INTRODUCTION FROM
'NACHTMAHR'
'NACHTMAHR'
(Side Real Press 2009)
John Hirschhorn-Smith
SIDE REAL PRESS INTRODUCTION:
The following was first published as the introduction to the short story collection 'Nachtmahr' (Side Real Press 2009) and probably constitutes the fullest account of Hanns Heinz Ewers' life and work in English to date.
The text remains unaltered, but this online version has a number of extra images added and all images are rendered in colour where possible.
Sadly 'Nachtmahr' and Ewers' best-selling novel 'Alraune' are both out of print from the Press but may be available from the dealers listed on Side Real Press web-page.
The other two constituants of the so called 'Frank Braun trilogy' ('The Sorcerers Apprentice' and 'Vampire') will be forthcoming from Side Real Press.
Sadly 'Nachtmahr' and Ewers' best-selling novel 'Alraune' are both out of print from the Press but may be available from the dealers listed on Side Real Press web-page.
The other two constituants of the so called 'Frank Braun trilogy' ('The Sorcerers Apprentice' and 'Vampire') will be forthcoming from Side Real Press.
INTRODUCTION FROM 'NACHTMAHR'
Hanns Heinz Ewers - date unknown
Library of Congress image
Hanns Ewers (1871-1943) wrote some of the strangest tales of the period, including three (vaguely) autobiographical novels and several volumes of short stories, many of which refer to his major themes of obsession, transformation, depravity and blood. These works were produced in addition to his extensive travels worldwide and his activities as a screenwriter, poet, playwright, prodigious drug (ab)user, propagandist/spy during WWI and friendships within the Nazi party, of which he was an early member.
It is perhaps for this latter connection that he is still viewed as a Nazi author, but nothing is very straightforward when it comes to Ewers and separating fact from fiction had been very difficult prior to the publication of Dr. Wilfried Kugel's exhaustive biography, Der Unverantwortliche: Das Leben des Hanns Heinz Ewers in 1992 (Grupello). However this text has not yet been translated into English, so for non German readers Stephen E. Flowers' twenty-two page introduction to his Ewers volume Strange Tales (Runa Raven 2000) remains the best English language biography to date.
Given this, I shall therefore give no more than a cursory overview of his life in this introduction, choosing instead to comment upon some of Ewers' themes and attempting to place them (and him) in the context of the period and the persons with whom he was involved, for the friends and acquaintances of Ewers were legion and varied.
Hans Heinrich Ewers (the pen-name Hanns Heinz came later) was born in Düsseldorf on November 3rd 1871. His parents were both painters and his father spent much time away producing portraiture at the court of Friedrich Franz II. This resulted in Ewers developed strong relationships with his mother and his maternal grandmother who was residing with them, a situation that was further reinforced upon the death of his father in 1885.
To maintain an income, widow Ewers took in lodgers and the painfully shy Hanns fell in love with one of them, Helene 'Lili' Schleifenbaum. Sadly his passion was unrequited despite his obsession and this subsequently led to years of torment and self loathing as well as an ambivalent attitude towards women in general.
In 1891 he passed the university entrance exam to study law in Berlin, which at that time was the bohemian/decadent capital of Europe. Its epicentre was a bar nicknamed 'The Black Piglet' (a tavern previously frequented by E.T.A. Hoffman), where the playwright August Strindberg held court with the artist Edvard Munch and the Polish arch-decadent Stanislaw Przybyszewski (pronounced pr-shibi-shevski).
Przybyszewski believed that sexuality and the battle of the sexes were 'eternally begetting unhappiness' and could be characterised as a demon that drove humanity's basic instincts, along with suffering and death. He also believed that by accessing these via dream, hallucination and 'states of clairvoyance as a revelation of individuality,' art could be created.
Stanislaw Przybyszewski & Jagny Duel (?) - date unknown
Przybyszewski developed these themes into a book, The Synagogue of Satan (1897), in which Satanism was a refuge for those cursed by it. In this book he claimed that “one has to overcome Satan to become Satan himself',” by which he meant that one needed to experience everything that is found in one's own nature in order to create art and that, of course, this process should not be obstructed by conventional morality.
He goes on to say that there are "those who venture into the depths of sin because sin has depth, Poe, Baudelaire, Rops; and those who love pain for the sake of pain and ascend the Golgotha of mankind, Chopin, Schumann, Nietzsche; of such material is genius compounded. Satan is the first philosopher, the first anarchist, and pain is the foundation of all art and, with Satan, the father of illusions."
