Otago German Studies (E-Journal)

Nehring, Wolfgang

English

Tun und Nichttun bei Grillparzer. Eine Problematik des Biedermeier.

Obermayer, August

Preface 
It seems appropriate to initiate a series called Otago German Studies with a 
tribu.te to the first occupant of the chair of German at the University of Otago. 
The tribute is twofold, first in the form of a Festschrift and secondly by inviting 
him to be joint editor of this series from its second volume onwards. 
The series aims to support 'Germanistik' in New Zealand by providing a 
means of publication primarily, but not exclusively, for New Zealand scholars 
of German. 
In times of severe financial restrictions and cutbacks in education, this 
series has to be self-financing. 
It has come into being thanks to the goodwill and co-operation of many 
people: the financial contributors, listed in the tabula gratulatoria - generous. 
support is gratefully acknowledged from the Embassy of the Federal Republic 
of Germany, the Goethe Institut of. Melbourne and the Goethe Society of 
Dunedin- the contributors of manuscripts and the technical staff- Lyn Knarston 
and Peter Scott (Medical Illustrations Unit), J.T. Robertson (University Printery) 
and the University Bindery. 
Special thanks are extended to Eleonore Bromann who took over the admin-
istration during my leave of absence, Franz and Hedy Barta who offered their 
valuable assistance in proof-reading and to Dr. W.S. Sewell who on numerous 
occasions assisted and supported me. 
A.O. 
7 


