“Simply Rahel Varnhagen. A Biography” / Afterword

The title of the book was supposed to be “simply Rahel Varnhagen. A Biography,” Hannah Arendt wrote to Karl Jaspers in September 1952. Yet nothing was “simple” or easy about this book. Writing, publishing and finding readers for it — all was complicated. Arendt wrote the book in Frankfurt am Main¹ and Berlin, in Paris and in New York. She started working on it in the last years of the Weimar Republic, had it typed up in haste and sent to friends before she fled Germany in 1933. In Parisian exile she finished a first version. In the United States she tried to locate surviving copies of the typescript. It was only in 1956 that she finished the book, after long and unsuccessful attempts at finding publishers in Germany and in the United States. When the book came out in English in 1958, Arendt had long since changed her language of writing. But unlike her major books The Origins of Totalitarianism/Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft and The Human Condition/Vita activa that migrated from language to language, she wanted to publish her biography in German. The recently established Leo Baeck Institute in New York, though, insisted on an English publication. Everything was complicated about this book.

I. “This unfinished Rahel-business”

It was probably the last time that Arendt mentioned her book on Rahel Levin Varnhagen. On August 16, 1975, she wrote from Tegna, where she was spending the summer, to Glenn Gray who just had read the American edition of the book: “The book has something to do with Annchen, who incidentally comes to visit this afternoon from Nice, the friend of my youth, who gave me the Rahel-Letters when we first met. I read them and reflected on them but left all that alone when I went to study philosophy; after I had finished the Augustine it occurred to me that I should go back to this unfinished Rahel-business.”²

Having completed her dissertation on Augustine, Arendt did not embark on a new but rather on an older project. Her first encounter with the great letter writer from the time around 1800 dated back to the early years of the Weimar Republic. In a used book store, somewhere in East Prussia, Anne Mendelsohn, later Anne Weil, “the friend of my youth,” had discovered a copy of Rahel. Ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde (three volumes) and passed it on to Hannah Arendt.³ When the two women first met, Arendt was fifteen years old, her friend three years older.

A letter from Martin Heidegger reveals that Arendt had not entirely left Rahel Levin Varnhagen’s letters alone while she studied philosophy.⁴ In January 1929, she asked Karl Jaspers, the advisor of her dissertation, for a letter of recommendation. To support her research on Rahel Levin Varnhagen, she intended to apply for a fellowship with the Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin (AJa, 40).⁵ About two months later, she told him that the “Jüdische Akademie” had declined her application because they thought, “daß eine Unterstützung der Rahelarbeit Sache der Notgemeinschaft sei” (AJa, 41). By the end of July, Jaspers sent her letters of recommendation by Martin Heidegger and Martin Dibelius, to be included with her applications to the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft and the Abraham-Lincoln-Stiftung. In March 1930, Arendt submitted her application to the Notgemeinschaft (AJa, 48). As a title for her project, she had chosen: “Über das Problem der deutsch-jüdischen Assimilation, exemplifiziert an dem Leben der Rahel Varnhagen.” On May 1, Arendt reported to Jaspers, “daß mein Antrag an die Notgemeinschaft bewilligt ist”. (AJa, 48) We suppose that she received a grant for a year⁶ because in November 1931, she wrote to Jaspers that “meine Rahel-Arbeit etwas stockend [geht], da ich in der letzten Zeit mehrere kleine Sachen schrieb, z. T. auch, um Geld zu verdienen.”⁷ (AJa, 50) Among those “kleine Sachen” belonged the first essay she published from her study.⁸ In January 1932, she received a “jüdisches Stipendium”, “vorerst nur auf kurze Zeit, aber mit Aussicht auf Verlängerung. […] Ohnehin komme ich jetzt wieder mehr zu meiner Rahel.” (AJa, 51) And a year later, she could report that her book on Rahel Levin Varnhagen was almost finished. (January 1, 1933; AJa, 53) To commemorate the death of her protagonist one hundred years earlier, she published two more essays taken out of her biography.⁹

In the fall of 1933, Arendt had to drop working on her book and flee Germany. One copy of the typescript survived in Karl Jaspers’ papers, a copy that Anne Weil’s mother had sent him: “Sehr verehrter Herr Professor, im Auftrage von Frau Dr. Hannah Stern übersende ich Ihnen beifolgende Arbeit. Mit ergebenem Gruß / Rose Mendelsohn.”¹⁰ A second copy of this Berliner Fassung made its way to Palestine; Arendt had given it to her cousin Ernst Fürst and his wife Käte, who fled Germany in 1935. It only resurfaced in the late 1960s, by then the book had already been published.¹¹ In French exile, Arendt worked with a third copy. From a curriculum vitae that survived in the papers of her first husband Günther Stern we know when she finished this Pariser Fassung: “Ab 1937 bis zu den Novemberpogromen 1938 habe ich mich von aller praktischen Tätigkeit zurückgezogen, um meine wissenschaftlichen Studien wieder aufzunehmen. Damals lebte ich von Philosophiestunden. Ich schrieb in dieser Zeit meine Arbeit über Rahel Varnhagen zu Ende und arbeitete danach an einer Geschichte des Antisemitismus.”¹² (AAnd, 31) Heinrich Blücher, Arendt’s second husband whom she had met in Paris, and Walter Benjamin had both urged her to finish the book, so she later recalled.¹³

There must have been at least three copies of the Pariser Fassung. In the fall of 1938, Arendt submitted one to the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom in New York that had announced a competition for literature written in exile. Her typescript bore the title “Ein Exempel statuiert,” and as a pseudonym, Arendt had chosen Peter Schlemihl. A couple of months later, she mailed one to Gershom Scholem in Jerusalem whom she had told about her project when Scholem had paid a visit to his friend Walter Benjamin in Paris.¹⁴ A third one was left behind when Arendt fled the city in 1941. None of these typescripts survived. We know how the one sent to New York disappeared. Richard A. Berman, a travel writer from Austria, made the first cut out of 136 texts, sent to the Guild. Arendt’s biography was not among those the Guild would further consider: “Eine gewissenhafte, gute, (kluge) Biographie der Rahel Lewin, mit klugen Betrachtungen über das Judenproblem, — nur leider eher die Arbeit eines Philologen als die eines dichterisch gestaltenden Biographen.”¹⁵ Thomas Mann, at the time living in Princeton, agreed to review Arendt’s book but no evaluation survives in either his or the Guild’s archives. When Arendt learned that she had not won the prize she wrote to Volkmar von Zühlsdorff, secretary of the Guild, and asked him to mail the typescript to Günther Stern, “64 Riverside Drive” in New York City.

