Görgü Tanığı

by Ernst Weiss

I. Dünya Savaşı’nın son günlerinde Alman onbaşı A.H., Pasewalk Askeri Hastanesine getirilir. Savaşın yol açtığı histeriyle körlük sendromu yaşamaktadır. Görgü Tanığı savaş gazisi A.H.’nin, yani Adolf Hitler’in askeri hastane günlerini anlatıyor. Basıldığı günden beri kimse sadece bir kurgu mu yoksa hasıraltı edilmiş bilgilerden hareketle kaleme alınmış bir biyografi mi emin olamıyor. Hitler’in doktorunun gözünden 1900’lerin başlangıcından 30’lara Almanya’nın dönüşümüne görgü tanığı oluyoruz. Hitler’i histerisinden hipnozla kurtaran doktor eşliğinde, Hitler’in tüm Almanya’yı hipnotize ederek canavarlaştırmasına şahitlik ediyoruz.
Weiss, Stefan Zweig ve Joseph Roth’la beraber çöken Avusturya-Macaristan İmparatorluğu’nun son tanıklarındandır, Almanlar Paris’e girerken intihar eder. Geride bıraktığı, basıldığını göremediği Görgü Tanığı bir halkın karanlığa sürüklenişini anlatıyor: henüz karanlık bu halkı tamamen yutmamışken yazılmış bir kehanet.
“Doğrusu Franz Kafka’yla adil bir şekilde karşılaştırılabilecek birkaç yazardan biridir Ernst Weiss” Thomas Mann

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Novels, Holocaust, Roman, Literature

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Ernst Weiss was born in Brno, Moravia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Czech Republic) to the family of a prosperous Jewish cloth merchant. After his father died when he was four, he was brought up by his mother Berta, née Weinberg, who led him to art. However after completing his secondary education in Brno, Litoměřice and Hostinné, he came to Prague to study medicine. In 1908 he finished his studies in Vienna and became a surgeon. He practiced in Berne, Vienna, and Berlin but he got tuberculosis and tried to recover as a ship doctor on a trip to India and Japan in 1912. In 1913 he met Rahel Sanzara, a dancer and actress and their relationship lasted until she died of cancer in 1936. In the same year he met Franz Kafka and they became close friends. Kafka wrote in his Diaries 1914: "January 2. A lot of time well spent with Dr. Weiss". Weiss was in touch with a lot of other writers of Prague Circle such as Franz Werfel, Max Brod, and Johannes Urzidil. In 1914 Weiss returned to Austria to start a military physician career. Near the end of World War I he received a golden cross for bravery. After the war he lived in Prague, then the capital of Czechoslovakia. He gave up medical career in 1920 when he finished working in a Prague hospital. In 1921 he moved to Berlin but in 1933 he returned to Prague to care for his dying mother. He could not enter Nazi Germany and so he left for Paris in 1934. There he lived a poor life dependent on the help from authors such as Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. He applied for, but did not receive, a grant from the so-called American guild for German cultural freedom. He committed suicide on 14 June 1940 when German troops invaded the city.

Reviews

[Spiros Γλύκας · Rating 4 out of 5]

Είναι φορές που διαστάζω να ξεκινήσω άλλο ένα βιβλίο που αναφέρεται στην περίοδο του Α' ή/και του Β' Παγκοσμίου πολέμου κι αυτό γιατί έχουν γραφτεί τόσα κι έχω διαβάσει τόσα που λέω, εντάξει, ας τ' αφήσω γι αργότερα. Κάπως έτσι ξέμεινε κι ο Αυτόπτης μάρτυρας για δυο αν θυμάμαι καλά - μπορεί και τρία - χρόνια σε κάποιο ράφι. Βέβαια όλο αυτό το διάστημα διάβασα βιβλία με τέτοιο περιεχόμενο. Σχεδόν δεν περνάει χρόνος που να μην έχω διαβάσει. Και τελικά γιατί τα γράφω όλα αυτά; Πρώτον διότι το βιβλίο είναι πολύ καλό και δεύτερον γιατί είμαι της άποψης ότι τα βιβλία που πραγματεύονται αυτή την περίοδο πρέπει να είναι επίκαιρα. Πρέπει να βγαίνουν, να κυκλοφορούν, να υπάρχουν, ακόμα και σε αφθονία. Είναι ένα κομμάτι της πρόσφατής μας ιστορίας που πρέπει να το γνωρίζουν οι νεότερες γενιές και η λογοτεχνία είναι ίσως η καλύτερη πηγή για να το κάνουν. Περισσότερα εδώ: https://spirosglykas.blogspot.com/202...

