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[November 24, 1963] Mourning on two continents

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[President Kennedy's body has been transported to the Capitol where it will remain in state pending his funeral tomorrow.  Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, West Germans have offered an outpouring of sorrow for their fallen fellow Berliner…]


by Cora Buhlert

Like most West Germans, news of the terrible events in Dallas reached me at home, just settling onto the sofa for an evening of TV. Like some ninety percent of West German television owners, I had my set tuned to the eight o'clock evening news tagesschau. But instead of the familiar tagesschau fanfare, the screen remained dark for a minute or two, something which has never happened before in the eleven years the program has been on the air. When the image finally returned, the visibly shaken news anchor Karl-Heinz Köpcke reported that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas, and was rushed to hospital. By the end of the program, we knew that Kennedy had not survived.

John F. Kennedy was extremely popular in West Germany, not least because of his memorable visit to our country earlier this year. And so many West Germans spontaneously burst into tears. People called friends and family, rang their neighbours' doorbells and shouted the news from windows to random passers-by on the street. Theatres and cinemas interrupted their programming, dancehalls closed down (on a Friday evening, i.e. prime business time) and in less an hour, the entire country was in shock.

The shock and grief was nowhere greater than in West Berlin, where Kennedy had won the hearts of the population, when he proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" earlier this year. The people of Berlin took him by his word and mourned him as one of their own.

The students of the two big West Berlin universities heard the news during a student dance at the Hilton Hotel and spontaneously took to the streets, joined by many other Berliners. Several thousand – overwhelmingly young – people marched to the Rathaus Schöneberg, West Berlin's city hall, bearing torches, flowers and placards. 

"Berlin has lost its best friend", West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt proclaimed last night on the very spot in front of the Rathaus Schöneberg where John F. Kennedy held his now historic speech only five months ago, while the gathered mourners provisionally renamed the square in front of the city hall "John-F.-Kennedy Platz". By now, Willy Brandt has announced that the square will be named in honour of Kennedy for real on Monday. I'm sure it won't be the last John F. Kennedy street or square in West Germany.

By today, the soon to be John-F.-Kennedy Platz was drowning in flowers and thousands of mourning West Germans had signed one of the condolence books laid out around the country. In West Berlin and elsewhere, people placed candles in their windows in memory of John F. Kennedy. Reportedly, flickering candles have also spotted on the far side of the Berlin Wall.

For John F. Kennedy was not just a friend of Berlin, he was a friend of all of Germany. 




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Book

[Oct. 30, 1963] Jim Knopf and Lukas the Train Engine Driver by Michael Ende: A Classic in the Making

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by Cora Buhlert

Today, I'm going to talk about a children's fantasy series that may well be a future classic. But first, I want to talk about politics. For since October 16, 1963, West Germany has a new chancellor.

Now West Germany does have a president, currently Heinrich Lübke, but he is a figurehead with little political power. The real power rests with the chancellor. And since 1949, there has only been one chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. However, his final term was beset by scandals and so Mr. Adenauer finally resigned at the ripe old age of 87.

I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of Konrad Adenauer. He did a good job rebuilding the country after WWII and his place in history is assured. But after fourteen years, it is time to let someone else have a go. The new chancellor, Ludwig Ehrhard, was secretary of economics in Adenauer's cabinet and is largely responsible for West Germany's so-called economic miracle. Therefore, I don't expect many changes, but maybe a somewhat younger government.

But now let's leave politics behind, because today I want to introduce you to a wonderful fantasy duology by up and coming author Michael Ende. Though marketed as children's books, these are books all ages can enjoy.

A most unusual visitor

 

Michael Ende, who will turn 34 in two weeks, burst onto the scene three years ago with his novel Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (Jim Knopf and Lukas the Train Engine Driver) followed last year by the sequel Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13 (Jim Knopf and the Wild 13). The first book has just come out in English as Jim Button and Luke the Train Engine Driver. I hope the sequel will follow soon.

The book opens in Lummerland (Morrowland in English), a small island kingdom with two mountains in the middle of the ocean. Lummerland is ruled by King Alfons, the Quarter-to-Twelfth, and has only three inhabitants, Herr Ärmel (Mr. Sleeve), a bowler-hatted gentleman whose profession is being a loyal subject, Frau Waas (Mrs. Whaat) who runs the general store, and Lukas who drives the steam locomotive Emma around Lummerland.

This balance is upset when the mail boat delivers a parcel with a barely legible address and the number 13 as the sender. The inhabitants of Lummerland decide to open the parcel, hoping to find a clue about the recipient inside. Instead, they find a black baby boy. The new arrival, christened Jim Knopf (Jim Button) is quickly accepted. Frau Waas adopts Jim, Herr Ärmel becomes his teacher and Lukas makes him his apprentice, train engine driver being a dream job for many German children.

Lummerland may seem absurd to adult readers, but it recalls the vanished world of pre-WWI Germany with its micro-states, complete with pompous rulers, where every small town had its own post office and train station. Lummerland also seems to owe more than a little to the 1958 painting Die Angst der Berge (The Fear of the Mountains) by Michael Ende's father, surrealist painter Edgar Ende. And indeed, Ende has confirmed that the painting was one of the inspirations for the story.