Within days of her arrival in New York, Arendt wrote to Stern, meanwhile living in Los Angeles: “Ich brauche die Rahel dringendst!” (May 31, 1941; AAnd, 31)¹⁶  Stern thought that he had left the typescript in a box, stored with his friend Felix Boenheim. “But can you by any means remember whether your boxes are gezeichnet und which box contains the Rahel?”, Arendt asked. (AAnd, 38) Going through the boxes was “eine Pleite”: “Dort stehen von Dir nur 3 Pappkartons, in denen sich nichts befindet.” (AAnd, 42) The typescript had disappeared.

Four years later, Arendt learned that one copy had survived in Jerusalem: “Ihr Manuskript ueber Rahel Varnhagen, das gerettet zu haben, ich so stolz war — wo eigentlich ist sein Grab geblieben, bei einem Verleger? In ihrem Schreibtisch? Man hat nie etwas von Ihnen darüber vernommen,” wrote Gershom Scholem in early March of 1945 (AScho, 60). He had given his copy of the Pariser Fassung to Ernst Fürst who was supposed to send it over the Atlantic: “Könntest Du mir einen großen Gefallen tun? Mein Rahel-Manuskript seligen Angedenkens ist immer noch in Palästina. Ich ließ es mir wegen dem Krieg nicht schicken — war damals mein einziges Exemplar. Inzwischen hat sich in Paris ein anderes angefunden. Ich schrieb im April an meinen Vetter Ernst Fürst, […] Jerusalem, und schickte ihm und seiner Frau, einer alten Freundin von mir $ 15,– zwecks Deckung der Versandspesen. Seither habe ich nicht mehr von ihnen gehört. Könntest Du sie anläuten, sie fragen, was damit ist, und ev., falls das Porto höher sein sollte, den Restbetrag auslegen und mir dann schreiben, was ich Dir schulde?”, so Arendt in a letter to Kurt Blumenfeld in Jerusalem. (ABlf, 24) finally, she could report to Heinrich Blücher that “die ‘Rahel’ abgeschickt worden ist” and would “mit Gottes gnädiger Hilfe wohl ankommen.” (ABlü, 139). The copy left in Paris also arrived safely.

It was not the Pariser Fassung that Arendt published as a book. “Ich setze mich in den nächsten Tagen daran, mir meine alte vergessene Rahel noch mal anzusehen, bevor sie der Übersetzer bekommt,” Arendt announced in a letter to Kurt Blumenfeld (January 3, 1956; ABlf, 142). Apparently, Arendt reworked her typescript so heavily that it needed to be retyped before she could give it to the translators and to publishers. The translators were given this New Yorker Version¹⁷ in May but in the end, they translated a variant that has not come down to us. Both the German and the English book deviate substantially from the New Yorker Version, so Arendt seems to have reworked it one more time. In this revision, she restructured the book, conflating eighteen chapters to thirteen, rewriting the first chapter and revising the rest.¹⁸ Only now, in this last reworking, the words that Rahel Levin Varnhagen spoke on her deathbed were moved to the very beginning of the book.

II. Long and winding ways to publishing the book

Though the Pariser Fassung arrived in New York in the summer of 1945, it was only two years later that Arendt tried to publish the book. She gave a copy to Hermann Broch who read it carefully and contacted Carl Posen, a publisher in Switzerland. Would Posen be interested in bringing out a “philosophische Biographie der Rahel Varnhagen”? “Es ist eine gewissermaßen ‘existentialistische’ Biographie, also ein Experiment, ein hochinteressanter, völlig neuer Typus.”¹⁹ In Arendt’s papers no response to this letter has survived, and Broch, too, did not hear back from Posen: “Was ist mit diesem Druck? Was ist mit Posen? Es gibt ja noch andere Schweizer Verlage,” he asked Arendt. (ABro, 79) Meanwhile, he had written to Daniel Brody, editor with Rhein-Verlag that published his own works. Brody warned him of Posen: “Herr Posen ist eigentlich kein Verleger, sondern ein Benzinimporteur und befreundet mit Frau Julie Wassermann. Er hat einen speziellen Wassermann-Verlag gegründet und hat in verschiedenen deutschen und oesterreichischen Druckereien an der Schweizergrenze das gesamte Oeuvre von Wassermann drucken lassen. Gegenleistungen waren Benzinlieferungen. Abgesehen davon, dass wir nicht in der glücklichen Lage sind Benzin zu liefern, auch Oel für die Lampen von Deutschland nicht, möchte ich noch darauf hinweisen, dass Herr Posen eigentlich kein Verleger ist, im Adressbuch nicht eingetragen ist und dass, nach Berichten aus eingeweihten Kreisen, er bisher kaum zehn Exemplare von Wassermann verkauft hat.”²⁰ While Broch recommended a couple of books for publication, written by his friends, he did not include Hannah Arendt’s biography.

In 1949 Arendt traveled to Europe for the first time since the war and her flight: “Die Rahel mit gewöhnlicher Post nach Wiesbaden,” she requested from Hilde Fränkel in New York. (December 3, 1949; AFr, 258) We do not know whether she needed the typescript as part of a renewed attempt to publish the book.

Arendt’s> correspondence with Karl Jaspers reveals that she gave him a copy of the Pariser Fassung when she paid him a visit in Sankt Moritz in early August 1952, during a second trip to Europe: “Ihre ‘Rahe ’ [...] ununterbrochen mit großer Spannung gelesen,” Jaspers wrote and — despite some fundamental critic — offered to recommend the book “gern an Piper […], warm, begründet (obgleich das unnötig ist, da Sie bei Piper ohne mich eine so hohe Geltung haben).” “Sie besinnen sich, daß ich Ihnen sagte, daß ich eine Publikation durchaus und nur von Ihrer Reaktion abhängig machen würde,” Arendt responded, “ich drucke es nicht.” (AJa, 233) In June 1953, Jaspers sent the typescript back to New York (AJa, 256) where it safely arrived. Since it had “so lange nicht das Licht der Welt erblickt,” it could wait for publication for a “paar Jahrzehnte,” Arendt remarked in her response. (July 13, 1953; AJa, 260)

