Rabbitholes |#1
Klaus Mann - The Eldorado - Von Papen Policies - Journey into Freedom
By Anna Secino | July 30th 2023
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"Such are storytellers! They delight in the moral distress and sensual weakness of their creatures, only to despicably abandon the poor, made-up things as soon as the problematic sinful escapade is over, and life begins in earnest."
-- Klaus Mann, The Turning Point.
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Klaus Mann has been on my mind. First, --CW-- I found an article about the extent of Thomas Mann’s sexual abusiveness towards Klaus-- his son, then his young teen son. I cried and cried when I read it, I was so angry.
A lot of the details were new to me, and they shocked me: especially since I hadn't been looking for the article. I love that Jeffrey Meyers wrote it. I stopped crying once I started picturing the lists he must have kept, from T.M.'s diary archives: lists of the most heinous and hair-raising citations. I wanted badly to know how he stores them now. I hope in big boxes in his office, or in a good expanding folder.
Highly recommended, though I'm still processing from it a month later. | By Jeffrey Meyers: "Thomas Mann's Secret Sharer". In the Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide ("100 years of subterfuge"), issue #130.
***
K.M. came to my mind again when I watched that new documentary on Netflix, about The Eldorado:
"In July 1932, new Chief of Police Kurt Melcher began implementing the strict Catholic policies of the new Von Papen government and announced “an extensive campaign against Berlin’s depraved nightlife”. […] In October 1932, the gay scene was dealt an almost fatal blow when the Chief of Police ordered a ban on same-sex couples dancing in public."
I remembered that K., his sister Erika, and Annemarie S. had spent a lot of time at the Eldorado, until around 1931; but I hadn't known that detail about the dancing ban. "The world of the von Papen government is a sick and boring life".
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By 1934, Klaus Mann had fled Germany, and he wrote a book: Flucht in den Norden (English title: Journey Into Freedom).
I had read the book when I started to research "Memories of Erasure". I'd known Klaus had modeled his character Johanna after Annemarie. The two had been best friends.
1934. K.M. & A.S. were friends for a decade before A's death.
“The first novel I wrote while in exile (…) is about a young girl of German-bourgeois origin who hates (…) fascism and comes into contact with communism in the illegal fight against Hitler. She has to leave her homeland; chance takes her to Finland, where she finds temporary accommodation at the country estate of a hospitable family. Here the emotional dilemma develops, the moral crisis."
"[T]he inwardly split, torn, agitated Johanna, (...) the lover with a bad conscience, the girl hero with a penchant for intoxicated, excessive sexuality: I liked her, for me she was a subject of psychological curiosity and poetic human sympathy."
"I gave (...) Johanna, in a discreet and playful way, the features and gestures of our Swiss friend, the dear and beautiful Annemarie. [She] (…) perhaps knew from her own experience something about the conflict that her fictitious doppelgänger has to endure in my Nordic love story.”
— Klaus Mann, The Turning Point.
***
Flucht in den Norden has the heart of a drugstore pulp novel, which is great to see in very tragic Exilliteratur.
Here are some excerpts. Translated and edited for length.
Klaus Mann, I hope you rest in so much fucking peace.
---------------------------------------------------
***
Johanna hesitated to leave the ship. She stood on the upper deck and searched for her friend in the crowd below without finding her. Karin probably didn't come at all, she thought, and it disappointed her so much that she didn't feel like moving. But finally she spotted her, between all the waving people. Calm, serious and graceful, Karen stood still in the middle of the chattering crowd, perhaps she had noticed Johanna among the passengers on deck a long time ago, but only now, because Johanna’s gaze had found hers, did she smile. This gentle and serious smile was very familiar to Johanna, she recognized it from afar, it made her feel good and it touched her heart.
Johanna walked briskly across the deck, down the stairs to the steerage, gave her ticket to the clerk who stood at the barrier, and ran down the fairly steep jetty to land, so fast that she stumbled and nearly fell. She ran like a boy who is finally, finally, allowed to leave school. Her hair, which was blowing across her forehead, was cut like a boy's hair. From a distance one could have mistaken her for a high school student. Under the short linen skirt she had bare knees. She was colossally glad to get off this ship. It was much more than the ship that she was leaving behind, as she stumbled so enthusiastically down the jetty. A little fear mingled with intense joy, what began now?