Przybyszewski had separated from the Strindberg group some years before due to the group's involvement with Dagny Juel, a childhood friend of Munch, who embodied just about every Fin-de-siecle stereotype; beautiful, intelligent, and described as 'a Madonna from the Trecento, with a laugh that drove men crazy'. Also a proponent of free love, she slept with them all but ultimately married Przybyszewski.
The fallout from this is reflected in Munch's work, where she is recognisably portrayed as Eve, Madonna or vampire. This is particularly evident in the 'Jealousy' series, where Przybyszewski's face is in the foreground, while behind a naked, Eve-like Dagny offers an apple to a male figure.
In Strindberg's account of his mental breakdown, Inferno (1897), Przybyszewski becomes 'Popoffsky,' who “came to Paris to kill me, because his present wife was my lover before he met her.”
Munch - Jealousy (1897)
He was also experimenting with hashish and the occult, and briefly joined the 'Psychological Society' of Dusseldorf. He was described as a 'talented medium', but his cynical attitude resulted in his expulsion in 1896. He also had a brief spell in the Student Corps and worked for the civil service and, although he was ultimately awarded a Doctorate in Law 1898, he never actually practised as a lawyer.
Adolf Brand (1930)
Brand was an ex-professor and anarchist who had also been a member of the decadent scene in Berlin. Early issues of the magazine had strong anarchist leanings that emphasised the right of self-determination over body and mind, which of course meant taking a stand against the State, church, medical profession and middle class morals. Over time the magazine attempted to soften itself into a journal for male culture, art and literature, which looked back to both the classical Greek and the more recent German romantic literature of writers like Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Schiller.
The magazine ultimately became the house journal of 'Die Gemeinschaft der Eigenen'—a society 'for friendship and freedom' which emphasised male-male love as an aspect of virile manliness similar to the creed of Sparta. In the article 'What We Want', Brand asserted that "the young man to have no sexual intercourse with no woman before marriage, but rather until then to seek his highest joy of human contact...with a friend who means his ideal, who understands him...who furthers him as a comrade and enriches him as a human being; and who is ready with desire and love, for the sake of his beauty, his character, and his personality, to render him every imaginable service." ('What We Want', Der Eigene, 1925)
This view stood in opposition to the work of contemporary sexologists such as Magnus Hirschfeld, who thought that homosexuality was the behaviour of a special category of beings (the 'third sex') and that science would prove it, whereas Brand believed that homoeroticism was present among ALL men to varying degrees.
Ewers himself was bi-sexual and conducted homosexual affairs throughout his life, but regarded himself as androgynous and believed that this aided his creativity. He explores these views overtly and covertly throughout his work.
A Book of Fables was successful and Ewers began performing dramatisations of these on stage in what was, in effect, the first Berlin cabaret.
This was partly set up by his latest lover, Frida Strindberg, the divorced wife of writer August—the author another big influence. These performances brought Ewers some measure of notoriety as his performances used sexual slang and audiences were outraged by his use of the term 'popo' (for buttocks or anus) during his act. He was later to set up his own cabaret troupe and toured extensively across Central and Eastern Europe, however the expense of the operation and constant interference from censors forced him to abandon the enterprise.
May 1901 saw Ewers marry the artist Ilna Wunderwald (1875-1957) to whom he had been engaged for four years.
She worked with Ewers on the cabaret and later provided illustrations and pictorial book designs for Ewers' works.
From 1902 onwards, Ewers and Ilna began a series of travels that would provide material for many of his subsequent short stories. The first eighteen months were spent in Capri (where Ewers began to practice and advocate nudism).
Ewers returned to Berlin to become Editor of Der Eigene but soon found time to leave again for Spain and France. In Spain he witnessed bull and cock fights. As an animal lover he was horrified by the barbarity of these fights but nonetheless drew on these experiences for the story Tomato Sauce (1905). The Alhambra is also the setting for the essay/meditation Edgar Allan Poe (Schuster & Loeffler, 1906).
At some point during this period Ewers extended his experimentation with drugs, ingesting opiates, mescaline and absinth as 'research' for a book to be titled Intoxication and Art (of which only fragments and drafts exist).
“In narcotics there lie treasures. It is an almost unexplored golden land in which the wise and happy finder may sculpt new art again and again.”
Ewers believed that drugs were a means of obtaining ecstasies, which are the raw material of the unconscious brought to the foreground. “The young man swims in ecstasies but doesn't know what to do with them. The more mature man has understanding but the ecstasies are missing.”