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich wusste, dass die ärztliche Behandlung Hitlers durch den Ich-Erzähler eine wichtige Rolle spielt und war etwas irritiert, dass A. H., wie er im Buch genannt wird, erst auf Seite 140 von insgesamt 290 auftaucht. Dann entwickelt sich die Handlung aber interessant weiter, zeigt vor allem die Haltung eines zunächst eher unpolitischen Mannes, der zunehmend Position bezieht. Spannend selbst aus heutiger Sicht mit dem Wissen, dass wir über den Nationalsozialismus und seine Mechanismen haben, wie kenntnisreich und klug Weiss die Suggestionskraft Hitlers und seine Wirkung auf Frauen beschreibt.

[Bart]

Amai, wat een boek!

[Dwight]

My review

With the years going by, emptiness is growing around me. I am still living, feeling, having desires and hopes. I do not fear death itself, but I dread the hour, when, out of exhaustion, there is no more hope left within me for anything.

- Ernst Weiss, 1933

The Eyewitness follows the life of an unnamed narrator in Germany from the end of the 1800s to the late 1930s. The narrator, trained to be a doctor, serves in various capacities during World War I and at the close of the war treats patient “A.H.” for hysterical blindness. After the war he closely follows the rise of Hitler and the decline of the German mental state.

The narrator’s early life repeats some of the same troubling family dynamics as in Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer. The troubled father-son dynamic he’s employed in both novels I’ve read make me wonder to what extent he’s using that symbolically—his own father died when he was five (or four, depending on which biography you read). While struggling to become a doctor, he emphasizes his passive role in life as an eyewitness, eager to learn while remaining dispassionate. He believes he is an objective viewer of life until a defining moment makes him realize there is evil in the world: “I realized that my former view of the world had been too neat, that I had not seen much because I had not wanted to see it.” The echo of this willful blindness is seen in several characters, particularly his mentor, in addition to the German collective.

The outbreak of World War I provides the narrator a chance to examine the role of the individual and the state during this particular crisis.

As time moved on, the whole nation entered into war service, which gradually included everything in its jaws and which never gave up anything. No more great and small; everything was valuable in the mass, valueless singly. Whether an attack was worth a hundred thousand lives or “only” ten thousand was determined by the strategic situation. None of the people who died was asked. All swore an oath because to refuse to swear was suicide. All obeyed. This was their honor. A few technicians conducted the war, technicians who were specialists and who did not trouble themselves as to why it was happening and when or how it would end. There were only strategic, political goals—no moral, religious ends. The nation was God. Everyone was assigned a place—there he had to stay, to work or to shoot or to labor in a factory. Most people were glad, however, that they were not asked. Such passive obedience dulled worries, conscience, fear about life.

The section with the treatment of patient “A.H.” allows the narrator to look at Hitler’s appeal and how best to treat him:

- “Out of a political movement a religion developed.”

- “He was really a man with a quick mentality; he was intelligent, but when he lied, he believed that he was telling the truth. He captured others by means of his idealism; he moved them with his simplicity, and many followed him without question. They did not want to think, to doubt again.”

- “‘Without scruples, brutal’—these words occurred in his case history again and again.”

- “His motto was: God helps those who help themselves. Everything is permitted to the stronger. Even the slightest respect is too much for an opponent.”

- “I had to approach this man not with logical premises but with a tremendous lie in order to conquer him; for he lied, probably not in the single detail with deliberate purpose, but in his being, for he was really one gigantic lie for whom there was no absolute truth but only the truth of his imagination, his striving, his urges.”

With the healing of the patient, the narrator temporarily steps out of his role as an eyewitness and became a participant, complete with corresponding feelings of grandeur. “Everything happened as I wanted. I had played fate—God…”. He reverts back to his observational role at the end of the war, describing what it was like to be carried along by a political movement in general and specifically what it was like to attend a meeting led by “the corporal.” The narrator goes into great detail on Hitler’s early political speeches, including their message (hatred of the Jews unsurprisingly occupies a central role), the techniques used, and the impact they had on the crowds. The narrator’s comment on having helped his patient—“Was he not my production?”—expands the meaning of “my” to include Germany and Europe.

