THE SKEPTIC: True. And your Herr Frisch was a smooth operator. He avoided precisely those mistakes Herr Zauderer made only a moment ago. But isn’t there more to success than avoiding mistakes?
THE SPEAKER: Yes, you’re absolutely right. I agree. Something else is necessary.
THE SKEPTIC: And what would that be?
THE SPEAKER: A fundamental attitude, a state of mind.
THE SKEPTIC: Meaning?
THE SPEAKER: Meaning an inner bearing, the basic values Herr Frisch displays at work, with the boss, and in his entire life. He is clear, determined, and courageous. He knows what he wants and therefore he can remain both calm and polite at all times. He understands how to attune himself to his opponent’s state of mind without sacrificing his dignity in the slightest.
THE SKEPTIC: Well then, how very fortunate for him. To be blessed with such a fine disposition is lucky indeed. But what if everything hadn’t gone his way? If for some reason the boss had not been persuaded?
THE SPEAKER: Herr Frisch anticipates such an eventuality. Herr Frisch is always prepared. Even in failure, he is composed. He is not easily discouraged. Herr Frisch considers his struggles to be a kind of sport, and he approaches them as he would a game. He contends with life’s difficulties in a relaxed and pleasant manner. He keeps a clear head even when things go wrong. And please believe me when I tell you: successful people are never sore losers; they’re the ones who don’t whine and give up after every failure. Indeed, they are the ones who keep their chins up, weather life’s misfortunes, and live to fight another day. Who will be first to fail the test? The timid and the faint of heart. The whingers, the complainers. He who goes to the exam cool and calm is already halfway there. Such people are in great demand today. That is, I believe, the secret of success.
“ ‘Gehaltserhöhung?! Wo denken Sie hin!’ ” GS, 4.2, 629–40. Translated by Jonathan Lutes.
Listening model (Hörmodell) broadcast on Radio Berlin, February 8, 1931, under the title, “How Do I Deal with My Boss?” (“Wie nehme ich meinen Chef?”), and on Southwest German Radio, Frankfurt, on March 26, 1931 as “A Pay Raise?! Whatever Gave You That Idea!” (“Gehaltserhöhung?! Wo denken Sie hin!”).
As early as 1929, Benjamin had outlined a series of such listening models. See “Listening Models” (373). See also Benjamin’s 1929 essay, “Conversation with Ernst Schoen,” in which Benjamin discusses Schoen’s plans for Radio Frankfurt to “develop a series of models and counter-models of techniques of negotiation—’How do I deal with my boss?’ and the like.”4 According to his collaborator Wolf Zucker, Benjamin saw these listening models as a way to “use the new medium of radio to teach the listener certain practical techniques for typical conflict situations of modern life.” The possible superficiality and problematic simplicity of giving such advice was, of course, hardly lost on Benjamin, who, Zucker writes, “warned [Zucker] not to think that his ideas had anything to do with real solutions to real problems. Rather, the listening models should be like the example of Emily Post [Freiherr von Knigge], instructions for dealing with people, i.e. instructions for the operation of a very complex system, whose internal structure the user does not in the least understand.”5
The Berlin broadcast, directed by Edlef Koeppen, aired on the morning of Sunday, February 8, 1931, from 11:20–12 noon, as part of the station’s experimental series “Studio.” Directed by Ernst Schoen, the Frankfurt broadcast on March 26, 1931, aired during the evening, from 8:30–10:00 pm, and featured a discussion following the play. It was listed in the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung as: “Listening Model I: A Pay Raise?! Whatever Gave You That Idea! By Walter Benjamin and Wolf Zucker. Performance followed by discussion.” The Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung’s “Weekly Program” added that during the discussion, “Labor representatives will voice their opinions of the listening models. Coauthor Dr. Benjamin will also take part in the discussion.”6
1 Wolfgang M. Zucker (1905–?), Benjamin’s collaborator on the Hörmodelle, or listening models, was a critic who wrote for periodicals including Die Weltbühne, where he reviewed Benjamin and Franz Hessel’s translation of Proust (Die Weltbühne 14 [April 5, 1927], 556–8). After emigrating to the US, he became a professor of Philosophy at Upsala College. He discusses his radio collaborations with Benjamin in Wolfgang M. Zucker, “So entstanden die Hörmodelle” [Creating the Listening Models], Die Zeit 47 (Nov. 24, 1972). According to Zucker’s recollections, he and Benjamin wrote “five or six” listening models together, the first of which was “A Pay Raise?!”