By accessing ecstasies Ewers believed that he could tap that power and 'rawness' for creative ends, but concluded that taking drugs in themselves did not necessarily result in great art, for to be able make the most of the material captured from the unconscious in creative form “is a task that can only be mastered by an individual that combines great intelligence with strong talent” (extracts from notes for Intoxication And Art in Das Blaubuch, 1906).
Although finances were always somewhat precarious, in 1906 Hanns and Ilna made a six month trip to South America visiting various countries including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras and Haiti. In Haiti Ewers made an investigation into the Voodoo cult and, it is claimed, saw a ceremony in which a child was sacrificed. These travels were ultimately written up in Mit Meinen Augen. Fahrten durch die Lateinische Welt (With My Eyes—Travel In the Latin World, Mecklenburg, 1909). He also began work on the text that would become his first novel, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
This point marks the beginning of Ewers most creative period with two books of short stories issued by Georg Müller in quick succession; Das Grauen (1907) and Die Besessenen (1908). Das Grauen contained 'The Tophar Bride', 'John Hamilton Llewellyns End' and 'Mamaloi', while Die Besessenen includes 'The Death Of Baron Jesus Maria Von Friedel' and what many regard as his best story, 'The Spider'. This tale of obsession also carries the alternate title 'Lilith' and for this writer, it can be described as a sort of inverse, perverse and microcosmic version H. P. Lovecraft's, ‘The Music of Eric Zann’. With Lovecraft, the entities derive from the mindless void beyond human comprehension, whereas Ewers has the protagonist meet his nemesis from within. Ewers rarely wrote on meanings within his stories, but did so for this tale. Here readers may wish skip the next few sentences to avoid the upcoming spoiler. “Lilith that is: Adams first wife. Or: the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Or: the great grand-mother of the Devil. Or: the eternal feminine. Or: the inadequate which becomes the phenomenon... the idea of a strange force, which is capable of exercising some sort of exterior dark will upon us. (Ewers writing in the journal Zeitgeist, Dec. 1908).
Covers for Das Grauen (Georg Müller, 1907) & Die Besessenen (Georg Müller, 1908)
with covers designed by Ilna Wunderwald Ewers.
1910 saw the publication of the first 'Frank Braun' novel, The Sorcerer's Apprentice—Or The Devil Hunter (Georg Müller, 1910). Braun is a character that can be seen as an idealised or romanticised version of Ewers—a writer, traveller, anthropologist and dabbler in the occult, who whilst in a remote Italian village, attempts, for his own amusement, to manipulate the Christian religious feelings of the population by hypnotising and raping a peasant girl to suggest to her that she is a saint. As the reader of Ewers has come to expect, things get very out of hand very quickly—a cult quickly develops around her and Braun finds that he is losing control of his creation. The novel ends with the girl willingly allowing herself to be crucified.
Incredibly, the novel is based on the true story of cult leader Margaret Peter and her battle with the Devil in the German border town of Wildisbuch in 1823.
It is also around this time that Ewers developed and began to perform a piece called 'Die Religion des Satan'. These talks given between 1910 and 1925 earned him the title of 'Satan's advertising manager'. Large parts of the text were apparently lifted verbatim (for there is no surviving Ewers typescript) from Przybyszeski's book 'Die Synagoge Satan' and Przybyszeski, whose star had waned somewhat since his heyday almost twenty years earlier, was distinctly unamused. He was later to retaliate by writing largely unreadable, longwinded introductions to his Polish translations of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Alraune.
Mahlon Blaine endpaper from the U.S. edition of The Sorcerers Apprentice (John Day, 1927)
However prior to the publication of Alraune, Ewers and Ilna departed on another six month trip, this time to Ceylon, India, the South Pacific and East Asia. Accounts of these peregrinations ultimately appeared in Indien und Ich (Georg Müller, 1911), but also marked the final death throes of his marriage to Ilna—they were to divorce in 1912.
The second 'Frank Braun' novel, Alraune, (Georg Müller, 1912) was published in the autumn of that year and catapulted Ewers into the literary stratosphere, running through many editions and being translated into over fifteen languages.
Alraune (the German for mandrake) is a sort of prequel to The Sorcerer's Apprentice and is based on a folk superstition that semen ejaculated from a hanged man will fertilise the growth of a mandrake plant. In the novel Frank Braun works with his uncle, Professor Jakob Ten Brinken, who is researching artificial insemination and heredity. In the early part of the book they traverse the sordid underbelly of Berlin looking for the city's most shameless prostitute, whom they impregnate with the sperm of an executed sex criminal. The mother of this union dies in childbirth but the daughter, Alraune, survives. She grows up to be a beautiful, sadistic and soulless destroyer of all who are associated with her. Frank Braun also falls in love with her, but has a lucky escape due to the accidental death of Alraune herself.
