The correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 0226042375, 9780226042374, 9780226042381, 0226042383

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THE CORRESPONDENCE OF

1910 - 1940 \

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Edud nml Al•11orllttd by Gcr~hom

Scholcm n11d Thcodor W. Adorno Trnmln wf b)•

Manfred R. Jacobson m:d Evclvn M. jacobson •

Walter Benj:unin was born in Berlin in U!92. He smdicd philosoph)• and theology in Berlin and Switurland, and lived in v•rious places in Europe including several years in Paris. He was a regular contributor to magazines and lir.crary sections of newspapers. His numerous works include Tht O•"igin ofGn-nwJI T ragrdy, "The Task of the Transloror," and wn1c Work of Art in the Age of Mcchanic:~l Rcproduetion.n In 1940, while fleeing the Gcst'llpo at the Franco-Spanish border, be rook his own life.

Contents ..

Narc on Sources vn .

The Univcrsiry of Chic:>go l'rdl, Chic;,go 60637 The University of Chicago Pn:ss, Ltd., London C I 994 by TI1e Uni,·crsity of Chicago All rights rr:scrvcd. l'ubHshcd I 994 Printed in the United Sl3tcs of America

Translators' Note

03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94 ISBN: 0-226-04237-5 (doth)

Benjamin t:he Letter Writer, by Theodor W . Adorno xvu

I 2 3 4 5

Originally published in Gcrm•ny in 1978 as • two-volume edition under the tides Briifr I, 1910-1928 and Britft Z, /9Z9- Il}4(1, C Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966. LibrAry of Congrcs.~ Caraloging- in· Publicarion Dara Benjamin, W:Urcr, 1892- 1940. [Corrcspndcncc. English] The correspondence of W:Utc:r Bcnj•min, 1910- 1940 I edited and aru10I3ted by Gcrshom Scholcm and Thcodor W. Adorno ; translored by Manfred R. jacobson and Evelyn M. jacobson.

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"Originally published in Gamaoy in 1978 3S u two-volume edition under the tides Briefe I, 1910-1928 ond Briefc 2, 1929-1940, copyright Suhrkamp Verlag, Fr:ulkfurt am Moin 1966"- T .p. verso. Includes index. 1. Benjamin, Walter, 1892- 1940-Corrcs pondencc. 2. AuthOrs, Gcnn.tn- 20th ccnrury-Corrcspondcncc. I. Schokm, Gcrshom Gcrhanl, 1897. 11. i\dorno , TI1eodor W. , 1903-1969. Ul . Tide. JYI'2603.E455Z48 1994 838' .91209- dclO [ B) 93·4 1005 ClP ® The paper

in this publication meets the minimum rrquirem~nrs o f the Amcric3n National Srandanl for lnfonnation Sciences-Pcnnoncnce of Paper to r Primed Library Materials, ANSI Z.19.48·1984. l llir Rennismnce iTJ ltnlim] (by Burkhardt [sic]). Unfortunately, I have only the first volume with me since I ctidn't hope to finish even d1is one. Bur now I have ahnost fi1tished it. Thrilling and often unbelievable. (Pietro Arcrino received an annual pension from Karl V and Franz I so that he would spare them in his satirical poems.) Cf. Bruhn. 3 I am also slowly nearing the end of Amm Kamtillfl· and just as slowly, bur surely, Tolsroy is becoming more interesting to me than his heroine. In addition, I have a lot of od1er nice things with me, among others

Kaspar Hmtser.4 In conclusion, I will leave you with the following good, probably superfluous. advice. After many years of experience, I have recently become

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atvm·e of how much more peculiar and, above all, how completely different nature appears after sundown (from 8:45 to 9: 15). Beautiful and strange. Well, if you have not yet observed this, then do so. I await your response in Wengcn, general delivery. Yours, Walter Benjamin l. This is probably a reference co the chen popular humorist Karkhcn (Ettlinger).

2. [In German, the Vicrwaldstartcr Sec.-Trans.] Drawn as a rebus: the number 4, trees, a rownsrnan.

