Gesammelte Werke

though they were the chords of eternity«. Heine was a great poet not in spite of his journalism but through conserving, in snapshots, as it were, the moment when poetry was transformed into journalism. His verses preserve an almost archaic freshness in as much as they summon authentically and for the first time archetypes of the modern world. What might be called the eternal in him may be compared to early daguerreotypes rather than to the great painting of his own time, to Delacroix or Ingres.
    One more aspect of his relation to historical dynamics may be stressed. It pertains to the political sphere, his relation to liberalism. He was identified with it as the genuine child of Jewish emancipation. But he was one of the first enlighteners at least in Germany who did not naively accept the notion of progress and all the values of the French revolution but was aware of the mechanical, de-humanizing impact of progress, of the drabness and boredom of the middleclass world, particularly as he saw it in England. He has therefore often been blamed for political ambiguity and actually was involved in fights with some of the radicals of the liberal school, the »Young Germany«, such as Börne and Gutzkow. It has even to be admitted that there was a reactionary and nationalistic German streak in him, in spite of his satirical poetic narrative on Germany. While he was anti-feudalistic, he doubtlessly was, on account of his hedonistic individualism, afraid of the rising proletariat. One generation ago, such facets of his ideology looked simply like compromises with the existent, and Heine certainly was not beyond such temptation. However, his supposed lack of political faith and conviction has revealed in the meantime some different implications. His skepticism against what might be called the ideals of Jacobinism was not merely reactionary but he had sensed in these ideals traces of puritanic coldness and regressive egalitarianism. His self-ironical tenacity with regard to the romantic heritage is at least partly due to the fact that he was unwilling to subscribe completely to a trend of civilization the barbaric consummation of which he foresaw. He describes in a very famous passage the coming German revolution in terms which later read, and were interpreted, as prophecies of Hitler.
    In one of his poems he has reached full consciousness of the dialectics of progress. It is to be found in the
Nordsee
and is called
The Gods of Greece,
alluding to a poem by Schiller that glorified the lost naivety and unity of Greek antiquity. After stating against Schiller, that he never liked the predatory and domineering Homeric gods, he deplores, in almost Nietzsche-like words, that they were dethroned by Christianism. Then he continues, in Untermeyer's translation, as follows:
     
    For even though, ye ancient deities,
    When you joined in the furious combats of mortals,
    You always fought on the side of the victor;
    Now you will see that man is greater than you.
    For I stand here in the combat of gods
    And fight on for you, the vanquished.
     
    What survives in Heine seems to be an inherent appeal to continue to fight for the vanquished and to resist the merciless judgment of history.
     
    1949
     
     

Die auferstandene Kultur
     
    Der Intellektuelle, der nach langen Jahren der Emigration Deutschland wiedersieht, ist zunächst von dem geistigen Klima überrascht. Draußen hat sich die Vorstellung gebildet, das barbarische Hitler-Regime hätte Barbarei hinterlassen. Unterm Terror nahm jeglicher Geist vorweg etwas Umstürzlerisches an. Er beanspruchte im Angesicht der übermächtigen Ordnung durch sein bloßes Dasein eine Selbständigkeit, die kein totalitäres Regime dulden kann. Weiterhin erwartet man, daß der nackte Zwang zur Selbsterhaltung während des Krieges und der ersten Jahre danach dem Bewußtsein das gleiche antat, was den Städten durch die Bomben widerfuhr. Man setzt Stumpfheit, Unbildung, zynisches Mißtrauen gegen jegliches Geistige voraus. Hat sich doch die offizielle Ideologie des nationalsozialistischen Regimes als Lüge enthüllt; die Weimarer Republik aber bewies ihre Ohnmacht eben damit, daß sie es nicht vermochte, die Massen zu ergreifen und zum Widerstand gegen das heraufziehende Unheil zu erwecken. Es ist nichts da. Man rechnet mit dem Abbau von Kultur, dem Verschwinden der Teilnahme an dem, was über die tägliche Sorge hinausgeht. Kahlschlag lautete die Kulturparole dafür.
    Davon kann aber keine Rede sein. Die