In both of these novels Frank Braun sets a scheme in motion and watches the effects play themselves out. In both the reader can observe themes including the nature of identity, manipulation of the masses and forces of nature in battle with culture. Both novels also have a lot to say about the nature of reality, such as the consensus reality of the villagers in The Sorcerer's Apprentice which is initiated and constructed by Braun and the reality of the unknown forces in nature which are manipulated by Braun and his uncle in Alraune.
Alraune was first adapted for cinema in 1918, but not by Ewers; however he had been interested in the possibilities of cinema a decade earlier as a reviewer.
In 1913 he wrote and adapted what is now considered to be the first 'Autorenfilm' (art film), Der Student von Prag (The Student of Prague). In it, Balduin, Prague's 'wildest student and greatest swordsman', makes a Faustian pact with the mysterious adventurer Scalpinelli, who offers him riches in return for his mirror image. This doppelgänger later reappears to haunt Balduin, it having already fought and killed a man who the 'original' Balduin had promised not to kill. The film was a great success not least for its use of trick photography to place both Balduin and his mirror image on screen at the same time, but was also one of the first films to be extensively critiqued by the early psychoanalysts in Otto Rank's book The Double (1914). Rank referred the themes of Ewers to his literary fore-bearers, especially Goethe, Hoffmann, Dostoevsky and Wilde.
Ewers wrote a number of screenplays in the following years and in 1926 co-scripted a second version of Der Student... with Henrik Galeen. Galeen was a former secretary of Ewers, who had previously scripted two versions of The Golem (1916/1918) and perhaps Germany's greatest horror offering to date, Nosferatu (1922). Der Student... starred Conrad Veidt, best known for his role as Cesere in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and the Art Director was Hermann Warm, who had also been part of the Caligari team. Film techniques had moved on considerably since 1913 and the result was far more atmospheric and moody.
In 1928 Ewers was finally able to co-script (again with Galeen) a version of Alraune, which is almost a who's who of German cinema with Paul Wegener (of Golem fame) as the Professor and Brigitte Helm (Maria the Robot in Metropolis (1927) as Alraune. The Frank Braun character was played by Iván Petrovich who had previously starred in a version of Maughn's The Magician (1926)—a novel based on Aleister Crowley.
(A film poster from an earlier 1918 adaptation)
This version, as one might expect, is regarded as the best version and a reviewer of the time noted: "To the most peculiar characteristics of the German movie belongs its cautiousness concerning the sexual. Only an author like Hanns Heinz Ewers, a unique sexual Poltergeist, was able to seduce the movie to giving up its innocence” (unattributed source from http://www.cyranos. ch/smewer-e.htm).
Still from Alraune (1928) Brigitte Helm and her ‘father’ Paul Wegener.
We are however jumping somewhat ahead and need to backtrack here to 1914, which finds Ewers in New York when war was declared in Europe. Ewers' travels had always had a shadowy political subtext to them, for despite his decadent and outwardly shocking persona, he had a keen sense of German cultural history. His success as an author and member of German high society—he was something of a snob—gave him access to some interesting political figures and this combination made him a good candidate for a role in espionage. It was in New York that he also cames into contact with another man with a very similar trajectory, namely Aleister Crowley.
Crowley needs no introduction here, but a recent book by Richard B. Spence, Secret Agent 666 (Feral House, 2007), details his perhaps hitherto unknown role as a spy for Britain during WWI.
The United States was critical for both the British and the Germans whilst it remained neutral during the early period of WWI, as both combatants were keen to raise funds and support for their own side while they could, in case America changed its stance in the future.
Both Ewers and Crowley contributed to two pro-German newspapers, The International and The Fatherland, both of which were published by George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962). Viereck was, like Ewers and Crowley, a decadent poet, writer and bisexual with a keen interest in the occult. He had been born in Munich but had been resident in the U.S. since the age of twelve when his father emigrated there. He had previously published a few volumes of well received, decadent poetry and became friendly with Theodore Roosevelt (U.S. President, 1901—1909) while trying to develop a U.S./German cultural exchange programme. After Roosevelt's failure to get re-elected in 1912, Viereck turned his attention to The International and at the outbreak of war launched The Fatherland (with German money), which aimed to present the German side and to promote strict American neutrality, but in effect was a propaganda paper.
George Sylvester Viereck
It is very difficult to get an accurate picture of who did what, as both Ewers and Crowley were men who inflated their own importance when it suited them. However what is certain is that both men posed as journalists and were friendly with each other by early 1915, not least through their occult interests.