3. The publisher of a Berlin nl-wspapcr, about whose conduct similar rumors were in cirrulation. 4. Wassermann's novd.

5. To Herbert Belmore Wcngcn July 19, 1911 Isis .. . Pythia ... Demeter, Behold~ my unfettered soul openly betook itself to you, from We~is to the Engadine. Yet it discovered no charming Swiss cottage. Rather, m the midst of the eternal glacier, an altar rose up (it is true that I did not sec anything on its base), but beneath it was written " Isis Moralit~IS." And my soul donned its armor and dispensed incense . . . and proceeded thence, swung itself upon the Jungfrau, and d1e Jungfrau spoke on its bcllalf: Sublime maternal Demeter! first let me ofler my greetings and all the esteem due you: for out of your infinite loftiness you stoop to promote men's fashion. But hear, oh maternal Demeter! Your song of morality makes irs way to me only in a confused and insipid manner, and even though it comes from a great distance, it nonetheless still comes out of the depths. (And in Sils, where a human being thought and wrote "beyond good and evil," you, the goddess, raise the brazen trumpet of morality.) (And I may not say more to you, for the Jungfrau speaks on my behalf.) The Jungti-au solves the Oracle of Pythia: Pythia speaks ambiguously, and when she is of the opinion that matter weighs nodung and the spirit too much, it is a sign that she is not master of the latest philosophical terminology, because she is of the opinion that matter still weighs too much and there is al.l too little spirit. But when Pythia is of me opinion that the One is strawberry colored, this is explicable, for she is blindfolded, and color is hard to define in any case. This One, however, is usable, specifically as the blueprim of mue Secession as produced by conuncrcial artists.

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So this is d1e One, and l have already received it because d1c colored illustration was enclosed in your letter. The other, however, is reaUy not usable, and it is only praiseworthy and natural that Pythia should say nothing about it. And I have already received it as well and it is the other postcard. Thus I will thank God and Pythia if l receive nothing else. Nevertheless, I have a soft heart, and the Jungfrau's icy tone confuses ir and it descends and speaks in a hwnan voice among beasts. For I call the music that the Berlin Opera Repertory imports and imparts as witness to the f.'\ct d1at d1e beast resides primarily in human beings. Of course, I did not hear this music in the billiard hall, but I was playing billiards there and risked my first shots in the absence of an audience. I thank you for d1e excerpts; I have not yet read everything. The criticism in Schafli1er's essay interested me greatly. I had no time to go to the public library to inu11erse myself in this labyrinth. I am intentionally ignoring one point in your commemorative volume: 1 I have received too many good wishes on this point and am somewhat depressed. I am unable to draft any kind of romantic descriptions ofWengcn, and do not know how to produce homemade postcards. That is to say, I've only been here for two hours. Through the beautiful, pouring rain, you catch sight of the Jungfrau. And now my thirst for vengeance has been slaked and I close with a heartfelt: Thank you very much! Yours, Walter I. Apparcmly

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birthday kncr Bdmorc wn)cc \VB.

6. To Herbert Belmore Wengen July 24, 1911 Dear Herbert! You owe d1e continuing bulletins about my spiritual condition to neidler your soulful and edif)ring tracts, nor to your malicious contributions to my file of newspaper clippings, nor to the dried Alpine flowers picked on the edge of the pernicious abyss. Rather, you owe them solely to my horrible isolation. Seriously: a lively social lite has unfortunately become a necessity tor me (as I take tlus opportunity ro note), and I am so lo nely here that I fear I will become interesting and, in the course of time, acquire soulful eyes. A condition that even a get-together arranged by the maitre d'hotcl could nor remedy because I did not attend it. On the od1er

