Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Berlin Childhood
around 1900
WALTER BENJAMIN
Translated by
Howard Eiland
T H E B E L K N A P P R E S S OF
H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E SS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2006
Copyright © 2006 by the President and Fellows
of Harvard College
A L L R IG H T S R ESE R V ED
Printed in the United States of America
FR O M T H E I 9 3 2 - I 9 3 4 V E R S I O N • 1 2 5
Illu stration s
xii
tran slato r's fo rew ord
xiv
t r a n sla t o r 's fo rew o rd
xv
t r a n sla to r 's fo rew ord
Peter Szondi
Translated by Harvey Mendelsohn
Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much.
But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in
a forest, requires some schooling. Street names must
speak to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry
twigs, and little streets in the heart of the city must re
flect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain
valley. This art I acquired rather late in life; it fulfilled
From Satz und Gegensatz (Frankfurt: Insel, 1964). This essay was
written in 1961 and first published in the Neae Zurchei Zeituag of
October 8, 19 6 1, under the title, "Hoffnung im Vergangenen: Uber
Walter Benjamin.” Peter Szondi was professor of comparative litera
ture at the Free University of Berlin at the time of his death in 19 7 1.
His works include Theorie des modemen Dramas (1956) and Versuch
uber das Tragische {1961). Harvey Mendelsohn is the principal trans
lator of the fourteen-volume Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
In the case of works by Benjamin, Proust, and Adorno, source
notes have been changed to refer to English translations.
P E T E R SZO ND I
2
h o p e in t h e pa st
3
P ET E R SZONDI
4
H OPE IN TH E PAST
5
P E T E R SZO ND I
6
H OPE IN TH E PAST
7
PET E R SZO NDI
9
PETER SZONDI
10
HOPE IN TH E PAST
11
P E T E R SZO ND I
13
P ETER SZONDI
14
HOPE IN TH E PAST
15
P E T E R SZONDI
16
HOPE IN TH E PAST
17
P ET E R SZO ND I
Those people whom the boy could not have met at his
parents’ receptions are also mentioned in the book.
18
H O PE IN TH E PAST
19
PET E R SZONDI
22
H O PE IN TH E PAST
23
P ET E R SZO ND I
the depths even when they are clearly expressed and set
forth.”16 The question then arises of whether the depths
are not necessarily overlooked whenever an author elim
inates his own experience due to a falsely conceived no
tion of science. True objectivity is bound up with subjec
tivity. The basic idea of Benjamin's Origin of German
Tiauerspiel, a work on allegory in the Baroque period,
came to him, as he sometimes recounted, while looking
at a king in a puppet theater whose hat sat crookedly on
his head.17
Considering the great difficulties that a reader of Ben
jamin’s theoretical writings confronts, a brief look at his
remaining work can offer no more than hints which may
serve as signposts in a terrain in which easily trodden
shortcuts are of no use.
In the theses on the concept of history that Benjamin
wrote shortly before his death, we again find the state
ment from One-Way Street that “memory shows to each
man in the book of life a script that invisibly and pro
phetically glosses the text.” But this time it is embedded
in a philosophy of history. “The past,” writes Benjamin
29
P E T E R SZONDI
31
P ET E R SZONDI
32
H O PE IN TH E PAST
33
*
Berlin Childhood
around 1900
FIN A L VERSION
AND
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 34 VERSION (EXCERPTS)
*
Berlin Childhood around 1900
F IN A L V E R S IO N
Loggias
38
F IN A L VERSION
39
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
40
FIN A L VERSION
41
BE RL IN C H IL DH O OD A ROUND 1 9 0 0
Imperial Panorama4
43
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 9 OO
Victory Column
44
F IN A L VERSION
45
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 9 OO
46
PIN A L VER SION
The Telephone
48
FIN A L VER SION
Butterfly Hunt
50
F IN A L VER SION
51
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 9 OO
52
FIN A L VERSION
Tiergarten
Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much.
But to lost one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a
forest, requires some schooling. Street names must speak
to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs,
and little streets in the heart of the city must reflect the
times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley.
This art I acquired rather late in life; it fulfilled a dream,
of which the first traces were labyrinths on the blot
ting papers in my school notebooks. No, not the first,
for there was one earlier that has outlasted the others.