The narrator’s story parallels some of German psychiatrist Edmund Forster’s life (see my introduction), including imprisonment and torture. Instead of committing suicide like Forster, though, the narrator eventually finds a purpose in life, although choosing to help the Spanish Loyalist cause in the civil war was akin to suicide. The fascinating part of the second half of the novel is Weiss’ clear analysis of Hitler’s continued rise to power and his horror at watching events unfold: “His hatred was a source of monstrous power.” The earlier sightlessness of the corporal becomes symbolic of his blind hatred and the country’s heedless obedience.



The narrator’s exhortation to himself not to commit suicide also sounds like it could be Weiss’ own determination to live as an eyewitness, which lasted until June 1940 when he took his own life as Paris fell to the Germans.Weiss considered this novel rushed—he wrote it in less than two months in order to enter it in a competition by the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom for the best German novel by an exiled writer. While the novel was awaiting judgment he spent six months revising it and sent a letter to the Guild:

”I would like to inform you that in the meantime I have considerably restructured this novel and essentially deepened its artistic message. The first version I sent you was composed in too short a time for it to meet my standards. I believe that half a year’s serious work on The Eyewitness has been successful.”

The revised manuscript has not been found. The debate about Weiss’ access to Hitler’s treatment records has, at times, overshadowed this compelling rough draft of a novel. The narrator’s admonition, and probably Weiss’ as well, about the impossibility of conveying what it is like to fight in war and also encompasses the difficulty in explaining the psychological effects of living in interwar Germany with the rise of Hitler:

What I describe is only the external consequences. The monster, grinding, crushing, consuming, the splendid bestiality, the barbaric happiness and intoxication cannot be described. In a quiet room one cannot write down the words so that someone else alone in another quiet room, his cigar in his mouth, his dog at his feet, can understand this and then know how one feels.

[Selma · Rating 4 out of 5]

L’immersion dans la vie personnelle du personnage est captivante, d’autant plus qu’elle fait écho à la réalité de l’époque hitlérienne. Dommage que la dimension psychiatrique de A.H n'ait pas été assez bien développé

[Paola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πρόκειται για ένα συγκλονιστικό μυθιστόρημα μέσα από το οποίο ο ευφυής αυτός συγγραφέας αναλύει με οξύνοια τις πολιτικοοικονομικές συνθήκες και την ψυχοσύνθεση του γερμανικού λαού που οδήγησαν στην άνοδο του Χίτλερ. Μοναδικό!

[Gülay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kitabın ilk yarısı James Joyce’un “Sanatçının Gençlik Portresi”ni aklıma getirdi. Oldukça akıcıydı. İlk yarıda doktorun haksızlık ve sefalet içinde geçirdiği çocukluğu anlatılıyor. A.H.’nin romana girdiği ikinci yarı ise biraz daha ağır ilerledi. H’nin hızlı yükselişi, doktorunun başına gelenler ve sonrası olarak özetleyebilirim. Gerçekten yaşanmış olma ihtimali verilmesi bence romanın ne kadar başarılı bir anlatımı olduğunu gösteriyor. Weiss yaşanmış olanı çok iyi kurgulamış da denebilir.

[sheila diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una visión diferente sobre Hitler, sobre esa época ya tan conocida por muchos.

Aquí al inicio tenemos la historia de un niño que sueña ser médico después de que un médico familiar lo trata de un accidente, se maravilla de la medicina y sueña ser médico, con mucha dificultad consigue ir estudiando la carrera, con ayuda, que obviamente tiene que pagar trabajando mucho para eso.

Los años pasan y con sacrificios cumple con su sueño de ser médico, y por orientación de quién le ayudo estudia psiquiátria.

Lo trasladan a un hospital para tratar mayormente vistimas de la primer Guerra mundial, los cuales muychos han perdido la conciencia. Ahí conoce el cabo Adolf Hitler, que está ahí por una ceguera de guerra.

Este médico lo ayida con su ceguera y logra volver a ver.