Preface

Tabula gratulatoria 
Maurice ANDREW Dunedin N.Z. 
F. ANSBACHER Dunedin N.Z. 
John A. ASHER Auckland N.Z. 
A.B. BAKER Dunedin N.Z. 
L.C. BAKER Dunedin N.Z. 
Christopher B. BALME Tauranga N.Z. 
BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES Dunedin N.Z. 
Peter BANNISTER Dunedin N.Z. 
Andrew BARRATT Dunedin N.Z. 
John BARSBY Dunedin N.Z. 
Franz BARTA Dunedin· N.Z. 
Hedy BARTA Dunedin N.Z. 
Tony BARTA Melbourne Australia 
Ulf BARTHOLOMAE Christchurch N.Z. 
Leslie BODI Clayton Australia 
Karl Heinz BORCK Hamburg BRD 
John BORRIE Dunedin N.Z. 
G.L. BRINKMAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Richard BRINKMANN Tiibingen/Berkeley BRD/USA 
G.M.BROAD Dunedin N.Z. 
G.P.BROAD Dunedin N.Z. 
Eleonore BROMANN Wolfs burg BRD 
A.N.BROOKS Christchurch N.Z. 
John E. BROWN Dunedin N.Z. 
Walter H. BRUFORD Edinburgh Scotland 
D.A. BUCKINGHAM Dunedin N.Z. 
Edward CARTER Christchurch N.Z. 
9 
John CHILD Dunedin N.Z. 
Gerald CHRISTELLER Wellington N.Z. 
Alan M. CLARKE Dunedin N.Z. 
J.K. CLARKSON Dunedin N.Z. 
Patricia COLEMAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Sheena COLLIER Piha N.Z. 
Douglas S. COOMBS Dunedin N.Z. 
Michael H. COOPER Dunedin N.Z. 
TomK.COWAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Margaret DALZIEL Dunedin N.Z. 
W.DAVIDSON Dunedin N.Z. 
Keith R. DAWBER Dunedin N.Z. 
DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN Hobart, Tasmania Australia 
DEPARTMENT OF GERMANIC 
STUDIES Melbourne Australia 
JohnN. DODD Dunedin N.Z. 
Ingrid DOUGLAS (van Raalte) Dunedin N.Z. 
R.G. DURRANT Dunedin N.Z. 
Barbara EINHORN Brighton England 
EMBASSY OF THE FEDERAL 
REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Wellington N.Z. 
B.D. EMPSON Wellington N.Z. 
H.C. EVISON Dunedin N.Z. 
Peter FALKENBERG Christchurch N.Z. 
Fred F ASTIER Dunedin N.Z. 
A. & D.V. FENBY Dunedin N.Z. 
R. FISHER Christchurch N.Z. 
Beaumont FITZGERALD FAMILY Dunedin N.Z. 
J.R. FLYNN Dunedin N.Z. 
T.E. FORSTER Wellington N.Z. 
Leonard FORSTER Cambridge England 
H.P. FOWLER Southland N.Z. 
10 
W.A. & D. FRASER Dunedin N.Z. 
Bernhard GAJEK Regensburg BRD 
Erica GALAMBOS Gore N.Z. 
Judith GEARE Oamaru N.Z. 
D.W. GIRVAN Dunedin N.Z. 
GOETHE INSTITUT Melbourne Australia 
GOETHE SOCIETY Dunedin N.Z. 
Alyth GRANT Dunedin N.Z. 
A.T.GRAY Dunedin N.Z. 
K.R. GREENSLADE Dunedin N.Z. 
W. GREGG & CO. LTD. Dunedin N.Z. 
J.W.B. GRIFFIN Wellington N.Z. 
Mieke HABRAKEN Timaru N.Z. 
John K. HALE Dunedin N.Z. 
R.B.HARLOW Dunedin N.Z. 
John & Jocelyn HARRIS Dunedin N.Z. 
Lenore HARTY Dunedin N.Z. 
Linda HARVEY Dunedin N.Z. 
J.A. HARVIE Dunedin N.Z. 
John HESLOP Dunedin N.Z. 
H.A. HESSE Melbourne Australia 
C.E. HEWTON Wellington N.Z. 
M. HOLDSWORTH Dunedin N.Z. 
E.A. HORSMAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Peter HUBRICH Melbourne Australia 
Robin IRVINE Dunedin N.Z. 
Maurice JOEL Dunedin N.Z. 
M.S. JONES Hamilton N.Z. 
Ernst KELLER Melbourne Australia 