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hand, since I am now pretty much the only "young man" ar the hotel (perhaps with the exception of my brothcr1), today, in a conversation that rook place at some remove from me, I had to listen to scathing words about d1c blase anirudc of contemporary youth. That is to say, the gettogether was generally poorly attended. By the way, d1ere is even a female here wid1 whom it would be possible to carry on a conversation. Yet we dine at smaJJ tables! And thus I struggle with books, whenever I am nor outside or at my desk writing in my diary. That is, I struggle primarily with one book, with a demon and a paragon (with a piece of a book, as Horaz.io-Schlegel would say), with a dragon of a book on which, however, I have been standing for the last ten minutes, just as St. George did in days of yore. I've finished it! I've finished Anna Kareni11a by Count leo Tolstoy! The second volume: 499 pages. And in reading this book I have experienced genuine rage at the blue, fat-bcllied monster in Reclan1 format that I daily led either to the meadow or into the woods, and that rerurned to its stall (i.e. my vest pocket) seemingly even fatter instt-ad of dunner. The said monster of a book is nourished on Russian politics. On the new economic system, on selfgovernment, on the Serbian question, on the family unit, and on several dozen other questions, among which the religious question must be particularly stressed . And the reader puts up with all of d1is fo r 1,000 pages, in the silent, unforrunatcly unfounded, assumption that somehow it is part of Alma Karcnina's fate. But when after 1,000 pages the heroine is dead and yer another 100 pages are devoted to new discussions about political and social matters (you know: Russian discussions, a Ia Steinteld 2 ) ; when in tl1ese same 100 pages a subplot is concluded that had gradually and in Homeric breadth crept out of the main plot without ever again joining it; then even the most consciemious reader is gripped by a desire to skip 1-20 pages. Bur I manfully resisted. Al1d at the end I must say: no matter how defective the novcl's strut'tllre; no matter how much of it is superfluous in tem"IS of a novel; no matter how much of what appears in the seve.ral discussions and digressions is fruitless-the portrait of Russian culture and d1e Russian soul that seems to be unintentionally, but completely organically, distilled from all of this is extremely powerful. Nowhere but, in great part, in the modern Russians is there another portrait of the soul wit11 such vast areas of squalor, o r at least of misery and apathy (portrayed psychologically). In any case, vef)' rarely. The novel is set among the Russian nobility. U ltimately, however, the social position, as well as the soul, of both the nobleman and the peasant is made clear and the main contours of the spiritual fearures of the rest of d1e population can be surmised. Maybe more about this when we can talk. It is complicated and difficult to pur into words.

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Did I already write you about The Culture of the R.maissance? I have finished reading the first volume; I don't have the second with me. I lack the historical knowledge to enjoy it fully. \\'hat I miss in Burkhard [sic] is an enumeration of the reasons for a movement, reasons he continuously presents as "necessary." The book is extraordinarily objective. Ahnost too objective for a layman who occasionally would like something more in the way of generalizing and summarizing rctrospectivcs. Where such retrospective judgments do appear, they arc very clear; and the mass of detail in the book still yields a vivid picrure (especially for the person who has a great deal of historical knowledge). Aside from that (!), I have even improved my mind. (Now I sec you bowing your head while quivering with awe.) I read a novella by Zschokkc. Ei11 Buckliger. The critic's standard tools and thermometer prove useless in evaluating this work, and he must read1 into the personal realm. So, just imagine a novella by the gentle, affable Korschel,3 and you will get the picrure. And finally, I am enjoying the nether regions of domestic and foreign newspapers. The upper regions arc indeed meant to look threatening! At such a distance from Morocco, I immerse myself in "Narural Philosophy," "The Prison in the Dunes" (Tageb/att), and "The Limits of Psychoanalysis" (Frankj11rter Allgemeine). Important pieces, and today, in one of the latest issues of the Neue Ziircher Zeitu1!!J, an article by Spittcler on poetry and literarure came into my hands. The notion that the preoccupation of the literarily inclined with poetry is an obstacle ro its vigorous development has been frequendy aJJuded to in the " laughing trutl"lS." An intense bitterness also comes through in this article. There will apparently be a second installmem which may have something more original b)' way of e.xamples. I look over what I have written with horror. I can already hear a speech entitled "The Stay-at-Home," presented at one of our literary evenings! but veiled by a friendly smile. I also expect some indication in your next communication as to "how a sojoum in the open air may be made pleasant and productive, for the benefit of one's body and the strengthening of one's limbs." So nothing more remains for me to do t11an to draft a large-scale description of adventurous journeys and mountain climbs. (Provided that I don't send reports about devastating thunderstorms d1at could be exposed as fake by weather reports.) Granted! The weather is beautiful. Thus, in beautiful weather, a steep ( !!) climb down into the Lauterbrunn Valley. From there ro Griirschalp, in some places a climb with a ninety-degree slope (which can be accomplished by means of the mountain railway), on a glowing hot morning.

