Schiller and Lotte: postcard commemorating a poetic marriage, 1905

Authors' marriages deserve to be a subject of study in their own right, if only because they tended to loom so large in the bourgeois literary histories and biographies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The German equivalent to the marriages of Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin or Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody is arguably that of Friedrich Schiller and Charlotte von Lengenfeld, often held up (and sentimentalized) as the ideal literary union and model of domesticity.

The third in a series of six postcards depicting the Schiller's life, issued on the centennial of his death in 1905, this one is entitled, "Own Home."

• At right, we see a portrait of "Friedrich Schiller, Professor of History in Jena 1789-1799."
 • At left, "Schiller's spouse Charlotte, née von Lengenfeld. Born 22 Nov. 1766, died 9 July 1826."

The center vignettes depict, respectively, the church in which they were married and their first house:

• Church in Wenigenjena*) Schiller married here 22 February 1790.
• Schiller-house in Bad Lauchstädt*) Betrothal in Lauchstädt 3 August 1789

*) after drawings by Schiller's spouse

It is of course indicative of the time and place that Charlotte is here generally referred to  only as Schiller's wife, and indeed, that the description of the wedding mentions only "Schiller" getting married. Times were indeed different.


Chronicle of a wedding

As for the wedding itself, Gero von Wilpert's Schiller-Chronik, issued in anticipation of the Schiller bicentennial (Stuttgart, 1958) provides a convenient summary of the big day:

February 22. Wedding day. Early with Charlotte and Karoline to Kahla, where the mother-in-law is picked up around 10-11; from there around 2 directly to Wenigenjena (arrival around 5), where around 5:30 the wedding quietly took place under the direction of the Kantian theologian Adjunct G. L. Schmid in the presence of only the mother- and brother-in-law, so as to foil all the attempted surprises on the part of students and professors. Following this, return to Jena, where the evening is spent in tea-drinking and conversation. _-- Frau von Lengenfeld gives the couple a space of their own, but it is not yet an independent household, and rather, just a few additional rented rooms, and they still take their midday meal with Frau Schramm, Lotte employs a maid, Schiller, a manservant. -- The mother-in-law stays another 8 days, Karoline approximately 5 weeks in Jena with Fräulein von Seegner. Apart from that a solitary life, closer association only with Prof. Paulus.

Undivided attention

Because the card dates from 1905 and was thus produced before the major change of 1907, it has no divided back in the fashion to which we are accustomed, i.e. space for the address at right and message at left. The reverse side informs the purchaser, "This side for the address only." People either sent cards without messages--the image alone serving as the greeting--or scrawled them on or around the illustration on the front, as best they could, for example, on this card celebrating Schiller's birthplace of Marbach am Neckar, from 1896:

If you're curious about the postal rates for the wedding card, they were even provided for the writer: "U S, Canada and Mexico 1 c. Foreign 2 c."

That the language is English and currency is American raises another issue: Although most of the Schiller anniversary cards were of course produced in Germany for Germans, not a few emanated from the United States. The publisher's imprint on this one reads, "A. Selige. Pub. Souv. Post Cards. St. Louis." Missouri was one of several centers of German settlement. The firm of Adolph Selige, active from 1900 to 1920, produced mainly cards on western or midwestern themes, so this one was intended for a more specialized audience, thanks to the large population of German immigrants or citizens of German origin. A useful reminder of the ever-evolving definitions of "American" identity and multicultural politics, among other things.

21 February 1916: The Battle of Verdun Begins

This month's artifact of the moment:

A century ago began one of the fiercest battles of a war that has come to stand for unprecedented slaughter. When the fighting on the western front during the Great War changed from the anticipated war of movement to the unexpected war of position, military leaders on both sides in vain sought a way out of the stalemate.


Operation Judgment

As 1915 drew to a close, German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn presented a plan to the Kaiser:

The strain on France has reached breaking point--though it is certainly borne with the most remarkable devotion. If we succeed in opening the eyes of her people to the fact that in a military sense they have nothing more to hope for, that breaking point would be reached and England's best sword knocked out of her hand.

