Naiveté in the Novels of Hans Fallada: Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?, Wolf unter Wölfen and Der Trinker

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RMA Literary Studies MA Thesis

NAIVETÉ IN THE NOVELS OF HANS FALLADA

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Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?_{, Wolf unter Wölfen and Der Trinker}

By Ronen Fridman

June 2020

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Introduction

“[E]r war klein und elend, er schrie und krakeelte und brauchte seine Ellbogen, um seinen Platz zu halten im Leben, aber verdiente er einen Platz? Er war ein Garnichts.” (Fallada, 1960, 147)

This description befits many of Hans Fallada’s protagonists. The _{Garnichts, or the Nebbich ,} 1

is the symptomatic starting point for the discussion in the works of the author of _{little men,} those who perpetually struggle in life, in their careers, against societal institutions, family and other sites of modern life, the nameless _{Angestellten, the spiritually homeless, the Godless} and the anti-heroes. They are the_{Garnichts’ of society, most typical to modernity (Schönert,} 2011, 156) and to Fallada’s work.

Hans Fallada (1893-1947), a _{little man by his own standards, was an amateur in the} full sense of the word. This is not meant derogatively, since he was a prolific writer and a bestselling author in his lifetime as well as decades after his death (Wortmann, 566), but only to the extent that despite the prominent presence of social, political and philosophical themes throughout his writings, a latently _{theoretical dimension remains – unlike in the case of other} classic modern writers such as Kafka, R. Walser, T. Mann and certainly R. Musil – utterly foreign to his novels. Thus, Fallada may be considered a philosophical amateur. His stories typically revolve around “simple” men, and they do so in a simple, straightforward language. At first sight his works appear to be quite unpoetic and unmoving, even verging on the banal. Moreover, the novels’ lack of intellectual sophistication goes beyond their quotidian themes and their overall simple style and plain structures, and is also prominent in the traits of the novels’ characters themselves.

Indeed, the most prevalent character, the most _Falladaesque _{protagonist, is the} ignorant, naive man, who encounters a modern world – usually in Berlin, or in some provincial town in Brandenburg – that is cruel, relentless, and extremely competitive. Eventually he manages to overcome the dull misery of everyday life, and to find his little peace outside of society, staying a _{Garnichts all the same. The ubiquitous idea in Fallada’s} stories is that the naive _type _{– he can hardly be called a character in the traditional sense – is} somehow both a victim of, and also an antidote, to modernity, even if the amateurish way in

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which Fallada presents this idea is in itself quite naive. As the intellectual elite of Fallada’s time, writers such as Siegfried Kracauer, Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin and Musil, analyzed and conceptualized the most pressing problems of modern, rationalized, capitalist society, Fallada himself told simple stories of D _{er kleine Mann, that aspired to directly depict} the very same themes that others theorized.

By invoking the concept of naiveté, a concept discussed already in the 18 th_{century by}

none other than Friedrich Schiller and – perhaps less known – Johann Georg Sulzer, Fallada situated himself on the horizon of classical German aesthetic theory. True, it does seem anachronistic to read Fallada through the scope of an 18 th _{century theoretical framework, but}

in a broader sense it is not implausible to argue that Fallada struggled to depict the problematic relations between notions of _{nature and culture in modernity, which find} expression in his depiction of naiveté, in a very similar manner to Schiller’s struggle. Their shared fascination with the notion of naiveté justifies this odd coupling of classic literary theory and the literature of the _{neue Sachlichkeit, of which Fallada was one of the more} prominent writers. In this sense, Fallada is not only a proponent of a modernist movement that seeks to break away from the burden of the tradition of _{classical aesthetics, but also a} successor of this very tradition.

In a peculiar way of anticipating Fallada's theme, Schiller, in his famous _{Über naive} und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795/6), makes a distinction between the naive and the sentimental:

“[.] der naive Dichter bloß der einfachen Natur und Empfindung folgt und sich bloß auf Nachahmung der Wirklichkeit beschränkt [...]. [Der sentimentalische Dichter]_{reflektiert über den Eindruck, den die} Gegenstände auf ihn machen, und nur auf jene Reflexion ist die Rührung gegründet, in die er selbst versetzt wird und uns versetzt.” (Schiller, 720)

This somewhat simplistic dichotomy, which will serve as the basis of this essay, is extended by Schiller beyond poetry to the realms of society, politics and morality (Wells, 502). According to Schiller, the naive poet simply imitates nature, perceived as ultimately good, and touches the reader through it, whereas the sentimental poet reflects upon nature and touches the reader through ideas. Despite his praise of naiveté as a classical, ‘perfect’, mode of creation, Schiller saw himself as a modern sentimental poet, a category which he

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seemingly did not evaluate as inferior, since, after all, a poet must reflect the tendencies of his age (Hindener, 27). In any case, this dichotomy will be further problematized later on, and for now it suffices to note that it is the problem of the fantasy of nature as an objective _{thing that} is constant and eternal, and by merits of its perfection is given to the totality of artistic depiction, that stands not only in the heart of Schiller’s essay, but – oddly enough – in Fallada’s works as well. Despite the 150 years that separate them, both writers deal – in a more or less obvious fashion – with the fantasy of a possible return to a simple, premodern, naive nature, in the midst of an overly sentimental age, an age of reason, reflection and representations. This fantasy amounts to an attempt to depict things ‘as they are’.

Focusing on three of his novels, this thesis embarks on demonstrating how Fallada addresses some of the complications that arise from the reality of the sentimental age and its societal, and symbolic, complexities, such as a hunger for directness or immediacy, a loss of touch with what together with Benjamin we may call _{bare life (bloßes Leben), a persistent} quest for substance, and a search for groundedness in its most literal sense, all can be described as variations on the theme of the loss of an (imaginary) _{naive nature, a loss Schiller} described thusly:

“Solange wir bloße Naturkinder waren, waren wir glücklich und vollkommen; wir sind frei geworden und haben beides verloren. Daraus entspringt eine doppelte und sehr ungleiche Sehnsucht nach der Natur; eine Sehnsucht nach ihrer_{Glückseligkeit, eine Sehnsucht nach ihrer Vollkommenheit.” (Schiller,} 707)

Naiveté could therefore be made visible as a somewhat archaic, somewhat pre-historic, pre-modern characteristic of the _{Garnichts' of the modern world, and at the same time, it is} the ''Sehnsucht nach der Natur”, the central trait of this modern human type _._{Naiveté is the} little man_{’s struggle to find a place in modernity, or rather, to return to “nature”, which we do} not know whether actually ever existed, in order to escape a bitter discontent towards modernity, expressed in Fallada’s terms in the modern man’s feeling of being fundamentally unimportant, rejected and neglected, a _{Garnichts who exclaims:}

“Ach, er ist ja einer von Millionen, Minister halten Reden an ihn, ermahnen ihn, Entbehrungen auf sich zu nehmen, Opfer zu bringen, deutsch zu fühlen, sein Geld auf die Sparkasse zu tragen und die staatserhaltende Partei zu wählen. Er tut es und er tut es nicht, je nachdem, aber er glaubt denen nichts.

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Gar nichts. Im tiefsten Innern sitzt es, die wollen alle was von mir, für mich wollen sie doch nichts.” (Fallada, 1960, 91)

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1. _{Kleiner Mann - Was Nun? (1932): The Angestellter’s Naiveté}

i. The Angestellter in the Social Order 2

"Sie sind also der Jüngling, der meine Tochter heiraten will? Sehr erfreut, setzen Sie sich hin. Übrigens werden Sie es sich noch überlegen."

