The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany

The Salaried Masses

The Salaried Masses Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany

• SIEGFRIED KRACAUER

Translated by Quintin Hoare and with an Introduction by Inka Mulder-Bach

VERSO

London . New York

First published by Verso 1 998 This edition © Verso 1 998 Translation © Quintin Hoare 1 998 I n troduction © Inka Miilder-Bach 1998 First published as Die AngesteUten. Aus dem neuesten Deutschland, serial publication in Frankfurter Zeitung 1 929; first published in book fonn by Societats-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1 930, © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1 9 7 1 , i n Siegfried Kracauer, Schriften, Volume 1 Walter Benjamin, ' Ein Aussenseiter macht sich bemerkbar', in Gesammelte Schri.ften, Volume 3 All rights reseIVed The moral rights of the authors and translator of this work have been asserted

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Contents

Introduction by Inka Mulder-Bach

1

Preface Unknown territory Selection Short break for ven tilation Enterprise within the enterprise Alas, so soon! Repair shop A few choice specimens Refined informality Among neighbours Shelter for the homeless Seen from above Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen !

25 28 33 40 47 53 60 68 74 81 88 96 1 02

Appendices A. 'An outsider attracts attention ' by Walter Benjamin B. Chronology C. Bibliography

1 07 1 09 1 15 1 17

Translator's note

121

Introduction ,

Inka Mulder-Bach

In the Introduction to his last, posthumously published book History. The Last Things Before the Last ( 1 969 ) , Siegfried Kracauer formulates a summa of his intellectual existence. The discovery of the hidden connection between his interest in history and his interest in the photographic media also reveals to him the central intention that guided his thought for half a century: 'at long last all my main efforts, so incoherent on the surface , fall into line - they all have served, and continue to serve, a single purpose: the rehabilitation of objectives and modes of being which still lack a name and hence are overlooked or mi�judged.' l Kracauer particularly mentions in this connection two books from his Weimar period: the novel Ginster ( 1 928) and the study I)ie Angestellten [ The Salaried Masses] ( 1 930) . Like Theory of Film (1 960) and History, they survey regions of reality 'which despite all that has heen written about them are still largely terra incognita'.2 When Kracauer wrote these lines at the beginning of the 1 960s, the readership that might have understood them no longer existed - and did not yet exist anew. The essays and books written before his exile from Germany had never become known in the English-speaking ("(luntries and had fallen into oblivion in Germany; the books of his American exile met largely with misunderstanding or perplexed silence. The latter circumstance is directly related to the former. For just as Kracauer in the Introduction to History reverts directly to expressions ("(lined in the context of his early writings, so his later work as a whole ("an be understood only against the background of the traditions, themes and figures of thought of his Weimar texts. A first step in i n troducing the German writer of the 1 920s to an English-speaking public was the recently published translation of the essay collection The Mass Ornament." It displays Kracauer as phenomenologist and philos­ opher of history, as critic of modern literature and film. The present book shows him in a related but somewhat different role: as a sociologist

4

I N T RO D U C T I O N

of culture and the quotidian, mapping the terra incognita o f salaried employees in the la�t years of the Weimar Republic.

Like almost all his other writings from the Weimar period, Die Angestell­ ten first appeared (in instalments ) in the feuilleton - i.e. the cultural section - of the prestigious Frankfurter Zeitung. Following studies in architecture, sociology and philosophy, Kracauer worked for this paper from 1 921 on - initially as a regular freelance contributor, after 1 924 as a full editor, and from 1 930 until his February 1 933 flight from Nazi Germany as cultural editor for the paper's Berlin pages. From late April to July 1 929 Kracauer stayed in Berlin to carry out the research for his study on employees. In October the text was completed, but objections from the paper's editorial board delayed its publication.4 Due to the support of Benno Reifenberg, the editor of the feuilleton section to whom Die Angestellten is dedicated, its pre-publication finally went forward in December. 'A sensation has been handed us' , Reifenberg wrote to the newspaper's editor-in-chief Heinrich Simon," and the readership's reaction proved him right. In January 1 930, the study was published as a book.'; Kracauer subtitled the book with a phrase which, with laconic brevity, defines the viewpoint, method and claim of his investigation. What his study aims to be is neither a scientific treatise 'about' , nor a literary reportage 'on ' , the salaried class. Rather Kracauer adopts the role of the ethnologist, who sets off on a sociological 'expedition' to a domestic 'abroad' and reports 'from the newest Germany' (a literal translation of the German original, Aus dem neuesten Deutschlanrl) on the salaried employees as if from some exotic foreign land. Kracauer does not let slip the opportunity to juxtapose the 'exoticism ' of this world with that of 'primitive tribes at whose habits ' the employees ' marvel in films' The ethnological metaphor, however, is not meant merely ironically but is closely connected with the method and concern of his study. For Kracauer really is setting off. Leaving statistics and learned studies behind, he embarks on an empirical inquiry into the spheres of existence, habits, patterns of thought and manners of speech of salaried employees. He talks to the employees themselves, to union representa­ tives and to employers; he visits offices and firms, labour exchanges and Labour Courts, cinemas and places of entertainment; he studies com­ pany newspapers, classified advertisements and private correspondence. His procedure has occasionally been compared with the method of 'participant observation ' that the Lynds were developing at roughly the same time in their study on Middletown . Yet Kracauer's approach is characterized by a highly self-conscious individualism which resist�

I N TRODU C T I O N II .. 'II. .

5

Idological generalization and crucially involves the mise en scene of and distance as a condition of attention and a medium of

1", ( ' iglllless kllflwlcdge.

terrain Kracauer seeks to explore, then, is named in the subtitle newest Germany' The superlative evokes the sensationalism of IIIl I l e mporary reportage and at the same time ironizes it.7 For the 'alion Kracauer offers us is simply that of daily life: 'normal '-..; i s l e nee' in its 'imperceptible dreadfulness' If both aspects - newness ,lIld normality - are considered together, the ethnological metaphor ,.. 'I"ires a further significance. Kracauer's study is an expedition also in II... :nse that it not only offers a sociology of salaried employees, but l lol,,"gh an analysis of this social stratum 's everyday world seeks to discover ' the newest Germany' , the most advanced state of economic .IIHI socio-cultural modernization. His inquiry thus leads into the heart "I Ihe modern large enterprise, which - as an extreme case of economic I.ll i"nalization - provides a basis for studying the organizational forms l ha l in future will determine the process of production and distribution. :\lId it also leads into the heart of the metropolis Berlin. For just as ' the 1'1 ,,"omic process engendering salaried employees en masse has 11 Iv; 'ed furthest' in Berlin, so have employees here for the first time 11I'(,()lIlc the formative power of the public sphere. Kr