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From Griitschalp to Myrrhcn, a rc.:·al Engadine road. This suddenly became obvious to me a.ftcr I had been walking fur quite a while. And with that l believe I have discovered a main characteristic of the Engadine landscape. Namely. the interplay of grandiose elcmenrs that complement and hanno· niously temper each other. For you will surely concede that you can speak about something's being purely grandiose and ovcrwht:lming in only a very few iJlStanccs; and that an austere kind of charm predominates much more often. And, as I said, in my opinion iris based on contrasts: primar· ily the contrast between light-green and white; d1e opposition of barren rocky areas to bright masses of snow (in comparison with which the glaciers seem charming); dte grass of the meadows, the deep blue sky, and the gray rocks again produce an interplay that I would call "austere charm." The lakes, of course, should not be: forgotten . Some of these elements made the road from Gri.itschalp to Myrrhcn so beautiful. The glaciers lie before you, and below them the dark pine forest and, in front of it, the road and bright meadows ... on one side the valley, behind it rocky motmtains, and in front of everyd1ing the meadow rising up on the other side, out of which darker rocky areas loom intermittently (overgrown with solitary dark conifers), and the deep blue sky. This, moreover, during the midday heat. Do you remember the pas· sage about "the so-ca.llcd midday hear" in Gerold tmd Hmuli?5 The hotter it is, the more colors there arc between heaven and earth . .. or something to that effect. Finally, in the viciniry of Myrrhen, when I came ~.:vcr closer to the glacier and alii could sec was its whiteness, for quite a while l tClr (unconsciously) as if I were out walking on a beautiful winter morning. Nothing is more alien to the lmuriacing nature lover than pedantic chronology. And so he will now portray the charms of a hike: that, ac· cording to central European rime, probably rook place eighty hours before the hike that was just briefly mentioned. It was my hike on the Jungfrau, for which your warnings and advice came too late. The Wengcrnalp railway, which we used to get ro Schcidegg, must be very beautiful: and its scenic charms arc cspcciaUy splendid when you do not sit facing the rear-which was naturally what I had to do. For once, on the stretch from Scheid egg to the Eiger glacier, we cur ourselves loose from the railway, "the Jungfrau railway," which looks unexpectedly harm· less at its starting point. From a restaurant, you climb down to the Eiger glacier which is now immediately in front of you. A very large mass, and you are hemmed in by snow on three sides. An ice cave (we passed up a visit w it), guides, people with sleds. Then the Jungfrau railway. (Due to d1e late hour, my description will be condensed and will dispense with anything lyrical since you have al· ready analyzed the region with a journalist's unerring eye.) I rode with

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my sistcr6 only as far as the Eigcr wall since, because of my heart, my parents did not want me to subject myself to roo drastic a change in altitude. I find that one nice feature about the tunnel is that you arc aware that it leads to the Jwtgfrau. With this, however, my enjoyment of the trip comes to an end. I spent a melancholy half hour on the face of the Eigcr, alone with a station master, a Zeiss telescope, and my sister. A description of mood (main factor: the cold) will be oral. A pleasant return journey from the Eiger glacier to Wcngen. Through a wayside telescope, you could occasionally sec somebody climbing the Jungfrau; you fre· quently hear the rhwtdcr of avalanches and sec what appear to be small amounts of snow dust on the massif. The road across from the massif travels parallel to it for two hours. (To my horror, I realize that I have also forgotten to weave a description of an exciting mountain climb into my account: forgive me!) Forgive me yet again fur the fact that neither alpine flowers nor scraps of newspaper arc enclosed with this letter. I have neither the money nor the imagination to pick the former from the abyss (pooh! how trite!); I am too cowardly to cut up the newspapers the hotel gets (oh! how disgusting!). In the spirit of friendship, I warn you against spreading nonsense in word and image through all of Europe! Fearing a speedy re.~ponse, coun· tersigncd: Walter Excuse my handwriting: my writing materials arc of poor qualiry. l.