Ewers, as already stated, had temporarily joined the Psychological Society of Dusseldorf in 1895. This had been founded by Maximilian Ferdinand Sebaldt, an early sex magician and collaborator with Guido von List, a Viennese mystic and Germanic pagan. One of List's followers, Joerg Lanz Von Liebenfels, claimed to have influenced Hitler's supposed occult tendencies via the anti-Semitic sentiments propagated in the magazine Ostara. Given Ewers interest in all things sexual, it seems likely that he would have used any opportunity to further his research. Certainly by 1915 Ewers was thought worthy enough by Crowley for the latter to offer him the job of translating Crowley's Gnostic Mass—a key work of Thelemic sex magick. Whether this was done out of friendship or to lull Ewers into trusting Crowley is unknown, but the project ultimately fell through.
In February 1915 Ewers was questioned by U.S. police after three people were arrested over an attempt to procure U.S. passports. One of the accused confessed that he had been directed to Ewers by Viereck as a potential source of help. The case, which was reported in the New York Times, fell apart as Ewers claimed that he suspected the accused Richard Stegler of being part of a British trap. “I am a poet and not a passport getter, and it was of course, out of the question that I could be of any possible assistance to Stegler or anybody else in getting an honest, much less a fraudulent passport”(New York Times, 28 Feb, 1915).
However Ewers did know something of fake passports, as he had a Swiss one himself under the name of Ernest Renfer, which he probably used to travel to Spain and Mexico in the summer of 1915. It was in Mexico that he met Pancho Villa (1878-1923), the Mexican revolutionary, whom he attempted to agitate against the U.S. in the hope it would divert the latter from joining the war effort in Europe.
All of this ultimately came to no use, as the U.S. entered the war on April 6th 1917, which also effectively ended Ewers' propaganda work.
He had not neglected more esoteric matters though and spent some time in New Orleans in 1917, once again researching Voodoo. He may have had other motives as well, as Ewers was particularly interested in the chemistry of the potions used. He was especially interested in those relating to zombification and perhaps their possible application in chemical warfare, as Ewers was known to have had some contact with an Anton Dilger who was running an anthrax laboratory for the Germans just outside Washington D.C. To this end, it is said that he went on a grave-robbing expedition and exhumed a corpse for 'research' purposes. This happened coincidentally or otherwise at about the same time as the onset of eczema on his hands. Ewers apparently considered the affliction to be a Karmic debt, but would tell those who asked about the sores, "Oh, its just from working in the garden".
Ewers had also found time during the war to begin writing his third novel in the Frank Braun trilogy, Vampire. This is perhaps the novel most obviously inspired by his own biography, with Braun now a writer stranded in New York who makes a visit to Mexico and meets Pancho Villa. The book also includes a Viereck inspired character called Tewes who is a newspaper editor and supporter of the German cause. Braun's love/fear interest (this is Ewers after all!) is the half Jewish Lotte Lewis-Van Ness which draws on Ewers real life lover—the half Jewish Adele Guggenheim-Lewisohn, whom Ewers had first met (and probably seduced) in Berlin in 1891 before re-uniting with her on his arrival in New York.
Ewers dedicated the book to her and also used her as a model in other works; a variant on her name 'Lea Lewi' is used in the short story Der Letzte Wille der Stanislawa d'Asp (1908) and the plays Trecento and Das Maedchen von Shalott (both 1921) are also dedicated to her. In the latter there is another character based on her: the baroness. In return she translated Edgar Allan Poe (Huebsch, New York 1917) into English and her cousin Ludwig Lewisohn translated The Sorcerer's Apprentice (John Day, 1928) into English. Ewers did consider marrying her, but was also courting the actress and singer Josephine Bumiller. It was Josephine who ultimately became his second wife in 1921, although they would separate 8 years later.
In Vampire, Braun arrives in New York from Europe and has developed a strange malady that leaves him tired and drained, except after having been with a woman and this is especially true after having been with his lover Lotte. Over the course of the novel it is revealed that Braun has become a vampire, although he is unaware of it despite many pieces of circumstantial evidence that should make it plain to him. Ultimately Lotte, who had been allowing him to take small amounts of blood from her, reveals the truth to him and allows him satisfy his thirst at her expense. This act coincides with America entering the war in Europe. Braun is arrested by the U.S. authorities and interned. On his post war release he is no longer a vampire.
