"Like a chain of grotesque paradoxes": Adolf Löwe on England

Something I ran across in my research just now:

“Thus the England and the Germany of the liberal age represent two extremes of social formation. On the one side a society which has grown up and is daily maintained by the spontaneous conformity of its members—on the other side a social chaos which from time to time produces wonderful flowers of individual development and then relapses into the dullness of the herd, held together by the mechanical forces of the state.”*

This was a comment by Adolf Löwe (later Adolph Lowe), who came to Britain -- or as he consistently refers to it in his book, "England" -- in the mid-1930s from Germany for reasons that I probably don't have to explain.  

In case there should be any misunderstanding, he's praising Britain (sorry, England) in the passage I quoted, which appears in his 1937 book The Price of Liberty. (He became a naturalised British subject in 1939.)

To Löwe, the English capacity for "spontaneous conformity" was a model for facing the need to balance freedom and order in the world of the new mass society.

From a little earlier in his book.  

“When I landed in England three years ago, with my German background everything which happens naturally here at first seemed to me like a chain of grotesque paradoxes. … It was only gradually that I succeeded in finding the common denominator which gives these paradoxes coherence. This forced me to cast about for some of the historical factors which have moulded this peculiar social form. From here a road suddenly opened up to a certain insight into the significance of the English social order for the future. This must even be understood in a double sense: not only of England’s own further development, but especially of her value as an example for a new Western civilisation.”**

---
* Adolf Löwe, The Price of Liberty: An Essay on Contemporary Britain (3rd edn., London, 1948 [1937]), 26.
**Ibid., 10.

Fighting them on the (cultural) beachheads

This is a very nice article about how cool German culture has become (even being 'embraced' in the UK...who'd have guessed?); however, did they really need to use the word 'invasion'?

And, to me, the combination of text and image suggests that Germany's 'big shift' has involved making half-naked people stand in very, very uncomfortable positions.

I'm struggling to find this complimentary.

On marked foreignness and the inability to go home again

I experienced more than a bit of self-recognition in this passage from a Prospect article ('Outsiders Everywhere' by E. J. Graff) quoting a German historian who has relocated to the US (quoted in a post by our friend Andrew).

My own Atlantic crossing, of course, went in the opposite direction, but I can nonetheless identify with one of her responses to the article's author about why she has decided to stay in her adopted home:

The first [answer] was that, having been an expat for more than a decade, she would never again be fully at home in Germany; she was Americanized now, to some degree, and would be out of place there. I've heard that before from Americans who've lived abroad for some extended period. ... So I wasn't surprised by the historian's answer. But why would that keep her here? Because, she explained, here her accent marks her as foreign; it reveals her reason for being a little different, a little unfamiliar with ordinary cultural habits. But in Germany, where she is unmarked as a foreigner, her different-ness irritates people.

I am still often frustrated about my all-too-visible marks of foreignness here in Germany (my accent, my use of expressions that are not quite right, my ability to form an orderly queue, my unwillingness to publicly scold complete strangers, etc.).

I think I feel encouraged now to be a bit more relaxed about my status as a marked man.

(The article also contains an interesting discussion of social mobility -- and its limits -- in the US and elsewhere.)

Roll over Beethoven, usw.

An interesting article at the Guardian on the now fifty-year-old dance known as the Twist led me to something unknown to me until now: the musical monstrosity that conscripted Friedrich Liszt's Liebestraum kicking and screaming into the twisting craze.

The horror....



More amusing was the way that twisting was analysed with great seriousness, as Time magazine noted in 1962:

If he could hear what has happened to his schöne, weltbekannte melody, Papa Liszt no doubt would be writhing, not twisting. And he would have plenty of company—solid German doctors who warn against "accelerating one's hips and legs in opposite directions," parents and churchmen who deplore "the overt sexual implications of the dance." But some German intellectuals defend the twist. It is, says one Munich psychiatrist, "a proper cure for working off frustrations." And a psychiatrist in Berlin, where the cold war takes the rap for all sorts of aberrations, sees it as a byproduct of an anxious age. ''The twist craze," says he, "can be attributed to Atomangst".

