comes off as rather lame. A previous mention, early in the novel that "[Lotte] can make [Frank Braun] German"(p.89 in the American ed. ,p.104 in the German ed.) is left in, but never mentioned again.
    The second case is not a simple omission, but a substitution. In the German, Lotte describes to Frank Braun how Germany, though broken, will some day rise again to victory and revenge:

    "Zu Boden liegen wir,"sagte er."Deutschland ist nicht mehr."
Da glänzten ihre Augen. "Es wird aufstehn vom Nichtsein, das Niedergebrochene!" flüsterte sie. "Man wacht über seinem Haupte am strahlenden Himmel! Es wird seine Feinde niederschlagen, wird triumphieren über alles, was gegen es steht — wie Horus, der Rächer seines Vaters"(pp.477-[478]).
    In the American edition, the above is replaced with:

    "We are completely broken," he said. "Germany is no more."
    There was a visionary light in her eyes, as she whispered:
    "Thou art lifted up, O sick one, that liest prostrate. They lift thy head to the horizon, thou art raised up and dost triumph by reason of what hath been done for thee.  Ptah hath overthrown thine enemies according to what was ordered to be done for thee. Thy head shall not be carried away from thee after the slaughter, thy head shall never, never be carried away from thee!" (p.362)

    The replacing paragraph is vague at best, whereas the German passage is clearly predicting a day when Germany will rise again from its ashes and bring a new and victorious war, the sons avenging the deaths of their fathers.  That message is completely obliterated and rewritten in the American edition. Coming as it does immediately after Frank Braun states that Germany is broken and is no more, the "sick one" who lies prostrate can only refer to Germany. In the English language version Lotte seems to be saying that Germany should be glad that it has been beaten, and that it was defeated for its own sake — note the repetition of this point — "by reason of what has been done for thee,""what was ordered to be  for thee."(emphasis added) One must guess that the speaker is addressing one segment of the German population, and that the defeated enemies of Germany are another segment of the same population. Furthermore, when Lotte swears that "thy head shall never, never be carried away from thee," it seems she is promising that Germany will not be destroyed completely; it is as if she is speaking for the Allied governments and reassuring the Germans that although they have been "slaughtered," they won't be annihilated, but nonetheless the picture one is left with is of an incapacitated Germany which will not be able to seek war again in the future. This newly inserted paragraph makes the following long paragraph, in which all days are called war days make no sense at all.
    Who actually made these editorial changes: A post-war censor? An editor at John Day? The translator? Ewers himself? Under what circumstances and to what purpose: Political censorship?  Standing editorial policy? An attempt to make the novel more appealing to American readers? The answers to these questions will remain conjecture; John Day Company, Inc. went out of business, their copyrights were purchased by Harper & Row, who, in turn, became HarperCollins,and who now have no records of the editorial policies for novels published decades ago by their now defunct subsidiary. (16)
    What is not in question, however, is that the original German edition had a political message. From the first line of the first chapter - "In dem Jahre, in dem die ganze Welt wahnsinnig wurde, war er hinausgezogen — zum anderen Mal"(p.11) — Ewers introduces the political aspect of his novel, and begins to flesh out his alter ego's feelings on the subject of war. Europe makes Frank Braun sick; Europe is infected and about to break out in war. Frank Braun leaves, but he is already infected. He thinks he is cured in Antofagasta "oder doch fast gesund — "(p.11), but his hesitation is enough to indicate that he isn't cured at all.
    In fact, almost everyone on board his ship, the "Thuringia", is sick — yellow fever strikes them at the same moment the war begins in Europe. The juxtaposition of war and yellow fever on a vessel named after a German state make Frank Braun's shipmates emblematic of the masses who die in war, its victims. And they are willing victims, as their blind patriotism drives them to want to give up their lives for the Fatherland, even when their actions towards this goal are illogical and meaningless.
    Frank Braun considers himself above the masses — detached and superior; he is also condescending and arrogant. He looks down on his shipmates who rejoice and sing patriotic songs at the news of each German victory, who fret, worry and take insult at the reports of German set-backs, and who want more than anything to be there — to fight for the glory and honour of the Fatherland. Frank Braun gives the appearance of going along with them, but only in the interests of comradeship - not from any patriotic feelings of his own:
    Seltsam. Er, Frank Braun, hatte auf Deutschland getrunken und auf den deutschen Kaiser! Auf — das Vaterland! Es war ihm gewiß nicht emst darum — er tat es den prächtigen Burschen zuliebe —
    Wie ihre Augen leuchten! Wie ihre Herzen jubelten und jauchzten! Wie sie alles vergaßen ringsum, das gelbe Fieber, den heimtückischen Tod, der die Krallen ausstreckte nach ihnen und sie hinausjagte, wie Aussätzige, auf das erbarmungslose Meer! Wie sie alle nur eines dachten, nur eines fühlten: "Die Deutschen siegen!"(p.25)
    Frank Braun considers himself above all that. He considers himself neither a German nor an internationalist, but rather a member of an elite:  "Aberes gab über allen Völkern ein anderes Volk, höher, edier und großer. Kultureation hatte er es genannt — ihr gehört alles an, was hinausflog über Massen"(p.23).
    To be a member of this elite doesn't necessarily require money, position or education: "Bildung oder Begabung, Geld, Geburt, Einfluß, Namen — irgend etwas nur. Aber der Wille mußte dabei sein und das Bewußtsein: über Masse zu stehn, ihre Rechte brechen zu durfen. Das Gefühl der Macht — einerlei, was diese Macht gab" (p.336).
    In separating himself from the masses, Frank Braun is also separating himself from the victims. In fact, he sets himself against them: "Alles, was er war, war er ja geworden in stetem Kampf gegen die anderen, war er ja nur als Individuum. Die anderen? Nun, Menschen, überall. Und dabei Deutsche zumeist. Massen, Volk, Heerde"(p.40).
    His separation makes him a survivor — by setting himself apart, he survives the fever ship; by fleeing Europe, when all of his patriotic fellow countrymen are throwing themselves into the arms of the war-monster, he survives.
    Frank Braun is also a victimiser, a vampire who, like war, feeds off the blood of others. His disease, which first begins to manifest itself at the same time war is beginning in Europe, has an obvious political analog: the blood-lust disease of an individual, i.e. Frank Braun the vampire, is comparable to the blood-lust disease of nations known as war.
    As Frank Braun arrives in New York City after escaping the fever ship and crossing the country, he meets the victims — the masses of Germans trying desperately to get back to Germany to offer themselves as sacrifices for the Fatherland. There he also meets his own personal victim, Lotte Lewi Van Ness, who will offer herself as his sacrifice.
    Frank Braun tries, unsuccessfully, to talk the Germans at the dock out of senselessly trying to get to Germany when they know they will all end up in British detention camps. But Lotte, by keeping him in the dark about her self-sacrifice, doesn't even give him the opportunity to try to change her mind. Furthermore, she sees her personal sacrifice as a patriotic duty as well as a labour of love:

    "Nicht mein Geld — o nein!  Ich gebe mehr, viel Kostbareres — um dich stark zu machen zu deiner — Arbeit [as a promoter of the German cause in America]!" Wieders chnitt sie seine Frage ab. "Ich werde es nicht sagen, nein! — Aber warum ich es tue, das will ich dir sagen. ... Dich will ich stark  machen und groß — und das kann ich, wenn ich dich deutsch mache. Der mich weißes gut: das wird dich heben — weit, weit über dich selbst hinaus."
    "Er trotzte."Versuch es doch, wenn dumagst und kannst."
    Aber ihr Vertrauen blieb sicher genug. "Ich kann es, ich allein. Ich kann dich deutsch machen" (p.104).

    At this juncture, the novel takes an interesting and unusual twist, as Lotte introduces Ewers' next political point. She believes that the reason she can make Frank Braun German and lead him to a love for and belief for his German Fatherland is that she is Jewish; that her purpose in life, specifically because she is both German and Jewish, is to make it possible for the two peoples to triumph together:

    "Durch meine Adern fließt, gut vermischt, beider Blut, ich bin Deutscheund Jüdin zugleich. Und ich, ich fand die Deutung für die Sendung meines Stammes für diese Zeit — lange lebe mein deutsches — lange lebe mein jüdisches Volk! Lewis stolze Fahne fuhre sie — beide vereint — durch alle Wüsten — das verheißene Land — das ist: die Herrschaft der Welt! Dafür — dafür — gebe ich dich — und mein Leben!"(p.105)