The fact that Jim Knopf is black may surprise many readers. There have always been black Germans, even during the Third Reich. And after World War II, their number grew as romance blossomed between black American GIs and German women and resulted in mixed race children. About five thousand so-called "occupation babies" were born in West Germany since 1945. They were subject to discrimination, both from the US Army, which discourages fraternisation, and from West German society, where the racism of the Nazi regime still festers. Some mixed race couples married and went to the US. But in many cases, the fathers were sent off to fight in Korea, Vietnam or elsewhere, leaving the mothers alone with their children. Many women were pressured to give their children up for adoption. Some of the children were adopted by black American families, others were sent to Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The plight of mixed race children has been tackled before, e.g. in the 1952 movie Toxi about an abandoned little girl who is reunited with her American father. Nonetheless, Michael Ende's choice to make Jim Knopf black is remarkable, because his situation mirrors that of many mixed race German children. His biological parents are nowhere in sight; Jim is an orphan found in a box. However, unlike his real life counterparts, Jim is accepted by the people of Lummerland and his race is never an issue. He is one of them from the moment he arrives.

Trouble is brewing in Lummerland, however, because the small island is becoming overcrowded. King Alfons decrees that one of Lummerland's inhabitants has to leave. The unlucky inhabitant chosen is – no, not Jim – but Emma, Lukas' beloved locomotive. With Emma banished, Lukas decides to leave as well. Jim tags along, because he doesn't want to leave either Lukas or Emma. Lukas and Jim set out to sea aboard Emma, who is surprisingly seagoing for a locomotive.

Eventually, Jim, Lukas and Emma reach China, where they befriend Ping Pong, grandson of the Emperor's personal chef. Ping Pong tells Jim and Lukas that the Emperor is grieving because his daughter Princess Li Si has been kidnapped and is held prisoner in the dragon city of Kummerland (Sorrowland). Of course, Jim and Lukas immediately offer to rescue the princess.

But in order to see the Emperor, they first have to brave the labyrinthine Imperial bureaucracy, which is a parody of bureaucracies everywhere. Jim and Lukas also incur the wrath of prime minister Pi Pa Po, who is about to have them executed. Luckily, Ping Pong fetches the Emperor who saves Jim and Lukas, fires the villainous Pi Pa Po and makes Ping Pong prime minister instead.

Ende's China feels as fallen out of time as Lummerland. It's a land of bonzes and emperors, pigtail braids and rijstafeln (actually a Dutch Indonesian dish) that has more in common with Franz Lehar's operetta The Land of Smiles than with Chairman Mao's People's Republic of China. However, while Lummerland feels nostalgic, the orientalist clichés of Ende's China are problematic. A fictional country would have been a better choice.

Jim and Lukas learn that Princess Li Si called for help via a message in a bottle, which includes the address where she is being held prisoner, Old Street 133 in Kummerland. Jim recognises the address, because the same address was written on the parcel which brought him to Lummerland. Maybe rescuing the princess can also shed some light on Jim's origin.

Our heroes travel through fantastic landscapes, brave untold dangers and eventually, reach the Land of the Thousand Volcanoes. Here, they make another friend, half-dragon Nepomuk, who knows the way to Kummerland but cannot travel there himself because only pure-blooded dragons are allowed to enter Kummerland. Nepomuk, however, is half dragon and half hippopotamus. Adult readers will see parallels between the dragons' obsession with racial purity and Nazi race theory. And indeed, the Ende family was at odds with the Nazi regime, which branded the paintings of Michael's father Edgar Ende as degenerate art.

Jim and Lukas enter Kummerland by disguising Emma as a dragon. They locate Old Street 133 and find a school, where several children, including Li Si, are chained to desks, with the dragon Frau Mahlzahn (Mrs. Grindtooth), whose idea of pedagogics is barking orders at her pupils, as their teacher. Author Michael Ende is a supporter of Waldorf education and has said that Frau Mahlzahn's school was inspired by his experiences with the Nazi education system.

Our heroes overpower Frau Mahlzahn and free the children. Li Si explains that the children have been kidnapped by a pirate gang called the Wild 13 and sold to Frau Mahlzahn. The same fate was intended for Jim, only that he was mailed to Lummerland instead.

Jim, Lukas, Emma and Li Si return to China with a reformed Frau Mahlzahn in tow. The Emperor promises Li Si's hand to Jim, though both of them are a little young to get married. Frau Mahlzahn announces that she will hibernate to become a golden dragon of wisdom. Frau Mahlzahn also comes up with a solution to Lummerland's space problems, for she knows the location of a floating island that would make a good extension for Lummerland.

The novel ends with Lukas, Jim. Li Si and Emma returning home, the floating island in tow, which is dubbed Neu-Lummerland. And not a moment too soon, for Lukas reveals that Emma is pregnant. I don't even want to imagine the mechanics of this, but luckily the young target audience is more accepting. Emma gives birth to a baby locomotive named Molly and Jim now has a locomotive of his own.

Jim Knopf's adventures continue!

 

The adventures of Jim, Lukas and their friends continue in Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13 (Jim Knopf and the Wild 13). As the title indicates, the second book focuses on Frau Mahlzahn's partners in crime, the pirate gang known as the Wild 13, who remain unseen in the first book. Though Wild 13 is a misnomer, for there are only twelve pirates, all identical brothers, but they counted the leader twice. What is more, each pirate can only write a single letter of the alphabet, which explains their spelling problems and why their mailings keep ending up at the wrong address.

When the Wild 13 kidnap Molly, Jim, Lukas, Emma and stowaway Li Si go after them. Everybody except Jim is taken prisoner. Jim uses the fact that the pirates aren't particularly bright against them and gets them to accept him as their leader. One thing I like about the Jim Knopf books is that the villains are reformed rather than vanquished. This solution might seem a little too neat for adults, but learning that enemies can become friends is an important lesson for kids.