I suspect a twisting revival can't be too far, then, over the German cultural horizon.

Re: The Fecking Aging Process

Discussing 1980s mainstream pop in Britpop: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (2003/04), John Harris writes about the "swaggering masculinity that united the likes of Simon Le Bon, Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley and - ironically - Wham!'s George Michael" (4).

"Swaggering masculinity"? I seem to have watched a different movie. Spandau Ballet were only ever one thing: poofy - and Simon "Doughnut" Le Bon (by appointment to her Royal Highness Daft Di) simply fat.

But anyway, Harris's tedious and staunchly insular fan-journalism (hey, how about an international take on Oasis?) only serves as a cue-giver here. Really, what I want to write about is that Annette Humpe - icily androgynous godmother of what was known in these here climes as "Neue Deutsche Welle" - is 60 today.

Congratulations are in order (although I have to admit that it took me a while to get over the shock - I hadn't realised that it was that late already), not least because things like the following did send shockwaves through the cosy beige polyester living-rooms of late Cold War Germany (more than the pseudo-perviness of sweaty nonsense like "Wild Boys" ever would):



Oh, the Peroxide and lipstick combo! So cool!

And me still a mere babe with my whole life before me ....

Word is the wrong word

Something new and nice from Erdmöbel:



Erdmöbel, 'Wort ist das falsche Wort'


And for your reading pleasure, a related article/interview thingy from the current issue of Die Zeit.

Notes from the Westminster village fair

Count on the wandering Dutchman to bring some joy into these dour proceedings:

Watching the debates in the UK they had the feel of a village fair with commoners asking direct questions of villages grandees uhming and ahming while showing understanding why Mr Porter’s apple tree should be chopped because Mrs Stewart’s vegetable garden next door was not getting enough sunshine.

[...] Needless to say, none of them [i.e., Gordon, Nick or Dave] would stand a chance of becoming chancellor of Germany. In fact, none of them would even be allowed to rent a flat in Germany: separating garbage into black, green and blue wheelie-bins is a criterion for entering Germany. Why else do you think eastern Europeans steal jobs in the UK and not Germany? There is a reason why shops are closed on Sundays here and you’re not allowed to dispense your bottles at the bottle bank at noon. Annoying little rules are far more effective than the most gruelling citizenship exams (which is why the German one is a joke, if you’re that desperate, they will have you).

On that last point, reader, I can only concur.

Frauenpower

While taking a short mental break from research in the British Library, I ran across a couple of interesting articles at the New York Times.

One is on changes in family life and motherhood in Germany as more women enter the labour market.

This is hardly a new topic, of course, but there are elements in the article that touch upon what I've found to be a distinctive mixture of modernity and traditionalism in my adopted homeland.

Much of it focuses on Bavaria, where these tendencies are, in my experience, more marked than usual.

As is kind of summed up in this passage:

Even five years ago, all-day schooling in Neuötting seemed unthinkable, Mayor Peter Haugeneder said. There is a crucifix in his office, in every classroom of the Max Fellermeier school and even in the Spanish-themed restaurant run by the gay butcher.

Also related in some way is an article on the increasing tendency for men to marry women who earn more and are better educated than they are.

There are, apparently, men who have a problem with this, causing some frustration in the world of dating.

Ms. Zielinski, the fashion stylist, said her best friend, a man, told her once: “ ‘You are confident, have good credit, own your own business, travel around the world and are self-sufficient. What man is going to want you?’ He laughed, but I found that pretty depressing.”

If true, it is.

Friday horror

Loyal (and sympathetic) readers out there might have been wondering why a person like myself me would be so acerbic angry, bitter and enraged, when clearly I ought to be happy as Larry?

It's Zolaesque aesthetics of my early media training in the 1970s, stupid!