The way into this labyrinth, which was not without its
Ariadne, led over the Bendler Bridge, whose gentle arch
became my first hillside." Not far from its foot lay the
goal: Friedrich Wilhelm and Queen Luise. On their round
pedestals they towered up from the flowerbeds, as though
transfixed by the magic curves that a stream was describ
ing in the sand before them. But it was not so much the
rulers as their pedestals to which I turned, since what
took place upon these stone foundations, though unclear
in context, was nearer in space. That there was some
thing special about this maze I could always deduce from
the broad and banal esplanade, which gave no hint of the
fact that here, just a few steps from the corso of cabs and
carriages, sleeps the strangest part of the park.12
I got a sign of this quite early on. Here, in fact, or not
far away, must have lain the couch of that Ariadne in
whose proximity I first experienced what only later I had
a word for: love. Unfortunately, the “Fraulein”13 intervenes
at its earliest budding to overspread her icy shadow. And
FIN A L VER SION
Tardy Arrival
57
Berlin’s Tiergarten in winter, early twentieth century
Boys’ Books
58
FIN A L VER SION
eled over the heads until it came to rest with me, the stu
dent who had raised his hand. Its pages bore traces of the
fingers that had turned them. The bit of corded fabric
that finished off the binding, and that stuck out above
and below, was dirty. But it was the spine, above all, that
had had things to endure—so much so, that the two
halves of the cover slid out of place by themselves, and
the edge of the volume formed ridges and terraces. Hang
ing on its pages, however, like Indian summer on the
branches of the trees, were sometimes fragile threads of a
net in which I had once become tangled when learning
to read.
The book lay on the table that was much too high.
While reading, I would cover my ears. Hadn’t I already
listened to stories in silence like this? Not those told by
my father, of course. But sometimes in winter, when I
stood by the window in the warm little room, the snow
storm outside told me stories no less mutely. What it
told, to be sure, I could never quite grasp, for always
something new and unremittingly dense was breaking
through the familiar. Hardly had I allied myself, as inti
mately as possible, to one band of snowflakes, than I real
ized they had been obliged to yield me up to another,
which had suddenly entered their midst. But now the
moment had come to follow, in the flurry of letters,
the stories that had eluded me at the window. The dis
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 900
Winter Morning
61
BE R L IN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
i
FIN A L VERSION
yards, barns, and gables, and ask myself: Aren’t these per
haps the very places whose shadow the parents of that
little old woman, whom I used to visit as a small boy, had
left behind in times past?
On my arrival, a voice fragile and brittle as glass would
wish me good day. But no voice anywhere was so fine
spun, or so fine-tuned to that which awaited me, as Tante
Lehmann’s. Hardly had I entered, in fact, than she saw
to it that someone set before me the large glass cube
containing a complete working mine, in which minia
ture miners, stonecutters, and mine inspectors, with tiny
wheelbarrows, hammers, and lanterns, performed their
movements precisely in time to a clockwork. This toy—
if one can call it that—dates from an era that did not yet
begrudge even the child of a wealthy bourgeois house
hold a view of workplaces and machines. And among
them all, the mine took precedence from time immemo
rial, for not only did it show the treasures which hard
work wrested from it, but it also showed that gleam of
silver in its veins which—as we can see from the work of
Jean Paul, Novalis, Tieck, and Werner—had dazzled the
Biedermeier.25
This apartment with its window alcove was doubly se
cured, as Was fitting for places that were called on to
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND 1 9 0 0
66
FIN AL VER SION
Two Enigmas
67
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND I 900
68
FIN A L VERSION
Market Hall
First of all, one must not suppose that the covered mar
ket was called the Markt-Halle. No, it was pronounced
Mark-Thalle. And just as these two words, in the cus
tomary use of language, were so worn out that neither re
tained its original sense, so, in my customary passage
through that hall, all the images it afforded had so de
cayed that none of them spoke to the original concept of
buying and selling. Once you had left the entryway, with
the heavy swinging doors on their powerful springs, your
Market hall on Magdeburger Platz, 1899
gaze ran first to flagstones that were slimy with fish wa
ter or swill, and on which one could easily slip on carrots
or lettuce leaves. Behind wire partitions, each bearing a
number, slow-moving market women were enthroned—
priestesses of a venal Ceres, purveyors of all fruits of the
field and orchard, all edible birds, fishes, and mammals—
procuresses, unassailable wool-clad colossi, who commu
nicated with one another from stall to stall, whether by a
flash of their great shiny buttons, by a smack on their
FINAL V ER SION
The Fever
71
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND 1900
For now, while there was time and my head was still
clear, I began to mull over what lay ahead. I measured the
distance between bed and door and asked myself how
much longer my calls would make it across. I saw in
my imagination the spoon whose edge was colonized by
the prayers of my mother, and how, after it had been
brought close to my lips with loving care, it would sud
denly reveal its true nature by pouring the bitter medi
cine unmercifully down my throat. As an intoxicated
man sometimes calculates and thinks merely to see if he
can still do so, I counted the ringlets of sunlight that
danced across the ceiling of my room and rearranged the
rhomboids of the carpet in ever new groupings.
