Europe Central (136 page)

56 Kollwitz: “When the man and the woman are healthy, a worker’s life is not unbearable” —
Tagebücher
, p. 49, entry for 30 August 1909, trans, by WTV.

56 “Joy in others and being in harmony with them had always been one of the deepest pleasures in her life.”—After
Diary and Letters,
p. 116 (entry for March 1928: “Joy in others and being in harmony with them is one of the deepest pleasures in life.”)

56 Kollwitz: “Moscow with its different atmosphere . . .”—
Diary and Letters,
p. 115 (New Year’s Eve, 1927).

57 “Frau Kollwitz had taken up etching in order to distribute the maximum number of prints to the working class”—After an assertion in Kearns, p. 141.

58 The meeting between Kollwitz and Karmen I fabricated.

58 Old Reschke in the Cafe Monopol, 1914: “God be thanked that mobilization is happening . . .”—
Tagebücher,
p. 149 (August 1914, trans. WTV, slightly altered). He is not elsewhere mentioned in the diaries, so I don’t know whether he was really “old Reschke” (my adjective) or not.

58 Karl: “This noble young generation . . .”
Tagebücher,
p. 152 (10 August 1914, trans. WTV).

59 Description of Peter in the last month of his life—After a photograph in the
Tagebücher,
p. 167 (“Peter Kollwitz, 2. Oktober 1914”).

59 Roman Karmen: “How terrible it must seem to be to be a mother who weeps . . . film it!”—K. K. Ognev, ed.,
Roman Karmen
(Moscow?: Sovexportfilm, n.d., after 1975), p. 7 (extract from Karmen’s daybook while in Spain, presumably in 1936; trans. by WTV).

60 Description of Peter’s room—After a photograph in the
Tagebücher,
p. 192.

60 The commentator: “In the diaries one finds . . .”—
Tagebücher,
p. 899 (notes; trans. and slightly reworded by WTV).

60 Hitler’s attire in Hamburg, 1928—
The Infancy of Nazism: The Memoirs of Ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs 1923-1933,
ed. and trans. William Sheridan Allen (New York: New Viewpoints, a division of Franklin Watts, 1976), p. 155.

60 Käthe to Gorki: “All that I saw in Russia . . .”—
Tagebücher,
p. 899 (notes, trans. and slightly reworded by WTV).

60 “We Protect the Soviet Union!”—This image seems to be rare. I have found it only in Nagel, p. 139 (“Wir schützen die Sowjetunion!”).

61 Hitler to his lieutenants: “Speechless obedience”—
Krebs,
p. 189.

61 “And in an instant the bullet struck him!”—Käthe Kollwitz,
Brief an den Sohn 1904 bis 1945,
ed. Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz (Berlin: Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, 1992), p. 91 (19 November 1914, trans. WTV).

61 Description of Hans Kollwitz’s bookplate—After Kollwitz,
Brief an den Sohn,
p. 81 (“Das Exlibris, das Käthe Kollwitz 1908 für ihren sechzehnjährigen Sohn entwarf . . .”).

62 Description of the Leningrad exhibition—After a photo in Otto Nagel,
Käthe Kollwitz
(Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst, n.d., 1962 or after), pp. 66-69. The presence of Konstantinovskaya and Shostakovich has been invented.

62 Footnote: The entry on Kollwitz in
Meyers Lexikon
—Vol. 6, (pub. 1939), p. 1300.
Meyers
lists a few works, such as her “Proletariat” (1925). The implication is that she is a has-been.

62 Footnote: “Oh, Lise, being dead must be good . . .”—
Diary and Letters,
p. 195 (letter of February 1945).

63 Hitler: “The Germans—this is essential—will have to constitute amongst themselves a closed society, like a fortress”—Chaliand, p. 945 (secret conversation of 17-18 September 1941).

YOU HAVE SHUT THE DANUBE’S GATES

64 Epigraph: “At the very point when death becomes visible behind everything . . .” —Kollwitz,
Diary and Letters,
p. 123 (entry for August 1932).

64
The Song of Igor’s Campaign:
“You reign high upon your throne of gold . . .”—
Song of Igor’s Campaign: An Epic of the Twelfth Century,
trans. Vladimir Nabokov (New York: Random House / Vintage Books, 1960), p. 55 (“Apostrophe,” ll. 523-28; substantially “retranslated” by WTV, less to improve on VN than to avoid permissions fees).

66 Anecdote of the kolkozniks in Moscow—After James von Geldern and Richard Stites,
Mass Culture in Soviet Russia
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 184, anecdote.

66 Capture of sixty Soviet tanks by the Condor Legion—Gabriel Jackson,
The Spanish Republic and the Civil War 1931-1939
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965), 401.