    Frank Braun goes further to explain the political reasons for Jews and Germans to work together against their common enemy, the Slavs:

    Wer waren diese Prager Deutschen, die für ihre sprache und Sitte kämpften, jahr aus und jahrein, mitten im Slawenland? Juden waren es, rassenreinste Juden zu neun Zehnteilen.
...ach, all der slawische Deutschen haß war nichts wie Antisemitismus im letzten Grunde! Und Juden, die sich Deutsche fühlten, fochten an heißester Stelle für des Deutschtums Sache: Lewis Kinder für Schwarzweißrot! Juden und Deutsche gegen das Slawentum — war das nicht der tägliche Schrei der jüdischen Zeitungen — der heiße Wunsch der Millionen des Neuyorker ghettos? Juden als Deutsche — als ein gleichberechtiger Stamm in Deutschtum,...(p.109).

    As a nationalist, Ewers was aware of the "Rassenfrage" concerning Jews , but he has Frank Braun dismiss it thus: "Diese Rassenfragen hatte man sich an den Schuhsohlen abgelaufen vor dreißig Jahren schon!"(p.109) He goes on to describe how racially mixed Jews are the best, and that the goal and eventual triumph of mixed German Jews would be world-wide:

    "Im neunten Jahrhundert trat in der Krim das mächtige ugrische Volk der Chasaren zum Judentum über: heute gab es nicht bessere Juden als diese blonden, blauäugigen Karaim aus Südrußland. Ah — möglich war es, das stand ganzgewißfest.
    Und dann — dann?
    Deutschland war Israels Zion — und das verheißene Land — die Welt" (pp.109-110).

    It is significant that Lotte feeds Frank Braunher Jewish blood to accomplish her political goals, not only because of the vampire mythos, but also within the context of legends surrounding the importance of blood in Jewish religious rituals. The belief in Jewish ritual murder is mentioned in one passage (p.108), and a lengthy poem about a Jew's daughter who throws a fair young boy down a well after draining his blood is included in a section of Frank Braun's speculating about his disease and his fear of Lotte (p.449-450), but these are false allusions to Lotte; they are more red herrings. Lotte is using her own Jewish blood as food for Frank Braun's disease, not only to "make him a German," but also to give him certain powers. Most particularly her blood gives him the ability to speak charismatically and persuasively and to move the masses to his will, or rather, the will of the meta-level vampirism — the will of the war-spirit. Frank Braun describes these powers, not knowing whence they come:

    "Das, was die vielköpfige Bestie [the crowd] da unten zahm machte und artig, wie ein Kätzchen, das hübsch aus der Hand frißt und die Peitsche leckt —
    Das was ihm die Macht gab, seine Gedanken einzuhämmem in des Tieres Him und seines Augenblicks Glauben in des Tieres zottige Brust"(p.82).

    In addition to using her blood to rejuvenate Frank Braun "spiritually" for his work in advancing the German cause in America, Lotte has her mind set on more concrete political action as well. Her plan includes an alienated Brooklyn-born Jew named Perlstein whom Frank Braun encounters while on a secret mission to Mexico to meet Pancho Villa. Perstein is an embittered United States ex-patriot who is fighting for Villa. He had volunteered to serve in the American army and been turned down — found "physically unfit" — for being circumcised — an obvious sign of his Jewishness, showing him an equally obvious sign of "democratic"Americas' hypocrisy.
    Frank Braun makes comments in other passages about American attitudes towards their own Jewish citizens, for example, he describes the different guests at Ivy Jefferson's coming out party, but:

    "Juden ware nicht da — keiner und keine. Der Kaiser mochte sich Herrn Ballin zum Frühstück bitten, und der König von England Sir Ernest Cassel! Dies aber war ein amerikanishes Haus — eines der allerersten: eher hätte der Russenzar den Baron Günzburg zum Tee geladen und mit Herrn Mandelbaum  Bridge gespielt, ehe auch der reichste Jude über diese Schwelle gekommen wä!" (p.117)

    So it is no surprise then that when Frank Braun supplies the idea, Perlstein eagerly agrees to try to get Villa to attack American cities in Texas. Lotte approves whole-heartedly, as it fits her plan perfectly:

    "Oh ja,das war ihre fixe Idee: die Juden würden es tun — sie würden Deutschland helfen. Und dieser da, Perlstein, würde Mexikaner nach Texas hetzen — das war der Krieg. Und die Engländer und Italiener, die Russen und Franzosen bekamen keine Lieferungen mehr: da mußte Deutschland siegen — "(p.183).