Jim also learns the truth about his origin. He is Prince Myrrhen of the sunken land of Jamballa who was kidnapped and sold to Frau Mahlzahn, but ended up in Lummerland instead. And because a prince needs a kingdom, Frau Mahlzahn and the Wild 13 help Jim raise Jamballa from the ocean (after sinking it in the first place). Jim takes the throne, marries Li Si and everybody lives happily ever after.

The parallels between Jamballa and Atlantis are obvious. Ende subverts the Nazi take on the Atlantis myth here, according to which Atlantis is the original homeland of the Aryan race. One example is the 1930s Heftroman series Sun Koh – Heir of Atlantis by Paul Alfred Müller a.k.a. Freder van Holk, which has several parallels to Jim Knopf's story. Like Sun Koh, Jim is the prince of a sunken kingdom, which he raises from the ocean. Only that in Ende's version, the original inhabitants of Atlantis – ahem, Jamballa – were not Über-Aryans, but descendants of the Biblical Wise Man Caspar and therefore black.

Michael Ende does his best to create a diverse and inclusive world, where yesterday's enemies can become today's friends and little black boys can become both kings and train engine drivers and marry the princess, too. Li Si is not just a damsel in distress, but a smart and resourceful person in her own right. Future generations may find issues with the books, but for now Michael Ende has created a remarkably progressive fantasy series.
 

A hard but certain sell

 
The reaction to the books was mixed. It took Michael Ende three years to find a publisher. Furthermore, contemporary German literature is focussed on realism and fantasy novels are dismissed as escapism. This is unfair, for the Jim Knopf novels are so much more. The jury of the Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis agreed and named Jim Knopf and Lukas the Train Engine Driver the best children's book of 1960. The popularity of the Jim Knopf books inspired the Augsburger Puppenkiste marionette theatre to adapt them into puppet plays, which were also filmed for television. And children everywhere love the adventures of Jim, Lukas and friends.

Jim's story came to a neat ending in Jim Knopf and the Wild 13, but will adventurers like Jim and Lukas really retire or does Michael Ende have yet more stories up his sleeve? But whether Ende revisits Lummerland or not, he is a great emerging voice of German fantasy and I for one can't wait to see what he will do next.

A lovely story about a boy, his friends and his locomotive. Four and a half stars.




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Movies

[September 15, 1963] The Silent Star: A cinematic extravaganza from beyond the Iron Curtain

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by Cora Buhlert

In my last article, I gave an overview of science fiction novels from beyond the Iron Curtain, including the works of Polish author Stanislaw Lem. Today I will take a look at a recent East German/Polish movie based on one of Lem's novels.

It will probably surprise you that Eastern Europe has a tradition of fantastic cinema, particularly stunning fairy tale movies that can wow even Western audiences. In fact, the state-owned East German DEFA studios has produced lots of live action fairy tale movies and stop motion puppet films since 1946.

Eventually, the DEFA decided to use the technical expertise gained from making fairy tale movies and apply it to science fiction. In 1957, director Kurt Maetzig announced that he planned to adapt Stanislaw Lem's novel Astronauci (Astronauts), published as Planet des Todes (Planet of Death) in German. Maetzig even hired Lem to write an early draft of the script.

Kurt Maetzig is not a natural choice for East Germany's first science fiction movie, since he is mostly known for realist fare and even outright propaganda films. Though the fact that Maetzig is a staunch Communist helped him overcome the reservations of DEFA political director Herbert Volkmann, who doesn’t like science fiction, since it does not advance the Communist project and who shot down eleven script drafts as well as Maetzig’s plan to hire West European stars.

Slated for 1958, the film, now called Der schweigende Stern (The Silent Star), finally premiered in February 1960. Stanislaw Lem reportedly did not like the movie at all. Nonetheless, it became a success and also played in West Germany under the title Raumschiff Venus Antwortet Nicht (Spaceship Venus does not reply).

The Silent Star begins in the not so far off future of 1970, unlike the novel, which is set in the somewhat further off future of 2003. During excavation work, a mysterious coil with a recording in an unknown language is found. Scientists realise that the message originates on Venus and came to Earth when a spaceship crashed in the Tunguska region in Siberia in 1908.

Once humanity is aware of a civilisation on Venus, they try to establish communication. However, Venus does not reply. Therefore, it is decided to send a spaceship. Luckily, the Soviet Union just happens to have one and kindly donates it to an international Venus mission. This spaceship, the Kosmokrator, must be the prettiest rocket ship ever seen on screen. It looks as if a Hugo Award sprouted three baby Hugos.

The multinational crew consists of Russian astronomer Professor Arsenyew (Michail N. Postnikow), Polish engineer Soltyk (Ignacy Machowski) and his robot Omega, German pilot Raimund Brinkmann (Günther Simon), Indian mathematician Professor Sikarna (Kurt Rackelmann), Chinese linguist and biologist Dr. Chen Yu (Hua-Ta Tang), African communications technician Talua (Julius Ongewe) and the only woman on board, Japanese doctor Sumiko Ogimura (Yoko Tani).

The Kosmokrator crew even includes an American, nuclear physicist Professor Harringway Hawling (Oldrich Lukes), who joins the mission against the wishes of a group of cartoonish American capitalists. The only American willing to support Hawling is his mentor Professor Weimann (Eduard von Winterstein), who hoped to harness nuclear power, but was forced to build nuclear weapons instead. Weimann tells the assembled cartoon capitalists, "Hiroshima was your adventure. His adventure is the mission to Venus."

