Marieluise Fleißer. Eine Biographie (review)

Though she produced some of Germany's most unique and controversial literature, the Bavarian author and dramatist Marieluise Fleißer (1901–1974) remains a marginalized and misunderstood figure, her foothold in the literary canon secured primarily through an association with her famous contemporary, mentor, and (speculated, though no evidence supports the claim) lover Bertolt Brecht. Hiltrud Häntzschel's exhaustively researched 2007 publication is the first major biography of Marieluise Fleißer and the third in-depth project by Häntzschel to address the author's life and work. Preceding the current publication are the 2001 anthology Diese Frau ist ein Besitz (commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the author's birth) and Brechts Frauen (2002), which includes a chapter devoted to Fleißer.

The biographer's primary interest is stated clearly in the introduction: "Ich möchte Marieluise Fleißer als Handelnde ausfindig machen, nicht nur als eine (zumeist schlecht) Behandelte" (14). To this end, Häntzschel paints a picture of Fleißer unlike that of any scholar before: in order to gain recognition, the young author, "die sich in den Kopf gesetzt hat, nichts anderes als Schriftstellerin zu sein, [ . . . ]" (86) had to be her own tireless promoter, continually negotiating the competitive, male-dominated world of the Weimar literary market. Sending her work to potential publishers and well-connected acquaintances, Fleißer repeatedly met with disheartening advice, including the following from her mentor Lion Feuchtwanger: "[ . . . ] die Sache ist wohl die, daß, was Du machst, wohl Kunst ist, aber sehr schwer zugänglich und ohne Nachfrage, also so gut wie ohne Marktwert" (84). Though no one can say for certain who (out of the Fleißer-Feuchtwanger-Brecht triad) was responsible for introducing her work to Herbert Ihering at the Berliner Börsen-Courier in the summer of 1925, Häntzschel's research suggests it was likely the author herself; once she had Ihering's interest, her foot was in the door. In the coming years, the biographer points out, Fleißer would draw praise from a veritable who's-who of the Weimar elite: in addition to Brecht, Feuchtwanger, and Ihering, Walter Benjamin, Hanns Henny Jahnn, Theodor Adorno, Thomas Mann, and Robert Musil would all recognize her unique literary voice.

Häntzschel's approach departs from a trend in the existing scholarship that centers on the victimization of Fleißer's female protagonists and conflates their suffering with tragedies the author suffered in her own life—her sometimes productive, oftentimes disastrous liaisons with dominant male figures foremost among them. She examines the process by which the fine line between Fleißer's life and art became blurred, a process that began with the critics of Weimar, resurfaced in the scholarship of the emerging women's movement, and was, to varying extents throughout her life, perpetuated by the author herself. Häntzschel revisits the 1963 story Avantgarde, which was considered an autobiography of Fleißer's time in Brecht's inner circle from the beginning, and offers an alternative to this line of reasoning. Avantgarde tells of a young woman from the provinces who goes to Berlin and falls under the spell of a magnetic young poet, squandering her literary talent, her money, and her sanity when he leads her astray. However, rather than read the relationship as a 1:1 re-enactment of Fleißer's tumultuous history with Brecht, Häntzschel suggests that the figures are amalgams; for example, while the "Dichter" in the story exudes an undeniably Brechtian air, Häntzschel ascribes his more despotic traits to a different source: the right wing self-proclaimed ethnographer Hellmut Draws-Tychsen, Fleißer's one-time fiancé. Her alliance with this man, at the height of her fame, all but destroyed her—emotionally, artistically, and financially. "Hellmut Draws-Tychsen, den Fleißer tief in der dunklen Höhle wähnt, dessen Name ihr nicht mehr über die Lippen kommt, treibt sein Unwesen weiter, geistert durch die Erzählung. [ . . . ] Das Trauma im Leben Marieluise Fleißers" (337), Häntzschel...