November 1918
My complete English translation of the missing first volume of “November 1918”, Döblin’s massive epic of the failed German Revolution is now available. This post supplements and expands on my October 2020 introduction to the complete epic work.
(1) November 1918 – a work of superlatives
Döblin’s novel November 1918 is a work of superlatives. It’s his most expansive work – 2,229 pp. in the 2008 Fischer hardback edition (4 volumes). It took the longest time to complete: 6 years, including tense months of escape from Europe and trying to build a new life in California:
- Citizens and Soldiers: started late 1937, finished late 1938, published 1939;
- A People Betrayed and The Troops Return: completed in Paris 16 May 1940; typed up in California late 1941; published 1948, 1949;
- Karl und Rosa: material-gathering began in February 1942, writing in May; typed up September 1943 with assistance from a charitable fund; published 1950.
In a letter to his friends the Rosins dated 28 September 1942, Döblin wrote:
I’m steering with my last swim-strokes towards the final and definitive end of my “1918” trilogy; in around four weeks I think I shall be done with it; then it must be dictated … maybe this time I shall try typing some of it out myself, I already had a go at something at the Studios .. … It is hard (at least for me) to sustain a project over so long: I rashly began work on it in Paris, I believe in 1937 towards the end of the year, and then the second volume completed in May 1940 – the great catastrophe, a whole year struggling with films, no point dwelling on that – then took it up again in May . – Briefe, p.281.
The gap between Döblin’s commitment to November 1918 and the critical and public reception is wider than for most of his works. Döblin valued it highly, mentioning it in letters more often than any other work. He took great pains to safeguard the MS of the second volume even while escaping through France with just one suitcase. Yet the first publications brought fewer reviews than his other works. War prevented wide circulation of the first volume, and by the late 1940s when the later volumes were published, it was Döblin’s religious writings that attracted more attention.
No other work was subject to such external pressures. Döblin’s previous books were published pretty much according to his manuscripts, even when these drove Sammy Fischer, his publisher, to despair. (“How on earth did you come up with this?” Fischer is said to have exclaimed about Manas. W. F. Schoeller: Döblin: eine Biographie, p.307.) More on the publication history below.
No other work has so many autobiographical angles. Compare Döblin’s eyewitness accounts from 1918-19 (included in German Masquerade, my selection of his non-fiction) with equivalent passages in November 1918. The hospital and medical scenes build on his wartime experiences.
No other work so clearly shows a ‘pragmatised’ narrative. The basis of the plot in all its many strands is immediate contemporary history; the aim is to ‘enlighten’ the reader about how the world got into its current state. Already in his immediately preceding epic, the South American trilogy, Döblin had been feeling his way into the present; in November 1918 he focused immense energy onto questions of burning practical relevance to himself and his (former) German compatriots.
(2) The place of November 1918 in Döblin’s oeuvre
The First World War never left Döblin. His last novel untouched by the War was Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine (Wadzek’s Struggle with the Steam Turbine), written between August and December 1914 but not published until mid-1918. His choice, in mid-1916, of the Thirty Years War for his next big project (Wallenstein) was an attempt to grapple with the meaning of the recent War: not just the politics, but the demonic forces lurking in the human psyche. (There were demons already in the Wang Lun novel. Carl Jung was at this time working his way towards an understanding of the same dark forces that he would later elaborate as the Collective Unconscious and The Shadow.)
The several essays Döblin published in 1919-20 (see German Masquerade) are not merely reportage: they attempt to expose the roots of a profound social and spiritual malaise. The dystopian epic Mountains Oceans Giants (1924) points seven centuries ahead to a world where 20th century trends continue to a dreadful culmination; the Urals War is WW1 redux. Manas’ (1927) obsession with discovering the roots of sorrow and death lie in his wartime revelation: “This man I have just killed is – me!” The South American trilogy (1937-38) traces five hundred years of Europe’s ‘civilising’ encounters with native populations; the subtext throughout is “the Nazis did not come out of nowhere”. And Döblin’s last big novel, Hamlet: Tales of a Long Night (written 1948, published 1957) continues the themes (guilt, demonic bad faith, a meaning to life beyond the everyday) explored so thoroughly in November 1918.
(3) The publication process (including the Woods translation)
On 28 November 1947, a day after meeting representatives of the Karl Alber Verlag about their intention to publish November 1918, Döblin wrote to the publisher:
I myself discovered at this meeting that, after I had withdrawn the first volume of November 1918, the Censor (not I, in this case) had meanwhile rejected the first volume as not opportune for the French Zone. It is beside the point that I consider this rejection as unjustified and unfounded, of course the motive is political, they don’t want to stir things up in Alsace. Anyway, as I had predicted, the first volume is out of the question for the French Zone. Already two weeks ago when I withdrew the book I had turned the matter over and over in my mind, thought of various solutions, and at yesterday’s meeting we agreed: hold back the first volume, it’s merely an introduction, an exposition, and begin with the second volume, which takes place in Berlin with occasional excursions to Alsace. Yesterday I pointed out that the second volume A People Betrayed does not stand at all well by itself, and ends very abruptly. Therefore I now make the following proposal, which seems to me the best solution: since you have enough paper for only two volumes, we set aside for the moment the new edition of Der unsterbliche Mensch (The Immortal Human), however desirable it might be. We bring out, together, in one or two volumes, November 1918: A People Betrayed and The Troops Return. I think that this is the best solution, and that you agree. Of course it’s a pity that the religious dialogue must again take a back seat Briefe, p. 379-80.
