CLOWNS, SONGS AND LOST UTOPIAS. Karls Enkel's Reassessment of the Spanish Civil War in Spanier aller Länder

References

• Karls Enkel, Spanier aller Länder oder die Geschichte und Begebenheit, welche bis 1939 dem Edlen von La Manche und seinem Diener widerfuhren, text and cassette recording collected by Karin Wolf (Berlin: Akademie der Kunst der DDR, Liedertheater -Dokumentation, Forschungsabteilung Musik/Lied-Zentrum, 1985)
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• Busch , Ernst , ed. 18. July 1937 . Canciones de las Brigadas Internationales. Im Auftrag der 11. Internationalen Brigade 18. July , Madrid
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• Paul Dessau, "Spaniens Himmel" ("Spain's Sky"). "The stars in Spain's sky shine/out over our trenches/And the morning greets us from a distance/Out to new battle we soon will go/Our homes are far away, but we're ready/We're fighting and winning for you: freedom." All unreferenced translations by David Robb. On CD Wolf Biermann: Es gibt tin Leben vor dem Tod, CBS, 1975. Altona, 1996 (available from "Zweitausendeins").
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• Ernst Busch/Trad, "Lincoln-Bataillon". "There in the valley of Rio Jamara/ we fought our bloodiest battle/ But fighting to the bitter end/ we brought the Fascists to a halt." On CD Ernst Busch: !Jeder der Arbeiterklasse & Lieder aus dem Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Plane 8864Z
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• Erich Weinert, "Jaramafront" (The Jamara Front"). "When the hour comes/[…] the whole world will become the Battle of Jarama." On CD Wolf Biermann: Es gibt ein Leben vordem Tod.
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• Ernst Busch/Trad, "Die Herren Generale ("The Four Generals"). On CD Ernst Busch: Lieder der Arbeiterklasse & Lieder aus dem spanischen Bürgerkrieg.
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• Jürgen Schebera, "Ernst Busch auf Schellack". In CD leaflet for Ernst Busch: Der rote Orpheus. In originalaufnabmen aus den dreißiger Jabren. Edition Barbarossa, 1996.
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• Ibid
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• Wolf Biermann, Es gibt ein Leben vor dem Tod.
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• Ibid. In CD leaflet.
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• 1992 . Wolf Biermann: Der Sturz des Dädalus , 44 Cologne : Kiepemheuer & Witsch .
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• Ibid
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• Riewoldt , Otto . 1980 . "'Wir haben jetzt einen Feind mehr'" ” . In Wolf Biermann , Edited by: Arnold , Heinz Ludwig . 26 Munich : Edition Text und Kritik .
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• Robb , David . 1998 . Zwei Clowns im Lande des verlorenen Lacbens. Das Liedertbeater Wensyl & Mensching , Berlin : Ch. Links Verlag . See, For an analysis of Wenzel and Mensching's individual poetry see Karen Leeder, Breaking Boundaries.
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• 1996 . A New Generation of Poets in the GDR , Oxford : Clarendon .
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• Karls Enkel, Von meiner Hoffnung laß ich nicht. Ein Erich Mübsam A bend. (My hope I mil not give up. An Erich Mübsam Evening). Unpublished manuscript and video recording collected by Karin Wolf (1982) (Berlin: Akademie der Kunst der DDR, 1979).
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• Karls Enkel, Deutschland meine Trauer - neun Arten eine Becher zu beschreiben. Ein J. R. Becher A bend. (Germany my Sadness - nine ways to describe a beaker. A J. R. Becher Evening). Unpublished manuscript and cassette recording collected by Karin Wolf (Berlin: Akademie der Künste der DDR, 1981).
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• Enkel , Karls . 1982 . Dahin! Dahinl Ein Göte-Abend. Unpublished manuscript and tape recording collected by Karin Wolf , Berlin : Akademie der Künste der DDR .
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• Karls Enkel, Die komische Tragödie des 18 Brumaire. (The Comical Tragedy of the 18th Brumaire). Unpublished manuscript and video collected by Karin Wolf (Berlin: Akademie der Künste der DDR, 1983).
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• Marx , Karl . 1974 . Der 18. Brumaire , Berlin : Dietz Verlag .
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• Spanien 37 ("Spain 1937"), Sp.a.L. "Yesterday all the past.[…]/ But today the struggle./ […] Tomorrow, perhaps, the future: the research on fatigue/ […]/ but today the struggle." In W. H. Auden: Collected Shorter Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 1969), pp. 189-191
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• In the absence of a video, this description comes from Roland Schneider, "Kollektivität, Geschichtlichkeit, Kommunikation. Untersuchungen zu Produktionsweise, Traditionsbezug und Kommunikationsaspekten des Berliner Liedertheaters Karls Enkel." Diplomarbeit, supervised by Professor Rudolf Münz (Leipzig: Theaterhochschule, 1985), p. 42.
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• Bakhtin , Mikhail . 1984 . Rabelais and his World , 201 Bloomington : Indiana .
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• Bakhtin, Rabelais, pp. 433-434
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• Sp.a,L. From Heinrich Heine: "Verschiedene Geschichtsauffassung" ("A different view of history"). In Werke and Briefe. Bd.5 (Berlin/ Weiman Aufbau Verlag, 1980), p. 377.
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• Ibid. "On the one hand we don't want to be enthusiastic for nothing […] On the other hand we want the present […] to retain ist value and not merely be the means to an end which is in the future. […] Life is neither an end nor a means, life is a right."
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• Bakhtin , Mikhail . 1981 . The Dialogic Imagination , 403 Austin : Texas .
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• Bakhtin: The Dialogic Imagination 384
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• Sp. a. L. SANCHO: "But say, gracious Don Quixote, which of the many ways is the shortest"? DON: "The left way is the right way". SANCHO: "There are three, my lord, the left one, then this one, and finally that one". Don: "The furthest left is the quickest, but also the most dangerous."
