Enzensberger

Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929-2022)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger was one of the most prominent public intellectuals in the Federal Republic of Germany. He was born in Kaufbeuren in Bavaria. In 1931, when he was two years old, his family moved to Nuremberg, where his father became the director of the city’s postal service. The family’s next-door neighbour was Julius Streicher, a leading Nazi. Enzensberger’s childhood and adolescence took place during the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. Although he joined the Hitler Youth in his teens, he was expelled soon afterwards: ‘I have always been incapable of being a good comrade. I can't stay in line. It's not in my character. It may be a defect, but I can't help it.’ See interview with Philip Oltermann in the Guardian, 15 May 2010, available here.

After World War Two, Enzensberger worked as an interpreter and bartender for the Royal Air Force. In 1955 he completed his PhD on the Romantic poet Clemens Brentano, and then worked for Süddeutschen Rundfunk (South German Radio) in Stuttgart.

Enzensberger made his name as a poet with his first collection, verteidigung der wölfe (1957) | In defence of wolves. The title signifies Enzensberger’s intention to be a devil’s advocate and his commitment to challenging received opinion. Around this time, Martin Walser observed perceptively: ‘Die Klassifizierer sollten ihn [Enzensberger] weniger Brecht als Nestroy zugesellen’ [The categorizers should group him together with Nestroy rather than with Brecht] (quoted in Jörg Lau, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, p. 58). Johann Nestroy (1801-1862) was an Austrian playwright, satirist and a liberal. In terms of his politics, Enzensberger is much closer to Nestroy’s liberalism than to Brecht’s socialism.

From 1955 onwards, Enzensberger attended meetings of the West German writers’ group Gruppe 47. He became friends with the Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann – their correspondence was published in 2018.

In 1965 Enzensberger founded the intellectual journal Kursbuch (Timetable) together with Karl Markus Michel. The journal became a leading publication of the 1968 student movement and anti-authoritarian counterculture in West Germany. It still continues today.

In 1968 he published a polemical essay, ‘Gemeinplätze, die Neueste Literatur betreffend’ (1968) | ‘Commonplaces about the most recent literature’, in Kursbuch. Here, he points out the political limitations of modern literature, claiming that it is inherently bourgeois, and arguing that most authors have a symbolic function in maintaining the status quo. However, Enzensberger also praises a select few writers for their political engagement: Ludwig Börne, Rosa Luxemburg, Günter Wallraff, Bahman Nirumand, Ulrike Meinhof and Georg Alsheimer. Enzensberger’s admiration for the Ludwig Börne is significant: although Börne was perceived as a radical in his lifetime, he was in fact a liberal. For further discussion of this essay, see Mererid Puw Davies, Writing and the West German Protest Movements: The Textual Revolution (London: University of London, 2016).

Around 1968, Enzensberger spent some time living in Cuba, which profoundly disillusioned him: see interview with Philip Oltermann in the Guardian, 15 May 2010, available here.

From this point onwards, he gradually distanced himself from socialism. In 1978 he published a long poem, Der Untergang der Titanic | The Sinking of the Titanic. Here, he employs the narrative of the sinking ocean liner as a metaphor for the failing utopian aspirations of the left-leaning West German intelligentsia in the 1970s (on this point, see Alasdair King, ‘Enzensberger’s Titanic’, reading list below). The image of the Titanic as a metaphor for socialism suggests that Enzensberger had largely abandoned his socialist positions.

By the 1980s Enzensberger was writing intellectual travelogues and reportage in the tradition of Ludwig Börne and Heinrich Heine, yet, unlike his 19th-century predecessors, he increasingly adopted neo-liberal viewpoints. These essays are collected in Ach Europa! (1987) | Europe, Europe (1989). Much of this book is devoted to welcoming the rise of new neoliberal politicians in Western Europe, while denouncing the authoritarian communist governments in Poland and Hungary. As he travels around Europe, Enzensberger meets and admires many politicians and intellectuals who support free market liberalization and financial deregulation. Thus, by the late 1980s, Enzensberger seemed more in tune with the policies of Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher than with left-wing positions.

In 1990 the two German states were unified, and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke of a ‘united Germany in a united Europe.’ Enzensberger’s response was a fascinating essay, ‘Europe in Ruins’, recalling the terrible destruction of World War Two. He concludes the essay with a warning:

The Germans […] have turned into a nation of shopkeepers. In that they are by no means alone. All the nations of Europe are with varying success trying to do the same. The German suicide attempt has failed, as has that of Europe as a whole. But the more our peninsula moves back into the centre of world politics and of the world market, the more a new kind of Eurocentrism will gain ground. A slogan that was copyrighted by Joseph Goebbels has reappeared in public debate: ‘Fortress Europe’. It was once meant in a military sense; it has returned as an economic and demographic concept. A Europe in renewal will do well to remind itself of Europe in ruins, from which it is separated by only a few decades. – H. M. Enzensberger, ‘Europe in Ruins’, in Granta 33, Summer 1990, pp. 113-139 (here p. 139).

Then, in 1991, Enzensberger decided that he supported America’s Gulf War against Iraq. Having warned against militarization in 1990, he now supported European military intervention in the Middle East. Other West German intellectuals, such as Klaus Theweleit, disagreed (see Klaus Theweleit, Das Land, das Ausland heißt. Essays, Reden, Interviews, Munich: dtv, 1985, p. 72). A decade later, Enzensberger also supported the US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003. Then, in 2011, he published an essay complaining about the well-intentioned bureaucracy of the European Union. The title says it all: ‘Sanftes Monster Brüssel oder Die Entmündigung Europas’ (2011) | ‘Brussels, the Gentle Monster, or the Disenfranchisement of Europe’. In this essay, Enzensberger argues in favour of a looser, more federalized Europe. He accepts that the EU brings great advantages, but he reserves the right to grumble about it.