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lknjamin. 2. Alfred Srcinfcld, WB's fellow srudenr. 3. Another fellow student. 4. WB, Belmore, Srcinfcld, Franz Sachs, and Willi Wolfradt (who later became an an critic) were aU fcUow students. From 1908, when WB returned from Hanbinda md rc· enrolled in the Kaiser Friedrich G)1nnasium, until the beginning of the First World War, they had a weekly literary e''cning, when plays by Shakespeare, Hcbbcl, Ibsen, Srrindbcrg, Wedekind, S, and where you fall, space is created our of eons, gaping figurativcnc.ss will wash round me, Sapping thoughts, all zones have Surrendered their "nonetheless" and "hardly." Decaying, rationality emits odors of finalityand its colorfully• streaked maledictions, wings beating, at the inner core have become rigid and fi.rrtivcly steal away. Blindness has a divine bac.k and carries the hymnic man across wooden bridges. Please write. Rcgards 3 I. Philipp Keller, wid1 whom WB :woci~ted in Frciburg. The ~udlor of a nove~ Gcmischtt Geftih/r (LciJ"Lig, l915), which WB praised even later. Sec Sdtriften 3:173. 2. Friedrich C. Heinle, wirh whom WB was rhcn cultivating a more intimate rda· tionship. 3. One word is iUcgibk.

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ll. To Carla Seligson Frciburg i. B. April30, 1913 Dear Miss Seligson, As you have seen, contrary ro my promise, you haven't hC:lrd a peep out of me since my renrm from Sclm:ibcrhau. 1 l can't tell you how sorry I am about this, but it was unavoidable. The few beautiful spring days in the valley (with deep snow on the peak) made me feel d1ar I had to avoid human contact whenever possible. I was totally lost in meditation and charged with intellccn.ral explosives, which anyone could have unwittingly set off You may ask yourself whether this is the usual effect that a beautiful landscape has o n me? No- but in Schreiberhau I induced it in the following way: for half the day I walked, the other half I read. My reading : Kant, Prolegometm to n Metnpbyrics ofMornls [Gnmdlegmzg zur k[erapl:rysik dcr Sittml. Kicrkcgaard, Either/01·. GottfTied Keller, Das Simzgcdicht. But no normal person can endure a colossal and exclusive association with d1ese writings for an enti re week. Whenever a tcw pages of Kanr had tired me our, I fled ro Kierkcgaard. You probably know that he demands heroism of us o n the grounds of C hristian ethics (or Jewish cd1ics, if you will) as mercilessly as Nietzsche docs on other grounds, and that he ·en· gages in psychological analyses th:tt arc as dcv:\Stating :IS Nicr:z.sche's. Either/Or is the ul£imamm: :~estheticism or morality? ln short, this book confrorm·d me with qw:stion after question that I had always divined bur never articulated to myself, and cxcircd (even) me more than any other book. And after that it is not easy to stretch your mind o n Keller's difficult style, which demands that each sentence be read slowlv. Kicrkegaard and a friend's letter also prompted me ·to go to Freiburg, but, as I said, after the nature of my stay in Schreibcrhau l was completely incapable of conversation. Now, in the course of t11is magnificent summer, I have achieved seren· ity: and when 1 look at the church square outside my window, an old fountain, a single very tall poplar in the sun, behind it houses that look like they belo ng in Goethe's Weimar (very small)- [ can hardly imagine the horror had I stayed in Berlin, as I might have done (if Mrs. St. had chosen me). Here I have few friends, but good ones, ,·cry dillcrent from mr Berlin ITiends and mostly older than I. Having become used to things, I find it very pleasant here. Totally apart from the Free Students, who arc incapa· ble of work- we have a university dub where we (both male and fem:1le students) get together on Tuesda)' evening. We read things to c.-ach other and converse. Each of us can bring guests along, but that rarely happens; usually ir's the same group of about seven to nine students.

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As l said, nothing can be done with the Free Students. I already told Dr. Wyncken in Berlin that 1 would lead the Division to r School Rctonn only if a well-organized !Tee srudcnt union were already in place. There is no indication of that here. There arc no announcements to be seen on the bulletin board, no organized groups, no lectures. Now, at a remove from Berlin, I have also become generally clearer in my mind about the Free Stud!:nts. I want co cell you what I think about this sometime when I am back in Berlin. Now on co something that will please you. Before my departure, I visited Mrs. Lesser. Our conversation was perhaps not the same as it was the first time we talked, for the same reason that I clid not write you-but it may also have been due to where we were. Nonetheless, I was once again ,·cry pleased. She asked about you and told me that she was quitl" taken with you and, "if I had as much time for people, which I in fact do not," she would a..~k you to visit her. But she did express the hope that we would still occasionally get together- which is indeed possible-on the wirm:r days when she is receiving. In a few days, the first issue of Der A1sjimg will probably appear. I would be very happy if you were to write me, perhaps even about Der A 11jimg once it has appeared. In a few weeks I hope to be able co send you something I wrote. This winter I finished writing a Dialog fiber die Rcli!Jiositllt der Grgcmvart I Dialogue on contemporary religiosity), 2 which is now being typed. More about thi~ when the occasion arises. My best regards and please remember me ro your mother Yours, Walter Benjamin P.S. Please excuse my handwriting if it is bad (as I believe it is). I. This is where WB •txnt Ea'lcr vacation wid! his brother and mother in the larger

circle of the /oscphy f.unily. 2. l'r=r\'cd among his papas.