Karin caught her running. "There you are!" she said in her slightly husky, soft and deep voice. Johanna wrapped both arms around Karin and kissed her. "How terribly nice of you to come!" she said, still in the embrace. Then, slightly embarrassed by a fit of tenderness that was not usual between the two of them: "I could have taken the train to you, I'd already written down the connection."
***
Karin asked about Johanna’s luggage. The porter was found only with difficulty. The two modest suitcases would have to be taken to customs; Johanna was quite at a loss and dazed, it was up to Karin to take care of everything and manage the formalities. She was energetic and skillful for all her gentleness and nonchalance. She spoke to the customs officials in that strange, confusing idiom which Johanna could not imagine ever understanding or expressing herself in. Johanna stood awkwardly and embarrassed next to Karin, who was acting purposefully and calmly. Finally the suitcases were freed, and Karin showed the porter where to take them.
She drove the same car she had last year, in Germany: a nondescript, four-seat sedan, painted greenish, covered in splatter and dust. “Still the brave old thing”, Johanna said appreciatively as she got in. It was wonderful to have Karin next to her at the wheel again. Nobody drove more safely and reliably than she. Johanna looked at her happily and admiringly from the side; how impressed she was by her relaxed and composed demeanor, how she loved that brownish face, at the same time sensitive and resolute, with good eyes of an indefinable color. (Were they dark gray with a tinge of brown? Or were they light brown, sometimes fading into dark blue?) {Johanna no longer felt how she was overtired, quite strained and frayed}. Karin's presence refreshed and strengthened her, which is why she never took her eyes off of her, and didn't pay much attention to the strange city through which she was being driven.
*****
Karin's room was furnished very simply: a bed, the white chest of drawers, the mirrored cabinet, a few narrow chairs. Karin sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette. "Would you like some tea?" she asked, smiling at Johanna. "I can make some quickly."
Johanna sat down next to her without answering. "I'm terribly tired," she said, and closed her eyes. "From the trip?" Karin asked. Johanna, who didn't answer right away, widened her eyes after a few seconds, frightened, as if she were in danger of falling asleep right there, or at least of losing consciousness. "Not just from the trip," she finally said, in a tone as if she had to overcome something to admit it. "I know," said Karin in that deep, tender voice. She ran her hand lightly over Johanna's shoulders, which bent forward in sadness and fatigue. Johanna got up. I'm about to cry, she thought, and went quickly to the window, where she stopped. She looked out over the quietly elegant streets in the park. With all her strength she tried to concentrate her thoughts {on the pleasure} of these sights. But her mind was still far away. She clenched her hands.
"Was it very bad?" Karin asked from the bed. "Let's not talk about it," answered Johanna {almost with anger.}
***
They had not seen each other for almost exactly one year, and had only written rare letters. {The year had been momentous for Johanna.} {However, in these letters was the memory} of a great and well-established friendship, {although that friendship had only gotten} six months to develop and to become solid. Those were the six months Karin spent studying in Berlin. She had met Johanna at the university, Johanna was studying Economics and Karin Art History. They met at a philosophical college and had first sat next to each other several times—half by accident, half on purpose—before speaking to one other. Then came an interval of daily get-togethers, until Karin suddenly had to go back north in response to a telegram. It was the news of her father's fatal accident that changed everything. Johanna had accompanied her as she first froze in pain, then collapsed whimpering, to the northern German port city, where the ship left, back to her homeland. It was at that time, on the train, when Karin had first spoken about her family: about the estate where they lived, about her brothers and about her mother. Until then, she had almost never talked about it, or at most, she had talked about it generally: about the vast, sparsely-populated landscape of her country; or to say a few tender words about her father. The pain of the loss was terrible for her; it rang out in her rare and short letters all the following year.