The disturbing evidence:



Die Sendung mit der Maus (German children's programme), 1972. No joking - this was shown on a Sunday morning on TV.

For children.

Small wonder that the more sensitive of our students find me a tad sarcastic. This is the kind of realist fodder that forever makes you immune to Prinzessin Lillifee and adolescent Vampire kitsch.

Meat.

Bone meal.

Freundliche Kundschaft

Here's to the power of small differences:

"The Gay Days visitors are really no different to other Oktoberfest revellers," said Claudia, a long-time waitress in the Bräurosl. "Except for the fact that they do give us better tips and they are less likely to throw beer glasses at each other when the evening gets going."

Hey, it's the autumnal equinox...and Oktoberfest. Reason enough to celebrate.

But mind the flying glasses.

For better or for Wurst

One of the interesting things I've run across during newspaper research into a few specific topics in the 1920s is the fascination in the English press with Germany.

But few have managed to combine fascination with condescension as well as the following article from the Daily Mail, in spring 1928.

New Girls of Germany

By AN ENGLISHMAN
who has just returned after spending over two years in various German towns.

Not so long ago the German girl conveyed the impression of an indifferently proportioned lugger, with sails square set, and unduly overweighted aft.

To-day, a more suitable analogy is that of a spick and span clipper with neat lines, the cut of her jib distinctly Parisian. Take a stroll along the Linden, visit the best dance restaurants in any large provincial town, and one beholds German girls dressed in almost the latest Paris creations. There are still a few frumps left, but they hail mostly from patrician houses, where it is considered proper to maintain the old German cult and to wear print frocks in the stalls.

The passion for slimness has reached Germany. The full-bosomed, perfunctorily dressed Gretchen with hair austerely combed is practically extinct among the younger generation. But though it is a comparatively simple affair to reduce one's figure, it is not always easy to reduce one's ankles in proportion. That is the one detail in which there is still room for improvement--that, and the lingering prejudice that more than just a touch of powder is not quite respectable. But women are adaptable creatures, and there is little doubt that nature and artifice will soon complete the transformation.

* * * * * * *

Temperamentally, too, the German girl has changed, and therein lies an element of tragedy.

Judged by British standards, many German husbands differ vastly from the conception of what a husband should be. They are inclined to be domineering; the standard of fidelity is lower on the whole in Germany than in some other countries; and they drink a good deal.

In pre-war days all this was taken for granted. A husband was frankly allowed his fling occasionally--was he not a man?--and his wife was accustomed to piloting him home after a beer party which had lasted well into the morning. She did not question him as to his whereabouts if he remained away from home longer than usual, and she accepted in humble spirit his rebukes if all was not quite in order in the household when he returned. And though there are--and always have been--many honourable exceptions, most German husbands are following the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers.

The German wife may now be found charlestoning--in the peculiar fashion common to German ballrooms--at the time of day when she used to be having a knitting party or cutting up the Wurst for supper. She is demanding to be taken to dine in restaurants on days when the cook or the maid-of-all-work is out, and she is giving up beer for cocktails. She has withal developed a sense of humour, rarely possessed in the old days, and is becoming a 'good sport' in the truly British sense.

At present she does little more that criticise her men folk, but the day is approaching when she will demand that husbands shall conform to the new ideal. When that day dawns we shall see German husbands allowing their wives to pass through the restaurant and tramway-cars, and transferring to their wives something of the respect which has been man's prerogative in the past.

(The Daily Mail, 27 March 1928, p. 12)

Ach, there's something here that makes one long for the subtle, good-humoured generalisations of a Jerome K. Jerome.

Designer food made in Germany

Even when inhabiting a machine for living, the humble human body needs to eat. To satisfy these overrated physical cravings, the Bauhaus movement suggested experimental dishes such as barley sausages:

Wasche Graupen in Sodawasser, koche sie weich und schrecke sie mit kaltem Wasser ab, sodaß jeder Kern wie Glas glänzt. Das gibt die Grundlage zu vegetarischen Würsten aller Art, mit denen man sich bei Muskelarbeitern einen unsterblichen Namen machen kann. Überall sollten vegetarische Wurstfabriken entstehen.