Después de curar a Adolf, nunca más tendrá paz porque Hitler se hará con el poder y será como un rey para muchos.

La historia te deja mucha desazón, sientes las angustias del personaje principal sientes su culpa, sientes su desgracia.
Me ha gustado bastante

[Toño Piñeiro]

♣️3 de tréboles♣️

Eye for an l

La trama de El testigo ocular brilla por su sencillez: un médico tiene una vida anodina, casi intrascendente, hasta que cura al cabo A.H.de ceguera histérica y ve con tristeza cómo este degenera en un dictador brutal y miope.

En mi opinión, Weiss escribió un libro notable por el uso de su concepto central: la ceguera ; al ponernos en los zapatos del narrador, asistimos con él a la inevitable caída del imperio alemán en calidad precisamente, de testigo ocular y como tal, aborda los hechos desde la distancia, abrigado por su objetividad científica. Le acompañamos en su impotencia y obligado silencio mientras observa como el Jingoísmo cegador y regurgitado hasta la náusea por el tal A.H., empieza a descomponer la sociedad (círculo de amigos y familia incluidos).

Testigo ocular es un libro bastante interesante como relato vivencial (que no biográfico) muy útil para conocer, desde dentro, los monstruos que produce la mezcla entre una población desesperada y un líder carismático de pocas ideas, expresadas visceralmente...

Y ya está.

[Nils Klinghammer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die Handlung selbst ist, wenn auch manchmal etwas träge dahinplätschernd, schon spannend genug. Dies zeigt sich vor allem, wo sie die Entwicklung des erst unpolitischen und passiven Augenzeugen zum mehr und mehr aktiven politischen und gesellschaftlichen Akteur zeigt. Gerade die Passagen, in denen Weiß die Reden Hitlers und seine schon fast übermenschliche Suggestionskraft schildert, wirken beängstigend.

Richtig beeindruckend wird der Roman jedoch vor dem Hintergrund der tatsächlichen historischen Ereignisse im Lazarett Pasewalk und der Biografie von Ernst Weiß, der sich - als die Nazis über die Pariser Boulevards marschierten - in seiner Badewanne die Adern aufschnitt.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic idea for a book, which turns out a bit milquetoast. Both the prose and the inner voice of the author are often a bit.. inelegantly and clumsy, but if you can get past a few boring scenes there are some fascinating psychograms here. I read this primarily as research, since Weiss clearly knows shit that others do not, and my third eye was slightly ajar during reading. Nothing world changing, but an interesting alternate portrait of Hitler. I was bedazzled how close the narrative of this jewish Zeitzeuge is to the liberal status quo, and how much apologia it feautures.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Non sono mai riuscito a capire come un uomo possa essere ipnotizzato da se stesso al punto da non imparare mai, non dubitare mai, non arricchire mai le sue conoscenze. Ma H. [Hitler, n.d.r.] era uno di questi." (p. 100)

[Manolis P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Σίγουρα έχει ενδιαφέρον αν εξαιρέσεις το ανιαρό πρώτο μέρος.
Το βιβλίο γράφτηκε προ του 1938 και αναφέρεται και σε γεγονότα όπως το ανθρωποκυνηγητό των Εβραίων κλπ.
Η συνεχής αναφορά στον Χίτλερ μου μοιάζει λίγο υπερβολική αλλα αυτό τίθεται στην κρίση του αναγνώστη.

[Duygu Turkuyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çok ağır gidiyor. Yarıdan sonra biraz açıldı. Ama beklediğim gibi değildi.

[Konstantinos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice story , well written ,coneveys the emotions in a veey good manner and lets you have a look at what people were experiencing in Germany before ww2.

[Amanda 𐙚 · Rating 3 out of 5]

𐙚 3.2

[Gili · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
כוכבים מעוגל למעלה
השליש -40% הראשונים די משעממים ואז מגיעה מלחמת העולם הראשונה והספר נהיה מענין

[moi, k.y.a. · Rating 2 out of 5]

fuarda görüp merak ettiğim bir kitaptı. ancak beni pek çekmedi

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deze recensie verscheen eerst op mijn blog: http://daniellecobbaertbe.com/

Ernst Weiβ schreef 'De ooggetuige', zijn meest bekende boek, in 1938. De roman opent met de volgende zin: "Het lot heeft mij ertoe voorbestemd, een bepaalde rol te spelen in het leven van een van die zeldzame mensen, die na de Wereldoorlog zo'n gewelddadige omwenteling en onmogelijk lijden over Europa zouden brengen."