In the end, it did not take quite that long to bring out the book. Max Kreutzberger, director of the newly founded Leo Baeck Institute in New York, asked Arendt who at the time served on the institute’s advisory board whether she could recommend books for a series the institute planned to bring out.²¹ Arendt suggested her book on Rahel Varnhagen, supposing that this book series would be in German. When she learned that the institute planned to publish English texts she wrote to Kreuzberger: “Was mein eigenes Manuskript anbetrifft, so vergass ich, dass ich ja fuer englische Publikationen under contract bin, hier in Amerika naemlich. Ich nehme an, ich koennte eine release bekommen, da es sich ja um ein Buch handelt, dass [sic] sich an ganz spezielles Publikum richtet. Aber wissen tue ich es nicht. Ich ging urspruenglich immer von der Voraussetzung aus, dass das LBI auf deutsch drucken wuerde.” (14. February 1956; CP, LBI) Apparently, Arendt immediately contacted Harcourt Brace, her American publishing house; her editor, Denver Lindley, wrote to the institute on February 24: “we as her American publishers have no objection to this project and wish you every success with it.”²² With this hurdle out of the way, Kreutzberger could affirm: “Ich bestaetige Ihnen hierdurch, dass wir Ihr Manuskript ueber ‘Rahel Varnhagen’ uebernommen haben und im Laufe dieses Jahres zu publizieren gedenken. Die Uebersetzung Ihres deutschsprachigen Manuskriptes wird zu unseren Lasten erfolgen. Ueber einen geeigneten Uebersetzer werden wir uns verstaendigen.”²³ After some back and forth, the institute chose East and West Library in London as their publishing house. In January 1958, they brought out the book.²⁴

While the book was in production with the British publishing house, Arendt had tried to find a venue in the United States. Robert Pick, at the time editor with Alfred Knopf, wrote to her on September 23, 1957: “I have just received a letter from Mr. H. I. Miller, East and West Library, London, in which they offer us the American Rights on Rahel Varnhagen. It would be very kind of you if you could send on to us a set of galleys.”²⁵ In the end, nothing came of this attempt; we could not establish why.²⁶ In the summer of 1965, two more publishing houses were interested in bringing out a paperback version. Again, without any success. “When I attended your talk at Goethe House on May 19,²⁷ we afterwards discussed the possible publication in America of your book, RAHEL VARNHAGEN,” Luna Wolf, editor with McGraw-Hill Books wrote on June 23, 1965. (CP, McGraw-Hill) She already had received a copy of the book and intended to read it immediately. Richard Winston, the book’s translator, sent his copy of the biography, accompanied by an enthusiastic letter, to Roger Klein, editor with Harper and Row: “I am sending you under separate cover Hannah Arendt’s RAHEL VARNHAGEN. Please guard it carefully — it’s my only copy, and very precious to me. […] Nothing would please me more than to see this book republished. It remains,to my mind, one of the finest books that has ever come my way, a biography that approaches the ideal. In addition to its stylistic brilliance and wealth of original ideas, it makes use of much of new material on Rahel and offers an interpretation that is altogether unique and altogether convincing. It is the only book that does full justice to the woman who for many years was the vital center of the literary and diplomatic life of Germany. And just as a sidelight, its material on Jewishness ought to provide some enlightenment for all sides in the interminable dispute over Hannah Arendt’s intentions and underlying attitudes in EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM. The book should have been published here by a major publisher ten years ago.” On the same day, he wrote to Arendt: “It would be wonderful if the book were to be republished, this time ‘mit Fanfaren’ instead of ‘unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit’.” (June 14, 1965; CG, Winston) “I hope to God or the gods you have not yet written to Mr. Klein of Harper & Row,” Arendt replied; she just had realized that she had mistaken this publishing house for McGraw-Hill Books, and they already were in touch with East and West Library in order to gain the rights. “Many excuses for being a Konfusionsrat,” her letter ended. Harper & Row, too, were talking with the British publishing house, Winston replied. Why both these attempts failed also remains a mystery.²⁸

It was only in 1974 that the book could be published in the United States — with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. After a long fight with East and West Library who — unlike in the 1950s — were unwilling to surrender the rights. Arendt obviously was annoyed when she wrote to Fred Grubel, at the time director of the Leo Baeck Institute, that in 1958 the book had been published “strictly under Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit. This may already have indicated the Institute’s lack of interest in this publication.” But when she visited the institute in order to see an exhibition on Franz Kafka her assumption was vindicated. All the books, sponsored by the institute, were on display, “except my biography of Rahel Varnhagen.” (October 22, 1973; CP, LBI) Given this utter disinterest in the book, the institute should grant her the rights for re-publication.

The path to publication in Germany was strewn with hurdles, too. When she had to realize that there would first be an English publication, Arendt tried to find a German publishing house.²⁹ In the summer of 1956, she wrote a new “Vorwort” and sent it to the publisher Klaus Piper³⁰: “Das Vorwort, das Sie mir liebenswürdiger Weise schickten, [hat] nicht nur mich, sondern auch die Herren im Lektorat sehr interessiert,” he replied. (APi, 241) In January 1957, Piper received a copy of the New Yorker Version: “Ich hoffe, Sie werden sich rasch entschliessen koennen, ob Sie das Buch drucken wollen oder nicht.”³¹ It took Piper three months to come to a decision: “Es ist lange her, daß ich einen Verzicht auf die Annahme eines Manuskripts mit einem so großen Bedauern aussprechen mußte, wie heute im Falle Ihrer Darstellung der Lebensgeschichte der Rahel Varnhagen,” he wrote on April 2. Among the publications of his house, the book would stand isolated and contextless.³² In August he asked whether the book was still available; if so, they might consider “gewisse erzählerische Erweiterungen und gewisse Kürzungen andererseits.” (APi, 249) The typescript now was with Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Arendt replied; (APi, 250) and editing the book one more time would not be feasable: “es hätte den Charakter des Buches vollkommen verändert, — und vermutlich seine Verkaeuflichkeit sehr verbessert. Es ist in gewissem Sinne ein kurioses Buch, und ich koennte heute so etwas gar nicht mehr schreiben. Aber es waere nicht besser geworden, wenn man es weniger seltsam gemacht haette.” (December 3, 1957; APi, 252) In June 1958 — the English book had already been published — Arendt told Piper that she had “Herrn Witsch persönlich kennengelernt. Ich habe daraufhin nicht abgeschlossen und moechte es auch nicht. Nicht weil ich nicht auf seine Bedingungen eingehen will, sondern weil ich nicht sicher bin, ob er Versprechungen und Vertraege haelt, ohne umstaendlich gemahnt zu werden. Also — da Sie meinten, Sie moechten die Rahel haben, mir waere das eben doch am allerliebsten.” (APi, 254). In July 1958 she at length signed a contract with Piper; (CP, Piper) eleven months later, the book came out.