Michael H. KESSLER Tiibingen BRD 
Lida KIRCHBERGER Wisconsin U.S.A. 
11 
C.KOOZNETZOFF Wellington N.Z. 
Klaus K6STER & FAMILY Dunedin N.Z. 
G.M. (Bob) LEEK Dunedin N.Z. 
Jennifer LEMBERG Winnweiler BRD 
Keith LEOPOLD Brisbane Australia 
NolaM. LEOV Dunedin N.Z. 
Ron G. LISTER Dunedin N.Z. 
L.W. LOGAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Patricia LOPDELL Palmerston North N.Z. 
J.S. & M.W. LOUTIT Dunedin N.Z. 
Noele11e A. MACDONALD Dunedin N.Z. 
F.J. MACLEAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Ian McGILL Nedlands Australia 
John MciNDOE Ltd. Dunedin N.Z. 
Daniel W. McKERRACHER Dunedin N.Z. 
Hew McLEOD Dunedin N.Z. 
Wilma McMILLAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Susan I. McRAE Freiburg BRD 
Gunther MAHAL Tiibingen BRD 
Stephen MANDEL Dunedin N.Z. 
Priyatosh MAITRA Dunedin N.Z. 
Philip MANGER Christchurch N.Z. 
MEENAN WINES & SPIRITS Ltd. Dunedin N.Z. 
John MIL FULL Kensington Australia 
Albert C. MOORE Dunedin N.Z. 
Michael MORLEY Adelaide Australia 
Guenther MUELLER-HEUMANN Dunedin N.Z. 
Ian MUIR Dunedin N.Z. 
R.G.MULGAN Dunedin N.Z. 
Corienne NAUMANN Erlangen BRD 
Michael NELSON Sydney Australia 
12 
Harold NIXON Dunedin N.Z. 
James NORTHCOTE-BADE Auckland N.Z. 
W.J. OAKES Annidale Australia 
A. & V. OBERMA YER Dunedin N.Z. 
P.H. OETTLI Hamilton N.Z. 
Gloria OLIVE Dunedin N.Z. 
A.S. OMBLER Milton N.Z. 
John David OMER-COOPER Dunedin N.Z. 
Ian & Dorothy PAGE Dunedin N.Z. 
Rolf E. P ANNY Palmerston North N.Z. 
John PARR Dunedin N.Z. 
Roger PAULIN Cambridge England 
Elena POLETTI Papakura N.Z. 
Helga & Siegbert PRA WER Oxford England 
Wolfgang PREISENDANZ Konstanz BRD 
Hilary PURVES Newcastle Australia 
W.D. RAILTON Dunedin N.Z. 
A. RASA Dunedin N.Z. 
Peter RICH Dunedin N.Z. 
James R. ROBINSON Dunedin N.Z. 
W. & N. RUBINSTEIN Rennes France 
Peter RUSSELL Wellington N.Z. 
Helen & Richard SAMUEL Brighton Australia 
Geoffrey SATCHELL Dunedin N.Z. 
Peter L. SCHWARTZ Dunedin N.Z. 
Egon SCHWARZ St. Louis, Mo. U.S.A. 
W.S. SEWELL Dunedin N.Z. 
Brenda SHORE Dunedin N.Z. 
T.K.S. SIDEY Dunedin N.Z. 
Kathryn SMITS Auckland N.Z. 
J .S. SOMER VILLE Dunedin N.Z. 
13 
Bob STABLES Dunedin N.Z. 
John STEELE Dunedin N.Z. 
F.G. STONE Dunedin N.Z. 
R.G. STONE Dunedin N.Z. 
Martin SUTTON Auckland N.Z. 
Douglass W. TAYLOR Dunedin N.Z. 
David C.B. TEATHER Dunedin N.Z. 
Agathe THORNTON Dunedin N.Z. 
Alison G. THORNTON Dunedin N.Z. 
Maurice TILL Dunedin N.Z. 
Ann TROTTER Dunedin N.Z. 
W.D. TROTTER Dunedin N.Z. 
P. van MOESEKE Dunedin N.Z. 
Axel VIEREGG Palmerston North N.Z. 
Joyce WALKER Dunedin N.Z. 
F. WALLA Newcastle Australia 
David E. WARD Dunedin N.Z. 
Adelheid W ASSNER Dunedin N.Z. 
Jocelyn WEBSTER Wellington N.Z. 
K.E. WESTERSKOV Dunedin N.Z. 
J.B. WILL Dunedin N.Z. 
Winifred M. WILLOX Monash Australia 
R. WILSON & G. BIBBY Wellington N.Z. 
Livia Z. WITTMANN Christchurch N.Z. 
Jacqueline & Antony WOOD Dunedin N.Z. 
Ann WYLIE Dunedin N.Z. 
14 