Interwoven within the plot are many of the themes we have come to expect from Ewers, such as perverse sexuality (including an orgy), suicide, the supernatural and a lecture on bloody mother goddesses, to name but a few; but it is obvious that Vampire is also a political novel, as during the course of the book the Frank Braun character, who has left a 'sick' Europe in a mood of aloof detachment from German brethren is unaware of his role in the destiny of the German people until he imbibes blood, more specifically Jewish blood, which brings him to acknowledge his own nationalism and do something for his people.
However in the English language edition of Vampire these political aspects are muted somewhat and it is at this point that I extend my very grateful thanks to Karin Wikoff for allowing me access to her thesis 'Hanns Heinz Ewers' Vampir' (1995) for her insights on much of what follows.
Ewers had long been under surveillance by the U.S. authorities 'Enemy Alien Bureau' and his luck finally ran out on June 15th 1917 when he was arrested. (In a New York Times report on 16th June he was described as “one of the most highly educated Germans in the country”).
He was ultimately interred at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia until August 1919. The Americans went to some lengths to try and find Ewers' papers and manuscripts, no doubt hoping to find evidence of his spying activities, and Vampire was on their list of things to find. A version of the book had already been completed in Seville in 1916 and Ewers had also attempted, but failed, to ship a copy to Germany. However a second copy survived in the U.S., buried in the garden of a 'Mr. R.' and it was this one that was reclaimed by the author upon his parole. One of the conditions of Ewers' release was that he did not publish anything in the United States.
Ewers was not allowed to leave the U.S. until mid 1920 and on arrival back in Germany it seems that he amended the book in light of what had happened to the German people during the war. The book was finally published in Germany by Georg Müller in 1921.
In 1934 Vampire was published in English by John Day of New York (who had previously published the other 'Frank Braun' novels with wonderful Mahlon Blaine illustrations), but with some very curious cuts beyond the more expected ones concerning sex, perversity and cruelty.
Cover of U.S. edition of Vampire (John Day, 1934)
Primarily the cuts are political—passages describing German victories (but not defeats), Germans singing patriotic songs, various spying incidents (i.e., the fictionalised passport issue) and parallels with politics and blood sports were all removed. Uncomplimentary descriptions of America (filthy cities, beggars, prostitutes) and the American people themselves, especially relating to their hypocrisy and greed, disappear. Even the word 'mother' is removed in the context of Germans speaking of the German 'Motherland'.Karin Wikoff identifies two very significant passages near the book's end which were altered for the American edition. One in which Lotte explains her self-sacrifice to make Braun German is entirely absent:
"You look different than you did before."
He asked, "How-so different?"
"More German!" she answered. "So much more German." She repeated. "More German! You are going the way which I lead you—the way towards the homeland. Go that way—with me—for me! German you are becoming: my blood flows in you."
The other is a substitution: In the German edition the text may be translated as:
"On the floor we are lying," he said. "Germany is no more."
Then her eyes sparkled. "Germany, which has been crushed into nothing, will rise again!" she whispered. “One watches over his (i.e. Germany's) head the streaming light of Heaven! His enemies will be struck down to nothing, [he] will triumph over all which stands against him—like Horus, the Avenger of his father.”
In the American edition it reads:
“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 lyest prostrate. They lift up thy head toward the horizon, thou art raised up and dost triumph by reason of what hath been 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!”
The German edition implies a broken Germany re-emerging to become avenging and victorious, whilst the later implies a Germany saved from itself, but that the German national identity, “thy head,” will not be removed by the victors.
Sadly, no records from the long defunct John Day Company exist to explain why and by whom these changes were made.
What is apparent in the book though is that specifically Jewish blood was needed to make Braun a German. This, in the light of his later Nazi connections, is worth explaining.
Ewers believed that the Germanic and Jewish nations shared a common cultural background and thus there could, and indeed should, be a cultural nation in which Jews had a vital part to play. Quite where and how he had developed this idea is uncertain (Stephen Flowers cites the occultist and sexologist Max Ferdinand Sebaldt von Werth, 1859-1916, as a potential source) but it is certain that Ewers was writing on this theme as far back as 1905 in a journal article 'The Jew: A Pioneer of German Culture' as well as translating and editing the works of Israel Zangwill, a Zionist best known for his book Children of the Ghetto (1892).
In 1916 Ewers wrote a short article in English, 'Why I am a Philo-Semite', which outlined his stance on race and Jewishness and, as these excerpts show, although he was in favour of a cultural Jewish/Germanic (in the widest sense) axis, there were definitely others who were not welcome.