A massive assault against the right target would "compel the French to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death."

That target was the fortified area around the Verdun, a city with great symbolic resonance in French history. An ancient Roman fortress, it also lent its name to the treaty that in 843 divided the empire of Charlemagne among his successors. The fall of the fortress during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792 had exposed Paris to the threat of capture. By contrast, in 1870, it was the last fort to fall to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. Despite the presence of new outlying fortifications built in the wake of that defeat, it was weakly defended in 1916: the garrison was small, and its guns had been removed for use on other fronts.

The Germans assembled overwhelming force and began "Operation Gericht" (Judgment) on 21 February with a massive assault. In the words of John Keegan:

Among the 542 heavy guns were thirteen of the 420mm and seventeen of the 305mm howitzers that had devastated the Belgian forts eighteen months earlier, and to supply them and the medium artillery a stock of two and a half million shells had been accumulated. The whole of the French defensive zone on a front of eight miles--one German division and 150 guns to each mile--was to be deluged with preparatory fire, so that 'no line is to remain unbombarded, no possibilities of supply unmolested, nowhere should the enemy feel himself safe.' Falkenhayn's plan was brutally simple. The French, forced to fight in a crucial but narrowly constricted corner of the Western Front, would be compelled to feed reinforcements into a battle of attrition where the material circumstances so favored the Germans that defeat was inevitable. If the French gave up the struggle, they would lose Verdun; if they persisted, they would lose their army.

After early German gains, the French rallied to the defense, desperately resupplying the city via what became known as the "sacred road" (Voie sacrée) and subjecting the German attackers to devastating artillery fire. The fight thus ground on for nearly a year, bleeding both armies rather than merely the defenders. Combined casualty estimates for the two sides range from around 714,000 to 936,000. Finally, in late October, the French recaptured the key fortress of Douaumount, and by mid-December, they completed the counter-offensive.


To "The heroes, known and unknown, both dead and living"

In November, the municipal council of Verdun (meeting in Paris) ordered a medal struck to honor the heroic defenders. Each 37-mm bronze medal came in a small leather pouch stamped with the name of the city and holding a certificate.

The certificate, which depicted the medal and bore the hand-stamped seal of the city, read:

TO THE HIGH CHIEFS,
OFFICERS, SOLDIERS,
TO ALL,
    
     The heroes, known and
unknown, both dead and living,
who have triumphed over the
barbarians' onslaught and im-
mortalised her nam[e] throughout
the world and for ages to come,
the Town of Verdun, inviolate
and standing on her ruins, dedi-
cates this medal in token of her
gratitude.

The obverse of 37-millimeter bronze medal designed by Émile Vernier (1852-1927) depicts a defiant Marianne (symbol of the Republic) wearing a military uniform and the new army helmet, one fist clenched in defiance, the other holding a sword, poised for the offensive. Around the rim is the watchword of the defenders, "They shall not pass."

The obverse depicts the Porte Chaussée of Verdun between palms, with the word "Verdun" above and the starting date of the battle, 21 February 1916, below.
 

This unofficial medal was eventually issued in a variety of forms and sizes for all who had fought in the Verdun sector, broadly defined, at any point during the war.


"sacrifices . . . made in a most promising cause"?

Falkenhayn summarized his achievements:

The enemy nowhere secured any permanent advantages; nowhere could he free himself from the German pressure.  On the other hand, the losses he sustained were very severe.  They were carefully noted and compared with our own which, unhappily, were not light.

The result was that the comparison worked out at something like two and a half to one: that is to say, for two Germans put out of action five Frenchmen had to shed their blood. But deplorable as were the German sacrifices, they were certainly made in a most promising cause.

History has begged to differ. Falkenhayn had to relinquish his position as Chief of Staff, replaced by Paul von Hindenburg, the hero of Tannenberg who would go on to become President of Germany under the Weimar Republic and reluctantly appoint Hitler as Chancellor. And that is not the end of the ironies. Among the French soldiers captured in the battle was a young Charles de Gaulle. His commander was Philippe Pétain, who achieved fame for his defense of Verdun. In 1940, following the fall of Dunkirk, they briefly served together in the war cabinet before becoming archenemies, as Pétain took the reins of the collaborationist Vichy regime, while de Gaulle led the Free French from London.