And on 10 December 1949 to the historian Karl Thieme:
As for the final volume of my November 1918, they really should have sent you the galley proofs It’s all well in hand, the volume comes out at 600-700 pages. But you know the book market and the current crisis, and with the first two volumes already leading a miserable existence, the publisher will not bring the final one out until spring 1950. I’m content with that. It’s the misfortune of this extensive work that the two volumes already available appear to have had head and limbs amputated, for as you know, the first volume, Citizens and Soldiers, which takes place in Alsace, was not allowed to be published during the time of censorship. I refer to a few pages of it as a Prelude to volume 2, and the final volume is still not out. Books have their own fate. Briefe, p. 402.
The first integral edition, a boxed set in four volumes, was brought out by dtv in 1978, more than twenty years after Döblin’s death.
The English translation by John E Woods, published by the now-defunct Fromm International in 1983, seems to have used the Karl Alber editions of 1948-50. But a quick comparison of the German and English texts reveals that, apart from the missing first volume, the publisher has cut a further 200 pages or so from the later volumes, with no notice or explanation. The cuts mainly concern a storyline focusing on the dramatist Stauffer, introduced towards the end of Citizens and Soldiers. I plan to translate the missing text in due course.
Woods seems unfamiliar with the first volume: e.g. he has the druggist returning to the small town by train after dropping off the fugitive Lieutenant Heiberg. He actually travelled by buggy. (Citizens & Soldiers, p.19 / A People Betrayed, p. 34).
Fromm made no attempt to introduce this massive work to English readers. They merely excerpted a couple of pages from the Günter Grass essay ‘My Teacher Döblin’. (Woods provided very useful introductions to some of his superb translations of Arno Schmidt and Thomas Mann.)
(4) Trilogy or Tetralogy?
Since 1978 the German text of November 1918 has stabilised to a format of four physical volumes. But does this make it a Tetralogy?
The 1939 typescript of Vol. 1 was titled “November 1918” under an overarching title for the projected trilogy “A German Revolution”. At this point, Döblin envisaged a second volume to be titled “Ebert”, and a third volume “Karl and Rosa”.
Sixteen months after completing Vol 1, by 16 May 1940 Döblin had completed the texts of what became “A People Betrayed” and “The Troops Return”; these were typed up in Hollywood in September 1941, still envisaged as a single volume though very bulky. In February 1942 Döblin wrote to his friend Rosin that
my fat book is ready, the title is “Weapons and Conscience”, subtitled “Berlin November 1918: a warning and a remembrance”. Around 1050 typewritten pages, 2 parts, … Briefe p.269.
The typescript in the Marbach Archive shows more of this planned structure:
Weapons and Conscience. November 1918. A Warning and a Remembrance.
.1. Die Verschütteten (“Buried Alive”)
.2. Die Wegsucher (“The Seekers”): consecutive Part numbering: 5 in Part One, 6 in Part Two
Döblin continued to mention a Trilogy as he worked on Karl and Rosa. But the overlarge volume 2 was a problem. In spring of 1943 he wrote to Rosin
in 2 – 3 weeks I’ll have finished at last this 4-volume (3-part) 1918. Briefe p.288.
And then in August 1943, again to Rosin:
the whole Nov 1918 is complete, in four vols, for I have separated the over-fat second with 1300 typed pages into two vols. 2500 typed pages in all – which should be enough. ‘Phew!’ I say. Briefe, p.292.
This division of Volume 2 into two separate books occurred for purely technical reasons: the bulk, not plot coherence, was decisive. So, a Trilogy when viewed from content, a Tetralogy when viewed in terms of practical book production. (And we must be grateful that the overly didactic draft titles were abandoned!)
(5) Structure and coherence
The Trilogy concept is based on the content.
Volume 1, set mainly in Alsace in a small town (unnamed, but almost certainly Haguenau) and in Strassburg over a period of two weeks (10–24 November), introduces the fictional leads Becker, Maus, Hilde, as well as the lesser Hanna–Heiberg. The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France, while at the very same time the German armies are pouring through to evacuate the occupied territories before Armistice deadlines expire, presents a problematic for entire societies (Alsatians, Reich German civilians, German officers and troops) which is examined from many angles: “little people” (the Hegens, Fräulein Köpp, etc.); middle class Germans (Pastor, Widow, Hilde’s father); middle class Alsatians (hotel-keeper Erbe, Anny Scharrel, Kössel and his wife); senior Prussian officers (General, Major, Chief Medical Officer), junior officers (Becker, Maus, Heiberg), soldiers (Bottrowski, Ziweck), French officials and writers (Foch, Barrès), etc, etc.
