Trafford Publishing: Freedom - Keep On Fighting For It

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Freedom - Keep On Fighting For It

by Hildegard Emmel

205 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0824; ISBN 1-55395-110-7; US$20.00, C$23.50, EUR16.50, £11.50

This book is an autobiography written from a specific angle. The author is mainly interested in showing the historical conditions of her era as they are reflected in her experiences.
This book is a translation of the original German version published in 1991.

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About the book      About the author      Sample excerpts      Catalogue info

About the Book

In this memoir a courageous individual fights for her personal freedom. We get an insight into the different oppressive and rigid systems she encounters, most of which are of a political nature.
In the first chapter the author is a student and later a teacher in Hitler's Germany.
During the post-war years she tries, unsuccessfully, to get a position at a university in West Germany. She decides to go east and, finally, becomes a lecturer of German literature at Rostock University and a few years later a professor at Greifswald University. Both universities are located in the part of Germany that until 1990 was run by a Communist Government supported by the Soviet Union. In 1958, when that government's attitude toward the so-called bourgeois scholars changed, the author loses her teaching position when she refuses to retract her book on Goethe. Two years later, after having declined various non-teaching offers, she has to flee to West Germany (Chapter II).
Even though Professor Emmel is by now a fully established scholar, she still is not offered a professorship in her native land. The reason: women are not wanted at the lectern. After temporary appointments in Norway and Finland, she accepts a regular position at Ankara University where she stays for nearly four years. In an Islamic country life for a single woman is not easy, though officially, Turkey has had an equal rights for both genders since Attaturk's government in the thirties. Her colleagues advise Miss Emmel against traveling alone. However, she uses the opportunity to get to know this intriguing country and most of its neighbours all the way to Jerusalem. On this last occasion she gets caught up in the 6-day war of 1967 (Chapter III).
In the fall of the same year, Professor Emmel is offered and accepts a position similar to a chair at a state university in the United States. During the next fourteen years she finds much to her surprise, that in the land of the free there is less freedom in the academic environment than she has experienced elsewhere. We learn about her trials and tribulations in a rigid over-administered system in Chapter IV.
In 1981, after reaching emerita status, Hildegard Emmel retires to Bern, Switzerland where she writes this book. It appeared in Germany in 1991.

About the Author

Hildegard Emmel was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1911. She is the author of numerous articles and books in her academic specialty, German literary history.
She studied during the Hitler-years receiving her PhD degree in 1935. After the war she taught at different universities in the former GDR, as well as in Norway, Finland, Turkey, and, finally, in the United States.
In 1981, upon her retirement professor Emmel moved to Bern, Switzerland remaining professionally active, In the fall of 1991, shortly after the reunification of the two German states this book appeared in Rostock, Germany, the place of her first university employment. At the same time, nearby Greifswald University conferred an honorable doctoral degree on her, thus righting a wrong committed in 1958 by dismissing her for political reasons.
Hildgard Emmel died in 1996 after a short illness. It was her wish that this book would be translated into English.

