[403] Die Fackel, nos. 827-33, pp. 96-102.
[404] “Werfels neuer Roman,” Die literarische Welt, no. 49 (1929), pp. 5f.
[405] MD conversations. But see also Hartmut Binder, “Ernst Polak, Literat ohne Werk,” Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft, vol. 23 (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 366-415. Polak was also the editor of some of Hermann Broch’s works, including The Sleepwalkers. Polak’s influence and critical collaboration should not be underestimated. An orgy scene in The Pure in Heart probably took place much as described by FW in Ernst Polak’s Vienna apartment at Lerchenfelderstrasse 113 (Barbara oder Die Frömmigkeit, pp. 590-99).
[406] “Werfel’s powers of memory are admirable, and since genius is memory, the book is important. As far as Ronald Weiss is concerned, the conversations I had with Werfel have been reproduced here with the accuracy of a phonograph record. Only in places Werfel counterpoints some things... Two characters have been accorded more praise, and they deserve it. Gebhard (the psychoanalyst Otto Gross) and Krasny (the poet Otfried Krzyzanowski) receive their handsome and well-deserved memorial” (Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, December 4, 1929).
[407] See also her autobiography, Und was für ein Leben..., op. cit. She died on December 23, 1985.
[408] Werfel is mistaken when he claims in an afterword to Musa Dagh that the work “was conceived in March 1929 during a stay in Damascus.” In his unpublished diary, Arthur Schnitzler notes on January 19, 1930, that FW and Alma are leaving for Egypt “tomorrow” but then crosses the word out and writes “soon” above it. See also an interview FW gave the Viennese daily Neue Freie Presse (April 2, 1930) on his return from the Near East trip: “Ist das jüdische Aufbauwerk gefährdet? Eindrücke von einer Palästinareise: Aus einem Gespräch,” ZOU, pp. 278ff. In an unpublished letter dated February 19, 1930, answering an inquiry concerning FW, Paul Zsolnay wrote that FW was on an extended trip abroad (Zsolnay Archive).
[409] Details of the second Near East trip are derived from ML and from FW’s interview “Ist das jüdische Aufbauwerk gefährdet?” ZOU, pp. 278ff.
[410] In an interview given to a newspaper published by Armenians in exile, FW claimed that he had thought about writing a novel about the fate of the Armenians as long ago as World War I: “I read about it then in the major European newspapers and promised myself that I would one day write a historical novel about this subject. In Syria I met some young Armenians in extremely unhappy circumstances — I could see the destroyed greatness of their people and their persecution in their eyes” (M. A. Iytschian, “Die armenophilen Wellen”). I thank Artem Ohandjanian of Vienna for the reference and the translation.
[411] In his diary entry of April 27, 1929, Arthur Schnitzler notes that he was invited to visit Clauzel in the company of Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler, Berta Zuckerkandl, and others. FW probably knew Clauzel quite well; Alma Mahler-Werfel even calls him “a friend” (Mein Leben, p. 210).
[412] FW began the first version on March 26, 1930.
[413] “Wo liegt das Reich Gottes in Böhmen? Franz Werfel über sein Hussitendrama,” interview in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, December 15, 1930. See also “Wie mein Reich Gottes in Böhmen entstand,” Neues Wiener Journal, October 5, 1930; I thank Michael Salzer of Stockholm for pointing out this interview of his with FW.
[414] FW to Kurt Wolff, March 25, 1930 (BeV, pp. 349ff.).
[415] Kurt Wolff took three months to reply to FW: “Could be it was my own fault for having gone about things wrongly, could be it was bad luck... The fact is that I have worn myself out and paid for this publishing enterprise with my life’s blood these last six years” (ibid., pp. 351ff.).
[416] Mesrop Habozian (1887-1974). From 1931 until 1971, the archbishop was head abbot of the Vienna Mekhitarist monastery. On FW’s research, see also George Schulz-Behrend, “Sources and Background of Werfel’s Novel Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh,” The Germanic Review, vol. 26, no. 2 (April 1951), pp. 111ff.
[417] See unpublished notebook for Musa Dagh, M-W Coll.
[418] See Neues Wiener Journal, October 5, 1930.
[419] This took place on December 6, 1930. See Foltin, pp. 71f.
[420] See ML, pp. 220f., and Arthur Schnitzler’s unpublished diaries. On December 1, 1930, Schnitzler talked with Anton Wildgans, the director of the Burgtheater, and the latter unburdened himself to Schnitzler about the clashes between FW and Albert Heine.
