View transcript: Some Kind of Shadow Machines Were Passing by

Intertitle

The playwright Heiner Müller describes his perceptions of the end of the war / From the film Ukrainskaja Rapsodija by Sergej Paraganow\- “There were some kind of shadow machines that were driving by there\- "

Intertitle

2000 Kilometers north of Samarkand: Cinema, Beethoven, Red Army

Film clip

From Monologue of a Lover (in Russian):

Narrator

“Oksana, I am writing to you from the frontline. I feel light because I am thinking of you. Imagine a demolished theater, stern faces of soldiers, whimsical remains of a stage set. And it is as if it all floats in the majestic sounds of Beethoven’s music. Beethoven, he too is German… In the past I rarely listened to Beethoven. If he had composed only the Moonlight Sonata, the war would have had to stop in front of it too. I am listening to it, and nights, moonlit nights in our native village come alive in my imagination.” Nurse… Nurse, why are you not listening to me?\!

Nurse

I hear everything. Speak. I will remember everything.

Narrator

Write: “Sibirsk, Conservatory, for Oksana Marchenko.”

Soldier

Tanks\!

Kluge

Let’s see, you wrote an article in the TAZ [Die Tageszeitung], on the occasion of Malaparte’s book…

Müller

No article was produced. This is what happened: I had read the book, which was out of print, you couldn’t get it anymore, and by chance I met an editor from Kiepenheuer through an acquaintance. The editor was interested in the book based on what I had told him. He asked whether I would write a preface and an epilogue for it, and then they would buy the rights. And that’s how it began. Of course I basically used it to say things that I wanted to say anyway; that is why there is an excursus on the Moscow stay. I thought it was very important, also in connection with memories that I have of the end of the war and afterwards, this aspect of Malaparte with the two workers’ armies.

Kluge

The German and the Soviet.

Müller

… the first war of workers’ armies and also this odd remnant of even feudal chivalrousness among the fully mechanized troops, i.e., the tank units as the translation of the cavalry into the 20th century, and definitely the episode with the screw.

Kluge

How does that go?

Müller

A German tank unit is sitting by the fire in the evening and they have a soviet tank lieutenant there as a prisoner, a machine fitter or toolmaker from Magnitogorsk, and he happens to look at the German tank with the gaze of an expert, and his gaze stops at a particular place. And a German sees that - it is his tank, and he jumps up and tightens a screw. And then he describes how the Russian is upset that he looked. Everything remains only in military categories. They are of course translated into economic ones or have moved into the economic sphere, but it is still war. …and if I remember what I meant about ‘45…this point, too… There was a discussion once in a relatively small circle in the Maxim Gorky theater. Maxim Valentin was the artistic director. He spent his entire time in emigration in the Soviet Union. Previously he had these red agit-prop troupes. What were they called? Column Left, that was communist agitation until 33. The discussion there was about the problem of rape during the Soviet terror from 45-46 on the territory of the future GDR. And he described an episode - he was still in Kiev - when the first trains came back, troop transports with soldiers from Germany and the whole platform full of women, mothers and women. They had heard about the rapes in Germany and the first thing they did to greet their men was to slap them in the face. That was one thing, and the other thing he told us and I saw pretty clearly for myself was…

Kluge

Oh, the Russian soldiers came back…

Müller

… and the women had heard of the rapes and slapped their men first before they took them in their arms again. And the other point that is also very clearly described by Malaparte, that part after the wearing down and collapse of these workers’ armies, precisely these motorized units, then the Asian troops came and another war began.

Kluge

He writes that?

Müller

Maybe it is not in that book at all, but rather in the other book about the Finnish war…

Kluge

About the Finnish war, because the winter begins there. That was the experience before the gates of Moscow, the entire rolling factories that belong to the industrialized army, the tank units, they can’t move in the winter, below 45° nothing drives anymore.

Müller

Maxim Valentin then talked about - and I also could observe this myself in Mecklenburg - that the so-called tank elite didn’t commit rapes or anything. The tank units came in first.

Kluge

Specialists…

Müller

And after that the infantry came and that’s when it began. And it was often Asians, in any case very few Russians.

Intertitle

“The Triumph of Asia — " Paraganow, Tiflis “The Surami Fortress” (1988)

Kluge

What did these Russian tanks look like? Could you try to paint an exact picture?

Müller

I don’t have an exact image, everything is shadows, whenever I think about it. I need to write about it sometime. This whole war - it was not a real war anymore - the primary experience at that point was strafing by low-flying fighter planes. Things were uncomfortable, but it was also a shadowy experience and I was in a hallucinatory state, even during the attacks by low-flying planes. You immediately threw yourself into a trench or anywhere you could find, and you were always half awake. Or I remember once being on a train, that was after our commanding officer had released us. That was also an incredible scene, we arrived at an abandoned farm in Mecklenburg outside of Schwerin and our boss told us that the “Führer” had died a hero’s death and that the traitor-clique around Dönitz had capitulated. He allowed that he couldn’t order us around anymore \-that is quite true \-but whoever is a man, he said, a German man, was welcome to go into the woods with him and continue the fight, and the others could go home. There were eight men who joined him and went into the woods I don’t know what happened to them and the others scattered in the area. At some point, I arrived at a railway station and there was a train going - or at least the locomotive was pointing toward\- the West, that was the only possible direction. I boarded the train, and there were a lot of German soldiers sitting there, it then drove on for a while and then shouting was heard in front and a few shots and then there were two or three Russians standing there with machine guns who stopped the train. Two soldiers who were sitting with me in the compartment jumped out of the train and rolled down the embankment. The Russians shot at them a few times, and I immediately jumped off as well. That was actually the end of the war. Then the Americans came and took us prisoner. But this state of half-consciousness is actually what it was. I can’t describe any of those tanks. If you show me an illustration I can remember it, but there were kind of shadow machines that were passing by there.

Intertitle

There were some kind of shadow machines that were passing by there–” The playwright Heiner Müller describes his perceptions of the end of the war /