Hermann Broch und Frank Thiess: Briefwechsel, 1929–1938; 1948–1951 ed. by Paul Michael Lützeler (review)

With his collected correspondence, Hermann Broch und Frank Thiess: Briefwechsel, 1929–1938; 1948–1951, leading Broch researcher Paul Michael Lützeler once again delivers a key resource that is certain to advance scholarship on the life and works of the Austrian modernist. The 194 letters compiled in this volume furnish intimate and insightful glimpses into Broch's evolving attitudes toward both literature and philosophy and afford greater context for the development of his postwar political theory. These letters, the majority of which were previously unpublished, should prove especially valuable to scholarship on Broch's prewar artistic development and in particular his trilogy, Die Schlafwandler, but also provide an implicit case study of Broch's transformed relationship to his legacy as a German-speaking author in American exile. Finally, despite his lack of reception, the role played by Frank Thiess as a prolific German novelist should not be understated in this correspondence. Thiess's letters from the prewar period challenged and influenced Broch's aesthetic and philosophical thinking, while his attempts to revitalize their relationship after the war served as a foil for Broch's own transformed relationship to the Austrian past.

Lützeler presents the correspondence in three distinct sections. The volume begins with an introduction of roughly forty pages, followed by two groupings of letters that document distinctive phases within the Broch-Thiess communication: 1929–1938 and 1948–1951, with the letters presented chronologically. In all cases, the letters are accompanied by careful research and are generously annotated with attention to both biographical and historical context. The decision to impose this organizational structure on the correspondence serves two primary functions. First, it enables periodization of the correspondence according to the overarching concerns of the respective times. As Lützeler outlines in his introduction, these points of emphasis shift from aesthetics and philosophy and later the status of the author in society to postwar exchanges over the novel and politics, Germany and Austria as postwar states, and thoughts on democracy. It also underscores, however, the caesura of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The impact of these tragedies, not only on Broch and Thiess as authors but on their friendship, cannot be overstated. If the first half of the correspondence is animated by Broch's enthusiasm and Thiess's mentorship and professional connections, the second half is colored by Thiess's search for absolution after riding out the war in Nazi Germany.

In his thorough introduction to the correspondence, Lützeler highlights the potential contribution of the correspondence by placing firm emphasis on the relationship between the two authors. He argues that Thiess's reception of Die Schlafwandler, and Broch's novelistic foray into his mental turf war between philosophy and the novel both furthered and intensified their relationship, despite Thiess's frequent critiques of Broch's literary outlook. Lützeler casts this early collaboration as the foundation for later commiserations, as both writers struggled to make ends meet in unwelcoming political environments. As Lützeler writes: "Je isolierter sie sich in ihrer Lage als freie Schriftsteller erkannten, desto wichtiger wurde ihnen die briefliche Kommunikation [ . . . ]" (10). In the final period of their correspondence, however, Lützeler focuses more strongly on what remains un-said: "Wieder kam Thiess nicht auf das Schicksal der Juden zu sprechen, und inzwischen hatte der Genozid stattgefunden. Wörter wie Konzentrationslager und Todeslager kommen in seinen Briefen nicht vor. Sie spielten aber in der 'Massenwahntheorie' von Broch aber die entscheidende Rolle [ . . . ]" (39). According to Lützeler, this fundamental split characterizes the authors' renewed search for common ground after the restoration of their epistolary relationship.

For scholars invested in these aspects of Broch's life and works, numerous insights can be won from this collection. Beyond Broch's reverence for James Joyce, which is documented in the few previously published letters as well as in Broch's own essays, the correspondence reveals intensive discussions of the architectonic structure of Die...