[421] See the reviews in the Neue Freie Presse, December 9, 1920, and the Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung, December 8, 1930.
[422] See Arthur Schnitzler’s unpublished diary of January 14, 1931.
[423] See “Gespräch mit Franz Werfel über Die Geschwister von Neapel,” ZOU, p. 601: “I began to write the book in February in Santa Margherita.”
[424] FW originally wanted to call the work Novel in Naples (Roman in Neapel). Talking to A. D. Klarmann, FW called this novel his “favorite work” (DRM, p. 27).
[425] Unpublished notebook, M-W Coll.
[426] The lecture was later retitled “Realismus und Innerlichkeit”; see ZOU, pp. 16ff. FW gave the lecture in May 1931 in the auditorium of the new Hofburg; see the Neue Freie Presse, May 7, 1931.
[427] See ML, p. 225.
[428] From the record FW made of a conversation after a quarrel with his brother-in-law Ferdinand Rieser, June 18, 1942: “From my ‘rich’ father I received only one larger sum, to wit, 40,000 schillings in the year 1931 when we bought the house on Steinfeldgasse” (M-W Coll.).
[429] See ML, and Hubert Mitrowsky, “Sontagnachmittage auf der Hohen Warte,” Die Presse (Vienna), August 21-22, 1965; see also Elias Canetti Das Augenspiel: Lebensgeschichte, 1931-1937 (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1985).
[430] See “Gespräch mit Franz Werfel über Die Geschwister von Neapel,” ZOU, p. 601. In the summer of 1932 there were negotiations for a film of the book; A. E. Liecho was to be its director; three film companies also expressed their interest in the Verdi novel at the beginning of the 1930s (Zsolnay Archive).
[431] Author’s conversations with Anna Mahler. Elias Canetti, Hubert Mitrowsky, and Alma Mahler-Werfel also describe these. Enthusiastic accounts of these festivities were also provided to me by Adrienne Gessner.
[432] Author’s conversations with Adrienne Gessner.
[433] After a visit to the villa at Hohe Warte, Schnitzler notes in an unpublished diary entry for June 15, 1931, “... have rarely if ever seen a more beautiful and at the same time pleasant [house]. Incredibly cheap purchase. Garden, terrace.” When Schnitzler and his mistress were on their way back home, she burst into bitter tears — not only out of envy for the Werfels, but generally “because of the relationship between Alma and Werfel. Painful.” Clara Katharina Pollaczek (1875-1951) was a writer and translator.
[434] Only four days before his death, Schnitzler had written to FW to thank him for sending him Die Geschwister von Neapel and to say that he was looking forward to reading it soon (M-W Coll.).
[435] ZOU, pp. 436ff.
[436] Zsolnay Archive.
[437] See Foltin, p. 74, and ZOU, p. 14 (Foltin erroneously gives the year as 1932).
[438] Neues Wiener Journal, May 15, 1932.
[439] Zsolnay Archive.
[440] The lecture appeared later under the title “Can We Live Without Faith in God?” (“Können wir ohne Gottesglauben leben?”), ZOU, pp. 41ff.; see also “Interview über den Gottesglauben,“ ZOU, p. 605ff.
[441] ADK notes. Bernhard Kussi was born April 18, 1832, and died July 17, 1932 (FK letters). FW wrote the following dedication in the copy of Verdi he gave to his grandfather: “This book that deals with a wonderful flowering of old age I dedicate to my dear beloved grandfather Bernhard Kussi, who is himself a rare and wonderful flower of age. Franz Werfel, Pilsen, Dec. 1924” (FK letters).
[442] ADK notes.
[443] All quotations are from an unpublished 1932 notebook in M-W Coll. In the same notebook FW writes that it seems to him as if the present has given the world indigestion, so that it is now burping up the pas
t. The fascists are “arse-crawlers” courting the “mobs of youths,” but the socialists are no better, being entirely meretricious as well. FW goes on to reminisce that in his childhood every citizen had recognized the authority of the state and given the word “fatherland” an almost sacred meaning — whereas nowadays only the tawdriest horde consciousness holds sway, and all the “wild masses” do on festive occasions is to “yell themselves hoarse.” On “horde consciousness,” see The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset, which had appeared in German translation the previous year. The influence of this book on FW is evident.
[444] On the genocide of the Armenians, see “Der Prozess Talaat Pascha”: Reihe pogrom (Göttingen, 1980); and “Der verleugnete Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915-1918: Die deutsche Beteiligung,” in the journal Pogrom, vol. 10, no. 64. See also Schulz-Behrend, “Sources and Background of Werfel’s Novel Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh,” op. cit.
