What I Am Reading: "The Man Without a Party: The Trials of Carl Von Ossietzky" by Richard Tres

This strange little book is a biographic novel about Carl von Ossietzky, German journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. I didn't know when I ordered it that it was a novel, I thought it was a biography. I decided to read it through anyway.

Carl von Ossietzky was a lifelong pacifist who ran a small but influential newspaper in Weimar Germany. He was imprisoned in 1932 after he published details on the country's secret military buildup, in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. The book opens on this trial, where he is found guilty. From there, the chapters alternate between covering Ossietzky's life from 1932 onward, and the critical scenes from his life leading up to that point, showing his growth and evolution as a thinker. A clerk, he was drawn to the nascent peace movement before the war; then, drafted, spent the war first in a work battalion and then on the front, spending his time at both writing satirical stories. After the war, he was swept up in the German Revolution, speaking on behalf of peace and international organizations during the heady days when Workers’ Councils were in control of many cities. After Republican troops restored order with the help of right wing paramilitaries, he settled down to criticize the conduct of all sides of the Weimar Republic's political scene, including the Social Democrats as too accommodating of the old, reactionary order. He worked to hold together his venerable newspaper, The World Stage, as editor.

In the other half of the timeline, after the trial and prison sentence, Ossietzky was arrested again in 1933 by the Nazis, as they rounded up persons of interest immediately following the Reichstag Fire (Hans Litten, from Crossing Hitler, makes an appearance during processing and initial torture in Spandau Prison). He was sent to a concentration camp with other political prisoners, where he suffered torture, abuse, and mistreatment. Finally, his wife, daughter, and friends were able to organize a letter-writing campaign that overcame opposition and caution to gain Ossietzky the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935, belatedly awarded in 1936. Ossietzky was by this point beaten down by the concentration camp enough that his only concern was animalistic, day-to-day survival; yet he rallied enough of an unexpected spark to refuse Herman Goering's demand, delivered in person, to decline the award. He was transferred to a hospital, still under guard, where he died of meningitis in 1938 (with an implication that he was purposefully injected with the illness upon his departure from the camp).

The author, Richard Tres, is a retired English teacher from California, who is apparently going to continue a “Weimar People” series. The book is a bit didactic at times, as characters have elaborate and stage-managed conversations about the thought and motivations of the peace movement at the time, and catalog the important writers of the Weimar Republic. I didn’t mind, though.

I have always viewed the Social Democrats as the good guys of the Weimar story, despite their failure to prevent the rise of the Nazis. Though Ossietzky's big publications were about the activities of the far right and the autocratic elements of the Weimar Republic (It is obviously telling that the Nazis had Ossietzky on their arrest list that was prepared in the event of a crisis), he also criticized the SPD as being too willing to compromise with the system. This included their refusal to replace the judges appointed by the Kaiser (though Benjamin Carter Hett believed that this conservative judicial system was pushed in a more republican direction during the republic's lifespan) and their violent suppression of the 1929 May Day parades, which Ossietzky organized an independent commission to investigate. It even went back to their support for the war in 1914. I'll render further judgement on this when I read my book on Prussia, but for now it is good to have this reminder that figures outside the system can still render judgement upon it. As he says in the opening chapters, the young republic was still being formed, and he hoped his actions, in the newsroom and in court, would shape its character. He makes similar comments in an excerpt that is not in the book, but is quoted on his Wikipedia page. When discussing the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold, the paramilitary of the pro-Republic parties, he said:

...it is not the nationalists, the monarchists who represent the real danger, but the absence of substantive content and ideas in the concept of the German republic and that no-one will succeed in vitalizing that concept. Defense of the republic is good. It is better to go beyond that to an understanding of what in the republic is worth defending and what should not be retained. This question escapes the Reichsbanner; more precisely, it has probably not yet recognized that such a question even exists.

Our republic is not yet an object of mass consciousness but a constitutional document and a governmental administration. When people want to see the republic, they are shown the Wilhelmstrasse. And then one wonders why they return home somewhat shamed. Nothing is there to make the heart beat faster. Around this state, lacking any ideas and with an eternally guilty conscience, there are grouped a couple of so-called constitutional parties, likewise lacking an idea and with no better conscience, which are not led, but administered. Administered by a bureaucratic caste that is responsible for the misery of recent years in domestic and foreign affairs and that smothers all signs of fresh life with a cold hand. If the Reichsbanner does not find within itself the idea, the inspiring idea, and the youth does not finally storm the gates, then it will not become the avant-garde of the republic, but the cudgel-guard of the partycrats, and their interests will be defended foremost, not the republic...

I only learned of the Reichsbanner (named after the German flag) recently, and I was enthusiastic for it at first. Most Weimar street fighting was between the Nazis and Communists, so it was interesting to that there was a pro-republic faction involved to root for. However, this note was a reality check, since street fighting is not the sign of a healthy republican system. I've been trying to reconcile my enthusiasm for Ossietzky and other historical dissidents with the fact that in this case, it is criticism of a republic in a precarious position. This note on the Reichsbanner helps contextualize things, and deviation from America's own republican ideal is a problem we struggle with. Ours is from the opposite starting point as Ossietzky, who wished to see such an ideal come into being, whereas we fear that ours may be lost. It is an example of shared values across different contexts. I wish I knew more about how his publications were received, and the attitude of the rest of the left toward him.

Anyway, I think I am going to take a break from books about political prisoners and torture victims for a little while.

Addendum, Nov. 28, 2022: I have fond memories of this book, and I think it fits into a continuum with books I read later like Mark Bray’s book or like Orlow’s above-mentioned books on Weimar Prussia that discuss the political establishment’s reactions to the aftermath of the German Revolution and to the rise of Nazism. I’m looking forward to continuing my reads on the topic, just as I’m looking forward to Tres’ next book in this series.