This is not the only mention of Hiroshima in the movie. Sumiko lost her mother in Hiroshima and was rendered infertile due to radiation exposure, which causes her a lot of angst and also torpedoes her budding romance with Brinkmann, who thinks that she shouldn't be aboard the ship because a woman's place is to bear children. Meanwhile, the fact that the Soviet Union has nuclear weapons and that the People's Republic of China is working on them is not mentioned at all. Apparently, nuclear weapons are only bad when in the hands of Americans.

These propaganda bits are eyerollingly blunt, but the Kosmokrator's multinational crew offers a positive vision of a future where the world's powers are no longer rivals in the space race (cartoon capitalists notwithstanding) but work together. Furthermore, the Kosmokrator's crew includes members from the emerging nations of Asia and Africa, which is a big step forward compared to the all-male, all-white and all-American crew seen in Forbidden Planet. I wonder when we will see Russian, Japanese or African astronauts aboard western spaceships, whether in fiction or reality.  

A crew of scientists, every single one of them the very best in their respective fields, seems like a good idea in theory, but the characters remain bland and I had to dig up my program book to recall their names.

Arsenyew and Brinkmann are both square-jawed and heroic to the point of caricature. The balding engineer Soltyk is memorable because he doesn't fit the image of a heroic astronaut. Sikarna and Hawling are serious scientists. Chen Yu and Talua are given little to do until the end. Sumiko, the only female character of note in the film, mainly exists to angst about her infertility. Even the robot,Omega,is dull.

Once the mission gets underway, the Kosmokrator crew faces the usual perils of space travel such as a meteorite shower and a risky repair in space. They also manage to decipher the message and realise that the Venusians had planned to nuke Earth from orbit in 1908, when their ship crashed. The crew withholds this crucial information from the authorities to avoid causing a panic. They also decide to continue their mission to see if the Venusians have learned the error of their warlike ways.

When the Kosmokrator reaches Venus, the crew still cannot contact anybody and their sensors cannot penetrate the dense cloud cover. Brinkmann and the robot scout ahead, but lose contact with the ship and so the Kosmokrator lands after all.

The crew finds a bizarre Venusian landscape, including a radioactive "glass forest", a glowing sphere and a cave full of metallic spiders, which they initially mistake for lifeforms, but which turn out to be mechanical and part of a Venusian archive.

Chen Yu figures out that the radioactive forest is not biological either, but a gigantic nuclear cannon. Chen Yu and Sikarna also decipher the Venusian archive and realise that many recordings abruptly break off, as if Venus was hit by a massive catastrophe.

You'd think that these alarming discoveries would persuade the Kosmokrator crew to get the hell out of there. However, our brave astronauts continue their explorations and discover a ruined city. They also finally catch a glimpse of some Venusians in the form of humanoid blast shadows. And just in case the viewer might have forgotten, Sumiko reminds us that she saw similar blast shadows in Hiroshima.

The Venus scenes – shot in Agfacolor and Totalvision – are the highlight of the movie and can compete with anything Hollywood produces. The DEFA team managed to create a dreamlike alien landscape that is reminiscent of modern art. The radioactive forest and the ruined city are influenced by the paintings of Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Paul Klee. The glowing sphere is based on the geodesic dome designs of Buckminster Fuller, while the Venusian blast shadows are reminiscent of the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti.

In the ruined city, Arsenyew and Hawling come upon the targeting system for the nuclear cannon, while Brinkmann, Soltyk and Sumiko are chased up a spiralling tower by a burbling mass (portrayed by the entire annual East German production of glue, which must have screwed up the plan fulfilment of several industries), which recedes when Soltyk fires at it. At the same time, both the sphere and the targeting system activate. Uh-oh.

Though the Kosmokrator's crew consists of Earth's best and brightest, it takes them a long time to catch on to what is happening. In fact, I suspect that many viewers have figured out the mystery long before the crew does, namely that the Venusians managed to blow themselves up during their attempt to nuke Earth in 1908. However, their cannon is still functional and still aimed at Earth. And our blundering astronauts managed to reactivate it.

The rest of the movie is a race against time, as the Kosmokrator crew scrambles to deactivate the nuclear cannon and the glowing sphere which turns out to be a gravity device holding the Kosmokrator captive. And as if all that wasn't enough, the radiation also causes the robot Omega to run amok.

Chen Yu and Talua deactivate the system, but Chen Yu damages his space suit. Brinkmann takes off to rescue him, but it's too late. The gravity field created by the sphere reverses and hurls the Kosmokrator back into space. Brinkmann is lost and Chen Yu perishes, while Talua is left standing alone on a dead planet.

These heroic deaths should be a lot more affecting than they are. But the climactic scenes feel rushed, especially compared to the staid pace of the rest of the movie. The crew seems unaffected as well. Hence, Sumiko tells the dying Chen Yu that the Venusian seeds he found have sprouted, which will be a great comfort to him as he suffocates. Finally, the film cuts straight to the landing on Earth, where the surviving crewmembers sum up the moral of the story, before the movie ends with everybody holding hands.

"War will only destroy the aggressor" is a popular theme in East European science fiction and may also be found in the West. Rocketship X-M has a similar plot, but set on Mars rather than Venus. Forbidden Planet features another alien civilisation that managed to destroy itself, though by harnessing the power of the mind rather than the power of the atom. I have no idea if Lem or Maetzig have seen either movie, but the similarities are striking. Fear of nuclear war is another common theme in both East and West, which I find heartening if only because knowing that both sides share this fear makes it less likely that someone will press that button.

