Moabit Sonnets

by Albrecht Haushofer

These eighty sonnets were written by a man expecting to be executed for his resistance to the Nazi regime. Just before Christmas 1944, Albrecht Haushofer had been delivered to the Gestapo prison in the Moabit district of Berlin. In solitary confinement, fettered hand and foot, he awaited a show trial with a predetermined outcome. After a while he was allowed some sheets of paper and a pencil. He began to write sonnet after sonnet describing his days and nights in prison, shared with comrades of the Resistance who were one after another taken away to the hangman. From Moabit his mind soared out to the world he had known and the lands near and far he had visited, the men and women who meant most to him, the literary and artistic treasures of the past he valued most of all. Sometimes he wrote in sorrow over the destruction of this precious heritage, sometimes in anger against those who had led his people on the road to war. But mostly he wrote in praise and love, as he conversed with the dead and the living dearest to him.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[sheryne!! · Rating 5 out of 5]

you will be remembered je t’aime et je lirai tes mots pour toujours

[F.J. Akkerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Albrecht Haushofer was a German professor and geopolitician, imprisoned for his involvement in the Resistance against Hitler's Nazi regime in the 1940s. In spite of torture and solitary confinement, Haushofer was allowed pencil and paper, and throughout his final confinement he wrote these sonnets.

A month before the end of World War II, Haushofer and other Moabit prisoners who had survived Allied bombing were led out into a vacant lot and murdered by the SS. Three weeks later, Haushofer's brother found his body where it had fallen, clutching the sheets of paper to his chest.

They were the Moabit Sonnets.

Deeply moving and quietly intellectual, Haushofer's poetry crosses civilisations, cultures and eras, threaded with clarity and hope in spite of his unthinkable circumstances, and expansive in their observations and allusions: Chinese art, Persian parables, Egyptian landscapes, Greek myths, Buddhist sayings, Christian teachings – Greenland, the Congo, Moscow, Mississipi, Tibet – Ghengis Khan, King Amenemhat, Sesostris, Cardinal Balue, Dante, Thomas More, Boethius, Albert Schweitzer, and others.

Being well-travelled and highly educated, Haushofer's writing doesn't lack variety and interest; the sonnets also illuminate the tumult of his time, his family's separation, and the uncertainty of his fate.

Of course, some of the lyrical quality of the poetry is impaired by translation, but I'm grateful to be able to read them, for the words to impart their weight as well as their wisdom.

If you get your hands on this book, I recommend first reading the brief biography inserted at the end of the book, as this provides context; also, I suggest looking up the end notes and reading them in conjunction with each sonnet.

Some favourite quotes and excerpts:

"Knowledge lies bound in presence of contention.
Its best inheritance is called serenity."

From Sonnet XXIX 'Mother':

"I see you in the light of your love,
standing in the shiver of your white hair.
You feel the large, dark coolness wafting––

and slowly, slowly your face begins to droop.
Far back the candle’s light is shining still––
But Mother, you are cold . . . Mother––go in. . . "

And from Sonnet LXXIII "Dreamface":

"How the stars glowed that night, how full the world
then seemed of happiness. How long ago.
How those young years grew difficult for you.
How something drove me out, out far and wide."

And here is my favourite, an excerpt from the notes (apparently the original text was unavailable; it was written by a Swiss woman whom Haushofer admired, who died prematurely at 26), as translated from German to French and subsequently from French to English by Jacques Rébertat:

‘She knows the roadways into the shadow stretch on like suspension bridges and it is hard enough always to take the next step through the poppy fields; in her uncertainty she never ceases to ask forgiveness, turns her back, and opens wide her eyes burned by the dust. “There the vast illumination is intact, the river broad and irresistible, the stars cross and stop, above my valley, where the ibex cry, where the glaciers retreat before the sleeping lakes: may the child of man one day withdraw thither in peace. Amen.”’

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karl Haushofer habe ich immer nur mit der umstrittenen Geopolitik in Verbindung gebracht. Ich wusste nicht, dass er einen Sohn hatte, der Gedichte schrieb, sich im Widerstand gegen Hitler engagierte und kurz vor Ende des Krieges erschossen wurde. Erstaunlich, dass er sich während seiner Inhaftierung ausgerechnet für die klassische Form des Sonetts entschieden hat, um die modernen und traurigen Themen seiner Zeit zu verarbeiten: Erinnerungen, Auseinandersetzungen mit den Bedingungen der Haft, Enttäuschung über die Zerstörung aller Werte und den Verlust der Kultur, genereller Weltschmerz. Sehr ergreifend.

[allgrapesnowrath · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin, so was surrounded by information about Haushofer’s imprisonment. With all this context, it was very easy to visualise him writing in his prison cell following his “arrest”, and what his state of mind was while writing the sonnets. The sonnets themselves are beautifully written and easy to follow; it seems he wanted his poems to be read by as many as possible as his form of protest against the Nazi regime. He writes about his family and missing them, and describes what little he can see from his cell. Definitely worth the read!

[ninon · Rating 2 out of 5]

j ai lu la version traduite par jean yves masson : je trouve les sonnets pas très profonds et un peu superficiels mais ce n est que mon humble avis après tout + je parle pas allemand donc cest peutetre juste la traduction

[Steffi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Albrecht Haushofer engagiert sich im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus, wurde inhaftiert und ermordet. Sein Bruder fand bei seiner Leiche Die Aufzeichnungen des Toten mit dem Titel "Moabiter Sonette".
Nicht alle Gedichte haben mir gleichermaßen gefallen. Manchmal gibt es einen religiösen Einschlag, der mich nicht anspricht. Beeindruckend sind aber vor allem die Stellen, an denen es explizit um Haushofers Gefangenschaft geht. In „An der Schwelle“ geht es scheinbar um seine Todessehnsucht, auf die er folgendermaßen antwortet: „Es ist uns nicht erlaubt, uns fortzustehlen, mag uns ein Gott, mag uns ein Teufel quälen.“

Und besonders mag ich das Sonett „Rundmarsch der Gefangenen“:

In Moskau hab ich einst ein Bild gesehn.
Van Gogh, der Meister. Dunkler Quadern Bau.
Ein Innenhof. Gefangne, grau in grau,
die hoffnungslos in engen Kreisen gehen.

Nun schau ich selber durch die Gitterstäbe
In einen Hof, darin man Menschen treibt
Wie Herdenvieh, das noch zu hüten bleibt,
bevor man ihm das Beil zu spüren gebe.

Als Herrscher aller dieser grauen Bahnen
Steht einer draußen, den die Lust erfüllt,
wenn andre leiden. Einer, der noch brüllt,

wenn andre schweigend schon die Wandlung ahnen,
die aus den Gräbern sprossend längst beginnt,
bevor sie rot in rote Ströme rinnt.

Wenn dass mal nicht auch auf Ereignisse im Rahmen des Krieges gegen Al Quaida passt.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into the final acts of Albrecht Haushofer's life throught the medium of poetry (together with some ancillary notes and a biographical essay). The translation seems a bit awkward in some of the poems, but the sonnets manage to survive that.