Correspondence between Simon Wiesenthal and Heinrich Böll on issues raised in “The Sunflower” and on comments from others, 1968/69
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SIMON WIESENTHAL, DIPL. ING. (BRIEFPAPIER-KOPF)
Vienna, Nov. 19, 1968
1190, Mestrozigassse 5
Telephone 47 51 85
Mr.
Heinrich Böll
Belvederestr. 35
Köln-Müngersdorf
BRD
Dear Mr Böll!
Perhaps you know me by name, but if not, I would like to give you a brief profile.
I am the director of the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, I was an architect in Poland and the Soviet Union at the time and one of the few survivors from Lviv. After the war, I did not return to my profession, but believed that if I put myself at the service of justice for a while, I would find my lost faith again. I could not have imagined at the time that this would become an activity for the rest of my life.
I wrote several books after the war and have now finished a new manuscript dedicated to the problem of forgiveness. The manuscript is only 120 pages long and contains a true experience that evokes the whole issue.
I would like to append to this book statements by prominent personalities who have something to say on the subject, both as theologians of various denominations and as writers. So far I have statements from Stefan Andres, Golo Mann, Friedrich Heer, Albrecht Goes, Manès Sperber, Abraham Heschel, Bruins Slot, Ernst Simon, Carl Zuckmayer, which comprise 4 to 6 typewritten pages, statements have been promised by Rolf Hochhuth, René Cassin, Arthur Koestler and Max Brod.
I am taking the liberty of sending you the manuscript by the same post and asking you, if your time permits, to read it and send me your comments.
I realise that since I lack the routine of a writer, you may be disappointed by the way I have presented it, but I hope you will nevertheless grant my request.
Best regards
Heinrich Böll
Köln, Hülchratherstr.7
15.8.69.
Dear Mr Wiesenthal,
I have now been able to carefully read your manuscript and would like to share my impression of it with you. If it is an autobiographical report in the strictest sense of the word, I respect both the content and the form without any reservations; I would not presume to apply "literary standards" to such a report, especially the later narrative return of the report to the surviving mother and her unsuspecting petty-bourgeois milieu gives the preceding report – the prisoner's encounter with the dying young SS man – a background that brings everything to the present. The reality and symbolism of the "Sunflower" also takes on a special significance in connection with the Germans' strange preference for well-tended soldiers' cemeteries; analysing this would be worthy of a special study.
I would not quite agree with your manuscript if it were – if only partly – "literature". A young German who more or less unsuspectingly falls for the terrible Nazi ideology, then joins the SS, is soon confronted with their actual "task", then, dying, tries to confess to a Jewish prisoner – I'm afraid that would be interpreted "symbolically", and it seems to me that any symbolic interpretation would harm the report, because there should probably be no discussion about the role of the SS, its sphere of activity, its "duties" and its "honour"; it would be better if the dying man were a member of the German Wehrmacht; Unfortunately, neither the Eichmann trial nor any other trial has revealed the role of the German Wehrmacht in its ambiguity; the role of the SSwas clear, that of the Wehrmacht ambiguous – and it has remained so to this day, probably out of political consideration for the Bundeswehr, the Federal Republic of Germany, etc.
Don't forget the conditions under which I am considering this: I would judge an autobiographical account under such aspects, but if it is a literary narrative, then I would find the opportunity to portray the ambiguous and dubious role of the German Wehrmachtin the "East" wasted; then the whole issue of forgiveness and non-forgiveness would be too private. In this case, it would also be wrong to "spare" the mother of the deceased, because she would inevitably become a symbol of "unsuspecting" Germans whose milieu has neither accepted nor understood what really happened to this day. It would be better – always assuming the second case – to turn the dying man into a senior officer of the Wehrmacht, who would at least be an accomplice, and virtually instruct the narrator to break through the intactness of the domestic milieu by reporting – assuming the unlikely event that the narrator survives. This would turn the private case into a public one. I hope you understand me correctly, Mr Wiesenthal: a young SS man is too unambiguous a figure. Of course, when you publish it, you must also expect that your report will not be respected as autobiographical, that it will be symbolised and that the sparing of the unsuspecting, half-dreaming domestic milieu will be taken for absolution.
It may be that I am "investing" too much intellectual speculation in your simple, rather moving report, but I think it is right, in view of such a complicated – and basically to this day in every respect "unresolved" – subject, to include the reactions of the public in my considerations. I would emphasise the sunflower motif even more strongly: I always feel anxious when I see the well-tended German military cemeteries.
Yours sincerely, 1Note 1 : handwrittenHeinrich Böll
Aug. 18, 1969
Mr
Heinrich Böll
Hülchratherstr. 7
D-5 Cologne
Dear Mr Böll!
Thank you very much for your letter of the 15th of this month. I am delighted that you have found time to read the "Sunflower". What I have written is pure truth, a true incident, an experience that still captivates me today. There is only one survivor apart from me who knew about it at the time, and that is engineer Porath, the chief architect of Tel Aviv.
Of course, if such a thing were to be sketched out literarily, your considerations are true and important. You would have to symbolically place a German from an unencumbered group who was guilty and his mother, who is told the truth, would then symbolically be the rest of Germany. But it was as I have described. Gustav Heinemann made a remark in his statement on the "Sunflower" that he would have told his mother the whole truth if he had been me. But apart from him and you, in your present letter, the personalities who have commented on the "Sunflower" – there are now over thirty of them – have only emphasised the pure problem of forgiveness and also how they would have behaved in my situation.
Dear Mr Böll, your name and your words carry weight. What you will say in this case will point the way forward, as you have a large readership and your name has a good reputation among German youth – and that is the most important thing. The problem of the "Sunflower" may be a German problem, chained to this autobiographical case as I present it. But it is not a German problem, because the problem that arises is always valid and unfortunately we do not have too much hope that one day my children or their children or our grandchildren will not find themselves in such a situation that they will have to decide whether they have the right to forgive.
I believe that now that this matter has been clarified, you will be able to send me your opinion on this problem. The book is currently being published in eight languages. In Germany, it will be published by Hoffmann & Campe at the beginning of next year, and in other countries in October and November of this year.
People in France also know who Heinrich Böll is, so please send me your lines soon.
Best regards
Yours
PS: In your letter you write that the position of the Wehrmacht was ambiguous. The right thing is captured in one word. In my eyes, the Defregger problem is not a Defregger-Catholic Church problem, it is a Wehrmacht problem. As head of the Documentation Centre, I have already had the experience with the German judiciary that the Wehrmacht is taboo. I have submitted dossiers with much larger Wehrmachtcrimes in Italy to the German judiciary, e.g. the murder of 9,000 Italian prisoners of war on the Greek island of Kephalenia, clearly defined crimes violating the Geneva Convention, etc. But the judiciary isn’t hooked. The same applies to the question of hostage shootings in France, Italy and other countries. Anything connected with the Wehrmacht is given a wide berth.
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