When Karin and Johanna separated, they still didn't know that the connection between them had become so strong. They realized it when they no longer saw each other. They thought of each other a great deal, although both were distracted and bitterly stressed by events in their own lives. In the months after Karin's departure, Johanna had become more and more resolute, courageous, and radical in politics: an area in which, previously, she had only been interested in the most general and amateurish way. She joined a communist student group, wrote articles, spoke in meetings. She took an energetic part in her work, more devotedly every day.
She was deeply and personally affected by the catastrophe that befell her fatherland in the first months of the next year. Her brother and some of his friends were able to flee abroad; others were arrested, others killed. She herself had to hide, was caught, released again, didn't want to leave, didn't want to give up her place under any circumstances, but the next arrest was already imminent; she was warned, had to make up her mind to use false papers that were at her disposal; she left Germany. Through a comrade, she had gotten news of her departure promoted to Karin through Stockholm.
"Let's not talk about it," said Johanna. "Later, not now.” Karin didn't ask any more questions. She gently touched Johanna's shoulders with both hands from behind. "Then lie down now!"
*****
Karen had gotten up, and was fussing around in the room, then in other rooms of the apartment—probably the kitchen. Johanna heard rattling and rustlings. She guessed from the noises that Karin was preparing tea, sorting pastries into a bowl. While Karin quietly humming back and forth, opening a cupboard there, spreading a cloth here, Johanna loved to keep her eyes closed. She didn't fall asleep, but the feeling was nice, like that before a good sleep. She felt wonderfully safe in Karin's presence. There was an almost mysterious certainty in all of Karin's words and movements, a gentle, friendly, determined composure, as if nothing seriously could harm her, and as if she was protected from any confusion by a special, quiet and powerful talisman.
***
{*add text}
Johanna, who was still lying on the bed — Karin had put her teacup and plate of biscuits on a small table right next to the pillow —half sat up so as not to receive Karin's brother like an invalid. He came in laughing and talking, wearing a light fleece suit. He was broad-shouldered, stately and tall. The first thing Johanna noticed about him was that he had a small, light-blond mustache trimmed in an English style. He moved in a casual manner that betrayed vanity, and only took his hands out of his pockets in order to greet the room. "This is my friend Johanna,” said Karin, stroking her friend's hair with her fingertips. "I'm glad, I've heard a lot about you," said Jens, and bowed happily. His German had a slight American accent.
Jens had Karin pour tea for him and, after asking permission, briefly and laughing, he sat down next to Johanna on the bed. Johanna would have liked him if his loud manner hadn't been a little irritating for her. Also, he asked too many direct, somewhat tactless questions.
***
Jens looked at the two girls and laughed. Laughing, he said, "Really, you two look alike. You definitely have a certain resemblance, yes. You could be sisters, do you know that?” He laughed harder. Karin and Johanna blushed at the same time; Johanna's blush ran like a violent warmth over her forehead, while Karin’s flew over her cheeks like a delicate, blotchy pink. "Yes," said Johanna. "People have said that in Berlin before..." {Karin and Johanna looked into each other's eyes for a second, quite seriously, scrutinizingly, as if each were looking for their own {reflection in their eyes and in their face of others.}
Karin's narrow face, over which lay her smooth brown hair parted in the middle, was reminiscent of images of gentle and intelligent Madonnas. Johanna's face was fresher and more boyish; her dark blond, cropped, loosely parted hair could have a very light sheen—it didn't just depend on how the light fell on it; her hair had the property that it could change color of its own accord, reviving and dying as it were. —Karin had a narrow and pale mouth; the {drawing} of the upper lip was of a precious beauty. Johanna's mouth was wider, more childlike and heavy; the lips were a little rough and had a tendency to crack, which gave that young mouth something awkward, touching, schoolboy-like. The worst part in Johanna's beautiful and clear face was the soft line of the lower lip, which led to a not very well modeled, not very strong-willed chin. The bright forehead was very endearing, and the shape of the back of her head was wonderful, it seemed like it would belong to a bold and talented boy. "Funny," said Jens, "You’re opposites and related at the same time; a kind of reverse kinship...."