"Was?" fragt Pinneberg. [..]

"Überstunden", sagt Herr Mörschel lakonisch. Und zu Pinneberg zwinkern: "Sie machen auch manchmal Überstunden, nicht wahr?"

"Ja", sagt Pinneberg. "Ziemlich oft." "Aber ohne Bezahlung?"

"Leider. Der Chef sagt ..."

Herrn Mörschel interessiert nicht, was der Chef sagt. "Sehen Sie, darum wäre mir ein Arbeiter für meine Tochter lieber: wenn mein Karl Überstunden macht, kriegt er sie bezahlt."

"Herr Kleinholz sagt ..." beginnt Pinneberg von neuem.

"Was die Arbeitgeber sagen, junger Mann", erklärt Herr Mörschel, "das wissen wir lange. Das interessiert uns nicht. Was sie tun, das interessiert uns. Es gibt doch ’nen Tarifvertrag bei euch, was?"

"Ich glaube", sagt Pinneberg.

"Glaube ist Religionssache, damit hat’n Arbeiter nischt zu tun. Bestimmt gibt es ihn. Und da steht drin, dass Überstunden bezahlt werden müssen. Warum krieg ich ’nen Schwiegersohn, dem sie nicht bezahlt werden?"

Pinneberg zuckt die Schultern.

"Weil ihr nicht organisiert seid, ihr Angestellten", erklärt ihm den Fall Herr Mörschel. "Weil kein Zusammenhang ist bei euch, keine Solidarität. Darum machen sie mit euch, was sie wollen."

"Ich bin organisiert", sagt Pinneberg mürrisch. "Ich bin in ’ner Gewerkschaft."

"Emma! Mutter! Unser junger Mann ist in ’ner Gewerkschaft? Wer hätte das gedacht! So schnieke und Gewerkschaft!" Der lange Mörschel hat den Kopf ganz auf die Seite gelegt und besieht seinen künftigen Schwiegersohn mit zugekniffenen Augen. "Und wie nennt sich Ihre Gewerkschaft, mein Junge? Nur raus damit!"

"Deutsche Angestellten-Gewerkschaft", sagt Pinneberg und ärgert sich immer mehr.

2 _{Quintin Hoare translates the word ‘}_{Angestellter’ as “salariat” (Kracauer, The Salaried Masses, 1998),}

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Der lange Mann krümmt sich völlig zusammen, so stark überkommt es ihn. "Die DAG! Mutter, Emma, haltet mich fest, unser Jüngling ist ein Dackel, das nennt er ’ne Gewerkschaft! Ein gelber Verband, zwischen zwei Stühlen. O Gott, Kinder, so ein Witz ..."

"Na, erlauben Sie mal", sagt Pinneberg wütend. "Wir sind kein gelber Verband! Wir werden nicht von den Arbeitgebern finanziert. Wir zahlen unseren Bundesbeitrag selber."

"Für die Bonzen! Für die gelben Bonzen! Na, Emma, da hast du dir ja den richtigen ausgesucht. Einen DAG-Mann! Einen richtigen Dackel!"

Pinneberg sieht hilfesuchend zu Lämmchen, aber Lämmchen sieht nicht her. Vielleicht ist sie es gewohnt, aber wenn sie es gewohnt ist, für ihn ist es doch schlimm.

"Angestellter, wenn ich sowas höre", sagt Mörschel. "Ihr denkt, ihr seid was Besseres als wir Arbeiter."

"Denk ich nicht."

"Denken Sie doch. Und warum denken Sie das? Weil Sie Ihrem Arbeitgeber nicht ’ne Woche den Lohn stunden, sondern den ganzen Monat. Weil Sie unbezahlte Überstunden machen, weil Sie sich unter Tarif bezahlen lassen, weil Sie nie ’nen Streik machen, weil Sie immer die Streikbrecher sind..."

"Es geht doch nicht nur ums Geld", sagt Pinneberg. "Wir denken doch auch anders als die meisten Arbeiter, wir haben doch andere Bedürfnisse ..."

"Anders denken", sagt Mörschel, "anders denken - Sie denken genau so wie ein Prolet..." "Das glaub ich nicht", sagt Pinneberg, "ich zum Beispiel ..." (Fallada, 1960, 14)

The 1932 novel _{Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?} _{depicts the state of the Angestellte, a rising class} of white-collar workers, precariously wedged between the working class and the well-off middle-class (Waine, 203) in Weimar Republic. The protagonist, Johannes Pinneberg, average and lacking “besondere Fähigkeiten” (Delabar, 283), becomes a representative of this class and, it appears, of a modern form of naiveté. Characteristic is Pinneberg’s meeting with his future father-in-law, the worker Mörschel, towards whom Pinneberg feels a certain class superiority (Frank, “Fallada und die Kulturdiagnostik”, 124). Nevertheless, during the conversation quoted above the salariat is stripped naked of the ideas of his class, those that provide the assumption of his superiority, as they are dismantled and mocked by Mörschel, beginning with the idea of unpaid overtime. An affront to a worker, the salariat accepts the idea of performing unpaid labour: he relies on his employer’s promise that eventually he will be paid what he is owed; he believes in the company, and sees himself as part of it, willingly contributing to the business with which he personally identifies; and, as Mörschel apparently suggests, he is willing to accept his employer’s authority as part of a ‘natural order of things’. As a salariat Pinneberg perceives himself as existing outside of a class, standing alone as a

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unique individual among other unique individuals. Therefore, he lacks the notion of solidarity that blue-collar workers possess and can readily be exploited by his employer.

Siegfried Kracauer’s_{Die Angestellten (1930) was a major influence on the formation} of Falada’s novel (Frank, “Fallada und die Kulturdiagnostik”, 118). It is a critical sociological field research that closely follows the emerging class of German salariats, which Fallada read and reacted to in his novel (Prümm, 15). Not different from the proletariat in his employment conditions, the _{Angestellter nevertheless works, and lives, by the creed:}

“Jeder werde an den Posten gestellt, den er nach seinen Fähigkeiten, Kenntnissen, psychischen und physischen Eigenschaften, kurz: nach der Eigenart seiner ganzen Persönlichkeit am besten auszufüllen imstande ist. Der richtige Mensch an die richtige Stelle!” (Kracauer, 12)

The salariat willingly trades his most basic employee rights, such as paid overtime, in order to gain a notion of valuable identity: the possibility to identify himself as “Buchhalter. In einem Getreidegeschäft” (Fallada, 1960, 13) assures Pinneberg that he is the right man in the right position. And since compromising one's position, even temporarily, is experienced as compromising one’s very self, the class of _{Angestellte appears stripped of a weapon that – at} least to a classical perception of the working class – is fundamental to its self-perception: the strike. In his famous essay _{Critique of Violence Walter Benjamin points out that the right to} strike is a fundamental form of violence workers can employ in the class struggle (Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”, 239). The salariats’ willingness to forgo this elementary right, as Mörschel claims, is a gesture of acceptance of the hierarchical order which subordinates them to the employer’s violence - threats, supervision, arbitrary dismissals, intimidation, et cetera. A voluntary renouncement of the right to strike places the salariat in his own eyes at the side of his employer. The charm of submitting to the _{Brotherr, as Kleinholz is called (Fallada,} 1960, 43), is found in the opportunity to draw closer to him: physical proximity to the higher class is experienced as genuine class proximity (Frank, “Fallada und die Kulturdiagnostik”, 124) which strengthens the feeling of self-value, as if sitting near a desk just like the _Brotherr does, turns the salariat into a little _{Brotherr himself, resulting in a kind of Foucauldian} “voluntary servitude” (Agamben, Introduction).

