Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

ANNOUNCER: Finding anything here in Voice Land is like playing a game of blind man’s bluff. Ah, that must be Coal Peter’s glass factory. As for his wife, she can’t be far away either, for whose voice could that be but dear Lisbeth’s!

LISBETH ( singing ):

Tiny glasses, hollow blown,

Why must I be so alone?

My dearest Peter sneaking by

Like a scoundrel prone to lie.

I know already what to do:

Little diapers, little shoe

I weave and knit for Peter’s son,

Time passes by, it’s nearly done.

Hollow glasses, tiny all,

Bodice, stockings sewn so small;

Into the world, a baby dear,

All is ready, I am here.

ANNOUNCER: It appears Peter will have a son. That makes it twice as unfair that he prowls around away from home. But it’s a good opportunity for me. I’ve been waiting to speak with Lisbeth for a long time now. Why should I speak only with Peter in Voice Land? So, what shall I do to make her notice me? I can’t just cry out; my deep voice would only frighten her, while she still hears her own, which sounds so sweet.

Brief pause.

I know what I’ll do. I’ll just rap against these glasses.

A snatch of glass music.

COAL PETER: Here I am!

LISBETH AND ANNOUNCER: Who is it?

COAL PETER: I have my heart back.

LISBETH: Mine has always been yours.

ANNOUNCER: Now I take my leave, but first you must promise me one thing: when little Coal Peter is born, choose the Keeper of Wealth to be his godfather.

Brief pause. The names of the months are read aloud.

ANNOUNCER: How quickly a year passes here in Voice Land! There stands Coal Peter in the pine forest, reciting his little rhyme.

Gong.

COAL PETER:

Keeper of Wealth in the forest of pine,

Hundreds of years are surely thine:

Thine is the tall pine’s dwelling place—

Those born on Sunday see thy face. 10

Mr. Keeper of Wealth, just hear me out; I want nothing more than to ask you to be godfather to my little son!

Wind.

Then I will take these pine cones to him as a souvenir, as you prefer not to be seen.

ANNOUNCER: Children! Can you imagine what these pine cones turned into? Brand new Schwabian thalers, and not a counterfeit among them. That’s what Baby Peter received as a christening gift from the little man in the pine forest.

— And now, do be kind and give me your thanks. I don’t mean the children who have been listening to us, but Coal Peter and Mr. Keeper of Wealth and Dutch Michael and the whole bunch from Hauff, whom I brought to Voice Land as they wished and whom I will now leave safe and sound at the border.

EZEKIEL: Safe and sound? You talk a good game. I won’t speak of being safe or sound until I have my money back.

LISBETH: Pah, Fat Ezekiel, you’ll never change. And I, Lisbeth, stand by it.

ANNOUNCER: Let him be, Madam. He’ll get his money back, down to the last cent.

LISBETH: Yes, Mr. Announcer, and a special thanks to you for bringing me such joy with your glass music; for it was you, wasn’t it, who played the bottles so delightfully.

ANNOUNCER ( in a gruff voice ): Yes, yes.

LISBETH: I was a bit worried after everything suddenly came to a stop and you lost your way in Voice Land.

ANNOUNCER: Yes, but do come closer, Mrs. Lisbeth. Look here, on this page … Here, Hauff himself calls for a long pause. And just by chance, imagine, our pause fell on just the same passage.

DUTCH MICHAEL: Well, I call that a blessing in disguise.

ANNOUNCER: Indeed, the writer himself created the pause. And why? This story is like a mountain, like the Black Forest range itself, and its climax is like a peak from which one can look down to either side: to the bad outcome or the good.

A MURMUR OF VOICES: Goodbye, Mr. Keeper of Wealth, Madam, Mr. Peter, etc.

DUTCH MICHAEL: Hello, Hello. Now wait a minute, Ladies and Gentlemen, why are you in such a hurry? I am not very happy with the villainous part I’ve played here. I wanted to let you know that in Hauff’s stories there are all kinds of scoundrels. Read, for example, “The Ghost Ship,” “The Tale of the Severed Hand,” and many other stories by Hauff where even worse rascals than I play their part in the happy ending. But no hard feelings. I see that the others have already left. Goodbye, then!

ANNOUNCER: Goodbye, Dutch Michael. Nice people. But now I am thrilled to be once again alone in my office. Well, I wanted to do a Youth Hour. Was that a Youth Hour?

Gong.

“Das kalte Herz,” GS, 7.1, 316–46. Translated by Diana K. Reese.

Broadcast on Southwest German Radio, Frankfurt, May 16, 1932, with music by Ernst Schoen. “ ‘The Cold Heart: A Radio Play based on Hauff’s Fairy Tale,’ by Walter Benjamin and Ernst Schoen, with Music by Ernst Schoen,” was announced in the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung for May 16, 1932, from 7:00–8:00 pm.

1Wilhelm Hauff (1802–1827), German writer best known for his fairy tales, including “The Cold Heart” (Das kalte Herz), first published in 1827. Throughout, Benjamin has incorporated characters and passages, many verbatim or nearly so, from Hauff’s tale.

2Ernst Schoen (1894–1960), a musician and composer, and a childhood friend of Benjamin’s, was artistic director of the Frankfurt radio station. He is credited with helping Benjamin to obtain work on the radio. For Schoen’s comments on this collaboration with Benjamin, and on the “dramatization of writings for children’s radio or school radio” more broadly, see Schoen and Wilhelm Schüller, “Hörspiel im Schulfunk,” in Der Schulfunk 10 (May 15, 1931), 323–5, cited in GS, 7.2, 651–2.

3The music for the Benjamin — Schoen production of The Cold Heart was written by Ernst Schoen. None of it is known to have survived. According to the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung, the production strove to bring “live before the microphone the characters from [Hauff’s] book, through the mediation of a radio announcer, who pops up in the middle of Hauff’s story. The accompanying music, as much as possible written simply for two pianos, introduces the lead character by way of folk songs and children’s songs in a thematic way and provides background atmosphere for various dramatic scenes” (cited in GS, 7.2, 652–3).

4Benjamin’s text does not indicate an end for the section introduced as “Prologue.” Perhaps this moment of transition, where the characters from Hauff’s story enter into Voice Land, can be read as its close. Still, it is not clear how, if at all, the distinction between the sections would have been rendered on air.

5The translation of the rhyme is taken from Hauff’s tale in English in Tales from the German: Comprising Specimens from the most Celebrated Authors, trans. John Oxenford and C. A. Feiling (London: Chapman and Hall, 1844), 54.

6 Tales from the German, 59.

7Ibid., 62.

8“The Watch on the Rhine” [Die Wacht am Rhein], a nineteenth-century German patriotic anthem.

9 Tales from the German, 77.

10Ibid.