Why do we still need to read the Weimar era today?

Siegfried? Krakow was a German writer, sociologist, cultural critic and film theorist in the 20th century. In his early years, he worked as a journalist and commentator in frankfurter allgemeine zeitung, and forged a deep friendship with German left-wing intellectuals such as Adorno, Benjamin and Bloch. 1933 After the Nazis came to power, Krakow, a Jew, was forced into exile in Paris and arrived in new york in 194 1. After moving to the United States, he worked in new york Museum of Modern Art, mainly engaged in the research of film history and film theory.

Krakau was one of the earliest film theorists introduced to China. In 1980s, the most urgent problem faced by China filmmakers and film scholars was how to re-establish the connection between films and people's daily experience. Krakow's left-wing stance and realistic concern made him the most ideologically and politically correct western film theorist at that time. His two film studies, From Cariga to Hitler and The Essence of Film, were written in English after moving to the United States. The former traced back to the seeds of Nazi from German films in Weimar period, while the latter regarded films as an art form to save the western world enslaved by instrumental rationality. Both of these books have aroused strong repercussions among American readers, making people interested in his works before World War II. So in 1963, he published an anthology of his own choice, Popular Decoration, in which he selected more than a dozen works during the Weimar period (that is, during his tenure in frankfurter allgemeine zeitung). After his death, this book became an important document in the field of architecture, history and cultural research.

Peking University Publishing House recently published two books, Employees: From the Latest German and Detective Stories: Philosophical Papers, both of which were written by kracauer in the 1920s. The Employee was written in 1929, when Krakow was working at Berlin Station in Frankfurt. He spent ten weeks investigating the living space, working environment, habits and hobbies, thinking mode and language style of employees in large and small enterprises in Berlin. He talked with employees, trade union representatives and business owners, went into offices, employment agencies and cinemas to observe, and even studied newspapers, advertisements and private communications in factories. His method is very similar to "field investigation" in anthropology or "participation in observation" in sociology, but he himself refuses the outsider position of any school or institution, which also keeps him at a distance from the respondents.

He called the investigation completed at home "exploration", because in his view, this series of articles serialized in frankfurter allgemeine zeitung set foot on an "unknown territory", just as thrilling as a trip to Africa on the screen. Because "while looking for employees, I entered the interior of a modern metropolis", compared with the primitive tribe mentioned in the movie, life here is unfolding in full view, just unknown, just like Ellen? No one paid attention to the "Letter from Her Majesty the Queen" written in Poe's novel because it was on the table.

As early as the end of 19, Germany has formed the concept of "emerging middle class", which regards employees as the main body of the country and society and plays the role of a buffer against turmoil. 19 1 1 promulgated the law on the protection of employees, which clearly defined the treatment of employees and their position superior to the working class. However, the good times did not last long, and the middle class, whose property was looted by war and inflation, quickly fell into the whirlpool of economic rationalization reform. In this reform, they lost almost all the advantages different from the working class on a large scale: relative independence, promotion opportunities and job security.

From this, we can see from kracauer's investigation that the middle class's efforts to draw a line with the working class in ideology and identity are becoming more and more stubborn and desperate ―― kracauer shows how the appearance of this "home of middle class's ideas and feelings" is maintained through words such as education, culture and occupation, but at the same time, this home has already collapsed. In his view, these employees are mentally homeless and can only temporarily hide in shelters provided by the cultural industry. 1929 kracauer never thought that these middle classes would become supporters of the Nazi Party and Hitler, but the "aura of terror" he saw on their heads made him foresee some kind of political disaster earlier than others. Because of this, the subtitle of this book implies that this is a report from the latest Germany, which witnessed the end of Weimar * * and the dangerous germination of a "new Germany" (Hitler came to power 1933, Weimar * * and China officially declared bankruptcy 14 years).

Detective stories were written earlier than employees, and were completed between 1922 and 1925, but they were found in the relics five years after Krakow's death. In this book, he gave a metaphysical explanation to a literary type-detective novel, which "has nothing to do with literature in the eyes of most educated people". At the same time, he also experimented with this seemingly insignificant literary phenomenon in various metaphysical categories. This method of exploring metaphysics or historical philosophy through a literary work comes from Lukacs' novel theory, which kracauer once called one of the most important philosophical achievements of his time. At the same time, detective stories are similar to Benjamin's 1928 paper The Origin of German Tragic Drama. The difference is that kracauer chose a more popular and even vulgar literary type. In his view, these strange stories are like a deformed painting, reflecting an unavoidable landscape in people's spiritual world.