I was often sick. This circumstance perhaps accounts
for something that others call my patience but that ac
tually bears no resemblance to a virtue: the predilection
for seeing everything I care about approach me from a
distance, the way the hours approached my sickbed. Thus,
when I am traveling, I lose the best part of my pleasure if
I cannot wait a longtime in the station for my train. And
this likewise explains why giving presents has become a
passion with me: as the giver, I foresee long in advance
what surprises the recipient. In fact, my need to look for
ward to what is coming—all the while sustained by a pe
riod of waiting, as a sick person is supported by pillows at
72
P IN A L VER SION
73
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D A RO U ND I9OO
74
FINAL VERSION
75
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D A RO U ND I 9 OO
sure that the two troops, hushed as they had been on ar
rival, would not set out again, each taking its own way.
And sometimes it was a forbidden way, at whose end a
lovely resting place afforded a view of provocative appa
ritions moving across the curtain of flame behind my
closed lids. For all the love and care I received could not
succeed in forging an unbroken link between my bed
room and the life of our household. I had to wait till eve
ning came. Then, when the door opened to admit the
lamp, and the rondure of its glass shade came jiggling to
ward me over the threshold, it was as if the golden globe
of life, which every hour of the day set Whirling, had
found its way for the first time into my room, as into a
remote cubicle. And before the evening in its own right
had comfortably settled in, a new life for me was begin
ning; or, rather, the old life of the fever blossomed under
the lamplight from one moment to the next. The mere
fact that I was lying down allowed me to derive an advan
tage from the light which others would not be able to ob
tain so quickly. I made use of my repose, and of my prox
imity to the wall when I was lying in bed, to greet the
light with shadow plays* All those antics which I had
permitted my fingers now returned upon the carpet—but
more ambiguous, more imposing, more secretive. “Instead
of fearing the shadows of evening” (so it was written in
FIN A L V ER SION
77
BE R L IN CH IL D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
The Otter
79
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A ROUND 1 9 0 0
80
F IN A L VER SION
81
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A ROUND I 900
82
FIN AL VER SION
84
FIN A L VERSION
News of a Death
I may have been five years old at the time. One evening,
when I was already in bed, my father appeared. He had
come to say goodnight to me. It was perhaps half against
his will that he gave me the news of a cousin’s death.
This cousin had been an older man who did not mean a
great deal to me. My father filled out the account with
details. I did not take in everything he said. But I did take
special note, that evening, of my room, as though I were
aware that one day I would again be faced with trouble
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D AROUND 1 9 0 0
Blumeshof 12
i
86
Interior of a typical middle-class German home,
late nineteenth century
89
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND 19 OO
90
F I N AL VERSI ON
91
BE RL I N CH I L D H O O D A R O U ND I 9 OO
Winter Evening
91
F I NAL VERSI ON
Crooked Street
93
B E R L I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
94
F I N A L VERSI ON
The Sock
The Mummerehlen
97
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
98
F I NA L VERSI ON
Hiding Places
99
BE RL I N C H I L DH O OD AROUND I 9 OO
A Ghost
10 0
F I NAL VERSI ON
101
BE RL I N C H I L DH O OD A R O U ND 19 OO
102
F IN A L VERSI ON
A Christmas Angel
103
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
104
I I N A L VERSI ON
105
BE RL I N CH I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
106
PI NAL VERSI ON
107
B E R L I N C H I L DH O OD AR O U ND I 9 OO
108
F I NAL VERSI ON
pares to show the man out, the latter, who has entered by
force and by now secured his position, will have fore
stalled that line of action, locked the door of the study,
and pocketed the key. For my father all retreat is cut off,
and with my mother the other still has nothing to do. In
deed, what is horrifying about him is his way of looking
past her, as though she were in league with him, the mur
derer and blackmailer.