Spaceships with multiracial and multinational crews can be found in both Eastern and Western Europe, whether in the works of Stanislaw Lem, Eberhard del'Antonio and Carlos Rasch and West Germany's Perry Rhodan series. I wish that American science fiction would follow suit because the future should have room for everybody and not just for Americans and Russians.

American and British viewers did have a chance to watch The Silent Star, for the movie was distributed in the US and UK under the title First Spaceship to Venus, though the US/UK edit is about ten minutes shorter than the original, because the propaganda bits such as the scene with the capitalists as well as all Hiroshima references were cut.

So if you happen to come across The Silent Star a.k.a. First Spaceship to Venus in a movie theatre, should you watch it? I'd say yes, because in spite of its weaknesses, The Silent Star is an interesting science fiction movie with stunning visuals. British and American viewers lose ten minutes of propaganda dialogue, but that's not that much of a loss.

Three and a half stars.

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[August 10, 1963] The Future in a Divided Land, Part 3 (An Overview of Science Fiction in East and West Germany)

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by Cora Buhlert

In the last two entries in this series, I gave you an extensive overview of West German science fiction. Now let's take a look across the iron curtain at what is going on in East Germany. For while the inner German border may be nigh insurmountable for human beings, mail does pass through. A lot of us have family in the East, including myself, and are in regular contact with them via letters and parcels. Parcels from West to East Germany usually contain coffee, nylons, soap, canned pineapple and all sorts of other consumer goods that are hard to come by in Communist East Germany.

Unfortunately, we cannot send books and magazines, cause they will probably be seized at the border for fear of "dangerous" ideas spreading. East Germans, on the other hand, are free to send books and magazines to relatives and friends in the West. And since my love for reading in general and for "space books" in particular is well known to my aunts in East Germany, the occasional science fiction novel from beyond the iron curtain has found its way into my hands.

The collaborations of authors Lothar Weise and Kurt Herwarth Ball mostly seem to be fairly straightforward science fiction adventures aimed at a younger audience. Eberhardt del'Antonio's 1959 novel Titanus is set in a utopian Socialist future where humanity is united and war has been abolished. A spaceship with a multinational crew, commanded by a Russian, of course, leaves for a distant planet, only to realise that the aliens are in the middle of preparing for a devastating attack against their neighbours.

Our heroic space travellers proceed to warn the intended targets only to learn that the aliens have a defence system in place that will destroy the attackers, for war is bad. I certainly can't argue with that sentiment, though the novel itself is rather wooden and unimaginative.

Als die Götter starben (When the gods died) by Günther Krupkat, which only appeared this year, is a variation on the ancient astronaut concept. An alien spaceship is found on the moon and records indicate that the aliens first landed on Earth in Mesopotamia millennia ago. It's not exactly an original idea, but it is certainly well told.

The ancient astronaut idea certainly seems to be popular in East Germany, for another science fiction novel published this year, Der Blaue Planet (The Blue Planet) by Brazilian born author Carlos Rasch, used the same concept. Two years ago, Carlos Rasch also published Asteroidenjäger (Asteroid hunters), an enjoyable romp featuring a spaceship with a multinational crew that is supposed to clear the asteroid belt, when the ship receives mysterious signals that might be evidence of alien life or might be something else.

What makes Asteroidenjäger remarkable is that there is an interracial romance on board between a white German doctor and a black African mathematician. Somehow, I don't see something like this happening in American science fiction anytime soon.  

However, the most exciting of those voice from beyond the iron curtain is not German at all, but a Polish writer, Stanislaw Lem, whose work I encountered via East German translations. I particularly enjoy Lem's humorous stories about the adventures of a space traveller named Ijon Tichy, which have been collected as Die Sterntagebücher des Raumfahrers Ijon Tichy (The Star Diaries of the Spaceman Ijon Tichy).

Lem's more serious works include the novels Eden with its fascinating portrayal of a truly alien society, Planet des Todes (Planet of Death), which was even filmed in 1960, and the generation ship story Gast im Weltraum (Guest in Space), which is currently being filmed in Czechoslovakia.

When comparing East and West German science fiction, the most striking thing is that in spite of all the superficial differences, the underlying themes and concerns are remarkably similar. Of course, West German science fiction tends to be set in capitalist futures, which somehow have managed to abolish all the negative side effects of unfettered capitalism, while East German and East European science fiction tends to be set in utopian Socialist futures, which have somehow managed to abolish all the negative side effects of real existing Communism.

However, it is notable that both East and West German science fiction tends to feature spaceships with multinational and multiracial crews, that it is set in futures where the world and humanity are united as one, where war and strife are but a distant memory. Whether it is Perry Rhodan single-handedly ending the Cold War and uniting humanity or Stanislaw Lem's and Eberhard del'Antonio's space travellers horrified by the relics of past wars they encounter in outer space, German (and Polish) science fiction clearly expresses the desire for peace and unity, a desire that is only too understandable in our divided country.

And that's it for now. In a future article, I will take a look at science fiction film in East and West Germany, where we are currently seeing some very exciting developments.

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[July 8, 1963] The Future in a Divided Land, Part 2 (An Overview of Science Fiction in East and West Germany)

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by Cora Buhlert

I'm back to continue my overview of (West) German science fiction begun last month. Today, I'll talk about Perry Rhodan, Germany's most successful science fiction series. The brainchild of writers Clark Dalton a.k.a. Walter Ernsting and K.H. Scheer, the "Heftroman" series Perry Rhodan started two years ago, in September 1961, and will reach its landmark 100th issue in a couple of weeks.