Mörschel’s aggressive dismissal of Pinneberg’s remark “ich glaube”, may seem at first as mere vulgarity: he ignores Pinneberg’s assumptive use of this figure of speech and

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treats it literally, as if Pinneberg was indeed referring to spiritual matters. But Mörschel’s literal interpretation is quite accurate, since Pinneberg’s attitude towards his employer Kleinholz has something of the religious acceptance of higher authority, as if Kleinholz’s words have the force of a divine creed, as “der Brotherr von Johannes Pinneberg, Herr über das Auskommen vom Jungen, dem Lämmchen und dem noch ungeborenen Murkel” (Fallada, 1960, 43). The employer wields such authority that his words have the power to dismiss the validity of the written contract. In them, Pinneberg believes, the _{real contract is written.} Accordingly, the usage of the designation _{Herr in reference to Pinneberg’s employer does not} signify Kleinholz’s position as _{Chef alone, but also as a God-like, law making, figure .} 3

Pinneberg understands the symbolic meaning of _{Herr in a literal sense, as a divine authority} who writes the law in violent means . The violent means - dismissal or salary reduction - 4 have one end: extracting greater value from the employee. So, the entire conversation

3 _{In the yet to be discussed context of the anti-idealistic tendency of early 20t} th _{century culture, the}

appearance of the concept of Herrschaft prompts one to think of Hegel’s dialectic of Herrschaft and

Knechtschaft - the struggle for recognition between two individuals to constitute their self-consciousness by subduing one another: “[t]hey must engage in this struggle, for each must elevate its self-certainty of existing for itself to truth, both in the other and in itself.” (Hegel, 111). The connection to Pinneberg and his _{Herr is made} sharper when Hegel writes:

“[TheHerr and the Knecht] are initially not the same and are opposed, and because their reflection into unity has not yet resulted, they are as two opposed shapes of consciousness. One is self-sufficient; for it, its essence is being-for-itself. The other is non-self-sufficient; for it, life, or being for an other, is the essence. The former is the master, the latter is the servant. The master is consciousness existing for itself .” (Hegel, 112)

Indeed, the Brotherr needs the Angestellter, but he is self-sufficient at least in the sense that his identification with his company is not illusory - he _{is his company. His position of Herr may rest on the reflection of his}

Herrschsaft in the Angestellter’s Knechtschaft, but also on the reality of his ownership of the business and his law-making authority within it. Pinneberg, as I will show later, is a mere societal type, devoid of substance, who is only constituted as an individual by having a position in a company, a position which is inherently precarious and impersonal, and is divorced from the dialectic process which constitutes the naive in the sentimental, forcing him to exist, as it were, on bottomless grounds. Further discussion in the Herrschaft-Knechtschaft dialectic is beyond the scope of this essay.

4 _{“All violence as a means is either lawmaking or law-preserving.” (Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”}

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thematizes the tension between Mörschel’s symbolic insight into this power structure and Pinneberg’s literal interpretation of symbolic language. Nevertheless, Pinneberg has a point, since in the realm of his business the _{Chef does hold a monopoly on violence, more so} because the salariat is reluctant to use his right to counter-violence: to strike. Thus, in the figure of the _{Chef the dual meaning of the term Brotherr - both employer and Lord - unites} into one, and the salariat’s servitude is justified in nearly metaphysical terms: he is dependent on his employer as the sole source of his sustenance , as well as for sustaining a sense of self. 5 His lack of personality in an emphatic, if not bourgeois sense, is a void that fills with his function in the company, thus, the expression of the acute modern existential crisis - “to be, or not to be - that is the question” - is replaced with the expression: “Telephonistin oder Stenotypistin, das ist die Frage” (Kracauer, 13).

Pinneberg is conflicted: on the one hand he insists that he is organized in an independent white-collar employees’ union, so as to show Mörschel his commitment to the interests of his class. On the other hand he claims that salariats have different wants and needs than the proletariat. His exclamation "es geht doch nicht nur ums Geld'' (Fallada, 1960, 15) may be seen as the emblem of his delusion, since the ironic fact is that the salariats’ obsession with petit-bourgeois status leads them to willingly suffer want just to keep-up with petit-bourgeois appearances. By allowing their _Brotherr _{to exploit them they reduce} themselves to a material state in which they are not able to think about anything but money, and the lack of it, a condition that results in an _{existence of lack: lack of money, power,} Herrschaft_{, identity and personality. This is the essential trait of this modern type: it can only} be defined negatively, on the basis of the things it is _{not. The salariat class’ entire existence is} based on a system of fundamental lacks, and above all, the lack of any substantial class consciousness. Thus, the Pinnebergs do not belong to the working class. Lacking any substantial income or assets, they do not belong to the middle-class, either; they do not possess a positive identity, but are rather defined by being neither workers, nor bourgeoisie . 6

5 _{Pinneberg’s employer after his move to Berlin is the Mandel emporium, of which it is said: “Das}

Warenhaus Mandel ernährt und kleidet Sie, das Warenhaus Mandel ermöglicht die Basis Ihrer Existenz. Es muss erwartet werden, dass Sie bei all Ihrem Tun und Lassen zuerst an das Warenhaus Mandel denken.” (Fallada, 1960, 209).

6 _{Around the same time that Kracauer and Fallada wrote their accounts of the} _{Angestellten, Kurt}

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The _Angestellter _{is a figure of the existence of lack, much in the same manner that the} ‘symbolic’ lacks a positive substance, and for its existence rests on the object that is symbolized by it. It is as if the _Angestellter _{is a symbol that was separated from the concrete} base of the symbolized, a free floating, apparition-like _{type, created by modernity. It is not} only his innate simplicity and gullibility, not his mediocre and uninspired dreams alone, but this lack of groundedness, that is in the essence of his naiveté, which results in the attempt to return to an imaginary naive nature outside of the city, to be discussed later on.

A further point regarding Pinneberg’s naiveté is summarized in his assertion “Herr Kleinholz sagt…” (Fallada, 1960, 14). A central attribute of the naive, writes the 18 th_century

theorist Johann Georg Sulzer , is the 7 _{naiveté of expression :}8

“Die Rede soll eigentlich ein getreuer Ausdruk unsrer Empfindungen und Gedanken seyn. Die ersten Menschen haben bey ihren Reden keinen andern Zwek haben können, als einander ihre Gedanken bekannt zu machen, und wenn sie und ihre Kinder die angeschaffne Unschuld bewahret hätten, so wäre die Rede nach ihrer wahren Bestimmung ein offenherziges Bild dessen, was in eines jeden Herzen vorgegangen wäre, und ein Mittel gewesen, Freundschaft und Zärtlichkeit unter den Menschen zu unterhalten.” (Sulzer, 502)

Pinning his hopes on his _{Herr’s words, Pinneberg unknowingly locates himself in these ideal,} imagined times of a pre-social existence, a utopia set outside of the realms of history, a

beleidigt. Eine denkender Arbeiter sieht in seinem Schicksal das Schicksal seiner Klasse; ein Angestellter sieht in andern nur den Konkurrenten. Im Augenblick, wo er selber eine Zulage oder gar die Handelsvollmacht bekommt, ist die Frage des Klassenkampfes für ihn entschieden.” (Tucholsky, 82).

