Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters

by Michael Hofmann

  Sincerely your

  Joseph Roth

  Hotel Foyot, 33 rue de Tournon, Paris 6e.

  After 4 p.m. you will always find me in the Foyot. I am writing a novella,1 six hours a day, every day, for Ullstein. 6 more days. Every day, after 4 p.m.

  1. novella: “Stationmaster Fallmerayer.”

  190. To Stefan Zweig

  Hotel Foyot

  Paris

  17 March 1933

  Dear esteemed friend,

  I know you understand why I haven’t written to you for so long, and I know you can’t hold it against me. Nor do I have any idea what to say or write now. It’s no longer the case—as it was still a year ago—of the sensible person being driven mad by the world, it’s the world that has gone mad, and there’s no point in common sense any more.

  To stick to practical matters:

  My publisher1 is being wound up (this between you and me). He is trying to sell me on. I don’t know to whom. I have no idea what I am going to live on. I really don’t want to be an émigré.

  What will you do?

  There is no question of being published in Germany any more. Now do you understand why I always was, and am, presciently sad?

  Yours sincerely, your old

  Joseph Roth

  1. my publisher: Gustav Kiepenheuer, Berlin.

  191. To Stefan Zweig

  Paris, Hotel Foyot

  33 rue de Tournon

  19 March 1933

  Dear friend,

  I’ve waited till now to answer your kind letter, because I’d hoped not to have to need your practical generosity. However, even the tiny sum I’ve been expecting from Poland has failed to come in these 3 weeks. I can’t even say any more how much or how little I need to get a little breathing space. If you’re kind enough to transfer whatever money you have disposable by Wednesday or Thursday—because that’s a critical date for me—then you will have gained me a deal of breathing space, certainly enough to finish my book. It’ll be finished in 6 days.

  Please can you help me. It’s a dreadful thing for me, to “disgust you”1 like this.

  Ideally, Grasset,2 who knows my name, wouldn’t get to hear about it. Is it really no trouble for you to wire me the money by Wednesday?

  I do feel some compunction, I will admit, because I know how the French think. I know what Directeur Brun3 thinks.

  Forgive me for saying this to you.

  Write soon, and tell me why you are quite so het up.

  Your old

  Joseph Roth

  1. “disgust you”: JR, presumably, never got wind of it, but Zweig privately referred to (and thought of?) his friend’s financial affairs as “Augean.”

  2. Grasset: the publishing house of Bernard Grasset, in Paris.

  3. Brun: director of Grasset.

  192. To Stefan Zweig

  Hotel Foyot

  Paris

  22 March 1933

  Dear esteemed friend,

  thank you for your kind letter. The day I next clap eyes on you will be a red-letter day. I think of you to myself as “The Wise Man of the Kapuzinerberg.” In such times, I have to talk to you, not just correspond. Never mind that I have to contradict you in many things. Discussions with a wise man are never without contradiction. You speak for and from yourself: fate has given you sorrow, happiness, fame, success, and 50 years, a happy youth in peacetime, and a vigorous maturity.1 Forgive a friend for pointing out that that’s not the universal lot. You know my lot pretty well, but I’m not talking about myself. I’m speaking, rather, for a world, a good world, a tried and tested world. Of late, it’s not the majority of writers who have fared well, but rather a minority—and that, only in relative terms. In a time that had no Woolworth magazines, Lessing and Wieland fared much better on small incomes than—well, let’s say Arnold Zweig in the time of Tietz.2 You have in mind a couple of youngish authors, without worries, without grave private fate before them, living on relatively high royalties quite frivolously, though (even they are) not entirely without worries. And, as far as the Jews are concerned, firstly they are facing their dissolution (thanks to Russia), and will no longer exist in 50 years’ time. Secondly, today’s Jews, not having lived in their spiritual home for 200 years, are no longer capable, physiologically speaking, of enduring the torments of their ancestors. Did you learn the Talmud? Do you pray every day to Jehovah? Do you lay tefillin? No, it’s over, and you and I are Germans in the midst of Germans, with a strange inheritance that other peoples in the civilized world react to, if not with joy, then at least without a rubber truncheon. And for your information, however sensible it is of you not to be going out giving lectures at this moment in time: you will understand that there is a conflict between your legitimate expectations as a European, which you have always voiced as an important and gifted German author against bestiality, and the spontaneous recognition of your duty to suffer and be silent, which your forebears will certainly have felt, though not yourself, not freely anyway. One can’t repudiate a 6,000-year-old Jewish inheritance; but it’s almost as hard to repudiate a 2,000-year-old non-Jewish inheritance. We come from “emancipation,” from humanity, from the humane tout court, rather more than we come out of Egypt. Our forefathers are Goethe Lessing Herder as much as they are Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And anyway, we are not being beaten, as our ancestors were, by devout Christians, but rather by godless heathens. The Jews are not the only ones they are out to get. Even though they—as ever—are the ones that raise the most piteous lament. The onslaught this time is against European civilization, against humanity, whose proud champion you are. (And against God.)