"Unternehmen Stardust", the first issue of Perry Rhodan, begins in the not so far off future of 1971. International tensions are running high and the Western Bloc, the somewhat diminished Eastern Bloc and the rising Asian Federation are at each other's throats. In this climate, the spaceship Stardust under the command of Major Perry Rhodan of the US Space Force embarks on humanity's first trip to the moon. However, Rhodan and his crew find more than they bargained for when they come across an alien spaceship that crashed on the moon months before. Aboard the spaceship, Perry Rhodan and fellow crewmember Reginald Bull encounter the Arkonoids, a group of humanoid aliens led by the striking Thora de Zoltral and the scientist Crest de Zoltral. The Arkonoids were on a mission to locate the legendary planet of eternal life in order to heal the cancer-stricken Crest, when their ship crashed.

Thora is initially suspicious about the humans and their motives, though she is also fascinated by Perry Rhodan. Crest is more open towards the Earthmen and quickly strikes up a friendship with Rhodan, who offers to take him back to Earth for treatment (apparently, cancer treatment will make great advances in the eight years until then).

However, instead of returning to the US, Rhodan lands the Stardust with Crest on board in the Gobi desert, which he deems remote enough to keep the Arkonoids and their advanced technology out of the hands of the warring powers of Earth. For Perry Rhodan has become disillusioned with the power blocs on Earth and the resulting risk of nuclear war. So he severs his alliance with the US and the Western Bloc and declares himself a citizen of the world instead. He also founds a new state, the so-called Third Power, in the Gobi desert around the landing site of the Stardust and proceeds to recruit people from all over the world, particularly mutants with ESP powers, to his cause. And because establishing a new state requires a lot of capital, Perry Rhodan also recruits a disgraced banker named Homer G. Adams to procure said capital via clever investments. In a genre which all too often portrays galactic empires operating without any economic basis whatsoever, acknowledging that empires, galactic or otherwise, cost money is truly a breath of fresh air.

The Western Bloc, the Eastern Bloc and the Asian Federation may be at odds otherwise, but they can all agree on one thing: Perry Rhodan and his Third Power are the enemy and must be eliminated. And so they launch a nuclear strike against the Stardust landing site and the city that has sprung up around it, only to be thwarted by superior Arkonoid technology in the form of an energy dome. Eventually, the Third Power is accepted as an independent state, while the remaining three blocs change their warlike ways and finally join the Third Power to form a united world state.

Mind you, all this and more happens in the first ten issues of the series. So after having made contact with aliens, founding a state, preventing World War III, ending the Cold War and uniting and pacifying a divided Earth, the question is what will Perry Rhodan do for an encore? Well, Rhodan established a base on Venus, led an expedition to Vega, put down a robot revolt, solved the great galactic riddle and gained immortality. What is more, he also found personal happiness, when the sparks that had been flying between him and Arkonoid commander Thora blossomed into love. Perry and Thora were married and even had a son, though sadly Thora died in issue 78 published earlier this year. What is more, Thomas Cardif, Thora's and Perry's son, blames his father for his mother's death and is in the process of turning into a villain in his quest for revenge. 

Considering at what a fast clip the plot moves, it is astonishing that the writing team, still headed by Walter Ernsting a.k.a. Clark Dalton and K.H. Scheer, keeps coming up with new stories to tell. The cast continues to grow and includes such memorable characters as fan favourite Gucky, a telepathic alien rodent who just happened to look like a cross between a mouse and a beaver, and recent addition Atlan, an ancient Arkonoid who once commanded a base on the legendary continent of Atlantis and has recently woken from suspended animation, all portrayed on the striking covers by artist Johnnny Bruck. Unfortunately, the cast of Perry Rhodan is still overwhelmingly male, especially after the recent loss of Thora.

Because "Heftromane" are cheap and offer a lot of bang for buck, they are frequently read by teenagers and working class people. As a result, they frequently come under fire from the usual busybodies concerned about depictions of violence and (mild) sexuality and what these will do to impressionable minds. Until recently, those busybodies focussed their attention mainly on G-Man Jerry Cotton and the World War II series Der Landser, which actually deserves all the criticism it receives. However, with the enormous success of Perry Rhodan, the series has become a new favoured target of "Heftroman" critics. The charges levelled at Perry Rhodan are largely the same that were previously hurled at G-Man Jerry Cotton and Der Landser, namely that Perry Rhodan is fascist, that the series glorifies war and violence and that it promotes racial purity and a Führer cult. Futurist Dr. Robert Jungk even referred to Perry Rhodan as the "galactic Hitler".

So how justified are those criticisms? Well, Perry Rhodan certainly is a leader figure, immortal and almost all powerful. And initially, he is not exactly an elected leader but one who appoints himself, though this is remedied in later issues, when the Third Power and later the united world state Terra elect him as their president. What is more, the Perry Rhodan series can be heavy on action and warfare on occasion, described in loving detail by K.H. Scheer, whose penchant for fight scenes has gained him the nickname "Hand Grenade Herbert", even though Scheer did not experience any fighting in World War II, unlike his co-author Walter Ernsting. However, what the critics miss is that in spite of all the cosmic action and intergalactic warfare, Perry Rhodan is a man of peace, who strives to end the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Perry Rhodan's friends and allies include humans of many nations and even aliens. And apart from the initial land grab in the Gobi desert, Perry Rhodan does not actually conquer other planets either. Finally, in this era of global strife, the vision of a united humanity as presented in the Perry Rhodan series is certainly seductive. Considering that the first issue came out only a few months after the building of the Berlin Wall literally cemented the division of Germany (and was almost certainly influenced by these real world events), it is not surprising that Perry Rhodan's vision of a united world has struck a chord in so many fans.