[445] “In one of the edicts signed by Talaat there is this statement: ‘The goal of deportation is the void.’ In accordance with such orders care was taken to ensure that, of the entire population that was transported from the East Anatolian provinces to the South, only some 10 percent arrived at their supposed destination; 90 percent were murdered along the way, died of hunger or exhaustion, or, in the case of women or girls, were sold by the gendarmes and dragged off by Turks and Kurds” (“Der Prozess Talaat Pascha,” op. cit., p. 57).
[446] See his article “Suedije: Eine Episode aus der Zeit der Armenierverfolgungen,” in Orient: Monaltschrift für die Wiedergeburt des Ostens, nos. 4-5 (1919), pp. 67ff. Dikran Andreasian’s counterpart in the novel is Aram Tomasian.
[447] See his Bericht über die Lage des armenischen Volkes in der Türkei (Potsdam: Tempelverlag, 1916), and “Mein Besuch in Konstantinopel: Juli-August 1915,” Orient, nos. 1-3 (1919), p. 21ff.
[448] See FW’s unpublished notebooks for Musa Dagh, M-W Coll.
[449] ADK notes.
[450] MD conversations.
[451] Zsolnay Archive.
[452] See Foltin, p. 74.
[453] The original of the unpublished text FW presented as an introduction for his readings is at UCLA.
[454] See ML, p. 235.
[455] Author’s conversations with Anna Mahler.
[456] Alma Zsolnay-Pixner kindly permitted me to see FW’s marginalia to the original manuscript.
[457] Heinrich Mann (1871-1950). At the beginning of December 1932 FW had read the fifth chapter of Musa Dagh in Berlin at the Akademie für Dichtung. Heinrich Mann was very impressed by the projected novel. During his stay in the capital of the Reich, FW petitioned the academy to issue a public warning against a history of German literature that had appeared in an edition of millions of copies, and said that this scurrilous book testified to the Nazi tendency of its author, Paul Fechter, slandering not only Jewish authors of the present but also treating Schiller, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Hauptmann with the same cynical scorn. Heinrich Mann took up FW’s initiative and wrote up the warning to be issued by the Prussian Academy of Arts. Hitler’s rise to power prevented its publication.
[458] Gottfried Benn (1886-1956).
[459] Alfred Döblin (1878-1957), Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Ricarda Huch (1864-1947).
[460] On the events surrounding FW’s declaration of loyalty, see Inge Jens, Dichter zwischen rechts und links: Die Geschichte der Sektion für Dichtkunst der Preussischen Akademie der Künste (Munich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1971).
[461] See Eduard Goldstücker, “Ein unbekannter Brief von Franz Werfel,” in Austriaca: Beiträge zur österreichischen Literatur: Festschrift für Heinz Politzer zu Seinem 65. Geburtstag (Munich: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1975). About his work on Musa Dagh, FW wrote his parents on March 24, 1933: “The world I am describing (and never really got to know) has to be right, convincing, and consistent, and this will cost me endless labors in studying and gathering information.”
[462] See Joseph Wulf, Literatur und Dichtung im Dritten Reich (Berlin: Ullstein Taschenbuch Verlag, 1983). Strangely enough, three of Werfel’s books had been exempted from the burnings: Verdi, The Man Who Conquered Death, and The Pure in Heart.
[463] Unpublished notebook, UCLA.
[464] On FW’s ability to retain his good spirits even during the greatest political crises, see Foltin, p. 75: “When Gottfried Bermann Fischer met Werfel in Rapallo in April 1933, he was struck by the optimism of the latter. On May 5, 1933, Werfel was expelled from the Prussian Academy of Arts by its president, Max von Schillings, on a directive issued by the Nazi minister of culture, Bernhard Rust. He did not realize the full significance of this. Sinclair Lewis and his then wife, the journalist Dorothy Thompson, who visited Werfel and Alma that month, found the poet in a jovial mood — as if the politics of the authoritarian neighboring states did not concern him.”
[465] Johannes Hollnsteiner (1895-1970).
[466] FW/Mahler.
[467] MD conversations.
[468] MD conversations.
[469] After many years’ absence, FW gave a reading in the city of his birth on November 16, 1933, at the Urania, presenting Musa Dagh and poems.
[470] Details of FW’s Prague visit at the end of 1933 are from FW/Mahler.