  And the practicalities:

  1. The time has come (entre nous)—the Jews Landshoff and Landauer are unable to keep the publisher K.3 afloat any longer.

  2. Landauer is in Vienna, and has spoken to Zsolnay, who doesn’t have any money to buy me with.

  3. I’ve cut my advance from 35,000 to 10,000 marks; not all that much really for an author as successful as me. But there are no takers.

  4. Aside from 4,000 marks and what I owe you, all my debts have been paid.

  5. If Fischer doesn’t take me now, I’ll be left hanging. And now, for you.

  It’s not right that you want to stay even if things get dangerous. “It is written,” that the man who willingly courts danger is committing a sin. Life is a gift from God. One may risk danger only for the sake of God. Nor may one seek to know in advance where or how danger may choose to strike. One has to flee a burning house, and if a tree should fall on top of you, then that is God’s will.

  I know you understand what I mean, and how concerned I am for your welfare, physical and other.

  My best wishes to your wife.

  Your old friend

  Joseph Roth

  1. See Zweig’s autobiography, The World of Yesterday (1942).

  2. Tietz: Oskar Tietz (1858–1923), founder of the first German supermarket chain.

  3. K.: Kiepenheuer.

  193. To Stefan Zweig

  Paris

  33 rue de Tourmon

  Hotel Foyot

  26 March 1933

  Dear esteemed friend,

  I’m of the view that one should stay in constant contact in these times. Hence the prompt reply.

  You should make sure your letters to me go via Switzerland; some go via Germany.

  I completely agree with you: we have to wait. For now. Only I’m not quite sure how long for.

  The world is stupider now than it was in 1914. The human no longer bestirs himself when humanity is hurt and killed. In 1914, all parties tried to come up with human reasons and pretexts to explain the bestiality.

  Whereas today people just offer bestial justification for bestiality that are even more foul than the bestialities themselves.
/>   And nothing stirs in the whole world. I mean, in the world of writing people, aside from the eccentric Gide, who, recently converted to Communism,1 has held a meeting for snobs and international Communists, without the least success; aside from the Jews of England and America, but they are just disturbed by anti-Semitism, which is a little spoke in the great wheel of bestiality.

  You understand, the difference between 1933 and 1914 is roughly that between a sick animal like Goering, and Wilhelm II, who at least kept vestiges of humanity.

  Obviously, fools perpetrate folly, and beasts commit bestiality, and madmen commit mad acts: all of them suicidal.

  But it is not at all obvious that our equally sick and confused surroundings discern stupidity, bestiality, and madness.

  That’s the difference. And I ask myself whether the time hasn’t come where it is our duty to quarantine the world around us, so that it doesn’t get infected.

  My fear is that it is too late.

  I’m afraid I’ll be forced into the position of wishing for war as soon as possible.

  I won’t be going to Vienna, for lots of reasons. The past 10 years I’ve lived 6–8 months a year in France. Why not now? And in particular, why not when those people who hate me will always say I fled anyway. (And why not, when it is plain to see that one really is fleeing.)

  In Vienna word would get around even quicker that I’ve left Germany. There especially, because I’d be returning to a place I once lived.

  In a French gutter magazine, your name is listed among those who have fled to Switzerland, while I appear as Ernst Roth—no doubt, because they left Toller off their list.

  I can’t take the initiative with Zsolnay myself, because Landauer is my friend, and I want him to take what advantage of the situation he can—by selling me. He’s not in an easy position either.

  But I’ll go to Salzburg to see you, even if it’s just for a couple of days, as soon as I have a new contract and a little money and security.

  As far as the Jewishness in us is concerned, I agree that one mustn’t give the impression one is concerned for the Jews, and no one else.

  But we must remember that being a Jew absolves no man from the duty to go to the front line, along with any conscientious non-Jew.

  There is a certain point where noblesse is disobliging, and doesn’t help anyone. Because for the beasts over there, a filthy yid is what one remains.

  You opposed the war as a Jew, and I fought in it as a Jew. We each have many comrades. We didn’t hang around behind the lines.

  On the battlefield of humanity, you could say, there are such people as behind-the-lines Jews.2

  We mustn’t be like that.

  I have never overestimated the tragic destiny of Jews, least of all now, when it is a tragedy to be a decent human being.

  It’s the nastiness of the others to see only Jews. It’s not fitting that we, by hanging back, should reinforce the argumentation of those foolish animals.

  As a soldier and an officer I wasn’t a Jew. As a German author I’m not a Jew either. (Not in the way we’re talking about.)

  I’m afraid there will be a moment when Jewish reserve will be nothing more than a reaction of the discreet Jew against the chutzpah of the indiscreet Jews.

  The one is as damaging and foolish as the other.

  As I said already we owe a duty as much to Voltaire, Herder, Goethe, and Nietzsche, as to Moses and his Jewish fathers.

  From there may be derived the duty:

  To save one’s life and one’s writing, if they are threatened by the animals.

  No premature surrender to what we are pleased to call fate.