* * *

Source of quotations:  John Keegan, The First World War (NY: Vintage Books, 1998), 277-86

Japanese American Day of Remembrance, 2016 (and unintended consequences)

Serendipity is an interesting thing. As noted in last night's post, a Minneapolis paper just ran an editorial about plans to restore historic early nineteenth-century Fort Snelling. Stressing the opportunity that the site provided to teach residents about later history with relevance to the present, the article observed inter alia: "For example, the fort’s use as an intelligence training center for Japanese-American troops during World War II led to the state’s first sizable Japanese-American settlement." The situation was similar in neighboring Wisconsin where, for example, the capital city of Madison had only one Japanese-American family until the war. And here's another connection: after we moved from the Twin Cities area to Madison, I went to school with the daughter of one of the soldiers who had received his intelligence training at Fort Snelling.

Today is the anniversary of notorious Executive Order 9066 of 1942, which mandated the internment of not only Japanese enemy aliens but also Japanese-American citizens. Although, on what has become Japanese American Day of Remembrance, we rightly stress the injustice of that act, the Minneapolis news story reminds us that the wartime experience of the Japanese American population proved in the long run to be transformative in more ways than one.

This 1942 book epitomized the atmosphere that led to the internment order.

* * *

Past stories on the Interment and Japanese American Day of Remembrance.

How I First Learned About the Internment of Japanese Americans

It's hard to recall exactly how I first learned of the "Japanese internment." That is, I know I first learned of it from my parents when I was a schoolchild, but it is the context that escapes me.

On the one hand, my parents told me of Quaker friends in the Twin Cities who had been conscientious objectors and somehow assisted Japanese Americans in that era. On the other hand, my clearest memory is of my parents' conversations with Japanese-American friends in Madison who had been interned, in the Manzanar and Jerome (Arkansas) camps, respectively.

Paul Kusuda, later the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Juvenile Services for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, became one of my father's first colleagues and closest friends when we moved to Madison. Early on, he and his wife Atsuko invited us over to dinner (for some reason, I recall that it was the first time I encountered zucchini). It was a perfect pairing: both husbands worked for State social services, and both wives were librarians--and their son (also named Jim) and I discovered a common interest in hiking, fishing, and the outdoors. In addition, it turned out that Paul and my father had much to share with one another as they compared their experiences of discrimination in the US and Europe during the  wartime years.

Especially after retirement, Paul dedicated his time to groups working on behalf of Asian Americans and civil rights, and in particular to the quest for US acknowledgement of the wrongs done by the internment. He served as Chair of the Wisconsin Organization of Asian Americans and at age 92 is still a regular columnist for Asian Wisconzine.

source: Asian Wisconzine.

Dedication to the highest ideals of this country

Among the things that impressed me most about Paul were his even temperament, relentlessly calm and thoughtful approach to all aspects of life, and sense of humor (which not only extended to but in fact began with himself). He was the recipient of multiple awards for his activism on behalf of civil rights as well as for his professional work. The citation accompanying his 2006 Dane County Martin Luther King, Jr. Award read:

Mr. Kusuda was in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Instead of allowing that unfortunate and painful experience to make him bitter, Paul Kusuda has worked hard to heal those wounds by working very hard with the Japanese American Citizens League of Wisconsin and other organizations - - a labor of strength, dedication to the highest ideals of this country, and forgiveness that is consistent with Martin Luther King’s insistence that we must not succumb to the poison of hate.

His utter refusal to become bitter is indeed one of the hallmarks of his character. During his internment and afterward, he was never one of the radicals. As he later explained, as a loyal citizen and believer in the rule of law, he saw it as his duty not to resist the internment order, but to challenge it through peaceful remonstrance and questioning.