Tabula Gratulatoria

Barta, Tony

Ludwig Thoma in Dachau 
TONY BARTA 
Ich hatte deutlicher sein sollen. Das war mein Fehler. 
Aber am Ende kann ich nichts daflir wenn einige Schreier 
die Sache aufbauschen! 
Blirgermeister of 'Dornstein' in Die Lokalbahn, 1902. 
History, considered as an account of the past which people share, is (like 
literature) constructed from images. The name of a town can be an historical 
metaphor, so can the name of a writer. My interest here is in exploring how 
the people living in one metaphor, Dachau, have sought to establish the histor-
ical reality of their community - what it was really like - less by careful presen-
tation of what actually happened than by creating a counter-metaphor: Ludwig 
Thoma. 
Thoma's work is only one constituent of the image evoked by his name; 
in its historically effective form it is a composite of literature, biography, anec-
dote and myth. Thoma's plays are performed in Dachau, and the stories, often 
on dispky in the bookshops, are read by people of all generations. Many more 
than know the writer through his work would know him by his appearance: 
the photographs of Thoma posing with his peasant pipe or with his hunting 
companions have been an important accessory to his writings. And anyone who 
does not know him by his work or by his spectacles, moustache, duelling scars 
and Bavarian costume will know him by name: in Dachau there is a Ludwig-
Thoma-Haus, a Ludwig-Thoma-StraBe, a Ludwig-Thoma-Schule and, for drinking 
at the Volksfest on the Ludwig-Thoma-Wiese, complete with portrait on the 
label, a Ludwig-Thoma-Bier. No official publicity produced by the town is 
without its reference to Thoma's years in Dachau. If they were important 
years for Thoma - and they were -intervening events have clearly made them 
very important to present-day Dachau. . 
Thoma came to Dachau in 1894, when he was 27, as a legal practitioner-
the first in the old market town overlooking the Am per river, north of Munich·-
and left three years later, as a writer. It was the peacefulness of the place 
which attracted him. "Wie wir den Berg hinaufkamen und der Marktplatz mit 
19 
• 
seinen Giebelhausern recht feierabendlich vor mir lag, iiberkam mich eine starke 
Sehnsucht, in dieser Stille zu leben" .1 
Through his legal practice he discovered that not everything was peaceful; 
this was a society with a multitude of conflicts, entrenched and petty, over 
property and politics and personal matters, and a degree of passion not always 
visible beneath the hard daily life in which everything was dominated by work. 
It was the farming people of the surrounding countryside, poor in the marshy 
Moos to the south, rich in the fertile rolling country north of the Amper, who 
engaged his powers of observation and his imagination with particular force. 
They provided the cast of characters for his first collection of stories, Agricola, 
published in 1897, and for most of his later plays, novels and satirical writings. 
So even if Thoma's literary career developed only after he left Dachau to work 
for the newly founded Simplicissimus in Munich, there is a substantial basis for 
·the identification of Thoma with the Dachau district. The dialect, manner of 
speech, values and social attitudes of farming people in all the most popular 
plays belong unmistakably to Dachau, as does the satirical Briefwexel of the 
Zentrum Deputy in the Bavarian Land tag, Josef Filser. Die Lokalbahn is based 
on the controversy attending the construction of a branch line which Thoma 
knew at first hand;2 the clericalism, peasant politics and family tragedies of 
Andreas Vast are those of the Dachauer Hinterland. There, immune to the 
pretensions of the Spiej3biirgertum and the "Staatshamorrhoidarius" of the 
Kaiserreich, Thoma believed he had discovered that essential, human Bavaria 
which Dichtung, rather than mere Heimatdichtung, could translate from every-
day to .universal concern. 3 
It is the particular and local elements of Thoma's human comedy which 
naturally have most appeal in Dachau. Thoma was a brilliant ethnographer, es-
pecially in matters of dialect, and people can recognize in his writings a Dachau 
culture which still persists in attitudes, shared meanings and turns of speech 
in the surrounding countryside. It is not surprising that Dachauers, even those 
who came there as Fliichtlinge and Zugereiste after the Second World War, 
should find a substantial part of their identity in his work. But a sense of ident-
ity is not all there is to understanding the history of one's own lifetime: it can 
actively inhibit a more searching enquiry which might cause dissonance in the 
self-image of an individual or a community. 
In fact the Dachau Thoma celebrated was a very partial picture even of the 
late 19th century community. It could not help Dachauers understand the 
major social and political developments of the 20th century. Already in his day 
there were a handful of workers from the paper mill and the building industries 
who voted for the Social Democrats: they play no part in his writings. In 1905 
the first local socialist candidate was put up; in 1906 Dachau experienced its 
'first strike. After the upheaval of the war it was at Dachau that the decisive 
battle between Reds and Whites which ended the Bavarian Soviet Republic took 
place in 1919. With the dosure of the munitions works built during the war 
20 
unemployment was worse than in many large cities; in the twenties Dachau 
claimed the title of the most economically depressed community in Germany. 
If politically the town was marginally socialist, the countryside remained over-
whelmingly Catholic. Only in 1932 did the Nazis begin to make any ground at 