“The artist must raise a dividing wall between himself and the masses, and the higher and stronger this is built, the better for him...This physical attraction or aversion, which possibly is based on chemical conditions and the physical transmission of which we cannot yet explain, is, nevertheless, a fact, and may be observed in a smaller measure in associating with members of one's own race...this certainly applies to his attitude towards foreign races...The Germanic race (Germans, Britons, Scandinavians, etc.) instinctively feel a strong aversion towards the African, while this feeling is not so intense among the Roman peoples... We even find that some members of the Roman peoples have a strong predilection for intermingling with those of Negro blood, as among the Portuguese...Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli), a Jew, has in his novel Coningsby, given expression to the thought, that only two races are worthy of ruling the world; The Jewish tribe of the Semitic race and the Germanic peoples of the Indo-Germanic race. And it undoubtedly was not the politician, but the artist, Disraeli, who coined this expression and who was far in advance of his own age ...therefore, I love the Jews and am obliged to love them, because I belong to the Germanic race and because I am an artist.” (from Book of the Exile: Souvenir of the Bazaar and Fair Held Under the Auspices of The Peoples' Relief Committee for the Jewish War Sufferers,1916).
Although relatively financially secure upon his return to Germany in 1920, Ewers rapidly found himself in dispute with his publisher Georg Müller over unpaid royalties. As a result, he defaulted on maintenance payments to his first wife and a messy legal situation developed that would take some years to resolve.
Despite this he was still able to realise various projects, starting with a controversial (and unlicensed) 'completion' of Der Geisterseher by Friedrich Schiller, one of Germany's greatest writers (The Visionary, Georg Müller, 1922) of which only fragments of the original had remained since Schiller's death in 1805. The resulting storm overshadowed his new book of short stories, Nachtmahr (Nightmare, Georg Müller, 1922) as well as the first German musical, Iva's Tower, (Georg Müller, 1922). He also wrote a popular science book on ants, Ameisen (Georg Müller, 1925) and the screenplay for the remake of The Student of Prague (1926).
Ewers had also re-established contact with his old friend Walther Rathenau, a moderate liberal German/Jewish industrialist and arts patron, who in 1922 was Foreign Minister of the Weimar republic. Perhaps he thought that Rathenau would advance the Philo-Semite 'cause', but Rathenau was assassinated later that year by anti-Semites.
With his death, Ewers slowly gravitated towards National Socialism, and probably via another old friend, Ernst 'Putzi' Hansfstaengl, became friendly with various high ranking members of the Hitler circle such as Ernst Röhm. He was also making (probably more intimate) connections within the young members of the Freicorps (and knew Horst Wessel, whom he possibly first met in 1926, as he had been one of the uncredited extras in the remake of 'The Student of Prague').
In 1928 the novel Fundvogel: Die Geschichte einer Wandlung (Lost Bird: The Story of a Change, Sieben-Stäbe) was published. Stylistically and thematically the book is most reminiscent of Alraune, with the plot centring on a sex change operation and the transformation of heterosexual and homosexual desire—familiar Ewers themes. These were inspired by medical developments in surgery and hormone treatments. It was also the first book to have a cinema advertisement. This was also produced by Ewers but the film is sadly believed to be lost. A full length film of the book was made in 1930, starring Paul Wegener.
1930 also saw Ewers researching and writing a semi-history of the Freicorps paramilitaries; Reiter in Deutscher Nacht (Cotta, 1931), translated as Rider In The Night (John Day, 1932). Its publication divided critics within the Nazi party, some of whom approved of the nationalistic themes and content, while its detractors commented disapprovingly on the homosexual content portrayed within the book and the dubious moral and political standing of its author.
Cover of Blood (Heron Press, 1930). A U.S. volume of
three stories with illustrations by Edgar Parin d’Aulaire.
Be that as it may, it seems that Ewers still had enough cache to be worthy of induction to the party and it appears that he was inducted by Hitler himself on 3rd November 1931 (Ewers 60th birthday). Ewers was later to claim that Hitler himself had suggested a novel about an S.A. man (the S.A. being the paramilitary wing of the National Socialist German Workers Party , the NSDAP—commonly known as the German Nazi party), though this is probably self-aggrandising on Ewers part.
Ewers decided to write a new semi-official novelisation of 22 year old Horst Wessel, an S.A. member already on his way to Nazi martyrdom after being shot by communists. Wessel is now best remembered as the namesake of the marching song anthem, 'Die Fahne Hoch', which he wrote the lyrics to and subsequently became a Nazi anthem. The book underwent several revisions prior to publication as Horst Wessel (Cotta, 1932), not least over attempts by Wessel's family to have their son portrayed to his best advantage, especially regarding references to Wessel's girlfriend who had been a former prostitute. This did not save Ewers and his works from further attacks and campaigns were beginning to get underway to have his works banned.