Because this most dismal visitation also occurred with
out leaving me any clue to its enigma, I always under
stood the sort of person who takes refuge in the vicin
ity of a fire alarm. Such things appear on the street as al
tars, before which supplicants address their prayers to
the goddess of misfortune. I used to like to imagine, as
even more exciting than the apparition of the fire truck,
the brief interval when some passerby, alone on the street,
first hears its still distant siren. But almost always, when
you heard it, you knew that the best part of the disaster
was past. For even in cases where there really was a fire,
nothing at all could be seen of it. It was as if the city kept
a jealous watch over the rare growth of the flame, nour
ished it in the secrecy of courtyard or rooftop, and be
grudged everyone a look at the glorious, fiery bird it had
raised there for its own delectation. Firemen emerged
from within, now and then, but they did not appear wor
109
BERLI N C H I L D H O O D AROUND 1 9 0 0
Colors
110
F I NAL VERSI ON
111
BE RL I N CH I L D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
thimble was itself pale red, and adorned with tiny inden
tations, as if with the scars of former stitches. Held up to
the light, it glowed at the end of its shadowy hollow,
where our index finger was at home. For we loved to
seize upon the little diadem, which in secret could crown
us. When I slipped it on my finger, I at once understood
the name by which my mother was known to the maids.
Gnadige Frau, they meant to call her, which is to say,
“Madam,” but they used to slur the first word. For a long
time, I thought they were saying Nah-Prau—that is,
“Madam Needlework.” They could have found no other
title more perfectly suited to impress me with the full
ness of my mother’s power.
Like all seats of authority, her place at the sewing table
had its air of magic. From time to time, I got a taste
of this. Holding my breath, I would stand there motion
less within the charmed circle. My mother had discov
ered that, before I could accompany her on a visit or
to the store, some detail of my outfit needed mending.
And then she would take hold of the sleeve of my middy
blouse (into which I had already slipped my arm), to
make fast the blue and white cuff; or else, with a few
quick stitches, she would give the sailor’s knot in the silk
neckerchief its pli. I, meanwhile, would stand beside her
and chew on the sweaty elastic band of my cap, which
112
F I NA L VERSI ON
113
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D A R O U ND I 9 OO
114
F I NAL VERSI ON
The Moon
115
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D A ROUND 1900
116
F I N A L VERSI ON
117
B E R L I N C H I L DH O OD A RO U ND I 9 OO
118
F I NAL VERSI ON
119
B E RL I N C H I L D H O O D A R O U ND 1 9 0 0
120
FI NAL VERSI ON
121
BE RL I N CH I L DH O OD AROUND 1900
[a d d en d u m ]52
The Carousel
122
FIN A L VERSI ON
Sexual Awakening
123
BE RL I N CH I L DH O OD A R O U ND I 9 OO
tion. For this holiday, I had been given into the custody
of a distant relative, whom I was to fetch on the way. But
for whatever reason—whether because I had forgotten
his address, or because I could not get my bearings in the
neighborhood—the hour was growing later and later, and
my wandering more hopeless. To venture into the syna
gogue on my own was out of the question, since my pro
tector had the admission tickets. At the root of my mis
fortune was aversion to the virtual stranger to whom I
had been entrusted, as well as suspicion of religious cere
monies, which promised only embarrassment. Suddenly,
in the midst of my perplexity and dismay, I was over
come by a burning wave of anxiety (“Too late! I’ll never
make it to the synagogue”), but also, at the very same
moment and even before this other feeling had ebbed, by
a second wave, this one of utter indifference (“So be it—I
don’t care”). And the two waves converged irresistibly in
a dawning sensation of pleasure, wherein the profana-
tion of the holy day combined With the pandering of the
street, which here, for the first time, gave me an inkling
of the services it was prepared to render to awakened in
stincts.