66 Akhmatova: “One might say that Leningrad is particularly suited to catastrophes . . .” —Chukovskaya, p. 40 (entry for 27 September 1939), slightly abridged. “The black water with yellow flecks of light . . .” actually was said by Akhmatova, not Chukovskaya.

ELENA’S ROCKETS

68 Epigraph—Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, ed.,
Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents,
trans. Thomas Hoisington and Steven Shabad (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 395-96 (Document 146, author [“two priggish inspectors”] not cited; State Archive of the Russian Federation [GARF], f.5207, op. 1, d.1293, 11.7-8).

68 Details on Soviet planes, rocket engines, etc.—
Great Soviet Encyclopedia,
entry on aviation; Yaroslav Golovanov,
Sergei Korolev: The Apprenticeship of a Space Pioneer,
trans. M. M. Samokhvalov and H. C. Creighton (Moscow: Mir Publishers, 1975 rev. of 1973 Russian ed.);
Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II
(New York: Military Press, 1989 repr. of 1946-47 ed.), entries on Soviet air power and Soviet aero engines.

68 Descriptions (here, in “The Palm Tree of Deborah” and in “Untouched”) of Rodchenko’s non-objective sculptures—Based on the photographs in Galerie Gmurzynska,
Alexander Rodchenko: Spatial Constructions / Raumkonstruktione
(Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2002). 68 Assessment of F. Zander: “One of the tragedies of this outstanding intellect . . .” —Golovanov, p. 212.

69 The “forty times forty” churches of Moscow—Marina Tsvetaeva,
Selected Poems,
3rd ed., trans. Elaine Feinstein (New York: Penguin, 1994 repr. of 1993 ed.), p. 15 (“Verses About Moscow,” 1916, stanza 2); slightly “retranslated” by WTV.

69 The “Carpenter” link of the N. K. Krupskaya Brigade—I have invented these names. A Pioneer brigade of forty-fifty member was subdivided into links of ten members each. Each brigade was named after a revolutionary leader; each link was named after tool or field of production. Pioneers were divided by age into Young Pioneers and Little Octobrists. The Komsomol (Communist Youth Organization) kept young people from ages fourteen to twenty-three. Sharpshooting and first aid would indeed have been some of the skills which Elena would have learned there. As mentioned in “Opus 40,” she was expelled from the Komsomol in 1935.

69 Details on the Komsomol and the Pioneers—In part from Samuel Northrup Harper,
Civic Training in Soviet Russia
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1929).

70 “We noticed two black and blue marks on the neck of Elena Konstantinovskaya . . .”—Siegelbaum and Sokolov, loc. cit.; verbatim except that Elena’s name has been substituted for that of another girl, and Liza Ivanova has become Vera Ivanova.

71 “Isolde’s secret song was her marvelous beauty . . .”—Gottfried von Strassburg,
Tristan;
with the
Tristan
of Thomas, trans. A. T. Hatto (New York: Penguin, 1975 repr. of 1967 rev. ed.; orig. trans. 1960; Strassburg’s poem
ca.
1210), p. 148, grossly “retranslated” by WTV.

MAIDEN VOYAGE

76 Epigraph: “What child is there . . .”—Hanna Reitsch,
The Sky My Kingdom: Memoirs of the Famous German WWII Test-Pilot,
trans. Lawrence Wilson (London: Greenhill Books, 1991 expanded repr. of 1955 English ed., but [p. 219] “I wrote this book after I had been released from one and a half years as a prisoner in the United States,” hence my approximate dating of 1947).

77 Details on German planes, rocket engines, etc. (most of them exaggerated and distorted by me)—Dear and Foot, entry on V-weapons; Reitsch, various minor details on gliders and flight experiences;
Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II
(New York: Military Press, 1989 repr. of 1946-47 ed.), entries on German air power and German aero engines.

