The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940

, falter Benjamin was born in Berlin in 1892. He studied philosophy ld theology in Berlin and Switzerland, and lived in various places in urope including several years in Paris. He was a regular contributor to lagazines and literary sections of newspapers. His numerous works dude The Origin afGerman Tragedy, "The Task of the Translator," ld "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In HO, while fleeing the Gestapo at the Franco-Spanish border, he took is own life.

Contents Note on Sources

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he University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 he University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London I 1994 by The University of Chicago II rights reserved. Published 1994 rinted in the United States of America

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3 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94 ;BN: 0-226-04237-5 (cloth)

Benjamin the Letter Writer, by Theodor W. Adorno

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riginally published in Germany in 1978 as a two-volume edition under e titles Briefe 1, 1910-1928 and Briefe 2, 1929-1940, © Suhrkamp erlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966. brary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data :njamin, Walter, 1892-1940. [Correspondence. English] The correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940/ edited and annotated by Gershom Scholem and Theodor W. Adorno ; translated by Manfred R. Jacobson and Evelyn M. Jacobson. p. cm. "Originally published in Germany in 1978 as a two-volume edition under the titles Briefe 1, 1910-1928 and Briefe 2,1929-1940, copyright Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966"-T.p. verso. Includes index. 1. Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940-Correspondence. 2. Authors, German-20th century-Correspondence. I. Scholem, Gershom Gerhard, 1897- . II. Adorno, Theodor W., 1903-1969. III. Title. PT2603.E455Z48 1994 838' .91209-dc20 [B] 93-41005 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the minimum =Juirements of the American National Standard for formation Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed brary Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. I

Foreword, by Gershom Scholem

THE LETTERS

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Index of Correspondents 641 General Index 645

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23. To Herbert Belmore Freiburg July 30, 1913 (unfortunately!) Dear Herbert, This is the last letter you will receive from Freiburg. I am leaving on Friday at 9 A.M.; I will then spend another eight days in Freudenstadt and finally go on a trip with my mother and probably my aunt, Mrs. Josephy.l Our first stop will probably be San Martino in the Tyrol. But I am also seriously thinking of Venice as the final stop of the trip even if I will not get to meet you there. By the way, let me congratulate you on having Erich Katz as a traveling companion. On our trip to Italy, I discovered that he is the least moody and most amiable companion imaginable. So as things stand now, in August we will still be quite far apart but-if I should have the time- I would like to go to Dresden 'with Willi and you in September. I have been daring in planning my reading for the trip. Do you know, I will begin reading the Critique ofPure Reason [Kritik derreinen Vernunit] with commentaries as soon as possible: thus I have taken Kant and Riehl along. I also want to read Der Tunnel-after all-Kurt Pinthus recommended it recently in the Zeitschrift for Biicherfreunde and, by the way, as critically as you did. I have also surrounded myself with a few Insel books; you will be glad to know that Stendhal's Ramerinnen is among them; because it was under this alluring title that I discovered the impossible stories which remain unread among my Reclam books at home. After that I mean to attempt Der Sturm. I have done a lot of reading recently. For one thing, the earlier issues of the Logos, especially Rickert's essay "Zur Logik der Zahl,,,2 considered by his students here to be his most brilliant essay, and the one that has to be read. Guy de Maupassant's Woman's Pastime [Notre Coeur]. A novel containing such inconceivably beautiful sentences, I would have liked to memorize some. Somewhere he writes, "And she, the forlorn, poor, errant being who had no place to rest but was serene because she was young ... " (!) I can remember this one right now. The story is very simple and narrated almost abstractly. Its psychology sees to the very core of people and, in spite of that, touches them as if with the hand of a kindly old physician. The name Maupassant only now has meaning for me, and I am looking forward to everything else of his I will be reading. I have Hesse's collection of novellas, Diesseits, in my room. He knows how to do many things, even if they may all boil down to just this one thing: to depict landscape without endowing it with a living soul, and nonetheless to make it the focus rather than just decoration. His particular

