Abstract
Der Spiegel once described Kurt Hiller (1885–1972) as a ‘hothead of the far left’ – a strange accolade, given that he was as bald as a coot. But realizing that Hiller’s interests were much broader and more complex than wild revolution, the editor of this collection of essays begins his peroration by describing him as a ‘writer, journalist, well-informed author, jurist, sexual reformer, independent socialist and pacifist, Jew with no formal religious affiliation, anti-fascist, victim of Nazi persecution, and intellectual hybrid [Querdenker] whose theoretical stance was somewhere between parliamentary democracy and orthodox Marxism (p. 7)’. Given which, Daniel Münzner’s wide-ranging and laudably detailed biography of Hiller (reviewed in JES 46(2) (June 2016): 186–90) might seem to imply that everything possible has now been said about the life and work of one of Germany’s most prominent and prolific left-wing publicists between 1910 and 1933.
Following the suicide of Hiller’s first literary executor – Horst H. W. Müller (1941–2002) – the Kurt Hiller-Gesellschaft (founded in 1998 in Hamburg) has, however, since 2003, under the dedicated tutelage of Dr Harald Lützenkirchen, managed Hiller’s extensive Nachlass so skilfully that it has become a major source for researchers working on German political history during the first half of the twentieth century (pp. 205–12). The KHG has also, in conjunction with the Institute for the Regional History of Brunswick, worked hard at keeping Hiller’s name and reputation alive, spreading his ideas, and investigating under-researched areas of his rich and variegated life via reading evenings, conferences and a well-edited and eminently readable series of specialist publications (pp. 211–24).
This new collection of essays nevertheless focuses less on what Hiller wrote about other people and more on what other people had to say about him and his work. It begins with Ian King’s essay on Hiller’s relationship with Tucholsky, another prominent member of the group that formed around the left-liberal periodical Die Weltbühne (1918–33) (pp. 15–28). This is followed by Raimund Wolfert’s discussion of Hiller’s participation in the campaign to liberalize the laws governing homosexuality in the German Federal Republic after his return there from exile in 1955. Surprisingly, the crucial Para. 175 – which had entered the Imperial German Criminal Code on 15 May 1871 and was tightened up by the Nazis on 1 September 1935 – remained in force in West Germany during the 14 years of Konrad Adenauer’s Chancellorship (1949–63), and despite two modifications that took effect on 25 September 1969 and 23 November 1973, it was not taken off the Statute Book until 31 May 1994, i.e. after German reunification.
The third essay, by Kurt Kraushaar (p. 55–92), deals with Hiller’s Profile: Prosa aus einem Jahrzehnt, the only political book that he produced during the first 11 years of his exile (Czechoslovakia, 1934–8; Britain 1939–45). Hiller had originally intended it to be an account – entitled Schach dem Satan – of his arrest by the Nazis for his work as a sexual reformer and his subsequent experiences while in ‘protective custody’ from late February 1933 to April 1934. But he changed his thinking dramatically, and when it was published in Paris by Éditions Nouvelles Internationales in April 1938, it consisted of 23 studies of individuals about whose political views and activities he had either positive, negative or neutral opinions, and extracts from contemporary reviews of his book, a good selection of which are reproduced here (seven from as yet unoccupied Czechoslovakia, three from Paris, and three from German-speaking Switzerland). The fourth essay, by Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin, discusses Hiller’s later publications, their reception during the early phase of the Cold War (1945–55), and Hiller’s response to that process of reception (pp. 93–148) when, as Münzner has shown, Hiller was moving away – with some reluctance – from the ‘Logocratic oligarchism’ of his early years and towards a belief in ‘real political democracy’ that was grounded in ‘economic democracy, which is socialism’ (pp. 99, 121). The fifth essay, by Rolf von Bockel, deals with Hiller’s reception in Hamburg between 1908 and 1945 (pp. 151–82), based on an exhaustive trawl through local newspapers. But if my memory serves me correctly, von Bockel’s statement about the lack of reviews there of Der Kondor (March 1912), Hiller’s ground-breaking anthology of poetry by mainly Expressionist writers (p. 154), can be modified by an article in the Lit.wiss.Jb, Neue Folge 24 (1983): 209–34. The sixth and final essay, by Harald Lützenkirchen, is an analytical survey of items that appeared during the period between Hiller’s 70th birthday and his death, material that appeared about him posthumously (pp. 185–202), and the work of the KHG (pp. 205–16). So the essays complement Münzner’s biography very well and is, unlike many academic books, very readable thanks to a generous layout, large typeface, and numerous well-chosen illustrations. And although it is a pleasure to come across a German academic publication with an index (pp. 217–21), it is a pity that this one restricts itself simply to the names of individuals.