[471] Thus, for instance, the Freiburger Bücherstube wrote to Paul Zsolnay Verlag on December 5, 1933: “Only a short while has passed since the publication of the new Werfel, and we are pleased to inform you today that we regard the book as absolutely Werfel’s strongest, and what’s more, as one of the best books of the year. All the more reason to regret that the circumstances and the unfolding of propaganda put such restrictions on one. Nevertheless we have practically sold out the copies we received and are pleased to send you our reorder... In any case, we wish to thank you for finding the courage to publish this book in these times. With German greetings!” (Zsolnay Archive).
[472] The Zsolnay Archive has a copy of the original letter.
[473] In his December 11, 1933, letter to Frau von Urbanitzky, FW writes: “I would be much obliged if you would provide the necessary information about me. I know that you have followed my work and have a clear idea of my human integrity... I would like to add that nothing has changed in my attitude and that I refuse, as I have always done, to participate in political battles” (copy in Zsolnay Archive).
[474] FW/Mahler. Hauptmann even told FW about a plan to write a polemic against Nazism.
[475] In the Zsolnay Archive there is, for instance, a letter dated February 3, 1934, in which a German bookseller, Rolf Heukeshoven, explicitly warns the publisher that “in the next few days” the public will probably “be presented with an edict” regarding Musa Dagh: “A Turkish journalist and writer of my acquaintance who lives in Germany is concerned about this book and will shortly ask the appropriate authorities to have it banned. Of his detailed reasons for this, I know only that the book is aggressively directed against Turkish circles and the Turkish people in general. It would be extremely regrettable for the book trade if the ban were to come through, since the book itself is entirely untendentious and the ban would only satisfy the wish of this one gentleman, of whom we do not even know whether he is acting in the name of the Turkish people. Perhaps my brief notes on the matter will be useful to you in acting to prevent that step. It would be a great loss not to have the book available any longer.” It is possible that the Turkish journalist in question was a certain Falich Rifki Bey, a close associate of the president of Turkey; in a newspaper article he had chastised the German authorities for not banning or at least deploring Werfel’s book, considering that Turkey had been a German ally in World War I. In any event, Herr Heukeshoven’s warning arrived too late: a few days later the book was being confiscated everywhere in the German Reich.
[476] Unpublished letter from FW to Anna Moll, UCLA.
[477] Ernst Rüdiger, prince of Starhemberg, had participated in Adolf Hitler’s coup d’état attempt in Munich in 1923. On the civil war of 1934, see ML, p. 241: “The workers’ paper ke
pt on agitating for civil war. It was an outrage how they provoked the government... Eight days earlier Prince Starhemberg had told me that if Dollfuss would not act against the workers’ continued aggression, he and Fey would go it alone without Dollfuss.”
[478] Some sources cite 1,200 dead and 5,000 injured on the workers’ side alone.
[479] Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1970). Acting as minister of justice, he imposed death sentences on nine leaders of the Schutzbund, a Socialist paramilitary organization. When Chancellor Dollfuss wanted to decorate him for this “performance of his duty,” Schuschnigg refused to accept. See Franz Theodor Csokor, Zeuge einer Zeit: Briefe (Munich: Langen Müller Verlag, 1964), p. 81.
[480] See Jungk, Das Franz Werfel Buch, op. cit., pp. 431ff.
[481] Unpublished letter from FW to Felix Costa at Paul Zsolnay Verlag, February 26, 1934. In this letter FW also says:
“Please don’t be annoyed with me for asking you a couple of immodest questions.
“ — Where, when, why did the ban of Musa Dagh come about?
“ — Have you done anything about it? Or is there nothing to be done? — Does it hurt the rest of my work? —
“ — Can anything be done to gain advantage from the ban in other German-speaking countries? —
“ — How high are the present sales of M.D. — and how have they changed in the weeks since the ban? — ” (Zsolnay Archive).
[482] An impassioned lifelong Zionist, Weisgal (1894-1977) came to America as a boy. In the 1940s he became secretary to Chaim Weizmann, who in 1948 was elected first president of the state of Israel.
[483] FW/Mahler; and see Der Weg der Verheissung, DD, vol. 2, pp. 91-177.
[484] On Manon’s polio, see ML, pp. 243ff.
[485] “After eight days respiratory paralysis set in, and this first death was averted only thanks to the rapid and energetic actions of my daughter Anna Mahler, who in a downpour of rain located an oxygen machine in a distant pharmacy” (ibid., pp. 245f.).
Franz Werfel: A Life in Prague, Vienna, and Hollywood Page 39