all. In the last elections of March 19 33 they won less than a third of the votes. 
But in the country as a whole they acquired the power to put Hitler's solution 
for Germany's social and political conflicts into effect. 
Two weeks after the elections, with Himmler installed as police chief in 
Munich, there was a small news item in the local papers: 
Am Mittwoch wird in der Nahe von Dachau das erste Konzentrationslager 
eroffnet. Es hat ein Fassungsvermogen von 5000 Menschen. Hier werden 
die gesamten kommunistischen und - soweit notwendig - Reichsbanner 
und marxistischen Functionare, die die Sicherheit des Staates gefahrden 
zusammengezogen ... Wir haben diese MaBnahme ohne jede Riicksicht 
auf kleinliche Bedenken getroffen in der Oberzeugung, darnit zur Beruhi-
gung der nationalen Bevolkerung und in ihrem Sinn zu handeln.4 
It is impossible to say how many people in Dachau approved of the use to 
which the abandoned munitions factory down in the Moos was put. Local 
communists and a former socialist mayor were arrested but some were imprison-
ed for only a few weeks and were careful not to tell too much about their 
experiences. No one in Dachau had anything to do with setting up the camp, 
which (people will still tell you) was actually in the neighbouring parish of 
Prittlbach until 1939. Local people were to avoid as much as they could the 
thousands of S.S. men who came to be garrisoned there. And right from the 
beginning they carried on as if nothing in their little world had changed. 
Another, larger, news item in the local press made this clear. It was a report 
of the first annual general meeting of the Ludwig-Thoma-Gemeinde, held on 
11 March 19 33, in the midst of the Nazi seizure of power in Bavaria and in 
Dachau itself. The first year of the new society devoted to Thoma and his 
works had been an impressive success. Membership had grown from nine to 
one hundred and forty five. There had been monthly meetings, a visit to 
Thoma's house on the Tegernsee, a most popular season of plays. A monu-
ment to the writer had been dedicated and a plaque unveiled on the house of 
the master tailor Rauffer in which Thoma had lived. Alongside reports of arrests, 
occupation of newspaper offices, 'disarming' of the opposition, the people of 
Dachau could read that several of their leading citizens, including the mayor 
(who would soon be removed despite his quick change into Party uniform), 
had been re-elected for another year as office holders of the Ludwig-Thoma-
Gemeinde.5 Co-existence, or integration, with the new order apparently posed 
few problems of organisation or conscience. The 1933 season of plays was 
another great success. In the 1934 celebrations marking the elevation of Dachau 
from market town to municipality, the Heimatabend .of the Thoma-Gemeinde, 
21 
• 
with Deputy Gauleiter Nippold as guest of honour, was one of the major 
events.6 
P~rhaps people in Dachau were right, when their community was under 
pressure, to continue celebrating the small world Thoma had helped create for 
them. But the larger world outside was bound.to see things differently. For 
most people in the world, including people in the rest of Germany, 'Dachau' 
already had a very different meaning. It had become a synonym for the ruthless 
reckoning with the socialists and communists that Hitler had promised. The 
Nazis themselves publicised Dachau in this light. But neither Nazis nor socialists 
had played any part in Thoma's world: how the one group of 'Schreier' dealt 
with the other a few kilometers outside the town, in a place the rest of the 
world called Dachau, was not something people who identified themselves 
with the 'real' Dachau could engage with. And they still can't. 
When Thoma, in the last year of his life, was having difficulties with his 
'quasi-autobiographical' novel Kaspar Lorinser, he wrote to a friend: "Der 
Lorin~er ... hatte einen groBen, org~nischen Fehler. Man kann eine Selbstbio-
graphie nicht 'erfinden'; das wird unwahr und gequalt; man kann nur Selbster-
lebtes geben, Selbstgedachtes, und ich sehe den Weg jetzt vor mir, da ich dies 
verstanden habe ... "7 
In an important sense, though, everybody does 'invent' their own auto-
biography, shaping their past in ways they are prepared to live with. This is 
what Thoma has helped people in Dachau to do. Their history, the account of 
their lives that they affirm to themselves, to each other and to outsiders, often, 
it seems, bears more relation to what they recognize in Thoma's fiction than to 
what others recognize as historical reality. This reality was never clearly rec-
ognizable to the majority of Dachauers during the Third Reich; now it is stand-
ard practice to leave the Third Reich out of Dachau's history altogether, or to 
pass over it in a few words. The popular histories are those evoking Thoma's 
Altbayern, nostalgic and sentimental celebrations of the little universe of Dachau 
as it existed before the larger world crashed in on it.8 
Only one memoir of life in Dachau has not been popular. Written as a 
novel, and pointedly subtitled 'Gesellschaftskritischer Roman aus dem zwanzigs-
ten J ahrhundert', it records the observations of a girl growing up in Dachau 
during the years in which people could not be unaware of the concentration 
camp outside the town even if they were little affected by its existence. The 
book is disliked not because it is inaccurate or especially damning but because 
it insists on linking Dachau to a history people feel to have been inflicted on 
them: in the presence of the memorial and museum on the site of the camp it 
is still inflicted on them. They don't appreciate suggestions that they showed 
compassion for the prisoners only late in the war and it doesn't help to find 