1 24
From Berlin Childhood around 1900
1 9 3 2 , - 1 9 3 4 V E R S I O N 54
over my spirits. But not for long. For once the cab had
made it past the main thoroughfare, I was again occupied
with thoughts of our railway journey. Since that time,
the dunes of Koserow or Wenningstedts‘ have loomed be
fore me here on Invaliden Strasse (where others have
seen only the broad sandstone mass of the Stettiner rail
road station). But usually, in the morning, the goal was
something nearer, namely the Anhalter terminus—the
mother cavern of railroad stations, as its name sug
gested—where locomotives had their abode and trains
were to stop [anhalten].57 No distance was more distant
than the one in which its rails converged in the mist. Yet
even the sense of nearness which a little earlier had still
enveloped me took its departure. Our house was trans
formed in my memory. With its carpets rolled up, its
chandeliers encased in sacking, and its armchairs cov-
ered, and with the half-light filtering, through its blinds,
it gave way—as we began to mount the lowered stairs
of our car on the express train—to the expectation that
strange soles, stealthy footsteps, might soon be gliding
over the floorboards and leaving thieves’ tracks in the
dust which had been slowly settling over the place for
the past half hour. Thus it was that I always returned
from holidays an exile. Even the meanest cellar hole in
which a lamp was already burning—a lamp that did not
126
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 VERSI ON
127
BERLI N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
The Larder
128
1 9 3 2 . - 1 9 3 4 VERSI ON
News of a Death
129
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
The Mummerehlen
130
193^-1934 version
131
BERLI N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
132
193^-1934 v e r s i o n
133
BE RL I N CH I L D H O O D A R O U ND 1 9 0 0
1 34
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 VERSI ON
Society
135
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
136
1 9 3 ^ - 1 9 3 4 VERSI ON
13 7
BE RL I N C H I L D H O O D AROUND 1 9 0 0
1 39
BE RL IN C H IL DH O OD A ROUND I 9 OO
140
1 9 3 ^ - 1 9 3 4 VER SION
141
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A ROUND 1 9 0 0
form it. By the same token, I can dream of the way I once
learned to walk. But that doesn’t help. I now know how
to walk; there is no more learning to walk.
Monkey Theater
142,
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 V ER SION
School Library
1 43
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A R O U N D I 9 OO
144
I 9 3 2 _ i 9 3 4 v e r s io n
145
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D AROUND I 9 OO
146
1 9 3 ^ - 1 9 3 4 VERSION
The feeling of joy with which one received it, hardly dar
ing to look inside at the pages, was that of the guest who,
having arrived at a palace, ventures merely an admiring
glance at the long suites of rooms he must pass through
to reach his quarters. He is all the more impatient to be
allowed to retire. By the same token, I had scarcely dis
covered, among the presents laid out each year on the
Christmas table, the latest volume of the N ew Compan
ion of German Youth, than I too withdrew behind the
ramparts of its emblazoned cover, in order to feel my way
to the armory or hunting lodge where I intended to spend
the first night. In this desultory inspection of the read-
ing-labyrinth,75 there was nothing more beautiful than
to trace the subterranean channels by which the longer
stories—interrupted at various points in their develop-
147
B E R L IN CH IL D H O O D A RO U N D igO O
The Desk
148
1 9 3 2 .-1 9 3 4 V ER SION
149
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND I 9 OO
150
1 9 3 2 -1 9 3 4 - v e r s io n
151
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D A RO U N D I 9 OO
Cabinets
153
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 9 OO
154
193^-1934 v e rsio n
155
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND I 900
1 56
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 VER SION
157
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D A RO U ND I 9 OO
158
1 9 3 ^ - 1 9 3 4 VER SION
159
B E R L IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND I 9 OO
160
1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 VER SION