77 The Geco 7.65 cartridges—Since the plot in part turns on this matter, it may be worth a note. According to Paul (op. cit.), “the Poles” massacred at Katyń “were quickly shot behind the head at close range, probably with a German-made pistol—the light 7.65 mm Walther . . . considered the finest police pistol in the world” (p. 110). “The caliber, Geco 7.65 millimeter, did not fit the Tokarev or Nagan pistols generally carried by the NKVD. It did fit the Walther . . .” (p. 206). Indeed, the Tokarev and the Nagan (often spelled Nagant) were both 7.62 mm in caliber. The table of small arms in I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, ed.,
The Oxford Companion to World War II
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; p. 1016) lists no Soviet 7.65 mm. weapon whatsoever. Inexplicably, that is also the case for German weapons (ibid., p. 1014). The only two German pistols listed, the Parabellum P08 and the Walther P38, are both 9 mm. It would seem, then, that the 7.65 caliber used at Katyń was hardly a favorite with either side. However, the table “Characteristics of German World War II Service Pistols” in Edward Clinton Ezell’s famous
Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms,
12th ed. (New York: Stackpole Books, 1983; p. 500) has eight entries, the first two being the P08 and the P38 just mentioned, the third being the 7.63 mm Mauser 1932, and the other five
all
sporting the 7.65 mm caliber. These are: the Mauser 1910, the Mauser HSc, the Sauer 38, the Walther PP and the Walther PPK. (It was with one of these latter two models which Hitler committed suicide in 1945.) In the equivalent Soviet table (p. 696), four models of pistols and revolvers appear, including the two already mentioned in Dear and Foot. The remaining two (the Makarov and the Stechkin) are both 9 mm and seem to be largely postwar in any event. In short, on the information at hand, it would seem that Paul’s statement is correct: The Poles were murdered with German-made bullets. Large quantities of the Geco 7.65 mm. were sold to the Baltic countries and perhaps even to the USSR during the interwar years. The massacre was certainly committed by the Soviets, not the Germans.

77 Heidegger: “The upward glance passes aloft toward the sky, and yet it remains below on the earth”—Martin Heidegger,
Poetry, Language, Thought,
trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row / Colophon, 1971), p. 220 (“. . . Poetically Man Dwells . . . ,” a lecture given in 1951).

WHEN PARZIVAL KILLED THE RED KNIGHT

81 Epigraph: “‘Twas in olden times when eagles screamed . . .”—Lee M. Hollander, trans.,
The Poetic Edda,
2nd rev. ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987 repr. of 1962 ed.), p. 180 (“Helgakvitha Hundingsbana” I, stanza 1, slightly “retranslated” by WTV).

81 “His new armor, which was so red that it made one’s eyes red just to see it”—This description of the Red Knight’s armor is based on Wolfram von Eschenbach,
Parzival: A Romance of the Middle Ages,
trans. Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage (New York: Random House / Vintage, 1961; orig. German poem finished
ca.
1210), p. 81 (Book III). The Red Knight was Ither of Kukumerlant.

82
Mein Kampf: “
And simultaneous with him stands the victory of the reified Idea, which has ever been, and ever shall be, anti-Semitic”—
Meyers Lexikon,
vol. 5 (1937), p. 711. (I have compressed and added a “stands” to the eye-glazing original: “. . .
und zugleich auch mit ihm den Sieg des Gedankens der schaffenden Arbeit, die selbst ewig antisemitsch war und ewig antisemitsch sein wird.
”)

82 The black-and-white plates: Adolf Hitler I and II—Same vol., following p. 1248.

82 Plates on “Garten” and “Germanen”—Ibid.

82 National Socialism entry—Ibid., vol. 8, 1940.

82 Parzival, Galogandres and King Clamidê—Eschenbach, pp. 113-15.

OPUS 40

85 Epigraph: “There is nothing in you which fails to send a wave of joy and fierce passion inside me . . .”—Sofiya Khentova,
Udivitelyenui Shostakovich
(Saint Petersburg: Variant, 1993), p. 117 (2nd letter of 15 June 1934), slightly “retranslated” by WTV.

85 For early Soviet names for Leningrad landmarks, in this story, in “And I’d Dry My Salty Hair” and in “The Palm Tree of Deborah,” I have made occasional use of A. Radó, comp. [issued by the Society for Cultural Relations of the Soviet Union with Foreign Countries],
Guide-Book to the Soviet Union
(Berlin: Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1928), pp. 197-364 (entry on Leningrad).

86 Physical appearance of Shostakovich at this time—After the illustration in Detlef Gojowy,
Schostakowitsch
(Hamburg: Rowohlt, Bildmonographien, 2002 repr. of 1983 ed.), p. 49 (“Porträt Schostakowitschs aus den Jahren 1933 bis 1935”).

87 Shostakovich’s letters to Elena, and various other background details—Based on Khentova, pp. 114-37, 150-59, 168-70, 245-46, trans. for WTV by Sergi Mineyev (16,746 words at 16.777 cents per word, for a total cost of $2,846.82).

88 Composition dates for various movements of Opus 40—Laurel E. Fay,
Shostakovich: A Life
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 80.

88 Relative evenness of two themes from Opus 40—Harold Barlow and Sam Morgenstern,
A Dictionary of Musical Themes
(London and Tonbridge: Ernest Benn Limited, 1974 repr. of 1949 ed.), p. 438.

90 S. Khentova: “In contrast to Nina Vasilievna . . .”—Khentova (Mineyev), original, p. 115, Mineyev p. 1.