Arendt lived to see a German paperback edition of her biography: In 1974, Wolf Jobst Siedler, at the time managing director of Ullstein Verlag, traveled to New York and discussed details of this publication with her. This time, producing the book did not take much time. On October 21, 1974, Siedler wrote: “eben kommt das erste Exemplar unseres Taschenbuchs auf meinen Tisch. Hier ist es, mit meinen herzlichsten Grüssen. Hoffentlich sagt Ihnen die strenge Form zu, die wir der Sache gegeben haben.” On December 2, 1974, Arendt thanked him for “das erste Exemplar des Taschenbuchs, dessen Form mir gut gefällt.” (CP, Ullstein)

III. “Die Melodie eines beleidigten Herzens, nachgepfiffen mit Variationen von Hannah Arendt”. In Search of a Title

It was not easy to find publishers for the biography but it turned out to be even more difficult to find a title, at least in Germany. Before she fled Europe, Arendt’s emphasis lay on “das Problem der deutsch-jüdischen Assimilation, exemplifiziert an dem Leben der Rahel Varnhagen,” as she wrote 1938 in her curriculum vitae. (AAnd, 30) After the war, her perspective had shifted. Rahel Varnhagen now became the title, but in both languages, this was insufficient. The first English edition bore the subtitle The Life of a Jewess; we don’t know who changed it for the American edition to The Life of a Jewish Woman.³³

When Arendt mailed her “Vorwort” of 1956 to Klaus Piper, the subtitle read Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Beginn der Assimilation der deutschen Juden. Hans Rößner,³⁴ Arendt’s editor, after consulting with the publisher, suggested: “Eine Lebensgeschichte mit einer Auswahl von Rahel-Briefen.” The justification he gave is revealing: “Wenn wir damit vorschlagen, im Untertitel nicht auf das eigentliche Problem, die Assimilation einzugehen, so aus der Überlegung und dem Wunsch, dass die Biographie durch den Untertitel nicht in eine ‘falsche Optik’ gerät, nämlich für eine breite Leserschaft doch als zu spezielle Studie zu gelten. Es geht uns bei unseren Überlegungen also nicht darum, das eigentliche Anliegen Ihrer Darstellung zu eliminieren, sondern ein möglichst breites Interesse durch eine einfache, gewissermassen weiträumige Formulierung anzusprechen.” Arendt replied immediately: “das Wort ‘Jude’ muss doch irgendwie in ihm erscheinen. Sonst ist es eine Irrefuehrung des Lesers. Auch glaube ich nicht, dass dadurch der Kreis des Buches unguenstig verengert wird. Das Interesse in Deutschland an der Judenfrage ist augenblicklich bei den besseren Leuten doch recht rege.” (January 12, 1959) In her suggestion, Arendt returned to the subtitle she had chosen in 1956: “Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem deutschen Judentum, oder Eine Lebensgeschichte aus den Anfaengen des deutschen Judentums.” And she concluded: “Ich habe natuerlich einen viel schoeneren Untertitel, der aber leider eben doch nicht geht. Naemlich: Rahel Varnhagen. Die Melodie eines beleidigten Herzens, nachgepfiffen mit Variationen von Hannah Arendt. Das ist naemlich genau, was ich gemacht habe.” (CP, Piper)

The book was already in production, but Klaus Piper still did not agree with either of these subtitles. Far from it, “bei der Herausstellung des Wortes ‘Jude’ im Untertitel das mögliche ‘Risiko’ zu scheuen, daß dann etwa Ressentiment- behaftete Leser nicht zu dem Buch greifen würden; auf solche Leser legen wir sowieso keinen Wert.” But Arendt’s first suggestion seemed him to be too “trocken, zu akademisch.” Wouldn’t it be better to say “Lebensgeschichte einer deutschen Jüdin,” even if this wording still left him “unbefriedigt.” “Aus der Reaktion einiger Mitarbeiter” he concluded that this title bore an “Element des Prononzierten, des Apologetischen.” (February 2, 1959; APi, 260) On a “geruhsamen Sonntag,” Piper wrote a couple of days later, he had taken the time to reread the entire typescript: “Ich erlebte die großartige, geradezu bohrende Energie, mit der Sie den roten Faden, die versuchte ‘Befreiungs-Aktion’ innerhalb des Lebensprozesses herausgemeißelt haben.” The subtitle, so he concluded, needed to underline “das Besondere der biographischen Darstellung.” Therefore, he suggested: “Lebensgeschichte einer deutschen Jüdin aus der Romantik”; his wife had suggested the last word, he remarked. (February 10, 1959; APi, 261-262) Arendt found this title “wunderbar. Alles drin, was der Leser braucht. Auch der Zusatz von Ihrer Frau ist genau richtig. Dies war ein romantisches Leben, aber eben in juedischer Tonart.” (February 15, 1959; APi, 262) The dust jacket, though, does not present the “jüdische Tonart”; it says only: “Eine Lebensgeschichte.”

IV. “Diese Art von Buechern”: Bibliographies and Sources

V. “Scared stiff about the translation”. Collaborating with Clara and Richard Winston

When Clara and Richard Winston embarked on translating Arendt’s  Rahel-Varnhagen-Biography they already enjoyed a reputation as well-experienced translators of contemporary German literature. Among the works they had rendered into English, were Walter Mehring’s Die verlorene Bibliothek. Autobiographie einer Kultur (1952) as well as Theodor Plievier’s  Stalingrad (1945), of which Arendt owned a copy.⁴⁸ She might have encountered the Winstons for the first time while reading this book. When she approached them in the spring of 1956 and asked them whether they would be willing to translate her Rahel biography, she already had met them in person: “Of course we remember Chartres and the strange coincidence of running into you and Kazin there. It was around this time of the year,” Richard Winston’s letter to her reads. Rahel Varnhagen, he continued, “is not entirely a cipher to me. I recall enough about her to be eager to know more.” (May 11, 1956; CP, LBI)⁴⁹

After having read the typescript, Richard Winston spoke of the great challenge they would face translating the book: “Now I have read it, and I am overwhelmed with admiration and scared stiff about the translation. It is the most extraordinary kind of biography so complete in its psychological and philosophical identification that it comes close to Rahel’s autobiography. Extraordinary, too, your basic view of what is the human person. So supple and undoctrinaire. This is something I sense fiction is just beginning to give us, but you have done it already. And the prophetic quality is there throughout; amazing, for example, that you should have written in the thirties that discussion of the subjectivity of history.” Some sentences had remained opaque to him, therefore he would like translate a couple of pages and sent them to Arendt: “If you don’t think they are good enough, simply tell me so; I will be neither surprised nor offended, and you will not have lost too much time.”⁵⁰ (July 7, 1956; CP, LBI) Apparently, Arendt found the pages “good enough” because in this next letter, Richard Winston told her which trains would take her from Boston where she delivered a lecture to Vermont where the Winstons lived. Even if Arendt had only time for a short visit he would appreciate her coming: “What I really need at this point is allgemeine Richtlinien, and these we can probably develop in discussing even a few pages of the translation.”⁵¹ Unfortunately, no more traces of this collaboration survived.⁵²

As our annotations to the English version show, the Winstons translated all of Arendt’s quotations from canonical works themselves, even where English translations of those works were available. Rahel Varnhagen herself was not unknow in the Englishspeaking world: Extensive quotations from her letters are to be found in Thomas Carlyle’s essay “Varnhagen von Ense’s Memoirs” (1838), Kate Vaughan Jennings’ Rahel. Her Life and Letters (1876)⁵³, and Ellen Key’s Rahel Varnhagen. A Portrait⁵⁴. Clara and Richard Winston did not consult these works. They lived in rural Vermont, far from research libraries, but they may well have had another reason for rendering Arendt’s  book as one continuous text, composed of different voices. The Winstons translated literary works, this was their first non-fiction book; they both were literary writers in their own right.⁵⁵ Indeed, that was no doubt why Arendt decided to work with the Winstons; they were sympathetic to “dieser Art von Buechern.”