The enormous success of Perry Rhodan did not just draw the attention of critics, but also inspired other publishers to create their own ongoing science fiction series. And so Pabel, who already had a foot in the West German science fiction market with their Utopia franchise, launched a Perry Rhodan competitor named Mark Powers in 1962, initially in Utopia and later as a separate series. Mark Powers was introduced as a former military officer whose excessive courage and honesty brought him into conflict with his superiors. Now a sort of private troubleshooter, Powers and his good friend Al "Biggy" Bighead investigate mysterious objects and occurrences which inevitably involve alien invasion attempts.

The central concept is not bad and might have made for an interesting series, especially since the first few issues were penned by Freder van Holk a.k.a. Paul Alfred Müller, a true veteran of German science fiction who had penned the "Heftroman" series Sun Koh – The Heir of Atlantis and Jan Mayen – Master of Atomic Power before the war. However, audiences have moved on. The fact that Müller and his co-author K.H. Schmidt are proponents of the Hollow Earth theory and insisted on integrating it into Mark Powers didn't help either, since contemporary audiences are no longer as willing to accept stories of underground civilisations inside Earth as they were in the 1930s. And while Walter Ernsting and K.H. Scheer took great care to create plot arcs and outlines for Perry Rhodan to ensure consistency, no such efforts were made for Mark Powers. As a result, the early issues are something of a mess of unconnected stories that just happen to star two characters named Mark Powers and Al Bighead. Several early stories by authors such as J.E. Wells and Jim Parker creator Alf Tjörnsen are also obvious rewrites of earlier novels with only the names of the protagonists changed.

The publishers attempted to save Mark Powers by forcing a radical retooling of the series from issue 19 on. Paul Alfred Müller and K.H. Schmidt were ousted and Alf Tjörnsen became head author. Mark Powers got his own spaceship, the Meteor, and a regular crew. Unfortunately, the rebooted Mark Powers hewed way too close to Perry Rhodan to develop its own identity and new characters such as the alien scientist Chrech Acham and the telepathic alien bear Smarty were clearly carbon copies of Crest and Gucky of Perry Rhodan fame. As of this writing, Mark Powers is still hanging on, though it has never managed to evolve beyond a pale Perry Rhodan imitation. 

And that's it for now. Next time, we'll take a peek across the iron curtain to see what's going on in East German and East European science fiction.

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[June 8, 1963] The Future in a Divided Land (An Overview of Science Fiction in East and West Germany) Part 1

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[The Journey is joined today by talented author and fan, Cora Buhlert, who expands our coverage of the world significantly…]


by Cora Buhlert

Living in Germany, you cannot help but feel cut off from the wider world of science fiction. Therefore, I always look forward to receiving the latest issue of Galactic Journey in my mailbox, because it allows me to keep up with the latest developments in the genre in the US, the UK and elsewhere.

As a big fan of the Journey, I was thrilled to be asked to give you an overview of the current state of science fiction in Germany. Everybody who regularly follows the news will of course know that since 1949, there are not one but two Germanys: the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly referred to as West Germany, and the so-called German Democratic Republic, better known as East Germany. In the past fourteen years, the border between the two Germanys has become increasingly insurmountable, culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall two years ago.

I am fortunate enough to live in West Germany and therefore the main focus of this article will be on West German science fiction. However, I will also take a look at what is going on in East Germany.

In the US and UK, science fiction is very much a magazine genre, even if paperback novels are playing an increasingly bigger role. In West Germany, there are a couple of science fiction publishers, such as the Balowa and Pfriem, which specialise in hardcovers aimed at the library market, as well as the paperback science fiction lines of Heyne, Fischer and Goldmann. The three paperback publishers focus mainly on translations, whereas the library publishers offer a mix of translations and works by German authors. Though Goldmann has recently started publishing some German language authors such as the promising new Austrian voice Herbert W. Franke in its science fiction paperback line.

However, the main medium for science fiction and indeed any kind of genre fiction in West Germany is still the so-called "Heftroman:" digest-sized 64-page fiction magazines that are sold at newsstands, gas stations, grocery stories and wherever magazines are sold. Whereas American and British science fiction magazines usually include several stories as well as articles, letter pages, etc…, a "Heftroman" contains only a single novel, technically a novella. "Heftromane" are the direct descendants of the American dime novel and the British penny dreadful – indeed, they are also referred to as "Groschenroman", which is a literal translation of "dime novel".

There is a huge range of "Heftromane," covering various genres. The most popular are probably the western and romance, with subgenres such as aristocratic romance, alpine romance or doctor and nurse romance. Crime and mystery series are also popular, as are adventure and war stories. By comparison to these flames, science fiction is still a small but growing flicker.

There were shortlived German language science fiction "Heftromane" published in the late 1940s in Germany, Austria and in Switzerland. However, the postwar era of (West) German "Heftroman" science fiction began exactly ten years ago in 1953, when Pabel, one of several publishers of "Heftromane", introduced its latest series Utopia – Jim Parkers Abenteuer im Weltraum. Though the first issue was anything but utopian, considering that it was set in a penal colony on the moon, where convicts are forced to shovel nuclear waste. The protagonist is Jim Parker, an American space ship commander in the employ of the Atomic Territorium. Together with his German pal Fritz Wernicke, Parker spends the next 43 issues bouncing around the solar system, while tangling with the villainous "Yellow Union". The Jim Parker stories were written by one Alf Tjörnsen whose identity remained mysterious for many years. Though Tjörnsen has recently been revealed as a pen name for author Richard Johannes Rudat.