***
“Shall we dance?” he then asked, and Johanna stood up. At first they danced in the crowd between the chairs, but then Jens made his way to a quieter part of the garden. There were no more tables here; the rhythm of the music became unclear. Jens held Johanna tighter to him; she put up with it, her eyes closed.
She only opened her eyes again when Jens stopped dancing and stood with her. He kept his right arm wrapped around her waist throughout. He tried to pull her face towards him with his left hand. She could feel his smell of alcohol, nicotine and sweat, she could already feel his breath. “But that's going too far!” she thought, pulled herself together and pulled away violently. Silent, angry, ashamed, she walked quickly through the garden and up the steps to the terrace. Jens followed. They arrived at Karin at the same time.
***
As Johanna walked behind Karin through the dark rooms of the curtained apartment, she noticed that she found it difficult to put one step straight in front of the other. She felt such an urge to zigzag.{Otherwise}, she walked with her head held high}, {though swaying}, through the deserted chambers.
In Karin's room she quickly got rid of her clothes. She tossed the stockings into a corner and laughed a little at them. Then she sat on Karin's bed and stared straight ahead with glassy eyes.
{"Have you had too much to drink, poor thing?"} Karin asked, putting her hand on her forehead.
"A little too much," admitted Johanna guiltily. The cool touch of Karin's hand and the calm tone of her voice made her feel almost sober. She laid her head against Karin's shoulder and closed her eyes. She became dizzy as she closed her eyes; but not as much as she had feared. Karin and Johanna sat for a few minutes without speaking.
"Was Jens pushy?" Karin finally asked. “He often doesn't behave very tastefully towards girls. Otherwise he's a good boy."
Suddenly the memory of almost letting Jens kiss her became confusing and embarrassing for Johanna. But she only said: "Intrusive? No… Why?” And when Karin didn't answer, she added: “He really is a nice boy.” She pressed her head tighter Karin's shoulder while speaking with a rather heavy tongue.
"You still have a lot to tell me," said Karin. “Later, {when there’s time}.” She had started stroking Johanna's hair. She also stroked her forehead and her ears; then her hand rested on the back of Johanna's head.
"Yes," answered Johanna, her eyes closed—she was speaking almost as if she were asleep— "one shouldn't really be talking about anything else. Always about it. But I can't, Karin— I can't. It's so terribly difficult.” She sighed deeply. "It's so terribly difficult for my parents too," she continued the{ sleepy voice}. “And for poor George. Bruno is in Paris, thank God. You should {know} him…” Karin didn't even know who Bruno was. She continued to stroke Johanna's beautiful hair.
Johanna wrapped her arms tighter around Karin's neck. "There are moments now," she whispered, "there are moments now when everything seems so pointless to me— so insanely pointless…. {I then think: why are you actually here? You might as well be somewhere else. } Why weren't you kept in Germany? — {I think then}. You could have been killed in Germany, and it might have been for the best. Then I have a feeling as if I'm falling—as if I'm falling all the time. It's horrible, you know… and it’s, look out!{she gasped, shaking with great fear as if she were freezing cold,} Look out, something very, very terrible is about to happen— for all of us. We're at {his} mercy—it's coming!” She lifted her {horrified face and stared up at Karin with eyes that already} seemed to see the terrible things that were coming: they were blinded by that dreadful sight.
"{Oh Karin, dear Karin}!" said poor Johanna.
Karin's face remained bathed in incomprehensible peace. She laid her soft, cool face against Johanna's face, which was streaming with tears. "{My poor darling}," she said. “We have to bear it."
She touched her lips to Johanna's moist, hot cheek; she touched Johanna's mouth with her lips. She pulled her closer to her. {Her hug was no longer the gentle gesture of girlfriends sitting in an intimate conversation in the evening. They held each other differently.} {There had been nothing of this other in their fellowship before.} {Now that it was there and had such power}, {Johanna, crying, let it happen— sobbing}, grateful {for the infinite tenderness with which Karin laid her head on the pillow.}
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