Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Return to text.

130. Türmer was born on Nov. 29, 1961, and was fifteen years old that autumn (1977).

Return to text.

131. In publishing this I am, willy-nilly, opening myself to the charge of being the enabler of T.’s conceit. I wholeheartedly reject any such an interpretation of my actions and wish to point out that what I am offering here is a critical account of T.’s life, intended to serve as a cautionary tale.

Return to text.

132. Crossed out: squander.

Return to text.

133. Since I myself participated in these same gym classes, I can only assert that T.’s descriptions are inaccurate.

Return to text.

134. Both the original and the carbon copy of this “letter” end without complimentary close or signature. Caught up in telling his story, T. had evidently completely forgotten N. H.

Return to text.

135. On May 5, 1990, that is, barely five weeks away.

Return to text.

136. Although perhaps a perfectly acceptable idiom in English, T. has mixed his German idioms here: “burned our ships” and “destroyed our bridges.”

Return to text.

137. There are things about this narrative that arouse suspicion. How, for example, could four such packages have been stuffed into one slim attaché case?

Return to text.

138. Apparently Barrista had paid on a 1:1 East-mark, D-mark basis.

Return to text.

139. T. means a New York Yankees baseball cap, whose logo is an interlinked N and Y.

Return to text.

140. Jörg and Georg were fifty-fifty co-owners of the company according to civil code.

Return to text.

141. It is inexplicable why they are so secretive around Robert.

Return to text.

142. CDs were hardly known in the East at that point.

Return to text.

143. In his letter of March 15, 1990, he mentions that Barrista has two children.

Return to text.

144. T. did not have a bad voice, but he couldn’t carry a tune on his own. Every attempt at a round fell apart when it was time for him to enter. He always needed someone singing in his ear.

Return to text.

145. Respect for rights of privacy preclude mention of his name.

Return to text.

146. In creating the category of a German Democratic Republic face, T. evidently was unaware of just how problematic the notion of a national and/or state physiognomy really is.

Return to text.

147. Publication evidently never occurred.

Return to text.

148. Neustadt and Loschwitz are two neighborhoods in Dresden inhabited by a relatively high percentage of artists.

Return to text.

149. T. constantly let opportunities to take action pass him by. Particularly when one assumes that these letters are his attempt at a critical self-accounting, it is amazing that he never condemns his own temporizing.

Return to text.

150. What the latter has to do with the former remains T.’s secret.

Return to text.

151. A somewhat too offhanded mention of a truly remarkable offer.

Return to text.

152. In view of T.’s immense correspondence, this statement may seem surprising. And yet both Johann and V. T. were too much a part of his memories, which is evidently why only Nicoletta Hansen was considered as the addressee for his description of “the path that led him astray.” Cf. note 2, The Letters of Enrico Türmer.

Return to text.

153. T. felt like an “amputee” once before, when he was describing to Johann Ziehlke what it was like to lose his car. Cf. the letter of March 13, 1990.

Return to text.

154. Upon completing preparatory seminary, Johann Ziehlke had only one choice: to study theology at a church college, since admission to a university required a high school diploma.

Return to text.

155. Such candor when dealing with N. H. is surprising.

Return to text.

156. Due to its dilapidated state the building was torn down three years ago.

Return to text.

157. Overgrown lots that had been left unused after several buildings were torn down in 1988–89.

Return to text.

158. The previous letter was written on Sunday morning. The discrepancy between the “strange sense of joy” mentioned in it and the “nightmare” described here remains unexplained.

Return to text.

159. This letter was sent to V. T. by fax.

Return to text.

160. Imposing on Georg.

Return to text.

161. Picasso, Fassbinder, Schygulla.

Return to text.

162. He is referring to the theater in Rudolstadt.

Return to text.

163. The inaccuracy of this characterization of N. H. says a great deal about T.

Return to text.

164. By his own admission, T. usually awoke around four in morning.

Return to text.

165. T.’s last letter to Johann was dated three days previous.

Return to text.

166. There is no explanation for why T. fails to mention Michaela’s miscarriage.

Return to text.

167. This is the first time that T. uses the word “confession,” but from this point on he almost always uses the term for these chronicles.

Return to text.

168. According to V. T., she was never subjected to a “Berlin embargo.”

Return to text.

169. Apparently an allusion to poems by “precocious wunderkinder.”

Return to text.

170. Schulpforta — among the famous students of the boarding school there were Klopstock, Fichte, Ranke, and Nietzsche. Röcken — Friedrich Nietzsche’s birthplace; the philosopher’s childhood home, the church where he was baptized, and his grave are located there.

Return to text.

171. Bernardo Bellotto, (called Canaletto), 1721–80, painted many views of the city of Dresden. T. evidently means the famous painting Dresden From the Right Bank of the Elbe Below the Augustus Bridge (1748).

Return to text.

172. Heinrich Böll had given a speech in praise of Reiner Kunze on the occasion of his being awarded the Büchner Prize in 1977, the same year in which he left the GDR.

Return to text.

173. Figures in Homer’s Iliad.

Return to text.

174. This letter was sent to V. T. by fax.

Return to text.

175. Refugee camps near Beirut. In 1982, after the invasion by the Israeli army, massacres of Palestinian refugees were carried out by the Christian militias.

Return to text.

176. Countries that had had military dictatorships.

Return to text.

177. The putsch by Chilean General Pinochet on September 11, 1973, led to mass arrests. Many of those arrested were tortured and murdered; about three thousand died. The singer and songwriter Victor Jara’s hands were crushed, but not hacked off, before he was shot.

Return to text.

178. Budyonny — a general in the cavalry of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Isaac Babel — famous for his short-story collection, Red Cavalry —served under Budyonny.

Return to text.

179. On Dec. 13, 1981, the Polish military, under the leadership of General Jaruzelski, declared martial law throughout Poland and banned the independent labor union, Solidarnóśćc. T. evidently assumed that N. H. would recognize the significance of “December 13th.”

Return to text.

180. Unless on duty, officers slept at home and first had to make their way to the base.

Return to text.

181. Pejorative Saxon slang for people who live on the Baltic coast.

Return to text.

182. Evidently T. considered her support a matter of course.

Return to text.

183. Gojko Mitíc was famous for his roles as an Indian chief in GDR films. For a long time he was considered the epitome of male beauty. T. is assuming that N. H. knows who he was.

Return to text.

184. Translator’s note: Käferchen means “little beetle,” or better perhaps, “little bug.”