T H E STEFAN HEYM ARCHIVE IN CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY*

PETER HUTCHINSON

Stefan Heym’s first bestseller, Hostages, was published in October 1942. The reviewers compared the author with such figures as Tolstoy, Corky, Steinbeck, and Dostoevsky; a third edition had to be produced within a fortnight. For the first time in his adult life Heym was financially secure, and he was in a position to preserve - irrespective of cost - every significant detail of his life as a writer. Even before this event, however, Heym had clearly nurtured the hope that he would become a figure of importance, for he had taken great care to ensure his literary efforts would be secured for posterity. As a result, his archive contains material from his teenage years onwards, and it also comprises a considerable number of unexpected items: not simply drafts and manuscripts, but often much of the material on which novels, articles, and journalistic pieces were based. There are also proofs, with last-minute corrections and changes of heart; an extensive correspondence with publishers, friends, fans, and critics; clippings from newspapers from throughout the world (initially reviews of publications, but later extending to accounts of events in which he had participated); audio- and videotapes of readings, discussions, T V appearances, interviews, speeches a t demonstrations.

The importance of this archive lies only partly in its size, its excellent state of preservation, and the detail with which it reveals the life and craft of the novelist. The career of its author has spanned decisive years of German history, and no other literary collection can trace the politico-cultural development of the German Democratic Republic more fully than this one. But equally importantly, the archive reveals fascinating and unexpected material in several other areas. First, Heym is an American novelist as much as a German one. He was intimately involved with political developments in the USA between his arrival thrre as an exile (1935) and his departure (again into ‘exile’) in 19561, and four of his first five novels were actually composed in the USA. (His second novel was written while he was serving as a G I on the western front.) Second, Heym is a distinguished self- translator, and he translated the bulk of his fiction from English into German, as well as much of that which was composed in German into English. His working papers provide a detailed insight into the methods of the self-translator. Third, Heym was a political journalist and activist: his papers reveal the methods, problems and dangers of life as a fighter for freedom and reform. In the early period, for example, we find his pre-war

* I am grateful to David Lowe, Head of German, Cambridge University Library, for his help and advice. Prospective users of the arrhive are rncouraged to contact Mr Lowe at: C.U.I. . , West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR. Telephone 0223 333094. - P.H. 0 Basil Blackwell Ltd tY93. Published by Blackwell Publishers. 108 Cowley Road. Oxford OX4 IJF. UK and 238 Main Streel. Cambridge. M A 02142. USA.

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work against National Socialism in Czechoslovakia and the US, followed by his broadcasts and pamphlets for the Psychological Warfare Division of the US Army during the war itself. In the later period, we find his long campaign for freedom and justice in the GDR, a campaign which led to his having the largest ‘Stasi’ file in the Republic. The way in which such struggles were reported in the international press is attested in the very considerable number of clippings from newspapers. For the period 193S74 these are mainly pasted into seventeen large volumes; thereafter they are included either in separate boxes, or filed together with the material to which they relate.

PUBLISHED VOLUMES

With very rare exceptions, all first editions of the novels have been pre- served, and in most cases there are copies of succeeding editions. There are over two hundred other volumes and periodicals in which Heym has published an article/short story/poem, and these are all in excellent con- dition, despite their age. Also in this section are the complete translations of Heym’s works: the languages range over Armenian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hung- arian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portug- uese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil and Vietnamese. The most extensively translated novel was The Crusaders, which is featured in eighteen other languages.

MANUSCRIPTS

On completion of a major project, Heym had the relevant working materials handsomely bound. Concentrated in one or more volumes, therefore, we have all the papers associated with the production of a particular text. This will almost always include plot outline, sources, character sketches, first drafts, and discarded material. In all cases the final typescript is available, often with many last-minute changes and corrections. Three novels are worthy of especial mention:

Der Tag X: regularly referred to as the most famous unpublished novel in East Germany, the work was actually first written in English. It went through many stages of development before being published privately in fifty cyclostyled copies in 1960. In 1974 a completely revised version appeared under the title 5 Tap im Juni. The archive houses two copies of the cyclostyled volume as well as the following:

A Day Marked X :

(a) 1 vol. ‘Plot Outline’; (b) 1 vol. ‘Character Outline. Characters’;

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(c) (d)

(e)

3 vols typescript, heavily amended; 2 vols discarded material (much of the material not incorporated in (c); 3 vols clean copy of (c).

Der Tag X

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) 3 vols ‘Zweite Fassung’.

1 vol. ‘Charaktere. Zweite Fassung’. 1 vol. ‘Analyse. Zweite Fassung’; 3 vols typescript, heavily amended; 3 vols ‘Umarbeitunp. Zweite Fassung’;

The King David Report

(a) 1 vol. ‘Studies. Outline. Characters’, including a 26-page, 3-column chart covering ‘Organisation of Chapter’; ‘Method of Telling’; ‘Points Covered’; 4 vols English, heavily amended; 1 large volume containing clean copy of (b); 3 vols German translation, with many changes; 2 vols. English ‘discards’, mainly material not incorporated in (b) ; 1 vol. German ‘discards’, mainly translation of material in (e).

(b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

Ahasve~

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e)

(f)

1 vol. ‘Plane. Materialien. Charaktere’; 2 boxes of ‘Materialien’ (mainly xeroxes of source material, hand- written notes); 2 vols German typescript, with minor changes; 2 vols ‘Verworfen’ (principally the first version, with very heavy amendation) ; 1 vol. ‘English Version. Drafts’; heavily corrected English trans- lation; handwritten and typescript manuscript; 1 vol. ‘English Version’, a clean copy of (e), with a number of minor changes; a carbon copy of this version is also present, which includes most, but not all, of these changes.

