Edleff Köppen: Higher Command – An autobiographical novel

This text is about Edlef Köppen and his novel “Heeresbericht”, which has been almost forgotten today. We will first discuss the book itself, its history and the context in which it was written. We will then turn our attention to the author himself and his biography in order to trace the author’s own path. As he also worked in radio later in his life, this will of course also be discussed. This adds further depth to the context in which the book was written. Finally, we put the book back into the context of the 1930s before moving on to the conclusion. But if you like to, you can watch this in a video as well.

 

Higher Command – The Novel

This novel was written by Edlef Köppen and published in 1930, in the late phase of the Weimar Republic. From around 1928, about 10 years after the war, numerous novels by veterans were published. The reason for this was the great success of Remarque’s “All quiet on the western front”, Jünger’s “Storm of Steel” and Renn’s “War”, to name just a few of the most successful autobiographical novels. In 1930, 112 books were published in Germany alone, a veritable flood of war novels (Fischer, Jens Malte: Afterword, in: Edlef Köppen, Heeresbericht, 3rd ed. Berlin 1915, pp. 391-402, here p. 398). So we are not just dealing with a phenomenon, but with an entire genre in its own right. This genre has an extremely diverse spectrum, ranging from pacifist to war enthusiast, from realistic to fatalistic to nationalist. This huge number of published books is one reason why most of these novels have fallen into oblivion today.

Basically, there is a lot of research on these war books and the genre, only we will dive deeper after taking a closer look at some of these novels. It should just be mentioned here that this research is tied to the idea of cultural memory, media and literature to provide a first impression.

Now back to the novel, what is it about? Unlike most books of this genre, which are written by infantrymen and accordingly about the infantry, this book is written from the point of view of a field artilleryman. Now, most of the soldiers and casualties were to be found in the infantry, so we have something special here. Also in comparison with the novels already mentioned, which mainly shape cultural memory to this day.

The story begins in 1914 and ends in 1918, meaning that we follow the protagonist throughout the war. Most of the story takes place on the Western Front, with only a few episodes on the Eastern Front. While he begins as a soldier or gunner, he rises through the ranks as the war progresses and later becomes a lieutenant. Since he is in the field artillery, we find some sections dealing with horses, riding and driving. The most interesting part of this book is the description of a cavalry attack of the enemy in 1915 and its complete failure.

This novel combines fiction and reality on a very special level. It is one of the first, if not the first overall, German collage novels. The author inserted various newspaper cuttings, orders, historical descriptions etc. into his chapters. Köppen wanted to illustrate the brutal differences between these propagandistic reports and the higher command’s view of his character’s experiences and thus, to a certain extent, his own. Thus, a contradiction between these different reports and the experience of the individual is presented here in particular. It also puts the plot into a larger context and perspective. The problem that we generally have with this war literature, namely to stand between fiction, narrative and reality, is even closer here.

Or as Klein states:

 

Generally, war books were not looked on as ‘literature’, but treated rather as documents; either on a universal level, in which case breadth of historical perspective, ‘balance’, ‘totality’, in short, objectivity were expected – and found lacking; or on a personal level, in which case they were weighed like the depositions of eye-witnesses in a trial – and found wanting more often than not. (Klein, Holger: The Artistry of Political Literature: Essays on War, Commitment and Criticism. Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1994, S. 46.)

 

In 1933, the book was burned along with others during the book burnings, as it was considered a pacifist anti-war novel that the NSDAP wanted to be forgotten. It was not until 1976 that the novel was republished for the first time since 1932. From then on, it was published from time to time, but unfortunately never had much of an impact. In 2005, a Dutch translation was published with the title “Frontberichten”. The English translation was last published in 1931 and is therefore very rare to find.

 

Edlef Köppen – Biography of the Author

Early years and war experiences – 1893-1918/19

Edlef Köppen was born on March 1st, 1893 in Genthin near Magdeburg and died on February 21st, 1939. His father was a doctor and his mother the daughter of a wholesaler. He attended a grammar school in Potsdam. He then studied German language and literature, philosophy, art history and literary history in Kiel and Munich from 1912-1914. (For Köppen’s biography, see also: Gollbach, Michael: Köppen, Edlef, in: NDB.)

When war broke out in 1914, he volunteered for the 40th Field Artillery Regiment (FAR) in August of the same year. There he received his basic military training. In October 1914, he joined the first replacement detachment of the 40th Field Artillery Regiment on the Western Front, probably at Arras. He took part in the Battle of Loretto and the battles at Souchez and Loos. He had to visit the military hospital twice. In 1916, he took part in the Battle of the Somme, where he suffered a bruised lung. This injury was to be a major cause of his death some twenty years later. After this injury, he had to spend two months in the military hospital in Genrode. At the end of 1916, the regiment was transferred to the Eastern Front in Russia. It returned to the Western Front in the spring of 1918. Edlef Köppen spent the end of the war in a mental hospital near Mainz after he began to openly disobey his orders in September 1918 in order to resolve his ambivalence between fulfilling his duty and the immorality of war.