Sample Excerpts

First Things First

The intention to write down personal experiences about my era came to me through conversations I had with American students during my years as a professor at a state university in the USA between 1967 and 1981. From the start, they questioned and prodded me about events of my lifetime, curious listeners no matter what the topic. As a result of my birth year (1911) and my everchanging circumstances, I realized only then for the first time that I called a wealth of memories my own. They were difficult even for me to put into any kind of order. As students of literature, the eager investigators wanted to know how my years of studying German literature had progressed in those times, and why I had chosen just this area of concentration. Moreover, they were looking for specific information about the Hitler years. How had I personally lived back then? How had I survived that period in Germany? In addition to these questions, the students wondered what I had come up against in the German Democratic Republic, and how I could have endured three and a half years in Turkey. Skeptical because of their own experience with the ongoing Vietnam War, they were genuinely interested in everything they could find out about other countries in a comparable or even opposite situation.
      Some of these questions could be dealt with in a brief fashion; others seemed to demand more extensive ruminations. Living and surviving in a totalitarian state will become clear only in a detailed, concrete report, and conceivable only through a selection of episodes that then form an image. Much the same is true about living in an Islamic land. Life in Turkey I could endure, I even liked many things there. Yet the uniqueness of living among a people whose customs and habits in many circles are so fundamentally different from those in Central Europe cannot be made apparent in a few sentences.
      A crucial factor for any portrayal is the perspective from which it is relayed. Certainly, the point of view under which my experiences were gathered, that is, the point of view of the original experiences, is a different one of presentday reporting. The act of recalling is a complex process. However, without it there would be no accounting. I have intentionally altered nothing. Yet there is no doubt I seized upon the possibilities for new experiences that presented themselves to me differently from the start, and, therefore, I internalized them differently. To me, Turkey was not simply the land of the Turks: it was Asia Minor, that ancient bedrock of culture, the western gate to greater Asia, open to the Orient, yet simultaneously tied to the intellectual life of Europe, thus also to my own inner existence. The expectations with which I approached this land were borne by my cultural consciousness; they are part of my recollections and shaped my depiction of them. My depiction of Turkey cannot be the same, that is, it cannot be formed by the same perspective as in the chapter about the German Democratic Republic, or in the one about the USA, although the ambiguity of experiencing and of reporting there existed as well; and emotions played a role both times. Totally different are the prerequisites for the chapter on the Hitler years. A very young individual was subjected to something beyond comprehension, for which no one prepared her, for which she knew of no example, and at a time when she did not know what could be expected of life, although she already knew what risks she could take.
      "Why of all things German literature?" Before beginning, let me answer this question, and also part of the question concerning the progression of my studies, which I began in the spring of 1931, after completing the Abitur and before Hitler came to power in January of 1933.
      I chose German literature because I liked it best. There was no other reason. There were many other fields I was interested in: history, art history, philosophy and Protestant theology. Occasionally I even considered mathematics and the natural sciences. Studying German literature was generally disapproved of. "What-German literature? You can pave the road from Vienna to Frankfurt with German majors," or: "It's better to hang yourself than to study philology!" It was the time of high unemployment (six million) at the end of the Weimar Republic. Job openings for us were nowhere in sight. No one could give advice in a situation like this. No path promised more than any other. It would be best to follow my own desires, I thought. Life would have something waiting for me then, and somewhere on this earth-it didn't have to be in Germany-I hoped to find a useful existence.
      The first two semesters I enrolled at the university in my hometown of Frankfurt am Main, the next two in Bonn. I enjoyed my studies very much. Anyone who was enthusiastic about it-and I certainly was-could first get acquainted with many different fields all across the humanities, could look around in other areas, and compare the most different schools of thought. There were no regimented or planned curricula. We chose our professors, lectures and seminars based on our own standards, depending on how they interested us. Within the space of a few hours I listened to such significant representatives of their field as Hans Naumann on Old Germanic Culture, Walter F. Otto on The Gods of the Greeks, and Paul Tillich on Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind. Tillich-called "Paul among the Jews" after the title of a play by Franz Werfel-held his introductory seminar on Hegel's Philosophy of History, which was often taught by his assistant Theodor WiesengrundAdorno (who later became famous under his mother's name, Adorno). At that time we students had difficulty understanding Wiesengrund, as we called him, and were always glad when Tillich himself lectured. He impressed us as a highspirited, lively personality, addressing many sides of an issue. In familiar circles and at public functions he discussed more suitable forms of instruction and university life in general; his focus was always on human values. Encountering Karl Barth's Dialectical Theology became the highlight of my studies. During the summer semester of 1932 and the winter semester of 1932/33, I regularly attended Barth's lectures (Dogmatics and Christology and Theology of the Eighteenth Century) in Bonn. As a German major I had followed Hans Naumann when he took a position there, and I attended the weekly evening gatherings at Barth's house. During those years, the methodical clarification of the qualitative difference between Protestant theology and humanism was of crucial importance. Theological thinking, dependent on the testimony of the Bible, embraces the risk of faith. It requires neither an intellectual nor an ethical raison d'être, and, by the same token, neither a confirming statement: God spoke. The New Testament is a testimony of revelation. Man's dialectic situation consists of the fact that he receives this revelation out of transcendence without his own initiative while he is tied up in his earthly bonds. If Paul Tillich took up his position between theology and philosophy, based on his conviction that "the point of contact is the only productive point of realization," then Karl Barth maintained that theological thinking could originate only from within its own medium, and could be defined only by that medium. Unswerving, determined and unambiguous he was like a Luther at the rostrum.