Compared to American science fiction, the Jim Parker stories felt old-fashioned, a throwback to the 1920s and 1930s. The science was often laughably bad as well. And so, after 43 biweekly issues of Jim Parker's adventures in space, Utopia changed its name to Utopia Zukunftsroman and began alternating standalone novellas with the Jim Parker stories. Initially, those standalone stories were written by German authors, usually operating under house names, but from 1955 on, Utopia also published translations of American science fiction by authors such as John W. Campbell, Leigh Brackett and Murray Leinster, as well as Britishers like Eric Frank Russell. Due to the constraints of the "Heftroman" format with its 64 page limit, these translated works were heavily abridged. Nonetheless, to many German fans they served as the first introduction to the wider world of American science fiction.

The success of Utopia Zukunftsroman spawned several spin-offs. The first of these was Utopia Großband, a thicker 94-page "Heftroman" which debuted in 1954 and allowed for publishing translations of American science fiction novels, though once again many novels were mercilessly cut to fit the format. Utopia Sonderband, later Utopia Magazin, an anthology magazine in the style of the American science fiction magazines, followed in 1955. The final spin-off of the Utopia family was Utopia Kriminal, which debuted in 1956 and billed itself as a series focussed on futuristic crime novels, inspired by the success of the Edgar Wallace thrillers with their mixture of suspense, science fiction elements and outright horror. Utopia Kriminal published a lot of translated weird fiction by writers such as Frenchman Jean David and Americans Norvell W. Page and A. Merritt.

However, after its initial success Pabel's Utopia franchise has fallen on hard times of late. Utopia Kriminal and Utopia Magazin were cancelled in 1958 and 1959 respectively and Utopia Großband followed this year. Utopia Zukunftsroman is still hanging on for now, though the quality of the authors and stories translated has declined notably in recent years.

The reason for this is increased competition in the German science fiction market. Inspired by the success of Utopia, the "Heftroman" publisher Moewig launched its own science fiction series Terra Utopische Romane in 1957. The format was similar to Utopia Zukunftsroman, a mix of standalone science fiction novels by German authors and translations of American science fiction. However, the imitator quickly eclipsed the original, for Terra offered higher quality translations and quickly snapped up the A-list of American science fiction authors, leaving only second and third rate works for its competitor Utopia. Indeed, in some cases one novel in a series would be published under the Utopia banner, while the sequel appeared in Terra, to the frustrations of many readers. Like Utopia, Terra also spawned two spin-offs. Terra Sonderband, a thicker 96-page 'Heftroman" similar to Utopia Großband, premiered in 1958. And only last year, the reprint series Terra Extra debuted.

West German genre readers in general and science fiction readers in particular tend to be very americanophile. And so "Heftroman" publishers quickly noticed that translations of American science fiction tended to sell better than works by German authors. The fact that homegrown science fiction wasn't always up to the snuff, especially when compared to the best of American science fiction, did not help either. So magazines eventually stopped publishing original science fiction by German authors and focussed solely on translations. As a result, it became very difficult for budding German science fiction writers to persuade a publisher to take a chance on their work.

One of those budding German science fiction writers was Walter Ernsting, who first encountered science fiction while working as a translator for the allied forces after World War II and quickly fell in love with the genre. In 1955, Ernsting cofounded the Science Fiction Club Deutschland, Germany's biggest fan club. By the mid 1950s, Walter Ernsting was working as an editor and translator for the Utopia line, but was unable to get his own novels published. So the enterprising Ernsting passed off his own writing as the work of a fictional British author named Clark Dalton and promptly had it accepted. Clark Dalton's stories were well received by the readers of the various Utopia titles and so Ernsting kept on writing and publishing as Clark Dalton, even after the secret of his identity was revealed. Nor was Walter Ernsting the only German writer who circumvented publisher prejudice by writing under a British or American sounding pen name. Instead, westerns, science fiction and crime 'Heftromane" are full of German writers pretending to be Americans with varying success. 

In 1958, Ernsting left Pabel for competitor Moewig to work on the Terra line of 'Heftromane". Terra was more open to publishing German authors than Utopia and one of their stars was K.H. Scheer, a prolific young author who had gotten his start writing for the library hardcover lines of Balowa and Pfriem.

Together, Ernsting and Scheer came up with the idea to create an ongoing science fiction series focussed on the adventures of a central character. Now "Heftroman" series following the exploits of a single character are popular in the crime genre – the best know example is probably G-Man Jerry Cotton, which chronicles the adventures of a fictional FBI agent in New York City – but were largely unknown in science fiction following the demise of the rather bland Jim Parker. Nonetheless, Ernsting and Scheer persuaded Moewig to take a chance on their idea and retreated to Ernsting's home in the idyllic Bavarian village of Irschenberg to hammer out the details and come up with a rough plot outline for the first ten issues.

The result, entitled Perry Rhodan – der Erbe des Universums (Perry Rhodan – Heir to the Universe), debuted on September 8, 1961 and has quickly become a sensation in the twenty months since, turning into West Germany's most successful "Heftroman" series with a monthly print run of approximately one million. Unlike the old-fashioned and rather dull Jim Parker stories, Perry Rhodan literally starts with a bang and only keeps getting better. Initially planned to last between thirty and fifty issues, Perry Rhodan is now closing in on issue 100. If the authors manage to keep up the quality, I can see this series lasting a very long time indeed.

And that's it for today. Next time, I'll give you an overview of the Perry Rhodan series and the competitors spawned by its enormous success. I hope you have enjoyed!

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