Thoma quoted against them: 
I schlaf jetzt und rnisch rni net ei' 
22 
Scho weil rna de Leut gar it kennt.9 
In Thoma's plays it is always the simple Bauer who has a better grasp of 
both human values and historical realities than the academic lawyer, pretentious 
politician or careerist official. The way his plays and stories would later be 
used by politicians and officials as well as ordinary people to escape from 
historical realities could hardly have occurred to him. 
Yet Thoma has probably not been misappropriated by Dachau. Himself a 
social conservative, he might not complain that he is now thoroughly integrated 
into the complex of social, cultural and political conservatism which has survived 
as the ruling ideology in Bavaria despite the disaster it produced in its radical 
Nazi distortion. Whether he would have become the reactionary influence 
Feuchtwanger bitingly caricatured in Erfolg is impossible to guess; he died in 
1921. Probably he would have withdrawn altogether from the post-war turmoil. 
A few months before his death he wrote to a friend that he was fed up with 
politics - 'die ganze Politisiererei' - and already in 1918 he had said, "Gehts 
Ihnen wie mir? Man verschlieft sich mit seiner Liebe doch immer mehr ins 
lie be Altbayrische" .1 0 
What appealed to Thoma when he began writing was the universal quality 
of a small world, 'das kleine Leben' of a Dachau village. 
Hier das sauber geweiBte Schulhaus, driiben das stattliche Wirtsanwesen 
mit dem groBen Hofe und dem lustig aufgeputzten Maibaum darin, weiter 
nach vorne auf einer Erhohung die Kirche und der stille Friedhof. Das ist 
die Welt. Wiinsche und Hoffnungen, Freud und Leid sind in den engen 
Raum gebannt. Da spielen sie als Kinder und wachsen heran, da kampfen 
sie mit der Sorge und werden alt. Und wenn sie den Weg von der Schule 
zum Friedhof zuriickgelegt haben, ist ihnen soviel geschehen wie denen, 
welche drauBen in der Welt hassen und lie ben. 11 
In every actual small world, Thoma knew, there is a whole universe of sym-
bols and meanings which helps people make sense of what happens in their 
lives. Symbolic universes, as they have been called, are social products, to be 
. effective they must bear some relationship to actual conditions of life. 'Shelter-
ing canopies' over both the institutional order and individual biography, they 
also provide the delimitation of social - and historical - reality. They set the 
limits of what is perceived as relevant. 12 For reasons of both psychological and 
social coherence, people will go to great lengths to keep their symbolic universe 
and their sense of historical reality consistent. Particularly in times of insecurity 
and dislocation, when the established order of things comes under threat, the 
manipulation of symbols to produce an illusion of consistency can smooth the 
most radical of upheavals. 
This is something the Nazis, among others, very well understood. In dealing 
with the legacy of the Nazis, symbolized to the world in the very name of 
their town, the people in Dachau responsible for making Ludwig Thoma a 
23 
symbol have understood it too. But manipulating symbols of the past and 
corning to grips with it - Bewiiltigung der Vergangenheit- are very different 
things indeed. 
Notes 
1 Ludwig Thoma, Gesammelte Werke, Munich 1968, vol. 1, p. 155. 
2 Hans-Gunter Richardi und Gerhard Winkler,· Ludwig Thoma und die 
Dachauer Lokalbahn. Geschichte und ]ubilaum einer bayerischen Neben-
strecke, Dachau 1974. 
3 On this see particularly James P. Sandrock, Ludwig Thoma, Aspects of 
his Art, (Goppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik Nr. 83), Goppingen 1975. 
4 Munchner Neueste Nachrichten, 21 March 19 33. 
5 Dachauer Zeitung, 14 March 19 33. The list of office holders reads like a 
cast list of one of Thoma's plays: Apotheker Hofler, Regierungsrat 
Pfadtisch, Schulrat Dengler, Biirgermeister Seufert, Oberstleutnant Prii-
hauser, Kunstmaler Kallert, Regierungsassessor Bauer, Grahammer, In-
spektor Kohl, Redakteur Larcher. 
6 Dachauer Zeitung, 11 April1934. 
7 Letter to Josef Hofrniller, 19 April1921. Ludwig Thoma, Bin Leben in 
Briefen, ed. Anton Keller, Munich 1963, p. 452. 
8 One of the most recent publications is a collection of photographs 'aus 
vergangener Zeit'. Only six of the 160 pages are devoted to Thoma. It 
is interesting, though, that the last representation of Dachau 'wie es war' 
selected for inclusion is a publicity picture for the Ludwig Thoma Soci-
ety's November 1932 production of Thoma's most popular play, Erster 
Klasse. 
Klaus Kiermeier, Wie's war im Dachauer Land, Dachau 1979. 
The current wave of nostalgia is, of course, not unique to Dachau and 
there are elements of social history in it which might yet provoke a quest-
ioning of the sentimentalised past. Nor is Dachau the only place in which 
later generations have sentimentalised a writer who was a social critic. 
Thoma's exact contemporary Henry Lawson has suffered this fate in 
Australia, as has Dickens in England. And if Dunedin, safe from European 
vicissitudes on the far side of the world, had had a different history people 
might look differently at the statue of Robbie Burns presiding over the 
centre of the city, at Burns Hall, at the Robert Burns Hotel ... 
9 Rosel Kirchhoff, Am Lagertor, Munich 1972, p. 55. The quotation is 
from Thoma's Heilige Nacht. 
10 Letters to Maidi von Liebermann, 24 June 1921, and to Josef Hofrniller, 
24 
7 September 1918. Keller, op. cit., pp. 458, 340. 
11 Quoted in Fritz Heinle, Ludwig Thoma in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddo-
kumenten, Hamburg 1963, pp. 53-54. 
12 Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of 
Reality, Harmondsworth 1971, esp. pp. 110-122. 
25 