way of seeing things is located midway between a mystic's contemplation and an American's penetrating gaze. You know it is impossible for me to feel bad while reading books like this. But I feel even better than that. I have finally truly grasped that there is sun. You have received a postcard with an old master's depiction of an afternoon in Badenweiler. On the return trip I came across some unwelcome acquaintances. A chatty student (Rudolf Goldfeld) with a certain Miss Seligson who was most disagreeably unladylike. After all, it is a fact that very few young girls can be wittily uninhibited. Kathe Miillerheim is the best example. Monday evening I had a ten o'clock appointment with Heinle on the Loretto. Heinle wanted to bring another gentleman along. We sat together at the top in semidarkness-Heinle, I, and the gentleman-so that I could not see him properly at all. Rockets marking the finale of a children's festival rose from the other hillside into the skies. I primarily spoke with Heinle-the gentleman mostly listened. (You know that Dr. Wyneken is getting the information on Breslau 3 from the FrankfUrter Zeitungj thus he is going there.) I discussed with Heinle how to organize some kind of testimonial to Wyneken in Breslau. It cannot be anything at all public; it is time that people for once approach him as something other than the founder of Wickersdorf. It has to be a personal act. Some evening at a small gathering (at most twelve people-but I couldn't even come up with twelve who were very close to him) seems good to me. During the evening, someone would simply speak about him, primarily stressing that, because of him, we had had the good fortune of growing up conscious of the presence of a leader in our lifetime. In any case, the need to do something should also be obvious to you. And just as obvious is the error made by a public for whom he would always be the unemployed founder of Wickersdorf. After that we still walked in the woods and spoke about goodness. Yesterday Heinle came by and brought me two poems, not his own. I read them and said: Surely only [Ernst] BlaB 4 could write that. It was not BlaB, but Miiller. We established that the poems meant a lot to us, that they also go much further than BlaB in terms of their metrical freedom (you'll get to see them in Berlin). Miiller, however, was the gentleman with whom we had been yesterday. Both of his poems dealt with Gladys who lives in Paris (he rejects the rest of his work and approves of only two poems). He is, however, the son of the man who edits the Freibu'0er Boten, the ultramontane newspaper. He spends the day sitting in the editor's office writing articles-he quit school two years before he could take qualifying exams for the university. Heinle telephoned him yesterday; we wanted to get together with him again. And this evening

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we will. It is a real shame that we did not find the third person to complement the two of us until now. We do not need to make an effort to get along with him; he does not talk a lot, never indulges in idle chatter, and truly has a radiantly intense feeling for art-also for ideas. Yesterday we climbed around the woods from 10 to 12:30 and talked about original sin-we came up with some important ideas-and about dread. I was of the opinion that a dread of nature is the test of a genuine feeling for nature. A person who can feel no dread in the face of nature will have no idea of how to begin to treat nature. The "idyll" does not represent any kind of pleasure in nature-but rather a pseudo-artistic feeling for nature. The semester is concluding with the fortissimo of warm active days-I am' sorry that I have to start traveling. Thanks for your parcel. I like your sketches S a lot-I am going to show them to Heinle today. I had forgotten to do so earlier. The sketch of the poor black schoolboy is even better than the David; the bizarre landscape is magnificent. But the David is the shrewder choice (for a stamp), also "more positive" (nonsense!). The David may be selected because he has a hard, sleepy expression that is very beautiful. I mediate between Heinle and all of you, just as I mediate between all of you and Heinle. Heinle still feels that your essay lacks rhythm. I would express it in these terms: what is missing for me is the assured, almost classical, way of "establishing" something like an apostrophizing, i.e. exhortatory, tone meant for the individual. What you say seems to be intended more for adults than for young people. The essay is very good (for what I have said above deals only with practical considerations). For the reasons implied above, however, I do not know whether it might not be better for you to choose a more neutral title that more emphatically stresses the programmatic aspect. For example: Concerning (On) Themes and Ideas of Der Anfang. Heinle still needs the essay for propaganda purposes; he is sending it off tomorrow or the day after. That is to say that he is making an effort to establish a Discussion Hall here, but with little hope of success. Vacation has come-as well as the members of the Wanderviigel, individualists, who are most accessible to him. Many regards. Yours, Walter 1. Friederike Josephy, one of WB's father's sisters and the relative who was closest to WB, committed suicide in 1916. 2. In Logos 2, no. la (1911). 3. The reference is to the first Student-Pedagogical Assembly in Breslau on October 6 and 7,1913. 4. Ernst Blm (1890-1939), who, among other things, was editor of the A1l1onauten, which is mentioned later. 5. Belmore was a student of interior design at the Berlin School of Commercial Art. He drew and painted on the side.