7 _{Johann Georg Sulzer (1720 - 1779), befitting this essay’s concentration on} _{little men, was seemingly}

quite a minor figure of the Enlightenment. He was much influenced by the, then novel, ideas of the scientific method (Christensen, 6), indeed, the very name of his major work, _{Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste} (1771-1774), attests to the kind of naive attitude of a time when philosophers sought to incorporate science, philosophy, aesthetics and metaphysics into a general systematic theory which will describe the world in its entirety: “Sulzer saw the task of the aesthetician to be much like that of the scientist: to analyze carefully all the various arts in their great diversity in order to discover the unifying laws that underlie them.” (Christensen, 7). This obsession with the discovery and description of the whole, one can argue, our culture is yet to overcome.

8 _{In fact, the entry “naiv” in Sulzer’s encyclopedia of the arts, which influenced Schiller’s}

conceptualization of the naive (Jäger, 61) later to be discussed, was not written by Sulzer himself, but by Christoph Martin Wieland, who was not credited for this contribution. In compiling his _{Allgemeine Theorie der}

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hypothetical era before man’s “Boßheit, Unbilligkeit, Unmäßigkeit, Neid und Haß” (Sulzer, 502) forced the development of manners and ceremonies, that came to hide the _real intentions behind one’s words. Since then, Sulzer asserts, “ist die Rede der Menschen insgemein weitläuftig, sinnleer, doppelsinnig, unbestimmt, gekräuselt, steif und affektirt worden” (Sulzer, 502). Sulzer draws a decisive line between man’s pure nature and the corruption of nature by human culture . Fallada’s depiction of Pinneberg’s thoughts and 9 speech corresponds with this idea: Pinneberg cannot imagine a disparity between Kleinholze’s words and his actions. Consequently, he experiences the promises of his employer in a distorted manner, as if stemming from his very own interest in protecting the firm which he sees as his own, and not as assertions that are in fact directed _{against him.} Pinneberg’s inability to identify the _{doppelsinnig character of his employer’s promises is} naive. This naiveté is the source of Mörschel’s mockery and disdain towards him, and the reason the _Brotherr _{Kleinholz is able to uninterruptedly extract value from him before} dismissing him.

If one is to take Sulzer by his word, then during the conjectured historical development of culture, human society shed its initial naiveté which appeared as a perception of parity between one’s thoughts, feelings and expressions, and developed a more sophisticated system of communication, in which one’s intentions are always hidden behind the words - culture. Mörschel’s insistence on the importance of the employer's actions alone, and not his words , reflects a keen awareness of this socio-political reality. Contrary to that,10 Pinneberg’s naiveté is a position that ignores the objective material conditions altogether and holds on to an imagined ideal of itself as superior to the ‘vulgar’ working-class. This allows Pinneberg to declare: “Wir denken doch auch anders als die meisten Arbeiter, wir haben doch andere Bedürfnisse..." (Fallada, 1960, 15). And so, the very naiveté from which the feeling of superiority is derived, is weaponized against the naive class of the salariats. In Sulzer’s formulation this historical change developed among man an ability to make use of their cunning to advance in society; culture is rooted in deceit and dishonesty, in a

9 _{Sulzer’s Rousseauian perception of nature as entirely good and pure was criticised by Goethe, who}

contended that Sulzer ignores the more cruel and ferocious sides of the creation by imagining it in an idealised form as naive, harmless and benign (Bourke, 239).

10 _{“Was die Arbeitgeber sagen [...], das wissen wir lange. Das interessiert uns nicht. Was sie tun, das}

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Doppelsinnigkeit that the _{Angestellter is unable to master himself. The so-called andere} Bedürfnisse about which Pinneberg boasts, can be paralleled to the naive’s condition of nature - the unshakeable belief that “[d]ie Rede soll eigentlich ein getreuer Ausdruk unsrer Empfindungen und Gedanken seyn” (Sulzer, 502). Thus, the content of the _Brotherr’s expressions is raised in the eyes of the salariat to the level of natural truth, the association with which is a source of an imagined relation to the concreteness of nature, while in fact serving as a central characteristic of the mechanism that oppresses him. Naiveté, being a condition of nature, stands in classical theory in contrast to culture, and so, to the dynamic character of the social and political life.

Sulzer’s work influenced Friedrich Schiller’s famous essay _{Über naive und}

sentimentalische Dichtung (1795/6), which elaborated on the relations between _{naive nature} and _{sentimental culture. “Natur”, writes Schiller, “ist uns nichts anders, als das freiwillige} Dasein, das Bestehen der Dinge durch sich selbst, die Existenz nach eignen und unabänderlichen Gesetzen.” (Schiller, 694). Pinneberg’s naiveté is an existence under unchanging laws of nature: no development of character is to be expected, at least not in the sense that it was developed in the tradition of the _{Bildungsroman, a ”development of} personality, [an] awakening of the hero's soul to the rich variety of the world.” (Moretti, 92). The salariat lacks a notion of substantial identity, and consequently lacks the possibility of developing such a character, remaining his same natural-naive self throughout the novel, untouched by the rich variety of the world, and merely blinded by the appearance of others’ power and possessions. Naiveté in this sense means 'not developing', having no depth of character, no telos, and no direction, in short, a nature whose ‘complete’. Thus, in some sense, Fallada develops the uncomfortable aesthetics of stagnation explores by his contemporary Robert Musil through the idea of “Steckenbleiben” . Both authors express a 11 deep uneasiness with the appearance of the allegedly dynamic, seemingly fast-moving, modern world. The salariat’s personality is given to the condition of _{Steckenbleiben: a} personality made obsolete by the rapid process of rationalization of the office environment (Kracauer, 23), which reduced man to a function, a mere physical extension of a bureaucratic machine, which goes farther than the body to utilise man’s mind as well. Quite oblivious to

11 _{“Aussteigen!} _Abspringen! _Ein _Heimweh _nach _{Aufgehaltenwerden,} _{Nichtsichentwickeln,}

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this condition, the salariat stands outside of historical development because he is unable to recognize his own part in it. Blind to his actual social position and estranged from his own body, he cannot develop a character. He is merely a _{type, defined by a position in a company} - a clothes salesman, a bookkeeper, a typist, a stenographer - lacking a _{calling (Beruf) , and}12

having only a _{Stelle. Sadly, “Stellen sind eben nicht Berufe, die auf sogenannte} Persönlichkeiten zugeschnitten wären [...]“ (Kracauer, 13).

ii. Nakedness_{and the Bare Life}

The _{Angestellter finds the sight of a naked body unbearable:}

“Ein junger Mensch kommt herein, aber jung ist nur eine Altersbezeichnung, er sieht völlig unjung aus, noch gelber, noch galliger als der Alte. Er knurrt: “N’Abend”, nimmt von dem Gast keinerlei Notiz und zieht Jacke und Weste aus, dann das Hemd. Pinneberg sieht es mit steigender Verwunderung.

[...]