    Lotte accomplishes some of her subversive goals — Pancho Villa does attack American cities in Texas, but it doesn't keep America out of the war. She was far more successful with her efforts to convert Frank Braun into a patriotic, nationalist German. His final conversion begins with drinking a glut of Lotte's blood, nearly killing her. At the same moment, America enters the war, signalling the beginning of the end of that orgy of blood-letting. That same day, Frank Braun is thrown into the American camps, an experience which completes his conversion. He is released only after Europe and America have had a glut of blood from their victims as well; the blood-lust on both levels (personal and national) has thus been cured;
    Frank Braun is no longer a vampire, and Europe is no longer at war. In case anyone had any doubts, Lotte makes the analogy explicit: "Du — du tatest nur — was die Welt tat" (p.476).
    Therefore, regardless of any vagueness and confusion caused by the editing of the American edition, there can be no doubt that the original German novel was written for political reasons, and updated just before its publication by its newly politically converted author, with the hopes of bringing the following message to its readership: That Germans and Jews should be working together to build a strong Germany to avenge the wrongs done it in the World War by the hypocritical, less-democratic-than-they-claimed-to-be Americans, British and other Allied countries.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3:

(14) See Preface to Vampir([7]).

(15) A few other examples can be found by comparing page 183 of the German with page 158 of the American, and pages 324-26 of the German with page 245 of the American.

(16) Dark, James. Letter to author. 17 Feb. 1994. This was a response from Harper Collins to my letter of 3 Feb. 1994.

CHAPTER FOUR:

