Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

7The Illustrierte Zeitung (Leipzig), Germany’s first illustrated newspaper, was a popular weekly published from 1843 to 1944. This image was featured in the Funkstunde ’s announcement of Benjamin’s broadcast. See Funkstunde 5 (January 29, 1932), 106.

8For the last three sentences, see Alfred Gotthold Meyer, Eisenbauten: Ihre Geschichte und Ästhetik (Esslingen: P. Neff, 1907), 93. For this passage elsewhere in Benjamin, see The Arcades Project , 160–1 [F4a, 2]), 887; Das Passagen-Werk, GS, 5.1, 223 [F4a, 2] and GS, 5.2, 1063.

When you open a map of middle America and look at the Mississippi — that giant-sized 5,000-kilometer-long current — you’ll see a somewhat sinuous and meandering line, with frequent bends but still clearly heading from north to south, a line on which you might think you could rely, just as you would on a boulevard, or on a railroad line. The people, however, who live on the banks of this current — the farmers, the fishermen, and even the city folk — know this appearance is deceptive. The Mississippi is continuously moving: not only its waters, flowing from source to mouth, but also its banks, which are forever changing. Within ten to fifty miles of the present-day watercourse lie countless lakes, lagoons, swamps, and ditches whose forms reveal themselves to be nothing other than segments of the former riverbed that has since shifted to the west or to the east. As long as the river flows through solid rock, roughly until the southern tip of the state of Illinois, its path is pretty straight. Further down, however, it enters into the flood plains and in this loose ground its restlessness and unreliability are revealed. Never is it satisfied with the bed it has made for itself. And on top of all this, every spring, great volumes of water from the lower Mississippi’s swollen tributaries, such as the Arkansas, the Red River, and the Ouachita, descend upon the flanks of the glutted Mississippi and their waters not only force out those of the main river but also create, so to speak, a barrier that congests the Mississippi, further contributing to the flooding of its adjacent states. And so it was that every year, for centuries, all the land within hundreds of miles was flooded. The plantations, fields, settlements, primeval forests, and gardens rested under a meter of water such that the area surrounding the river resembled an ocean whose islands were the summits of trees. At the beginning of the last century people began to secure individual segments of the shore against the annual mood changes of the river.

In those days levees were paid for by the owners of the riverfront where they were built. These embankments, of course, protected the land that lay behind them, but only at the expense of other neighbors who stood to suffer even more. It was in this way that most of the lower-lying plantations protected themselves over time. In order to lighten the burden of the planters, the American Congress gave them the marshland behind their fields as compensation. Now, imagine what it must have meant to these planters, who owned nothing but their land, when one day they were ordered to tear down the embankments with their own hands and expose their plantations to the destructive violence of the water. But this is precisely what happened, which brings me to the most appalling and miserable episode of the great flood of 1927.

At the mouth of the Mississippi lies, as perhaps you know, the big and important trading city of New Orleans. In less than two weeks the water had climbed so high that this critical port appeared poised for destruction. If New Orleans were to be saved, people would have to take every last and desperate measure: the protective levees upriver from the city would have to be torn open to give the water an outlet onto the fields. This set off a series of bitter civil wars that only increased the horrors of the natural catastrophe. The farmers whose land was to be sacrificed to save the metropolis were among the poorest in the country. To prevent the levees from being blown up, they formed armed militias under the direction of one of America’s many sect leaders. Thousands of farmers resolved to fight rather than pay for saving the city with the destruction of their own fields. As a last resort, the government appointed a general to act as dictator of the flood regions and declared a state of siege. As for the farmers, they armed themselves with machine guns in order to resist the military. There was an assassination attempt against today’s president of the United States, Hoover, who, as a government secretary at the time, was visiting the flood regions. 1But the government would not allow itself to be intimidated, and proceeded with the detonations. New Orleans was saved but 100,000 square miles of land were underwater. The number of those made homeless in the region reached a half million.

The flood walls that were blown up — provided the current hadn’t already swept them away — rank among the largest public projects in American history. These levees stretch for 2,500 kilometres on both sides of the river leading to the Gulf of Mexico. They often measure fifty meters in width and are ten meters high. Thousands upon thousands of workers have to toil year after year to build new levees while maintaining the old ones. An electrical monitoring network connects all stations with one another. The levees are inspected each week, and millions are spent annually on their upkeep. For more than ten years these constructions had provided complete reassurance to those living in the area, until the high waters came in the spring of 1927.

On April 16 the telegraph reported for the first time that the river had overrun its banks. These first reports sounded fairly innocuous, and Washington hoped that the minor disturbances would amount to little else. This proved ill-founded, however. Two days later, parts of seven states were entirely flooded. Large parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas were underwater. Water seven to eight meters deep flowed over the fields. Dozens of cities and hundreds of small towns had to be evacuated, and woe to those who hesitated or failed to heed the warnings. And so we come to the story of three brothers, small farmers from the area around Natchez. They thought they had time to save their cattle; while others abandoned everything and ran for their lives, the brothers were making their way to the stalls. Before they knew it a powerful surge of water had blocked their path: they were cut off and would remain so. Only one of the three would escape with his life, and from him we have the hair-raising description of the hours spent on the peak of their roof, staring into the rising waters with ever-dwindling hope. Here’s a bit of the story from the survivor:

The water had left us with only a small strip of the pitched roof. One of the chimneys had already been ripped away. Around us there was nothing left to see of the destroyed town. Only from the church tower soaring heavenwards undamaged, could we hear the ringing voices of the rescued. From far off we could hear the rushing of the water. The sound of collapsing houses had ceased. It was like a shipwreck in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from the shore. “We’re drifting,” murmured John, clinging to the roof tiles with all his might. It actually felt as if the roof had transformed itself into a raft carried along by the current. But when we looked over at the steeple just standing there, unmoving, we saw that it had only been our imagination. We were still at the very same spot amid the roaring swells.

Now the real battle began. At first the river followed the street but now the rubble blocked its way and drove it back. It was a downright assault. The current gathered every beam or tree trunk in its way and fired it like a missile against the house. And even then the current wouldn’t let it go, sweeping it up again and firing it off anew. The walls were shaking under these unrelenting and steady attacks. Before long we were bombarded in this way by ten or twelve beams. The churning water masses raged and roared and the foam splashed round our feet. From the house beneath us we heard what sounded like a dull moan; we heard its joints creak. Sometimes when a beam would strike with frightful force, we thought it was over and the walls would give in, delivering us to the wild river. Sometimes when we saw a bundle of hay or an empty barrel drift by, we would wave our handkerchiefs excitedly until we realized our mistake and sank back into our silent fear. “Hey, look over there,” cried John suddenly, “a big boat!” With outstretched arm he pointed to a dark spot in the distance. I couldn’t see anything, neither could Bill, but he carried on. And it really was a boat. It rowed closer and closer until we could finally make it out. It glided slowly forward, seeming to encircle us but not coming any closer. I can only say that at this point we were like mad men. We flailed our arms about, yelling at the top of our lungs. We hurled insults at the boat, calling it a coward as it drifted by, silent and sinister. Was it really a boat? I still don’t know to this day. When we finally saw it disappear, our last hopes went with it.