Meanwhile Ewers was co-writing the script for a Horst Wessel film which was scheduled to be released in October 1933. However disaster struck, and three days prior to the premier Goebbels, who loathed Ewers, banned its release.
The film was then subsequently reworked to fit better with National Socialist ideology and released under the name Hans Westmar. Einer von Vielen. Eine Deutsches Schicksal aus den Jahre 1929. There was also a shorter 'educational' version for schools. Ewers' role had been completely expunged.
By 1934, Ewers' position within the Nazi apparatus had become untenable. Goebbels had banned Horst Wessel (and was later to attempt to sue Ewers for previous royalties earned on it) and, after the 'Night of the Long Knives' (30th June), when the Nazis decided to purge those within the party whom they perceived to have outlived their usefulness, Ewers was put on a death-list. By luck he was he was out of the country at the time and this prevented it from being acted upon. He was subsequently able to have his name removed, probably by still having a few friends in the party to vouch for him.
The cost of this was high however. Ewers entire oeuvre (barring Reiter...) was banned and he was prohibited from writing anything more for publication or from speaking out publicly.
Ewers remained in Berlin but he could see that the writing was on the wall and he began to collect his manuscripts, books and other papers together, which he presented to Dusseldorf library. They form the basis of the material now housed at the Heinrich-Heine institute in the same city. At the same time he used what little influence he had remaining in attempting to gain exit visas from the Reich for German-Jewish friends.
His companion from 1939 until his death was Rita Grabowski (1912—1989). She was also of half Jewish ancestry and they lived together in somewhat precarious circumstances while he tried to get the writing ban lifted. This was finally accomplished in 1941, but by this time Ewers was an ill man. Years of abuse via drink and drugs, as well as the stress of the last few years contributed to him developing angina and a cough which was later diagnosed as tuberculosis.
Ewers died on June 12th 1943 in his Berlin apartment. On the same day his boyhood home would be destroyed by the bombs of the allied forces. His final words were reported as "What an ass I was!"
His posthumous book Die Schönsten Hände der Welt (The Most Beautiful Hands in the World) was published later that year (by Zinnen-Verlag), but was immediately banned.
Post-war evaluation of Ewers followed a predictable trajectory. Tarred with the Nazi epitaph, his work was ignored by a Germany which wanted to put its recent history behind it and though his reputation survived somewhat better in countries that now found themselves behind the iron curtain, his work remained essentially unknown to the English speaking world. With only a handful of his 113 short stories translated, anthologists had little to chose from and his novels were hard to find and expensive.
Focusing only on his admittedly considerable literary output however, does Ewers a disservice. This was a person who saw the potential of film almost immediately, and, it could be argued, pioneered performance art in his utilisation of the stage. He synthesised within himself, via whatever means he could, a heady mix of politics, occultism, psychology and a deep identification of his nation's past and projected these out to the public in as many forms as he could; in effect he was a multi-media artist. Like artists today he understood the advantages to be gained by shock value and also, as today, lived with the consequences of those actions.
His books 'work' because, beyond the plots themselves, there are multi-layered subtexts for those who wish to discover them. For Ewers the form was a mask for the content he wished to deliver—a mask of varying degrees of opacity. For him the physical body was also a mask of the real interior self. As Ewers wrote in an early diary "How happy it makes me when I can make people believe I'm cold and cruel and cynical, I always think: that suits me! But it's all just a pitiful lie."
Side Real Press would like to thank the following for their contibutions to this book: Dr. Wilfred Kugel of the Ewers Estate for permissions, Hubert Van Calenbergh for translating the texts original to this volume and Stephen J. Flowers for allowing me to reprint a translation fom his own volume of Ewers tales. Karin Wikoff very kindly allowed me access to her thesis and offered many pertinent suggestions and insights which considerably enhanced my knowledge. Uta Lotharingaia also sent me her own thesis on Ewers for me to consult. Needless to say any errors and misrepresentations in the finished article are my own.
I am also indebted to Joe Bandel for his extremely interesting new translations of HHE which are posted online at http://hannsheinzewers.wordpress.com. John Pelan of Midnight House helped greatly in initiating this book and Michelle Hirschhorn helped greatly in completing it.
Finally I would like to extend special thanks to Claus Laufenburg of the Hanns Heinz Ewers Society (http://hanns-heinz-ewers.com). His numerous acts of generosity with his time, contacts and extensive archive of Ewers material at various critical juntures really did make all the difference.
John Hirschhorn-Smith. January 2009
