Lisa Eckhart in the »Literary Quartet«: Not in his program - Commentary

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Marcel Reich-Ranicki

Photo: Uwe Anspach / picture alliance / dpa

Apparently, in the wake of the debate about the invitation of the cabaret artist Lisa Eckhart to the »Literary Quartet«, two camps have formed when it comes to her anti-Semitic jokes from the past: some emphasize the jokes, the other anti-Semitism .

I belong to the second camp.

I don't find the anti-Semitic part of their stage program, which Maxim Biller in the SZ and Felix Dachsel on vice.com referred to, among others, very funny.

The principle of "making jokes with anti-Semitic stereotypes in order to make the anti-Semitism of the anti-Semites visible" is also not entirely plausible to me.

But I also have to admit: I didn't care a bit for a while.

Volker Weidermann, arrow to the right

Born in Darmstadt in 1969, was head of the features section of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”.

He has been an author at SPIEGEL since May 2015.

From 2015 to 2019 he hosted the »Literary Quartet« on ZDF.

His new book “Burning Light: Anna Seghers in Mexico” has just been published.

The novel Lisa Eckhart published this year is of no literary importance.

I didn't really want to comment on her invitation to the »Literary Quartet«.

I hosted the show for a good four years.

Now I am not anymore.

So far, I thought I have nothing to advise the successors to do.

But since I now have the impression that all that remains of this debate at the end is a relaxed “Oh, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

There may be a bit of anti-Semitism, but as a satirist she is brilliant.

And above all: Satire is allowed to do anything, «I would like to briefly write that this is a mistake.

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Lisa Eckhart

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Hans Punz / APA / dpa

Why?

I have always seen the show, as Marcel Reich-Ranicki thought it up, founded, revitalized it, as a gift.

A gift from the surviving Jew Marcel Reich-Ranicki to us, the non-Jewish Germans.

Even his return to Germany was a gift.

An undeserved one.

And that he never felt vindictive.

But love for Berlin.

Love of German literature.

As he later wrote in his memoirs about his return to Germany after the murder of his family: "Not vengeance, but longing drove me to Berlin."

Marcel Reich-Ranicki was the thin bond that connected post-war Germany with the German-Jewish culture of the Weimar Republic.

It was the thin band over to the time that the majority of Germans wanted to be extinguished forever.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki never "forgave" the Germans.

He later said that his murdered parents and his murdered brother did not entitle him to forgive the Germans.

But he came back out of love for German books.

To German culture.

And he became the powerful, entertaining, also destructive, passionate, intrepid, public critic that we know.

He brought back something of the brilliance and liveliness and ardor of the Weimar Republic.

In the later years of his life he was particularly effective in the quartet.

And: yes, he liked to argue loudly.

He loved contradiction.

He loved to assert himself in debates.

more on the subject

• Anti-Semitism as a joke: Punchline in the pit of the stomachA column by Samira El Ouassil

• Icon: Spiegel Plus Lisa Eckhart in the »Literary Quartet«: corpse of discourse under heavy current by Arno Frank

The contentious Marcel Reich-Ranicki remained silent about one thing for his entire life: anti-Semitism.

To anti-Semitic attacks against yourself or others.

Why?

Was he a coward?

Didn't he care?

Did he want some rest?

No.

I have seen him often, in conversations, after such attacks against him and other Jews.

Then he became very quiet.

He had the hope: he didn't have to say anything about that.

Perhaps he of all people, the survivor of the Holocaust, does not have to say anything about anti-Semitic jokes, novels, demonstrations, attacks.

He, who had seen how quickly anti-Semitic jokes turned into anti-Semitic attacks and how quickly it happened, that suddenly, in October 1938, in his apartment in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, a police officer rang the doorbell early in the morning and told him that he was going to come along and must leave the country.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who came back after the war with this love of German literature, hoped that others would now speak for him when it comes to anti-Semitism.

That now non-Jewish Germans would speak for him, defend him.

Say what is necessary.

Often he was not disappointed.

Sometimes it does.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki is dead. Almost all survivors of the Holocaust are today too.

He left us his memories, many books about books - and this show as an inheritance and a treasure.

In order to preserve them, to continue.

Not to be destroyed.

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