Starting with Edgar? Allen. Since Po 184 1 the short story Murder in Mog Street (also translated as Murder in Mog Street), a group of detective novelists, Conan? Doyle (Sherlock Holmes series), Emile? Gabriel (murder in red), gaston? Leroux (Phantom of the Opera) and others are among them. In kracauer's view, these writers' works hold a deformable mirror for a "civilized society with overall rationality", in which the society can recognize its own "run amok", and the process of solving puzzles constitutes an "aesthetic metaphor for the philosophical system based on rationality and autonomy": the detection of cases always starts with thin evidence and broken facts, which is out of context, deprived of the original connection and becomes isolated. Therefore, the tension of detective novels may not come from the power of the event itself and the trembling in the face of sin, but the truth may never be seen through.

Is reasoning to restore the truth or to fabricate the truth completely? This is the tension of detective novels, which corresponds to reality. European intellectuals after World War I also faced similar fears: rationality has fallen from the altar, so how can people rebuild the bridge between themselves and the world?

Li Jing, the translator of The Employee and Detective Fiction, described Krakow as "the receiver of Weimar period", which was a very special period in German history. The failure and humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles in World War I gave birth to the first democratic regime in Germany-Weimar Republic. In the short fourteen years from the end of the First World War in 19 19 to the Nazi coming to power in 1933, Weimar Republic experienced many crises such as inflation, conflict between politics and religion, racial discrimination, gender and intergenerational contradictions, violence and terrorism, and at the same time, it also gave birth to the peak of art, culture and thought, which was not only the demise of the Nazis. Many problems faced by Weimar Republic still exist in today's world, and the thinking of intellectuals in Weimar period is still valid in today's world, which is why we still need to read kracauer today.

On the occasion of the publication of Employees and Detective Stories, Peking University Publishing House and Peking University Boya Forum held a seminar on "Crossing the border of ideas-Krakow". At the meeting, Hu Weiwei, associate professor of German Department of Peking University Foreign Studies University, talked about the "salvation anxiety" of Krakau people and German intellectuals of that generation after World War I, and their attempts to break through this anxiety. Authorized by Peking University Publishing House, Interface Culture (WeChat official account ID: booksandfun) published excerpts of Hu Weiwei's speech for readers.

Hu Weiwei: How to rebuild the meaning of life on the ruins is the same proposition of Krakow's generation of German intellectuals.

Kracauer was born in 1889, Benjamin in 1893, Brecht in 1898, Thomas? Mann and Rilke were born in 1875, and Zweig was born in 188 1. Their generation is1the post-80s and 90s of the 9th century. They all experienced World War I when they were quite young, which made them generally have a kind of anxiety of redemption, and the motives of their various behaviors seemed to stem from this anxiety of redemption.

There is a view among historians that the outbreak of World War I was very accidental, and the reasons of both sides of the war were far-fetched, or they fought for the sake of fighting. 19 14 as a new capitalist country, Germany really wants to show its strength to the world, so we see all kinds of colorful war posters and inspiring recruitment advertisements. The whole civil society seems to see the dawn of a new world that they are not familiar with but yearn for infinitely. Every family sends young boys to the army. These boys wear soft cloth hats to the battlefield. I have no idea what war means. When they go through a bloody and cruel "meat grinder" war far beyond imagination and return to their daily life after the war, you will find that this generation has been defeated, and their body and mind have completely collapsed, and the new world they are looking forward to has suddenly become a hell on earth. At that time, soldiers with broken arms or blindness could be seen everywhere on the streets of Berlin. This psychological contrast and disillusionment corresponds to a metaphysical discussion, that is, when all the meaning is lost and all the connections are gone, how to redeem it again and how to rebuild the meaning of life on the ruins. This has become the topic of the post-80s and post-90s generation, which is not only a realistic problem, but also a philosophical topic.