      Before I returned to Frankfurt in late February 1933, I asked Hans Naumann for a doctoral dissertation topic in medieval literature. Raised in middleclass, liberal surroundings, I did recognize that Hans Naumann's sympathies for National Socialism, which had become obvious since 1932, rested on illusions, and that the Swiss Karl Barth saw the political situation for what it was. Barth's opposition to National Socialism, which led to his dismissal from German public service in 1935, was already evident by this time. Barth urgently and candidly discussed his views during evening meetings in his home. However, at that point I was not concerned about how I would live with the tensions of the times.
      I have no idea what considerations prevented my joining the National Socialist organizations in the spring of 1933. I do not claim that I was more aware than others of my generation, foreseeing what the future held. At the age of twentyone I had as few concrete political ideas as they had. My decision not to allow myself to be caught up in Hitler's organizations, insofar as any decision was concerned, came about on its own. Practically speaking, it meant I simply did not register myself anywhere; I did not go when we were supposed to report. Neither capable nor willing to permit myself to do something which I found so repulsive, I withdrew from the stupefying urge that caused most of my generation in the spring and summer of 1933 (some as early as 1932) to join up, buy a uniform and stick on a badge. Only years later did I realize my behavior at that time would correspond with the pattern of my reactions in many other situations, and was a result of my instinctive drive toward personal independence.
      Ever since childhood I have been a strongwilled human being. It must have been nature's gift to me. My parents and teachers gave it free reign. Liberal attitudes were a tradition in Frankfurt. It pleased people whenever a young person took an independent stance. Moreover, families, which allowed their daughters to pursue graduate studies at the university and study whatever they wished, were pursuing, at least in this aspect, a progressive line, even if at my girlfriends' houses dinner conversations took on a conservative shade if they ever touched on national politics. The same was true for school instruction in fields that lent themselves to it. However, since the level of the school, an allfemale one, was extraordinarily high, falsifying and distorting the facts was out of the question. Perceptive students recognized easily to which political party a teacher belonged, but that did not change their liking him despite this revelation. We merely ascertained. In this respect, my parents represented a counterpoint-one could almost say an anachronism-since they both belonged to the German Democratic Party, founded in 1918. (It included among others freethinking, socialist, liberal left groups, and coalitions of the recently demised imperial age. The contents of the message these diverse groups of constituents put forward is now merely of historical significance.) My parents' party had, in the beginning, some quite well known members, such as, Max Weber, who died in 1920; and it had exerted significant influence on the Weimar Constitution. However, after ten years the party had lost many of its members and clout, and ceased to play a role in the political life of the country. I respected my parents' disposition but realized early that it expressed more their personality than an effective political concept in a confused and desperate time. My father spoke often of, and with great respect, for Friedrich Naumann, who shortly before his death in August 1919 was the head of the Democratic Party. "Democracy and the Emperor" had been his motto. This came from the title of a book by Friedrich Naumann that appeared in 1900. My father put emphasis on the "and."
      Born in 1871, my father came from Hessian farmer stock and was a reformist educator because of his humanistsocialist leanings. He had studied foreign languages and was the principal of a school in Frankfurt. My mother came from a family of intellectuals in Frankfurt, and spoke enthusiastically of the popular representatives to the 1848 National Congress in Paul's Cathedral in Frankfurt. She decidedly favored the 1848 national colors of blackredgold, while at that time others in the Weimar Republic favored blackwhitered, saying that these colors were more appropriate for the German flag and would look better. Wars she condemned wholeheartedly: "The single Frenchman, the single Englishman, they can't do anything about it; they are people just like you and me," she said once to me. Both my parents had traveled extensively and had also spent long periods abroad. When I assured them in October 1932 that Hitler would win the coming election that winter, then change the entire system of the republic, and that Jews' lives would be in jeopardy, they could not and would not believe me. How could I think such a thing! At first they were shaken, and finally they looked at me in total disbelief.
      Special feelings tied me to my city during my childhood and my younger years. Frankfurt am Main, where I was born and grew up, was among the most beautiful cities in Germany before the destruction of its historical center during the Second World War. For me it was the loveliest city, even for many years after I had left it. The former Free Imperial City, standing before the softly rolling contours of the Taunus Mountains with its wellbalanced structures from many centuries, was a world in itself. It was a world encompassing a harmoniously patterned sequence of houses, the streets young Goethe had walked, picturesque nooks, courts and plazas, the welltended banks of the Main river, gulls winging over icy bridges, impressive museums. Street after street of elegant stores, surging traffic, racy redlight districts, the grand crescent of parks with their ponds, flowing fountains and carefully maintained monuments added to the city's beauty. I possessed her as she possessed me. Was it the atmosphere of security and tradition, the balance and richness of varied elements, the beauty and light gaiety in whose flow I dwelt; or were these dreams I found reflected here? The close connection to my city and its surrounding landscape may have been an illusion. I cannot say for sure. Nor do I know whether the human environment-parents, school, the pluralistic Weimar Republic-shaped me to the extent I once assumed, when I was still subjected to provincial prejudice; a prejudice which subscribed to, by now, questionable theories about the role of the environ ment on the intellectual development of the individual. However, regardless of what one might suggest in this respect, it is an existence subsided, a fairy tale recalled. It is a land of youthful images to which one cannot return although the city of Frankfurt am Main still exists-its destroyed parts rebuilt. The skyscrapers and subways that were added prove it to be a respectable city and do not disturb me in the least. These things do not block my way back. I gave up on the haven we call hometown or homeland a long time ago. In the following portrayals we will not hear about it too much. However, I am certain of this: traveling the road of discovering one's origins cannot solve the enigma of the personal, singular existence of an individual. Rather, this enigma unfolds in the reaction to one's origins and to everything else one encounters. Whatever reveals itself in this process leads back to the enigma.

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