12. To Herbert Belmore

I Freiburg] [May 2, 19 13) Dear Herbert, A stro ke of fortune has befallen me, who might have endured (and serenely endured) Pentecost in Frciburg by reading philosophy while lis· tening co the rain. I will most likely leave here on the 9th and stay in Paris until the 22d. In the company of Kurt Tuchler and a ccrta.in Mr. [Siegfried] Lchmann,l who is now Tuchle.r's fraternity brother and was my playmate rwclve years ago. O nce more, as so often, I do nor take

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childish delight in making a decision, but do so cautiously and wid1 strict self-control, as if I were at a border crossing. This will be explained in a later letter. I am writing to find out if you know of any literature on Paris or have any other tips about the city. The three of us will share the expense of buying Karl Scheffler's Paris. But beyond that. Docs Der gefiiblt>olle Biideckcr lsic] 2 have a chapter on Paris? If it is good, please write me the essentials- I can't get it here. What good art guides to Paris arc there. Good essays. Books about Parisian culture and impressionism. About Parisicnncs? Please write qtt~kly.-My parents do not need to hear about this card right away. I will write them about my plans, but not just yet since I am still waiting lor a letter from home. On the other hand, I want to be the first one to tell them about my decision. Yesterday I was on the Kandel with th.e nineteen-year-old poet-young Heinle. We get on well. In the antology [sic] Mistral, whid1 will soon be published by A. R. Meyer, there is one poem each by him 3 and by Qucntin. 4 With a sense of well-being, I send you my regards. Yours, Walter I. Lehmann later fOunded the Jfl~~ag .·

47. To Herbert Behnore [Late 1916] Dear Herbert, I am very happy you wrote me. But your letter takes the form of an objective report and thus passes over some profound assumptions that my answer must make regarding both of us. If this were not necessary, my answer would not be what it is: an ardent challenge to the kind of objectivity you simultaneously demand and practice. It has been my experience that it is not bridges and flying that help you get through the night, but only the fraternal step. We are in the middle of the night. I. once tried to combat it with words (Thomas Mann had published his abject Gedanken im Kriege). At that time I learned that whoever fights against the night must move its deepest darkness to deliver up its light and that words are only a way station in this major life {struggle: and they can be the final station only where they are never the ,first. I can just see myself sitting on my suitcase in Geneva, with Dora and you in the room, as I advocate the idea that productivity, in every sense, must be supported (but criticism, as well) and that life must be sought j i? the spirit solely with all names, words and signs. For years, Holderlin's \(c,,: thght has shone down on me_9ut..2f.!hi~.~Q!gh!:. +~·:,•c It is all too great to criticize. 1 It is all the night that bears the light, it ~. '' is the bleeding body of the spirit. It is also all too small to criticize, not there at all: the dark, total darkness itself-even dignity alone-the gaze of anyone who attempts to contemplate it will grow dim. Inasmuch as the word appears to us on our path, we will prepare the purest and holiest place for it: however, it should dwell among us. We want to preserve it in the final, most precious form we are able to give it; art truth justice: perhaps everything will be taken out of our hands, and it should then at least be form: not criticism. To criticize is the concern of the outermost periphery of the circle of light around the head of every person, not the