Only halfway through Part 2 of Citizens and Soldiers are we taken to Berlin, for just four chapters.
In terms of locale and narrative technique, Citizens and Soldiers is the most rounded and coherent part of the Trilogy. Even Becker’s ghostly companion, the 14th century mystic Johannes Tauler, is an Alsatian.
Volume 2, also structured by days as a red thread linking many disparate actions, follows chronologically on (with some overlap) from Volume 1, beginning on 22 November. The first Part (A People Betrayed) is located solidly in Berlin. The second Part (The Troops Return) ranges more widely in time, space, and events. Döblin justifies this, in an archived comment, thus:
And so in this book there appear, juxtaposed and counterposed as a palette of colours, the historical, the fantastical, the tragic and the burlesque, in order to depict a time of dreadful tensions.
Volume 3 Karl and Rosa has a tighter focus, and like the first volume can stand reasonably alone as a novel. Döblin’s archived planning sheet states:
In this final volume, German conditions should no longer be depicted as in earlier volumes in broad terms, but the conclusion should, as in the music of the fugue, become a “stretto” (narrowing) of the themes.
(6) Stylistic features in Citizens and Soldiers
Already in Wang Lun (written 1912-13) Döblin skilfully mingled modes, moods and voices in his prose; in one paragraph there might be a seamless transition from external description to interior monologue. In Wallenstein (1920) he juxtaposed apparently objective historical reporting with fantastical extravagances. In my Introduction to the 2021 Galileo edition of Mountains Oceans Giants (1924) I note at least four distinct registers: historical narrative, poeticised encyclopedia, visionary prose, dramatic close-ups. Citizens and Soldiers makes masterful use of a full palette of these writerly colours; although the visionary aspects are relatively minor here (the Tauler appearances), compared to the Satanic episodes in the later volumes. (The 1950 edition of Karl and Rosa was subtitled “A story between Heaven and Hell”.)
Consider how Döblin draws us into the lives of his characters. Each appearance (often many pages apart) reveals a little more so that apparently insignificant figures become real rounded individuals (the Hegens, for example, and the sympathetic, but still somewhat enigmatic, Nurse Hilde).
The poeticised encyclopedia makes several appearances, lifting the focus away from humans and their immediate frantic cares to the wider enduring world of natural life: soberly for example in the depiction of hop fields and their insect and fungal pests; or in a more visionary style where the airman’s body becomes a jungle in which microbes grow rampant. Within the human world, a matter-of-fact listing becomes bitingly satirical (the many Army offices in Strassburg; the chaotic shuffling of shattered army formations).
Little scenes and touches throughout, so unobtrusive at times they might easily be missed, reinforce a major trope of the novel: the overarching moral failures that led Germany to defeat and an abortive revolution. First, the famous arrogance of an officer/official class so cosseted and isolated from “the masses” by the protection afforded by uniform and title as to have no self-awareness (e.g. the Forester, the ex-governor of Metz); a class so fanatical about “order” that the Major almost has a nervous breakdown over two drops of spilled chocolate; a class whose status depended almost entirely on the uniform rather than the moral qualities of the individual wearing it (e.g. the delicious encounter between the Major and the hotelier Erbe; the pathetic ex-military governor of Metz). Second, the pitiful naivety of a poorly educated population faced with opportunity for a “revolution” of which they have only the vaguest conception, and so are easily steered by the still-powerful military, and by Social Democrats also obsessed with “order”.
In short, the novel offers endless interest, in the style, the character-building, and the subtexts.
(7) Concluding thoughts
The bumpy road of the massive November 1918 novel from conception to writing to publication, during years of exile, flight, exile again, surrounded by an unfamiliar language and culture, deprived of easy access to research materials, deprived too of almost any means of support: all this speaks very highly to Döblin’s courage, moral commitment and tenacity in his seventh decade of life.
It is disappointing that publishers (German and Anglo) have never provided readers with an extensive introductory apparatus to build interest in tackling such an enormous work. The otherwise handsome 4-volume hardback edition by Fischer fobs us off with a 2.5 page excerpt from an encyclopedia of literature (by the excellent Gabriele Sander, but still …). Leaving aside the shelfloads written about Berlin Alexanderplatz – Döblin’s Wallenstein and the Amazonas Trilogy now benefit from critical editions (Wallenstein: critical edition with commentary by Erwin Kobel, 2001; dtv paperback 2003. Das Land ohne Tod (The Land without Death): Büchergilde Gutenberg 1991 offers 200 pages of commentary.) When will November 1918 be accorded similar respect?
Sources drawn on for this post:
Manfred Auer: Das Exil vor der Vertreibung: Motivkontinuität und Quellenproblematik im späten Werk Alfred Döblins (Exile before expulsion: continuity of motifs and problems of sources in AD’s late works) Bonn: Bouvier Verlag 1977.
Marbacher Katalog: Döblin. 4th amended edition 1998. Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, Marbach am Neckar.
Louis Huguet: Bibliographie Alfred Döblin, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin & Weimar 1972.
Döblin: Briefe. Walter Verlag, Olten 1970.