VI. Debates Concerning an Unpublished Book

The intitial draft of a chapter that Arendt had written and delivered as a lecture in early 1930 has not come down to us. We know of it because she sent it to Karl Jaspers. He read it “mit lebhafter Teilnahme,” but with rather substantial objections: “Die ‘jüdische Existenz’ wird von Ihnen existenz-philosophisch objektiviert — und damit dem existentiellen Philosophieren der Möglichkeit nach vielleicht die Wurzel abgegraben. Mit dem Auf-sich-selbst-angewiesen-Sein wird dann nicht mehr völliger Ernst gemacht, wenn dieses jüdisch-schicksalhaft begründet wird, statt in sich selbst zu wurzeln. Der Gegensatz von Freischweben und Verwurzelt-Sein ist mir philosophisch gar nicht geheuer.” (AJa, 46) Arendt disagreed: “Ich habe nicht versucht — bin mir dessen wenigstens nicht bewußt — die Rahelsche Existenz jüdisch zu ‘begründen’. Dieser Vortrag gilt nur als Vorarbeit, die zeigen soll, daß auf dem Boden des Judeseins eine bestimmte Möglichkeit der Existenz erwachsen kann, die ich in aller Vorläufigkeit andeutungsweise mit Schicksalhaftigkeit bezeichnete. Diese Schicksalhaftigkeit erwächst gerade auf dem Grund einer Bodenlosigkeit und vollzieht sich gerade nur in der Abgelöstheit vom Judentum. […] Bei der Rahel liegt meiner Objektivation schon eine Selbstobjektivation zu Grunde, die nicht eine reflektierende, also nachträgliche ist, sondern von vornherein der ihr eigentümliche Modus des ‘Erlebens’, der Erfahrung. Was dieses alles eigentlich ist: Schicksal, Exponiertheit, es ist mit dem Leben etwas gemeint — kann ich nicht (und merke es im Schreiben) in abstracto sagen, sondern höchstens vielleicht exemplifizierend aufweisen. Gerade deshalb will ich auch eine Biographie schreiben. Interpretation hat hier eigentlich den Sinn der Wiederholung.”⁵⁶

The next reader of whom we know was Walter Benjamin. In February of 1939 he alerted Gershom Scholem in Jerusalem that Arendt was about to send him her work: “Auf mich hat dieses Buch großen Eindruck gemacht. Es schwimmt mit starken Stößen wider den Strom erbaulicher und apologetischer Judaistik. Du weißt am besten, daß alles was man über ‘die Juden in der deutschen Literatur’ bis dato lesen konnte, von eben dieser Strömung sich treiben ließ.”⁵⁷ Apparently, Scholem did not wait long before reading the book. At the end of May, Arendt responded to his lost letter: “Was nun die Rahel angeht: natürlich hat mir irgendeine Verherrlichung hier immer sehr fern gelegen. Ich habe einen Bankrott beschreiben wollen, allerdings einen geschichtlich notwendigen und vielleicht auch heilsamen. Lieb wäre es mir, wenn man trotz aller Kritik in den beiden letzten Kapiteln eine Art Ehrenrettung herauslesen könnte. […] Das Buch ist vor Hitler geschrieben worden, die letzten Kapitel hier hinzugeschrieben, das Ganze sehr wenig geändert.” (May 29, 1939; AScho, 7)

Hermann Broch was the first to suggest substantials revisions. In the fall of 1947 he wrote the book is “so außerordenlich originell, so außerordentlich wissensreich, überhaupt so außerordentlich, daß es nicht nur verdient, gelesen zu werden, sondern auch gelesen werden wird.” Unfortunately, it shows “les défauts de ses vertues, und da nichts so schwer verziehen wird wie vertues, außer ihren défauts, die noch schwerer verziehen werden, bedarf es m. E. Nacharbeiten.”⁵⁸ Broch proposed that Arendt should expand “die sonderbar zweidimensionale Technik” of her book “wie in der Geometrie ins n-Dimensionale”; by doing so, the biography that he described as “zurechtgewebt, zurechtgestrickt” and “textilisch” would become much more concrete. Arendt should not attempt “eine Rückverwandlung der Zweidimensionalität in die geliebte Dreidimensionalität” but rather change from her “Schwarz-Weiß- Verfahren” to an “irrealen Technicolor”: “Sie erzählen Lebensfakten, und plötzlich springen Sie warnungslos ins Geistesgeschichtliche, ein andermal ins allgemein Historische, u. s. w.; das Kapitel läuft ungebrochen weiter, und diese Art der ewigen Melodie läßt sich kein Biographie-Leser gefallen. Da gehören Unterabschnitte hinein, u. z. womöglich betitelte.” This “kleiner technischer Trick” would help to produce a less abstract text. Up to now, in her typescript the characters would come “aus dem Abstrakten, gehen über eine abstrakte Bühne und verschwinden wieder im Abstrakten.” (ABro, 65-66) Arendt did not use this “kleinen technischen Trick.” On the contrary; in the last revision of the typescript she merged more than one chapter together rather then subdividing them. As the book’s publication date drew closer, Arendt had given her biography to “eine Reihe von ‘unschuldigen’ Leuten” and asked them “wie es auf sie wirkt. Es ist danach zu urteilen, eben doch vorwiegend ein Frauenbuch und als solches verteidigbar.” (AJa, 332) One of these “‘unschuldigen’ Leuten” was Benno von Wiese; Arendt gave him the Pariser Fassung when he visited her in the spring of 1955 in New York. He would prefer to talk about the book “ausführlich mündlich,” rather then to reflect on it in a letter. (May 17, 1955; CG) Among those “Unschuldigen” were probably many of Arendt’s New Yorker friends who responded to the book in conversion or over the phone. Not Alfred Kazin, though, who dropped a note: “You are the only classic of our time who is being disinterred in her time. I haven’t read it all yet, but it’s a fascinating book, and one I’am grateful for, objectively as well as ‘sentimentally’.” (April 1957; CP, Harcourt)