Still, his quiet anger at the injustice came through at the time and in his recollections. Fighting poverty in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood, he had managed to start taking college courses in engineering. Ironically, he received his acceptance as a naval ordnance inspector for the San Francisco shipyards at the beginning of December 1941. A week later, it was rescinded without explanation, though none was needed. In February came the notorious Executive Order 9066, but he was certain that, as a loyal American, he would not be rounded up. In April, the family was given a week's notice for relocation to Manzanar. The disappointment was harsh.


Why was it that we were . . . singled out . . . ?

As he recalled,

We were at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan (Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941). Yet, only persons of Japanese ancestry were uprooted as a group and forcibly evacuated from the west coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. Of the approximately 120,000 persons involved, two-thirds were American citizens, euphemistically called non-aliens. Only persons of Japanese ancestry were summarily, without trial or allegation, removed from the West Coast. Persons of German or Italian ancestry were individually identified, and if determined to be of possible danger to our country, sent to internment camps.

His typed and handwritten letters (many on file in the Japanese American National Museum) reflect his growing disillusionment. In May 1942, he wrote to his teacher and supporter, Mrs. Afton Dill Nance:

My morale isn’t really low. From now on, I’m not going to trust anyone when it comes to governmental affairs. To think that I got faily [sic] good grades in civics, American History, Political Science, etc., makes me laugh because Ireall [sic] believed in all that I studied. Maybe this darn bitterness will work off – I hope so. Anyway, I’m waiting for something so that I can again cling to to all that America means to me. I guess that at the present time, I’m in the throes of meloncholia [sic] or something. Perhaps that may be changed. Ihope [sic] that it will change for the better soon.

     Here is something to think about --- it made me think for quite a bit. A sentry shot a kid of about 17 or 18 for crossing a line when the former soldier on watch gave the youngster permission to cross the sentry line. What kind of a deal is it when even kids are shot for such a minor infraction of rules. Darn it all, I’m really disgusted with it all.

Hasta la vista,

Paul H.

And a week later:

Time and time again, I have argued that America is not a democracy for white people only. Was I wrong? God help us all if I am or was because what a future is in store for everyone in a false democracy!

Angered that the draft classifications of all Japanese Americans had been changed from 1-A to 4-C, he also wrote to President Roosevelt, asking why the Japanese Americans were singled out as untrustworthy, and insisting on the right to be allowed to fight:

Dear Mr. President:

          As you know, persons of Japanese parentage have been
evacuated from the western coastal regions of the United States.
Many of us do not know exactly why we were sent out of those
areas, although numerous attempts have been made to justify such
action. However, we are anxious to comply with all the govern-
mental regulations which may be established.

          The greater majority of the Japanese people in the
United States are whole-heartedly for ultimate victory of the
Allied Nations, and yet, we are referred to as "Japs." That term
used in scorn is very hateful to us; many of us deem it an insult.
Not many people think enough to call us Americans.

         In schools, everyone is taught that in the eyes of the
law, all persons are considered innocent until proven to be guilty.
But, why was it that we were branded as potential spies we were
singled out as threatening democracy, we were and are considered
dangerous? That hurt! What cases of sabotage promoted by us can
be said to justify the up-rooting of our hard-earned way of living?
What can justify the fact that we Americans are not allowed to aid
in the war effort? What can justify the fact that many students
are cut off from education without reason? Is that at all fair?
Try as we may, the reasons cannot be found to answer such questions.

          Now, it is too late to undo the harm created by the forced
evacuation, but we want you to realize that we are not saboteurs, we
are not axis [sic] agents, we are not "Japs." But, we are Americans.
Give us a real chance to prove ourselves.

Sincerely yours,


Paual H. Kusuda
B 19-9-2
Manzanar Reception Center
Manzanar, California

Paul Kusuda was lucky in that he spent only a year in the camp. At the beginning of 1943, the government changed its policy and decided to recruit Japanese Americans for the war effort. He was unsuccessful in enlisting, but he was allowed to go to Chicago to study social work, which he had in the meantime chosen over engineering as his future profession. (How he doggedly tried to get into the Army before and after moving to Chicago makes for both sad and humorous reading.)