After the end of World War I and the Second Reich of Germany, Albert and a group of Democrats held a national conference in a small town called Weimar in eastern Germany in 19 19, and formulated a * * * peace constitution. This is the German way to * * * peace, so it is 19 19. Why did you go to Weimar to hold a parliament? Because Weimar is the spiritual highland of national culture and the humanitarian symbol of the Germans-Weimar is the city of Goethe and Schiller. /kloc-In the second half of the 8th century, enlightened Weimar princes attached great importance to the development of culture and art at that time, and invited intellectuals such as Goethe, Schiller, Vilander and Held to hold public office in Weimar. So around 1800, Weimar classical literature represented by Goethe and Schiller was formed, which was the first peak in the history of German literature, and Weimar town became a symbol of German culture because of this history.

In the first five years after the end of World War I, Weimar Republic had not recovered from the war, and inflation and hunger were everywhere. There is a classic scene in Bergman's film, which records a horse pulling a starving cart on the streets of Munich. A woman cut the horse open on the spot and sold the horse meat to pedestrians on the roadside. From 1925 to 1929, before the world economic crisis, Weimar * * * and the country had a stable period of about five years, which is now commonly referred to as the golden age of 1920s in cultural history. During this period, Weimar's literature and art showed some new trends.

First of all, in terms of artistic style, new objectivism has emerged. Neo-objectivism is a kind of reaction to expressionism that pays attention to emotional expression before the war. It dissects and shows the real world, instead of beautifying and exaggerating emotions, it shows the ruined, ugly, cold and morally corrupt city life naked. A typical literary example is Doblin's "Berlin, Alexandria Square", which describes a man who was released from prison.

Secondly, the expression of the new media-movies at that time also influenced the traditional novel and drama genre. For example, in Berlin, Alexander Square used the method of film montage, mixing some news reports, weather forecasts and movie advertisements, with a loose plot and a stream of consciousness. Brecht's San Qian opera, which describes the London underworld, is also a classic of Weimar's drama.

Thirdly, the research results of culturology, sociology, psychology and pathology have also entered literary creation, which has a very significant and far-reaching impact on the way of literary creation. In short, the Weimar Republic period was a very rich and active period of cultural and artistic life. People of various literary schools and political positions are very active, including avant-garde writers, traditional writers, left-wing writers and conservative writers, and everyone has a place. With the development of the newspaper industry, the influence of critics on Weimar and China's cultural life has also become very important. In Zweig's autobiography Yesterday's World, it is mentioned that critics of literary supplements have a decisive influence on Vienna's cultural life.

Back in kracauer, his identity was difficult to classify, and he refused to be classified. In German, he sat "in the middle of all the chairs". This also determines that he has always been an outsider in life, a marginal person, and politically. He is detached from various factions, and he maintains detached relations with Frankfurt School and German Marxist Group. From the perspective of subconscious psychoanalysis, this may also be related to his family background of Jewish petty bourgeoisie. At the same time, he is also keen on studying marginal people and gray areas, such as "employee class" and "detective novels" as entertainment literature, which do not attract the elegance of traditional classical literature.

I think among kracauer's multiple identities, the most suitable one is a critic. The critics here are critics in a broad sense, not critics in a certain field. This tradition in German literature began in Lessing in the18th century. His fields include drama criticism, literary criticism, political science, pedagogy and theology. In The Romantic Period, this tradition was founded by Christopher? Schlegel and others carry forward. Early romanticism proposed that literature is a "progressive poem", that is to say, real literature should be all-encompassing, always in the process of formation, a fragment, and only romantic irony can resolve the division between finite and infinite. Kracauer and Benjamin both inherited the German criticism tradition. They don't want to comment on a writer or launch a work. They have expressed their views in various fields, but there are deeper metaphysical thinking behind them.

Kracauer explored many "unknown areas" in his life, which seemed to be unrelated. For example, he paid attention to "detective stories" for a while, gave anthropological field reports to city employees for a while, and began to study movies a few years later. Many of his innovations and explorations actually come from his anxiety, or this is the anxiety of a generation. Lukacs' novel theory (1920) once influenced Krakow. In this book, he diagnosed their new era as a "world abandoned by God" and the people in the new era as "detached homeless people". In fact, we can also see that Adorno and Benjamin of Frankfurt School, Lukacs and Brecht of the left camp are all patients of this era, and they respond to this destroyed era in various ways and seek the possibility of redemption. What kracauer discovered may be that, like "scavengers", catching the dust in tiny light in the cracks of a huge theoretical system, those daily experiences that cannot be summarized by concepts are imperceptible, fleeting and fragmented. This is also influenced by Husserl and Zimmer. "You can enter the room from the smallest side door and go straight to the core of human nature."

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