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Auf dem Wege zur amerikanischen Botschaft: Und andere Erzählungen. Mit einem Nachwort zur Neuauflage
Der Kurzgeschichtenband "Auf dem Wege zur amerikanischen Botschaft" erschien zuerst 1930 in Berlin. Anna Seghers’ Haltung im Zugriff auf gesellschaftliche Realitäten, die die Widersprüche nicht verkleistert, sondern wahrzunehmen und zu erhellen strebt, die soziale Genauigkeit, mit der sie Menschen und ihre Umwelt aufeinander bezieht und daraus differenziert ihr Verhalten ableitet und ihr Verlangen, all dies fundiert eine große Wahrhaftigkeit. Ein humanistischer Kern ist dem Frühwerk Anna Seghers’ wie dem später in der Emigration Geschaffenen eigen. Wesentlich wird die Überzeugung, in jedem und in jeder wirke die Sehnsucht nach sinnvoller Existenz, der Wunsch nach Überschreiten des Gegebenen, die Suche nach Gefährten, nach Bewährung der eigenen Kräfte.
„In dieser fremden Stadt will ich ganz anders sein. Ich werde nie mehr hierher zurückkommen, aber diese eine Woche will ich für mich haben. Was ich in dieser Stadt mache, das zählt nicht mit, das gilt gar nichts, sowenig wie etwas gilt, was man im Schlaf macht. Was ich in dieser Stadt mache, wird einfach nicht mitgerechnet. Das kann ich. Das geht.“ (Auf dem Wege zur amerikanischen Botschaft)
„In dieser fremden Stadt will ich ganz anders sein. Ich werde nie mehr hierher zurückkommen, aber diese eine Woche will ich für mich haben. Was ich in dieser Stadt mache, das zählt nicht mit, das gilt gar nichts, sowenig wie etwas gilt, was man im Schlaf macht. Was ich in dieser Stadt mache, wird einfach nicht mitgerechnet. Das kann ich. Das geht.“ (Auf dem Wege zur amerikanischen Botschaft)
295 pages, Hardcover
Published May 1, 2008
About the author
Anna Seghers
151 books136 followersAnna Seghers (November 19, 1900, Mainz – June 1, 1983, Berlin) was a German writer famous for depicting the moral experience of the Second World War.
Born Netty Reiling in Mainz in 1900 of partly Jewish descent, she married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian Communist in 1925.
In Cologne and Heidelberg she studied history, the history of art and Chinese. She joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, at the height of its struggle against the burgeoning National Socialist German Workers Party. Her 1932 novel, Die Gefährten was a prophetic warning of the dangers of Fascism, which led to her being arrested by the Gestapo.
After German troops invaded the French Third Republic in 1940, she fled to Marseilles and one year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub', named after the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, and founded Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. During this time, she wrote The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. The novel is set in 1936 and describes the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp. It was published in the United States in 1942 and produced as a movie in 1944 by MGM starring Spencer Tracy. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II.
Seghers best-known story The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946), written in Mexico, was an autobiographical reminiscence of a pre-World War I class excursion on the Rhine river in which the actions of the protagonist's classmates are seen in light of their decisions and ultimate fates during both world wars. In describing them, the German countryside, and her soon-to-be destroyed hometown Mainz, Seghers gives the reader a strong sense of lost innocence and the senseless injustices of war, from which there proves to be no escape, whether or not you sympathized with the Nazi party. Other notable Seghers stories include Sagen von Artemis (1938) and The Ship of the Argonauts (1953), both based on myths.
In 1947, Anna Seghers returned to Germany, moved to West Berlin, and became a member of the SED in the zone occupied by the Soviets. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin and became a co-founder of the freedom movement of the GDR. In 1951, she received both the first Nationalpreis der DDR and the Stalin Peace Prize, and in 1959 the "Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität Jena." In 1981, she became "Ehrenbürgerin" of her native town Mainz.
Born Netty Reiling in Mainz in 1900 of partly Jewish descent, she married Laszlo Radvanyi, a Hungarian Communist in 1925.
In Cologne and Heidelberg she studied history, the history of art and Chinese. She joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, at the height of its struggle against the burgeoning National Socialist German Workers Party. Her 1932 novel, Die Gefährten was a prophetic warning of the dangers of Fascism, which led to her being arrested by the Gestapo.
After German troops invaded the French Third Republic in 1940, she fled to Marseilles and one year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub', named after the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, and founded Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. During this time, she wrote The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. The novel is set in 1936 and describes the escape of seven prisoners from a concentration camp. It was published in the United States in 1942 and produced as a movie in 1944 by MGM starring Spencer Tracy. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II.
Seghers best-known story The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946), written in Mexico, was an autobiographical reminiscence of a pre-World War I class excursion on the Rhine river in which the actions of the protagonist's classmates are seen in light of their decisions and ultimate fates during both world wars. In describing them, the German countryside, and her soon-to-be destroyed hometown Mainz, Seghers gives the reader a strong sense of lost innocence and the senseless injustices of war, from which there proves to be no escape, whether or not you sympathized with the Nazi party. Other notable Seghers stories include Sagen von Artemis (1938) and The Ship of the Argonauts (1953), both based on myths.
In 1947, Anna Seghers returned to Germany, moved to West Berlin, and became a member of the SED in the zone occupied by the Soviets. In 1950, she moved to East Berlin and became a co-founder of the freedom movement of the GDR. In 1951, she received both the first Nationalpreis der DDR and the Stalin Peace Prize, and in 1959 the "Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität Jena." In 1981, she became "Ehrenbürgerin" of her native town Mainz.
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