Karl lässt schon das Wasser am Ausguss laufen und fängt an, sich sehr intensiv zu waschen. Bis zu den Hüften ist er nackt, Pinneberg geniert sich etwas, Lämmchens wegen. Aber die scheint nichts dabei zu finden, es ist ihr wohl selbstverständlich.” (Fallada, 1960, 16)

Pinneberg’s bashfulness upon encountering nakedness may be attributed to a petit-bourgeois’ sense of decency: one’s conduct in company determines one’s standing in society. Karl’s crude behavior simply offends Pinneberg’s sense of decency, further demonstrating the difference between the Mörschels’ working-class habits and his own assumed petit-bourgeois values. But there is another possibility: Pinneberg finds nakedness unbearable since it confronts him with his own _{naked self, which is more radically nude than the physical} nakedness he cannot bear to witness. Watching Karl, Pinneberg experiences a fleeting moment of _{doppelsinnig understanding of his own nakedness, that does not affect a better} understanding of the void above which his identity hangs - his _{existence of lack. One must}

12 _{Max Weber discusses the religious background of the idea of} _{Beruf (and the English Calling), found,}

according to him, only in Protestantism. The lack of such a notion of _{Beruf is a failure of “die Schätzung der} Pflichterfüllung innerhalb der weltlichen Berufe als des _{höchsten Inhaltes, den die sittliche Selbstbetätigung} überhaupt annehmen könne.” (Weber, 64). If one is to take Weber at his word, then the _{Angestellter,} a typical product of the culturally Protestant Berlin (Kracauer, xix), is morally defective as well, since in his work he does not answer such a calling.

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ask, then, what does his _{nakedness entail, and what is the source of the subtle horror} Pinneberg experiences when facing others’ nakedness.

A part of the delusion of the salariat is his pride of possessing a unique personality which has “andere Bedürfnisse” (Fallada, 1960, 15) than the working-class’. The salariat believes he plays an important role in commercial life, and therefore, a major role in society. But this role is imagined, as he credits himself with occupying a position not due to him. The salariat Pinneberg is but a passive "setting for history" (Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”, 255), a figure that is acted upon, but does not act itself, a “bare life that is entirely subjected to [the] sovereign power” (Vatter, 46) of the _{Brotherr. Karl may indeed} possess a vulgar _{organic corporality (Salzani, 111), but in Schiller’s terms he is politically} sentimental_{, i.e. reflective and alert . Pinneberg may be dressed, but his naiveté places him}13 down the cultural hierarchy closer to _{das bloße Leben, thus, subjected to “law making} violence” (Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”, 248). Giorgio Agamben reinterprets this term as _{the naked life (Salzani, 114), which I attribute to Pinneberg's nakedness:}

“What was once divine (homo sacer ) now also operates in the political (naked life). [...] naked life as14 exposed to sovereign violence [...], on a “threshold of indifference” between physis and nomos, land and city, man and animal.” (Östman, 73)

The salariat’s exclusion from political life presents him in some sense as an instance of _homo sacer_{: Sovereign violence is exercised upon him by the Brotherr; he is forced into constant} movement from the countryside to the city and back to the countryside; driven from nature (_{physis) back to the city and its laws (nomos), always in search of work; and living under a} perpetual preoccupation with material lack. Having no grasp of the _{nomos, the salariat is} barred from engaging in any _{cultural activity, and is practically denied the possibility of} living a “special and high form of life, [a] process [that] is governed by a special high purposiveness” (Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”, 255). At most, the salariat’s sense

13 _{“For Schiller”, Wells writes, “conscious choice is characteristic of the behavior of modern man, who}

does not blindly follow a natural urge, an innate sense of justice or honesty, but weighs various possibilities before taking action. His conduct is less impulsive, [and] more reflective [...]” (Wells, 495). Karl’s activity in the Communist party is thoroughly reflective.

14 _{“An obscure figure of archaic Roman law, in which human life is included in the juridical order [.]}

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of purpose is derived from appearing to work hard enough, and impressing his thoroughly enough, so as not to be dismissed and lose the status gained by the association with the company that employs him. In short, Pinneberg has no _{high purposiveness sort, he stands bare: lacking the ability to reflect on the cause of his predicament, Karl’s physical nakedness bluntly confronts him with his own nakedness, and in a moment of a brief and rare reflection, that originates from the force of the physical experience, he is made partly aware of the fact of his own exclusion that otherwise he cannot grasp. This anxiety of encountering nakedness is the anxiety Benjamin describes in his Kafka essay that appears at the moment one realizes that the man in the story one reads is not a man at all: “[w]hen you finally come upon the name of the creature - monkey, dog, mole - you look up in fright and realize that you are already far away from the continent of man.” (Benjamin, “Franz Kafka”, 802).In the literal encounter with Karl’s animalistic figure, Pinneberg gets a glimpse of how far gone he really is from having a man’s personality. His nakedness becomes clear in the literal _Gestalt _{of Karl’s physique; the tragedy, (Benjamin, “Franz Kafka”, 803), Pinneberg’s body does not refer back to a coherent system of meanings (“teachings” in Benjamin’s metaphysical language) that can be called a since his identity may only be expressed negatively. This _self_{does to Pinneberg’s own body from which he was alienated by the process of rationalization that reduced him from a person to a function in a firm. At best, the encounter merely alludes to the possibility of redefining nakedness in positive terms, as the ancient, imaginary identity of the _{bare life, but in fact, this does not bring Pinneberg closer to similar to the _{homo sacer. Karl’s identity and purposefulness are security in class solidarity (Waine, 203), and his nakedness is merely physical, whereas Pinneberg, in spite of the attempt to keep up appearances, is existentially naked.

_Brotherr

of any}

of course, is that much like Kafka’s “gestus”}

_self, not exist, nor does it refer}

establishing such an identity} derived from the feeling of}

Pinneberg encounters nakedness once more through his friend Heilbutt, his

ex-colleague in Mandel’s emporium, and an enthusiastic proponent of the

Frei-Körper-Kultur_.

“Natürliche Nacktheit ist ohne Scham, [...] Heilbutt sieht vor sich hin: "Die Menschen müssten es nur wissen, Pinneberg, es wird ihnen nicht richtig gesagt. Du solltest es auch tun, Pinneberg, und deine Frau auch. Es würde euch gut sein, Pinneberg."

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[...] "Sieh mal, diese Aktfotos. [...] Wir sind freie Menschen, Pinneberg."

"Ja, ich kann mir das denken", antwortet Pinneberg verlegen.” (Fallada, 1960, 152)

Heilbutt offers Pinneberg _{natural nakedness as a form of freedom that knows no shame and} provides a feeling of being situated in one’s place without being constituted, or threatened, by an outside gaze. Moreover, Heilbutt establishes himself as a pornographer, earning a living by selling nude photos (Fallada, 1960, 183). Quite symbolically, Pinneberg does not join him in business, preferring to keep his precarious-but-decent position as clothes salesman, thus, literally remaining on the side of the dressed and seemingly respectable, where he is degraded and threatened, and suffers want. He is barred from the company of the self-assured naked, the _{freie Menschen, who seemingly cross Agamben’s threshold to a new kind of freedom} from sovereignty (Vatter, 46), since the idea of a freedom derived from a contact with one’s own nakedness is to him quite unbelievable. As in the case of Karl’s body, Pinneberg is confronted with his own existential nakedness by the nakedness displayed in Heilbutt’s Aktfotos and during the FKK meeting.