The manuscripts of practically all other publications - fiction and the extensive journalistic assignments of the Fifties - are preserved, some of them in their successive versions. There is less evidence of preliminary drafting from the mid-Eighties, when Heym moved to composition on the word-processor.

CORRESPONDENCE

Heym often kept carbon copies of his many letters, particularly those of a politically sensitive nature. He also kept all important letters he received. The correspondence section of the archive is therefore particularly large,

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and is currently housed in the boxes (30cm by 22 by 7.5) he employed while the material was stored in his home in Berlin; there are over fifty of these, and they are ordered chronologically. In a number of years the material is divided betwzen ‘personal’ arid ‘business’ correspondence, the latter being conducted with publishers, editors and agents. Given his pos- ition as an international writer from a young age, it is not surprising that therc are communications from a large number of other writers, particularly thosr in the GDR. Other, possibly unexpected, correspondents, include: 1,ouis Aragon, Erich Honecker, Georg Lukics, Erwin Piscator, Richard von Weizsackcr, Arnold Zweig.

During the period he published a weekly column in the Berliner Zei tung, Heym received a large number of letters from readers. These usually praised his outspokcii attacks on GDR bureaucracy, and often drew attention to other aspects of East German society to which they hoped he might devote a future column. Many of these letters werc composed on poor quality paprr. Care is being taken to ensure there is no further deterioration. Of great intcrest from thr point of view of publishing in the early years of the CI)K arc copies of correspondence on royalty agreements, payments, and details of print runs.

I n certain years the volume of correspondence clearly reflects political pressures. For 1979, for example, when Heym was excluded from the Writcrs’ Union; and for 1989, when he was exceptionally active in his prrssure on the government (there are four full boxes of letters for this ycar, and three for 1990). ‘There is a separate box of letters received after publication of the article ‘Aschermittwoch’ (l989), as well as a box devoted to those received in response to ‘Fur unser Land’ (1990). Heym’s political activities around this period are well recorded in a box of newspaper cuttings marked by him as ‘Die Wende im Spiegel von SHs Statements und Activities Isic]’ and a box of ‘Short Stories. Speeches. Interviews. 1991’.

Given the extensive nature of the correspondence, some time will elapse beforc proper cataloguing can be completed. In addition, certain personal portions will need to be embargoed for a period of twenty-five years after the death of the author.

UNPUB1,ISHED MATERIAL

Heym has written almost compulsively for over sixty years. In the course of this period a number of projects have been abandoned, rejected by publishers, or set on one side on account of their political sensitivity. The more important unpublished items include the following:

1 ) A large number of poems, in German, mainly written in the Thirties ( in Grrmany, Czechoslovakia, USA).

2) Unpublished novels from the Forties, including Nu Turnpike Gates, a political novel of power struggles in the USA; and The Cunspiraturs, a novel 0 Basil Blackwell I.Ld lW3.

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about the so-called ‘Palmer Raids’ against ’subversive elements’ in the USA, 1919-20.

3) A novel inspirrd by Khruschchcv’s denunciation of Staliri and the return of exiles from Soviet slave labour camps: The Archilects, a work which has been preserved very carefully. The final manuscript is handsomely bound in the same manner as that for the published novels. There is also one separate volume labelled ’Outline’; one volunic of ‘Character Details’; and a card index of ‘Sources’. Various related, unbound, items of material are also preserved.

4) An autobiographical novel surrounding the ‘Bicrmann affair’ of November-December 1976, with the Shakespearean title Der Winter unseres MiJvergnugens.

5) Numerous other short stories, sketches, radio plays, journalistic articles stretching over five decades.

O‘I‘HER ITEMS O F IN‘I‘EKES’I’

Heym’s extraordinary life is reflected in a number of unique items which are of interest to a variety of scholars: particularly students of literary history (especially of exile literature, political literature, the literary development of the GDK), but also sociologists and historians. These include a complete, bound set of Deutsches Volksecho, New York. February 1937-September 1939 (Heym was Chief Editor for the complete life of the newspaper); an almost complete set of Frontpost. Nachrichtrn fuer den deutschen Soldatfn (propaganda leaflets dropped over German lines on the Western front and composed by the team of which Heym was a member; given its age, such material is in remarkably good condition, but conservation measures arc already under way); a complete set of the American propaganda broadcasts from Radio Luxemburg (again, controlled by the team of which Heym was a part); sections of files on Heym from ‘US Army Intelligence’ and the US Immi- gration Service; a copy of the filr on Heym kept by the FBI (albeit heavily censored); a page from Czech Police Files (1935); a letter from the ‘Geheime Staatspolizei’; various items from the ‘Stasi’ filcs (including the document ‘Weitere Taktik zur politisch-ideologischrn Zerschlagung der Ansichten Havemanns, Heyms, Biermanns und Bielers und zu ihrer politischen Isolierung’); and Heyni’s file from the ‘Deutscher Schriftstrllrrverband’. There are over 300 audio cassettes devotcd to interviews with journalists, radio interviews, etc., and ovrr 100 vidrotapes of interviews, panel dis- cussions in which he participated, speeches at demonstrations, and films of his novels. There are also tapes (with transcripts) of the interviews held by Heym and his wife with East German refugees in Gicsscw, Septrmber 1989.

There are two boxes of articles, books, and dissertations on Heym. This article has served to highlight only thc most significant aspects of

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this remarkable archive in order to provide general guidance to interested scholars. Heym’s decision to place the material in Cambridge had already been taken well before the collapse of the GDR, but recent developments in Germany have confirmed his feelings that scholars and other interested people may be better served by its location in an English-speaking country. Cambridge University Library will in due course publish a complete cata- logue of the holdings.

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