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• Ibid. From Rainer Maria Rilke: Gedichte (Leipzig, 1979), p. 41. Rilke's original first line is "Der Tod ist gro". "Death is all around/ We're in his hands/ laughing about it/ When we think of ourselves in the midst of life/ he dares to cry within us."
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• Ibid. "There is only one bad thing about sleep […] and that is that it resembles death so much, for there is only a small difference between a sleeping person and a dead one."
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• See Walter Benjamin: Das Passagwerk (Frankfurt a M Suhrkamp 1983
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• Bakhtin . Rabelais 237
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• Sp.a.L. DON: "We were driven here from the war as losers, but not as losers of ourselves. But what lies ahead is much worse." SANCHO: "I don't know why your Grace rushes into such dreadful adventures. It's now night time […] We could quite easily opt for a different route and avoid the danger […] I left my home, wife and children in order to serve your Grace because I believed to be on the way up and not down. But he who wants too much gains nothing, and thus nothing has come of my hopes." DON: "No Sancho, we're not going anywhere. This coming war will follow us everywhere. We must try to prevent it now and wherever we go, at best shorten it. For when it comes there will be fifty million dead." SANCHO: "Is that a lot?" DON: "An awful lot, dear Sancho. Far too many. If we gave one second to each death, just think how long it would last."
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• Benjamin , Walter . 1974 . "Über den Begriff der Geschichte" ” . In Gesammelte Schriften 1.2 , 701 Frankfurt/M : Suhlkamp .
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• Weiss , Peter . 1983 . Die Ästhetik des Widerstands , Berlin : Henschel Verlag . Page references from West German edition (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1983)
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• "Konzeption zu einem Spanien-Programm des Liedertheater Karls Enkel." Berlin: Akademie der Künste der DDR, 1984. "The focal point of the production is the practical internationalism! […] It arises from this that the production will not relate so much to the course of the battles or disputes within the People's Front, but radier to the forces which exploded as a result of the emergency in Spain. […] The defeat will not be dealt with on this level. That would necessitate doubts and laments. But this fact is in retrospect (as confirmed by much of the literature, memoires and reports) not so important as the actual fighting power, acitivity and solidarity."
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• Weiss, p. 306. "To think it could be a self-deception, was synonomous with a betrayal of our principles."
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• Ibid, pp. 310-311. "It was a victory as long as we saw the existence of brotherliness. […] Heroic were the ones who despite fear and horror stood by their resolve and, for the sake of the idea that was still valid for them, risked losing everything else that they loved."
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• Ibid, p. 11. "advocate of action".
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• Ibid, p. 314. "[the one who leaves behind] the hierarchical and irrational […] who makes clear for the first time that the improvements must take place in the here and now of this world."
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• Ibid, p. 316. "The impression dominated that we were dealing with an incurable, lost person who […] resisted evil but did not know how to eradicate it. The unclarity which he left behind led to him being taken advantage of by precisely the ones who we held to be his adversaries."
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• Ibid, p. 65. "the contradictory processes by which the new emerges."
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• Ibid. "The painful disfiguration of man under the weight of destruction contradicted the view of the Party that the fighter had to retain his strength and unity in every situation"
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• Ibid, "Einmal, später, jetzt noch nicht" ("Sometime, later, not yet now") "Later, one day, sometime/ We'll break open tthe seal of the archives./ Then sitting beside one another/ We'll talk out all that's never been spoken about […]/ The betrayed, the victims, the traitors./ The trials, interrogations, the confessions […]/ Sometime, hopefully soon, but later/ We'll be able to bear the whole truth." Spanier aller Länder. Also in Steifen Mensching, Tuchfühlmg: Gedichte (Halle/Leipzig Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1986), p. 20.
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• Weiss laments this fact in Notizbücher 1971-1980 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), 67, pp. 24-28. See also Alexander Stephan, "The Civil War as Model: Peter Weiss, Spain, and Die Ästhetik des Widerstands" in German and International Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War. The Aesthetics of Partisanship (Columbia: Camden House, 1992), pp. 484-485.
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• Ibid, "Nobody will be able to say,/ He knew about nothing/ On the day of the final judgement/ On this day the light will be very light/ Sometime, later, not yet now."
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• Ständer , Reinhard . "Wenzel & Mensching. Die Kult-Clowns der Da Da eR" . Folk Michel , 4 ( 97 ) 25 See
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• For example, Wolgang Heise and Karin Hirdina in the "Institü t für ÄÄsthetik/Kulturwissenschaft" at the Humboldt University.
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• See Dieter Krebs, "…und Brechts Enkel auch" (on Spanier aller Länder) Notate, 2/85,7.
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• Personal interview with Mensching (21/2/94) See Mensching's short story "Ich bin ein Alligator''. It relates an anecdote from his time spent as an "Agitator" in the "Jung Pionieren". In Begrenzt glücklich: Kindbat in der DDR. Ed. Wilhelm Solus (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1992), pp. 45-49.
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• Ibid
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• Das SicbelaperettenkoUekA, Die Sichel-Operette, unpublished manuscript collected by Steifen Mensching (Berlin: private archive, 1987); video recording, collected by Karin Wolf (Berlin: Akademie der Künste der DDR, 1987)
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• Wenzel & Mensching, Letztes aus der Da Da eR, text and video recording, collected by Karin Wolf (Berlin: Akademie der Künste der DDR, 1989). Film (Potsdam: DEFA, 1990). Available on video from Buschfunk, Berlin, 1998.
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• 1992 . Wenzel and Mensching, Aufenthalt m der Hölle, text and video recording in Wenzel's private archive Berlin
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