H. Adler - The Wall

You won’t have to do too much on behalf of my case, whose execution I, of course, don’t want you to take on free of charge. Nor will I have it any other way. I feel it’s my responsibility to stand by you and support you a little bit. You need funds. As soon as a good, round sum becomes available — which, perhaps as a result of your direct intervention, can occur within a few months — I’ll give you five percent of whatever I net. Are we agreed, Arthur? If through your efforts you mount up expenses, just let me know and I will instruct Dr. Blecha to reimburse you for everything immediately. As soon as my assets are solvent and available, I’ll take my first vacation with Karin or come over myself, especially since the money, unfortunately, will not be allowed out.

Perhaps you can recommend to me where I should travel. Certainly you should come along if you have the time. I would especially love a winter vacation. All of my winter sports equipment should still be there — unless by some rotten chance it got sold! Just imagine, snow, genuine powder! Do you still know what that is? It’s unheard of in these parts. I would most love to eat at the Fuchsberg mountain lodge, though the Schwarzschlag is nothing to sneeze at, either. Do you remember, the whipped cream, the egg cakes, and the brandy they had there was the best. You can’t help but bask in the memories, my old friend, when you think of the Christmas celebrations, the fun New Year’s parties in the mountains, such fun, and then strapped to the sled for a night journey into the new year!

You can see that I’m serious about returning. Just be patient, it will certainly happen. Before then, we can converse in writing. I have always loved correspondence and find that you have to apply yourself in order to avoid limitations inherent in letter writing.

You mention that you would like to visit us sometime. In and of itself, that’s a good idea that I would heartily embrace. But just ask yourself how this could be done if you don’t have the means. Here everything is too expensive. I’ve asked around and must, unfortunately, tell you that the prospects don’t look good. You couldn’t stay with me, because we only have two rooms and have nothing for you to sleep on. If it were only for a few days, I think I could find someplace for you to hole up in at night with friends. During the day I would be happy to put my apartment at your service. We only eat lunch at home on the weekends, but most evenings you could spend with us and also eat with us, as long as we don’t have anything else we must do.

I wonder what you’d really want to do here if your visit were to be more than just a trip to pick up things. For I have to admit that it’s as if I stood before a wall. I don’t want to rob you of all hope, but prospects look dim when I at all consider what you could begin here. For your sake I have spoken with a lawyer, Dr. Haarburger, who has established himself here brilliantly. He’s very educated, interested in many things, is influential, and a pleasant fellow with a wife who is the same. Above all, he is easy to inspire, for he feels solidarity, whereby you have to forgive the both of them a certain loquaciousness, without which one hardly warms to others or connects with them. Professor Kratzenstein is a member of his circle. Perhaps you’ve read something of his at some time. As a sociologist he’s not entirely to my taste, but what does that matter, as he is highly respected. Well, Dr. Haarburger wants to thoroughly consider whether there might be a possibility to arrange a lecture for you through Kratzenstein or other colleagues at the Society of Sociologists — the theme has to be accessible to the public and also on a very high level. I am very much for this and will again press the matter. You would have the advantage of meeting an array of personalities while also receiving what, unfortunately, can only be termed a modest honorarium, since it’s considered an honor to speak there. Only famous guests are honored. But perhaps through some finagling, which Dr. Haarburger has hinted at, a small per diem could be arranged for you. Unless we are really lucky, that is likely about the only thing that can be done for the moment.

I think about your sociological ideas with undiminished interest, even if through the local and the American schools I am headed in a different direction, and, to be honest, I can’t help doubting that you and your methods, as one says here, are up to date. In general, one pokes fun here at continental sociology, and not without reason. Now, I can hear you say that your work has little in common with the approach recognized over there. That may well be, but nonetheless (or precisely because), your thinking leads in an almost completely diametrical direction to that which is in favor here. You have to unlearn it from the ground up, just as I and everyone had to, and even then it’s unlikely that for the foreseeable future you will be able to catch up. Yes, if you had made a name for yourself before the war and brought out books or important essays in journals, then the prospects would be a bit better, but still not that good. Indeed, none of us had the opportunity to publish in the years before the war, and when our chance did come we were hardly done with our studies. Which is why I’m being crystal clear about the reasons there is no chance of a career for you at a local university. I haven’t even dared to inquire with my own professor, even on the quiet. I could only do that if you had finished something, which also, of course, would have to be translated. Then I would have to have you take an exhaustive exam in order for everything not to be a waste from the outset, and my scholarly reputation harmed. One is always under suspicion here when you step out of line. Meanwhile, I am assuming that you didn’t finish anything. How could you have — it would be a miracle!

Finally, I cannot end without explaining to you clearly, bitter as it may sound, that a sociology of oppressed people, no matter how much you might revise your old first drafts, which certainly could be built upon the foundations I well know, will nonetheless meet with no success here, as far as I can see for the moment and even in the future. What you are pursuing, my dear Arthur, would be called here a ponderous, romantic-idealistic philosophy of culture. I immediately hear your objections to such hated buzzwords, but that’s the way it is, unfortunately, and let it be said. A social science whose kernel is an ethical conception, once cherished, yet it does not comply with the accepted currents of thought, and what you have called moral science or moral sociology belongs, indeed, to the realm of romantic-idealist speculation, for which nobody cares one jot.

You will have to work on a clear, limited theme that you can follow precisely — let’s say a psychological-sociological investigation, such as of a certain group, for example a number of selected subjects who have suffered clearly defined duress while detained or in being detained (i.e., prisoners of war, enslaved as a result of the disintegration of certain civil rights), effects that can be subjectively and objectively certifiable, etc., etc. That would be something. But if I can give you some good advice, then give up on the sociology of oppressed people, for it won’t go down well here. It is notorious for being unserious, and the danger of emotional bias, even with someone with your recent past, will only do you harm almost everywhere. I do indeed agree that the horror was in fashion for a moment, but already in serious circles interest has essentially waned. Before you could even get permission to visit, it will have completely disappeared. There are indeed some specialists who exploit such misery, Kratzenstein among them, yet they won’t allow any newcomer or outsider in. It’s best that you get any ideas about oppression out of your head. Popular sympathies won’t help you, for they only depend on a dog-eat-dog approach and on journalistic skills, and the rest I’ve already explained to you. That’s why I’m arguing that under no circumstances should you plan on making an extended visit under the premises you describe, or even think about immigration.