Heilbutt and Karl Mörschel have a secure position in society: Karl is an active member in the Communist party and Heilbutt is an entrepreneur with a strong disdain for social hierarchies and norms. Both are attributed with positive traits and both gain a sense of high purposiveness from subverting the political system. It might be claimed that their nakedness is so confronting to Pinneberg precisely because it is strongly connected to their politically subversive attitudes. Put simply, if nakedness is related to a disruption of the structure that supports the authority of the _{Brotherr, then the salariat wants nothing to do with} it, since the rejection of the hierarchy threatens the company with which he identifies, thus putting at risk his meagre sense of self-identity.

Das Nackte is already the territory of naiveté in Schiller. A connection between naiveté and nakedness is made by Schiller himself, when he contrasts the sentimental Schulverstand_{to the naive genius:}

“[...] so springt hier wie durch innere Notwendigkeit die Sprache aus dem Gedanken hervor und ist so sehr eins mit demselben, daß selbst unter der körperlichen Hülle der Geist wie entblößet erscheint. Eine solche Art des Ausdrucks, wo das Zeichen ganz in dem Bezeichneten verschwindet, und wo die Sprache den Gedanken, den sie ausdrückt, noch gleichsam nackend läßt, da ihn die andre nie darstellen

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kann, ohne ihn zugleich zu verhüllen, ist es, was man in der Schreibart vorzugsweise genialisch und geistreich nennt.'' (Schiller, 706)

Schiller uses both_{entblößet and nackend to describe the state of the naive mode of expression} . Schiller’s _{naive genius, Benjamin’s bloße Leben and Agamben’s naked life, though} 15

forming different conceptual frameworks, converge at least in one point: the bare or naked life, the bare or denuded _{Geist, the naked thought, all pertain to a certain perception of a} natural, pre-cultural, free human existence, unspoiled by cultural control mechanisms. As in the Garden of Eden in the naive times before sin, nudity is associated with an expression of human nature which Sulzer sees as pure and Schiller glorifies as genius, and in our modern times is derided as lacking in culture and removed from a position of participation in society, but at the same time, praised for bearing the force to resist society’s tyranny (Vatter, 49). Nature is the last refuge, the sphere in which one can play _{himself, be naked, as it were,} unburdened by the dictates of restrictive cultural institutions, “the last refuge, which does not preclude it from being [the actors] salvation (Benjamin, “Franz Kafka”, 803). But for the Pinnebergs, Fallada shows, it is already too late: “modern man lives in his own body: the body slips away from him, is hostile toward him.” (Benjamin, “Franz Kafka”, 806). Physical nakedness can be redeeming for the likes of Karl and Heilbutt, but for Pinneberg it is hostility incarnate. In his naive way, Pinneberg makes an instinctive connection between nakedness and his own predicament. Others’ nudity is a reminder of what he and his fellow white-collar employees struggle to forget, namely, that they are only constituted as individuals when they are on the receiving end of the _{sovereign’s violence: when they are employed in a company} under the rule of the _{Brotherr. Problematic relations to one’s corporeality and an identity} void are here emphatically linked together, the denial of corporeality, manifested in the rejection of nakedness, is a denial of a subjective identity which relates to a kind of primordial naiveté of those who lack the ability to turn a reflective gaze upon themselves; they are unreflective, and so naive and _{natural. This perception of the natural expresses a} pretense to be outside of politics and history, as if by avoiding nailing one’s words and concepts to the cross of grammar and logic (Schiller, 706), the naive genius freely roams in

15 _{It is a part of a broader discussion regarding the} _{Genius - a figure of naiveté according to Schiller,}

which is a take on Kant’s conceptualization of the _{Genius in his Third Critique. This discussion, although highly} interesting, is too far removed from the subject of this essay to be considered at length.

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spheres of creativity in a natural state, uncorrupted by worldly affairs, free from society’s constraints. Naturally, this is not the case with Pinneberg, whose modern kind of naiveté prevents him from correctly seeing reality as it is. Fallada’s narrative suggests that Pinneberg fails to form a coherent position which pertains to the constant and unchanging; he does not stand outside of history in an ideal, perfect state as a _{natural object (Schiller, 695), on the} contrary, his naked expression and bare spirit become his downfall. His aversion to nudity reflects this failure to win the “emancipation of bare life” from the powers that write the law and “determines bare life as guilty even before having committed any trespass” (Vatter, 45). His alienation from a genuine position of bare life marks his distance from emancipation (Vatter, 49), his being far removed from “an existence over which power no longer seems to have any hold” (Agamben, Part III, Ch. 4), and therefore also voluntarily loses him the right to fight for his rights, for the emancipation of – after all – life itself.

iii. The Naive _{is the Sentimental, and a Moment of Das Kleine Glück}

To better understand the trap of Pinneberg’s naiveté one must consider the relations between the two central concepts in Schiller’s _{Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung: the naive} and the sentimental modes of perception. Schiller presents these two historico-philosophical poetical sensibilities, that are extended beyond mere modes of artistic creation to constitute two opposing perceptions of reality, as the traits distinguishing between ancient and modern times: the_{naive is the classical, ‘Greek’ form, which rests on a notion of unchanging nature} and its perfect imitation; the _sentimental _{is the modern sensibility which arises from a} reflective contemplation of the effect nature has on the poet’s own mind (Schiller, 720). In short:

“Dem naiven Dichter hat die Natur die Gunst erzeigt, immer als eine ungeteilte Einheit zu wirken, in jedem Moment ein selbständiges und vollendetes Ganze zu sein und die Menschheit [...] in der Wirklichkeit darzustellen. Dem sentimentalischen hat sie die Macht verliehen [...], jene Einheit, die durch Abstraktion in ihm aufgehoben worden, aus sich selbst wiederherzustellen, die Menschheit in sich vollständig zu machen [...].” (Schiller, 751)

The naive is presented as complete and unchanging nature; the sentimental as the process of development that strives to achieve that completeness, lost in culture. But that the _{naive is not}

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to be taken as the opposition to the _{sentimental was famously discussed in Peter Szondi's} essay on Schiller with the telling title: Das Naive ist das Sentimentalische _{. Szondi shows that} the category of the naive, despite Schiller’s pretension to introduce it otherwise, is indeed subjected to historical development, as much as the sentimental is:

''Rationaler Weg, leitende Begriffe, Reflexion - diese Mittel, auf die Schiller zufolge Goethes

griechischer Geist, in die nordische Welt geworfen, angewiesen war, sind zugleich characteristica specifica der Moderne, derkünstlichen Bildung, die Friedrich Schlegel im Studium-Aufsatz der Antike als einer _{natürlichen konfrontiert. Bedenkt man zudem, dass nach Schillers Definition “der Naive} Dichter Natur ist, der sentimentalische die (verlorene) Natur sucht”, so erscheint der im Geburtstagsbrief porträtierte Goethe vollends als ein Dichter nicht der naiven, sondern der sentimentalischen Art, [...] ein Vertreter nicht dernatürlichen Bildung, sondern [...] der künstlichen, der reflexiven.” (Szondi, 62)