The Moon
161
BE RL IN C H IL D H O O D ARO UND 1 9 0 0
162
1 9 3 2 -1 9 3 4 VERSION
163
BE RLIN C H IL D H O O D A ROUND 1 9 0 0
164
Complete Table of Contents,
1 932-193 4 Version
Notes
Index
Complete Table of Contents,
1932-1934 Version
Tiergarten T h e Otter
Imperial Panorama Blum eshof 12
V icto ry C o lu m n Th e M um m erehlen
T h e Telephone Colors
Butterfly H unt Society
Departure and Return T h e Reading Box
Tardy A rrival T h e Carousel
W inter M orning M onkey Theater
A t the Corner of Steglitzer T h e Fever
and Genthiner T w o Brass Bands
T h e Larder Potboilers*
Aw akening of Sexuality School Library
N e w s of a D eath N e w Com panion of Germ an
M arkthalle Magdeburger Youth
Platz A Ghost
H iding Places T h e D esk
T w o Enigmas A Christm as A n gel
Cabinets Loggias
Beggars and W hores Crooked Street
W inter Evening Peacock Island and G lienicke
T h e Sew ing Box Th e Moon
M isfortunes and C rim es Th e Little H unchback
Notes
170
N OTES TO PAGES 4 7 ~ 5 5
171
NOTES TO PAGES 55-65
172
NOTES TO PAGES 65-8 I
17 3
NOTES TO PAGES 81-96
174
N OTES TO PAGES 96 -120
175
NOTES TO PAGES 1 2 1 - 1 2 5
176
NOT ES TO PAGES I 25 - I 26
177
NOTES TO PAGES 1 2 8 - 1 3 7
178
N OTES TO PAGES I 37 - I 45
1 79
NOT ES TO PAGES 145-154
180
N OTES TO PAGES 156-164
181
Credits for Illustrations
Adorno, Theodore W., 22, 23, Bells, 43, 58, 66, 86, 90, 9 2 ,9 8 ,
2 5-2 6 , 1791154 133 ,136
Aesthetics (Hegel), 2 6 -2 7 Benjamin, Dora, 3 3 , 1 6 3 - 1 6 4
A la recherche du temps perdu Benjamin, Walter: childhood
(Proust), 4 -7 , 9 , 1 1 - 1 3 illnesses of, 1 4 - 1 5 , 7 1 -7 8 ; on
Angel of Death, 107 the city, 1 , 2 6 ,3 7 - 3 8 , 53i
Aragon, Louis, 1 7 4 m 6 conception of history, 27, 28,
Ariadne, 2, 13 , 54, 1 7 3 m l 3 1 , 33; death of, 6; on
Arion, 1 2 3 , 17 8 n 53 dreams, 38; experience of so
A rt Nouveau, 1 7 6 ^ 4 cial class, 1 7 , 1 8 , 3 1 , 38 ,6 5 ,
Aufzeichnungen des Malte 67, 7 7 , 86 ,8 8 , 8 9 -9 0 ,10 3 ,
Laurids Brigge (Rilke), 7, 1 5 5 , 1 5 8 ; fondness for giving
8,9 presents, 7 2 - 7 3 , 9 1-9 2 ; on
form and content, 1 5 3 ; on
Babelsberg summer residence, the future, 77, 88, 1 1 5 ; on
8 1 ,1 0 0 , i7 7 n 4 2 memory, 10, 2 0 - 2 1 , 27, 30;
Bansin, Germany, 128, i8on58 on nature and man, 2 4 ,2 5 ;
Barbara, Saint, 4 6 ,17 2 117 on Origin of Germ an
Battle of Sedan, 4 6 , 17 2n s Trauerspiel, 2 9 -30 , 32 ; on
Baudelaire, Charles, 30, 3 1 the past, 2 7 -2 8 , 37; Proust
“Beggars and Whores’ and, 3 -4 , 6, 7, 9 - 1 1 , 18, 19,
(Benjamin), 18 2 i; pseudonym Detlef Holz,
“Bell, The* (Die Glocke) 3 1 ; as “reader of himself," 9;
(Schiller), 1 0 1 , 1 7 7 ^ 3 refusal to emigrate overseas,
Bell jars, 55, 1 1 8 3 3; search fo r lo s t t im e ,3 ,ir ,
INDEX
186
IN D EX
187
IN D EX
V
188
IN D E X
1 89
IN D EX
190
IN D EX
191
Berlin Childhood around j j j o o was originally published a s Berliner Kind
heit um Neunzehnhundert, copyright © 1950 by Suhrkamp Verlag. It was
republished, in slightly different form, in Walter Benjamin, Schiiften,
Herausgegeben von Theodor W. Adorno und Gretel Adorno, unter Mit-
wirkung von Friedrich Podszus, copyright © 1955 by Suhrkamp Verlag;
and again, in somewhat different form, in Benjamin, Gesammelte
Schriften, Herausgegeben von Rolf Tiedemann und Nermann Schwep-
penhauser, unter Mitwirkung von Theodor W. Adorno und Gershom
Scholem, copyright © 1971, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1989 by Suhrkamp
Verlag. The Giessen Version was published as Berliner Kindheit um
Neunzehnhundert: Giessener Fassung, Herausgegeben und mit einem
Nachwort von Rolf Tiedemann, copyright © 2000 by Suhrkamp Verlag.
The translation was previously published in Walter Benjamin, Selected
Writings, Volume ): 1935-1938, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W.
Jennings (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).
“Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin,” by'-Peter Szondi, was originally
published as “Hoffnung im Vergangenen: Uber Walter Benjamin," Neue
Ziircher Zeitung, 8 October 1961, and reprinted in Szondi, Satz und
Gegensatz: Sechs Essays, copyright © 1964 by Suhrkamp/Insel Verlag.
The translation was previously published in Critical Inquiry, 4 (Spring
1978), and is reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press.