CONCLUSION: "VAMPIR AUF NATIONALSOZIALISTISCH": HANNS HEINZ EWERS AND THE NSDAP

    The newly politicised nationalist, Hanns Heinz Ewers, returned to Germany after the war to find his homeland in the midst of massive social, economic and political upheaval. Ewers himself was largely untouched by the financial problems which beset so many of his fellow countrymen, and with just a little work, he re-established himself as an author as well. However, his war experiences caused him to look at the political situation in Germany in a different light. He was especially disturbed by the growing influence of internationalism (though, if the truth be known, he was much more concerned with the state of one Hanns Heinz Ewers than with the state of anything else).
    At first he pinned his hopes for the salvation of Germany on his long-time friend, Walter Rathenau; as a patriotic German-Jew, successful businessman and politician, art aficianado and homosexual, he filled Ewers' ideal of a leader of the "Kulturnation." Rathenau's assassination in 1922 left Ewers deeply disillusioned with the Weimar government, which had only been made barely palatable to him because of his admiration of its supporter, Rathenau. Ewers then turned to the Right for his nationalism, favouring Hindenburg and various supporters of the Kaiser in exile.
    Little by little Ewers began to move in more nationalistic circles, making new friends on the Right, including, among others, Ernst Rhöm, Hans Breuer (SA-Führer and official of the Deutsche Bank), Crown Prince Wilhelm von Preußen, and others, and strengthening old friendships,as the one with Putzi Hanfstaengl, whom he had known since 1914. Hanfstaengl took part in the famous Munich Putsch of November 1923. His friend Ewers later claimed: "1924 war ich gelegentlich des Hitler-Prozesses in München und half manchem Parteigenossen" (Qtd.in Kugel, p265.).  How much Ewers actually participated — indirectly — in the aftermath of the Putsch is uncertain, but the event did inspire him to begin gathering materials for a documentary book on the anti-communist, anti-internationalist Freikorps.
    This book, Reiter in deutscher Nacht, wasn't actually written until 1930-31. Even before its publication in 1932 it was getting a controversial reception. Praised by some for its heroic, nationalistic content, it was severely objected to by several Nazi party official and other influential nationalists primarily for its treatment of homosexuality amongst the ranks of the Freikorps and the Schwarze Reichswehr. 17) Ewers himself was also disparaged as a pornographer and "König aller Perversitäten" (Qtd. in Kugel, p.295).
    In spite of the protesting voices, Reiter in deutscher Nacht brought Ewers a lot of positive attention from the Right. The feeling was growing mutual. He joined the "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" (DNVP)and became more politically active. In July of 1931 he wrote to a friend:  "Die Zeitumstände hier sind grauenvoll! Alles drängt zum Umschwung! — Ich glaube, daß wir viel schneller, als man denkt, jetzt ern faschistische Regierung bekommen werde! Es wäre ein Segen!" (Qtd.in Kugel, p.302)
    On October 9, 1931, Ewers went to hear Goebbels speak at the Sportpalastin Berlin. He came away with the single wish that on his birthday he might meet the Führer and shake his hand. This was arranged WITH the assistance of his friends Hanfstaengl and Röhm, and on November 3, 1931, Ewers met Hitler in Munich and officially joined the NSDAP, receiving membership number 659 057. Afterwards, Ewers claimed that Hitler had suggested, during their 45 minute talk, that he write a novel about an SA man. Rudolf Hess,who was present at the interview, remembered nothing of the sort when questioned about it later.(18)
    In any event, while Ewers was dropping names and wheeling and dealing his way into getting materials for his book from the Chancellery of the Führer, various party members were researching Ewers and his works and finding him less than acceptable as a Nazi Party member, much less as the biographer (and in some ways creator) of one of their most important heroes, SA martyr Horst Wessel. Already in December 1931, Gotthard Urban, Geschäftsführer of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, wrote a denunciation of Ewers to the Chancellery of the Führer and to various other Nazi officials in which he strongly urged them not to accept Ewers' in the Party, or, if it was already done, to eject him. Urban's strenuous objections to Ewers were based on his general unsavoury reputation, and he also specifically mentioned two of Ewers' works which he found particularly unacceptable: Fundvogel (1928, a novel about a man who gets a sex change operation) and Vampir. The relationship between Ewers and the NSDAP was an uncomfortable one from the very start.
    Nonetheless, Ewers set about writing his book. He began with the idea of writing about a National Socialist martyr, and came up with Horst Wessel, whose real life served as a model, to be bent and formed into an heroic legend. This was not always an easy task for Ewers. After meeting Wessel's mother and sister. Ewers wrote: "Of course they see things just as they happened, and have their outspoken hatings and lovings; it's very difficult to make them understand, that some happenings simply have to be changed!" (Qtd.in Kugel, p.324)
    There were also problems getting the book published. There was no prepublication edition, as there had been with Reiter in deutscher Nacht. One publisher found it too "nazistisch"; Nazi publishers were willing to handle it, but they wouldn't pay. Finally, at the end of 1932,  after much legal arm-twisting on Ewers' part, Cotta-Veriag published Horst Wessel. Ein deutsches Schicksal.
    Horst Wessel received glowing praise from Ewers' friends, Ernst Röhm and Prince August Wilhelm von Preußen, from Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth, as well as from the publications Angriff and Der SA-Mann.(19) Left-wing papers, however, were not so kind — and each made a point of referring not only to Ewers' previous works, but to Vampir in particular. The Linkskurve gave its review the title "Vampir auf nationalsozialistisch," the Rote Post commented: "Aus Frank Braun, dem Hintertreppenhelden des Vampir und der Alraune ist Horst Wessel geworden,..." (Qtd.in Kugel, p.327), and Braunbuch(1) pointed out that previous novels of Horst Wessel's official(sic) biographer, namely Alraune and Der Vampir(sic) had been placed on the "Listen der Schund- und Schmutzliteratur" by the Nazis themselves. (20)