Ludwig Thoma in Dachau

Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach,  Parzival, Ere

Smits, Kathryn

Einige Beobachtungen zu gemeinsamen Motiven in Hartmanns Erec und Wolframs Parzival

Aspetsberger, Friedbert

Eine Einritzung auf der Pyramide des Mykerinos. Von der relativen (geschlechtlichen) Identität  des Banalen und des Erhabenen

Beiträger

Hillman, Roger

The Lost Honour of Tony Buddenbrook

O., A.

Mitarbeiter des Bandes

INTRODUCTION	  
	  
Bold	  capitals	  are	  used	  for	  German	  entries	  only.	  Wherever	  an	  appropriate	  English	  
translation	   could	   be	   established	   it	   appears	   in	   brackets	   after	   the	   entry;	   e.g.	  
PARODIE	  (parody).	  
The	   =	   sign	   is	   used	   to	   denote	   synonyms;	   e.g.	   STREAM	   OF	   CONSCIOUSNESS	  
(stream	  of	   consciousness)	  =	  Bewußtseinsstrom	  means	  Stream	  of	  Consciousness	  
as	  used	   in	  German	   is	  exactly	   the	  same	  as	   in	  English	  but	   there	   is	  also	  a	  German	  
synonym.	  
Italics	  are	  used	  for	  titles	  and	  foreign	  words	  appearing	  in	  the	  explanatory	  text	  and	  
occasionally	  to	  differentiate	  between	  related	  concepts.	  
The	   sign	  →	   is	   used	   only	   in	   the	   sense	   ‘refer	   to’	   and	   the	   appropriate	   reference	  
appears	   in	   capitals	   immediately	   after	   the	   sign;	   e.g.	   →	   LITERATURWISSEN-­‐
SCHAFT	  means	  look	  up	  the	  entry	  Literaturwissenschaft.	  
	  
Abbreviations	  used	  are:	  
	  
A.D.	   after	  Christ	  
B.C.	   before	  Christ	  
c.	   circa	  
cf.	   compare	  
e.g.	   for	  example	  
ed.	   edited	  
esp.	   especially	  
et	  al.	   et	  alii	  
etc.	   et	  cetera	  
f.	  (ff.)	   following	  
FRG	   Federal	  Republic	  of	  Germany	  
GDR	   Democratic	  Republic	  of	  Germany	  
i.e.	   that	  is	  
M.A.	   Middle	  Ages	  
Med.	   Medieval	  
MHG	   Middle	  High	  German	  	  
N.B.	   nota	  bene	  
N.T.	   New	  Testament	  
O.E.D.	   Oxford	  English	  Dictionary	  
OHG	   Old	  High	  German	  
O.T.	   Old	  Testament	  
U.S.A.	   United	  States	  of	  America	  
Vs.	   versus	  
St.	  	   Saint	  
	   	  


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