In December 1918, he was discharged from the army as a lieutenant in the reserve and bearer of the Iron Cross first class. Overall, he saw a lot of the war and experienced all its nuances. Due to the turmoil of the war, he did not have to bear the consequences of his actions and was released from the mental hospital. After the end of the war, he had health problems, which initially led to changing work experiences in the literary scene.

 

Searching – 1919-1925

In 1919, he continued his German studies in Munich without completing them properly, although he wrote a dissertation on Romantic periodicals that was almost finished. However, he was unable to publish it due to financial problems. In 1920, he began a career at Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag in Potsdam and married Hedwig Witt a year later in 1921, where he held a leading position for the cultural magazine “Die Dichtung”. For health reasons, he had to leave the publishing house on May 1, 1922, after spending time in two pulmonary hospitals. In October 1922, he took up a position at another publishing house, “Trowitsch und Sohn” in Berlin, which he soon had to give up again for health reasons. In mid-May 1923, Köppen founded his own publishing house, the “Hadern-Verlag”, which specialized in modern literature, graphics, typographic pattern printing and illustrated single issues. He only published a few issues and closed the publishing house the following year. His daughter was born in June 1924. The family’s financial struggle, which was brought about by changing jobs, was to end in 1925 when Edlef Köppen was appointed to the literary advisory board of “Funkstunde”, the first ever German radio station in Berlin.

 

A life for the radio – 1925-1933

He was part of the art program of the literature department, for which he had previously worked as a freelancer. In 1929, he became head of the department, which he liked very much, as he said: “The profession began, bookseller, publisher, ‘freelance writer’. The hardship began, the hunger. – I translated Heraclitus, wrote for daily newspapers, modestly filled the drawers with manuscripts. – Finally, a job came along that offered more than the opportunity to work as an assistant: I live in it now. I love it. So the work can begin.” (Quoted from: Fischer, Nachwort, p. 395) He had new ideas for various formats on the radio, in which he also participated as a director. Köppen became an important link between the literary scene in Berlin and the new medium of radio. With his literary approach, he shaped the first steps, especially with his radio plays.

Because of his pacifist and left-liberal commitment as a writer, presenter and person responsible for the literary department of the radio station, he was suspended in April 1933. There is also a short article on Edlef Köppen’s work on the radio on the Deutschlandfunkkultur website. It goes into more detail about how he was treated by the Nazi dictatorship, from which the following part is taken:

The right-wing press raged even more against his “pacifist spook” when Köppen broadcast his radio play “Wir standen vor Verdun” (We stood before Verdun) in 1931.

“You can barely see your hand in front of your eyes when the infantry battle is already boiling, crackling and cracking all along the front.”
“It’s about every trench, every tiny pocket of resistance.”
“We stood before Verdun”, 1931

Edlef Köppen worked in radio from 1925. He was responsible for book criticism, youth radio and radio plays. Above all, he produced many author readings. This made radio an important new medium for literature, but Köppen was also a radio pioneer.
“Away from writing that is for the eye and towards speech that is meant to hit the ear.”

Josef Goebbels in particular understood this. He wanted to take control of radio. The Nazi agitation reached its climax in 1932. Radio director Hans Flesch was dismissed, Köppen was defamed, his office was searched, his documents were stolen, his car was vandalized, and in June 1933 he was finally dismissed without notice. Köppen, like others, tried to “blend in” in the movies, but stubbornly refused to be of any service to the Nazis. He continued to suffer from his severe war injuries all these years. He succumbed to them in a Giessen sanatorium in 1939, even before the Second World War broke out. After that, he was completely forgotten. Although his novel “Heeresbericht” was republished in 1976, nothing and no one remembers him at the radio station itself, his former workplace in the Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin’s Masurenallee.

 

The last years – 1933-1939

At the end of June 1933, he was dismissed due to the new laws of the Nazi government. Further reasons for this measure were his book “Heeresbericht” (Higher Command), published in 1930, his participation in the “League for Human Rights” and radio contributions such as the pacifist radio play “Wir standen vor Verdun” (We stood before Verdun), which was performed in February 1931 to mark the 15th anniversary of the Verdun offensive. He lodged an objection, but this was rejected in September 1933.

From then on, it was forbidden for Köppen to publish anything. So he started in PR at a small film company, two years later he became chief dramaturge at “Tobis europe film AG” and worked on screenplays and entertainment films. After Tobis became part of the propaganda ministry, he came under pressure because he refused to join the NSDAP and include pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic films in the program. Although he was not a party member, his books were listed on the index and he lived in internal emigration, he was a member of the Reichsschriftkammer until his death, had a responsible position in film production and had to work with film stars who collaborated with the Nazi regime. Köppen had the idea of writing a book about the Nazi state and began collecting material for it in 1933, but was unable to finish it. He died of lung and throat tuberculosis in Giessen on February 29, 1939.