    Ewers was having his brief moment of glory with the National Socialists. He even spoke over Wessel's grave at a "Horst-Wessel-Feier" in January of 1933, eight days before Hitler was named Reichskanzler, and in February he gave a radio address about Wessel on the Norddeutscher Rundfunk. But even at this time, opposition to Ewers was stirring in the background; campaigns were begun to have further editions of Ewers' works stopped, and eventually to have his books banned and in some cases burned.
    Beginning in the spring of 1933, Ewers and his works began to come under heavy fire from many National Socialist and other right-wing publications, and in May of 1933 some of his works were among those burned in Berlin and other German cities.
    Nonetheless, amidst these continued and increasing attacks on his works, Ewers began work in July of 1933 on a Horst Wessel film, the script for which he wrote with some contributions from two other authors. After various interesting episodes and intrigues, the film was finally ready for its premiere. Then, on October 6, 1933 — 3 short days before it was due to premiere — Goebbels had the film banned. The official reason:
    Die öffentliche Aufführungd es Bildstreifens Horst Wessel im ganzen deutschen Reich wird verboten. Die Gründe, die die Kammer zu dieser Entscheidung veranlaßt haben, lassen sich kurz in dem Satz zusammenfassen, daß der Bildstreifen wederder Gestalt Horst Wessels gerecht wird, in dem er sein Heldenleben durch unzulängliche Darstellung verkleinert, noch der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung, die heute der Träger des Staates ist. Insofern gefährdet er lebenswichtige Interesse des Staates und das deutsche Ansehen" (Qtd.in Kugel,p.351).
    Upon the intercession of Hanfstaengl, who had a large financial investment in the film, the Horst-Wessel film was re-worked completely, purged of all scenes deemed offensive to National Socialism (for example, all references to the fact that Wessel's girlfriend had formerly been a protitute were cut) and released under the title: Hans Westmar. Einer von Vielen. Ein deutsches Schicksal aus dem Jahre 1929. An even shorter version was made and distributed for use as an educational film in schools. Ewers' role in the making of the film was very much downplayed.
    In the spring of 1934, Goebbels placed a ban on Ewers' Horst Wessel book as well, but there was much worse to come. Beginning in the end of June 1934, Hitler and the SSpurged the NSDAP, and the SA in particular, of a large number of individuals who made up an internal opposition, and many of whom were viewed as degenerates. Many of Ewers' friends in the NSDAP were killed: Ernst Röhm, Kari-Emst and Karl-Günther Heimsoth, Paul Schultz, the hero of Reiter in deutscher Nacht, and others. Even Putzi Hanfstaengl, a close friend of Hitler's, had to flee the country. Ewers was on the death list, but close friends warned him in time for him to go into hiding. He was eventually able to talk his way out of danger by convincing the officials that he was no threat. However, he could no longer have anything published, nor speak out publicly, and in the following months and years, bit by bit, all of his writings were at one time or another banned and forbidden.
    The basic contradictions between National Socialist philosophy and Ewers' world of perversions and mixed-race political salvation, both of which are very evident in Vampir, finally ended his "career" as a Nazi. Interestingly enough, he never left the Party, and in fact fought bitterly, (and eventually successfully), when, in 1938, some paper-pushers tried to claim his membership number was 3 473 828. (He had officially joined in 1931, but had never received his membership card bearing the number 659 057, probably due to Gotthard Urban's agitations against him.)
    In mid-1940, the ban against some of Ewers' works was lifted or, in some cases, merely eased. Then, in the summer of 1941, the Schreibverbot, a ban against publishing anything new, was rescinded. But by this time Ewers was as a beaten man, grown thin, depressed and sick with angina pectoris and tuberculosis. (He was a life-long smoker and heavy drug user). He wrote a few more stories, some of which were published, some not, carried on one last love affair, then died of his ailments on June 12, 1943 in his apartment in Berlin. He was 71 years old. On the same day, his family home in Düsseldorf was bombed to bits, and the apartment in Berlin fell victim to Allied bombs a few months later as well. As a final insult, Ewers' collection of short stories, "Die schönsten Hände der Welt," which was published shortly after his death, came to the attention of Alfred Rosenberg, who had it immediately banned.
    In the chaos of the final years of the war, Hanns Heinz Ewers was lost. In his last years, due to the various bans against him, he had fallen almost completely out of the public's eye. When Nazis thought of him it was as the perverted Jew-lover who wrote such sick books as Alraune and Vampir, and who had sullied the memory of their martyr-hero. After the war, he was remembered as the Nazi biographer of Horst Wessel.This latter image is so pervasive that his works are almost untouched by literary critics. The author who compiled the extremely thorough 38-page bibliography of' works was only able to find 13 items about his works — 7 of which were master's theses or doctoral dissertations. What a surprise the critics would have if they looked into Ewers' life and works to see what a peculiar Nazi he was.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

(17) See excerpts from criticism in Kugel (pp.295-96).

(18) From a letter from Bormann, written on Hess' behalf. May 6, 1940. Qtd. in Kugel (p.306); ref.(454).

(19) Excerpts from these reviews qtd. in Kugel (p.327).

(20) Excerpts from these reviews qtd. in Kugel (pp.327-28).

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