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f~~ individual}ew·? _ My intuition tells me that the answer to both questions must be no, and both would __!:hen constitute verrjri}p(,f!a.E! ~~~i:l).eses .t~ -the .Christian conceet of_r~~gtP· Some other time I will write about another important problem of Christianity that became evident. But apropos this observation: a principal component of vulgar anti-Semitic as well as Zionist ideology is that the gentile's hatred of the Jew is physiologically substantiated on the basis of instinct and race, since it turns against the physis. This unconsciously drawn conclusion is false, however, for one of the remarkable and essential characteristics of hatred is that, whatever basis and grounds it may have, in its most primitive and intense forms it becomes hatred for the physical nature of the one who is hated. (The relationship between hatred and love would also have to be sought in this quarter.) Thus if in certain cases you can speak of the gentile's hatred of Jews, this does not then exempt you from the effort of seeking intellectual reasons for these cases. In this regard, one motive (to begin with, not for the hatred of Jews and Judaism, but for anger toward them) that must be considered is the extremely spurious 1 and distorted method, now become historical, in which an acknowledgment of the coming Christian centuries and peoples was imposed upon the Old Testament by the oldest Christian

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churches and congregations. This was, of course, originally done in the hope of wresting the Old Testament from the Jews, and without an awareness of historical consequences, since people lived in anticipation of the imminent end. Because of this, universal and historical enmity of Chrisc tians against Judaism had to be created. AB I said, this is only apropos. Nothing has arrived yet from Ludwig StrauB. Assuming that I will get a copy of his essay and once I have confirmed this, you may send him a copy of my essay on language. A second copy can be sent to Mr. Kraft. You can keep the third and, if you have no other use for it, send the fourth to me. Otherwise a fifth copy could perhaps be made for me; but who should then get the fourth?-Unfortunately, dear Gerhard, I do not know when your birthday is. My wife and I can send you birthday greetings belatedly, prematurely, but never too affectionately. So please let us know whether the photographs you will receive in the next parcel arrived prematurely or belatedly. They were taken during the most trying time in Dacl~au and were originally meant to be passport photos, but they will not be used for that purpose. Considering how hard it is to take a picture of my wife, this one is probably not bad. This ne~t parcel will also contain the transcription of an essay I wrote, entitled "Uber die Malerei" [On painting]. It will have to serve as my response to your letter on cubism, although this letter is hardly mentioned in my essay. 2 Actually, it is not an essay at all, but only the outline for one. Now for some observations on the essay: as I wrote you from St. Moritz at the time, after I had thought about the nature of graphic art and had gotten as far as writing down some sentences, which were unfortunately unavailable to me when I was composing the new sentences, your letter, in combination with my earlier thoughts on the subject, occasioned these new sentences. They were the results of my reflection. Your letter was the most immediate impetus for the essay, in that it awakened in me an interest in the unity of all painting in spite of its seemingly disparate schools. Since (contrary to your assertions) I wanted to prove that a painting by Raphael and a cubist painting as such manifest fundamentally congruent characteristics, in addition to those that divide them, I omitted any consideration of the characteristics dividing them. Instead I have attempted to discover the foundation on which all disparity could first of all be brought into relief. You will see how decisively I thus had to refute your trichotomy of painting into achromatic (linear), chromatic, and synthetic. From one perspective, the problem of cubism lies in the possibility of a, not necessarily achromatic, but radically unchromatic painting (this distinction of course must first be explained and clarified) in which linear shapes dominate the picture-not that cubism has ceased to be painting and has become graphic art. I have not touched on this prob-

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lem of cubism from this or any other angle because, in one respect, things have not yet become absolutely clear from looking at concrete examples of individual paintings or masters. The only one among the new painters who has touched me in this sense is Klee but, on the other hand, I was still too uncertain about the fundamentals of painting to progress from this profound emotion to theory. I believe I will get there later. Of the modem painters Klee, Kandinsky, and Chagall, Klee is the only one who seems to have obvious connections to cubism. Yet, as far as I can judge, he is probably not a cubist. However indispensable these concepts are for an overview of painting and its foundation, a single great master does not become theoretically comprehensible through just one specific concept. Any painter who, as an individual, can be relatively adequately grasped within the categories of artistic schools will not be one of the great painters, because ideas of art (for this is what notions of artistic schools are) cannot be directly expressed in art without becoming impotent. In fact, I have so far always received this impression of impotence and inadequacy while viewing Picasso's paintings, an impression that, to my delight, you confirm; certainly not because, as you write, you have no eye for the purely artistic content of these things, ~..!.~C::~~l!s~, ~s_y()l1 aJS.() write, you have an ear for the spiritual messag~.!i!~E~9!~~:.'!:':1:9:!llPl.~~t:lY