 

The novel Higher Command in the context of the 1930s

Köppen wrote the novel while he was working in radio. He already had the idea of writing a novel about his war experiences during the war. So he asked his landlord, a senior official in the army archives in Potsdam, to look for documents that he could use for his novel. Newspaper cuttings and notes from Edlef Köppen’s mother were collected, especially those that contradicted the experiences he had had at the front. Around 10,000 copies of his novel were published, which is quite a small number compared to Remarque’s “Im Westen nicht Neues” with 3.5 million copies and Renn’s “Krieg” with 150,000 copies. (Fischer, Afterword, p: 398) Nonetheless, the novel attracted a great deal of attention among connoisseurs such as Kurt Tucholsky. For them, it had a great impact and, alongside “Des Kaisers Kuli” by Plivier, was described as the most courageous novel written about the war. Kurt Pinthus commented on the novel:

“Although it does not want to be poetry, but only a report, it still comes across as poetry.” And here we are back to the problem between fiction, narrative and reality. By playing with fiction and reality, he fundamentally counteracts the manipulation of public consciousness, the ideology and reality of war. As this novel has a high degree of authenticity, it has an intense effect on the reader, or as Edlef Köppen himself wrote on the flyer of the first edition:

 

“I was born on March 1, 1893. As a result, I was able to volunteer for military service in August 1914, which I carried out from October 14 to October 18 as a gunner, private, non-commissioned officer, vice sergeant, deputy officer, lieutenant of the reserve in the West and East. I did it with enthusiasm, with a sense of duty, with gritted teeth, with despair, until I was awarded the E. K. I and sent to the madhouse.”

 

The style of his novel is factually distanced and can be attributed to the new objectivity and was a very modern approach to telling a story at the time. In contrast to most other novels, which were still trapped in the traditional style of the 19th century, such as “Im Westen nichts Neues” by Remarque. Overall, this novel has great creative power, is an appeal to conscience and a plea for pacifism. The First World War was Edleff Köppen’s defining and prominent theme, which he accentuated and articulated differently in different creative phases.

On the one hand, there was enthusiastic criticism for the novel, although the public had already grown tired of war books. But the press was also mobilized from the right, as Edlef Köppen wrote to his former publishing colleague Oda Weitbrecht:

 

“Dear Mausi, in the last few weeks I’ve had the worst attacks and wild agitation from the Reichspresse. That was to be expected. And it’s only going to get worse. I’ve thought several times that there are more than just friends. And I had already packed my bags. But I’m not going to let myself be scared anymore. Now more than ever!”
to Oda Weitbrecht-Buchenau, 24.11.1930 (quoted from the Deutschlandfunkkultur article)

 

Conclusion and Summary

Well, the novel is unsurpassed, unsurpassed as the most formally advanced war novel, carried by its own mixture of cool detachment and passionate commitment. The author, Edlef Köppen, saw everything of the war from 1914 to 1918 in the West and East. The novel is therefore quite specific especially in regards to the artillery. What makes it special is that it shows the war from the point of view of an artilleryman, unlike most books written by infantrymen. The shells are given a face to put into words, rather than just flying around anonymously and killing people, as is the case in most war novels. The novel was published in 1930 when a whole wave of other war novels were coming out, so it was in a pretty strong competitive situation. It was also published too close to the book burnings by the Nazis three years later, so it didn’t really have a chance of wider distribution. Another point is the early death of Edlef Köppen already in 1939, which made it even more difficult for the book. Nevertheless, it was later republished in the second half of the 20th century, so it was obviously rediscovered.

I have to admit that this book is one of my absolute favorites. It has to be said about the author Edlef Köppen that the NSDAP unfortunately almost succeeded in forcing him into oblivion. His work in radio broadcasting has been forgotten, as has his radio play “Wir standen vor Verdun”, of which only fragments still exist. So one reason for this text is to do something for the memory, because this is a book that should be read by everyone.

 

 

Sources

Printed sources:

Köppen, Edlef: Heeresbericht

Fischer, Jens Malte: Nachwort, in: Edlef Köppen: Heeresbericht, Berlin 2007 (3. Aufl.), S. 391-402

Schaff, Barbara: Autobiographical Writing and the First World War, in: Ralf Schneider/Jane Potter: Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War, Berlin/Boston 2021, p. 65-85.

Emig, Rainer: The Novel of the First World War, Ralf Schneider/Jane Potter: Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War, Berlin/Boston 2021, p. 86-102

Klein, Holger. The Artistry of Political Literature: Essays on War, Commitment and Criticism. Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1994.

Beaupré, Nicolas: Der Erste Weltkrieg im Roman. Zum Umgang des Historikers mit literarischen Zeugnissen, in: Wolfram Pyta/Carsten Kretschmann: Burgfrieden und Union sacrée. Literarische Deutungen und politische Ordnungsvorstellungen in Deutschland und Frankreich 1914–1933, München 2011, S. 141-158.

Digital sources:

-Fitzel, Thomas: “Nun erst recht!” (Deutschlandfunkkultur.de)

-Gollbach, Michael, “Köppen, Edlef” in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 12 (1980), S. 370-371 [Online-Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd119520621.html#ndbcontent