Robert Pick was definitely no “unschuldiger” reader; he was in fact trying secure a position as editor with Alfred Knopf where he planned to publish the book. He, too, suggested reworking the book: “Sie haben den Gedanken einer Umarbeitung des Manuskripts bei unserem Telephongespraech als Ihnen so ferne liegend bezeichnet, dass ich davon erst reden will, sobald Sie mir ausdruecklich Erlaubnis geben.” While reading the “R. Manuskript” he could not stop marveling about “die psychologischen Finessen, welche Sie da mit leichter Hand hingeben.” Arendt had written a book on the first “emanzipierte Jüdin,” so he argued, as André Maurois had on George Sand, the “erste emanzipierte Frau.” “Nein,” he ended his letter, “ich wuerde gewiss nicht so pessimistisch sein wie Sie: der Leserkreis fuer dieses Buch ist groesser, als Sie annehmen.” (May 12, 1957; CP)

Anne Weil may have read the book much earlier, likely in Paris before the war. When Arendt asked her permission to dedicate the book to her, her friend was delighted: “Rahel? Selbstverständlich und mit unsagbarer Freude, chérie!” (August 2, 1957; CG) In a lost letter Arendt apparently asked her again, so Anne Weil felt urged to assure her: “Zuerst mal Tachlis: wenn ich einmal, weil ich wirklich vor ernsthafter Freude nichts zu sagen wage, ein understatement mache, denkst du, ich freue mich nicht. Begreiflich, aber Unsinn, denn 1. scheint mir die Widmung der Rahel einer der guten, richtigen, vollendeten Sachen, wie sie einem kaum je wirklich geschehen, 2. kann ich mir absolut nichts anderes vorstellen.”⁵⁹ But how to address her friend in the dedication? Her initials would suffice, Anne Weil wrote, “falls Dir der volle Name nicht gefällt.” (AFr, 160)⁶⁰ In the end, Arendt did not choose initials but her friend’s given name: “To Anne since 1921” / “Für Anne seit 1921”.

VII. A Book for Friends

We only know of some of Arendt’s American friends who received a copy of the book. Philip Rahv read it right away. On March 24, 1958, he wrote: “Yesterday I sat down and read about two thirds of the Rahel Varnhagen in one sitting. It was a pleasure to watch your mind at work, ordering the material and generating ideas that I found for the most part convincing; and I thought the translation was quite good.” (CP, Partisan Review) “Chérie, Rahel ist angekommen und freut mich mehr, als ich sagen kann! Danke. Man kommt sich schrecklich jung und alt zugleich vor — ,” Anne Weil wrote on April 15, 1958 (AFr, 160).⁶¹ Alfred Kazin received a copy as did Gershom Scholem.⁶² “In Friendship / for Dwight / New Year’s Eve 1960 / Hannah”, it reads in Dwight MacDonald’s copy.⁶³ As this dedication makes clear, Arendt continued to give the book as a gift to friends.

The archive of the Piper Verlag holds a list with thirty-seven names of friends and acquaintances who received a copy of the German version of the book. It tells an interesting story. Three members of Arendt’s small family are listed: Eva Beerwald in England, Arendt’s stepsister, her cousin Ernst Fürst together with his wife Käte in Israel, and Charlotte Arendt in Berlin, who had been married to a brother of Arendt’s father. Three friends from Arendt’s youth in Königsberg: Friede Grünewald, later Kronenberger, whom Arendt saw again in Heidelberg in 1926, had escaped to England.⁶⁴ Anne Weil, to whom the book is dedicated, lived in France. Only Hella Jaensch had stayed in Germany. Five copies made their way to Israel: To Erwin Loewenson, whom Arendt had met in Berlin when she still was attending the Lyzeum, to Kurt Blumenfeld, Siegfried Moses, Gershom Scholem, and Curt Worman, at the time director of the Hebrew University’s library. All the friends from her student years with whom Arendt was still in touch received a copy: Hans Jonas, whom she met in Marburg, Dolf Sternberger, Marianne Wendt-Oschmann, and Benno von Wiese from her time in Heidelberg. Karl Jaspers and Günther Stern are on the list, but not Martin Heidegger. Alexandre Koyré is listed, a friend from Parisian exile. Not many friends whom Arendt had met after the war lived in Germany: Johannes and Marianne Zilkens in Cologne, Lotte Waltz, a friend of Gertrud and Karl Jaspers’, in Heidelberg, Gisela von Busse in Bonn. Arendt had met this last friend when she worked for Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. Many others had — like herself — fled Germany: Charlotte Beradt, Julian Gumpertz, Erich Kahler, Maria Loewe — a librarian from Berlin, a friend of Charlotte Beradt’s — Annemarie Meier-Graefe, and Ruth Rosenau. Two of her American friends received a copy, Elisabeth Mayer, a friend of W. H. Auden’s, and Salo Baron. The list further includes Lotte Köhler — unsurprisingly — and Manfred George, editor of the Aufbau, as well as Max Gruenewald, of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, and Daniel Brody, with the Rhein-Verlag in Switzerland.⁶⁵

Only a few of this large group of friends and acquaintances responded to the book, and some of their responses are very brief. Alexandre Koyré wrote on July 11, 1959: “Merci de votre livre que j’importerai en vacance.” (CG) From Alamosa, Colorado, where she taught at Adams State College, Ruth Rosenau wrote: “Leider ist die Begeisterung, die mich sonst immer beim Lesen Ihrer Schriften packt, bei diesem Buch ausgeblieben. Das liegt an mir, ich weiss. Mir wird nämlich alles, was mit der Berliner Romantik zusammenhängt, immer unerträglicher. Nicht, dass sie mir überhaupt jemals sympathisch gewesen wäre! Ihnen alle Gründe dafür hier anzuführen, würde Sie bloss langweilen. Genug, dass mich dieser Hang zur ‘Beschauung und Befühlung ihrer eigenen Gefühle’ (S. 154) einfach ankotzt. […] Seien Sie mir nicht böse, bitte, Hannah, aber Sie selbst halten ja in diesem Buch Abstand von Ihrem Objekt.” (August 30, 1959; CG) Gershom Scholem was reminded of earlier encounters with the biography: “Mit dem Dank dafür verbindet sich bei mir die Erinnerung an meine erste Lektüre des Manuskripts und an die Aufbewahrung des Buches, das bei mir in Jerusalem Ihre Flucht überstanden hat. Wie gut sich daran zu erinnern, und wie schade, muß ich wieder sagen (und voll ärgerlicher Erinnerungen an Schocken), daß Ihr großartiges Buch, in dem es doch einmal wirklich um etwas geht, was uns deutsche Juden in unseren düstersten Aspekten betrifft, nicht zur rechten Zeit, nämlich vor zwanzig Jahren erschienen ist. Aber auch jetzt werden sich wohl viele Gedanken daran knüpfen — freilich, nach Beendigung des Trauerspiels, anders als da es noch in den 5. Akt hineingekommen wäre. Gestern wie heute habe ich einen großen Teil Ihres Buchs — das auf Englisch ja a apriori nicht nach Hause kommen konnte — noch mal gelesen und bin wieder sehr beeindruckt von Ihrer Linienführung.” (July 21, 1959; AScho, 415-416) Arendt replied right away: “Ja, mit der Rahel haben Sie wahrscheinlich recht. Zwanzig Jahre zu spaet. Nur dass ich daran zweifele, dass vor zwanzig Jahren sich fuer dies Buch ein Verleger gefunden haette. Die Juden sind ja doch alle heimlich der Meinung, ich sei antisemitisch, sehen nicht, wie gerne ich die Rahel hatte, als ich ueber sie schrieb, verstehen nicht, dass man doch ganz freundlich die Wahrheit sagen kann, auch sich selbst z. B.” (July 29, 1959; AScho, 417)⁶⁶