Schiller’s claim that the art and poetry of the classical Greek period, and of Goethe himself, were natural and thus naive, is paradoxical, since the very possibility of establishing a naive mode of perception is dependent on the ability to raise oneself to the degree of nature through the faculties of reflection and rationality, that is, through nature’s ultimate antagonist - reason. The child, Schiller writes, cannot be called naive, because naiveté is childhood found where it is not anymore expected ; accordingly, Goethe cannot be called a naive Greek 16 among sentimental Germans (Szondi, 62), since he was able to create his naive poetry in the first place only because of his ability to recognize those concepts that are ‘natural’ and ‘Greek’, and rationally adopt them to his poetry. Like the child who cannot be called naive, if Goethe was born a Greek in ancient Greece, and not in modern Germany, he would not have been considered naive either (Szondi, 63). Thus, owing to the historical conditions under which he was born, Goethe, who is Schiller’s prominent example of a modern naive poet, is in fact a sentimental poet. Thus, Szondi shows that naiveté cannot exist without its sentimental origins, a realization from which the essay received its title. Szondi’s reading demonstrates how Schiller’s idealistic conceptualization of naiveté as an ahistorical category

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that stands outside of historical development is in itself the outcome of a historical dialectic in which two opposing categories came to constitute one another . 17

However, when Pinneberg’s naiveté is read in the context of Szondi’s analysis, a striking difference appears, as this modern form of naiveté seems devoid of any sentimental origins, lacking all traces of reflection or a higher ability to conceptualize and contextualize the position of a salariat. Pinneberg’s naiveté hangs above a void. It does not stem from a reflective sentimentality like Goethe’s, but merely from the rigid material circumstances of his class in modernity. His weak position within the sentimental society _{forces him into} naiveté. The dialectical process stops with the_{Angestellter, whose naiveté does not bring him} closer to the synthetical stage of development achieved by the likes of Goethe, but rather causes the ongoing degradation of his social position that pushes him farther away from such a perfect state. Pinneberg’s literal return to nature (Fallada, 1960, 221) does not bring him closer to becoming one of Schiller’s _{natural objects, of whom he writes “[sie] sind, was wir} waren_{; sie sind, was wir wieder werden sollen. Wir waren Natur, wie sie, und unsere Kultur} soll uns, auf dem Wege der Vernunft und der Freiheit, zur Natur zurückführen” (Schiller, 695). But rather, this literalness is a superficial conception of a return to nature, depicted phenomenologically, as it were, as an actual movement in physical space from the city to the countryside. As a result, one is rejected from society, while all the same remaining crushed under the force of one’s exclusion from it. Pinneberg cannot become a _{modern man and his} naiveté is not sublime, but is simply a direct reflection of the existential nakedness of his class, which eventually marks an inability to sustain any dialectical process of development. And so, the old category of novelistic character with its trajectory of personal development epitomized in the _{Bildungsroman, came to a halt in Fallada’s little man. Pinneberg is nothing} more, and nothing less, than a _{type that occupies a certain position in a business, a “singuläre} Variation einer allgemeinen Struktur” (Linder, 249), a non-individual, a new kind of literary figure prominent in the literature of the _{neue Sachlichkeit.}

Szondi closes his essay with a reassuring realization for both the naive and the sentimental:

17 _{G.A. Wells was more condemning than Szondi. He dedicated a paper to the notion of nature in}

Schiller’s essay, arguing that Schiller’s conception of nature is non-persistent, over-optimistic, philosophically erroneous and dehistoricized (Wells, 1966).

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“So steht am Endpunkt von Schillers progredierender Erkenntnis eine geschichtsphilosophische Poetik, welche den Gegensatz naiv-sentimentalisch, indem sie das Sentimentalische als die Wiedergewinnung des Naiven unter den Bedingungen seines anderen, der Reflexion, setzt, im hegelschen Wortsinn aufgehoben hat.” (Szondi, 98)

The _{little man, however, is incapable of reflection. He is also forever divorced from the} dialectical process, and can therefore no longer hope for such an _{Aufhebung. This is a} possible explanation to the seemingly conservative ending of the novel, where the formation in the countryside of the triad of Vater-Mutter-Murkel marks the final stage of Pinneberg’s estrangement from capitalist society and its cutthroat competition (Rohde, 69). Once it becomes clear that no further development is possible, one retreats back to the familiar structure typical to Fallada’s novels that is characterized by “Momente des stillen, einfachen, kleinen Glücks” (Rohde, 68). This seems to afford a sense of security, but does not afford any means of progress, nor the possibility of _{Aufhebung. The novel ends with these passages:}

Und plötzlich ist die Kälte weg, eine unendlich sanfte, grüne Woge hebt sie auf und ihn mit ihr. Sie gleiten empor, die Sterne funkeln ganz nahe; sie flüstert: "Aber du kannst mich doch ansehen! Immer und immer! Du bist doch bei mir, wir sind doch beisammen..."

Die Woge steigt und steigt. Es ist der nächtliche Strand zwischen Lensahn und Wiek, schon einmal waren die Sterne so nah. Es ist das alte Glück, es ist die alte Liebe. Höher und höher, von der befleckten Erde zu den Sternen. Und dann gehen sie beide ins Haus, in dem der Murkel schläft.” (Fallada, 1960, 247)

All hopes of climbing up the social ladder are disappointed, and the Pinnebergs do not find their fortune in the city. Thus, the utopian moment that closes the novel resembles at most an ordinary country idyll that does not bear resemblance to Szondi’s Hegelian moment of Aufhebung, understood as a synthesis of naive and sentimental modes of perception which leads to the creation of the _{modern man. Indeed, despite their constant movement, Pinneberg} and Lämmchen did not advance, and although they relocated from the province to Berlin, found jobs and an apartment, had a child, experienced the daily grind of the metropolis and moved back to the countryside, no progress was made and no _{Bildung was achieved. Not} incidentally then, the moment of _{Aufhebung is not a genuine moment of transcendence, but a} moment in which the couple is simply and literally lifted up into the air. There is no symbolic Aufhebung because personal redemption is impossible without the development of character.

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Pinneberg and Lämmchen are confined to a superficial notion of _{Aufhebung, as they imagine} a literal ascension to the stars, where in reality they are merely cocooned in their own home. Fallada’s solution to the _{Angestellters’ troubles can be defined as a Rückzug ins Private: a} moment of “kleines Glück”, a withdrawal from the world into a private-individual sphere that is essentially illusionary. This withdrawal into the individual sphere becomes quite tragic when one realizes that Pinneberg does not possess such a sphere at all , since, as Kracauer 18 observes, the _{Angestellter is “geistig obdachlos” : this symptomatically modern type is} 19 materially and spiritually deprived of the ability to actively participate in society from a position of freedom and independence, and therefore he must turn to the sphere of an imagined concrete stability that is found in the traditional family structure. It is an escape from reality into the idyllic (bourgeois) fantasy of the family (Jäger, 5), in which all prospects of development are abolished, and the return to nature through reason, as Schiller imagined it (Schiller, 695), is impossible.

iv. Fallada and the Tradition of the Novel

Finally, as major theorists of the genre asserted, the novel is founded on the ethos of transformation, progress and development, and on the process of formation of the individual character. Among others, Ian Watt described the novel form in relation to capitalism’s basic tendency for constant transformation of the status quo (Watt, 64), and Georg Lukács defined the novel’s protagonist as a “seeker” (Lukács, 1988, 60). Modernist literature rebelled against these notions of development and telos, a great representative of this rebellion was Fallada’s contemporary Robert Musil, with his monumental novel _{Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, of} which it was said that “[t]here is scarcely a trace of progress or development throughout the

18 _{Here may presumably be found an echo to Agamben’s discussion of the concepts of} _{zoē - “the simple}

fact of living common to all living beings (animals, men, or gods)”, and that of _{bios - ”the form or way of living} proper to an individual or a group.” (Agamben Part I, Ch.1). The zoē, the “simple natural life” (Agamben, Part I, Ch.1) is strictly confined to the sphere of the home. Pinnebergs existence in a state of simple and natural life, confines him to his home, and appears as another layer of exclusion from social and political life.