In 2013, Enzensberger published his final reckoning with Bertolt Brecht: Herrn Zetts Betrachtungen (2013) | Mr. Zed’s Reflections. Enzensberger’s Mr. Zed closely resembles Bertolt Brecht’s alter ego Mr. Keuner. But while Mr. K. is a political progressive, Mr. Zed leans towards liberal and conservative views. In section 181, Mr. Zed quotes the Spanish saying ‘Que no haya novedad!’ | ‘Hoffentlich gibt es nichts Neues.’ (Hopefully, nothing new will happen!). And, in section 183, Mr. Zed even defends financial speculators. A typical Enzensberger gesture, once again ‘defending the wolves’.

The following year, in his memoir Tumult (2014), Enzensberger further distanced himself from the causes he supported as a younger man. The memoir deliberately fails to mention his participation in meetings of Gruppe 47 and his decade-long editorship of Kursbuch from 1965-1975.

We may conclude that, like Joschka Fischer, the Green Party leader who served as Germany’s Foreign Minister from 1998-2005, the middle-aged Enzensberger abandoned his youthful radicalism and became (more or less) a pillar of the German establishment.

Enzensberger’s poetry collections include:

verteidigung der wölfe (1957) | In defence of wolves

Museum der modernen Poesie (as editor, 1960) | Museum of Modern Poetry

Der Untergang der Titanic. Eine Komödie (1978) | The Sinking of the Titanic

Die Furie des Verschwindens. Gedichte (1980) | The Fury of Disappearance

Die Geschichte der Wolken. 99 Meditationen (2003) | A History of Clouds: 99 Meditations

Enzensberger’s essays and prose works include:

Gemeinplätze, die Neueste Literatur betreffend (1968) | Commonplaces about the most recent literature

Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie. Buenaventura Durrutis Leben und Tod (1972) | The Short Summer of Anarchy: The Life and Death of Buenaventura Durruti

Ach Europa! Wahrnehmungen aus sieben Ländern (1987) | Europe, Europe: Forays Into A Continent (1989)

Mittelmaß und Wahn. Gesammelte Zerstreuungen (1988) | Mediocrity and Delusion. Collected Diversions (1992)

Der Fliegende Robert (1989) | Where Were You, Robert? (2001)

Hammerstein oder der Eigensinn. Eine deutsche Geschichte (2008) | The Silences of Hammerstein. A German Story.

Sanftes Monster Brüssel oder Die Entmündigung Europas (2011) | Brussels, the Gentle Monster, or the Disenfranchisement of Europe

Enzensbergers Panoptikum: Zwanzig Zehn-Minuten-Essays (2012) | Panopticon

Herrn Zetts Betrachtungen, oder Brosamen, die er fallen ließ, aufgelesen von seinen Zuhörern (2013) | Mr. Zed’s Reflections

Tumult (2014)

Immer das Geld! Ein kleiner Wirtschaftsroman (2015) | Money, Money, Money! A Short Lesson in Economics

Überlebenskünstler. 99 literarische Vignetten aus dem 20. Jahrhundert (2018) | Survival Artists. 99 Literary Vignettes from the 20th Century

Fallobst. Nur ein Notizbuch (2022) | Windfall. Just a Notebook

English Translations of Enzensberger’s Poems

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Poems, trans. by Michael Hamburger and Jerome Rothenberg (London: Penguin, 1968)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Lighter Than Air: Moral Poems, trans. by David Constantine (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2002)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, A History of Clouds: 99 Meditations, trans. by Martin Chalmers and Esther Kinsky (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2010)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, New Selected Poems, trans. by David Constantine, Michael Hamburger and Esther Kinsky (Hexham: Bloodaxe Books, 2015)

English Translations of Enzensberger’s Essays and Non-Fiction

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Critical Essays, ed. by Reinhold Grimm and Bruce Armstrong (New York: Continuum, 1982)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Europe, Europe: Forays into a Continent, trans. by Martin Chalmers (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1989)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, ‘Europe in Ruins’, trans. by Martin Chalmers, Granta 33 (Summer 1990), pp. 113-139

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, ‘The Great Migration’, trans. by Martin Chalmers, Granta 42 (Winter 1992), pp. 15-51

Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Mediocrity and Delusion: Collected Diversions, trans. by Martin Chalmers (London: Verso, 1992)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Civil Wars: From L.A. to Bosnia, trans. by Piers Spence and Martin Chalmers (New York: The New Press, 1994; London: Granta, 1999)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Where Were You, Robert?, trans. by Anthea Bell (London: Penguin, 2001)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, The Silences of Hammerstein, trans. by Martin Chalmers (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2009)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Brussels, the Gentle Monster, or the Disenfranchisement of Europe (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2011)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Mr. Zed’s Reflections, trans. by Wieland Hoban (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2015)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Tumult, trans. by Mike Mitchell (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2016)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Panopticon, trans. by Tess Lewis (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2018)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Anarchy’s Brief Summer: The Life and Death of Buenaventura Durruti, trans. by Mike Mitchell (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2019)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Money, Money, Money! A Short Lesson in Economics, trans. by Simon Pare (London and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2020)