2 We have chosen to leave “Zauderer,” a common enough surname, untranslated. It could be rendered as something like Waverer or Procrastinator. Similarly, the name “Frisch” given to the smarter employee might be translated as Cool, Hip, or the more literal Fresh.
3 The Founding Years refers to the period just after the unification of Germany in 1871, used here to refer to the economic boom period from 1871–1873, which was followed by a crash.
4 Benjamin, “Conversation with Ernst Schoen,” trans. Thomas Y. Levin, in The Work of
5 Zucker, “So entstanden die Hörmodelle.” Friedherr von Knigge was the author of Über den Umgang mit Menschen [On Human Relations] (1788), a practical guide to decorum.
6 Schiller-Lerg, Walter Benjamin und der Rundfunk, 196, 208–13.
CHAPTER 38. What the Germans Were Reading While Their Classical Authors Were Writing
Dramatis Personae
THE ANNOUNCER
THE VOICE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT
THE VOICE OF ROMANTICISM
THE VOICE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
THE PUBLISHER JOHANN FRIEDRICH UNGER
THE AUTHOR KARL PHILIPP MORITZ
THE ACTOR IFFLAND
FIRST MAN OF LETTERS (identical with the Voice of the Enlightenment)
SECOND MAN OF LETTERS (identical with the Voice of Romanticism)
PASTOR GRUNELIUS
BOOKSELLER HEINZMANN
WAITER, AUCTIONEER, CRIER, DIRECTOR, TWO ACTORS
Director’s Address
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Ordinarily it is the task of the Announcer to make the kind of introductory remarks I will now deliver. You will soon recognize, however, that the Announcer is, on this occasion, entangled in such a peculiar form of conversation with spirits that we must release him from so profane a task as a mere announcement. You will also soon have detected from his conversation that perhaps he lacks the necessary calm and objectivity of an announcer. It is a somewhat irritable, agitated tone that you will notice in him. The Enlightenment, with whom he deals first, doesn’t seem to sit well with him. Romanticism, who will interrupt him during his second outburst, has absolutely no credit with him, and the nineteenth century, whom he runs up against at the end, is forced to flee from his critical objections to the sheltering protection of Goethe.
Aside from this, you will not have to endure the society of this rather unpleasant person for too long. He will only appear at the thresholds of our play. That is to say: at the beginning, the end and the middle when, during his dispute with Romanticism, we make our way from a Berlin coffee house — into which we are first led — to the basement of the Leipzig bookseller, Breitkopf, where we listen to several people who have gathered for the book fair.1 It will do no harm if, at the same time, you think of this trip between Berlin and Leipzig as a trip through a lustrum — a span of five years. In any case, we will remain in both locations in the decade between 1790 and 1800. Our guide will be the publisher, Johann Friedrich Unger, just as he played guide to no small number of writers at the time.2 We find at his side two nameless, stereotypical figures, two men of letters, the first of whom has assumed the Voice of the Enlightenment, and the second that of Romanticism. Other historical figures besides Unger are the author Karl Philipp Moritz and the actor and playwright, Iffland, figures who have, after all, stood sufficiently in the shadows of greater men as to be included in this little literature play without any injury to their rank.3 Finally, we will mention, from the first tableau, the Pastor Grunelius, whom we have invented, and from the second, the bookseller Heinzmann from Bern.4