[Translation: Wash barley in soda water, cook till soft and then rinse with cold water until each pip shines like glass. This may serve as the basis of all kinds of vegetarian sausages and will immortalise you with physical labourers. Really, vegetarian sausage plants should emerge everywhere.]

I also like the recipes for "Nerven-Brot" and "Knoblauch Kaltschale."

On that note, here's a rather different bit of German experimental cuisine that would seem to support this philosophical frugality (and its utopian message): a food-related snippet from the popular documentary series "Die Ludolfs" (background information in German/English) - a charming scrapyard-owning band of brothers who, thanks to their philosophical outlook on things and loving relationship to the bits of gutted cars that they hoard in their labyrinthine Valhalla of spare parts, have wormed their way into the hearts of numerous fans.

Wanna watch more, click here.

Here's Peter, one of the bros, cooking pasta:



You might also like his scientific contemplations of the comparative virtues of canned (or frozen) vegetables over fresh. They "trap" the vitamins in the juice, you know!

Insurmountable cultural differences

I'm sorry, I don't get this article. This is not a German problem, I don't think. And truthfully, I'm kind of glad.

Sunday morning, praise the dawning

And yes, an insightful Sunday morning it has been, with plenty of things dawning on me during my perusal of various British newspapers. Oh, the seductions of the internet ....

First (thanks to The Times): Miss Cauliflower is truly the silly prude that I have always suspected her to be:

I clean myself, which surprises people. I shower every day. I shave all the parts you’re meant to shave as a woman nowadays. Obviously, nobody is like Helen [the "protagonist" of Wetlands]. But the fun in writing the book was getting all the secret stuff out — all the things women are ashamed about. For instance, with my husband, I don’t leave dirty knickers lying around. I hide them, take them myself to the washing machine. Why am I so embarrassed, even in my own flat?

Haven't I said it all along: Miss Roche is a frigging nut case. I mean: how dirty do the knickers of a well-showered woman get in 24 hours?

Would someone please find her a sensible psychologist specialising in behaviour therapy to sort out her various spleens? How this person managed to conceive a child, let alone go through pregnancy, give birth and then mop up kid poo and puke is beyond me.

And would someone please find me a sensible psychologist specialising in behaviour therapy to sort out my obsession with Charlotte Roche?

Secondly, over at the Guardian, Ruth Sunderland finally heralds this paper's long overdue entry into the 1970s. In her Comment is Free post on the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum she writes:

The big theme at this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) was "Shaping the Post-Crisis World". The idea that that can be achieved while excluding half the population is breathtaking in its arrogance and shows that the male Davos elite remains mired in its own preening self-regard and complacency. They have wrecked the world economy, but seem oblivious to the idea they may not be the best people to rebuild it. Ignoring the contribution women can make is ridiculous at any time, but how much more so when there is a clear need to reflect on the macho, tooth- and-claw brand of capitalism that caused the crunch in the first place.

Macho capitalism ... Ruthy, sister -- your brave attempt to keep the purple flag flying is very sweet indeed, but I really think that in perpetuating the myth -- comforting though it may be -- that women are better people than men you are oversimplifying matters.

Let me draw your attention to a case that is currently occupying the public debate in German (which you probably haven't heard about, the only German topic Britons have been willing to engage with for months being bloody Wetlands).

This case involves a representative of what you, Ruthy, would probably consider "the better sex": Maria-Elizabeth Schaeffler, a Franconian entrepreneur who last year took over the German tire manufacturer Continental with the aim of putting her family business on the global economic map helping the ailing firm -- on tick, of course.