Aan het woord is een katholiek Beiers arts-psychiater die tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog in een veldhospitaal voor geesteszieken werkte. Hij speelde inderdaad een bepaalde rol in het leven van een van die zeldzame mensen, namelijk de huidige leider van Duitsland: Adolf Hitler. Als de arts Hitler behandelde, was Hitler een korporaal die vanwege een mosterdaanval niet meer kon zien of beter gezegd beweerde dat hij blind was. Vooraleer de arts de lezer iets meer vertelt over zijn behandeling van Hitler, schetst hij een kort overzicht van zijn leven, waarbij hij vooral die gebeurtenissen vertelt die indruk op hem maakte of die hem maken tot de man die hij vandaag is. Als lezer ben je halverwege het boek als de arts over zijn tijd in het veldhospitaal begint. Het verhaal stopt echter niet na de Eerste Wereldoorlog, maar verhaalt nog hoe Hitler opklimt in de Duitse politiek en hoe de arts met zijn familie in Parijs terechtkomt.

De synopsis voor het boek is licht misleidend. Het gaf mij de indruk dat het boek zich afspeelde tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog in een veldhospitaal. Je volgt als lezer echter de ontwikkeling van de protagonist gedurende een bepaalde periode in zijn leven. Ik hou wel van een ontwikkelingsroman en kon 'De ooggetuige' dan ook bijzonder waarderen, vooral omwille van de diepzinnigheid. Naast een zakelijke stijl van schrijven gebruikte Weiβ ook heel beeldende en treffende woorden. Verder valt zeker ook wel de invloed van Freud op.

Los van dat laatste is 'De ooggetuige' vooral een heel leesbaar boek, dat een goed en indringend beeld geeft over de tijdsgeest en de opkomst van Hitler.

[Steven Lawrie]

This novel has some similarities with Weiß's novel Der arme Verschwender in the form of the detailed account of the narrator's biography from childhood, through education to adulthood and professional life as a medical doctor. At the centre of the novel is an encounter between the first-peron narrator and a hospitalized World War I soldier 'A.H.', whereby a link is established between the traumatic experiences of war and the later activities of 'A.H.' and the latter's rise to power in National Socialist Germany.

The prose is eloquent and fashioned with care, although the work lacks a final polish and some degree of critical editing - both of which Weiß would doubtless have conducted had he lived longer. Weiß committed suicide in Paris in 1940 and the work - taken from his literary estate - therefore cannot be seen as a final product.

It is available, it would appear, only in German.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, the first-person narrator tells of his youth and his training as a doctor. While serving in World War I, he meets Adolf Hitler in the hospital and cures him of his psychological problems. As a result, he experiences both the breakdown of his family and the increasing politicization of his environment during the rise of the Nazis, until he himself is directly affected.
Ernst Weiss describes in simple and factual language the development of human beings during and between the two World Wars and makes clear how the phenomenon of submission and the cult of the leader came about.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in a footnote in a book about WW2. It describes how Hitler, blinded by mustard gas in WW1, is treated by a psychiatrist at the Pasewalk Hospital in Germany. Supposedly the author, Ernst Weiss either actually saw the Doctor's notes of this encounter or spoke with him personally and included the incident in his book.

[Klaas Roggeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting novel about a doctor who gets to treat a certain Austrian corporale with The initials A.H. The build-up however is really slow and The excessive use of capitals for words like "The crushing" or "subsoul" (or some such, I read it in Dutch) was over The top.

[Radostinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das Buch weist viele biografische Züge auf, was für Ernst Weiss nicht gerade untypisch ist. Dass er als Jude von Hitler besessen war, kann ihm keiner übelnehmen.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly intended as language practice, but it was also interesting to get a German perspective on the rise of Hitler.

[Mario Smet · Rating 4 out of 5]

een leuk maar met momenten zwaar boek over wat er tussen de eerste en tweede wereldoorlog gebeurde in duitsland. zeker de moeite waard om te lezen als je intresse hebt in A.H. en Duitsland