19 _{“Die Masse der Angestellten unterscheidet sich vom Arbeiter-Proletariat darin, dass sie geistig}

obdachlos ist. Zu den Genossen kann sie vorläufig nicht hinfinden, und das Haus der bürgerlichen Begriffe und Gefühle, das sie bewohnt hat, ist eingestürzt, weil ihm durch die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung die Fundamente entzogen worden sind. Sie lebt gegenwärtig ohne eine Lehre, zu der sie aufblicken, ohne ein Ziel, das sie erfragen könnte.” (Kracauer, 85)

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whole 2,300 pages” (Puckett, 412). In his conception of _{Steckenbleiben Musil famously} satirized the idea of progress, but his novel nonetheless features, even if satirically, a grand narrative of historical processes – the parallel campaign – and more implicitly, the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the implied expectations of radical societal changes that will follow its collapse. Despite the _{essayistic approach developed by the protagonist} Ulrich as a way to describe the world without the pretension to reduce it to concepts in order to capture it in its entirety , the narrative is nonetheless inundated with conceptual language. 20 Touching on science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, et cetera., it seems clear that although Ulrich’s scattered reflections do not form a coherent system per se, they do nonetheless pertain to the scientific system as such, one of whose central principles is the development of a corpus of knowledge that gradually grows over time, presumably ad infinitum . Moreover, Musil’s characters are unique Characters, and not21 _{types like in the case} of Pinneberg. Indeed, Ulrich’s entire project of taking a year off life, the event that sets the novel in motion, so to speak, is of an introspective nature, designed to gain a better grasp of reality and his role in it (Puckett, 418), a _{sentimental project of the highest degree.}

Oppose this to _{Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?: hardly a story at all, it is a petit-narrative} that handles little people’s troubles; it contains no philosophizing and no sentimental, reflective, sophistication, and its title name alone sharply points to a feeling of loss of purpose. It is an antithesis to Musil’s novel of ideas. In fact, simplicity is the novel’s main, perhaps only, quality. The novel itself is naked in the sense that it is stripped of a conceptual dimension. The protagonist Pinneberg is _{typical, a mere representative of his class, and his} naiveté does not allow him to develop the perspective needed to effect any development. Moretti points out with regards to Wilhelm Meister, Julien Sorel and Dorothea Brooke, who

20 _{“ungefähr wie ein Essay in der Folge seiner Abschnitte ein Ding von vielen Seiten nimmt, ohne es ganz}

zu erfassen, - denn ein ganz erfaßtes Ding verliert mit einem Male seinen Umfang und schmilzt zu einem Begriff ein - glaubte er, Welt und eigenes Leben am richtigsten ansehen und behandeln zu können.” (Musil, 257)

21 _{As in the case of the dispute between the two jurists, Ulrich’s father and Schwung (Musil, Ch. 111)}

regarding the criminal culpability of the insane. No agreement is reached, and the committee comes to a standstill at first, but nonetheless, facts are considered and analysed, and scientific essays are written, to the benefit of the philosophy of jurisprudence. The committee’s constant splitting into factions is admittedly absurd, a sharp parody of such institutions, but the process nevertheless has the effect of creating new knowledge. Splitting hairs is ridiculous, but in science it is also quite necessary.

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are paradigmatic of novelistic protagonist, that “these characters are still, though certainly all 'normal' in their own ways, far from unmarked or meaningless in themselves” (Moretti, 11). This may be true to Ulrich, but Pinneberg _{is unmarked and meaningless. Ulrich may refer to} himself as a ‘man without qualities’, but if anything, he suffers from an excess of qualities - a soldier, an engineer, a mathematician, a philosopher, a womanizer, et cetera. - becoming a Pinneberg-like figure, who possesses “Einfalt und Offenherzigkeit im Denken, Handeln und Reden” (Sulzer, 499), remains a mere fantasy for him. In this sense alone Fallada goes further than Musil in his critique of the tradition of the novel: under the guise of a realistic narrative he depicts a major figure of urban modernity - the _{Angestellter - as diametrically opposed to} the traditional character of the novel. He does not parody the novel and the society which produces it, nor does he offer a penetrating critique in the form of an essayistic-theoretic narrative as Musil does. Instead, Fallada’s novel engages in a form of _{Kulturdiagnostik : a}22 literary representation of the _{Alltag, in which the phenomenological aspect of the Lebenswelt} appears (Frank, “Fallada und die Kulturdiagnostik”, 119). The ‘flat’ depiction of the _Alltag does not theorize, but strives to simply describe, becoming a medium of exploration of society, which is offered to the readers’ scrutiny without further commentary. Closely engaged with Kracauer’s observations of the “Exotik des Alltags” (Kracauer, 4), Fallada’s typology of the society of his time is a naive attempt to create an unmitigated representation of the sorry state of the Weimar Republic, whose future is grim, and whose terrible end was prefigured in its unstable present. Both Kracauer and Fallada offer a critique of the tradition of the realist novel, because as a literary form that hinges on characters it is no longer apt to depict a society in which “in der Definition des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit fehlt das Wort Mensch. Vermutlich ist es vergessen worden, weil es keine so wichtige Rolle mehr spielt” (Kracauer, 23). Fallada rejects the idea of character development, thus forgoing the idea of a _{man, as it was imagined in the tradition of humanist thought since Descartes,} and subsequently in the realist novel (Watt, 17). The individual’s inner world and his subjective, spiritual experience, is an integral aspect of the novelistic form (Watt, 74), rejecting it may almost seem as a rejection of humanism itself; this metamorphosis of

22 _{Kulturdiagnotik came to be a popular form in the 1930’s. These partly literary, partly theoretically}

oriented short Feuilletons, depicted and criticized cultural, economical, political and societal phenomena during the interwar period, offering sharp observation and topical mini-sociological theories (Frank, “Fallada und die Kulturdiagnostik”, 120).

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character _{into type is the critique offered by Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?.}

Notably, the same humanistic tradition that gave birth to the modern man, sought to banish his naiveté, a position not appropriate in modernity, an era which aspires to deeply understand the world, to demystify ( _{entzaubern) it as Max Weber famously wrote, and not to} accept reality’s appearances at face value. The naiveté of the _{Angestellter Pinneberg, then, is} both his curse, and an opportunity to reach back to a pre-modern conception of _{man, to return} to a position of openness that allows one to imagine alternative attitudes towards and within the dominant social order, perhaps within or even beyond history itself. Pinneberg (and Fallada himself) is not in this position, but perhaps precisely not being in any position at all is the beginning of a liberation from having a fixed position, from being an _Angestellter _{in the} modern age_.

Naiveté in the Novels of Hans Fallada: Kleiner Mann - Was Nun?, Wolf unter Wölfen and Der Trinker

NAIVETÉ IN THE NOVELS OF HANS FALLADA

Table of Contents

Introduction

1.

​Kleiner Mann - Was Nun? ​(1932): The ​Angestellter’​s Naiveté

_{Kleiner Mann - Was Nun? (1932): The Angestellter’s Naiveté}