Realising that she has overextended herself financially with this deal, Mrs Schaeffler has been doing a fair bit of canvassing for state funding amongst her cronies in the CSU, much to the dismay of the rest of the government. Both Peer Steinbrück and Angela Merkel have refused point blank to come to her aid.

Of course Schaeffler's recent mink-clad appearance at some Audi-sponsored VIP-event in the socialite hot spot of Kitzbühel didn't help. Somehow she doesn't quite manage to pull off the image of the caring businesswoman slogging her guts out for the German job market that she likes to flaunt.

UPDATE: The German press is all aflutter, because -- ooh, aah -- Charlie Roach is getting plenty of media attention in Britain right now. Here's the link for the more than meta-information.

On inelegant t-shirts and people who represent the entire overpopulation of the world

German Joys is celebrating 'Max Goldt Weeks'.

Who is Max Goldt? Well, he writes things like this, an excerpt from 'The Masses and the Maidens' (translation by Andrew at GJ):

I once explored the local terrain with an expert in questions of style and coolness. We saw a man with a sweatshirt that said HARD ROCK CAFÉ BERLIN. My companion intoned expertly: “Really, there’s nothing uncooler than that.” I possess only one written-on article of clothing – a T-shirt given to me as a joke, which reads: BEER FORMED THIS BEAUTIFUL BODY. Back then, it was new to the joke-shirt market, and still somewhat funny. Still, I never put it on. I recently thought about giving the shirt to an extremely pregnant friend of mine – not, however, before I’d crossed out the word BEER and replaced it with the substance relevant to her situation. However, I’d already annoyed this friend with a most inelegant motherhood-related joke before, and I didn’t want to be banished entirely from her sphere of favor. We were sitting in a café, and there was still one seat left at our table. Through the door came a sleazebag whom I, regrettably enough, slightly knew. There are some people who are so unpleasant that they seem to represent the entire overpopulation of the world, standing there before you, compressed into one body. Out of disgust, I said to my friend: “You’re a woman. You can give birth. Bear a hedgehog, please, and put it on the free chair, so the bugger doesn’t sit here.” The friend didn’t like that at all. “Don’t ever say anything like that again,” she said, nervously stroking her belly. Thus, I forbade myself the inelegant T-shirt joke.

[...]

Recently, a group of girls who’d apparently just written a biology paper got into the subway. From out of the general chatter one of the girls, about 15, crowed a sentence that almost made me explode with pleasure: “Silly old fruitcake that I am, I forgot to write ‘rectum’ in parentheses after ‘colon’”!

Of course, even the finest girls don’t say such delightful things all the time. But it’s always nice to hear them say the typical sentences that intelligent young people say, such as: “I think it’s okay to be photographed nude, as long as it’s aesthetic,” or: “Chaos is the beginning of every new order.” Adults should avoid such phrases, of course, but the young have a license to babble. Another very good one: “Sexuality has quite a bit to do with death.” Sexuality has, of course, nothing at all to do with death, but when a 15-year-old says that, it’s just adorable. I say: “Girls are the beginning of every new order, and have quite a bit to do with death.” Isn’t that also adorable?

Now, go read more.

German TV icon dies

R.I.P. Horst Tappert, bourgeois Germany's longstanding televisual incarnation of law and order.


Yes, this is what us Germans associate with the term "sleuth." This is our Karl Malden, solving his cases in the smutty streets of ... upper-middle-class Munich. Despite (or because of?) the series' rather Chabrolian take on the nature and context of crime, the whole world was intrigued by Derrick, the cop show whose title role Tappert played for 24 years until 1998. The show - dubbed and/or subtitled - was exported to 100-odd countries. In Italy, according to Fritz Wepper, the actor who played his sidekick, Tappert was the second most important person after the Pope (video evidence here and here).

Derrick's tag line, directed at his assistant, is better known in Germany than "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa" or "Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders": "Harry, go get the car" ("Harry, hol' schon mal den Wagen").

We shall miss this unassuming but culturally significant man.