“Großartig wird die existentielle — man könnte auch sagen: gesellschaftliche Situation durchleuchtet,” Dolf Sternberger commented on September 22, 1959. “Vielleicht ist dergleichen nie zuvor so kühn unternommen worden. Ich freue mich und gratuliere Dir dazu, daß das Buch nun da ist — nach welch einer Sintflut gültig geblieben, ja bewährt!” (ASt, 186) “Dass das Buch nach 30 Jahren nun doch fertig daliegt, ist großartig. Die Kontinuität hab ich nicht,” Günther Stern wrote. (December 20, 1959; AAnd, 81) And Benno von Wiese, who at the time had refused to comment on the book in writing, remarked: “Ich muss mich auch noch sehr für die ‘Rahel’ bedanken, ich habe bisher nur kreuz und quer gelesen, aber mich doch wieder sehr an dem Buch und seiner wundervollen Mischung von Jugend und Gescheitheit gefreut.” (January 3, 1960; CG)⁶⁷

In Gertrud Jaspers’ letter a different tone prevails: “Ich habe mich grade in Gedanken viel mit Dir und Deinem Leben beschäftigt, da ich Deine Rahel lese, schon bist Du eine völlig andere, ich denke dankbar für Dich Deiner Entwicklung. Jedes Wort spricht zu mir, oft wie indirekte Mitteilung. Über die Rahel selbst kann man auch anders denken. —”⁶⁸

Arendt’s biography — a book for her friends but also a book for one of her friends: “Denn geschrieben habe ich das doch ganz offenbar nur für Dich und natürlich ein bißchen für mich selbst,” Arendt wrote to Kurt Blumenfeld in Jerusalem. That the Leo Baeck Institute first published the book is “sehr komisch”: “In die Gesellschaft passen wir nicht,” because they do not understand, “wie großartig jemand ist, der wie die Rahel immer doch versucht, die Wahrheit zu sagen und sie schließlich immer sagt, auch sich selbst.” (August 10, 1959; ABlf, 241)

Hilde Domin’s encounter with the biography could have been the beginning of a friendship. But after the first and only afternoon the two women spent together, their correspondence ended. “Ich habe Ihre RAHEL dabei. Ich ängstige mich schon vor dem Augenblick, wenn Sie alles gesagt haben und schweigen und mich alleine lassen. Über uns selber reden Sie als über Petrefacte. Und wir müssen es doch zu Ende bringen,”⁶⁹ Hilde Domin wrote in June 1960. Arendt had sent her the book as a thank you gift for Domin’s Nur eine Rose als Stütze, a collection of poems: “Die Gedichte sind sehr schön, die einzig schönen und wahren Emigrationsgedichte, die ich kenne,”⁷⁰ Arendt wrote in the accompanying letter. “Wenn Sie die Rahel gelesen haben, bitte schön vergessen Sie nicht, die ist nun bald ihre dreissig Jahre alt. Eigentlich ’ne Art Jugendsünde,” she added in her next letter. “Was die Juden anbetrifft, — ach, lassen wir dies zum Gespräch.”⁷¹ When in the year to follow the two women met for the first time, their conversation failed: “Gewiss, es war die ungünstigste Stunde im ganzen Jahr 1961, um Sie zu treffen,” Domin wrote. After a sleepless night she had not been able to engage in a meaningful conversation.⁷²

VIII. “Eros Turannos” by Edwin Arlington Robinson

It comes as a surprise that Hannah Arendt opened her book with two stanzas written by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Neither in her published work nor in her known letters did Arendt ever refer to the poet. None of his books is to be found in her library. Perhaps Arendt mentioned to an American friend that she was about to publish a book on Rahel Varnhagen. And perhaps that friend recalled encountering that name before, in the title to Robinson’s prose poem, “Rahel to Varnhagen”, published in 1920 in the collection The Three Taverns.⁷³ This could have drawn Arendt’s attention to the poet more generally, for she did not choose to quote anything from that poem, but rather two stanzas from one of Robinson’s older lyrics, “Eros Turannos”, published in the journal Poetry in March 1914, as a prelude to her biography. The first four stanzas tell of a woman and man living together long after their love has disappeared. It continues in tones of quiet desperation: “And home, where passion lived and died, / Becomes a place where she can hide.” None of this appears in Arendt’s quotation. Rather it is the last two stanzas, in which the perspective of the lyric abruptly shifts, that she reproduces. No longer the voice of an omniscient narrator, rather a “we” comes to word: “We tell you, tapping on our brows, / The story as it should be.” Before a “Preface” and a “Vorwort” that insistently use the first person singular, Arendt puts an interpreting “we.” “We” — opening a biography that from the outset plays with multiple perspectives.

IX. “Unter Ausschluss der Oeffentlichkeit”. The Reception of the English Book

“Es wird sehr schwer sein, hier irgendetwas fuer das Buch zu tun,” Hannah Arendt remarked in a letter to Max Kreutzberger (February 1, 1958). After he had received the first copies of the biography, Kreutzberger asked her what she could do to advertise the book: “Ich erinnere mich, dass Sie vor laengerer Zeit in Vorschlag brachten, das Buch durch Mr. Kazin im Literary Weekly der Times besprechen zu lassen.” Arendt raised objections: “Da es keinen amerikanischen Imprint hat, wird es automatisch von der Zeitungspresse nicht besprochen. Ich verstehe Ihre Bemerkung bezueglich Alfred Kazin nicht recht. Er ist ein Amerikaner, der fuer hiesige Blaetter schreibt, natuerlich nicht fuer das Literary Weekly (Sie meinen wohl Supplementary) der London Times, sondern fuer die NY Times Book Review. Ich kann da garnichts machen, schon weil er ein Freund ist, aber auch weil die NY Blaetter ueber Reviews entscheiden, nicht die Autoren der Besprechungen. Sie werden nur in Zeitschriften, wenn ueberhaupt, auf Besprechungen rechnen koennen. Und da ist leider ein Unglueck passiert: Das Jacket gibt nicht die hier und auch anderswo ueblichen Angaben ueber Topic und Autor, die nicht nur den Kritikers [sic] sondern vor allem auch den Redakteuren als Unterlagen dienen. Vom Progaganda-Gesichtspunkt ist dies ein sehr schwerer Fehler, kaum wieder gutzumachen, und eigentlich ganz unbegreiflich.” What she could do would be to help assemble a list of “Personen und Zeitschriften” to whom the book should be sent. But for that they needed “einen Waschzettel, der die fehlende Jacket-copy ersetzt.” To produce it, she had absolutely “keine Lust.” And how many copies would be sent to journals? Kreutzberger’s response was short: Since Arendt would not help promote the book, “muessen wir uns eben auf die Kanaele beschraenken, die uns schon bisher zur Verfuegung standen, und das wir [sic!] allerdings nur der kleine Kreis von juedischen Zeitschriften sein.” (5. Februar 1958; CP, LBI)