His continuing faith in the American system has not prevented him from criticizing subsequent government policy--from overreactions in the wake of the 9-11 attacks to the invasion of Iraq--for he saw no contradiction in being as concerned for civil liberties as security. As a profile in the Madison Times put it:

Paul Kusuda is a law-abiding, Made in the USA, U.S. citizen. And Kusuda, a long-time Madison activist and retiree from the WI Division of Corrections, has some grave concerns about parts of the USA Patriot Act. He wonders about the two U.S. citizens who are currently being detained indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without access to a lawyer or the courts. Theoretically speaking, they could be incarcerated there for the rest of their lives without ever having been charged with or convicted of a crime.

Kusuda wonders and is concerned because he's been there before. Kusuda is one of 120,000 Japanese Americans who were detained during World War II in relocation camps on the desert fringe in California without due process or having been accused of a crime. Kusuda knows how it feels.

Footnote

However I first learned of the internment, I soon read all I could on the subject, which in that day was not a great deal--e.g. America's Concentration Camps, Farewell to Manzanar, and Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps--the topic was not nearly as well known as it is now. To give you a sense of how things have changed: when I was growing up, few children or adults knew about this shameful episode. Today, by contrast, and thankfully, it is so well known that, when I ask students what they first associate with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it is as likely to be the Japanese internment as the New Deal or the US to victory in World War II. An illustration of the mixed blessings of progress, if ever there was one.



A selection of Paul's columns on his life and issues of diversity:

• "Are memories to keep or to tell?" recalls how my parents encouraged him to tell his story and others eventually persuaded him to share it with NPR's StoryCorps
• "An Interview with Paul Kusuda: We Have Been Down This Road Before": from his parents' immigration to the internment order; 
• "Day of Remembrance" (2008)
• "Day to Remember for Many Nisei" (2011) (Part 1; Part 2) 
• "Relocation Center to Chicago" (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
• "Close Friends Grow Fewer": includes a tribute to Akira Toki, member of Madison's only Japanese American family prior to Pearl Harbor. Toki went on to serve as a decorated member of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up of Nisei. In the 1990s, Madison named a middle school in his honor.
• "Congressional Gold Medal awarded to long-time Madisonian": one of the Japanese-American veterans honored in 2011 for his service in World War II. He went from Minidoka to military intelligence (his brothers served in the the 442nd Regimental Combat Team) to studies at MIT (under Mies van der Rohe) and an architectural practice in Madison. (I went to high school with his daughters)
• "Patriotism is Not Just a Word": from Manzanar to the present, believing in the American system, opposing the war in Iraq (Part 1; Part 2)
• "Are racial minority groups truly accepted in the Midwest?": includes first encounters with African Americans, and how residents of Madison protected the only Japanese-American family (Part 1; Part 2)

* * *

Related posts on this blog:

• Historic Preservation and the Memory of Injustice (2008)
• 19 February: Japanese American Day of Remembrance (2009)
• National Park Service Commits Circa Four Million Dollars to Japanese-American Internment Sites (2011)
• Japanese American Day of Remembrance. A Booklet Shows the Face of Hatred (2015)
• Contemplating Cruelty: An Infamous Life Magazine Photo from 1944 (2015)

Japanese American Day of Remembrance. A Booklet Shows the Face of Hatred

Today, though too few of us know it, is the National Japanese American Day of Remembrance, marking the anniversary of the promulgation of Executive Order 9066. As the National Archives explains:

Issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, this order authorized the evacuation of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland. In the next 6 months, over 100,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were moved to assembly centers. They were then evacuated to and confined in isolated, fenced, and guarded relocation centers, known as internment camps. 

The illustration below, from a booklet in my collection, illustrates as well as anything else the attitudes that shaped the decision to relocate Japanese-Americans as well as "enemy aliens."

Read the full story on the tumblr.



Related posts:

• Historic Preservation and the Memory of Injustice (2008)
• 19 February: Japanese American Day of Remembrance (2009)
• National Park Service Commits Circa Four Million Dollars to Japanese-American Internment Sites (2011)