  And to “take a hand,” to fight when the moment has come. The question is whether it might not be sooner rather than later.

  As ever, sincerely yours

  Joseph Roth

  1. Communism: on his return from Russia in 1931, Gide remarked that Russia was the land where the future was being born, only to repudiate his belief in Communism five years later.

  2. behind-the-lines Jews: this will have nettled (and is clearly meant to nettle) SZ, who tried to keep his pacifism and humanism together.

  194. To Stefan Zweig

  Hotel Foyot

  Paris

  6 April 1933

  Dear esteemed friend,

  I hope you’ve recovered your calm somewhat. What happened to you is of course bitter. But you must get a grip, and understand that you are atoning for the sins of all Jews, and not just those of your namesakes. Do you think Mr. Goebbels cares if he’s got you confused with someone else? As far as he’s concerned, you’re no better and no different than those he currently has it in for. What I wrote to you before is true: our books are impossible for the Third Reich. They won’t even advertise us. Not even in the Börsenblatt.1 The booksellers will turn us away. The SA storm troopers will smash the display windows. The racial theorist Günther will use your photograph for his typical Semite. There is no compromising with these people. Watch yourself! I’m telling you! You won’t be safe in Salzburg (remember the story of the Rotters2 in Liechtenstein) if you chance your arm. See no one. Get used to the fact that the 40 million who listen to Goebbels are remote from making any distinctions between you and Thomas Mann and Arnold Zweig, Tucholsky, and me. Our life’s work—in the terrestrial sense—has been for nothing. They confuse you, not because your name is Zweig, but because you’re a Jew, a cultural Bolshevist, a pacifist, a cosmopolite, a liberal. It is pointless to hope. This “national renewal” will go to the extremes of madness. It takes exactly the same form as what the psychiatrists term manic depression. That’s this people. All one can do is wait. Don’t for God’s sake imagine you can address these people in any form. You can do it later. There are no manners when dealing with these apes. Don’t issue any pieces of paper! Don’t protest! Shut up—or fight: whichever you think is advisable.

  Sincerely,

  your old Joseph Roth

  1. Börsenblatt: the magazine of the German book trade.

  2. Alfred and Fritz Rotter, from 1914 to 1932 theatrical impresarios in Berlin, till their theater business failed.

  195. To Stefan Zweig

  Paris

  28 April 1933

  Dear esteemed friend,

  You probably won’t get this letter till your return.

  I have your happy postcard.

  I hope you get home feeling calmer and stronger.

  I can’t get away.

  I need a new publisher and promise of new earnings.

  Things are grim—both in the world at large, and for us as individuals.

  We all overestimated the world: even me, an absolute pessimist.

  The world is very, very stupid, and bestial. There are more brains in a cowshed.

  Everything: humanity, civilization, Europe, even Catholicism: the cowshed is cleverer.

  I have been asked whether you’d care to offer a “Balzac” to a new publisher in Zurich, where I too am to appear (with one book).

  Not a lefty outfit. Nothing oppositional. Lots of solid untouchable things. I vouch for it.

  Please reply ASAP. One of these days it may turn out to be very important for you. We can’t drown out the madness in Germany. Your books were burned in Breslau. You probably read about the demonstration of German students.

  It will be good for you to publish something somewhere else—and in a house that doesn’t stink of opposition.

  So far as I’m concerned:

  I see myself compelled to follow my instincts and conviction, and become an absolute monarchist.

  In 6 or 8 weeks, I will publish a short book about the Habsburgs.1

  I am an old Austrian officer. I love Austria. I view it as cowardice not to use this moment to say the Habsburgs must return.

/>   I want the monarchy back, and I will say so.

  Several thinking persons are of the same view.

  I hope I succeed.

  I don’t dare ask whether you are of the party.

  I assume, though, that you will take me for a “romantic.”

  If, counter to expectation, you are able to join me, then you will know already how happy that will make me.

  Sincerely

  your old Joseph Roth

  1. short book about the Habsburgs: not known—as the time frame perhaps suggests.

  196. To Stefan Zweig

  9 May 1933

  Hotel Foyot

  33 rue de Tournon

  Paris 6e

  Dear highly esteemed friend,

  thank you for your letter. I love your idea of a joint manifesto, in exactly the way you describe. It’s the only thing one could with dignity bequeath to posterity. I am not quite clear yet whether only Jewish authors should sign, or their origin should be pointed out. If I understand it in its whole solemnity, it is intended to be our monument. And for all my skepticism vis-à-vis posterity I know that a hundred years from now people won’t understand the word “Jew” in the sense it has today. That’s why I think we would do well to recruit the best of the other victims. And quickly too. The acute interest in our singularity will wane very quickly. In two or three months we’ll just be a few obscure individuals. In ten years the generation that knew us will be over. A monument will only stand if carried into the future by the passion and commitment of the generation in which it was built. I can think of no one better than you to collect and distribute this manifesto. You have friends all over God’s earth, cleverness, calm, and acuity. Do it now. Choose the names you want yourself.