That is exactly what happened. Only “juedische Zeitschriften” published reviews. They presented the book as if by an unknown author, despite the fact that Arendt had made her name with The Origins of Totalitarianism. When a reviewer did introduce her to readers, it was often incorrectly: “Dr. Arendt, a philosopher and pupil of Ernst Cassirer,” Hans Liebeschütz wrote in the Journal of Jewish Studies; he assumed that Arendt had been one of the “Jewish members of Stefan George’s circle.”⁷⁴ All the reviewers could have read the book in German, since it turned out almost all of them were Jews who had fled Germany, well versed in German literature and culture.⁷⁵ Only one of the eleven reviews we found was published in a newspaper. On December 19, 1958, Eugen Mayer’s review appeared in the Jerusalem Post. “The First Luftmensch,” so the title, presents a book written by a maven of Rahel Levin Varnhagen’s letters. In Arendt’s protagonist with her “superb command of German,” Mayer discovered the “archetype of a Luftmensch, she had lost her bearings in the twilight of the Enlightenment.”⁷⁶ Eight further reviews soon followed in Jewish journals. Most of them recognized an historical date inscribed into the book: “The experience of the approaching catastrophe accounts for Dr. Arendt’s emphasis on Rahel’s isolation as the driving force of her life and thought,”⁷⁷ Hans Liebeschütz wrote. Opinions differed on how to interpret the catastrophe. For Wera Lewin, Arendt had depicted a life, “das in seiner Wurzellosigkeit und seinem völligen Mangel an Bindung und Tradition einen Idealtypus jüdischer Auswegslosigkeit in der Galuth darstellt.”⁷⁸ Bertha Badt-Strauss, herself the editor of two volumes with Rahel Levin Varnhagen’s letters, on the other hand, read the story as a Baal Teshuwah, a return to Judaism. The title of Arendt’s last chapter, “One Does Not Escape Jewishness,” “might have been the last will and testament of Rahel, the Berlin Jewess”.⁷⁹ “Hannah Arendt’s portrait is less attractive than the glamorized legends of Rahel recorded in most Jewish histories and in some histories of literature, but it is probably nearer to the truth,”⁸⁰ Sol Liptzin concluded in Historia Judaica. Barnet Litvinoff, who in the Jewish Quarterly called Rahel Levin Varnhagen “the Luther of a new Reformation,” drew a different conclusion: “Mrs. Arendt endeavors to show that the essential quality in Rahel was trapped in a irreconcilable dilemma. This may well be true. But it is insufficient, in my view, to have made this her main thesis and to draw from it lessons of a hundred years of history.”⁸¹ The destiny of an individual should not parallel the destiny of a people.

“Rahel Varnhagen is an unusual biography. We are warned in the preface,” Sibylle Bedford begins her review, published by the Reconstructionist. She read “a relentlessly abstract book — slow, cluttered, static, curiously oppressive; reading it feels like sitting in a hothouse with no watch.”⁸² In Jewish Social Studies Harry Zohn characterized Arendt’s biographical method: “She attempts to ‘narrate the story of Rahel’s life as she might herself have told it.’ Therein lie the book’s strength and weakness alike.”⁸³ Arendt had drawn an “eigenartig-neues, faszinierendes Bild […] von der Rahel […] — vielleicht etwas zu gewaltsam gezeichnet,”⁸⁴ Wera Lewin concluded.

Many years later, in January of 1965, Jacob Neusner reviewed the book for the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. For him, Arendt’s biography had gained new importance after the publication and controversy concerning Eichmann in Jerusalem: Arendt “has been much maligned, and perhaps she has erred in some of her historical judgments. I for one will always read her writings with respect and admiration, respect for integrity and admiration for her rich insights. I have every certainty that she will be regarded, in time to come, as one of our generation’s great lights, for she has given us — and this book is yet another part of her intellectual legacy — a heritage of understanding and painful honesty about our situation as Jews. Only she could have written at once so usefully and so sensitively of Rahel Varnhagen; of both mass movements and isolated individuals; and told us, in all, so much about ourselves, even when we do not want to listen.”⁸⁵

When the Amercian book was published in 1974, the world had changed. Now, the New York Times published a review, a rather critical one: “To present this book to the American public more or less as it was written 40 years ago is a disservice. The book alludes to the political events and historical figures of Rahel’s time as if they were familiar, accessible landmarks; they may be in Germany, but they are not well known to the general American audience,” Lore Dickstein remarked. The translation “adheres too closely to the author’s original German formulations.” This might not reduce “the impact and fascination of Rahel Varnhagen’s story,” but it prevents “the book from being a major work. The material is all there; it needs only to be fleshed out.”⁸⁶

By this time, all the reviewer treated the book as the work of a well known and highly respected author. But critical remarks prevail. Vivian Gornick found the biography to be “painfully abstract,”⁸⁷ while Lilly Rivlin spoke of a “harsh, often condemning narration.”⁸⁸ Both felt that Arendt missed seeing her protagonist as a woman: “What was not, perhaps, so easy for the distinguished historian to ‘see’ (that is, to consciously attend to) was the fact that Rahel’s destiny was so unalterably that of an outsider every bit as much because she was a woman as because she was a Jew,” Gornick wrote while Rivlin concluded that “one wishes at time for some kind of sympathy for Rahel’s life as a woman.”

X. A Book in Germany

Post scriptum

History’s irony. In the end it was this book with its complicated history that earned Arendt a pension from the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. On November 4, 1971, after a long legal struggle, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the country’s hightest court, granted Arendt a “Rechtsstellung eines ordentlichen Professors”. As part of the judgment, her biography of Rahel Levin Varnhagen was acknowledged as a “Habilitationsschrift”.¹¹⁶