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To Carla Seligson Freudenstadt August 4, 1913

Dear Miss Seligson, The semester is over now. I am spending a few days with my parents, brother, and sister, and then I am going with my mother to the Tyrol until the beginning of September-maybe the weather will be tolerable for our trip to Venice. Saying good-bye to Freiburg-to this semesterturned out to be difficult for me after all. This is something I can't say as easily about any other recent year. My window was there, the one you have heard about, looking out on the poplar and the children at play; a window in front of which you feel mature and experienced, even when you have not yet accomplished anything. Thus it poses a danger, but it is still so precious to me that I plan to live there again should I go back to Freiburg. Mr. Heinle was there, and I am sure we became friends overnight. Yesterday evening I read the poems he wrote this semester, and here, with some distance between us, I find them almost twice as beautiful. Finally, life there also suddenly turned beautiful and summery with the arrival of sunny weather at the end of the semester. The last four evenings we (Heinle and I) were constantly out together past midnight, mostly in the woods. A young man of my age, whom we got to know by chance in the last days of the semester, was also always along. We told ourselves that he was the third person who would complement the two of us. Not a student. He quit school two years before he could take university qualifYing exams; he works in the editorial office of his father, who publishes Freiburg's ultramontane newspaper. Consequently, this semester ended on a pleasant note-I am as sure as I am about nothing else that, while I do not fully grasp it, the semester will bear fruit in years to come, somewhat like my Paris trip may in the coming months. You may have heard about the pedagogical student congress that will take place in Breslau on October 7. I recently learned that I will be giving a talk there; besides me, [Siegfried] Bernfeld, head of the Academic Com~ttee for School Reform in Vienna, will also give a talk. A third speaker l~ a Mr. Mann, who is a member of an opposition group. Both orientanons represented by the student movement, the one associated with Wyneken and the other with Prof. Stern (my cousin),l will confront each other for the first time at this congress. In Breslau we will also for the first time get an overview of our troops (as I believe they can be called), our wider circle of friends. Before the congress meets, another three issues of the Anfang will appear; you may put your trust in them, to the extent that I am familiar with the contributions. As difficult as it is, I must now respond to what you wrote about the

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form of the new youthfulness. I thought about it until I trusted myself to be able to express with relative clarity what I have always thought. What I have to~~_n~loE~I?~rt of _our_~ork in th
philosophy and If It IS mcomprehensible, please blame that on me and not yourself Have a wonderful vacation! Yours, Walter Benjamin 1. Wi!liam Stem (1871-1938), a well-known psychologist. 2. S~ligson.had.aske~ whether modem youth might not be a bit too firmly and surely rooted. 'We will IlllSS bemg alone" (letter from Seligson, July 20, 1913). 3. _From "Der Deutsche dankt." 4. "Der Moralunterricht" [Moral instruction]. 5. "Dialog tiber Religion."

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To Ernst Schoen San Martino di Castrozza August 30, 1913

Dear Mr. Schon [sic], . In Spitteler's Der Olympische Friihling, there is the very lovely story WIt? a small garden called "After All, Why Not," and the street leading to It ~~ed "Could I, Would I"; there is no access to this garden. ThIS IS the mythology I would like to contribute to our summertime con:esponden~~, and eve~g else would be consigned to a metaphysics of sIle~ce, wmmg, and lazmess. I was very surprised today when the very first thing I saw was. the p~cture of~rafoi on your postcard. I am happy to confirm that the pICture IS true to life, because I arrived in Trafoi myself about two weeks ago and stayed there for a week, i.e. I am traveling with my m00-er. and an aunt ~ough the southern Tyrol. Presumably this is ~appenmg m order to brmg some order into my life and to stabilize a s~-~ontI: rer~od of inactivity, May to September. Nevertheless, little of this maCtlVIty IS voluntary-I experienced much of "fate." Above all, .a time ~f isolation in Freiburg, which was almost amusing and fro~ whICh I ultlmately gained a good friend and many bad weeks. Then. this s~er's centenary celebrations of Napoleon, which I weathered m the solitude of the Swiss Jura. I fled to Paris over Pentecost: this was the most beautiful experience, mainly restaurants, the Louvre, and the Boulevard. . In the meantime, maybe you have had a look at Der Anfang. If so, you WIll have seen that "Ardor" is very much in need of some order in his enthusiasm and in the logic of his thinking. Since even you must be burdened at some point with somethingpresumably?-you can be sure that you will have something to tell me when you look me up at 23 Delbriick Street. I hope this will be soon. I

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will be back home on the twelfth at the latest. If for no other reason, look me up to return Imago. 1 Yours, Walter Benjamin 1. By Spitteler.

26.

To Carla Seligson Berlin-Grunewald September 15, 1913

My dear friend, You will let me call you that, won't you? I have to address you this way after what you wrote me yesterday and even before that. It would also be tactless if those of us who want to represent a new kind of youth were to speak to each other differently from how we actually feel. After I read your letter this morning, I walked to where there aren't any more houses but only fenced-off vacant lots. For the first time I thought seriously about what you had asked me: How is this possible? Because formerly my delight in understanding Hueber had been so great that I did not even consider the majority who do not hear what he has to say. For a long time I was unable to think of anything because I was completely consumed by the joy of having found the first person who understands this book the same way I do. None of my friends has yet read it. But then I finally discovered the simple answer: those of us who understand Hueber feel our youth completely only in the presence of his ideas-the others, who feel nothing, are not young. They have simply never been young. They took pleasure in their youth only when it was , over, just a memory. They did not know the great joy of its presence, which we are now feeling and which I sensed in your words. I truly believe that this is the reason why things are even worse than Hueber r thinks they are. But in"~yg:y"_individual who is born,.!19.. matter where, il._:l!1d turg~"2!:!~~2.I:>~Y.Q!!mh._there is, not "improvement," but eerfection 1from tile: .Y~!Y §!~!rt This is the goal that Hueber so messianically feels is I near. Today I felt the awesome truth of Christ's words: Behold, the kingdom of God is not of this world, but within us. I would like to read with you Plato's dialogue on love, where this is as beautifully expressed and J with such profound insight as probably I1o~else. ____.___ This morning I gave this some more thought: to be young does not mean so much serving the spirit as awaiting it. To see it in every person , and in the most remote thought. This is the most important thing: we must not commit ourselves to one specific idea. For us, the concept of youth culture should simply be illumination that draws even the most remote spirit to its light. For many people, however, even Wyneken,

even the Discussion Hall, will be merely a "movement." They will have committed themselves and will no longer see the spirit where it manifests itself as freer and more abstract. This constantly reverberating feeling for the abstractness of pure spirit i I would like to call youth. For then (if we do not turn ourselves into nothing more than workers in a movement), if we keep our gaze free to see the spirit wherever it may be, we will be the ones who actualize it. Almost everybody forgets that they themsel~ the _pla~.F"h9:~~~Riril actualizes itself However, because they have made themselves inflexible, i turned themselves into the pillars of a building instead. of illto vessels or -